Risk Bandits


Book Description

Risk Bandits: Rescuing Risk Management from Tokenism provides directors and executives with a unique yet highly warranted insight into poorly understood organisational risk management practices. As respected business practitioners with extensive experience in meaningful risk management, authors Rob Hogarth and Tony Pooley, have teamed up to turn a clear and unblinking eye upon typical, contemporary organisational risk management and present a take-no-prisoners critique of its often shaky processes. This book offers directors and executives a must-read critique of typical organisational risk management and proposes an alternative for grounding organisational risk management practices on a solid foundation that protects and creates value. It is not often that I read a book on risk and find myself saying here, here as I turn the pagesJean Cross, Emeritus Prof. in Risk, University of NSW I think this is an excellent book and industry is long overdue for the truth, I cant wait to get my risk managers reading it. Shayne Arthur, General Manager Risk at Orica This is a ripping yarn, I was keen to provide feedback before boarding in case I was the victim of a low probability event over the Atlantic.Norman W Ritchie, vPSI Director It is an easy read, written in a journalistic style and certainly comprehensively and competently covering the topic Barry J Cooper, Prof. and Associate Dean at Deakin University Business School




Multi-Armed Bandits


Book Description

Multi-armed bandit problems pertain to optimal sequential decision making and learning in unknown environments. Since the first bandit problem posed by Thompson in 1933 for the application of clinical trials, bandit problems have enjoyed lasting attention from multiple research communities and have found a wide range of applications across diverse domains. This book covers classic results and recent development on both Bayesian and frequentist bandit problems. We start in Chapter 1 with a brief overview on the history of bandit problems, contrasting the two schools—Bayesian and frequentist—of approaches and highlighting foundational results and key applications. Chapters 2 and 4 cover, respectively, the canonical Bayesian and frequentist bandit models. In Chapters 3 and 5, we discuss major variants of the canonical bandit models that lead to new directions, bring in new techniques, and broaden the applications of this classical problem. In Chapter 6, we present several representative application examples in communication networks and social-economic systems, aiming to illuminate the connections between the Bayesian and the frequentist formulations of bandit problems and how structural results pertaining to one may be leveraged to obtain solutions under the other.




Quantitative Risk Assessment


Book Description

The National Science Foundation, The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and the Center for Technology and Humanities at Georgia State University sponsored a two-day national conference on Moral Issues and Public Policy Issues in the Use of the Method of Quantitative Risk Assessment ( QRA) on September 26 and 27, 1985, in Atlanta, Georgia. The purpose of the conference was to promote discussion among practicing risk assessors, senior government health officials extensively involved in the practice of QRA, and moral philosophers familiar with the method. The conference was motivated by the disturbing fact that distinguished scientists ostensibly employing the same method of quantitative risk assessment to the same substances conclude to widely varying and mutually exclusive assessments of safety, depending on which of the various assumptions they employ when using the method. In short, the conference was motivated by widespread concern over the fact that QRA often yields results that are quite controversial and frequently contested by some who, in professedly using the same method, manage to arrive at significantly different estimates of risk.




Bandit Algorithms


Book Description

A comprehensive and rigorous introduction for graduate students and researchers, with applications in sequential decision-making problems.




The Bandit


Book Description

Tired of lying in wait, the exiled Noble Bandit seizes his chance at revenge. Meanwhile, as the birth of the Royal Twins nears, Peasant General Guarding Bear is repatriated by the Emperor. Fearing for the safety of his heirs, the emperor orders the general to lay siege to his enemy’s fortress. In preparation, the general recruits the aid of a powerful wizard and a skilled young healer – but none of them suspects a traitor in their midst. ​​​​​​​As loyalties are tested and new alliances made, who will rise above and claim victory as their own?




Risk and Rationality


Book Description

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.




BEYOND KANCHENJUNGA


Book Description

Cause; a murder in Los Angeles. Effect; A summons from the Grand Regent. Jake Striker felt he needed to return to Mongolia to tell his in-laws how their daughter died. His wife, Chandaa, was killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light. The 911 Porsche was broadsided and his wife died instantly at an intersection in Beverly Hills. She had been with him when he finally located the mysterious Chang Jai Lamasery, high on Mt. Bayaskhulangtu. They had been searching for a child that was born at the exact instant the ancient Chang Lai Lama died. The Lamas believed the child was the reincarnation of their revered Grand Lama and were returning him to his rightful home. The parents of the child saw it as kidnapping. Chandaa’s parents live far out on the rolling steppes, where only personal communication is possible. Jake is tall, six feet, three inches, handsome with light brown hair and storm gray eyes. He had originally been hired by the parents to locate their child. Now he is back in Mongolia, comforting grieving in-laws. Chanda’s sister, Mei, a stunningly beautiful Mongolian woman, with Chinese ancestors, is with Jake in her parent’s ger when Lama Namsray arrives and tells Jake that the Grand Regent is in need of his services. Contacting the Grand Regent will require an arduous trek by horseback up into the sacred mountains, where only a privileged few are permitted. A steppe soldier is traveling with Lama Namsray, to protect him; armed with an AK47. Jake is a policeman turned lawyer and has the ear of the Grand Regent. One of the young men who was born in the mysterious valley has gone rogue and become a drug dealer and murderer in Southern California. He needs to be stopped and the Grand Regent is about to give Jake the assignment. Mei, who is twenty-five, with almond eyes and raven hair that hangs to her waist, informs Jake and Lama Namsray that she is going with them. The Lama tells her that will be impossible, outsiders are not allowed into the secret Lamasery. She informs him, “I’m going.” Lama Namsray, the second most powerful lama in the sacred dzong, explains that the Grand Regent would never permit it. Mei says, “I know about the gold mine, I know about the child Grand Lama and I know about the secret entrance into the valley. I’m going.” Jake sides with Mei and she accompanies him on the dangerous journey into the mountains. She also accompanies him to Southern California where they do battle with the drug lord and his thugs. Events become so dangerous they have to call upon the ancient Order of the Tu Tung. A mysterious Lamasery, a handsome lawyer, a beautiful Mongolian woman and a clandestine order of assassins, wrapped tightly together with dragon-emblazoned fabric from the Great Silk Road.




Increasing Occupational Health and Safety in Workplaces


Book Description

Increasing Occupational Health and Safety in Workplaces argues for greater reporting of workplace accidents and injuries. It also incorporates stress as a factor in rates of accidents and injuries, and suggests ways in which workplace safety cultures can be fostered and improved. This book will be an invaluable tool for students of management, especially those with an interest in small businesses. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial}




The King’s Road


Book Description

An exciting and richly detailed new history of the Silk Road that tells how it became more important as a route for diplomacy than for trade The King’s Road offers a new interpretation of the history of the Silk Road, emphasizing its importance as a diplomatic route, rather than a commercial one. Tracing the arduous journeys of diplomatic envoys, Xin Wen presents a rich social history of long-distance travel that played out in deserts, post stations, palaces, and polo fields. The book tells the story of the everyday lives of diplomatic travelers on the Silk Road—what they ate and drank, the gifts they carried, and the animals that accompanied them—and how they navigated a complex web of geographic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. It also describes the risks and dangers envoys faced along the way—from financial catastrophe to robbery and murder. Using documents unearthed from the famous Dunhuang “library cave” in Western China, The King’s Road paints a detailed picture of the intricate network of trans-Eurasian transportation and communication routes that was established between 850 and 1000 CE. By exploring the motivations of the kings who dispatched envoys along the Silk Road and describing the transformative social and economic effects of their journeys, the book reveals the inner workings of an interstate network distinct from the Sino-centric “tributary” system. In shifting the narrative of the Silk Road from the transport of commodities to the exchange of diplomatic gifts and personnel, The King’s Road puts the history of Eastern Eurasia in a new light.




Fall of the Swords Collection


Book Description

All four books in 'Fall Of The Swords', a series of fantasy novels by Scott Michael Decker, now in one volume! The Peasant: Following a civil war, an empire grapples with the devastating fallout. His conscience heavy, Peasant General Guarding Bear wants to usurp the tyrannical emperor’s throne. But the general’s rivals continue to play games, seeking to avenge their name and reclaim the Northern Imperial Sword. With his reign threatened and no progeny to his name, the Emperor plots to conceive an heir by stealth. Soon, Guarding Bear enters a world of deception, smoke and mirrors, and must decide where his loyalties lie. The Bandit: Tired of lying in wait, the exiled Noble Bandit seizes his chance at revenge. Meanwhile, as the birth of the Royal Twins nears, Peasant General Guarding Bear is repatriated by the Emperor. Fearing for the safety of his heirs, the emperor orders the general to lay siege to his enemy’s fortress. In preparation, the general recruits the aid of a powerful wizard and a skilled young healer – but none of them suspects a traitor in their midst. As loyalties are tested and new alliances made, who will rise above and claim victory as their own? The Heir: The future of the Empire hangs in the balance. Separated from birth, the Royal Twins have been raised in opposite corners of the empire. Meanwhile, bandits continue to lay waste to the kingdom in their attempt to force the Emperor to relinquish the Northern Imperial Sword. Among them is the Noble Bandit, nemesis of Peasant General Guarding Bear. Tasked with rearing one of the twins, the Peasant General wastes no time in preparing the boy for his destiny of ridding the kingdom of the bandits once and for all. But long-kept secrets are brought to life as the Heir is mistaken for his long-lost brother, and his new rival declares himself Emperor of the northern lands. Their path leads them towards a final confrontation that will forever change the fate of the realm. The Emperor: Seeking Sword looks to the south for only one thing: The Northern Imperial Sword, which now lies dormant in the vaults of the Eastern Empire. Without it, Seeking Sword will always be a bandit. And to get it, he'll have to defeat the Heir. Abandoned to bandits as an infant, Seeking Sword has known adversity, but nothing has prepared him to lead a campaign against such an adversary. It isn't the Heir's formidable fighting skills nor his tactical acumen that so dismays the bandit Emperor. It's the beloved devotion of his people.