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The paper looks into the social aspects of life cycle management (LCM) in relation to sustainable development. Sustainable development is regarded as a comprehensive set of strategies enabling the satisfaction of social, material and spiritual needs of people through economic tools and technology while respecting environmental limits. To make this possible in the global scale of the contemporary world, it is necessary to re-define their social and political institutions and processes at the local, regional and global level. Sustainable development is unthinkable not only without the balance in the environmental respect; the balance in the social and economic areas is of equal importance. Social responsibility can be viewed as a parallel to a philosophy in which businesses are committed to sustainable development. Promoting social responsibility within the business can influence activities in the product life cycle. Social aspects, such as safe workplaces or organisations protecting the rights of workers are becoming prominent with increasing frequency as modern requirements. The aim of the paper is to describe and introduce management tools and systems, if they exist, that enable a successful life cycle management with a focus on social aspects. Key issues in relation to LCM will be: Which social elements can be included in LCM? Which aspects are to be included in the social "pillar" of sustainable development? etc. The result should be an adequate approach integrating the social, environmental and economic aspects in LCM.

AbstractXenotransplantation is a controversial medical science where living animal parts are transplanted into humans. While the literature on xenotransplantation is vast in regards to medical and scientific research, and ethics, it is comparatively lacking in social science. This article examines the literature on the social aspects of xenotransplantation, with a focus on public perception, ontology and identity, meat, knowledge production, animal bodies and scientific knowledge. This demonstrates that the science seeks to stabilise the understandings and social perceptions of xenotransplantation by using natural and cultural arguments, but the public exhibit significant uncertainty and ambiguity. The article concludes by suggesting future directions for the social research on xenotransplantation.

Epilepsy : definition, syndromes, and treatment / Jordan Kamel and Mark Cook -- Beliefs and perceptions of epilepsy in different cultures / Jaya Pinikahana -- Epilepsy, stigma and society / Graham Scambler -- Who gets treatment for epilepsy? : the political economy of the treatment gap / Christine Walker -- Epilepsy and women's health issues / Line Sveberg R2ste and Erik Taub2ll -- Injuries in epilepsy / Rita Nguyen and Josâe F. Tâellez-Zenteno -- Epilepsy, driving and law / Roy G. Beran -- Epilepsy, culture, identity and wellbeing : a study of the social, cultural and environmental context of epilepsy in Cameroon / Pascale Allotey and Daniel Reidpath -- Knowledge, attitudes and epilepsy / John O. Elliott, Sheri Hart and Christine Charyton -- Employment and epilepsy / Ramon Edmundo D. Bautista and Logan A. Crews -- Epilepsy and physical exercise : how much is too much? / Ricardo Mario Arida, Fulvio Alexandre Scorza and Esper Abräao Cavalheiro -- Economic and psychosocial burden of epilepsy in developing countries / Sanjeev V. Thomas -- Epilepsy and media / Toba Schwaber Kerson

AbstractSince the early days of the Human Genome Project, there has been increasing social scientific research that promises to elucidate the social implications, aspects or dimensions of research on human, animal and plant genetics. This paper discusses the literature on the social aspects of different types of genetic testing technologies and their applications in the contexts of clinical medicine, biomedical research, personal and family genealogy, and criminal justice. Although there are many differences in the practices, purposes and organization of these technologies across such contexts, this paper shows that social scientists' understandings of their social aspects centers on individual and collective experiences of how genetic testing technologies operate in practice.

This core textbook is the ideal companion text for students studying the social aspects of health and illness, whether it is as part of a health studies degree, nursing or other professional qualification related to health, social care, youth and community work and social work. Written at an introductory level this book is suitable for students new to this subject and looking for a broad and accessible text for use throughout their studies

"In the past decade, digital games have become a widely accepted form of media entertainment, moving from the traditional 'core gamer' community into the mainstream media market. With millions of people now enjoying gaming as interactive entertainment there has been a huge increase in interest in social multiplayer gaming activities. However, despite the explosive growth in the field over the past decade, many aspects of social gaming still remain unexplored, especially from a media and communication studies perspective. Multiplayer: Social Aspects of Digital Gaming is the first edited volume of its kind that takes a closer look at the various forms of human interaction in and around digital games, providing an overview of debates, past and present. The book is divided into five sections that explore the following areas: - Social Aspects of Digital Gaming - Social Interactions in Virtual Worlds - Online Gaming - Co-located and Console Gaming - Risks and Challenges of Social Gaming This engaging interdisciplinary book will appeal to upper level students, postgrads and researchers in games research, specifically those focusing on new media and digital games, as well as researchers in media studies and mass communication"--

International audience ; The interest for hesychasm was often limited to the factual and theoretical aspects of the controversy. Although hesychasm is the object of many works in the corpus of studies of Byzantine theology, its social roots and societal ramifications have largely been neglected. From its purely monastic state in the fourth century, hesychasm came to shape a particular style of civilization at the end of the fourteenth century. The subjects of political and social order were inevitably included in the theological aspects of the hesychast quarrel. While the manner in which those subjects arose may have been accidental, they can in no case be treated as incidental. The new leaders of the Byzantine Church from then on had to tie their mysticism into immediate historical practice. Νο matter how much these hesychast leaders may have been influenced by Athonite traditions and anachorite practices, and however much they might have deplored 'worldliness', they were nevertheless obliged to exercise their influence in temporal matters. It is this translation of a piety into an often political, sometimes administrative and always social form, which is the aim of this paper.

International audience ; The interest for hesychasm was often limited to the factual and theoretical aspects of the controversy. Although hesychasm is the object of many works in the corpus of studies of Byzantine theology, its social roots and societal ramifications have largely been neglected. From its purely monastic state in the fourth century, hesychasm came to shape a particular style of civilization at the end of the fourteenth century. The subjects of political and social order were inevitably included in the theological aspects of the hesychast quarrel. While the manner in which those subjects arose may have been accidental, they can in no case be treated as incidental. The new leaders of the Byzantine Church from then on had to tie their mysticism into immediate historical practice. Νο matter how much these hesychast leaders may have been influenced by Athonite traditions and anachorite practices, and however much they might have deplored 'worldliness', they were nevertheless obliged to exercise their influence in temporal matters. It is this translation of a piety into an often political, sometimes administrative and always social form, which is the aim of this paper.

This paper overviews previous research addressing the inclusion of the, social dimension of sustainable development on power systems planning. Consequences of the recent energy policies and strategies are already being felt in, developed countries' power systems, with the integration of rising quotas in renewable, energy technologies. However, while the tools that aid decision making on power, planning show that economic and environmental issues are easily quantifiable and thus, modeled, social concerns have been addressed in a less extensive and more, subjective way, implying in most cases expert participation on multi-criteria decision aid, techniques. A survey of recent papers providing public perceptions on electricity, generation technologies and projects is presented. These papers were chosen and, reviewed in order to present a representative array of methodologies that are used to, assess social acceptance of technologies. According to some of the reviewed papers, this issue is suggested to be fundamental to increase project success. As a conclusion, stands the fact that further discussion is still needed in order to achieve solid, agreement, among experts, over what are the positive and the negative drivers to, social sustainability; otherwise models will not be able to translate reality and improve it, under this point of view. ; This work was financed by: the QREN – Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors, the European Union – European Regional Development Fund and National Funds - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under Project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-011377 and Project ...

Rare diseases are a heterogenic group of disorders with a little in common
except of their rarity affecting by less than 5 : 10.000 people. In the world
is registered about 6000-8000 rare diseases with 6-8% suffering population
only in the European Union. In spite of rarity, they represent an important
medical and social problem due to their incidence. For many rare diseases
have no treatment, but if it exists and if started on time as being available
to patients, there is a good prognosis for them to be able for normal life.
The problems of patients affected by rare diseases are related to the lack of
diagnosis and timely undergoing as well as their treatment or prevention.
Orphan drugs are products intended for treatment, diagnosis or prevention of
rare diseases, but for their development and marketing the industry has not
been interested in yet because of their marketing reasons. Patients suffering
from a rare disease although belonging to the vulnerable group for their
specific health needs, is becoming invisible in the health care system due to
their additional needs un properly recognized. Ethical problems faced by
patients, but also health care professionals are related to the allocation of
medical diagnostics, unequal approach to health care, inappropriately
specialized social services as well as therapy and rare orphan drugs
unavailability. Ethical questions related to clinical trails on orphan drugs,
population screening and epidemiology testing on rare diseases will also be
discussed in this paper.

The concept of "leadership" has become widely used in the social sciences after K.Levin experiments (USA, 30th years). He proposed a model for the implementation of changes identified three leadership styles (authoritarian, democratic and anarchist) and proved their direct impact on the "cluster environment» (Lewin, 1951). From this period, the term leadership is firmly embedded in psychological science. In 1943, psychologist K.Craik, continuing the development of ideas about the relationship with the leader of the group, suggested that all events are translated into the internal model, and that people use these models to evaluate external events. This communication theory suggests that people perceive the world through the prism of their psychological perception, and not just the outside world as a whole, despite the fact that they can feel that. DOI:10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n9p714