Cracking Complexity


Book Description

For the first time, David Benjamin and David Komlos of Syntegrity share their cutting-edge, highly engaging step-by-step formula for cracking incredibly knotty and important challenges in mere days, while mobilizing those who must execute. Foreword by Marshall Goldsmith, #1 NY Times bestselling author, Thinkers50 - #1 Executive Coach and the only two-time #1 Leadership Thinker in the World Complexity has met its match! Today, organizations are grappling with ambiguity, volatility and paradox surrounding the challenges they face. This is complexity. But too many leaders approach complexity the wrong way - they push their people harder and harder and tackle problems one at a time over months, sometimes even years, and nearly always in a linear fashion. It's like setting a pot of water on "low" and waiting for it to boil. To solve the seemingly intractable challenges that leaders bang their heads against for months - to get the metaphorical water to boil - you must generate a high amount of heat very quickly. In this book, the authors share their proven formula for dramatically shortening the process and solving an organization's toughest challenges in mere days.




Cracking Complexity Now


Book Description

Complexity has met its match! Today, organizations are grappling with ambiguity, volatility and paradox surrounding the challenges they face. This is complexity. But too many leaders approach complexity the wrong way - they push their people harder and harder and tackle problems one-at-a-time over months, sometimes even years and nearly always in a linear fashion. It's like setting a pot of water on "low" and waiting for it to boil. To solve the seemingly intractable challenges that leaders bang their heads against for months - to get the metaphorical water to boil - you must generate a high amount of heat very quickly. In this book, the authors share their proven formula for dramatically shortening the process and solving an organization's toughest challenges in mere days. Fully updated to include highly successful and proven virtual methods and practices that have been used to solve real problems. This book serves up the mindset, steps and skills that you and your team will need to crack complexity, wherever you are in the world, so that you can find clarity and build momentum even in the most uncertain of times.




Petroleum Refining


Book Description

For four decades, Petroleum Refining has guided thousands of readers toward a reliable understanding of the field, and through the years has become the standard text in many schools and universities around the world offering petroleum refining classes, for self-study, training, and as a reference for industry professionals. The sixth edition of this perennial bestseller continues in the tradition set by Jim Gary as the most modern and authoritative guide in the field. Updated and expanded to reflect new technologies, methods, and topics, the book includes new discussion on the business and economics of refining, cost estimation and complexity, crude origins and properties, fuel specifications, and updates on technology, process units, and catalysts. The first half of the book is written for a general audience to introduce the primary economic and market characteristics of the industry and to describe the inputs and outputs of refining. Most of this material is new to this edition and can be read independently or in parallel with the rest of the text. In the second half of the book, a technical review of the main process units of a refinery is provided, beginning with distillation and covering each of the primary conversion and treatment processes. Much of this material was reorganized, updated, and rewritten with greater emphasis on reaction chemistry and the role of catalysis in applications. Petroleum Refining: Technology, Economics, and Markets is a book written for users, the practitioners of refining, and all those who want to learn more about the field.




Animal Social Complexity


Book Description

For over 25 years, primatologists have speculated that intelligence, at least in monkeys and apes, evolved as an adaptation to the complicated social milieu of hard-won friendships and bitterly contested rivalries. Yet the Balkanization of animal research has prevented us from studying the same problem in other large-brained, long-lived animals, such as hyenas and elephants, bats and sperm whales. Social complexity turns out to be widespread indeed. For example, in many animal societies one individual's innovation, such as tool use or a hunting technique, may spread within the group, thus creating a distinct culture. As this collection of studies on a wide range of species shows, animals develop a great variety of traditions, which in turn affect fitness and survival. The editors argue that future research into complex animal societies and intelligence will change the perception of animals as gene machines, programmed to act in particular ways and perhaps elevate them to a status much closer to our own. At a time when humans are perceived more biologically than ever before, and animals as more cultural, are we about to witness the dawn of a truly unified social science, one with a distinctly cross-specific perspective?




Overcoming IT Complexity


Book Description

The cloud promises cost savings, agility, and more. But the increasing complexity of modern IT systems often prevents businesses from realizing the outcomes they sought by moving to the cloud in the first place. At the core of this complexity is technical debt. Ad hoc decisions, traditional approaches, and "quick and dirty" solutions add up to fragile, more complex systems (and organizations)--reducing the pace of change, driving up costs, and degrading security. To succeed in the cloud, you first have to manage the problems IT complexity creates. This practical guide will help. If you're tasked with designing, delivering, or approving IT systems that support business growth, this book will teach you the principles and strategies you need to break out of silos, reassess traditional thinking, provide the business a better competitive position, and achieve cloud success across the company. You'll learn: How to assess your current IT environment to identify complexity-centered risks How to structure cross-functional teams to reduce friction points How to create a framework for IT investments that's aligned with your business goals How to measure your outcomes for continued success




Deliberative Policymaking


Book Description

An essential read for rethinking and improving how education policy is made and implemented




Cracking the Code of Education Reform


Book Description

Lead between the lines— evaluate Ed policies to emphasize the positives and minimize the negatives Although educational reform is intended for positive change, sometimes it misses the mark. However, when school leaders capitalize on the positive aspects of reforms they can strategize to ensure the best outcomes for students. Christopher Tienken, professor and international speaker, shares his insights on how to identify both positive and negative aspects of education reform to maximize the benefits for students. This book introduces a practical framework for interpreting educational reform within an evidence-based practice, and provides thoughtful ways to finesse results out of challenging policies. Designed for use on the ground level, this book features: • Seven specific creative compliance strategies to maximize student and educator success • Case studies that illustrate how to critique reforms and take action • Reflective questions to guide evaluation and application • Ethical decision-making checklist Analyzing both successful and unsuccessful reform ideas from the past, this book champions creative compliance and how to lead innovatively/judiciously.




Ethical Password Cracking


Book Description

Investigate how password protection works and delve into popular cracking techniques for penetration testing and retrieving data Key Features Gain guidance for setting up a diverse password-cracking environment across multiple platforms Explore tools such as John the Ripper, Hashcat, and techniques like dictionary and brute force attacks for breaking passwords Discover real-world examples and scenarios to navigate password security challenges effectively Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionWhether you’re looking to crack passwords as part of a thorough security audit or aiming to recover vital information, this book will equip you with the skills to accomplish your goals. Written by a cybersecurity expert with over fifteen years of experience in penetration testing, Ethical Password Cracking offers a thorough understanding of password protection and the correct approach to retrieving password-protected data. As you progress through the chapters, you first familiarize yourself with how credentials are stored, delving briefly into the math behind password cracking. Then, the book will take you through various tools and techniques to help you recover desired passwords before focusing on common cracking use cases, hash recovery, and cracking. Real-life examples will prompt you to explore brute-force versus dictionary-based approaches and teach you how to apply them to various types of credential storage. By the end of this book, you'll understand how passwords are protected and how to crack the most common credential types with ease.What you will learn Understand the concept of password cracking Discover how OSINT potentially identifies passwords from breaches Address how to crack common hash types effectively Identify, extract, and crack Windows and macOS password hashes Get up to speed with WPA/WPA2 architecture Explore popular password managers such as KeePass, LastPass, and 1Password Format hashes for Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum wallets, and crack them Who this book is for This book is for cybersecurity professionals, penetration testers, and ethical hackers looking to deepen their understanding of password security and enhance their capabilities in password cracking. You’ll need basic knowledge of file and folder management, the capability to install applications, and a fundamental understanding of both Linux and Windows to get started.




Non-Destructive Testing of Structures


Book Description

The Special Issue “Non-Destructive Testing of Structures” has been proposed to present the recent developments in the field of the diagnostics of structural materials and components in civil and mechanical engineering. The papers highlighted in this editorial concern various aspects of non-invasive diagnostics, including such topics as the condition assessments of civil and mechanical structures and the connections of structural elements, the inspection of cultural heritage monuments, the testing of structural materials, structural health monitoring systems, the integration of non-destructive testing methods, advanced signal processing for the non-destructive testing of structures (NDT), damage detection and damage imaging, as well as modeling and numerical analyses for supporting structural health monitoring (SHM) systems.




Fracture and Complexity


Book Description

The book explores the two opposite natural trends of composite systems: (i) order and structure emerging from heterogeneity and randomness, and (ii) instability and chaos arising from simple nonlinear rules. Providing insights into the rapidly growing field of complexity sciences, the book focuses on the role of complexity in fracture mechanics. It firstly discusses the occurrence of self-similarity and fractal patterns in deformation, damage, fracture, and fragmentation of heterogeneous materials and the apparent scaling of the nominal mechanical properties of disordered materials, as well as of the time-to-failure after fatigue and creep loading. Then the book addresses criticality in the acoustic emissions from damaged structures and tectonic faults. Further, it examines the snap-back instability in the structural behavior of relatively large composite structures in the framework of catastrophe theory, and lastly describes the transition toward chaos in the dynamics of cracked elements.