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This chapter addresses the relationship between sociology and Non-Equilibrium Social Science (NESS). Sociology is a multiparadigmatic discipline with significant disagreement regarding its goals and status as a scientific discipline. Different theories and methods coexist temporally and geographically. However, it has always aimed at identifying the main factors that explain the temporal stability of norms, institutions and individuals' practices; and the dynamics of institutional change and the conflicts brought about by power relations, economic and cultural inequality and class struggle. Sociologists considered equilibrium could not sufficiently explain the constitutive, maintaining and dissolving dynamics of society as a whole. As a move from the formal apparatus for the study of equilibrium, NESS does not imply a major shift from traditional sociological theory. Complex features have long been articulated in sociological theorization, and sociology embraces the complexity principles of NESS through its growing attention to complex adaptive systems and non-equilibrium sciences, with human societies seen as highly complex, path-dependent, far-from equilibrium, and self-organising systems. In particular, Agent-Based Modelling provides a more coherent inclusion of NESS and complexity principles into sociology. Agent-based sociology uses data and statistics to gauge the 'generative sufficiency' of a given microspecification by testing the agreement between 'real-world' and computer generated macrostructures. When the model cannot generate the outcome to be explained, the microspecification is not a viable candidate explanation. The separation between the explanatory and pragmatic aspects of social science has led sociologists to be highly critical about the implementation of social science in policy. However, ABM allows systematic exploration of the consequences of modelling assumptions and makes it possible to model much more complex phenomena than previously. ABM has proved particularly useful in representing socio-technical and socio-ecological systems, with the potential to be of use in policy. ABM offers formalized knowledge that can appear familiar to policymakers versed in the methods and language of economics, with the prospect of sociology becoming more influential in policy.

This chapter explores the twin central questions of how and why countries of origin reach out to expatriate populations. It first outlines basic concepts and typologies related to sending country policies, focusing particularly on key countries of origin of migrants settled within the European Union. Second, the chapter reviews central explanations for the emergence of sending country policies. However, sending countries do not reach out to their emigrants in equal measure. Differences are therefore examined in the outreach policies of sending countries and in sending countries' transnational relations with diasporas. The last part of the chapter discusses the nexus between sending country policies and migrant integration in the country of residence. On the basis of existing research, the chapter argues that sending country policies may intersect with migrants' integration in a number of ways. For example, migrant sending countries may seek to strengthen the upward mobility of their expatriate citizens in their place of residence abroad, and they may call for greater protection of migrant workers in precarious labour situations. Little is currently known about how migrants and diasporas respond to these policies and how they are perceived by political actors of countries of residence. This is an area for further study. More analysis is also needed to determine the extent that sending country outreach policies aimed at bonding with and supporting citizens abroad challenge territorial policy sovereignty and the strength of receiving countries in agenda-setting in international cooperation on migration and migrant settlement.

This chapter offers a general overview of the often spectacular rise of the share of cohabitation in the process of union formation in 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries during the last 30 years of the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty-first century. First, we offer a brief ethnographic and historical sketch to illustrate the special position of many Latin American regions and sub-populations with respect to forms of partnership formation other than classic marriage. Second, we present the national trends in the rising share of cohabitation in union formation for men and women for the age groups 25-29 and 30-34. Third, we inspect the education and social class differentials by presenting the cross-sectional gradients over time. Fourth, we reflect on the framework of the "second demographic transition" and hence on the de-stigmatization of a number of other behaviors that were equally subject to strong normative restrictions in the past (e.g. divorce, abortion, homosexuality, suicide and euthanasia). Last, we deal with the household and family contexts of married persons and cohabitors respectively.

Altres ajuts: ZZ and NW acknowledge the computer resources at MareNostrum and the technical support provided by Barcelona Supercom- puting Center (FI-2020-1-0014). We acknowledge PRACE for awarding us access to MareNostrum 4 at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Spain (OptoSpin project id. 2020225411) Proximity effects between layered materials trigger a plethora of novel and exotic quantum transport phenomena. Besides, the capability to modulate the nature and strength of proximity effects by changing crystalline and interfacial symmetries offers a vast playground to optimize physical properties of relevance for innovative applications. In this work, we use large-scale first principles calculations to demonstrate that strain and twist-angle strongly vary the spin-orbit coupling in graphene/transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers. Such a change results in a modulation of the spin relaxation times by up to two orders of magnitude. Additionally, the relative strengths of valley-Zeeman and Rashba spin-orbit coupling can be tailored upon twisting, which can turn the system into an ideal Dirac-Rashba regime or generate transitions between topological states of matter. These results shed new light on the debated variability of spin-orbit coupling and clarify how lattice deformations can be used as a knob to control spin transport. Our outcomes also suggest complex spin transport in polycrystalline materials, due to the random variation of grain orientation, which could reflect in large spatial fluctuations of spin-orbit coupling fields

Central America has a long history of family formation via consensual union instead of formal marriage. The historically high levels of cohabitation have persisted throughout the twentieth century up to the present day and can be traced in the remarkably high levels of nonmarital childbearing in the region. This chapter reviews past and recent trends in the prevalence of consensual unions in six Central American countries - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama - in order to ascertain whether cohabitation has reached an upper ceiling in the region and whether the apparent stability at the aggregate level conceals significant changes in cohabiting patterns across social groups. The analyses reveal that the expansion of cohabitation has not come to an end so far, largely because of the recent increase in consensual unions among the higher educated strata. The historically negative educational gradient of cohabitation remains largely in place, but differentials in union patterns across countries and across social groups have narrowed considerably in the past two decades.

In this chapter we use census microdata to document the rise in cohabitation in Colombia and in the Andean countries of Ecuador, Bolivia, Perú and Venezuela over the last four decades. We use multilevel logistic regression models to examine the effect of individual and contextual variables on cohabitation. We show the individual and contextual effects of social stratification, ethnicity and religion on cohabitation. Cohabitation levels follow a negative gradient with education and vary according to ethnic background. The Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Peruvian censuses reveal that the two largest ethnic groups (i.e. the Quechua and Aymara) have, controlling for other characteristics, the lowest incidence of cohabitation. By contrast, Afro-American populations show the highest levels of cohabitation. The joint use of individual- and contextual-level explanatory variables is sufficient to account for the majority of Bolivia's internal diversity regarding cohabitation, but not sufficient to account for the internal diversity identified in Colombia, Peru or Ecuador. Even after controls, residence in the Andes mountain areas continues to be a factor associated with lower levels of cohabitation. This invites further investigations on how the institutionalization of marriage occurred in the Andes.

The availability of the micro data in the IPUMS samples for several censuses spanning a period of 40 years permits a detailed study of differentials and trends in cohabitation in Brazil than has hitherto been the case. The gist of the story is that the historical race/class and religious differentials and the historical spatial contrasts have largely been maintained, but are now operating at much higher levels than in the 1970s. During the last 40 years cohabitation has dramatically increased in all strata of the Brazilian population, and it has spread geographically to all areas in tandem with further expansions in the regions that had historically higher levels to start with. Moreover, the probability of cohabiting depends not only on individual-level characteristics but also on additional contextual effects operating at the level of meso-regions. The rise of cohabitation in Brazil fits the model of the "Second demographic transition", but it is grafted onto a historical pattern which is still manifesting itself in a number of ways.

US studies of marriage and cohabitation have mainly highlighted the social and racial differentials as they were observed in cross-sections, and have as a result essentially focused on the "pattern of disadvantage". The evolution of such social differentials over time and space reveals that this pattern of disadvantage has clearly persisted, but that it is far from covering the whole story. Historically, there has been a major contribution to the rise of cohabitation by white college students, and later on young white adults with higher education continued to start unions via cohabitation to ever increasing degrees. Only, they seem to move into marriage to a greater extent later on in life than other population segments. Also, the religious affiliation matters greatly: Mormons and evangelical Christians have resisted the current trends. Furthermore this effect is not only operating at the individual but at the contextual level as well. Conversely, even after controls for competing socio-economic explanations, residence in areas (either counties or PUMA-areas) with a Democratic voting pattern is related to higher cohabitation probabilities. And, finally, different legal contexts at the level of States also significantly contributed to the emergence of strong spatial contrasts. Hence, there is a concurrence of several factors shaping the present differentiations, and the rise of secular and liberal attitudes, i.e. the "ethics revolution", is equally a part of the explanation.

The main focus of this chapter is on two Barcelona neighbourhoods: Sagrada Família (situated in the Eixample District) and Poble Sec (in the Sants-Montjuïc District). Among the outcomes, it can be highlighted that in both neighbourhoods, schools, public libraries and civic centres emerge as spaces where encounters and interrelations occur. Furthermore, the existence of a well-knit network of social organizations at neighbourhood level is a very useful tool for social cohesion, especially in Poble Sec. In the Sagrada Família neighbourhood, both cooperation and conflict between groups are rather scarce, and they are not as important to the neighbourhood's life and to the residents' perceptions as in Poble Sec. In explaining these differences, while the difference in the percentage of foreigners is an important factor, the urban fabric is equally crucial. Place and space do not only play a secondary role as the setting of the interaction; rather the configuration of areas where encounters occur has a significant influence on conflict and cooperation in neighbourhoods. Thus, a clear practical direction emerging from our research in Barcelona is that immigrant integration policies should be designed with space and place in mind not only as settings but also as objects of those same policies.

Introduction: Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) is an immune-mediated syndrome characterized clinically by weakness and/or numbness that evolves over 2 months or more. The heterogeneity of clinical features necessitates an individualized approach to disease monitoring that takes lessons learned from clinical trials and applies them to clinical practice. Areas covered: This review discusses the importance of clinimetrics and biomarkers in CIDP diagnosis and disease monitoring. Highlighted are the challenges of defining responses to immunotherapy, the usefulness, and limitations of utilizing evidence-based clinical outcome measures during routine clinical care, and the evolving understanding of how diagnostic and disease activity biomarkers may reshape our treatment and disease monitoring paradigms. Expert opinion: Although disability and impairment outcome measures are commonly used in CIDP to indicate disease status, the nonspecific nature of these metrics limits the ability to attribute a change in any given metric to a change in CIDP. This interpretive challenge may be magnified by inconsistencies in the direction of change as well as a strong placebo effect. There is a need to improve our understanding of minimally important changes in existing outcome measures as a means to personalize treatment and to better assess disease activity status with biomarker discovery.