Monday, May 16, 2011

Beyond DiMaggio: Italian Americans in Baseball

Beyond DiMaggio: Italian Americans in Baseball Review


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Beyond DiMaggio: Italian Americans in Baseball Feature

Berra, Rizzuto, Lasorda, Torre, Conigliaro, Santo, Piazza. Casual baseball fans—in fact, even many nonfans—know these names, not as Italian Americans, but as some of the most colorful figures in Major League Baseball. Ever since future Hall of Famer Tony Lazzeri became a key part of the Yankees’ Murderers’ Row lineup of 1926, Italian Americans have been among the most prominent and intriguing players in the game. The first comprehensive study of the topic, Beyond DiMaggio is also a social history of baseball, tracing the evolution of American perceptions toward those of Italian descent as it chronicles the baseball exploits that influenced those perceptions.


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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Codermetrics: Analytics for Improving Software Teams

Codermetrics: Analytics for Improving Software Teams Review


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Codermetrics: Analytics for Improving Software Teams Feature

How can you help your software team improve? This concise book introduces codermetrics, a clear and objective way to identify, analyze, and discuss the successes and failures of software engineers—not as part of a performance review, but as a way to make the team a more cohesive and productive unit.

Experienced team builder Jonathan Alexander explains how codermetrics helps teams understand exactly what occurred during a project, and enables each coder to focus on specific improvements. Alexander presents a variety of simple and complex codermetrics, and teaches you how to create your own.

  • Learn how codermetrics changes long-held assumptions and improves team dynamics
  • Get recommendations for integrating codermetrics into existing processes
  • Ask the right questions to determine the type of data you need to collect
  • Use metrics to measure individual coder skills and a team’s effectiveness over time
  • Identify the contributions each coder makes to the team
  • Analyze the response to your software and its features—and verify that you're meeting team and organizational goals
  • Build better teams, using codermetrics to make personnel adjustments and additions


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Saturday, May 14, 2011

The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital (Oxford Handbooks)

The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital (Oxford Handbooks) Review


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The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital (Oxford Handbooks) Feature

Macroeconomic research on human capital--the stock of human capabilities and knowledge--has been extensively published but to date the literature has lacked a comprehensive analysis of human capital within the organization. The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital has been designed to fill that gap, providing an authoritative, inter-disciplinary, and up to date survey of relevant concepts, research areas, and applications. Specially commissioned contributions from over 40 authors reveal the importance of human capital for contemporary organizations, exploring its conceptual underpinnings, relevance to theories of the firm, implications for organizational effectiveness, interdependencies with other resources, and role in the future economy. Unlike neoclassical macroeconomic concepts of human capital, human capital in organizations is shown to be dynamic and heterogeneous, requiring new theories and management frameworks. The systemic role of human capital is explored, revealing it as the lynchpin of social, structural and other forms of intangible and tangible capital. Connections between human capital and organizational performance are investigated from HR management, procurement, alignment, value appropriation, and accounting perspectives. Links between micro and macro perspectives are provided through analyses of inter firm human capital mobility, national and regional human capital formation regimes and industry employment relations practices.

This Handbook is designed for scholars and graduate students of organization and management theory, strategy, entrepreneurship, knowledge and intellectual capital, accounting, IT, HR, IR, economic sociology and cultural studies. For policy makers and practitioners it should provide an up to date guide to the nature and role of human capital in contemporary organizations and the roles that government, industry and other extra firm institutions can play in facilitating its development.


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Thursday, May 12, 2011

Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence

Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence Review


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Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence Feature

Praise for the First Edition

"This is the most usable decision support systems text ¿ [i]t is far better than any other text in the field¿" —Computing Reviews

Computer-based systems known as decision support systems (DSS) play a vital role in helping professionals across various fields of practice understand what information is needed, when it is needed, and in what form in order to make smart and valuable business decisions. Providing a unique combination of theory, applications, and technology, Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence, Second Edition supplies readers with the hands-on approach that is needed to understand the implications of theory to DSS design as well as the skills needed to construct a DSS.

This new edition reflects numerous advances in the field as well as the latest related technological developments. By addressing all topics on three levels—general theory, implications for DSS design, and code development—the author presents an integrated analysis of what every DSS designer needs to know. This Second Edition features:

  • Expanded coverage of data mining with new examples

  • Newly added discussion of business intelligence and transnational corporations

  • Discussion of the increased capabilities of databases and the significant growth of user interfaces and models

  • Emphasis on analytics to encourage DSS builders to utilize sufficient modeling support in their systems

  • A thoroughly updated section on data warehousing including architecture, data adjustment, and data scrubbing

  • Explanations and implications of DSS differences across cultures and the challenges associated with transnational systems

Each chapter discusses various aspects of DSS that exist in real-world applications, and one main example of a DSS to facilitate car purchases is used throughout the entire book. Screenshots from JavaScript® and Adobe® ColdFusion are presented to demonstrate the use of popular software packages that carry out the discussed techniques, and a related Web site houses all of the book's figures along with demo versions of decision support packages, additional examples, and links to developments in the field.

Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence, Second Edition is an excellent book for courses on information systems, decision support systems, and data mining at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. It also serves as a practical reference for professionals working in the fields of business, statistics, engineering, and computer technology.


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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Management: Current Practices and New Directions

Management: Current Practices and New Directions Review


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Management: Current Practices and New Directions Feature

Discover a management text unlike any other available today! Dyck/Neubert's MANAGEMENT: CURRENT PRACTICES AND NEW DIRECTIONS blends the strengths of two management perspectives to present the best of mainstream management fundamentals with a multistream perspective that focuses on issues today's millennial generation will face in their future careers. The authors' solid mainstream approach in each chapter addresses the traditional four main functions of management before closely examining progressive topics that other books only mention, such as social justice and concern for the natural environment. The authors build upon the multistream understanding that effective management balances a broad set of criteria, ranging from community enhancement and ecological sustainability to meaningful work and financial viability. Throughout the book, captivating stories from actual managers and leading organizations demonstrate managers making a difference. With a practical, hands-on focus, the book equips readers with the knowledge and theoretical tools to further their own decision-making abilities. Dyck/Neubert's unique blend of traditional management strengths and the best of multistream management theories and practices promises to educate, inspire, and empower readers now and throughout their management futures.


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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft

The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft Review


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The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft Feature

Forty years after Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Gay Talese launched the New Journalism movement, Robert S. Boynton sits down with nineteen practitioners of what he calls the New New Journalism to discuss their methods, writings and careers.

The New New Journalists are first and foremost brilliant reporters who immerse themselves completely in their subjects. Jon Krakauer accompanies a mountaineering expedition to Everest. Ted Conover works for nearly a year as a prison guard. Susan Orlean follows orchid fanciers to reveal an obsessive subculture few knew existed. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc spends nearly a decade reporting on a family in the South Bronx. And like their muckraking early twentieth-century precursors, they are drawn to the most pressing issues of the day: Alex Kotlowitz, Leon Dash, and William Finnegan to race and class; Ron Rosenbaum to the problem of evil; Michael Lewis to boom-and-bust economies; Richard Ben Cramer to the nitty gritty of politics. How do they do it? In these interviews, they reveal the techniques and inspirations behind their acclaimed works, from their felt-tip pens, tape recorders, long car rides, and assumed identities; to their intimate understanding of the way a truly great story unfolds.

Interviews with:
Gay Talese
Jane Kramer*
Calvin Trillin
Richard Ben Cramer*
Ted Conover*
Alex Kotlowitz*
Richard Preston*
William Langewiesche*
Eric Schlosser
Leon Dash
William Finnegan
Jonathan Harr*
Jon Krakauer*
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Michael Lewis*
Susan Orlean
Ron Rosenbaum
Lawrence Weschler*
Lawrence Wright*

* Search our online catalog to find other titles by these Vintage and Anchor Books authors.


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Monday, May 9, 2011

Contemporary Sport Management w/Web Study Guide-4th Edition

Contemporary Sport Management w/Web Study Guide-4th Edition Review


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Contemporary Sport Management w/Web Study Guide-4th Edition Feature

Contemporary Sport Management, Fourth Edition, provides students with an overview of the sport management by presenting extensive discussions of the foundational aspects of the profession and current topics from the field. This thoroughly revised edition brings enhanced content to students with a full-color format and an integrated online study guide. The text also discusses the significance of sport as an international social institution. Students will learn the relevance of sociological, cultural, historical, political, psychological, and legal concepts to the management of sport; the necessary professional skills and attitudes of sport managers; and ways in which the globalization of sport continues to affect sport management professions.

One of the top-selling textbooks in the field, the fourth edition retains many of its popular learning tools for students and also offers several key enhancements:

• Three new chapters covering sport management issues in youth and community sport, interscholastic sport, and the history of the sport business industry address the growing needs in the field.

• International sidebars and associated activities within each chapter have been updated, providing readers with fresh ideas regarding cultural differences in sport as well as the effects of the globalization of sport on the sport management profession.

• A historical timeline, now in every chapter, puts major events into context.

• New ethics and critical thinking sections expand on the chapter topics to help students develop the competencies to make sound decisions and become ethical and principled sport managers.

• A running glossary, chapter objectives, and end-of-chapter reviews help students understand key concepts and terms.

In addition, a new online study guide (OSG) provides multiple interactive learning experiences that assist students in retaining the information. Each chapter of the text includes several cross-references to the OSG, allowing students to take advantage of the following features:

• Job opportunity activities demonstrate the skills that prospective employers are seeking within particular sport settings.

• Web searches point students to the vast amount of information available online.

• Portfolio activities help students reflect on specific questions related to the critical thinking and ethics sections of each chapter. Upon completion, students will have constructed a portfolio of their reflections on issues they may face as future sport management professionals.

• Comprehension checks with interactive activities help students more fully understand and apply the concepts covered in each chapter.

• Quizzes help students ensure they have mastered the major concepts of each chapter.

Reorganized in a four-part format, Contemporary Sport Management, Fourth Edition, begins with an overview of the field and important historical aspects of the industry. Next, the attributes of an effective and professional sport manager and the relevance of managerial and leadership concepts applied to sport management are discussed. In the second part, readers learn about the major settings in which sport management professionals work today, including professional and amateur sport management sites, sport management agencies, and sport tourism venues. The third part offers information on key functional areas of sport management, such as sport marketing, sport communication, finance and economics in sport, and sport facility and event management. In the final part, readers examine current challenges in the profession, such as issues related to consumer behavior, law, sociology, globalization, and the importance of continuing sport management research.

The updated and enhanced fourth edition of Contemporary Sport Management offers a varied and dynamic learning package to assist readers in understanding the many opportunities and challenges in the sport management field. From historical foundations and future directions to current issues and professional skill sets, this popular textbook continues to inform and inspire up-and-coming professionals to have a positive influence on the management of sport.


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