Societal Units Research Articles

Alcohol Use Disorders and Their Harmful Effects on the Contractility of Skeletal, Cardiac and Smooth Muscles.

Alcohol misuse has deleterious effects on personal health, family, societal units, and global economies. Moreover, alcohol misuse usually leads to several diseases and conditions, including alcoholism, which is a chronic condition and a form of addiction. Alcohol misuse, whether as acute intoxication or alcoholism, adversely affects skeletal, cardiac and/or smooth muscle contraction. Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is the main effector of alcohol-induced dysregulation of muscle contractility, regardless of alcoholic beverage type or the ethanol metabolite (with acetaldehyde being a notable exception). Ethanol, however, is a simple and “promiscuous” ligand that affects many targets to mediate a single biological effect. In this review, we firstly summarize the processes of excitation-contraction coupling and calcium homeostasis which are critical for the regulation of contractility in all muscle types. Secondly, we present the effects of acute and chronic alcohol exposure on the contractility of skeletal, cardiac, and vascular/ nonvascular smooth muscles. Distinctions are made between in vivo and in vitro experiments, intoxicating vs. sub-intoxicating ethanol levels, and human subjects vs. animal models. The differential effects of alcohol on biological sexes are also examined. Lastly, we show that alcohol-mediated disruption of muscle contractility, involves a wide variety of molecular players, including contractile proteins, their regulatory factors, membrane ion channels and pumps, and several signaling molecules. Clear identification of these molecular players constitutes a first step for a rationale design of pharmacotherapeutics to prevent, ameliorate and/or reverse the negative effects of alcohol on muscle contractility.

Joint Risk Design in Swiss Middle-Sized Service Companies: Frameworks and Management Practices

AbstractToday’s social reality will doubtless alter the risk management practices of organizations of all kinds. Whereas large companies and public institutions serve as role models and have the resources to apply standards or develop and set them by themselves, mid-sized businesses usually do not have this possibility. Instead, they apply management practices that base on existing management routines and their typical organizational characteristics. But how do these practices look like? And what is the semantic program that is performed by the organization to manage the risks? This empirical paper contains the analysis of typical risk management practices in mid-sized service companies in Switzerland. The study relies on open, qualitative interviews with top level decision-makers resulting in the description of the characteristics of six companies. The analysis shows that these firms mainly focus on project risk management, and combine it with a strong focus on business speed and agility, the smart combination of their talent pool in teams, the application of a non-bureaucratic governance style and a conscious acceptance of a high degree of intuition in management decisions. This research contributes to a better understanding of the risk design of mid-sized business organizations as very important societal units in splitting, pooling, distributing and addressing their risks.

Social Set Analysis: A Set Theoretical Approach to Big Data Analytics

Current analytical approaches in computational social science can be characterized by four dominant paradigms: text analysis (information extraction and classification), social network analysis (graph theory), social complexity analysis (complex systems science), and social simulations (cellular automata and agent-based modeling). However, when it comes to organizational and societal units of analysis, there exists no approach to conceptualize, model, analyze, explain, and predict social media interactions as individuals’ associations with ideas, values, identities, and so on. To address this limitation, based on the sociology of associations and the mathematics of set theory, this paper presents a new approach to big data analytics called social set analysis. Social set analysis consists of a generative framework for the philosophies of computational social science, theory of social data, conceptual and formal models of social data, and an analytical framework for combining big social data sets with organizational and societal data sets. Three empirical studies of big social data are presented to illustrate and demonstrate social set analysis in terms of fuzzy set-theoretical sentiment analysis, crisp set-theoretical interaction analysis, and event-studies-oriented set-theoretical visualizations. Implications for big data analytics, current limitations of the set-theoretical approach, and future directions are outlined.

American Psychiatry Scholarship: The Pendulum Maintains its Momentum - Hannah S. Decker, The Making of DSM-III: A Diagnostic Manual’s Conquest of American Psychiatry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 443, £35.99, paperback, ISBN-10: 0195382234. - Edward Shorter, How Everyone Became Depressed: The Rise and Fall of the Nervous Breakdown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 246, £19.99, hardback, ISBN-10:

In the last year or two there has been a surge in American psychiatric scholarship and a small sampling of the contributions helps to identify the diversity of the field and future directions in it. According to Nicholas Rasmussen and Jonathan Metzl, among other medical historians, psychiatric practice in the United States should be conceptualised ‘as more diverse and eclectic, and less polarised’ than previous accounts had argued.1 In short, the biological versus psychodynamic schism in psychiatry was far more complicated than once thought. Even more recently, the work of the sociologist of medicine Martyn Pickersgill on changing discourses of social personality disorders confirmed that while the ‘pendulum metaphor’ in histories of psychiatry has a certain heuristic importance, it obscures continuity amongst psychiatrists and psychiatric discourses, and reduces a complex set of theories and practices to a simplistic either/or binary.2 Yet, what becomes immediately clear is that while the ‘pendulum metaphor’ has not been entirely transcended, the intellectual firmament in the history of psychiatry is shifting and a diversity of distinctive approaches is readily apparent. The pendulum, that is, continues to swing, just in different directions. For, as authors investigate specific diagnoses and illnesses (depression), societal units (the family) and broader structures (DSM-III), others are taking an unapologetically cultural approach to the history of psychiatry.

Autonomous institutions in the Southern Khmer’s traditional rural society

Inherently as the inhabitants of agricultural practices specializing in water rice cultivation, the Southern Khmer, once settling down on the Southern land and primarily gathering in the Mekong Delta, grouped themselves into units of residency, later organized into traditional autonomous societal units with two institutions of autonomy which bore such communal democracy values as phum and srok. In addition, when settling down on the Southern land, the Khmer people brought with them their religion – Theravada, and on this land, Buddhism of the Southern Khmer could both meet the spiritual need of the mass and be the consolidating catalyst to gather up community members. The elements of ethnic culture of the water rice inhabitants combined with those of Buddhist culture not only exerted great influence on their living style, on their material and mental culture, but also deeply engraved themselves in their autonomous mechanism, creating a particular feature of fundamental and typical nature belonging to the Southern Khmer’s traditional rural society. That is the autonomous mechanism of phum and srok which is closely related to and intertwined with the management system of pagodas in order to efficiently manage and regulate the society. Until the 1975 Liberation, phum and srok management and regulating system bearing traditional features of the Southern Khmer had ceased to exist. Although the management system of feudal government and of later governmental regimes already replaced the traditional management system, their imprint and influence still impose deep impacts on various aspects of the Khmer people’s current lives. In the framework of this research, the paper focuses on analyzing the traditional autonomous institutions and on how the mixed intertwining nature of these institutions made up special features of the Southern Khmer’s societal organization.

SOUR GRAPES

We may be equal before the law but certainly not in the eyes of awards committees. Now that 2002 is drawing to a close, most of this year’s awards and prizes have been publicized if not already disbursed. What element in the nature of Homo sapiens compels almost all societal units to single out some of its members for recognition? Is it just a reflection of the innate admiration of performance achievement to which the hoi polloi aspire but never reach? In this context, recognition can be simply a matter of numbers: the student with the best grades, the athlete with the best “tape measure” or “clock” performance, or the employee with the highest volume of sales. In such instances, the integrity of the award process cannot be disputed—numbers alone should dictate the selection of the award nominee. In contrast, forms of recognition based on subjective assessment of performance constitute a complex process that is likely to bring into play some of the baser aspects of human nature. Who gains more from this activity—the awardee or the awarding organization? Surely the former; some awards such as the Nobel Prize can be life changing. Performance and creative arts awards serve to validate the recipient’s talent and thereby elevate the awardee to a higher echelon of respect and, often, marketability. Many lesser, parochial awards, however, such as those granted by professional organizations, serve to enhance the stature of the awarding organization more than the awardee. The very fact that an organization confers awards garners prestige for that body and establishes a degree of vertical separation between it, nebulous as that concept is, and its individual members. Most of us can name many of the awards provided annually by various organizations, but we would be hard pressed to recall the names of more than a few of the recent award winners. The awarding organization is a constant; the awardee has a cameo appearance. Thus, whose interests are better served in the award selection process—the awarding organization or the potential awardee? The former, of course. It is advantageous to the award committee to identify a recipient who will bring credit to the parent organization. Not uncommonly, the person nominated for an award has been a previous recipient of an award from another organization. Accordingly, a cadre of what may be cynically viewed as “professional” award recipients is created and fostered. Although most awards identify the specific performance area being recognized, such as distinguished clinician or scientist, frequently the award is based predominantly on service to the awarding organization and the specific type of award reflects the recipient’s professional activity rather than any outstanding achievement in that activity. Occasionally, the process undergoes distortion to such an egregious degree that the prestige of the award is seriously debased. Rarely in life is anything given without an expectation of something in return. Award recipients may be expected to serve on the awards committee for the next cycle of awards, present a special address to the membership at an annual meeting, or serve as a passive advertisement for the awarding organization each time the curriculum vitae is read or an introduction given.

History Repeats Itself, but How? City Character, Urban Tradition, and the Accomplishment of Place

This study shows how places, and by implication other societal units as well, achieve and reproduce distinctiveness. It does this by specifying how actors in two California urban areas, over approximately 100 years, responded differently to the same exogenous forces. Each place is examined to determine how unlike elements conjoin to produce a particular “character” at any given moment and how this character travels through time to constitute a local “tradition.” Borrowing from advances in analyses of structure and agency, this study displays character and tradition as accomplished interaction and helps make an elusive process empirically evident and accessible for study.

History Repeats Itself, But How? City Character, Urban Tradition, and the Accomplishment of Place

This study shows how places, and by implication other societal units as well, achieve and reproduce distinctiveness. It does this by specifying how actors in two California urban areas, over approximately 100 years, responded differently to the same exogenous forces. Each place is examined to determine how unlike elements conjoin to produce a particular character at any given moment and how this character travels through time to constitute a local tradition. Borrowing from advances in analyses of structure and agency, this study displays character and tradition as accomplished interaction and helps make an elusive process empirically evident and accessible for study

Self-Organisation of Society by Scale: A Spatial Reworking of Regulation Theory

The scaling of social systems gives rise to a ‘vertical’ ordering that combines with the more familiar ‘horizontal’ ordering by place. But so far this phenomenon has been examined mainly from a political standpoint, and has not as yet received an adequate regulationist treatment. The regulation approach is at heart a systems theory, whereby innovations in accumulation and regulation—whatever their origins—will tend to be selected and woven into a stable pattern if they contribute to the expanded reproduction of capital. It is argued here that the viability of regimes of accumulation, and of modes of regulation, depends in part upon whether an appropriate scale division of labour is established between their component activities. It is suggested from the analysis that it is possible on this basis to develop a regulationist account of the fundamental tendency towards the integration and division of societies at different scales, and the emergence of dominant societal units in each epoch.

Demographic Correlates and Judicial Determinations of Child Sexual Abuse Offenses

This study involved an in-depth evaluation of court records and various investigation reports of 532 alleged child sex offenders as well as their interactions with the typical societal intervention mechanism. The major results indicated that offenders significantly differed from the general population in various background characteristics. Generally, alleged offenders were more likely to be from certain demographic groups such as male, minorities, the poorly educated, labor workers, and the unemployed. Comparisons between subgroups defined by prior mental health, substance abuse, and childhood experiences indicated that negative background characteristics were further associated with the severity and judicial outcome of the charges. These results suggest the complexity of determining the etiology, correlates, and criminal and judicial dispositions of child sexual victimization. Finally, this study questions the sufficiency of the current “quarantine” approach, which “segregates” perpetrators through the mandatory registration and general distribution of the identities of convicted offenders. Implications were made regarding the need for integrating various academic disciplines and for coordinating the services of societal intervention units.

Regional Place-Systems Analysis Applied to Long-Range Transportation Planning

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) requires the integration of environmental considerations into transportation planning. Although previous legislation has required the consideration of environmental elements during project planning, ISTEA necessitates a different approach. During project-specific planning, each environmental element is researched to determine baseline conditions, and project plans are superimposed to determine potential impacts and the need for mitigative measures. This approach is appropriate for project-specific planning, but it presents only a snapshot of existing conditions because environmental data are changing constantly. The integration of environmental considerations into long-range plans requires a much broader focus. It must allow dynamic systems to change without affecting the plan's validity. A case study is presented of the Oklahoma statewide intermodal transportation plan, which uses recent geographic theory to integrate planning and human activity at varying scales. This theoretical framework is based on ecological and societal units of interaction called bioregions or place-systems. The environmental baseline and analysis for Oklahoma begin with the identification of place-systems in the state: areas of biophysical and cultural similarity and context. The delimitation of such regional place-systems is sufficiently generalized and flexible to accommodate many data types and sources, yet rigid enough to be useful for planning. Both quantitative data and descriptive information are included in an analytical framework suitable to relational data bases and geographic information systems applications. These are used to create a series of map and data overlays to project potential environmental impacts and constraints, as well as opportunities for developing future transportation projects. The methods used to delineate regional place-systems in Oklahoma and their subsequent use in environmental analyses and planning are described.

The in loco parentis role of the teacher: A relationship perspective

The parent (as the primary educator) as well as the teacher (as the secondary' educator) functions from independent societal units in their respective roles o f educating the educand The teacher as an in loco parents person has the right on the one hand to maintain order by means of school rules and the punishment o f transgressors and on the other hand has a duty to care for the safety o f the educands. The parent and the teacher share a common goal: the maturing and the development o f the educand. Whilst the nature o f this parent-teacher co-operation is defined as a partnership, it is - taking the technical essentials o f a partnership into account - more o f a voluntary association. This generates the question whether the whole system o f parEnt-teacher co-operation should not be reorganised on the basis o f a true partnership.

Household Types and Social Standing

This paper reports an investigation of the clues which are important in making status evaluations. We take the family as the principal unit in the stratification system and thus the unit zvhich is evaluated. Different types of fam-ilies are described by their members' occupations, educations, and ages; and by marital status, number of children, and sex. The social standings of 36,000 hypothetical vignette families are evaluated. These evaluations are regressed on household characteristics to determine which clues are important in the attribution of status. W4'e find that occupation is more important than is education, age, or marital status. A number of characteristics are not important in this regard. Finally, we find that each member contributes differentially to the overall evaluation of the family, the relative contribution of each being partially a function of the type of family being evaluated. Social status is that dimension of social stratification which translates the objective distribution of societal resources into meaningful perceptions of relative desirability. Social status results in differential evaluations of societal units. Since many sociologists agree with such an approach to understanding the structure of society, we have numerous scales and measures of prestige or status which measure societal units in terms of their desir

On Ethnic Unit Classification [and Comments and Reply

This paper discusses the general concept of the basic culture-bearing unit and proposes a new definition-the cultunit. This proposal is a response to the need for units of cross-cultural surveys to be comparable and to be rigorously defined if these studies are to be validated statistically. Such anthropologists as Schapera, Berndt, Whiting, Evans-Pritchard, Reichard, Radcliffe-Brown, Fortes, Ember, Murdock, Nadel, Leach and Driver have given much thought to the problem of defining basic culture-bearing units. From their writings, we can see at least six possible criteria for defining societal units: (1) language (which nearly everyone thinks is important), (2) political organization, (3) territorial contiguity, (4) distribution of particuar traits being studied, (5) ecological adjustment, and (6) local community structure. The cultunit concept uses the first three of these: a cultunit is defined as a group of people who are domestic speakers of mutually intelligible dialects and who also belong to the same state or contiguous contact group. Four types of cultunits can be distinguished: the Hopi type, a contiguous linguistic group who belong to no state; the Flathead type, a state whose members all speak a single language; the Aztec type, domestic speakers of the lingua franca of a linguistically diverse state. Three periods of time of any of these four types can also be usefully distinguished: palaeoethnographic periods, aboriginal periods, and colonial periods. Although the cultunit has some theoretical justification, it is offered as an arbitrary definition whose justification is its convenience in cross-cultural surveys. Through its use, sampling biases from inconsistent sampling units can be statistically controlled, and the importance of diversity of societal type can be statistically assessed.