Analyzing and modeling rank data

Sample

Janette Oke

Nana's Gift (1996) : The gift had its own story because of the one who had given it to her and because of how long he had scrimped and saved to make it hers. And then, years later, it had become a family treasure, a legacy. Now a beloved great-granddaughter is facing the best and worst life could send her way. Maybe the gift will help her with her special need. The red geranium (1995) : A very different gift but no less valued from a little boy to his great-grandma. She seemed to have given up on life, and he needed to find a way to bring her back.

Sample

Nathan Glazer

The melting pot no longer defines us. Where not very long ago we sought assimilation, we now pursue multiculturalism. Nowhere has this transformation been more evident than in the public schools, where a traditional Eurocentric curriculum has yielded to diversity - and, often, to confrontation and confusion. In a book that brings clarity and reason to this highly charged issue, Nathan Glazer explores these sweeping changes. He offers an incisive account of why we all - advocates and skeptics alike - have become multiculturalists, and what this means for national unity, civil society, and the education of our youth. Focusing particularly on the impact in public schools, Glazer dissects the four issues uppermost in the minds of people on both sides of the multicultural fence: Whose "truth" do we recognize in the curriculum? Will an emphasis on ethnic roots undermine or strengthen our national unity in the face of international disorder? Will attention to social injustice, past and present, increase or decrease civil disharmony and strife? Does a multicultural curriculum enhance learning, by engaging students' interest and by raising students' self-esteem, or does it teach irrelevance at best and fantasy at worst? Glazer argues cogently that multiculturalism arose from the failure of mainstream society to assimilate African Americans; anger and frustration at their continuing separation gave black Americans the impetus for rejecting traditions that excluded them. But, willingly or not, we are all multiculturalists now, Glazer asserts, and his book gives us the clearest picture yet of what there is to know, to fear, and to ask of ourselves about this new identity.

Sample

Robert E. MacLaury

This book presents the results of the Mesoamerican Color Survey, which Robert E. MacLaury conducted in 1978-1981. Drawn from interviews with 900 speakers of some 116 Mesoamerican languages, the book provides a sweeping overview of the organization and semantics of color categorization in modern Mesoamerica. Extensive analysis and MacLaury's use of vantage theory reveal complex and often surprising relationships among the ways languages categorize colors. His findings offer valuable cross-cultural data for all students of Mesoamerica. In addition, because color and its categorization is a human universal, the model he proposes will be of interest to all linguists and cognitive scientists working on theories of categorization more generally.

Sample

Louise Spilsbury

Why do meerkats share their burrows with other animals? How do meerkats catch scorpions? What does it mean when a mob of meerkats starts to 'dance'? Read this book to find out the answers to these questions and more. Find out how meerkats work together to find food, stay safe, and raise their young. Discover how they communicate in order to pass on information and give warnings. How does living in a group give them an advantage over other animals? The book finishes with a look at other African mammals, such as lions and naked mole rats, which also live in groups.