In a competitive world, research in manufacturing systems plays an important role in creating, updating and improving the technologies and management practices of the economy. This volume presents some of the most recent results in stochastic manufacturing systems. Experts from the fields of applied mathematics, engineering and management sciences review and substantially update the recent advances in the control and optimization of manufacturing systems. Recent Advances in Control and Optimization of Manufacturing Systems consists of eight chapters divided into three parts which focus on Optimal Production Planning, Scheduling and Improvability and Approximate Optimality and Robustness. This book is intended for researchers and practitioners in the fields of systems theory, control and optimization, and operation management as well as in applied probability and stochastic processes.

Product Description: This book explores the transformation that emerges when groups spread around the world working on similar issues collaborate rather than compete. A collaboratory is a facilitated space where stakeholders meet to discuss burning societal issues...read more

Product Description: DECISIONS focuses on how organizations can improve decision-making processes to improve organizational performance in a global economy.   Presents research related to problems associated with meeting requirements, schedules, and costs Defines the scope of macro and micro decisions Raises the issue of the role of engineering, manufacturing, and marketing in making organizational decisions Includes references to Peter Drucker’s studies on decision-making...read more

10 cassettes / 16.5 hoursRead by Jonathan MaroszUnabridgedAlso available abridged on cassette and CDIn the latest installment of The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice summons up dazzling worlds to bring us the story of Armand - eternally young, with the face of a Botticelli angel. Armand, who first appeared in all his dark glory more than twenty years ago in the now-classic Interview with the Vampire, the first of The Vampire Chronicles, the novel that established its author worldwide as a magnificent storyteller and creator of magical realms.Now, we go with Armand across the centuries to the Kiev Rus of his boyhood - a ruined city under Mongol dominion - and to ancient Constantinople, where Tartar raiders sell him into slavery. And in a magnificent palazzo in the Venice of the Renaissance we see him emotionally and intellectually in thrall to the great vampire Marius, who masquerades among humankind as a mysterious, reclusive painter and who will bestow upon Armand the gift of vampiric blood.As the novel races to its climax, moving through scenes of luxury and elegance, of ambush, fire, and devil worship to nineteenth-century Paris and today's New Orleans, we see its eternally vulnerable and romantic hero forced to choose between his twilight immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.

Product Description: Business thinking skills that really work Better creative thinking leads to brilliant decision making and successful, innovative solutions to business problems. Using the proven practical skills, techniques and advice in this book, you will learn how to think better, faster and more productively, enabling you to shape, train and inspire your thinking to deliver more effective results...read more

Product Description: The authors of the Freakonomics books on using data over emotion to answer questions have turned what theyve learned into a readable and practical toolkit for thinking smarter harder and different

Product Description: Discover the best approaches for making business decisions Today's business leaders have to face the facts—you can't separate leadership from decision making. The importance of making decisions, no matter how big or small, cannot be overstated...read more

Product Description: Problem solving tools to solve any business challenge.   Using proven, innovative techniques from some major players in the business world, this is the go-to book for every professional who wants to find better answers to their business challenges.

Product Description: The mastery of certain skills can only help students succeed in all areas of life, no matter what they do or where they do it. Problem solving is among the most important of these life skills. This book is a comprehensive examination of problem-solving hurdles students may encounter, both in the classroom and on the job site...read more

Product Description: It's Not About the Shark opens the door to the groundbreaking science of solutions by turning problems―and how we solve them―upside down. When we have a problem, most of us zero in, take it apart, and focus until we have it solved...read more

Product Description: Work organizations can lose their fitness and become sick, just as people can. Just like people, they may become both physically and behaviourally sick; physically sick when plant and equipment breaks down or the money runs out; behaviourally sick when the resources are badly managed or the staff become alienated...read more

The traditional attitude toward creativity in the American business world is to �think outside the box �: to brainstorm without restraint in hopes of coming up with a breakthrough idea, often in moments of crisis. Sometimes it works, but it's a problem-specific solution that does nothing to engender creative thinking more generally.Inside the Box demonstrates Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT), a method that systemizes creativity as part of the corporate culture. SIT requires thinking �inside the box,� working in one's familiar world to create new ideas independent of specific problems. Dozens of books discuss how to make creative thinking part of a corporate culture, but none takes the innovative and unconventional approach of Inside the Box. SIT's techniques and principles have instilled creative thinking into such companies as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and other industry leaders. Inside the Box shows how corporations have successfully used SIT in business settings as diverse as medicine, technology, new product development, and food packaging. With �inside the box � thinking, companies of any size can become sufficiently creative to solve problems even before they develop and to innovate on an ongoing basis.

Product Description: At last, a clinician’s guidebook to prescription dilemmas. Psychotropic medications prescribed to treat mental disorders have become increasingly commonplace over the past half century, but the decision-making process for doing so continues to lack real clarity...read more

The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more.Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak.Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you'll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they're from Nigeria.Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak:First, put away your moral compass—because it's hard to see a problem clearly if you've already decided what to do about it.Learn to say "I don't know"—for until you can admit what you don't yet know, it's virtually impossible to learn what you need to.Think like a child—because you'll come up with better ideas and ask better questions.Take a master class in incentives—because for better or worse, incentives rule our world.Learn to persuade people who don't want to be persuaded—because being right is rarely enough to carry the day.Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting—because you can't solve tomorrow's problem if you aren't willing to abandon today's dud.Levitt and Dubner plainly see the world like no one else. Now you can too. Never before have such iconoclastic thinkers been so revealing—and so much fun to read.

Product Description: Over the last decade, the field of socio-emotional development and aging has rapidly expanded, with many new theories and empirical findings emerging. This trend is consistent with the broader movement in psychology to consider social, motivational, and emotional influences on cognition and behavior...read more