The Manager and the Internal Auditor: Partners for Profit

Book Description

Managers need auditors. There are more risks in running an organization than ever before whether it be in the public, private or non-profit sector. With the break-up of the state sector, the ambiguous intermediary role of not for profit organizations, and turbulence in the marketplace through mergers, acquisitions and divestments, the seeds are sown for chaos and a culture in which fraud can flourish. Notorious corporate collapses such as BCCI, Maxwell Communications Corporation and Barings are cases in point. An updated and revised version of the auditing classic The Manager and The Modern Internal Auditor, first published in 1979, this new book highlights the necessity of establishing internal control in organizations and illustrates how internal audit can be a highly effective means to avoid corporate disaster. The authors present a proven formula for organizational success through the joint workings of managers and internal auditors as partners for profit, growth and sustainability. They examine the latest insights into the needs and nature of managerial activity and explain the complementary contribution that internal audit can make. Whether the manager is planning and budgeting, organizing, directing, controlling or formulating strategic policy, the internal auditors assistance is shown to be invaluable.

Book Description

OUTSOURCING HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTIONS Strategies for Providing Enhanced HR Services at Lower Cost Recent surveys reveal that up to 94 percent of companies outsource at least one human resources function. Cost-cutting is behind this trend, but the true power of outsourcing lies in using it as a strategic business practice. This authoritative guide tells how to develop a 12-stage outsourcing plan and deploy outside services to maximum corporate advantage. Enhanced by case studies and a directory of outsourcing consultants, the book shows how to: ** determine which functions to outsource ** prepare a solid RFP (request for proposal) ** select a vendor ** negotiate a contract ** set a rollout schedule ** communicate the changes to employees ** outsource specific functions such as staffing, training, payroll administration, benefits, employee assistance programs, expatriate services, and more MARY F. COOK (Denver, CO) is the director of human resources for M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. She has written more than a dozen books on HR issues, including The AMA Handbook for Recruitment and Retention (Amacom).

Customer Reviews:

Excellent resource for HR professionals!.......2000-01-30

The best thing about this book is Ms. Cook offers what HR professionals need most - practical tools. Through simple language and abundant examples the author provides a clear idea of what outsourcing entails and how to not only stay alive but thrive. Ms. Cook takes you from considering outsourcing through managing vendor relationships. She moves from the macro to the micro and offers detailed sections on outsourcing specific HR functions such as benefits and training. Also included are checklists, a detailed glossary and an extensive sourcebook. A must have for HR leaders, consultants and service providers dealing with outsourcing issues.

Book Description

Extensively revised and updated, this new edition of David A. Rothery's acclaimed geological guide to the outer solar system includes results and close-up color and black and white images from both the 1995-1999 Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Voyager space probe. Rothery, a noted planetary scientist, explains the geological aspects of the major satellites of the outer planets, from Jupiter to Neptune and the Pluto-Charon system. In particular he shows how tectonic and volcanic processes, driven by heat from within, have shaped the rigid outer layers of these worlds. Rothery also discusses the similarities and differences among them and the ways in which they resemble Earth-like planets. This fascinating book is written in an introductory style ideal for first- or second-year college courses. Amateur geologists and astronomers will also find its insights rewarding.

Customer Reviews:

Not for the casual reader!.......2005-04-17

This book is not really for the casual reader. On the contrary; this book is rather technical. The first four chapters deal with geological subjects like planet formation, satellite formation, accretional heating, radiogenic heating, tidal heating, partial melting, icy volcanism etc. etc. etc., and describes the Voyager and Galileo space probes. Then follows a description of (only) the bigger satellites.

In describing the "world in their own right", the writer puts them into the following categories:

DEAD WORLD:
Callisto (11 pages), Rhea, Iapetus, Mimas, Oberon and Umbriël (all 2-3 pages each).

RECENTLY ACTIVE WORLDS:
Ganymede (13½ pages), Miranda (8½ pages), Ariël (8½ pages), Dione (6 pages), Tethys (4½ pages), Titania 1½ pages).

ACTIVE WORLDS :
Io (18½ pages), Europa (17½ pages), Triton (12 pages) and Enceladus (6 pages).

UNSEEN WORLDS :
Titan en Pluto/Charon (3½ pages each).

Each moon is visualised with photograps (circa 95 photographs in total, of which nine in color), "shaded relief maps" (a total of 16) and plenty diagrams/drawings etc.

If the emphasis on geology in this book does not appeal to you, I advise you to leave the book alone. If, for instance, you only want really impressive photographs then buy a book like "Beyond: Visions Of The Interplanetary Probes". That book has much nicer photographs.

If on the other hand you really want to dig into the subject of how these "world in their own right" came to be and if you want to understand what you see on photographs of these moons, then this is your book!
The writing style is clear and understandable. You don't have to be a geologist already. This book will offer you many hours of enjoyable reading!

Geological Processes that Shaped the Outer Planet's Moons.......2001-04-03

Though the number of pages in this book may seem a bit small to provide a good explanation the geological processes that shaped and are still shaping the moons of the outer planets, the author does an excellent job of doing just that. Excluding the Moon and the two small satellites of Mars, this book covers all the planetary satellites (moons) of our solar system. The book does include the latest findings (as of 1999) from the Galileo space probe.

The first quarter of the book describes in quite some detail, at least for the non-geologist, the different theories that have been used to classify these planetary bodies. The remainder of the book, excluding the conclusion section, is divided into three parts: dead worlds, recently active worlds and active worlds. Each of the moons falls into one of these categories and a detailed description of each moon is provided in its corresponding section. Each section also includes high resolution Voyager and Galileo photographs and shade relief maps.

After finishing this book, I came away with the idea the solar system is a very geologically diverse place and there is a lot we don't know. Even the author, in several places was willing to admit to that.

Satellites of the Outer Planets : Worlds in Their Own Right
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Satellites of the Outer Planets : Worlds in Their Own Right
David A. Rothery
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKSRWY

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Satellites of the Outer Planets: Worlds in Their Own Right. Second Edi
David A. Rothery
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000M4DGLE

Book Description

Electron Correlations in Molecules and Solids bridges the gap between quantum chemistry and solid-state theory. In the first half of the text new concepts are developed for treating many-body and correlation effects, combining standard quantum chemical methods with projection techniques, Greens-function methods and Monte-Carlo techniques. The second half deals with applications of the theory to molecules, semiconductors, transition metals, heavy-fermion systems, and the new high-Tc superconducting materials.

Customer Reviews:

Think!.......2002-06-27

Think! before writing a review and confusing people about cumulants, as the previous reviewer does.

Cumulants are widely used in physics and more recently also in theoretical chemistry. Their algebra is very simple, although a bit unfamiliar. Obviously, the "reviewer" Alan Mason from Round Rock, Texas has not understood that algebra. Take his first example: he is certainly right that with his choice of A one finds ¹ c. It is also true, (not pointed out by him) that c ¹ <1opA>c=0 where 1op is the unit operator. But so what! These are well known consequences of the cumulant algebra but they do not imply that any of the equations in the book are wrong. Certainly, they are not. Mason should try to familiarize himself with the Grassmann algebra which is also not a standard one. He should be even more startled. But he would fail by concluding from his surprises that "This king has no clothes".

This emperor has no clothes.......2000-05-24

Professor Fulde's primary purpose in this advanced monograph, as stated in the preface, is to provide a unified treatment of electron correlations in molecules and in "solids"; by the latter, he means materials such as metals in which the electrons are not well localized. The basic idea is that since the electron correlation hole is a local object, it should be possible to develop a theory that applies equally well to electron correlations in both cases.

First, let us say what is meant by electron correlation. One starts with a Hamiltonian H that describes an atomic system, say, with n electrons; H acts on a Hilbert space S. Pick a finite-dimensional subspace S_0 and apply a variational principle to minimize the expectation E = <\Phi, H \Phi> over all wavefunctions \Phi expressible as a single Slater determinant of n single-electron wavefunctions \phi_i, 1 <= i <= n. The latter can be any normalized vector in S_0; we form the Slater determinant and minimize E over all such choices of the \phi_i. This leads to the Hartree--Fock equations (2.3.13). In the limit as S_0 increases to all of S, E will decrease to a value E_{HF} called the Hartree--Fock limit. It will be greater than the true ground-state energy E_0, because the true ground-state wavefunction is a convergent sum of Slater determinants, not a single determinant. The difference E_{HF} - E_0 has an interesting physical interpretation that justifies calling it the electron correlation energy. This follows from examining the Coulomb term in the one-particle Fock equations (2.3.13) -- each electron is treated as though it interacted with the average charge distribution of the remaining electrons, whereas in fact it interacts with the actual distribution. The effect of this is to overestimate the ground state energy by allowing electrons to come too close, closer than the true Coulomb force would allow. Thus, if we haven't left out necessary terms in the Hamiltonian (such as spin-orbit coupling, relativistic effects for heavy transition metals, etc.), it is natural to attribute the difference E_{HF} - E_0 to this "electron correlation" effect. The correlation suppresses the likelihood of other electrons being close to a given one as compared to what the HF equations would predict, hence the term "correlation hole" and its local nature.

Electron correlation effects are of supreme importance in chemistry, because although generally small compared to the self-consistent field energies E_{SCF}, when chemical bonding occurs the difference in the correlation energy corrections is typically not small compared to the difference in the E_{SCF}. Furthermore, the correlation effects are expected to be exquisitely sensitive to the geometry of the orbitals, so we have a fascinating problem lying at the heart of chemistry.

The first four chapters give a rapid, somewhat demanding, and authoritative overview of the basic

approximation schemes (the one described above is called the independent electron approximation). The important topics, including density functional theory, are treated.

After this promising start, in Chap. 5 Prof. Fulde takes up the main business of the book -- developing a general scheme for constructing localized basis functions optimized so as to account for electron correlation. If he had succeeded in this, it would be a major contribution to the subject. But alas, I have to report that due to a disastrous mathematical oversight, his results are invalid. The smoking gun is Eq. (5.1.20); this does NOT give a well- defined inner product because it is not bilinear and cannot be made so in a consistent, well-defined way. The root of the trouble is the cumulant formula (5.1.15). Let's call the A_i there "atoms" (with respect to cumulant formation). The problem is Fulde's tacit assumption that if the operator Op is a sum of monomials in the A_i then

<\Phi_0|Op|\Phi_0>^c can be defined as the corresponding sum of the cumulants of the individual monomials. But what if this expression as a sum of monomials isn't unique? If we write Op in a different way, does the prescription give the same result? The answer is no! Cumulant formation does not respect the ordinary rules of algebra; in particular, one cannot substitute. (I give two examples below.) But in (5.1.20), A and B can be expressed in many different ways as a sum of monomials in the cumulant atoms (here H_1 and possibly H_0). Without a well-defined -- bilinear, positive-semidefinite -- inner product, the entire treatment collapses. This seems to explain the otherwise puzzling lack of references in the literature to the work of Fulde's school; for example, there are none in Vol. 93 in the Advances in Chem. Phys. series (Prigogine, Rice eds.), entitled New Methods in Computational Quantum Mechanics, nor in many other places I have looked.

Here are my examples. A is an atom for cumulant formation, and I use only the formulas ^c = and ^c = - ^2.

1) Let A be the two-by-two matrix with 0, 0 in the first column and 1, 0 in the second; with the standard unit vectors e_1 and e_2, we have A e_1=0, A e_2=e_1, and A^2 = 0. Set e = (e_1 + e_2)/sqrt(2) and define the expectation by E(Op) = . Then 0 = <0>^c is not equal to ^c = - ^2=0-(1/2)^2=-1/4. Here we have expressed zero in two different ways: as the scalar 0 and as the operator A^2, and have gotten different results.

2) Take A = diag(x, y) with x and y real roots of a polynomial \Sum_0^n c_k w^k with scalar coefficients c_k. Set E(Op) = . Then 0 = \Sum_0^n c_k A^k as an operator, but \Sum_0^n c_k ^c does not equal zero. Take, e.g., n=2, x=2, y=3; they satisfy w^2-5w+6=0. We have \Sum_0^2 c_k ^c = 6 <1>^c - 5 ^c + 1 ^c = 6 - 5 x 2 + - ^2 = 6-10+4-4=-4.

Book Description

This reference describes the latest research on correlation effects in the multicenter problems of atoms, molecules, and solids. The author utilizes first- and second-order matrices, including the important observable electron density rho(r), and the Green function for discussing quantum computer simulations. With its focus on concepts and theories, this volume will benefit experimental physicists, materials scientists, and physical and inorganic chemists as well as graduate students.

Electron Correlations in Solids, Molecules, and Atoms (NATO Science Series: B:)

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Electron Correlations in Solids, Molecules, and Atoms (NATO Science Series: B:)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Relativistic and Electron Correlation Effects in Molecules and Solids (NATO Science Series: B:)

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Relativistic and Electron Correlation Effects in Molecules and Solids (NATO Science Series: B:)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Relativistic and Electron Correlation Effects in Molecules and Solids (NATO Asi Series B: Physics, Vol 318)

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Relativistic and Electron Correlation Effects in Molecules and Solids (NATO Asi Series B: Physics, Vol 318)
G.L. Malli
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSY7P2

Virus Induced Enzymes
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Virus Induced Enzymes
J. M. Morrison
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0471923397

Virus-Induced Enzymes
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Virus-Induced Enzymes
Seymour S. Cohen
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000EGRCK

Virus-induced enzymes (Columbia biological series)
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Virus-induced enzymes (Columbia biological series)
Seymour S Cohen
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Microbiology | Biology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006BWMWC

Swine-fever disease as a virus induced disorder of the enzyme system: on the pathogenicity of suspensions of the normal pancreas and of chymotrypsin (ogen)
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Swine-fever disease as a virus induced disorder of the enzyme system: on the pathogenicity of suspensions of the normal pancreas and of chymotrypsin (ogen)
G Korn
Manufacturer: [s.n
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007ANP1E

Virus Induced Enzymes
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Virus Induced Enzymes
J. M. Morrison
Manufacturer: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MBUIFE