Böcker utgivna av Palgrave MacMillan

This book is a comprehensive guide to the application of Python in accounting, finance, and other business disciplines. This book is more than a Python tutorial; it is an integrative approach to using Python for practical research in these fields. The book begins with an introduction to Python and its key libraries. It then covers real-world applications of Python, covering data acquisition, cleaning, exploratory data analysis, visualization, and advanced topics like natural language processing, machine learning, predictive analytics, and deep learning. What sets this book apart is its unique blend of theoretical knowledge and real-world examples, supplemented with ready-to-use code. It doesn't stop at the syntax; it shows how to apply Python to tackle actual analytical problems. The book uses case studies to illustrate how Python can enhance traditional research methods in accounting and finance, not only allowing the reader to gain a firm understanding of Python programming but also equipping them with the skills to apply Python to accounting, finance, and broader business research. Whether you are a PhD student, a professor, an industry professional, or a financial researcher, this book provides the key to unlocking the full potential of Python in research.

This book delves into Trinidad and Tobago's development with a fresh lens. It stands as the inaugural empirical exploration of the country's unique attributes, including its diversity, ex-British colony status, small-state categorization by population size, and its dependence on hydrocarbons.Through meticulous empirical analysis, this book scrutinizes the nation's economic, social, and political outcomes within the context of these four distinctive parameters, offering fresh insights into the country's development trajectory.What sets this book apart is its unwavering commitment to a data-driven approach. Drawing upon a vast array of databases from both international and national sources, it provides a thorough examination of development indicators, household welfare metrics, firm-level performance, and individual perspectives on a wide range of political, economic, and social issues.For scholars, policymakers, and anyone with an interest in understanding how unique contextual factors shape a Trinidad and Tobago's development, this book offers an enlightening and data-rich perspective on the nation's journey towards progress and prosperity.

This book provides a practical, detailed, and well-documented guide that takes students and market researchers through all phases of developing and conducting global marketing research. This book not only accounts for the recent developments in the scope and extent of global marketing research, but also examines advances in both quantitative and qualitative research techniques, and the impact of the Internet on research in the global environment.It includes coverage of all phases involved in designing and executing global marketing research -- from analyzing the nature and scope of the research to the preliminary stages, gathering data, designing the questionnaires, sampling, and presenting the data. Numerous country-specific examples and case studies will add to the understanding of the concepts laid out in the book. This edition features updates related to leveraging the power of AI, Internet of Things, machine learning, blockchain, robotics, the metaverse, and otheremerging technologies that are impacting the way in which marketing research is performed. With an instructor's manual as well as PPT slides covering major topics within the chapters, in addition to numerous cases, this text provides the most current and relevant information about the global marketing research industry and outlines the necessary techniques that can guide researchers in their work.

This book investigates the contemporary practices surrounding the international prosecution of sitting heads of states by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Through a specific focus on five contemporary case studies, the author reflects on the following: firstly, how the ICC itself has shaped the contemporary practices surrounding the prosecution of sitting heads of states; and secondly, the domestic and international "problematics" that have ensued from these practices. In doing so, Cacciatori argues that the international prosecution of sitting heads of states before the ICC constitutes "an imprudent exercise of Western humanitarianism". This, in turn, has not only worsened the domestic conditions of the countries subject to the ICC's investigations but in addition, it has also served to undermine the "very idea of cosmopolitan justice" in international politics.

This volume explores the family formation and life course of Polish people in Ireland, who make up the largest immigrant group in Ireland. Chapters address key dimensions of the life course in three parts focusing on childhood and youth, adulthood and parenting, and mid-life and futures. Contributions investigate the experiences of children and youth attending school and understanding their identities, the changing nature of families and family support, how families might engage with welfare institutions, and more. Through the life course approach, the book moves beyond the paradigm of studying the Polish population as economic migrants and instead analyzes and illustrates the lives of Polish families living in Ireland since EU enlargement.

Central bank digital currency (CBDC) is on the horizon, with more than 130 central banks globally considering such projects. But is this beneficial for citizens and the financial system? This book offers a comprehensive guide on the intricate subjects of CBDCs, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits. Authored by an industry expert who has actively participated in the development of CBDC solutions, this book demystifies the complexities of CBDC and digital assets, presenting both the opportunities and challenges with practical examples and real-world contexts.The book covers the history of money and the background of cryptography and technology architectures that are shaping the future of payments. It presents the risks and opportunities that these digital assets and CBDCs mean for our society. It discusses how CBDCs and stablecoins can potentially stabilize digital payment systems, offers opportunities for immediate settlements, and facilitate efficient cross-border payments. However, it also notes the significant challenges, including legal and regulatory complexities, social impacts, privacy concerns, security threats, and the risk of mass-surveillance. The book explores the different characteristics of digital assets, the options available for each characteristic (like privacy, sovereignty, ...) and provides detailed knowledge to judge the merits of the solutions proposed by private and public players.A must-read for anyone looking to understand the rapidly evolving world of digital currencies, this book encourages critical thinking about the opportunities and challenges presented by CBDCs and other digital assets and prompts readers to consider the vital aspects of privacy, security, and governance in an increasingly complex digital financial landscape.

This edited collection explores the problem of space under socialist regimes in the twentieth century. Bringing together contributions from international scholars with expertise in the architectural, urban, social, and cultural history of twentieth-century socialism, the book includes examples from China, Africa, Mongolia, Eastern Europe and the USSR. The volume reflects on how developments in the field over the past two decades have altered our understanding of how such spaces were constructed (both literally and discursively), how they could become sites of contested meanings, and how they were perceived outside the socialist world. Moreover, the volume is concerned with how scholarly approaches associated with post-colonialism, global history, gender history, and the 'temporal' and 'sensory' turns have reconfigured our knowledge of, and approach to, the history of socialist space.

This book provides detailed insight into what governments and institutions can do to drive digital transformation in a nation pursuing economic development. Drawing on real-world case studies and practical advice, the book breaks down digital transformation of public services, healthcare, and the move toward smart cities. Synthesizing publicly available information, the book captures how the World Bank transformed its response the digital revolution in several nations. Nagy K. Hanna takes takes readers through the pioneering export strategy of software services in India and Sri Lanka's first integrated digital transformation program. The resulting book is a guide for policymakers, development economists, and and change-makers seeking new ways to harness the power of digital technologies to promote inclusive and sustainable development.

In this book, Nagy K. Hanna offers a holistic framework that economists and policymakers can use to examine and drive digital transformation. The book offers detailed analyses into development policies, and organizational processes governing digital transformation learning and practice and highlights the reforms needed in countries and aid agencies to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The author offers insight to help reform major aid agencies within the economic development space. The resulting text reimagines the future of development economics.

This book outlines the main technological, legal, and operational options that liberal democratic nations have when confronting challenges in cyberspace. It offers a range of policy ideas they can adopt to make their defense stronger and deter future cyber-attacks. The author explores how liberal societies, especially those in the Western world, have so far confronted a variety of cybersecurity challenges by hackers in nondemocratic regimes like Russia and China. and zooms in on the main challenges that democratic states face in adopting strategies of cyber deterrence, and how those challenges shape their ability to actually deter hackers.

This accessibly-written textbook uses the intrinsic appeal of a story to engage students with language, and provides teachers with the background knowledge and the skills to use literature to construct lessons for their classes which integrate all four skills plus language awareness in an enjoyable way. Although a number of books and studies have examined the value of using literature to learn language, literature remains under-represented as a language learning resource. The author argues that the accumulated body of literature represents a bottomless pit of potential material, just waiting to be recognised and enjoyed. From a teacher's point of view, a lesson based on a literary work can provide an integrated approach to language development which few other approaches can match. A piece of literature can be used to develop all four skills, both receptive and productive (reading, writing, listening speaking) as well as production skills and language awareness. This book willbe an essential resource for pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher trainers, students and scholars of Applied Linguistics, Language Education, TESOL and related subjects.

This book presents a decolonial and Afrocentric critique of prolonged encampment of refugees, centred on the case study of refugee camps in Kenya, introduced through the author's decades-long experience of forced displacement. His positionality as a former refugee contributes to a wider discussion on representation, voice, and power within the refugee studies literature. Likewise, the revisiting of the refugee camp as site and tool of power from a colonial perspective, is an important and timely contribution to the literature. This book examines the camp as a colonial innovation and the enduring colonial logics of supposedly 'humanitarian' extended encampment. Drawing on the anti-colonial theorists such as Fanon, Mbembe, and Nyerere, etc, it argues for an Africa without borders or encampment. The study is interdisciplinary, encompassing forced migration/refugee studies, camp studies, decolonial studies, and African studies. More broadly, it seeks to contribute to the literature on the politics of asylum in Africa through a critical examination of the colonial origins and the practice of encampment in Kenya.

This open access book provides the first systematic analysis of the role of the media in the rise of illiberalism, based on an original theoretical framework and extensive empirical research in Eastern Europe - a region that serves as a key battleground in the global advance of illiberalism. Liberal democracies across the world are facing a range of challenges, from the growing influence of illiberal leaders and parties to deepening polarization and declining trust in political elites and mainstream media. Although these developments attracted significant scholarly attention, the factors that contribute to the spreading of illiberalism remain poorly understood, and the communication perspective on illiberalism is particularly underdeveloped.Stětka and Mihelj address this gap by introducing the concept of the illiberal public sphere, identifying the key stages in its development, and explaining what makes illiberalism distinct from related phenomena such as populism. Their analysis reveals how and why the changing communication environment facilitates selective exposure to ideologically and politically homogeneous sources, fosters changes in normative assumptions that guide media trust, increases vulnerability to disinformation, and goes hand in hand with growing hostility to immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. The findings challenge widespread assumptions about digital platforms as key channels of illiberalism and suggest that their role shifts as the illiberal sphere progresses.The arguments presented in this book have important implications for future research on challenges to liberal democracy, as well as for journalists, media regulators and other professionals committed to rebuilding media trust and containing the forces of polarization.

This book is a comprehensive study of the history of pew-renting in the church of England, from the first known rented sittings in the fifteenth century to the system's collapse in the twentieth. The book's significance is partly its originality; no book and very few articles or portions of books have appeared solely on pew-renting since the nineteenth century, and even those of that time were not histories - they were polemical works that generally attacked pew-renting on religious grounds. This work encompasses the distinction between formal letting of seats - which involved the methodical letting of sittings by church authorities with set rents - and informal pew-letting, in which congregants tipped pew-openers and sidesmen for favourable seats for one service. It also details the concomitant difficulties and hindrances encountered by churches and renters, the means of setting the rents and collecting the proceeds, the types of congregants who rented pews, thecontroversy the practice provoked, and the deception and bending - and sometimes outright breaking - of the applicable law.

This book is the first to explore street names and street-naming in the formation of a Greek-Cypriot identity in the cityscape of Nicosia between 1878 and 1975. Rather than treating toponymy as a direct linguistic act of spatial orientation, the book approaches street-naming as a contested practice involving those shared symbols and representations used to depict official history and collective identity as part of a political process. It considers how street names are part of the symbolic politics of space, and how authorities transformed the streets of Nicosia into arenas of struggle for the control of symbolic and material space. It documents historical efforts over the course of a century to impose a 'geography of forgetting' to buttress national identity and to cast out the 'other' from space -- both literally and symbolically -- so as to achieve territorial dominance and political legitimacy. The book is another step towards the development of a global perspective on the critical study of street-naming, thereby refining and expanding our knowledge of the political dynamics involved in the process. In their commemorative capacity, street names belong to the politics of public memory and identity.

The book develops a novel framework for the analysis of global crises. It differentiates crises on three dimensions: permanent, recurring and ephemeral crises. This conceptualization allows us to analyze global crises not only in their immediate environment, but makes it possible to understand them in the broader context of social instability. The approach revolves around the terminology of discursive dislocation which provides fundamental insights into diverse forms of social instability. A multidimensional conceptualization of dislocation is advanced which informs the differentiation of global crises. Furthermore, a methodological toolkit is developed and tailored to the theoretical framework, which makes it possible to utilize the book both theoretically and methodologically for the analysis of manifold forms of global crises. The book also provides a comprehensive analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States under Donald Trump. Making use of the aforementioned methodology, it presents a hands-on illustration of how the multidimensional framework can be utilized for practical analyses. The analysis reveals how the construction of the Covid-19 pandemic is embedded in the historically ingrained self-portrayal of the United States, and how crisis responses are invoked to serve particular socio-political purposes in retaining an established vision of the United States.

This book sheds light on the topic of financial water risk by examining the modeling challenges associated with physical, regulatory, and reputational water risk in finance. It explores various approaches to operationalize water risk from a financial analysis, investment management, and climate science perspective. The analysis of tools to assess water risk provides the basis for the development of appropriate risk-return management techniques in finance and beyond. This book provides new insights by focusing on financial water threats and their related opportunities. It will be of interest to both academics and practitioners who work at the interface of finance, economics, nature, and society.

This volume is the continuation of our research on economic and developmental policy-making in the global semi-periphery in the post-crisis cycle (see our two recently published volumes titled 'Market-Liberalism and Economic Patriotism in Capitalist Systems' edited by Gerőcs and Szanyi, 2019, Palgrave Macmillan and 'The Post-Crisis Developmental State - Perspectives from the Global Periphery' edited by Gerőcs and Ricz, 2021). Our new volume aims to be a contribution to the analysis of emerging market economies' alternative development trajectories, as we explore the new perspectives on semi-peripheral dependent development since the Global Financial Crisis and especially amidst the new global pandemic, the COVID-19. The scope of comparative capitalism research has also been altered accordingly to include the analysis of emerging economies outside the core of the world system, and to make intertemporal comparisons possible (such as to define and characterise historical wavesof state capitalism). Still, we are convinced that to better understand the current wave of state capitalism and to explore its national varieties there is a need to critically reconsider existing theoretical approaches and methodologies, and to search for new ones, if necessary. This book aims to be a contribution to the analysis of emerging market economies' alternative development trajectories and explores new perspectives on semi-peripheral dependent development, especially amidst COVID-19.

This book makes the case for Bertolt Brecht's continued importance at a time when events of the 21st century cry out for a studied means of producing theatre for social change. Here is a unique step-by-step process for realizing Brecht's ways of working onstage using the 2015 Texas Tech University production of Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children as a model for exploration. Particular Brecht concepts--the epic, Verfremdung, the Fabel, gestus, historicization, literarization, the "Not...but," Arrangement, and the Separation of the Elements--are explained and applied to scenes and plays. Brecht's complicated relationship with Konstantin Stanislavsky is also explored in relation to their separate views on acting. For theatrical practitioners and educators, this volume is a record of pedagogical engagement, an empirical study of Brecht's work in performance at a higher institution of learning using graduate and undergraduate students.

This book depicts the Early Modern book markets in Europe and colonial Latin America. The nature of book production and distribution in this period resulted in the development of a truly international market. The integration of the book market was facilitated by networks of printers and booksellers, who were responsible for the connection of distant places, as well as local producers and merchants. At the same time, due to the particular nature of books, political and religious institutions intervened in book markets. Printers and booksellers lived in a politically fragmented world where religious boundaries often shifted. This book explores both the development of commercial networks as well as how the changing institutional settings shaped relationships in the book market.

Providing a Nordic historical perspective, this collection aims to further our understanding of trade union activism and its role in modern society. Contributions from a range of leading scholars analyse the organisational conditions of mobilisation that were deployed by Nordic unionists, and explore the way that they interacted with other forms of social and political protest during the twentieth century. Covering illegal or so-called wildcat strikes, blockades, demonstrations and other activist measures, the authors examine the way that trade union activism in the Nordic countries aimed to move the political combat zone from the meeting rooms of the respective confederations into the streets and the public domain. The collection focuses on cases from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, but comparisons are also made with countries such as Iceland, Germany, and the USA. Exploring the ways in which political parties have intervened in Nordic trade union activism since the early twentieth century, this unique collection offers new insights for those interested in labour market dynamics and the complex process behind the formation of salary and employment conditions.

This book provides a comprehensive guide to the latest research on the nonverbal cues that signal our biological sex, gender, and sexual orientation to others, as well as our sexual/romantic interest in others. Crucially, it is a volume which incorporates critical perspectives which help to tackle the short-comings associated with the predominant focus on cis-gender, heterosexual individuals . It underscores how specific cues work in conjunction with other cues during the communication of our gendered and sexual selves, and how various factors (cultural, contextual, social, personality variables) impact that process. It also addresses common misconceptions including the notion that the romantic landscape has become more sexualized and predominantly technology driven. This book highlights that we still tend to communicate a romantic interest in each other in quite traditional places, such as school, home, and social events, using tried-and-true nonverbal cues, like gazing and smiling. Across six chapters readers will learn about the cues to our gendered and sexual selves, which exist in our facial and bodily movements, dress, personal artifacts, gestures, body odor, vocal characteristics, touch, and posture, amongst others. This engaging work presents historical and contemporary research findings that will appeal to students and scholars of nonverbal communication, communication studies, the psychology of gender, and sexuality studies.

This book outlines in-depth the findings of a five-year longitudinal mixed methods study with academic and professional services women working in higher education in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Key themes in the book include women's engagement in leadership, careers in higher education, work and stress, women-only leadership programmes, intersectional perspectives that shine a light on differential experiences of women and the gendered culture of higher education. The book outlines several significant implications for women working in higher education, for those managing higher education institutions (HEIs), and for those involved in higher education policy development.

People in prison are usually (and often exclusively) seen and approached as persons who have committed one or more crimes and who have to pay their debt to society. However, while in prison, they often get victimised themselves. Research has demonstrated that prisons tend to be unsafe environments where various forms of victimisation take place. These forms of victimisation often go unnoticed and usually do not attract much interest from policymakers or society at large: prisoners are, indeed, far from 'ideal victims'. This book is devoted to understanding prisoner victimisation, in particular from a European perspective. Chapters in this volume focus on recent empirical work in a number of European countries (Belgium, England and Wales and the Netherlands). These chapters are complemented with a series of reflections from a conceptual, methodological and human rights perspective.

This book seeks to further the understanding of the human experience of coerced and forced ignorance on social, human rights and criminal justice related topics, drawing together scholars from multiple, disciplinary fronts. It argues that people in our social world are forced or coerced through either implicatory or interpretive denial that is normalized through specific cultural and social mechanisms by which we refer to this as non-knowledge or agnosis. There has also been a lack of scholarship which examines how human victimization and power intersects by and through the systematic orchestration of forced ignorance and doubt upon daily human life. This book's focus is an examination of the ways in which people find themselves in social spaces without empirical clarity and understand that absence as satisfaction, stability, or perhaps even pleasure. It discusses a range of topics, including for example people's sense of relative safety, despite empirical realities suggesting otherwise. This book seeks to make visible the role of ignorance in governing society, highlighting how the late modern human experience in a post-World War II human rights era subsumes, subverts, and sublimates the complex relationship between knowledge and denial; the empirical gulf between knowledge and resistance may indeed breed complicit bliss.

The Grotesque Modernist Body explores how and why modernist authors drew on the traditions of the grotesque body in order to represent modern reality accurately. The author employs the concept of the grotesque body as a theoretical framework with which to examine rigorously a range of modernist novels, poems and visual media by Conrad, Lewis, Eliot and Barnes, alongside their historical contexts and theories of humour and horror. This monograph challenges the prevailing narrative of modernism's abstract, psychological and impersonal 'inward turn' by tracing its mechanical-animal hybrid bodies back tothe medieval carnival satire of Rabelais, the gothic horror of the long nineteenth century, from Hoffmann, Shelley and Poe, to H.G. Wells and Henry James, and the uncanny, dreamlike art of Goya and Rousseau.

This open access book is the first to provide an analysis of the Dutch paper industry over a period encompassing six centuries. Responding to a trend of renewed scholarly interest in paper industries and production, the book seeks to illuminate the factors behind this relatively small national industry's centuries-long survival. Previous historical research has shown that sets of colonial, trade, merchant and family networks, tightly interwoven through a dense web of capital, were crucial for paper production and trade in early modern Europe. This book situates the Dutch paper industry within these overlapping contexts and their shifting dynamics over time, and historicizes the challenges and obstacles it had to overcome through four phases of capitalism: the rise of Dutch capitalism (1580-1815), Dutch monarchic liberalism (1815-1914), Fordism (1914-1980), and post-Fordism (1980 until now). Each chapter covers not only technological advancements in the industry, but its development alongside further determining dimensions, such as state-industry relations (industry policies), labour-capital relations (unions) and competition and cooperation, overall painting a picture of how the industry adapted to and endured changes in national and global networks surrounding the industry. This book will be of broad interest to scholars of economic and business history, as well as industrial history, political economy, and management studies. "This publication was supported by funds from the Publication Fund for Open Access Monographs of the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany."

This book offers a unique exploration and analysis of social responsibility and associated ethical concepts used by business and financial organizations. Mussell lays out the argument that a realist analysis of social responsibility reveals caring relations underpinning this ethical behavior. The combination of a realist social ontology with contemporary relational care ethics provides the theoretical framework needed to successfully explore the ethics of social responsibility. She then applies this realist caring relations argument to three specific contexts in which social responsibility is explicitly evident - including corporate social responsibility, socially responsible investment, and the legal concept of the fiduciary. By tracing the historical development of each concept - including how economic methodology has influenced interpretations and practice - a complex picture emerges, showing how ethics, economic theory, and political theory intersect. This is an insightful workof philosophically informed contemporary political economy, analyzing the evolution and connection of key ethical concepts widely used by organizations.

In recent years, attacks on the rise of 'gender ideology' and 'genderism' as a political force, on gender studies as an academic field, and on feminist, queer and trans individuals seen to be their embodied representatives, have grown in scope and intensity. This edited volume understands such attacks as a global force in need of urgent analytical and political attention. Drawing on contributions from and about a varied range of geographical locations including Argentina, Chile, China, Germany, the Persian Gulf, Hungary, India, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, the UK and the US, this book explores how anti-gender mobilisations work as a transnational formation shaped by the legacies of colonialism, racial capitalism, and resurgent nationalisms and how these can be resisted. By transnationalising our inquiries into the epistemic, affective and political nature of the anti-gender phenomenon, this volume troubles the 'origin stories' we tell about where anti-genderpolitics come from, and helps to better locate the various sources, actors, and networks behind these attacks, contesting the notion that anti-gender politics derive solely from right-wing nationalist or conservative religious actors, to show how they also derive from more centrist, liberal, leftist and even presumably feminist positions. The book thus invites us to sharpen and rethink the conceptual vocabularies and strategies we use to understand and resist anti-gender attacks, opening up space for envisioning new political imaginaries and transnational feminist solidarities.Chapter 1 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The South African economy has largely performed below its potential. Although the size of the South African economy has significantly increased since 1994, its performance has lagged behind other comparable economies, and has even been overtaken by Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa. Unemployment, income inequality, and poverty have remained high since 1994. In the past decade, South African economic performance has been so poor that is has resulted in declining per capita incomes. In this study, Vusi Gumede and his co-authors offer a comprehensive analysis of the South African economy since 1994, dealing with many important issues, ranging from its history to its political travails in an effort to provide better understanding and find possible solutions to ensuring inclusive growth.