Useful Theory

This highly original and compelling book offers an introduction to the art and science of social inquiry, including the theoretical and methodological frameworks that support that inquiry. The new edition offers coverage of post-modernism and Indigenous ways of knowing, as well as a discussion of the research process and how to communicate arguments effectively. The result is a book that blends the best of earlier editions with updates that provide a strong foundation in critical thinking, rooted in the social sciences but relevant across disciplines.

This book is designed to introduce readers to the joys and challenges of theoretical thinking. It begins by encouraging reflection of informal everyday theorizing, showing that theoretical thinking is an important feature of human activity. A focus on key themes?the politics of the classroom, the notion of what is "real," what is "natural," and how time is measured?allows Sears to draw out important elements of social theory in a way that makes it relevant and interesting to students. Creative exercises bring the issues to life and help hone critical thinking and writing skills. In the process, Sears offers an engaging and accessible guide through the complex world of social theory and lays a solid foundation for further study. Special Combined Price: A Good Book, In Theory: A Guide to Theoretical Thinking may be ordered together with Social Theory: Continuity and Confrontation, second edition at a special discounted price. In order to secure the package price, the following ISBN must be used when ordering: 978-1-55402-291-5. Academics please note that this is a title classified as having a restricted allocation of complimentary copies. Restricted titles remain available to adopters and to academics very likely to adopt in the coming semester. When adoption possibilities are less strong and/or further in the future, academics are requested to purchase the title, with the proviso that UTP Higher Education will happily refund the purchase price if the book is indeed adopted.

The project of twentieth-century sociology and political science--to create predictive scientific theory--resulted in few full-scale theories that can be taken off the shelf and successfully applied to empirical puzzles. Yet focused "theory frames" that formulate problems and point to relevant causal factors and conditions have produced vibrant, insightful, and analytically oriented empirical research. While theory frames alone cannot offer explanation or prediction, they guide empirical theory formation and give direction to inferences from empirical evidence. They are also responsible for much of the progress in the social sciences. In Usable Theory, distinguished sociologist Dietrich Rueschemeyer shows graduate students and researchers how to construct theory frames and use them to develop valid empirical hypotheses in the course of empirical social and political research. Combining new ideas as well as analytic tools derived from classic and recent theoretical traditions, the book enlarges the rationalist model of action by focusing on knowledge, norms, preferences, and emotions, and it discusses larger social formations that shape elementary forms of action. Throughout, Usable Theory seeks to mobilize the implicit theoretical social knowledge used in everyday life. Offers tools for theory building in social and political research Complements the rationalist model of action with discussions of knowledge, norms, preferences, and emotions Relates theoretical ideas to problems of methodology Situates elementary forms of action in relation to larger formations Combines new ideas with themes from classic and more recent theories

This book has been replaced by Introduction to Addictive Behaviors, Fifth Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-3922-2.

This monograph critically reviews and updates real estate valuation theory, which is based on neoclassical economics, in light of developments in heterodox economic theory. Building on a comprehensive historical account of the evolution of value theory, the book uses new institutional economics theory and critical realism as lenses through which problems in standard valuation theory and practice are expatiated, and as the foundation for an alternative theory. The new theory is employed to explain major problems in real estate valuation that are beyond the capability of the standard theory, such as price bubbles in real estate markets, anchoring bias, client influence and valuation under uncertain market conditions.

This book is an updated version of the information theory classic, first published in 1990. About one-third of the book is devoted to Shannon source and channel coding theorems; the remainder addresses sources, channels, and codes and on information and distortion measures and their properties. New in this edition: Expanded treatment of stationary or sliding-block codes and their relations to traditional block codes Expanded discussion of results from ergodic theory relevant to information theory Expanded treatment of B-processes -- processes formed by stationary coding memoryless sources New material on trading off information and distortion, including the Marton inequality New material on the properties of optimal and asymptotically optimal source codes New material on the relationships of source coding and rate-constrained simulation or modeling of random processes Significant material not covered in other information theory texts includes stationary/sliding-block codes, a geometric view of information theory provided by process distance measures, and general Shannon coding theorems for asymptotic mean stationary sources, which may be neither ergodic nor stationary, and d-bar continuous channels.

The workplace is the ideal environment for tying together management theory and practice and yet, classes in many regular management development programs are conducted away from the work site, and class sizes are so large that individual instruction is difficult to achieve. In this book, the authors seek effective ways to merge theory with workplace practice, and advocate the modular preceptor method whereby participants work together in dyads and triads with a preceptor acting as advisor and instructor. Unlike traditional management development programs which do not usually lead to behavior changes, the modular preceptor model has behavior change as the basic aim. Participants can remain at work while experiencing individualized learning, developing problem solving skills, and acquiring new knowledge which can be immediately applied to work situations. Various ways of learning, such as passive (lecture, case study, discussion) and experiential (role playing, games, sensitivity training) are examined. No single mode of learning can be comprehensive and adequate for all situations. The authors contend, however, that experiential learning is most effective for increasing the will and competence to learn and for using what is learned to change manager behavior. The purpose of the modular preceptor approach is not to present answers to specific managerial or organizational problems, but to help the participant acquire new problem definition and problem solving skills, and the confidence to apply them on the job. This book also analyzes the contribution of the behavioral sciences to the philosophies and techniques behind management instruction, and examines the role of the university in management development and the future direction of MBA programs. For anyone concerned with meaningful and effective management development, this book is an invaluable resource.

Because the theory of equations with delay terms occurs in a variety of contexts, it is important to provide a framework, whenever possible, to handle as many cases as possible simultaneously so as to bring out a better insight and understanding of the subtle differences of the various equations with delays. Furthermore, such a unified theory would avoid duplication and expose open questions that are significant for future research. It is in this spirit that the authors view the importance of their monograph, which presents a systematic and unified theory of recent developments of equations with unbounded delay, describes the current state of the theory showing the essential unity achieved, and provides a general structure applicable to a variety of problems. It is the first book that: (i) presents a unified framework to investigate the basic existence theory for a variety of equations with delay; (ii) treats the classification of equations with memory precisely so as to bring out the subtle differences between them; (iii) develops a systematic study of stability theory in terms of two different measures which includes several known concepts; and (iv) exhibits the advantages of employing Lyapunov functions on product spaces as well as the method of perturbing Lyapunov functions. This book will be of value to researchers and advanced graduate students in mathematics, electrical engineering and biomathematics.