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Elsevier

Books in Social sciences and humanities

  • Intellectual Property Rights

    • 1st Edition
    • D. L. Bosworth
    • English
    This volume reviews the publicly available sources of statistical information on intellectual property rights, looking principally at patents, designs, royalties and inventions. The book examines the criteria against which intellectual property is measured, discussing the definitions of 'inventive activity' and 'applied research'; the differences between 'inventiveness' and 'creativity'; the meaning of originality; and the distinctions between scientific originality, industrial inventiveness and business acumen. A valuable source of information for researchers and professionals in the field.

  • Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians

    • 1st Edition
    • Raymond B. Hames
    • English
    Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians investigates the adaptive responses of the aborigines of Amazonia from the ecological perspective within anthropology. The discussions are organized around the major modes of Amazonian subsistence (cultivation, hunting and fishing), nutrition, and settlement pattern. Comprised of 15 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of Amazonian ecosystems, citing environmental models of Amazonian adaptive behavior and sociocultural evolution as well as the problematic definition or measure of the concept of adaptation. The reader is then introduced to shifting cultivation among the Machiguenga, Native American inhabitants of the tropical rainforest of the Upper Amazon, and the Kuikuru, one of three Carib-speaking villages located at the headwaters of the Xingú River. Subsequent chapters focus on the adaptive strategies of the Wakuénai people to the oligotrophic rainforest of the Rio Negro Basin; neotropical hunting among the Aché of Eastern Paraguay; trekking by the Mekranoti-Kayapó Indians of Central Brazil in lowland South America; and fishing patterns among the Cocamilla Indians of Achual Tipishca in the Huallaga River Basin in northeastern Peru. The book also considers nutrition and settlement patterns among native Amazonians. This monograph will be a useful resource for anthropologists, scholars, specialists, and others who are interested in the general fields of human ecology, South American ethnology, and tropical studies.

  • Curriculum & Assessment

    Some Policy Issues
    • 1st Edition
    • P. Raggatt + 1 more
    • English
    An Open University set book, it explores recent changes in curriculum and assessment policy, and examines the trend towards centralized control. It also offers an assessment of continuing local authority influences. The selection of articles, though not comprehensive, will be useful to anyone with interest in curriculum and assessment policy.

  • Exchange Systems in Prehistory

    • 1st Edition
    • T. Earle + 1 more
    • English
    Exchange Systems in Prehistory provides an accurate description of prehistoric exchange and a more thorough investigation of the significance of exchange in prehistory. This book discusses the four aspects of archaeological research on prehistoric exchange, including systemic modeling, chemical characterization, descriptive modeling and application of ethnographic and ethnohistorical research. Organized into five parts encompassing 14 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the basic procedures in chemical characterization of any raw material. This text then describes the many steps required in the sampling and resolution of turquoise sources and artifacts from Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Other chapters consider the measures of transportation cost for raw materials, including estimates of work along probable transport routes, social distances, and intermediary populations. This book discusses as well how anomalies may be used to identify central places or general hierarchical structure in settlement. This book is a valuable resource for archeologists and sociologists.

  • Lifelong Education and Evaluation Practice

    A study on the Development of a Framework for Designing Evaluation Systems at the School Stage in the Perspective of Lifelong Education
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 4
    • R. Skager
    • English
    This report develops a comprehensive conceptual analysis of educational evaluation and then applies the analysis to identify particular kinds of evaluation that would be especially important under lifelong education. The treatment of evaluation is general enough to incorporate evaluation practice operating under virtually any educational philosophy. While the study does focus primarily on the learner and the school, the conceptual distinctions and practical conclusions are applicable to nonformal and informal educational settings

  • Contributions of Technology to International Conflict Resolution

    Proceedings of the IFAC Workshop, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 3-5 June 1986
    • 1st Edition
    • H. Chestnut
    • English
    This book investigates technology's potential for stimulating and strengthening approaches that can lead to the peaceful solution of international conflicts. It discusses the causes of war; the political and social implications of neighbourhood and international involvement, and evaluates various aid programmes. Models are applied to methods of mediation and simulating power distribution and decision making to show how modern technology can be used to promote resolution in the event of conflict.

  • Phytolyth Analysis

    An Archaeological and Geological Perspective
    • 1st Edition
    • Dolores R. Piperno
    • English
    This is a methodological guide to the use of plant opal phytolith analysis in paleoenvironmental and paleoecological reconstruction. It is the first book-length treatment of this promising technique, which has undergone rapid development within the past few years and is now beginning to be used with considerable success by paleobotanists who serve the archaeological and paleontological research communities. It will be mandatory reading for all paleobotanists, paleoecologists, and archaeological scientists.

  • Prehistoric Subsistence on the Southern New England Coast

    The Records from Narragansett Bay
    • 1st Edition
    • David J. Bernstein
    • English
    Prehistoric Subsistence on the Southern New England Coast examines long-term trends in prehistoric subsistence in the Narragensett Bay region of Southern New England. The results suggest that, unlike other areas of Eastern north America, specialized agriculutral economies did not develop in this region prior to European contact. The book is accessible to both the general reader as well as scholars and students interested in consulting the original data for their own research and analysis.

  • Quantitative Zooarchaeology

    Topics in the Analysis of Archaelogical Faunas
    • 1st Edition
    • Donald K. Grayson
    • English
    Quantitative Zooarchaeology: Topics in the Analysis of Archaeological Faunas presents the problems in the quantification of bones and teeth from archaeological and palaeontological sites. This book discusses the various kinds of statistical manipulations that are done with the measurements. Organized into seven chapters, this book begins with an overview of the quantification of vertebrate faunas from archaeological and, to some extent, palaeontological sites. This text then explains the interrelationship between various abundance measures and the size of the samples on which those measures are based. Other chapters consider the fundamental kinds of questions that every faunal analyst asks of a set of bones and teeth from an archaeological site. This book discusses as well the ratio scale measure of taxonomic abundance. The final chapter discusses the three issues that deal with different aspects of archaeological faunal analysis, namely, collection techniques, meat weights, and the analysis of the seasons of the year during which an archaeological deposit accumulated. This book is a valuable resource for archaeological faunal analysts, archaeologists, and paleontologists.

  • Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 10
    • English
    Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Volume 10 focuses on the progress of methodologies, approaches, techniques, and principles employed in archaeological method and theory. The selection first elaborates on the formation of ethnographic collections, colonization of islands by humans, and shellfish gathering and Shell midden archaeology. Discussions focus on archaeological excavation and interpretation of Shell middens, shellfish gathering in practice and theory, island geometrical properties relevant to colonization, archaeological applications of biogeographical principles, and principles of museum collecting. The text then takes a look at the formation processes of archaeobotanical record and archaeofaunas and butchery studies, including identification of taphonomic agents, a taphonomic approach to the analysis of butchering, approaches to understanding differential preservation, cultural transformations of the archaeobotanical record, and environmental transformation processes. The book examines bioarchaeological interpretations of subsistence economy and behavior from human skeletal remains, as well as activity patterns in the archaeological past, changing directions in bioarchaeology, and health and disease in the archaeological past. The selection is a valuable reference for archaeologists and researchers interested in archaeological method and theory.

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