Scientific knowledge and technical expertise promote the wealth of nations. The traditional view is that science allows the expansion of technology, which, in turn, promotes economic development. This chapter shows that: 1) the scientific productivity of a country correlates more strongly with gross national income per capita than its technological sophistication; 2) science is important for ec...

Nursing has interfaces with numerous other areas in the production of knowledge, involving Biological and Health Sciences (Medicine, Biology, Nutrition, Physical Therapy, and others), the Humanities (Psychology, Education, History) and Applied Social Sciences (Organizations, Work , Education, Communication, Information Technology and Economics). Many of these interfaces/interactions are already...

This chapter is concerned with the global regulation of animal health. Our case is a recent outbreak of avian influenza in South Africa’s ostrich industry. The analysis confirms an important theme in the emerging social sciences literature on biosecurity, i.e. the paradox of control methods that are rigid and inflexible, and diseases that are indeterminate. We also examine a second approach to ...

The economic literature analyses cultural transmission as the result of interactions between purposeful socialization decisions inside the family (‘direct vertical socialization’) and indirect socialization processes like social imitation and learning (‘oblique and horizontal socialization’). This article reviews the main contribution of these models from theoretical and empirical perspectives....

The Washington State Population Survey was conducted in the spring of 1998 to provide social, demographic, and economic information about Washington. Responses were obtained from telephone interviews of 7,279 households that represented the state as a whole. The survey was designed by the Office of Financial Management (OFM) and conducted by the Washington State University Social and Economic S...

Online virtual worlds, electronic environments where people can work and interact in a somewhat realistic manner, have great potential as sites for research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, as well as in human-centered computer science. This article uses Second Life and World of Warcraft as two very different examples of current virtual worlds that foreshadow future development...