Hexed

Hexed
Author: Kevin Hearne
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2011-10-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0748133305

***OVER A MILLION COPIES OF THE IRON DRUID BOOKS SOLD*** 'American Gods meets Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden' SFF World Atticus O'Sullivan, last of the Druids, doesn't care much for witches. Still, he's about to make nice with the local coven by signing a mutually beneficial nonaggression treaty - when suddenly the witch population in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, quadruples overnight. And the new girls are not just bad, they're bad-asses with a dark history on the German side of World War II. With a fallen angel feasting on local high school students, a horde of Bacchants blowing in from Vegas with their special brand of deadly decadence and a dangerously sexy Celtic goddess of fire vying for his attention, Atticus is having trouble scheduling the witch hunt. But aided by his magical sword, his neighbor's rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and his vampire attorney, Atticus is ready to sweep the town and show the witchy women they picked the wrong Druid to hex. Praise for the Iron Druid Chronicles: 'Atticus and his crew are a breath of fresh air! . . . I love, love, love this series' My Bookish Ways 'Entertaining, steeped in a ton of mythology, populated by awesome characters' Civilian Reader 'This is one series no fantasy fan should miss. Mystery, suspense, magic and mayhem' SciFiChick The Iron Druid Chronicles Hounded Hexed Hammered Tricked Trapped Hunted Shattered Staked Scourged Besieged (short stories) HAVE YOU TRIED . . . Kevin Hearne's epic fantasy novel A PLAGUE OF GIANTS - described by Delilah S. Dawson as 'a rare masterpiece that's both current and timeless . . . merging the fantasy bones of Tolkien and Rothfuss with a wide cast of characters who'll break your heart'. Out now!

Pay Without Performance

Pay Without Performance
Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2004
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780674020634

The company is under-performing, its share price is trailing, and the CEO gets...a multi-million-dollar raise. This story is familiar, for good reason: as this book clearly demonstrates, structural flaws in corporate governance have produced widespread distortions in executive pay. Pay without Performance presents a disconcerting portrait of managers' influence over their own pay--and of a governance system that must fundamentally change if firms are to be managed in the interest of shareholders. Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried demonstrate that corporate boards have persistently failed to negotiate at arm's length with the executives they are meant to oversee. They give a richly detailed account of how pay practices--from option plans to retirement benefits--have decoupled compensation from performance and have camouflaged both the amount and performance-insensitivity of pay. Executives' unwonted influence over their compensation has hurt shareholders by increasing pay levels and, even more importantly, by leading to practices that dilute and distort managers' incentives. This book identifies basic problems with our current reliance on boards as guardians of shareholder interests. And the solution, the authors argue, is not merely to make these boards more independent of executives as recent reforms attempt to do. Rather, boards should also be made more dependent on shareholders by eliminating the arrangements that entrench directors and insulate them from their shareholders. A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, Pay without Performance points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.

Decentralised Sanitation and Reuse

Decentralised Sanitation and Reuse
Author: Piet Lens
Publisher: IWA Publishing
Total Pages: 652
Release: 2001-03-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1900222477

Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, Decentralised Sanitation and Reuse places public sanitation in a global context and provides a definitive discussion of current state-of-the-art sanitation technologies. It shows how these technologies can be implemented to integrate domestic waste and wastewater treatment in order to maximize resource recycling in domestic practice. Decentralised Sanitation and Reuse presents technical solutions for on-site collection and transport of concentrated waste streams, and focuses on the compromise between reliability and minimal water wastage. A whole range of available sustainable technologies, both low and high-tech, to treat concentrated (black water) and diluted (grey water) streams are addressed in detail from the fundamental scientific and engineering points of view. Sociological, economic and, particularly, environmental and public health aspects are essential issues within this book. The necessity of new infrastructure implementation and the resulting challenges for a good number of economic branches are illustrated with examples from architecture and town planning. Decentralised Sanitation and Reuse will be an invaluable resource for a wide academic and professional readership active in the fields of environmental protection and public sanitation. Contents The DESAR concept for environmental protection Waste and wastewater characteristics and its collection on the site Technological aspects of DESAR Environmental and public health aspects of DESAR Sociological and economic aspects of DESAR Architectural and urbanistic aspects of DESAR

Polymer-Based Nanoscale Materials for Surface Coatings

Polymer-Based Nanoscale Materials for Surface Coatings
Author: Sabu Thomas
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 690
Release: 2023-05-10
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0323907792

Polymer-Based Nanoscale Materials for Surface Coatings presents the latest advances and emerging technologies in polymer-based nanomaterials for coatings, focusing on novel materials, characterization techniques, and cutting-edge applications. Sections present the fundamentals of surface preparation and nanocoatings, linking materials and properties, explaining the correlation between morphology, surface phenomena, and surface protection mechanism, and covering theory, modeling and simulation. Other presented topics cover characterization methods, with an emphasis on the latest developments in techniques and approaches. Aging and lifecycle assessment of coated surfaces and coatings are also discussed.Final sections explore advanced applications across a range of fields, including intelligent coatings for biomedical implants, self-healing coatings, syper-hydrophobicity, electroluminescence, sustainable edible coatings, marine antifouling, corrosion resistance, and photocatalytic coatings. - Explains the fundamentals of coatings and surface protection, mechanisms, materials and properties, and modeling and simulation - Presents detailed information on the latest characterization techniques to prepare nanoscale polymer coatings with enhanced properties - Explores a broad range of state-of-the-art applications and considers aging and lifecycle assessments of coatings

Refugee Governance, State and Politics in the Middle East

Refugee Governance, State and Politics in the Middle East
Author: Zeynep Şahin Mencütek
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351170341

The movement of displaced people, migrants and refugees has become increasingly important around the world, leading to a need for increased scrutiny of global responses and policies towards migration. This book focuses on the Middle East, where many nations are part of this global phenomenon as both home, transit and/or host country. Refugee Governance, State and Politics in the Middle East examines the patterns of legal, political and institutional responses to large-scale Syrian forced migration. It analyses the motivations behind neighbouring countries' policy responses, how their responses change over time and how they have an impact on regional and global cooperation. Looking in particular at Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, three of the world's top refugee hosting countries, this book explores how refugee governance differs across countries and why they diverge. To theorize variations, the book introduces multi-pattern and multi-stage refugee governance models as two complementary analytical frameworks. The book further argues that each of these three states’ refugee responses is constructed based on three main factors: internal political interests, economic-development related concerns, and foreign policy objectives as well as interactions among them. The book’s categorizations and models (on policy fields, actors, stages, patterns and driving forces) provide analytical tools to researchers for comparative analyses. Scholars and students of Comparative Politics, International Relations, Refugee Studies, Global Governance and Middle Eastern Studies will find this book a useful contribution to their fields.

Handbook on Synthesis Strategies for Advanced Materials

Handbook on Synthesis Strategies for Advanced Materials
Author: A. K. Tyagi
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 856
Release: 2022-01-04
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9811618038

This book presents state-of-the-art coverage of synthesis of advanced functional materials. Unconventional synthetic routes play an important role in the synthesis of advanced materials as many new materials are metastable and cannot be synthesized by conventional methods. This book presents various synthesis methods such as conventional solid-state method, combustion method, a range of soft chemical methods, template synthesis, molecular precursor method, microwave synthesis, sono-chemical method and high-pressure synthesis. It provides a comprehensive overview of synthesis methods and covers a variety of materials, including ceramics, films, glass, carbon-based, and metallic materials. Many techniques for processing and surface functionalization are also discussed. Several engineering aspects of materials synthesis are also included. The contents of this book are useful for researchers and professionals working in the areas of materials and chemistry.

Corporate Governance in Japan

Corporate Governance in Japan
Author: Masahiko Aoki
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2007-09-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191536385

Debates regarding corporate governance have become increasingly important in Japan as the post-war model of bank-based, stakeholder-oriented corporate governance faces the new pressures associated with globalization and growing investor demands for shareholder value. Bringing together a group of leading scholars from economics, law, sociology and management studies, this book looks at how the Japanese approach to corporate governance and the firm have changed in the post-bubble era. The contributions offer a unique empirical exploration of why and how Japanese firms are reshaping their corporate governance arrangements, leading to greater diversity among firms and new 'hybrid' forms of corporate governance. The book concludes by looking at what effect these incremental but transformative changes may have on Japan's distinctive variety of capitalism.