Nanotechnologies, Hazards and Resource Efficiency : A Three-Tiered Approach to Assessing the Implications of Nanotechnology and Influencing its Development
Nanotechnology is frequently described as an enabling technology and 1 fundamental innovation, i.e. it is expected to lead to numerous innovative developments in the most diverse fields of technology and areas of app- cation in society and the marketplace. The technology, it is believed, has the potential for far-reaching changes that will eventually affect all areas of life. Such changes will doubtlessly have strong repercussions for society and the environment and bring with them not only the desired and intended effects such as innovations in the form of improvements to products, pr- esses and materials; economic growth; new jobs for skilled workers; relief for the environment; and further steps toward sustainable business, but also unexpected and undesirable side effects and consequences.
Nanofillers : Fabrication, characterization and applications of organic nanofillers
Explores the modifying effects of various nanofillers on mechanical and physical properties of polymer nanocomposites. Looking at the four basic aspects of processing, characterization, properties, and applications, it analyzes how their features can allow for innovative multifunction within industry. Covering design, production, and manufacture, this book focuses on meeting end-use requirements and the fabrication of materials. The importance of mindful design and the use of an appropriate synthesis method is the primary lens through which theory and practice are discussed. This volume looks at the various synthesis methods available for organic nanofillers and what characterizes them. Properties including mechanical, thermal, electrical, and tribological are thoroughly examined, along with the various computational techniques used to determine them. With important sustainable properties, nanofillers are essential to meeting the increasing demand for biodegradable and environmentally friendly materials. This book details the role nanofillers have to play in sustainability, alongside economic factors such as efficient manufacturing processes.
Myths, Narratives and the Dilemma of Managerial Support : Organizational learning as an alternative?
Alexander Dreiling investigates which information should be provided to management in order to prepare managers to make better decisions and act accordingly. Based upon Argyris' and Schön's theory of organizational learning, managers are continuously supplied with information on the basis of whether and how well they have achieved their objectives. If they detect a mismatch of expectations and outcomes, they can in turn adjust their actions. The author first introduces the learning concept, before he turns to developing a method which can be used in order to create “paradigmatically different” managerial reporting environments. The three case studies reveal application scenarios as well as limits of the method.
Myths of Social Media : Dismiss the Misconceptions and Use Social Media Effectively in Business
The use of social media as a business tool is dominated by falsehoods, fictions and fabrications. In Myths of Social Media, digital consultant Michelle Carvill and workplace psychologist Ian MacRae dismiss many of the most keenly-held misconceptions and instead, present the reality of social media best practice. Using helpful and instructive, sometimes entertaining and occasionally eye-watering examples of what you should and should not do, Myths of Social Media debunks the most commonly held myths and shows you how to use social media effectively for work and at work.
Mycorrhiza : State of the Art, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Eco-Function, Biotechnology, Eco-Physiology, Structure and Systematics
This third updated and revised edition emphasises strongly on genetics and molecular biology. It contains new chapters, which are written by the leading experts in their respective field of knowledge and expertise.Mycorrhizas are symbioses between fungi and the roots of higher plants. As more than 90% of all known species of plants have the potential to form mycorrhizal associations, the productivity and species composition and the diversity of natural ecosystems are frequently dependent upon the presence and activity of mycorrhizas. The biotechnological application of mycorrhizas is expected to promote the production of food while maintaining ecologically and economically sustainable production systems.
Mutual Funds For Dummies
With straightforward advice and plenty of specific fund recommendations, Eric Tyson helps you avoid fund-investing pitfalls and maximize your returns. This new edition covers the latest investment trends and philosophies, including factor investing, ESG investing, and online investing.
Mutual Funds : Fifty Years of Research Findings
"This book presents an outstanding wealth of information on mutual funds in a remarkably readable format. It is probably the most comprehensive work currently available on funds. The book sheds light on the numerous issues surrounding mutual fund performance and pricing and is an important resource for any serious investor."
Music as Intangible Cultural Heritage : Economic, Cultural and Social Identity
Our first contact with music is almost certainly in our childhood when our parents sing lullabies to us at bedtime. In a community where music is important, these songs are likely to be successfully transmitted from one generation to the next. This is similar to the concept of intangible cultural heritage and how it is transmitted.
Multi-Scale Approaches in Drug Discovery : From Empirical Knowledge to In silico Experiments and Back
Drug discovery is an expensive, time-consuming process and the modern drug discovery community is constantly challenged not only with discovering novel bioactive agents to combat resistance from known diseases and fight against new ones, but to do so in a way that is economically effective. Advances in both experimental and theoretical/computational methods envisage that the greatest challenges in drug discovery can be most successfully addressed by using a multi-scale approach, drawing on the specialties of a whole host of different disciplines. Multi-Scale Approaches to Drug Discovery furnishes chemists with the detail they need to identify drug leads with the highest potential before isolating and synthesizing them to produce effective drugs with greater swiftness than classical methods may allow. This significantly speeds up the search for more efficient therapeutic agents.
Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis :State of the Art Surveys
The handbook presents the most up-to-date discussions on well-established methodologies and theories in the field, while systematically surveying emerging fields in MCDA such as conjoint measurement, fuzzy preferences, fuzzy integrals, rough sets, etc. MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS is a valuable reference volume (more than 2000 references) for the field of decision analysis. It provides graduate students, researchers, and practitioners with a sweeping survey of MCDA theory, methodologies, and applications. It is a handbook that is particularly suitable for use in seminars in Decision Analysis, Decision Support, and Decision Theory.
Multi-objective Management in Freight Logistics : Increasing Capacity, Service Level and Safety with Optimization Algorithms
Multi-objective Management in Freight Logistics provides decision makers with new methods and tools to implement multi-objective optimization models in logistics. The book combines theoretical aspects with applications, showing the advantages and the drawbacks of adopting scalarization techniques, and when it is worthwhile to reduce the problem to a goal programming one. The book also shows applications where more than one decision maker evaluates the effectiveness of the logistic system and thus a multilevel programming approach is sought to attain meaningful solutions.
Multinational Enterprises, Foreign Direct Investment and Growth in Africa : South African Perspectives
How can Africa, the world’s most lagging region, benefit from globalisation and achieve sustained economic growth? Africa needs greater investment by Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) to improve competitiveness and generate more growth through positive spill-over effects. Despite the fact that Africa’s returns on investment averaged 29% since 1990, Africa has gained merely 1% of global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows. The challenge for African countries is how to be a more desirable destination for FDI. The study integrates three currents of economic research, namely from the literature on (endogenous) economic growth, convergence and regional integration, the explanations for Africa’s poor growth and the growing understanding of the role of MNEs in a global economy. The empirical side of the book is based on an econometric study of the determinants of FDI in Africa as well as a detailed firm-level survey conducted in 2000.
Multimedia security : Algorithm development, analysis and applications (algorithms for intelligent systems)
Provides an insight about various techniques used in multimedia security and identifies its progress in both technological and algorithmic perspectives. In the contemporary world, digitization offers an effective mechanism to process, preserve and transfer all types of information. The incredible progresses in computing and communication technologies augmented by economic feasibility have revolutionized the world. The availability of efficient algorithms together with inexpensive digital recording and storage peripherals have created a multimedia era bringing conveniences to people in sharing the digital data that includes images, audio and video. The ever-increasing pace, at which the multimedia and communication technology is growing, has also made it possible to combine, replicate and distribute the content faster and easier, thereby empowering mankind by having a wealth of information at their disposal.
Multilateralism, regionalism and bilateralism in trade and investment : 2006 World report on regional integration
The present first volume of the World Report on Regional Integration is a timely product of the research undertaken at UNU-CRIS. This new series of World Reports will certainly contribute to the discussion on the interaction between regional and global governance. And by bringing together insights from different parts of the UN system, in particular the five UN regional economic commissions and UNCTAD, this report will also contribute to a better understanding of the role of regions in the UN.
Multidisciplinary Scheduling : Theory and Applications ; 1st International Conference, MISTA '03 Nottingham, UK, 13-15 August 2003. Selected Papers
MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCHEDULING: Theory and Applications is a volume of nineteen reviewed papers that were selected from the sixty-seven papers presented during the First Multidisciplinary International Conference of Scheduling: Theory and Applications (MISTA). This is the initial volume of MISTA—the primary forum on interdisciplinary research on scheduling. Each paper in the volume has been rigorously reviewed and carefully copyedited to ensure the volume's readability. The book contains leading edge papers on the fundamentals of scheduling, multi-criteria objective scheduling, personnel scheduling, scheduling in space, scheduling the Internet, machine scheduling, bin packing, educational timetabling, sports scheduling, transport scheduling, aircraft scheduling, and heuristic and meta-heuristic scheduling
Multidisciplinary Methods for Analysis, Optimization and Control of Complex Systems
Consists of lecture notes of a summer school named after the late Jacques Louis Lions. The summer school was designed to alert both Academia and Industry to the increasing role of multidisciplinary methods and tools for the design of complex products in various areas of socio-economic interest.
Multidisciplinary Economics : The Birth of a New Economics Faculty in the Netherlands
Multidisciplinary economics deliberately uses the insights and approaches of other disciplines and examines what consequences their contributions have for existing economic methods, theories and solutions to economic problems. Multidisciplinary economists should be at home in their own discipline and meet the high international standards of economic teaching and research that the discipline has developed. At the same time they should be able to recognise the limits of economics and be willing to open up new horizons by following new, discipline-transcending paths on which new insights into the analysis and solutions of economic problems can be found in collaboration with representatives of other disciplines. As a result of this search, economic methods and theories may have to be adjusted in such a way that they take insights from other disciplines into account. They may even have to be replaced by methods and theories that have been developed by other disciplines.
Multidimensional Screening
The book brings into a focus all necessary mathematical knowledge necessary to understand the economics of multidimensional results screening and applies them straightaway to economic models. The first part of this book contains a review of vector calculus, the theory of partial differential equations, and the theory of generalized convexity. These techniques are extensively used in multidimensional screening models. Part II is devoted to the economics of sceening models. It starts with a detailed discussion of economics and mathematics of unidimensional screening problems and three approaches to their solution: direct, dual, and Hamiltonian. It uses the Hamiltonian approach to unify all known results, which were previously obtained using different arguments. Then the major difficulties with direct and dual approach in the multidimensional context are discussed and the Hamiltonian approach is used to provide the most complete characterization of the solution known in the literature.
Multidimensional Poverty Measurement : Concepts and Applications
Conceptualization and measurement of poverty have traditionally relied on purely economic approaches, with income or consumption as the only indicator. Multidimensional approaches have increasingly been used to understand poverty, but have yet to be fully operationalized. This book uses factor analysis and structural equations modeling to develop a multidimensional framework that integrates capability and social inclusion as additional poverty indicators. The empirical relevance of this methodological contribution is demonstrated through its application in the United States and Nepal. The proposed approach not only helps to identify different categories of the poor, but also to more accurately target resources and policies of poverty alleviation. The book will therefore be an important reference for professionals in development agencies as well as for poverty and policy researchers.
Multicriteria Scheduling : Theory, Models and Algorithms
Scheduling and multicriteria optimisation theory have been subject, separately, to numerous studies. Since the last twenty years, multicriteria scheduling problems have been subject to a growing interest. However, a gap between multicriteria scheduling approaches and multicriteria optimisation field exits. This book is an attempt to collect the elementary of multicriteria optimisation theory and the basic models and algorithms of multicriteria scheduling. It is composed of numerous illustrations, algorithms and examples which may help the reader in understanding the presented concepts. This book covers general concepts such as Pareto optimality, complexity theory, and general method for multicriteria optimisation, as well as dedicated scheduling problems and algorithms: just-in-time scheduling, flexibility and robustness, single machine problems, parallel machine problems, shop problems, etc.



















