Interface Of Social Science Research Articles

Juniper Invasions in Grasslands: Research Needs and Intervention Strategies

On the Ground • Despite prescribed fire programs, invasive juniper trees are increasing in the Great Plains. • Continued encroachment of junipers in the Great Plains, especially eastern redcedar and Ashe’s juniper, is degrading grasslands and increasing health concerns through pollen production. • Biological and ecological research needs include effects on soil and water as well as restoration potential after a mature invasion is treated. • The interface of social science, ecology, economics, and policy may yield productive approaches to slowing the invasion.

Complexity at the social science interface

This article introduces a special issue of Complexity dedicated to the increasingly important element of complexity science that engages with social policy. We introduce and frame an emerging research agenda that seeks to enhance social policy by working at the interface between the social sciences and the physical sciences (including mathematics and computer science), and term this research area the “social science interface” by analogy with research at the life sciences interface. We locate and exemplify the contribution of complexity science at this new interface before summarizing the contributions collected in this special issue and identifying some common themes that run through them. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 19: 1–4, 2014

Phenomenology of Friendship: Construction and Constitution of an Existential Social Relationship

Friendship, as a unique form of social relationship, establishes a particular union among individual human beings which allows them to overcome diverse boundaries between individual subjects. Age, gender or cultural differences do not necessarily constitute an obstacle for establishing friendship and as a social phenomenon, it might even include the potential to exist independently of space and time. This analysis in the interface of social science and phenomenology focuses on the principles of construction and constitution of this specific form of human encounter. In a “parallel action,” the perspective of social science focuses on concrete socio-historical constructions of friendship in different time periods. These findings are confronted with the description of principles of the subjective constitution of the phenomenon of “friendship” from a phenomenological perspective. The point of reference for the study is the real type of the symbolically established and excessively idealized form of friendship intended for eternity which was especially popular in eighteenth century Germany. Analogous to the method of phenomenological reduction, three different levels of protosociological reduction are developed for the exploration of the unique social phenomenon of friendship.

Hydroecology and river restoration: Ripe for research and synthesis

Research at the intersection of hydrology and ecology is central to a future in which human and ecological needs for water are met. We briefly identify several compelling research questions at this intersection, then focus on a critical research area central to hydroecology: river and stream restoration. Challenges in this area include the development of science to evaluate the effectiveness of restoration, particularly the cumulative effects of many small projects; to restore ecosystem processes under highly constrained conditions such as below dams or in urban settings; to push some aquatic ecosystems beyond “restoration” to boost their ability to perform functions of value to society; and to identify feedbacks associated with critical thresholds beyond which restoration is not possible. Meeting these research challenges requires research at the interface of social science and the disciplines of hydrology, geomorphology, ecology, and engineering, but hydroecology will be the central science.

Book Section: Essay and Review: Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die: The Interface of Social Science, Public Policy, and Medical Ethics

Book Section: Essay and Review: Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die: The Interface of Social Science, Public Policy, and Medical Ethics

Assisted suicide and the right to die: the interface of social science, public policy, and medical ethics

Assisted suicide and the right to die: the interface of social science, public policy, and medical ethics

The Future of Spatial Analysis in the Social Sciences

This paper presents a personal view on some emerging research directions at the interface of social science and spatial analysis. Particular emphasis is placed on methodological challenges presented by developments in social science theory, demands for data manipulation, and the need for education and dissemination.

A Regional Perspective on Contaminated Site Remediation—Fate of Materials and Pollutants

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEPolicy AnalysisNEXTA Regional Perspective on Contaminated Site Remediation—Fate of Materials and Pollutants, , and View Author InformationSwiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich, Natural and Social Science Interface, ETH-Zentrum HAD CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland BMG Engineering AG, Ifangstr. 11, CH-8952 Schlieren, Switzerland Amt für Abfall, Wasser, Energie und Luft, Walchetor, CH-8090 Zürich, Switzerland Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 1999, 33, 14, 2305–2310Publication Date (Web):July 15, 1999Publication History Received24 September 1998Accepted21 December 1998Revised18 December 1998Published online15 July 1999Published inissue 1 July 1999https://doi.org/10.1021/es990642qCopyright © 1999 American Chemical SocietyRIGHTS & PERMISSIONSArticle Views588Altmetric-Citations4LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InReddit PDF (113 KB) Get e-AlertsSUBJECTS:Environmental pollution,Fluxes,Materials,Remediation,Soils Get e-Alerts

The ‘Explosiveness’ of Chain Migration: Research and Policy Issues

This is an introduction to Volume 23, Number 4, of the International Migration Review. This issue "focuses on the legislative and social science interface concerning the complex issue of whether the current system of United States legal immigration is promoting or facilitating an 'explosive' multiplication of immigrants.... The purpose of this collection of articles is to present the most current evidence and policy analyses of the size and composition of the immigration 'multiplier.' It assumes that there is merit in focusing attention on the overlapping interests of social science researchers and legislative analysts regarding how the system of legal immigration actually operates in promoting or reproducing future waves of immigrants."

The role of social science in generating technologies for the farming community in Africa

This paper is based on experiences obtained during a joint enterprise between the Social Science Interface Research Unit, of the Crop Pests Research Programme, and the Livestock Ticks Research Programme at ICIPE. Topics bearing on technology design and development are emphasized. The resource-poor farmer as conceptualized within ICIPE and reinforced by research experience, is by definition a person who operates a diversified system of production in which food security concerns and cash income intakes are crucial. The family/household provides most of the labour required in production in African farming communities. For this reason, their labour investment into the adoption of novel activities or technological innovation and their assessment of the value of such innovations requiring changes in their normative practice, is appraised primarily in terms of the returns they would get for the additional labour input. It is noteworthy that much of the so-called family labour is, in fact, female labour. It is therefore arguable that the perception of the women of technological inputs and innovations as profitable, is crucial for the successful adoption and social acceptance of novel technology. Although agricultural land is in increasingly short supply, it would appear that the crucial limiting factor in production is not a shortage of land per se , since a good number of households do not fully exploit all the agricultural land at their disposal. Labour, and/or cash income to secure additional labour, appears to be the most important constraint to production. This tends to suggest that for future technological interventions in agricultural systems of the rural poor, consideration will have to be given to inputs which optimize the use of family/household labour. The escalating population growth suggests that focus on women's health and incomes could significantly and qualitatively improve the prospects for the adoption of new and improved technology in areas such as pest and vector control.