Business Revolution in a Digital Era

Business Revolution in a Digital Era
Author: Alina Mihaela Dima
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2021-01-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030599728

This proceedings volume presents a selection of the best papers from the 14th International Conference on Business Excellence, Business Revolution in the Digital Era (ICBE 2020), held in Bucharest, Romania. The respective papers share the latest findings and perspectives on innovation in a turbulent business environment, and on improvements in economic, societal and technological structures and processes to help reach major sustainability goals.

Generative Adversarial Networks for Image-to-Image Translation

Generative Adversarial Networks for Image-to-Image Translation
Author: Arun Solanki
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2021-06-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0128236132

Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) have started a revolution in Deep Learning, and today GAN is one of the most researched topics in Artificial Intelligence. Generative Adversarial Networks for Image-to-Image Translation provides a comprehensive overview of the GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) concept starting from the original GAN network to various GAN-based systems such as Deep Convolutional GANs (DCGANs), Conditional GANs (cGANs), StackGAN, Wasserstein GANs (WGAN), cyclical GANs, and many more. The book also provides readers with detailed real-world applications and common projects built using the GAN system with respective Python code. A typical GAN system consists of two neural networks, i.e., generator and discriminator. Both of these networks contest with each other, similar to game theory. The generator is responsible for generating quality images that should resemble ground truth, and the discriminator is accountable for identifying whether the generated image is a real image or a fake image generated by the generator. Being one of the unsupervised learning-based architectures, GAN is a preferred method in cases where labeled data is not available. GAN can generate high-quality images, images of human faces developed from several sketches, convert images from one domain to another, enhance images, combine an image with the style of another image, change the appearance of a human face image to show the effects in the progression of aging, generate images from text, and many more applications. GAN is helpful in generating output very close to the output generated by humans in a fraction of second, and it can efficiently produce high-quality music, speech, and images. - Introduces the concept of Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN), including the basics of Generative Modelling, Deep Learning, Autoencoders, and advanced topics in GAN - Demonstrates GANs for a wide variety of applications, including image generation, Big Data and data analytics, cloud computing, digital transformation, E-Commerce, and Artistic Neural Networks - Includes a wide variety of biomedical and scientific applications, including unsupervised learning, natural language processing, pattern recognition, image and video processing, and disease diagnosis - Provides a robust set of methods that will help readers to appropriately and judiciously use the suitable GANs for their applications

Empirical Asset Pricing

Empirical Asset Pricing
Author: Wayne Ferson
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2019-03-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262039370

An introduction to the theory and methods of empirical asset pricing, integrating classical foundations with recent developments. This book offers a comprehensive advanced introduction to asset pricing, the study of models for the prices and returns of various securities. The focus is empirical, emphasizing how the models relate to the data. The book offers a uniquely integrated treatment, combining classical foundations with more recent developments in the literature and relating some of the material to applications in investment management. It covers the theory of empirical asset pricing, the main empirical methods, and a range of applied topics. The book introduces the theory of empirical asset pricing through three main paradigms: mean variance analysis, stochastic discount factors, and beta pricing models. It describes empirical methods, beginning with the generalized method of moments (GMM) and viewing other methods as special cases of GMM; offers a comprehensive review of fund performance evaluation; and presents selected applied topics, including a substantial chapter on predictability in asset markets that covers predicting the level of returns, volatility and higher moments, and predicting cross-sectional differences in returns. Other chapters cover production-based asset pricing, long-run risk models, the Campbell-Shiller approximation, the debate on covariance versus characteristics, and the relation of volatility to the cross-section of stock returns. An extensive reference section captures the current state of the field. The book is intended for use by graduate students in finance and economics; it can also serve as a reference for professionals.

Global Economic Prospects, June 2021

Global Economic Prospects, June 2021
Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2021-08-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464816662

The world economy is experiencing a very strong but uneven recovery, with many emerging market and developing economies facing obstacles to vaccination. The global outlook remains uncertain, with major risks around the path of the pandemic and the possibility of financial stress amid large debt loads. Policy makers face a difficult balancing act as they seek to nurture the recovery while safeguarding price stability and fiscal sustainability. A comprehensive set of policies will be required to promote a strong recovery that mitigates inequality and enhances environmental sustainability, ultimately putting economies on a path of green, resilient, and inclusive development. Prominent among the necessary policies are efforts to lower trade costs so that trade can once again become a robust engine of growth. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Global Economic Prospects. The Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group Flagship Report that examines global economic developments and prospects, with a special focus on emerging market and developing economies, on a semiannual basis (in January and June). Each edition includes analytical pieces on topical policy challenges faced by these economies.

The Federal Reserve System Purposes and Functions

The Federal Reserve System Purposes and Functions
Author: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2002
Genre: Banks and Banking
ISBN: 9780894991967

Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

The Uninhabitable Earth

The Uninhabitable Earth
Author: David Wallace-Wells
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2019-02-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 052557672X

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books

AI and education

AI and education
Author: Miao, Fengchun
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2021-04-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9231004476

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to address some of the biggest challenges in education today, innovate teaching and learning practices, and ultimately accelerate the progress towards SDG 4. However, these rapid technological developments inevitably bring multiple risks and challenges, which have so far outpaced policy debates and regulatory frameworks. This publication offers guidance for policy-makers on how best to leverage the opportunities and address the risks, presented by the growing connection between AI and education. It starts with the essentials of AI: definitions, techniques and technologies. It continues with a detailed analysis of the emerging trends and implications of AI for teaching and learning, including how we can ensure the ethical, inclusive and equitable use of AI in education, how education can prepare humans to live and work with AI, and how AI can be applied to enhance education. It finally introduces the challenges of harnessing AI to achieve SDG 4 and offers concrete actionable recommendations for policy-makers to plan policies and programmes for local contexts. [Publisher summary, ed]