Books in the ISSN series

Considering the increasing importance of renewable energy for climate change mitigation, this book provides an overview of how renewable energy sources are integrated into the grid to promote better understanding among students and business professionals in the utility sector and across industries.Following an overview of the technical and historical development of the electric grid in the U.S. and Europe, this guide reviews hydropower, solar photovoltaics, wind energy, fuel cell, and battery technologies. The author also presents models for the connection of these renewable energy sources from large-scale to on-site and community power/microgrids. The models are explained through case studies in the developed and developing worlds that explore how technical evaluations are conducted, policy incentives implemented, and project finance applied.Considering the increasing importance of renewable energy for climate change mitigation, this book provides an overview of how renewable energy sources are integrated into the grid to promote better understanding among students and business professionals in the utility sector and across industries. Most literature on grid interconnection is highly technical, assuming an in-depth understanding of electrical engineering. With the rise of clean technologies and the diversity of interconnection models, this guide fills a gap in the existing literature by equipping non-technical business managers with the salient information they need to make critical decisions for their organizations.

This book is intended for practitioners, students, and researchers who are interested in designing, using, assessing, and researching performance management systems.Managerial personnel involved in such activity will hold many beliefs about how their organization functions. This text uses the philosophy of pragmatic constructivism to show how managerial beliefs that underlie action can be made explicit and so facilitate their assessment and improvement. This involves recognizing and integrating the four dimensions (facts, possibilities, values, and communication) that represent how managers relate to the reality in which they operate.When managerial beliefs are based on an accurate representation of reality, they are more likely to be successful. Problems occur where reality is misrepresented in managerial beliefs. This is especially so in performance management, as the book illustrates using real-world examples. Specific topics addressed include planning and decision making, performance management of investment center managers, strategic performance management, and operational performance management.

This book explores the basic tenets of service excellence, opening to distinguish customer service from service excellence, and explore the driving aspects of strategy and philosophy.The brand promise to customers creates expectations; hooks targeted and segmented customers into a relationship. Service operations deliver expectations, delight, or on occasion, disappointment, and marketing responds to create loyalty, further delight, or recover the relationship.Freshness of product or service offering, the injection of a characterful sense of fun, and sensitive personalization of service combine to deliver an authentic, pleasurable and memorable service experience prompting much sought loyalty and advocacy. In turn, staff are happy, profits rise and the organization has long-term sustainability.The first volume offers some theoretical background, while the second suggests mechanisms, tools, and techniques to help embed to excellence as the foundation of value that the organization delivers. Both contain practical examples and a self-assessment diagnostic tool to identify organizational areas of strength, and aspects to improve.

This book adopts a nontechnical approach to explaining the basis for trade between countries and the role of firms in global trade and describes the effect of tariffs and fluctuations in exchange rates on a company's sales, costs, and profitsThe study of international economics has never been more vital than it is today. The past global financial crisis, the economic uncertainty in many advanced countries, increasing barriers to international trade, and currency crises have created challenges for both policy makers and corporate decision makers involved in international trade and finance. This book provides a concise and rigorous approach to the understanding of international trade and finance without relying on mathematical models or graphs. It explains the basis and pattern of trade, the effects of trade and trade policies on companies, national welfare, and the global economy. It explains the determination and changes in exchange rates. Finally, it describes the operation of the economy and examines the impact of national economic policies on the domestic economy and the rest of the world.Corporate managers and MBA students must learn the complex interrelationships between trade policies; the actions of central banks; and changes in government spending and taxes on interest rates, prices, exchange rates, and economic activity. This book adopts a nontechnical approach to explaining the basis for trade between countries and the role of firms in global trade and describes the effect of tariffs and fluctuations in exchange rates on a company's sales, costs, and profits.

This book introduces new healthcare managers to the skills they need to transition and succeed in their managerial roles.More experienced managers can benefit, too, from examples and collected insights of other managers who were interviewed and from examples in recent and revisited literature. The author covers both "e;hard"e; business skills and "e;soft"e; people/organizational skills. We draw from books, articles, examples, and managerial experience of the author and colleagues at different organizational levels and throughout healthcare settings and professions.

What Hedge Funds Do provides a needed complement to journalistic accounts of the hedge fund industry, to deepen the understanding of non-specialist readers such as policymakers, journalists, and individual investors.What do hedge funds really do? These lightly-regulated funds continually innovate new investing and trading strategies to take advantage of temporary mispricing of assets (when their market price deviates from their intrinsic value). These techniques are shrouded in mystery, which permits hedge fund managers to charge exceptionally high fees.While the details of each funds' approach are carefully guarded trade secrets, this book draws the curtain back on the core building blocks of many hedge fund strategies Beyond the book's instructional goals, What Hedge Funds Do provides a needed complement to journalistic accounts of the hedge fund industry, to deepen the understanding of non-specialist readers such as policymakers, journalists, and individual investors. It is written by a fund practitioner and computer scientist (Balch), in collaboration with a public policy economist and finance academic (Romero).

The 360 Degree CEO provides the tools and insights to successfully navigate your personal and professional journeys while, elevating your health, your relationships, your results, and your organization's performance.Where are the courageous and CEOs, leading with integrity and generating notable business returns? This is the question Lorraine A. Moore wanted to highlight-for herself and her clients.This book provides an amalgamation of lessons from Moore's work with some of the best leaders in Fortune 1000 companies, privately held rms, mid-cap businesses, and not-for-profits. Drawing on real-life examples in her work with executives and boards of world-class technology firms, banks, credit unions, professional services, mining, retail, healthcare, energy/oil and gas, and more, Moore highlights the industry agnostic every leader can adopt.The 360 Degree CEO provides the tools and insights to successfully navigate your personal and professional journeys while, elevating your health, your relationships, your results, and your organization's performance.

Theoretical and experimental methods that are applied to analyse the hydrogen bond and other interactions are described, and different types of hydrogen bond are characterized.

Stereochemistry is an important concept that often causes confusion amongst students when they learn it for the first time. In this book we deal with tricky concepts like conformation and configuration, how to represent them accurately and how to use the correct terms to describe them in both organic and inorganic chemistry.

Summarizing progress in the preparation and applications of CO2-responsive materials, this is an ideal resource for researchers working in green chemistry, chemical engineering, polymer chemistry and material science.

This is the first book to cover the history, chemistry, biochemistry, and medical importance of vitamin C and provide an in-depth study of this essential and fascinating compound.

Newcomers to flame spectrometry will gain increased confidence, job skills and many handy tips and ideas from this book.

Divided into six chapters, this guide covers basic concepts of HPLC; instrumentation; stationary phase materials; eluents; column efficiency; and the influence of physical chemistry on separations.

This important text comprehensively examines each of the elements for which carcinogenicity has been established, providing detailed information on the carcinogenicity and toxicity and detailing the most up-to-date research in this area.

This book covers the last developments in asymmetric domino reactions, focussing on those published in the last 6 years.

This book is a must for all those seeking a straightforward explanation of how batteries are constructed, their operation, and the factors determining their performance and life.

This book should be read by academics and industrialists at all levels, to encourage wider applications of the use of hydrogen peroxide in laboratories.

This book surveys highlights of the progress made in the creation of discrete synthetic assemblies and provides a foundation for new workers in the area.

This unique book demonstrates the current status, and future potential, of millimetre wavelength (MMW) spectrometry as a means of quantitative analysis of gaseous mixtures.

The book clears up some of the confusion that surrounds the analytical use of supercritical fluids and assists the user in understanding the power and utility of this technique.

This is a tutorial guide to the use and application of the more commonly encountered techniques used in processing and interpreting analytical spectroscopic data.

Research into polymer nanofibers has increased significantly over the last decade, prompting the need for a comprehensive monograph examining the subject as knowledge of their properties and potential applications has increased.

This text is intended to introduce the non-specialist reader to the benefits and limitations of polymeric materials from an environmental viewpoint.

This book focuses on solid catalysts based on inorganic supports and covers the emerging area of chemically modified mesoporous solid catalysts.

This book discusses, in relatively simple language, the importance of even minute amounts of certain trace elements for the protection of human health and how insufficiency or excess may produce serious diseases. It also examines the use of metal chelators in the treatment of such diseases.