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Blockchains are new technology layers that rewire the Internet and threaten to side-step older legacy constructs and centrally served businesses. At its core, a blockchain injects trust into the network, cutting off some intermediaries from serving that function and creatively disrupting how they operate. Metaphorically, blockchains are the ultimate non-stop computers. Once launched, they never go down, and offer an incredible amount of resiliency, making them dependable and attractive for running a new generation of decentralized services and software applications. The Business Blockchain charts new territory in advancing our understanding of the blockchain by unpacking its elements like no other before. William Mougayar anticipates a future that consists of thousands, if not millions of blockchains that will enable not only frictionless value exchange, but also a new flow of value, redefining roles, relationships, power and governance. In this book, Mougayar makes two other strategic assertions. First, the blockchain has polymorphic characteristics; its application will result in a multiplicity of effects. Second, we shouldn't ask ourselves what problems the blockchain solves, because that gives us a narrow view on its potential. Rather, we should imagine new opportunities, and tackle even more ambitious problems that cross organizational, regulatory and mental boundaries. Drawing on 34 years of technology industry experience as an executive, analyst, consultant, entrepreneur, startup mentor, author, blogger, educator, thought leader and investor, William Mougayar describes a future that is influenced by fundamental shifts brought by blockchain technology as the catalyst for change ... Just as the Internet created new possibilities that we didn't foresee in its early years, the blockchain will give rise to new business models and ideas that may still be invisible

"A real-world look at the pension revolution underway The Future of Pension Management offers a progress report from the field, using actual case studies from around the world. In the mid-70s, Peter Drucker predicted that demographic dynamics would eventually turn pensions into a major societal issue; in 2007, author Keith Ambachsheer's book Pension Revolution laid out the ways in which Drucker's predictions had come to pass. This book provides a fresh look at the situation on the ground, and details the encouraging changes that have taken place in pension management concepts and practices. The challenges identified in 2007 are being addressed, and this report shows how design, management, and investment innovation have led to measurably better pension outcomes. Pensions have become an everyday news item, and people are rightly concerned about the security of their retirement in light of recent pension scandals and the global financial crisis. This book provides a note of encouragement, detailing the ways in which today's pensions are becoming more and more secure, and the new ideas and practices that are chipping away at the challenges. Learn how pension management practices are improving Examine the uptick in positive outcomes over recent years Discover why pension investing is turning toward the long-term Consider the challenges that remain and their possible solutions Drucker's vision of a needed pension revolution is unfolding in real time. Better pension designs, more effective pension governance, and more productive pension investing are mitigating many of the issues that threatened collapse. The Future of Pension Management provides a real-world update on the state of pensions today and a look forward to the changes we still need to make"--

"The End of the West is an interdisciplinary work that broaches the problem of Western ethnocentrism in contemporary social and political theory. More specifically, this book critically addresses what has recently been called the 'end' of the West in many contemporary public discourses. Meighoo argues that although this claim might appear to challenge the teleological conception implied in 'the West,' it only entrenches this concept further insofar as it presumes that there is a 'West' to begin with. This teleological concept of the West is based on the idea of a continuous tradition extending all the way from ancient Greece to modern Europe and its colonial settlements, a tradition that is distinguished from all non-Western traditions by its guiding principles of reason, progress, and freedom--a tradition, however, that is finally approaching its end, for better or worse. What the author is arguing, then, is that even the most anti-ethnocentric discourses on the end of the West continue to rely on the intrinsically ethnocentric concept of the West itself. The book thus promises to make a substantial contribution as well as a timely intervention into the academic fields of postcolonial theory, continental philosophy, cultural studies, and the history of ideas. The fields of postcolonial theory and continental philosophy in particular have been marked by a radical interrogation of Western ethnocentrism, racism, and colonialism. The book offers a critique not only of teleology but also of 'negative teleology.' For whether the West is hailed as the source of all historical progress or exposed as the root of all cultural imperialism, the discourse of negative teleology ultimately reaffirms the ethnocentrism that it is meant to overcome"--Provided by publisher

"Information Technology Law is the ideal companion for a course of study on IT law and the ways in which it is evolving in response to rapid technological and social change. This ground-breaking new work is the first textbook to systematically examine how the law and legal process of the UK interacts with the modern 'information society' and the fast-moving process of digitization. It examines the challenges that this fast pace of change brings to the established legal order, which was developed to meet the needs of a traditional physical society. To address these issues, this book begins by defining the information society and discussing how it may be regulated. From there it moves to questions of internet governance and rights and responsibilities in the digital environment. Particular attention is paid to key regulatory 'pressure points', including: DT copyright for digital products DT identity fraud DT electronic commerce DT privacy and surveillance Possible future challenges and opportunities are outlined and discussed, including e-government, virtual environments and property, and the development of web 3.0. Information Technology Law: The law and society covers all aspects of a course of study on IT law, and is therefore an ideal text for students. The author's highly original and thought-provoking approach to the subject also makes it essential reading for researchers, IT professionals and policymakers. Online Resource Centre This book is accompanied by an Online Resource Centre containing the following resources for students: DT Regular podcast updates from the author DT A selection of useful web links DT A glossary of key terms DT A link to the author's IT law blog"--

Machine generated contents note:pt. IINTRODUCTION --1.Gender and health: an introduction /Jasmine Gideon --pt. IIGENDER, HEALTH AND PUBLIC POLICY --2.Agenda-setting in women's health: critical analysis of a quarter-century of paradigm shifts in international and global health /Peggy McDonough --3.Gender, health and climate change /Sarah Payne --4.Towards a new political agenda for indigenous women's health in Latin America in the post-2015 era /Sandra Del Pino --5.Dangerous discourses? Silencing women within `global mental health' practice /Rochelle Ann Burgess --6.Cost-cutting, co-production and cash transfers: neoliberal policy, health and gender /Deborah Johnston --7.Applying a genders lens to public health discourses on men's health /Steve Robertson --8.Men, `masculinity' and mental health: critical reflections /Mark Robinson --9.Stigmatized, marginalized and overlooked: health, later life and gender in India and the United Kingdom /Penny Vera-Sanso --pt. IIIGENDER, WORK AND HEALTH --10.Gender, work and health: a step forward in women's occupational health /Vicenta Escriba-Aguir --11.Intersectionality: the value for occupational health research /Nadia Younes --12.Gendered work violence issues and mental health among Chilean women workers /Amalia Mauro Cardarelli --pt. IVGENDER, MIGRATION AND HEALTH --13.Migration, gender and health /Lorena Nunez Carrasco --14.Migration and health in a Chinese context: examining the linkages through a gender lens /Jasmine Gideon --15.Engendered movements: migration, gender and health in a globalized world /Denise L. Spitzer --16.Migration and sex work in South Africa: key concerns for gender and health /Jo Vearey --pt. VGENDER AND HEALTH SYSTEMS --17.Gender equity and the politics of health sector reform: overcoming policy legacies and forming epistemic communities /Christina Ewig --18.Gender and commercialization of health care /Sarah Sexton --19.Commercialization in maternity care: uncovering trends in the contemporary health care economy /Susan F. Murray --20.Building post-conflict health systems: a gender analysis from Northern Uganda /Sophie Witter --21.Reproductive health care and indigenous peoples in Venezuela /Johanna Goncalves Martin --pt. VIHOUSEHOLDS, HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE --22.Cycles of violence in gendered social contexts: why does child maltreatment lead to increased risk of intimate partner violence in adulthood? /Louise Knight --23.Capacities to exercise strategic decision-making agency: exploring the gendered production of health within intimate partnerships and households /Sally Theobald --pt. VIIGENDER, SOCIAL ACTIVISM AND HEALTH --24.Citizen monitoring: promoting health rights among socially excluded women in Andean Peru /Jeannie Samuel --25.Emergent masculinities, men's health and the Movember movement /Marcia C. Inhorn --pt. VIIIGENDER, HEALTH, SEXUALITY AND RIGHTS --26.Men's sexual health and destiny /Matthew Gutmann --27.Claiming Rosa Parks: conservative Catholic bids for `rights' in contemporary Latin America /Lynn M. Morgan --28.Conservative backlashes to women's bodily integrity in Latin America: the case of Chile /Gabriela Alvarez Minte --29.Deconstructing human rights-based discourses: the case of women's right to health and health sector reforms in Brazil /Marianna Leite --30.Men, masculinities and health in Brazil: a feminist critique /Benedito Medrado --31.Sexual health or rights? USAID-funded HIV/AIDS interventions for key populations in Ghana /Benjamin Eveslage --32.Positive women managing reproduction in the HIV pandemic /Lesley Doyal.

"In this timely, carefully reasoned social history of the United States, the New York Times bestselling author of Religious Literacy and God Is Not One places today's heated culture wars within the context of a centuries-long struggle of right versus left and religious versus secular to reveal how, ultimately, liberals always win.Though they may seem to be dividing the country irreparably, today's heated cultural and political battles between right and left, Progressives and Tea Party, religious and secular are far from unprecedented. In this engaging and important work, Stephen Prothero reframes the current debate, viewing it as the latest in a number of flashpoints that have shaped our national identity. Prothero takes us on a lively tour through time, bringing into focus the election of 1800, which pitted Calvinists and Federalists against Jeffersonians and "infidels;" the Protestants' campaign against Catholics in the mid-nineteenth century; the anti-Mormon crusade of the Victorian era; the fundamentalist-modernist debates of the 1920s; the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s; and the current crusade against Islam.As Prothero makes clear, our culture wars have always been religious wars, progressing through the same stages of conservative reaction to liberal victory that eventually benefit all Americans. Drawing on his impressive depth of knowledge and detailed research, he explains how competing religious beliefs have continually molded our political, economic, and sociological discourse and reveals how the conflicts which separate us today, like those that came before, are actually the byproduct of our struggle to come to terms with inclusiveness and ideals of "Americanness." To explore these battles, he reminds us, is to look into the soul of America--and perhaps find essential answers to the questions that beset us"--

"This book deals with climate change not only as a feature of the physical world but also as a milieu, a state of spirit. The climate is, in Tim Leduc's terms, "the context within which we mind all our relations." An ecology of mind is where ideas of mind-ecology relations emerged at the dawn of the environmental movement, and it's important for the author to explore those ideas in a specifically Canadian context. For example, he juxtaposes the Ontario biologist John Livingston and William Woodworth, an architect and a Mohawk from the Six Nations territory in southern Ontario; he also incorporates ideas from other Canadians, such as John Ralston Saul's vision of Canada as a metis nation. What Leduc calls "the braided metis strand of thought" allows him to "bring Livingston's ecology of mind into dialogue with Woodworth's Haudenosaunee Good Mind." The author's own summary of the book reads as follows: "We are living in a climate of great environmental and social changes. These global changes are central to A Canadian Climate of Mind, though they are situated in a Canadian colonial history that reveals the cultural challenge central to a sustainable future. The book begins by contemplating the Two Row Wampum treaty, which represents an Indigenous canoe and a settler ship traversing our common waters. Such a symbol has much to teach about missed historic opportunities and the respect that is central to renewing relations. In attempting to convert the Indigenous canoe to the ways of the ship, and our common waters (land, energy) to usable resources, great turbulence has ensued. Environmental disturbances like climate change are a sign of this; so were the residential schools. While the wampum's two rows are vital, the book is primarily concerned with imagining spaces from which to reweave Indigenous and settler approaches to land/water/climate."--

"An expert guide to surviving the coming hyperinflation and potential disruption What's Wrong with Money? explores how and why money is valued and the warning signs that point to its eventual collapse. Author Michael Ashton is widely regarded as a premier expert on inflation, and in this book, he illustrates how the erosion of trust in central banks is putting us at high risk of both near- and long-term inflation--and a potentially very serious disruption. It's not about a conspiracy surrounding inflation reporting; it's about the tentative agreement we all carry that lends money its value. This value isn't necessarily inherent; while some currency is backed by stored value, others are not. This book walks you through the history of currency and details the ways in which it can fall apart. You'll learn how to invest in any type of collapse scenario, and you'll gain expert insight into the warning signs that signal a coming shock to the financial system. Money's value is tied to the amount of it in circulation and to the people's trust in central banks and governments. Lazy fiscal policy is currently chipping away at that trust, and many people believe that there is something rotten at the core of the system. This book shows how they're right and how to prepare for what's to come. Track the history of monetary value Consider how money could die slowly or quickly Learn investment strategies for both slow and quick scenarios Examine potential causes of erosion and subsequent hyperinflation An economic system without money is incredibly inefficient, but our shared agreement in monetary value has historically never been enough. What's Wrong with Money? shows you the lessons from the past and the reality of the present and helps you make plans for the future of money."

'This book is a must-read for anyone interested in exploring the role of 'the classic' in sociology. In terms of both breadth and depth, Alan How has done a brilliant job in providing an inclusive, undogmatic, and inspiring account of the multiple ways in which key intellectual traditions and canons have shaped, and continue to shape, paradigmatic developments in contemporary sociological analysis.' - Simon Susen, City University, UK 'This lively and engaging book moves from an exploration of the question of sociology's current response to its "classics" and the idea of a sociological "canon" to a broader defence of a hermeneutic approach to tradition in social thought and in modern societies.' - William Outhwaite, Newcastle University, UK This book examines the way sociology has eliminated the importance of the past, history, and tradition in favour of the transience of the present. The role of the classic text in sociology has produced criticism that the ideas of Weber, Marx and Durkheim are now ideologically dubious and sociologically irrelevant. Challenging this view, the author criticises such notions as de-traditionalization, structuration and postmodernism, emphasizing instead the relevance of habit, re-traditionalization, and social integration across time. Demonstrating that classical sociology continues to be highly relevant to cutting-edge debates in the contemporary social sciences, he revisits the Habermas-Gadamer debate to argue that tradition is the ground of the classic, and the classic something that must prove itself anew in subsequent situations. He uses the work of Durkheim, Simmel and Weber to illustrate this process. Drawing on Archer's account of structure and agency, he makes a parallel distinction between 'classic' and 'canon', allowing us to appreciate the separate qualities of each. This major contribution to the field is essential reading for scholars and students of sociology and social theory. Alan R. How is Senior Lecturer at the University of Worcester, UK

The accessible, beneficial guide to developing algorithmic trading solutions The Ultimate Algorithmic Trading System Toolbox is the complete package savvy investors have been looking for. An integration of explanation and tutorial, this guide takes you from utter novice to out-the-door trading solution as you learn the tools and techniques of the trade. You'll explore the broad spectrum of today's technological offerings, and use several to develop trading ideas using the provided source code and the author's own library, and get practical advice on popular software packages including TradeStation, TradersStudio, MultiCharts, Excel, and more. You'll stop making repetitive mistakes as you learn to recognize which paths you should not go down, and you'll discover that you don't need to be a programmer to take advantage of the latest technology. The companion website provides up-to-date TradeStation code, Excel spreadsheets, and instructional video, and gives you access to the author himself to help you interpret and implement the included algorithms. Algorithmic system trading isn't really all that new, but the technology that lets you program, evaluate, and implement trading ideas is rapidly evolving. This book helps you take advantage of these new capabilities to develop the trading solution you've been looking for. Exploit trading technology without a computer science degree Evaluate different trading systems' strengths and weaknesses Stop making the same trading mistakes over and over again Develop a complete trading solution using provided source code and libraries New technology has enabled the average trader to easily implement their ideas at very low cost, breathing new life into systems that were once not viable. If you're ready to take advantage of the new trading environment but don't know where to start, The Ultimate Algorithmic Trading System Toolbox will help you get on board quickly and easily.

"Over more than two centuries men, women, and children escaped from slavery to make the Southern wilderness their home. They hid in the mountains of Virginia and the low swamps of South Carolina; they stayed in the neighborhood or paddled their way to secluded places; they buried themselves underground or built comfortable settlements. Known as maroons, they lived on their own or set up communities in swamps or other areas where they were not likely to be discovered. Although well-known, feared, celebrated or demonized at the time, the maroons whose stories are the subject of this book have been forgotten, overlooked by academic research that has focused on the Caribbean and Latin America. Who the American maroons were, what led them to choose this way of life over alternatives, what forms of marronage they created, what their individual and collective lives were like, how they organized themselves to survive, and how their particular story fits into the larger narrative of slave resistance are questions that this book seeks to answer. To survive, the American maroons reinvented themselves, defied slave society, enforced their own definition of freedom and dared create their own alternative to what the country had delineated as being black men and women's proper place. Audacious, self-confident, autonomous, sometimes self-sufficient, always self-governing; their very existence was a repudiation of the basic tenets of slavery. Sylviane A. Diouf is an award-winning historian specializing in the history of the African Diaspora, African Muslims, the slave trade and slavery. She is the author of Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (NYU Press, 2013) and Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America, and the editor of Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies. "--

Palestinians frequently present a harmonizing and homogenizing we-image of their own national we-group, as a way of counteracting Israeli attempts to sow divisions among them, whether through Israeli politics or through the dominant public discourse in Israel. However, a closer look reveals the fragility of this homogenizing we-image which masks a variety of internal tensions and conflicts. By applying methods and concepts from biographical research and figurational sociology, the articles in this volume offer an analysis of the Middle East conflict that goes beyond the polar opposition between "Israelis" and "Palestinians". On the basis of case studies from five urban regions in Palestine and Israel (Bethlehem, Ramallah, East Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa), the authors explore the importance of belonging, collective self-images and different forms of social differentiation within Palestinian communities. For each region this is bound up with an analysis of the relevant social and socio-political contexts, and family and life histories. The analysis of (locally) different figurations means focusing on the perspective of Palestinians as members of different religious, socio-economic, political or generational groupings and local group constellations – for instance between Christians and Muslims or between long-time residents and refugees. The following scholars have contributed to this volume: Ahmed Albaba, Johannes Becker, Hendrik Hinrichsen, Gabriele Rosenthal, Nicole Witte, Arne Worm and Rixta Wundrak. Gabriele Rosenthal is a sociologist and professor of Qualitative Methodology at the Center of Methods in Social Sciences, University of Göttingen. Her major research focus is the intergenerational impact of collective and familial history on biographical structures and actional patterns of individuals and family systems. Her current research deals with ethnicity, ethno-political conflicts and the social construction of borders. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Holocaust in Three Generations (2009), Interpretative Sozialforschung (2011) and, together with Artur Bogner, Ethnicity, Belonging and Biography (2009).

"A ground shaking exposé on the failure of popular cyber risk management methods How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk exposes the shortcomings of current "risk management" practices, and offers a series of improvement techniques that help you fill the holes and ramp up security. In his bestselling book How to Measure Anything, author Douglas W. Hubbard opened the business world's eyes to the critical need for better measurement. This book expands upon that premise and draws from The Failure of Risk Management to sound the alarm in the cybersecurity realm. Some of the field's premier risk management approaches actually create more risk than they mitigate, and questionable methods have been duplicated across industries and embedded in the products accepted as gospel. This book sheds light on these blatant risks, and provides alternate techniques that can help improve your current situation. You'll also learn which approaches are too risky to save, and are actually more damaging than a total lack of any security. Dangerous risk management methods abound; there is no industry more critically in need of solutions than cybersecurity. This book provides solutions where they exist, and advises when to change tracks entirely. Discover the shortcomings of cybersecurity's "best practices" Learn which risk management approaches actually create risk Improve your current practices with practical alterations Learn which methods are beyond saving, and worse than doing nothing Insightful and enlightening, this book will inspire a closer examination of your company's own risk management practices in the context of cybersecurity. The end goal is airtight data protection, so finding cracks in the vault is a positive thing—as long as you get there before the bad guys do. How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk is your guide to more robust protection through better quantitative processes, approaches, and techniques"--

"International military interventions can be extremely costly in terms of monetary resources, logistical challenges, and possible soldier and civilian casualties, as well as the potential for catastrophic results to international relations and agreements. In one such example of these enormous potential costs, the US and UK wished to stop a Russian ship from delivering ammunition to the Assad regime in Syria in 2012. Intercepting or confronting a Russian ship in transit could have erupted into open conflict, so they sought an alternative, non-confrontational maneuver: instead of military intervention, the UK persuaded the ship's insurer, London's Standard Club, to withdraw the ship's insurance. This loss of insurance caused the ship to return to Russia, thus avoiding an international clash as well as the delivery of deadly weapons to Syria. This use of legal maneuvering in lieu of armed force is known as "lawfare" and is becoming a critical strategic platform. In Lawfare, author Orde Kittrie's draws on his experiences as a lawfare practitioner, US State Department attorney, and international law scholar in analyzing the theory and practice of the strategic leveraging of law as an increasingly powerful and effective weapon in the current global security landscape. Lawfare incorporates case studies of recent offensive and defensive lawfare by the United States, Iran, China, and by both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and includes dozens of examples of how lawfare has thus been waged and defended against. Kittrie notes that since private attorneys can play important and decisive roles in their nations' national security plans through their expertise in areas like financial law, maritime insurance law, cyber law, and telecommunications law, the full scope of lawfare's impact and possibilities are just starting to be understood. With international security becoming an ever complicated minefield of concerns and complications, understanding this alternative to armed force has never been more important"--