John Hooker - Böcker

Build business ethics expertise through application. Business Ethics as Rational Choice focuses on building decision-making skills so that readers can arrive at, and defend, personal or company decisions in an objective, and convincing, manner.

Mycenaean Greece, first published in 1976, investigates from an historical point of view some of the crucial periods in the Greek Bronze Age. The principal subject is the so-called ‘Mycenaean’ culture which arose during the sixteenth century BC, as assimilation of the previous ‘Helladic’ culture of mainland Greece with some of the developments of Minoan Crete.Many of the material aspects of the Mycenaean civilisation are examined, as are the extent of Mycenaean expansion overseas and the eventual destruction of Mycenaean sites which marked the end of their civilisation. The author also considers the evidence relating to the religious beliefs of the Mycenaeans and their social, political and economic organisations, and he relates the Mycenaean culture to the later civilisation of Archaic and Classical Greece. There is an Appendix containing a list of Mycenaean sites, with reference to excavation reports, and a full bibliography.

Mycenaean Greece, first published in 1976, investigates from an historical point of view some of the crucial periods in the Greek Bronze Age. The principal subject is the so-called ‘Mycenaean’ culture which arose during the sixteenth century BC, as assimilation of the previous ‘Helladic’ culture of mainland Greece with some of the developments of Minoan Crete.Many of the material aspects of the Mycenaean civilisation are examined, as are the extent of Mycenaean expansion overseas and the eventual destruction of Mycenaean sites which marked the end of their civilisation. The author also considers the evidence relating to the religious beliefs of the Mycenaeans and their social, political and economic organisations, and he relates the Mycenaean culture to the later civilisation of Archaic and Classical Greece. There is an Appendix containing a list of Mycenaean sites, with reference to excavation reports, and a full bibliography.

A pioneering look at the fundamental role of logic in optimization and constraint satisfactionWhile recent efforts to combine optimization and constraint satisfaction have received considerable attention, little has been said about using logic in optimization as the key to unifying the two fields. Logic-Based Methods for Optimization develops for the first time a comprehensive conceptual framework for integrating optimization and constraint satisfaction, then goes a step further and shows how extending logical inference to optimization allows for more powerful as well as flexible modeling and solution techniques. Designed to be easily accessible to industry professionals and academics in both operations research and artificial intelligence, the book provides a wealth of examples as well as elegant techniques and modeling frameworks ready for implementation. Timely, original, and thought-provoking, Logic-Based Methods for Optimization:* Demonstrates the advantages of combining the techniques in problem solving* Offers tutorials in constraint satisfaction/constraint programming and logical inference* Clearly explains such concepts as relaxation, cutting planes, nonserial dynamic programming, and Bender's decomposition* Reviews the necessary technologies for software developers seeking to combine the two techniques* Features extensive references to important computational studies* And much more

Merging logic and mathematics in deductive inference-an innovative, cutting-edge approach. Optimization methods for logical inference? Absolutely, say Vijay Chandru and John Hooker, two major contributors to this rapidly expanding field. And even though "solving logical inference problems with optimization methods may seem a bit like eating sauerkraut with chopsticks. . . it is the mathematical structure of a problem that determines whether an optimization model can help solve it, not the context in which the problem occurs." Presenting powerful, proven optimization techniques for logic inference problems, Chandru and Hooker show how optimization models can be used not only to solve problems in artificial intelligence and mathematical programming, but also have tremendous application in complex systems in general. They survey most of the recent research from the past decade in logic/optimization interfaces, incorporate some of their own results, and emphasize the types of logic most receptive to optimization methods-propositional logic, first order predicate logic, probabilistic and related logics, logics that combine evidence such as Dempster-Shafer theory, rule systems with confidence factors, and constraint logic programming systems. Requiring no background in logic and clearly explaining all topics from the ground up, Optimization Methods for Logical Inference is an invaluable guide for scientists and students in diverse fields, including operations research, computer science, artificial intelligence, decision support systems, and engineering.

Cultural understanding is indispensable for people who live and work abroad or in multicultural settings, but few have appropriate knowledge and training in this area. Working Across Cultures addresses this need. Suitable for general readers yet intellectually challenging, the book illustrates how to thrive in unfamiliar cultures by understanding and tapping into the stress management mechanisms used by the people who live there. The book begins by refuting the notion that professional life interacts with culture only at the level of etiquette. Distinguishing between rule-based and relationship-based cultures, the author examines the roles of authority, individualism, competition, security, negotiation, contracts, supervision, lifestyle, and even humor in different cultures. He shows how different concepts of time, space, information, and wealth shape everyday life across cultures. The book concludes with a comprehensive reading list for more than one hundred countries.

This book develops an intellectual framework for analyzing ethical dilemmas that is both grounded in theory and versatile enough to deal rigorously with real-world issues. It sees ethics as a necessary foundation for the social infrastructure that makes modern life possible, much as engineering is a foundation for physical infrastructure. It is not wedded to any particular ethical philosophy but draws from several traditions to construct a unified and principled approach to ethical reasoning. Rather than follow the common academic practice of seeking a reflective equilibrium of moral intuitions and principles, it builds on a few bedrock principles of rational thought that serve as criteria for valid argumentation. It develops the ideas from the ground up, without presupposing any background in ethics or philosophy. Epistemologically, the book views ethics as parallel to mathematics, in that it relies on generally accepted proof techniques to establish results. Whereas mathematics rests on such proof paradigms as mathematical induction and proof by contradiction, ethics can be seen as relying on proof by applying consistency tests, such as generalizability and respect for autonomy. Utilitarianism also plays a key role, but it is reconceived as a deontological criterion. This approach obviously requires that these criteria be formulated more rigorously than is normally the case. To accomplish this, the book begins with the classical idea that an action is distinguishable from mere behavior by virtue of its having a coherent rationale, where coherence requires passing certain consistency tests such as generalizability. An action is therefore inseparable from its rationale, and generalizability is defined in terms of consistency with the rationale. A utilitarian criterion receives a similar treatment with respect to a means-end rationale. Respect for autonomy is grounded in a carefully developed action theory that takes into account such concepts as joint autonomy, implied consent, and the permissibility of interference with unethical behavior. It provides an account of responsibility that is both practical and theoretically satisfying, and it yields a novel solution of the much-discussed trolley car dilemmas. The book is written for a general audience and strives to be as readable and engaging as possible, while maintaining rigor. It begins by dispelling a raft of misconceptions that trivialize ethics and block its development as an essential tool of modern life, such as the notion that ethics is just a matter of opinion without rational foundation. After presenting the ethical principles just described, along with many examples, it provides several chapters that analyze real-life dilemmas, many obtained from the author’s students and professional workshop participants. One cannot understand physics or chemistry without seeing how their principles are applied to real problems, and the same is true of ethics. These chapters demonstrate that a unified normative theory can deal with a wide range of real cases while achieving a reasonable level of objectivity and rigor.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world’s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.This concise and engaging Advanced Introduction provides the conceptual tools necessary to make ethical decisions in today’s business world. John Hooker provides an objective and closely-reasoned analysis of ethical issues based on a unified conceptual framework that distils the best of ethical thought into three clearly articulated principles: the generalization, utilitarian, and autonomy principles. Key features include:examples and case studies that illustrate ethical reasoning in complex business dilemmasexploration of business ethics in relation to environmental, social, and financial sustainability factorscoverage of cross-cultural business ethics, technological unemployment, and the ethics of artificial intelligence and machine learning.This Advanced Introduction will be a valuable resource for academics and advanced students of business ethics and trust, business leadership, and corporate social responsibility. It will also be beneficial for business managers who wish to build an ethical organization, as well as technical personnel who incorporate ethics into automated systems.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world’s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.This concise and engaging Advanced Introduction provides the conceptual tools necessary to make ethical decisions in today’s business world. John Hooker provides an objective and closely-reasoned analysis of ethical issues based on a unified conceptual framework that distils the best of ethical thought into three clearly articulated principles: the generalization, utilitarian, and autonomy principles. Key features include:examples and case studies that illustrate ethical reasoning in complex business dilemmasexploration of business ethics in relation to environmental, social, and financial sustainability factorscoverage of cross-cultural business ethics, technological unemployment, and the ethics of artificial intelligence and machine learning.This Advanced Introduction will be a valuable resource for academics and advanced students of business ethics and trust, business leadership, and corporate social responsibility. It will also be beneficial for business managers who wish to build an ethical organization, as well as technical personnel who incorporate ethics into automated systems.

This book is the first comprehensive guide to logic-based Benders decomposition (LBBD), a general and versatile method for breaking large, complex optimization problems into components that are small enough for practical solution.

This book is the first comprehensive guide to logic-based Benders decomposition (LBBD), a general and versatile method for breaking large, complex optimization problems into components that are small enough for practical solution.  The author introduces logic-based Benders decomposition for optimization, which substantially generalizes the classical Benders method.  It can reduce solution times by orders of magnitude and allows decomposition to be applied to a much wider variety of optimization problems.  On the theoretical side, this book provides a full account of inference duality concepts that underlie LBBD, as well as a description of how LBBD can be combined with stochastic and robust optimization, heuristic methods, and decision diagrams.  It also clarifies the connection between LBBD and combinatorial Benders cuts for mixed integer programming.  On the practical side, it explains how LBBD has been applied to a rapidly growingvariety of problem domains.  After describing basic theory, this book provides a comprehensive review of the rapidly growing literature that describes these applications, in each case explaining how LBBD is adapted to the problem at hand.  In doing so this work provides a sourcebook of ideas for applying LBBD to new problems as they arise.

This book provides a novel and unifying perspective on the structural properties of fair solutions in optimization formulations.  The book also addresses a growing interest in incorporating fairness into the models that lie behind many business and public policy decisions.   Since there are several ways to formulate fairness mathematically, the authors characterize optimal solutions that result from different formulations with the aim of informing the choice of an appropriate model for a given application.  The focus is on fairness criteria that combine efficiency with fairness since typically both are important in practice.  Most of these results are new and do not appear in the current literature. The book is directed towards a wide range of audiences including practitioners, researchers in mathematical optimization, and welfare economists. In addition, this book:Presents practical linear, nonlinear, or mixed integer programming formulations and a wide variety of fairness modelsIncludes detailed proofs that provide insight into the properties of each criterionProvides guidelines for selecting a fairness model and the tendency to incentivize cooperation or competition About the AuthorsÖzgün Elçi, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist on the Modeling and Optimization team at Amazon.John Hooker, Ph.D. is University Professor of Operations Research and T. Jerome Holleran Professor of Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, Emeritus, at Carnegie Mellon University.Peter Zhang, Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy.

This book introduces a novel approach to discrete optimization, providing both theoretical insights and algorithmic developments that lead to improvements over state-of-the-art technology. The authors present chapters on the use of decision diagrams for combinatorial optimization and constraint programming, with attention to general-purpose solution methods as well as problem-specific techniques.The book will be useful for researchers and practitioners in discrete optimization and constraint programming. "Decision Diagrams for Optimization is one of the most exciting developments emerging from constraint programming in recent years. This book is a compelling summary of existing results in this space and a must-read for optimizers around the world." [Pascal Van Hentenryck]

The authors present chapters on the use of decision diagrams for combinatorial optimization and constraint programming, with attention to general-purpose solution methods as well as problem-specific techniques.The book will be useful for researchers and practitioners in discrete optimization and constraint programming.