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Understanding Media and Culture
by Jack LuleAccording to Jack Lule, the world did not need another introductory text in mass communication. But the world did need another kind of introductory text in mass communication, and that is how Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication was birthed.
Ruby Under a Microscope
by Pat ShaughnessyRuby is a powerful programming language with a focus on simplicity, but beneath its elegant syntax it performs countless unseen tasks.
Ruby Under a Microscope gives you a hands-on look at Ruby’s core, using extensive diagrams and thorough explanations to show you how Ruby is implemented (no C skills required). Author Pat Shaughnessy takes a scientific approach, laying out a series of experiments with Ruby code to take you behind the scenes of how programming languages work.
You’ll even find information on JRuby and Rubinius (two alternative implementations of Ruby), as well as in-depth explorations of Ruby’s garbage collection algorithm.
Ruby Under a Microscope will teach you:–How a few computer science concepts underpin Ruby’s complex implementation–How Ruby executes your code using a virtual machine–How classes and modules are the same inside Ruby–How Ruby employs algorithms originally developed for Lisp–How Ruby uses grammar rules to parse and understand your code–How your Ruby code is translated into a different language by a compilerNo programming language needs to be a black box.
Whether you’re already intrigued by language implementation or just want to dig deeper into Ruby, you’ll find Ruby Under a Microscope a fascinating way to become a better programmer. Covers Ruby 2.x, 1.9 and 1.8
CK-12 Advanced Probability and Statistics
by Ck-12 FoundationCK-12 Foundation's Advanced Probability and Statistics FlexBook covers the following chapters: An Introduction to Analyzing Statistical Data - Students learn definitions of statistical terminology, and review data, measures of center, and measures of spread. Visualizations of Data - histograms and frequency distributions, common graphs and data plots, and box-and-whisker plots. An Introduction to Probability - events, sample spaces, probability, compound events, the complement of an event, conditional probability, and basic counting rules. Discrete Probability Distribution - random variables, probability distribution for a discrete random variable, mean and standard deviation of discrete random variables and the Binomial Probability Distribution. Normal Distribution - standard normal probability distribution, the density curve of the normal distribution, and applications of the normal distribution. Planning and Conducting an Experiment or Study - surveys, sampling and experimental design. Sampling Distributions and Estimations - sampling distributions and the Central Limit Theorem. Hypothesis Testing - The P-value, testing a proportion hypothesis, testing a mean hypothesis, and testing a hypothesis for dependent and independent samples. Regression and Correlation - scatterplots and linear correlation, Least-Squares regression, inferences about regression, and an introduction to multiple regression. Chi-Square- the Goodness-of-Fit test, test of independence, and testing one variance. Analysis of Variance and the F-Distribution - the F-Distribution and testing two variances, the One-Way ANOVA test, and the Two-Way ANOVA test. Non Parametric Statistics - nonparametric statistics, the rank sum test and rank Correlation, and the Kruskal-Wallis test.
International Business
by Mason A. Carpenter and Sanjyot P. DunungInternational Business is one of the most challenging and exciting courses to teach in the Business School. To teach a current, dynamic and complete course you need a textbook by authors as passionate and informed about International Business as you are. Carpenter and Dunung's International Business: The Opportunities and Challenges of a Flat World provides exploration into building, leading, and thriving in global organizations in an increasingly flat world. The authors define "Flat world" as one where (1) service industries that dwarf manufacturing industries in terms of scale and scope, (2) an Internet that pervades life and work, and (3) networks define modern businesses, whether service or manufacturing. Carpenter and Dunung's text is designed to speak to technologically-savvy students who see national borders as bridges and not barriers. The authors use the lexicon of international business, and additionally, develop students' knowledge of international contexts with the aim that they may launch, run, and work in any organization that is global in scope (or is wrestling with global competition or other global threats).
Developing New Products and Services
by G. Lawrence SandersThe focus of the book is on the up-front activities and ideas for new product and service development. A central theme of this book is that there is, or should be, a constant struggle going on in every organization, business, and system between delivering feature-rich versions of products and services using extravagant engineering and delivering low-cost versions of products and services using frugal engineering. Delivering innovative products is accomplished by an endless cycle of business planning, creative and innovative insight, and learning-about and learning-by-doing activities. A number of powerful concepts and tools are presented in the book to facilitate new product development. For example, three templates are presented that facilitate new product and service development. The FAD (features, attributes, and design) template is used to identify the features and attributes that can be used for product and service differentiation. The Ten-Ten planning process contains two templates: an Organizational and Industry Analysis template and the Business Plan Overview template. These two templates coupled with the FAD template can be used to develop a full-blown business plan. Entrepreneurship, technology and product life cycles, product and service versioning, product line optimization, creativity, lock-in real options, business valuation, and project management topics are also covered.
CK-12 Trigonometry
by Ck-12 FoundationCK-12 Foundation's Trigonometry FlexBook covers the following chapters: Trigonometry and Right Angles - introduction to the trigonometric functions. Circular Functions - introduction to radian measure, circular functions and periodic functions. Trigonometric Identities - confirm, verify and derive various trigonometric identities. Inverse Functions and Trigonometric Equations - inverse functions to trigonometric functions, and will apply the domain, range and quadrants of the six inverse trigonometric functions to evaluate expressions. Triangles and Vectors - introduction to vectors and vector applications. Polar Equations and Complex Numbers - plot points in a polar coordinate system, graph and recognize limaçons and cardiods, and work with real-world applications involving polar coordinates and polar equations.
Business Law and the Legal Environment
by Don Mayer and Daniel M. Warner and George J. Siedel and Jethro K. LiebermanMayer, Warner, Siedel and Lieberman's Business Law and the Legal Environment is an up-to-date textbook with comprehensive coverage of legal and regulatory issues -- and organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. The authors take special care to engage students by relating law to everyday events with which they are already familiar with their clear, concise and readable style. Business Law and the Legal Environment provides students with context and essential concepts across the entire range of legal issues with which managers and business executives must grapple. The texts provide the vocabulary and legal acumen necessary for business people to talk in an educated way to their customers, employees, suppliers, government officials -- and to their own lawyers.
Principles of Management
by Mason Carpenter and Talya Bauer and Berrin ErdoganPrinciples of Management by Carpenter, Bauer and Erdogan teaches management principles to tomorrow's business leaders by weaving three threads through every chapter: strategy, entrepreneurship and active leadership. Strategic: All business school teachings have some orientation toward performance and strategy and are concerned with making choices that lead to high performance. Principles of Management will frame performance using the notion of the triple bottom-line the idea that economic performance allows individuals and organizations to perform positively in social and environmental ways as well. The triple bottom line is financial, social, and environmental performance. It is important for all students to understand the interdependence of these three facets of organizational performance. The Entrepreneurial Manager: While the General Management course at Harvard Business School was historically one of its most popular and impactful courses (pioneered in the 1960s by Joe Bower), recent Harvard MBAs did not see themselves as general managers. This course was relabeled 'The Entrepreneurial Manager' in 2006, and has regained its title as one of the most popular courses. This reflects and underlying and growing trend that students, including the undergraduates this book targets, can see themselves as entrepreneurs and active change agents, but not just as managers. By starting fresh with an entrepreneurial/change management orientation, this text provides an exciting perspective on the art of management that students can relate to. At the same time, this perspective is as relevant to existing for-profit organizations (in the form intrapreneurship) as it is to not-for-profits and new entrepreneurial ventures. Active Leadership: Starting with the opening chapter, Principles of Management show students how leaders and leadership are essential to personal and organizational effectiveness and effective organizational change. Students are increasingly active as leaders at an early age, and are sometimes painfully aware of the leadership failings they see in public and private organizations. It is the leader and leadership that combine the principles of management (the artist's palette, tools, and techniques) to create the art of management. Cases: Mason provides brief cases in his Instructors Manual for those who take a case approach to the course or who wish to incorporate cases. This book's modular format easily maps to a POLC course organization (Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling, attributed to Henri Fayol (1949, General and industrial management. London. Pitman Publishing company), and suits the needs of most undergraduate or graduate course in Principles of Management.
General Chemistry
by Bruce Averill and Patricia EldredgeThe overall goal of the authors with General Chemistry: Principles, Patterns, and Applications was to produce a text that introduces the students to the relevance and excitement of chemistry. Although much of first-year chemistry is taught as a service course, Bruce and Patricia feel there is no reason that the intrinsic excitement and potential of chemistry cannot be the focal point of the text and the course. So, they emphasize the positive aspects of chemistry and its relationship to students’ lives, which requires bringing in applications early and often. In addition, the authors feel that many first year chemistry students have an enthusiasm for biologically and medically relevant topics, so they use an integrated approach in their text that includes explicit discussions of biological and environmental applications of chemistry. Topics relevant to materials science are also introduced to meet the more specific needs of engineering students.
Principles of Microeconomics Version 2.0
by Libby Rittenberg and Timothy TregarthenFlat World Knowledge is honored to publish Version 2.0 (an orginal re-launch) of Tim Tregarthen's wonderful principles of microeconomics book, and proud to bring Tim's incredible talents as a teacher back to life so future generations of students can continue to learn from him.
Financial Accounting
by Joe Ben Hoyle and C. J. SkenderThis book is suitable for an undergraduate or MBA level Financial Accounting course. If authorship matters (and we believe it is everything) then this book is destined to be a classic. There are no two better authors than these. Joe Ben Hoyle is co-author of two current market-leading advanced accounting textbooks with McGraw-Hill. He and and co-author CJ Skender are nationally recognized as master teachers. Both have won numerous teaching awards, and both were recently recognized by BusinessWeek as top undergraduate professors. The authors bring their collective teaching wisdom to bear in this book not by changing "the message"(financial accounting content), but by changing "the messenger" (the way the content is presented). The approach centers around utilizing the Socratic method, or simply put, asking and answering questions. The reason that this approach continues to be glorified after thousands of years is simple - it engages students and stresses understanding over memorization. So this text covers standard topics in a standard sequence, but does so through asking a carefully constructed series of questions along with their individual answers.
Risk Management for Enterprises and Individuals
by Etti Baranoff and Patrick Lee Brockett and Yehuda KahaneThis book is intended for the Risk Management and Insurance course where Risk Management is emphasized. When we think of large risks, we often think in terms of natural hazards such as hurricanes, earthquakes or tornados. Perhaps man-made disasters come to mind such as the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. Typically we have overlooked financial crises, such as the credit crisis of 2008. However, these types of man-made disasters have the potential to devastate the global marketplace. Losses in multiple trillions of dollars and in much human suffering and insecurity are already being totaled, and the global financial markets are collapsing as never before seen. We can attribute the 2008 collapse to financially risky behavior of a magnitude never before experienced. The 2008 U.S. credit markets were a financial house of cards. A basic lack of risk management (and regulators' inattention or inability to control these overt failures) lay at the heart of the global credit crisis. This crisis started with lack of improperly underwritten mortgages and excessive debt. Companies depend on loans and lines of credit to conduct their routine business. If such credit lines dry up, production slows down and brings the global economy to the brink of deep recession or even depression. The snowballing effect of this failure to manage the risk associated with providing mortgage loans to unqualified home buyers have been profound, indeed. When the mortgages failed because of greater risk- taking on the Street, the entire house of cards collapsed. Probably no other risk-related event has had, and will continue to have, as profound an impact world wide as this risk management failure. How was risk in this situation so badly managed? What could firms and individuals have done to protect themselves? How can government measure such risks (beforehand) to regulate and control them? These and other questions come to mind when we contemplate the consequences of this risk management fiasco. Standard risk management practice would have identified sub-prime mortgages and their bundling into mortgage-backed-securities as high risk. People would have avoided these investments or would have put enough money into reserve to be able to withstand defaults. This did not happen. Accordingly, this book may represent one of the most critical topics of study that the student of the 21st century could ever undertake. Risk management will be a major focal point of business and societal decision making in the 21st century. A separate focused field of study, it draws on core knowledge bases from law, engineering, finance, economics, medicine, psychology, accounting, mathematics, statistics and other fields to create a holistic decision-making framework that is sustainable and value- enhancing. This is the subject of this book.
CK-12 Probability and Statistics (Basic)
by Ck-12 FoundationAn open source textbook on probability and statistics.
Elementary Algebra
by John ReddenIt is essential to lay a solid foundation in mathematics if a student is to be competitive in today's global market. The importance of algebra, in particular, cannot be overstated as it is the basis of all mathematical modeling used in applications found in all disciplines. Traditionally, the study of algebra is separated into a two parts, Elementary and Intermediate Algebra. This textbook by John Redden, Elementary Algebra, is the first part written in a clear and concise manner, making no assumption of prior algebra experience. It carefully guides students from the basics to the more advanced techniques required to be successful in the next course.
Law of Commercial Transactions
by Don Mayer and Daniel M. Warner and George J. Siedel and Jethro K. LiebermanMayer, Warner, Siedel and Lieberman's Law of Commercial Transactions is an up-to-date textbook that covers legal issues that students who engage in commercial transactions must understand. The text is organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. The authors take special care to engage students by relating law to everyday events with their clear, concise and readable style.
CK-12 Chemistry
by Ck-12 FoundationCK-12 Foundation's Chemistry FlexBook Covers the following chapters: The Science of Chemistry- scientific method, history, matter, energy. Chemistry: A Physical Science- measurement, formulas. Chemistry in the Laboratory- qualitative vs. quantitative observation. The Atomic Theory- atomic model from Dalton to Rutherford. The Bohr Model of the Atom- electromagnetic radiation, atomic spectra & Bohr model. Quantum Mechanics Model of the Atom- energy and standing waves, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Schrödinger's equation. Electron Configurations for Atoms- electron spin, Aufbau principle. Electron Configurations and the Periodic Table- relation of electron configuration to position on the periodic table. Relationships Between the Elements- chemical families from electron configuration; valence electrons, Lewis dot formulas. Trends on the Periodic Table- periodic trends: atomic size. Ions and the Compounds They Form- ionization, ionic bonding. Writing and Naming Ionic Formulas- predicting charge. Covalent Bonding- nature and naming of covalent bonds. Molecular Architecture- polar molecule, electronic/ molecular models of covalent molecules. Chemical Reactions- mass & mole calculations, reaction types. Mathematics and Chemical Equations- stoichiometry, heat of reaction. The Kinetic Molecular Theory- gas properties, combined and universal gas laws. The Liquid State- phase change. The Solid State- intermolecular forces. Solution Process- solvation, concentration, solubility, colligative properties. Ions in Solution- dissociation, electrolytes, non-electrolytes, ionic/ net-ionic equations. Chemical Kinetics- reaction rate. Chemical Equilibrium- reaction rates, equilibrium constant, Le Chatelier's principle, solubility product constant. Acids and Bases- strength of acids & bases, hydrolysis, pH. Water, pH, and Titration- dissociation of water, acid-base indicators, buffers. Thermodynamics- bond breaking and formation, heat of reaction and formation, Hess' law, entropy, Gibb's free energy. Electrochemistry- oxidation-reduction, electrochemical cells. Nuclear Chemistry- radioactivity, nuclear equations/ energy. Organic Chemistry- hydrocarbons, functional groups.
Human Relations
by Laura Portolese DiasHuman Relations by Laura Portolese-Dias addresses all of the critical topics to obtain career success as they relate to professional relationships. Knowing how to get along with others, resolve workplace conflict, manage relationships, communicate well, and make good decisions are all critical skills all students need to succeed in career and in life. Human Relations book isn't an organizational behavior text, but it provides a good baseline of issues students will deal with in their careers on a day-to-day basis. This book is also not a professional communications book, business English, or professionalism book, as the focus is much broader--on general career success and how to effectively maneuver in the workplace.
Essentials of Geographic Information Systems
by Jonathan Campbell and Michael ShinEssentials of Geographic Information Systems integrates key concepts behind the technology with practical concerns and real-world applications. Recognizing that many potential GIS users are non-specialists or may only need a few maps, this book is designed to be accessible, pragmatic and concise. Essentials of Geographic Information Systems also illustrates how GIS is used to ask questions, inform choices and guide policy. From the melting of the polar ice caps to privacy issues associated with mapping, this book provides a gentle, yet substantive, introduction to the use and application of digital maps, mapping and GIS.
Personal Finance
by Rachel Siegel and Carol YachtPersonal Finance by Rachel Siegel and Carol Yacht is a comprehensive Personal Finance text which includes a wide range of pedagogical aids to keep students engaged and instructors on track. If you would like to hear Rachel talk about her book, and the Personal Finance course listen here to her podcast. This book is arranged by learning objectives. The headings, summaries, reviews, and problems all link together via the learning objectives. This helps instructors to teach what they want, and to assign the problems that correspond to the learning objectives covered in class. Personal Finance includes personal finance planning problems with links to solutions, and personal application exercises, with links to their associated worksheet(s) or spreadsheet(s). In addition, the text boasts a large number of links to videos, podcasts, experts' tips or blogs, and magazine articles to illustrate the practical applications for concepts covered in the text. Finally, the modular nature of the chapters lends itself to the Flat World Knowledge publishing model allowing instructors to adapt the textbook to the exact needs of their specific class and student body.