Sustainability by Design

Sustainability by Design

The developed world, increasingly aware of inconvenient truths about global warming and sustainability, is turning its attention to possible remedieseco-efficiency, sustainable development, and corporate social responsibility, among others. But such measures are mere Band-Aids, and they may actually do more harm than good, says John Ehrenfeld, a pioneer in the field of industrial ecology. In this deeply considered book, Ehrenfeld challenges conventional understandings of solving environmental problems and offers a radically new set of strategies to attain sustainability.

Sustainability by Design

Methods of Demographic Analysis

Methods of Demographic Analysis

This book provides an up-to-date overview of demographic analysis and methods, including recent developments in demography. Concepts and methods, from the nature of demographic information through data collection and the basics of statistical measures and on to demographic analysis itself are succinctly explained. Measures and analyses of fertility, mortality, life tables, migration and demographic events such as marriage, education and labour force are described while later chapters cover multiple decrement tables, population projections, the importance of testing and smoothing demographic data, the stable population model and demographic software.

Methods of Demographic Analysis

Tax Progression in OECD Countries

Tax Progression in OECD Countries

This is the first book that performs international and intertemporal comparisons of uniform tax progression with empirical data. While conventional measures of tax progression suffer from serious disadvantages for empirical analyses, this book extends uniform measures to progression comparisons of countries with different income distributions. Tax progression is analyzed in terms of Lorenz curve and Suits curve equivalents of net incomes and taxes. The authors derive six distinct definitions of the relation ‘is more progressive than’, which are then utilized for an empirical analysis of 13 countries included in the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). In two thirds of all international comparisons of tax progression, the authors report a clear ranking of the respective countries in terms of progression dominance. Tax based definitions of greater progressivity perform best. These observations are yet reinforced by statistical tests. The book also provides an account of the institutional background of the involved countries in order to facilitate the interpretation of the data. Moreover, the authors conduct intertemporal comparisons of tax progression for selected countries and perform a sensitivity analysis with respect to the parameterization of the equivalence scale.

Tax Progression in OECD Countries

Implementing Restorative Practices in Schools

Implementing Restorative Practices in Schools

Restorative practice is a proven approach to discipline in schools that favours relationships over retribution, and has been shown to improve behaviour and enhance teaching and learning outcomes. However, in order for it to work, restorative practice needs a relational school culture. Implementing Restorative Practice in Schools explains what has to happen in a school in order for it to become truly restorative. Section 1 explains the potential of restorative practice in schools, describing the positive outcomes for students and teachers. It also outlines the measures that need to be in place in order to embed restorative practice. Section 2 examines the process of understanding and managing change, providing realistic and pragmatic guidance on the practical and emotional barriers that may be encountered. Finally, Section 3 provides in eight practical steps, strategic guidance for achieving a restorative culture that sticks. Featuring useful pro formas and templates, this book will be an indispensable guide for educators, administrators and school leaders in mainstream and specialist settings.

Implementing Restorative Practices in Schools

What Makes a Good Nurse

What Makes a Good Nurse

In recent years, the human values at the heart of the nursing profession seem to have become side-lined by an increased focus on managerialist approaches to health care provision. Nursing’s values are in danger of becoming marginalised further precisely because that which nursing does best – providing care and helping individuals through the human trauma of illness – is difficult to measure, and therefore plays little, if any, part in official accounts of outcome measures. Derek Sellman sets out the case for re-establishing the primacy of the virtues that underpin the practice of nursing in order to address the question: what makes a good nurse? He provides those in the caring professions with both a rationale and a practical understanding of the importance that particular character traits, including justice, courage, honesty, trustworthiness and open-mindedness, play in the practice of nursing, and explains why and how nurses should strive to cultivate these virtues, as well as the implications of this for practice. This original and thought-provoking book will be essential reading for nurses and nursing students, care workers, care commissioners, and many others who work in the caring professions.

What Makes a Good Nurse

Law and Evil

Law and Evil

Law and Evil opens, expands and deepens our understanding of the phenomenon of evil by addressing the theoretical relationship between this phenomenon and law. Hannah Arendt said ‘the problem of evil will be the fundamental question of post-war intellectual life in Europe’. This statement is, unfortunately, more than valid in the contemporary world: not only in the events of war, crimes against humanity, terror, repression, criminality, violence, torture, human trafficking, and so on; but also as evil is used rhetorically to condemn these acts, to categorise their perpetrators, and to justify forcible measures, both in international and domestic politics and law.

Law and Evil

General Theory of Information Transfer and Combinatorics

General Theory of Information Transfer and Combinatorics

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed research papers contributed to a research project on the ‘General Theory of Information Transfer and Combinatorics’ that was hosted from 2001–2004 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZIF) of Bielefeld University and also papers of several incorporated meetings thereof. The 63 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on probabilistic models, cryptology, pseudo random sequences, quantum models, statistics, probability theory, information measures, error concepts, performance criteria, search, sorting, ordering, planning, language evolution, pattern discovery, reconstructions, network coding, combinatorial models, and a problem section.

General Theory of Information Transfer and Combinatorics

Bandit Algorithms for Website Optimization

Bandit Algorithms for Website Optimization

When looking for ways to improve your website, how do you decide which changes to make? And which changes to keep? This concise book shows you how to use Multiarmed Bandit algorithms to measure the real-world value of any modifications you make to your site. Author John Myles White shows you how this powerful class of algorithms can help you boost website traffic, convert visitors to customers, and increase many other measures of success.

Bandit Algorithms for Website Optimization