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The implications of a co-innovation project including elements of biophysical and social science are examined, particularly as they relate to conceptualisation(s) of community resilience. The framework of community resilience is used to explain how a farming region in New Zealand has increased their social, human, and environmental capital, despite a recent decline in economic capital as a result of a reduction in the global value of milk powder. The social learning, alteration of the project, and changes in decision making as a result of the project are reported in an example of positive outcomes from effectively facilitated transdisciplinary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Travelling and solitary wave solutions of certain coupled nonlinear diffusion-reaction equations have been constructed using the auxiliary equation method. These equations arise in a variety of contexts not only in biological, chemical and physical sciences but also in ecological and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we examine how native language, sex, and college major interact to influence accuracy and preferred strategy when performing mental rotation (MR). Native monolingual Chinese and English speakers rotated 3-D shapes while maintaining a concurrent verbal or spatial memory load. For English speakers, male physical science majors were more accurate than social science majors and employed a spatial/ holistic strategy; male social science majors used a verbal/analytic strategy. Regardless of college major, English-speaking females were not consistent in MR strategy. A small overall advantage in accuracy was found for Chinese speakers, and both male and female Chinese-speaking physical science majors relied on a combined spatial/holistic and verbal/analytic strategy; Chinese-speaking social science majors did not show a strategy preference. Our results suggest that acquiring a logographic language like Chinese may heighten spatial ability and bias one toward a spatial/holistic MR strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is one of the most significant and difficult issues facing the world today. As result, researchers in a number of disciplines have directed their attention to addressing issues relevant to the study of and responses to global warming. This has been less true in the social sciences, and especially within specific social sciences such as criminology, in comparison to the physical sciences. Global warming does, however, have criminological and sociological relevance on several levels. This article examines one of those levels by exploring the politicalization of global warming under the Bush Administration, and addresses this issue as an example of state-corporate crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anderson [Science 177, 293 (1972)] proposed the concept of complexity in order to describe the emergence and growth of macroscopic collective patterns out of the simple interactions of many microscopic agents. In the physical sciences this paradigm was implemented systematically and confirmed repeatedly by successful confrontation with reality. In the social sciences however, the possibilities to stage experiments to validate it are limited. During the 90's a series of dramatic political and economic events have provided the opportunity to do so. We exploit the resulting empirical evidence to validate a simple agent based alternative to the classical logistic dynamics. The post-liberalization empirical data from Poland confirm the theoretical prediction that the dynamics is dominated by singular rare events which insure the resilience and adaptability of the system. We have shown that growth is led by few singular “growth centers" (Fig. 1), that initially developed at a tremendous rate (Fig. 3), followed by a diffusion process to the rest of the country and leading to a positive growth rate uniform across the counties. In addition to the interdisciplinary unifying potential of our generic formal approach, the present work reveals the strong causal ties between the “softer" social conditions and their “hard" economic consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article explores an issue on a more technical end of design research which is conducted in industrial design programs in leading art and design universities, technical universities and software research programs in Europe. It presents a collection of papers that represents some of the best pieces of ongoing work in that field. The research aims to provide readers a map that would be helpful to understand the papers in terms relevant to a person with background in the social sciences. The writers have established a device, an artwork or an environment which is used as a kind of physical hypothesis to determine whether their theoretical work made sense.

Common observations of the unpredictability of human behavior and the influence of one question on the answer to another suggest social science experiments are probabilistic and may be mutually incompatible with one another, characteristics attributed to quantum mechanics (as distinguished from classical mechanics). This paper examines this superficial similarity in depth using the Foulis–Randall Operational Statistics language. In contradistinction to physics, social science deals with complex, open systems for which the set of possible experiments is unknowable and outcome interference is a graded phenomenon resulting from the ways the human brain processes information. It is concluded that social science is, in some ways, “less classical” than quantum mechanics, but that generalized “quantum” structures may provide appropriate descriptions of social science experiments. Specific challenges to extending “quantum” structures to social science are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the problems of upscaling that arise in the context of global change research in a wide variety of disciplines in the physical and social sciences. Major scaling problems in a wide range of disciplines; Why scaling problems arise and their solutions; Scaling problems by causal factor; Discussion of research needs and the implications of upscaling for predictability and other issues concerning global change research.

Patterns observable in variables and relationships from the physical sciences and engineering suggest, by analogy, a framework incorporating variables and relationships from the social sciences and management. The framework provides theoretical support for using dynamic models in management, and may help to explain the behavior over time of apparently unrelated variables like worker performance incentives and work in progress inventory. The framework also suggests a new analytical approach for the concept of productivity. An example illustrates the implementation of the concepts. This work sets the stage to building equation-based testable research hypotheses as a contribution to management research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the application of ideas and tools of physics in economics, or econophysics. In 2005, some econophysicists went as far as to suggest that economics might be the next physical science. However, the marriage between physics and economics appears to be on the verge of divorce. Even those economists who at first welcomed econophysics are beginning to wonder whether it is every going to deliver on its promise. Even some econophysicists admit that there are problems. Still, if econophysics is to survive and succeed, it need support from somewhere.

Discusses the views of the author on the idea of a scientific social sciences. Influence of structuralism in the social sciences; Reasons for the impossibility of experimenting in the social sciences; Difference of social sciences from physical and biological sciences.

This paper tackles two related issues in dealing with so-called "wicked" problems: the challenge for scientists wishing to provide useful policy advice whilst maintaining scientific integrity and the challenge of integrating multiple disciplines across the social and physical sciences. It focusses particularly on the problems associated with volcanic risks—specifically those problems that threaten to "politicise" volcanology via the role of scientists in advising authorities. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 calls for a greater role for science in reducing risk. It conceives of science very broadly—incorporating social, physical, medical, economic, agricultural and behavioural sciences into the policy process. This presents an exciting opportunity; yet, there are difficulties in approaching the science-policy encounter in the context of risk, especially under high uncertainty and involving multiple disciplines. The paper reviews literature in volcanic risk assessment, science studies, and policy studies to suggest that risk requires critical, reflexive, transparent, and discursive management through the availability of spaces in which academics of all disciplines, policymakers, and stakeholders can openly discuss method, meaning, and interpretation of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on why integration of social science into research is important. She states many researchers in the life and physical sciences are dismissive of social sciences and examines the integration of social sciences into research projects. She recommends that integration initiatives should use teams of social scientists who are given operational and financial autonomy to define and enact their activities. She talks about her own experiences working with nanotechnology scientists.