Meaning Is Everywhere

Meaning Is Everywhere sketches a theory of meaning from the ground up—with potentially profound consequences. In a sweeping narrative that arcs from the origins of meaning through the emergence of present-day science and technology, Prashant Parikh offers a fresh perspective on some of the most significant challenges and opportunities of the contemporary world, including the promise of AI, relief from scarcity and polarization, and the possibility of at least partial utopias.

Growing up on a farm in the Amish region of central Pennsylvania, Bill would have many conversations with his family on their wraparound front porch—especially with his grandfather, Pap. Pap’s assignment, or at least part of it, was to prepare his grandson for the lessons he’d receive later in life from the Everywhere. As a youngster, Bill sensed the Everywhere, which is like a waterless ocean of all that is. In our current lives, we are part of the whole. Lives now, before, and after sort of happen concurrently, although the only life we currently sense is our present life, which we refer to as “life as we know it.” In Here, There, and Everywhere, Bill reveals the core lessons he learned from his grandfather: family, love, honor, trust, and peace, explaining their significance so that others can benefit from them throughout their journey. Join Bill as he shares life anecdotes and blessings from growing up in a family of “plain people” in this uplifting book of memoirs.

Meaning is Everywhere sketches a model of meaning from the ground up--with potentially profound consequences. In a sweeping narrative that arcs from the origins of meaning through the emergence of present-day science and technology, Prashant Parikh offers a fresh perspective on some of the most significant challenges and opportunities of the contemporary world, including the promise of AI, relief from scarcity and polarization, and the possibility of at least partial utopias.

The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary is the ideal dictionary for advanced EFL/ESL learners. Easy to use and with a great CD-ROM - the perfect learner's dictionary for exam success. First published as the Cambridge International Dictionary of English, this new edition has been completely updated and redesigned. - References to over 170,000 words, phrases and examples explained in clear and natural English - All the important new words that have come into the language (e.g. dirty bomb, lairy, 9/11, clickable) - Over 200 'Common Learner Error' notes, based on the Cambridge Learner Corpus from Cambridge ESOL exams Plus, on the CD-ROM: - SMART thesaurus - lets you find all the words with the same meaning - QUICKfind - automatically looks up words while you are working on-screen - SUPERwrite - tools for advanced writing, giving help with grammar and collocation - Hear and practise all the words.

We are entering an entirely new phase of BPM – the era of “BPM Everywhere” or BPME. BPME represents the strategy for leveraging, not simply surviving but fully exploiting the wave of disruption facing every business over the next 5 years and beyond. Without question, one of the single most disruptive events in the last decade was the introduction of the smartphone. Consider for a moment how great of an impact this has had on the relationship between businesses and their customers. Not even the emergence of the Web and Internet-based “digital native” business models can compare with the level of intimacy now available with your customers. In the era of the Internet of Things where smart homes, appliances, cars, phones, virtually imaginable devices are all connected, BPM must, and will, be everywhere. As Peter Whibley discusses in “The Internet of Things Will Be Invisible,” by 2025 there are expected to be more than 26 billion or more connected devices. In the chapter “Digital Prescriptive Maintenance: Disrupting Manufacturing through IoT, Big Data, and Dynamic Case Management,” Dr. Setrag Khoshafian introduces the “4 Vs” of “thing” data, specifically “Volume, Velocity, Variety and Value.” From monitors and remote sensors, to appliances and vehicles, to tens of billions of other “things,” connected devices are generating meaningful and informative data that would easily overwhelm any human being, but collectively they present critical context about processes and the state of operations. “Big Data” has never been so large, nor presented such an acute role within enterprises and the processes that drive them. BPME as well as traditional BPM methods can already be found at the center of this. Its role will grow exponentially. Emergent factors such as process mining (see chapter “Mining the Swarm” by Keith Swenson, et al.) will be critical for uncovering engagement patterns and the need for process management platforms to coordinate interaction and control of smart devices. It is intelligent BPM that is expanding the window of what can be automated, by enabling adaptable automation. The mobile strategies in far too many organizations seem to be the building of apps that presume that customers will use their smartphones like mini laptops. This avoids the fact that we now have a level of intimacy with our customer we've never had before. As discussed in the chapter “BPM to Go – Supporting Business Processes in a Mobile and Sensing World,” our customers are carrying around a device that offers a range of capabilities unlike any laptop. A smartphone produces volumes of meaningful data about our customers (think about the “4Vs”) and is able to interact with that customer in ways that a laptop never can. The growing ubiquity of connectivity always within reach combined with new services and capabilities such as mobile banking is a key part of driving constantly-changing expectations. Yet digital disruption is not limited to mobile devices, and is in fact disrupting everywhere BPM is otherwise found, and why BPM everywhere is becoming the new normal.

A fascinating analysis of anonymous publication centuries before the digital age Everywhere and Nowhere considers the ubiquity of anonymity and mediation in the publication and circulation of eighteenth-century British literature—before the Romantic creation of the “author”—and what this means for literary criticism. Anonymous authorship was typical of the time, yet literary scholars and historians have been generally unable to account for it as anything more than a footnote or curiosity. Mark Vareschi shows the entangled relationship between mediation and anonymity, revealing the nonhuman agency of the printed text. Drawing richly on quantitative analysis and robust archival work, Vareschi brings together philosophy, literary theory, and media theory in a trenchant analysis, uncovering a history of textual engagement and interpretation that does not hinge on the known authorial subject. In discussing anonymous poetry, drama, and the novel along with anonymously published writers such as Daniel Defoe, Frances Burney, and Walter Scott, he unveils a theory of mediation that renews broader questions about agency and intention. Vareschi argues that textual intentionality is a property of nonhuman, material media rather than human subjects alone, allowing the anonymous literature of the eighteenth century to speak to contemporary questions of meaning in the philosophy of language. Vareschi closes by exploring dubious claims about the death of anonymity and the reexplosion of anonymity with the coming of the digital. Ultimately, Everywhere and Nowhere reveals the long history of print anonymity so central to the risks and benefits of the digital culture.

Every business knows that the best customer is a happy customer. They return again and again, bring their friends and family, and deliver tons of free advertising via word of mouth and social media. But in order to grow that loyal base, you must be keenly aware of your customers' needs and preferences. Drawing on the latest research in the exploding field of positive psychology, Columbia Business School professor Bernd Schmitt offers three unique approaches any business can use to turning a casual customer into a committed fan: • The Feel-Good Method: Use the experience of pleasure and positive emotion to hook new customers, and watch those feel-good moments transform an impulsive buyer into a committed loyalist. • The Values-and-Meaning Method: Attract passionate customers by appealing to their core values, like being socially responsible, protecting the environment, or living a simple life • The Engagement Method: Get customers to notice a unique or limited offer, immerse them in the experience, and have them share it with friends and family. Schmitt shows marketers, brand managers, and entrepreneurs how to design an authentic and successful campaign that will reach, grow, and sustain a devoted base of customers.

The bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia and Another Country profiles refugees from around the world who emigrate to the United States. In cities and towns all over the country, refugees arrive daily. Lost Boys from Sudan, survivors from Kosovo, families fleeing Afghanistan and Vietnam: they come with nothing but the desire to experience the American dream. Their endurance in the face of tragedy and their ability to hold on to the essential virtues of family, love, and joy are a tonic for Americans who are now facing crises at home. Their stories will make you laugh and weep—and give you a deeper understanding of the wider world in which we live. The Middle of Everywhere moves beyond the headlines, into the hearts and homes of refugees from around the world. Her stories bring to us the complexity of cultures we must come to understand in these times. “Pipher enters the hearts and homes of refugees who now live virtually from coast to coast, chronicling their struggles…. Her work is a plea for others to join her in a campaign of understanding.”—USA Today “Pipher unites refugees, people who have fled some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, with all of us…. [She] is taking this moment to teach us un-American behaviors: Patience, manners, and tolerance.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Drawing upon anthropology, sociology and psychology, [Pipher] offers a deft, moving portrait of the complexity of American life…Pipher's ambitious undertaking of combining personal stories with global politics is wonderfully realized.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)