Journal Guide

Founded in 1962, the journal Society publishes new ideas and research findings drawn from all the social sciences, and presented in a readable and useful manner. It is aimed at decision makers and others concerned with trends in modern society. Each issue features a special symposium and policy-relevant research, as well as reviews of significant new books. Articles in Society span the social sciences, including sociology, political science, economics, psychology, and anthropology. Society attracts an interdisciplinary readership of social scientists and others with a proven interest in social and political issues.

© Nicolas Brodu. 2003 The astrolabe is an ancient astronomical computer for solving problemsrelating to time and the position of the sun and stars in the sky.Historians credit the invention of the astrolabe to classical Greece.Brass astrolabes were highly developed in the Islamic world of the 8thcentury and later. chiefly as an aid to navigation and as a way offinding the direction of Mecca. In the Middle Ages it found its wayback to Europe and became the chief navigational instrument until theinvention of the sextant in the 18th century.

Society and Natural Resources publishes a broad range of social science research and thinking on the interaction of social and bio-physical processes, policies and practices occurring around the world and at multiple scales. These involve attention to cultural, psychological, economic and political perspectives relating to forests, oceans, fisheries, soils, and water; and address a variety of topics such as people and protected areas/biodiversity conservation, globalization and capitalism, environmental justice, place/community-based conservation, community resilience, adaptive and collaborative management, sustainability, climate change, environmental attitudes and concerns, environmental hazards and risks, and human-nature relationships. Papers published in Society & Natural Resources go through a double-blind, peer review process and meet standards of contributing significantly to theory and/or transformative policies and practices, offering scholarly depth but broad appeal to our diverse readership.

The Society and Business Review (SBR) aims to cultivate and share knowledge and ideas in order to assist businesses and organizations to enhance their commitment to society and the planet.

Socio-Economic Planning Sciences is an international journal devoted exclusively to research in this important, but under-represented area. It provides a medium for research that might not appear in more specialized journals, either because of the interdisciplinary or applied character of the study, or the mathematical/quantitative nature of the research. The journal thus serves as a focus for investigations that have hitherto appeared in widely-scattered sources and/or less-than-appropriate sources.

Socio-Economic Planning Sciences strongly encourages contributions dealing with applications of quantitative models and techniques to important decision problems in the service and public sectors. Of particular interest are accounts of such studies carried out in developing countries and economically emerging regions of the world. Review articles in important methodological and substantive areas are also of interest.

The principal criterion used in evaluating a manuscript submitted to the journal is: uniqueness or innovation of the work in terms of the methodology being developed, and/or its application to a problem of particular importance in the public or service sector and/or the setting within which the effort is being made, e.g. an emerging region of the world. That is to say, of the model/methodology itself, the application, and the problem context, at least one of these must be unique and important.

Additional criteria considered in reviewing a submitted paper are its accuracy, the organization/presentation (i.e. logical flow), and writing quality.

Representative of the topic areas included in the journal are the following:

Studies directed toward the more effective utilization of existing resources, e.g. mathematical programming models of health care delivery systems with relevance to more effective program design; systems analysis of fire outbreaks and its relevance to the location of fire stations; statistical analysis of the efficiency of a developing country economy or industry.

Studies relating to the interaction of various segments of society and technology, e.g. the effects of government health policies on the utilization and design of hospital facilities; the relationship between housing density and the demands on public transportation or other service facilities: patterns and implications of urban development and air or water pollution.

Studies devoted to the anticipations of and response to future needs for social, health and other human services, e.g. the relationship between industrial growth and the development of educational resources in affected areas; investigation of future demands for material and child health resources in a developing country; design of effective recycling in an urban setting.