This paper reports a case of the successful application of sociologic theories in the area of Distributed Artificial Intelligence. We argue in favour of a rather deep conceptual transfer of sociologic models: it is shown how analytical theories from the school of structural functionalism, aimed at explaining observed phenomena in human societies, can be put “upside down”, so as to come up with ...

BACKGROUND Many women fail to adhere to Papanicolaou smear screening guidelines. Although many interventions have been developed to increase screening, the effectiveness of different types of interventions is unclear. METHODS We performed a systematic review of interventions to increase Papanicolaou smear use published between 1980 and April 2001 and included concurrently or randomized contro...