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In every industry there are resources. Some are moving, others more fixed; some are technical, others social. People working with the resources, for example, as buyers or sellers, or users or producers, may not make much notice of them. A product sells. A facility functions. The business relationship in which we make our money has “always” been there. However, some times this picture of order is disturbed. A user having purchased a product for decades may “suddenly” say to the producer that s/he does not appreciate the product. And a producer having received an order of a product that s/he thought was well known, may find it impossible to sell it. Such disturbances may be ignored. Or they can be used as a platform for development. In this study we investigate the latter option, theoretically and through real world data. Concerning theory we draw on the industrial network approach. We see industrial actors as part of (industrial) networks. In their activities actors use and produce resources. Moreover, the actors interact − bilaterally and multilaterally. This leads to development of resources and networks. Through “thick” descriptions of two cases we illustrate and try to understand the interactive character of resource development and how actors do business on features of resources. The cases are about a certain type of resource, a product − goat milk. The main message to industrial actors is that they should pay attention to that products can be co-created. Successful co-creation of products, moreover, may require development also of business relationships and their connections (“networking”).

Students with special needs include children with impaired attention, disruptive behavior, learning disabilities, and developmental disorders, among many other conditions. When a child has been diagnosed with such a disorder, his or her parents may seek treatment that could assist the child to be more academically and socially successful. Numerous interventions exist for the treatment of childhood disorders; however, these treatment methods differ in the types and amounts of evidence supporting their usefulness and effectiveness (Lilienfeld, 2005).

Nutrition, as a science, is poorly understood, both professionally and publicly. The confusion that surrounds this science makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to formulate public health policy, which creates opportunities for political manipulation and control. Nutrition, for a century or more, has been variously described as a summation of the physiological and biochemical properties of individual nutrients in food rather than the whole food itself. This infers that isolated nutrients in supplements will function in the same way as nutrients in food. It also infers that removing or minimizing “undesirable” nutrients from food will make the food more healthful. This arises from the highly reductionist way that we focus on individual nutrients minus their natural context, both the context within the foods of which they are a part and the context within biological systems where they function. The shortcomings of this belief system may be illustrated by hugely costly mistakes made in the past, even more than a century ago, that corrupt current practices. Such mistakes have become so embedded in the contemporary narrative on nutritional science, both fundamentally and practically, that we fail to recognize the damage they continue to cause.

Alternatively, when nutritional effects are considered more within their natural contexts, that is, more wholistically, then it helps to explain, for example, the remarkable ability of nutrition, as provided by a whole food plant-based diet, to prevent even to cure varied types of cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, the breadth of this nutritional effect for a wide variety of illnesses and diseases suggests that nutrition, properly provided by a whole food plant-based diet, is more efficacious than a combination of all the contemporary pills and procedures combined. It also suggests that genetic determinism is not the explanation for disease that is widely advanced. And finally, among still more consequences, there are many societal outcomes that can be substantially mitigated, including the escalating cost of health care and the dangerously increasing array of destructive practices that damage the environment. Many of the momentous health, economic, environmental and sociopolitical problems currently faced may be traced to a misunderstanding of the effects of food and nutrition. The task therefore is how to bring this message to the attention of a public who for too long have gradually adopted flawed food production and healthcare systems that are on the verge of collapse, threatening the collapse of entire societies as we know them. More specifically, a public and professional dialog on the meaning of nutrition, especially its wholistic properties, is desperately needed, especially in medical schools where nutrition as a science is almost totally ignored.

The treatment and care of persons with a disability should and must be all encompassing. With the expansion of the knowledge that proper dieting can make a difference in the individual’s development and quality of life, attention must be focused on using proper food intake to remediate the negative impact of a disability. Food is related to proper healthcare; therefore, we must include proper nutrition in working with learners with exceptionalities. We must add to the list of treatments not only educational intervention, social interaction, and independent living, but also food intake. This chapter looks at the dietary needs of several disabling conditions, and addresses how particular dietary food selections help in their development and their ability to learn integration, playing skills with others, and working independently when called on to do so. Therefore, for the purposes of this chapter, we focus on exceptionalities such as cognitive disability, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Down syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), muscular dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis.

This study applies asymmetric rather than conventional symmetric analysis to advance theory in occupational psychology. The study applies systematic case-based analyses to model complex relations among conditions (i.e., configurations of high and low scores for variables) in terms of set memberships of managers. The study uses Boolean algebra to identify configurations (i.e., recipes) reflecting complex conditions sufficient for the occurrence of outcomes of interest (e.g., high versus low financial job stress, job strain, and job satisfaction). The study applies complexity theory tenets to offer a nuanced perspective concerning the occurrence of contrarian cases – for example, in identifying different cases (e.g., managers) with high membership scores in a variable (e.g., core self-evaluation) who have low job satisfaction scores and when different cases with low membership scores in the same variable have high job satisfaction. In a large-scale empirical study of managers (n = 928) in four (contextual) segments of the farm industry in New Zealand, this study tests the fit and predictive validities of set membership configurations for simple and complex antecedent conditions that indicate high/low core self-evaluations, job stress, and high/low job satisfaction. The findings support the conclusion that complexity theory in combination with configural analysis offers useful insights for explaining nuances in the causes and outcomes to high stress as well as low stress among farm managers. Some findings support and some are contrary to symmetric relationship findings (i.e., highly significant correlations that support main effect hypotheses).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the informal micro-level mechanisms through which caregivers maximize their health literacy and caregiving skill-set, particularly in cases of emergent, pervasive health disorders. Specifically, I investigate how important micro-level social factors, such as lay self-education and local community networks, mitigate extensive experiences of medical uncertainty that are associated with caring for a child with autism. This study theorizes a series of processes of becoming lay health care professionals (HCP), which serve as effective health care interventions and ways to secure vital resources for patients and their families.

This study uses qualitative research methods in the form of 50 individual intensive interviews with primary caregivers of at least one child under the age of 18 with an official autism diagnosis, as well as two years of participant-observation at two primary sites that are autism parent and caregiver resource meetings, both located in Northern California.

This study first demonstrates the major institutional limits and gaps involved in health-related caregiving for children with autism. Next, I define the processes through which caregivers challenge these institutional constraints and fight for life altering resources for their families, which include becoming a lay diagnostician and expert caregiver. Here, I demonstrate a sophisticated set of health literacy skills and key local community-based ties that caregivers develop and rely on, which affords families the tools to overcome diverse institutional obstacles in health-seeking and health care access.

The families in this study are predominantly white, middle-class, and reside in California. For future research, the scope of the study could be expanded by increasing the sample size and including greater geographic and demographic diversity.

This study contributes vital, yet missing, pieces to the autism puzzle, which currently focuses on prevention, the fight for a so-called “cure,” and the role of vaccines in disorder prevalence. In the meantime, families are living with autism each day and are struggling for understanding and knowledge, and to secure adequate support services. In doing so, this study sheds light on current institutional gaps and limits in health care and delivery for children with autism, and suggests specific effective health care interventions applicable to other cases of emergent illnesses and disorders.

This chapter is a comprehensive discussion of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) across the globe (e.g., United States, China, Brazil, Japan and Turkey). Topics that are discussed include the following: diagnostic criteria and approaches; international perspectives of ASD; western and eastern assessment practices; cultural considerations of assessment of ASD; educational and medical interventions; behavioral and emotional interventions; complementary and alternative medical interventions; variations in educational services among countries; early intervention practices; adult services; national and international resources; and current needs and future directions.

Higher education has struggled to find, implement, and adopt technology that is transformative to the learning experience. Most systems are disparate, old, data-poor, and heavily nuanced platforms with few champions and many detractors. At the same time, the process of learning, which is the ultimate goal of the institution’s students, does not leverage what we know about the brain, learning science, and more. However, all of these problems can be overcome if leaders and champions create learning technologies that are holistic to the student experience while assuring deep integration with other systems. This is how student success initiatives can be improved, at scale, and see technology assisting leaders.

Leveraging case studies of exemplar teaching, learning, technological, and data strategies by which to empower people and connect analytics, this chapter seeks to provide tangible ways by which to deliver “best” learning from a holistic perspective. The problems facing higher education and consistently presented in the media can be overcome with smarter, more connected solutions, such as the ones described in this chapter.

The chapters PJ McGann and David J. Hutson have assembled for this volume are not only timely, coinciding with the appearance of DSM-V, but mark a defining moment in which a new subfield of medical sociology has emerged. Diagnosis, which refers both to diagnostic categories and the process of creating and applying them, is a central feature (Blaxter, 1978) – if not the central feature of medical work. Annemarie Jutel, who has done much to build the sociology of diagnosis, has described the wide array of “work” diagnosis performs in the medical world:Diagnosis is integral to medicine and the way it creates social order. It organizes illness: identifying treatment options, predicting outcomes, and providing an explanatory framework. Diagnosis also serves an administrative purpose as it enables access to services and status, from insurance reimbursement to restricted-access medication, sick leave and support group membership and so on… (Jutel, 2009, p. 278)