Background: This study examines socio-demographic profiles, injecting risk, and use of health services among young injectors (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24) in Albania, Moldova, Romania, and Serbia. The objective was to provide age-disaggregated data to identify differences between adolescents (<18) and youth (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24), and help fill the gap in knowledge on the youngest injectors in this region. Methods: Cross sectional surveys were conducted in each country using chain-referral sampling to reach diverse networks of people who use drugs (PWID). In Albania and Romania, surveys were conducted in the capitals, respectively Bucharest and Tirana. Respondents were recruited from 3 cities in Moldova (Chisinau, Balti and Tiraspol) and Serbia (Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis). Data were collected on risk behaviours, service use, and contact with police and other authorities. Analysis focused on associations between unsafe injecting behaviour and key determinants including demographic background, source of needles/syringes, use of harm reduction services, and interactions with law enforcement. Results: Although drug use and health-seeking varied across settings, sources of injecting equipment were significantly associated with sharing needles and syringes in Moldova, Romania and Serbia. Obtaining equipment from formal sources (pharmacies, needle-exchange programmes) reduced likelihood of sharing significantly, while being stopped by the police or incarcerated increased it. Adolescents relied on pharmacies more than public sector services to obtain equipment. Conclusion: Adolescents comprise a small proportion of PWID in this region, but have poorer access to harm reduction services than older peers. Engaging young PWID through private and public sector outlets might reduce unsafe practices, while use of the justice system to address drug use complicates efforts to reach this population.

The paper argues that a mathematical approach might contribute to the consolidation of time as an epistemic object, while strengthening the sociology of time as a more influential domain in social sciences. This might be accomplished due to the performative role of mathematical formalisations. Also, it means appropriating the textual reality resulted in formalising processes as a space which researchers act through and upon. Thus, mathematical formalisations should be understood not only as modelling and data processing devices but also as relevant actors in networks of knowledge production. In this context, we reassess the practice of formalisation by proposing a vocabulary through which mathematical language might be used to meaningfully approach the socio-temporal order, with positive consequences in the reinforcement of a scientific community of practice.

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In this paper, we discuss our experience in teaching time to university students. Our analysis suggests that students’ sociological imagination and fictional creativity might be used as means to deconstruct the hegemonic temporalities of modernity. Specifically, we exemplify our claims by considering a set of classroom activities that use speculative fabulation in order to make students question key assumptions about the objective nature of time. The activities we discuss are based on an original combination of exposure to cultural products, reflective writing exercises, and moderated group discussion, thus opening up new horizons of temporal experimentation, exploration, and interpretation. Our activities invite students to imagine alternative temporalities that are decoupled from prevalent mindsets and challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions about the temporal worlds. The assignments are designed as imaginative scenarios, in which students are asked to question the universal, commodified, and absolute notion of time while becoming familiar with the work of relevant thinkers in sociology and anthropology. Based on our results, we conclude that speculative fabulation holds a strong emancipatory potential and is able to bring about significant changes in how students think about time, because it promotes more empowering and meaningful ways of engagement with the world.

In this paper we propose an emerging vocabulary to approach strategic planning and sustainable management in terms of time capital at four levels of analysis: (1) individual, (2) microsocial, (3) mesosocial, and (4) macrosocial. Besides proposing a taxonomical granularity, the paper brings conceptual clarifications by using equations as cognitive resources, as well as by discussing issues of convertibility between time capital and other forms of capital (economic, human, social and cultural capital). A paradigm of time capital has significant implications for administrative measures and strategic management. Moreover, such a paradigm might guide the practice of sustainable planning by providing information in the decision-making process. Last but not least, a paradigm of time capital integrates forms of mathematical intelligibility in which the social world is shown as a predictable and controllable universe with effects on the manner in which material and symbolic resources are distributed across individuals, groups and communities.

Salt intake is one of the important predictors of hypertension, a widespread chronic disease among adults. Much remains to be known about its causes, especially in the Romanian context, where there is a scarcity of analyses on this particular topic. Its predictors are relevant for public policy in order to evaluate what strategy should be adopted given actual levels of salt intake and the way people think about their levels of salt intake. Our analyses focus on actual and perceived salt intake. Data for this analysis come from the SEPHAR project, gathered in 2016 (wave 3), a nationally representative sample of Romanians. After noting a major discrepancy between perceived and actual levels of salt intake, we used two regressions with actual and perceived salt intake as dependent variables and three types of factors as independent variables: socio-demographic (age, gender, region, type of locality, education), lifestyle (fat diet, alcohol consumption, active lifestyle, and smoking) and related diseases (obesity and diabetes). Results show Romanians have similar levels of salt intake perceptions independently of the characteristics considered, except fat diet and diabetes, and similar levels of actual salt intake except age and gender, even though previous research shows that there are differences between individuals across these characteristics when it comes to considering hypertension as a dependent variable. We conclude by noting policy interventions regarding salt intake based on the results of this research, especially the need to update the current Romanian TV campaign to reduce salt intake or similar campaigns from other countries.