The trusted Gold series builds students' confidence by combining carefully graded exam preparation for the Cambridge English exams with thorough language and skills development. Providing enjoyable, communicative classes with a strong emphasis on personalization, Gold is the popular choice for teachers around the world. Digital teacher resources are now available for Gold Pre-first, to accompany and supplement your teaching. Contact your local representative to request a copy. You can find your local office here. Please note, these are available in digital format only.
This book describes methods for designing and analyzing experiments that are conducted using a computer code, a computer experiment, and, when possible, a physical experiment. Computer experiments continue to increase in popularity as surrogates for and adjuncts to physical experiments. Since the publication of the first edition, there have been many methodological advances and software developments to implement these new methodologies. The computer experiments literature has emphasized the construction of algorithms for various data analysis tasks (design construction, prediction, sensitivity analysis, calibration among others), and the development of web-based repositories of designs for immediate application. While it is written at a level that is accessible to readers with Masters-level training in Statistics, the book is written in sufficient detail to be useful for practitioners and researchers. New to this revised and expanded edition: • An expanded presentation of basic material on computer experiments and Gaussian processes with additional simulations and examples • A new comparison of plug-in prediction methodologies for real-valued simulator output • An enlarged discussion of space-filling designs including Latin Hypercube designs (LHDs), near-orthogonal designs, and nonrectangular regions • A chapter length description of process-based designs for optimization, to improve good overall fit, quantile estimation, and Pareto optimization • A new chapter describing graphical and numerical sensitivity analysis tools • Substantial new material on calibration-based prediction and inference for calibration parameters • Lists of software that can be used to fit models discussed in the book to aid practitioners
Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
Making, amending, and interpreting constitutions is a political game that can yield widespread suffering or secure a nation's liberty and prosperity. Given these high stakes, Robert Cooter argues that constitutional theory should trouble itself less with literary analysis and arguments over founders' intentions and focus much more on the real-world consequences of various constitutional provisions and choices. Pooling the best available theories from economics and political science, particularly those developed from game theory, Cooter's economic analysis of constitutions fundamentally recasts a field of growing interest and dramatic international importance. By uncovering the constitutional incentives that influence citizens, politicians, administrators, and judges, Cooter exposes fault lines in alternative forms of democracy: unitary versus federal states, deep administration versus many elections, parliamentary versus presidential systems, unicameral versus bicameral legislatures, common versus civil law, and liberty versus equality rights. Cooter applies an efficiency test to these alternatives, asking how far they satisfy the preferences of citizens for laws and public goods. To answer Cooter contrasts two types of democracy, which he defines as competitive government. The center of the political spectrum defeats the extremes in "median democracy," whereas representatives of all the citizens bargain over laws and public goods in "bargain democracy." Bargaining can realize all the gains from political trades, or bargaining can collapse into an unstable contest of redistribution. States plagued by instability and contests over redistribution should move towards median democracy by increasing transaction costs and reducing the power of the extremes. Specifically, promoting median versus bargain democracy involves promoting winner-take-all elections versus proportional representation, two parties versus multiple parties, referenda versus representative democracy, and special governments versus comprehensive governments. This innovative theory will have ramifications felt across national and disciplinary borders, and will be debated by a large audience, including the growing pool of economists interested in how law and politics shape economic policy, political scientists using game theory or specializing in constitutional law, and academic lawyers. The approach will also garner attention from students of political science, law, and economics, as well as policy makers working in and with new democracies where constitutions are being written and refined.
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Are humans at their core seekers of their own pleasure or cooperative members of society? Paradoxically, they are both. Pleasure-seeking can take place only within the context of what works within a defined community, and central to any community are the evolved codes and principles guiding appropriate behavior, or morality. The complex interaction of morality and self-interest is at the heart of Geoffrey M. Hodgson’s approach to evolutionary economics, which is designed to bring about a better understanding of human behavior. In From Pleasure Machines to Moral Communities, Hodgson casts a critical eye on neoclassical individualism, its foundations and flaws, and turns to recent insights from research on the evolutionary bases of human behavior. He focuses his attention on the evolution of morality, its meaning, why it came about, and how it influences human attitudes and behavior. This more nuanced understanding sets the stage for a fascinating investigation of its implications on a range of pressing issues drawn from diverse environments, including the business world and crucial policy realms like health care and ecology. This book provides a valuable complement to Hodgson’s earlier work with Thorbjørn Knudsen on evolutionary economics in Darwin’s Conjecture, extending the evolutionary outlook to include moral and policy-related issues.
A thorough and up-to-date guide to putting positive psychology into practice From the Foreword: "This volume is the cutting edge of positive psychology and the emblem of its future." -Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Authentic Happiness Positive psychology is an exciting new orientation in the field, going beyond psychology's traditional focus on illness and pathology to look at areas like well-being and fulfillment. While the larger question of optimal human functioning is hardly new - Aristotle addressed it in his treatises on eudaimonia - positive psychology offers a common language on this subject to professionals working in a variety of subdisciplines and practices. Applicable in many settings and relevant for individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and societies, positive psychology is a genuinely integrative approach to professional practice. Positive Psychology in Practice fills the need for a broad, comprehensive, and state-of-the-art reference for this burgeoning new perspective. Cutting across traditional lines of thinking in psychology, this resource bridges theory, research, and applications to offer valuable information to a wide range of professionals and students in the social and behavioral sciences. A group of major international contributors covers: The applied positive psychology perspective Historical and philosophical foundations Values and choices in pursuit of the good life Lifestyle practices for health and well-being Methods and processes for teaching and learning Positive psychology at work The best and most thorough treatment of this cutting-edge discipline, Positive Psychology in Practice is an essential resource for understanding this important new theory and applying its principles to all areas of professional practice.
“Maurice Bloch is so ferociously smart that one can always enjoy tangling with his ideas, even when—perhaps especially when—one doesn’t agree with him. This is an important and provocative book.” —Sherry Ortner Columbia University These essays by one of anthropology’s most original theorists consider such fundamental questions as: Is cognition language-based? How reliable a guide to memory are people’s narratives about themselves? What connects the “social recalling” studied by anthropologists to the “autobiographical memory” studied by psychologists? Now gathered in accessible form for the first time and drawing frequently upon the author’s fieldwork among the Zafimaniry of Madagascar for ethnographic examples, the twelve closely linked essays of How We Think They Think pose provocative challenges not only to conventional cognitive models but to the basic assumptions that underlie much of ethnography. This book will be read with interest by those who study culture and cognition, ethnographic theory and practice, and the peoples and cultures of Africa.
Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said, “Ethics is aesthetics.” It is unclear what such a claim might mean and whether it is true. This book explores contentious issues arising at the interface of ethics and aesthetics. The contributions reflect on the status of aesthetic en ethical judgments, the relation of aesthetic beauty and ethical goodness and art and character development. The book further considers the potential role art could play in ethical analysis and in the classroom and explores in what respects aesthetics and ethics might be intertwined and even mutually supportive.
