Search results for ""Author Bruce Williams""

Albanian cinema truly represents a terra incognita for most of the world. Decidedly Europe’s most isolated country during the Cold War era, communist Albania had already been cut off from the West for centuries as a one of the western-most outposts of the Ottoman empire. Nonetheless, and unknown to most of the world, communist Albania had a vibrant cinema tradition. Although bound by official orthodoxy, the films of the state-run Kinostudio enterprise were surprisingly innovative and, at times, daringly subversive. This book opens with examinations of moving images in Albania from the Ottoman period, through those captured under independence and the Fascist occupation. It subsequently foregrounds transformations in Kinostudio, from the early optimism of socialist realism through the brooding social angst of the 1980s, which constitute a bridge to the socioeconomic concerns of Albanian films of the postcommunist period.

Read more less

The cultures of Nubia built the earliest cities, states, and empires of inner Africa, but they remain relatively poorly known outside their modern descendants and the community of archaeologists, historians, and art historians researching them. The earliest archaeological work in Nubia was motivated by the region's role as neighbor, trade partner, and enemy of ancient Egypt. Increasingly, however, ancient Nile-based Nubian cultures are recognized in their own right as the earliest complex societies in inner Africa. As agro-pastoral cultures, Nubian settlement, economy, political organization, and religious ideologies were often organized differently from those of the urban, bureaucratic, and predominantly agricultural states of Egypt and the ancient Near East. Nubian societies are thus of great interest in comparative study, and are also recognized for their broader impact on the histories of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia brings together chapters by an international group of scholars on a wide variety of topics that relate to the history and archaeology of the region. After important introductory chapters on the history of research in Nubia and on its climate and physical environment, the largest part of the volume focuses on the sequence of cultures that lead almost to the present day. Several cross-cutting themes are woven through these chapters, including essays on desert cultures and on Nubians in Egypt. Eleven final chapters synthesize subjects across all historical phases, including gender and the body, economy and trade, landscape archaeology, iron working, and stone quarrying.

Read more less

Your domain is rich and interconnected, and your API should be too. Upgrade your web API to GraphQL, leveraging its flexible queries to empower your users, and its declarative structure to simplify your code. Absinthe is the GraphQL toolkit for Elixir, a functional programming language designed to enable massive concurrency atop robust application architectures. Written by the creators of Absinthe, this book will help you take full advantage of these two groundbreaking technologies. Build your own flexible, high-performance APIs using step-by-step guidance and expert advice you won't find anywhere else. GraphQL is a new way of structuring and building web services, and the result is transformational. Find out how to offer a more tailored, cohesive experience to your users, easily aggregate data from different data sources, and improve your back end's maintainability with Absinthe's declarative approach to defining how your API works. Build a GraphQL-based API from scratch using Absinthe, starting from core principles. Learn the type system and how to expand your schema to suit your application's needs. Discover a growing ecosystem of tools and utilities to understand, debug, and document your API. Take it to production, but do it safely with solid best practices in mind. Find out how complexity analysis and persisted queries can let you support your users flexibly, but responsibly too. Along the way, discover how Elixir makes all the difference for a high performance, fault-tolerant API. Use asynchronous and batching execution, or write your own custom add-ons to extend Absinthe. Go live with subscriptions, delivering data over websockets on top of Elixir (and Erlang/OTP's) famous solid performance and real-time capabilities. Transform your applications with the powerful combination of Elixir and GraphQL, using Absinthe. What You Need: To follow along with the book, you should have Erlang/OTP 19+ and Elixir 1.4+ installed. The book will guide you through setting up a new Phoenix application using Absinthe.

Read more less

Take charge and engage your enterprise in a Lean transformation Have you thought about using Lean in your business or organization, but are not really sure how to implement it? Or perhaps you're already using Lean, but you need to get up to speed. Lean For Dummies shows you how to do more with less and create an enterprise that embraces change. In plain-English, this friendly guide explores the general overview of Lean, how flow and the value stream works, and the best ways to apply Lean to your enterprise. This revised edition includes the latest tools, advice, and information that can be used by everyone — from major corporations to small business, from non-profits and hospitals to manufacturers and service corporations. In addition, it takes a look at the successes and failures of earlier Lean pioneers — including Toyota, the inventors of Lean — and offer case studies and hands-on advice. The latest on the Six Sigma and Lean movements The role of technology and the expanding Lean toolbox Case studies enhance the material Lean For Dummies gives today's business owners and upper level management in companies of all sizes and in all industries, the tools and information they need to streamline process and operate more efficiently.

Read more less

The fast and easy way to understand and implement Six Sigma The world's largest and most profitable companies—including the likes of GE, Bank of America, Honeywell, DuPont, Samsung, Starwood Hotels, Bechtel, and Motorola—have used Six Sigma to achieve breathtaking improvements in business performance, in everything from products to processes to complex systems and even in work environments. Over the past decade, over $100 billion in bottom-line performance has been achieved through corporate Six Sigma programs. Yet, despite its astounding effectiveness, few outside of the community of Six Sigma practitioners know what Six Sigma is all about. With this book, Six Sigma is revealed to everyone. You might be in a company that's already implemented Six Sigma, or your organization may be considering it. You may be a student who wants to learn how it works, or you might be a seasoned business professional who needs to get up to speed. In any case, this updated edition of Six Sigma For Dummies is the most straightforward, non-intimidating guide on the market. New and updated material, including real-world examples What Six Sigma is all about and how it works The benefits of Six Sigma in organizations and businesses The powerful "DMAIC" problem-solving roadmap Yellow, Green and Black—how the Six Sigma "belt" system works How to select and utilize the right tools and technologies Speaking the language of Six Sigma; knowing the roles and responsibilities; and mastering the statistics skills and analytical methods Six Sigma For Dummies will become everyone's No. 1 resource for discovering and mastering the world's most famous and powerful improvement tool. Stephen Covey is spot-on when he says, "Six Sigma For Dummies is a book to be read by everyone."

Read more less

Möchten Sie verstehen, was Six Sigma genau ist? Wollen Sie die Vorteile von Six Sigma in Ihrer Firma nutzen und so Abläufe optimieren? Dann greifen Sie zu "Six Sigma für Dummies" und lassen Sie sich leicht verständlich erklären, was es damit genau auf sich hat. Six Sigma ist eine auf Effizienz ausgerichtete Qualitätssicherungsmethode. Es ist eine quantitative Methode, bei der genau ermittelt wird, wie das Ziel aussehen soll und wie groß die Fehlerabweichung von diesem Idealziel ist, sei es ein Produktionsprozess oder die Kundenorientierung eines Unternehmens. Es ist eine erfolgreiche Methode, viele Unternehmen setzen Six Sigma bereits ein.

Read more less

Improve your efficiency -- and bring in big profits! Need help implementing or understanding Six Sigma? Want to take this powerful problem-solving methodology and apply it to your business? Six Sigma isn't just for Fortune 500 companies anymore; it's for every business, even yours, no matter how big or small. This hands-on workbook provides the knowledge, insight, and practical exercises you need to master Six Sigma and put it to work in your business. Perfect as a companion workbook for Six Sigma For Dummies -- or any other Six Sigma book -- Six Sigma Workbook For Dummies gives you a wealth of examples, problems, and other tools you need to turn Six Sigma theory into practice -- today! Discover * How to form and lead a Six Sigma initiative * Project alignment with business objectives and strategy * How to create process flow maps and models * Chart and graph plotting for analysis and interpretation * Methods for calculating Sigma scores * How to quantify variable relationships

Read more less