Design Improvements for Message Propagation in Malleable Social Networks

This study presents the formal problem definition and computational analysis of the network design improvements for idea and message propagation in both enterprise and consumer social networks (ESN and CSN, respectively). Message propagation in social networks is impacted by how messages are seeded in the network, and by propagation characteristics of the network topology itself. It has been recognized that the propagation properties of these networks can be actively influenced by network design interventions, such as the deliberate creation of new connections. We address the problem of finding cost‐effective message seeding, and identifying potential new network connections that allow improved propagation in social networks with cascade propagation. We use the hop‐constrained minimum spanning tree (HMST) model to find the seeds and possible new connections that result in networks with improved propagation properties. Moreover, we present new heuristic algorithms that substantially improve the solution quality for the HMST problem. Computational results posit that the design improvements proposed by the HMST approach can greatly improve cascade propagation performance of the networks at low cost.     

Adolescents' Expenditure On Alcohol: A Pilot Study

Minimal research has examined the extent to which underage youth access and purchase alcohol. This pilot study investigated adolescents' expenditure on alcohol, and the circumstances in which underage youth access alcohol. A street intercept survey was used to interview 187 young people aged 13 to 17 years in shopping centres in metropolitan and rural Victoria, Australia. Seventy percent of the sample self‐reported that they drink alcohol. Young people were more likely to report that they were drinkers as their income increased. More than one‐third of the sample and over half of drinkers purchased alcohol with their own money, spending on average $22 when they last purchased alcohol. Drinkers obtained their alcohol from a variety of other sources including friends over 18 years old and their parents. This study shows that underage youth have access to and pay for alcohol even if they do not purchase it personally. Further research in this area with a larger sample is clearly warranted to inform both prevention strategies and effective practice.     

Potential Health Effects of Light-Duty Diesel Exhaust

The purpose of this paper is to review briefly the evidence for potential human health effects that may result from increased dieselization of the nation's light-duty vehicle fleet. An effort is made to put the potential effects into perspective, both with regard to projected excess cancer deaths, should diesel exhaust be carcinogenic to humans, and in relation to past use of vehicles using leaded gasoline. Certain related research needs are highlighted. Available data concerning the relationship between diesel emissions, ambient air quality, and human health are summarized. On the basis of exposure estimates and relative potency factors, the authors conclude that the best estimate of the number of excess annual U.S. lung cancer deaths as a result of lifetime exposure to light-duty diesel particulate under 1990 conditions is between 80 and 1500. Available data suggest that the carcinogenic hazard of exhaust from vehicles burning leaded gasoline may be an order of magnitude greater, on a per mile basis, than that of diesel engines. The hazard of emissions from diesel are, in turn, probably an order of magnitude greater than that of gasoline engines with catalytic converters burning unleaded gasoline. Important research needs identified by the authors include determining whether diesel exhaust is in fact a human carcinogen, studying the effect of atmospheric chemical transformation of organics in diesel exhaust on the toxicity of the exhaust, making a better determination of the relative carcinogenicity of diesel and gasoline exhausts, and determining whether exposure to diesel exhaust contributes to the development or exacerbation of chronic lung disease or of respiratory illness, especially in the very young and the aged.     

Risk and the welfare state

The British welfare state developed as a state-centred response to the problem of handling the risks encountered in a typical life-course. The influential work of Giddens and others implies that the traditional welfare state is under attack from two directions: a changing international politico-economic environment limits the freedom of national governments to pursue independent policies involving relatively high taxation to finance social spending. At the same time, changes in the experience of risk and declining confidence in the expertise of welfare state planners and professionals undermine support for state-centred solutions. This approach fails to acknowledge that available non-state services are often inadequate to meet many everyday life risks and that the authority of private sector advisers, insurers and professionals is also increasingly open to question. This article discusses whether people reject welfare state solutions to problems of risk in the context of research on the perceptions and behaviour of people buying or selling their homes, considering provision for long-term care needs and defrauding social security carried out by the ESRC's Economic Beliefs and Behaviour programme. Individual responses endorse the continued provision of state welfare in order to meet unprovided risks alongside disenchantment with the record of both state and private professionals and planners and awareness that state retrenchment requires greater individual responsibility for meeting one's own needs. The theory of risk society requires development to recognize that citizens are not necessarily alienated from state welfare.     

Overlooked and Invisible: Everyday Experiences of Microaggressions for LGBTQ Adolescents

ABSTRACT

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) adolescents face a number of challenges in their lives related to heterosexism and cissexism. Drawing on the microaggressions framework, we conducted two focus groups with LGBTQ adolescents (n = 11; ages 14–18, six trans/genderfluid, one person of color) to (1) explore the type and nature of microaggressions experienced by LGBTQ adolescents; (2) assess the relevance of existing LGBTQ microaggression taxonomies for this group; and (3) understand the impact of microaggressions on LGBTQ adolescents. Participants’ experiences of microaggressions reflected complex forms of discrimination emerging from the intersections of sexual and gender identity.     

Calling for accounts: numbers, monsters and membership1

This article questions how accounts are marked. In asking why some accounts ‘pass muster’ and others fail, the analysis brings into focus the extent to which membership work helps hold the social and the technical apart. The analysis contrasts a long insistence on narrative forms of interaction as defining conditions of co‐presence with numerical regimes in which there is an implicit deletion of social contact under fashionable slogans like ‘action at a distance’. Taking numbers to act as ‘bearers of culture’, the paper contests the idea that numerical forms of accountability delete the membership work traditionally associated with narrative forms of account. Attending closely to ‘occasions’ in which it is appropriate for members to deploy numerical accounts rather than verbal accounts, the argument challenges the idea that a face to face negotiation of social order has been superceded by a pervasive use of perfonnance targets. The article begins by exploring how ‘calls to account’ are created by a reporting of adverse budget variatices within organizations. Using an extended example to consider how such ‘gaps’ affect a manager's conduct towards a spouse who is sick, the analysis shows how the use of numbers becomes crucial to sustaining one's affiliation across a range of memberships. As illustrated, the rehabilitation of numerical artefacts into conceptions of the social greatly expands possibilities for interaction beyond that anticipated by the sociological ideal of ‘co‐presence’.     

The Animal Rights Movement in Theory and Practice: A Review of the Sociological Literature

Traditionally, philosophers have had most to say about the ethics of our treatment of non‐human animals (hereafter animals); it is only in recent years that social scientists have engaged with issues concerning humans and other animals. However, in the sociological literature and more generally in the emerging field of Human–Animal Studies (HAS), evidence of interest in the animal protection movement is slight. This review of Eliasian theory, Marxist realism, feminism, ecofeminism, and social constructionist theory – along with key activist approaches to animal activism and advocacy – indicates the theoretical richness of the topic that is nonetheless empirically poor. The animal protection movement is referred to here simply as the animal movement or where appropriate, as one of its three strands – animal welfare, animal liberation and animal rights. The article concludes with a discussion of how social movement theory (the ‘why’) and practice (the ‘how’) might be enhanced by social movement scholars working in collaboration with animal activists.     

Student bodies, past and present

This article examines how the field of college health has evolved over time to address the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. The central argument is that college and university health programs developed in conjunction with shifting standards of medical care and public health practices in the United States. The author reviews the role of college health programs as public health agencies for campus communities, and describes contemporary public health challenges facing college campuses. She shows how the history of college health is intertwined with the history of diversity in higher education. In particular, the author outlines how the growth of health services made higher education accessible to women, racial minorities, veterans, and persons with disabilities.     

Canada as Reflected in her Participation in the Coronation of her Monarchs in the Twentieth Century

The evolution of the Crown from an institution imposed by colonial powers to one that has become uniquely Canadian is symbolised through the rituals and ceremonial of the Coronations of Canada's Monarchs in the twentieth century. This study reveals the development under the Crown of an indigenous honours system instituted to celebrate the achievements of Canadians. The granting of honours by the sovereign for the Coronation changed from British, to distinctively Canadian ones. In addition, the gradual evolution of the Canadian military from militia to regular army, navy and air force is seen in the Canadian military's participation in the Coronation Procession. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, through their various transformations, represented Canada's values of "peace, order and good government" and had a place of prominence at all four Coronations. Canadians saw themselves as an important and integral part of the British Empire in 1902 and transformed to an independent and respected people with considerable world power and influence by 1953. Through the Coronation ceremonies, Canadians publicly celebrated their ideals as a people and reflected their "national" character to the world while at the same time rooting the Crown more deeply in Canadian soil.