How are young women supposed to see each other clearly when they can't even see themselves? This razor-sharp novel “perfectly captures [the] power dynamics and identity issues that . . . women are forced to face.”—Marie Claire (Best Books of the Year) Fiona and Liv are seniors at Buchanan College, a small liberal arts school in rural Pennsylvania. Fiona, who is still struggling emotionally after the death of her younger sister, is spending her final college year sleeping with abrasive men she meets in bars. Liv is happily coupled and on the fast track to marriage with an all-American frat boy. Both of their journeys, and their friendship, will be derailed by the relationships they develop with Oliver Ash, a ruggedly good-looking visiting literature professor whose first novel was published to great success when he was twenty-six. But now Oliver is in his early forties, with thinning hair and a checkered past, including talk of a relationship with an underage woman—a former student—at a previous teaching job. Meanwhile, Oliver’s wife, Simone, is pursuing an academic research project in Berlin, raising their five-year-old son, dealing with her husband’s absence, and wondering if their marriage is beyond repair. This sly, stunning, wise-beyond-its-years novel is told from the perspectives of the three women and showcases Mandy Berman’s talent for exploring the complexities of desire, friendship, identity, and power dynamics in the contemporary moment. Praise for The Learning Curve “Readers expecting a typical love triangle won’t find one. Instead, Berman delivers a thorough and incredibly timely investigation into relationship power imbalances that’s sure to start a lot of conversations.”—The Millions “Fiona and Liv are two best friends who became inseparable after Fiona experienced a family tragedy. Senior year of college, their lives are headed in different directions, and their differences are only highlighted by the sudden arrival of famed writer and controversial figure Oliver Ash. It’s not what you think—at least, not entirely. This novel, through different perspectives, explores loss, grief, sex, friendship, power dynamics, and much more.”—Betches “You win some, you learn some. The Learning Curve by Mandy Berman follows two roommates who develop relationships with a visiting professor with a questionable past. Spoiler: things get complicated.”—The Skimm

For years now, learning has been at the heart of research within cognitive psychology. How do we acquire new knowledge and new skills? Are the principles underlying skill acquisition unique to learning, or similar to those underlying other behaviours? Is the mental system essentially modular, or is the mental system a simple product of experience, a product that, inevitably, reflects the shape of the external world with all of its specialisms and similarities? This new book takes the view that learning is a major influence on the nature of the processes and representations that fill our minds. Throughout, the authors review and consider the areas of skill acquisition and lexical representation to illustrate the effects that practice can have on cognitive processes. They also draw parallels between theories in physical and biological domains to propose not only a new theory of mental function but also demonstrate that the mind is essentially subject to the same natural laws as the physical world. In so doing Speelman and Kirsner present a new perspective on psychology - one that identifies universal principles underlying all behaviours and one which contrasts markedly from our current focus on highly specific behaviours. Accessibly written, Beyond the Learning Curve is a thought provoking and challenging new text for students and researchers in the cognitive sciences.

This book addresses knowledge gaps in RARP in 3 key sections: 1) Step-by-step approach including multiple technique options and innovations, 2) Patient selection, safety, outcomes, and 3) Preparing the patient for surgery. The order is more based upon knowledge priority rather than a chronologic sequence in which part 3 would go first. Part two allows more summary and commentary on evidence and part three allows some creative content that is otherwise hard to find in one place—medical evaluations, imaging, clinical trials, patient education, etc. This textbook emphasizes content for the advanced skills surgeon in that multiple techniques are presented as well as state of the art evidence. The learning curve is addressed and the authors clarify how this text is useful for learners. The caveat is that they should be careful in patient selection and stick with what their mentors are showing them. With experience, they can then branch out into the many techniques presented here. Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy: Beyond the Learning Curve will also have cross-over appeal for surgical assistants, physician assistants, nurses, and anyone else involved in the surgical care of prostate cancer.

In this riveting anatomy of authoritarianism, acclaimed journalist William Dobson takes us inside the battle between dictators and those who would challenge their rule. Recent history has seen an incredible moment in the war between dictators and democracy—with waves of protests sweeping Syria and Yemen, and despots falling in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. But the Arab Spring is only the latest front in a global battle between freedom and repression, a battle that, until recently, dictators have been winning hands-down. The problem is that today’s authoritarians are not like the frozen-in-time, ready-to-crack regimes of Burma and North Korea. They are ever-morphing, technologically savvy, and internationally connected, and have replaced more brutal forms of intimidation with subtle coercion. The Dictator’s Learning Curve explains this historic moment and provides crucial insight into the fight for democracy.

A Wall Street Journal bestseller Named one of 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 by Thinkers50 Creating a culture of learning and growth. Growth is the goal. Helping people develop their potential—enabling them to articulate and become the self they want to be, are capable of being, and that best serves them and others in the short and long term—is what we as individuals and leaders strive toward. But how do we grow? It turns out it happens in a predictable way, which means we can understand where we are in our growth and chart a way forward. In this compact, complete guide, Whitney Johnson dives more deeply than ever into the S Curve of Learning so that you can envision how growth happens and direct yourself and others in your organization to create a culture that fosters it. The growth and learning journey comes in three phases: the Launch Point, the Sweet Spot, and Mastery. Compelling examples of successful people will show you when and why growth is slow, how to keep going, what to do when growth and learning are almost too fast to keep up with, and how to leap from one growth journey to another. As individuals grow, so do organizations and societies. Growth is learning put into action—action that betters the world as we better ourselves and our small niches, both personal and professional, within it. Growth occurs when learning is internalized—when we try something new and invest the effort to move it from being something we do to something we are.

Lead each person on your team up the learning curve. What's the secret to having an engaged and productive team? It's having a plan for developing all employees--no matter where they are on their personal learning curves. Better morale and higher performance happen through learning, argues Whitney Johnson. In over twenty years of coaching, investing, and consulting, Johnson has seen that employees need continuous learning and fresh challenges to stay motivated. The best bosses know this, and they know how to make it happen by thoughtfully designing people’s jobs around the skills they have today as well as the skills they'll need to be even more valuable tomorrow. That's how entire organizations stay competitive in an unpredictable, rapidly changing business environment. In this book, Johnson explains how to become one of those bosses and how to build your A-team by: Identifying what your employees already know and what they need to learn Designing their jobs to maximize engagement and learning Applying a seven-step process for leading each person up their learning curve We all want opportunities to learn, experiment, and grow in our jobs. When our bosses work with us to help us leap to new challenges, the result is a team that knows how to thrive, no matter what the future holds.

operations research and management science

Learning Processing, Second Edition, is a friendly start-up guide to Processing, a free, open-source alternative to expensive software and daunting programming languages. Requiring no previous experience, this book is for the true programming beginner. It teaches the basic building blocks of programming needed to create cutting-edge graphics applications including interactive art, live video processing, and data visualization. Step-by-step examples, thorough explanations, hands-on exercises, and sample code, supports your learning curve.A unique lab-style manual, the book gives graphic and web designers, artists, and illustrators of all stripes a jumpstart on working with the Processing programming environment by providing instruction on the basic principles of the language, followed by careful explanations of select advanced techniques. The book has been developed with a supportive learning experience at its core. From algorithms and data mining to rendering and debugging, it teaches object-oriented programming from the ground up within the fascinating context of interactive visual media.This book is ideal for graphic designers and visual artists without programming background who want to learn programming. It will also appeal to students taking college and graduate courses in interactive media or visual computing, and for self-study. - A friendly start-up guide to Processing, a free, open-source alternative to expensive software and daunting programming languages - No previous experience required—this book is for the true programming beginner! - Step-by-step examples, thorough explanations, hands-on exercises, and sample code supports your learning curve

This book gathers the proceedings of the EPPM 2019 conference, and highlights innovative work by researchers and practitioners active in various industries around the globe. Recent advances in science and technology have made it possible to seamlessly connect and integrate various elements of engineering systems, and opened the door for innovations that have transformed how we live and work. While these developments have yielded enhanced efficiency and numerous improvements in our current practices, the problems caused by the increased complexity of these integrated systems can be extremely difficult. Accordingly, solving these problems involves applying cross-disciplinary expertise to address the heterogeneity of the various elements inherent in the system. These proceedings address four main themes: (I) Smart and Sustainable Construction, (II) Advances in Project Management Practices, (III) Toward Safety and Productivity Improvement, and (IV) Smart Manufacturing, Design, and Logistics. As such, they will be of interest to and valuable to researchers and practitioners in a range of industries seeking an update on the translational fields of engineering, project, and production management.