Best Selling Books by Scott Smith

Constructivism dominates over other theories of knowledge in much of western academia, especially the humanities and social sciences. In Exposing the Roots of Constructivism: Nominalism and the Ontology of Knowledge, R. Scott Smith argues that constructivism is linked to the embrace of nominalism, the theory that everything is particular and located in space and time. Indeed, nominalism is sufficient for a view to be constructivist. However, the natural sciences still enjoy great prestige from the “fact-value split.” They are often perceived as giving us knowledge of the facts of reality, and not merely our constructs. In contrast, ethics and religion, which also have been greatly influenced by nominalism, usually are perceived as giving us just our constructs and opinions. Yet, even the natural sciences have embraced nominalism, and Smith shows that this will undermine knowledge in those disciplines as well. Indeed, the author demonstrates that, at best, nominalism leaves us with only interpretations, but at worst, it undermines all knowledge whatsoever. However, there are many clear examples of knowledge we do have in the many different disciplines, and therefore those must be due to a different ontology of properties. Thus, nominalism should be rejected. In its place, the author defends a kind of Platonic realism about properties.

We live in a time of moral confusion: many believe there are no overarching moral norms, and we have lost an accepted body of moral knowledge. Alasdair MacIntyre addresses this problem in his much-heralded restatement of Aristotelian and Thomistic virtue ethics; Stanley Hauerwas does so through his highly influential work in Christian ethics. Both recast virtue ethics in light of their interpretations of the later Wittgenstein''s views of language. This book systematically assesses the underlying presuppositions of MacIntyre and Hauerwas, finding that their attempts to secure moral knowledge and restate virtue ethics, both philosophical and theological, fail. Scott Smith proposes alternative indications as to how we can secure moral knowledge, and how we should proceed in virtue ethics.

Approach the future as a conversation, not a declaration. How can you be prepared for what''s next when emerging trends constantly threaten to turn your strategic plan on its head? The world of business is experiencing a state of hyperchange influenced by global movements, disruptive technologies, political uprisings and new consumer expectations. If your world is turned upside down, will you know how to pivot and thrive, or will you be roadkill in the ''adapt or die'' business race? Futuring is the art of anticipating and testing the trade-offs of different futures by making sense of key trends, signals and emerging patterns. How to Future is the only book that will teach you how to become a strategy wayfinder, allowing you to evaluate, plan and prepare for better futures for you and your business. How to Future is a guidebook to futuring and arms you with tools, strategies and practices that illuminate new strategic pathways. Renowned futurists Scott Smith and Madeline Ashby teach you how to manage the daily flood of information and signals, and discern emergent patterns that have a direct impact on the direction of your business. How to Future isn''t about the "one future" you expect. Instead, this book equips you with valuable tools and concepts, builds a future-focused mindset and enables you to envision, stress-test and prototype adaptable, informed and agile strategic visioning. These tools will empower you, your team and your organization to anticipate whatever futures emerge.

It''s hard to know what specific opportunities, technologies or challenges the future will bring. If you want to overcome the uncertainties of tomorrow, it''s essential that you build a future culture. The potential for success is limitless for businesses which develop a culture designed for innovating and adapting to the future. Drawing upon decades of experience as futurists and consultants, Scott Smith and Susan Cox-Smith offer proven strategies that will allow you to fundamentally rewire your culture so that it becomes more fluent, agile and prepared to deal with whatever tomorrow will bring. From futureproofing your brand and manifesto to adapting the experience of your workforce, Future Cultures offers practical tools and techniques that will bring your focus out of the past and into the future. Through first-hand interviews and case studies from multinational companies such as IBM and the UN, this book will show how you can join the world''s most innovative businesses by prioritizing tomorrow today.

A blockbuster anthology of original, blood-curdling vampire fiction from New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors, including Charlaine Harris, whose novels were adapted into HBO’s hit show True Blood, and Scott Smith, publishing his first work since The Ruins. Before being transformed into romantic heroes and soft, emotional antiheroes, vampires were figures of overwhelming terror. Now, from some of the biggest names in horror and dark fiction, comes this stellar collection of short stories that make vampires frightening once again. Edited by New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden and featuring all-new stories from such contributors as Charlaine Harris, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Scott Smith, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Michael Kortya, Kelley Armstrong, Brian Keene, David Wellington, Seanan McGuire, and Tim Lebbon, Seize the Night is old-school vampire fiction at its finest.

Designing Asynchronous Circuits using NULL Convention Logic (NCL) begins with an introduction to asynchronous (clockless) logic in general, and then focuses on delay-insensitive asynchronous logic design using the NCL paradigm. The book details design of input-complete and observable dual-rail and quad-rail combinational circuits, and then discusses implementation of sequential circuits, which require datapath feedback. Next, throughput optimization techniques are presented, including pipelining, embedding registration, early completion, and NULL cycle reduction. Subsequently, low-power design techniques, such as wavefront steering and Multi-Threshold CMOS (MTCMOS) for NCL, are discussed. The book culminates with a comprehensive design example of an optimized Greatest Common Divisor circuit. Readers should have prior knowledge of basic logic design concepts, such as Boolean algebra and Karnaugh maps. After studying this book, readers should have a good understanding of the differences between asynchronous and synchronous circuits, and should be able to design arbitrary NCL circuits, optimized for area, throughput, and power. Table of Contents: Introduction to Asynchronous Logic / Overview of NULL Convention Logic (NCL) / Combinational NCL Circuit Design / Sequential NCL Circuit Design / NCL Throughput Optimization / Low-Power NCL Design / Comprehensive NCL Design Example

Do you have a scurry of squirrels playing baseball in your backyard? Jack does - along with many other groups of adventurous animals you''ll learn about in this fun story of amazing discoveries! From a tower of sparkly, pink giraffes to an array of cartwheeling hedgehogs, Jack uses the power of his imagination to create a tale that delights his teacher and classmates alike!

This book reports the results of an ethnographic study, focusing primarily on the experiences of four teachers of the Chinese language in Australian secondary schools. The author creates an audience for their voices as they reflect on their own understandings of culture, language teaching, and culture in language teaching through semi-structured interviews, and compares these reflections with written stimulus dialogues designed to elicit ''culture-in-language'' reflections, as well as curriculum and policy documents produced by the Australian government. The book''s findings indicate that teachers of the Chinese language are diverse in their views on culture, language teaching, and the ways in which culture can or should inform language teaching, and the author argues that language teacher intercultural competence cannot be assessed through a synthesis of the current English-only research literature. This book will be of interest to teachers and teacher trainers of Chinese as a foreign language, as well as students and scholars of applied linguistics and language education more broadly.

Goppy and Libby are best friends. But when Libby needs money for a new backpack, Goppy decides to teach her a valuable lesson about responsibility and frugality. He shows her how to earn her own money, and together they learn the joy of honest work and financial independence. It is never too early to begin teaching children about self-responsibility and the fundamentals of conservatism, and in this charming and humorous tale, Scott and Andrea Smith prove these lessons can be learned in an enjoyable and entertaining way. Children will identify with Goppy''s prudence and Libby''s tenacity, and together, children and their parents will learn how to Teach a Donkey to Fish. Andrea and Scott Smith are the not-so-normal parents of two young kids living in beautiful upstate South Carolina. Although not farmers by trade, Andrea and Scott wanted to plant the seeds of conservatism in their children at an early age.

"“The People’s Victory is a mirror for each of us to see our own power to fight for justice and create the change we want to see in our world.” – Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of California In 1996, a small group of Americans from all walks of life banded together to create one of the most miraculous political victories in modern American history. Opponents attacked the issue of marriage equality as amoral and a direct threat to families. Allies warned that it was a generation away from being practicable and a selfish drain of precious political capital. A stirring oral history told by those who almost inexplicably found themselves fighting on the front lines, The People''s Victory recounts the successes – and the setbacks – that only served to strengthen everyone’s resolve to resist, fight, and bring equal marriage rights to an entire nation. Through it all, these love warriors found their voice and home in Marriage Equality USA, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots organization of its kind. While high profile books, articles and documentaries have covered the judicial and legislative machinations, this book puts a human face on the people who made the everyday personal sacrifices to keep the movement alive. The People’s Victory shares deeply moving personal testimonies of over sixty people, from Marvin Burrows, who was forced out of his home and lost many treasured possessions after losing his lost his partner of fifty years; to Kate Burns, who risked arrest for the first time when she stood up for her relationship; to Mike Goettemoeller, who pushed his mother in a wheelchair with Marriage Equality USA to fulfill her dream of marching in a Pride parade. Edie Windsor, the triumphant lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case United States vs. Windsor recounts shouting down a major LGBTQ organization with “I’m 77 years old and I can’t wait!!” when they attempted to belittle marriage as a critical issue. Writer and producer Del Shores shares the touching moment his young teenage daughter used tears and laughter to console him after the passage of Proposition 8 in California dealt a blow to the cause. The People’s Victory is an inspirational roadmap for anyone who has felt passionately about an issue, but has questioned whether one person’s contribution can make a difference. These candid accounts once again prove that every movement for important social change must be built on the acts of everyday. In fact, that is the only way the people have ever been victorious. In his introduction, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom writes: “I hope these stories inspire you to resist, to fight, to win and in the end write the next stories in our continuing push for a more just and perfect union.”

A complete primer on the art and technique of digital filmmaking with the FireWire-equipped digital video camera, this guide begins with a basic introduction to digital camcorders, then moves on to showing readers how to shoot their own digital movies. The CD-ROM includes QuickTime files, storyboards, audio clips, and eight short film selections from FireWire moviemakers.

Field Guide to Bedside Diagnosis, Second Edition enables students and physicians to navigate from the patient''s symptoms and presenting signs to the diagnosis. The book covers 139 chief complaints and signs and is organized to parallel the diagnostic reasoning process: a differential overview of probable causes, a diagnostic approach for each differential, and the specific clinical findings that point to diagnosis. A collection of 192 full-color illustrations show diagnostically important observable signs. This edition includes thoroughly updated diagnostic approaches and quick-access Evidence-Based Medicine Physical Diagnosis tables indicating sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios for findings.

There is nothing that children love more than a good story. Story S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-r-s for the Primary Grades, Revised Edition connects ninety of the best children''s books to early learning centers, stretching each story five ways with lively and entertaining activities that heighten reading readiness, sharpen comprehension skills, and expand the excitement of story time. This new edition takes everyone''s favorite stories from the original book and adds new stories, refreshed activities, and online resources for expanding the story experience. Whether you are reading a classic like The Little Engine that Could or a new favorite like The Hello, Goodbye Window, this new Story S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-r-s is sure to keep children captivated and learning long after you have turned the last page of the story.

Essential information for the entrepreneur. Just because inventors are brilliant enough to develop a product that can change the world doesn’t mean they know how to protect their work. This indispensable guide reveals how to file for and secure a legal patent with the U.S. Patents Office in Washington D.C.—and explains everything from the origins and theory of patents, the different categories, and the many laws regarding patents, to the fastest and most effective way to file. • Clear and concise language for the layman • Includes examples of government filing documents • Features a complete Internet and government resource

Easy-to-follow advice from two top-notch attorneys. Any creator of visual symbols, images, slogans, or other insignia connected to a product needs to know how to protect his or her creation. The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Trademarks offers the necessary information to do just that. Using easy-to-understand, concise language, this pocket guide simplifies the fast- paced, high profile, and complicated legal world of trademarks. Written by experts in the field, it explains everything from the origin and theory of trademarks to the different categories, laws, and ways to create trademarks. • Written in clear, layman’s language • Features a complete Internet and government resource guide • Presents helpful examples of government filing documents • Expert attorney authors

Renowned international academicians and food industry professionals have collaborated to create Food Processing: Principles and Applications. This practical, fully illustrated resource examines the principles of food processing and demonstrates their application by describing the stages and operations for manufacturing different categories of basic food products. Ideal as an undergraduate text, Food Processing stands apart in three ways: The expertise of the contributing authors is unparalleled among food processing texts today. The text is written mostly by non-engineers for other non-engineers and is therefore user-friendly and easy to read. It is one of the rare texts to use commodity manufacturing to illustrate the principles of food processing. As a hands-on guide to the essential processing principles and their application, this book serves as a relevant primary or supplemental text for students of food science and as a valuable tool for food industry professionals.