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Decades of techno-economic energy policymaking and research have meant evidence from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH)—including critical reflections on what changing a society's relation to energy (efficiency) even means—have been underutilised. In particular, (i) the SSH have too often been sidelined and/or narrowly pigeonholed by policymakers, funders, and other decision-makers when driving research agendas, and (ii) the setting of SSH-focused research agendas has not historically embedded inclusive and deliberative processes. The aim of this paper is to address these gaps through the production of a research agenda outlining future SSH research priorities for energy efficiency. A Horizon Scanning exercise was run, which sought to identify 100 priority SSH questions for energy efficiency research. This exercise included 152 researchers with prior SSH expertise on energy efficiency, who together spanned 62 (sub-)disciplines of SSH, 23 countries, and a full range of career stages. The resultant questions were inductively clustered into seven themes as follows: (1) Citizenship, engagement and knowledge exchange in relation to energy efficiency; (2) Energy efficiency in relation to equity, justice, poverty and vulnerability; (3) Energy efficiency in relation to everyday life and practices of energy consumption and production; (4) Framing, defining and measuring energy efficiency; (5) Governance, policy and political issues around energy efficiency; (6) Roles of economic systems, supply chains and financial mechanisms in improving energy efficiency; and (7) The interactions, unintended consequences and rebound effects of energy efficiency interventions. Given the consistent centrality of energy efficiency in policy programmes, this paper highlights that well-developed SSH approaches are ready to be mobilised to contribute to the development, and/or to understand the implications, of energy efficiency measures and governance solutions. Implicitly, it also emphasises the heterogeneity of SSH policy evidence ...

Introduction : theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the Greater Middle East / Mehdi Parvizi Amineh -- Foreign intervention and social transformation in the Greater Middle East. IR-Theory and transformations in the Greater Middle East : the role of the United States / Mehdi Parvizi Amineh and Henk Houweling -- Connecting Central Eurasia to the Middle East in American Foreign Policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan : 1979-Present / Simon Bromley -- US-Russian strategic relations and the structuration of Central Asia / Robert M. Cutler -- State, society, and economy in the Greater Middle East. The Iranian Revolution : the multiple contexts of the Iranian Revolution / Mehdi Parvizi Amineh and S.N. Eisenstadt -- The Iranian foreign policy since the Iranian Islamic Revolution : 1979-2006 / Eva Patricia Rakel -- The Middle East's democracy decit in comparative perspective / Mehran Kamrava -- The challenges of modernity : the case of political Islam / Mehdi Parvizi Amineh -- The Turkish political economy : globalization and regionalism / Nilgun Onder -- The Maghreb : social, political, and economic developments / Louisa Dris-Ait-Hamadouche and Yahia Zoubir -- From Soviet Republics to independent countries : challenges of transition in Central Asia / Mirzohid Rahimov -- Central Asia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union : economic reforms and their impact on state-society relations / Richard Pomfret -- New twists, more intricate congurations : the changing Israel-Palestinian regional security complex / Fred Lawson -- The politics of oil and major power rivalry in the post-cold war Greater Middle East. Global energy security and its geopolitical impediments : the case of the Caspian Region / Mehdi Parvizi Amineh and Henk Houweling -- China and the Greater Middle East : globalization no longer equals westernization / Kurt W. Radtke -- Indian power projection in the Greater Middle East : tools and objectives / Prithvi Ram Mudiam -- The changing face of the Russian Far East : cooperation and resource competition between Japan, Korea, and China in Northeast Asia / Roger Kangas -- India-Pakistan engagement with the Greater Middle East : implications and options / B.M. Jain -- The EU's policies of security of energy supply towards the Middle East and Caspian Region : major power politics? / Femke Hogeveen and Wilbur Perlot

Quantitative models are crucial to almost every area of ecosystem science. They provide a logical structure that guides and informs empirical observations of ecosystem processes. They play a particularly crucial role in synthesizing and integrating our understanding of the immense diversity of ecosystem structure and function. Increasingly, models are being called on to predict the effects of human actions on natural ecosystems. Despite the widespread use of models, there exists intense debate within the field over a wide range of practical and philosophical issues pertaining to quantitative modeling. This book--which grew out of a gathering of leading experts at the ninth Cary Conference--explores those issues. The book opens with an overview of the status and role of modeling in ecosystem science, including perspectives on the long-running debate over the appropriate level of complexity in models. This is followed by eight chapters that address the critical issue of evaluating ecosystem models, including methods of addressing uncertainty. Next come several case studies of the role of models in environmental policy and management. A section on the future of modeling in ecosystem science focuses on increasing the use of modeling in undergraduate education and the modeling skills of professionals within the field. The benefits and limitations of predictive (versus observational) models are also considered in detail. Written by stellar contributors, this book grants access to the state of the art and science of ecosystem modeling

Since the mid-2000s platforms and platform work have greatly proliferated. Although also research on platforms and platforms has expanded, there seems to be a great gulf between IT- and social research on these issues. In this article, I show, using sociologist Maurizio Lazzarato's concepts, that the technical infrastructure of the platform, in particular the algorithm, has a direct impact on work and the agency of the platform worker. From this perspective, it is possible to ask critical questions about platforms and platform work from a multidisciplinary viewpoint. Methodologically, an ethnographic approach that sees algorithms as part of culture, with its own institutions, impact on people and intersection with different contexts, could support co-operation between different disciplines. When such an approach is combined with insights from algorithm studies, research is also relevant for existing political questions regarding platform workers' labour market status and the functioning of platform firms. ; Alustat ja alustatyö 2000-luvun puolivälistä lähtien ovat lisääntyneet suuresti. Vaikka myös alustoja ja alustatyötä koskeva tutkimus on laajentunut, näyttää informaatio- ja sosiaalitieteellisen tutkimuksen välillä olevan suuri kuilu. Tässä artikkelissa näytän sosiologi Maurizio Lazzarato käsitteistön avulla, että alustan teknisellä infrastruktuurilla ja erityisesti algoritmilla, on suora vaikutus työhön ja alustan työntekijän toimijuuteen. Tämä näkökulma mahdollistaa kriittisiä kysymyksiä alustatyöstä ja alustoista. Metodologisesti etnografinen lähestymistapa, joka näkee algoritmit osana kulttuuria, jossa on omalla tavallaan instituutioiden vaikutukset ihmisiin, voi tukea yhteistyötä eri tieteenalojen välillä. Kun tällainen lähestymistapa yhdistetään algoritmitutkimuksen oivalluksiin, lähestymistapa soveltuu myös poliittisille kysymyksille, jotka koskevat alustan työntekijöitä ja niiden asemaa työmarkkinoilla ja sosiaaliturvassa.