A Theory of Marketing : Outline of a Social Systems Perspective
Marketing has become one of the most influential forces in contemporary market economies. Yet despite ubiquitous empirical presence, uncountable textbook definitions, and sixty years of scholarly work, a coherent sociological understanding of this powerful concept is still amiss. Drawing on Luhmannian social systems theory, historical analysis, and four qualitative studies, the author theorizes on the marketing function as a self-contained system of communications. It is argued that marketing systems prosper within a host organization if and as long as they successfully influence observers' preferences towards particular brands. On these conceptual foundations a comprehensive brand- and communication-centered theory is developed that fulfills Alderson', Cox' and Bartels' foundational requirements for a general theory of marketing in an unprecedented way.
A Testers Guide to .NET Programming
A Tester's Guide to .NET Programming focuses solely on applied programming techniques for testers. You will learn how to write simple automated tests, enabling you to test tools and utilities. You will also learn about the important concepts driving modern programming today, like multitier applications and object-oriented programming. More businesses are adopting .NET technologies, and this book will equip you to assess software robustness and performance. Whether you're an experienced programmer who's unfamiliar with testing concepts, or you're an experienced tester versed in VB .NET and C#, the included real-world tips and example code will help you start your projects.
A Syrian Cultural Center in Germany
أهداف المشروع : 1- تعريف الجيل الجديد على الحضارة والثقافة السورية وتطوراتها. 2- بقاء السوريين على تواصل تراث وحضارة سوريا. 3- تأمين مكان للطلاب والباحثين السوريين للعمل على مشاريع وأعمال فكرية وابداعية تخدم التعريف بالثقافة السورية.
A Story of Islamic Art
The book also provides a detailed introduction, maps, timeline, glossary, and guides for further reading. This book offers accessible answers to key questions in the scholarship on Islamic art and architecture from its earliest times to the present. The issues dealt with in each of the stories include iconography, attitudes towards representation, the role of script, the elaboration of geometric decoration, the creation of sacred and secular spaces in architecture, and the socio-cultural context of art production and consumption.
A software process model handbook for incorporating peoples capabilities
Offers the most advanced approach to date, empirically validated at software development organizations. This handbook adds a valuable contribution to the much-needed literature on people-related aspects in software engineering. The primary focus is on the particular challenge of extending software process definitions to more explicitly address people-related considerations. The capability concept is not present nor has it been considered in most software process models. The authors have developed a capabilities-oriented software process model, which has been formalized in UML and implemented as a tool. A Software Process Model Handbook for Incorporating People's Capabilities guides readers through the incorporation of the individual’s capabilities into the software process. Structured to meet the needs of research scientists and graduate-level students in computer science and engineering, A Software Process Model Handbook for Incorporating People's Capabilities is also suitable for practitioners in industry.
A Singular Introduction to Commutative Algebra
Aims to lead a further stage in the computational revolution in commutative algebra. Another feature of the book is its breadth of coverage of theoretical topics in the portions of commutative algebra closest to algebraic geometry, with algorithmic treatments of almost every topic.
A Short Dictionary of Furniture : Containing Over 2,600 Entries That Include Terms and Names Used in Britain and the USA
Contains 2,612 entries and over 1,000 illustrations, reproduced from contemporary sources and from drawings by Ronald Escott, Marcelle Barton and Maureen Stafford. 6 sections: the first and second concern the description and design of furniture, the third contains the entries, the fourth gives a list of furniture makers in Britain and North America, section five records books and periodicals on furniture and design and the concluding section sets out in tabular form the periods with the materials used, and types of craftsmen employed from 1100 to 1950.
A Short Course in Soil–Structure Engineering of Deep Foundations, Excavations and Tunnels
A Short Course in Soil-structure Engineering of Deep Foundations, Excavations and Tunnels, focuses on the three major geotechnical challenges of static soil-structure interaction problems. Deep foundations - piles, barrettes, Multi-propped deep excavations and Bored and open face tunnels beneath cities. This book gives both students and practising civil engineers an authoritative review of the state-of-the-art of designing deep foundations, excavations and tunnels. In addition, the case studies and numerical modelling presented will give valuable insights into the challenges of soil-structure engineering.
A Short Course in Geology for Civil Engineers
Explains the process of ground formation - what it is made of and how it behaves as an engineering material. This enables the civil engineer to work from a few first principles to determine if the ground is an asset or a hazard. It focuses on the tectonic plate mechanisms that give rise to the geology of our planet and describes the way these create hazards such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. The authors state that groundwater can be both a resource and a hazard and through this book they provide an overview of the origins of geomaterials.
A Short Course in Foundation Engineering
Although there are now a large number of computer programmes for solving all sorts of foundation design problems, the need to check these outputs by 'hand-calculation' has become vitally important. This book concentrates on getting the fundamentals right and then using them in practical applications. The book is illustrated with numerous worked examples and with quick-reference tables and charts.
A Sea Change: The Exclusive Economic Zone and Governance Institutions for Living Marine Resources
A Sea Change in a Changing Sea The oceans, seas and coastal areas encompass over 70% of the earth’s surface. They are a critical driver of the earth’s hydrologic cycle and climate system, important for c- merce, transport, and tourism, a source of economically important living marine resources, minerals such as hydrocarbons, as well as new pharmaceutical compounds. The marine environment provides essential habitats for thousands of marine living 1 2 resources, which in turn contribute significantly to global food security, employment, 3 and trade. Overall, the sea’s contribution to human welfare, in terms of market and non-market resources and environmental services, has been estimated at US$21 trillion/year (Costanza, 2000). However, despite the importance of the ocean realm to humans, there is a growing sense that human impacts are destabilizing this system. Some experts believe that current fishing levels are approaching or exceeding the total 4 productivity of the ocean ecosystem (National Research Council, 1999).
A Rosicrucian Utopia in Eighteenth-Century Russia : The Masonic Circle of N.I. Novikov
The author undertakes an investigation into the history of Russian Freemasonry that has not been attempted previously. Her premise is that the Russian Enlightenment shows peculiar features, which prevent the application of the interpretative framework commonly used for the history of western thought. The author deals with the development of early Russian masonry, the formation of the Novikov circle in Moscow, the ‘programme’ of Rosicrucianism and the character of its Russian variant and, finally, the clash between the Rosicrucians and the State. The author concludes that the defenders of the Ancien Régime were not wrong. In fact the democratic behaviour, the critical attitude, the practice of participation, the freedom of thought, the tolerance for the diversity, the search for a direct communication with the divinity.
A rose armed with thorns : Spinoza’s Philosophy under a novel lens
Presents a systemic analysis of Spinoza’s philosophy and challenges the traditional views. It deals with Spinoza’s concepts of substance, truth conditions, attributes, and the first, second, and supreme grades of knowledge. Based upon an analysis of the relevant details in all of Spinoza’s philosophical works, reveals many important points, including the following: Spinoza’s system is not, nor is meant to be, a foundational-deductive system but was meant to be a coherent system of a network model. Spinoza’s reality is not made in the image of a mathematical model. Imaginatio, the first grade of knowledge, and ratio, the second grade, are parts or properties of the supreme grade of knowledge, scientia intuitiva, which is their essence.
A Roadmap for Formal Property Verification
Develops the answers to these questions and fits them into a roadmap for formal property verification – a roadmap that shows how to glue FPV technology into the traditional validation flow. A Roadmap for Formal Property Verification explores the key issues in this powerful technology through simple examples – you do not need any background on formal methods to read most parts of this book.
A Risk-Benefit Perspective on Early Customer Integration
Customer integration in the early innovation phase has been considered the method of choice in theory and practice. Growing experience with the concept has shown unexpected side effects that may even outweigh its recognized advantages. Therefore, management needs to be able to assess in advance whether the involvement of customers will add overall value to each particular innovation project. To support but not to replace the final managerial decision, a mathematical formula is developed. It can be applied to all kinds of process structures, takes into account the risks and benefits contingent on a company's situation as well as risk-reducing and benefit-increasing measures and translates them into numerical values. The resulting figure indicates the prospective value of customer integration in a specific project.
A proposed model for predicting financial Loss of private conventional and Islamic banks in Syria
This study aimed to find a model consisting of a set of financial ratios in which each ratio has its own weight that indicate its importance to predict probability of financial loss of conventional and Islamic banks in Syria. The early prediction warns the concerned parties that they can intervene and take corrective actions before the collapses of bank. To achieve this ratios of conventional and Islamic Syrian banks were analyzed using Binary logistic regression from the period of 2011-2020 The statistical results show that the logistic regression model is accurate to predict the probability of a financial loss in conventional banks about 82.2%, 81.3%, 80.1%, 78% before 90 days ,180 days, 270 days, one year respectively. We can generally use five variables (Non-performing debt, return on equity, size, growth rate and financing portfolio ratio) in bank's financial loss prediction, but for Islamic banks, no significant values were shown so we can’t find logistic regression model is accurate for Islamic banks.
A Prodigy of Universal Genius : Robert Leslie Ellis, 1817-1859
Written by a diverse team of experts, the chapters in the book’s first part contain in-depth examinations of, among other things, Ellis’s family, education, Bacon scholarship and mathematical contributions. The second part consists of annotated transcriptions of a selection of Ellis’s diaries and correspondence. Taken together, A Prodigy of Universal Genius: Robert Leslie Ellis, 1817–1859 is a rich resource for historians of science, historians of mathematics and Victorian scholars alike.
A primer on theoretical soil mechanics
A Primer to Theoretical Soil Mechanics is about adapting continuum mechanics to granular materials. The field of continuum mechanics offers many fruitful concepts and methods, however there is declining interest in the field due to its complex and fragmented nature. This book's purpose is therefore to facilitate the understanding of the theoretical principles of soil mechanics, as well as introducing the new theory of barodesy.
A Primer on Environmental Decision-Making: an integrative quantitative approach
Integrates decision-making and environmental science. For ecologists it will bridge the gap to economics. For practitioners in environmental economics and management it will be a major reference book. It probably contains the largest collection available of expressions and basic equations that are used in environmental sciences. Applying these expressions as "rules-of-thumb" will give participants in a decision-making process a common platform for discussion and arbitration.
A Practical Guide to TPM 2.0 : Using the New Trusted Platform Module in the New Age of Security
A Practical Guide to TPM 2.0: Using the Trusted Platform Module in the New Age of Security is a straight-forward primer for developers. It shows security and TPM concepts, demonstrating their use in real applications that the reader can try out. Simply put, this book is designed to empower and excite the programming community to go out and do cool things with the TPM. The approach is to ramp the reader up quickly and keep their interest.A Practical Guide to TPM 2.0: Using the Trusted Platform Module in the New Age of Security explains security concepts, describes the TPM 2.0 architecture, and provides code and pseudo-code examples in parallel, from very simple concepts and code to highly complex concepts and pseudo-code.



















