Debates over redistribution, social insurance, and market regulation are central to American politics. Why do some citizens prefer a large role for government in the economic life of the nation while others wish to limit its reach? In Open versus Closed, the authors argue that these preferences are not always what they seem. They show how deep-seated personality traits underpinning the culture wars over race, immigration, law and order, sexuality, gender roles, and religion shape how citiz...

What motivates political actors with diverging interests to respect the Supreme Court's authority? A popular answer is that the public serves as the guardian of judicial independence by punishing elected officials who undermine the justices. Curbing the Court challenges this claim, presenting a new theory of how we perceive the Supreme Court. Bartels and Johnston argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom, citizens are not principled defenders of the judiciary. Instead, they seek to limit...

Design clever algorithms that can uncover interesting structures and hidden relationships in unstructured and unlabeled dataKey FeaturesLearn how to select the most suitable Python library to solve your problemCompare k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) and non-parametric methods and decide when to use themExplore the applications of neural networks using real-world datasetsBook DescriptionUnsupervised learning is a useful and practica...

About the BookOnce upon a time, there was a town called Orkenshire. The town was inhabited by Green Giants, who all had green skin, hair, and eyes except for Pauladin, one of the sons of Chief Rawlic and Akira. Pauladin had a different appearance and personality of everyone else in the town especially his brother Rawlic Jr. who was the apple of his parents eye. Thought to be a freak and a possible danger, Pauladin was shunned and rejected by everyone in town, so running away seemed ...

Modern crocodylians—crocodiles, alligators, caiman (Central and South America), and gharials (India)—have evolved over 250 million years from a fully terrestrial, bipedal ancestor. Along with birds, crocodylians are the only living members of Archosauria, the group including nonavian dinosaurs.Ruling Reptiles features contributions on a broad range of topics surrounding crocodylian evolution and biology including osteology, osteohistology, developmental biology, myology, o...

Statistical data and evidence-based claims are increasingly central to our everyday lives. Critically examining ‘Big Data’, this book charts the recent explosion in sources of data, including those precipitated by global developments and technological change. It sets out changes and controversies related to data harvesting and construction, dissemination and data analytics by a range of private, governmental and social organisations in multiple settings.Analysing the power of data ...

From the producers of the Number One bestselling CD 'The Wit of Cricket', here is their latest collection of the funniest cricket stories at home and abroad, recorded live at Great Brickhill Cricket Club in Bedfordshire.Featuring a rare live recording by the late cricket commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins, who was a brilliant after-dinner speaker, here are dozens of hilarious anecdotes about the Ashes, overseas tours, sledging, Test Match Special, and much more!Christop...

They call him Preacher. And they call him when they need help. Now, a Mexican brother and sister have asked the legendary frontiersman to accompany them into the Sangre de Cristo mountains—to find a missing family fortune of gold and silver.In a land stained by cruelty and war, the Spanish treasure has drawn the interest of a treasure hunter with ruthless paid killers as his partners. And by the time Preacher finds the bounty, bullets have begun to fly.No gunfight will ever...

Preacher takes on the last of the Aztecs in his biggest, bloodiest showdown yet...There are a million ways to die in the Rockies--and a million predators, natural or otherwise. But even a seasoned mountain dweller like Preacher is shocked by the latest horror lurking in the hills. Trappers are being hunted down like animals. Captured. Murdered. Mutilated. Their hearts carved out of their chests. Some of the victims were Preacher's friends. Now two others--Audie and Nighthawk--have ...

Legendary national bestselling Western authors William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone return with the latest gun-blazing installment in their newest Smoke Jensen series.Building a ranch takes heart and grit. Smoke and Sally Jensen are more than capable of meeting the challenges of shaping the land, raising the livestock, and establishing their brand. But Smoke wasn’t always an entrepreneur. He’s more apt to settle accounts with a fast draw than a checkbook. And when he learns his ...

"Life on the straight and narrow is easier said than done for a pair of crooks like Jimmy “Slash” Braddock and Melvin “Pecos Kid” Baker. But these reprobates are doing their damnedest to make an honest go of it. They’ve managed to safely deliver a church organ to a mountain parish when their sometime employer—Chief U.S. Marshal Luther T. “Bleed-’m-So” Bledsoe—recruits them for a job only fools would take.Marshal Bledsoe wants them to pick up a shipment of gold in the mining town in...

Taking Teaching Seriously expands and enriches discussions about teacher preparation in the United States. Its authors describe the unique contexts for teacher preparation offered by liberal arts institutions and analyze the effects of these programs on their graduates and on K12 schools. They emphasize that the goals and conditions for teacher preparation differ from larger public institutions in several key respects including supervisor-student teacher relationships, philosophic...