Rand McNally Commercial Atlas & Marketing Guide, 1998 (129th ed)

Customer Reviews:

rand mcnally atlas.......2000-03-25

Excellent atlas. A lot of information. Covers almost anything from population to colleges. Very useful for sales reps and high and college students.

Book Description

With contributions from leading experts in the field, this comprehensive and timely book presents the principles and guidelines for effective accountability for states, colleges, and universities. Achieving Accountability in Higher Education clarifies the concept of accountability for both public and private colleges and universities and explores its reaches and limits. The book examines the most recent developments, offers current models for each of the major approaches to accountability, and analyzes their shortcomings.

Customer Reviews:

More Confusion about HE Accountability.......2005-08-11

It is hard to tell who the intended audience is for this anthology. Although it is written by a bunch of highly placed HE policy wonks nearing retirement, a clear picture of 'accountability in higher education' fails to emerge after reading it. This is probably due to the fact that the theoretical construct used throughout to bring coherence to the balkanization of higher education (the "Accountability Triangle" whose vertices are the public, the academic, and the needs of the market) lacks substance.

The problem is how to reconcile this approach with the long and complex history of HE institutions in this country, their accreditation, the politics of student assessment, rising expectations, skyrocketing tuition costs and federal funding, and whatever else it is that makes understanding higher education so difficult. The Accountability Triangle doesn't come close to helping us.

The historical and cultural context is arguably far more complex, and this, it seems to me, constitutes the book's greatest weakness. Rather than understanding the dynamics of credential inflation spiral that keeps accelerating (Randall Collins jokes that some day soon you will be required to have a Ph.D. in physics just to flip burgers), and the Weberian nightmare of "McDonaldization of higher education," the rhetorical structures that undergird the construct of HE -- and the debates about education generally -- go unrecognized and unnoticed. These weaknesses are particularly evident in the discussion of standardized testing and mass student assessment, all of which are strangely divorced from the explosion of knowledge we know as the sociology of education.

The result, as one could imagine, is something that is probably as far from the classroom (...) as you can get.

Due to its bias toward 4 year and graduate institutions, and its relative neglect of 2 year and vocational colleges, which serve disproportionately larger constituencies, the overview of HE is subtly distorted by the book. In addition, it is astonishing that, at this late date, there is no mention of the "achievement gap" among minorities that is so glaringly apparent at the local level. I guess the news of the shameful carnage on the ground, especially here in the South, hasn't yet reached the authors high up in their Ivory Towers.

There are, as well, some small errors: federally guaranteed student loans and grants now amount to greater than $70 billion, not $60 billion each year [cf. WSJ, Aug 1, 2005, A9], and the gatekeeping role of accrediting agencies solidified with the institutional "reliability" provisions of the Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952, and not the earlier G.I. Bill.

On the other hand, the book does describe the alphabet soup of programs, standardized tests, student and alumni surveys, and institutional studies that have been conducted, and the approaches and policy decisions that spawned them. There is background information and brief explanations of the myriad options available to the enterprising bureaucratic or HE administration official that wants to make a name for himself or herself. But the fact that the book is stuffed from beginning to end with acronyms, generally known only to the experts, it not in itself a good thing. It may even be an indication of the need to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch.

To the good, there are substantial bibliographic resources to these content areas (pages 325-347), and the index is quite well done. But on the whole, the book arrives at very few firm conclusions (that are not somehow mired in educator rhetoric), and it advocates very little, leaving this reader to conclude that things must be worse than they seem.

Very Good.......2004-12-28

I have read *lots* of higher education books and articles, ranging from the dry and stale (history of colleges) to the irrelevant (Review of Higher Education) to the over-researched (student affairs and development). Ironically, the topics covered in this book will have a more profound impact on higher education than anything ever written in the areas listed above.

This book is clearly written, can be understood by those outside of higher education (and maybe even by professors!), and adequately covers the complex accountability enviornment.

How much bang for the buck.(Achieving Accountability in Higher Education: Balancing Public, Academic, and Market Demands)(Book Review) : An article from: Community College Week

Average customer rating:

How much bang for the buck.(Achieving Accountability in Higher Education: Balancing Public, Academic, and Market Demands)(Book Review) : An article from: Community College Week
Charles Pekow
Manufacturer: Cox, Matthews & Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Community College Week, published by Cox, Matthews & Associates on March 28, 2005. The length of the article is 1279 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: How much bang for the buck.(Achieving Accountability in Higher Education: Balancing Public, Academic, and Market Demands)(Book Review)
Author: Charles Pekow
Publication: Community College Week (Newspaper)
Date: March 28, 2005
Publisher: Cox, Matthews & Associates
Volume: 17 Issue: 17 Page: 21(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Manufacturers are continuously searching for solutions to their seemingly never-ending inventory, delivery, cost, productivity, quality, and profit woes. Progressive Manufacturing: Managing Uncertainty While Blazing a Trail to Success provides powerful, cutting-edge, common-sense solutions to these and other perennial problems faced by most organizations. The book delineates the three keystones essential to achieving any significant degree of success — people, products or services, and processes. It presents thought-provoking ideas and methods for simplifying processes at every level.

Soli Engineer explores topics that are instrumental to achieving success, but are often avoided, such as work breakdown structure and improvement curve theory, and explains "how to" and "how not to" approaches to production and inventory management. This book provides innovative techniques that take you beyond the tried and true to achieve real operational success and increased profits. It is a must-read for operations, production, and supply chain professionals.

Key Features:
• Challenges unfounded comparisons between MRP (a procedure) and JIT, Kanban, and TQM (philosophies)
• Clarifies a key interface between engineering and manufacturing — the Product Data Management (PDM) system
• Provides innovative methods for using bills of material to improve productivity and multiple ways to reduce lead times and inventory
• Emphasizes the vital ingredients for achieving success and the dangers of ignoring one or more of them
• WAV offers free downloadable cost roll-up exercises, learning and improvement curve tools, and Powerpoint slides describing how to effectively establish and achieve improvement objectives — available from the J. Ross Publishing Web Added Value Download Resource Center

Customer Reviews:

best darn book.......2005-03-01

This is the best darn book I've read in a very long time. It is easy to read, flows well, and is pertinent to all walks of life, not just manufacturing. Kudos to the author, he has a superb command of the language, and brings humor & honesty to a topic that could easily be dull. His no-nonsense approach to manufacturing, and life in general, is refreshing.

Amazon.com

Ian Mitroff, consultant and business policy professor, believes that organizations (and even entire societies) fail to resolve their most pressing predicaments because they commonly start out by addressing the wrong problems. Smart Thinking for Crazy Times: The Art of Solving the Right Problems outlines his well-reasoned approach to turning that ill-fated scenario around by learning--right from the beginning--how to ask correct questions. In three clearly defined sections, he describes ways to gain understanding of the real problem, avoid solving the wrong one, and adopt "systems thinking" to manage for the future. --Howard Rothman

Customer Reviews:

Asks the right questions.......2003-07-28

The book's impact was made at the end of the first chapter. There I read Critical Questions and tried to answer them. These weren't questions about the material I had just read, but questions about me and my organization and how we deal with problems. Subsequently, the end of each chapter brought more questions to work on.

The book focuses on the problem solving process and the search for the real problem. Many management books solve predefined problems, which are good books, as long as you're sure you've picked the right problem.

The book is a quick read, interspersed with graphics that illustrates the text. Part 3 of the three part book delves into systematic thinking and touches on Jungian analysis, personality types, 5 Ways of Thinking, and even 12-Step programs.

As the saying goes, "Identifying a problem is half way to solving a problem." This book will help you find the right problem.

A Solid Effort!.......2001-05-08

In this book, Ian Mitroff attacks problem-solving by defining the first step: asking the right questions. He shows you how to use critical thinking skills to find the right problems, frame them correctly and implement appropriate solutions to solve or resolve them.

This book is thoughtful and well-organized, just as you might hope it would be since it teaches critical thinking. It is also well-written and well-illustrated, featuring numerous diagrams that illuminate better ways of thinking. Mitroff includes examples of well-known companies which have made major mistakes that cost millions of dollars because they failed to recognize the right problem in time. He also gives examples of companies that succeeded through improved critical thinking and problem identification. We [...] recommend this interesting book to all business problem-solvers.

Brevity and lack of focus hide a couple of good ideas.......1999-05-24

About the first 1/3 of this book is a good, if brief introduction to systems-based problem-solving. The book focuses on taking a broad view of all aspects of the problem, not on a highly-analytical breaking-down of a situation. This is fine, though not earth-shatteringly good or original. Unfortunately, the middle half of the book is an unfocused meandering about the contributions of Hollywood to violence in society, and then to the problems faced in managing nuclear weapons. The last part of the book has a fairly good discussion of the four basic Jungian personality types, and how personality type affects problem-solving. This is pretty good stuff, but it is about the length of a magazine article. Not a worthless book, but not a particularly good value for your money.

5 thinking strategies for group problem solving.......1998-04-10

Mitroff's book offers a refreshingly fast walkthrough of the complexity of problem-solving. Scorning the usual breathless introductions about how fast things change, Mitroff focuses hard on 5 ways we confound ourselves when trying to address problems with ourselves or with others. I found the first two sections, on how to formulate problems, and how we choose (the wrong) stakeholders highly illuminating. The exercises were significantly difficult and useful, because they required real-life application, they did not simulate it. A limited amount of philosophy on aspects of cognitive science and psychology made the work feel as grounded in academia as it feels in business and professional contexts.

Average customer rating:

NOT a fabric floral applique, alot ribbon embellishments

So-So

Fancy Applique'

Fancy Applique: 12 Lessons to Enhance Your Skills
Elly Sienkiewicz
Manufacturer: C&T Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Applique | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Needlework | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Quilts & Quilting | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Best of Baltimore Beauties: 95 Patterns for Album Blocks and Borders

Applique 12 Easy Ways!: Charming Quilts, Giftable Projects, and Timeless Techniques

Baltimore Beauties and Beyond: Studies in Classic Album Quilt Applique, Vol. 1

Baltimore Elegance: A New Approach to Classic Album Quilts

The Best of Baltimore Beauties, Part 2: More Patterns for Album Blocks

ASIN: 1571200622

Book Description

Each exercise in this excellent instructional book encourages playful exploration that will broaden any needleworker's stitching horizons. The twelve sequential lessons provide for two unique Fancy Sampler Quilts that contain fifty different blocks. All techniques needed to replicate them are shown and explained, including cutaway and reverse cutaway appliqu, needleturn, nondecorative stitches, stumpwork, scenery blocks, and state-of-the-art methods for making perfect points, inside corners, and smooth curves.

Elly Sienkiewicz is a quiltmaker, teacher, and the author of Baltimore Beauties and Beyond and many other best-selling crafts books. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Customer Reviews:

NOT a fabric floral applique, alot ribbon embellishments.......2004-09-28

I had thought the book would contain much more on appliqued fabrics for flowers, birds etc. What was given was many forms of appliqued hearts, and a few other background applique projects to show off ribbon applique/embroidery. In that, I was very disapointed, by ordered online.

But if you want the book for those ideas and projects, it is excellent.

My seller was TOPS! Couldn't ask for beter.

So-So.......2000-02-05

More embellishment then Applique. Beautiful illustrations

Fancy Applique'.......1999-11-30

I am very impressed by the format that Elly Sienkiewicz used in her book of "Fancy Applique'". The novice sewer to the professional quiltmaker can learn something. It's simple to read, step-by-step instruction in how to begin each block makes the sewer feel more and more confident as she/he proceeds through the twelve lessons. The first lesson teaches the basic steps of setting up the block for applique', to teaching each stitch that is used for that block. As you proceed though the lessons, each block will teach a new technique and additional stitches to make the person feel more confident. The novice can take this book and learn to become a master in applique', the professional can take this book and teach classes in fancy applique'. Each lesson provides a detailed list of all supplies needed to complete each block, until you have enough beautiful blocks to make a quilt anyone would love to have.

Book Description

Written for corporate officers and attorneys, this handbook details every critical step of the entire IPO process. Beginning with the basic step of deciding if an IPO is right for a particular company and progressing through each subsequent stage, this manual explains such critical issues as pre-IPO financing, choosing an underwriter, conducting due diligence, filing a registration statement, complying with securities laws, and getting a company's shares listed on an exchange. In addition to this IPO launch information, many of the forms needed for each stage of going public are provided. Also includes specific information to help companies going public in varying economic climates.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent book on growing your company and raising money.......2003-10-27

Great book! This is a very comprehensive book that spells out everything a business person needs to know to grow their company and go public. Also covers private placements, marketing and business plans. Basically it covers everything you need to know from the begining of the business until you sell it or have an IPO. I reccomend it highly!

Book Description

The book presents a broad view on the nature of intelligent decision-making which is characterized by the use of models and methods in the framework of decision support for management. Contributions to this volume dedicated to Paul Stähly on the occasion of his 65th birthday include theoretical research and applications in optimization, operations research as well as decision support and management systems.

Book Description

After decades of neglect, health care for Americans became a part of social policy in the 1960s, only to fall increasingly under the influence of market-driven theorists and commerce-oriented caregivers.

Rashi Fein, Professor of Economics of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former senior staff member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, warns that the American health care insurance system is in jeopardy and calls for its reform. In Medical Care, Medical Costs: The Search for a Health Insurance Policy, Fein argues that the quest for efficiency in the delivery of health care services must be joined with a concern for equity in their distribution and that we need policies informed by long-held values, traditions, and experiences in the shaping of medical care delivery.

Average customer rating:
Businesses search for options as costs continue to rise: dental access networks emerge as an alternative to insurance plans.(Special report: health care)(rising ... An article from: San Diego Business Journal
Michael Grossman
Manufacturer: CBJ, L.P.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B0008DYQIG
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from San Diego Business Journal, published by CBJ, L.P. on July 28, 2003. The length of the article is 994 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Businesses search for options as costs continue to rise: dental access networks emerge as an alternative to insurance plans.(Special report: health care)(rising cost of health care for employers)
Author: Michael Grossman
Publication: San Diego Business Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 28, 2003
Publisher: CBJ, L.P.
Volume: 24 Issue: 30 Page: 15(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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