248,516 research outputs found
ECONOMY AND SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
Market reforms in the post-socialist countries have brought into sharp focus the problem of interconnection and interaction between the economy and the social environment. The economy is inseparable from politics and the operation of the political system, from the state of the social consciousness, the moral and cultural level of the population and from many other aspects of human life and behavior, in short, from everything that can be described by the concept of social environment. Society in every country is a single organism with closely interconnected and interacting parts and systems. Their conjugation and mutual influence are not always apparent and are often overlooked. It is quite easy to see how changes in policy affect the economy and then trace the feedback effect of the economy on policy. It is more difficult to discern the direct and feedback relationship of the economy with administrative relations, with the state of culture, science, morals and public opinion. Meanwhile, an underestimation of these mutual influences is a frequent cause of failures in socio-economic transformation. It is to be regretted that the reforms in Russia were accompanied by a dangerous disruption not only of the economy, but also of the entire system of social relations. What was primary here and what was secondary? In order to answer this question the paper takes a theoretical look at the problem of interaction between the economy and the social environment.Development Planning and Policy; Economic Development
Embedding Robotic Agents in the Social Environment
This paper discusses the interactive vision approach, which advocates using knowledge from the human sciences on the structure and dynamics of human-human interaction in the development of machine vision systems and interactive robots. While this approach is discussed generally, the particular case of the system being developed for the Aurora project (which aims to produce a robot to be used as a tool in the therapy of children with autism) is especially considered, with description of the design of the machine vision system being employed and discussion of ideas from the human sciences with particular reference to the Aurora system. An example architecture for a simple interactive agent, which will likely form the basis for the first implementation of this system, is briefly described and a description of hardware used for the Aurora system is given.Peer reviewe
Defining Obesity: An Argument for the Social Environment Perspective
It is well documented that obesity is a growing problem in the U.S. and worldwide. By 2010, 35.9% of U.S. adults age 20 and older were obese (Overweight and Obesity, CDC). Obesity has been associated with many health problems, including hypertension, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, stroke, and cardiac disease (Lucey, 2008, p.202). What has just been described is the traditional, medicalized narrative of obesity. In this narrative, obesity is viewed as an epidemic that demands an immediate and widespread response (Lucey, 2008, p.202). The blame is placed largely on individuals, while social factors, such as socioeconomic status and neighborhood environment, are largely ignored. The traditional, medicalized narrative is the dominant narrative in U.S. society today. As a result, policy initiatives aimed at reducing the prevalence of obesity focus on changing individualsâ behaviors. One such initiative is to tax sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). The idea is to deter individuals from buying sugary drinks and steer them towards healthier options. In this paper, I use an SSB tax policy in order to examine how obesity is defined, measured, and viewed by different groups in American society. Furthermore, I argue that the traditional narrative of obesity is flawed and contributes to unnecessary negative stigma of the obese. In contrast, I will show that social factors play the most important role in the growing trend towards larger and heavier bodies. Therefore, policy initiatives aimed at reducing obesity should focus on reducing social disparities in society
The Social Psychology Of Perception Experiments: Hills, Backpacks, Glucose, And The Problem Of Generalizability
Experiments take place in a physical environment but also a social environment. Generalizability from experimental manipulations to more typical contexts may be limited by violations of ecological validity with respect to either the physical or the social environment. A replication and extension of a recent study (a blood glucose manipulation) was conducted to investigate the effects of experimental demand (a social artifact) on participant behaviors judging the geographical slant of a large-scale outdoor hill. Three different assessments of experimental demand indicate that even when the physical environment is naturalistic, and the goal of the main experimental manipulation was primarily concealed, artificial aspects of the social environment (such as an explicit requirement to wear a heavy backpack while estimating the slant of a hill) may still be primarily responsible for altered judgments of hill orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract
Dukungan Lingkungan Sosial Budaya terhadap Kemampuan Petani dalam Pengelolaan Hutan Kemiri di Kabupaten Maros Provinsi Sulawesi Selatan
Living around the candlenut forest in Maros District have been managing and utilizing candlenut forest since 1826. These activities have been part of their daily living activities. The existence of candlenut forest is a successful evidence of farmers ability in managing that forest. It is presumed that the cultural social environtment has important roles to form the farmers' ability to manage and to utilize candlenut forest. The research intended to analyze the contribution of cultural social environment to farmers' ability in managing and utilizing candlenut forest. The data were collected on January-Maret 2010 in Maros District, South Sulawesi Province using some methods: questionnare list, interview, observation, and documents. The data were analyzed using (1) descriptive statistics, and (2) inferensial statistics based on SEM using LISREL 8.70 software programming. The result shows that farmers' contribution of cultural social environment, today is low. It, however, has a positive contribution for increasing farmers' ablity
Decomposing Cross-Country Gaps in Obesity and Overweight: Does the Social Environment Matter?
[cat] Una qĂźestiĂł clau sobre la producciĂł de salut relativament poc explorada es refereix a la influència dels factors socioeconòmics i mediambientals sobre el pes i lâobesitat. Aquesta problemĂ tica adquireix particular rellevĂ ncia quan es comparen dos paĂŻsos Mediterranis com ItĂ lia i Espanya. Ăs interessant adonar-se que lâobesitat a Espanya ĂŠs 5 punts percentual mĂŠs elevada al 2003 mentre que a lâany 1990 era aproximadament la mateixa en ambdĂłs paĂŻsos. Aquesta article presenta una descomposiciĂł no lineal dels gaps o diferencials en taxes de sobrepès (Ăndex de massa corporal â IMC- entre 25 i 29.9 9 kg/m2), obesitat classe 1 (IMCâĽ30 kg/m2) i classe 2 (IMCâĽ35 kg/m2) entre Espanya i ItĂ lia per gènere i grups dâedat. En explicar aquests gaps entre paĂŻsos aĂŻllem les influències dels estils de vida, els efectes socioeconòmics i els mediambientals. Els nostres resultats indiquen que quan no es controla pels efectes mediambientals (efectes de grup o âpeer effectsâ) els hĂ bits alimentaris i el nivell educatiu sĂłn els principals predictors del gaps totals entre paĂŻsos (36-52%), si bĂŠ aquests dos factors exerceixen un impacte diferenciat segons gènere i edat. Un tant paradoxalment, quan controlem pels efectes de grup aquests predictors perden la seva capacitat explicativa i els efectes de grup passen a explicar entre el 46-76% dels gaps en sobrepès i obesitat i mostren un patrĂł creixent amb lâedat.[eng] A key question underpinning health production, and one that remains relatively unexplored, is the influence of socio-economic and environmental factors on weight gain and obesity. Such issues acquire particular relevance when data from two Mediterranean countries (Italy and Spain) are compared. Interestingly, the obesity rate was 5 percentage points higher in Spain in 2003 while in 1990 it had been roughly the same in the two countries. This paper reports a non-linear decomposition of gaps in overweight (body mass index â BMI - between 25 and 29.9 kg/m2), class 1 (BMIâĽ30 kg/m2) and class 2 obesity (BMIâĽ35 kg/m2) between Spain and Italy by both gender and age. We isolate the influence of lifestyles, socioeconomic and environmental effects in explaining cross-country gaps in the prevalence of obesity. Our findings suggest that when the social environment (peer effects) is not controlled for, eating habits and education are the main predictors of total cross-country gaps (36-52%), albeit that these two factors have a different impact depending on gender and age. Somewhat paradoxically, however, when we controlled for the social environment, these previous predictors lost their explanatory power and peer effects were found to explain between 46 and 76% of gaps and to exhibit an increasing age pattern
On Causal Relations between Mental Organizer, Action under Mental Processes, and Social Environment
The purpose of the research was to study the relationships
between mental organizers, action under mental process, and social
environment through observation. A category system for each
behavior was constructed and data were analyzed with matrices to
find out kinds of root causes in causal dynamic. Reliability,
subjectivity, and validity of observation were assessed. The
coefficient of reliability was 0.937. The observation had about 11%
subjectivity, and the frequencies were in the categories where they
should be, mainly. Results indicate that there occurs causal
variety. The causes are not stable. As an entity, the results show
that it is possible to tackle mind processes through the causation.
Furthermore, the processes are in series but they drop by in a
parallel mode when the task becomes more difficult. However, the
mindamic seems to have the greatest possible number of the degrees
of freedom, simultaneously
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