What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens—the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history. In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. When former Goldman Sachs colleagues Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman assumed control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, it looked as if they were buying the baseball equivalent of a penny stock. But the incoming regime came armed with a master plan: to leverage their skill at trading, valuation, and management to build a model twenty-first-century franchise that could compete with their bigger, stronger, richer rivals—and prevail. Together with “boy genius” general manager Andrew Friedman, the new Rays owners jettisoned the old ways of doing things, substituting their own innovative ideas about employee development, marketing and public relations, and personnel management. They exorcized the “devil” from the team’s nickname, developed metrics that let them take advantage of undervalued aspects of the game, like defense, and hired a forward-thinking field manager as dedicated to unconventional strategy as they were. By quantifying the game’s intangibles—that extra 2% that separates a winning organization from a losing one—they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay something that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” had never brought to Oakland: an American League pennant. A book about what happens when you apply your business skills to your life’s passion, The Extra 2% is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.

Learn all about the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team.

The creator of Bring it On, Jessica Bendiner, brings her teen savvy writing to this paranormal romance, now in paperback.

This complete introduction to the use of modern ray tracing techniques in plasma physics describes the powerful mathematical methods generally applicable to vector wave equations in non-uniform media, and clearly demonstrates the application of these methods to simplify and solve important problems in plasma wave theory. Key analytical concepts are carefully introduced as needed, encouraging the development of a visual intuition for the underlying methodology, with more advanced mathematical concepts succinctly explained in the appendices, and supporting Matlab and Raycon code available online. Covering variational principles, covariant formulations, caustics, tunnelling, mode conversion, weak dissipation, wave emission from coherent sources, incoherent wave fields, and collective wave absorption and emission, all within an accessible framework using standard plasma physics notation, this is an invaluable resource for graduate students and researchers in plasma physics.

In this book, the author describes the development of the experimental diffraction setup and structural analysis of non-crystalline particles from material science and biology. Recent advances in X-ray free electron laser (XFEL)-coherent X-ray diffraction imaging (CXDI) experiments allow for the structural analysis of non-crystalline particles to a resolution of 7 nm, and to a resolution of 20 nm for biological materials. Now XFEL-CXDI marks the dawn of a new era in structural analys of non-crystalline particles with dimensions larger than 100 nm, which was quite impossible in the 20th century. To conduct CXDI experiments in both synchrotron and XFEL facilities, the author has developed apparatuses, named KOTOBUKI-1 and TAKASAGO-6 for cryogenic diffraction experiments on frozen-hydrated non-crystalline particles at around 66 K. At the synchrotron facility, cryogenic diffraction experiments dramatically reduce radiation damage of specimen particles and allow tomography CXDI experiments. In addition, in XFEL experiments, non-crystalline particles scattered on thin support membranes and flash-cooled can be used to efficiently increase the rate of XFEL pulses. The rate, which depends on the number density of scattered particles and the size of X-ray beams, is currently 20-90%, probably the world record in XFEL-CXDI experiments. The experiment setups and results are introduced in this book. The author has also developed software suitable for efficiently processing of diffraction patterns and retrieving electron density maps of specimen particles based on the diffraction theory used in CXDI.

A Soul Ray is a frequency of choice before a given lifetime, a vibration of energy and color in which to explore emotional, mental and physical attributes of soul awareness. Improve your relationships, health, career and your personal connection to the Divine discovering your personal soul ray frequency. This is but one window into the dimensional aspect of the soup, yet its brilliance is bright, colorful, full of story and insight. Explore the personality profiles of the twelve distinct, unique, yet intertwined rays, illuminating family and friends multiple complexities and specialties. Peruse the temperaments and emotional resumes of the specific soul rays, offering relationship and career guidance. Study the individual physical traits, strengths and weaknesses and health of each child, comparing diet, food, exercise and supplements. Understand the guilds and value of global influences. Perceiving and understanding the importance of your special Soul Ray is a unique window into the greater cosmic perspective of your Divine self and soul/sole direction. This intriguing intuitive materials is guaranteed to open your consciousness to greater possibilities.