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The new edition of a comprehensive and rigorous but concise introduction to symbolic logic.Logic Primer offers a comprehensive and rigorous introduction to symbolic logic, providing concise definitions of key concepts, illustrative examples, and exercises. After presenting the definitions of validity and soundness, the book goes on to introduce a formal language, proof theory, and formal semantics for sentential logic (chapters 1-3) and for first-order predicate logic (chapters 4-6) with identity (chapter 7). For this third edition, the material has been reorganized from four chapters into seven, increasing the modularity of the text and enabling teachers to choose alternative paths through the book. New exercises have been added, and all exercises are now arranged to support students moving from easier to harder problems. Its spare and elegant treatment makes Logic Primer unique among textbooks. It presents the material with minimal chattiness, allowing students to proceed more directly from topic to topic and leaving instructors free to cover the subject matter in the way that best suits their students. The book includes more than thirty exercise sets, with answers to many of them provided in an appendix. The book's website allows students to enter and check proofs, truth tables, and other exercises interactively.

A comprehensive study of the growth, potential, and limits of transnational eco-certification in China and the implications for other emerging economies.China has long prioritized economic growth over environmental protection. But in recent years, the country has become a global leader in the fight to save the planet by promoting clean energy, cutting air and water pollution, and developing a system of green finance. In Certifying China, Yixian Sun explores the potential and limits of transnational eco-certification in moving the world’s most populous country toward sustainable consumption and production. He identifies the forces that drive companies from three sectors—seafood, palm oil, and tea—to embrace eco-certification. The success of eco-certification, he says, will depend on the extent to which it wins the support of domestic actors in fast-growing emerging economies. The assumption of eco-certification is that demand along the supply chain can drive businesses to adopt good practices for social, environmental, and economic sustainability by specifying rules for production, third-party verification, and product labeling. Through case studies drawn from extensive fieldwork and mixed methods, Sun traces the processes by which certification programs originating from the Global North were introduced in China and gradually gained traction. He finds that the rise of eco-certification in the Chinese market is mainly driven by state actors, including government-sponsored industry associations, who seek benefits of transnational governance for their own development goals. The book challenges the conventional wisdom that the Chinese state has little interest in supporting transnational governance, offering novel insights into the interaction between state and non-state actors in earth system governance in emerging economies.

"From the phone phreaks of the 1970s to Anonymous, how how hackers deploy persuasion, helpfulness, manipulation, and deception to gain access to sensitive information"--

"An advanced level textbook on the science of action and movement from one of the most respected researchers in the field"--

A primer on nuclear weapons, from the science of fission and fusion to the pursuit of mutually assured destruction, the SALT treaties, and the Bomb in pop culture.Although the world's attention has shifted to drone-controlled bombing and cyberwarfare, the threat of nuclear war still exists. There are now 14,000 nuclear weapons in the hands of the nine declared nuclear powers. Even though the world survived the Cold War, we need to understand what it means to live with nuclear weapons. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Mark Wolverton offers a primer on nuclear weapons, from the science of fission and fusion to the pursuit of mutually assured destruction, the SALT and START agreements, and the Bomb in pop culture. Wolverton explains the basic scientific facts, offers historical perspective, and provides a nuanced view of the the unique political, social, and moral dilemmas posed by nuclear weapons. He describes the birth of the Bomb in 1945 and its use against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; explains how a nuclear bomb works; recounts episodes when the world came close to waging nuclear war, including the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962; discusses nuclear policy and nuclear treaties; and traces the influence of such films as On the Beach, Dr. Strangelove, and The Day After.

"Explores the making of regulatory objects as a political and economic operation as relates to the European Union and especially the impacts following Brexit"--

"An in-depth analysis of Amazon as a ubiquitous brand that has decisively shaped retail, both online and off, and normalized monpoly"--

"Garcia lays out tactics for researchers to fully engage in education policy by directly engaging with politicians -- at levels from local to national -- both before and after they are elected"--

A new approach to teaching university-level chemistry that links core concepts of chemistry and physical science to current global challenges.Introductory chemistry and physics are taught at the university level as isolated subjects, divorced from any compelling context. Moreover, the "formalism first" teaching approach presents students with disembodied knowledge, abstract and learned by rote. By contrast, this textbook presents a new approach to teaching university-level chemistry that links core concepts of chemistry and physical science to current global challenges. It establishes the importance of the principles of chemistry and physics to issues including energy production and distribution, climate, and national security; introduces such core concepts as energy and energy transformations, thermodynamics, chemical equlibria, and quantum mechanics; and places these core concepts in a global context. Each chapter opens with a "Framework" section that establishes the topic's connection to emerging challenges. Next, a "Core" section addresses quantitative concepts. Finally, "Case Studies" link to global issues. These case studies are designed to build quantitative reasoning skills, supply the technology background, or illustrate the global need for dramatically increased primary energy generation. The text's development of both context and scientific principles is rigorous, equipping students for advanced classes as well as future involvement in scientific and societal arenas. University Chemistry was written for a course created and taught by the author at Harvard.

Consciousness in all its possible human and nonhuman varieties, explored through words and images. What is consciousness, and who (or what) is conscious-humans, nonhumans, nonliving beings? How did consciousness evolve? Picturing the Mind pursues these questions through a series of "vistas"-short, engaging texts by Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka, accompanied by Anna Zeligowski's lively illustrations. Taking an evolutionary perspective, Ginsburg and Jablonka suggest that consciousness can take many forms and is found not only in humans but even in such animals as octopuses (who seem to express emotions by changing color) and bees (who socialize with other bees). They identify the possible evolutionary marker of the transition from nonconscious to conscious animals, and they speculate intriguingly about aliens and artificial intelligence. Each picture and text serves as a starting point for discussion. The authors consider, among other things, what it's like to be a bat (and then later, what it's like to be a bat in virtual reality); ask if the self is like a hole in a doughnut; report that women, children, and nonwhite men were once thought by white men to be less richly conscious; and explore what sets humans apart-is it music, toolmaking, cooperative parenting, blushing, sentience, symbolic language? In Picturing the Mind, questions suggest answers.

A behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. A Next Big Idea Club nominee. Millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave. Through the wonders of modern technology, we are connecting with more people more often than ever before, but are these connections what we long for? Pandemic isolation has made us even more alone. In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide. Drouin explains that intimacy is not just sex-although of course sex is an important part of intimacy. But how important? Drouin reports on surveys that millennials (perhaps distracted by constant Tinder-swiping) have less sex than previous generations. She discusses pandemic puppies, professional cuddlers, the importance of touch, "desire discrepancy" in marriage, and the value of friendships. Online dating, she suggests, might give users too many options; and the internet facilitates "infidelity-related behaviors." Some technological advances will help us develop and maintain intimate relationships-our phones, for example, can be bridges to emotional support. Some, on the other hand, might leave us out of touch. Drouin explores both of these possibilities.

The power of transformative design, multidisciplinary leaps, and diversity: lessons from a Black professional’s journey through corporate America.Design offers so much more than an aesthetically pleasing logo or banner, a beautification add-on after the heavy lifting. In Reimagining Design, Kevin Bethune shows how design provides a unique angle on problem-solving—how it can be leveraged strategically to cultivate innovation and anchor multidisciplinary teamwork. As he does so, he describes his journey as a Black professional through corporate America, revealing the power of transformative design, multidisciplinary leaps, and diversity. Bethune, who began as an engineer at Westinghouse, moved on to Nike (where he designed Air Jordans), and now works as a sought-after consultant on design and innovation, shows how design can transform both individual lives and organizations. In Bethune’s account, diversity, equity, and inclusion emerge as a recurring theme. He shows how, as we leverage design for innovation, we also need to consider the broader ecological implications of our decisions and acknowledge the threads of systemic injustice in order to realize positive change. His book is for anyone who has felt like the “other”—and also for allies who want to encourage anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-ageist behaviors in the workplace. Design transformation takes leadership—leaders who do not act as gatekeepers but, with agility and nimbleness, build teams that mirror the marketplace. Design in harmony with other disciplines can be incredibly powerful; multidisciplinary team collaboration is the foundation of future innovation. With insight and compassion, Bethune provides a framework for bringing this about.

Revised edition of Financial modeling, [2014]

The ethics and experience of "treacherous play": an exploration of three games that allow deception and betrayal-EVE Online, DayZ, and Survivor.Deception and betrayal in gameplay are generally considered off-limits, designed out of most multiplayer games. There are a few games, however, in which deception and betrayal are allowed, and even encouraged. In Treacherous Play, Marcus Carter explores the ethics and experience of playing such games, offering detailed explorations of three games in which this kind of "dark play" is both lawful and advantageous: EVE Online, DayZ, and the television series Survivor. Examining aspects of games that are often hidden, ignored, or designed away, Carter shows the appeal of playing treacherously. Carter looks at EVE Online's notorious scammers and spies, drawing on his own extensive studies of them, and describes how treacherous play makes EVE successful. Making a distinction between treacherous play and griefing or trolling, he examines the experiences of DayZ players to show how negative experiences can be positive in games, and a core part of their appeal. And he explains how in Survivor's tribal council votes, a player's acts of betrayal can exact a cost. Then, considering these games in terms of their design, he discusses how to design for treacherous play. Carter's account challenges the common assumptions that treacherous play is unethical, antisocial, and engaged in by bad people. He doesn't claim that more games should feature treachery, but that examining this kind of play sheds new light on what play can be.

A concise and accessible explanation of the science and technology behind the domestication of nuclear fusion energy.Nuclear fusion research tells us that the Sun uses one gram of hydrogen to make as much energy as can be obtained by burning eight tons of petroleum. If nuclear fusion—the process that makes the stars shine—could be domesticated for commercial energy production, the world would gain an inexhaustible source of energy that neither depletes natural resources nor produces greenhouse gases. In Star Power, Alan Bécoulet offers a concise and accessible primer on fusion energy, explaining the science and technology of nuclear fusion and describing the massive international scientific effort to achieve commercially viable fusion energy.Bécoulet draws on his work as Head of Engineering at ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) to explain how scientists are trying to “put the sun in a box.” He surveys the history of nuclear power, beginning with post–World War II efforts to use atoms for peaceful purposes and describes how energy is derived from fusion, explaining that the essential principle of fusion is based on the capacity of nucleons (protons and neutrons) to assemble and form structures (atomic nuclei) in spite of electrical repulsion between protons, which all have a positive charge. He traces the evolution of fusion research and development, mapping the generation of electric current though fusion. The ITER project marks a giant step in the development of fusion energy, with the potential to demonstrate the feasibility of a nuclear fusion reactor. Star Power offers an introduction to what may be the future of energy production.

"A broad introductory treatment of cognitive modeling for students and researchers who want an accessible primer"--

"Explores typography as a medium that we understand very little, even as we consume vast amounts of information through it"--

"First book length study of home video in Iran during the 1980s and 1990s, and the informal distribution infrastructure that developed in reaction to the ban on all video technology"--

"First in-depth analysis of engineers working in resource extraction, focusing particularly on those who viewed social responsibility as fundamental to their profession"--

The astronomer's observing chair as both image and object, and the story it tells about a particular kind of science and a particular view of history.The astronomer's chair is a leitmotif in the history of astronomy, appearing in hundreds of drawings, prints, and photographs from a variety of sources. Nineteenth-century stargazers in particular seemed eager to display their observing chairs-task-specific, often mechanically adjustable observatory furniture designed for use in conjunction with telescopes. But what message did they mean to send with these images? In The Astronomer's Chair, Omar W. Nasim considers these specialized chairs as both image and object, offering an original framework for linking visual and material cultures. Observing chairs, Nasim ingeniously argues, showcased and embodied forms of scientific labor, personae, and bodily practice that appealed to bourgeois sensibilities. Viewing image and object as connected parts of moral, epistemic, and visual economies of empire, Nasim shows that nineteenth-century science was represented in terms of comfort and energy, and that "manly" postures of Western astronomers at work in specialized chairs were contrasted pointedly with images of "effete" and cross-legged "Oriental" astronomers. Extending his historical analysis into the twentieth century, Nasim reexamines what he argues to be a famous descendant of the astronomer's chair: Freud's psychoanalytic couch, which directed observations not outward toward the stars but inward toward the stratified universe of the psyche. But whether in conjunction with the mind or the heavens, the observing chair was a point of entry designed for specialists that also portrayed widely held assumptions about who merited epistemic access to these realms in the first place. With more than 100 illustrations, many in color; flexibound.

"An introduction to the theory and practice of abstract interpretation, with applications to the semantics, specification, verification, and static analysis of computer programs"--

"Bringing the history of modern computing fully up to date, from new applications to scientific computation to video games and the ubiquitous smartphone."--

"A trade book based on the final report of MIT's Work of the Future Task Force"--

"This textbook offers an overview of techniques stemming from machine learning to train robots to adapt to changes in their environment"--

"An upper-level undergraduate/graduate finance textbook"--

Empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education: how and why it has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment.In ongoing debates over the value of a college education, the role of the liberal arts in higher education has been blamed by some for making college expensive, impractical, and even worthless. Defenders argue that liberal arts education makes society innovative, creative, and civic-minded. But these qualities are hard to quantify, and many critics of higher education call for courses of study to be strictly job-specific. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Detweiler, drawing on interviews with more than 1,000 college graduates aged 25 to 65, offers empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education. Detweiler finds that a liberal arts education has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment over a lifetime.    Unlike other defenders of a liberal arts education, Detweiler doesn’t rely on philosophical arguments or anecdotes but on data. He developed a series of interview questions related to the content attributes of liberal arts (for example, course assignments and majors), the context attributes (out-of-class interaction with faculty and students, teaching methods, campus life), and the purpose attributes (adult life outcomes). Interview responses show that although both the content of study and the educational context are associated with significant life outcomes, the content of study has less relationship to positive adult life outcomes than the educational context. The implications of this research, Detweiler points out, range from the advantages of broadening areas of study to factors that could influence students’ decisions to attend certain colleges.

"A comprehensive economic and legal analysis of a unique form of collusive behavior"--