The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier (Stanford Economics & Finance)

Mention of the American West usually evokes images of rough and tumble cowboys, ranchers, and outlaws. In contrast, The Not So Wild, Wild West casts America’s frontier history in a new framework that emphasizes the creation of institutions, both formal and informal, that facilitated cooperation rather than conflict. Rather than describing the frontier as a place where heroes met villains, this book argues that everyday people helped carve out legal institutions that tamed the West.

The authors emphasize that ownership of resources evolves as those resources become more valuable or as establishing property rights becomes less costly. Rules evolving at the local level will be more effective because local people have a greater stake in the outcome. This theory is brought to life in the colorful history of Indians, fur trappers, buffalo hunters, cattle drovers, homesteaders, and miners. The book concludes with a chapter that takes lessons from the American frontier and applies them to our modern “frontiers”—the environment, developing countries, and space exploration.

"Applying the metaphor of method acting, this workbook is an essential premier for classes in communication and organizational culture. In a cogent and easily accessible style, it provides superb guidelines for observing, interpreting, and understanding the subtle and complex nuances of an organization’s culture. The integration of qualitative research methods with cultural analyses makes this text distinctive and valuable addition to any organizational communication class."

"The authors skillfully weave together theory, application, and their professional experiences to create a wonderfully useful book that meets the needs of students and practitioners. Anyone who takes cultural analysis seriously should read this book."

" Organizational Culture in Action fills a real resource gap. It is a 'workbook' in the most positive sense of the word. It offers enough step-by-step guidance to give students the confidence they need to move forward independently. At the same time, it does not sidestep the theoretical complexities, conflicts, and confusions surrounding the world of organizational culture and cultural analysis. The book is well conceived, usefully structured, and filled with application exercises that really make sense and are pedagogically justified. My students found it to be both accessible and stimulating."

What is organizational culture? And how might knowledge of culture improve our organizational performances? Authors Gerald W. Driskill and Angela Laird Brenton have created a stimulating workbook to guide students through data collection, analysis, interpretation, and application of organizational culture data using a practical five-step process. Organizational Culture in Action: A Cultural Analysis Workbook begins by explaining theories on which organizational culture is based. It then provides "how to" guides for gathering information to help improve organizational performance. "Connections" sections present the practical value of theory and concepts discussed throughout. Based on more than 20 years of experience in using this approach with hundreds of students, the authors help students apply cultural insights to fostering diversity, supporting organizational change, making leadership more dynamic, exploring the link between ethics and culture, and making organizations more effective overall.

Unique to Organizational Culture in Action are the various examples the authors have included, which are taken from their consulting experience with more than 150 organizations. An example analysis from a student has also been included to show novice researchers how they too can improve their organizational performance using this workbook.

The integration of national cultural and diversity issues and of ethics and leadership topics, along with the authors’ many years of experience in organizational culture, makes Organizational Culture in Action an excellent supplemental text for advanced undergraduate or graduate students studying organizational communication, organizational culture, organizational development, leadership development, or managerial communication.

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Cereal Genomics

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1402023588
Release Date: 2007-05-25

Agriculture depends on improved cultivars, and cultivars are developed through proper plant breeding. Unfortunately, applied plant breeding programs that are focused on cereal commodity crops are under serious erosion because of lack of funding. This loss of public support affects breeding continuity, objectivity, and, perhaps equally important, the training of future plant breeders and the utilization and improvement of plant genetic resources currently available. Breeding programs should focus not only on short-term research goals but also on long-term genetic improvement of germplasm. The research products of breeding programs are important not only for food security but also for commodity-oriented public and private programs, especially in the fringes of crop production. Breeding strategies used for long-term selection are often neglected but the reality is that long-term research is needed for the success of short-term products. An excellent example is that genetically broad-based public germplasm has significantly been utilized and recycled by industry, producing billions of dollars for industry and farmers before intellectual property rights were available. Successful examples of breeding continuity have served the sustainable cereal crop production that we currently have. The fact that farmers rely on public and private breeding institutions for solving long-term challenges should influence policy makers to reverse this trend of reduced funding. Joint cooperation between industry and public institutions would be a good example to follow.

The objective of this volume is to increase the utilization of useful genetic resources and increase awareness of the relative value and impact of plant breeding and biotechnology. That should lead to a more sustainable crop production and ultimately food security.

Applied plant breeding will continue to be the foundation to which molecular markers are applied. Focusing useful molecular techniques on the right traits will build a strong linkage between genomics and plant breeding and lead to new and better cultivars. Therefore, more than ever there is a need for better communication and cooperation among scientists in the plant breeding and biotechnology areas. We have an opportunity to greatly enhance agricultural production by applying the results of this research to meet the growing demands for food security and environmental conservation. Ensuring strong applied plant breeding programs with successful application of molecular markers will be essential in ensuring such sustainable use of plant genetic resources.

Rice has been chosen as the model cereal for functional genomics by the international scientific community not only because rice is a major food crop of the world but also because of its small genome (~430 Mb which is the smallest among cereal genomes); the ease with which it can be transformed; its well understood genetics with detailed genome physical maps and dense molecular markers; and the existence of great similarities in gene sequence, gene structure, gene order and gene function among all the cereals and grasses. Genes identified in rice as being important agronomically are also important in other cereals, and any understanding of rice genes is directly applicable to other cereals.

Rice Functional Genomics - Challenges, Progress and Prospects covers the whole spectrum of rice functional genomics. In addition to overviews of current status of genome sequencing and annotation, various tools and resources being developed worldwide such as expressed sequence tags (ESTs), full-length cDNAs, gene expression profiles (transcriptome, proteome and metabolome), chemical- and radiation-induced mutants, TILLING resources, insertional knockout mutants (T-DNA, transposon and retrotransposon) and activation tags have been described in various chapters. Exploitation of naturally occurring alleles, Oryza alignment maps (OMAP), gene targeting by homologous recombination and gene silencing by RNAi as well as the application of functional genomics tools for crop improvement and the power of comparative genomics are covered in separate chapters. Various bioinformatics tools and resources pertinent to rice functional genomics are also described and discussed. It is hoped that scientists involved in all aspects of rice research will find this book useful as it spans the divide between molecular biology and plant improvement.

Freud. From Youthful Dream to Mid-Life Crisis.

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Freud. From Youthful Dream to Mid-Life Crisis.
Peter M Newton
Manufacturer: Guilford Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IG2IKQ

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Why did Freud abandon his famous seduction theory?
Groundbreaking study on Freud

Freud: From Youthful Dream to Mid-Life Crisis
Peter M. Newton
Manufacturer: The Guilford Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 089862293X

Using revelations gained from recently published correspondence, this provocative biography sheds new light on current debates about Sigmund Freud's theories. The book demonstrates how giving up the seduction theory--that all neurosis results from the molestation of small children by their fathers--swept Freud into a mid-life crisis out of which he eventually fought his way through to the discovery of psychoanalysis. Examining the newly released, highly personal letters between Freud and his boyhood friend, Eduard Silberstein, along with the letters of his 20s to his fiancée, Martha Bernays, and those to the confidant during his mid-life transition, Wilhelm Fliess, this volume provides valuable insight into Freud's development--both as a man and as a thinker. Peter M. Newton captures the drama of Freud's first love and heartbreak, the defiant and complicated ambitions of Freud's later adolescence, and the historic creative accomplishment and personal reward of his mid-life transition.

Applying a theory of lives to this great, complex story, Newton charts the evolution of Freud's thought through a continuing sequence of developmental periods and tasks. He shows that contrary to accepted opinion, Freud dreamed of becoming not just a cloistered scientist, but a revolutionary healer as well. The author demonstrates that the two aspects of Freud's dream and of his identity--that of quiet scholar and revolutionary healer--warred for possession of Freud's soul throughout his entire life. Exploring the years of Freud's transition to middle age, the book also lays to rest Jeffrey Masson's widely trumpeted accusation that Freud gave up his seduction theory out of political expediency. From a close study of Freud's letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Newton shows that it was not a desire to placate the medical establishment, but the accumulating weight of Freud's own clinical experience, that dashed the seduction theory.

He then examines in-depth the mid-life crisis Freud suffered as a result of giving up the seduction theory. Without the theory, Freud felt he had no way to realize either the scientific or the clinical aspect of his dream. Newton's developmental approach to adulthood centers his account on questions such as: How, at the age of 41, if the dream to which Freud had devoted the first 20 years of his adult life was shattered, could he guide the next 20? How could he salvage, from the wreckage of his youth, the elements of a life worth living as a middle-aged man? And if he was neither a first-rate scientist nor an expert doctor, who was he?

A breakthrough study of developmental crisis and triumph, this volume will be welcomed by anyone who wishes to better understand one of the world's most important and influential thinkers. Freud: From Youthful Dream to Mid-Life Crisis also serves as a valuable text for undergraduate and graduate courses in human development, adult development, psychopathology, and personality, as well as courses on Freud and on developments in psychoanalytic institutes.