Category management is one of the biggest contributors of commercial value in the area of procurement and supply chain. With a proven track record of successful delivery since the early 1990s, it helps organisations gather and analyse key data about their procurement spend before subsequently creating and delivering value-adding strategies that change the value proposition from supply chains. The aim of category management is to find long-term breakthrough strategies that help lift an organisation’s commercial performance to a new level. Because of its strategic long-term orientation and complex execution, category management has long been the preserve of commercial consulting companies – in effect a ‘black box’ toolkit shrouded in expensive methodologies.

This practical handbook lifts the lid on category management by providing readers with a step-by-step process and established toolkit that allows them a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach. Each activity is presented as a simple tool or technique for practitioners to apply to their own organisations. To support each activity, easy-to- use templates and checklists have been provided, together with simple but practical hints and tips for implementation.

This handbook is a ‘must read’ for all procurement and supplychain managers looking to find significant improvements in their organisations. Its practical approach cuts through long-winded consultant-speak and provides an easy-to-use practical toolkit for everyday application.

Category management is one of the biggest contributors of commercial value in the area of procurement and supply chain. With a proven track record of successful delivery since the early 1990s, it helps organisations gather and analyse key data about their procurement spend before subsequently creating and delivering value-adding strategies that change the value proposition from supply chains. The aim of category management is to find long-term breakthrough strategies that help lift an organisation’s commercial performance to a new level. Because of its strategic long-term orientation and complex execution, category management has long been the preserve of commercial consulting companies – in effect a ‘black box’ toolkit shrouded in expensive methodologies.

This practical handbook lifts the lid on category management by providing readers with a step-by-step process and established toolkit that allows them a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach. Each activity is presented as a simple tool or technique for practitioners to apply to their own organisations. To support each activity, easy-to- use templates and checklists have been provided, together with simple but practical hints and tips for implementation.

This handbook is a ‘must read’ for all procurement and supplychain managers looking to find significant improvements in their organisations. Its practical approach cuts through long-winded consultant-speak and provides an easy-to-use practical toolkit for everyday application.

An introduction to category theory as a rigorous, flexible, and coherent modeling language that can be used across the sciences.

Category theory was invented in the 1940s to unify and synthesize different areas in mathematics, and it has proven remarkably successful in enabling powerful communication between disparate fields and subfields within mathematics. This book shows that category theory can be useful outside of mathematics as a rigorous, flexible, and coherent modeling language throughout the sciences. Information is inherently dynamic; the same ideas can be organized and reorganized in countless ways, and the ability to translate between such organizational structures is becoming increasingly important in the sciences. Category theory offers a unifying framework for information modeling that can facilitate the translation of knowledge between disciplines.

Written in an engaging and straightforward style, and assuming little background in mathematics, the book is rigorous but accessible to non-mathematicians. Using databases as an entry to category theory, it begins with sets and functions, then introduces the reader to notions that are fundamental in mathematics: monoids, groups, orders, and graphs―categories in disguise. After explaining the "big three" concepts of category theory―categories, functors, and natural transformations―the book covers other topics, including limits, colimits, functor categories, sheaves, monads, and operads. The book explains category theory by examples and exercises rather than focusing on theorems and proofs. It includes more than 300 exercises, with solutions.

Category Theory for the Sciences is intended to create a bridge between the vast array of mathematical concepts used by mathematicians and the models and frameworks of such scientific disciplines as computation, neuroscience, and physics.

This book critically examines the term ‘religion’ (shūkyō) as a social category within the sociological context of contemporary Japan. Whereas the nineteenth-century construction of shūkyō has been critically studied by many, the same critical approach has not been extended to the contemporary context of the Japanese-language discourse on shūkyō and Temple Buddhism. This work aims to unveil the norms and imperatives which govern the utilization of the term shūkyō in the specific context of modern day Japan, with a particular focus upon Temple Buddhism. The author draws on a number of popular publications in Japanese, many of which have been written by Buddhist priests. In addition, the book offers rich interview material from conversations with Buddhist priests.