This book presents a fool-proof method for cleaning and classifying business data. Covering everything from data classification to normalisation, taxonomies and presenting the author's proven COAT methodology, it helps organisations ensure their data is Consistent, Organised, Accurate and Trustworthy. A series of data horror stories outlines what can go wrong in managing data, and if it does, how it can be fixed.

Andy Roberts loathes one of the senior accountants at the firm she works at, but when the business goes under and she loses her job, he offers her a position to work for him at his new company. Being a single girl, alone in the city and out of options, it's an offer she can't refuse. Andy never thought she'd see the day when she was working for the sexy, mostly infuriating, Dylan Ryder. She arrives on the first day of work at an address that is apparently his apartment. Seeing Dylan at his front door half naked is not the impression she thought she'd receive on her first day of work. With their opinions clashing and attraction skyrocketing, something's gotta give. Lines are drawn and rules are broken when this feisty couple mixes business with pleasure. When the secret Dylan is harboring is brought to light, Andy's world implodes all around her. Could Andy be out of a job or does Dylan have her exactly where he wants her? On her desk.

Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education Despite being immensely popular—and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. Now with a new afterword by Bryan Caplan, this explosive book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As only to forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for average workers, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy. Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.

As we enter the 21st century, most students are familiar with microcomputers. They are adept in visually-oriented playing and learning, as evidenced by prevalent video games, music videos, and DVD movies. This book appeals to the modern day undergraduate and graduate students by using microcomputers, through innovative uses of spreadsheets and built-in spreadsheets equations and formulae. This microcomputer skill-intensive book covers major topics in both economic analysis and business analysis. Students will learn how to build complex spreadsheet layouts and perform high-level calculations and analysis intuitively in a non-threatening environment. To encourage students' active learning and critical thinking, they will be given hands-on practice by creating tables and graphs presented in the text and homework, and by changing the parameters to find the effects of the change instantly. At the same time, by acquainting themselves with the popular spreadsheet program, they will acquire more advanced job skills directly.

What other reviewers say about ?Spreadsheet Check and Control??It is excellent. I am embarrassed when I think of the shortcuts I generally take with spreadsheets and I have often paid the price. I think it will become, and it should be, required reading for all young trainee accountants.? Ciaran Walsh, senior finance specialist, Irish Management Institute.?It's super. I kept saying to myself, ?Wow, I didn't know you could do that.? A great job.? Ray Panko, the most cited authority on spreadsheet error, University of Hawai?I.?Spreadsheet Check and Control does what no other book before has attempted to do; provide standards for designing spreadsheets that lend themselves to a logical review by management and internal auditors. Following this author?s guide and insight can help your organization minimize spreadsheet errors and facilitate audit review to prevent and detect those errors.? Jim Kaplan, AuditNet.org.?I thought I knew a lot about Excel, but in the course of teaching me to be Excel-careful, O'Beirne taught me some new tricks and methods that both helped me build better financial models and track down errors.? Simon Benninga, author of Financial Modeling, MIT Press 2000 and Principles of Finance with Excel, Oxford University Press, 2005.'Save red faces all round by buying, absorbing and passing-on this book, especially if you personally develop spreadsheets or if your organization is subject to Sarbanes Oxley and related regulations. Avoiding even a trivial spreadsheet mistake may well pay for the book. Avoiding a large one may save your career.' Dr. Gary Hinson, independent consultant in information security and computer auditing, editor of security awareness website NoticeBored.com.'Probably one of the most important spreadsheet books ever written. Your customers and boss will be delighted with the increased usability, accuracy and reliability his techniques encourage. Be aware that the pages are packed with useful and usable advice, so the 200 pages is probably equivalent to 500 pages in many other books.' Simon Murphy, Codematic.net, author of XLAnalyst.'An essential guide for serious spreadsheet users. This book goes a long way to help spreadsheet users adopt methods that will reduce errors and thereby improve the quality of the information vital to the success of all organisations.' P M Cleary, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Wales'This is an excellent, easy to follow book containing the key practices that will arm the novice and self taught spreadsheet user so they can create well designed, reliable and error free spreadsheets.' CPA Ireland magazine review'Minimizing or eliminating spreadsheet errors is Patrick O'Beirne's focus in this visual 200-page book, which is geared toward software testers, business managers, or auditors sleuthing for fraud'. CA Magazine (Canada) review Summary of contents

Reflects the latest applied research and features state-of-the-art software for building and solving spreadsheet optimization models Thoroughly updated to reflect the latest topical and technical advances in the field, Optimization Modeling with Spreadsheets, Second Edition continues to focus on solving real-world optimization problems through the creation of mathematical models and the use of spreadsheets to represent and analyze those models. Developed and extensively classroom-tested by the author, the book features a systematic approach that equips readers with the skills to apply optimization tools effectively without the need to rely on specialized algorithms. This new edition uses the powerful software package Risk Solver Platform (RSP) for optimization, including its Evolutionary Solver, which employs many recently developed ideas for heuristic programming. The author provides expanded coverage of integer programming and discusses linear and nonlinear programming using a systematic approach that emphasizes the use of spreadsheet-based optimization tools. The Second Edition also features: Classifications for the various problem types, providing the reader with a broad framework for building and recognizing optimization models Network models that allow for a more general form of mass balance A systematic introduction to Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) The identification of qualitative patterns in order to meaningfully interpret linear programming solutions An introduction to stochastic programming and the use of RSP to solve problems of this type Additional examples, exercises, and cases have been included throughout, allowing readers to test their comprehension of the material. In addition, a related website features Microsoft Office® Excel files to accompany the figures and data sets in the book. With its accessible and comprehensive presentation, Optimization Modeling with Spreadsheets, Second Edition is an excellent book for courses on deterministic models, optimization, and spreadsheet modeling at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. The book can also serve as a reference for researchers, practitioners, and consultants working in business, engineering, operations research, and management science.

Summary Beyond Spreadsheets with R shows you how to take raw data and transform it for use in computations, tables, graphs, and more. You'll build on simple programming techniques like loops and conditionals to create your own custom functions. You'll come away with a toolkit of strategies for analyzing and visualizing data of all sorts using R and RStudio. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology Spreadsheets are powerful tools for many tasks, but if you need to interpret, interrogate, and present data, they can feel like the wrong tools for the task. That's when R programming is the way to go. The R programming language provides a comfortable environment to properly handle all types of data. And within the open source RStudio development suite, you have at your fingertips easy-to-use ways to simplify complex manipulations and create reproducible processes for analysis and reporting. About the Book With Beyond Spreadsheets with R you'll learn how to go from raw data to meaningful insights using R and RStudio. Each carefully crafted chapter covers a unique way to wrangle data, from understanding individual values to interacting with complex collections of data, including data you scrape from the web. You'll build on simple programming techniques like loops and conditionals to create your own custom functions. You'll come away with a toolkit of strategies for analyzing and visualizing data of all sorts. What's inside How to start programming with R and RStudio Understanding and implementing important R structures and operators Installing and working with R packages Tidying, refining, and plotting your data About the Reader If you're comfortable writing formulas in Excel, you're ready for this book. About the Author Dr Jonathan Carroll is a data science consultant providing R programming services. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics. Table of Contents Introducing data and the R language Getting to know R data types Making new data values Understanding the tools you'll use: Functions Combining data values Selecting data values Doing things with lots of data Doing things conditionally: Control structures Visualizing data: Plotting Doing more with your data with extensions