Most Popular Books by Michael Nichols

Part history and part memoir, Hell Gate tells of a man''s excursions along and through Hell Gate, a narrow stretch of water in New York City''s East River, notorious for dangerous currents, shipwrecks, and its melancholic islands and rocks. Drawn to the area by his fascination with its name—from the Dutch Hellegat, translated into English as both "bright passage" and "hellhole"—what begins as a set of casual walks for Michael Nichols becomes an exploration of landscape and history as he traces these idyllic and hellish images in an attempt to discover Hell Gate''s hidden character and the meaning of its elusive name. Using a loosely constructed set of sketches organized as a kind of tour along the edge of the river and then from a rowboat in the river, Nichols describes scenes and events as they present themselves, mixing history and lore with contemporary scenes.

This concise guide helps educators understand the diverse religious practices that shape students’ school and home lives. Using an encyclopedia-like structure, the authors provide short histories and other essential information on a wide variety of religions as well as atheist practices. Each chapter covers origins, beliefs, practices, and common misunderstandings and stereotypes, as well as key holidays, religious dress, and dietary restrictions that can be accommodated in school. This book will help educators avoid stumbling over stereotypes so they can better engage students and their families and foster culturally responsive classrooms. Teachers of all grade levels will come away feeling more confident about identifying areas of cultural and religious practice where support for your students may be needed. You will also have the tools to recognize the diversity of religious and cultural practices that students bring to the classroom, and to see that unfamiliar religious and cultural practices are assets to be cultivated and not signs of deficiency.

A pictorial essay; more than 100 full color photos

Two leading experts reveal the key concepts and techniques behind Six Sigma Process Management Six Sigma Process Management (SSPM) is a structured set of tools and techniques to help executives and teams continually address their customers'' expectations. What Is Six Sigma Process Management? explains the SSPM methodology, helping business leaders determine which efforts will most positively impact on their customers, employees, and shareholders. SSPM provides a system that guides leaders on what to improve first and how to establish a portfolio of the best improvement efforts in their business. The book also offers: Insights on process management, including identifying critical customer process metrics Guidelines to improve customer satisfaction by identifying customer-seen failures Ways to enhance overall business improvement strategy Insights on how future SSPM developments can address modern business challenges

THREE WORLD-CLASS MANAGEMENT METHODS. ONE COMPREHENSIVE RESOURCE. Finally, top executives across the global financial services industry are catching on-and catching up-to what the world''s most successful corporations have known for more than a decade: The performance improvement principles of Six Sigma, Lean, and Process Management can be applied to all aspects of any company''s operations-with remarkable results. If you want to take advantage of these proven, performance-enhancing methods, tools, and techniques, this reference helps you to use Six Sigma and other tools in a wide range of financial service applications: commercial or savings banks, diversified financials, securities, insurance firms, and more. Six Sigma for Financial Services delivers a complete and groundbreaking model specifically for financial services created by two experts of Six Sigma deployment and Process Management. Clear, concise, and comprehensive, this hands-on guide features actual experiences from frontline managers and executives in financial services firms all around the world. You''ll see, up close and personal, how they used Six Sigma to illustrate key points and achieve optimal performance in their companies. You''ll learn firsthand why business process excellence is crucial for success in an increasingly competitive, mission-critical industry. Using Lean, Six Sigma, and other process tools, you''ll be able to run leaner and more efficiently, and provide improved service with the best possible returns.

Describes the gorillas in the African jungle and facts about the gorillas.

VideoWOrkshop is more than just video footage you can show in class. It''s a total teaching and lreaning system for your classroom Our complete program includes quality video footage on an easy-to-use dual-platform CD-ROM, plus a Student Learning Guide and an Instructor''s Teaching Guide. The result? A program that brings textbook concepts to life with ease, and helps your students understand, analyze, and apply the objectives of the course to real-life situations.

Pocos depredadores son tan majestuosos y esquivos como el tigre. Tomar fotografias de este animal en su estado salvaje es uno de los trabajos mas dificiles que existen y una labor que requiere mucha paciencia. Michael "Nick" Nichols, cineasta y fotografo de National Geographic, lo ha conseguido y lo presente aqui, en esta cuidada edicion que recoge mas de cien fotografias en color sobre estos fascinantes animales desde el sudeste de Asia hasta Siberia, con textos de Geoffrey Ward, uno de los mayores expertos a escala mundial de este gran felino.

Vandius was the crown prince of Vortharia. He was respected and loved by everyone, especially his father, King Aglon. Vandius would become a great ruler after his father. He had the right skill and strength, and he greatly cared about his people. However, he had to be wary of his younger brother, Stephan, who was his rival for the throne. He knew his brother would do anything just to get what he wanted. In addition, Vortharia was plagued with attacks from creatures called the rat men. Vandius would deal with them, but there were more threats endangering his home. The greatest threat was Andratte, the vampire and queen of the undead who would capture Vandius. What would happen to Prince Vandius?

The third volume of the Solo Acoustic Musician series does a deep dive into the business side of booking a gig by interviewing managers, owners, and agents who are in charge of hiring Solo Acoustic Musicians.

The fourth volume of the Solo Acoustic Musician series expands on the "open mic" event, at which performers sign up to play.

This collection for SATB recorders includes pieces that Michael and Brent have used with student and adult ensembles with great success. The arrangements progress from easy to intermediate and contain delightful melodies for all levels of recorder players. American folk melodies, original compositions, carols, and celtic tunes give this book a delightful variety of styles for every level of skill.

This book explains possible causation, and provides knowledge, education, and solutions in dealing with, and being, a Control Freak or Micromanager. This book is meant for leaders, managers, and families and is based on hundreds of case studies and 8 years of research.

A beautifully illustrated volume chronicles the authors'' two-thousand-mile expedition through wilderness Africa, from the dense forests of the Congo to the shore of Gabon, featuring remarkable images of the wildlife of the continent in their native habitat.

Elephants are among the earths most sentient beings. They remember, they experience grief and joy, fear and love. Indeed, as our knowledge of these extraordinary creatures increases, the more they transcend all preconceptions of animal behavior. Michael Nick Nichols, longtime photographer for National Geographic as well as the magazines editor-at-large for photography, has been working with African elephants for more than twenty years. In Earth to Sky he tells their story through poignant images that bring us directly into their habitatslush forests and open savannas, or stark landscapes ravaged by human interventionto observe the animals daily engagements and activities. Nicholss photographs are accompanied here by the words of such celebrated figures in the field of conservation as Iain Douglas-Hamilton, J. Michael Fay, Peter Matthiessen, Cynthia Moss, David Quammen, and many others. In addition, Nichols engages us in his photographic journey with personal and informative introductions to each of the books four chaptersexploring life in the wild, the ivory trade, family interactions, and programs for orphaned elephants. The survival of elephants is under dire threat from humankind, most immediately from the market for ivory. More than twenty-five thousand elephants are slaughtered each year, and their ivory is sold at astronomically high prices to countries such as China, Japan, the Philippines, and Singapore. African elephant refuges are under siege; many park rangers have been murdered in the fray. The misuse of elephants ivory as a commodity has to stopbut, as Nichols makes clear, the issue must be addressed with a full and empathetic understanding of the poverty and corruption that persist in the countries where elephants roam. In Earth to Sky Nichols demonstrates that the world needs elephants, and insists that we do all we can to protect their spaces and their lives. Sadly, most signs point to a tragic conclusion for these wise and emotionally complex creatures. This book is an urgent call for us to bring that process to a halt, while we still can.

If you''re like the average business person, you want to be less stressed and more productive in your work. And you need help! Creating Your Business Vision provides a simple, step-by-step guide to bring about dramatic improvements in your work, your team, and your organization. Whether you''re an author, coach, consultant, corporate executive, creative, doctor, entrepreneur, nonprofit leader, lawyer, pastor, or professor, developing a vision for your work will finally give you the clarity and focus you''ve been looking for and give you the freedom to do what only you can do. Most organizations have a vision statement somewhere in a file or on a conference room wall. Yet, unfortunately, these vision statements seldom serve as an energizing guide toward exponential growth and remarkable success for the organization. A vision is energizing. It''s enlivening. Vision is the guiding motivation for all great human efforts. My problem was not vision - I didn''t understand how to get focused and stay focused on the vision. I was not communicating vision effectively. To address these challenges, I developed a tool to help me think through and write out my vision. My experience a business vision was transformational. Realizing the importance and potential of the business vision tool for leaders in diverse markets, I compiled my experiences and the process into this simple, step-by-step guide. In reality, Creating Your Business Vision is less a book and more a career planning experience. I intentionally made it short so you could read it in one sitting. In the book, I will coach you through: 1. The story of a struggling leader and how to find clarity on what matters most in your work. 2. The basics of vision and how to create a career, position, team, or organizational vision. 3. A four-step process for identifying where you are NOW, and how to get from there to where you want to be. 4. A step-by-step process for leading your team through vision development 5. Planning templates, Word documents, and PDF documents that will make it easier for you to create your plan and keep it up-to-date. You can do it! I now have greater clarity and purpose in my work than ever before. And I''m able to create very specific plans to move toward the enormous goals of my vision - daily, weekly, quarterly. Creating my business vision the best business decision I''ve ever made. And it will be for you too! Praise for Creating Your Business Vision: "All my life I have worked for others and their vision statements. Michael''s book helped me understand how important it is to have my own vision statement." - Eloise Williams "Michael''s writing is vivid and simple to follow." - Steve Banhegyi "Very informative and insightful!" - Haven Hawk, Executive Coach "Creating Your Business Vision helped me to improve my team. It was a great help!" - Gracie Caasi

Non-Fiction, Psychology, Self-Help, Cognitive Behavioral ChangeWhy do we do the things we do? Can you count on your fingers? This book is about using The Hand, your hand, as a visual device to create an effortless plan of action and successful change for you or your organization. It is a self-driven, nonjudgmental program of reflection, action, and review that incorporates cognitive behavioral practices and rational change strategy using your own unique personality traits and skills to manifest this transformation. And, it''s even easier than it sounds.Why do we do the things we do? And why do we keep doing them over and over despite less than healthy outcomes? What are we changing? With this program tool, we can change our own perspective on personal and professional habits, intimate relationships, and organizational systems.

A man woke up from the darkness. He could not remember his past. The only thing that he knew was he had taken a new form. His body had been transformed into a winged creature that gave him incredible strength. He was fueled with a desire that burned inside him to find out what had happened to him. What he was not aware of is his quest for the truth will set him on a path with a curse that has plaques the land. The mountain h has taken refuge in will change his life forever. He will become allies the most unlikely person. Together they will battle the mountain as they head down the Trail of Blood.

We develop a theory of difference equations in algebraic geometry. The general setup is that of a monoid acting on a scheme. Working by analogy with the theory of D-modules, we define difference modules for such actions, study duality and singular support of these modules, and use these notions to define holonomic difference modules. Main results include versions of Serre-Grothendieck-Verdier duality for difference modules, and an analogue of Bernstein''s inequality for the dimension of singular support of a difference module.