Cluster Analysis

This article will explain how and why does Dickens use home as a symbol in his novels. The concept of home is a constant preoccupation in Dickens’s novels. The ideal house is an implicit criticism of the general condition within the total system. The home becomes a microcosm of an ideal society, with love and charity replacing the commerce and capitalism of the outside world. Home is a haven, a sanctuary, and an answer to the ills of the world. It is a protected place not only from dishonest values of the system but from alienating effects of the division of labor. The appropriate method that speaks clearly to this paper’s question is Kenneth Burke’s Cluster analysis. Burke defines cluster analysis as a critical approach to help a critic find rhetors’ worldviews through an examination of the rhetoric that forms their terministic screens. The task of a critic using this method is to notice what subjects cluster about other subjects. This paper argues that through Dickens’s novels, readers come to comprehend the virtues of love and the pleasures of home in an imperfect world. In his lexicon, the patriot is the thankful partaker in history who fights persistently to defend the beauty of his home.

Language learners have frequently been classified according to individual difference variables such as aptitude, personality, cognitive style, and motivation. However, a language teacher’s view seems to have been missing from such classifications. This exploratory research investigated whether and by which criteria Iranian EFL teachers classify their students. Based on preliminary interviews with 29 high-expertise Iranian EFL teachers, 21 criteria were identified and included in a questionnaire that was completed by 175 Iranian EFL teachers. The respondents almost unanimously agreed that they did classify their students according to their understanding of the character type, behavior patterns, and achievement patterns of their students. Then they rated the 21 criteria on a scale from 0 to 4 according to how important each classification criterion was for them. Factor analysis of questionnaire responses revealed six major classification criteria. Subsequently, in a case study, 26 EFL students in a typical Iranian high school class were asked to rate their classmates according to the six major criteria. Only five of the criteria were found to predict English achievement and Grade Point Average (GPA). A cluster analysis of the students’ peer ratings using the five criteria generated three clusters. An ANOVA revealed that the three clusters were accurately differentiated not only on the clustering criteria but also on the two non-clustering variables: EFL Achievement and GPA.

The capital market in each country is considered as the most important part of the economy and its fluctuations may reflect the economic situation of the country. In this paper, the hypothesis of convergence of stock market price indices in Asian countries during the period from January 2007 to February 2017 is investigated using cluster analysis method. The results show that there is no evidence of overall convergence among countries. However, there are three converging clusters between stock markets while the Jordanian stock market forms a non-convergent cluster. These findings should assist portfolio managers in the design and implementation of appropriate portfolio management strategies. Regulatory authorities can also benefit from the design of financial regulation.

In developing countries, the domination of peripheral and dependent capitalism relations and the lack of appropriate structures and channels of attracting, this system have caused some kind of spatial-anatomic unbalances that has resulted in the appearance of single cities with national and regional prevalence. This situation is the main reason for small, medium and intermediate cities to lose their role in the third-world countries and, therefore, for some kind of urban network to appear having consequences, especially at regional scales, like the deceleration or, in some cases, the stop of the dispersion of the expected effects of development and the lack of a chain or network of settlement focuses connecting the settlement system of the region together. The presented work has been planned to focusing on the study and analysis of the urban system of Hamadan province, Iran, with aims to present an appropriate pattern for mentioned province according to the common models and techniques of urban system analyses and methods. Results showed that currently the urban system of Hamadan province is unbalanced; however, the analysis of this system at a regional scale could be useful in regional development management and planning. Nevertheless, it is necessary that the urban system is considered in relation to neighbor regions and national space and in systematic terms. Finally, improvement of systematic viewpoints in planning for urban system and Location and leveling of new activities and settlement areas are recommended to be implemented in coincidence with the suggested urban system.