Delivers the essential practical skills needed to consult and make sharp, well prepared interactions in a wide range of business situations This comprehensive handbook covers the fundamental skills and attitudes required by successful consultants from novice to practitioner level, irrespective of their specialist area. It untangles the key variables present in any consulting service and introduces practical ways to improve their effectiveness based upon the author's experience of helping consulting organisations to develop and excel in the marketplace. The book explores consulting from the ground up' steering away from theory and focusing instead on practical application, providing a solid platform upon which to build further domain-specific competence. The Consultant's Handbook provides: * An understanding of the key variables that can be addressed in order to improve one's own consulting performance * A set of simple practices that can be implemented with immediate benefit to the reader * Practical insight into day-to-day real life consulting interactions * Confidence to implement the new ideas and approaches

Agriculture seems to be a difficult sector to manage for most governments. Developing countries face tough dilemmas in deciding on appropriate price poli eies to stimulate food production and maintain stable, preferably low, prices for poor consumers. Governments in developed countries face similar difficult deci sions. They are called upon to give income guarantees to farmers whose incomes are unstable and relatively low when compared to those in the nonagricultural sector. These guarantees often lead to ever-increasing budgetary outlays and unwanted agricultural surpluses. High prices make new investments and the application of new technologies more attractive than world prices warrant, and a process is set in motion where technological innovation attains amomenturn of its own, in turn requiring price policies that maintain their rates of return. Surpluses are disposed of with subsidies in domestic markets or in the international market. Price competition reduces the market share of other exporters, who may be efficient producers, unless they are willing to engage in subsidy competition. This lowers export earnings and farm incomes or depletes the public resources of developing countries that export competing products. Retaliatory measures have led to frictions and further distortions of world prices. Every so orten the major agricultural exporters - the USA, the EC, Aus tralia, or Canada - accuse one another of unfair intervention. Though they have agreed to discuss agricultural trade liberalization under GATT negotiations, if anything, the expenditure on farm support has continued to increase in both the EC and the USA."

The terrain of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is rapidly changing with the emergence of new service delivery locations in different geographical corners of the world. Countries in Africa, Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) have been very active in taking advantage of the opportunity provided by BPO and are poised to corner a significant part of the growing opportunity. BPO has transformed economic landscape of many countries by creating large number of jobs for its populace, and providing alternate means to improve their livelihood. A new initiative called "Impact Sourcing" is being piloted in various countries in Africa and Asia to create jobs in the BPO sector in those countries, for economically disadvantaged sections of the society. India, Philippines, and a host of other developing nations have benefited significantly from the BPO initiatives, which is also known as IT Enabled Services (ITES) industry. Many countries in Africa, Latin America & Caribbean have analyzed the success of countries like India and Philippines in the BPO sector and are in the process of building their own capabilities to provide ITES services.New Horizons of Business Process Outsourcing in Africa, Latin America & Caribbeanis a collection of articles and research papers on the way the BPO industry is growing and transforming in these geographical locations. This book provides a perspective on the global BPO landscape and discusses key factors for growth of the industry. It provides a regional analysis of the global sourcing of business services. The analysis includes countries in Northern Africa, Sub-Sahara Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, and provides an objective assessment of the business opportunities and risks in each country relevant for the sector. It is a must read for Governments, Government Agencies and Industry Associations in these regions who aim to grow the BPO sector. Buyers of BPO services will benefit by getting an insight on these emerging regions and pointers to managing their service delivery risk by sourcing BPO services from these regions. Service delivery organization who are considering evaluation of alternate delivery locations to take advantage of "Near Shore" capabilities and de-risk their operations will find the content useful. Lastly, the academic community and students can benefit by expanding their vision, outlook and understanding about the expanding landscape of global sourcing of business services.

Pyrimidine-Clubbed Schiff's base possess biological and Pharmaceutical activity such as antibacterial, anti-fungal, anti-tubercular, anti-mycobacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity. In this book, we have reported how to synthesize compounds bearing Pyrimidine Schiff's base. All the novel reported compounds were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1H NMR and Mass Spectroscopy. These compounds were found to be very good antibacterial and anti-fungal activities. This book is useful for any researcher of chemistry, pharmacy or related disciplines who are familiar with synthesis of organic moieties.

Over the past fifty years nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, commonly referred to as NMR, has become the preeminent technique for structure determination of organic compounds. With developments in both methodology and instrumentation in the past two decades, NMR has become one of the most powerful and versatile spectroscopic techniques for characterization and quantification. An increasing concern with the well being of individuals and life in general has led to initiatives for improvements in medicine and the world environment, and in these areas analytical chemistry has particularly vital roles to play. Where new drugs or materials with potential commercial value are synthesized, a complete chemical characterization may be required involving considerable analytical work. More than any other analytical method the NMR spectroscopy provides information about the chemical structure and the dynamics of organic molecules. NMR spectroscopy is by definition a quantitative spectroscopic tool because the intensity of a resonance line is directly proportional to the number of resonant nuclei (spins). This fact enables accurate and precise determinations of the amount of substance.

Economic and environmental aspects of energy use continue to hold the attention of the industry as well as policy makers. Relative energy prices are often used as a policy tool to influence energy demand, inter-fuel substitution and energy efficiency, thus also addressing climate change. This book presents an analysis of the inter-fuel substitution in industrial sectors in India using Translog cost functions. Energy use behaviour across industrial sectors can be inferred from the estimated price and substitution elasticities. This work is perhaps the first attempt to use a unique disaggregated energy consumption data for over 1350 firms/plants across 14 industrial sectors. The analysis precedes a review of literature and theoretical models. We estimate separate models for the basket of energy purchased and that finally used in the production process. The estimated price and substitution elasticities are used to assess the impact of a change in energy prices on energy demand and carbon emissions in 14 Indian industries. An analysis of energy efficiency in the Indian cement industry highlights the role of energy prices, choice of technology and scale economies.