SOCIAL ATOMISM, HOLISM, AND TRUST

The metatheoretical difference between social atomism and social holism is clarified by analysis of the generic necessity of trust. A theoretical approach to trust can be traced from Durkheim, Simmel, Parsons, and the recent work of Luhmann and Barber. Trust functions as a deep assumption underwriting social order and is not reducible to individual characteristics. Changes in trust alter social relationships. The study of power, exchange, family, and politics illustrates how trust constitutes social reality as emergent and holistic. This helps us understand the formation of interpersonal relationships, the difference between economic and social exchange, and the discrepancy between attitudes toward society and toward particular institutional actors.     

Stratification, Ideology, and Opportunity Beliefs among Black Soldiers

While many social observers feel that the military offers blacksbetter opportunities than do civilian institutions, the overwhelmingmajority of the 454 black soldiers sampled in this study eitherequate the two sectors or rate civilian institutions as superior.Both position in the military hierarchy (rank) and ideologicalorientation (separatist, pluralist, or assimilationist) providesome assistance in differentiating those soldiers more likelyto cite the military as comparatively advantageous for blacks.     

Pragmatic Thinking about Self,Society, and Natural Environment: Mead,Carson, and Beyond

An interactionist approach provides a relevant point of view on human—natural environment relations. This essay draws on an interactionist approach from a Meadian, pragmatic, social constructionist perspective. In the context of grounded distinctions for interpreting “natural environment,” this discussion considers instances of human intervention and levels of responses, for example, individual, social, cultural, historical, and utopian, as variant, even conflicting, reconstructions of the foundational relationship of human—natural environment interaction. Incorporating a pragmatic model derived from Rachel Carson, the work at hand focuses on knowledge and ethical claims, as discourse and action shift from preventing to mitigating and adjusting environmental outcomes.     

Lawns of weeds: Status in opposition to life

The modern high status lawn is a recent cultural form that motivates human responses with emerging negative physical outcomes. From a dualistic theoretical perspective, this article analyzes the modern lawn in terms of cultural dichotomies and applies a theory of status construction to show how the lawn becomes both an indicator of status and a component of identity and motivation. Then, it reports selected indicators of negative physical outcomes. The dual outcomes illustrate the empirical challenge of “Simmel’s lemma” stating that culture is in opposition to life.     

THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF IDENTITY: METATHEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS*

Identity has emerged as a powerful contemporary concept for social and psychological approaches to the perennial question of defining the human individual. This article attempts to ground the understanding of identity by a discussion of its modes, sources, and metadynamics from a pragmatic social constructionist orientation.     

Transverse Interaction: A Pragmatic Perspective On Environment As Other

This paper formulates an overlooked type of “transverse interaction” between symbol users and the physical environment. Understanding this type leads to recognition of objects constructed as environmental others. Other is a key concept within the interactionist tradition, but emphasis has been on the social life process rather than the physical world that is there. Parallel with the Generalized Social Other is a Generalized Environmental Other. These considerations emphasize naturalistic meanings as a central concern for interactionists.     

Identity: Its Emergence within Sociological Psychology*

Identity is an oft used technical term in sociological social psychology. Yet, its rather recent emergence remains uncharted. Discussion of its origin in the post World War II period from the writings of Erikson leads to recognition of its rapid development in the 1960's and 1970's. Five theoretical sources are currently informing the development and use of the concept. Its continued strength is apparently in response to the need to interpret contemporary American society. By the 1980's, identity serves as a powerful bridging concept stretched across micro and macro levels of theory and reaching from laboratory analyses to cultural criticism.     

Agent-based interbay system control for a single-loop semiconductor manufacturing fab

This study investigates agent-based interbay control of a wafer fabrication facility with a single-loop track. Doing so will simultaneously resolve the production scheduling and vehicle dispatching problems for an interbay over-hoist-transportation system which is commonly employed in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Two issues are focused on in this study: (i) To design appropriate agent-based control architecture for an interbay system and (ii) to develop a coordination mechanism for the autonomous agents in the interbay system, so that wafer manufacturing tasks can be accomplished efficiently. In this study, we construct a distributed interbay system architecture, in which wafer cassettes, vehicles, and manufacturing cells with stockers are modelled as independent and autonomous agents. This study develops an agent coordination mechanism that is based on a vehicle-initiated contract net protocol. Three types of bidding strategies are proposed and empirically examined via simulation. The performances of the proposed agent-based control mechanism, in terms of cassette sojourn time and throughput, are observed and our experiments have shown promising results.