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The Semantic Link Network is a general semantic model for modeling the structure and the evolution of complex systems. Various semantic links play different roles in rendering the semantics of complex system. One of the basic semantic links represents cause-effect relation, which plays an important role in representation and understanding. This paper verifies the role of the Semantic Link Network in representing the core of text by investigating the contribution of cause-effect link to representing the core of scientific papers. Research carries out with the following steps: (1) Two propositions on the contribution of cause-effect link in rendering the core of paper are proposed and verified through a statistical survey, which shows that the sentences on cause-effect links cover about 65% of key words within each paper on average. (2) An algorithm based on syntactic patterns is designed for automatically extracting cause-effect link from scientific papers, which recalls about 70% of manually annotated cause-effect links on average, indicating that the result adapts to the scale of data sets. (3) The effects of cause-effect link on four schemes of incorporating cause-effect link into the existing instances of the Semantic Link Network for enhancing the summarization of scientific papers are investigated. The experiments show that the quality of the summaries is significantly improved, which verifies the role of semantic links. The significance of this research lies in two aspects: (1) it verifies that the Semantic Link Network connects the important concepts to render the core of text; and, (2) it provides an evidence for realizing content services such as summarization, recommendation and question answering based on the Semantic Link Network, and it can inspire relevant research on content computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective cancer diagnosis, treatment and control depend on interactions among numerous distinct factors, from technology to data to skills to sociology. But a crucial influence is the extent to which the health system takes account of the distinct perspectives of the many different groups of interdependent stakeholders concerned with cancer, including patients, practitioners and planners. This paper provides some elucidation as to how far and how efficiently these interactions currently take place in Europe. It also makes some tentative suggestions as to how conscious systematic interventions could improve cancer outcomes. It is based on a series of expert panels and surveys conducted by the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) that provided information at the national level on three selected parameters: implementation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) and liquid biopsy (LB), attitudes of patients to prevention and practices of sharing genomic data among healthcare professionals (HCPs). The varying data infrastructure highlights the urgent need for substantial improvements to accommodate the increasing importance of genomics data in cancer diagnosis and care. Additionally, we identify disparities in age-specific approaches to cancer prevention, emphasising the necessity for tailored strategies to address unique age group perspectives. Moreover, distinct regional prioritizations in cancer treatment underscore the importance of considering regional variations when shaping future cancer care strategies. This study advocates for collaborative data sharing supported by technological innovation to overcome these challenges, ultimately fostering a holistic and equitable provision of cancer care in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of urbanization, urban land has been expropriated and developed on a large scale. Moreover, people's awareness of the protection of historical buildings is relatively weak, so some historical buildings have been demolished or rebuilt. Historical buildings have played an important role in the spread of national culture, so how to use some methods to protect historical buildings from being destroyed has become an urgent problem to be solved. The protection of historical buildings includes a series of complicated and rigorous procedures, such as on-site drawing and mapping, survey and design, and scheme discussion and construction. The surveying and mapping of traditional historical buildings require people to do it by themselves, so it is inevitably time-consuming and labor-intensive. This paper first discussed and analyzed the significance of historical building protection, and then used digital technology to make up for the shortcomings of traditional manual surveying and mapping and historical building protection methods. Modern technologies such as three-dimensional laser scanning technology and virtual reality technology are used to restore the style and appearance of historical buildings. Among them, in terms of the color of historical buildings, the restoration degree of buildings based on digital protection technology has reached 56.1%; at the same time, the efficiency of information collection and processing, and virtual model construction has also been improved. Thus, the ultimate goal of historical building protection is achieved, and it provides a reference for the digital protection of historical buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies showed that scientists’ professional networks contribute to research productivity, but little work has examined what factors predict the formation of professional networks. This study sought to 1) examine what factors predict the formation of international ties between faculty and graduate students and 2) identify how these international ties would affect publication productivity in three East Asian countries. Face-to-face surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of faculty and doctoral students in life sciences at 10 research institutions in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. Our final sample consisted of 290 respondents (84 faculty and 206 doctoral students) and 1,435 network members. We used egocentric social network analysis to examine the structure of international ties and how they relate to research productivity. Our findings suggest that overseas graduate training can be a key factor in graduate students’ development of international ties in these countries. Those with a higher proportion of international ties in their professional networks were likely to have published more papers and written more manuscripts. For faculty, international ties did not affect the number of manuscripts written or of papers published, but did correlate with an increase in publishing in top journals. The networks we examined were identified by asking study participants with whom they discuss their research. Because the relationships may not appear in explicit co-authorship networks, these networks were not officially recorded elsewhere. This study sheds light on the relationships of these invisible support networks to researcher productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global initiatives have raised awareness of the need for cross-departmental and cross-sectoral activities to support urban health, sustainability, and equity, with respective indicators routinely used as a way to catalyze and monitor action toward pre-defined goals. Despite the existence of at least 145 urban health indicator (UHI) tools globally, there has been very little research on the use of indicators by policy- and decision-makers; more attention has been devoted to their development and validation. This paper describes the second part of a two-part systematic review of the characteristics (part A) and use (part B, this part) of UHI tools by municipal built environment policy- and decision-makers. Part B is a narrative synthesis of studies on the use of UHI tools. This PRISMA-P compliant review follows a mixed methods sequential explanatory design. The search was conducted using seven bibliographic databases, grey literature searches, and key journal hand searches. Ten studies describing the use of ten UHI tools in seven countries were included in the narrative synthesis, resulting in development of a theory of change (ToC). We found that both expert-led and participatory indicator projects can be underpinned by research evidence and residents' knowledge. Our findings contradict the dominant view of indicator use in policy-making as a linear process, highlighting a number of technical, organizational, political, knowledge, and contextual factors that affect their use. Participatory UHI tools with community involvement were generally more effective at supporting "health in all policies" and "whole-of-society" approaches to governing healthy cities than expert-led processes. UHI tool producers proposed a range of techniques to address urban health complexity characteristics. Finally, in combining data from both parts of the review, we found that potentially important UHI tool features, such as neighbourhood-scale data, were influential in the use of indicators by built environment policy- and decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shape Up Under 5 (SUU5) was a two-year early childhood obesity prevention pilot study in Somerville, Massachusetts (2015–2017) designed to test a novel conceptual framework called Stakeholder-driven Community Diffusion. For whole-of-community interventions, this framework posits that diffusion of stakeholders’ knowledge about and engagement with childhood obesity prevention efforts through their social networks will improve the implementation of health-promoting policy and practice changes intended to reduce obesity risk. SUU5 used systems science methods (agent-based modeling, group model building, social network analysis) to design, facilitate, and evaluate the work of 16 multisector stakeholders (‘the Committee’). In this paper, we describe the design and methods of SUU5 using the conceptual framework: the approach to data collection, and methods and rationale for study inputs, activities and evaluation, which together may further our understanding of the hypothesized processes within Stakeholder-driven Community Diffusion. We also present a generalizable conceptual framework for addressing childhood obesity and similar complex public health issues through whole-of-community interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research is increasingly cross-disciplinary and collaborative, between and within institutions. In this context, what is the role and relevance of an individual’s spatial position on a campus? We examine the collaboration patterns of faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, through their academic output (papers and patents), and their organizational structures (institutional affiliation and spatial configuration) over a 10-year time span. An initial comparison of output types reveals: 1. diverging trends in the composition of collaborative teams over time (size, faculty versus non-faculty, etc.); and 2. substantively different patterns of cross-building and cross-disciplinary collaboration. We then construct a multi-layered network of authors, and find two significant features of collaboration on campus: 1. a network topology and community structure that reveals spatial versus institutional collaboration bias; and 2. a persistent relationship between proximity and collaboration, well fit with an exponential decay model. This relationship is consistent for both papers and patents, and present also in exclusively cross-disciplinary work. These insights contribute an architectural dimension to the field of scientometrics, and take a first step toward empirical space-planning policy that supports collaboration within institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to changes in Polish society resulting from a significant inflow of immigrants to Poland, the need to develop the cultural competences of various professional groups who have contact with immigrants in their work has increased. These groups should include healthcare professionals, especially because of the significant increase in the number of culturally diverse patients. Therefore, medical education in Poland has had to rapidly adapt to this novel situation. For instance, the teaching process should be now more focused on the development and evaluation of the cultural competences of prospective health care workers. However, there is still a lack of standardized, valid and reliable instruments to assess cross-cultural competences among healthcare professionals. The purpose of the present paper was to describe, for the first time, the translation, adaptation, and psychometric evaluation of the Polish version of the Cross-Cultural Competence Inventory. Methods: Across two studies, we examined psychometric properties of the Cross-Cultural Competence Inventory (CCCI) such as reliability (i.e. internal consistency, test-retest reliability, factor structure) and validity (i.e. theoretical, criteria, convergent). In the first study, 408 participants (75% were healthcare professionals) completed the Polish version of the CCCI and the Positive/Negative Attitude Towards Culturally Divergent People Questionnaire. In the second study, 317 participants (97% were healthcare professionals) completed the CCCI twice, with an interval of at least 22 days. In addition, across two study sessions, participants completed questionnaires constructed to measure (a) cultural intelligence, (b) need for cognitive closure, (c) emphatic sensitiveness, (d) emotional intelligence, (e) self-esteem, (f) social desirability, and (g) personality. Finally, to additionally examine the theoretical validity, 36 professional cross-cultural competence trainers completed the CCCI during a one-session study. Results: Our findings confirm the reliability and validity of the CCCI. More precisely, in study 1 we proved the theoretical validity and reliability (i.e. internal consistency) of the CCCI. While the assumed structure did not fit the data well, all items were significantly related to the general factor, thus providing strong support for the usage of the total score of the CCCI. In study 2, we additionally estimated the test-retest reliability and theoretical, criterion and convergent validity. Across two studies we were able to successfully confirm these psychometric properties. The reliability was satisfactory and ranged from .83 to .86. We also observed a high and significant positive correlation between CCCI and the Cultural Intelligence Scale, which measures a concept similar to the one measured by CCCI. In addition, a significant relationship between intercultural competences (CCCI) and other variables such as personality, empathic sensitivity, emotional intelligence, self-esteem (positive correlations) and the need for cognitive closure (mainly negative correlation) were demonstrated. Conclusions: The obtained results support the usage of the CCCI questionnaire in scientific research, such as, for example, among healthcare professionals (nurses, doctors) and students of medical fields (nursing, medicine). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workshops are used to explore a specific topic, to transfer knowledge, to solve identified problems, or to create something new. In funded research projects and other research endeavours, workshops are the mechanism used to gather the wider project, community, or interested people together around a particular topic. However, natural questions arise: how do we measure the impact of these workshops? Do we know whether they are meeting the goals and objectives we set for them? What indicators should we use? In response to these questions, this paper will outline rules that will improve the measurement of the impact of workshops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematics is a fundamental tool of research. Although potentially applicable in every discipline, the amount of training in mathematics that students typically receive varies greatly between different disciplines. In those disciplines where most researchers do not master mathematics, the use of mathematics may be held in too much awe. To demonstrate this I conducted an online experiment with 200 participants, all of which had experience of reading research reports and a postgraduate degree (in any subject). Participants were presented with the abstracts from two published papers (one in evolutionary anthropology and one in sociology). Based on these abstracts, participants were asked to judge the quality of the research. Either one or the other of the two abstracts was manipulated through the inclusion of an extra sentence taken from a completely unrelated paper and presenting an equation that made no sense in the context. The that included the meaningless mathematics tended to be judged of higher quality. However, this "nonsense math effect" was not found among participants with degrees in mathematics, science, technology or medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Phenomenology can often be used as a general approach in studies exploring 'experience'. However, social phenomenology can be seen as a distinct methodological approach for nursing research. Aim To provide a reflective account of adopting social phenomenology as a preferred methodology in nursing research. Discussion Personal identity and philosophical viewpoints are not fixed and can change over time, in part due to evolving debates and influences in nursing. People construct meaning in the context in which they are situated and can contribute to researchers' standpoints at a particular point in time. This paper reflects a personal journey through various research influences to culminate in adopting a qualitative research methodology that draws on social and hermeneutic forms of phenomenology. Conclusion The importance of continually revisiting our own positions as nurse researchers is proposed, to justify our chosen study approaches in a critical and transparent way. Implications for practice Exploring and understanding patients' experiences and their perspectives is fundamental to evidence-based nursing practice. Social phenomenology can provide a framework to explore the intersubjective dimensions of care, valuing the socio-historical and cultural aspects that influence behaviours, thoughts and actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How has sociology evolved over the last 40 years? In this paper, we examine networks built on thousands of sociology-relevant papers to map sociology's position in the wider social sciences and identify changes in the most prominent research fronts in the discipline. We find first that sociology seems to have traded centrality in the field of social sciences for internal cohesion: sociology is central, but not nearly as well bounded as neighboring disciplines such as economics or law. Internally, sociology appears to have moved away from research topics associated with fundamental social processes and toward social-problems research. We end by discussing strategies for extending this work to wider science production networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the periodical, Sociological Methodology. Sociological Methodology is a journal that seeks to publish excellent contributions to each and every one of the many and diverse research methodologies that sociologists use in their research,or that they would want to use, if they knew of these methods or how to adapt them to sociological analysis. Many think of sociological methodology as a synonym for statistics or quantitative research methods. These Pavlovian responses are unfortunate. The editors of Sociological Methodology have consistently sought outstanding papers on all sociologically useful methods, including those that are generally perceived to be non-statistical and non-quantitative. Sociological Methodology is a refereed journal. The editor picks referees to render opinions on papers,makes editorial decisions based substantially (but not entirely) on referee reports, protects reviewers' identities from wounded authors,and does his best to protect authors from unfair, incompetent, or simply mistaken reviews. The editor also does his best to protect authors from his own errors by attending carefully to the comments of reviewers and by honoring any reasoned request for reconsideration and re-review. The system works on a web of redundant checks and balances,overseen by the editor.

This essay describes institutional ethnography as a method of inquiry pioneered by Dorothy E. Smith, and introduces a collection of papers which make distinctive contributions to the development of this novel form of investigation. Institutional ethnography is presented as a research strategy which emerges from Smith‘s wide-ranging explorations of the problematic of the everyday world. Smith‘s conception of the everyday world as problematic involves a critical departure from the concepts and procedures of more conventional sociologies. She argues for an alternative sociology which begins with the standpoint of the actor in everyday life, rather than from within a professional sociological discourse aligned with the society‘s ruling institutions. The familiar sociologies of everyday life do not suffice for this purpose, since they deal with local settings and social worlds, but stop short of examining how these are knitted into broader forms of social organization. In contrast, institutional ethnography examines how the scenes of everyday life are shaped by forms of social organization which cannot be fully grasped from within those scenes. The principal tasks of institutional ethnography include describing the coordination of activities in the everyday world, discovering how ideological accounts define those activities in relation to institutional imperatives, and examining the broader social relations in which local sites of activity are embedded. The four papers which follow demonstrate that specific contributions to institutional ethnography can be made in relation to a wide array of topics, methods, and interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class analysis has recently been criticised from a variety of standpoints. In this paper we argue that much of this criticism is misplaced and that, as a research programme, the promise of class analysis is far from exhausted. The first part of the paper clarifies the nature and purpose of class analysis, as we would understand it, and in particular distinguishes it from the class analysis of Marxist sociology. The second part then makes the case for the continuing relevance of class analysis, in our conception of it, by reviewing findings from three central areas of current research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the difficulties in conceptualising and presenting research, in particular doctoral work in education, in the current climate of intellectual theorising. It argues that many researches experience a phenomenon described in the paper as 'post-modernist tension' when trying to write in an atmosphere of theoretical and methodological uncertainty. The author elaborates the 'symptoms' of post-modernist tension, and makes a critique of some elements of contemporary social theorising. Nevertheless, the author acknowledges the usefulness of contemporary social theory in challenging traditional research, despite its density and inaccessibility to many researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes the form of a double text which simultaneously investigates the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) through citation analysis, and investigates citation analysis using theoretical ideas from SSK and Foucault. One strand of the text performs an analysis of citation patterns in SSK. This text identifies the figures who have had the most impact through their articles and books, and examines the possible effects of cultural and linguistic bias. It also investigates the impact of SSK outside the field, asks whether this impact has changed over time, and identifies researchers who have had a particularly high impact outside SSK. The other strand takes citation analysis, as exemplified in the citation study of SSK, as its topic. This text focuses on the way the citation analysis constitutes its field of study, and on the way a citation is produced as a separable, countable category. It notes the 'realistic' idea of science categories which is deployed, and the individualistic model of scientific activity. It questions the involvement of citation analysis with power, both in the traditional sense of institutional control of science through funding changes, and in the Foucaldian sense of scientists adopting citation counting as a regime of self-regulation. The paper ends with a dialogue between the 'authors' on/in these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article serves as an introduction to the issue's special feature on "The Nuclear Threat." The early sociological literature on nuclear war related issues is reviewed and the dearth of sociological work in this area since the early 1960s is documented. A new call for sociological theory and research on the nuclear threat is issued and possible topics are outlined. The paper concludes with a brief review of the papers that make up the special feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical overview of current concepts and analytic practices in stress research and considers how they can be changed to make the research more consistent with core sociological interests. An overarching concern of the paper is the analytic use of basic information about people's social and institutional affiliations and statuses. It is important that such information be treated not simply as data that need to be controlled statistically; we must examine the bearing of these data on each domain of the stress process: the exposure to and meaning of stressors, access to stress mediators, and the psychological, physical, and behavioral manifestations of stress. The conceptualization and measurement of stressors should move away from their focus on particular events or chronic strains and should seek instead to observe and assess over time constellations of stressors made up of both events and strains. Moreover, the effects of the mediators—coping and social support—are evaluated most fruitfully in terms of their effects in limiting the number, severity, and diffusion of stressors in these constellations. Finally, sociological stress researchers should not be bound to outcomes that better serve the intellectual interests of those who work with biomedical and epidemiological models of stress, nor should the research be committed exclusively to a single outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge contribution in virtual communities is an important issue in the field of knowledge management. Based on Ames's theoretical framework on motivation, we propose a model for knowledge contribution in problem-solving virtual communities (PSVCs). The model includes two second-order individual motivations, with four major mechanisms in PSVCs that are associated with these motivations. Results confirm that only egoistic motives affect members' knowledge contribution in PSVCs. Further, knowledge repository and social identity are found to be important mechanisms for promoting knowledge contribution through egoistic motives. This paper concludes with theoretical and practical implications and provides insights for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a simple mathematical model that shows how economic inequality between social groups can arise and be maintained even when the only adaptive learning process driving cultural evolution increases individuals' economic gains. The key assumptions are that human populations are structured into groups and that cultural learning is more likely to occur within than between groups. Then, if groups are sufficiently isolated and there are potential gains from specialization and exchange, stable stratification can sometimes result. This model predicts that stratification is favored, ceteris paribus, by (1) greater surplus production, (2) more equitable divisions of the surplus among specialists, (3) greater cultural isolation among subpopulations within a society, and (4) more weight given to economic success by cultural learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether the field of sociology harbors a dismissive attitude towards religion. Specifically it examines whether introductory sociology textbooks present the classic secularization theory over the more recent religious economies explanation of religious change. The classical secularization thesis suggests that religion is declining in importance in modern societies and may disappear completely. The religious economies perspective proposes that religion has actually become more influential and dynamic over time. While both theories are well represented in the sociology of religion literature, we explore whether generalist sociology textbooks reflect this reality. This article provides a content analysis of 31 introductory sociology textbooks published between 2003 and 2006. We assess the presence and promotion of the above theories in these textbooks. Our analysis reveals that 20 (65%) of the 31 textbooks in our study present only secularization theory, while seven (23%) of the textbooks cover both secularization theory and religious economies theory. We assess the ramifications of such a lopsided arrangement and conclude by encouraging a more open dialogue on this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is a large literature on social capital, empirical estimates of the effect of social capital may be biased because of social homophily, the tendency of similar people to become friends with each other, Despite the methodological difficulties, a recent literature has emerged across several different disciplines that tries to estimate the causal effect of social capital. This paper reviews this recent empirical literature on social capital, paying close attention to the statistical and theoretical assumptions involved. Overall, there is evidence that genuine progress has been made in estimating the effect of social capital. The reviewed articles should provide useful examples for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to trace the history of the social indicators or quality-of-life (QOL) research movement up to today, forecast future developments, and pave the way for future growth. Broadly speaking, we tried to review historical antecedents from the point of view of different disciplines, with specialists in each discipline preparing the basic text and co-authors helping to polish the material into a finished product. Briefly, we begin with an overview of the conceptual and philosophical foundations of our field of research. That is followed by a historical overview of the sociological roots of our field. In the third section, the main contributions from the discipline of economics are reviewed. Following that, the fourth section covers a historical overview of the literature on health-related quality of life is provided. Next, the history of QOL research from a marketing perspective is reviewed followed by a history from the perspectives of industrial/organizational psychology and management. Finally, we offer some forecasts for future QOL studies that are intended not only to predict what might happen, but to encourage, stimulate and motivate researchers to undertake new initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the social sciences has provided a network of technologies, knowledges, practices and discourses to regulate and govern society. The social sciences may play a central role in developing forms of social control. Modern 'knowledge societies' manage the production of scientific knowledge in a way that privileges the kind of thinking that is consistent with current hegemonic thought, and reduces the possibility of critical perspectives (Slaughter y Leslie, 1997, 2001). The social sciences are in the paradox of questioning the fundamentals of what they, in some sense, actively constitute. The development of post-fordist societies and our academic location in the belly of the beast (Haraway, 1991) prompts a reflection on the context, possibilities and forms of critical work in our present institutional circumstances. This paper considers the methodological principles and political implications of academic critical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper; we explore the emergence of subgroups in global virtual teams and consider the impact that subgroups have on the communication patterns and interactions of these teams. The study presented here takes the case of eight virtual teams that were formed between two universities in two different countries. Our findings reveal that subgroups exert different degrees of impact on the team as a whole. Where the impact was high. boundaries were created between team members in different subgroups while the development of team cohesiveness was restricted. Nevertheless, all teams were able to produce high quality outcomes, suggesting that the emergence of subgroups may not always have a negative influence on team performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the status of generalisation in interpretive sociology. The case made is that generalisation is inevitable, desirable and possible. It is held that interpretivism must employ a special kind of generalisation, characterised here as moderatum. However, an acknowledgement that such generalisations can be made must bring us to specify the limits of generalisation in interpretive research. These limits are the limits of interpretivism itself and the paper concludes that this implies the adoption of methodological pluralism in order to realise the full potential of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note argues that in discussions about autobiography as a research tool in sociology there has been relative neglect of ethical issues. It suggests that the nature of autobiography as a form of personal document requires a re-examination of ethical principles important to sociology and feminist research practice. This paper aims to begin to approach some of these issues through an analysis of the complexities of autobiography's methodological relationship to the private and public domains, and, in particular, of the nature of the relationship between researcher and subject(s). The problematic relationship of the autobiographer, or self, to other subjects in accounts is examined and it is argued that feminists' ethical concerns with power relations in research remain pertinent in the production and use of autobiography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Detroit Area Study (DAS) has served for 25 years as one model of how a sociology faculty can combine productive research and graduate training within a single small unit. This paper outlines the current structure and costs of DAS, describes its math advantages and limitations, and suggests several ways in which other universities might develop units that are similar but not identical to DAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between original research reports and discussion of these same reports in textbooks Through a systematic search of textbooks dealing with a particular sociological generalization, the authors are able to return to the original sources upon which the textbook accounts are based and to compare what is contained in both. Serious errors of commission and omission are revealed in the textbook treatments of the primary research material The authors conclude by suggesting ways in which textbooks may reflect more accurately future developments and trends in the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to a recent descriptive account of the state of science studies in France, this Comment - which is a participant observer's account, not a research paper - seeks to contribute towards a sociological explanation of the observed state of affairs. The absence of specifically social studies of science in France is an aspect of the traditional French construal of science studies as consisting of (positivist or philosophically-minded) history of science. The reason why new approaches have difficulty in getting established is sought mainly in the structure of French institutions: decision- making bearing on intellectual choices is concentrated in very few hands, and these decisions affect, and streamline, most institutions throughout the country. Moreover, the large and overarching decision-making bodies, whose members have divergent preferences and interests, are inherently prudent and shun risk -taking: their very social structure favours conservatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Costner (1965) showed that many of the most commonly used measures of association may be conceptually interpreted as indicating proportional reduction in prediction error. But because it is verbally cumbersome, and conceptually complex for some measures, the proportional reduction in error interpretation has not been widely incorporated in research reports where appropriate. Instead, measures of association continue to be interpreted in abstract terms distinguishing between broad levels of strength. This paper demonstrates that all proportional reduction in error measures of association may be alternately interpreted as indicating the percent of variation explained. Because this interpretation is conceptually meaningful in a manner highly relevant for scientific investigation, more convenient to apply in research reports, and already familiar to most social scientists, it is argued that it be standardly applied to all proportional reduction in error measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintenance, an important concept in the organizational literature, is often assumed to be a key factor in the low levels of sensitivity to client needs and demands apparent in many human service organizations. This paper uses data from a national sample of juvenile courts to demonstrate, however, that maintenance may relate to other variables in ways that are at variance with the common assumption. The maintenance of internal organizational operations is bound closely to the development of ties to the community; as a result, strong emphasis on maintenance actually leads to high levels of sensitivity to clients when certain environmental forces demand it. This positive relation is especially strong when organizations are highly vulnerable to external pressures. Such results suggest a contingent view of the role of maintenance in organizations and imply some further directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of recent survey research suggests that the importance of the reflected-appraisal process has been exaggerated by the symbolic interactionists. Communication barriers make it difficult to make accurate reflected appraisals and for some attributes, institutionalized indicators of performance are used rather than the reflected (or perceived) appraisals of others. In the second part of the paper, data from children in fourth- through eighth-grade classrooms are reanalyzed in order to estimate the effect of the reflected appraisals of peers on self-appraisals of physical attractiveness. The results suggest that the reflected appraisals of peers are an important source of self-appraisals of physical attractiveness, and reflected appraisals are likely to be more important for attributes that are defined in terms of the perceptions of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates metatheorizing in a postpositivist approach to social science. Postpositivism contends that social science is organized around competing traditions, which are comprised of generalized discourse and research programs. Following an examination of the relations between discourse and programs, the dynamics fueling social scientific competition are outlined. Because that competition is subject to recurrent distortions and there[ore cannot insure that the best arguments win, it is proposed that metatheorizing assume an adjudicative posture and evaluate the conflicting claims of rival schools. This suggestion is elaborated in the context of Ritzer's pioneering work on metatheorizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, recent research on the economics of institutions is summarized and assessed. The economics of institutions is an attempt to integrate recent research in various sub-fields of economics and the other social sciences in order to present a coherent research program for exploring the link between institutions and wealth. Although the core of the framework is a modified version of neo-classical economics, it is argued that the optimal deviation from the neo-classical model varies with the level of analysis and the types of variables that we seek to endogenize. The unifying theme of the analysis is the introduction of transaction costs and the related concept of property rights, which give organizations and institutions a central role in economic life. The paper provides a summary view of the economics of institutions, and discusses in some detail two common lines of criticism: that the approach ignores power relationships in economic affairs, and that its use of the rational choice model is inappropriate. The need for augmenting the economics of institution with an operational theory of mental models and learning is recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accomplished sciences are distinguished by an active orientation to data. Rather than explaining passive observations or even laboratory results, these sciences put a premium on creating effects or objects never before observed. Theories provide a basic for denying the data, in showing how nature can be better organized to produce some new effect or object. In this paper, a method for constructing these theories is developed A sociological application is carried out to the point where an accomplishment is claimed. A very peculiar object is discovered - a relationship. Though it does not resemble anything we may have ever observed it offers to groping actors a guide to something that works and hence could become something that is commonly observed. Likely scruples are addressed that might block the pursuit of such accomplishments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until quite recently, questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews and the gathering and interpreting of various documents have been the main kinds of empirical research to be found in French sociology. Observation plays a leading role in none of them, even in the latter. The researchers who use it do not seem convinced of its legitimacy, because what can be expected from systematic observation does not fit the prevailing purpose of developing abstract, general theories. After having sketched out the institutional and intellectual background, this paper examines a few examples of French studies using observation. Most of them fail to clearly distinguish between indirect evidence and direct observation, between meaning as construed by the observer and that experienced by the people observed; they rarely report dated and situated facts (even more seldom behaviors than settings), and they replace the expected analyses of these messing facts with the interpretation of would-be typical or usual facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postmodern claims for the lack of general coherence in social life and therefore in social research are merely a version of recurrent attempts to accept incoherence as adequate in explanations. Incoherence, however, is less sharply distinguished from the synthetic and generalizing theories that it is held to have replaced than its proponents and critics suppose. Generalizing approaches, in fact, were built around contradictions that contributed to their instability and facilitated postmodern fragmentation. In this paper we demonstrate the central contradictions in social theory, showing their common occurrence in apparently opposed positions. Both postmodernism and what it seeks to replace are features of a conservative and unproductive social science. We trace the contradictory continuties through major modern schools of social theory in order to clear the ground for a progressive social science which accepts contradictions as problems that must be solved creatively in the practice of social research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that the selection of appropriate statistical procedures is at best haphazard without a careful consideration of the consequences of one's research, and that significant distortions often will result when applied concerns are ignored. I advance the hypothesis that typical conceptions of basic research in sociology preclude the proper use of statistics. From this it follows that mainstream, quantitative sociology can begin to save itself only by taking seriously the question of applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the conventional academic wisdom that supports the "publish or perish" doctrine. Employing a theoretical framework derived from Berger and Luckmann (1966), other sources of legitimation are analyzed. While the doctrine is related to themes in the larger culture (i.e., a high mass production/consumption economy), this does not fully explain why research and publication receive such determined support from faculty, particularly since alternative means of evaluation exist. An explanation of the publish or perish doctrine is offered in terms of the use of esoteric knowledge (its product) to enhance and preserve professional authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a comment to the study by Robert J. Johnson and Frederic D. Wolinsky regarding their evaluation of the "Journal of Health and Social Behavior" relevant to the observations connected with the period from 1977 to 1987. Is is claimed that the decline of the the periodical's stature based on attempts to broaden its scope of journal coverage, reduction in subscription and changes in editorial policy. There is an implication that two committee reports caused a decline in citation which serves as the author's measure in stature. The frequency of citation of particular articles depends on many things including the content, quality of reported work, the author's reputation, the number of investigators and the visibility and reputation of a journal. It is argued that the change in the journal's image has lessened its visibility in the stress area and reduced the impact of some papers.

In this thoughtful paper, Mechanic discusses the differences between quantitative and qualitative researchers, focusing on health-related issues. It should, of course, be evident to readers that the issues he discusses have applicability far beyond medical sociology. The same issues arise in all kinds of social research and the excellent examples he gives can be expanded easily to examples in areas including education, criminology, industrial relations, social stratification, and others. In my reading of his paper, Mechanic discusses both differences between methods at a single point in time and differences in measuring process across time. As a quantitative survey researcher, I will comment on my perceptions of the similarities and differences between observational and survey methods for cross-sectional research. I then discuss some methods for bridging the gap that do not involve diaries. Finally, I discuss procedures for measuring process using observational and diary methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents Robert A. Stebbins' reaction to several comments on his paper which appeared in a previous issue of The American Sociologist, which provided an account of professional and amateur sociology in the U.S. Stebbins states that he wishes only to offer a single clarification of a poorly communicated passage that caught Althauser's attention. It concerns the four conditions that encourage the emergence and persistence of an avocational interest in science. According to Stebbins, when he wrote the passage, he had Kuhn's concept of normal science in mind. Amateurism takes root in those sciences or areas of sciences that lack a dominant paradigm as the exclusive grade to scholarly research. These fields are in a preparadigm stage of development in which several schools of thought compete. Why then, is there no amateur sociology? Among the answers to this question, according to Stebbins, are that sociologists lack a tradition of amateurism, a vision that amateurs could help professionals with some of their research interests, and a willingness to organize nonprofessional assistance on any basis other than temporary. The same conclusions could likely be reached for other sciences.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Paul Kay in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which addressed the growing number of unemployed and underemployed doctor of philosophy degree holders in the U.S. Kay implies that traditional training for academic employment is not ideological but rational in character. The commenters disagree with this idea. According to them, it is important to raise this issue because, in spite of very modest changes in employment patterns the vast majority of social scientists, even throughout the lean 1970s, did hold academic jobs. Training for research in graduate school regularly takes precedence over training for teaching, and yet most college faculty rarely if ever publish the fruits of their scholarship, while presumably all teach. Their lack of fit between training and work experience will increase as more and more doctor of philosophy degree holders bump down within academe from sociology to non-sociology departments, and/or from research to teaching institutions where they may find some rewards for competent teaching, but weak institutional and even interpersonal support for their research interests. However, according to the commenters, this is certainly not to say that training for critical analysis and scholarship ought to be abandoned, but rather that graduate education should include attention to the shifting realities of academic employment.

This article presents information related to November 1986 issue of the journal "Sociology." Sociology is, however, a general journal, so it is expected that papers should not be on topics only of interest to specialists in a particular field, and that work in specialized areas should as far as possible be written in a way which makes it accessible to those outside that field. There could be a useful role for articles whose aim is to introduce specialist work of potentially wider interest to the sociological general reader, and we should like to encourage those who normally submit elsewhere to write them. The journal has already institutionalized the `Trend Report'. In addition to this, bibliographical surveys, which might help to update those whose primary commitment is to teaching as well as to inform those whose central interests are elsewhere, would be welcomed, as would short articles on practical issues of research method. It would be helpful if proposals for articles of this kind could be discussed in advance with the Editor; offers, or ideas which others might act on, will be welcomed. Some work of this kind may be invited; it will all, however, be subject to the usual refereeing process.