Business & Finance

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Siraj Raval

A detailed and up-to-date walkthrough for entrepreneurs with limited (or non-existent) coding skills who want to build profitable software companies using new gen-AI tools In The Vibe Coding Playbook: Building Your Tech Business With AI, renowned AI and data science educator Siraj Raval walks you through exactly what you need to do to build a technology business with generative AI-powered code assistants. Raval offers step-by-step guidance for non-technical professionals and entrepreneurs interested in creating scalable, profitable enterprises without spending years learning how to code. This book conceives of new artificial intelligence tools, like Cursor, as "co-founders," lighting your way to constructing valuable software products and services. You'll learn to build minimally viable products (MVPs), iterate on your software products as you develop and after launch, and grow your company while maintaining a lean, efficient, solopreneur-focused structure. Inside the book: Detailed guidance for entrepreneurs interested in creating powerful tech solutions for niche problems and markets without hiring expensive software developers Strategies for using generative AI tools to substitute for traditional technical co-founders Illustrative case studies from real-world founders who built successful technology businesses without learning to code Useful tools for non-technical entrepreneurs, including prompt libraries, decision trees, QR codes linking to video tutorials demonstrating key techniques, and access to an exclusive online community of like-minded founders Perfect for ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs who want to build a successful technology company now - using commercially available AI tools - The Vibe Coding Playbook is your personal roadmap to creating useful and profitable software for customers without learning how to code.

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Anand Giridharadas

The New York Times bestselling, groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today’s news.

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Neelamegam Anbazhagan

Decision-making is an important task no matter the industry. Operations research, as a discipline, helps alleviate decision-making problems through the extraction of reliable information related to the task at hand in order to come to a viable solution. Integrating stochastic processes into operations research and management can further aid in the decision-making process for industrial and management problems. Stochastic Processes and Models in Operations Research emphasizes mathematical tools and equations relevant for solving complex problems within business and industrial settings. This research-based publication aims to assist scholars, researchers, operations managers, and graduate-level students by providing comprehensive exposure to the concepts, trends, and technologies relevant to stochastic process modeling to solve operations research problems.

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Floriana Cerniglia and Francesco Saraceno

"The third installment of the 'European Public Investment Outlook' series is an important and timely publication that draws together recent analyses to recommend significant increases in public investment in green ventures. Compelling data from key economists affiliated with international organizations like the International Monetary Fund, European Investment Bank and the European Commission, as well as academic departments and policy institutes are a clarion call for green investment to boost the economy and put the planet on a sustainable path. Like its predecessors, the book presents the issues in a lucid and navigable manner. Part I explores the EU's current levels of green public investment, as well as the challenges ahead in achieving net zero carbon emissions after years of decreasing funding and the obstacles presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The public investment trends of France, Germany, Italy and Spain are systematically evaluated, as well as the REPowerEU policy - accelerated in Spring 2022 - to move away from Russia's supply of fossil fuels. Part II focuses on the investment needed for green transition; the important economic and fiscal effects and benefits this would bring; and the reality of what is required before 2030 to achieve the EU's carbon-neutral targets by 2050. Greening Europe is essential reading for economists, environmentalists, and policymakers. It should also be of interest to anyone who wants to understand the cost implications of the 'carbon-neutral' policies that governments have promised, and the urgent need to change our approach towards energy usage."--Publisher's website.

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edited byMaria das Graças Machado Freire

O livro “PELAG: uma beleza a ser desvendada” propõe uma apresentação, dos ecossistemas de restinga, ou seja, de formações nativas associadas à Mata Atlântica características de uma faixa de areia bem próxima ao mar. No norte fluminense, os movimentos que propiciam tanto a degradação quanto a preservação deste ecossistema afloram cada vez mais fortes no contexto socioambiental e não sabemos qual prevalecerá. Muito da história ainda não foi contada e muito se perdeu. As restingas guardam, além das memórias, grande diversidade de plantas, animais e microrganismos que ainda não conhecemos. O livro “PELAG: uma beleza a ser desvendada” será dividido em quatro partes, nas quais pretendemos registrar a história natural e social da restinga de Paraíba do Sul, a formação da planície fluviomarinha dos Goytacazes, com especial atenção para o rio Iguaçu, que deu origem à lagoa do Açu, a ocupação progressiva da restinga a partir do século XVII, com ênfase nas obras realizadas pelo DNOS e o atual sistema de gestão das águas. Queremos também levantar as propostas de criação de uma unidade de conservação na restinga de Paraíba do Sul, culminando com a instalação do Porto do Açu e do PELAG, que prioriza a conservação de ecossistemas nativos, como lagoas costeiras, restinga e manguezal e por fim registrar as aves do PELAG, que foram subdivididas em categorias, de acordo com a preferência por habitats, em aves de ambientes florestais, de ambientes abertos naturais ou antropizados, de ambientes marinho-costeiros e ambientes úmidos lagunares e brejosos. The book “PELAG: a beauty to be unveiled” offers a presentation of the restinga’s ecosystems, that is: of the native formations associated to the Atlantic Forest biome, and which are typically found in a sand strip quite close to the ocean. Regarding this ecosystem, in northern Rio de Janeiro state, movements that promote either its degradation or preservation have continuously become stronger in the social-environmental contexto – and we don’t know which will prevail. Much of the story has not yet been told, and much History is lost. Besides memories, restingas keep a great diversity of plants, animals and microorganisms that we are still not acquainted with. The book “PELAG: a beauty to be unveiled” is divided in four sections in which we register the natural and social histories of the Paraíba do Sul restinga; the formation of the Goytacazes fluviomarine plain – with special attentionto the Iguaçu river, which formed the Açu lake; the progressive restinga occupation from the 17th century on – with emphasis to the construction work performed by the DNOS; and the current water management system. We also found it relevant to go through previous proposals aiming to establish a conservation unit in the Paraíba do Sul restinga: proposals that culminated with the creation of the Porto do Açu and the PELAG itself. We emphasize how PELAG focuses on the native ecosystems’ conservation – such as coastal lakes, restingas and mangroves –, and also register PELAG’s bird species by classifying them in categories according to their habitat preferences, that is: birds from forest, open natural or anthropized, coastal-marine, and lake and wetland humid environments.

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Ali Soofastaei

An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) or intelligent personal assistant (IPA) is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions. Improving the quality of artificial intelligence (AI) learning algorithms increases the application of IVAs in different areas. The capabilities and usage of IVAs are expanding rapidly. IVAs, such as Siri, Alexa, and chatbots, help individuals and companies to make better decisions. They learn from collected historical data, and the quality of their recommendations depends on the size of the database they are using. Modern technology has provided a huge capacity for data collection and storage. This means that the new generation of IVAs can help people much better than the previous one. This book examines the applications of IVAs in different areas and presents a clear vision of how this new technology can be used in current and future activities. Chapters cover such topics as the scientific development of VA technology, generating voices for IVAs, the ethics of using IVAs, and using IVAs in banking and finance.

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Morgan Housel

Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. Morgan Housel shares nineteen short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics.

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Maura Finkelstein

Mumbai's textile industry is commonly but incorrectly understood to be an extinct relic of the past. In 'The Archive of Loss' Maura Finkelstein examines what it means for textile mill workers-who are assumed not to exist-to live and work during a period of deindustrialization. Finkelstein shows how mills are ethnographic archives of the city where documents, artifacts, and stories exist in the buildings and in the bodies of workers. Workers' pain, illnesses, injuries, and exhaustion narrate industrial decline; the ways in which they live in tenements exist outside and resist the values expounded by modernity; and the rumors and untruths they share about textile worker strikes and a mill fire help them make sense of the industry's survival. In outlining this archive's contents, Finkelstein shows how mills, which she conceptualizes as lively ruins, become a lens through which to challenge, reimagine, and alter ways of thinking about the past, present, and future in Mumbai and beyond.

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Kai A. Olsen

"Information technology is changing the world through automation, by bypassing middlemen and by digitization. We see dramatic effects today in the music industry, going from CDs to streaming, in newspapers, from paper to online, and in the banking industry, from branch offices to the Internet. One of the most fundamental changes is the replacement of physical cash, money and coins, by bits in a computer. A Cash-Free Society is about this dramatic change. It shows the advantages and disadvantages and discuss how we - consumers, businesses and the society -can prepare for a new world where cash is no longer king."--

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Nathalie Simonnot, Rosine Lheureux (dirs

Les bâtiments des centres d'archives, des bibliothèques et des musées fonctionnent comme des espaces de conservation et de présentation des collections. Présentant une diversité de formes architecturales et de modes de fonctionnement, réalisés à différentes périodes et susceptibles de transformations régulières, ils forment un corpus difficilement saisissable. Il s?agit donc, au travers d?études de cas et d?approches comparatives, de favoriser les croisements et les échanges sur plus de cinquante ans d?architecture de la conservation en France.

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John Chambers, Chairman Emeritus, CISCO

Silicon Valley visionary John Chambers shares the lessons that transformed a dyslexic kid from West Virginia into one of the world's best business leaders and turned a simple router company into a global tech titan. When Chambers joined Cisco in 1991, it was a company with 400 employees, a single product, and about $70 million in revenue. When he stepped down as CEO in 2015, he left a $47 billion tech giant that was the backbone of the internet and a leader in areas from cybersecurity to data center convergence. Along the way, he had acquired 180 companies and turned more than 10,000 employees into millionaires. Widely recognized as an innovator, an industry leader, and one of the world's best CEOs, Chambers has outlasted and outmaneuvered practically every rival that ever tried to take Cisco on--Nortel, Lucent, Alcatel, IBM, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, to name a few. Now Chambers is sharing his unique strategies for winning in a digital world. From his early lessons and struggles with dyslexia in West Virginia to his bold bets and battles with some of the biggest names in tech, Chambers gives readers a playbook on how to act before the market shifts, tap customers for strategy, partner for growth, build teams, and disrupt themselves. He also adapted those lessons to transform government, helping global leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to create new models for growth. As CEO of JC2 Ventures, he's now investing in a new generation of game-changing startups by helping founders become great leaders and scale their companies. Connecting the Dots is destined to become a business classic, providing hard-won insights and critical tools to thrive during the accelerating disruption of the digital age.

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Attorney Fred S. Steingold

Provides forms used in small businesses with instructions on completing them from operating agreements and noncompete agreements to preparing corporate bylaws and buying real estate.

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Christopher Petkanas

"Dauntless 'in the bone style' made Loulou de La Falaise one of the great fashion firebrands of the twentieth century. Descending in a direct line from Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, she was celebrated at her death in 2011, aged just sixty-four, as the 'highest of haute bohemia,' a feckless adventuress in the art of living--and the one person Yves Saint Laurent could not live without ... [She] was his creative right hand, muse, alter ego, and the virtuoso behind all the ... accessories that were a crucial component of the YSL 'look'"--Amazon.com.

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James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

Twins Bick and Beck Kidd and their family of professional treasure hunters race against mercenaries, rival treasure hunters, and a lumber baron through the jungles and mountains of Peru in search of Paititi, the legendary lost Inca city of gold, in hope of conserving the archaeological treasure and preventing deforestation of the rain forest.

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Christopher Kormanyos

"With this book, Christopher Kormanyos delivers a highly practical guide to programming real-time embedded microcontroller systems in C++. It is divided into three parts plus several appendices. Part I provides a foundation for real-time C++ by covering language technologies, including object-oriented methods, template programming and optimization. Next, part II presents detailed descriptions of a variety of C++ components that are widely used in microcontroller programming. It details some of C++'s most powerful language elements, such as class types, templates and the STL, to develop components for microcontroller register access, low-level drivers, custom memory management, embedded containers, multitasking, etc. Finally, part III describes mathematical methods and generic utilities that can be employed to solve recurring problems in real-time C++. The appendices include a brief C++ language tutorial, information on the real-time C++ development environment and instructions for building GNU GCC cross-compilers and a microcontroller circuit For this third edition, the most recent specification of C++17 in ISO/IEC 14882:2017 is used throughout the text. Several sections on new C++17 functionality have been added, and various others reworked to reflect changes in the standard. Also several new sample projects are introduced and existing ones extended, and various user suggestions have been incorporated. To facilitate portability, no libraries other than those specified in the language standard itself are used. Efficiency is always in focus and numerous examples are backed up with real-time performance measurements and size analyses that quantify the true costs of the code down to the very last byte and microsecond. The target audience of this book mainly consists of students and professionals interested in real-time C++. Readers should be familiar with C or another programming language and will benefit most if they have had some previous experience with microcontroller electronics and the performance and size issues prevalent in embedded systems programming." -- provided by publisher

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Tony Plummer

The Life Cycle Hypothesis provides evidence of an ordered process behind the apparent randomness of financial asset price movements, economic fluctuations, and social trends. It shows how genuine information will have a dramatic effect on any system into which it is inserted, and will generate reactions that are essentially pre-programmed.

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Seth Godin

Seth Godin teaches that true marketing isn't about spammy advertising or deception, but about empathy, solving real human problems, and establishing authentic connection with your minimum viable audience.

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Scott Nations

The Panic of 1907. Black Tuesday (1929). Black Monday (1987). The Great Recession (2008). The Flash Crash (2010). Taken together they tell the story of a nation reaching enormous heights of financial power while experiencing precipitous dips that alter and reset a market where millions of Americans invest their savings, and on which they depend for their futures. Nations blends economic and cultural history to show how each of these major crashes provided painful lessons that have strengthened us and helped us to build the nation we know today. "In this absorbing, smart, and accessible blend of economic and cultural history, Scott Nations, a longtime trader, financial engineer, and CNBC contributor, takes us on a journey through the five significant stock market crashes in the past century to reveal how they defined the United States today. THE PANIC OF 1907: When the Knickerbocker Trust Company failed, after a brazen attempt to manipulate the stock market led to a disastrous run on the banks, the Dow lost nearly half its value in weeks Only billionaire J. P. Morgan was able to save the stock market. BLACK TUESDAY (1929): As the newly created Federal Reserve System repeatedly adjusted interest rates in all the wrong ways, investment trusts, the darlings of that decade, became the catalyst that caused the bubble to burst, and the Dow fell dramatically, leading swiftly to the Great Depression. BLACK MONDAY (1987): When 'portfolio insurance,' a new tool meant to protect investments, instead led to increased losses, and corporate raiders drove stock prices above their real values, the Dow dropped an astonishing 22.6 percent in one day. THE GREAT RECESSION (2008): As homeowners began defaulting on mortgages, investment portfolios that contained them collapsed, bringing the nation's largest banks, much of the economy, and the stock market down with them. THE FLASH CRASH (2010): When one investment manager, using a runaway computer algorithm that was dangerously unstable and poorly understood, reacted to the economic turmoil in Greece, the stock market took an unprecedentedly sudden plunge, with the Dow shedding 998.5 points (roughly a trillion dollars in valuation) in just minutes. The stories behind the great crashes are filled with drama, human foibles, and heroic rescues. Taken together they tell the larger story of a nation reaching enormous heights of financial power while experiencing precipitous dips that alter and reset a market where millions of Americans invest their savings, and on which they depend for their futures. Scott Nations vividly shows how each of these major crashes played a role in America's political and cultural fabric, each providing painful lessons that have strengthened us and helped us to build the nation we know today. A History of the United States in Five Crashes clearly and compellingly illustrates the connections between these major financial collapses and examines the solid, clear-cut lessons they offer for preventing the next one."--Jacket

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Natalie Canavor

The ability to write well is a key part of your professional success. From reports and presentations to emails and Facebook posts, whether you're a marketer, customer service rep, or manager, being able to write clearly and for the right audience is critical to moving your business forward. The techniques covered in this new edition of Business Writing For Dummies will arm you with the skills you need to write better business communications that inform, persuade, and win business. How many pieces of paper land on your desk each day, or emails in your inbox? Your readers--the people you communicate with at work--are no different. So how can you make your communications stand out and get the job done? From crafting a short and sweet email to bidding for a crucial project, Business Writing For Dummies gives you everything you need to achieve high-impact business writing.

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Gary Griggs

"Almost half of the planet's population now lives in the coastal zone. The impacts of these people--three billion and rising--are increasingly affecting the most dynamic and constantly changing environments on Earth. All shorelines are also experiencing a rising sea level, which is causing coastal erosion and flooding, and what may be a more severe future storm and wave climate. Future sea-level rise may be the greatest challenge human civilization has ever faced. Dense populations are taking a toll on the coastal zone, impacting not only the shoreline itself, but also the near shore waters. The myriad effects include industrial, agricultural, and domestic runoff and discharge; the disposal and accumulation of plastic and other marine debris; extraction of groundwater and petroleum leading to sea water intrusion and ground subsidence; large port developments with their thousands of ships and their associated impacts; overfishing and loss of habitats; and impacts of dams, sand mining, and coastal engineering structures on sandy beaches. Individual hazards, risks, and issues have been studied and written about individually, but there is no reference, book, or source until this one that treats the entire coastal zone as a region under threat. While there are more examples included from California and the United States, the book covers issues and environments from a global perspective so that this book will be useful and informative for students or readers anywhere on the planet."--Provided by publisher.

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Nora Roberts

"The Bodine ranch and resort in western Montana is a family business, an idyllic spot for vacationers. A little over thirty thousand acres and home to four generations, it's kept running by Bodine Longbow with the help of a large staff, including new hire Callen Skinner. There was another member of the family once: Bodine's aunt Alice, who ran off before Bodine was born. She never returned, and the Longbows don't talk about her much. The younger ones, who never met her, quietly presume she's dead. But she isn't. She is not far away, part of a new family, one she never chose--and her mind has been shattered. When a bartender leaves the resort late one night, and Bo and Cal discover her battered body in the snow, it's the first sign that danger lurks in the mountains that surround them. The police suspect Cal, but Bo finds herself trusting him--and turning to him as another woman is murdered and the Longbows are stunned by Alice's sudden reappearance. The twisted story she has to tell about the past--and the threat that follows in her wake--will test the bonds of this strong family, and thrust Bodine into a darkness she could never have imagined"--

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Mukti Khaire

Art and business are often described as worlds apart, even diametric opposites. And yet, these realms are close cousins in creative industries where firms bring cultural goods to market, attaching price tags to music, paintings, theater, literature, film, and fashion. Building on theories of value construction and cultural production, Culture and Commerce details the processes by which artistic worth is decoded, translated, and converted to economic value. Case studies of firms from Chanel and Penguin to tastemakers like the Sundance Institute and the Pritzker Prize illuminate how creative entrepreneurs influence our sense of value, shifting consumer behavior and our culture in deep, surprising ways.

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John Wills

"Over the past century, Disney has grown from a small American animation studio into a multipronged global media giant. Today, the company's annual revenue exceeds the GDP of over 100 countries, and its portfolio has grown to include Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ABC, and ESPN. With a company so diversified, is it still possible to identify a coherent Disney vision or message? Disney Culture proposes that there is still a unifying Disney ethos, one that can be traced back to the corporate philosophy that Walt Disney himself developed back in the 1920s. Yet, as cultural historian John Wills demonstrates, Disney's values have also adapted to changing social climates. At the same time, the world of Disney has profoundly shaped how Americans view the world. Wills offers a nuanced take on the corporate ideologies running through animated and live-action Disney movies from Frozen to Fantasia, from Mary Poppins to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But Disney Culture encompasses much more than just movies as it explores the intersections between Disney's business practices and its cultural mythmaking. Welcome to "the Disney Way.""--

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Dan Ariely, Jeff Kreisler

Why do we pay more for a meal if we see a higher price anchor first? Why are we happy to spend $4 on coffee while obsessing over an extra $0.50 fee? Renowned behavioral economist Dan Ariely teams with Jeff Kreisler to explore the subconscious emotional biases that sabotage our financial decisions.

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Cassie Parks

"Some people would say starting their own business from scratch and building it up to a comfortable income is the hardest part. However, many realize that doubling their business is the bigger task and often wonder how they can accomplish this while still enjoying their life. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day! When business owners already feel too busy to find and serve more clients, it can seem impossible to double their business without duplicating themselves. Even after coming up with numerous options, and getting opinions from others, sometimes nothing seems to feel good because every solution requires more of their time and energy that is currently at a premium. In Double your business, entrpreneurs will find the path to doubling their business without doubling their hours"--Page [4] of cover.

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Leila Janah

"Leila Janah, a dynamic social entrepreneur, shares the story of how she founded one of the hottest non-profit startups. Leila Janah has the solution for the world's bottom billions. She founded Samasource with the belief that giving dignified work to the world's poorest people is the most effective tool for fighting poverty. Fast Company named Samasource one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2016 because they go into communities lacking living-wage jobs--from the refugee camps of Sierra Leone to rural Arkansas--and train people to do digital work, such as verifying data that makes Google's search algorithms smarter. Inspired by and then partnering with cutting-edge Silicon Valley companies, Janah bridges the divide between the nonprofit world and the tech and private sectors to help the world's poorest lift themselves out of poverty. The steady salary from these jobs from companies like Google, Getty, and Microsoft enables people to move to better neighborhoods, attain more education, and send their children to school. It changes the lives of the poor permanently, offering them dignity and independence in a way that aid simply cannot. Give Work is based on Janah's firsthand experience in all corners of the world, from a school for the blind school in Ghana to the World Bank. A Harvard-educated former management consultant, Janah applies the scrappy, entrepreneurial spirit and innovative mindset of a Silicon Valley startup. She shares her entrepreneurial journey as well as the poignant stories of the thousands of people who have benefited from Samasource's work. Like Blake Mycoskie's Start Something That Matters, Give Work offers a blueprint for social entrepreneurs"--

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Vijay Joshi

" India's economic resurgence has been the subject of many extravagant predictions and hopes. In this powerful and wide-ranging book, distinguished economist Vijay Joshi lays out a penetrating analysis of the shaky foundations of the country's performance, and charts the course that it should follow to achieve widely-shared prosperity. Joshi argues that for India to realize its huge potential, the relation between the state, the market, and the private sector must be comprehensively realigned. Deeper liberalization and more extensive privatisation will be necessary. But they will not suffice to achieve India's economic objectives. The state needs to perform much more effectively many core tasks that belong squarely in its domain. India needs more of the market as well as more of the state. The road India takes will matter not only for the lives of its billion-plus people but also for the course of global economics and politics. In the course of his enquiry, Joshi examines in depth all the critical areas of Indian development policy, including employment and the 'demographic bulge'; investment and productivity; the markets for goods, resources, and finance; macroeconomic stability; public sector banks and enterprises; the infrastructure deficit; social protection and safety nets; education and health care; environmental sustainability; international economic relations; state capacity and accountability; and corruption and crony capitalism. His design for radical reform incorporates a fiscally affordable scheme to provide a regular 'basic income' for all citizens that would speedily abolish extreme poverty. An authoritative work of tremendous scope and depth, India's Long Road will be an essential resource for anyone who wants to know where India is today, where it is headed, and what it should do to attain its ambitions. "-- "India's surge in high, well-sustained economic growth captured the world's attention for much of the period from the 1990s to the early 2010s. Often paired with China as being at the leading edge of emerging economies, the last few years have witnessed shortfalls in India's performance, which have also occurred in the cases of other "BRICS," namely, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa. India is now facing a possible fiscal crisis, higher inflation, greater concentration of economic wealth, and a slowdown in productivity. While its business sector remains vigorous, the Indian state has not yet found a viable way to fund food subsidies or come to grips with the costs of its employment guarantee program. Corruption also hinders growth at many turns. All these factors bring into question how feasible or wise it is for India to pursue a path toward global political power rather than concentrate on improved economic engagement worldwide. Dr. Joshi believes India's economic problems are serious and systemic, not a temporary blip. His analysis sets forth that the only way the country can truly prosper is to find the means to return to the earlier levels of growth through massive economic reform. This policy reorientation calls for eliminating price controls as well as both explicit and hidden subsidies to industries, introduction of direct cash transfers to the poor in place of the state's own costly production of goods and services, and an aggressive move toward privatization rather than over-reliance on family firms and widely-held corporations. Without these, the requisites of economic stability cannot be fully established, let alone propel significant growth"--

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Eric Tyson

Invest in your financial future with this valuable, popular, and easy-to-use guide This latest edition is infused with new and updated material to help you ramp up your portfolio today! This includes time-tested advice, updates to investing recommendations, and strategies that reflect changing market conditions. Investing may be an intimidating prospect, but this resource will serve as your primer on all aspects of the topic, including how to develop and manage a portfolio, invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and real estate, open a small business, and more.

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Nicole Helm

In Gracely Colorado it's all abuot the clim--into the rugged Rocky Mountains and over the obstacles that life has thrown in your way. Sam Goodall knows how to hide. And in the years since his sister's death, he's done just that, burying himself in his work at the Evans brothers' Mile High Adventures as a backpacking guide. Hayley Winthrop is looking for something she's never had--a true sense of family, and a purpose. Sam is stuck in the past, and Hayley is looking toward her future--they're a mismatched pair from the start. But the connection between them right now is too good to let go . . .

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Sophie Kinsella

"When Katie Brenner is fired from her dream job in advertising in London, she's desperate to get away from her mad boss Demeter, and her crush, Alex, who she thought shared her feelings of adoration but didn't. Seeking refuge, she goes home to her father's farm in Somerset to help make her stepmother's dream of turning their land into a glamping retreat come true. Applying her savvy marketing smarts, Katie masterminds a glamorous upscale resort. But when Demeter shows up unannounced, with Alex not far behind, Katie is forced to rethink her revenge fantasies and her assumptions about family, love, and office politics and realize how much she may have misjudged everyone--and everything--around her"--

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Dee Romito

Kenzie Rhines doesn't have a home she has too many. Her dad s job keeps them flying around the country, which means home is whatever fancy hotel they're currently staying in and school takes place 30,000 feet in the air. And since it's just the two of them, she has no choice but to be his travel partner. Kenzie loves the constant adventures, but she wouldn't mind planting her feet in one place for longer than two seconds, having her own bed, and maybe even finding a best friend she can talk to.

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Cyrus Bozorgmehr

Reveals how the Wu-Tang Clan secretly recorded a single-copy album before auctioning it for millions to one of the most hated men in America, detailing how they prevented leaks using strategies that reflect present-day views on creative property and music devaluation. "The untold story of the world's must controversial album--a surreal tale of secret recordings, baffled customs agents, the world's most hallowed art institutions, and a villain of comic book proportions. In 2007, the innovative young Wu-Tang producer, Cilvaringz, took an incendiary idea to his mentor the RZA. They felt that the impact of digitization threatened the sustainability of the record industry and independent artists, while shifting the perception of music from treasured works of art to disposable consumer products. Together they conceived a statement so radical that it would unleash a torrent of global debate--a sole copy of an album in physical form, encased in gleaming silver and sold through an auction house for millions as a work of contemporary art. The execution of this plan raised a number of complex questions: Would selling an album for millions be the ultimate betrayal of music? How would fans react to an album sold on the condition that it could not be commercialized? And could anyone ever justify the selling of the album to the infamous Martin Shkreli? As headlines flashed across the globe, the mystery only deepened. Opinions were sharply divided over whether this was high art or hucksterism--quixotic idealism or a cynical cash grab. Was it a noble act of protest, an act of cultural vandalism, an obscene symbol of greed, a subversive masterpiece, a profound mirror for our time, or a joker on capitalism's card table? As senior adviser to the project, Cyrus Bozorgmehr is uniquely placed to unlock the secrets behind the album and tell the full, unadulterated story. With explosive revelations about backroom plans made public tor the first time, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin charts the album's journey from inception to disruption in vivid style. An extraordinary adventure that veers between outlandish caper and urgent cultural analysis, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin twists and turns through the mayhem and mischief, while asking profound questions about our relationship with art, music, technology, and, ultimately, ourselves."--Jacket.

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Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija

"To follow the debate over tax reform, the interested citizen is often forced to choose between misleading sound bites and academic treatises. [This book] bridges the gap between the oversimplified and the arcane, presenting the key issues clearly and without a political agenda. [The authors lay out] what is known and not known about how taxes affect the economy and offer guidelines for evaluating tax systems -- both the current tax system and proposals to reform it. This fifth edition has been extensively revised to incorporate the latest data, empirical evidence, and tax law. It offers new material on recent tax reform proposals, expanded coverage of international tax issues, and the latest enforcement initiatives. Offering historical perspectives, outlining the basic criteria by which tax policy should be judged (fairness, economic impact, enforceability), examining proposals for both radical change (replacement of the income tax with a flat tax or consumption tax) and incremental changes to the current system, and concluding with a voter's guide, the book provides readers with enough background to make informed judgments about how we should tax ourselves."--

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Laura Fredricks

"Asking is more than a skillit's a lifestyle The Ask is your personal manual for building the best, most fulfilling personal and professional life possible. Crafting the perfect ask can fund your new business, support your favorite charity, and get more quality time with your significant otherbut it can do so much more than that. It can change your life. In learning how to ask for what you really want and deserve, you lose your fear of rejection and judgement. You create the greatest sense of self-worth that no one can give you, you give it to yourself when you ask. The critical moment is when you turn your skills inward and make the hardest asks, the ones you ask yourself. This book is designed to make you an Exceptional Asker, and in the process, give you the confidence and skills you need to achieve all your goals and realize your dreams. You'll learn how to prepare, what words to use, what to avoid, and how to follow up, and you'll purge the natural hesitancy that has been holding you back for so long. Asking is about empowerment. It shows the world that what you want matters. It defines who you are, where you're going, and who will be by your side. This book provides over 175 sample asks, with clear actionable steps to help you claim your space in relationships, at work, and in the world. Rewrite your own rulebook and find empowerment in asking Learn the simple five steps to craft the perfect ask Discover the secret of the ask it's two sentences and a question Remove your Money Blockers and turn a bad ask into a win Conquer the hardest asks you'll ever makethe ones you ask yourself Mastering the art of the ask reconfigures your approach to life, and changes the way you tackle challenges and goals. The Ask gives you the skillsand the mindsetyou need to accomplish anything you can dream"-- "This book will give anyone the confidence to ask anyone for any size gift for any purpose. With winning language, sample dialogues, and a wealth of tips and tools, this book addresses common mistakes made when asking and shows how to correct each mistake, providing guidance and direction on how to make a great ask. This third edition will be updated to include new dialogue, a balance of practical tips, tools, and advice, and will demonstrate through examples and stories how the tips, tools and advice can be instantly applied to business, philanthropy, and everyday living"--

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Dave Crenshaw

"The Power of Having Fun coaches you through the five-step system thousands of leaders have utilized to boost productivity and propel their careers--all while feeling fantastic! Let Dave Crenshaw lower your stress, raise your results, and restore recess to your routine." -- Amazon.com.

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Ric Edelman

Technology and science are evolving at a blistering, almost incomprehensible pace. The Human Genome Project took eleven years and $2.7 billion dollars to complete. Today, it would take two days to finish, and cost less than getting a pizza delivered. It is estimated that forty percent of the current Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist by 2025. In 2005, half a billion devices were connected to the Internet. By 2030, that number will reach one trillion. The traditional paradigms of how we live, learn, and invest are shifting under our feet. Investment guru Ric Edelman has seen the future, and he explains how smart investors can adapt and thrive in today's changing marketplace. Edelman offers sound, practical investment advice through the lens of recent scientific and technological advancements. He illustrates how discoveries in robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, solar energy, biotechnology, and medicine will redefine our life expectancies, careers, and retirements. As we live and work longer, Edelman provides clear advice on how to recalibrate the way we save for college, invest during our careers, and plan for retirement.

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Jussi Valtonen

Joe Chayefski has got what he always wanted: a reputation as one of America's top neuroscientists, a beautiful wife and two perfect daughters. But his carefully created idyll is threatened when his Baltimore neuroscience lab is targeted by animal rights activists. The attack is followed by a phone call from Joe's ex-wife in Finland. Two decades have passed since he abandoned Alina and their young son, Samuel, returning to America to advance his career. Now Samuel is somewhere in the States, and Alina fears he is looking for revenge. As Joe struggles to protect his new family from the increasing threat of violence - and to save his eldest daughter from the clutches of an unscrupulous tech company - he is forced to reconsider his priorities and take drastic action to save those he loves.

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Jocelyn Wills

Selling Earth observation satellites on their abilities to predict and limit adverse environmental change, politicians, business leaders, the media, and technology enthusiasts have spent sixty years arguing that space exploration can create a more peaceful, prosperous world. Capitalist states have also socialized the risk and privatized the profits of the commercial space industry by convincing taxpayers to fund surveillance technologies as necessary components of sovereignty, freedom, and democracy. Jocelyn Wills's Tug of War reminds us that colonizing the cosmos has not only accelerated the arms race but also encouraged government contractors to compete for the military and commercial spoils of surveillance. Although Canadians prefer to celebrate their role as purveyors of peaceful space applications, Canada has played a pivotal part in the expansion of neoliberal policies and surveillance networks that now encircle the globe, primarily as a political ally of the United States and component supplier for its military-industrial complex. Tracing the forty-five-year history of Canada's largest space company - MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) - through the lens of surveillance studies and a trove of oral history transcripts, government documents, trade journals, and other sources, Wills places capitalism's imperial ambitions squarely at the centre of Canada-US relations and the privatization of the Canadian political economy. --Dust jacket.

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Ilene Grabel

An account of the significant though gradual, uneven, disconnected, ad hoc, and pragmatic innovations in global financial governance and developmental finance induced by the global financial crisis.--

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Eve Schaub

The author explores the hoarding phenomenon as reflected by such cultural examples as Hoarders and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up while sharing the personal story of how she organized a single room in her house that had been overtaken by psychological clutter.

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Peter Scott

A refreshingly clear introduction to those core accounting topics that non-specialist students need to master. Designed to help students learn key principles, reinforce understanding, and apply accounting concepts to real business decisions, it is an ideal first stepping stone into the world of accounting.

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George S. Yip and Bruce McKern

The history-making development of the Chinese economy has entered a new phase. China is moving aggressively from a strategy of imitation to one of innovation. Driven both by domestic needs and by global ambition, China is establishing itself at the forefront of technological innovation. Western businesses need to prepare for a tidal wave of innovation from China that is about to hit Western markets, and Chinese businesses need to understand the critical importance of innovation in their future. Experts George Yip and Bruce McKern explain this epic transformation and propose strategies for both Western and Chinese companies. This book is for everyone who does business with China or in China, or is interested in the development of the world's fastest-growing economy. Western CEOs can learn from Chinese companies and can create an effective innovation process in China, for China and the world. Chinese CEOs can benefit from understanding the strategies of their peers as they strive to enter foreign markets. And all Western businesses should prepare for disruption from their new competitors. Yip and McKern provide case studies of successful firms, outline ten ways in which the managerial and innovative capabilities of these firms differ from those of Western firms, and describe how multinationals doing business in China can become part of the Chinese ecosystem of new knowledge and technology. Yip and McKern argue that these innovation capabilities will be the basis for creating world-class products and services to meet the challenges of a new era of global competition. -- Provided by publisher.

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Blaine Bartlett and David Meltzer

"Business is the most pervasive and influential force on the planet today. Its activities transcend national and international borders. its enterprises are not unduly constrained by financial, political, cultural, ethnic, or religious concerns. The net of this is that business, as a prevalent and important force, has a moral responsibility to guide, enhance, value, and nourish the existence of all that it encounters. In the world today, the absolute opposite of this often occurs. Business today seldom assesses the efficacy of its activities through the lens of anything but profit. Because business touches literally everything that humans are involved with, its activities rise to a level approaching that of a spiritual undertaking. This is meant not in any woo-woo or religious sense, however. Rather, we mean this in the pragmatic sense that everything on this planet--organic/inorganic, sentient/nonsentient--is connected in subtle but profound ways that can only be fully appreciated through a lens of spiritual compassion. Harmful acts or ennobling acts undertaken by business affects everything and everyone in some fashion. Nothing we encounter is separate and isolated from the whole. we live in and on a closed system that is fully and symbiotically integrated. Consequently, we and everything else on this planet we call home are dependent on the viability of each constituent part. From our perspective, business is a spiritual discipline. Spiritual disciplines honor life, in all its forms, as having innate and intrinsic value simply because it exists. It's the honoring of this value--the ennobling of this value--that is called forth when we approach business as a spiritual undertaking. it is the compassionate thing to do. And it si the focus of this book."--Back cover

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Steven Ricchiuto

Who caused the Great Recession? We did. In Disequilibrium, economist Steven Ricchiuto traces how destructive changes in our economic systems have created our present unbalanced economy. He expertly shows how today's disequilibrium between supply and demand came from decades of misguided economic policies made in response to the Great Inflation of the 1970s and 1980s. Ricchiuto then goes even further, investigating how economic forces created in the World War II era laid the groundwork for this destructive shift. Ricchiuto's timely book offers a method for assessing macro economic credit quality and suggests policy makers alter their behavior to handle new macro dynamics. Today's economic framework cannot be counted on to protect us forever. In Disequilibrium, Ricchiuto shows us where we went wrong in the past so that we can work to get the future right.

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Lilya Wagner, EdD, CFRE

"A "one size fits all" strategy is not effective when it comes to philanthropy and fundraising in today's diversified environment. This book enables nonprofit leaders, board members, staff, and volunteers of nonprofit organizations to better reach diverse populations and incorporate perspectives that increase success by surveying the cultural context for philanthropic action. Brings together a breadth of information on the cultural effects on philanthropy and fundraising in an approachable, practical, and readable manner--all in a single-volume resource. Provides invaluable information for anyone seeking to be culturally proficient in his or her practice, such as leaders of nongovernmental or nonprofit organizations, board members who grasp the diversity of their client groups' relationship to the organizations, and fundraising professionals. Includes vignettes provided by experts and professionals from several countries that diversify the perspectives presented. Supplies sidebars in each chapter that contain more personal opinions on philanthropy and fundraising that lend a real-life dimension to the book"--

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Patrick J. McGinnis

"What if there was a way to combine the stability of a day job with the excitement of a startup? All of the benefits of entrepreneurship with none of the pitfalls? In the 10% Entrepreneur, Patrick McGinnis show you how, by investing just 10% of your time and resources, you can become an entrepreneur without losing a steady paycheck." ¿Quién no quiere perseguir sus sueños, ser su propio jefe, hacer lo que ama y contar con todos los beneficios de la iniciativa empresarial sin ninguno de los riesgos? Emprendedor 10% te demuestra cómo al invertir 10% de tu tiempo y recursos puedes conseguir tu objetivo sin perder tu sueldo fijo. ¿Qué pasaría si existiera una forma de tener la estabilidad de un trabajo convencional con la emoción del emprendimiento? Convertirse en un emprendedor de tiempo completo puede parecer glamoroso desde afuera. Pero la verdad es que el emprendimiento requiere tiempo, esfuerzo y sacrificio, los primeros pasos de la apuesta están marcados por la inversión, la aventura y la incertidumbre económica. Patrick McGinnis, un emprendedor exitoso con más de una década de experiencia en Wall Street, te explica los múltiples caminos que puedes seguir para invertir tu dinero, tiempo y experiencia en una startup. No tienes que tener millones de pesos disponibles para ser un Emprendedor 10%. Cuando aplicas los principios de acción de McGinnis, de inmediato comienzas a acumular pequeñas victorias que se convertirán en las piezas clave para construir una carrera profesional exitosa y altamente efectiva.

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Paul N. Larsen

As a leader, what is your purpose, what is your legacy, what is your voice? To Find Your Voice as a Leader is the difference between becoming a bland bureaucrat and becoming a dynamic, influential role model. Start building your legacy as a leader by voicing your confidence, courage, and commitment.

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Scott Brinker

"Apply software-inspired management concepts to accelerate modern marketing In many ways, modern marketing has more in common with the software profession than it does with classic marketing management. As surprising as that may sound, it's the natural result of the world going digital. Marketing must move faster, adapt more quickly to market feedback, and manage an increasingly complex set of customer experience touchpoints. All of these challenges are shaped by the dynamics of software--from the growing number of technologies in our own organizations to the global forces of the Internet at large. But you can turn that to your advantage. And you don't need to be technical to do it. Hacking Marketing will show you how to conquer those challenges by adapting successful management frameworks from the software industry to the practice of marketing for any business in a digital world. You'll learn about agile and lean management methodologies, innovation techniques used by high-growth technology companies that any organization can apply, pragmatic approaches for scaling up marketing in a fragmented and constantly shifting environment, and strategies to unleash the full potential of talent in a digital age. Marketing responsibilities and tactics have changed dramatically over the past decade. This book now updates marketing management to better serve this rapidly evolving discipline. Increase the tempo of marketing's responsiveness without chaos or burnout Design "continuous" marketing programs and campaigns that constantly evolve Drive growth with more marketing experiments while actually reducing risk Architect marketing capabilities in layers to better scale and adapt to change Balance strategic focus with the ability to harness emergent opportunities As a marketer and a manager, Hacking Marketing will expand your mental models for how to lead marketing in a digital world where everything--including marketing--flows with the speed and adaptability of software"-- "Marketing as a discipline has been thoroughly disrupted by digital technologies. The speed of rapidly changing markets demands "agile" management practices. Delivering a cohesive buyer's journey across multiple channels -- web, email, social, mobile -- is a challenge of user experience (UX) design. The shift from producing a few big campaigns to operating a constant stream of marketing touchpoints is analogous to "continuous deployment" models pioneered by cloud-based services. Quickly experimenting with new marketing ideas on a small scale is like prototyping and beta testing. Hacking Marketing draws upon some of the most successful ideas from software management and tech start-up culture and adapts them for marketing leadership in a digital world. No technical background is required -- this is not a technical book. It is a general business book that teaches non-technical marketers a new set of concepts and frameworks that they can use to master marketing in an age where everything is now powered by software and shaped by the dynamics of technology"--

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Sarah Young Fisher and Susan Shelly McGovern

Revised and updated, this new edition of Idiot's Guides: Personal Finance in Your 20s and 30s, Fifth Edition, explains all the basic information you need to get started in life and plan for your future. You'll learn how to manage all aspects of your personal finances, as well as enhance your financial plan to yield better returns on your investments.

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prepared by Witada Anukoonwattaka

The expansion of international production networks (IPNs), alternatively referred to as “global value chains” raises important new analytical and policy challenges. This study demonstrates how the growing importance of international product fragmentation and intermediate goods in international trade has altered the links between exchange rates and international trade flows. This publication is not intended to provide comprehensive coverage of the topic. The focus is not on the macroeconomic determinants of nominal or real exchange rates. Instead, it is presents possible ways in which IPNs has changed the effects of exchange rates on international trade flows based on the views of “trade economists” where trade is responding to relative prices, measured as the "real" exchange rate.