Grand Unified Theories introduces the application of gauge field theories to a unified description of the strong, electromagnetic, weak, and gravitational interactions. The phenomenological aspects of the work are emphasized and explicit calculations presented. Many of the aspects of current research, including technicolor models, supersymmetry and supergravity, and the cosmological implications of these theories, are discussed in this book.This book is suitable for graduate students with a background in quantum mechanics, and experimental and theoretical particle physicists who want to understand the grand unified theories.
Concern about psychology’s fragmentation is not new, but there has for the past decade been increasing calls for psychologists to acknowledge to the costs associated with fragmentation and to search for ways to unify the discipline. A New Unified Theory of Psychology introduces a new system that addresses psychology’s current theoretical and philosophical difficulties. The new theory consists of four interlocking pieces that together provide—for the first time—a macro-level view that clarifies the nature of psychology’s problems and offers a clear way to unify the various elements of the field. The unified theory provides the field of psychology with a well-defined subject matter, allowing both academic and professional psychologists will be able to develop a shared language and conceptual foundation.
Professors Merrill and Grofman develop a unified model that incorporates voter motivations and assesses its empirical predictions--for both voter choice and candidate strategy--in the United States, Norway, and France. The analyses show that a combination of proximity, direction, discounting, and party ID are compatible with the mildly but not extremely divergent policies that are characteristic of many two-party and multiparty electorates. All of these motivations are necessary to understand the linkage between candidate issue positions and voter preferences.
Newell introduces Soar, an architecture for general cognition. A pioneer system in AI, Soar is the first problem-solver to create its own subgoals and learn continuously from its own experience. Its ability to operate within the real-time constraints of intelligent behavior illustrates important characteristics of human cognition.
This book integrates spatial and behavioral perspectives - in a word, those of the Rochester and Michigan schools - into a unified theory of voter choice and party strategy. The theory encompasses both policy and non-policy factors, effects of turnout, voter discounting of party promises, expectations of coalition governments, and party motivations based on policy as well as office. Optimal (Nash equilibrium) strategies are determined for alternative models for presidential elections in the US and France, and for parliamentary elections in Britain and Norway. These polities cover a wide range of electoral rules, number of major parties, and governmental structures. The analyses suggest that the more competitive parties generally take policy positions that come close to maximizing their electoral support, and that these vote-maximizing positions correlate strongly with the mean policy positions of their supporters.
This cultural history reveals how cats became the undisputed mascot of the internet—“an essential look at life online” (Ryan Milner, author of The World Made Meme). Journalists and their readers seem to need no explanation for the line, “The internet is made of cats.” Everyone understands the joke, but few know how it started. A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet is the first book to explore the history of how the cat became the internet’s best friend. Internet cats can differ in dramatic ways, from the goth cats of Twitter to the glamourpusses of Instagram to the giddy, nonsensical silliness of Nyan Cat. But they all share common traits and values. Bringing together fun anecdotes, thoughtful analyses, and hidden histories of the communities that built the internet, Elyse White shows how japonisme, punk culture, cute culture, and the battle among different communities for the soul of the internet informed the sensibility of online felines. Internet cats offer a playful and useful way to understand how culture shapes—and is shaped by—technology. Western culture has used cats for centuries as symbols of darkness, pathos, and alienation. The communities that helped build the internet represented themselves as outsiders, with snark and alienation at the core of their identity. Thus cats became the sine qua non of cultural literacy for the Extremely Online, as well as an everyday medium of expression for the rest of us. Whatever direction the internet takes next, the “series of tubes” is likely to remain cat-shaped.
The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.
For most of the vast span of human history, economic growth was all but nonexistent. Then, about two centuries ago, some nations began to emerge from this epoch of economic stagnation, experiencing sustained economic growth that led to significant increases in standards of living and profoundly altered the level and distribution of wealth, population, education, and health across the globe. The question ever since has been--why? This is the first book to put forward a unified theory of economic growth that accounts for the entire growth process, from the dawn of civilization to today. Oded Galor, who founded the field of unified growth theory, identifies the historical and prehistorical forces behind the differential transition timing from stagnation to growth and the emergence of income disparity around the world. Galor shows how the interaction between technological progress and population ultimately raised the importance of education in coping with the rapidly changing technological environment, brought about significant reduction in fertility rates, and enabled some economies to devote greater resources toward a steady increase in per capita income, paving the way for sustained economic growth. Presents a unified theory of economic growth from the dawn of civilization to today Explains the worldwide disparities in living standards and population we see today Provides a comprehensive overview of the three phases of the development process Analyzes the Malthusian theory and its empirical support Examines theories of demographic transition and their empirical significance Explores the interaction between economic development and human evolution
Communicative visuals, including written text, have a diverse range of forms and purposes. In this volume, the authors show that it is possible to both describe and explain the major properties of diverse visual-communication forms and purposes within a common theoretical framework of information design and ethics. For those unaccustomed to thinking of written text as a visual form belonging to the same general class as other visual forms (colour, texture, shape, imagery, etc.), consider how a text's readability suffers if we remove all white space and punctuation, which can be identified as visual signals of the same subtype as grid lines and bullet points, dividing and calling attention to adjacent information. The authors identify deep connections between foundational visual design elements and the grammar of language itself. No physicist or chemist today questions the value of a single theory that describes and explains a wide variety of phenomena, but oddly enough, the authors have frequently been asked why they are interested in advancing a unified theory of visual communication. The simplest answer is: to treat visual communication as a science, and seeking unified theories is just what science does. In more practical terms, a unified approach to visual communication allows us to teach visual design students relatively few things that will enable them to do relatively many things.
