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Concepts in Federal Taxation 2004 (Concepts in Federal Taxation)
Kevin E. Murphy , and Mark Higgins Manufacturer: South-Western Educational Publishing ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0324186797 |
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Concepts in Federal Taxation 2004
Kevin E.; Higgins, Mark Murphy Manufacturer: South-Western Educational Publishing ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: B000OUBKBO |
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Emotional Intelligence In Action: Training and Coaching Activities for Leaders and Managers
Marcia M. Hughes , L. Bonita Patterson , and James Bradford Terrell Manufacturer: Pfeiffer ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0787978434 |
Book Description
Emotional Intelligence in Action shows how to tap the power of EI through forty-six exercises that can be used to build effective emotional skills and create real change. The workouts are designed to align with the four leading emotional intelligence measures—EQ-I® or EQ-360™, ECI 360, MSCEIT™, and EQ Map®, —or can be used independently or as part of a wider leadership and management development program. All of the book’s forty-six exercises offer experiential learning scenarios that have been proven to enhance emotional intelligence competencies.Download Description
Emotional Intelligence in Action shows how to tap the power of EI through forty-six exercises that can be used to build effective emotional skills and create real change. The workouts are designed to align with the four leading emotional intelligence measures ;EQ-I; or EQ-360;, ECI 360, MSCEIT and EQ Map; or can be used independently or as part of a wider leadership and management development program. All of the book's forty-six exercises offer experiential learning scenarios that have been proven to enhance emotional intelligence competencies.Customer Reviews:
Tool Kit for Facilitators and EQ Coaches.......2007-05-29
EQ Starter Book for Coaches.......2007-02-12
Not worth the money.......2007-01-24
Best user-friendly manual yet.......2006-11-02
Full of valuable leadership information.......2006-08-13
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International Institutional Law: Unity Within Diversity
Henry G. Schermers , and Niels M. Blokker Manufacturer: Brill Academic Publishers ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 9004138285 |
Book Description
The current decade has been characterized by a resurgence of interest in the law of public international organizations. This fourth, revised edition of International Institutional Law covers the most recent developments in the field. Although public international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Union have broadly diverging objectives, powers, fields of activity and numbers of member states, they share a wide variety of institutional problems. In this study, the law of individual organizations is not described separately. Instead the book offers a comparative analysis of the institutional law of international organizations. It includes comparative chapters on the rules and practices concerning, for example, membership, decision-making, financing, legal order, supervision and sanctions, legal status and external relations. The book has been designed to appeal to both academics and practitioners.
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A Practical Guide to Lightcurve Photometry and Analysis (Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series)
Brian D. Warner Manufacturer: Springer ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
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ASIN: 0387293655 |
Book Description
The Practical Guide to Lightcurve Photometry and Analysis provides those with access to even a modest telescope and a CCD camera the background and detailed steps to take part in important astronomical research. Readers learn about the joint projects in which they can take part, as well as the techniques of gathering, analyzing, and then publishing their data. The primary market for this book is amateur astronomers, but undergraduate students will also find its easy going friendly style ideal for help with their studies in this subject. There is of course more to lightcurve photometry than simply taking pictures. For the results to be of value, the data must be gathered and processed in certain ways so that it is both meaningful and can be used by others for analysis. The book contains enough background material (theory) for the reader to understand – and avoid – the pitfalls in the process. More important, there are detailed examples provided for hpw to obtain data and, for many, the more exciting and rewarding effort of analyzing the data to determine various properties of the object being studied. Under "choosing the right software," the author looks critically at the commercially-available packages, providing screen shots and useful advice. Amateur astronomers who wants to go beyond mere imaging with a CCD camera will find everything ithat they need in the book to take a step into ‘real’ science.Customer Reviews:
Excellent publication.......2007-02-07
Great Introduction to Photometry.......2006-12-04
quick intro to photometry.......2006-08-11
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Appropriate Paper-Based Technology (APT): A Manual
Bevill Packer Manufacturer: Practical Action ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: 1853392685 |
Book Description
A comprehensive survey of the technologies for making a wide range of products from chessmen to armchairs, from trays to solar cookers, using paper. It is a revised and updated edition of the Appropriate Paper-based Technology (APT).This edition includes additional models and extra pages of color photographs, and special supplements on APT in the service of disabled people.
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Bamboo-reinforced concrete rainwater collection tanks: A project of Community-Based Appropriate Technology and Development Services in Thailand (Working paper / A.T. International)
Thomas B Fricke Manufacturer: A.T. International ProductGroup: Book Binding: Unknown Binding ASIN: B0006ECZ7G |
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The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science
Steven Mithen Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0500281009 |
Amazon.com
Try an experiment: take a passenger along on a brief car trip--a jaunt to the supermarket, say. Have a nice conversation while you're driving, and take a scenic route. Now, the next day, try to reconstruct the details of both the conversation and the trip. Chances are, unless something unusual happened along the way, that your memory of both will be indistinct, for we tend to forget the mundane--an example of what the cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett calls "rolling consciousness with swift memory loss."Steven Mithen, an archaeologist with an interest in psychology, believes that just such a consciousness obtained among early humans when they went foraging for food or made tools. The evolution of higher, more memory-laden consciousness, he continues, occurred only as a result of a cognitive trick that doubtless involved some trial and error. The trick, simply put, was to guess what the social behavior of some member of one's social group might be in a given circumstance--to step outside one's own mind, in other words, and enter another's. This guesswork underlies the famed cave paintings of Altamira, an attempt to predict the behavior of migratory animals. It underlies as well another experiment: the development of agriculture, with the requisite predicting of how plants and animals might behave under a wide range of conditions.
Mithen's reconstruction of the ancestral human mind, laid out in a clear and accessible narrative, is a fine intellectual adventure. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Here is an exhilarating intellectual performance, in the tradition of Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Steven Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions: Were our brains hard-wired in the Pleistocene Era by the needs of hunter-gatherers? When did religious beliefs first emerge? Why were the first paintings made by humankind so technically accomplished and expressive? What can the sexual habits of chimpanzees tell us about the prehistory of the modern mind? This is the first archaeological account to support the new modular concept of the mind. The concept, promulgated by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, views the mind as a collection of specialized intelligences or "cognitive domains," somewhat like a Swiss army knife with its specialized blades and tools. Arguing that only archaeology can answer many of the key questions raised by the new concept, Mithen delineates a three-phase sequence for the mind's evolution over six million years--from early Homo in Africa to the ice-age Neanderthals to our modern modular minds. Here is an intriguing and challenging explanation of what it means to be human, a bold new theory about the origins and nature of the mind.Customer Reviews:
Very Good.......2006-09-20
Swiss Army Knife, Cathedral Or Tree Of Knowledge?.......2004-06-24
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it from cover to cover. The only caveat I have with it is that occasionally Mithen's arguments are not soundly based in logic. Often, he'll make a statement saying if A then B, but he'll never say why B. Often he'll make statements that if we observe this behavior then we know that this is true, because "...that is what we expect..." and he'll never back up or explain how if that is so then why is it expected?
There are many leaps of faith here, the ultimate is at the end of the book where he claims that the entire work now thwarts any argument that the mind had a supernatural origin, even though he only invested perhaps a sentence or two on this bold statement and presented no arguments to support it. I am always amazed when scientists do that. They often do not support their materialist, atheistic conclusions with any scientific evidence, argument or experiment. All they do is describe a possible scenario for how reality works, which we expect science itself will eventually expand on or delete as antiquated anyway. Who's to say a supernatural force didn't design the very system Mithen describes, or natural selection, punctuated equilibrium, etc; simply because these scientists' concepts of spirituality, religion and deity are not themselves very developed.
Just because evolution is self-perpetuating, does it mean that this isn't an ideal system that a supernatural mind would come up with? A metaphor is in order: an embryo grows in spite of the fact that the father withdrew his penis from the womb a long time before. Does that make the father unreal? This idea somehow escapes the scientific mind. Scientists need to use scientific method to examine why a supernatural force did not design his own hypothetical system, or leave it alone in agnostic obscurity. Often scientists attack other people's "concepts" of deity and not deity itself and then claim that they have taken down the whole, when nothing of the sort occurred. And, of course, this is unscientific. I am thinking straw man here.
There are too many ifs when that assortment of problems is questioned. For example, if our brains evolved in an atmosphere of Machiavellian intrigue, and the natural tendency would be to go with gravity, would a deity knowing that forbidding man from consuming the metaphorical fruit is nothing more than cross-domain fluidity? Would telling them not to do it insure that they would, and in doing so set the stage for the creation of a nation through and by the function of evil? It takes an understanding of Genesis and Mithen to ask such a question. One can still believe that religion could be an unintended accident or it could be hard-wired, inevitability or a cause, and we are right where we left off. Mithen hypothesized what was there, how evolving minds reacted but not what instigated them. And when reading Mithen, holding these limitations in mind, he nevertheless, has a lot of interesting things to say.
A brave effort, generally persuasive but a bit vague.......2003-12-17
Mithen writes that the use of metaphor and analogy is the most significant feature of the human mind. He has to rely on metaphor and analogy to convey some of the ideas in this book. While his speculations are generally persuasive, they often rest on a frustratingly vague substrate. Mithen's epilogue on the origin of agriculture, being better founded on evidence, is more specific. The book is illustrated with numerous diagrams, some of them too schematic to be scientifically useful.
Great.......2003-01-31
Mithen's point is that to fully understand the modern mind and its origins, psychology, cognitive science, philosophy and neuroscience are not enough (these are the classical fields, theres of course sociology, AI, etc...) but that archeology has something to add as well. In fact, as he shows, it is a fundamentlal piece of the puzzle to understand the archeological history of primates in order to see what that has to say about the changes the mind went through across evolution. When others might have focused on language, and its origins, Mithen focuses on the actual evidence: bone remains, ancient tools, etc.
Mithen thus divides the evolution of man and his mind in stages, four of them, starting with the common ancestor of man and ape, about 6 million years ago, then with H. Habilis, then H. Erectus and the Nearthentals and finally with, well, us, or Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Mithen basically argues that the mind and its evolution can be understood on the context of the modularity-workspace models of the mind, and that changes in the mind across evolution are simply changes in the interactions (and appearence, existence, use or disuse) of these mental modules and the workspace (which he calls general intelligence). The modules are natural history intelligence, technical intelligence, Social intelligence and language.
This approach works well, and for example, shows that the difference between say, an ape (the model for our common ancestor) and a Nearthental, mindwise, is just that while the ape has general intelligence, well developed social intelligence (apes live in groups and interact a lot), their technical and natural intelligences are rather poor (they struggle to build tools, to say the least). Language is, although this point is controversial, absent. The nearthantal, with his natural and technical intelligence almost as developed as his social intelligence (they migrated, had hunting strategies, knew to forage well, built "complex" tools) and language, would have a much more complex or closer to modern mind. This example is an oversimplification of course, but examplifies Mithens strategy adequately. In similar fashion, Mithen describes the differences and reasons for these differences, in the minds of primates, hominids, and finally man, as well as the gradual change from ape-mind to human-mind.
Things in the book, and theoretically, get interesting when H. Sapiens arrives. The difference is not only on how developed the modules or the workspace is, but how these interact. So, the modern mind is what it is because natural science intelligence say, can interact with language and with social and technical intelligence as well. Thus men might want to depict animals (natural) on walls by drawing them (technical) for social purposes. Thus the origins of art. In a similar way, religion appeared. The appearance of pathways across modules and general intelligence, building a meta-workspace, argues Mithen, is the cause of the cultural explotion, of the modern mind. This is again oversimplified, but Mithen does a good job of arguing for why and how this came about.
As an interesting note, Mithen talks of consicousness's possible role as an integrator of distributed information in the modules. Consciousness is to Mithen present on the modules by themselves, and thus argues H. Habilis was in that sense consicous, but sees reflexive consciousness as taking its modern form by the addition of connections between modules, the creation of a meta-workspace. This is in close and curious agreement with Baars theory of consicousness, or with neurocognitive workspace models of consciousness (Dehaene's The Cognitive Neuroscience of Consciousness).
In closing, this book does much in adding to our understanding of the evolution of the mind, and thus should be read by anyone interested in this most precious aspect of hman life.
Metaphorical melange.......2002-05-01
As with most cognitive studies, Mithen's book summarizes what is known of the similarity of chimpanzee [our nearest relative] intellect and abilities in contrast with our own. As do many of his colleagues, he finds our primate cousins lacking in all but minimal skills. With the chimpanzees thus disposed of, he moves to examine the hominid record. This is the great strength of this work. Instead of the usual tactic of portraying what is known of today's human intellect and projecting backward, Mithen starts at the beginnings of human evolution to carry his argument forward. Along the way he utilizes anthropology, morphological studies, even climate and geography. He uses evidence well, assuming little and carefully building the model. Key points in the narrative are two periods of hominid brain enlargement, which he uses to enhance his model of special "intelligences."
With the earliest hominids having only a Swiss Army knife array of mental tools, each segment of intelligence had to develop independent of the others. According to Mithen, this situation led to each "tool" building a separate "chapel" in the mind. Based on a central "nave" of "general" intelligence - keeping the body going, food gathering, sex - new intelligences would arise around it. These new intelligences are technical, natural, social and linguistic. Each operated independently of the others, so that tool-making enhanced "technical" intelligence, while learning about bird migration or fruiting seasons developed "natural" intelligence. The Swiss Army knife aspect prevented these intelligences from interacting until the emergence of Homo sapiens. Then, according to Mithen, a "cognitive fluidity" tore through the walls of the "intelligence chapels" to acquire the broad range of abilities the mind exhibits today. While direct evidence of all this activity is, necessarily missing, the forceful presentation and elegant logic make it all a captivating read.
It's easy to critique Mithen's thesis. All you need is a competitive model of cognition. However, that would be unfair to what he has achieved, a carefully synthesized model of how human intelligence developed. Even without bringing in a competitive thesis, Mithen falls down in two important areas. After lengthy discussion of tool-making enhancing "technical" intelligence and its role in developing hunter-gatherer societies, he blithely omits any input from the "gathering" half of those communities. While rarely mentioning that tool-makers/hunters are almost exclusively male, even among chimpanzees, he restricts mention of female roles to the need to give birth to small-headed babies. He also depicts the changing of "social" intelligence associated with grooming in early hominids to the development of speech later. He ignores the possibility that speech is just as likely to have arisen within the community of females, who had greater reason to utilize it.
The second major flaw is his conclusion on how modern minds evolved from earlier ones. He argues that the "social" intelligence became the tool that opened the walls of his "intelligence chapels" of the cathedral. Since there is no reason to believe that intelligence should be so pigeon-holed as Mithen makes it, "social intelligence" as an integrating force is vague at best. Although i promised not to employ a competitive thesis, it's difficult not to refer the reader to Daniel C. Dennett's Multiple Drafts model of consciousness. If Mithen had consulted Dennett's Consciousness Explained, instead of blithely dismissing it, he would have discovered that his cathedral and chapels would have been built up over time instead of needing serious renovation at the end. Mithen would have been able to use the same evidence, indeed, the same metaphors, but with progressive construction instead of building then redecorating. Knocking down mental walls is not a satisfactory technique to build intellect. Instead, Mithen should have kept the theatre metaphor, which he restricts to history, and built up his drama from a soliloquy to a full cast epic. That would have allowed him to enlarge mental capacities through new players, scenery changes, improved interaction among the cast, perhaps with himself taking the final bow. Given the work he's obviously put into this and the wealth of evidence he's considered and offered us, a smattering of applause [after a careful reading of the libretto] is not out of order.
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The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science.: An article from: American Antiquity
LeRoy McDermott Manufacturer: Society for American Archaeology ProductGroup: Book Binding: Digital ASIN: B00097UD92 Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from American Antiquity, published by Society for American Archaeology on October 1, 1997. The length of the article is 1043 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.
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Pollution: Engineering and Scientific Solutions: Proceedings of the First International Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science Held in Tel Aviv (Environmental Science Research)
Manufacturer: Springer ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 030636302X |
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Getting Warmer
Carol Snow Manufacturer: Berkley Trade ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items: ASIN: 0425213544 |
Book Description
From the author of Been There, Done That.Customer Reviews:
Fun new author.......2007-08-23
A Funny Lighthearted Read.......2007-08-20
Heeee-larious!.......2007-07-05
Warmed up to This One Immediately.......2007-05-02
As an English teacher, I couldn't put it down!.......2007-04-21
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The Phoenix Solution: Getting Serious About Winning America's Drug War
Vincent T. Bugliosi Manufacturer: Audio Literature ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0787106828 |
Customer Reviews:
A strategy for actually winning America's war on drugs........1997-03-25
This revolutionary books presents 2 completely seperate ideas that could bring the drug crisis to an end. The proposals are unorthodox to be sure, but they're detailed, thought provoking and practical. In addition, they're surprisingly cost effective compared with the money current spent in failed efforts.
Briefly, the proposals are a military search-and-find mission in which we send forces into the major drug producing countries and bring the drug cartel leaders to the U. S. to stand trial and sentencing. The other proposal is a relatively simple plan to stop the flow of drug-profit monies both out of and into America. The legality and historical precedents of these proposals are thoroughly and convincing presented. Mr. Bugliosi also examines the question of legalization of drugs and what ramifications that would have on our society.
"Either we are serious about fighting this terrible curse, or we are not," writes Mr. Bugliosi. If we are, then book shows how it can be done. Now if only someone with the political power in Washington would read it and have the guts to implement the proposals.
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Getting to Phoenix
Michael Boloker Manufacturer: Writers Club Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: 0595187811 |
Book Description
"Go West Young Man." I did. Moving to Phoenix after a lifetime in New York City proves both challenging and disorienting, but in a continuous series of funny and novel episodes. From dealing with real estate agents, selecting paint colors and wall paper, finding a doctor, making new friends, acclimating to 100 degree heat, Getting to Phoenix amuses and entertains anyone who has ever lived through a relocation. This is the ultimate satirical novel of today's Southwest.Customer Reviews:
A Must-Read Diary for Today's Pioneers..........2001-11-19
While the viewpoint is of a home-buyer entering a well earned retirement, the anecdotes will still appeal to anyone new to Phoenix. Actually, mostly due to the fluid and off-hand wit, anyone who has even visited or is curious about many aspects of the desert city will find the book very interesting.
Former New Yorkers (well, those that have moved from New York, once a New Yorker always a New Yorker) will find this book all the more a propos, while those who have not yet made the move but are considering it should definately read this for some perspective. Then without a doubt put it in with the road maps and sunblock for handy future reference.
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