The Recontextualization of the Spiritual Value Fasting in Improving the Body's Immune System During the Covid 19 Pandemic

<p>This study focuses on how the process of fasting in Ramadan and sunnah (Monday-Thursday) among Muslims can improve the immune system of practitioners and even affect their social life to practice sunnah fasting. The Corona Virus pandemic, which is still a global problem, not only has an impact on people's social lives, but also encourages many Muslim communities to look for alternative solutions to maintain the vitality of their bodies. Fasting is one method that is currently becoming a trend in society because it is believed by the community that this method is able to ward off various kinds of diseases, especially as exemplified by Prophet Muhammad and Prophet Musa. This study uses a qualitative descriptive method that analyzes the practice of fasting in Ramadan and Monday-Thursday and its implications for the immune system. Data collection techniques used in this study were social observation and interviews with fasting practitioners. The analysis technique consists of data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions and levers. The results of this study indicate that fasting performed by Muslims is not only able to improve the quality of health but also mental condition because they have a sense of optimism about their condition, especially in the face of a pandemic.</p><p> <em>Penelitian ini berfokus pada bagaimana proses puasa Ramadhan dan sunah (Senin-Kamis) di kalangan umat Islam mampu meningkatkan sistem kekebalan para praktisi dan bahkan mempengaruhi kehidupan sosial mereka untuk menjalankan puasa sunnah. </em><em>Pandemi Virus Corona yang masih menjadi masalah global tidak hanya berdampak pada kehidupan sosial masyarakat, tetapi juga mendorong banyak komunitas Muslim untuk mencari solusi alternatif demi menjaga vitalitas tubuh mereka. Puasa merupakan salah satu metode yang saat ini menjadi tren masyarakat karena diyakini masyarakat bahwa metode ini mampu menangkal berbagai macam penyakit, terutama seperti yang dicontohkan Nabi Muhammad dan Nabi Musa. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif yang menganalisis praktik puasa Ramadhan dan Senin-Kamis serta implikasinya terhadap sistem kekebalan tubuh. Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah observasi sosial dan wawancara dengan praktisi puasa. Teknik analisis terdiri atas pengumpulan data, reduksi data, penyajian data, serta penarikan kesimpulan dan verifikasi. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa puasa yang dilakukan oleh umat Islam tidak hanya mampu meningkatkan kualitas kesehatan tetapi juga kondisi mental karena mereka memiliki rasa optimisme terhadap kondisi mereka, terutama dalam menghadapi pandemi</em><em>.</em></p>

Police Use of Force Escalation and De-escalation: The Use of Systematic Social Observation With Video Footage

As police agencies continue to incorporate body-worn cameras, it becomes increasingly important for researchers and practitioners to explore how to best use these data to better understand patterns of suspect and police behavior. Thus, drawing on a joint project between the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers and Arizona State University, we expand on prior research demonstrating how social systematic observation (SSO) can be used with video footage to methodically detail the evolving nature of police-suspect encounters. We then illustrate how the data could be evaluated within the framework of escalation and de-escalation using an expanded version of the Resistance Force Comparative Scale (RFCS) first developed and employed in 2001. Finally, we assess the merits and challenges of using video footage to account for suspect and police behaviors in relation to escalation and de-escalation.

The Complexity of Associative Diffusion: Reassessing the Relationship between Network Structure and Cultural Variation

Goldberg and Stein (2018) present an innovative agent-based computational model that shows how cultural associations can diffuse through superficial interpersonal interactions. They counterintuitively argue that segmented networks—for example, those resembling “small worlds” with dense local clustering—inhibit rather than promote cultural diffusion. This finding is notable because it breaks with a long line of influential research showing that local clustering is crucial to diffusion in cases where behaviors and practices—including cultural beliefs—require multiple reinforcements in order to spread. Replicating Goldberg and Stein’s model, we find this result only holds consistently in settings approximating small-group interactions. In models with larger populations, and where cultural associations require repeated reinforcement through social observation, locally clustered small-world networks can promote global cultural variation as well as globally-connected networks, and sometimes do so better. The complex interactions among parameters that lead to this reversal in Goldberg and Stein’s model are instructive for theoretical models of interpersonal influence.

‘Restoring friendship and confidence as far as possible between the inimical nations’: Post-World War I Berlin through English eyes

Three British women writers and their memoirs or letters serve as the key witnesses to rapid change from war-torn Berlin to a highly desired tourist destination. The war-induced transition of Berlin was matched by the social changes for women whose traces can be found in the three texts: the writer’s position changes from that of the voyeuse to the flâneuse. While the old aristocratic cosmopolitanism in Evelyn Blücher’s and Helen D’Abernon’s circles was on the wane, a more middle-class cosmopolitanism, as exemplified by the Bloomsbury psychoanalyst and translator Alix Strachey, became more important in the aftermath of World War I. The three writers share an interest in social observation, but all three are tied by their particular upper-middle- or upper-class habitus. An image of Berlin emerges which predates Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin myth by at least a decade.

The Influence of Police Treatment and Decision-making on Perceptions of Procedural Justice: A Field Study

Objectives: This study examines whether police behavior that signals higher quality of treatment or decision-making leads to higher perceived procedural justice. Methods: Analyses are based on data collected during police traffic controls of moped drivers in two Dutch cities over a period of six months. Police behavior was measured through systematic social observation (SSO), and data on perceived procedural justice were collected through face-to-face interviews immediately after the encounters. Linear regression analysis with bootstrap estimates was used (n = 218), with an overall perceived procedural justice scale as the dependent variable in all regressions. Independent variables included an overall observed procedural justice index and four separate scales of police treatment and decision-making. Results: We find no evidence that police behavior that signals fairer treatment or decision-making leads to higher perceived procedural justice. Conclusions: Our findings add to the currently very limited empirical evidence on an important question, and raise questions about a central idea, that more procedurally just treatment and decision making by authorities leads to an increase in perceived procedural justice and enhanced compliance. The first of these requires more research.

Measuring Procedural Justice Policy Adherence During Use of Force Events: The Body-Worn Camera as a Performance Monitoring Tool

This study capitalizes on a successful researcher–practitioner partnership to conduct a systematic social observation (SSO) of police body-worn camera (BWC) footage in Newark, NJ. To demonstrate the utility of BWCs as performance monitoring tools, we measure officer adherence to procedural justice standards throughout use of force events as mandated in the Newark Police Division’s updated policies pursuant to an ongoing federal consent decree. Overall, a slim majority of use of force events are procedurally just. However, results indicate several instances of policy noncompliance. Results are discussed, and policy recommendations related to procedural justice policy violations and BWCs for performance monitoring are provided.