In his 1997 work Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond marshals evidence from five continents and across 13,000 years of human history in an attempt to answer the question of why that history unfolded so differently in various parts of the globe. His results offer new explanations for why the unequal divisions of power and wealth so familiar to us today came into existence – and have persisted. Balancing materials drawn from a vast range of sources, addressing core problems that have fascinated historians, anthropologists, biologists and geographers alike – and blending his analysis to create a compelling narrative that became an international best-seller and reached a broad general market – required a mastery of the critical thinking skill of reasoning that few other scholars can rival. Diamond’s reasoning skills allow him to persuade his readers of the value of his interdisciplinary approach and produce well-structured arguments that keep them turning pages even as he refocuses his analysis from one disparate example to another. Diamond adds to that a spectacular ability to grasp the meaning of the available evidence produced by scholars in those widely different disciplines – making Guns, Germs and Steel equally valuable as an exercise in high-level interpretation.

Ty Cobb, Nap Lajoie, and Honus Wagner were among the greatest hitters who ever played major league baseball, but how do they stack up against players of other eras and each other? This book employs a statistical analysis of "production per at-bat" to compare 120 top batters by position over a 19-year period when contact, speed and hit-and-run strategy were more valuable than power and home runs. Included are an analysis of each player's strengths and weaknesses, rankings of the most talented and the most valuable producers, and the selection of an All-Star team for the era.

Match analysis is a performance-diagnostic procedure, which can be used to carry out systematic gaming analysis during competition and training. The analysis of team and racket sports, whether in competition, for opponent preparation (match plan), follow-up, or training is nowadays indispensable in many sports games at different levels. This analysis nevertheless presents many open questions and problem areas: Which data should be used? Who manages the data? Who provides whom with which information? How is this information presented, digested, and applied? The more complex and anonymous the data management is, the more commercial, expensive, and uncontrollable information management and provision becomes. Match Analysis: How to Use Data in Professional Sport is the first book to examine this topic through three types of data sets; video, event, and position data and show how to interpret this data and apply the findings for better team and individual sport performance. This innovative new volume is key reading for researchers, students, and practitioners alike in the fields of Coaching, Performance Analysis, Sport Management, and related specific sport disciplines.

In order to achieve the result you're aiming for, you have to have a plan. In soccer, you need a match plan. Some of the most successful soccer coaches devise match plans for every one of their team's matches. A match plan describes a strategy that is used to be ideally prepared for the next match and be able to react to shifts in tactics or to particular match situations. This book aims to provide every soccer aficionado with a practical insight into the topics of match ideas, tactics, match systems and match plans using easy-to-understand language. On that basis, the author identifies advantages and disadvantages of various formations utilized by top teams and then uses match plans to analyze how those formations can be defeated in play.

Most approaches to crime analysis focus on geographical crime mapping, which is helpful in identifying crime clusters and allocating police resources, but does not explain why a particular crime took place. Applied Crime Analysis presents a model that brings statistical anchoring, behavioral psychopathology, and victimology from the social sciences together with physical and crime scene evidence to provide a complete picture of crime. This hands-on guide takes theoretical principles and demonstrates how they can be put into practice using real case examples. In addition to covering key topics such as staged crime scenes, false reports, and criminal motivations, the book’s includes a final chapter on report writing, showing readers how to use their findings to successfully advance to prosecution and succeed in court. Presents a model that takes social science concepts, including statistical anchoring, behavioral psychopathology, and victimology and connects them with crime scene evidence to examine and analyze crime Puts crime analysis theory into practice with real-world examples highlighting important concepts and best practice Includes a report writing chapter to demonstrate how this approach can strengthen criminal cases and succeed in court Instructor materials include a Test Bank, Powerpoint lecture slides, and Instructor's Guide for each chapter