Library: Best sellers

Since its publication in 1860, critics have questioned the artistic value of Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. A revival of critical interest during the 1950's and 1960's has done little to change a generally unfavorable opinion of the work. With a few notable exceptions, most recent critics believe The Marble Faun to be inferior to Hawthorne's other completed romances. Such opinions, however, usually seem to be based upon the personal taste of the individual critic rather than upon any sort of objective artistic standards. The purpose of this study is to examine and evaluate the various critic...

Recent changes in the New South Wales water utilities show a trend towards usage-related pricing, with the aim of providing efficient signals for consumption. This thesis evaluates alternative pricing strategies for water against the criteria of efficiency and equity while maintaining the financial viability of the public utility. First, the water utility cost structure is examined by developing cost functions to estimate short and long-run marginal costs, using a quarterly time-series data from 1970/71 to 1995/96. Second, a residential water demand model is developed using a panel data set...

Today's business environment requires more effective leadership than ever. In the constantly changing business environment, the leader has the central responsibility of keeping people motivated and productive. Many companies have been downsizing and laying off employees, and leaving behind employees with a wounded morale. To lift this morale, the leader needs to possess characteristics and qualities that cannot be learned from courses taken in business schools alone. These characteristics and qualities can only be learned from life itself in an individual journey of individuation. The lea...

This book argues that the standardization of the American military chaplaincy occurred during the Civil War. It shows that the chaplains of the North and South provided the model on which the modern chaplaincy is based. This model is seen in both the regulations which were established during this war and the actual ministry of the chaplains with the men of their assigned units. To accomplish this task, the book traces the history of the military chaplaincy from the American Revolution through the American Civil War. This analysis relies heavily on official documents and reports as well as ...

Many educators and the public are interested in online distance education, in particular Internet-based schooling. The underlying assumption is that this is a new and untested fad in education. This is due in part to a lack of documentation within academia of the early development of online distance education, and, in part, to a shortage of experienced, practicing online schools. On the Internet, one may become confused by the flurry of activity and by the various claims from organizations that they are providing a revolutionary method of instruction--online teaching. Furthermore, many peo...

The role of the school board in public K-12 schools is considered from the agency and the stakeholder perspectives. A new theoretical model for the school board members practice of due diligence encompassing content and process issues is developed from empirical literature on agency and stakeholder relationships, vision content and process, and strategy-making process capability. A four pronged methodology is used to test the model and resolve research issues on the practice of due diligence: 1) Development of an accountability measure of student performance using the Accountability Repor...

Intensive Case Management (ICM) did not evolve from a single, well-defined model format but from different case management models. As a result, it has been vaguely defined as meaning more "intense" than usual case management, thus highlighting the lack of consensus about ICM's definition and parameters. Despite these differences, ICM programs aspire to a set of common principles and core operational functions derived from the concept of continuity of care. Recent literature reviews have found mixed results regarding studies examining ICM effectiveness ( e.g., psychiatric hospitalizations, etc....

How does the state system measure up to today's realitites when it comes to managing conflict? To what extent are efforts to manage conflict successful, and for whom? Prevailing structures designed to deal with conflict between collectives -- sovereign states supported by militaries, military industry, and the United Nations -- operate mainly on principles that are hundreds of years old. Conditions for conflict and its management have changed radically since this state system was constructed. There is a risk that institutional inertia produces growing disparity between real-world probl...

The study of Multivariate Time Series has always been more difficult at the modeling stage than the univariate case. Identification of a suitable model, questions of stability, and the difficulties of prediction are well recognised. A variety of methods appear to be worth examining. This thesis is concerned with the proposal of an useful tool which is to apply canonical analysis to a realisation of a Multivariate Time Series and concentrates it's attention on k-variate ARMA(p,q) models. The multivariate series is partitioned into two overlapping or non-overlapping sets of different sizes. The ...

An empirical study was undertaken (a) to examine the characteristics, influencing factors, and effectiveness of a distinctive Chinese management model adopted by the newly founded private enterprises in mainland China, as well as (b) to test the "fit" notion in contingency theory. The study was based on a random sample of 124 standardized personal interviews with CEOs of Chinese industrial and service companies in Beijing and Shanghai. The standardized questionnaire mainly contained the Aston structure scales (Pugh and Hickson 1976) and Khandwalla's (1977) management schedules. Besides, three ...