Essential Knowledge

Macroeconomics takes a broad perspective on the economy of a country or region; it studies economic changes in the aggregate, collecting data on production, unemployment, inflation, consumption, investment, trade, and other aspects of national and international economic life. Policymakers depend on macroeconomists' knowledge when making decisions about such issues as taxes and the public budget, monetary and exchange rate policies, and trade policies-all of which, in turn, affect decisions made by individuals and businesses.

Artificial intelligence powers Google's search engine, enables Facebook to target advertising, and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible synthesis of these issues.

Everyone's a cynic, yet few will admit it. Today's cynics excuse themselves half-heartedly - "I hate to be a cynic, but...." - before making their pronouncements. Narrowly opportunistic, always on the take, contemporary cynicism has nothing positive to contribute. The Cynicism of the ancient Greeks, however, was very different. Bold and shameless, it was committed to transforming the values on which civilization depends.

The history of computing could be told as the story of hardware and software or the story of the Internet or the story of "smart" handheld devices, with subplots involving IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter. In this concise and accessible account of the invention and development of digital technology, computer historian Paul Ceruzzi offers a broader and more useful perspective. He identifies four major threads that run throughout all of computing's technological development.

No Bull Music Theory for Guitarists is the groundbreaking guitar theory book for guitar players. Now, guitarists of all levels can understand most of the music theory they'll ever need, without the confusion. Easy-to-understand language, explanations, and practical examples mean you can understand in hours music theory concepts that can confuse guitar players for years. No music reading or theory knowledge required!

Quantum physics is notable for its brazen defiance of common sense. (Think of Schrödinger's Cat, famously both dead and alive.) An especially rigorous form of quantum contradiction occurs in experiments with entangled particles. Our common assumption is that objects have properties whether or not anyone is observing them, and the measurement of one can't affect the other. Quantum entanglement rejects this assumption, offering impeccable reasoning and irrefutable evidence of the opposite. Is quantum entanglement mystical, or just mystifying?

Irony and sarcasm are two of the most misused, misapplied, and misunderstood words in our conversational lexicon. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, psycholinguist Roger Kreuz offers an enlightening and concise overview of the life and times of these two terms, mapping their evolution from Greek philosophy and Roman rhetoric to modern literary criticism to emojis.

Robots are entering the mainstream. Technologies have advanced to the point of mass commercialization - Roomba, for example - and adoption by governments - most notably, their use of drones. Meanwhile, these devices are being received by a public whose main sources of information about robots are the fantasies of popular culture. We know a lot about C-3PO and Robocop, but not much about Atlas, Motoman, Kiva, or Beam - real-life robots that are reinventing warfare, the industrial workplace, and collaboration.

A few decades into the digital era, scientists discovered that thinking in terms of computation made possible an entirely new way of organizing scientific investigation; eventually, every field had a computational branch: computational physics, computational biology, computational sociology. More recently, "computational thinking" has become part of the K-12 curriculum. But what is computational thinking? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible overview.

Most of the information available on cloud computing is either highly technical, with details that are irrelevant to nontechnologists, or pure marketing hype, in which the cloud is simply a selling point. This book, however, explains the cloud from the user's viewpoint - the business user's in particular. Nayan Ruparelia explains what the cloud is, when to use it (and when not to), how to select a cloud service, how to integrate it with other technologies, and what the best practices are for using cloud computing.

Are you a healthcare student, professional, or caregiver seeking to deepen your understanding of the human body? Do you want to excel in your nursing exams, board certifications, and beyond? This comprehensive guide takes you on a captivating journey through the intricate systems and functions of the human body, providing you with the essential knowledge you need to succeed in your healthcare career.

Pragmatism, America's homegrown philosophy, has been a major intellectual movement for over a century. Unlike its rivals, it reaches well beyond the confines of philosophy into concerns and disciplines as diverse as religion, politics, science, and culture. In this concise, engagingly written overview, John R. Shook describes pragmatism's origins, concepts, and continuing global relevance and appeal.

Providing relief from burnout and overwhelm, The Secret to Alzheimer’s Dementia Care, is a compassionate and practical guide for family caregivers facing the challenges of Alzheimer’s disease. Written with deep empathy, it equips you with the confidence, compassion, and knowledge to care for your loved one while maintaining your own health and peace of mind. This comprehensive resource takes you step-by-step through each stage of care, from diagnosis to end-of-life, providing essential tools to help you care for your loved one while managing your own emotional well-being.

Critical thinking is regularly cited as an essential 21st century skill, the key to success in school and work. Given our propensity to believe fake news, draw incorrect conclusions, and make decisions based on emotion rather than reason, it might even be said that critical thinking is vital to the survival of a democratic society. But what, exactly, is critical thinking? Haber describes the term's origins in such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and science.

In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, computer scientist John Kelleher offers an accessible and concise but comprehensive introduction to the fundamental technology at the heart of the artificial intelligence revolution. Kelleher explains some of the basic concepts in deep learning, presents a history of advances in the field, and discusses the current state of the art.

Fifty years ago, neuroscientists thought that a mature brain was fixed like a fly in amber, unable to change. Today, we know that our brains and nervous systems change throughout our lifetimes. This concept of neuroplasticity has captured the imagination of a public eager for self-improvement - and has inspired countless Internet entrepreneurs who peddle dubious "brain training" games and apps. In this book, Moheb Costandi offers a concise and engaging overview of neuroplasticity for the general listener.

Artificial intelligence surrounds us. More and more of the systems and services you interact with every day are based on AI technology. Most AI is narrowly specific; that is, it can only do a single thing, in a single context. Human intelligence is different. We can solve a variety of tasks, including those we have not seen before. In Artificial General Intelligence, Julian Togelius explores technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence and asks what general AI would mean for human civilization.

Causal Inference provides a brief and nontechnical introduction to randomized experiments, propensity scores, natural experiments, instrumental variables, sensitivity analysis, and quasi-experimental devices. Ideas are illustrated with examples from medicine, epidemiology, economics and business, the social sciences, and public policy.

After discussing what an algorithm does and how its effectiveness can be measured, Louridas covers three of the most fundamental applications areas: graphs, which describe networks, from eighteenth-century problems to today's social networks; searching, and how to find the fastest way to search; and sorting, and the importance of choosing the best algorithm for particular tasks. He then presents larger-scale applications: PageRank, Google's founding algorithm; and neural networks and deep learning.

The growing movement for universal basic income (UBI) has been gaining attention from politics and the media with the audacious idea of a regular, unconditional cash grant for everyone as a right of citizenship. This volume in the Essential Knowledge series presents the first short, solid UBI introduction that is neither academic nor polemic. It takes a position in favor of UBI, but its primary goal remains the provision of essential knowledge by answering the fundamental questions about it: What is UBI? How does it work? What are the arguments for and against it? What is the evidence?