scholarly journals An ICT Enabled Conceptual Framework for Determining Epidemic Susceptibility and Acute Type Response

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 55-69
Author(s):  
Poornima Narayan R. ◽  
Chandana Unnitha

In a developing nation such as India, the national government is pursuing the pathway of ICT supported decentralized programs, to combat endemics, in the social contexts of each State. The State of Kerala, which has been an exemplar for development, has become susceptible to endemics, brought in by urbanization and non-resident Indian population and compounded by environmental disasters. In this paper, the authors contend that the psyche of the community which has changed from social amity to self-interest need to be re-awakened with the power of ICTs and Internet, so as to efficiently combat endemics. The authors also propose a preliminary framework for emergency responses based on existing ICT systems, recommended by the national government, to fit the context.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda L. Sperry ◽  
Douglas E. Sperry

In this article we explore the ways in which three young children from a non-mainstream cultural group created stories with the assistance of their caregivers and siblings in the social contexts of their homes. We assert that these children’s oral narrations show us important dimensions of early experience with decontextualized content as practiced in their families that may offer suggestions for analysis of culturally sensitive experiences with literacy for all children. The dimensions we highlight are the tangibility of the elements around which the story is created, the interlocutor support children receive for beginning and continuing their stories, and the interaction between the storytelling process and the child’s self-interest. These three dimensions illustrate how children “enter” into stories and storytelling and broaden our understanding for fostering culturally sustaining pedagogy within schools.


Author(s):  
Alexander Blaszczynski

Abstract. Background: Tensions exist with various stakeholders facing competing interests in providing legal land-based and online regulated gambling products. Threats to revenue/taxation occur in response to harm minimisation and responsible gambling policies. Setting aside the concept of total prohibition, the objectives of responsible gambling are to encourage and/or restrict an individual’s gambling expenditure in terms of money and time to personally affordable limits. Stakeholder responsibilities: Governments craft the gambling environment through legislation, monitor compliance with regulatory requirements, and receive taxation revenue as a proportion of expenditure. Industry operators on the other hand, compete across market sectors through marketing and advertising, and through the development of commercially innovative products, reaping substantial financial rewards. Concurrently, governments are driven to respond to community pressures to minimize the range of negative gambling-related social, personal and economic harms and costs. Industry operators are exposed to the same pressures but additionally overlaid with the self-interest of avoiding the imposition of more stringent restrictive policies. Cooperation of stakeholders: The resulting tension between taxation revenue and profit making, harm minimization, and social impacts creates a climate of conflict between all involved parties. Data-driven policies become compromised by unsubstantiated claims of, and counter claims against, the nature and extent of gambling-related harms, effectiveness of policy strategies, with allegations of bias and influence associated with researchers supported by industry and government research funding sources. Conclusion: To effectively advance policies, it is argued that it is imperative that all parties collaborate in a cooperative manner to achieve the objectives of responsible gambling and harm minimization. This extends to and includes more transparent funding for researchers from both government and industry. Continued reliance on data collected from analogue populations or volunteers participating in simulated gambling tasks will not provide data capable of valid and reliable extrapolation to real gamblers in real venues risking their own funds. Failure to adhere to principles of corporate responsibility and consumer protection by both governments and industry will challenge the social licence to offer gambling products. Appropriate and transparent safeguards learnt from the tobacco and alcohol field, it is argued, can guide the conduct of gambling research.


1986 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 236-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha A. Myers ◽  
Susette M. Talarico

Author(s):  
Catrin Heite ◽  
Veronika Magyar-Haas

Analogously to the works in the field of new social studies of childhood, this contribution deals with the concept of childhood as a social construction, in which children are considered as social actors in their own living environment, engaged in interpretive reproduction of the social. In this perspective the concept of agency is strongly stressed, and the vulnerability of children is not sufficiently taken into account. But in combining vulnerability and agency lies the possibility to consider the perspective of the subjects in the context of their social, political and cultural embeddedness. In this paper we show that what children say, what is important to them in general and for their well-being, is shaped by the care experiences within the family and by their social contexts. The argumentation for the intertwining of vulnerability and agency is exemplified by the expressions of an interviewed girl about her birth and by reference to philosophical concepts about birth and natality.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (Especial) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Dante Choque-Caseres

In Latin America, based on the recognition of Indigenous Peoples, the identification of gaps or disparities between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous population has emerged as a new research interest. To this end, capturing Indigenous identity is key to conducting certain analyses. However, the social contexts where the identity of Indigenous persons are (re)produced has been significantly altered. These changes are generated by the assimilation or integration of Indigenous communities into dominant national cultures. Within this context, limitations emerge in the use of this category, since Indigenous identity has a political and legal component related to the needs of the government. Therefore, critical thought on the use of Indigenous identity is necessary in an epistemological and methodological approach to research. This article argues that research about Indigenous Peoples should evaluate how Indigenous identity is included, for it is socially co-produced through the interaction of the State and its institutions. Thus, it would not necessarily constitute an explicative variable. By analyzing the discourse about Aymara Indigenous communities that has emerged in the northern border of Chile, this paper seeks to expose the logic used to define identity. Therefore, I conclude that the process of self-identification arises in supposed Indigenous people, built and/or reinforced by institutions, which should be reviewed from a decolonizing perspective and included in comparative research.


Author(s):  
Kathleen Gerson ◽  
Sarah Damaske

Qualitative interviewing is one of the most widely used methods in social research, but it is arguably the least well understood. To address that gap, this book offers a theoretically rigorous, empirically rich, and user-friendly set of strategies for conceiving and conducting interview-based research. Much more than a how-to manual, the book shows why depth interviewing is an indispensable method for discovering and explaining the social world—shedding light on the hidden patterns and dynamics that take place within institutions, social contexts, relationships, and individual experiences. It offers a step-by-step guide through every stage in the research process, from initially formulating a question to developing arguments and presenting the results. To do this, the book shows how to develop a research question, decide on and find an appropriate sample, construct an interview guide, conduct probing and theoretically focused interviews, and systematically analyze the complex material that depth interviews provide—all in the service of finding and presenting important new empirical discoveries and theoretical insights. The book also lays out the ever-present but rarely discussed challenges that interviewers routinely encounter and then presents grounded, thoughtful ways to respond to them. By addressing the most heated debates about the scientific status of qualitative methods, the book demonstrates how depth interviewing makes unique and essential contributions to the research enterprise. With an emphasis on the integral relationship between carefully crafted research and theory building, the book offers a compelling vision for what the “interviewing imagination” can and should be.


Author(s):  
Abigail J. Stewart ◽  
Kay Deaux

This chapter provides a framework designed to address how individual persons respond to changes and continuities in social systems and historical circumstances at different life stages and in different generations. We include a focus on systematic differences among the people who experience these changes in the social environment—differences both in the particular situations they find themselves in and in their personalities. Using examples from research on divorce, immigration, social movement participation, and experiences of catastrophic events, we make a case for an integrated personality and social psychology that extends the analysis across time and works within socially and historically important contexts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick A. R. Jones ◽  
Helen C. Spence-Jones ◽  
Mike Webster ◽  
Luke Rendell

Abstract Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning. Significance statement Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila L. Nemesi

AbstractOn the basis of examples drawn from seven classic Hungarian film comedies, I argue in this article that the place of humor within the Gricean–Leechian model needs to be revisited and extended towards social psychological pragmatics to account for a wider range of humorous material. Scrutinizing the relevant controversial details of Grice’s conceptual framework, my concern is to find a practical way of fitting the various forms of humor into an adequate (and not an idealistic) pragmatic theory. I propose to differentiate between two levels and five types of breaking the maxims, introducing the Self-interest Principle (SiP) supposed to be in constant tension with, and as rational as, Grice’s Cooperative Principle. Politeness and self-presentational phenomena are subsumed under the operation of the SiP which embraces and coordinates the speaker’s own personal and interpersonal purposes.


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