Look at the overall picture in Turkey and ask yourself, is this an isolated incident or the tip of an iceberg of a larger social problem: an extensive lack of ethics and a loss of respect for human decency in the public sphere?
While a traditional ethnography is focused on describing and interpreting a cultural or social group or system, an applied ethnography is focused on a research population that is defined by some larger social problem, and seeks to describe and expose fields of experience in which meaning is routinely contested.
Meanwhile, as Calcutta's population grew larger, social problems also became more insistent, as did demands for home rule for India.
The scene was so dismal, and so indicative of larger social problems, that Michael Harrington used it to help dramatize the ravages of urban woes in his groundbreaking book "The Other America," published 40 years ago.
"Measures of the costs of crisis, or the implicit subsidy from the state," Mr. Haldane said, "suggest banking pollution is a real and large social problem".
An increased number of elderly patients with CVD present a large social problem.
An increased number of individuals with end-stage renal failure caused by diabetic nephropathy present a large social problem.
We now have this extraordinary opportunity to tap big data in order to solve large social problems with intergovernmental agencies like the OECD, World Bank and even governments like the US's are choosing to open up their data.
Some are philosophical: the mayor's own battle with cancer has caused him to be more compassionate, he has said, and each official likely hopes that his legacy will include fixing one of the largest social problems of this era.
In May, Aamir Khan, the film star, started hosting a first-of-its-kind TV show, "Satyamev Jayate" (Truth Prevails), that deals with large social problems like the caste system, dowries, the overuse of pesticides, medical malpractice and alcoholism.
In these key areas, inadequate or short-sighted choices can produce large social problems.
