Forced Saving: Mandating Private Retirement Incomes

Book Description

The rapid aging of the world's populations has triggered an anxious response in many governments that stresses the need to set up or radically overhaul their mandatory pension policies. This wideranging analysis compares and contrasts the policies and schemes of these countries, using many tables, graphs and charts to summarize important findings.

Book Description

Here is the most comprehensive guide to leading a training session or workshop ever published. This ``soup-to-nuts" reference answers just about every question a trainer/facilitator might have about leading a successful training program, from motivating participants to measuring the results. Based on 25 years of workshop experience, the book features hundreds of professional tips and tricks, plus reproducible materials to use at every step of the training process.

Customer Reviews:

The Ultimate Training Workshop.......2007-01-26

This book has everything one needs to lead successful workshops and training programs, from agendas to evaluations. It gives strategies for designing workshops to meet the needs of the learners. It reviews models and theories of best practices. If you are in the business of providng workshops or training this book is an excellent resource. It has everything you need.

A mixed blessing.......2001-04-13

This is the most useful Training book I've come across in a long time. I find myself referring to it often. However, it is in desperate need of editing. It could easily be cut down by 1/3 - and that would make it much better.

Did anyone edit this book?.......2001-01-06

It is tragic to find wonderful research compiled into a book wrought with spelling, grammatical, and sentence structure errors. Unnecessary comments by the author makes reading even more tedious. A new edition with a good editor would make this book priceless.

Did anyone edit this book?.......2001-01-06

A must for people in the workshop business!.......1999-03-05

"Ultimate" and "comprehensive" are the key words in the title that set this handbook apart from the others. They say it all - over 600 pages of checklists, diagrams, models, and examples covering every topic of the workshop business. And you are given permission to copy pages for personal workshop use! When paging through the book I began to play a game - he must have missed something! Well, whatever it is, I'm still looking...

The Ultimate Training Workshop Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Leading Successful Workshops & Training Programs

Average customer rating:

The Ultimate Training Workshop Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Leading Successful Workshops & Training Programs
Bruce Klatt
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OG46G4

The Ultimate Training Workshop Handbook: a Comprehensive Guide to Leading Successful Workshops and Training Programs

Average customer rating:

The Ultimate Training Workshop Handbook: a Comprehensive Guide to Leading Successful Workshops and Training Programs
Bruce Klatt
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound
ASIN: B000LZQFY4

Book Description

This book examines the new and rapidly developing area of law relating to trade in financial services, with a particular focus on the rules contained in Chapter 14 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). After a detailed analysis of the relevant provisions and their effect on financial institutions in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, the author examines the impact of the NAFTA rules on the legal position of banks operating in countries outside NAFTA, particularly in the context of the WTO financial services provisions. The book concludes with a chapter on the effects of a potential NAFTA expansion. The book aims to contribute to the development of a new legal and regulatory framework distinct from those of trade and financial services law, and offers a valuable insight into how trade in financial services within a regional trade agreement develops its own legal dynamic. Although the financial services provisions are seen as the cornerstone of NAFTA, until now there has been very little in-depth analysis of these provisions, or of the effects on those not party to NAFTA, in the literature in general. This book's unique approach will make it of considerable interest to practitioners and researchers in international banking, trade and economic law.

Customer Reviews:

The Trojan Horse of NAFTA.......2000-07-29

NAFTA has come to mean many things to many people. The most recent chapter of NAFTA (or TLC in Mexico) is the presumed opening of financial services sector under NAFTA. To complicate the equation, the US has passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which replaces the "sinister" Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. The new opening of financial sector under NAFTA means very different things to Canada, Mexico and the US. The book goes through the Chapter 14 of NAFTA with a fine toothed comb. It explains how it came about. It deals with the "negative list" approach of NAFTA as opposed to "positive list" approach of CUSFTA with respect to the financial services. Unfortunately, the book is long on description and short on analysis. It does not include any analysis of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (as it was actually written as Schefer's doctoral thesis sometime in 1998). This is unfortunate. The book also dwells almost exclusively on banking. Surely financial services mean a lot more than just banking. Insurance (for example) gets lip service. More glaring omission comes from complete silence about Banking Secret Laws (Secreto Banacario) of Mexico. This Act will be a source of lot of international friction under NAFTA.

Average customer rating:

Thought provoking work of alternate astronomy

A vivid and contemplative account

Many Skies: Alternative Histories Of The Sun, Moon, Planets, And Stars
Arthur R. Upgren
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Astronomy | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books
Cosmology | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
Astronomy | Astronomy | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been

Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest

Einstein's Bridge

In at the Death (Settling Accounts, Book 4)

ASIN: 0813535123

Book Description

An alternate selection of The Scientific American Book Club and The Science Fiction Book Club

Praise for Many Skies

"Arthur Upgren's marvelous look at our place in the universe deals with profound questions. What if things didn't turn out exactly as they did—would we still be here? By studying these questions, we gain a much better appreciation of how lucky we are to enjoy life on this precious planet Earth."—David H. Levy, co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that collided with Jupiter, and science editor of Parade

"Upgren will leave you wanting to invent an alternative universe of your own. In mine, we live well outside the galactic plane, making cosmology much easier to investigate."—Virginia Trimble, president, Commission XII, International Astronomical Union

What if Earth had several moons or massive rings like Saturn? What if the Sun were but one star in a double-star or triple-star system? What if Earth were the only planet circling the Sun?

These and other imaginative scenarios are the subject of Arthur Upgren's inventive book Many Skies: Alternative Histories of the Sun, Moon, Planets, and Stars. Although the night sky as we know it seems eternal and inevitable, Upgren reminds us that, just as easily, it could have been very different.

Had the solar system happened to be in the midst of a star cluster, we might have many more bright stars in the sky. Yet had it been located beyond the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, we might have no stars at all. If Venus or Mars had a moon as large as ours, we would be able to view it easily with the unaided eye. Given these or other alternative skies, what might Ptolemy or Copernicus have concluded about the center of the solar system and the Sun?

This book not only examines the changes in science that these alternative solar, stellar, and galactic arrangements would have brought, it also explores the different theologies, astrologies, and methods of tracking time that would have developed to reflect them. Our perception of our surroundings, the number of gods we worship, the symbols we use in art and literature, even the way we form nations and empires are all closely tied to our particular (and accidental) placement in the universe.

Many Skies, however, is not merely a fanciful play on what might have been. Upgren also explores the actual ways that human interferences such as light pollution are changing the night sky. Our atmosphere, he warns, will appear very different if we have a belt of debris circling the globe and blotting out the stars, as will happen if advertisers one day pollute space with brilliant satellites displaying their products.

From fanciful to foreboding, the scenarios in Many Skies will both delight and inspire reflection, reminding us that ours is but one of many worldviews based on our experience of a universe that is as much a product of accident as it is of intention.

Customer Reviews:

Thought provoking work of alternate astronomy .......2006-03-20

Alternate history has become a popular subject in recent years, both in terms of fiction and also in non-fiction, exploring such ideas as what would have happened if Napoleon had not been defeated at Waterloo or if the South had won the Civil War. Upgren in _Many Skies_, explored alternate solar, stellar, and galactic systems and arrangements and what effects these might have had on the history of the world.

Upgren divided the book into four sections, chapters in each section either exploring an alternate universe where the sky as it appears on Earth is different or discussing some aspect of astronomy as set-up to an idea for an alternate universe in a following chapter. The chapters described the different sky, why it was different, how this sky could have come to exist, what it would look like to an observer on Earth, and then what effects this might have had on the history of science and the history of the world in general. Often times the discussion of the effects were just questions the author would raise though in several cases he went into more detail. There were many diagrams and charts to help illustrate his points and Upgren did a good job of explaining astronomical terms such as proper motion, retrograde motion, and globular clusters when needed.

Part one looked at different systems and arrangements for our Sun and Moon. What if the Earth had three moons? What if the Earth had not one Sun but three? What if the Earth were alone in space with the Sun, with no Moon or other planets, comets, or asteroids?

Part two looked at alternate planets in our solar system, including our own. What if the Earth had rings? What if Jupiter existed in the orbit of our Venus? What if a bright planet, known to the ancients, orbited the Sun outside of the primary plane of the solar system, going far to the north or the south of the ecliptic? What if very bright comets were more frequent? What if Mars or Venus had a moon the size of our Moon (if Mars or Venus had a satellite as large and as bright as our Moon it would easily be seen by the unaided eye; if the Moon was seen from Venus when Venus is at its closest, about 26 million miles away, it would outshine all but the Sun and the Earth)?

Part three looked at alternate stellar and galactic systems and arrangements. What if a star close to the Earth became a supernova? What if the Pleiades Cluster was about as close as the Hyades is now, not thousands of light years away but instead only a hundred light years away, with its stars visible in the daytime? What if the solar system were above the galactic plane, perhaps well outside and to the north of it, with the northern sky completely black and empty to the naked eye?

Part four didn't really delve as much into different skies but touched on other topics, including issues of light pollution and astronomical causes of mass extinction on Earth.

Not surprisingly, many of the various scenarios dealt primarily with alternate histories of science (particularly astronomy) as a result of these different skies. In some cases these alternate skies were beneficial to science. If the Earth had more than one Sun and/or had more than one Moon, or if Jupiter or Venus had satellites visible to the naked eye it would have been possible that the heliocentric model of the solar system would have been adapted centuries earlier, perhaps in the days of the Roman Empire, as it would have been apparent to ancient astronomers that not every object orbited the Earth. Similarly, in an alternate universe with a closer Jupiter (in the orbit of Venus perhaps), close enough that the unaided eye could detect a disk; it would have been possible to see a full set of phases and lead the intelligent observer to conclude it orbited the Sun and not the Earth.

In other cases these alternate skies would not have helped the advancement of science. In an alternate universe where the Earth had rings, the only fully dark skies would exist near the poles, where the rings, lying on the equatorial plane, would be below the horizon and thus not visible. At lower latitudes the sky would always be too bright for the observation of faint objects and it is very likely that as a result the development of stellar astronomy would have been severely retarded. In a system with only the Sun and the Moon (no planets, comets, or asteroids), the issue of whether or not the Sun revolves around the Earth would likely not have been solved until the 18th or 19th centuries when the aberration of starlight and direct measure of stellar parallax could be accomplished with better instrumentation, Kepler's Laws of planetary motion could not have been devised, nor probably either Newton's laws of motion (or at least both would have been devised much later in history). Additionally, no concept of a week or a month would have suggested itself, producing perhaps changes in timekeeping.

Changes to world history would of course not be limited to just astronomy and Upgren does explore that as well. He suggested that if the Earth had had more than one Sun and/or Moon, it is possible that monotheistic religious would not have arisen at all or have arisen later in world history and perhaps in the present polytheistic religious would still be quite common and widespread. In an alternate universe where the northern sky is pure black (due to the solar system being well above the galactic plane), astrology would not have developed and many world mythologies would have been less rich.

An interesting and thought provoking book, my only complaints are that I would have liked more development of non-science-related historical topics as well as alternate evolutionary histories of life on Earth.

A vivid and contemplative account.......2005-03-11

Emeritus astronomy professor Arthur Upgren presents Many Skies: Alternative Histories Of The Sun, Moon, Planets And Stars, an imaginative discussion of how bodies in the night sky could just as easily have been arranged in very different ways. Exploring scenarios such as if the Earth had multiple moons, or rings like Saturn, or if the Sun were a double-star or triple-star system, Many Skies contemplates how different theologies, astrologies, and methods of tracking time would have evolved. Many Skies also scrutinizes how human interferences such as light pollution is changing the night sky, and warns that increased satellites displaying products will change the appearance of Earth's atmosphere. A vivid and contemplative account, as appealing, understandable, and enjoyable for lay readers as for experts in the field.

Book Description

Provides an introduction to the chemistry of the solid-water interface, progressing from the simple to more complex and applied. Discusses the important interfaces in natural systems, especially geochemistry, in natural waters, soils and sediments. The processes occurring at mineral-water, particle-water and organism-water interfaces play critical roles in regulating the composition and ecology of oceans and fresh waters, the development of soils and plant nutrient's supply, preserving the integrity of water repositories and in such applications as water technology and corrosion science.

Customer Reviews:

not an easy read.......1999-03-27

this book needs to be edited properply, it's giving Stumm a bad name

Book Description

Bones, Stones and Molecules provides some of the best evidence for resolving the debate between the two hypotheses of human origins. The debate between the 'Out of Africa' model and the 'Multiregional' hypothesis is examined through the functional and developmental processes associated with the evolution of the human skull and face and focuses on the significance of the Australian record. The book analyzes important new discoveries that have occurred recently and examines evidence that is not available elsewhere. Cameron and Groves argue that the existing evidence supports a recent origin for modern humans from Africa. They also specifically relate these two theories to interpretations of the origins of the first Australians. The book provides an up-to-date interpretation of the fossil, archaeological and the molecular evidence, specifically as it relates to Asia, and Australia in particular.

* Readily accessible to the layperson and professional
* Provides concise coverage of current scientific evidence
* Presents a robust computer-generated model of human speciation over the last 7 million years
* Well illustrated with figures and photographs of important fossil specimens
* Presents a synthesis of great ape and human evolution

Customer Reviews:

Multiregionalism Debunked.......2006-08-19

Alternating between hard-core and literary, "Bones, Stones and Molecules" covers all of the latest anthropological discoveries and developments. Sahelanthropus and Orrorin are breaking news in paleoanthropology and are covered early in the book. These two new fossils are from the "wrong" side of the Great Rift Valley and neatly dispense with another recent favorite theory of human origins that involved the stranding of Old World and New World monkeys on either side of the Great Rift.

"Out of Africa" versus the "Multiregional" hypothesis are the book's main focus, and "Out of Africa" comes out the clear winner. David Cameron and Colin Groves each have their own slant on human origins, and these are clearly depicted in dozens of cladograms, each co-author posing variations. There are numerous sketches and photographs, and brief boxed interludes that also display a sense of humor.

"Bones, Stones and Molecules" introduces Groves' strong background in Australian fossils, the controversy over the timeline of Australian colonization has ramifications that affect much of anthropology. This is a solid book best suited to those with previous knowledge of the field. The appendix provides mathematical proof of assertions made in the book, hundreds of anatomical measurements are detailed. There are very few works that achieve such an excellent balance between mathematical rigor and literary readability.

Valuable reference for academics and laymen alike.......2004-09-05

Cameron and Groves have produced a handsome volume that details the anatomical structure of the species immediately ancestral to homo sapiens, and fleshes out the multiple "Out of Africa" episodes that have characterised the longer span of human evolution.

Full of ecological and detailed anatomical descriptions of the key species in human evolution, this volume very rarely, if not uniquely, integrates the story of hominid anatomical adaptation and modification across the Miocene through to the Holocene.

Students of paleoanthropology will not find a more thorough one volume overview, which while going far beyond being an introduction, admirably serves that role to.

For those who want to come to grips with, at a very detailed level, the drivers and form of anatomical and associated behavioural change amongst the human ancestral species, this Cameron/Groves volume is the ideal reference.

Great read, showcasing the latest fossils!.......2004-07-29

This is a great read for anyone interested in human evolution. It includes all of the most recent fossil hominid discoveries as well as providing an up-to-date overview and systematic analysis of human evolution over the last 6 million years or so (including molecular - archaeological information). It provides a convincing argument for the 'Out of Africa' Hypothesis for modern human origins. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in evolution and human and great ape evolution in particular.

Bones, Stones and Molecules : Out of Africa and Human Origins

Average customer rating:

Bones, Stones and Molecules : Out of Africa and Human Origins
Colin P. Groves David W. Cameron
Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OHHOVM

Book Description

Atomic Absorption and Plasma Spectroscopy Second Edition Atomic Absorption and Plasma Spectroscopy incorporates two widely used and well established analytical chemistry techniques. This second edition follows an extremely successful first edition, Atomic Absorption and Emission Spectroscopy, and takes into account the increasing contribution in recent years of plasma emission spectroscopy to this important field. Plasma-based techniques are discussed in detail and the coupting of plasma spectroscopy with mass spectrometry is also considered. This highly readable text first introduces the reader to the subject and then, by means of self-assessment questions, regular summaries and lists of learning objectives, allows the readers to learn more about this important subject at their own pace. Atomic Absorption and Plasma Spectroscopy is an excellent introduction to the topic for the practising analyst. Analytical Chemistry by Open Learning This series provides a uniquely comprehensive and integrated coverage of analytical chemistry, focusing on basic concepts, classical methods, instrumental techniques and applications. The learning objectives of each text are clearly identified and the student's understanding of the material is constantly challenged by self-assessment questions with reinforcing or remedial responses. The overall objective of Analytical Chemistry by Open Learning is to enable the student to select and apply appropriate methods and techniques to solve analytical problems, and to interpret the results obtained.

Customer Reviews:

Clear, concise, and well thought out.......2002-11-19

Atomic Absorption and Plasma Spectroscopy is a well thought out introduction to absorption and emission spectroscopy. The author presents the principles involved in AA, GFAA, ICP-AES, and ICP-MS in a clear and concise manner and provides self-assessment questions so readers can measure their understanding of the various subjects as they are presented. The author avoids unnecessary details in describing instrumentation while maintaining crystal clarity about how the systems work. Typical is the description of the Echelle spectrometer which could not have been easier to understand. The diagrams supported by concise narratives on distinctly uncluttered pages can hardly be improved upon. If you are looking for a good introduction to this subject you need look no further.

Automation of preparation of nonmetallic samples for analysis by atomic absorption and inductively coupled plasma spectrometry (SuDoc NAS 1.15:88476)

Average customer rating:

Automation of preparation of nonmetallic samples for analysis by atomic absorption and inductively coupled plasma spectrometry (SuDoc NAS 1.15:88476)
A. Wittmann
Manufacturer: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B000105FKY

Comparison of AAS and ICP analyses of waste extracts

Average customer rating:

Comparison of AAS and ICP analyses of waste extracts
Daniel C Hillman
Manufacturer: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

A Comparison of trace level concentrations for silver, arsenic, barium, cadmium, and lead in drinking waters obtained by inductively coupled plasma-mass ... atomic absorption spectroscopy

Average customer rating:

A Comparison of trace level concentrations for silver, arsenic, barium, cadmium, and lead in drinking waters obtained by inductively coupled plasma-mass ... atomic absorption spectroscopy
Richard Robinson
Manufacturer: Los Alamos National Laboratory
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Analytic | Chemistry | Science | Subjects | Books

Water Supply | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books