No one wants to end life's journey wondering: Did my life count for something? Did I have a reason for being here? The stories in this book show that for people of all ages, income levels, and expertise, the answer can be a resounding " Yes!" From extraordinary examples -- relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or work in refugee camps in Afghanistan -- to localized, everyday actions, the authors demonstrate that living a life of service to others, and seeing how lives are changed as a result, establishes the meaning and significance all humans long for. Moreover, the book provides strategies for creating a purposeful life through daily service. The authors prove that the ability to find fulfillment is within reach, and that the discovery is waiting to be made in homes, workplaces, communities, neighborhoods, and schools all across America.

This title provides the most important theoretical aspects of Image and Signal Processing (ISP) for both deterministic and random signals. The theory is supported by exercises and computer simulations relating to real applications. More than 200 programs and functions are provided in the MATLAB® language, with useful comments and guidance, to enable numerical experiments to be carried out, thus allowing readers to develop a deeper understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects of this subject.

Want to calculate the probability that an event will happen? Be able to spot fake data? Prove beyond doubt whether one thing causes another? Or learn to be a better gambler? You can do that and much more with 75 practical and fun hacks packed into Statistics Hacks. These cool tips, tricks, and mind-boggling solutions from the world of statistics, measurement, and research methods will not only amaze and entertain you, but will give you an advantage in several real-world situations-including business. This book is ideal for anyone who likes puzzles, brainteasers, games, gambling, magic tricks, and those who want to apply math and science to everyday circumstances. Several hacks in the first chapter alone-such as the "central limit theorem,", which allows you to know everything by knowing just a little-serve as sound approaches for marketing and other business objectives. Using the tools of inferential statistics, you can understand the way probability works, discover relationships, predict events with uncanny accuracy, and even make a little money with a well-placed wager here and there. Statistics Hacks presents useful techniques from statistics, educational and psychological measurement, and experimental research to help you solve a variety of problems in business, games, and life. You'll learn how to: Play smart when you play Texas Hold 'Em, blackjack, roulette, dice games, or even the lottery Design your own winnable bar bets to make money and amaze your friends Predict the outcomes of baseball games, know when to "go for two" in football, and anticipate the winners of other sporting events with surprising accuracy Demystify amazing coincidences and distinguish the truly random from the only seemingly random--even keep your iPod's "random" shuffle honest Spot fraudulent data, detect plagiarism, and break codes How to isolate the effects of observation on the thing observed Whether you're a statistics enthusiast who does calculations in your sleep or a civilian who is entertained by clever solutions to interesting problems, Statistics Hacks has tools to give you an edge over the world's slim odds.

Generate detailed reports that will give your company the competitive edge Put essential information in the hands of end-users across your organization using Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer 10 g and the comprehensive information contained in this Oracle Press guide. You’ll learn, step-by-step, how to query databases and warehouses, format the results, and distribute dynamic, Web-enabled reports. All features are covered in full detail, including OracleBI Discoverer Desktop, Workbook Wizard, Plus, Viewer, Discoverer Administrator, Portlet Provider, OLAP, and Enterprise Manager. Real-world case studies and tutorials illustrate all of the analysis, security, and reporting capabilities of Oracle Discoverer 10 g. Set up, configure, and manage Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer 10 g Perform ad hoc and fixed queries using the Workbook Wizard Integrate sorts, calculations, percentages, and parameters using Discoverer Plus Create reports with graphs, tables, titles, headers, footers, and margins Use Discoverer Viewer to review, format, export, email, and print reports Refine queries using interactive pivoting, drilling, and Hyper Drilling Control OLAP workbooks using the Discoverer Catalog and Oracle Enterprise Manager Establish access and sharing rights, and scheduling privileges with Discoverer Administrator Set up and use Portal using Discoverer Portlet Provider and Portlets Implement query shortcuts, cascading parameters and advanced analytic calculations using templates

WILEY-INTERSCIENCE PAPERBACK SERIES The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists. ". . .this is a very competently written and useful addition to the statistical literature; a book every statistician should look at and that many should study!" -Short Book Reviews, International Statistical Institute ". . .reading this book was an enjoyable learning experience. The suggestions and recommendations on the methods [make] this book an excellent reference for anyone interested in simulation. With its compact structure and good coverage of material, it [is] an excellent textbook for a simulation course." -Technometrics ". . .this work is an excellent comprehensive guide to simulation methods, written by a very competent author. It is especially recommended for those users of simulation methods who want more than a 'cook book'. " -Mathematics Abstracts This book is a comprehensive guide to simulation methods with explicit recommendations of methods and algorithms. It covers both the technical aspects of the subject, such as the generation of random numbers, non-uniform random variates and stochastic processes, and the use of simulation. Supported by the relevant mathematical theory, the text contains a great deal of unpublished research material, including coverage of the analysis of shift-register generators, sensitivity analysis of normal variate generators, analysis of simulation output, and more.

Proposing any performance or training solutions requires rigorous analysis based on data, not speculation. Conducting a front-end analysis—a process for determining why a perceived performance gap exists and how to close the gap—enables workplace learning and performance professionals to find successful solutions. This Infoline describes how to carry out the two distinct analysis processes that go into a front-end analysis: a gap (or performance) analysis and root cause analysis. The first process determines if a performance problem exists. The second process identifies the true root cause of the issue. Helpful sidebars explain the analysis sequence, when to conduct a gap analysis, how to define performance gaps without bias, and factors that influence performance. In addition, the job aid provides a checklist of questions for a training needs analysis.

Prepare for the SAS Base Programming for SAS®9 certification exam with the official guide by the SAS® Certified Professional Program. New and experienced SAS users who want to prepare for the SAS Base Programming for SAS®9 certification exam will find this guide an invaluable, convenient and comprehensive resource that covers all of the objectives tested on the exam. Major topics include importing and exporting raw data files, creating and modifying SAS data sets, and identifying and correcting data syntax and programming logic errors.You will also become familiar with the enhancements and new functionality that are available in SAS®9. Includes a free CD-ROM with tutorials, practice data, and sample programs to further reinforce and test your SAS skills.

The IBM WebSphere Business Integration for Healthcare Collaborative Network is an internet-based, private information network that enables secure transmission of clinical data to healthcare participants. Healthcare Collaborative Network enables immediacy in the dissemination of clinical data and provides participants with capabilities to detect and respond rapidly to health risks such as adverse drug effects, to manage quality of care, and to implement monitoring and warning systems for detecting the onset of dangerous infectious diseases or bioterrorist attacks. This IBM IBM Redbooks publication provides a first-hand guide for creating solutions based on the IBM WebSphere Business Integration for Healthcare Collaborative Network. It includes an example scenario of a public health alert based on Avian Influenza (bird flu) and Avian Influenza A (H5N1). Healthcare Collaborative Network is aimed at hospitals and large groups of medical or dental practices, international and government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and major insurance companies.

Excel Pivot Tables Recipe Book: A Problem-Solution Approach is for anyone who uses Excel frequently. This book follows a problem-solution format that covers the entire breadth of situations you might encounter when working with PivotTables—from planning and creating, to formatting and extracting data, to maximizing performance and troubleshooting. The author presents tips and techniques in this collection of recipes that cannot be found in Excel's Help section, and she carefully explains the most confusing features of PivotTables. All chapters have been organized into a collection of recipes that take you step-by-step from the problem you are experiencing to the solution you are aiming for. There's no fuss to this book, only clear and precise information to help you assess your situationwhether common or uniqueand solve your problem. The book includes real-world examples of complex PivotTables, as well as numerous PivotTable programming examples.

Baseball Hacks isn't your typical baseball book--it's a book about how to watch, research, and understand baseball. It's an instruction manual for the free baseball databases. It's a cookbook for baseball research. Every part of this book is designed to teach baseball fans how to do something. In short, it's a how-to book--one that will increase your enjoyment and knowledge of the game. So much of the way baseball is played today hinges upon interpreting statistical data. Players are acquired based on their performance in statistical categories that ownership deems most important. Managers make in-game decisions based not on instincts, but on probability - how a particular batter might fare against left-handedpitching, for instance. The goal of this unique book is to show fans all the baseball-related stuff that they can do for free (or close to free). Just as open source projects have made great software freely available, collaborative projects such as Retrosheet and Baseball DataBank have made great data freely available. You can use these data sources to research your favorite players, win your fantasy league, or appreciate the game of baseball even more than you do now. Baseball Hacks shows how easy it is to get data, process it, and use it to truly understand baseball. The book lists a number of sources for current and historical baseball data, and explains how to load it into a database for analysis. It then introduces several powerful statistical tools for understanding data and forecasting results. For the uninitiated baseball fan, author Joseph Adler walks readers through the core statistical categories for hitters (batting average, on-base percentage, etc.), pitchers (earned run average, strikeout-to-walk ratio, etc.), and fielders (putouts, errors, etc.). He then extrapolates upon these numbers to examine more advanced data groups like career averages, team stats, season-by-season comparisons, and more. Whether you're a mathematician, scientist, or season-ticket holder to your favorite team, Baseball Hacks is sure to have something for you. Advance praise for Baseball Hacks: " Baseball Hacks is the best book ever written for understanding and practicing baseball analytics. A must-read for baseball professionals and enthusiasts alike." -- Ari Kaplan, database consultant to the Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, and Baltimore Orioles "The game was born in the 19th century, but the passion for its analysis continues to grow into the 21st. In Baseball Hacks, Joe Adler not only demonstrates thatthe latest data-mining technologies have useful application to the study of baseball statistics, he also teaches the reader how to do the analysis himself, arming the dedicated baseball fan with tools to take his understanding of the game to a higher level." -- Mark E. Johnson, Ph.D., Founder, SportMetrika, Inc. and Baseball Analyst for the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals

The ability of a structural assembly to carry loads and forces determines how stable it will be over time. Viewing structural assemblages as comprising columns, beams, arches, rings, and plates, this book will introduce the student to both a classical and advanced understanding of the mechanical behavior of such structural systems under load and how modeling the resulting strains can predict the overall future performance—the stability—of that structure. While covering traditional beam theory, the book is more focused on elastica theory in keeping with modern approaches. This text will be an expanded and updated version a similar, previously published book, but with pedagogical improvements and updated analytical methods. This engineering textbook will provide a focused treatment on the study of how structures behave and perform when under stress loading, including plastic deformation and buckling. All advanced engineering students studying engineering mechanics, structural analysis and design, fatigue and failure, and other related subjects need to have this knowledge, and this book will provide it in a thorough and coherent fashion. Written by two of the world’s leading engineering professors in this subject area, the pedagogy has been classroom-tested over many years and should find a receptive readership among both students and instructors. * An understandable introduction to the theory of structural stability, useful for a wide variety of engineering disciplines, including mechanical, civil and aerospace engineering * Covers both static and dynamic loads, for both conservative and nonconservative systems * Emphasizes elastic behavior under loads, including vertical buckling, torsional buckling and nonlinear affects of structural system buckling and stability * Case examples to illustrate real-world applications of Stability Theory

Budgets are like road maps -- they provide a direction for a corporates financial management. Balance sheets and statements of revenues also provide insights into how well a company is following that direction. But cash flow and cash flow forecasts are what guide the day-to-day itinerary for an organization. Budgets and cash flow are dynamic -- adjustments and changes can and should occur. If you understand what you are looking at, you can use cash flow to create better budgets and thus more accurate cash flow forecasting. Cash Flow Forecasting outlines the techniques required to undertake a detailed analysis of the cash flow dynamics of the business from both a historical and forward looking perspective. Cash Flow Forecasting explains how to: * Determine appropriate cash flow figures from pro forma financial statements * Interpret detailed cash flow forecasts and understand the difference between profit and cash flow * Conserve or generate cash in the short term * Evaluate different methods of project evaluation * Recognize the limitations of accounting information in valuing companies *Inspired by basic entry level training courses that have been developed by major international banks worldwide * Will enable students and those already in the finance profession to gain an understanding of the basic information and principles of cash flow forecasting * Includes questions with answers, study topics, practical "real world" examples and extensive bibliography

Greasemonkey Hacks is an invaluable compendium 100 ingenious hacks for power users who want to master Greasemonkey, the hot new Firefox extension that allows you to write scripts that alter the web pages you visit. With Greasemonkey, you can create scripts that make a web site more usable, fix rendering bugs that site owners can't be bothered to fix themselves, or add items to a web site's menu bar. You can alter pages so they work better with technologies that speak a web page out loud or convert it to Braille. Greasemonkey gurus can even import, combine, and alter data from different web sites to meet their own specific needs. Greasemonkey has achieved a cult-like following in its short lifespan, but its uses are just beginning to be explored. Let's say you're shopping on an e-commerce site. You can create a script that will automatically display competitive prices for that particular product from other web sites. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination and your Greasemonkey expertise. Greasemonkey Hacks can't help you with the imagination part, but it can provide the expert hacks-complete with the sample code-you need to turn your brainstorms into reality. More than just an essential collection of made-to-order Greasemonkey solutions, Greasemonkey Hacks is crammed with sample code, a Greasemonkey API reference, and a comprehensive list of resources, to ensure that every resource you need is available between its covers. Some people are content to receive information from websites passively; some people want to control it. If you are one of the latter, Greasemonkey Hacks provides all the clever customizations and cutting-edge tips and tools you need to take command of any web page you view.

THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL PRINT PRODUCTION is an understanding of the entire workflow, from scanning and file creation through prepress and print production. Fully updated by author and publishing consultant Brian Lawler, The Official Adobe Print Publishing Guide, Second Edition, brings together the collective knowledge and wisdom of the experts at Adobe Systems in a simple, elegant presentation of the fundamental concepts and issues related to producing high-quality printed output. The book includes succinct, expertly illustrated explanations of the basic concepts and terminology of print production, along with Adobe’s tried and true guidelines, tips, and checklists for ensuring a successful print job.

American democracy, argues Charles Derber, is being subverted in the name of democracy itself. Derber shows how the current regime has maintained power by intensifying the red/blue culture wars—supporting religious extremists, exploiting terrorism fears, and manipulating the electoral process. And he reveals our best hope for positive change: an alliance between the Democratic Party and another source of hidden power—the grass roots progressive movements that have always been catalysts for change. Thoughtful, eloquent, and compelling, Hidden Power offers real hope for restoring genuine democracy to America.

Women now drive some 80% of all buying decisions. By 2010, they'll account for half of America's private wealth: $13 trillion dollars. A few remarkable companies have learned how to refocus on women -- and, in so doing, have achieved truly stunning results. In The Power of the Purse, top journalist Fara Warner takes you behind the scenes at those companies, revealing how they did it -- and how you can, too. Unlike previous books on marketing to women, this one doesn't settle for generalities: it offers in-depth, start-to-finish case studies. Discover how McDonald's turned around its business by recognizing women as full-fledged consumers, not just 'Moms.' Learn how Kodak's digital camera business soared from fourth to first by recognizing women's importance as family 'memory makers'. See how P G built Swiffer into a cultural revolution, and how the diamond industry did the same for right-hand rings. Watch Bratz topple Barbie, Torrid create its enormously successful plus-size stores for teenagers, and Avon connect with a radically new generation of women. From Nike to Home Depot, each story is unique -- but in every case, these companies put women at the center of their strategies, and listened intently to what real women consumers were telling them. It's not about 'painting your products pink': it's about transforming the way you think about women. Do that, and you'll create products that sell better to everyone.

This book is a must read for anyone deploying BusinessObjects. It covers everything from planning your upgrade to the latest release, to best practices in universe design, and powerful report creation that maximizes business insight. This book covers the most frequently used features for the full BI suite, in one comprehensive book. There's in depth coverage of Designer, security via the Central Management Console, InfoView, Web Intelligence, and Desktop Intelligence. It goes beyond step-by-step instructions to cover how and why in a business context. Transition notes are interspersed for version 5 and 6 customers to understand the biggest changes in XI Release 2. If you drive BI requirements in your company or are a data warehouse program manager, Business Objects administrator, report author or consumer, this book is for you.

At last! A real-world reference guide for clinical trial SAS programming, packed with solutions that programmers can apply to their day-to-day problems. Discover key techniques and tools available within Base SAS (including the macro language and PROC SQL), SAS/GRAPH, and SAS/STAT that can be used to resolve many common issues in working with clinical trial data. Organized to reflect the statistical programmer's work flow, this user-friendly text begins with an introduction to the working environment, then presents chapters on importing and massaging data into analysis data sets, producing clinical trial output, and exporting data. Valuable plug-and-play programming examples are provided throughout. Whether you're a novice seeking an introduction to SAS programming for the pharmaceutical industry or a junior-level programmer exploring new approaches to problem solving, you'll find a wealth of practical suggestions to help you sharpen your skills.

Jump-start your report-writing skills! Report writing has never been easier. Learn how you can easily avoid common report-writing pitfalls with SAS Guide to Report Writing: Examples, Second Edition. Updated for SAS®9, this task-oriented book guides you through the steps that you need to produce professional reports. Using a wealth of easy-to-follow examples, this time-saving book demonstrates the many different styles of reports that are available and the SAS tools used to generate them. The examples enable more experienced programmers to quickly grasp new techniques, while margin notes and additional discussions provide novice users with the details that they need for effective learning. You can save programming hours by using the SAS programs as they are or as models for developing your own reports. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, this must-have guide will strengthen your report-writing expertise and give you the tools that you need to enhance the power of your reports!

Become a savvy Microsoft Excel user. Pivot tables are a great feature in Excel that help you organize and analyze data, but not many Excel users know how to use pivot tables. Pivot Table Data Crunching offers a comprehensive review of all the functionalities of Pivot Tables from author Bill Jelen, otherwise known as Mr. Excel from www.mrexcel.com, and Michael Alexander, a Microsoft Certified Application Developer. The authors' practical scenarios and real-world advice demonstrate the benefits of Pivot Tables and how to avoid the common pitfalls of every day data crunching. Each solution presented in the book can be accomplished with resources available in the Excel interface, making Pivot Table Data Crunching a beneficial resource for all levels of Excel users.

Updated for SA®9, this second edition is an easy-to-understand introduction to SAS as well as to univariate and multivariate statistics. Clear explanations and simple language guide you through the research terminology, data input, data manipulation, and types of statistical analysis that are most commonly used in the social and behavioral sciences. Providing practice data inspired by actual studies, this book teaches you how to choose the right statistic, understand the assumptions underlying the procedure, prepare the SAS program for the analysis, interpret the output, and summarize the analysis and results according to the format prescribed in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Step by step you will learn how to perform the following types of analysis: simple descriptive statistics, measures of bivariate association, t tests: independent samples and paired samples, NOVA and MANOVA, multiple regression, principal component analysis, and assessing scale reliability with coefficient alpha. This text is ideally suited to students who are beginning their study of data analysis, and to professors and researchers who want a handy reference on their bookshelf.

Fuzzy Modeling and Genetic Algorithms for Data Mining and Exploration is a handbook for analysts, engineers, and managers involved in developing data mining models in business and government. As you’ll discover, fuzzy systems are extraordinarily valuable tools for representing and manipulating all kinds of data, and genetic algorithms and evolutionary programming techniques drawn from biology provide the most effective means for designing and tuning these systems. You don’t need a background in fuzzy modeling or genetic algorithms to benefit, for this book provides it, along with detailed instruction in methods that you can immediately put to work in your own projects. The author provides many diverse examples and also an extended example in which evolutionary strategies are used to create a complex scheduling system. Written to provide analysts, engineers, and managers with the background and specific instruction needed to develop and implement more effective data mining systems Helps you to understand the trade-offs implicit in various models and model architectures Provides extensive coverage of fuzzy SQL querying, fuzzy clustering, and fuzzy rule induction Lays out a roadmap for exploring data, selecting model system measures, organizing adaptive feedback loops, selecting a model configuration, implementing a working model, and validating the final model In an extended example, applies evolutionary programming techniques to solve a complicated scheduling problem Presents examples in C, C++, Java, and easy-to-understand pseudo-code Extensive online component, including sample code and a complete data mining workbench

In Analysis of Clinical Trials Using SAS: A Practical Guide, Alex Dmitrienko, Geert Molenberghs, Christy Chuang-Stein, and Walter Offen bridge the gap between modern statistical methodology and real-world clinical trial applications. Step-by-step instructions illustrated with examples from actual trials and case studies serve to define a statistical method and its relevance in a clinical trials setting and to illustrate how to implement the method rapidly and efficiently using the power of SAS software. Topics reflect the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines for the pharmaceutical industry and address important statistical problems encountered in clinical trials, including analysis of stratified data, incomplete data, multiple inferences, issues arising in safety and efficacy monitoring, and reference intervals for extreme safety and diagnostic measurements. Clinical statisticians, research scientists, and graduate students in biostatistics will greatly benefit from the decades of clinical research experience compiled in this book. Numerous ready-to-use SAS macros and example code are included.

This book is part of the SAS Press program.

The Visualization Handbook provides an overview of the field of visualization by presenting the basic concepts, providing a snapshot of current visualization software systems, and examining research topics that are advancing the field. This text is intended for a broad audience, including not only the visualization expert seeking advanced methods to solve a particular problem, but also the novice looking for general background information on visualization topics. The largest collection of state-of-the-art visualization research yet gathered in a single volume, this book includes articles by a “who’s who? of international scientific visualization researchers covering every aspect of the discipline, including: · Virtual environments for visualization · Basic visualization algorithms · Large-scale data visualization · Scalar data isosurface methods · Visualization software and frameworks · Scalar data volume rendering · Perceptual issues in visualization · Various application topics, including information visualization. * Edited by two of the best known people in the world on the subject; chapter authors are authoritative experts in their own fields; * Covers a wide range of topics, in 47 chapters, representing the state-of-the-art of scientific visualization.

Classification, Parameter Estimation and State Estimation is a practical guide for data analysts and designers of measurement systems and postgraduates students that are interested in advanced measurement systems using MATLAB. 'Prtools' is a powerful MATLAB toolbox for pattern recognition and is written and owned by one of the co-authors, B. Duin of the Delft University of Technology. After an introductory chapter, the book provides the theoretical construction for classification, estimation and state estimation. The book also deals with the skills required to bring the theoretical concepts to practical systems, and how to evaluate these systems. Together with the many examples in the chapters, the book is accompanied by a MATLAB toolbox for pattern recognition and classification. The appendix provides the necessary documentation for this toolbox as well as an overview of the most useful functions from these toolboxes. With its integrated and unified approach to classification, parameter estimation and state estimation, this book is a suitable practical supplement in existing university courses in pattern classification, optimal estimation and data analysis. Covers all contemporary main methods for classification and estimation. Integrated approach to classification, parameter estimation and state estimation Highlights the practical deployment of theoretical issues. Provides a concise and practical approach supported by MATLAB toolbox. Offers exercises at the end of each chapter and numerous worked out examples. PRtools toolbox (MATLAB) and code of worked out examples available from the internet Many examples showing implementations in MATLAB Enables students to practice their skills using a MATLAB environment