Surya Home Collection

National Staff Development Council, USA

How do we determine the effects and effectiveness of activities designed to enhance the professional knowledge and skills of educators so that they might improve the learning of students? Thomas R. Guskey explores the processes and procedures involved in evaluating professional development, from the very simple to the very complex, at five increasing levels of sophistication:

- Participants' reactions to professional development

- How much participants learn

- Evaluating organizational support and change

- How participants use their new knowledge and skills

- Improvement in student learning

. . . complete with sample evaluation forms, checklists, and helpful hints and tips.

• measure the traits and characteristics that predict success in a role or fit on a team
• build finely tuned project teams and well-balanced leadership teams
• boost employee productivity, engagement, retention―and happiness
• unlock the hidden potential of individual workers and your organization as a whole

Introduction to Computational Engineering with MATLAB® aims to teach readers how to use MATLAB programming to solve numerical engineering problems. The book focuses on computational engineering with the objective of helping engineering students improve their numerical problem-solving skills. The book cuts a middle path between undergraduate texts that simply focus on programming and advanced mathematical texts that skip over foundational concepts, feature cryptic mathematical expressions, and do not provide sufficient support for novices.

Although this book covers some advanced topics, readers do not need prior computer programming experience or an advanced mathematical background. Instead, the focus is on learning how to leverage the computer and software environment to do the hard work. The problem areas discussed are related to data-driven engineering, statistics, linear algebra, and numerical methods. Some example problems discussed touch on robotics, control systems, and machine learning.

Features:

• Demonstrates through algorithms and code segments how numeric problems are solved with only a few lines of MATLAB code
• Quickly teaches students the basics and gets them started programming interesting problems as soon as possible
• No prior computer programming experience or advanced math skills required
• Suitable for students at undergraduate level who have prior knowledge of college algebra, trigonometry, and are enrolled in Calculus I
•  v

Organizational Behavior, Theory, and Design, Third Edition was written to provide health services administration students, managers, and other professionals with an in-depth analysis of the theories and concepts of organizational behavior and organization theory while embracing the uniqueness and complexity of the healthcare industry. Using an applied focus, this book provides a clear and concise overview of the essential topics in organizational behavior and organization theory from the healthcare manager’s perspective. The Third Edition offers: - New case studies throughout underscore key theories and concepts and illustrate practical application in the current health delivery environment - In-depth discussion of the industry’s redesign of health services offers a major focus on patient safety and quality, centeredness, and consumerism. - Current examples reflect changes in the environment due to health reform initiatives. - Diversity, health disparities, and cultural competencies are addressed in health care - Timely new material on change management provides new insight for future healthcare managers. - Each new print copy includes Navigate 2 eBook Access enabling users to read their digital textbook online or offline, on computers, tablets, and mobile devices.

International relations theory has broadened out considerably since the end of the Cold War. Topics and issues once deemed irrelevant to the discipline have been systematically drawn into the debate and great strides have been made in the areas of culture/identity, race, and gender in the discipline. However, despite these major developments over the last two decades, currently there are no comprehensive textbooks that deal with race, gender, and culture in IR from a postcolonial perspective. This textbook fills this important gap.

Persaud and Sajed have drawn together an outstanding lineup of scholars, with each chapter illustrating the ways these specific lenses (race, gender, culture) condition or alter our assumptions about world politics.

This book:

• covers a wide range of topics including war, global inequality, postcolonialism, nation/nationalism, indigeneity, sexuality, celebrity humanitarianism, and religion;

• follows a clear structure, with each chapter situating the topic within IR, reviewing the main approaches and debates surrounding the topic and illustrating the subject matter through case studies;

• features pedagogical tools and resources in every chapter - boxes to highlight major points; illustrative narratives; and a list of suggested readings.

Drawing together prominent scholars in critical International Relations, this work shows why and how race, gender and culture matter and will be essential reading for all students of global politics and International Relations theory.

This book delivers a comprehensive and insightful account of applying mathematical modelling approaches to very large biological systems and networks―a fundamental aspect of computational systems biology. The book covers key modelling paradigms in detail, while at the same time retaining a simplicity that will appeal to those from less quantitative fields.

Key Features:

• A hands-on approach to modelling

• Covers a broad spectrum of modelling, from static networks to dynamic models and constraint-based models

• Thoughtful exercises to test and enable understanding of concepts

• State-of-the-art chapters on exciting new developments, like community modelling and biological circuit design

• Emphasis on coding and software tools for systems biology
• An Introduction to Computational Systems Biology: Systems-Level Modelling of Cellular Networks is highly multi-disciplinary and will appeal to biologists, engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians and others.

Provides a clear, concise, and self-contained introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

This comprehensively updated new edition covers the fundamental concepts and main methods of modern Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). With expert guidance and a wealth of useful techniques, the book offers a clear, concise, and accessible account of the essentials needed to perform and interpret a CFD analysis.

The new edition adds a plethora of new information on such topics as the techniques of interpolation, finite volume discretization on unstructured grids, projection methods, and RANS turbulence modeling. The book has been thoroughly edited to improve clarity and to reflect the recent changes in the practice of CFD. It also features a large number of new end-of-chapter problems.

All the attractive features that have contributed to the success of the first edition are retained by this version. The book remains an indispensable guide, which:

• Introduces CFD to students and working professionals in the areas of practical applications, such as mechanical, civil, chemical, biomedical, or environmental engineering
• Focuses on the needs of someone who wants to apply existing CFD software and understand how it works, rather than develop new codes
• Covers all the essential topics, from the basics of discretization to turbulence modeling and uncertainty analysis
• Discusses complex issues using simple worked examples and reinforces learning with problems
• Is accompanied by a website hosting lecture presentations and a solution manual

Essential Computational Fluid Dynamics, Second Edition is an ideal textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate students taking their first course on CFD. It is also a useful reference for engineers and scientists working with CFD applications.

The Price of Global Health is a unique book that describes the pharmaceutical pricing process and its business, economic and social challenges. Global drug pricing is one of the most hotly debated yet least understood aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. How should drug prices be set and what does it mean for patients? Why do governments increasingly get involved, and what is its impact on the global competitive environment? How can a life-saving industry have a poorer image than gun and tobacco industries, whose products are associated with death?

The pharmaceutical industry is under unprecedented pressure due to a combination of declining R&D productivity, payer/provider demands for better value and public pressures to show pricing restraint. Rapidly increasing cost of healthcare, shifts from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement, public pressure on drug pricing and an increasingly vocal medical community have empowered public and private payers worldwide to be more demanding on evidence of value for the prescription drugs that are brought to market. Pharmaceutical companies have often failed to deliver evidence of patient value, as development decision-making is overly focused on speed to FDA approval rather than speed to commercial success by effectively addressing the many “Access Journey” obstacles that typify today’s much changed pharmaceutical environment.

This 3rd edition is significantly expanded with ten new chapters and revised and updated throughout to reflect today’s environment. The contents are reorganized to directly address critical pricing and patient access issues. Ed Schoonveld explains how pharmaceutical prices are determined in a complex global payer environment and what factors influence the process. His insights will help a wide range of audiences from healthcare industry professionals to policy makers, consumers, pharmaceutical company leaders and access and pricing professionals to gain a better understanding of this highly complex and emotionally charged field.

The Challenge
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

The Standards
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

The Comparisons
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.

The Findings
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:

• Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
• The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
• A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
• The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”

Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?