We sometimes solve number problems almost without realizing it. For example, suppose you are conducting a meeting and you want to ensure that everyone there has a copy of the agenda. You can deal with this by labelling each copy of the handout in turn with the initials of each of those present. As long as you do not run out of copies before completing this process, you will know that you have a sufficient number to go around. You have then solved this problem without resorting to arithmetic and without explicit counting. There are numbers at work for us here all the same and they allow precise comparison of one collection with another, even though the members that make up the collections could have entirely different characters, as is the case here, where one set is a collection of people, while the other consists of pieces of paper. What numbers allow us to do is to compare the relative size of one set with another

Research for historical fiction may focus on under-documented ordinary people, events, or sites. Fiction helps portray everyday situations, feelings, and atmosphere that recreate the historical context. Historical fiction adds "flesh to the bare bones that historians are able to uncover and by doing so provides an account that while not necessarily true provides a clearer indication of past events, circumstances and cultures." Fiction adds color, sound, drama to the past, as much as it invents parts of the past. And Robert Rosenstone argues that invention is not the weakness of films, it is their strength. Fiction can allow users to see parts of the past that have never-for lack of archives-been represented. In fact, Gilden Seavey explains that if producers of historical fiction had strongly held the strict academic standards, many historical subjects would remain unexplored for lack of appropriate evidence. Historical fiction should, therefore, not be seen as the opposite of professional history, but rather as a challenging representation of the past from which both public historians and popular audiences may learn.

Many negotiators assume that all negotiations involve a fixed pie. Negotiators often approach integrative negotiation opportunities as zero-sum situations or win-lose exchanges. Those who believe in the mythical fixed pie assume that parties' interests stand in opposition, with no possibility for integrative settlements and mutually beneficial trade-offs, so they suppress efforts to search for them. In a hiring negotiation, a job applicant who assumes that salary is the only issue may insist on $75,000 when the employer is offering $70,000. Only when the two parties discuss the possibilities further do they discover that moving expenses and starting date can also be negotiated, which may facilitate resolution of the salary issue. The tendency to see negotiation in fixed-pie terms varies depending on how people view the nature of a given conflict situation. This wasshown in a clever experiment by Harinck, de Dreu, and Van Vianen involving a simulated negotiation between prosecutors and defense lawyers over jail sentences. Some participants were told to view their goals in terms of personal gain (e.g., arranging a particular jail sentence will help your career), others were told to view their goals in terms of effectiveness (a particular sentence is most likely to prevent recidivism), and still others were told to focus on values (a particular jail sentence is fair and just). Negotiators focusing on personal gain were most likely to come under the influence of fixed-pie beliefs and approach the situation competitively. Negotiators focusing on values were least likely to see the problem in fixed-pie terms and more inclined to approach the situation cooperatively. Stressful conditions such as time constraints contribute to this common misperception, which in turn may lead to less integrative agreements.

The single most important change you can make in your working habits is to switch to creative work first, reactive work second. This means blocking off a large chunk of time every day for creative work on your own priorities, with the phone and e-mail off. I used to be a frustrated writer. Making this switch turned me into a productive writer. Yet there wasn't a single day when I sat down to write an article, blog post, or book chapter without a string of people waiting for me to get back to them. It wasn't easy, and it still isn't, particularly when I get phone messages beginning "I sent you an e-mail two hours ago...!" By definition, this approach goes against the grain of others' expectations and the pressures they put on you. It takes willpower to switch off the world, even for an hour. It feels uncomfortable, and sometimes people get upset. But it's better to disappoint a few people over small things, than to abandon your dreams for an empty inbox Otherwise, you're sacrificing your potential for the illusion of professionalism.

Recognizing ethical issues is the most important step in understanding business ethics. An ethical issue is an identifiable problem, situation, or opportunity that requires a person to choose from among several actions that may be evaluated as right or wrong, ethical or unethical. Learning how to choose from alternatives and make a decision requires not only good personal values, but also knowledge competence in the business area of concern. Employees also need to know when to rely on their organizations' policies and codes of ethics or have discussions with co workers or managers on appropriate conduct. Ethical decision making is not always easy because there are always gray areas that create dilemmas, no matter how decisions are made. For instance, should an employee report on a co-worker engaging in time theft? Should a salesperson leave out facts - about a product's poor safety record in his presentation to a customer? Such questions require the decision maker to evaluate the ethics of his or her choice and decide whether to ask for guidance.

It has been suggested that "organic" methods, defined as those in which only natural products can be used as inputs, would be less damaging to the biosphere. Large-scale adoption of "organic" farming methods, however, would reduce yields and increase production costs for many major crops. Inorganic nitrogen supplies are essential for maintaining moderate to high levels of productivity for many of the non-leguminous crop species, because organic supplies of nitrogenous materials often are either limited or more expensive than inorganic nitrogen fertilizers. In addition,there are constraints to the extensive use of either manure or legumes as "green manure" crops. In many cases, weed control can be very difficult or require much hand labor if chemicals cannot be used, and fewer people are willing to do this work as societies become wealthier. Some methods used in "organic" farming, however, such as the sensible use of crop rotations and specific combinations of cropping and livestock enterprises, can make important contributions sustainability of rural ecosystems.

People have always needed to eat, and they always will. Rising emphasis on self-expression values does not put an end to material desires. But prevailing economic orientations are gradually being reshaped. People who work in the knowledge sector continue to seek high salaries, but they place equal or greater emphasis on doing stimulating work and being able to follow their own time schedules. Consumption is becoming progressively less determined by the need for sustenance and the practical use of the goods consumed. People still eat, but a growing component of food's value is determined by its nonmaterial aspects. People pay a premium to eat exotic cuisines that provide an interesting experience or that symbolize a distinctive life-style. The publics of postindustrial societies place growing emphasis on "political consumerism," such as boycotting goods whose production violates ecological or ethical standards. Consumption is less and less a matter of sustenance and more and more a question of life-style- and choice.

Although most people, including Europe's Muslims, have numerous identities, few of these are politically salient at any moment. It is only when a political issue affects the welfare of those in a particular group that identity assumes importance. For instance, when issues arise that touch on women's rights, women start to think of gender as their principal identity. Whether such women are American or Iranian or whether they are Catholic or Protestant matters less than the fact that they are women. Similarly, when famine and civil war threaten people in sub-Saharan Africa, many African-Americans are reminded of their kinship with the continent in which their ancestors originated centuries earlier, and they lobby their leaders to provide humanitarian relief. In other words, each issue calls forth somewhat different identities that help explain the political preferences people have regarding those issues.

People have always wanted to be around other people and to learn from them. Cities have long been dynamos of social possibility, foundries of art, music, and fashion. Slang, or, if you prefer, "lexical innovation," has always started in cities-an outgrowth of all those different people so frequently exposed to one another. It spreads outward, in a manner not unlike transmissible disease, which itself typically "takes off" in cities. If, as the noted linguist Leonard Bloomfield argued, the way a person talks is a "composite result of what he has heard before," then language innovation would happen where the most people heard and talked to the most other people. Cities drive taste change because they offer the greatest exposure to other people, who not surprisingly are often the creative people cities seem to attract. Media, ever more global, ever more far-reaching, spread language faster to more people.