David E. Bell - Böcker

The analysis of decision making under uncertainty has again become a major focus of interest. This volume presents contributions from leading specialists in different fields and provides a summary and synthesis of work in this area. It is based on a conference held at the Harvard Business School. The book brings together the different approaches to decision making - normative, descriptive, and prescriptive - which largely correspond to different disciplinary interests. Mathematicians have concentrated on rational procedures for decision making - how people should make decisions. Psychologists have examined how poeple do make decisions, and how far their behaviour is compatible with any rational model. Operations researchers study the application of decision models to actual problems. Throughout, the aim is to present the current state of research and its application and also to show how the different disciplinary approaches can inform one another and thus lay the foundations for the integrated analysis of decision making. The book will be of interest to researchers, teachers - for use as background reading for a decision theory course - students, and consultants and others involved in the practical application of the analysis of decision making. It will be of interest to specialists and students in statistics, mathematics, economics, psychology and the behavioural sciences, operations research, and management science.

This volume offers new insights into 1 Thessalonians by demonstrating how children and childhood are a key part of its social setting. Around one third of this first-century Macedonian society and community would be under 15 years old: a segment easily ignored by modern scholarship but essential to interpreting the social context and so Paul’s letter itself. Based on new research, David E. Bell reveals how Paul transforms common ideas about early death in his response to the Thessalonian community’s bereavement, pointing to fresh explanations for his unexpected word choices, metaphors, strategies and structural elements throughout the letter.Bell introduces the reader to a rich set of contemporary evidence, especially from epitaphs and documentary papyri; drawing on, and adding to, recent scholarship on ancient childhoods. He suggests that while patterns of ‘ordinary’ experience placed children at the heart of everyday thinking and speaking about death and bereavement; young lives are also seen to be significant for other themes in 1 Thessalonians: sexual exploitation, work and community relationships, collective identity as siblings and an ekklesia. Bell places detailed discussion of the text alongside careful attention to children and childhood even where they are not explicitly mentioned, and ultimately, argues that children’s presence is not a side issue in 1 Thessalonians but integral to interpreting the whole.

Distinguished international experts evaluate in this volume how health and nutrition in poor countries have been affected by economic adjustments made in response to external shocks. They explore the origins, magnitude, and future outlook of the adjustments required of developing countries; discuss the impact on health and nutritional services; consider what policies would be most effective in minimizing the adverse effects on food and nutrition; and examine what can be done to achieve the best possible health services in the face of economic constraints and crisis.