Clusters of Creativity

Discover practical, step-by-step instructions for accurately and effectively assessing creativity with Essentials of Creativity Assessment, a guide that provides useful information about using solid theoretical and research-based evidence for creativity assessment. Quickly acquire the knowledge and skills you need to effectively assess creativity, a popular measure of cognitive ability correlated with intelligence. Receive an overview of the wide variety of assessments that can be used to gauge creativity, enabling you to select the creativity assessment method that best fits the situations, groups of people, and programs that are involved.

Contemporary society has seen an unprecedented rise in both the demand and the desire to be creative, to bring something new into the world. Once the reserve of artistic subcultures, creativity has now become a universal model for culture and an imperative in many parts of society. In this new book, cultural sociologist Andreas Reckwitz investigates how the ideal of creativity has grown into a major social force, from the art of the avant-garde and postmodernism to the ‘creative industries’ and the innovation economy, the psychology of creativity and self-growth, the media representation of creative stars, and the urban design of ‘creative cities’. Where creativity is often assumed to be a force for good, Reckwitz looks critically at how this imperative has developed from the 1970s to the present day. Though we may well perceive creativity as the realization of some natural and innate potential within us, it has rather to be understood within the structures of a very specific culture of the new in late modern society. The Invention of Creativity is a bold and refreshing counter to conventional wisdom that shows how our age is defined by radical and restrictive processes of social aestheticization. It will be of great interest to those working in a variety of disciplines, from cultural and social theory to art history and aesthetics.

Clustering is a vital methodology in the data storage world. Its goal is to maximize cost-effectiveness, availability, flexibility, and scalability. Clustering has changed considerably for the better due to Storage Area Networks, which provide access to data from any node in the cluster. Explains how clusters with shared storage work and the components in the cluster that need to work together Reviews where a cluster should be deployed and how to use one for best performance Author is Lead Technical Engineer for VERITAS Cluster File Systems and has worked on clusters and file systems for the past ten years

This book is about redefining the value to health of creativity. Creativity derives from biological changes during human evolution as a tool that is needed for survival. The successful use of creativity generates feelings of pleasure and self-esteem that are beneficial to health. In particular, it can help depression. Current values do not give adequate importance to creativity, and the author challenges these values in this book. The book contains contributed chapters on a theory of creativity as an innate capacity, the therapeutic benefits of creativity, factors that encourage or inhibit creativity and current research on these, and accounts of creativity both as individual projects and as groupwork.

Innovation is the life blood of practically every organization. Innovation drives growth, development, and prosperity for many organizations and geographical areas. Sometimes, innovation thrives within a certain geographical location or in certain organizations that are known for their innovative approaches. This outstanding new volume will demonstrate how to measure the success of innovation in all types of organizations. In the last decade, there have been tremendous investments in creativity and innovations sponsored by companies, cities, states, countries, universities, NGO’s, and even non-profits. With the magnitude of emphasis on creativity and innovation, the sponsors and key stakeholders will demand to know the value of these programs. The Value of Innovation: Measuring the Impact and ROI in Creativity and Innovation Programs will show step-by-step how to measure the impact and the ROI of innovation and creativity programs. The process collects six types of data: reaction, learning, application, impact, ROI, and intangibles. Data are collected analyzed and reported using a systematic, logic model. Conservative standards create results that are both CEO and CFO friendly. This proven process has been used now in 5000 organizations and this new book adapts the method directly to this critical area of innovation, showing examples and case studies.

Creativity in Virtual Teams offers a well-researched and practical resource that outlines a new model for attaining high levels of creativity in virtual working arrangements to anyone who designs, manages, or participates in virtual teams. Written by Jill E. Nemiro—an expert in building organizations and virtual teams—Creativity in Virtual Teams provides a valuable tool that takes you beyond mere theory. Within these pages, the author leads you through a series of diagnostic tools, questions for reflection, checklists, and exercises that will help you assess and develop the five key components—design, climate, resources, norms and protocols, and continual assessment and learning—that will foster creativity in your virtual teams. In addition, Creativity in Virtual Teams is filled with illustrative lessons learned from nine highly successful and innovative virtual teams.

A guide to systems engineering that highlights creativity and innovation in order to foster great ideas and carry them out Practical Creativity and Innovation in Systems Engineering exposes engineers to a broad set of creative methods they can adopt in their daily practices. In addition, this book guides engineers to become entrepreneurs within traditional engineering companies, promoting creative and innovative culture around them. The author describes basic systems engineering concepts and includes an abbreviated summary of Standard 15288 systems’ life cycle processes. He then provides an extensive collection of practical creative methods which are linked to the various systems’ life cycle processes. Next, the author discusses obstacles to innovation and, in particular, how engineers can push creative ideas through layers of reactionary bureaucracy within non-innovative organizations. Finally, the author provides a comprehensive description of an exemplary creative and innovative case study recently completed. The book is filled with illustrative examples and offers effective guidelines that can enhance individual engineers’ creative prowess as well as be used to create an organizational culture where creativity and innovation flourishes. This important book: Offers typical systems engineering processes that can be accomplished in creative ways throughout the development and post-development portions of a system's lifetime. Includes a large collection of practical creative methods applicable to engineering and other technological domains Includes innovation advice needed to transform creative ideas into new products, services, businesses and marketing processes Contains references and notes for further reading in every section Written for systems engineering practitioners, graduate school students and faculty members of systems, electrical, aerospace, mechanical and industrial engineering schools, Practical Creativity and Innovation in Systems Engineering offers a useful guide for creating a culture that promotes innovation.

Employees who possess problem-solving skills are highly valued in today?s competitive business environment. The question is how can employees learn to deal in innovative ways with new data, methods, people, and technologies? In this groundbreaking book, Arthur VanGundy – a pioneer in the field of idea generation and problem solving – has compiled 101 group activities that combine to make a unique resource for trainers, facilitators, and human resource professionals. The book is filled with idea-generation activities that simultaneously teach the underlying problem-solving and creativity techniques involved. Each of the book?s 101 engaging and thought-provoking activities includes facilitator notes and advice on when and how to use the activity. Using 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving will give you the information and tools you need to: Generate creative ideas to solve problems. Avoid patterned and negative thinking. Engage in activities that are guaranteed to spark ideas. Use proven techniques for brainstorming with groups. Order your copy today.

Quantum Monte Carlo is a large class of computer algorithms that simulate quantum systems to solve many body systems in order to investigate the electronic structure of many-body systems. This book presents a numeric approach to determine the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and solids. Because of the simplicity of its theoretical concept, the authors focus on the variational Quantum-Monte-Carlo (VQMC) scheme. The reader is enabled to proceed from simple examples as the hydrogen atom to advanced ones as the Lithium solid. Several intermediate steps cover the Hydrogen molecule, how to deal with a two electron systems, going over to three electrons, and expanding to an arbitrary number of electrons to finally treat the three-dimensional periodic array of Lithium atoms in a crystal. The exmples in the field of VQMC are followed by the subject of diffusion Monte-Calro (DMC) which covers a common example, the harmonic ascillator. The book is unique as it provides both theory and numerical programs. It includes rather practical advices to do what is usually described in a theoretical textbook, and presents in more detail the physical understanding of what the manual of a code usually promises as result. Detailed derivations can be found at the appendix, and the references are chosen with respect to their use for specifying details or getting an deeper understanding . The authors address an introductory readership in condensed matter physics, computational phyiscs, chemistry and materials science. As the text is intended to open the reader's view towards various possibilities of choices of computing schemes connected with the method of QMC, it might also become a welcome literature for researchers who would like to know more about QMC methods. The book is accompanied with a collection of programs, routines, and data. To download the codes, please follow http://www.wiley-vch.de/books/sample/3527408517_codes.tar.gz

A valuable guide on creativity and critical thinking to improve reasoning and decision-making skills Critical thinking skills are essential in virtually any field of study or practice where individuals need to communicate ideas, make decisions, and analyze and solve problems. An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity: Think More, Think Better outlines the necessary tools for readers to become critical as well as creative thinkers. By gaining a practical and solid foundation in the basic principles that underlie critical thinking and creativity, readers will become equipped to think in a more systematic, logical, and imaginative manner. Creativity is needed to generate new ideas to solve problems, and critical thinking evaluates and improves an idea. These concepts are uniquely introduced as a unified whole due to their dependence on each other. Each chapter introduces relevant theories in conjunction with real-life examples and findings from cognitive science and psychology to illustrate how the theories can be applied in numerous fields and careers. An emphasis on how theoretical principles of reasoning can be practical and useful in everyday life is featured, and special sections on presentation techniques, the analysis of meaning, decision-making, and reasoning about personal and moral values are also highlighted. All chapters conclude with a set of exercises, and detailed solutions are provided at the end of the book. A companion website features online tutorials that further explore topics including meaning analysis, argument analysis, logic, statistics, and strategic thinking, along with additional exercises and multimedia resources for continued study. An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity is an excellent book for courses on critical thinking and logic at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The book also serves as a self-contained study guide for readers interested in the topics of critical thinking and creativity as a unified whole.