Coming to the Edge of the Circle
Coming to the Edge of the Circle

Author: Nikki Bado

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-08-04

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 0190290331

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Imagine yourself sitting on the cool damp earth, surrounded by deep night sky and fields full of fireflies, anticipating the ritual of initiation that you are about to undergo. Suddenly you hear the sounds of far-off singing and chanting, drums booming, rattles "snaking," voices raised in harmony. The casting of the Circle is complete. You are led to the edge of the Circle, where Death, your challenge, is waiting for you. With the passwords of "perfect love" and "perfect trust" you enter Death's realm. The Guardians of the four quarters purify you, and you are finally reborn into the Circle as a newly made Witch. Coming to the Edge of the Circle offers an ethnographic study of the initiation ritual practiced by one coven of Witches located in Ohio. As a High Priestess within the coven as well as a scholar of religion, Nikki Bado is in a unique position to contribute to our understanding of this ceremony and the tradition to which it belongs. Bado's analysis of this coven's initiation ceremony offers an important challenge to the commonly accepted model of "rites of passage." Rather than a single linear event, initiation is deeply embedded within a total process of becoming a Witch in practice and in community with others. Coming to the Edge of the Circle expands our concept of initiation while giving us insight into one coven's practice of Wicca. An important addition to Ritual Studies, it also introduces readers to the contemporary nature religion variously called Wicca, Witchcraft, the Old Religion, or the Craft.

DNA Computing
DNA Computing

Author: Claudio Ferretti

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2005-06-13

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 3540318445

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The meeting took place at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy, from June 7 to June 10, 2004, and it was organized by the University of Milano-Bicocca and the Department of Informatics of the University of Milano-Bicocca.

Lean Six Sigma Case Studies in the Healthcare Enterprise
Lean Six Sigma Case Studies in the Healthcare Enterprise

Author: Sandra L. Furterer

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-26

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1447155831

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This book provides a detailed description of how to apply Lean Six Sigma in the health care industry, with a special emphasis on process improvement and operations management in hospitals. The book begins with a description of the Enterprise Performance Excellence (EPE) improvement methodology developed by the author that links several methodologies including systems thinking, theory of constraints, Lean and Six Sigma to provide an enterprise-wide prioritization and value-chain view of health care. The EPE methodology helps to improve flow at the macro or value-chain level, and then identifies Lean Six Sigma detailed improvements that can further improve processes within the value-chain. The book also provides real-world health care applications of the EPE and Lean Six Sigma methodologies that showed significant results on throughput, capacity, operational and financial performance. The Enterprise Performance Excellence methodology is described, and also the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) problem solving approach which is used to solve problems for health care processes as they are applied to real world cases. The case studies include a wide variety of processes and problems including: emergency department throughput improvement; operating room turnaround; operating room organization; CT imaging diagnostic test reduction in an emergency department; linen process improvement; implementing sepsis protocols in an emergency department; critical success factors of an enterprise performance excellence program.