Parks and recreation systems have evolved in remarkable ways over the past two decades. No longer just playgrounds and ballfields, parks and open spaces have become recognized as essential green infrastructure with the potential to contribute to community resiliency and sustainability. To capitalize on this potential, the parks and recreation system planning process must evolve as well. In Parks and Recreation System Planning, David Barth provides a new, step-by-step approach to creating parks systems that generate greater economic, social, and environmental benefits. Barth first advocates that parks and recreation systems should no longer be regarded as isolated facilities, but as elements of an integrated public realm. Each space should be designed to generate multiple community benefits. Next, he presents a new approach for parks and recreation planning that is integrated into community-wide issues. Chapters outline each step—evaluating existing systems, implementing a carefully crafted plan, and more—necessary for creating a successful, adaptable system. Throughout the book, he describes initiatives that are creating more resilient, sustainable, and engaging parks and recreation facilities, drawing from his experience consulting in more than 100 communities across the U.S. Parks and Recreation System Planning meets the critical need to provide an up-to-date, comprehensive approach for planning parks and recreation systems across the country. This is essential reading for every parks and recreation professional, design professional, and public official who wants their community to thrive.

Machine Learning Methods for Planning provides information pertinent to learning methods for planning and scheduling. This book covers a wide variety of learning methods and learning architectures, including analogical, case-based, decision-tree, explanation-based, and reinforcement learning. Organized into 15 chapters, this book begins with an overview of planning and scheduling and describes some representative learning systems that have been developed for these tasks. This text then describes a learning apprentice for calendar management. Other chapters consider the problem of temporal credit assignment and describe tractable classes of problems for which optimal plans can be derived. This book discusses as well how reactive, integrated systems give rise to new requirements and opportunities for machine learning. The final chapter deals with a method for learning problem decompositions, which is based on an idealized model of efficiency for problem-reduction search. This book is a valuable resource for production managers, planners, scientists, and research workers.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

The Strategic Planning and Deployment Excellence System (SPADES) provides a path to long-term success in the environment of rapidly changing technology and business systems. It combines the best of Hoshin Kanri, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and other proven management and leadership tools and techniques. This book presents a set of tools and techniques for developing and deploying a long-term plan for achieving sustained success. These concepts ensure graphically tracing the strategic planning process from the foundation of organizational principles to the enterprise vision and to the organization’s long-term goals. The Scientific Method is the foundation upon which the tools and techniques of SPADES are applied. The Scientific Method begins with an observation of a phenomenon which leads to development of a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon. The hypothesis is then tested and, based on the analysis of the results, then accepted or adjusted as necessary. The testing may then be repeated to verify conclusions. The Deming-Shewhart Cycle of plan-do-check-act (PDCA) is the application of the Scientific Method for control and continual improvement of processes and products. SPADES is the integrated evolution of the PDCA Cycle and QFD to answer the challenges of how to stay competitive, year after year, in a dynamic environment of rapidly changing customer requirements and technology.

Powerful Earthquake Triggers Tsunami in Pacific. Hurricane Katrina Makes Landfall in the Gulf Coast. Avalanche Buries Highway in Denver. Tornado Touches Down in Georgia. These headlines not only have caught the attention of people around the world, they have had a significant effect on IT professionals as well. As technology continues to become more integral to corporate operations at every level of the organization, the job of IT has expanded to become almost all-encompassing. These days, it's difficult to find corners of a company that technology does not touch. As a result, the need to plan for potential disruptions to technology services has increased exponentially. That is what Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is: a methodology used to create a plan for how an organization will recover after a disaster of various types. It takes into account both security and corporate risk management tatics.There is a lot of movement around this initiative in the industry: the British Standards Institute is releasing a new standard for BCP this year. Trade shows are popping up covering the topic.* Complete coverage of the 3 categories of disaster: natural hazards, human-caused hazards, and accidental and technical hazards.* Only published source of information on the new BCI standards and government requirements.* Up dated information on recovery from cyber attacks, rioting, protests, product tampering, bombs, explosions, and terrorism.