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Books in Social sciences and humanities

  • National Economic Policies

    • 1st Edition
    • D. Salvatore
    • English
    This book presents an overview of national economic policies in the world's most important countries or groupings of countries. The purpose of the volume is to examine and compare the policies followed by different types of countries and study their effects. Although numerous studies have been published on how individual countries conduct economic policies, few if any comparative studies, such as the present one, have been issued.This volume will be of great use to students of comparative economic systems in general and to economists, policymakers, and the general informed public as a source of reference and comparison.
  • Law and Economics

    An Introductory Analysis
    • 2nd Edition
    • Werner Z. Hirsch
    • English
    This second edition takes into account the major developments in economics and jurisprudence that have occurred since the publication of the first edition. A new chapter has been added on anti-discrimination law and such topics as adverse possession, rent control, medical malpractice, product reliability, and defense against criminal prosecution have been reexamined in the light of new theoretical developments and case studies. Environmental law and a careful comparison of alternative methods to control the environment are included.
  • The Discourse of Negotiation

    Studies of Language in the Workplace
    • 1st Edition
    • A. Firth
    • English
    The study of negotiation has attracted considerable scholarly attention in recent decades, yet rarely have discourse analysts applied their particular concerns and interests to the phenomenon. Although a fundamental characteristic of negotiation is linguistic action, the detailed study of negotiation as a communicative, discourse activity is in its infancy. In the first collection of its kind, Alan Firth has brought together 14 original studies of negotiation discourse.Drawing on insights and methodologies from discourse and conversation analysis, pragmatics, ethnography and ethnomethodology, the book examines negotiations in a wide range of workplaces, including the US Federal Trade Commission, management-union meetings, doctors' surgeries, travel agencies, international trading houses in Denmark, Belgium and Australia, Swedish social welfare offices, and consumer helplines. Collectively, the book explores the notion of negotiation both as a formal encounter and as a gloss for more informal decision-making activities.Questions specifically addressed include: what is the interactional character of negotiation? How are negotiations related to the work context? And how are negotiations undertaken linguistically - as discourse-based activities? Answers are sought by utilising transcripts of real-life instances of negotiation. This allows for finely-detailed descriptions of the observed activities, providing important insight into the discourse-context relationship, the interactional bases of work acitivities, and the communicative processes of negotiation.
  • An Introduction to Business Accounting for Managers

    • 4th Edition
    • W. C. F. Hartley
    • English
    Now in its fourth edition, this book dispels much of the mystique surrounding accounting and finance for the non-financial manager. It will enable the reader to communicate more efficiently with financial advisers and help to enhance the quality of the financial decisions that managers have to make. It includes such topics as accounting for inflation, the significance of cash management and control and the development of accounting standards, many of which have not been treated in any single, recent, competitive work. This fully revised and updated version incorporates changes in current legislation and in attitudes towards financial analysis, the interpretation of annual accounts and the use of financial ratios, as well as a new chapter on capital investment appraisal.
  • Current Issues in Mathematical Linguistics

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 56
    • C. Martín-Vide
    • English
    The present volume contains some selected topics of current interest around the world in the mathematical analysis of natural language. The book is divided into four sections:- analytical algebraic models- models from the theory of formal grammars and automata, with interest mainly in syntax- model-theoretic concepts in semantics or pragmatics, and- a final section containing some applications in computational linguistics.The varied perspectives illustrated in the book confirm that Mathematical Linguistics has finally introduced scientific methods into a previously fuzzy field, through the use of mathematical reasoning. The text will contribute to a fruitful convergence between linguists, mathematicians, logicians, computer scientists, cognitive scientists and others interested in the formal treatment of natural language and the research of its properties.
  • Applied Iterative Methods

    • 1st Edition
    • Louis A. Hageman
    • English
    Applied Iterative Methods discusses the practical utilization of iterative methods for solving large, sparse systems of linear algebraic equations. The book explains different general methods to present computational procedures to automatically determine favorable estimates of any iteration parameters, as well as when to stop the iterative process. The text also describes the utilization of iterative methods to solve multidimensional boundary-value problems (such as discretization stencil, mesh structure, or matrix partitioning) which affect the cost-effectiveness of iterative solution procedures. The book cites case studies involving iterative methods applications, including those concerning only three particular boundary-value problems. The text explains polynomial acceleration procedures (for example, Chebyshev acceleration and conjugate gradient acceleration) which can be applied to certain basic iterative methods or to the successive overtaxation (SOR) method. The book presents other case studies using the iterative methods to solve monoenergetic transport and nonlinear network flow multidimensional boundary-value problems. The text also describes the procedures for accelerating basic iterative methods which are not symmetrizable. The book will prove beneficial for mathematicians, students, and professor of calculus, statistics, and advanced mathematics.
  • Price Expectations in Rising Inflation

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 152
    • I. Visco
    • English
    It is claimed in this book that expectations should not necessarily be treated as unobservable variables and that there is much to be learned from survey data. A unique data set is examined, the output of surveys conducted twice a year since 1952, among informed Italian businessmen and economic experts. The predictive accuracy, rationality and determinants of inflation expectations are investigated, following an extensive analysis of measurement issues.The estimate of inflation expectations are evaluated for both wholesale and consumer price changes, comparing them with those held by respondents to other surveys for different countries and with the forecasts generated by alternative predictors of the inflation process. The expectations considered in the study are shown to be remarkably accurate, anticipating all major price changes, even if during the years of high and rising inflation which have followed the first oil crisis they appear to underestimate on a number of occasions the inflation rates actually experienced, as the alternative predictors also do.An accurate testing of the rational expectations hypothesis is conducted, rejecting it over the entire sample period but not for the period of mild, but variable inflation which preceded the first oil crises.It is shown that a mixed adaptive-regressive model, with both error-learning and return-to-normality components adapts very well to the data considered in this study and that inflation expectations are also influenced by an uncertainty component which affects the adaptive coefficient. Furthermore, regression towards normality is slowed down when industrial capacity is utilized above normal, and vice-versa. Many other issues such as the dispersion of individual answers, the problems of aggregation and measurement error are also considered and an extensive bibliography of other works where use is made of direct information on expectations, is included.
  • Price Level Measurement

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 196
    • W.E. Diewert
    • English
    Among the theoretical issues covered in this volume are the "economic" and the "axiomatic" or "test" approaches to the problem of constructing and choosing among alternative cost-of-living index formulas; "bounds" and "econometric" alternatives for developing empirically computable approximations of theoretically desirable indexes; recommendations concerning the incorporation of leisure time in measures of the cost-of-living; and the formulation of social and group cost-of-living indexes. The Jorgenson-Slesnick paper also presents a far-reaching empirical study of price changes in the U.S.The importance of this book to those with an interest in economic theory is obvious. However, this book also holds out the opportunity and challenge to applied researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the index numbers of which they make daily use.
  • Neural Network PC Tools

    A Practical Guide
    • 1st Edition
    • Russell C. Eberhart
    • English
    This is the first practical guide that enables you to actually work with artificial neural networks on your personal computer. It provides basic information on neural networks, as well as the following special features:
  • Making Peace Possible

    The Promise of Economic Conversion
    • 1st Edition
    • Lloyd J. Dumas + 1 more
    • English
    In Making Peace Possible, the editors have presented a range of papers which focus on the theory and practice of economic conversion of military-oriented industry to civilian use. The book brings together a wealth of information from academic research and from case studies undertaken by individual countries and by the United Nations. Covering such diverse topics as the relationship between the level of armament expenditure in the industrialized countries and economic aid to less developed countries, the economic impact of ever-increasing expenditure on arms, and the theory and practical experience of economic conversion projects in the US and Scandinavia, Making Peace Possible shows that economic conversion from military to civilian use can help form the basis for a more peaceful and economically stable world.