The Capability Approach

The Capability Approach 

By: Flavio Comim, Mozaffar Qizilbash and Sabina Alkire

Amartya Sen’s capability approach has generated remarkable interest in recent years. This volume brings together a selection of papers initially presented at an international conference on the capability approach (CA) held at St Edmund’s College, Cambridgein 2001. This conference marked an important turning point in research on the capability approach. It brought together many young scholars who were interested in the approach as well as others who had been working on it for some time. The conference was initially motivated by issues relating to the usefulness of the approach in the particular contexts of poverty and injustice. However, conference papers covered a wide range of topics relating to concepts, measurement and other applications. In this volume, the papers are categorised in terms of these broad and overlapping areas. [download]

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The Family Values Movement

The Family Values Movement 

By: Samuel Willard Crompton

Everything changed between 1940 and 2000. Nothing changed between 1940 and 2000. Each of these statements is at least half right. Change, or the lack of change, depends on perspective, which is largely influenced by one’s generation: the time, place, and situation into which one is born and reared. Let’s examine what American family life was like in the 1940s, a time preserved for us by an artist’s paintbrush. the homecoming Born in 1894, Norman Rockwell was 51 when he painted The Homecoming, which became the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in late May 1945. In the painting, clothes hang on a line, and neighborhood children frolic in a tree. Mother stands on the stoop, her arms open wide. Father looks up from his carpentry, a grin spreading across his handsome, though weather-beaten, face. Brother leaps from the porch, his long legs working like pistons. [download]

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The Dead Janitors Club

The Dead Janitors Club 

By: Jeff Klima

I WALK INTO THE LOBBY of a shockingly splendid hotel, and the wheel on the cash register in my mind is clicking audibly upward. I anticipate leaving this place a few thousand dollars richer than when I walked in. So many factors are at play here; I am chomping at the bit, trying to discern them all. French doors gilded with a gold overlay breeze open effortlessly before me, working off unseen sensors and a pneumatic arm. Caucasian employees stare pleasantly at me from behind the counter. From a financial standpoint, this is a good thing. White people are terrified of death. An overabundance of detachment and safety in our culture has resulted in “whitey” becoming a benign collective of soft-shelled whiners, people who understand pain only in terms of there not being three-ply toilet paper on sale at the supermarket closest to their condo. [download]  

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The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tantric Sex

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tantric Sex 

By: Dr. Judy Kuriansky

You’re about to embark on a wonderful journey! Would you like to feel more intense excitement than ever before? Experience more love for yourself and others than you ever imagined possible? Have the best sex ever truly, because it’s not just sex; it’s much more? If you answered yes, get ready to be transformed, to feel freer, and more enthusiastic about yourself and your life. I can make these promises to you because I know it’s possible and because I have seen inspiring transformations happen to men and women of all ages, young and old, when embarking on the exciting journey you can make in this book. In this part, I’ll introduce you to the ancient arts of lovemaking that started in the Eastern parts of the world thousands of years ago but that were lost over the centuries until now when we in Americaare reviving them. [download]

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Television, Power, and The Public in Russia

Television, Power, and The Public in Russia

By: Ellen Mickiewicz

When almost an entire population depends on television for its news, and its political leaders accord almost miraculous powers to the medium, and gobble one commercial channel after another, wouldn’t those political leaders want anxiously to know what viewers make of the news? Isn’t viewer-processing as vital to their strategy as message-creation? In today’s Russiathese are vital questions, on which careers and huge resources can ride and, strangely enough, the answer to both these questions is ‘‘no.’’ The other side of the television screen the one where the viewers are arrayed is invisible. Agreement with the message is assumed. Hence, the question: what if the ‘‘reception’’ on the other side of the screen was actually confounding and contradicting the leaders’ assumptions every day, and bywhat method are viewers able to do thus? [download]

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With Seduction in Mind

With Seduction in Mind

By: Laura Lee Guhrke

London, May 1896 DaisyMerrickwas unemployed. Such a circumstance wasn’t unusual Daisy had been in that particular pickle many times before. Some people, including her sister, were inclined to see her ever-changing job situation as her own fault, but to Daisy’s mind that opinion was most unfair. Today was a perfect example.Bristling with indignation, she marched out of the offices of Pettigrew and Finch, where she had just been informed by the matron in charge of typists that her services would no longer be required. And no, Matron had added upon her inquiry, they could not see clear to providing her with a letter of character. Given her shameless conduct, no favorable reference would be possible. “My shameless conduct?” she muttered, pausing on the sidewalk to search for a passing omnibus amid the traffic that clogged Threadneedle Street. “Mr. Pettigrew is the one who should be ashamed!” [download]

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Wolfsbane

Wolfsbane 

By: Andrea Cremer

I COULDN’T SHUT OUT the screams. Darkness surrounded me. A terrible weight pressed into my chest, making me struggle for each breath as I lay drowning in my own blood. I sat up with a gasp, blinking into the shadows. The screaming had stopped. The room became still, flooded with silence. I took a couple of painful swallows, trying to moisten my parched mouth. It took me a moment to realize that the screams had been my own, each cry clawing my throat until it was raw. I brought my hands up to my chest. My fingers moved along the surface of my shirt. The fabric was smooth, with no sign of rips or tears from the crossbow bolts. I couldn’t see well in the dim light, but I could tell this shirt wasn’t mine, or rather, wasn’t Shay’s borrowed sweater the one I’d been wearing the night everything changed. [download]  

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Beneath The Thirteen Moons

Beneath The Thirteen Moons 

By: Kathryne Kennedy

MAHRI POLED HER BOAT AROUND THE BASE OF THE SEA tree, the bone staff she used as much an extension of her body as her own arms. She ducked beneath a branch, a wide one, the limb as straight as the Power of a Seer could make it. The gloom of the evening blackened to inky darkness, the slap of the waves echoed eerily inside the cavern-like arch, and here Mahri chose to anchor her craft. She flipped her wrist in the pattern peculiar to her bone pole, and it retracted with a sliding hiss; her fingers shook as she slid it into a sheath of octopus skin. She patted the bone grapnel with its length of coiled rope and then dug into the small fish-scale pouch that hung against her hip. Mahri withdrew a small piece of zabbaroot, unsure if it would be enough for her task she’d never kidnapped a man before, how could she possibly know? [download]

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Alexander and Alestria

Alexander and Alestria

By: San Sa 

I, Alexander of Macedonia, son of Philip, king of kings, conqueror of the Greeks, came into this world on the night of a great fire. The temple of Artemis was alight. Ocher and yellow flames, forests of sparks and twisting wreaths of smoke, spilled into the sky. Thick clouds settled on villages in which every soul had taken refuge indoors, terrified by the fury of the divine huntress. By the time of my first memory I can already run to the top of the hill. My mother, who dresses me as a girl, takes me to play among the ruins. There are fragments of burned stone scattered in the grass, and wild flowers exhale their bitter fragrance. Wearing a white tunic and sandals with golden straps and with my hair in braids, I stumble up a collapsed flight of steps, hide behind a fallen column, and laugh when the slaves walk past without seeing me. [download]

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Kreativer Denken

Kreativer Denken 

By: Anne Brunner

Kreativität wer möchte nicht über diese Fähigkeit verfügen? Kreativität ist eine Schlüsselkompetenz, die in fast allen Lebensbereichen gefragt ist: in Wissenschaft und Technik, im künstlerischen Schaffen, in der stillen Reflexion auch im privaten Leben. Kreative Kompetenz zählt zu den wichtigsten Schlüsselkompetenzen überhaupt. Nach Hartmut von Hentig ist Kreativität ein „Heilswort“ unserer Zeit. Sie zu fördern wird als zentrale Aufgabe angesehen, sei es im Kontext der Persönlichkeitsentwicklung, des Managementtrainings oder der Didaktik. Kein Wunder also: Kreativitätsmethoden sind en vogue. Sie zielen im Wesentlichen in zwei Richtungen: Entweder darauf, problemorientiert Lösungen für bereits Vorhandenes zu finden. Oder darauf, in „unbekanntes Land“ vorzudringen, also den Möglichkeitsraum als solchen phantasievoll zu erweitern, und damit den Horizont des Denkens. [download]

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In Want of A Wife

In Want of A Wife 

By: Cathy

‘You don’t believe in love, do you?’ she asked, and Louis laughed, raking his fingers through his hair. ‘I believe in lust, and I believe in marriage.’ ‘You mean marriage based on … what? How can you base a marriage on lust? Lust doesn’t last.’ ‘But it’s an enjoyable starting point, don’t you agree? Not that I’ve given much thought to marriage one way or the other.’ Lizzy shifted awkwardly. She realised that her legs were brushing against his, and she primly angled her body away from him. When their eyes met, she could see at a glance that he had noted the shift and was amused by it. ‘And what happens when the lust fades away?’ ‘Oh, that’s why it’s so important to be practical when it comes to getting married. A decent business arrangement doesn’t allow for any nasty surprises. There’s no such thing as the perfect marriage, but there is such a thing as the perfect criteria for a wife.’ [download]

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The Courtship Dance

The Courtship Dance

By: Candace Camp

NO ONE WOULD have guessed from the way Lady Francesca Haughston moved through the Whittington ballroom that she was making the opening moves of her campaign. She strolled along in her usual manner, pausing to compliment a dress here or flirt with one of her many admirers there. She smiled and talked and plied her fan deftly, a vision in ice-blue silk, her blond hair falling in a cascade of curls from an upswept knot. But all the while, her dark blue eyes were looking for her prey. It had been almost a month since she had vowed to herself to find a wife for the Duke of Rochford, and tonight she intended to set her plan in motion. She had made all her preparations. She had studied the young unmarried women of the ton, and through careful research and observation, she had managed to whittle the number down to just three whom she felt suitable for Sinclair. [download]

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The Witches of Santa Anna

The Witches of Santa Anna 

By: Lauren Barnholdt and Aaron Gorvine

Here’s how my first day of school at Santa Anna is supposed to go: 1. I will cruise effortlessly through the halls, never once getting lost, misplacing my schedule, or embarrassing myself in any way. 2. I will meet a boy who will fall madly in love with me. (Think Edward from Twilight, but without that whole weird there’s-a-vampire-staring-at-me-while-I-sleep thing. So I guess think Robert Pattison. Which would actually be perfect, since I’m English. Well, sort of. I grew up in England, but I’ve been in the USever since I was ten. I still have a tiny bit of an accent, which people usually think is cool, so sometimes I try to play it up and make it more pronounced than it actually is. I figure if it worked for Madonna, it should work for me.) 3. I will hook up with a new crowd of amazing friends that will become my friends for life. [download]

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John Tyler: The Accidental President

John Tyler: The Accidental President 

By: Edward P. Crapol

John Tyler is not one of the famous or better-known American presidents. If known at all, it usually is because of the catchy political slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” which was the rallying cry in the 1840 campaign of presidential candidate William Henry Harrison and his vicepresidential running mate, John Tyler. Perhaps when questioned, a number of Americans also might know thatTylerwas the first vice president to succeed to the presidency upon the death of the incumbent president. Maybe even some would also remember from their school days that his opponents mockedTyleras “His Accidency,” because of the manner in which he became the nation’s tenth president. His obscurity has not been for want of historical accounts of his life and career. A decade after his death, one of Tyler’s good friends and political allies authored a highly laudatory biography of his long public life intended to salvage the tenth president’s historical reputation. [download]

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International Economics

International Economics 

By: Barbara Ingham

International Economics is the application of economic theory to situations in which countries are closely connected, through the exchange of goods and services, or through some other type of economic relationship, such as that between a creditor country and a debtor country. International economics is concerned with the interrelationships and interdependencies between national economies. Paul Samuelson, Nobel prizewinner and one of the foremost economists in the world today, has written that no complete understanding of any modern economy is possible without a thorough grounding in international economics. International economics illuminates the interaction between domestic economic events, and important changes in the world economy. Samuelson himself has made important theoretical contributions to the pure theory of trade. [download]

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Flirting with Boys

Flirting with Boys

By: Hailey Abbott 

Oh my God!” Celeste Tippen’s best friend almost sent her flying onto the last row of white folding chairs set up on Longbrook High School’s lawn. Under the hot Palm Springs sun, dressed-up families were filling the aisles, clutching graduation programs, and claiming rows of seats by laying jackets and purses across them. Several audience members turned to look at the crazy girls in the back, but Devon Wright didn’t let go of Celeste’s elbow. “What?” Celeste spun around, rubbing her tan arm where Devon’s nails had dug in. That was definitely going to bruise. “Stefan Napoli!” Devon hissed, frantically smoothing. her sleek, shoulder-length black hair behind her ears. “How’s my hair?” Celeste rolled her eyes. “Fabulous, of course. When does your hair ever not look perfect?” Devon was now using Celeste’s sunglasses as a mirror to apply fuchsia lipstick from an ornate gold tube. [download]

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Forbidden Pleasures

Forbidden Pleasures 

By: Bertrice Small

“I’ve got bad news and bad news. Whadaya want first?” Aaron Fischer looked across the large mahogany desk at Emily Shanski, a.k.a. Emilie Shann. He was a stocky man in his sixties who wore impeccably tailored Armani suits, and had beautifully manicured hands. His gray hair, what was left of it, was nicely barbered around his balding pink pate. On the third finger of his left hand he wore a gold band engraved with a Celtic knot. The gold tie pin in his silk tie echoed the same design. “You dragged me in from Egret Pointe for bad news?” Emily grumbled. She didn’t like the look in Aaron’s usually warm brown eyes. Those eyes were serious today. It did not bode well. “Okay,” she sighed dramatically. “Gimme the worst of it first. Then the not so worst.” “I’m not sure which you’ll consider the worst,” he said slowly. “Kirk!” he called to his business and life partner. [download]

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Hands on Reflexology

Hands on Reflexology 

By: Andrew James

Balance and wholeness are all most of us want from life. We can get lost in our everyday existence; doing more ‘things’ and taking on more responsibility, and thus lose sight of our own ‘self. This is when reflexology steps in. Reflexology is one of the most accessible complementary therapies; hands and feet are all you need to bring health, happiness, fun and rejuvenation to your whole being. I have introduced reflexology to thousands of people, through individual treatment, lectures, TV and radio, conferences or talks to international companies and small self-help groups. 1 am still amazed that even with just a one-day workshop it is possible to see an instant change in people’s physical, mental and emotional state. They leave at the end of the day feeling more balanced, literally walking on air, with something achieved for themselves. [download]

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In The Company of Heroes

In The Company of Heroes 

By: Michael J. Durant and Steven Hartov

I first met Michael Durant in April 1997, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, when I was researching my book Black Hawk Down. Durant was still an active-duty pilot with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, a unit with a top-security clearance, and it had taken me more than a year to get permission to interview him. When I arrived at Fort Campbell, I was surprised to find myself with not one, but three public affairs officers as escorts. They introduced me to Durant, a fit man with ramrod posture and a very serious manner, and then asked if we minded if they all sat in on the interview. It seems they weren’t worried about a security breach; they just wanted to hear Durant tell his story. No wonder. Durant’s experience is one of the most harrowing in the history of the American military, and one of the most compelling ever told. [download]  

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How to Develop Children as Researchers

How to Develop Children as Researchers 

By: Mary Kellett

In the adult world research process is greatly valued as an advanced learning tool and whetstone for critical thinking. The importance of research in professional and personal development is increasingly being acknowledged. So why should children not benefit in a similar way? Traditionally, children have been excluded from this learning process because research methodology is considered too difficult for them. Principal obstacles focus around three key barriers: age (and by implication, competence), knowledge and skills. If we can find ways to overcome these barriers and explore innovative approaches to engage children in the research process then we can access a rich and, hitherto, largely untapped source through which to develop creativity, critical thinking skills and analytical capability. [download]

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Eloise: Letters to A Lost Child

Eloise: Letters to A Lost Child

By: Loise Lavallee

sitting alone in your room, I have long dreaded this moment, seeking the right words, gentle words of love which will bring about your rebirth. Dizzy before this quest for missing words and with the need to come to terms with our new reality, I have arrived after opening and closing many doors. I have this constant, fine pain, a small needle piercing just above my heart; emptiness and pain mingled with doubt and panic. How can I recreate your beauty, your softness, your strength, your suffering, and above all, your magic? Faced with the task, I doodle, I let myself be distracted and wander so that I can hold back, just a little. First I come to a picture of you at five months old. You are intact, smiling, with your brilliant cheeks and mirthful eyes, my little girl, so fall of life. Just beside it is another image of you, ten years later at the pavilion, with your freckles showing springtime and your dainty straw hat slightly tilted to one side, cruelly emphasizing your too-open mouth. [download]

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Engaging Minds

Engaging Minds 

By: David A. Goslin

One of the intriguing paradoxes of education in the United States is that many people believe that the nation’s schools are badly in need of reform, yet most people report that they are satisfied with the schools their children attend. Another is that nearly everyone acknowledges the importance of academic achievement for success in life, yet many Americans remain deeply ambivalent about how much time and effort their children should spend on schoolwork rather than sports, work, and other activities. American ambivalence about the amount of effort children should devote to academic achievement contributes to the fact that during much of the time most students spend in school, they are less than fully engaged in learning academic skills. It also helps to explain why the nation has made so little progress in improving education despite nearly three decades of intense effort. [download]

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Every Thing Must Go

Every Thing Must Go 

By: James Ladyman and Don Ross 

The aim of this book is to defend a radically naturalistic metaphysics. By this we mean a metaphysics that is motivated exclusively by attempts to unify hypotheses and theories that are taken seriously by contemporary science. For reasons to be explained, we take the view that no alternative kind of metaphysics can be regarded as a legitimate part of our collective attempt to model the structure of objective reality. One of our most distinguished predecessors in this attitude is Wilfrid Sellars. He expressed a naturalistic conception of soundly motivated metaphysics when he said that the philosopher’s aim should be ‘knowing one’s way around with respect to the subject matters of all the special [scientific] disciplines’ and ‘building bridges’ between them (1962, 35). It might of course be wondered whether or why science has any role for non-specialist bridge-builders. [download]

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Commodity Investing

Commodity Investing 

By: Frank J. Fabozzi

Commodities are currently enjoying a renaissance due to institutional investors such as pension funds and traditional portfolio managers. Many market participants attribute the recent dramatic price increases in commodities to increased demand for consumer goods, particularly from the populous countries of India and China. Demand from Brazil and Russia, two of the fastest-growing economies currently, has undoubtedly also played a part. (Collectively, these four countries are referred to as the BRIC countries.) Globalization and economic and political convergence have been behind the stimulated growth in these economies to a large extent. Besides increased investment on an enterprise level, increasing state investment in infrastructure in China has also led to enormous demand for commodities. This has caused a shock to the worldwide supply and demand dynamics, leading to at least short-term price increases. [download]

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Developing New Business Ideas

Developing New Business Ideas 

By: Andrew Bragg and Mary Bragg

At some time in their life, almost everybody has had an idea for starting their own business or for launching an innovative project. You are probably no different. The idea might have been sparked by something you saw on a foreign holiday or in a different market sector. You might have been dissatisfied with a product or service which did not work properly. It might have been an article which you read in the paper. Your own experience might have highlighted a particular gap in the market. You might think that your current organisation lets customers down and that you could do better on your own. You might have been made redundant. You might just be fed up with working for others. You might even be one of the favoured few who has had a ‘Eureka’ moment. But did you actually do something with your initial idea? [download]

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Charles Darwin: Leben und Werk

Charles Darwin: Leben und Werk 

By: Von Wolfgang Scaumann 

1st die Welt erschaffen worden, oder ist sie spontan entstanden? Alte Mythologien und Religionen sind sich mit den modernen Naturwissenschaften darin einig, dass es unsere Erde nicht von Ewigkeit an gegeben hat. Fruher war das eine Philosophie, heute sind wir dessen sicher. Als der Mensch zu denken begann, war ihm Vie-Ies unverstandlich, und so schuf er sich seine Cotter, denen er alles zuschrieb, was seine Vernunft nicht erklaren konnte. Dazu gehorte die Erschaffung der Welt als gottliche Tat. Gott erschuf die Welt in sechs Tagen, so steht es in der Bibel. Mit dem Aufkommen der Naturwissenschaften regten sich zunachst Zweifel, ob die sechs Tage wortlich zu nehmen sind. Wie kommen z.B. Muscheln in Gesteine, die man fernab von jedem groi3eren Gewasser und viele Meter iiber dem heutigen Wasserspiegel findet? [download]

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Business Writing and Communication

Business Writing and Communication 

By: Kenneth W.Davis

In this knowledge economy, writing is the chief value-producing activity. But you may not be writing as well as you could. That may be because you think writing requires a special talent that some people have and some people don’t. In fact, writing is a process that can be managed like any other business process. If you can manage people, money, or time, then you can manage your writing. And you can profit from the results. This book will give you the tools to become in the next 36 hours a more effective, efficient manager of your own writing. • You’ll become more effective because you’ll learn to produce writing that gets things done. • You’ll become more efficient because you’ll learn to produce more effective writing in less time. How can this magic happen in just 36 hours? It’ll happen because you’ll learn to take the management skills you already have and apply them to the process of writing. [download]

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Baby Tips for Grandparents

Baby Tips for Grandparents 

By: Simon Brett

You may think being a grandparent’s easy, that all you have to do is sit back and enjoy watching the development of another generation. But being a grandparent brings all kinds of new challenges. It puts new stresses on your relationship with your children and it’s also a diplomatic minefield. You’ll find, in your new role, you spend a lot of time biting your tongue to avoid saying the wrong thing. Oh yes, it’s tough. How fortunate then that you have this small book of advice to guide you through the choppy waters ahead. Before the baby’s born Try not to ask: ‘Should you be doing that in your condition?’ A grandmother-tobe should try to avoid turning into a primitive Wise Woman, dangling keys or needles over the bump to predict gender. [download]

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Business to Business Marketing

Business to Business Marketing 

By: Chris Fill and Karen E. Fill

This part consists of two chapters that introduce the two main themes of the book: business to business (B2B) marketing and information systems and technology (IS&T). These chapters are designed to provide a thematic platform on which the rest of the book builds. Chapter 1 introduces the fundamental characteristics of B2B markets and considers the nature, size and dynamics of the sector. Reference to the consumer market is made to highlight both the differences and similarities between the two fields and approaches. The main objective of this chapter is to set out the essential characteristics and importance of B2B marketing, the pivotal aspects of value creation and interorganisational relationships. This enables readers unfamiliar with the B2B market to become conversant with topics that are developed and explored in subsequent chapters of the book. [download]

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Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha

Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha 

By: Swami Satyananda Saraswati

Yoga is the science of right living and, as such, is intended to be incorporated in daily life. It works on all aspects of the person: the physical, vital, mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual. The word yoga means ‘unity’ or ‘oneness’ and is derived from the Sanskrit word yuj which means ‘to join’. This unity or joining is described in spiritual terms as the union of the individual consciousness with the universal consciousness. On a more practical level, yoga is a means of balancing and harmonizing the body, mind and emotions. This is done through the practice of asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha, shatkarma and meditation, and must be achieved before union can take place with the higher reality. The science of yoga begins to work on the outermost aspect of the personality, the physical body, which for most people is a practical and familiar starting point. [download]

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American Literature from 1600 Through The 1850s

American Literature from 1600 Through The 1850s 

By: Adam Augustyn

The roots of American literature lie in the 17th century before there actually was an America. Early texts that originated in North American settlements throughout the 1600s consisted of religious tracts that explored the relationship between church and state, as well as works that could be referred to as “utilitarian,” since they consisted of descriptions of everyday life. These first hand accounts of traders, explorers, and colonistssoon gave way to more compelling material, and the canon of American literature began to take shape. This volume traces the progress of the written word in a land that itself was evolving as a nation. The works of Jamestown leader John Smith, who wrote about his experiences in the first permanent English settlement in North America, are considered to be where American literature originated. [download]

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Adele King

Adele King

By: Albert Camus 

Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday (Aujourd’hui maman est morte. Ou peut-etre hier). With one of the most famous opening lines of modern French fiction, capturing the voice of a hero without intellectual pretensions or strong emotional attachments, UEtranger (1942, translated as The Outsider or The Stranger), is the best selling and the most republished French novel of the 20th-century and has been translated into more than 40 languages. Usually regarded as a classic, it is one of the few novels taught in schools and universities and found on most lists of the best modern novels. Both politicians and rock stars alike allude to it. The author of UEtranger, Albert Camus (1913-1960), was born to a poor, uneducated family in Algeria. His father died when he was one year old. He was very different from the typical French bourgeois intellectual. [download]

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Women in Management Worldwide

Women in Management Worldwide

By: Marilyn J. Davidson

Women continue to enter the workplace in increasing numbers in all developed countries. Several factors account for this trend. An increasing number of economies have become industrialized, the service sector has grown opening up positions for women, and growth in public and not-for profit sectors have created new opportunities for women. Finally, attitudes towards working women, particularly women with children, as well as political and legal initiatives, have supported this trend. However, the pace of advancement for women mangers and professions continues to be slow and uneven in different countries and cultures (Barreto, Ryan and Schmitt, 2009; Burke, 2009; Burke and Mattis, 2007; Helfat, Harris and Wolfson, 2006; Tarr-Whelan, 2009). In many cases, these women have invested in preparation for careers by undertaking higher education, with the proportion of women in university now equal to or greater than that of men. [download]

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Why Do Men Have Nipples

Why Do Men Have Nipples 

By: Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg

When you’re at a cocktail party, someone inevitably asks you what you do for a living. If you say that you are a doctor, the barrage begins. Soon you’re looking at someone’s mole, consulting someone else on his brother-in-law’s painful flatulence, racking your brain to explain the etiology of your hostess’s episodic vertigo, and that’s just the beginning. You would think that after twelve years of rigorous training and sleepless nights, doctors would have all the answers. But no! Not so. The sad fact is that one of the medical establishment’s great shortcomings is its failure to teach what the general public really wants to know about medicine. This book is an attempt to rectify this unfortunate situation. Inside these pages we will begin to answer some of the medical questions that real people ask. Pressing questions such as “Why does my pee smell when I eat asparagus?” “Is it true when they say ‘beer before liquor, never sicker. [download]

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Zuleika Dobson

Zuleika Dobson 

By: Max Beerbohm

That old bell, presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxford station; and the undergraduates who were waiting there, gay figures in tweed or flannel, moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idly up the line. Young and careless, in the glow of the afternoon sunshine, they struck a sharp note of incongruity with the worn boards they stood on, with the fading signals and grey eternal walls of that antique station, which, familiar to them and insignificant, does yet whisper to the tourist the last enchantments of the Middle Age. At the door of the first class waiting room, a loof and venerable, stood the Warden of Judas. An ebon pillar of tradition seemed he, in his garb of old fashioned cleric. Aloft, between the wide brim of his silk hat and the white extent of his shirt front, appeared those eyes which hawks, that nose which eagles, had often envied. He supported his years on an ebon stick. He alone was worthy of the background. Came a whistle from the distance. The breast of an engine was descried, and a long train curving after it, under a flight of smoke. It grew and grew. [download]  

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Understanding Children: Foundations for Quality

Understanding Children: Foundations for Quality 

By: Jeannette Harrison

Children’s growth and progress through life is largely dependent on the physical, social and emotional surroundings in which they spend their formative years. Early childhood care-providers have a critical role in developing social competence in young children. We have evidence that if a child is unable to develop effective social relationships with their peers by around six years of age, then that child may be at risk of encountering later academic failure and dropping out of school. Young children require quality environments in order to thrive socially, academically and emotionally. In order to determine the quality of an early childhood program, there are a number of identifying characteristics that describe a quality service. [download]

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Touch of Darkness

Touch of Darkness 

By: Christina Dodd

“I want you to cover my back.” Konstantine handed his brother the bottle and gestured down to the encampment in the valley below. “I’m going to take the Gypsy girl.” “We’re not supposed to mess with the Gypsies.” Oleg took a long pull of vodka. “Remember? It is written. Any woman is ours for the plucking, but not those zalupa Romanies.” Konstantine bared his sharp white teeth in what passed for a grin. “And I wonder why that is.” The Varinski family had no rules. No rules at all. They could do what they wanted rape, pillage, torture, murder and no one could stop them. But one ancient law existed. They were not to take a Gypsy woman. “Gypsies are filthy.” Oleg spft in the direction of the camp, and the warm spittle steamed as it struck the frozen ground. This autumn was as cold as a witch’s tit, with an early frost that had ruined the crops and put a hungry edge on everyone’s temper. “You’ll get a disease.” [download]

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Treasury of Investment Wisdom

Treasury of Investment Wisdom 

By: Dean Lebaron and Romesh Vaitilingam

For most of financial market history, bonds were owned by institutions and trusts, while stocks were owned largely by wealthy individuals. Public speculation came and went, and wealthy people also owned bonds, but the stock market was, for the most part, a domain of the wealthy. When I started out as an investment counsel in the early 1950s, this structure was still very much in place. All our clients were rich individuals; institutional accounts were scarce as hen’s teeth. The institutional business in the equity market would remain in the minor leagues for another decade at least. Insurance companies, endowments, and trusts were still working under old fashioned restraints and held minimal amounts of equities. Not-so-wealthy individuals were still on the periphery, as most of them did not yet have enough to start playing in the market while those that did have some money did not yet have the courage. [download]

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The Transparent Mind

The Transparent Mind 

By: Ingram Smith

J. Krishnamurti, 1895–1986, at the outset of his life’s work in 1929, said that his only concern was to set men and women absolutely, unconditionally free. Until his death, he traveled throughout the world speaking to audiences on every continent. In support of his work, five foundations were established to coordinate the activities that grew out of his talks. In his talks, Krishnamurti asked for a particular kind of participation on the part of the audience. He was not giving a predetermined lecture to which the audience listened with agreement or disagreement; he was not presenting a point of view, doing propaganda for an idea, belief or dogma, or leading the audience to a particular conclusion. Instead, the speaker and listeners were together exploring human problems. This is an art that is learned in the very act of attending to what Krishnamurti is saying. [download]  

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Why Buildings Fall Down

Why Buildings Fall Down

By: Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori

Once upon a time there were Seven Wonders of the World. Now only one survives: the mountainlike Pyramid of Khufu in the Egyptian desert near Cairo. The other six have fallen down. It is the destiny of the man-made environment to vanish, but we, short-lived men and women, look at our buildings so convinced they will stand forever that when some do collapse, we are surprised and concerned. Our surprise may be partly due to the fact that most of us judge buildings by their facades: They look beautiful when very old and ugly when very young, the opposite of human faces. But this kind of judgment is superficial and misleading; a much better metaphor for a building is the human body. A building is conceived when designed, born when built, alive while standing, dead from old age or an unexpected accident. It breathes through the mouth of its windows and the lungs of its airconditioning system. [download]

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The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters

The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters

By: Eric C. Jones and Arthur D. Murphy

Now that it is a confirmed generalization that vulnerability to disaster impact is mediated by larger social processes, we find it compelling to link the political economy of disaster with the daily lives of individuals, households, and communities who have experienced extreme events. Because of the ubiquity of hazards and a per capita increase in disasters in some regions of the world (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 2003), we are called to systematically study how societies incorporate extreme events, whether chronic or one-time/short-lived, into their social, political, and ideological structure. As ethnographers, we are interested in the daily lives of people who are impacted by disasters. As students of economic dynamics, we are specifically interested in how strategies for capital accumulation construct and distribute vulnerability to hazards and cause human disasters. [download]

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The Seduction of Simone

The Seduction of Simone 

By: Cherie De Sues

The swollen February sky brooded with purple and rosy hues, as though Mother Nature had slapped it. There was no point for Simone to put on a happy face her fickle emotions had bounced erratically between pain and joy all day. She supposed it was Mr. Cavendish standing at the rusted Iron Gate, towering behind him like the grill of a Mack truck. His tiny red sports car was off to the side, allowing her to drive on the narrow pavement leading to Celeste’s estate. No. It was her estate now. A chill stung her cheeks as she powered down the Jeep window and waited as the unsmiling octogenarian slowly meandered to the door. “Simone Devereux?” Old weathered skin told a silent story of years sailing and a life by the sea as he leaned in close to her. It was interesting Celeste had chosen this grumpy relic as her attorney. [download]

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The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes

The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes 

By: Michael L. Fleisher

The Encyclopedia 0f Comic Book Heroes began as something of a lark, and ended as a labor of love. In early 1969, I was working as a writer/editor for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, writing entries for an encyclopedia that the company intended to market orcrseas. One afternoon, as a humorous way of relieving the ofllce tedium, one of the other writers composed a short biography of Clark Kent written in the same stuny, pedantic style that characterized the biographies of real people in the encyclopedia we were working on. “KENT, CLARK,’· it began. “United States journalist who is secretly Superman . . . .” As the bogus entry made its way around the room, the editorial office exploded with laughter. People laughed because, by using a serious, pseudoscholarly style in connection with subject matter generally regarded as frivolous, the author had successfully satirized the pomposity of our encyclopedia. [download]

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The Sacred and The Feminine

The Sacred and The Feminine 

By: Griselda Pollock and Victoria Turvey Sauron

The initiating editor for this collection, Victoria Turvey Sauron, is an art historian working on the visual representation of the ecstatic woman in Western art and culture as an undecidable figure of the challenge to art and culture posed by female sexuality and subjectivity. Famously, Bernini’s sculptural installation of Teresa of Avila in her vision (13.1) has challenged interpreters to deal with the ambivalence of the image: hovering between a spiritual and an erotic experience. Tracing the genealogy of the iconography and visuality of the enraptured female body through to contemporary representations that appear more overtly sexual, Victoria Turvey Sauron identifies the problematic of a visual representation of embodied feminine subjectivity and sexuality that refuses monistic interpretations and instead brings into view shifting borderlines between interior and exterior. [download]

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The Early Information Society

The Early Information Society

By: Alistair Black, Dave Muddiman and Helen Plant 

The information society is not so new, or so significant, as we may think. In this book, we explore the idea of an information society before the information society that is today defined by the supposedly revolutionary impact of digital technology on our culture. Whereas it is undeniable that this new wave of technological development is in itself exceptional and exciting, its social effects should be viewed more soberly, the word ‘revolution’ in this regard having been devalued by its over-use in the vocabulary of socio-technical utopianism. Our view is that such grand, transformative assessments of social change need to be treated with considerable care. For some, the contemporary information society and its positive consequences are taken for granted; for others it is a contested concept which requires detailed investigation (Mackay, 2001). [download]

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The 100 Greatest Business Ideas of All Time

The 100 Greatest Business Ideas of All Time 

By: Ken Langdon

A famous business aphorism has been applied to many companies. It goes ‘All their plans were unsuccessful, and all their successes were unplanned.’ Planned or unplanned, the ideas in this book have the common factor of ‘success’, sometimes simple but hugely significant (see the Biro Idea 57), sometimes hugely complicated ideas whose physical success did not lead immediately to financial reward (see Eurotunnel Idea 22). Thus our definition of success can be seen as wider than financial gain. Overwhelmingly, however, the famous, occasionally infamous, great business ideas have led to huge financial rewards to innovators (see Edison Idea 4) and shareholders (see Coca-Cola Idea 54). Perhaps the trickiest part of the title is the bit that says ‘of all time.’ There must have been a time before money Idea 39 was invented – and that, along with interest rates, really enabled almost all of the other ideas to be expressed and compared. [download]

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Strategic Management

Strategic Management 

By: Michael A. Hitt, R. Duane Ireland and Robert E. Hoskisson 

Declining market share, cost disadvantages relative to some competitors, increasing competition from firms in emerging economies such as China, a downgrade of its debt, and continuing increases in the costs of its health care programs.These are some of the most serious issues facing General Motors (GM). When thinking about today’s GM in terms of the issues it faces, one might wonder if it can get much worse. If nothing else, the status of this huge firm (with global sales of $193 billion in 2004) shows that “no company is too big to fail, or at last shrink dramatically.Not even mighty GM.”How did GM get itself into so much trouble? What can this huge company do to reverse its fortunes? Just how serious is the situation facing GM? To answer this question, consider the following facts. In mid-2005, GM was cash-flow negative,meaning that the firm was consuming more cash than it was earning by selling cars. [download]

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The Book of Bad Habits

The Book of Bad Habits 

By: Hawkins and Laube, MD.

There are people who claim they understand the dos and don’ts of social behavior. Not you or me, obviously, but prim and proper people, expert in those sorts of things, who spend their lives Considering under what circumstances it’s okay to eat French fries with your fingers. Then there are the rest of us. While not the experts, we each have opinions of what is and what isn’t socially acceptable. If you don’t believe me, just ask any two people you know whether it’s okay to spit on the sidewalk. You’ll get an answer for sure probably conflicting but you’ll get one  nonetheless. Regrettably, people don’t agree. Not even the experts. So, what is a bad habit you ask? Let’s start with the word bad, which means “unwelcome or unpleasant.” Next, the word habit, which means a “regular practice or tendency.” A bad habit, then, would be the regular practice or tendency of saying or doing something unwelcome or unpleasant. [download]

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The Blood That Bonds

The Blood That Bonds

By: Christopher Buecheler

Her name was Two, and she sometimes thought she could smell her death, blowing in from the cemetery that lay south of her building in East New York. Sometimes she even hoped for it. Stinking, muttering, moldering death. Cold and dark. On these occasions, she felt as if even the dirty embrace of the grave would be better for her than the squalor she lived in now. She thought, maybe, she might find some sort of peace that had been missing all her life. Darren owned her building, like he owned the girls who occupied it. Three stories tall, four rooms to a floor. They lived two to a room, two bathrooms per floor, two kitchens in the building. Just over twenty girls, every single one of them selling her body each night at his command. In return for the money they brought him, he gave them food. He gave them shelter. [download]

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The Awakening

The Awakening 

By: Shannon Drake

Megan was screaming. In the terrible reality that was happening, she heard her own voice. In the darkness, she knew the sense of a spiraling fear that threatened to become overwhelming, to smother her. She had a sense of fatality, and she saw the shadow figure, saw him entering the room. Adrenaline raced through her, desperation, the sense that she must move, must fight for survival. The sound continued it was all she heard and she screamed and screamed, knowing the deadly menace that had come to her. She knew, as well, that she had said something, done something, to precipitate what was happening. She knew each step as it occurred, the figure appearing, the fear, the terrible understanding of what was to come. She felt the violence as he came upon her, his touch upon her hair first, then her clothing, the blows against her as she resisted. [download]

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