Popular academic ideas linking physiological adaptations to social behaviors are spreading disconcertingly into wider societal contexts. In this article, we note our skepticism with one particularly popular—in our view, problematic—supposed causal correlation between neocortex size and social group size. The resulting Dunbar's Number, as it has come to be called, has been statistically tested against observed group size in different primate species. Although there may be reason to doubt the Dunbar's Number hypothesis among nonhuman primate species, we restrict ourselves here to the application of such an explanatory hypothesis to human, culture-manipulating populations. Human information process management, we argue, cannot be understood as a simple product of brain physiology. Cross-cultural comparison of not only group size but also relationship-reckoning systems like kinship terminologies suggests that although neocortices are undoubtedly crucial to human behavior, they cannot be given such primacy in explaining complex group composition, formation, or management.

Challenges of energy security, low carbon transitions, and electricity network constraints have led to a shift to new, efficient technologies for household energy services. Studies of such technological innovations usually focus on consumer information and changes in behaviour to realise their full potential. We suggest that regarding such technologies in existing energy provision systems opens up questions concerning how and why such interventions are delivered. We argue that we must understand the ways by which energy systems are co-constituted through the habits and expectations of households, their technologies and appliances, alongside arrangements associated with large-scale socio-technical infrastructures. Drawing on research with air-source-to-water heat pumps (ASWHP), installed as part of a large trans-disciplinary, utility-led research and demonstration project in the north of England, we investigate how energy services provision and everyday practice shapes new technologies uptake, and how such technologies mediate and reconfigure relations between users, providers and infrastructure networks. While the installation of ASWHP has led to role differentiation through which energy services are provided, the space for new forms of co-provision to emerge is limited by existing commitments to delivering energy services. Simultaneously, new forms of interdependency emerge between users, providers and intermediaries through sites of installation, instruction, repair and feedback. We find that although new technologies do lead to the rearrangement of practices, this is often disrupted by obduracy in the conventions and habits around domestic heating and hot water practices that have been established in relation to existing systems of provision. Rather being simply a matter of increasing levels of knowledge in order to ensure that such technologies are adopted effi ciently and effectively, our paper demonstrates how systemic arrangements of energy provision and everyday practice are co-implicated in socio-technical innovation by changing the nature of energy supply and use.

(2016) 'Fostering active network management through SMEs'practises.', Energy eciency., 9 (3). pp. 591-604.Further information on publisher's website:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12053-015-9382-y Publisher's copyright statement:The nal publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12053-015-9382-y Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractManaging the electricity network through 'smart grid' systems is a key strategy to address challenges of energy security, low carbon transitions and the replacement of aging infrastructure networks in the UK.Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have a significant role in shaping patterns of energy consumption.Understanding how their activities interrelate with changes in electricity systems is critical for active network management. A significant challenge for the transformation of electricity systems involves comprehending the complexity that stems from the variety of commercial activities and diversity of social and organisational practices amongst SMEs that interact with material infrastructures. We engage with SMEs to consider how smart grid interventions 'fit' into everyday operational activities. Drawing on analysis of empirical data on electricity use, smart meter data, surveys, interviews and 'energy tours' with SMEs to understand lighting, space heating and cooling, refrigeration and IT use, this paper argues for experimenting with the use of practice theory as a framework for bringing together technical and social aspects of energy use in SMEs. This approach reveals that material circumstances and temporal factors shape current energy demand amongst SMEs, with 'connectedness' an emergent factor.

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Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractPakistani Punjabi landlords use marriage both strategically as well as affectively. That is to say, they seek maximal political advantage and minimal household disruption with marriage arrangements. Using a set of formal networks analyses tools, this paper examines two hundred years of marriage decisions for one Punjabi landlord family. The radical shift in marriage decisions beginning from the 1920s is the result of an earlier shift in inheritance rules. The resulting change in marriage decisions has impacted not only on household dynamics, but has disrupted longstanding factional associations within the village.