Commodity Investing

Commodity Investing 

By: Frank J. Fabozzi

Commodities are currently enjoying a renaissance due to institutional investors such as pension funds and traditional portfolio managers. Many market participants attribute the recent dramatic price increases in commodities to increased demand for consumer goods, particularly from the populous countries of India and China. Demand from Brazil and Russia, two of the fastest-growing economies currently, has undoubtedly also played a part. (Collectively, these four countries are referred to as the BRIC countries.) Globalization and economic and political convergence have been behind the stimulated growth in these economies to a large extent. Besides increased investment on an enterprise level, increasing state investment in infrastructure in China has also led to enormous demand for commodities. This has caused a shock to the worldwide supply and demand dynamics, leading to at least short-term price increases. [download]

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Refining Processes

Refining Processes 

By: Surinder Parkash

Crude oil as produced in the oil field is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons ranging from methane to asphalt, with varying proportions of paraffins, naphthenes, and aromatics. The objective of crude distillation is to fractionate crude oil into light-end hydrocarbons (Ci-C4), naphtha/gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and atmospheric resid. Some of these broad cuts can be marketed directly, while others require further processing in refinery downstream units to make them saleable. The first processing step in the refinery, after desalting the crude, is separation of crude into a number of fractions by distillation. The distillation is carried out at a pressure slightly above atmospheric. This is necessary for the following considerations: 1. To raise the boiling point of the light-end carbons so that refinery cooling water can be used to condense some of the C3 and C4 in the overhead condenser. [download]

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Chinesische Fusionskontrolle

Chinesische Fusionskontrolle

By: Markus Maselli

Seit Ende der 1970er Jahre hält sich die sonst von weißen Katzen bevölkerte Volksrepublik China in zunehmendem Umfang schwarze Katzen und heißt auch schwarze Katzen aus der Ferne willkommen. Diese fangen seither mit großem Erfolg Mäuse in China und man bekommt den Eindruck, dass die schwarzen Katzen bereits in der Mehrheit sind. Seit 2008 jedoch gibt es in China einige neue Wachhunde, die unter den heimischen und fremden, schwarzen und weißen Katzen in China für Ordnung sorgen sollen. Vor allem einer dieser Wachhunde hat bereits über die Grenzen Chinas hinaus für Aufsehen gesorgt. Die fremden schwarzen Katzen haben nämlich schon seine Zähne zu spüren bekommen. Sie haben keinen Zweifel daran, dass sie Rücksicht auf diesen Wachhund nehmen müssen, wenn sie weiter in China Mäuse fangen wollen. [download]

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Neue Steuerung im Schulsystem

Neue Steuerung im Schulsystem 

By: Herbert Artrichter

Das vorliegende Handbuch ist zum einen geprägt durch ein Forschungsinteresse, das die Gestaltung des Schulsystems unter Berücksichtung seiner Mehrebenenarchitektur und der komplexen Handlungskoordinationen der involvierten Akteure auf der Basis theoretischer Modelle und empirischer Ergebnisse beschreiben und verstehen möchte. Zum anderen stellen die in den deutschsprachigen Ländern zu beobachtenden intensiven Reformbemühungen in Richtung eines „Umbaus“ des Steuerungssystems von einer „Input-Steuerung“ zu einer „Output-Steuerung“ bzw. „evidenzbasierten Steuerung“ und die Implementation einer grossen Anzahl neuer Steuerungsinstrumente einen Kontext dar, der der Analyse bedarf. Ziel dieses Handbuchs ist es, die Wirkungserwartungen, die an diesen „Umbau“ gestellt werden, an einer systematischen theoretischen Klärung und empirischen Überprüfung zu spiegeln und den Forschungsstand sowie dessen Defizite darzustellen. [download]

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Kabbalistic Handbook for The Practicing Magician

Kabbalistic Handbook for The Practicing Magician

By: Joseph C. Lisiewski, Ph.D. 

There are many fields of investigation and experimentation that fall under the general heading of Occultism: from general scrying to scrying in Spirit Vision; from Divination and its two most popular forms, the Tarot and the Pendulum, to the less used Geomantic Divination; from methods and techniques for developing the openly declared psychic functions of telepathy, concentration, clairaudience, clairvoyance, and telekinesis, to astral projection, mental projection, and mediumship; from magic in all of its broadband spectral majesty, to its specific practices of invocation and evocation, planetary and talismanic magic, Sephirotic and Path working investigations, to name but a few of the areas within the magical arts proper. All of these occult designated realms are, perhaps surprisingly, addressed by the Kabbalah. For instance, one may not ses how the faculties of telekinesis and telepathy could be covered by Kabbalistic doctrine. [download]

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Portfolio Construction

Portfolio Construction 

By: John B. Guerard, Jr.

Markowitz analysis seeks to maximize return for a given level of risk, or minimize risk for a given level of return. Prior to Harry Markowitz, investments were often associated with returns and not risk. John BurrWilliams, in his seminal The Theory of Investment Value (1938), stated in his preface Investment Value, defined as the present value of future dividends or of future coupons and principal, is of practical importance to every investor because it is the critical value above which he cannot go in buying or holding without added risk. If a man buys a security below its investment value he need never lose, even if its price should fall at once, because he can still hold for income and get a return above normal on his cost price. But if he buys it above its investment value, his only hope of avoiding a loss is to sell to someone else who must in turn take the loss in the form of insufficient income (p. viii). [download]

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Management and Leadership

Management and Leadership 

By: Neil Thomas

Time management is about managing your time with a focus on achievement: of doing and completing those things which you want to do and which need doing. Time management is goal-driven and results oriented. Success in time management is measured by the quality of both your work and your personal life. Whilst it is true to say that life only makes sense in retrospect, it can be shaped by your sense of time and purpose. In keeping with business planning, time planning and your approach to the use of your time (and to the extent that you can influence it, how others spend their time) should be to avoid the trap of failing to plan, which is, in effect, planning to fail. In other words, if time is money, spend it wisely. [download]

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Business Plans

Business Plans 

By: Lynn M. Pearce

Perhaps the most important aspect of business planning is simply doing it. More and more business owners are beginning to compile business plans even if they don’t need a bank loan. Others discover the value of planning when they must provide a business plan for the bank. The sheer act of putting thoughts on paper seems to clarify priorities and provide focus. Sometimes business owners completely change strategies when compiling their plan, deciding on a different product mix or advertising scheme after finding that their assumptions were incorrect. This kind of healthy thinking and re-thinking via business planning is becoming the norm. The editors of Business Plans Handbook, Volume 20 (BPH-20) sincerely hope that this latest addition to the series is a helpful tool in the successful completion of your business plan, no matter what the reason for creating it. [download]

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Phenomenological Aesthetics

Phenomenological Aesthetics 

Edited By: Hans Rainer Sepp and Lester Embree

What happens when the traditional philosophical subdiscipline of aesthetics is approached phenomenologically? Is it changed? What are the consequences for phenomenology? Aesthetics is a late emerging subdiscipline within philosophy, and during the last three centuries has been for the most part considered inferior to logic and epistemology, as well as to ontology and ethics. To some extent it has also suffered the same fate within phenomenology, where it has yet to attain the same status as ethics. Nevertheless, it is astonishing to see how many phenomenologists have previously worked in aesthetics and how aesthetics is of central interest for such a considerable group of them today. Thus not only students, but also phenomenologists of different specialties as well as colleagues in different philosophical traditions may find the contents of the present handbook interesting. [download]

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The Global Business

The Global Business

Edited By: David J. Newlands and Mark J. Hooper

There are so many things going on in international business at a global level that it would be impossible to list and describe them all in a single volume. Rather than do so many things an injustice, we will concentrate on the big developments that currently are happening and consider how managers operating in the global business landscape must change what they do to create advantages and remain competitive. Most business schools have functional specialisms known as majors or concentrations. The most usual of these are marketing, finance, operations management and research, information systems, human resource management and audit and managerial control. Students and practitioners tend to specialize in their chosen fields. Some commit to a field prior to higher education study. [download]

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Decision Making

Decision Making

Editors By: Paul C. Nutt and David C. Willson

Studies of strategic decision making are central to organization theory. March and Simon (1958) suggested that managing organizations and decision making are virtually synonymous. The dynamics of  Organizing require a deep understanding of decision making. As organizations grow and become more complex, decision making becomes a central activity. Managers are expected to make choices among alternatives that are often uncertain and to choose wisely in order to benefit both the organization and its key stakeholders. This has prompted researchers to study decision processes to find ways in which decisions can be improved. The study of decision making has spanned a number of levels of analysis, which range from individual cognition to the cultural characteristics of nation states. [download]

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The Six Sigma

The Six Sigma

By: Thomas Pyzdek and Paul Keller

Six Sigma is a rigorous, focused, and highly effective implementation of proven quality principles and techniques. Incorporating elements from the work of many quality pioneers, Six Sigma aims for virtually error-free business performance. Sigma, σ, is a letter in the Greek alphabet used by statisticians to measure the variability in any process. A company’s performance is measured by the sigma level of their business processes. Traditionally companies accepted three or four sigma performance levels as the norm, despite the fact that these processes created between 6,200 and 67,000 problems per million opportunities! The Six Sigma standard of 3.4 problems-per-million opportunities is a response to the increasing expectations of customers and the increased complexity of modern products and processes. Despite its name, Six Sigma’s magic isn’t in statistical or high-tech razzle-dazzle. Six Sigma relies on tried and true methods that have been used for decades. By some measures, Six Sigma discards a great deal of the complexity that characterized Total Quality Management (TQM). [download]

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