This paper argues that the social sciences are fragmented in addressing the environmental challenge of increasing resource depletion. To address this problem, the paper puts forward a framework which encompasses several disciplinary approaches, and above all a long-term historical perspective and a realist sociology of science and technology which, in combination, provide a means of understandi...

1 Centre for Research on Inner City Health, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 2 Department of Public Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 3 Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. 4 Department of Behavioral and Community Health Services, Grad...

The complexities of modeling uncertain data in economics, engineering, environmental science, sociology, medical science and many other fields can not be successfully dealt with by classical methods. While probability theory, fuzzy set theory,rough set theory, vague set theory and the interval mathematics are useful approaches to describing uncertainty, each of these theories has its inherent d...

Issues of spatial dependence have arisen in several areas of research, such as the environmental sciences, economics and sociology, but may be more generally relevant in circumstances in which cross-sectional or panel data are collected. Book-length descriptions statistical methods of analyzing spatial data include Cliff and Ord (1981), Anselin (1988), Haining (1990), Cressie (1993), Guyon (199...

1 Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, University Hospital, University of Duisburg-Essen, Hufelandstr. 55, 45122 Essen, Germany; 2 Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biometry and Informatics, Medical Faculty, Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany; 3 Institute of Medical Sociology, Medical Faculty, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany; Wes...

This article offers some reflections on the nature and role of space and spatial analysis in criminology. It proceeds in two parts. It starts by comparing and contrasting the spatial legacy of the Chicago School of sociology—seen by most as the progenitors of environmental criminology—with the general approach to space adopted by cultural geographers. The second part breaks new ground for crimi...

mainstream sociology under positivism has sought to provide universal theory, in one hand, and the historiography has attempted to narrative description of events, in the other hand. pathological studies show that both are suffering from extremism; so that mainstream sociology have neglected to study of special affairs and historiography  has not been able to build and provide theoretical gener...

Technological innovation is a phenomenon that has been explored from a variety of perspectives, most prominently from the perspective of economics. Recently scholars from organizational and economic sociology have begun to explore innovation. In your view, does this research offer a coherent perspective on innovation? Of what value is an organizational and economic sociology perspective on inno...