bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
3‐D Characterization of Detrital Zircon Grains and its Implications for Fluvial Transport, Mixing, and Preservation Bias
Authors: Markwitz V. , Kirkland C. L. , Mehnert A. , Gessner K. , Shaw J.
Published: December 2017

Detrital zircon studies can suffer from selective loss of provenance information due to U‐Pb age discordance, metamictization, metamorphic overprinting and fluviatile transport processes. The relationship between isotopic composition and zircon grain shape, and how grain shape is modified during transport, is largely unknown. We combine X‐ray tomography with U‐Pb geochronology to quantify how fluvial transport affects 3‐D zircon shape, detrital age signature, and grain density along the Murchison River, whose catchment comprises Eoarchean to Early Paleozoic source rocks in Western Australia. We acquired tomographic volumes and isotopic data from 373 detrital zircons to document changes in size, shape and density in transport direction, and explore how grain shape, age spectra and the proportion of discordant material vary along the channel. Results show that shape characteristics are sensitive to transport distance, stream gradient, proximity to source material, and whether the source consists of primary or recycled zircons. With increasing transport distance, grain lengths decrease more than their widths. Furthermore, the loss of metamict grains occurs at a near constant rate, resulting in a linear increase of mean calculated zircon density by ca. 0.03 g/cm3 per 100 km transport distance. 3‐D grain shape is therefore strongly linked to detrital age signature, and mean grain density is a function of the absolute transport distance. 3‐D shape characteristics provide valuable information on detrital zircon populations, including the interaction between source materials with fluvial transport processes, which significantly affects preservation bias and, by inference, the representativeness of the sampled data.
Genesis, Pathways, and Terminations of Intense Global Water Vapor Transport in Association with Large‐Scale Climate Patterns
Authors: Sellars S. L. , Kawzenuk B. , Nguyen P. , Ralph F. M. , Sorooshian S.
Published: December 2017

The CONNected objECT (CONNECT) algorithm is applied to global Integrated Water Vapor Transport data from the NASA's Modern‐Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications – Version 2 reanalysis product for the period of 1980 to 2016. The algorithm generates life‐cycle records in time and space evolving strong vapor transport events. We show five regions, located in the midlatitudes, where events typically exist (off the coast of the southeast United States, eastern China, eastern South America, off the southern tip of South Africa, and in the southeastern Pacific Ocean). Global statistics show distinct genesis and termination regions and global seasonal peak frequency during Northern Hemisphere late fall/winter and Southern Hemisphere winter. In addition, the event frequency and geographical location are shown to be modulated by the Arctic Oscillation, Pacific North American Pattern, and the quasi‐biennial oscillation. Moreover, a positive linear trend in the annual number of objects is reported, increasing by 3.58 objects year‐over‐year.
Rupture Along 400 km of the Bering Fracture Zone in the Komandorsky Islands Earthquake (MW 7.8) of 17 July 2017
Authors: Lay Thorne , Ye Lingling , Bai Yefei , Cheung Kwok Fai , Kanamori Hiroo , Freymueller Jeffrey , Steblov Grigory M. , Kogan Mikhail G.
Published: December 2017

The 17 July 2017 Komandorsky Islands MW 7.8 earthquake involved arc‐parallel right‐lateral patchy strike‐slip faulting along ~400 km of the Bering Fracture Zone (BFZ) in the westernmost Aleutian Islands back arc. The large size of the earthquake indicates that the BFZ serves regionally as the primary plate boundary extending from the Near Islands to Kamchatka, with the fore‐arc Komandorsky Sliver translating rapidly parallel to the Aleutian Trench. The slip distribution is determined by analysis of seismic, tsunami, and geodetic observations. Fault displacements of 4 to 8.5 m, mostly in the upper 15 km, but with localized extension to 20 to 30 km depth along a ~100 km long segment of the BFZ, are comparable to the possible slip deficit since the last major earthquakes in this region in 1849 and 1858, given an estimated 5.1 cm/yr rate between the Komandorsky Sliver and the Bering Plate.
Microwave Nondestructive Imaging of Buried Objects Using Improved Scattered‐Field Calibration Technique
Authors: Govind Greeshmaja , Akhtar M. J.
Published: December 2017

A novel microwave subsurface imaging scheme based on an improved electric field calibration technique is proposed in this paper. The proposed imaging scheme requires RF measurement system comprising of a uniform linear transmitter‐receiver antenna array wherein the region under examination is illuminated sequentially to measure the scattering parameters of the test. An appropriate imaging frequency is selected so as to minimize the errors introduced due to coupling among the coresident antennas. The electric field required for the imaging algorithm is obtained from the measured scattering parameters using the proposed calibration methodology in two subsequent steps. The first step of calibration removes the systematic errors inherent in the measured scattering parameters by using known standards such as a metal plate and absorber foam. The second calibration step transforms the calibrated scattering parameters of the test object into electric field values so as to use them in the required inverse reconstruction procedure. The transformation is based on comparison of the measured scattering parameters of a known specimen and test object under the same test environment. The imaging algorithm based on the electric field formulation uses the standard iterative distorted Born procedure. For determining the location of the buried object, a novel data interpretation scheme based on analysis of variance (ANOVA) applied to time domain reflection coefficients obtained from various antenna elements is also proposed here. The applicability including performance evaluation of the proposed imaging scheme is tested by retrieving microwave image of various standard objects buried inside sand.
Calibration and Validation of Swarm Plasma Densities and Electron Temperatures Using Ground‐Based Radars and Satellite Radio Occultation Measurements
Authors: Lomidze Levan , Knudsen David J. , Burchill Johnathan , Kouznetsov Alexei , Buchert Stephan C.
Published: December 2017

In this study we calibrate and validate in situ ionospheric electron density (Ne) and temperature (Te) measured with Langmuir probes (LPs) on the three Swarm satellites orbiting the Earth in circular, nearly polar orbits at ~500 km altitude. We assess the accuracy and reliability of the LP data (December 2013 to June 2016) by using nearly coincident measurements from low‐ and middle‐latitude incoherent scatter radars (ISRs), low‐latitude ionosondes, and Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) satellites, covering all latitudes. The comparison results for plasma frequency (
) for each Swarm satellite are consistent across these three, principally different measurement techniques. It shows that the Swarm LPs systematically underestimate plasma frequency by about 10% (0.5–0.6 MHz). The correlation coefficients are high (≥0.97), indicating accurate relative variation in the Swarm LP densities. The comparison of Te from high‐gain LPs and those from ISRs reveals that all three satellites overestimate it by 300–400 K but exhibit high correlations (0.92–0.97) against the validation data. The low‐gain LP Te data show larger overestimation (~700 K) and lower correlation (0.86–0.90). The adjustment of the Swarm LP data based on Swarm‐ISR comparison results removes the systematic biases in the Swarm data and gives plasma frequencies and high‐ and low‐gain electron temperatures that are precise within about 0.4 MHz (8%), 150–230 K, and 260–360 K, respectively. We demonstrate that the applied correction significantly improves the agreement between (1) the plasma densities from Swarm, and from ionosondes and COSMIC, and (2) the Te from Swarm LPs and International Reference Ionosphere 2016.
Immune Regulation in Human Health and Disease
Authors: Bartolucci Sabrina , Piccirillo Ciriaco A
Published: December 2017

The immune system requires a homeostatic equilibrium among the mechanisms that assure self‐tolerance, those that control the capacity to mount life‐long immunity to pathogenic microbes and those that attenuate effector mechanisms from inducing immune pathology. There are multiple processes in place to ensure that healthy immune regulation and FOXP3
+
T regulatory (Treg) cells are thought to be the major players. Treg cells exercise their regulatory role through various contact‐dependent and ‐independent mechanisms, and FOXP3 is the master regulator of their various functions such as inhibiting T effector (Teff) cell proliferation and inflammatory cytokine production. Various autoimmune diseases such as IPEX occur when Treg‐cell function or numbers are abrogated. Although there is evidence that supports the involvement of Treg cells in the development of autoimmune disease, there are inconsistencies in the literature owing to the lack of Treg‐cell‐specific markers.

Key Concepts

The immune system employs multiple tolerance mechanisms to maintain immune homeostasis.

Multiple specialised regulatory cells exist, FOXP3+ T regulatory (Treg) cells being one of the major players in the maintenance of immune tolerance.

FOXP3 is the master transcription factor of Treg cells, controlling Treg‐cell phenotype and suppressive functions.

Autoimmune diseases such as IPEX arise when Treg cells are defective or lacking, which can be due to mutations at the
Foxp3
gene locus.

Multiple markers are currently being used to study the Treg‐cell population; however, these markers are not specific to Treg cells and therefore are the cause of inconsistencies in the literature on the topic of Treg‐cell function in health and disease.

Disturbances in FOXP3+ Treg‐cell development, homeostasis and/or function are thought to occur in many autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases in humans.
Rhabdoviruses
Authors: Jennings Daisy L , Marston Denise A , Banyard Ashley C , Fooks Anthony R
Published: December 2017

The family Rhabdoviridae is classified within the order
Mononegavirales
and is made up of 18 different genera and one other virus awaiting classification into this family. Generally, Rhabdovirus virions contain a nonsegmented negative‐sense single‐stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) genome that, in its most basic form, encodes five proteins: the nucleocapsid protein (N), the phosphoprotein (P), the matrix protein (M), the glycoprotein (G) and the RNA‐dependent RNA polymerase protein (L). All Rhabdoviruses have a distinctive bullet‐shaped morphology; however, two recently recognised genera have been shown to contain viruses with bipartite genomes. This diverse group of over 165 viruses can infect a range of species including mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, insects and plants. Several of these viruses cause notable economic losses to both the agriculture and aquaculture sector. However, only the lyssaviruses and the vesiculoviruses are able to infect both animals and humans to cause clinical disease, with rabies virus being the most important human pathogen.

Key Concepts

Only the lyssaviruses and the vesiculoviruses are able to infect both animals and humans to cause clinical disease.

Rabies is the most notable human pathogen and is one of the most deadly infectious diseases known with a case‐fatality rate approaching 100%.

Virions are bullet‐shaped and consist of an envelope, covered with peplomers surrounding a helically coiled cylindrical nucleocapsid.

The genome of the majority of Rhabdoviruses consists of a single molecule of linear negative‐sense single‐stranded RNA, 13–16 kb in size.

Dichorhaviruse
s
and Varicosaviruses are newly described rhabdoviruses that lack an envelope and have bipartite genomes.

The Rhabdoviridae are a diverse group of highly adaptable viruses with a broad host range.

All Rhabdoviruses have non‐Latinised binomial species names to indicate that genus the species belongs to and to facilitate differentiation between virus names and their taxonomic species name.
Genetics of
A
lzheimer's Disease
Authors: Brookes Keeley J , Morgan Kevin
Published: December 2017

Knowledge on the genetic aetiology of Alzheimer's disease has greatly increased over the past 20 years. We are now finding that more genetic variants than previously thought play a role in disease susceptibility.

Key Concepts

Advances in genetic research into a complex disorder.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and is genetically heterogeneous.

The APOE gene has the largest effect size on risk for AD, and is the most replicated finding.

Understanding of the genetic risk factors for AD has been greatly increased by advancements in technology.

Multiple gene have now been identified as being involved in the aetiology of AD, and have highlight biological pathways that may be affected.

Still, these genes do not account for all of the estimated genetic aetiology and therefore variants with even smaller effect size are being investigated through polygenic risk score analysis.
Teratogenesis
Authors: Vargesson Neil , Fraga Lucas
Published: December 2017

Teratogenesis is a process that causes birth defects or malformations in an embryo or foetus. Teratology is the study of the causes and underlying mechanisms leading to birth defects or malformations. These may include disorders without any obvious structural malformations, such as intellectual disabilities. A teratogen is a substance (from outside the body) that causes birth defects or malformations. Examples of teratogens include medicinal drugs, such as thalidomide; environmental toxins, for example cadmium as well as environmental pollutants, including pesticides and endocrine‐disrupting compounds. Other causes of teratogenesis include viruses, for example rubella and Zika virus; physical compression
in utero
and poor diet. Animal models are used to study the mechanisms by which teratogens result in birth defects or malformations, and these studies can also give insights into normal development. The study and understanding of teratogenesis is also essential for making safer and more targeted therapeutic drugs.

Key Concepts

Teratogenesis is the production of birth defects or malformations by external agents.

Teratology is the study of the mechanisms that give rise to birth defects or malformations.

There are many factors that can result in teratogenesis, including medicinal and recreational drugs, viral and bacterial infections and poor maternal health.

Teratogenesis is studied in animal models, for example mouse, chicken and rabbit embryos.

Understanding whether a chemical compound has teratogenic side effects is essential to ensure drug safety.

Many teratogens (agents that cause teratogenesis) act between weeks 2 and 8 of embryonic development, a period also known as the ‘critical period’ of development when the majority of tissues and organs are forming and being patterned, for example the limbs.
Multidimensional Model of Human Macrophage Activation
Authors: Aschenbrenner Anna C , Schultze Joachim L
Published: December 2017

Macrophages are extremely versatile cells, distributed throughout all tissues, involved in numerous functions, and equipped with many sensing receptors and effector molecules. They are critical during embryogenesis, key players in organ homeostasis and orchestrators during any kind of tissue insult, whether induced by the outside world or inside stress signals. Moreover, macrophages are involved in all major common diseases our societies are suffering from. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to understand how macrophage activation is regulated and orchestrated.

For a long time, macrophage activation was divided into either proinflammatory or anti‐inflammatory activation. In fact, previous experimental approaches favoured such dichotomous models of macrophage activation. However, with the advent of the generation of high‐throughput data, this view on macrophage activation has dramatically changed by realising the enormous plasticity of these cells. To describe such plasticity, and based on computational modelling of transcriptome data, we have introduced the multidimensional model of macrophage activation. This model showcases the capability of macrophages of integrating signals they derive from their microenvironment to signal input‐specific functional programmes. Collectively, this new model combines findings derived from macrophage ontogeny, tissue macrophage biology and inflammation research in diseases.

Key Concepts

Macrophages are one of the most versatile cell populations within multicellular organisms.

Macrophages exhibit enormous plasticity.

Macrophages integrate signals from their microenvironment, which results in signal input‐specific functional outcomes.

The multidimensional model of macrophage activation describes the input‐specific cellular programming of macrophages in response to stimulation.

This model opens new avenues to more specific targeting of macrophages in disease settings.

The paradigm shift from a bipolar to a multidimensional model of macrophage activation required large data and computational modelling, illustrating the power of systems immunology to understand immune cell phenotypes and function.
Fluorescence in Protein Science
Authors: Mei Giampiero
Published: December 2017

Fluorescence spectroscopy is an optical technique used to study biological systems such as membranes, nucleic acids and proteins, thanks to its high sensitivity and noninvasive nature. In the case of proteins, fluorescence is currently used for analytical detection, to study ligand binding and complex formation and to observe the presence of intermediate species in folding pathways. Resonance energy transfer, lifetime and anisotropy measurements are quantitative applications of fluorescence spectroscopy that allow the characterisation of biological processes in which proteins play fundamental roles, including membrane binding, enzyme catalysis, signalling and the regulation of the function of nucleic acids. The development of new fluorophores, light sources and detectors has opened the possibility to perform such kinds of measurements
in vivo
, extending the fluorescence technology to cell microscopy.

Key Concepts

Protein intrinsic fluorescence arises mainly from aromatic amino acids and some cofactors.

The timescale of tryptophan lifetime is the same as protein conformational changes.

Fluorescence anisotropy decays provide information on protein dynamics.

Fluorescence energy transfer is used to measure distances of the order of protein size.

Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy is a valid tool for investigating protein dynamics
in vivo
.
Acculturation
Authors: Molina Ludwin E. , Naemi Pegah , Mukherjee Sahana
Published: December 2017

Acculturation has historically focused on how cultural change occurs when people from different cultural backgrounds come into contact to seek ways to negotiate roles, with the possibility of one or both cultures changing. This entry provides an overview of early conceptualizations of acculturation and common frameworks most utilized in acculturation research today. Specific strategies/categories of acculturation and the outcomes that may occur as reviewed in the literature and empirical studies are also discussed. Additionally, some criticisms of current frameworks used in research and alternative frameworks that address some of those criticisms are considered.
Affluent Society
Authors: Nevarez Leonard
Published: December 2017

The affluent society is both a scientific concept (a stage of societal development permitting redistribution of wealth for quality of life objectives) and normative ideal (a critique of political, economic, and cultural priorities that presume material scarcity and social inequality). Both connotations draw upon the legacy of American economist John K. Galbraith's 1958 book,The Affluent Society, which left an important stamp upon social criticism and protest of the time. Today, the affluent society resonates in scholarly inquiries into the contemporary appearance of “postmaterial” values. However, although the objective conditions indicated by the scientific concept still characterize many developed societies, as normative ideal the affluent society agenda of public investment and collective well‐being has seen its political influence diminished by the ascendance of neoliberal ideology.
Althusser,Louis
Authors: Jessop Bob
Published: December 2017

Louis Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher who was very influential in the social sciences in the 1960s and 1970s. He identified a break in Marx's intellectual development in 1845–1857, enabling a shift from humanism to a scientific analysis of history and capitalism. He also contributed to the critique of ideology, political and state theory, and debates on materialism. His main ideas are summarized and some criticisms discussed.
Anti‐Racism
Authors: Dei George J. Sefa
Published: December 2017

This entry explains anti‐racism and its key principles, highlighting the links between race and racism, and social difference (gender, class, sexuality, disability, etc.). Race and racism are intertwined, in that it is race that makes racism real, and the reality of racism lies in its powerful social, material, and political effects, consequences, and manifestations. The anti‐racist struggle attempts to challenge and subvert White power, privilege, and supremacy, and particularly the coloniality of Whiteness. Given European imperial expansion into, and settlements on, Indigenous people's lands globally, our understandings of racism and anti‐racism must be tied to questions of indigeneity, colonialism, and decolonization. Finally, it is maintained that in pursuing anti‐racist work using the self as an entry point, one must engage the “trialectic space” of body, mind, and spirit interconnections and concretely bring experiences of gender, class, sexuality, disability, and race together in understanding everyday social practice and relations.
Anti‐Semitism
Authors: Attias‐Donfut Claudine , Fine Robert D.
Published: December 2017

Anti‐Semitism designates hostility to Jews. The term “anti‐Semitism” was not used until the late nineteenth century, but hostility toward Judaism and Jews mainly goes back to the coming of Christianity when powerful anti‐Judaic myths were constructed and entered deep into the structures of Western thought cultural production, arts, literature, and the language itself. This persistence across the centuries was largely assured by the influence of the religions that issued from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, that, in order to assert their superiority, prioritized anti‐Judaism myths invention to recognition of their debts to Judaism. Anti‐Judaism metamorphosed over time and was partly secularized in the modern period. It has been perpetuated in a new collective imagination diabolizing Jews in the secular domain of biology, culture, and politics, and an alleged financial Jewish power. It became a crucial element in Nazi ideology and served to justify the genocide of Jews known as the Shoah. In the twenty‐first century, independently to the widespread hatred of the Jewish state, Israel, anti‐Semitism is expressing itself afresh with a new virulence in Europe and in Muslim countries.
Asexuality
Authors: Cerankowski Karli June
Published: December 2017

Asexuality, an orientation for people who do not experience sexual attraction, is largely based in a web community that began with the foundation of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network in 2001. The asexual movement has since passed through several phases of growth in terms of media attention, activism, and the production of scholarship. Asexuality can now be more complexly understood in relation to medical discourse and disorder, perspectives on disability and sexuality, and in the context of racial diversity, all in service of redefining and questioning sexual “normalcy.”
Assimilation
Authors: Driskell Robyn , Wise Jasmine
Published: December 2017

Assimilation may occur when individuals or groups from one country of origin move into another country and adopt the customs of the host society. It is a transformation of the minority culture as they become somewhat indistinguishable from the dominant society. There are several types and stages of assimilation that can take up to three or four generations to occur. This process is more than just a socialization process, but the disintegration of the minority culture. Despite the transformation, some customs and practices such and food and language may not dissipate from the minority group. Both the dominant and immigrant cultures adapt slightly as assimilation occurs. Assimilation can be either voluntary or involuntary. Two prominent theories suggest how assimilation occurs in America: straight‐line and segmented.
Attribution Theory
Authors: Malle Bertram F. , Korman Joanna
Published: December 2017

Attribution theory aims to elucidate how ordinary people make sense of human behavior. It has followed two lines of research. One examines attribution as explanation: how people explain why a person performed a certain behavior. This research shows that people offer reasons for intentional behaviors and causes for unintentional behaviors. The other line of research examines how people infer unobservable states revealed in behavior. Inference and explanation are importantly connected, as inferences of unobservable states suggest plausible ways to explain a person's behavior. But only explanations are also communicative acts that help people create social meaning from behavior.
Audience Research
Authors: Martire Fabrizio
Published: December 2017

The expression “audience research” usually refers to the empirical study of media consumption that can be done to serve different purposes. When audience research is conducted to estimate how many members of a target population are viewers or listeners of a TV or radio program or, more generally, the number of users of a media service or product, it relies on the strategies and tools of quantitative social research. Audience research can also be done for quite different purposes, such as to understand how people use media in everyday life, to study social and psychological processes of media selection, to understand what kinds of gratification people get from media consumption, and so on. Qualitative approaches and tools characterize this kind of audience research from a methodological point of view.
B
ell,
D
aniel
Authors: McMahon Sean F.
Published: December 2017

Daniel Bell was an American journalist and sociologist. He argued that the age of ideology had ended in
The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties
and forecast a postindustrial society characterized by, inter alia, the rise of the service economy in
The Coming of Post‐Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting
. Bell was one of the most prominent sociologists of the post‐World War II period. Connections have been made between his theses and American neoconservatism and postmodernism.
Bisexuality
Authors: Weinberg Martin S. , Williams Colin J.
Published: December 2017

Bisexuality is a complex phenomenon involving fluidity in the sex/gender of desired partners and an identity label that is poorly recognized and understood. This contributes to misconceptions that feed into questioning the existence of bisexuality, whether bisexuals are hypersexual, and the extent to which they transmit sexually transmitted infections into the general population. It is also a sexuality that academically remains inadequately theorized.
Body, Sociology of
Authors: White Kevin
Published: December 2017

The publication in 1984 of Bryan S. Turner'sThe Body and Societybrought the body into mainstream sociology, a development consolidated just over a decade later with the founding of the journalBody and Societyin 1995. This entry outlines the early history of the body in classical sociology and developments in Marxist, Marxist‐feminist, Weberian, and Durkheimian traditions. This is followed by contemporary developments in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, and Foucauldian‐feminist perspectives.
B
oudon,
R
aymond
Authors: Hedström Peter , Manzo Gianluca
Published: December 2017

The scientific production of Raymond Boudon (1934–2013) spanned many topics including social stratification, knowledge and morality, politics, methodology of social sciences, theory of action, and history of sociology and social thought. Beginning with some essential biographic information, this entry periodizes Boudon's scientific production and describes its main achievements. It shows that Boudon's works made important substantive and methodological contributions to (1) the analysis of educational inequalities and social stratification; (2) the epistemology of social sciences (in particular, by proposing a generative and mechanism‐oriented view of explanation); (3) the understanding of individual‐level beliefs and values; and (4) the sociological theory of action (in particular, by devising the concept of “ordinary rationality”). The entry suggests that prominent intellectual movements in contemporary social sciences, including analytical sociology, already regard Boudon as one of their founding fathers.
Census
Authors: Weeks John R.
Published: December 2017

A census is a complete enumeration of a population. Censuses have been around for a long time, but only since the creation of nation‐states have they become institutionalized as important sources of demographic information. Censuses provide information about a population not otherwise obtainable by any other means except a population register. As with all sources of information, a census is subject to errors, including coverage error, content error, and sampling error, if some data are collected from only a sample of the population, as happens in many modern censuses.
Civil Religion
Authors: Possamai Adam
Published: December 2017

Civil religion makes reference to the collective consciousness that brings together people in a society within a common identity or culture. It can live side by side with institutionalized religion in certain contexts or in opposition in others. The two leading sociologists who addressed this concept were Émile Durkheim and Robert Bellah.
Collective Emotions
Authors: von Scheve Christian
Published: December 2017

Many emotions are not only socially constructed, but are constituted in relation to different kinds of social collectives. Theories of collective emotions address the collective constitution of emotions and their social consequences in different ways. Emotions can be collective because of group membership or the collective properties of mental states underlying them (e.g., collective intentions or shared concerns). They can also be collective because they are simultaneously experienced by many individuals via processes of emotional contagion as well as through culture and social norms. Collective emotions can promote social solidarity but also fuel conflict and exclusion.
Coming Out/Closets
Authors: Hunter Joyce
Published: December 2017

While the term “coming out” has been adopted widely to describe coming out of hiding for a variety of personal identities or behaviors, it traditionally refers to lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals who disclose their sexual orientation to others. As with their heterosexual peers, for LGB individuals, the achievement and integration of personal and social identities are central. Young LGB individuals often deal with coming out as they enter adolescence and become mature as sexual beings. “Coming out of the closet” as a young person carries with it added stresses, including health risks and exposure to violence from societal homophobia. Transgender individuals experience a coming‐out process in relation to their gender identity, often complicated by an inability to hide successfully and by societal transphobia. Families are important sources of support and information in the age of AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. Stage theories of coming out are reviewed.
Comte, Auguste
Authors: Gane Mike
Published: December 2017

Auguste Comte elaborated a vast system of thoughts organized on simple principles. His main contributions include the development of positive research methods within a history of the sciences, the new science of sociology and ethics, and a new religion he called the religion of humanity. All his work was framed in a single law: the law of the three states.
Contact Hypothesis
Authors: Molina Ludwin E. , Naemi Pegah , Mukherjee Sahana
Published: December 2017

The contact hypothesis proposes that contact between individuals of different groups (e.g., race, gender, religion) can lead to lower levels of prejudice. In particular, when contact occurs under certain optimal conditions (e.g., cooperative interdependence, equal status between groups), then it is likely that prejudice reduction will occur. The specification of the conditions under which group contact is likely to reduce prejudice has been one of the most influential approaches in the social sciences for understanding intergroup relations.
Corporatism
Authors: Pula Besnik
Published: December 2017

In contemporary usage, the term “corporatism” refers to a political system in which producer groups, particularly business and labor organizations, play a legally and institutionally privileged role in the making of economic policy, including bargaining at the national level for wages, benefits, and other aspects of employment across industrial and public sectors. The term is often contrasted with “pluralism,” in which such bargaining is decentralized and/or weakly institutionalized. In corporatist systems, corporatist associations of labor and business, often referred to as “peak” associations, typically enjoy a legal or quasi‐legal monopoly over the representation of sectoral interests at the national level, with direct negotiations taking place in “tripartite” institutions overseen by the state. The entry discusses the traditional usage of the concept of corporatism in social theory and its history in the making of modern nation‐states.
Courts
Authors: Bayar Tuğba Özden
Published: December 2017

A court is a governmental entity established to function as a judicial tribunal to make decisions congruent with justice. Courts settle controversies among parties or give judicial decisions on crimes. A court is presided over by a judge. There are mainly two parties involved in a lawsuit: a plaintiff and a defendant. Attorneys represent each party. A prosecutor is present to represent the case of a state against a criminal or a defendant. In some countries, for example, the United States, there is a jury to resolve the discord. The decision of a court can be reviewed by an upper court. This process is called an
appeal
. The supreme court is the highest court of appeal whose decisions are not subject to any further review.
C
ox,
O
liver
C
Authors: McAuley Christopher A.
Published: December 2017

Despite being recognized in some quarters for his contributions to the understanding of race relations in the Americas and elsewhere in
Caste, Class, and Race
(1948), Oliver C. Cox (1901–1974) remains largely unacknowledged for his pioneering work in what would later be known as world‐system theory which he presented in three works,
The Foundations of Capitalism
(1959),
Capitalism and American Leadership
(1962), and
Capitalism as a System
(1964). From his chronicle of the origins and structure of the capitalist world economy, Cox concluded that, contra Marx, only the working classes of the colonized world were truly revolutionary as they did not have the opportunity to exploit any other class.
Credit
Authors: Nelson Dylan K.
Published: December 2017

As instruments of credit have proliferated over the past two centuries, connecting individuals, governments, and firms, credit relationships have become increasingly central to explanations of economic life. Social theorists have recently focused on the role of credit and debt in moral frameworks, legal formalization, social stratification, economic crisis, and the power of finance.
Critical Theory
Authors: Langman Lauren
Published: December 2017

A very long tradition of philosophical analysis from Plato through Kant and Hegel, and more recent social science, consists of critique, a rigorous examination of the relations of appearance and reality. For Marx, critique revealed the nature of capitalist domination. But there were other critical theories from Nietzsche to Weber who saw the Enlightenment as itself a form of domination, a theme that would become central for the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory who saw modern, “administrative society” dominated by instrumental reason. Ironically enough, poststructuralists from Foucault to Butler, while seeing power as more diffuse, argue that specialized knowledge defines and creates that which it critiques.
Cultural Reproduction
Authors: Zacharakis Jeff
Published: December 2017

Capital, according to Pierre Bourdieu, is the accumulation of labor that in its objective and subjective forms has social force and energy, and therefore has value that is not equally distributed. Cultural capital is in part an inheritance that includes the transmission of knowledge from generation to generation through the enculturation of beliefs, values, and likes and dislikes. The reproduction of cultural capital is that superstructure that defines class, social position, and power relations, and therefore shapes both economic and social capital.
Death and Dying, Theories of
Authors: Fabiś Artur , Klimczuk Andrzej
Published: December 2017

Death is a state of the total disappearance of life. Dying is a process of decay of the vital system, which ends with clinical death. In current perspectives there are several approaches to research on death and dying; these are the clinical, the humanistic, the philosophical, the psychological, the anthropological, and the sociological perspective.
Demographic Transition
Authors: Weeks John R.
Published: December 2017

The demographic transition is the shift from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates, with an interstitial growth in population. It has occurred, or is in the process of occurring, in every country on earth, and has dramatically shaped the modern world over the past two hundred years. It began with our scientific control over the environment, springing from the same changes that produced the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. It has been variously explained by the modernization theory (a macro approach), the overall cultural change theory (a meso approach), rational choice theory, and the theory of demographic change and response (micro‐level approaches).
Denomination(s)
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

The church‐sect typology has been one of the most influential models of religious institutions. Originally developed by Ernst Troeltsch and adopted by Max Weber, it refers to reformist movements within or against an established or universal church. In the United States with the separation of the church and state and the absence of an established church, it is argued that the denomination is the characteristic institution in American society and one that best expresses its religious diversity. Hence the competition between these denominations for members and influence has given rise to denominationalism.
Deutsch,Morton
Authors: Coleman Peter T.
Published: December 2017

Morton Deutsch is a pioneering social psychologist and researcher of cooperation, conflict resolution, prejudice, social justice, and global identity. Deutsch is considered one of the main founding fathers of the field of conflict resolution. Raised in the intellectual atmosphere of Marx, Freud, Darwin, and Einstein, Deutsch long believed in the power of ideas to rectify social problems. Educated in the halls of the City College of New York, he honed his considerable intellect and skills as a social critic, theorist, and researcher. From marital strife to global thermonuclear warfare, from ethnic slights between peers to race riots in the streets, and from acts of “civilized oppression” in the home to state‐sanctioned policies of apartheid, Deutsch devoted his life to addressing social problems through ideas that matter.
Durkheim,Émile
Authors: Fournier Marcel
Published: December 2017

The life and career of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), the founder of French sociology, can be easily divided into a few main periods: (1) childhood and education, at college and École Normale Supérieure, obtaining hisagrégationin philosophy in 1882; (2)lycéeteacher (Puy, de Sens, Saint‐Quentin) – his nickname wasChopen– and, after a period in Germany, at the Lycée de Troies (1884–1887); (3) a chargé de cours and professor of social science and pedagogy at Bordeaux (1887–1904); (4) an appointment in 1902 at the Sorbonne,suppléantof Ferdinand Buisson for the Science of Education, and in 1913 as professor of the science of education and sociology; and (5) World War I.
Embeddedness of Economic Action
Authors: Muennich Sascha
Published: December 2017

The concept of embeddedness of economic action was shaped differently by Karl Polanyi and Mark Granovetter. It is a pooling concept for all approaches in economic sociology that frame economic interaction as entangled in patterns of social networks, knowledge, institutions, and norms. Accordingly, embeddedness can be structural, cognitive, political, and cultural. These different social structures enable actors to solve problems of coordination of individual rational action and bring about stable social order and cooperation within markets, both of which exceed the framework of methodological individualism. Definition and critique of the concept of embeddedness lead to the general social theory question of whether economic rationality is dependent on, equal to, or preemptive to other forms of social action.
Equality
Authors: Martini Carlo
Published: December 2017

The concept of equality refers to a relation between two or more objects, persons, groups, processes, etc., that are identical with respect to certain qualities or properties. Much philosophical and political theorizing has focused on equality, in particular in the discussions preceding and during the democratic transitions of political power in the early modern period in England, France, and North America. Today, the concept of equality is rarely used without qualifications. Contemporary uses of the term “equality” are associated, for example, with social equality, economic equality, or gender and racial equality. One of the most recent issues related to equality is how to find meaningful and practical measures of equality and inequality, and a significant literature has emerged on the theory and practice of measuring the two.
Eugenics
Authors: Meloni Maurizio
Published: December 2017

Eugenics is the neologism coined by Galton in 1883 to mean the improvement of the inborn quality of humankind by better breeding. The eugenics movement had a significant political appeal between 1900 and 1945, attracting advocates from across the political spectrum, from the far right to the far left. Eugenics policies were implemented especially through sterilization laws in America and Europe, and often lasted until the 1970s, when civil rights movements undermined their legitimacy. The rise of eugenics was strictly connected to important scientific developments, and in particular the emergence of genetics and the modern view of biological heredity. After 1945, arguments about racial or innate inequalities were increasingly treated with suspicion, and, at least officially, marginalized. However, it remains very much a debated issue how much of the eugenics legacy is still alive in our age with the mapping of the human genome and more recent postgenomic novelties.
Social Exchange Theory
Authors: Barbalet Jack
Published: December 2017

Social exchange theory (SET) is the name given to a family of approaches for understanding those social relations in which reciprocal exchange plays a significant role. SET was a major theoretical orientation in American sociology during the 1970s, although it has earlier historical origins. SET continues to attract sociological attention. Its early exponents developed SET cross‐disciplinarily, drawing on either behavioral psychology or neoclassical economic theory. The endeavor to develop a macro‐sociology of social structure on the micro‐foundations of social exchange relations is critically reviewed here. The analysis of social exchange as premised on the participating actors' self‐interest is also critically reviewed. The importance of obligation and social esteem in exchange relations is emphasized. It is shown that a number of rules of exchange other than those based on the self‐interested maximization of individual satisfactions can be identified. Finally, it is shown that a number of different types of resources, displaying different characteristics, are deployed in social exchange.
F
aletto,
E
nzo
Authors: Contreras‐Vejar Yuri
Published: December 2017

Enzo Faletto (1935–2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and educated at the University of Chile and FLACSO, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. His main work is
Dependencia y Desarrollo en América Latina,
written with Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Faletto and Cardoso maintained that development in Latin America has to be historically contextualized, and the dynamics of social and political groups within nation‐states and their interrelationships with the elites of the central politico‐economic hegemon have determined the possibilities for and obstacles to social development. After the
coup d'état
in Chile in 1973, he remained working at FLACSO. Sociology departments were shut down. Once democracy was restored, Faletto returned to teaching at the University of Chile, where he remained as full professor of sociology until his death in 2003.
Gerontology
Authors: Higgs Paul , Gilleard Chris
Published: December 2017

Gerontology is the study of aging and old age. This remit is extremely broad, encompassing a large range of topics, disciplines, and methods, and requires a good understanding of the biological, clinical, economic, psychological, and social dimensions of aging. One obvious absence, however, has been any connection with social theory. Gerontological concerns overlap with social theory and an adequate theory of society needs to address aging and old age. Few social theorists have studied aging. Equally, among researchers there is a widespread assumption that social gerontology is undertheorized and often out of date in the ideas that are used. In sociology, age is rarely seen as constituting an important dimension of social cleavage, unlike other issues of class, gender, and ethnicity. This entry describes gerontology and maps its various levels of engagement with social theory and vice versa. It argues for a better engagement in the future.
G
iddings,
F
ranklin
H
enry
Authors: Blasi Anthony J.
Published: December 2017

Franklin H. Giddings (1855–1931) was a positivist early founder of American sociology. He modified the evolutionary perspective by placing importance on consciousness of kind. Although he conducted little original research, his advocacy of sociology as a research discipline and quantitative methods helped direct the field from a philosophical to a scientific endeavor.
Goode,WilliamJ
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: December 2017

William Josiah Goode (1917–2003) was the President of the American Sociological Association (1972), Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Stanford University in 1986, and Professor of Sociology at Harvard University until 1993. Influential in the sociology of the family, marriage, and divorce, his work ranged over a wide number of issues such as the study of religion, theory, and sociological methods.