Free Download Philip Ochman, "The Process of Decision Making in Chess: Volume 1 - Mastering the Theory" English | ASIN : B00BC0JXEQ | 2013 | 192 pages | EPUB | 8 MB This guidebook will teach you how to make correct decisions in chess at every phase of the game, whether you are a total beginner or an expert. Free Download Kate Simkins, John Kelly, "The Price of Victory (Graphic Readers Level 4)" English | 2007 | pages: 52 | ISBN: 1405318392 | PDF | 11,4 mb Witness a tale of rivalry and sabotage at the Olympic Games. Watch the past come to life in this gripping comic-book tale. Travel back in time to the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece and meet Pylades and his brother Kinesias, a champion athlete. From falling statues to sinking boats, join the brothers on their dangerous adventure, as it becomes clear someone wants to murder Kinesias before he can compete. But can they stop the person behind this dastardly assassination Description before the Games begin? Free Download Hikaru Suzuki, "The Price of Death: The Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan" English | 2002 | pages: 288 | ISBN: 0804735611 | PDF | 14,9 mb Funerary practices have long been a classic topic of anthropological inquiry, which has tended to focus on death rituals as expressions and reinforcers of community ties and values. In this book, the author looks at funerals as an urban business, based on her fieldwork at a large Japanese funeral company. Her central theme is the progressive commercialization of what once were primarily religious rituals. The book depicts the process of contemporary Japanese funerals, the practices of those who provide commercial funeral services, and the motivations and behavior of the mourners who purchase those services. In so doing, it examines the role of funeral companies in shaping Japanese cultural practices and changing an important aspect of Japanese society. The author addresses several related questions: What cultural changes accompanied the shift from traditional community funeral rituals to commercial funeral services? How did the mass consumption of commercial funerals produce cultural homogeneity while allowing for differences in individual services? How does the marketing of professional funeral services mediate changing cultural values? How have commercial services served to objectify changing concepts of dying, death, and the deceased in contemporary Japan? The author demonstrates that the funeral industry, the purchasers of funeral services, and Japanese values surrounding death are mutually dependent and are responsible for supporting, representing, and transforming cultural practices. Throughout, the author relates vivid and often moving details and anecdotes to lend a personal element to her study of the commodification of death in Japan. Free Download The Prehistory of Food: Appetites for Change By Chris Gosden, Jon G. Hather 1999 | 544 Pages | ISBN: 0415117658 | PDF | 9 MB The Prehistory of Food sets subsistence in its social context by focusing on food as a cultural artefact. It brings together contributors with a scientific and biological expertise as well as those interested in the patterns of consumption and social change, and includes a wide range of case studies. Free Download The Precious Treasury of Pith Instructions (Man-ngak Dzöd) By Longchen Rabjam, Richard Barron 2006 | 282 Pages | ISBN: 188184742X | PDF | 6 MB Man-ngak Dzöd or The Precious Treasury of Pith Instructions is the shortest of the seven texts and the only one composed entirely in verse. Writing as a spiritual mentor giving advice to his students, Longchenpa distills the principles underlying the entire range of Buddhist practice in more than 400 stanzas, each consisting of six instructions or pieces of advice. Although the later stanzas place greater emphasis on the Dzogchen approach, introductory teachings and advice are interspersed throughout the book with profound instructions on the nature of being itself and the ultimate level of truth. Longchenpa's uncompromising tone reflects his commitment to the highest realization and to the welfare of those inspired by his message.
Free Download The Pre-Kernel as a Tractable Solution for Cooperative Games: An Exercise in Algorithmic Game Theory By Holger Ingmar Meinhardt (auth.) 2014 | 242 Pages | ISBN: 3642395481 | PDF | 3 MB This present book provides an alternative approach to study the pre-kernel solution of transferable utility games based on a generalized conjugation theory from convex analysis. Although the pre-kernel solution possesses an appealing axiomatic foundation that lets one consider this solution concept as a standard of fairness, the pre-kernel and its related solutions are regarded as obscure and too technically complex to be treated as a real alternative to the Shapley value. Comprehensible and efficient computability is widely regarded as a desirable feature to qualify a solution concept apart from its axiomatic foundation as a standard of fairness. We review and then improve an approach to compute the pre-kernel of a cooperative game by the indirect function. The indirect function is known as the Fenchel-Moreau conjugation of the characteristic function. Extending the approach with the indirect function, we are able to characterize the pre-kernel of the grand coalition simply by the solution sets of a family of quadratic objective functions. Free Download Christiane Lütge, Markus Faltermeier, "The Praxis of Diversity" English | 2019 | pages: 221 | ISBN: 3030260771, 3030260801 | PDF | 2,3 mb This edited collection brings together experts from various disciplines to engage critically with diversity theory, diversity politics, and their practical application. Accordingly, the volume provides a provocative discursive space, where the key theoretical as well as practical problems of diversity in business, institutions and culture can speak to each other and can be assessed. The aim is to bridge the gap between two relatively distinct discourses: the discourse on practical applications of diversity concepts and the discourse on theoretical approaches to diversity. This selection of articles delivers the first step towards achieving this goal. Approaching diversity from a business perspective, the chapters discuss its ramifications on democratic institutions and theory, as well as point to its relevance in didactic and educational settings. Free Download The Pragmatics of Multiword Terms: The Impact of Context by Melania Cabezas-Garcia English | 2024 | ISBN: 1032482451 | 187 Pages | True PDF | 22.4 MB Free Download The Power of Product Platforms By Marc H. Meyer, Alvin P. Lehnerd 2011 | 288 Pages | ISBN: 1451655304 | EPUB | 8 MB Most companies know that long-term success does not hinge on any single product but on a continuous stream of value-rich products that target growth markets. Yet many firms inexplicably develop one product at a time, and by doing so fail to embrace commonality, compatibility, standardization, or modularization among different products and product lines. At last, in this timely book, Marc H. Meyer and Alvin P. Lehnerd provide a formula for turning products into profits, enabling companies to design technologically superior products more easily. Their solution is, in two words, PRODUCT PLATFORMS. They argue that firms must focus their energies on developing families of products simultaneously which share common components and technology.The authors describe how the champions of product development separate themselves from less sophisticated companies by building entire families of strong products from a single "platform" of common product structures, technologies, and automated product processes. These successful companies recognize and respond to new market opportunities by integrating core skills and technology in the form of new products. In this easy-to-read and practical book, the authors masterfully elucidate this dynamic and forward-thinking strategy which enables companies to develop innovative products faster, more cheaply, and with less effort.Drawing on in-depth case studies and personal experience with successful companies such as Hewlett-Packard, EMC, Black & Decker, and Boeing, Meyer and Lehnerd show managers how to create extraordinary products and thereby set the standard for combined value and cost leadership in their products. They argue that when a company's products are robust-highly functional, elegant in their design, reasonably priced, and a pleasure to use-the corporation will be equally robust. More importantly, The Power of Product Platforms reveals the methodology and organizational approach for designing, developing, and revitalizing strong products that enable the firm to make the transition from one generation of technology to the next. The authors also explain how well-designed product platforms can generate streams of derivative products through a continuous systematic process of renewal.Meyer and Lehnerd apply this methodology to a broad range of industries; manufacturing in both consumer and industrial markets, software firms, and Internet information services providers.This clear prescription for transforming the bottom line by aggressively managing product development and innovation will become required reading for large and small corporations alike, including entrepreneurs, all of whom depend on the excellence of their new products for growth. Free Download The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges By Joseph Soares 2007 | 256 Pages | ISBN: 0804756376 | PDF | 4 MB It is widely assumed that admission to elite U.S. universities is based solely on academic merit-the best and brightest are admitted to Harvard, Yale, and their peer institutions as determined by test scores and GPA, and not by lineage or family income. But does reality support those expectations? Or are admissions governed by a logic that rewards socioeconomic status while disguising it as personal merit?The Power of Privilege examines the nexus between social class and admissions at America's top colleges from the vantage point of Yale University, a key actor in the history of higher education. It is a documented history of the institutional gatekeepers, confident of the validity of socially biased measures of merit, seeking to select tomorrow's leadership class from among their economically privileged clientele. Acceptance in prestigious colleges still remains beyond the reach of most students except those from high-income professional families. Ultimately, the author suggests reforms that would move America's top schools toward becoming genuine academic meritocracies. |