The relationship of entropy‐related measures to money information
The specific purpose of this paper is to trace the development of entropy-related thought from its thermodynamic origins through its organizational and economic applications to its relationship to money information. That trace reveals that existing entropy measures are of states or changes in states that are caused by energy processes. We propose that entropy may as well be conceived as entropic process. The social emergent specific exchange value provides a metric by which entropic process may be quantified. The analysis connects the traditional state-oriented entropy measures to measures of entropic process in social systems. In doing so, the character of exchange-based societies and the function of money information within them are elaborated. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Criticality, Entropy and Conflict
Power‐law distributions are ubiquitous in the natural and social worlds and also characterize the intensity of intrastate conflicts. One of the most convincing approaches to explain the origin of power laws is the so‐called forest‐fire model, which is based on the notion of self‐organized criticality. In order to make this model more fruitful for social science, its components require a deeper theoretical specification. We turn to general systems theory and the conception of entropy (uncertainty, insecurity and disorder) and its conceptual complement, negentropy. We argue that intrastate conflict is an ‘eruptive’ form of ‘social fissioning’: an evolutionary mechanism whereby sharp friend–foe differences and rigid within‐group conformity are created, increasing the certainty of social interactions. In intrastate conflicts, the political system burdens the economic and cultural systems with entropy and extracts negentropy resources from them. This process is characterized by discontinuous outbursts of entropy, which collectively follow a power law. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The nationwide nosocomial infection rate. A new need for vital statistics.
From a random sample of patients and hospitals and extrapolation ratios derived from the best available sources of data, the authors estimate that the nationwide nosocomial infection rate among the 6,449 acute-care US hospitals in 1975-1976 was 5.7 nosocomial infections per 100 admissions and that over 2 million nosocomial infections occurred in a 12-month period in these hospitals. Nosocomial urinary tract infections constituted 42% of the infections, surgical wound infections 24%, nosocomial pneumonia 10%, nosocomial bacteremia 5%, and nosocomial infections at all other sites 19%. If adjustments are made for the accuracy of the diagnostic method, the increasing nationwide secular trend, and the number of nosocomial infections in nursing homes, however, as many as 4 million nosocomial infections per year may now be occurring. This greatly exceeds previous estimates and calls for timely and accurate vital statistics on the problem.