Benchmarking Water Services
Benchmarking Water Services

Author: Enrique Cabrera Jr

Publisher: IWA Publishing

Published: 2011-03-01

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1843391988

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Benchmarking has become a key tool in the water industry to promote and achieve performance targets for utilities. The use of this tool for performance improvement through systematic search and adaptation of leading practices, has expanded globally during the past decade. Many ongoing projects worldwide aim to address different needs and objectives, in varying contexts, with outstanding results and impact. Benchmarking Water Services provides valuable information to everyone interested in benchmarking in the water industry. The text is aimed at utilities considering joining a benchmarking project, experienced practitioners in charge of organizing a benchmarking exercise, consultants, regulators and researchers. The document is presented with a clear practice oriented approach and can be used as a how-to-benchmark guide presented from different perspectives (participants, organizers, supervising bodies). Readers will gain practical insight on real life benchmarking practices and will benefit from the experiences gained in some of the leading benchmarking projects of the water industry (including the IWA-WSAA benchmarking efforts, the European Benchmarking Co-operation and the several benchmarking projects carried out in Austria and Central Europe). The manual also presents the new IWA Benchmarking Framework, which aims to harmonize the terms used to describe benchmarking and performance indicators practices in the water industry, guaranteeing a more fluent and efficient communication. This Manual of Best Practice is edited by the IWA Specialist Group on Benchmarking and Performance Assessment, and co-published by AWWA and IWA Publishing. Praise for Benchmarking Water Services: "The continual trend of conceptual to specifics throughout the book provides for an educational experience each time the book is either casually perused or carefully studied." "The authors (Cabrera, Haskins and Fritiz) diligently pursue the focus of improvement." "Benchmarking Water Services is an in depth and practical ‘must have’ guide for any utility currently engaged in or planning to develop a benchmarking process" - Gregory M. Baird (2012) Benchmarking: An International Journal 19:2. More information about the book can be found on the Water Wiki in an article written by the author: http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Articles/TheNewIWABenchmarkingFramework A Spanish language version of this book is available as a free eBook: http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Articles/eBookTitlesfromIWAPublishingFreetoDownload-Volume2#HBenchmarkingParaServiciosdeAgua

Tapirs
Tapirs

Author: Daniel M. Brooks

Publisher: IUCN

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9782831704227

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Descended from a long and ancient lineage, tapirs are important tropical forest seed dispersers. However, today, all species of tapirs are threatened to various degrees by habitat destruction and hunting. This action plan was written with wildlife biologists, ecologists, administrators, educators and local conservation officials in mind and is aimed at those countries with tapir populations. It provides a brief natural history of each species and its objective is to aid in their conservation by catalyzing conservation action. In addition, it is hoped that the contents of the plan will stimulate further research into this fascinating group of animals.

Tierra Vacante en Ciudades Latinoamericanas
Tierra Vacante en Ciudades Latinoamericanas

Author: Nora Clichevsky

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781558441491

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Vacant urban land--the product of land market activity, the actions of private agents, and the policies of public agents--is an important challenge for policy makers. Vacant lots on the urban fringe and in central and interstitial areas have affected growth patterns in Latin America. Contributors to this book analyze the problems and opportunities related to vacant urban land in five cities: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Quito, Ecuador; Lima, Perú; and San Salvador, El Salvador.

Practical Lean Accounting
Practical Lean Accounting

Author: Brian H. Maskell

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-07-27

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1439817170

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The methods and concepts presented in the bestselling first edition revolutionized the approach to the management and control of Lean companies. Enhanced with extensive end-of-chapter exercises and downloadable resources with Lean accounting tools, the second edition of this preeminent practitioner’s guide is now suitable for classroom use. Practical Lean Accounting: A Proven System for Measuring and Managing the Lean Enterprise, Second Edition explains exactly what it takes to transform a traditional accounting system to one that supports and enhances a company’s Lean efforts. Defining the fundamental principles of Lean accounting, it demonstrates how to use them to identify and eliminate wasteful transactions. The book includes coverage of cell performance measurement, use of the box score, operational and financial planning, cost targeting, Lean accounting diagnostics, and value stream mapping. Retaining the easy-to-use format that made the first edition a bestseller, this updated edition includes: A new section on the use of value stream performance measurements in continuous improvement A re-written Target Costing chapter that emphasizes a value-based approach to the management of the Lean value system A Lean Accounting Diagnostic tool to help you assess progress and develop a plan for implementing changes Cutting-edge examples that illustrate implementation in accounting departments Downloadable resources with data from the ECI Value Stream Cost Analysis case study included in the text, Excel templates, and end-of-chapter questions with solutions The book contains a wealth of tools that makes it ideal for company training sessions and advanced undergraduate and graduate-level courses. For each major example provided, two similar problems are included—one for instructors to guide students through and a second for students to work through on their own. An additional set of problems and questions for testing purposes are also available to instructors on the authors’ website. Unfortunately, during the publishing process mistakes can be made that are not caught before the book is printed. Productivity Press takes great care to catch any errors prior to the printing stage.

Construction and Building Research
Construction and Building Research

Author: Carmen Llinares-Millán

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-01-31

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 9400777906

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Many areas of knowledge converge in the building industry and therefore research in this field necessarily involves an interdisciplinary approach. Effective research requires strong relation between a broad variety of scientific and technological domains and more conventional construction or craft processes, while also considering advanced management processes, where all the main actors permanently interact. This publication takes an interdisciplinary approach grouping various studies on the building industry chosen from among the works presented for the 2nd International Conference on Construction and Building Research. The papers examine aspects of materials and building systems; construction technology; energy and sustainability; construction management; heritage, refurbishment and conservation. The information contained within these pages may be of interest to researchers and practitioners in construction and building activities from the academic sphere, as well as public and private sectors.

Global Environmental Constitutionalism
Global Environmental Constitutionalism

Author: James R. May

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 1107022258

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Reflecting a global trend, scores of countries have affirmed that their citizens are entitled to healthy air, water, and land and that their constitution should guarantee certain environmental rights. This book examines the increasing recognition that the environment is a proper subject for protection in constitutional texts and for vindication by constitutional courts. This phenomenon, which the authors call environmental constitutionalism, represents the confluence of constitutional law, international law, human rights, and environmental law. National apex and constitutional courts are exhibiting a growing interest in environmental rights, and as courts become more aware of what their peers are doing, this momentum is likely to increase. This book explains why such provisions came into being, how they are expressed, and the extent to which they have been, and might be, enforced judicially. It is a singular resource for evaluating the content of and hope for constitutional environmental rights.

The Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel

Author: E.L. Doctorow

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2010-11-10

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0307762955

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The central figure of this novel is a young man whose parents were executed for conspiring to steal atomic secrets for Russia. His name is Daniel Isaacson, and as the story opens, his parents have been dead for many years. He has had a long time to adjust to their deaths. He has not adjusted. Out of the shambles of his childhood, he has constructed a new life—marriage to an adoring girl who gives him a son of his own, and a career in scholarship. It is a life that enrages him. In the silence of the library at Columbia University, where he is supposedly writing a Ph.D. dissertation, Daniel composes something quite different. It is a confession of his most intimate relationships—with his wife, his foster parents, and his kid sister Susan, whose own radicalism so reproaches him. It is a book of memories: riding a bus with his parents to the ill-fated Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill; watching the FBI take his father away; appearing with Susan at rallies protesting their parents’ innocence; visiting his mother and father in the Death House. It is a book of investigation: transcribing Daniel’s interviews with people who knew his parents, or who knew about them; and logging his strange researches and discoveries in the library stacks. It is a book of judgments of everyone involved in the case—lawyers, police, informers, friends, and the Isaacson family itself. It is a book rich in characters, from elderly grand- mothers of immigrant culture, to covert radicals of the McCarthy era, to hippie marchers on the Pen-tagon. It is a book that spans the quarter-century of American life since World War II. It is a book about the nature of Left politics in this country—its sacrificial rites, its peculiar cruelties, its humility, its bitterness. It is a book about some of the beautiful and terrible feelings of childhood. It is about the nature of guilt and innocence, and about the relations of people to nations. It is The Book of Daniel.