Qualitative and Quantitative Models in Socio-Economic Systems and Social Work

The main purpose of this book is not only to present recent studies and advances in the field of social science research, but also to stimulate discussion on related practical issues concerning statistics, mathematics, and economics. Accordingly, a broad range of tools and techniques that can be used to solve problems on these topics are presented in detail in this book, which offers an ideal reference work for all researchers interested in effective quantitative and qualitative tools.

The content is divided into three major sections. The first, which is titled "Social work," collects papers on problems related to the social sciences, e.g. social cohesion, health, and digital technologies. Papers in the second part, "Education and teaching issues," address qualitative aspects, education, learning, violence, diversity, disability, and ageing, while the book's final part, "Recent trends in qualitative and quantitative models for socio-economic systems and social work," features contributions on both qualitative and quantitative issues.

The book is based on a scientific collaboration, in the social sciences, mathematics, statistics, and economics, among experts from the "Pablo de Olavide" University of Seville (Spain), the "University of Defence" of Brno (Czech Republic), the "G. D'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy) and "Alexandru Ioan Cuza University" of Iaşi (Romania). The contributions, which have been selected using a peer-review process, examine a wide variety of topics related to the social sciences in general, while also highlighting new and intriguing empirical research conducted in various countries. Given its scope, the book will appeal, in equal measure, to sociologists, mathematicians, statisticians and philosophers, and more generally to scholars and specialists in related fields.

José Luis Sarasola Sánchez-Serrano is Professor in social work with four different degrees: social assistance, social work, educational practice, and philosophy and educational sciences. He is Associative Professor, Director of two masters, Government Counsellor, and Director of the research group PADI-SEJ-452 Research in Social Sciences and Social Politics at the Pablo de Olavide University, Spain, in Social Work and Social Sciences. He is Director of the Seville Social Work College and Author of numerous articles, books, and researches, e.g. "L'expansion de la connaissance en ouvert: Les MOOC", published by Octaedro. His main research areas are dependence and disability; studies on employability and work; gender; community intervention; social intervention, childhood, and family; family mediation; methodology in social work; migrations and multiculturalism; ethnic minorities; social movements; old people; social policy; professional outings; sectors of population at risk of exclusion; social services; and individual, group, and community social work and volunteering.

Fabrizio Maturo obtained his Ph.D. in "economics and statistics" and is Researcher in biostatistics at the National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland. He is qualified to function as an associate professor in statistics in Italy and Romania. He is Chief Editor of the international journal Ratio Mathematica and Co-Editor of the international book Mathematical-Statistical Models and Qualitative Theories for Economic and Social Sciences published by Springer. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems published by IOS Press and of the Journal of Statistics and Management Systems published by Taylor & Francis and participated in the editorial board of many other international journals. His main research interests are biostatistics, DAGs, diversity, functional data analysis, fuzzy logic, multivariate statistics, statistical model for business and management science, item response models, econometrics, and R statistical programming. His past teaching activity regards statistics, mathematics, and computer science.

Sárka Hosková-Mayerová is Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Defence, Brno, Czech Republic. She is Co-Author of the monograph Quality of Spatial Data in Command and Control System and Co-Editor of four books published in Springer publishing house. She is Author or Co-Author of several chapters of books and papers in valuable journals (e.g. Soft Computing, Computers & Mathematics with Applications; Analele Stiintifice ale Universitatii Ovidius Constanţa-Seria Matematica; and Quality & Quantity). She is Chief Editor of the journal Ratio Mathematica and Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems published by IOS Press. Moreover, she is Member of the editorial board of various journals, e.g. Italian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics and Advances in Military Technology.

Her areas of interest are mathematical modelling, decision-making process, algebraic hyperstructures, and fuzzy structures.