Chemical Leasing: An Intelligent and Integrated Business Model with a View to Sustainable Development in Materials Management

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"Chemical leasing” represents an innovative business model, in which chemicals are no longer simply sold to the customer to render a specific service, but made available and maintained. This way, the economic interest no longer lies in selling the chemical product, but in providing a chemical service. All the stakeholders will thus endeavour to enhance the efficiency of the various substances to a maximum. This book is based on the results of two studies facilitated by the Austrian Ministry of Environment and key players of the industry, in which the potentials for the introduction of such a business model for Austria were investigated. A classical "win–win” solution evolves, which spares the environment by reducing emissions, gives rise to an optimisation of company processes, both in terms of quality and quantity, and redefines the supplier – customer relationship.

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"The present edited volume is of special importance, and for various reasons: First of all, it is a most comprehensive and multifaceted coverage of broadly perceived fuzzy control in the literature. The editors have succeeded to collect papers from leading scholars and researchers on various subjects related to the topic of the volume. What is relevant and original is that - opposed to so many volumes on fuzzy control that are strongly technically oriented and covering a narrow spectrum of issues relevant to fuzzy control itself - the editors have adopted a more general and far sighted approach."
From the foreword by Janusz Kacprzyk
Besides the theory and application of fuzzy control, original results on special problems in fuzzy sets theory, like simulation, problems of measurement, connectives in fuzzy logic, neural network and genetic approaches, are presented.

Fuzzy Systems Engineering: Theory and Practice (Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing)

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Fuzzy Systems Engineering: Theory and Practice (Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing)
Nadia Nedjah , and Luiza de Macedo Mourelle
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 354025322X

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This book is devoted to reporting innovative and significant progress in fuzzy system engineering. Given the maturation of fuzzy logic, this book is dedicated to exploring the recent breakthroughs in fuzziness and soft computing in favour of intelligent system engineering. This monograph presents novel developments of the fuzzy theory as well as interesting applications of the fuzzy logic exploiting the theory to engineer intelligent systems.

SOFSEM 2006: Theory and Practice of Computer Science: 32nd Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, Merin, Czech Republic, ... (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

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SOFSEM 2006: Theory and Practice of Computer Science: 32nd Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, Merin, Czech Republic, ... (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 354031198X

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This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 32nd Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, SOFSEM 2006, held in Merin, Czech Republic in January 2006.

The 45 revised full papers, including the best Student Research Forum paper, presented together with 10 invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 157 submissions. The papers were organized in four topical tracks on computer science foundations, wireless, mobile, ad hoc and sensor networks, database technologies, and semantic Web technologies.

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John S.D. Eisenhower modestly explains General Ike as "a son's view of a great military leader -- highly intelligent, strong, forceful, kind, yet as human as the rest of us." It is that, and more: a portrait of the greatest Allied military leader of the Second World War, by the man who knew Ike best.

General Ike is a book that John Eisenhower always knew he had to write, a tribute from an affectionate and admiring son to a great father. John chose to write about the "military Ike," as opposed to the "political Ike," because Ike cared far more about his career in uniform than about his time in the White House.

Portraits of Ike's relations with soldiers and statesmen, from MacArthur to Patton to Montgomery to Churchill to de Gaulle, reveal the many facets of a driven, headstrong, yet diplomatic leader. They reveal a man who was brilliant, if flawed; naive at times in dealing with the public, yet who never lost his head when others around him were losing theirs. Above all, General Ike was a man who never let up in the relentless pursuit of the destruction of Hitler.

Ike managed to pull together history's greatest invasion force and to face down a determined enemy from Normandy to the Bulge and beyond. John Eisenhower masterfully uses the backdrop of Ike's key battles to paint a portrait of his father and his relationships with the great men of his time.

General Ike is a ringing and inspiring testament to a great man by an accomplished historian. It is also a personal portrait of a caring, if not always available, father by his admiring son. It is history at its best.

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"John S.D. Eisenhower modestly explains General Ike as ""a son's view of a great military leader -- highly intelligent, strong, forceful, kind, yet as human as the rest of us."" It is that, and more: a portrait of the greatest Allied military leader of the Second World War, by the man who knew Ike best. General Ike is a book that John Eisenhower always knew he had to write, a tribute from an affectionate and admiring son to a great father. John chose to write about the ""military Ike,"" as opposed to the ""political Ike,"" because Ike cared far more about his career in uniform than about his time in the White House. A series of portraits of Ike's relations with soldiers and statesmen, from MacArthur to Patton to Montgomery to Churchill to de Gaulle, reveals the many facets of a talented, driven, headstrong, yet diplomatic leader. Taken together, they reveal a man who was brilliant, if flawed; na?ve at times in dealing with the public, yet who never lost his head when others around him were losing theirs. Above all, General Ike was a man who never let up in the relentless pursuit of the destruction of Hitler. John Eisenhower masterfully uses the backdrop of Ike's key battles to paint a portrait of his father and his relationships with the great men of his time. General Ike is a ringing and inspiring testament to a great man by an accomplished historian. It is also a personal portrait of a caring, if not always available, father by his admiring son. It is history at its best. "

Customer Reviews:

Five Stars.......2007-07-21

absolutely great reading. his point of observation is unique but balanced as well as wholly honest. while the author's observations are a great contribution to the historical record, it also serves as a great tribute to a truly great man, a great soldier, a great American.

A Short Book but a Major Contribution.......2007-04-09

This book is especially important to anyone interested in the history of World War II or just history in general. John Eisenhower doesn't just paraphrase the works of other historians who were born years after the war - he writes first hand descriptions of the great military and political laeders of the war - all of them he met personally during war. Of course, his sections on his own father (possibly the greatest of them all) is an essential read.

General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence.......2006-03-01

First rate! Could not put the book down, lots of new and fresh insights into DeGaulle, Churchill, Patton, and Montgomery (what a piece of work...) I read a great deal of WWII history, and it is a joy to read new information for a change! In addition the reader will gain knowledge of the great and rather-more-complicated man than we might think, President Eisenhower. Written in a clear and understandable way for the non-military, John Eisenhower is a gifted historian. In summary, I am making it a priority to purchase his other books, as this is the first of his works I have had the pleasure to read.

Good piece of history.......2006-02-14

All in all, this book does a really nice job laying out a biography of Eisenhower, and does so in an interesting fashion. Ike is explained in chapters that could largely standalone and are demarcated by the people he's working with. There's a chapter on Eisenhower and Pershing, then one on MacArthur, Patton, DeGaulle, Montgomery, and Churchill. Needless to say, the chapters on Patton, MacArthur, Montgomery, and Churchill were very interesting. I dozed off on the DeGaulle piece, while was riveted by the Patton chapter. Those who are familiar with the Patton story will appreciate Eisenhower's behavior toward his early (and ranking) comrade.
Some of the other interesting takeaways from the book come from Ike's early days. Those of us familiar with the nature of the political army can appreciate how Ike nearly ended his career by advocating the tank in independent operations. An early mentor saved Ike's career by having him transfered to the Adjutant General's Corps.
I haven't read the Ike autobiography but I would estimate that this book would complement that work. The author seeks to avoid restating the same data over and over, and instead offers the unique view I described above, plus adds his own fly-on-the-wall viewpoint that he enjoyed being Ike's son. His own anecdotes, while interesting, wouldn't stand on their own as a booke but are very well-used here.

General Ike: A great book.......2005-08-20

This book is written by DDE's son, John. The book covers many people that Ike dealt with during his army career and as President. It is well written, well researched, and very enjoyable. I recommend this book to anyone interested in history, WW2, world politics. One of the best biographical books I have read.

General Ike : A Personal Reminiscence (Large Print)

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General Ike : A Personal Reminiscence (Large Print)

Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1402561318

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LARGE PRINT EDITION From Publishers Weekly This thoroughly worthwhile memoir recalls the author's father in his association with various distinguished soldiers and statesmen of the past century. The roster begins with Fox Conner (a pre-WWII general and Ike's mentor), John J. Pershing (the AEF commander in WW I) and George Patton (when both he and Ike were officers in the Tank Corps of 1919). The final trio is Charles de Gaulle, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Winston Churchill. In the author's view, De Gaulle's French patriotism brought out the best and the worst in him, in dealing both with Ike and with his fellow countrymen. Monty never understood Ike, asked the impossible and grumbled when he didn't get it. And Churchill (at whose funeral Ike represented the U.S.) is inscrutably sui generis in the author's eyes as in those of so many others. In between are sketches of MacArthur, Marshall and Patton (as a subordinate general). Possibly the most moving piece recalls the period of 1940-1941, the last days of the peacetime army, when the younger Eisenhower, now the author of such titles as Yanks and The Bitter Woods, was a cadet at West Point, and his father was dreaming of staying with troops in the coming war. But the author paints no one in rosy hues, not even his father, and his research puts them all in their proper context. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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General Ike a Personal Reminiscence
John Eisenhower
Manufacturer: SIMON & SCHUSTER @ TRADE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SIC5WA

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General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence
John Eisenhower
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
ASIN: B000QJLS24

General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence.(Book Review): An article from: Military Review

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General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence.(Book Review): An article from: Military Review
Thomas E. Hanson
Manufacturer: U.S. Army CGSC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Military Review, published by U.S. Army CGSC on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 505 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence.(Book Review)
Author: Thomas E. Hanson
Publication: Military Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: U.S. Army CGSC
Volume: 85 Issue: 2 Page: 85(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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General Ike a Personal Reminiscence
John Eisenhower
Manufacturer: SIMON & SCHUSTER @ TRADE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N7BZS6

Amazon.com

Once upon a time--way back in 1984--Margaret Heckler of the Department of Health and Human Services announced that an AIDS vaccine would be ready to test in two years. While Patricia Thomas's account of the race for the AIDS vaccine begins about the same time, it took 16 years (and over 400 pages) for a vaccine to begin an efficacy trial, and then only because a group of desperate scientists took it into their own hands to raise the funds and go it alone without government support. While the disease itself has greatly resisted scientific study--it breaks all the rules, is not easily fooled, and continues to develop new strains--that's only one impediment in what has turned into a crawl towards the only real solution to the AIDS crisis. "HIV vaccine research has been a kind of low-prestige backwater that never, until recently, claimed more than 10 percent of federal spending on AIDS," Thomas writes. The development of a vaccine has been hampered by social attitudes and bureaucratic misapprehension, corporate lethargy (vaccine development entails higher costs and liability than therapeutic drugs), and the politics and big egos at such places as the National Institute for Health. Thomas closely follows some of the more passionate and heroic players who have forged ahead even while their companies waffle on vaccine research--young and idealistic biotech scientists like Kathy Steimer of Chiron Corporation, who worked at the cutting edge of immunology until her own untimely death, and Phil Berman and Don Francis (portrayed in And the Band Played On), who left the highly competitive company Genentech to launch the lone large-scale test. There are also the pioneers of naked DNA, such as Margaret Liu at Merck, who bet her rising career on the radical technology despite the fact that her vaccine took a back seat to the company's efforts to develop a treatment that would help far fewer people.

Thomas does an admirable job with a huge and complicated subject, using vivid metaphors to explain such topics as recombinant DNA, antigens, and virology, but unfortunately she seems compelled to tell every last detail, which makes for a sometimes tedious read. While it takes a lot of wading to get through this story, and there's certainly no happy ending, it is an eye-opening account of a vital yet obscured subject and, perhaps more importantly, a much-needed shot in the arm. --Lesley Reed

Book Description

A veteran journalist dramatizes the controversial search for an AIDS vaccine-the players, the politics, the money-in a vivid, suspenseful story that reveals how science is done, and not done, in America today.

When the human immunodeficiency virus was identified in 1984, the competition to create an AIDS vaccine was fierce. Now Patricia Thomas brings the contenders to life in a fast-paced, dramatic narrative: Two biologists rescue precious virus cultures from destruction by a military biohazard team. Other researchers drive hundreds of miles during a heat wave to work in a safe containment lab. And a heroic figure from Randy Shilts's And The Band Played On just might win the vaccine marathon.

Thomas shows how the scientists' youthful optimism is honed into gritty determination as they struggle with difficult research challenges, public condemnation of AIDS patients, cautious bureaucrats, conservative executives, hostile activists, and a perennial shortage of money. The lives and complex motivations of the characters illustrate the triumphs and frustrations of the quest for a vaccine. Interwoven with these gripping human stories are lucid explanations of how vaccines aim to block the potentially deadly tango of the AIDS virus and the human immune system.

Above all, Big Shot shows how the health of future generations rests on the shoulders of individuals who are as strong, and as weak, as the rest of us. Just as A Civil Action ultimately told us more about human nature than environmental law, Big Shot is about a great deal more than AIDS vaccines.

Customer Reviews:

Compelling Story of Disease Solutions in a Complex Society.......2002-07-24

Patricia Thomas writes a phenomenal book of science, of politics, of a deadly disease, intertwined with business and the age-old struggle of societal good vs. personal/business gain. I was at first daunted by the size of the book alone, but the writing is so clear, so concise, so reader-friendly that it is an easy read. This is a must read for everyone interested in finding solutions to science-society issues such as AIDS. It is a must read for every health care professional and medical researcher, as well. As a science/health writer myself, I also highly recommend it as a teaching tool for how to write science for the lay person.

Big Shot: Finally, science writing you can dance to!.......2001-10-18

I think "Big Shot" is the first important nonfiction work of the 21st century. With a clarity and an exuberance not often found in books about hard science, Patricia Thomas explains how politics, human frailty and corporate greed have prevented us from finding a vaccine for AIDS. Comparisons with previous books about AIDS and public policy don't exactly do justice to "Big Shot." If books must be categorized, Thomas' scrupulous research sometimes places this book with top ranking medical journals; but the wonderful writing -- you can almost dance to Thomas' prose -- places it among the better mysteries. In the hands of a lesser writer, the workings of DNA, retroviruses, surface antigens and hard-working proteins would cause one's eyes to glaze over. Instead, I found myself turning pages with Evelynwoodesque speed to get to the next development and the next, wondering which young researcher would win the race to the vaccine goal. Thomas has raised the bar for future books about medical research.

A Call for Unity.......2001-09-26

Sept. 11 has had a galvanizing effect in reminding Americans that planet earth is really a small place where whatever affects one person ultimately affects us all. The emergence of AIDS in the early 1980s might also have united Americans to fight a common enemy. Might have. But the truth, so compellingly told by Ms. Thomas, is that personalities and politics (both personal and national), prejudice and posturing got in the way of mounting a cohesive campaign. As a result, we are still far from stopping AIDS. Sure, treatments are better, but most of the world cannot afford treatment.
What makes "Big Shot" especially timely is that, as America prepares to fight the "new war," more military personnel will likely be exposed to the AIDS virus. When the GIs line up for vaccinations and grimace comically for the camera, as our fathers and grandfathers did for previous wars, protection against the AIDS virus won't be part of the cocktail. Because there is no vaccine against AIDS.

It's a pretty depressing scenario, but Ms. Thomas retains a wonderfully upbeat message with the subtext "that was then, this is now, so let's move forward."
Besides, she tells a helluva entertaining story.

Inside the science machine.......2001-09-19

It's been said that politics, like sausage, is best not seen in the making. But those who wonder why we don't yet have a vaccine or a cure for AIDS need to know why. Pat Thomas takes us behind the scenes and lives of the cast of characters deeply involved in the science, politics and business of one of the most hotly sought-after pharmaceutical products of all time.
"Big Shot" gives us reason to despair that science can ever succeed, given the private and public agendas of so many involved in the AIDS epidemic.
But it also gives us hope, as we see the many dedicated to finding a way to stop the spread of an epidemic that has already claimed 22 million lives. This is a masterful job by one of the best science writers working today -- wonderfully written and compelling.

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