This paper presents a novel model of interaction patterns between individual agents in dynamic social networks. A simulation was developed implementing the directed diffusion protocol to propagate beliefs through a social network. Belief propagation through a social network is modeled as packet propagation through a wireless sensor network using the directed diffusion protocol. This data propag...

Focusing on the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a summation of several epidemics coexisting in the same space and drawing on Brazilian epidemiological data, we argue that the epidemic there shows variations already described elsewhere, such as feminization, pauperization, juvenization and interiorization, as a result of the deep inequalities characteristic of Brazilian society. We then examine the contrib...

This paper proposes a re-thinking of the relationship between sociology and the biological sciences. Tracing lines of connection between the history of sociology and the contemporary landscape of biology, the paper argues for a reconfiguration of this relationship beyond popular rhetorics of 'biologization' or 'medicalization'. At the heart of the paper is a claim that, today, there are some po...

influence of The Sociological Imagination, they think of such concepts as the intersection of biography and history, the distinction between personal troubles and public issues, the predilection for psychologisms instead of social structural explanations, and the pitfalls of abstract empiricism and grand theorizing. As is well established, Mills’s insights on these matters are particularly rele...

Pierre Bourdieu is without a doubt one of the main figures in the sociological study of culture today. Yet, for a theorist so central to the subject matter of cultural studies, it is clear that there is no coherent account of Bourdieu’s stance in relation to the ‘concept of culture’ among current commentators. More importantly, in the sister-discipline of anthropology, Bourdieu’s is thought of ...

Received: 10 August 2005 Revised: 21 September 2005 Accepted: 28 September 2005 From my perspective as a sociologist there are far too few artists in sociology today, those who combine an innovative vision with an exhilarating voice. With the loss of Claudio Ciborra that number has diminished. Readers of this journal may be somewhat surprised that I appreciate Ciborra largely as a sociological ...

This article demonstrates the relevance of animals to medical sociology by arguing that pet owners' accounts of veterinary decision-making can highlight key sociological themes which are important to both human and animal health. Based on semi-structured interviews, the article argues that interspecies 'kinship' allows for the extension of sociological claims regarding altruism, self-interest a...

This paper describes the sociological concept of roles as a basis for designing computer-supported community systems (CSCS). The goal is the systematic analysis of roles and role-development from a sociological point of view to enhance socio-technical community-systems. In system theory social structures are expectational structures and roles identify these expectations [22]. Roles explain how ...

Identity empowerment is defined as the deliberate enhancement of clients' awareness of their values and goals and of clients' expression of these values and goals in everyday behavior. Values are the deepest and broadest objectives or goals with which an individual can identify. Identity empowerment culminates in observable increases in clients' behavioral expressions of their values in social ...

With increasing recognition of venereal infection as a behavioural disease, considerable interest has been focused on the relationship of various psychosocial parameters to these diseases. Eysenck's (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1964) refinement of the personality inventory has provided a useful tool for obtaining quantitative indicators of one such parameterpersonality. The personality of venereal dis...