The Problem of Observing Sociotechnical Entities in Social Science and Humanities Energy Transition Research

The notion of “sociotechnical” is an important concept for interdisciplinary research on the transformation of the energy supply. Different branches of research agree that the provision, transmission, and distribution of energy are not simply a matter of physics. The transformation of the energy infrastructure is significantly a societal project, carried by technical innovation and social change. However, in social science and humanities research the interrelation between technical and social processes is often not explicitly explored, even though the interrelationship is the decisive descriptor that distinguishes sociotechnical entities from their environment. This article examines the merits of enriching the concept of sociotechnical by adding the distinction between tight and loose couplings in technical operations and human activities. While tight couplings are necessary to sustain control, they hamper change, and while loose couplings are necessary to adapt and to uphold choice, they increase complexity. Additionally, the article concludes that the introduction of “smart” technologies—an essential vision of the energy transformation—changes the composition of tight and loose couplings. Technical ideas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence go beyond mere automation. We might as well face a new sociotechnical reality. The introduction of intelligence in systems makes more loose couplings necessary. Paradoxically, this allows for new functionality and services by establishing complex operations while at the same time diminishing control by social systems

Designing coupled-resonator optical waveguide delay lines

We address the trade-offs among delay, loss, and bandwidth in the design of coupled-resonator optical waveguide (CROW) delay lines. We begin by showing the convergence of the transfer matrix, tight-binding, and time domain formalisms in the theoretical analysis of CROWs. From the analytical formalisms we obtain simple, analytical expressions for the achievable delay, loss, bandwidth, and a figure of merit to be used to compare delay line performance. We compare CROW delay lines composed of ring resonators, toroid resonators, Fabry-Perot resonators, and photonic crystal defect cavities based on recent experimental results reported in the literature

Digitally induced industry paradoxes: disruptive innovations of taxiwork and music streaming beyond organizational boundaries

The exponential growth of digital technologies and their increased importance in both organizational and everyday life poses new challenges to paradox research within management studies. Management scholars taking a paradoxical lens have predominantly focused on social paradoxes within the confines of the organization. Technological change has often been treated as an exogenous force bringing previously latent tensions to the fore. Such newly salient paradoxes are viewed as instigating managerial sensemaking and exploration of strategic responses that will re-establish equilibrium. Our investigation of how digital innovations disrupted London taxiwork and global music distribution shows something different. The paradoxical tensions raised by emerging digital technologies inevitably play out at industry and societal levels. Concomitant changes in boundaries, categories, and potentials for action that shape and channel ongoing industry transformation call for organizational responses and adaptation. Critically, such tensions must be interpreted within the context of industry arrangements absent a centrally controlling actor. Rather than episodes of exogenous change, the nature of the digital, along with interactions across multiple sources of agency, continually surface complex dynamic and systemic tensions within and across industries. Our findings highlight the importance of explicitly accounting for the inter-relatedness and mutual dependence of the social and technical elements of change. As digital innovation expands and starts to impact all aspects of human experience it is critical for management scholars to reflect how the paradoxical perspective can be expanded to better understand these contemporary large-scale changes

Toward a universal theory of the human group: sociological systems framework applied to the comparative analysis of groups and organizations

Drawing on a sociological multi-level, dynamic systems approach – actor-system-dynamics (ASD) -- which has been developed and applied in institutional, organizational, and societal analyses, we formulate a general model for the comparative analysis of social groups and organizations. This social systems approach has not been previously applied in the group area. We claim that the approach can be systematically and fruitfully applied to small as well as large groups and organizations as a methodology to understand and analyze their structure, functioning and dynamics. A group is considered a system with three universal subsystems on which any human social organization, including small groups, depends and which motivate, shape and regulate group activities and productions. The subsystems are bases or group requisites – necessary for group “functioning” and performance in more or less orderly or coherent ways; on this basis a group may be able to realize its purposes or goals(as well as possibly some members’ personal goals) and maintain and reproduce the group. The group bases consist of: first, a rule regime (collective culture)defining group identity and purpose, shaping and regulating roles and role relationships, normative patterns and behavioral outputs; second, an agential base of group members who are socialized or partially socialized carriers of and adherents to the group’s identity and rule regime; of relevance here are involvement/participation factors motivating member to adhere to, accept, and implement key components of the rule regime; third, there is a resource base, 2 technologies and materials, self-produced and/or obtained from the environment, which are essential to group functioning and key group performances. Section I briefly presents the framework and outlines the group systems model, characterized by its three universal bases or subsystems and its finite universal production functions and their outputs as well as the particular context(s) in which groups function. For illustrative purposes, the section identifies three major ideal-type modalities of group formation: informal self-organization by agents, group construction by external agents, and group formation through more or less formal multi-agent negotiation. The general systems model presented in Section II characterizes a social group not only by its three universal bases but by its finite universal production functions (elaborated in Section IV) and its outputs as well as by its shared places (situations for interaction) and times for gathering and interacting. Group productions impact on the group itself (reflexivity) and on its environment. These outputs, among other things, maintain/adapt/develop the group bases (or possibly unintentionally undermine/destroy them) Thus, groups can be understood as action and interaction systems producing goods, services, incidents and events, experiences, developments, etc. for themselves and possibly for the larger environment on which they depend for resources, recruits, goods and services, and legitimation. The model provides a single perspective for the systematic description and comparative analysis of a wide diversity of groups (Sections III and IV). A major distinctive feature in our systems approach is the conceptualization of rules and rule regimes (Sections II, III, IV, and V). Finite universal rule categories (ten distinct categories) are specified; they characterize every functioning social group or organization. A rule regime, while an abstraction is carried, applied, adapted, and transformed by concrete human agents, who interact, exchange, exercise power, and struggle within the group, in large part based on the rule regime which they maintain and adapt as well as transform. The paper emphasizes not only the systemic character of all functioning groups – universally their three bases and their output functions together with feedback dynamics -- but also the differentiating character of any given group’s distinct rule configuration (Section IV). For illustrative purposes Section IV presents a selection of rule configurations characterizing several ideal types of groups, a military unit, a terrorist group, a recreational or social group, a research group, a corporate entity Section V considers the dynamics of groups in terms of modification and transformation of group bases and their production functions. The group system model enables us to systematically identify and explicate the internal and external factors that drive group change and transformation, exposing the complex interdependencies and dynamic potentialities of group systems. Section VI sums up the work and points out its scope and limitations. The group systems model offers a number of promising contributions: (1) a universal systems model identifies the key subsystems and their interrelationships as well as their role in group production functions/outputs and performances; (2) the work conceptualizes and applies rules and rule complexes and their derivatives in roles, role relationships, norms, group procedures and production functions; (3) it identifies the universal categories of rules making up a rule regime, a major subsystem for any functioning group; (4) the model conceptualizes particular “group rule configurations” – rule regimes with specified rules in the universal rule categories—for any given group; groups are identifiable and differentiable by their rule configurations (as well as by their resource and agency bases); (5) it conceptualizes the notion of the degree of coherence (alternatively, degree of incoherence) of rule configurations characteristic of any given group and offers an explanation of why group attention is focused on the coherence of rules in certain group areas; (6) the systems model suggests an interpretation of Erving Goffman’s “frontstage backstage” distinction in terms of alternative, differentiated rule regimes which are to a greater or lesser extent incoherent with respect to one another; moreover, the participants who are privy to the differentiation navigate using a shared rule complex to translate coherently and consistently 3 from one regime to the other, using appropriate discourses; (7) incoherence, contradiction, conflict and struggle relating to rule regimes are considered part and parcel of group functioning and development; (8)group stability and change are explicated in terms of internal mechanisms (e.g., governance, innovation, and conflict) as well as external mechanisms (resource availability, legal and other institutional developments, population conditions), pointing up the complex systemic interdependencies and dynamic potentialities of group systems; (9) given the multi-level dynamic systems framework (i.e., ASD) that has been applied in a range of special areas (economic, political, technological, environmental, bio-medical, among others) its applicataion in the field of groups is a promising step toward achieving greater synthesis in sociology and social science. This 2nd edition of the paper has been substantially rewritten and extended: the current text is twice the number of pages of the original – and there has been much restructuring of the manuscript as a whole. Tables and figures have been added. Substantively, we developed the following features of the work in the 2nd edition: (1) more attention has been given to tension, conflict, and conflict resolution in groups; (2) we also stressed group requisites for sustainability and group production functions; (3) a section on group formation with illustrations has been added; (4) we have expanded our attention to group rule configurations which differentiate groups from one another but also enable systematic comparisons; (5) we have much expanded consideration of the dynamics of group change and transformation

A Chirality-Based Quantum Leap

There is increasing interest in the study of chiral degrees of freedom occurring in matter and in electromagnetic fields. Opportunities in quantum sciences will likely exploit two main areas that are the focus of this Review: (1) recent observations of the chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect in chiral molecules and engineered nanomaterials and (2) rapidly evolving nanophotonic strategies designed to amplify chiral light-matter interactions. On the one hand, the CISS effect underpins the observation that charge transport through nanoscopic chiral structures favors a particular electronic spin orientation, resulting in large room-temperature spin polarizations. Observations of the CISS effect suggest opportunities for spin control and for the design and fabrication of room-temperature quantum devices from the bottom up, with atomic-scale precision and molecular modularity. On the other hand, chiral-optical effects that depend on both spin- and orbital-angular momentum of photons could offer key advantages in all-optical and quantum information technologies. In particular, amplification of these chiral light-matter interactions using rationally designed plasmonic and dielectric nanomaterials provide approaches to manipulate light intensity, polarization, and phase in confined nanoscale geometries. Any technology that relies on optimal charge transport, or optical control and readout, including quantum devices for logic, sensing, and storage, may benefit from chiral quantum properties. These properties can be theoretically and experimentally investigated from a quantum information perspective, which has not yet been fully developed. There are uncharted implications for the quantum sciences once chiral couplings can be engineered to control the storage, transduction, and manipulation of quantum information. This forward-looking Review provides a survey of the experimental and theoretical fundamentals of chiral-influenced quantum effects and presents a vision for their possible future roles in enabling room-temperature quantum technologies.ISSN:1936-0851ISSN:1936-086