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Elsevier

Books in Social sciences and humanities

  • Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity

    Foundations
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 1
    • Serge-Christophe Kolm + 1 more
    • English
    The Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism provides a comprehensive set of reviews of literature on the economics of nonmarket voluntary transfers. The foundations of the field are reviewed first, with a sequence of chapters that present the hard core of the theoretical and empirical analyses of giving, reciprocity and altruism in economics, examining their relations with the viewpoints of moral philosophy, psychology, sociobiology, sociology and economic anthropology. Secondly, a comprehensive set of applications are considered of all the aspects of society where nonmarket voluntary transfers are significant: family and intergenerational transfers; charity and charitable institutions; the nonprofit economy; interpersonal relations in the workplace; the Welfare State; and international aid.

  • Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity

    Applications
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 2
    • Serge-Christophe Kolm + 1 more
    • English
    The Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism provides a comprehensive set of reviews of literature on the economics of nonmarket voluntary transfers. The foundations of the field are reviewed first, with a sequence of chapters that present the hard core of the theoretical and empirical analyses of giving, reciprocity and altruism in economics, examining their relations with the viewpoints of moral philosophy, psychology, sociobiology, sociology and economic anthropology. Secondly, a comprehensive set of applications are considered of all the aspects of society where nonmarket voluntary transfers are significant: family and intergenerational transfers; charity and charitable institutions; the nonprofit economy; interpersonal relations in the workplace; the Welfare State; and international aid.

  • Funds of Hedge Funds

    Performance, Assessment, Diversification, and Statistical Properties
    • 1st Edition
    • Greg N. Gregoriou
    • English
    With about $450 billion in assets, funds of hedge funds are the most recent darling of investors. While hedge funds carry high risk for the promise of high returns they are designed for the very rich and for large institutional investors such as pension funds. A Fund of Hedge Funds (FOF) spreads investments among a number of hedge funds to reduce risk and provide diversification, while maintaining the potential for higher than average returns. Odds are that some pension fund of yours is invested heavily in these products, and more recently these FOFs have been opened to more and more individual investors in offshore jurisdictions with lower minimum entry levels. Since this is a new and extremely fast-moving financial phenomenon, academic research has just begun in earnest, and this is the first book to present rigorous academic research by some of the leading lights in academic finance, carefully analyzing the broad array of issues involved in FOFs.

  • Managing Enterprise Risk: What the Electric Industry Experience Implies for Contemporary Business

    • 1st Edition
    • Karyl B Leggio
    • English
    The increasing complexity of emerging business models and a growing societal concern with the integrity of financial reporting now leads to new emphases on accountability within large, publicly traded energy corporations. Managing Enterprise Risk: What the Electric Industry Experience Implies for Contemporary Business emphasizes the implications these issues have in the electric industry, a traditional infrastructure that underlies the digital society and now faces extraordinary environmental, regulatory, and technological uncertainties.

  • Handbook of Asset and Liability Management

    Theory and Methodology
    • 1st Edition
    • Stavros A. Zenios + 1 more
    • English
    This first volume of the Handbook of Asset and Liability Management presents the theories and methods supporting models that align a firm's operations and tactics with its uncertain environment. Detailing the symbiosis between optimization tools and financial decision-making, its original articles cover term and volatility structures, interest rates, risk-return analysis, dynamic asset allocation strategies in discrete and continuous time, the use of stochastic programming models, bond portfolio management, and the Kelly capital growth theory and practice. They effectively set the scene for Volume Two by showing how the management of risky assets and uncertain liabilities within an integrated, coherent framework remains the core problem for both financial institutions and other business enterprises as well.

  • Clocking the Mind

    Mental Chronometry and Individual Differences
    • 1st Edition
    • Arthur R. Jensen
    • English
    Mental Chronometry (MC) comprises a variety of techniques for measuring the speed with which the brain processes information.First developed in mid-1800, MC was subsequently eclipsed by more complex and practically useful types of psychometric tests stemming from Alfred Binet. This class of mental tests, however, has no true metric relating the test scores to any specific properties of the brain per se. The scores merely represent an ordinal scale, only ranking individuals according to their overall performance on a variety of complex mental tasks. The resulting scores represent no more than ranks rather than being a true metrical scale of any specific dimension of brain function. Such an ordinal scale, which merely ranks individuals in some defined population, possesses no true scale properties, possessing neither a true zero or equal intervals throughout the scale. This deficiency obstructs the development of a true natural science of mental ability. The present burgeoning interest in understanding individual differences in mental abilities in terms of the natural sciences, biology and the brain sciences in particular, demands direct measures that functionally link brain and behavior. One such natural ratio scale is time itself - the time it takes the brain to perform some elementary cognitive task, measured in milliseconds. After more than 25 years researching MC, Jensen here presents results on an absolute scale showing times for intake of visual and auditory information, for accessing short-term and long-term memory, and other cognitive skills, as a function of age, at yearly intervals from 3 to 80 years. The possible uses of MC in neurological diagnosis and the monitoring of drug effects on cognition, the chronometric study of special time-sensitive talents such as musical performance, and presents a theory of general intelligence, or g, as a function of the rate of oscillation of neural action potentials as measured by chronometric methods. Finally, Jensen urges the world-wide standardization of chronometric methods as necessary for advancing MC as a crucial branch of biopsychological science.

  • Multimedia Security Technologies for Digital Rights Management

    • 1st Edition
    • Wenjun Zeng + 2 more
    • English
    Security is a major concern in an increasingly multimedia-defined universe where the Internet serves as an indispensable resource for information and entertainment. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the technology by which network systems protect and provide access to critical and time-sensitive copyrighted material and/or personal information. This book equips savvy technology professionals and their aspiring collegiate protégés with the latest technologies, strategies and methodologies needed to successfully thwart off those who thrive on security holes and weaknesses. Filled with sample application scenarios and algorithms, this book provides an in-depth examination of present and future field technologies including encryption, authentication, copy control, tagging, tracing, conditional access and media identification. The authors present a diversified blend of theory and practice and focus on the constantly changing developments in multimedia applications thus providing an admirably comprehensive book.

  • Advances in Accounting

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 22
    • Philip M J Reckers
    • English
    The twenty-second volume of Advances in Accounting continues to provide an important forum for discourse among and between academic and practicing accountants on issues of significance to the future of the discipline. Emphasis continues to be placed on original commentary, critical analysis and creative research – research that promises to substantively advance our understanding of financial markets, behavioral phenomenon and regulatory policy. Technology and aggressive global competition have propelled tremendous changes over the two decades since AIA was founded. A wide array of unsolved questions continues to plague a profession under fire in the aftermath of one financial debacle after another and grabbling with the advent of international accounting standards. This volume of Advances in Accounting not surprisingly includes several articles reflective on auditor independence, auditor tenure, auditor rotation and non-audit service fees. This volume also looks at challenges facing the academic community with respect to pressures placed on faculty to publish; a data driven commentary is provided by the in-coming editor of the European Accounting Review. Other papers examine the use of financial data to estimate risk premiums, and measure the operating efficiency of firms; and re-examine market reaction to quarterly earnings. AIA continues its commitment to the global arena by publishing several papers with an international perspective. As never before the accounting profession is seeking ways to reinvent itself and recapture relevance and credibility. AIA likewise continues to champion forward thinking research.

  • Digital Libraries

    Integrating Content and Systems
    • 1st Edition
    • Mark V. Dahl + 2 more
    • English
    Low cost Internet technology has transformed library services by allowing libraries to play a creative and dynamic role in the delivery of information to their users. This book helps managers, systems personnel, and graduate students understand the challenges of providing digital library services with a number disparate content providers and software systems. It also helps readers understand what libraries must do to deliver a user experience customized to the needs of individual institutions.

  • Aircraft System Safety

    Military and Civil Aeronautical Applications
    • 1st Edition
    • Duane Kritzinger
    • English
    Demonstrating safety for the application of ever more complex technologies is a formidable task. System engineers often do not have the appropriate training, are unfamiliar with the range of safety approaches, tools and techniques, and their managers do not know when and how these may be applied and appropriately resourced. Aircraft system safety provides a basic skill set for designers, safety practitioners, and their managers by exploring the relationship between safety, legal liability and regulatory requirements. Different approaches to measuring safety are discussed, along with the appropriate safety criteria used in judging acceptability.A wealth of ideas, examples, concepts, tools and approaches from diverse sources and industries is used in Aircraft system safety to bring the theory of safety concisely together in a practical and comprehensive reference. Engineering students, designers, safety assessors (and their managers), regulatory authorities (especially military), customers and projects teams should find Aircraft system safety provides an invaluable guide in appreciating the context, value and limitations of the various safety approaches used in cost-effectively accomplishing safety objectives.

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