Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas on Complex Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Iyer, Swami; Killingback, Timothy

2016-01-01

Cooperation in social dilemmas is essential for the functioning of systems at multiple levels of complexity, from the simplest biological organisms to the most sophisticated human societies. Cooperation, although widespread, is fundamentally challenging to explain evolutionarily, since natural selection typically favors selfish behavior which is not socially optimal. Here we study the evolution of cooperation in three exemplars of key social dilemmas, representing the prisoner’s dilemma, hawk-dove and coordination classes of games, in structured populations defined by complex networks. Using individual-based simulations of the games on model and empirical networks, we give a detailed comparative study of the effects of the structural properties of a network, such as its average degree, variance in degree distribution, clustering coefficient, and assortativity coefficient, on the promotion of cooperative behavior in all three classes of games. PMID:26928428

Evolution of cooperation under social pressure in multiplex networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Pereda, María

2016-09-01

In this work, we aim to contribute to the understanding of human prosocial behavior by studying the influence that a particular form of social pressure, "being watched," has on the evolution of cooperative behavior. We study how cooperation emerges in multiplex complex topologies by analyzing a particular bidirectionally coupled dynamics on top of a two-layer multiplex network (duplex). The coupled dynamics appears between the prisoner's dilemma game in a network and a threshold cascade model in the other. The threshold model is intended to abstract the behavior of a network of vigilant nodes that impose the pressure of being observed altering hence the temptation to defect of the dilemma. Cooperation or defection in the game also affects the state of a node of being vigilant. We analyze these processes on different duplex networks structures and assess the influence of the topology, average degree and correlated multiplexity, on the outcome of cooperation. Interestingly, we find that the social pressure of vigilance may impact cooperation positively or negatively, depending on the duplex structure, specifically the degree correlations between layers is determinant. Our results give further quantitative insights in the promotion of cooperation under social pressure.

Evolution of opinions on social networks in the presence of competing committed groups.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Jierui; Emenheiser, Jeffrey; Kirby, Matthew; Sreenivasan, Sameet; Szymanski, Boleslaw K; Korniss, Gyorgy

2012-01-01

Public opinion is often affected by the presence of committed groups of individuals dedicated to competing points of view. Using a model of pairwise social influence, we study how the presence of such groups within social networks affects the outcome and the speed of evolution of the overall opinion on the network. Earlier work indicated that a single committed group within a dense social network can cause the entire network to quickly adopt the group's opinion (in times scaling logarithmically with the network size), so long as the committed group constitutes more than about 10% of the population (with the findings being qualitatively similar for sparse networks as well). Here we study the more general case of opinion evolution when two groups committed to distinct, competing opinions A and B, and constituting fractions pA and pB of the total population respectively, are present in the network. We show for stylized social networks (including Erdös-Rényi random graphs and Barabási-Albert scale-free networks) that the phase diagram of this system in parameter space (pA,pB) consists of two regions, one where two stable steady-states coexist, and the remaining where only a single stable steady-state exists. These two regions are separated by two fold-bifurcation (spinodal) lines which meet tangentially and terminate at a cusp (critical point). We provide further insights to the phase diagram and to the nature of the underlying phase transitions by investigating the model on infinite (mean-field limit), finite complete graphs and finite sparse networks. For the latter case, we also derive the scaling exponent associated with the exponential growth of switching times as a function of the distance from the critical point.

Limitation of degree information for analyzing the interaction evolution in online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Ke-Ke; Yan, Wei-Sheng; Xu, Xiao-Ke

2014-04-01

Previously many studies on online social networks simply analyze the static topology in which the friend relationship once established, then the links and nodes will not disappear, but this kind of static topology may not accurately reflect temporal interactions on online social services. In this study, we define four types of users and interactions in the interaction (dynamic) network. We found that active, disappeared, new and super nodes (users) have obviously different strength distribution properties and this result also can be revealed by the degree characteristics of the unweighted interaction and friendship (static) networks. However, the active, disappeared, new and super links (interactions) only can be reflected by the strength distribution in the weighted interaction network. This result indicates the limitation of the static topology data on analyzing social network evolutions. In addition, our study uncovers the approximately stable statistics for the dynamic social network in which there are a large variation for users and interaction intensity. Our findings not only verify the correctness of our definitions, but also helped to study the customer churn and evaluate the commercial value of valuable customers in online social networks.

Multilayer Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dickison, Mark; Magnani, Matteo; Rossi, Luca

social network systems, the evolution of interconnected social networks, and dynamic processes such as information spreading. A single real dataset is used to illustrate the concepts presented throughout the book, demonstrating both the practical utility and the potential shortcomings of the various...

Leveraging social networks for understanding the evolution of epidemics

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background To understand how infectious agents disseminate throughout a population it is essential to capture the social model in a realistic manner. This paper presents a novel approach to modeling the propagation of the influenza virus throughout a realistic interconnection network based on actual individual interactions which we extract from online social networks. The advantage is that these networks can be extracted from existing sources which faithfully record interactions between people in their natural environment. We additionally allow modeling the characteristics of each individual as well as customizing his daily interaction patterns by making them time-dependent. Our purpose is to understand how the infection spreads depending on the structure of the contact network and the individuals who introduce the infection in the population. This would help public health authorities to respond more efficiently to epidemics. Results We implement a scalable, fully distributed simulator and validate the epidemic model by comparing the simulation results against the data in the 2004-2005 New York State Department of Health Report (NYSDOH), with similar temporal distribution results for the number of infected individuals. We analyze the impact of different types of connection models on the virus propagation. Lastly, we analyze and compare the effects of adopting several different vaccination policies, some of them based on individual characteristics -such as age- while others targeting the super-connectors in the social model. Conclusions This paper presents an approach to modeling the propagation of the influenza virus via a realistic social model based on actual individual interactions extracted from online social networks. We implemented a scalable, fully distributed simulator and we analyzed both the dissemination of the infection and the effect of different vaccination policies on the progress of the epidemics. The epidemic values predicted by our simulator match

Leveraging social networks for understanding the evolution of epidemics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martín Gonzalo

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background To understand how infectious agents disseminate throughout a population it is essential to capture the social model in a realistic manner. This paper presents a novel approach to modeling the propagation of the influenza virus throughout a realistic interconnection network based on actual individual interactions which we extract from online social networks. The advantage is that these networks can be extracted from existing sources which faithfully record interactions between people in their natural environment. We additionally allow modeling the characteristics of each individual as well as customizing his daily interaction patterns by making them time-dependent. Our purpose is to understand how the infection spreads depending on the structure of the contact network and the individuals who introduce the infection in the population. This would help public health authorities to respond more efficiently to epidemics. Results We implement a scalable, fully distributed simulator and validate the epidemic model by comparing the simulation results against the data in the 2004-2005 New York State Department of Health Report (NYSDOH, with similar temporal distribution results for the number of infected individuals. We analyze the impact of different types of connection models on the virus propagation. Lastly, we analyze and compare the effects of adopting several different vaccination policies, some of them based on individual characteristics -such as age- while others targeting the super-connectors in the social model. Conclusions This paper presents an approach to modeling the propagation of the influenza virus via a realistic social model based on actual individual interactions extracted from online social networks. We implemented a scalable, fully distributed simulator and we analyzed both the dissemination of the infection and the effect of different vaccination policies on the progress of the epidemics. The epidemic values

Community Core Evolution in Mobile Social Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hao Xu

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Community detection in social networks attracts a lot of attention in the recent years. Existing methods always depict the relationship of two nodes using the temporary connection. However, these temporary connections cannot be fully recognized as the real relationships when the history connections among nodes are considered. For example, a casual visit in Facebook cannot be seen as an establishment of friendship. Hence, our question is the following: how to cluster the real friends in mobile social networks? In this paper, we study the problem of detecting the stable community core in mobile social networks. The cumulative stable contact is proposed to depict the relationship among nodes. The whole process is divided into timestamps. Nodes and their connections can be added or removed at each timestamp, and historical contacts are considered when detecting the community core. Also, community cores can be tracked through the incremental computing, which can help to recognize the evolving of community structure. Empirical studies on real-world social networks demonstrate that our proposed method can effectively detect stable community cores in mobile social networks.

Community core evolution in mobile social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Hao; Xiao, Weidong; Tang, Daquan; Tang, Jiuyang; Wang, Zhenwen

2013-01-01

Community detection in social networks attracts a lot of attention in the recent years. Existing methods always depict the relationship of two nodes using the temporary connection. However, these temporary connections cannot be fully recognized as the real relationships when the history connections among nodes are considered. For example, a casual visit in Facebook cannot be seen as an establishment of friendship. Hence, our question is the following: how to cluster the real friends in mobile social networks? In this paper, we study the problem of detecting the stable community core in mobile social networks. The cumulative stable contact is proposed to depict the relationship among nodes. The whole process is divided into timestamps. Nodes and their connections can be added or removed at each timestamp, and historical contacts are considered when detecting the community core. Also, community cores can be tracked through the incremental computing, which can help to recognize the evolving of community structure. Empirical studies on real-world social networks demonstrate that our proposed method can effectively detect stable community cores in mobile social networks.

Emergence, evolution and scaling of online social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Le-Zhi; Huang, Zi-Gang; Rong, Zhi-Hai; Wang, Xiao-Fan; Lai, Ying-Cheng

2014-01-01

Online social networks have become increasingly ubiquitous and understanding their structural, dynamical, and scaling properties not only is of fundamental interest but also has a broad range of applications. Such networks can be extremely dynamic, generated almost instantaneously by, for example, breaking-news items. We investigate a common class of online social networks, the user-user retweeting networks, by analyzing the empirical data collected from Sina Weibo (a massive twitter-like microblogging social network in China) with respect to the topic of the 2011 Japan earthquake. We uncover a number of algebraic scaling relations governing the growth and structure of the network and develop a probabilistic model that captures the basic dynamical features of the system. The model is capable of reproducing all the empirical results. Our analysis not only reveals the basic mechanisms underlying the dynamics of the retweeting networks, but also provides general insights into the control of information spreading on such networks.

Emergence, evolution and scaling of online social networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Le-Zhi Wang

Full Text Available Online social networks have become increasingly ubiquitous and understanding their structural, dynamical, and scaling properties not only is of fundamental interest but also has a broad range of applications. Such networks can be extremely dynamic, generated almost instantaneously by, for example, breaking-news items. We investigate a common class of online social networks, the user-user retweeting networks, by analyzing the empirical data collected from Sina Weibo (a massive twitter-like microblogging social network in China with respect to the topic of the 2011 Japan earthquake. We uncover a number of algebraic scaling relations governing the growth and structure of the network and develop a probabilistic model that captures the basic dynamical features of the system. The model is capable of reproducing all the empirical results. Our analysis not only reveals the basic mechanisms underlying the dynamics of the retweeting networks, but also provides general insights into the control of information spreading on such networks.

Social Networks and Health.

Science.gov (United States)

Perdiaris, Christos; Chardalias, Konstantinos; Magita, Andrianna; Mechili, Aggelos E; Diomidous, Marianna

2015-01-01

Nowadays the social networks have been developed into an advanced communications tool, which is important for all people to contact each other. These specific networks do offer lots of options as well as plenty of advantages and disadvantages. The social websites are many in number and titles, such as the facebook, the twitter, the bandoo etc. One of the most important function-mechanisms for the social network websites, are the marketing tools. The future goal is suggested to be the evolution of these programs. The development of these applications, which is going to lead into a new era for the social digital communication between the internet users, all around the globe.

Effect of users' opinion evolution on information diffusion in online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Hengmin; Kong, Yuehan; Wei, Jing; Ma, Jing

2018-02-01

The process of topic propagation always interweaves information diffusion and opinion evolution, but most previous works studied the models of information diffusion and opinion evolution separately, and seldom focused on their interaction of each other. To shed light on the effect of users' opinion evolution on information diffusion in online social networks, we proposed a model which incorporates opinion evolution into the process of topic propagation. Several real topics propagating on Sina Microblog were collected to analyze individuals' propagation intentions, and different propagation intentions were considered in the model. The topic propagation was simulated to explore the impact of different opinion distributions and intervention with opposite opinion on information diffusion. Results show that the topic with one-sided opinions can spread faster and more widely, and intervention with opposite opinion is an effective measure to guide the topic propagation. The earlier to intervene, the more effectively the topic propagation would be guided.

Applications of social media and social network analysis

CERN Document Server

Kazienko, Przemyslaw

2015-01-01

This collection of contributed chapters demonstrates a wide range of applications within two overlapping research domains: social media analysis and social network analysis. Various methodologies were utilized in the twelve individual chapters including static, dynamic and real-time approaches to graph, textual and multimedia data analysis. The topics apply to reputation computation, emotion detection, topic evolution, rumor propagation, evaluation of textual opinions, friend ranking, analysis of public transportation networks, diffusion in dynamic networks, analysis of contributors to commun

Data mining for social network data

CERN Document Server

Memon, Nasrullah; Hicks, David L; Chen, Hsinchun

2010-01-01

Driven by counter-terrorism efforts, marketing analysis and an explosion in online social networking in recent years, data mining has moved to the forefront of information science. This proposed Special Issue on ""Data Mining for Social Network Data"" will present a broad range of recent studies in social networking analysis. It will focus on emerging trends and needs in discovery and analysis of communities, solitary and social activities, and activities in open fora, and commercial sites as well. It will also look at network modeling, infrastructure construction, dynamic growth and evolution

Entropy of dynamical social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Kun; Karsai, Marton; Bianconi, Ginestra

2012-02-01

Dynamical social networks are evolving rapidly and are highly adaptive. Characterizing the information encoded in social networks is essential to gain insight into the structure, evolution, adaptability and dynamics. Recently entropy measures have been used to quantify the information in email correspondence, static networks and mobility patterns. Nevertheless, we still lack methods to quantify the information encoded in time-varying dynamical social networks. In this talk we present a model to quantify the entropy of dynamical social networks and use this model to analyze the data of phone-call communication. We show evidence that the entropy of the phone-call interaction network changes according to circadian rhythms. Moreover we show that social networks are extremely adaptive and are modified by the use of technologies such as mobile phone communication. Indeed the statistics of duration of phone-call is described by a Weibull distribution and is significantly different from the distribution of duration of face-to-face interactions in a conference. Finally we investigate how much the entropy of dynamical social networks changes in realistic models of phone-call or face-to face interactions characterizing in this way different type human social behavior.

Social Networking Sites: A premise on enhancement

OpenAIRE

MANINDERPAL SINGH SAINI; GYEWON MOON

2013-01-01

This article address five constructs that are paramount toward continued evolution of social networking sites (SNS`s) they include, - stabilisation, visual, language, security and flexibility. These constructs add to our proposed framework. Firmly grounded research on social networking sites and literature, we propose that user feedback, is the critical component that stimulates the development and growth of social networking sites online. We offer a framework that can aid new and current soc...

A model for evolution of overlapping community networks

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Karan, Rituraj; Biswal, Bibhu

2017-05-01

A model is proposed for the evolution of network topology in social networks with overlapping community structure. Starting from an initial community structure that is defined in terms of group affiliations, the model postulates that the subsequent growth and loss of connections is similar to the Hebbian learning and unlearning in the brain and is governed by two dominant factors: the strength and frequency of interaction between the members, and the degree of overlap between different communities. The temporal evolution from an initial community structure to the current network topology can be described based on these two parameters. It is possible to quantify the growth occurred so far and predict the final stationary state to which the network is likely to evolve. Applications in epidemiology or the spread of email virus in a computer network as well as finding specific target nodes to control it are envisaged. While facing the challenge of collecting and analyzing large-scale time-resolved data on social groups and communities one faces the most basic questions: how do communities evolve in time? This work aims to address this issue by developing a mathematical model for the evolution of community networks and studying it through computer simulation.

The Evolution of Wikipedia’s Norm Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bradi Heaberlin

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Social norms have traditionally been difficult to quantify. In any particular society, their sheer number and complex interdependencies often limit a system-level analysis. One exception is that of the network of norms that sustain the online Wikipedia community. We study the fifteen-year evolution of this network using the interconnected set of pages that establish, describe, and interpret the community’s norms. Despite Wikipedia’s reputation for ad hoc governance, we find that its normative evolution is highly conservative. The earliest users create norms that both dominate the network and persist over time. These core norms govern both content and interpersonal interactions using abstract principles such as neutrality, verifiability, and assume good faith. As the network grows, norm neighborhoods decouple topologically from each other, while increasing in semantic coherence. Taken together, these results suggest that the evolution of Wikipedia’s norm network is akin to bureaucratic systems that predate the information age.

Social Networks and Political Parties in Chile

OpenAIRE

Adler Lomnitz, Larissa

2002-01-01

This paper describes the origin and evolution of two Chilean political parties (the Radical Party and the Christian Democrat Party) through the analysis of the social networks that originated and composed them. The aim of this study is to propose a model of national political cultures on the basis of the structure of social networks related to power and of the symbol system, which legitimizes it. The structure of social networks, horizontal and vertical, are based on reciprocal or redistribut...

Evolution properties of the community members for dynamic networks

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Yang, Kai; Guo, Qiang; Li, Sheng-Nan; Han, Jing-Ti; Liu, Jian-Guo

2017-03-01

The collective behaviors of community members for dynamic social networks are significant for understanding evolution features of communities. In this Letter, we empirically investigate the evolution properties of the new community members for dynamic networks. Firstly, we separate data sets into different slices, and analyze the statistical properties of new members as well as communities they joined in for these data sets. Then we introduce a parameter φ to describe community evolution between different slices and investigate the dynamic community properties of the new community members. The empirical analyses for the Facebook, APS, Enron and Wiki data sets indicate that both the number of new members and joint communities increase, the ratio declines rapidly and then becomes stable over time, and most of the new members will join in the small size communities that is s ≤ 10. Furthermore, the proportion of new members in existed communities decreases firstly and then becomes stable and relatively small for these data sets. Our work may be helpful for deeply understanding the evolution properties of community members for social networks.

Link Prediction in Social Networks: the State-of-the-Art

OpenAIRE

Wang, Peng; Xu, Baowen; Wu, Yurong; Zhou, Xiaoyu

2014-01-01

In social networks, link prediction predicts missing links in current networks and new or dissolution links in future networks, is important for mining and analyzing the evolution of social networks. In the past decade, many works have been done about the link prediction in social networks. The goal of this paper is to comprehensively review, analyze and discuss the state-of-the-art of the link prediction in social networks. A systematical category for link prediction techniques and problems ...

Social power and opinion formation in complex networks

Science.gov (United States)

Jalili, Mahdi

2013-02-01

In this paper we investigate the effects of social power on the evolution of opinions in model networks as well as in a number of real social networks. A continuous opinion formation model is considered and the analysis is performed through numerical simulation. Social power is given to a proportion of agents selected either randomly or based on their degrees. As artificial network structures, we consider scale-free networks constructed through preferential attachment and Watts-Strogatz networks. Numerical simulations show that scale-free networks with degree-based social power on the hub nodes have an optimal case where the largest number of the nodes reaches a consensus. However, given power to a random selection of nodes could not improve consensus properties. Introducing social power in Watts-Strogatz networks could not significantly change the consensus profile.

Social traits, social networks and evolutionary biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, D N; McAdam, A G

2017-12-01

effects) provides the potential to understand how entire networks of social interactions in populations influence phenotypes and predict how these traits may evolve. By theoretical integration of social network analysis and quantitative genetics, we hope to identify areas of compatibility and incompatibility and to direct research efforts towards the most promising areas. Continuing this synthesis could provide important insights into the evolution of traits expressed in a social context and the evolutionary consequences of complex and nuanced social phenotypes. © 2017 European Society For Evolutionary Biology. Journal of Evolutionary Biology © 2017 European Society For Evolutionary Biology.

Modeling online social networks based on preferential linking

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu Hai-Bo; Chen Jun; Guo Jin-Li

2012-01-01

We study the phenomena of preferential linking in a large-scale evolving online social network and find that the linear preference holds for preferential creation, preferential acceptance, and preferential attachment. Based on the linear preference, we propose an analyzable model, which illustrates the mechanism of network growth and reproduces the process of network evolution. Our simulations demonstrate that the degree distribution of the network produced by the model is in good agreement with that of the real network. This work provides a possible bridge between the micro-mechanisms of network growth and the macrostructures of online social networks

From Local to Global Dilemmas in Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Pinheiro, Fl?vio L.; Pacheco, Jorge M.; Santos, Francisco C.

2012-01-01

Social networks affect in such a fundamental way the dynamics of the population they support that the global, population-wide behavior that one observes often bears no relation to the individual processes it stems from. Up to now, linking the global networked dynamics to such individual mechanisms has remained elusive. Here we study the evolution of cooperation in networked populations and let individuals interact via a 2-person Prisoner's Dilemma ? a characteristic defection dominant social ...

Invited Commentary: Evolution of Social Networks, Health, and the Role of Epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Aiello, Allison E

2017-06-01

Almost 40 years ago, Berkman and Syme demonstrated that social networks were related to the risk of early mortality (Am J Epidemiol. 1979;109(2):186-204). Their study was highly innovative because they directly measured and quantified social networks in a large prospective population-based survey with mortality follow-up. The results of the study showed robust network gradients, whereby those with fewer networks and weaker social ties had significantly higher mortality rates. The important influence of social networks that Berkman and Syme noted many years ago is likely to heighten in the future, as demographic characteristics shift and individuals become more inclined to socialize through online platforms instead of real-world interactions. Berkman and Syme's research in 1979 continues to play a key role in shaping recent efforts to uncover the influence of social networks on health. Looking back on their findings may help epidemiologists better understand the importance of both online and offline networks for population health today. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Following the Social Media: Aspect Evolution of Online Discussion

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Xuning; Yang, Christopher C.

Due to the advance of Internet and Web 2.0 technologies, it is easy to extract thousands of threads about a topic of interest from an online forum but it is nontrivial to capture the blueprint of different aspects (i.e., subtopic, or facet) associated with the topic. To better understand and analyze a forum discussion given topic, it is important to uncover the evolution relationships (temporal dependencies) between different topic aspects (i.e. how the discussion topic is evolving). Traditional Topic Detection and Tracking (TDT) techniques usually organize topics as a flat structure but it does not present the evolution relationships between topic aspects. In addition, the properties of short and sparse messages make the content-based TDT techniques difficult to perform well in identifying evolution relationships. The contributions in this paper are two-folded. We formally define a topic aspect evolution graph modeling framework and propose to utilize social network information, content similarity and temporal proximity to model evolution relationships between topic aspects. The experimental results showed that, by incorporating social network information, our technique significantly outperformed content-based technique in the task of extracting evolution relationships between topic aspects.

Evolution of extortion in the social-influenced prisoner’s dilemma

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zhipeng; Li, Miao; Wang, Dan; Chen, Qinghe

2016-01-01

The introduction of extortion strategy has attracted much attention since it dominates any evolutionary opponent in iterated prisoner’s dilemma games. Despite several studies argue that extortion is difficult to survive under strategy imitation and birth-death updating rules in well-mixed populations, it has recently been proven that a myopic best response rule facilitate the evolution of cooperation and extortion. However, such updating rules require a strong assumption of complete knowledge of all players, which is unlikely to hold in social networks in reality. To solve this problem, we introduce the concept of social influence into the model to limit players’ knowledge within their neighborhood. It turns out that this myopia initiated by social influence prevents players from observing superior strategies and therefore enables cooperators and extortioners to be evolutionarily stable. We also suggest that heterogeneous networks contribute to the evolution of cooperation and extortion under such social influence.

Dynamical assessment for evolutions of Atomic-Multinology (AM) in technology innovation using social network theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Woo, Taeho

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► The popularity of AM is analyzed by the social network theory. ► The graphical and colorful configurations are used for the meaning of the incident. ► The new industrial field is quantified by dynamical investigations. ► AM can be successfully used in nuclear industry for technology innovation. ► The method could be used for other industries. - Abstract: The technology evolution is investigated. The proposed Atomic Multinology (AM) is quantified by the dynamical method incorporated with Monte-Carlo method. There are three kinds of the technologies as the info-technology (IT), nano-technology (NT), and bio-technology (BT), which are applied to the nuclear technology. AM is initiated and modeled for the dynamic quantifications. The social network algorithm is used in the dynamical simulation for the management of the projects. The result shows that the successfulness of the AM increases, where the 60 years are the investigated period. The values of the dynamical simulation increase in later stage, which means that the technology is matured as time goes on.

Multiple effect of social influence on cooperation in interdependent network games

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Luo-Luo; Li, Wen-Jing; Wang, Zhen

2015-10-01

The social influence exists widely in the human society, where individual decision-making process (from congressional election to electronic commerce) may be affected by the attitude and behavior of others belonging to different social networks. Here, we couple the snowdrift (SD) game and the prisoner’s dilemma (PD) game on two interdependent networks, where strategies in both games are associated by social influence to mimick the majority rule. More accurately, individuals’ strategies updating refers to social learning (based on payoff difference) and above-mentioned social influence (related with environment of interdependent group), which is controlled by social influence strength s. Setting s = 0 decouples the networks and returns the traditional network game; while its increase involves the interactions between networks. By means of numerous Monte Carlo simulations, we find that such a mechanism brings multiple influence to the evolution of cooperation. Small s leads to unequal cooperation level in both games, because social learning is still the main updating rule for most players. Though intermediate and large s guarantees the synchronized evolution of strategy pairs, cooperation finally dies out and reaches a completely dominance in both cases. Interestingly, these observations are attributed to the expansion of cooperation clusters. Our work may provide a new understanding to the emergence of cooperation in intercorrelated social systems.

The dynamic evolution of social ties and user-generated content: a case study on a Douban group

Science.gov (United States)

Shan, Siqing; Ren, Jie; Li, Cangyan

2017-11-01

As platforms based on user-generated content (UGC), social media platforms emphasise the social ties between users and user participation, which promote the communication and propagation of ideas and help to build and maintain relationships. However, many researchers have studied only predefined social networks, such as academic social networks. We believe that there are certain characteristics associated with the network's UGC worth evaluating. We conducted research in communities in which content attracts discussion and new members and examined the evolution patterns of social and content networks in a topic-oriented Douban group. Datasets of user and content information in communities of interest were collected through web crawler software. Networks based on social and content ties were constructed and analysed. We chose scale, density, centrality, average path length and cluster coefficient as measures for exploring the evolution and correlation of both types of networks. These findings are valuable for social media marketing and helpful in directing and controlling public opinion.

Network homophily and the evolution of the pay-it-forward reciprocity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yen-Sheng Chiang

Full Text Available The pay-it-forward reciprocity is a type of cooperative behavior that people who have benefited from others return favors to third parties other than the benefactors, thus pushing forward a cascade of kindness. The phenomenon of the pay-it-forward reciprocity is ubiquitous, yet how it evolves to be part of human sociality has not been fully understood. We develop an evolutionary dynamics model to investigate how network homophily influences the evolution of the pay-it-forward reciprocity. Manipulating the extent to which actors carrying the same behavioral trait are linked in networks, the computer simulation model shows that strong network homophily helps consolidate the adaptive advantage of cooperation, yet introducing some heterophily to the formation of network helps advance cooperation's scale further. Our model enriches the literature of inclusive fitness theory by demonstrating the conditions under which cooperation or reciprocity can be selected for in evolution when social interaction is not confined exclusively to relatives.

Network homophily and the evolution of the pay-it-forward reciprocity.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiang, Yen-Sheng; Takahashi, Nobuyuki

2011-01-01

The pay-it-forward reciprocity is a type of cooperative behavior that people who have benefited from others return favors to third parties other than the benefactors, thus pushing forward a cascade of kindness. The phenomenon of the pay-it-forward reciprocity is ubiquitous, yet how it evolves to be part of human sociality has not been fully understood. We develop an evolutionary dynamics model to investigate how network homophily influences the evolution of the pay-it-forward reciprocity. Manipulating the extent to which actors carrying the same behavioral trait are linked in networks, the computer simulation model shows that strong network homophily helps consolidate the adaptive advantage of cooperation, yet introducing some heterophily to the formation of network helps advance cooperation's scale further. Our model enriches the literature of inclusive fitness theory by demonstrating the conditions under which cooperation or reciprocity can be selected for in evolution when social interaction is not confined exclusively to relatives.

Dynamics of adolescent friendship networks and smoking behavior : Social network analyses in six European countries

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mercken, Liesbeth; Snijders, Tom A. B.; Steglich, Christian; de Vries, H.

The co-evolution of adolescents' friendship networks and their smoking behavior is examined in a large sample across six European countries. Selection and influence processes are disentangled using new methods of social network analysis that enable alternative selection mechanisms to be controlled

Offspring social network structure predicts fitness in families.

Science.gov (United States)

Royle, Nick J; Pike, Thomas W; Heeb, Philipp; Richner, Heinz; Kölliker, Mathias

2012-12-22

Social structures such as families emerge as outcomes of behavioural interactions among individuals, and can evolve over time if families with particular types of social structures tend to leave more individuals in subsequent generations. The social behaviour of interacting individuals is typically analysed as a series of multiple dyadic (pair-wise) interactions, rather than a network of interactions among multiple individuals. However, in species where parents feed dependant young, interactions within families nearly always involve more than two individuals simultaneously. Such social networks of interactions at least partly reflect conflicts of interest over the provision of costly parental investment. Consequently, variation in family network structure reflects variation in how conflicts of interest are resolved among family members. Despite its importance in understanding the evolution of emergent properties of social organization such as family life and cooperation, nothing is currently known about how selection acts on the structure of social networks. Here, we show that the social network structure of broods of begging nestling great tits Parus major predicts fitness in families. Although selection at the level of the individual favours large nestlings, selection at the level of the kin-group primarily favours families that resolve conflicts most effectively.

Beyond Traditional DTN Routing: Social Networks for Opportunistic Communication

OpenAIRE

Schurgot, Mary R.; Comaniciu, Cristina; Jaffrès-Runser, Katia

2011-01-01

This article examines the evolution of routing protocols for intermittently connected ad hoc networks and discusses the trend toward social-based routing protocols. A survey of current routing solutions is presented, where routing protocols for opportunistic networks are classified based on the network graph employed. The need to capture performance tradeoffs from a multi-objective perspective is highlighted.

Social evolution. Genomic signatures of evolutionary transitions from solitary to group living.

Science.gov (United States)

Kapheim, Karen M; Pan, Hailin; Li, Cai; Salzberg, Steven L; Puiu, Daniela; Magoc, Tanja; Robertson, Hugh M; Hudson, Matthew E; Venkat, Aarti; Fischman, Brielle J; Hernandez, Alvaro; Yandell, Mark; Ence, Daniel; Holt, Carson; Yocum, George D; Kemp, William P; Bosch, Jordi; Waterhouse, Robert M; Zdobnov, Evgeny M; Stolle, Eckart; Kraus, F Bernhard; Helbing, Sophie; Moritz, Robin F A; Glastad, Karl M; Hunt, Brendan G; Goodisman, Michael A D; Hauser, Frank; Grimmelikhuijzen, Cornelis J P; Pinheiro, Daniel Guariz; Nunes, Francis Morais Franco; Soares, Michelle Prioli Miranda; Tanaka, Érica Donato; Simões, Zilá Luz Paulino; Hartfelder, Klaus; Evans, Jay D; Barribeau, Seth M; Johnson, Reed M; Massey, Jonathan H; Southey, Bruce R; Hasselmann, Martin; Hamacher, Daniel; Biewer, Matthias; Kent, Clement F; Zayed, Amro; Blatti, Charles; Sinha, Saurabh; Johnston, J Spencer; Hanrahan, Shawn J; Kocher, Sarah D; Wang, Jun; Robinson, Gene E; Zhang, Guojie

2015-06-05

The evolution of eusociality is one of the major transitions in evolution, but the underlying genomic changes are unknown. We compared the genomes of 10 bee species that vary in social complexity, representing multiple independent transitions in social evolution, and report three major findings. First, many important genes show evidence of neutral evolution as a consequence of relaxed selection with increasing social complexity. Second, there is no single road map to eusociality; independent evolutionary transitions in sociality have independent genetic underpinnings. Third, though clearly independent in detail, these transitions do have similar general features, including an increase in constrained protein evolution accompanied by increases in the potential for gene regulation and decreases in diversity and abundance of transposable elements. Eusociality may arise through different mechanisms each time, but would likely always involve an increase in the complexity of gene networks. Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Local Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sapuppo, Antonio; Sørensen, Lene Tolstrup

2011-01-01

Online social networks have become essential for many users in their daily communication. Through a combination of the online social networks with opportunistic networks, a new concept arises: Local Social Networks. The target of local social networks is to promote social networking benefits...... in physical environment in order to leverage personal affinities in the users' surroundings. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the concept of local social networks as a new social communication system. Particularly, the preliminary architecture and the prototype of local social networks...

The evolutionary and ecological consequences of animal social networks: emerging issues.

Science.gov (United States)

Kurvers, Ralf H J M; Krause, Jens; Croft, Darren P; Wilson, Alexander D M; Wolf, Max

2014-06-01

The first generation of research on animal social networks was primarily aimed at introducing the concept of social networks to the fields of animal behaviour and behavioural ecology. More recently, a diverse body of evidence has shown that social fine structure matters on a broader scale than initially expected, affecting many key ecological and evolutionary processes. Here, we review this development. We discuss the effects of social network structure on evolutionary dynamics (genetic drift, fixation probabilities, and frequency-dependent selection) and social evolution (cooperation and between-individual behavioural differences). We discuss how social network structure can affect important coevolutionary processes (host-pathogen interactions and mutualisms) and population stability. We also discuss the potentially important, but poorly studied, role of social network structure on dispersal and invasion. Throughout, we highlight important areas for future research. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Co-Evolution of Friendship and Publishing in Online Blogging Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Zinoviev, Dmitry; Llewelyn, Sarah

2014-01-01

In the past decade, blogging web sites have become more sophisticated and influential than ever. Much of this sophistication and influence follows from their network organization. Blogging social networks (BSNs) allow individual bloggers to form contact lists, subscribe to other blogs, comment on blog posts, declare interests, and participate in collective blogs. Thus, a BSN is a bimodal venue, where users can engage in publishing (post) as well as in social (make friends) activities. In this...

Social network and decision-making in primates: a report on Franco-Japanese research collaborations.

Science.gov (United States)

Sueur, Cédric; Pelé, Marie

2016-07-01

Sociality is suggested to evolve as a strategy for animals to cope with challenges in their environment. Within a population, each individual can be seen as part of a network of social interactions that vary in strength, type and dynamics (Sueur et al. 2011a). The structure of this social network can strongly impact upon not only on the fitness of individuals and their decision-making, but also on the ecology of populations and the evolution of a species. Our Franco-Japanese collaboration allowed us to study social networks in several species (Japanese macaques, chimpanzees, colobines, etc.) and on different topics (social epidemiology, social evolution, information transmission). Individual attributes such as stress, rank or age can affect how individuals take decisions and the structure of the social network. This heterogeneity is linked to the assortativity of individuals and to the efficiency of the flow within a network. It is important, therefore, that this heterogeneity is integrated in the process or pattern under study in order to provide a better resolution of investigation and, ultimately, a better understanding of behavioural strategies, social dynamics and social evolution. How social information affects decision-making could be important to understand how social groups make collective decisions and how information may spread throughout the social group. In human beings, road-crossing behaviours in the presence of other individuals is a good way to study the influence of social information on individual behaviour and decision-making, for instance. Culture directly affects which information - personal vs social - individuals prefer to follow. Our collaboration contributed to the understanding of the relative influence of different factors, cultural and ecological, on primate, including human, sociality.

Social Networks and Political Parties in Chile

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adler Lomnitz, Larissa

2002-09-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the origin and evolution of two Chilean political parties (the Radical Party and the Christian Democrat Party through the analysis of the social networks that originated and composed them. The aim of this study is to propose a model of national political cultures on the basis of the structure of social networks related to power and of the symbol system, which legitimizes it. The structure of social networks, horizontal and vertical, are based on reciprocal or redistributive forms of exchange, on what is being exchanged and on the articulation between networks. In every society there are symmetrical and asymmetrical exchanges, which produce horizontal and vertical networks. These networks interact among themselves to form the social fabric. The dominance of some over others and how they combine, delineate the character of the political culture (authoritarian vs. egalitarian. Chile is a multiparty country within which there are cohorts of horizontal groups of friends, who informally exercise a central control over their members and create invisible boundaries setting them apart from others, in which leadership is under constrains. The result is both a strong presidential system based on an almost fanatic legitimacy, combined with factionalism and a strong parliamentary system.

A cooperative game framework for detecting overlapping communities in social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Jonnalagadda, Annapurna; Kuppusamy, Lakshmanan

2018-02-01

Community detection in social networks is a challenging and complex task, which received much attention from researchers of multiple domains in recent years. The evolution of communities in social networks happens merely due to the self-interest of the nodes. The interesting feature of community structure in social networks is the multi membership of the nodes resulting in overlapping communities. Assuming the nodes of the social network as self-interested players, the dynamics of community formation can be captured in the form of a game. In this paper, we propose a greedy algorithm, namely, Weighted Graph Community Game (WGCG), in order to model the interactions among the self-interested nodes of the social network. The proposed algorithm employs the Shapley value mechanism to discover the inherent communities of the underlying social network. The experimental evaluation on the real-world and synthetic benchmark networks demonstrates that the performance of the proposed algorithm is superior to the state-of-the-art overlapping community detection algorithms.

The Evolution of Reputation-Based Cooperation in Regular Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tatsuya Sasaki

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Despite recent advances in reputation technologies, it is not clear how reputation systems can affect human cooperation in social networks. Although it is known that two of the major mechanisms in the evolution of cooperation are spatial selection and reputation-based reciprocity, theoretical study of the interplay between both mechanisms remains almost uncharted. Here, we present a new individual-based model for the evolution of reciprocal cooperation between reputation and networks. We comparatively analyze four of the leading moral assessment rules—shunning, image scoring, stern judging, and simple standing—and base the model on the giving game in regular networks for Cooperators, Defectors, and Discriminators. Discriminators rely on a proper moral assessment rule. By using individual-based models, we show that the four assessment rules are differently characterized in terms of how cooperation evolves, depending on the benefit-to-cost ratio, the network-node degree, and the observation and error conditions. Our findings show that the most tolerant rule—simple standing—is the most robust among the four assessment rules in promoting cooperation in regular networks.

Discrete Opinion Dynamics on Online Social Networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu Yan-Li; Bai Liang; Zhang Wei-Ming

2013-01-01

This paper focuses on the dynamics of binary opinions {+1, −1} on online social networks consisting of heterogeneous actors. In our model, actors update their opinions under the interplay of social influence and self- affirmation, which leads to rich dynamical behaviors on online social networks. We find that the opinion leading to the consensus features an advantage of the initially weighted fraction based on actors' strength over the other, instead of the population. For the role of specific actors, the consensus converges towards the opinion that a small fraction of high-strength actors hold, and individual diversity of self-affirmation slows down the ordering process of consensus. These indicate that high-strength actors play an essential role in opinion formation with strong social influence as well as high persistence. Further investigations show that the initial fraction of high-strength actors to dominate the evolution depends on the heterogeneity of the strength distribution, and less high-strength actors are needed in the case of a smaller exponent of power-law distribution of actors' strength. Our study provides deep insights into the role of social influence and self-affirmation on opinion formation on online social networks. (general)

Discrete Opinion Dynamics on Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Yan-Li; Bai, Liang; Zhang, Wei-Ming

2013-01-01

This paper focuses on the dynamics of binary opinions {+1, -1} on online social networks consisting of heterogeneous actors. In our model, actors update their opinions under the interplay of social influence and self- affirmation, which leads to rich dynamical behaviors on online social networks. We find that the opinion leading to the consensus features an advantage of the initially weighted fraction based on actors' strength over the other, instead of the population. For the role of specific actors, the consensus converges towards the opinion that a small fraction of high-strength actors hold, and individual diversity of self-affirmation slows down the ordering process of consensus. These indicate that high-strength actors play an essential role in opinion formation with strong social influence as well as high persistence. Further investigations show that the initial fraction of high-strength actors to dominate the evolution depends on the heterogeneity of the strength distribution, and less high-strength actors are needed in the case of a smaller exponent of power-law distribution of actors' strength. Our study provides deep insights into the role of social influence and self-affirmation on opinion formation on online social networks.

Cross-linked structure of network evolution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bassett, Danielle S.; Wymbs, Nicholas F.; Grafton, Scott T.; Porter, Mason A.; Mucha, Peter J.

2014-01-01

We study the temporal co-variation of network co-evolution via the cross-link structure of networks, for which we take advantage of the formalism of hypergraphs to map cross-link structures back to network nodes. We investigate two sets of temporal network data in detail. In a network of coupled nonlinear oscillators, hyperedges that consist of network edges with temporally co-varying weights uncover the driving co-evolution patterns of edge weight dynamics both within and between oscillator communities. In the human brain, networks that represent temporal changes in brain activity during learning exhibit early co-evolution that then settles down with practice. Subsequent decreases in hyperedge size are consistent with emergence of an autonomous subgraph whose dynamics no longer depends on other parts of the network. Our results on real and synthetic networks give a poignant demonstration of the ability of cross-link structure to uncover unexpected co-evolution attributes in both real and synthetic dynamical systems. This, in turn, illustrates the utility of analyzing cross-links for investigating the structure of temporal networks

Cross-linked structure of network evolution

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bassett, Danielle S., E-mail: dsb@seas.upenn.edu [Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 (United States); Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106 (United States); Sage Center for the Study of the Mind, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106 (United States); Wymbs, Nicholas F.; Grafton, Scott T. [Department of Psychology and UCSB Brain Imaging Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106 (United States); Porter, Mason A. [Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6GG (United Kingdom); CABDyN Complexity Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 1HP (United Kingdom); Mucha, Peter J. [Carolina Center for Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599 (United States); Department of Applied Physical Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599 (United States)

2014-03-15

We study the temporal co-variation of network co-evolution via the cross-link structure of networks, for which we take advantage of the formalism of hypergraphs to map cross-link structures back to network nodes. We investigate two sets of temporal network data in detail. In a network of coupled nonlinear oscillators, hyperedges that consist of network edges with temporally co-varying weights uncover the driving co-evolution patterns of edge weight dynamics both within and between oscillator communities. In the human brain, networks that represent temporal changes in brain activity during learning exhibit early co-evolution that then settles down with practice. Subsequent decreases in hyperedge size are consistent with emergence of an autonomous subgraph whose dynamics no longer depends on other parts of the network. Our results on real and synthetic networks give a poignant demonstration of the ability of cross-link structure to uncover unexpected co-evolution attributes in both real and synthetic dynamical systems. This, in turn, illustrates the utility of analyzing cross-links for investigating the structure of temporal networks.

Social networks and cooperation: a bibliometric study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Paula Lopes

2013-05-01

Full Text Available The social network analysis involves social and behavioral science. The decentralization of productive activities, such as the formation of "network organizations" as a result of downsizing of large corporate structures of the past, marked by outsoucing and formation of alliances, shows the importance of this theme. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the theory of cooperation and social networks over a period of 24 years. For this, was performed a bibliometric study with content analysis. The database chosen for the initial sample search was ISI Web of Science. The search topics were “social network” and “cooperation”. Were analyzed 97 articles and their references, through networks of citations. The main identified research groups dealing with issues related to trust, strategic alliances, natural cooperation, game theory, social capital, intensity of interaction, reciprocity and innovation. It was found that the publications occurred in a large number of journals, which indicates that the theme is multidisciplinary, and only five journals published at least three articles. Although the first publication has occurred in 1987, was from 2006 that the publications effectively increased. The areas most related to the theme of the research were performance, evolution, management, graphics, model and game theory.

From Offline Social Networks to Online Social Networks: Changes in Entrepreneurship

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yang SONG

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The paper reviewed studies of entrepreneurship based on the emergency of online social networks. Similar to offline social networks, entrepreneurs’ online social networks have their own unique characteristics. We first reviewed the offline network based research on entrepreneurship. Then we reviewed the studies of entrepreneurship in the context of online social networks including those focusing on topics of network structures and network ties. We highlighted online network communities based on the data collected from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Our research implies that both researcher and entrepreneurs are facing new opportunities due to the emergence of online social networks.

Interests diffusion in social networks

Science.gov (United States)

D'Agostino, Gregorio; D'Antonio, Fulvio; De Nicola, Antonio; Tucci, Salvatore

2015-10-01

We provide a model for diffusion of interests in Social Networks (SNs). We demonstrate that the topology of the SN plays a crucial role in the dynamics of the individual interests. Understanding cultural phenomena on SNs and exploiting the implicit knowledge about their members is attracting the interest of different research communities both from the academic and the business side. The community of complexity science is devoting significant efforts to define laws, models, and theories, which, based on acquired knowledge, are able to predict future observations (e.g. success of a product). In the mean time, the semantic web community aims at engineering a new generation of advanced services by defining constructs, models and methods, adding a semantic layer to SNs. In this context, a leapfrog is expected to come from a hybrid approach merging the disciplines above. Along this line, this work focuses on the propagation of individual interests in social networks. The proposed framework consists of the following main components: a method to gather information about the members of the social networks; methods to perform some semantic analysis of the Domain of Interest; a procedure to infer members' interests; and an interests evolution theory to predict how the interests propagate in the network. As a result, one achieves an analytic tool to measure individual features, such as members' susceptibilities and authorities. Although the approach applies to any type of social network, here it is has been tested against the computer science research community. The DBLP (Digital Bibliography and Library Project) database has been elected as test-case since it provides the most comprehensive list of scientific production in this field.

Co-evolution of the brand effect and competitiveness in evolving networks

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Jin-Li

2014-07-01

The principle that ‘the brand effect is attractive’ underlies the preferential attachment. Here we show that the brand effect is just one dimension of attractiveness. Another dimension is competitiveness. We firstly introduce a general framework that allows us to investigate the competitive aspect of real networks, instead of simply preferring popular nodes. Our model accurately describes the evolution of social and technological networks. The phenomenon that more competitive nodes become richer can help us to understand the evolution of many competitive systems in nature and society. In general, the paper provides an explicit analytical expression of degree distributions of the network. In particular, the model yields a nontrivial time evolution of nodes' properties and the scale-free behavior with exponents depending on the microscopic parameters characterizing the competition rules. Secondly, through theoretical analyses and numerical simulations, we reveal that our model has not only the universality for the homogeneous weighted network, but also the character for the heterogeneous weighted network. Thirdly, we also develop a model based on the profit-driven mechanism. It can better describe the observed phenomenon in enterprise cooperation networks. We show that the standard preferential attachment, the growing random graph, the initial attractiveness model, the fitness model, and weighted networks can all be seen as degenerate cases of our model.

The co-evolution of gossip and friendship in workplace social networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ellwardt, Lea; Steglich, Christian; Wittek, Rafael

2012-01-01

This study investigates the co-evolution of friendship and gossip in organizations. Two contradicting perspectives are tested. The social capital perspective predicts that friendship causes gossip between employees, defined as informal evaluative talking about absent colleagues. The evolutionary

Promoting Social Network Awareness: A Social Network Monitoring System

Science.gov (United States)

Cadima, Rita; Ferreira, Carlos; Monguet, Josep; Ojeda, Jordi; Fernandez, Joaquin

2010-01-01

To increase communication and collaboration opportunities, members of a community must be aware of the social networks that exist within that community. This paper describes a social network monitoring system--the KIWI system--that enables users to register their interactions and visualize their social networks. The system was implemented in a…

Model of community emergence in weighted social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Kumpula, J. M.; Onnela, J.-P.; Saramäki, J.; Kertész, J.; Kaski, K.

2009-04-01

Over the years network theory has proven to be rapidly expanding methodology to investigate various complex systems and it has turned out to give quite unparalleled insight to their structure, function, and response through data analysis, modeling, and simulation. For social systems in particular the network approach has empirically revealed a modular structure due to interplay between the network topology and link weights between network nodes or individuals. This inspired us to develop a simple network model that could catch some salient features of mesoscopic community and macroscopic topology formation during network evolution. Our model is based on two fundamental mechanisms of network sociology for individuals to find new friends, namely cyclic closure and focal closure, which are mimicked by local search-link-reinforcement and random global attachment mechanisms, respectively. In addition we included to the model a node deletion mechanism by removing all its links simultaneously, which corresponds for an individual to depart from the network. Here we describe in detail the implementation of our model algorithm, which was found to be computationally efficient and produce many empirically observed features of large-scale social networks. Thus this model opens a new perspective for studying such collective social phenomena as spreading, structure formation, and evolutionary processes.

Multi-Relational Characterization of Dynamic Social Network Communities

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Yu-Ru; Sundaram, Hari; Kelliher, Aisling

The emergence of the mediated social web - a distributed network of participants creating rich media content and engaging in interactive conversations through Internet-based communication technologies - has contributed to the evolution of powerful social, economic and cultural change. Online social network sites and blogs, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and LiveJournal, thrive due to their fundamental sense of "community". The growth of online communities offers both opportunities and challenges for researchers and practitioners. Participation in online communities has been observed to influence people's behavior in diverse ways ranging from financial decision-making to political choices, suggesting the rich potential for diverse applications. However, although studies on the social web have been extensive, discovering communities from online social media remains challenging, due to the interdisciplinary nature of this subject. In this article, we present our recent work on characterization of communities in online social media using computational approaches grounded on the observations from social science.

Impact of Social Punishment on Cooperative Behavior in Complex Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zhen; Xia, Cheng-Yi; Meloni, Sandro; Zhou, Chang-Song; Moreno, Yamir

2013-10-01

Social punishment is a mechanism by which cooperative individuals spend part of their resources to penalize defectors. In this paper, we study the evolution of cooperation in 2-person evolutionary games on networks when a mechanism for social punishment is introduced. Specifically, we introduce a new kind of role, punisher, which is aimed at reducing the earnings of defectors by applying to them a social fee. Results from numerical simulations show that different equilibria allowing the three strategies to coexist are possible as well as that social punishment further enhance the robustness of cooperation. Our results are confirmed for different network topologies and two evolutionary games. In addition, we analyze the microscopic mechanisms that give rise to the observed macroscopic behaviors in both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks. Our conclusions might provide additional insights for understanding the roots of cooperation in social systems.

Professional social networking.

Science.gov (United States)

Rowley, Robert D

2014-12-01

We review the current state of social communication between healthcare professionals, the role of consumer social networking, and some emerging technologies to address the gaps. In particular, the review covers (1) the current state of loose social networking for continuing medical education (CME) and other broadcast information dissemination; (2) social networking for business promotion; (3) social networking for peer collaboration, including simple communication as well as more robust data-centered collaboration around patient care; and (4) engaging patients on social platforms, including integrating consumer-originated data into the mix of healthcare data. We will see how, as the nature of healthcare delivery moves from the institution-centric way of tradition to a more social and networked ambulatory pattern that we see emerging today, the nature of health IT has also moved from enterprise-centric systems to more socially networked, cloud-based options.

Social entrepreneurship and social networks

OpenAIRE

Dufays, Frédéric

2013-01-01

In this presentation, we argue that the sociology of social networks may provide interesting insights with regard to the emergence of social entrepreneurship both at micro and macro levels. There have already been several calls for research on social networks in the context of social entrepreneurship (Certo & Miller 2008; Gedajlovic, et al. 2013; Haugh 2007; Mair & Marti 2006; Short, et al. 2009). These calls often address the differences in structure and effects of social networks in a socia...

Trust and compactness in social network groups.

Science.gov (United States)

De Meo, Pasquale; Ferrara, Emilio; Rosaci, Domenico; Sarné, Giuseppe M L

2015-02-01

Understanding the dynamics behind group formation and evolution in social networks is considered an instrumental milestone to better describe how individuals gather and form communities, how they enjoy and share the platform contents, how they are driven by their preferences/tastes, and how their behaviors are influenced by peers. In this context, the notion of compactness of a social group is particularly relevant. While the literature usually refers to compactness as a measure to merely determine how much members of a group are similar among each other, we argue that the mutual trustworthiness between the members should be considered as an important factor in defining such a term. In fact, trust has profound effects on the dynamics of group formation and their evolution: individuals are more likely to join with and stay in a group if they can trust other group members. In this paper, we propose a quantitative measure of group compactness that takes into account both the similarity and the trustworthiness among users, and we present an algorithm to optimize such a measure. We provide empirical results, obtained from the real social networks EPINIONS and CIAO, that compare our notion of compactness versus the traditional notion of user similarity, clearly proving the advantages of our approach.

Static, Dynamic and Semantic Dimensions: Towards a Multidisciplinary Approach of Social Networks Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Thovex, Christophe; Trichet, Francky

The objective of our work is to extend static and dynamic models of Social Networks Analysis (SNA), by taking conceptual aspects of enterprises and institutions social graph into account. The originality of our multidisciplinary work is to introduce abstract notions of electro-physic to define new measures in SNA, for new decision-making functions dedicated to Human Resource Management (HRM). This paper introduces a multidimensional system and new measures: (1) a tension measure for social network analysis, (2) an electrodynamic, predictive and semantic system for recommendations on social graphs evolutions and (3) a reactance measure used to evaluate the individual stress at work of the members of a social network.

Co-evolution of the brand effect and competitiveness in evolving networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guo Jin-Li

2014-01-01

The principle that ‘the brand effect is attractive’ underlies the preferential attachment. Here we show that the brand effect is just one dimension of attractiveness. Another dimension is competitiveness. We firstly introduce a general framework that allows us to investigate the competitive aspect of real networks, instead of simply preferring popular nodes. Our model accurately describes the evolution of social and technological networks. The phenomenon that more competitive nodes become richer can help us to understand the evolution of many competitive systems in nature and society. In general, the paper provides an explicit analytical expression of degree distributions of the network. In particular, the model yields a nontrivial time evolution of nodes' properties and the scale-free behavior with exponents depending on the microscopic parameters characterizing the competition rules. Secondly, through theoretical analyses and numerical simulations, we reveal that our model has not only the universality for the homogeneous weighted network, but also the character for the heterogeneous weighted network. Thirdly, we also develop a model based on the profit-driven mechanism. It can better describe the observed phenomenon in enterprise cooperation networks. We show that the standard preferential attachment, the growing random graph, the initial attractiveness model, the fitness model, and weighted networks can all be seen as degenerate cases of our model. (general)

A Mechanistic Model of Human Recall of Social Network Structure and Relationship Affect.

Science.gov (United States)

Omodei, Elisa; Brashears, Matthew E; Arenas, Alex

2017-12-07

The social brain hypothesis argues that the need to deal with social challenges was key to our evolution of high intelligence. Research with non-human primates as well as experimental and fMRI studies in humans produce results consistent with this claim, leading to an estimate that human primary groups should consist of roughly 150 individuals. Gaps between this prediction and empirical observations can be partially accounted for using "compression heuristics", or schemata that simplify the encoding and recall of social information. However, little is known about the specific algorithmic processes used by humans to store and recall social information. We describe a mechanistic model of human network recall and demonstrate its sufficiency for capturing human recall behavior observed in experimental contexts. We find that human recall is predicated on accurate recall of a small number of high degree network nodes and the application of heuristics for both structural and affective information. This provides new insight into human memory, social network evolution, and demonstrates a novel approach to uncovering human cognitive operations.

Gray matter volume of the anterior insular cortex and social networking.

Science.gov (United States)

Spagna, Alfredo; Dufford, Alexander J; Wu, Qiong; Wu, Tingting; Zheng, Weihao; Coons, Edgar E; Hof, Patrick R; Hu, Bin; Wu, Yanhong; Fan, Jin

2018-05-01

In human life, social context requires the engagement in complex interactions among individuals as the dynamics of social networks. The evolution of the brain as the neurological basis of the mind must be crucial in supporting social networking. Although the relationship between social networking and the amygdala, a small but core region for emotion processing, has been reported, other structures supporting sophisticated social interactions must be involved and need to be identified. In this study, we examined the relationship between morphology of the anterior insular cortex (AIC), a structure involved in basic and high-level cognition, and social networking. Two independent cohorts of individuals (New York group n = 50, Beijing group n = 100) were recruited. Structural magnetic resonance images were acquired and the social network index (SNI), a composite measure summarizing an individual's network diversity, size, and complexity, was measured. The association between morphological features of the AIC, in addition to amygdala, and the SNI was examined. Positive correlations between the measures of the volume as well as sulcal depth of the AIC and the SNI were found in both groups, while a significant positive correlation between the volume of the amygdala and the SNI was only found in the New York group. The converging results from the two groups suggest that the AIC supports network-level social interactions. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Social network data analytics

CERN Document Server

Aggarwal, Charu C

2011-01-01

Social network analysis applications have experienced tremendous advances within the last few years due in part to increasing trends towards users interacting with each other on the internet. Social networks are organized as graphs, and the data on social networks takes on the form of massive streams, which are mined for a variety of purposes. Social Network Data Analytics covers an important niche in the social network analytics field. This edited volume, contributed by prominent researchers in this field, presents a wide selection of topics on social network data mining such as Structural Pr

Coupling effect of nodes popularity and similarity on social network persistence.

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Xiaogang; Jin, Cheng; Huang, Jiaxuan; Min, Yong

2017-02-21

Network robustness represents the ability of networks to withstand failures and perturbations. In social networks, maintenance of individual activities, also called persistence, is significant towards understanding robustness. Previous works usually consider persistence on pre-generated network structures; while in social networks, the network structure is growing with the cascading inactivity of existed individuals. Here, we address this challenge through analysis for nodes under a coevolution model, which characterizes individual activity changes under three network growth modes: following the descending order of nodes' popularity, similarity or uniform random. We show that when nodes possess high spontaneous activities, a popularity-first growth mode obtains highly persistent networks; otherwise, with low spontaneous activities, a similarity-first mode does better. Moreover, a compound growth mode, with the consecutive joining of similar nodes in a short period and mixing a few high popularity nodes, obtains the highest persistence. Therefore, nodes similarity is essential for persistent social networks, while properly coupling popularity with similarity further optimizes the persistence. This demonstrates the evolution of nodes activity not only depends on network topology, but also their connective typology.

Social cognition on the Internet: testing constraints on social network size.

Science.gov (United States)

Dunbar, R I M

2012-08-05

The social brain hypothesis (an explanation for the evolution of brain size in primates) predicts that humans typically cannot maintain more than 150 relationships at any one time. The constraint is partly cognitive (ultimately determined by some aspect of brain volume) and partly one of time. Friendships (but not necessarily kin relationships) are maintained by investing time in them, and failure to do so results in an inexorable deterioration in the quality of a relationship. The Internet, and in particular the rise of social networking sites (SNSs), raises the possibility that digital media might allow us to circumvent some or all of these constraints. This allows us to test the importance of these constraints in limiting human sociality. Although the recency of SNSs means that there have been relatively few studies, those that are available suggest that, in general, the ability to broadcast to many individuals at once, and the possibilities this provides in terms of continuously updating our understanding of network members' behaviour and thoughts, do not allow larger networks to be maintained. This may be because only relatively weak quality relationships can be maintained without face-to-face interaction.

Evolution of Linux operating system network

Science.gov (United States)

Xiao, Guanping; Zheng, Zheng; Wang, Haoqin

2017-01-01

Linux operating system (LOS) is a sophisticated man-made system and one of the most ubiquitous operating systems. However, there is little research on the structure and functionality evolution of LOS from the prospective of networks. In this paper, we investigate the evolution of the LOS network. 62 major releases of LOS ranging from versions 1.0 to 4.1 are modeled as directed networks in which functions are denoted by nodes and function calls are denoted by edges. It is found that the size of the LOS network grows almost linearly, while clustering coefficient monotonically decays. The degree distributions are almost the same: the out-degree follows an exponential distribution while both in-degree and undirected degree follow power-law distributions. We further explore the functionality evolution of the LOS network. It is observed that the evolution of functional modules is shown as a sequence of seven events (changes) succeeding each other, including continuing, growth, contraction, birth, splitting, death and merging events. By means of a statistical analysis of these events in the top 4 largest components (i.e., arch, drivers, fs and net), it is shown that continuing, growth and contraction events occupy more than 95% events. Our work exemplifies a better understanding and describing of the dynamics of LOS evolution.

A random network based, node attraction facilitated network evolution method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

WenJun Zhang

2016-03-01

Full Text Available In present study, I present a method of network evolution that based on random network, and facilitated by node attraction. In this method, I assume that the initial network is a random network, or a given initial network. When a node is ready to connect, it tends to link to the node already owning the most connections, which coincides with the general rule (Barabasi and Albert, 1999 of node connecting. In addition, a node may randomly disconnect a connection i.e., the addition of connections in the network is accompanied by the pruning of some connections. The dynamics of network evolution is determined of the attraction factor Lamda of nodes, the probability of node connection, the probability of node disconnection, and the expected initial connectance. The attraction factor of nodes, the probability of node connection, and the probability of node disconnection are time and node varying. Various dynamics can be achieved by adjusting these parameters. Effects of simplified parameters on network evolution are analyzed. The changes of attraction factor Lamda can reflect various effects of the node degree on connection mechanism. Even the changes of Lamda only will generate various networks from the random to the complex. Therefore, the present algorithm can be treated as a general model for network evolution. Modeling results show that to generate a power-law type of network, the likelihood of a node attracting connections is dependent upon the power function of the node's degree with a higher-order power. Matlab codes for simplified version of the method are provided.

Social and place-focused communities in location-based online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Chloë; Nicosia, Vincenzo; Scellato, Salvatore; Noulas, Anastasios; Mascolo, Cecilia

2013-06-01

Thanks to widely available, cheap Internet access and the ubiquity of smartphones, millions of people around the world now use online location-based social networking services. Understanding the structural properties of these systems and their dependence upon users' habits and mobility has many potential applications, including resource recommendation and link prediction. Here, we construct and characterise social and place-focused graphs by using longitudinal information about declared social relationships and about users' visits to physical places collected from a popular online location-based social service. We show that although the social and place-focused graphs are constructed from the same data set, they have quite different structural properties. We find that the social and location-focused graphs have different global and meso-scale structure, and in particular that social and place-focused communities have negligible overlap. Consequently, group inference based on community detection performed on the social graph alone fails to isolate place-focused groups, even though these do exist in the network. By studying the evolution of tie structure within communities, we show that the time period over which location data are aggregated has a substantial impact on the stability of place-focused communities, and that information about place-based groups may be more useful for user-centric applications than that obtained from the analysis of social communities alone.

Fast Distributed Dynamics of Semantic Networks via Social Media

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Facundo Carrillo

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We investigate the dynamics of semantic organization using social media, a collective expression of human thought. We propose a novel, time-dependent semantic similarity measure (TSS, based on the social network Twitter. We show that TSS is consistent with static measures of similarity but provides high temporal resolution for the identification of real-world events and induced changes in the distributed structure of semantic relationships across the entire lexicon. Using TSS, we measured the evolution of a concept and its movement along the semantic neighborhood, driven by specific news/events. Finally, we showed that particular events may trigger a temporary reorganization of elements in the semantic network.

Evolution of Government Policies on Guiding Corporate Social Responsibility in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yanhong Tang

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to unearth the ways in which the Chinese government uses policies to guide corporate social responsibility (CSR development in China. Co-word analysis, cluster analysis, and network analysis were conducted on the relevant policy documents from 2005 to 2013 from the Chinese government. This paper illustrates the evolution of industry involvement in metagovernance of CSR, the evolution of intergovernmental relations in CSR policy formulation, and the evolution of policy relations on guiding CSR. The quantitative text analysis on policy documents reveals policy intentions and maps policy process, advancing understanding of policy orientation and evolution. The CSR reports of the same period of the State Grid in China are used as empirical evidence to validate the policy evolution. This work presents the overall evolution of the ways in which the Chinese government deployed its guiding strategy on CSR, and empirically demonstrates the organization of metagovernance maneuvered by China’s government to promote CSR development in China. It provides perspective and methods to analyze China’s networked government policies, and empirically answers the central question of metagovernance about the ways in which the organization of metagovernance is carried out.

Manufacturing network evolution

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yang, Cheng; Farooq, Sami; Johansen, John

2011-01-01

Purpose – This paper examines the effect of changes at the manufacturing plant level on other plants in the manufacturing network and also investigates the role of manufacturing plants on the evolution of a manufacturing network. Design/methodology/approach –The research questions are developed...... different manufacturing plants in the network and their impact on network transformation. Findings – The paper highlights the dominant role of manufacturing plants in the continuously changing shape of a manufacturing network. The paper demonstrates that a product or process change at one manufacturing...... by identifying the gaps in the reviewed literature. The paper is based on three case studies undertaken in Danish manufacturing companies to explore in detail their manufacturing plants and networks. The cases provide a sound basis for developing the research questions and explaining the interaction between...

Two classes of bipartite networks: nested biological and social systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Burgos, Enrique; Ceva, Horacio; Hernández, Laura; Perazzo, R P J; Devoto, Mariano; Medan, Diego

2008-10-01

Bipartite graphs have received some attention in the study of social networks and of biological mutualistic systems. A generalization of a previous model is presented, that evolves the topology of the graph in order to optimally account for a given contact preference rule between the two guilds of the network. As a result, social and biological graphs are classified as belonging to two clearly different classes. Projected graphs, linking the agents of only one guild, are obtained from the original bipartite graph. The corresponding evolution of its statistical properties is also studied. An example of a biological mutualistic network is analyzed in detail, and it is found that the model provides a very good fitting of all the main statistical features. The model also provides a proper qualitative description of the same features observed in social webs, suggesting the possible reasons underlying the difference in the organization of these two kinds of bipartite networks.

Social networks

CERN Document Server

Etaner-Uyar, A Sima

2014-01-01

The present volume provides a comprehensive resource for practitioners and researchers alike-both those new to the field as well as those who already have some experience. The work covers Social Network Analysis theory and methods with a focus on current applications and case studies applied in various domains such as mobile networks, security, machine learning and health. With the increasing popularity of Web 2.0, social media has become a widely used communication platform. Parallel to this development, Social Network Analysis gained in importance as a research field, while opening up many

Social cognitive radio networks

CERN Document Server

Chen, Xu

2015-01-01

This brief presents research results on social cognitive radio networks, a transformational and innovative networking paradigm that promotes the nexus between social interactions and cognitive radio networks. Along with a review of the research literature, the text examines the key motivation and challenges of social cognitive radio network design. Three socially inspired distributed spectrum sharing mechanisms are introduced: adaptive channel recommendation mechanism, imitation-based social spectrum sharing mechanism, and evolutionarily stable spectrum access mechanism. The brief concludes with a discussion of future research directions which ascertains that exploiting social interactions for distributed spectrum sharing will advance the state-of-the-art of cognitive radio network design, spur a new line of thinking for future wireless networks, and enable novel wireless service and applications.

Complex quantum network geometries: Evolution and phase transitions

Science.gov (United States)

Bianconi, Ginestra; Rahmede, Christoph; Wu, Zhihao

2015-08-01

Networks are topological and geometric structures used to describe systems as different as the Internet, the brain, or the quantum structure of space-time. Here we define complex quantum network geometries, describing the underlying structure of growing simplicial 2-complexes, i.e., simplicial complexes formed by triangles. These networks are geometric networks with energies of the links that grow according to a nonequilibrium dynamics. The evolution in time of the geometric networks is a classical evolution describing a given path of a path integral defining the evolution of quantum network states. The quantum network states are characterized by quantum occupation numbers that can be mapped, respectively, to the nodes, links, and triangles incident to each link of the network. We call the geometric networks describing the evolution of quantum network states the quantum geometric networks. The quantum geometric networks have many properties common to complex networks, including small-world property, high clustering coefficient, high modularity, and scale-free degree distribution. Moreover, they can be distinguished between the Fermi-Dirac network and the Bose-Einstein network obeying, respectively, the Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics. We show that these networks can undergo structural phase transitions where the geometrical properties of the networks change drastically. Finally, we comment on the relation between quantum complex network geometries, spin networks, and triangulations.

Community Evolution

OpenAIRE

Saganowski, Stanisław; Bródka, Piotr; Kazienko, Przemysław

2016-01-01

The continuous interest in the social network area contributes to the fast development of this field. The new possibilities of obtaining and storing data facilitate deeper analysis of the entire social network, extracted social groups and single individuals as well. One of the most interesting research topic is the network dynamics and dynamics of social groups in particular, it means analysis of group evolution over time. It is the natural step forward after social community extraction. Havi...

Modular co-evolution of metabolic networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu Zhong-Hao

2007-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The architecture of biological networks has been reported to exhibit high level of modularity, and to some extent, topological modules of networks overlap with known functional modules. However, how the modular topology of the molecular network affects the evolution of its member proteins remains unclear. Results In this work, the functional and evolutionary modularity of Homo sapiens (H. sapiens metabolic network were investigated from a topological point of view. Network decomposition shows that the metabolic network is organized in a highly modular core-periphery way, in which the core modules are tightly linked together and perform basic metabolism functions, whereas the periphery modules only interact with few modules and accomplish relatively independent and specialized functions. Moreover, over half of the modules exhibit co-evolutionary feature and belong to specific evolutionary ages. Peripheral modules tend to evolve more cohesively and faster than core modules do. Conclusion The correlation between functional, evolutionary and topological modularity suggests that the evolutionary history and functional requirements of metabolic systems have been imprinted in the architecture of metabolic networks. Such systems level analysis could demonstrate how the evolution of genes may be placed in a genome-scale network context, giving a novel perspective on molecular evolution.

Social Networks and the Environment

OpenAIRE

Julio Videras

2013-01-01

This review discusses empirical research on social networks and the environment; it summarizes findings from representative studies and the conceptual frameworks social scientists use to examine the role of social networks. The article presents basic concepts in social network analysis, summarizes common challenges of empirical research on social networks, and outlines areas for future research. Finally, the article discusses the normative and positive meanings of social networks.

Plant Evolution: A Manufacturing Network Perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yang, Cheng; Johansen, John; Boer, Harry

2009-01-01

Viewing them as portfolios of products and processes, we aim to address how plants evolve in the context of a manufacturing network and how the evolution of one plant impacts other plants in the same manufacturing network. Based on discussions of ten plants from three Danish companies, we identify...... two different trajectories. Together, these trajectories determine the evolution of a manufacturing network. Factors appearing to affect the two trajectories include competencies built up, transferred or acquired locally, market potential, performance considerations, local, situational factors...

The co-evolution of cultures, social network communities, and agent locations in an extension of Axelrod’s model of cultural dissemination

Science.gov (United States)

Pfau, Jens; Kirley, Michael; Kashima, Yoshihisa

2013-01-01

We introduce a variant of the Axelrod model of cultural dissemination in which agents change their physical locations, social links, and cultures. Numerical simulations are used to investigate the evolution of social network communities and the cultural diversity within and between these communities. An analysis of the simulation results shows that an initial peak in the cultural diversity within network communities is evident before agents segregate into a final configuration of culturally homogeneous communities. Larger long-range interaction probabilities facilitate the initial emergence of culturally diverse network communities, which leads to a more pronounced initial peak in cultural diversity within communities. At equilibrium, the number of communities, and hence cultures, increases when the initial cultural diversity increases. However, the number of communities decreases when the lattice size or population density increases. A phase transition between two regimes of initial cultural diversity is evident. For initial diversities below a critical value, a single network community and culture emerges that dominates the population. For initial diversities above the critical value, multiple culturally homogeneous communities emerge. The critical value of initial diversity at which this transition occurs increases with increasing lattice size and population density and generally with increasing absolute population size. We conclude that larger initial diversities promote cultural heterogenization, while larger lattice sizes, population densities, and in fact absolute population sizes promote homogenization.

Energy model for rumor propagation on social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Shuo; Zhuang, Fuzhen; He, Qing; Shi, Zhongzhi; Ao, Xiang

2014-01-01

With the development of social networks, the impact of rumor propagation on human lives is more and more significant. Due to the change of propagation mode, traditional rumor propagation models designed for word-of-mouth process may not be suitable for describing the rumor spreading on social networks. To overcome this shortcoming, we carefully analyze the mechanisms of rumor propagation and the topological properties of large-scale social networks, then propose a novel model based on the physical theory. In this model, heat energy calculation formula and Metropolis rule are introduced to formalize this problem and the amount of heat energy is used to measure a rumor’s impact on a network. Finally, we conduct track experiments to show the evolution of rumor propagation, make comparison experiments to contrast the proposed model with the traditional models, and perform simulation experiments to study the dynamics of rumor spreading. The experiments show that (1) the rumor propagation simulated by our model goes through three stages: rapid growth, fluctuant persistence and slow decline; (2) individuals could spread a rumor repeatedly, which leads to the rumor’s resurgence; (3) rumor propagation is greatly influenced by a rumor’s attraction, the initial rumormonger and the sending probability.

THE PLACE OF FACEBOOK IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL NETWORK PORTFOLIO

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ALIN CRISTIAN ISAC

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The paper aims to present a structure for social networks by various criteria, such as: user types, informational technology used as support and developed applications. Based on these elements, we presented Facebook not only in terms of user numbers and their evolution but also regarding the Facebook business, starting from share listing on international markets.

Relationship between Social Networks Adoption and Social Intelligence

Science.gov (United States)

Gunduz, Semseddin

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to set forth the relationship between the individuals' states to adopt social networks and social intelligence and analyze both concepts according to various variables. Research data were collected from 1145 social network users in the online media by using the Adoption of Social Network Scale and Social Intelligence…

Conformity enhances network reciprocity in evolutionary social dilemmas.

Science.gov (United States)

Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž

2015-02-06

The pursuit of highest payoffs in evolutionary social dilemmas is risky and sometimes inferior to conformity. Choosing the most common strategy within the interaction range is safer because it ensures that the payoff of an individual will not be much lower than average. Herding instincts and crowd behaviour in humans and social animals also compel to conformity in their own right. Motivated by these facts, we here study the impact of conformity on the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. We show that an appropriate fraction of conformists within the population introduces an effective surface tension around cooperative clusters and ensures smooth interfaces between different strategy domains. Payoff-driven players brake the symmetry in favour of cooperation and enable an expansion of clusters past the boundaries imposed by traditional network reciprocity. This mechanism works even under the most testing conditions, and it is robust against variations of the interaction network as long as degree-normalized payoffs are applied. Conformity may thus be beneficial for the resolution of social dilemmas. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Active influence in dynamical models of structural balance in social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Summers, Tyler H.; Shames, Iman

2013-07-01

We consider a nonlinear dynamical system on a signed graph, which can be interpreted as a mathematical model of social networks in which the links can have both positive and negative connotations. In accordance with a concept from social psychology called structural balance, the negative links play a key role in both the structure and dynamics of the network. Recent research has shown that in a nonlinear dynamical system modeling the time evolution of “friendliness levels” in the network, two opposing factions emerge from almost any initial condition. Here we study active external influence in this dynamical model and show that any agent in the network can achieve any desired structurally balanced state from any initial condition by perturbing its own local friendliness levels. Based on this result, we also introduce a new network centrality measure for signed networks. The results are illustrated in an international-relations network using United Nations voting record data from 1946 to 2008 to estimate friendliness levels amongst various countries.

Peer pressure and incentive mechanisms in social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Chuang; Ye, Chao; Wang, Lin; Rong, Zhihai; Wang, Xiaofan

2018-01-01

Cooperation can be viewed as a social norm that is expected in our society. In this work, a framework based on spatial public goods game theory is established to study how peer pressure and incentive mechanisms can influence the evolution of cooperation. A unified model with adjustable parameters is developed to represent the effects of pure Personal Mechanism, Personal Mechanism with peer pressure and Social Mechanism, which demonstrates that when the sum of rewards plus the peer pressure felt by defectors is larger than the effective cost of cooperation, cooperation can prevail. As the peer pressure is caused by other cooperators in a game, group size and network structure play an important role. In particular, larger group size and more heterogeneous structured population can make defectors feel more peer pressure, which will promote the evolution and sustainment of cooperation.

Evolution of a protein domain interaction network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li-Feng, Gao; Jian-Jun, Shi; Shan, Guan

2010-01-01

In this paper, we attempt to understand complex network evolution from the underlying evolutionary relationship between biological organisms. Firstly, we construct a Pfam domain interaction network for each of the 470 completely sequenced organisms, and therefore each organism is correlated with a specific Pfam domain interaction network; secondly, we infer the evolutionary relationship of these organisms with the nearest neighbour joining method; thirdly, we use the evolutionary relationship between organisms constructed in the second step as the evolutionary course of the Pfam domain interaction network constructed in the first step. This analysis of the evolutionary course shows: (i) there is a conserved sub-network structure in network evolution; in this sub-network, nodes with lower degree prefer to maintain their connectivity invariant, and hubs tend to maintain their role as a hub is attached preferentially to new added nodes; (ii) few nodes are conserved as hubs; most of the other nodes are conserved as one with very low degree; (iii) in the course of network evolution, new nodes are added to the network either individually in most cases or as clusters with relative high clustering coefficients in a very few cases. (general)

SOCIAL NETWORK EFFECTS ON ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fatma CAN

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The main objective of the study was to obtain information about social network variables in order to predict the relational commitment of married individuals and people having dating relationships. For this purpose, social network analysis has been carried out on 134 people having dating relationship and 154 married individuals and then Relationship Stability Scale, Subjective Norm Scale and Social Network Feature Survey prepared by the researcher were used. The results indicated that the approval of the closest social network member and the level of enjoyment of each other’s social network members had the best predictive value for relationship satisfaction and the investment to the relationship. The results also demonstrated that, approval of the social network had a negative impact on the level of the quality of alternatives and it showed that social networks were seen as a barrier function to have alternative relationships. Furthermore, by dividing social network members into two groups, for the dating group, the approval of the social network was the most significant variable for commitment but in the married group, the need for social network approval was not an important criteria because of having their relatioship already confirmed legally. When social network members were categorised and examined, the closest social network members did not differ by sex, but were varied in terms of relationship types. In the flirt group, one of their friends among his/her social network and their partners’ social network was specified as the closest social network member whereas in the married group, the closest social network member among his/her social network was their mother while it was their sibling among partner’s social network.

Pleiotropy constrains the evolution of protein but not regulatory sequences in a transcription regulatory network influencing complex social behaviours

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Daria eMolodtsova

2014-12-01

Full Text Available It is increasingly apparent that genes and networks that influence complex behaviour are evolutionary conserved, which is paradoxical considering that behaviour is labile over evolutionary timescales. How does adaptive change in behaviour arise if behaviour is controlled by conserved, pleiotropic, and likely evolutionary constrained genes? Pleiotropy and connectedness are known to constrain the general rate of protein evolution, prompting some to suggest that the evolution of complex traits, including behaviour, is fuelled by regulatory sequence evolution. However, we seldom have data on the strength of selection on mutations in coding and regulatory sequences, and this hinders our ability to study how pleiotropy influences coding and regulatory sequence evolution. Here we use population genomics to estimate the strength of selection on coding and regulatory mutations for a transcriptional regulatory network that influences complex behaviour of honey bees. We found that replacement mutations in highly connected transcription factors and target genes experience significantly stronger negative selection relative to weakly connected transcription factors and targets. Adaptively evolving proteins were significantly more likely to reside at the periphery of the regulatory network, while proteins with signs of negative selection were near the core of the network. Interestingly, connectedness and network structure had minimal influence on the strength of selection on putative regulatory sequences for both transcription factors and their targets. Our study indicates that adaptive evolution of complex behaviour can arise because of positive selection on protein-coding mutations in peripheral genes, and on regulatory sequence mutations in both transcription factors and their targets throughout the network.

Psychology and social networks: a dynamic network theory perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Westaby, James D; Pfaff, Danielle L; Redding, Nicholas

2014-04-01

Research on social networks has grown exponentially in recent years. However, despite its relevance, the field of psychology has been relatively slow to explain the underlying goal pursuit and resistance processes influencing social networks in the first place. In this vein, this article aims to demonstrate how a dynamic network theory perspective explains the way in which social networks influence these processes and related outcomes, such as goal achievement, performance, learning, and emotional contagion at the interpersonal level of analysis. The theory integrates goal pursuit, motivation, and conflict conceptualizations from psychology with social network concepts from sociology and organizational science to provide a taxonomy of social network role behaviors, such as goal striving, system supporting, goal preventing, system negating, and observing. This theoretical perspective provides psychologists with new tools to map social networks (e.g., dynamic network charts), which can help inform the development of change interventions. Implications for social, industrial-organizational, and counseling psychology as well as conflict resolution are discussed, and new opportunities for research are highlighted, such as those related to dynamic network intelligence (also known as cognitive accuracy), levels of analysis, methodological/ethical issues, and the need to theoretically broaden the study of social networking and social media behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Privacy in social networking sites

OpenAIRE

Λεονάρδος, Γεώργιος; Leonardos, Giorgos

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study is to explore the aspects of privacy over the use of social networks web sites. More specific, we will show the types of social networks, their privacy mechanisms that are different in each social network site, their privacy options that are offered to users. We will report some serious privacy violations incidents of the most popular social networks sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Also, we will report some important surveys about social networks and pr...

Making "social" safer: are Facebook and other online networks becoming less hazardous for health professionals?

Science.gov (United States)

George, Daniel R

2012-01-01

Major concerns about privacy have limited health professionals' usage of popular social networking sites such as Facebook. However, the landscape of social media is changing in favor of more sophisticated privacy controls that enable users to more carefully manage public and private information. This evolution in technology makes it potentially less hazardous for health professionals to consider accepting colleagues and patients into their online networks, and invites medicine to think constructively about how social media may add value to contemporary healthcare.

PERSON IN SOCIAL NETWORKS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Андрей Борисович Шалимов

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Our scientific purpose is creation of practical model of person’s representation in social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Classmates. As user of social networks, person is made conditional not only upon its own identity, but also upon the information about himself, which he is ready to share with his friends in contact list. Goal-setting and practical activities for their achievement mean that you should apply force, it can completely eliminates systemic factors, the system of power relations, which overwhelms human being in social networks.Methodology: The reconstruction of the model of human in the popularity of social networksResults: There is descripton of practical model of person's representation in social networks, it includes the management of own identity and the audience (the list of contacts. When person manages own identity, he answers the question, «Whom I can dare to be?». Person perceives himself in social networks' being, he understands himself and his place in the world, he identifies.Managing the way in social media means that you answer the question «What I want to tell?». Person in social media looks at events in the field of culture, economy, politics, social relations through the prism of his own attitudes, he forms and formulates his own agenda and he is going to tell about himself through them.Practical implications: Everyday people’s life, practical activities, including marketing in social networks.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-9-51

Selection to outsmart the germs: The evolution of disease recognition and social cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Kessler, Sharon E; Bonnell, Tyler R; Byrne, Richard W; Chapman, Colin A

2017-07-01

The emergence of providing care to diseased conspecifics must have been a turning point during the evolution of hominin sociality. On a population level, care may have minimized the costs of socially transmitted diseases at a time of increasing social complexity, although individual care-givers probably incurred increased transmission risks. We propose that care-giving likely originated within kin networks, where the costs may have been balanced by fitness increases obtained through caring for ill kin. We test a novel hypothesis of hominin cognitive evolution in which disease may have selected for the cognitive ability to recognize when a conspecific is infected. Because diseases may produce symptoms that are likely detectable via the perceptual-cognitive pathways integral to social cognition, we suggest that disease recognition and social cognition may have evolved together. Using agent-based modeling, we test 1) under what conditions disease can select for increasing disease recognition and care-giving among kin, 2) whether providing care produces greater selection for cognition than an avoidance strategy, and 3) whether care-giving alters the progression of the disease through the population. The greatest selection was produced by diseases with lower risks to the care-giver and prevalences low enough not to disrupt the kin networks. When care-giving and avoidance strategies were compared, only care-giving reduced the severity of the disease outbreaks and subsequent population crashes. The greatest selection for increased cognitive abilities occurred early in the model runs when the outbreaks and population crashes were most severe. Therefore, over the course of human evolution, repeated introductions of novel diseases into naïve populations could have produced sustained selection for increased disease recognition and care-giving behavior, leading to the evolution of increased cognition, social complexity, and, eventually, medical care in humans. Finally, we lay

Dynamic Trust Models between Users over Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2016-03-30

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 14. ABSTRACT In this project, by focusing on a number of word -of- mouth communication websites, we attempted to...analyzed evolution of trust networks in social media sites from a perspective of mediators. To this end, we proposed two stochastic models that...focusing on a number of word -of- mouth communication websites, we first attempt to construct dynamic trust models between users that enable to explain trust

Moran-evolution of cooperation: From well-mixed to heterogeneous complex networks

Science.gov (United States)

Sarkar, Bijan

2018-05-01

Configurational arrangement of network architecture and interaction character of individuals are two most influential factors on the mechanisms underlying the evolutionary outcome of cooperation, which is explained by the well-established framework of evolutionary game theory. In the current study, not only qualitatively but also quantitatively, we measure Moran-evolution of cooperation to support an analytical agreement based on the consequences of the replicator equation in a finite population. The validity of the measurement has been double-checked in the well-mixed network by the Langevin stochastic differential equation and the Gillespie-algorithmic version of Moran-evolution, while in a structured network, the measurement of accuracy is verified by the standard numerical simulation. Considering the Birth-Death and Death-Birth updating rules through diffusion of individuals, the investigation is carried out in the wide range of game environments those relate to the various social dilemmas where we are able to draw a new rigorous mathematical track to tackle the heterogeneity of complex networks. The set of modified criteria reveals the exact fact about the emergence and maintenance of cooperation in the structured population. We find that in general, nature promotes the environment of coexistent traits.

The Evolution of Social Welfare and Social Work in Nigeria | Irele ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper focused on the evolution of social welfare and social work in Nigeria. It traced the historical trajectory of social work from the missionary period through the colonial period to the present day. The paper gave a vivid picture of how individuals who were philanthropists contributed to the evolution of social work and ...

Statistically validated mobile communication networks: the evolution of motifs in European and Chinese data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Ming-Xia; Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Zhou, Wei-Xing; Palchykov, Vasyl; Kaski, Kimmo; Kertész, János; Miccichè, Salvatore; Tumminello, Michele; N Mantegna, Rosario

2014-01-01

Big data open up unprecedented opportunities for investigating complex systems, including society. In particular, communication data serve as major sources for computational social sciences, but they have to be cleaned and filtered as they may contain spurious information due to recording errors as well as interactions, like commercial and marketing activities, not directly related to the social network. The network constructed from communication data can only be considered as a proxy for the network of social relationships. Here we apply a systematic method, based on multiple-hypothesis testing, to statistically validate the links and then construct the corresponding Bonferroni network, generalized to the directed case. We study two large datasets of mobile phone records, one from Europe and the other from China. For both datasets we compare the raw data networks with the corresponding Bonferroni networks and point out significant differences in the structures and in the basic network measures. We show evidence that the Bonferroni network provides a better proxy for the network of social interactions than the original one. Using the filtered networks, we investigated the statistics and temporal evolution of small directed 3-motifs and concluded that closed communication triads have a formation time scale, which is quite fast and typically intraday. We also find that open communication triads preferentially evolve into other open triads with a higher fraction of reciprocated calls. These stylized facts were observed for both datasets. (paper)

Statistically validated mobile communication networks: the evolution of motifs in European and Chinese data

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ming-Xia; Palchykov, Vasyl; Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Kaski, Kimmo; Kertész, János; Miccichè, Salvatore; Tumminello, Michele; Zhou, Wei-Xing; Mantegna, Rosario N.

2014-08-01

Big data open up unprecedented opportunities for investigating complex systems, including society. In particular, communication data serve as major sources for computational social sciences, but they have to be cleaned and filtered as they may contain spurious information due to recording errors as well as interactions, like commercial and marketing activities, not directly related to the social network. The network constructed from communication data can only be considered as a proxy for the network of social relationships. Here we apply a systematic method, based on multiple-hypothesis testing, to statistically validate the links and then construct the corresponding Bonferroni network, generalized to the directed case. We study two large datasets of mobile phone records, one from Europe and the other from China. For both datasets we compare the raw data networks with the corresponding Bonferroni networks and point out significant differences in the structures and in the basic network measures. We show evidence that the Bonferroni network provides a better proxy for the network of social interactions than the original one. Using the filtered networks, we investigated the statistics and temporal evolution of small directed 3-motifs and concluded that closed communication triads have a formation time scale, which is quite fast and typically intraday. We also find that open communication triads preferentially evolve into other open triads with a higher fraction of reciprocated calls. These stylized facts were observed for both datasets.

SCM: A method to improve network service layout efficiency with network evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Qi; Zhang, Chuanhao

2017-01-01

Network services are an important component of the Internet, which are used to expand network functions for third-party developers. Network function virtualization (NFV) can improve the speed and flexibility of network service deployment. However, with the evolution of the network, network service layout may become inefficient. Regarding this problem, this paper proposes a service chain migration (SCM) method with the framework of “software defined network + network function virtualization” (SDN+NFV), which migrates service chains to adapt to network evolution and improves the efficiency of the network service layout. SCM is modeled as an integer linear programming problem and resolved via particle swarm optimization. An SCM prototype system is designed based on an SDN controller. Experiments demonstrate that SCM could reduce the network traffic cost and energy consumption efficiently. PMID:29267299

SCM: A method to improve network service layout efficiency with network evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Qi; Zhang, Chuanhao; Zhao, Zheng

2017-01-01

Network services are an important component of the Internet, which are used to expand network functions for third-party developers. Network function virtualization (NFV) can improve the speed and flexibility of network service deployment. However, with the evolution of the network, network service layout may become inefficient. Regarding this problem, this paper proposes a service chain migration (SCM) method with the framework of "software defined network + network function virtualization" (SDN+NFV), which migrates service chains to adapt to network evolution and improves the efficiency of the network service layout. SCM is modeled as an integer linear programming problem and resolved via particle swarm optimization. An SCM prototype system is designed based on an SDN controller. Experiments demonstrate that SCM could reduce the network traffic cost and energy consumption efficiently.

Communication in Animal Social Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Snijders, Lysanne; Naguib, Marc

2017-01-01

Animal social networks and animal communication networks are key disciplines for understanding animal social behavior, yet these disciplines remain poorly integrated. In this review, we show how communication and social networks are inherently linked, with social signals reflecting and affecting

Social network in patient safety: Social media visibility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Azucena Santillán García

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Internet social network (social media is a powerful communication tool, and its use is expanding significantly. This paper seeks to know the current state of visibility in online social networks of active citizen talking about patient safety. This is an observational cross-sectional study whose target population is the websites Facebook, Twitter and Tuenti in Spain. By three consecutive cuts social profiles were found using the searching terms “seguridad+paciente” and “safety+patient”. There were found 5 profiles on Facebook that met the search criteria, 6 on Twitter and none were found on Tuenti. It is concluded that although there is evidence of the rise of social networking, citizen network involved in patient safety appears not to be significantly represented within the social networks examined.

Visualization of Social Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boertjes, E.M.; Kotterink, B.; Jager, E.J.

2011-01-01

Current visualizations of social networks are mostly some form of node-link diagram. Depending on the type of social network, this can be some treevisualization with a strict hierarchical structure or a more generic network visualization.

Evolution of hybrid defect networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martins, C. J. A. P.

2009-01-01

We apply a recently developed analytic model for the evolution of monopole networks to the case of monopoles attached to one string, usually known as hybrid networks. We discuss scaling solutions for both local and global hybrid networks, and also find an interesting application for the case of vortons. Our quantitative results agree with previous estimates in indicating that the hybrid networks will usually annihilate soon after the string-forming phase transition. However, we also show that in some specific circumstances these networks can survive considerably more than a Hubble time.

Modeling Temporal Evolution and Multiscale Structure in Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Herlau, Tue; Mørup, Morten; Schmidt, Mikkel Nørgaard

2013-01-01

Many real-world networks exhibit both temporal evolution and multiscale structure. We propose a model for temporally correlated multifurcating hierarchies in complex networks which jointly capture both effects. We use the Gibbs fragmentation tree as prior over multifurcating trees and a change......-point model to account for the temporal evolution of each vertex. We demonstrate that our model is able to infer time-varying multiscale structure in synthetic as well as three real world time-evolving complex networks. Our modeling of the temporal evolution of hierarchies brings new insights...

Maintenance of cultural diversity: social roles, social networks, and cognitive networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Abrams, Marshall

2014-06-01

Smaldino suggests that patterns that give rise to group-level cultural traits can also increase individual-level cultural diversity. I distinguish social roles and related social network structures and discuss ways in which each might maintain diversity. I suggest that cognitive analogs of "cohesion," a property of networks that helps maintenance of diversity, might mediate the effects of social roles on diversity.

Early social networks predict survival in wild bottlenose dolphins.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Margaret A Stanton

Full Text Available A fundamental question concerning group-living species is what factors influence the evolution of sociality. Although several studies link adult social bonds to fitness, social patterns and relationships are often formed early in life and are also likely to have fitness consequences, particularly in species with lengthy developmental periods, extensive social learning, and early social bond-formation. In a longitudinal study of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp., calf social network structure, specifically the metric eigenvector centrality, predicted juvenile survival in males. Additionally, male calves that died post-weaning had stronger ties to juvenile males than surviving male calves, suggesting that juvenile males impose fitness costs on their younger counterparts. Our study indicates that selection is acting on social traits early in life and highlights the need to examine the costs and benefits of social bonds during formative life history stages.

Social exchange : Relations and networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dijkstra, Jacob

2015-01-01

In this short paper, I review the literature on social exchange networks, with specific attention to theoretical and experimental research. I indicate how social exchange theory is rooted in general social theory and mention a few of its main links to social network analysis and empirical network

Structure and Evolution of the Foreign Exchange Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Kwapień, J.; Gworek, S.; Drożdż, S.

2009-01-01

We investigate topology and temporal evolution of the foreign currency exchange market viewed from a weighted network perspective. Based on exchange rates for a set of 46 currencies (including precious metals), we construct different representations of the FX network depending on a choice of the base currency. Our results show that the network structure is not stable in time, but there are main clusters of currencies, which persist for a long period of time despite the fact that their size and content are variable. We find a long-term trend in the network's evolution which affects the USD and EUR nodes. In all the network representations, the USD node gradually loses its centrality, while, on contrary, the EUR node has become slightly more central than it used to be in its early years. Despite this directional trend, the overall evolution of the network is noisy.

Uncertainty about social interactions leads to the evolution of social heuristics.

Science.gov (United States)

van den Berg, Pieter; Wenseleers, Tom

2018-05-31

Individuals face many types of social interactions throughout their lives, but they often cannot perfectly assess what the consequences of their actions will be. Although it is known that unpredictable environments can profoundly affect the evolutionary process, it remains unclear how uncertainty about the nature of social interactions shapes the evolution of social behaviour. Here, we present an evolutionary simulation model, showing that even intermediate uncertainty leads to the evolution of simple cooperation strategies that disregard information about the social interaction ('social heuristics'). Moreover, our results show that the evolution of social heuristics can greatly affect cooperation levels, nearly doubling cooperation rates in our simulations. These results provide new insight into why social behaviour, including cooperation in humans, is often observed to be seemingly suboptimal. More generally, our results show that social behaviour that seems maladaptive when considered in isolation may actually be well-adapted to a heterogeneous and uncertain world.

Social exchange: Relations and networks

OpenAIRE

Dijkstra, Jacob

2015-01-01

In this short paper, I review the literature on social exchange networks, with specific attention to theoretical and experimental research. I indicate how social exchange theory is rooted in general social theory and mention a few of its main links to social network analysis and empirical network research. The paper provides an accessible entry into the literature on social exchange.

Myths on Bi-direction Communication of Web 2.0 Based Social Networks: Is Social Network Truly Interactive?

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-10

more and more social interactions are happening on the on-line. Especially recent uptake of the social network sites (SNSs), such as Facebook (http...Smart phones • Live updates within social networks • Facebook & Twitters Solution: WebMon for Risk Management Need for New WebMon for Social Networks ...Title: Myths on bi-direction communication of Web 2.0 based social networks : Is social network truly interactive

The interplay between social networks and culture: theoretically and among whales and dolphins.

Science.gov (United States)

Cantor, Mauricio; Whitehead, Hal

2013-05-19

Culture is increasingly being understood as a driver of mammalian phenotypes. Defined as group-specific behaviour transmitted by social learning, culture is shaped by social structure. However, culture can itself affect social structure if individuals preferentially interact with others whose behaviour is similar, or cultural symbols are used to mark groups. Using network formalism, this interplay can be depicted by the coevolution of nodes and edges together with the coevolution of network topology and transmission patterns. We review attempts to model the links between the spread, persistence and diversity of culture and the network topology of non-human societies. We illustrate these processes using cetaceans. The spread of socially learned begging behaviour within a population of bottlenose dolphins followed the topology of the social network, as did the evolution of the song of the humpback whale between breeding areas. In three bottlenose dolphin populations, individuals preferentially associated with animals using the same socially learned foraging behaviour. Homogeneous behaviour within the tight, nearly permanent social structures of the large matrilineal whales seems to result from transmission bias, with cultural symbols marking social structures. We recommend the integration of studies of culture and society in species for which social learning is an important determinant of behaviour.

Modern Social Support Structures: Online Social Networks and their Implications for Social Workers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kala Chakradhar

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Mapping and assessing social networks and the quality of their social support is a valuable intervention strategy for social workers. These networks have now spread onto the digital realm in the form of Online Social Networks (OSNs. This study investigated the nature of social support provided by such networks to their users in a rural mid-South University (USA and explored parallels with the current understanding of social support in conventional social networks. A web-based survey administered to college students revealed that users of these online networks were predominantly undergraduate first year students, female, single, unemployed and from a variety of academic disciplines. The examination of the components of OSNs appears to mirror those of offline networks. They also seem to complement the effects of each other while contributing to an individual's support system. The paper concludes with critical implications of such online social networking for University students and social workers in practice and education.

Attachment and social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Gillath, Omri; C Karantzas, Gery; Lee, Juwon

2018-02-21

The current review covers two lines of research linking attachment and social networks. One focuses on attachment networks (the people who fulfill one's attachment needs), examining composition and age-related differences pertaining to these networks. The other line integrates attachment with social network analysis to investigate how individual differences in adult attachment are associated with the management and characteristics (e.g., density, multiplexity, and centrality) of people's social networks. We show that most people's attachment networks are small and hierarchical, with one figure being the primary attachment figure (often a mother or romantic partner, depending on age). Furthermore, attachment style predicts network characteristics and management, such that insecurity is associated with less closeness, multiplexity, centrality, and poorer management (less maintenance, more dissolution). Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social inheritance can explain the structure of animal social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Ilany, Amiyaal; Akçay, Erol

2016-01-01

The social network structure of animal populations has major implications for survival, reproductive success, sexual selection and pathogen transmission of individuals. But as of yet, no general theory of social network structure exists that can explain the diversity of social networks observed in nature, and serve as a null model for detecting species and population-specific factors. Here we propose a simple and generally applicable model of social network structure. We consider the emergence of network structure as a result of social inheritance, in which newborns are likely to bond with maternal contacts, and via forming bonds randomly. We compare model output with data from several species, showing that it can generate networks with properties such as those observed in real social systems. Our model demonstrates that important observed properties of social networks, including heritability of network position or assortative associations, can be understood as consequences of social inheritance. PMID:27352101

Seven Deadliest Social Network Attacks

CERN Document Server

Timm, Carl

2010-01-01

Do you need to keep up with the latest hacks, attacks, and exploits effecting social networks? Then you need Seven Deadliest Social Network Attacks. This book pinpoints the most dangerous hacks and exploits specific to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, laying out the anatomy of these attacks including how to make your system more secure. You will discover the best ways to defend against these vicious hacks with step-by-step instruction and learn techniques to make your computer and network impenetrable. Attacks detailed in this book include: Social Networking Infrastruct

Cosmological evolution of p-brane networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sousa, L.; Avelino, P. P.

2011-01-01

In this paper we derive, directly from the Nambu-Goto action, the relevant components of the acceleration of cosmological featureless p-branes, extending previous analysis based on the field theory equations in the thin-brane limit. The component of the acceleration parallel to the velocity is at the core of the velocity-dependent one-scale model for the evolution of p-brane networks. We use this model to show that, in a decelerating expanding universe in which the p-branes are relevant cosmologically, interactions cannot lead to frustration, except for fine-tuned nonrelativistic networks with a dimensionless curvature parameter k<<1. We discuss the implications of our findings for the cosmological evolution of p-brane networks.

Next Generation Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Lene Tolstrup; Skouby, Knud Erik

2008-01-01

different online networks for communities of people who share interests or individuals who presents themselves through user produced content is what makes up the social networking of today. The purpose of this paper is to discuss perceived user requirements to the next generation social networks. The paper...

Effect of local information within network layers on the evolution of cooperation in duplex public goods games

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhou, Yifeng; Zheng, Xiaoming; Wu, Weiwei

2015-01-01

Traditional works of public goods game (PGG) are often studied in simplex networks where agents play games through the same type of social interactions. In order to promote cooperation against the defection in PGGs in simplex network environment, many mechanisms have been proposed from different perspectives, such as the volunteering mechanisms, and the punishment and reward approaches. However, due to diverse types of interactions between agents in reality, the study of PGG should also consider the characteristic of multiplexity of networks. Hence, we firstly model the public goods game in the duplex network (for simplification of analysis, the duplex network is considered), in which agents have two types of social interactions, and thus the network is modeled as two network layers. This type of PGG is naturally named as duplex public goods game (D-PGG), in which agents can select one of the network layers to allocate their limited resources. Then for the new game environment (D-PGG), we propose a novel perspective to promote cooperation: degrading the information integrity, i.e., agents get information just from one network layer (local information) rather than from the whole duplex network (global information) in the evolution process. Finally, through theoretical analyses and simulations, we find that if agents imitate based on the local information of the payoff in the evolution, cooperation can be generally promoted; and the extent of promotion depends on both the network structure and the similarity of the network layers

Structuring evolution: biochemical networks and metabolic diversification in birds.

Science.gov (United States)

Morrison, Erin S; Badyaev, Alexander V

2016-08-25

Recurrence and predictability of evolution are thought to reflect the correspondence between genomic and phenotypic dimensions of organisms, and the connectivity in deterministic networks within these dimensions. Direct examination of the correspondence between opportunities for diversification imbedded in such networks and realized diversity is illuminating, but is empirically challenging because both the deterministic networks and phenotypic diversity are modified in the course of evolution. Here we overcome this problem by directly comparing the structure of a "global" carotenoid network - comprising of all known enzymatic reactions among naturally occurring carotenoids - with the patterns of evolutionary diversification in carotenoid-producing metabolic networks utilized by birds. We found that phenotypic diversification in carotenoid networks across 250 species was closely associated with enzymatic connectivity of the underlying biochemical network - compounds with greater connectivity occurred the most frequently across species and were the hotspots of metabolic pathway diversification. In contrast, we found no evidence for diversification along the metabolic pathways, corroborating findings that the utilization of the global carotenoid network was not strongly influenced by history in avian evolution. The finding that the diversification in species-specific carotenoid networks is qualitatively predictable from the connectivity of the underlying enzymatic network points to significant structural determinism in phenotypic evolution.

Social network sites: Indispensable or optional social tools?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shklovski, Irina

2012-01-01

Much research has enumerated potential benefits of online social network sites. Given the pervasiveness of these sites and the numbers of people that use them daily, both re-search and media tend to make the assumption that social network sites have become indispensible to their users. Based...... on the analysis of qualitative data from users of social network sites in Russia and Kazakhstan, this paper consid-ers under what conditions social network sites can become indispensable to their users and when these technologies remain on the periphery of life despite fulfilling useful func-tions. For some...... respondents, these sites had become indis-pensable tools as they were integrated into everyday rou-tines of communicating with emotionally important and proximal contacts and were often used for coordination of offline activities. For others social network sites remained spaces where they occasionally visited...

The evolution of sociality in spiders

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lubin, Yael; Bilde, T.

2007-01-01

. Anelosimus (Theridiidae) C. Sociality in Spiders: An Evolutionary Dead End? V. Evolution and Maintenance of Sociality in Spiders: Relevant Models A. Kin Selection 1. Kin Recognition 2. Inbreeding and Kin Selection B. Multilevel Selection (Group Selection) C. Ecological Benefits D. Ecological Constraints E......I. Introducing Social Spiders II. Social and Subsocial Species: A Survey of Behavioral Traits III. Inbred Sociality in Spiders A. Cooperation Versus Competition: A Balancing Act B. Do Social Spiders Have Division of Labor? C. Colony Foundation: Propagule Dispersal Versus Fission D. Female......-Biased Colony Sex Ratios: Primary and Operational Sex Ratios E. Mating System: Inbreeding and Its Population-Genetic Consequences F. "Boom and Bust" Colony Dynamics IV. Phylogenetic Relationships Among Social Spider Species A. Common Features of Social Evolution B. Case Studies 1. Stegodyphus (Eresidae) 2...

A Review of Machine Learning and Data Mining Approaches for Business Applications in Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Evis Trandafili; Marenglen Biba

2013-01-01

Social networks have an outstanding marketing value and developing data mining methods for viral marketing is a hot topic in the research community. However, most social networks remain impossible to be fully analyzed and understood due to prohibiting sizes and the incapability of traditional machine learning and data mining approaches to deal with the new dimension in the learning process related to the large-scale environment where the data are produced. On one hand, the birth and evolution...

Individual Search and Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Sanjeev Goyal; Stephanie Rosenkranz; Utz Weitzel; Vincent Buskens

2014-01-01

The explosion in online social networks motivates an enquiry into their structure and their welfare effects. A central feature of these networks is information sharing: online social networks lower the cost of getting information from others. These lower costs affect the attractiveness of individual search vis-a-vis a reliance on social networks. The paper reports the findings of an experiment on these effects. Our experiment shows that online networks can have large effects. Information acqu...

Enterprise Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Winkler, Till J.; Trier, Matthias

2017-01-01

Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs), d. h. Informationssysteme, die die Vernetzung von Mitarbeitern in Unternehmen fördern sollen, sind in verschiedenen Varianten und unter verschiedenen Bezeichnungen (etwa Enterprise Social Media, Corporate Social Software, Social Business oder Enterprise 2...

CULTURAL ISSUES OF SOCIAL NETWORKS, THEIR PRINCIPLES AND VALUES IN SOCIAL INCLUSION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alessandro Marco Rosini

2015-09-01

Full Text Available This article aims to show the importance of a samba school for the local community (in relation to social inclusion and redemption of human values, reflect on the application of this learning created at community to a (organization and discuss the role of people in organizational and cultural strengthening in a social networking environment. It also shows how the use of information technology and communication (ITC can contribute to the evolution of educational scenario of those communities. The scientific method for this is case study, using Delphi technique, where the main community stakeholders are interviewed. Care, respect and consideration for the people who are part of the community are important factors in these social communities. The learning generated by the community and their leaders’ effort are determining for them. ITC can help this learning.

Collective Dynamics of Belief Evolution under Cognitive Coherence and Social Conformity.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodriguez, Nathaniel; Bollen, Johan; Ahn, Yong-Yeol

2016-01-01

Human history has been marked by social instability and conflict, often driven by the irreconcilability of opposing sets of beliefs, ideologies, and religious dogmas. The dynamics of belief systems has been studied mainly from two distinct perspectives, namely how cognitive biases lead to individual belief rigidity and how social influence leads to social conformity. Here we propose a unifying framework that connects cognitive and social forces together in order to study the dynamics of societal belief evolution. Each individual is endowed with a network of interacting beliefs that evolves through interaction with other individuals in a social network. The adoption of beliefs is affected by both internal coherence and social conformity. Our framework may offer explanations for how social transitions can arise in otherwise homogeneous populations, how small numbers of zealots with highly coherent beliefs can overturn societal consensus, and how belief rigidity protects fringe groups and cults against invasion from mainstream beliefs, allowing them to persist and even thrive in larger societies. Our results suggest that strong consensus may be insufficient to guarantee social stability, that the cognitive coherence of belief-systems is vital in determining their ability to spread, and that coherent belief-systems may pose a serious problem for resolving social polarization, due to their ability to prevent consensus even under high levels of social exposure. We argue that the inclusion of cognitive factors into a social model could provide a more complete picture of collective human dynamics.

The evolution of your success lies at the centre of your co-authorship network.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sandra Servia-Rodríguez

Full Text Available Collaboration among scholars and institutions is progressively becoming essential to the success of research grant procurement and to allow the emergence and evolution of scientific disciplines. Our work focuses on analysing if the volume of collaborations of one author together with the relevance of his collaborators is somewhat related to his research performance over time. In order to prove this relation we collected the temporal distributions of scholars' publications and citations from the Google Scholar platform and the co-authorship network (of Computer Scientists underlying the well-known DBLP bibliographic database. By the application of time series clustering, social network analysis and non-parametric statistics, we observe that scholars with similar publications (citations patterns also tend to have a similar centrality in the co-authorship network. To our knowledge, this is the first work that considers success evolution with respect to co-authorship.

Online social networking for radiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Auffermann, William F; Chetlen, Alison L; Colucci, Andrew T; DeQuesada, Ivan M; Grajo, Joseph R; Heller, Matthew T; Nowitzki, Kristina M; Sherry, Steven J; Tillack, Allison A

2015-01-01

Online social networking services have changed the way we interact as a society and offer many opportunities to improve the way we practice radiology and medicine in general. This article begins with an introduction to social networking. Next, the latest advances in online social networking are reviewed, and areas where radiologists and clinicians may benefit from these new tools are discussed. This article concludes with several steps that the interested reader can take to become more involved in online social networking. Copyright © 2015 AUR. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Constructing Social Networks from Unstructured Group Dialog in Virtual Worlds

Science.gov (United States)

Shah, Fahad; Sukthankar, Gita

Virtual worlds and massively multi-player online games are rich sources of information about large-scale teams and groups, offering the tantalizing possibility of harvesting data about group formation, social networks, and network evolution. However these environments lack many of the cues that facilitate natural language processing in other conversational settings and different types of social media. Public chat data often features players who speak simultaneously, use jargon and emoticons, and only erratically adhere to conversational norms. In this paper, we present techniques for inferring the existence of social links from unstructured conversational data collected from groups of participants in the Second Life virtual world. We present an algorithm for addressing this problem, Shallow Semantic Temporal Overlap (SSTO), that combines temporal and language information to create directional links between participants, and a second approach that relies on temporal overlap alone to create undirected links between participants. Relying on temporal overlap is noisy, resulting in a low precision and networks with many extraneous links. In this paper, we demonstrate that we can ameliorate this problem by using network modularity optimization to perform community detection in the noisy networks and severing cross-community links. Although using the content of the communications still results in the best performance, community detection is effective as a noise reduction technique for eliminating the extra links created by temporal overlap alone.

Analyzing the Dynamics of Communication in Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

de Choudhury, Munmun; Sundaram, Hari; John, Ajita; Seligmann, Doree Duncan

This chapter deals with the analysis of interpersonal communication dynamics in online social networks and social media. Communication is central to the evolution of social systems. Today, the different online social sites feature variegated interactional affordances, ranging from blogging, micro-blogging, sharing media elements (i.e., image, video) as well as a rich set of social actions such as tagging, voting, commenting and so on. Consequently, these communication tools have begun to redefine the ways in which we exchange information or concepts, and how the media channels impact our online interactional behavior. Our central hypothesis is that such communication dynamics between individuals manifest themselves via two key aspects: the information or concept that is the content of communication, and the channel i.e., the media via which communication takes place. We present computational models and discuss large-scale quantitative observational studies for both these organizing ideas. First, we develop a computational framework to determine the "interestingness" property of conversations cented around rich media. Second, we present user models of diffusion of social actions and study the impact of homophily on the diffusion process. The outcome of this research is twofold. First, extensive empirical studies on datasets from YouTube have indicated that on rich media sites, the conversations that are deemed "interesting" appear to have consequential impact on the properties of the social network they are associated with: in terms of degree of participation of the individuals in future conversations, thematic diffusion as well as emergent cohesiveness in activity among the concerned participants in the network. Second, observational and computational studies on large social media datasets such as Twitter have indicated that diffusion of social actions in a network can be indicative of future information cascades. Besides, given a topic, these cascades are often a

Signed Networks in Social Media

OpenAIRE

Leskovec, Jure; Huttenlocher, Daniel; Kleinberg, Jon

2010-01-01

Relations between users on social media sites often reflect a mixture of positive (friendly) and negative (antagonistic) interactions. In contrast to the bulk of research on social networks that has focused almost exclusively on positive interpretations of links between people, we study how the interplay between positive and negative relationships affects the structure of on-line social networks. We connect our analyses to theories of signed networks from social psychology. We find that the c...

A Comparison of Online Social Networks and Real-Life Social Networks: A Study of Sina Microblogging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dayong Zhang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Online social networks appear to enrich our social life, which raises the question whether they remove cognitive constraints on human communication and improve human social capabilities. In this paper, we analyze the users' following and followed relationships based on the data of Sina Microblogging and reveal several structural properties of Sina Microblogging. Compared with real-life social networks, our results confirm some similar features. However, Sina Microblogging also shows its own specialties, such as hierarchical structure and degree disassortativity, which all mark a deviation from real-life social networks. The low cost of the online network forms a broader perspective, and the one-way link relationships make it easy to spread information, but the online social network does not make too much difference in the creation of strong interpersonal relationships. Finally, we describe the mechanisms for the formation of these characteristics and discuss the implications of these structural properties for the real-life social networks.

Social networks in cardiovascular disease management.

Science.gov (United States)

Shaya, Fadia T; Yan, Xia; Farshid, Maryam; Barakat, Samer; Jung, Miah; Low, Sara; Fedder, Donald

2010-12-01

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the USA. Social networks have a positive association with obesity, smoking cessation and weight loss. This article summarizes studies evaluating the impact of social networks on the management of cardiovascular disease. The 35 studies included in the article describe the impact of social networks on a decreased incidence of cardiovascular disease, depression and mortality. In addition, having a large-sized social network is also associated with better outcomes and improved health. The role of pharmacists is beginning to play an important role in the patient-centered medical home, which needs to be incorporated into social networks. The patient-centered medical home can serve as an adaptive source for social network evolvement.

Online Advertising in Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Bagherjeiran, Abraham; Bhatt, Rushi P.; Parekh, Rajesh; Chaoji, Vineet

Online social networks offer opportunities to analyze user behavior and social connectivity and leverage resulting insights for effective online advertising. This chapter focuses on the role of social network information in online display advertising.

Social Networking Sites in Education

OpenAIRE

Suková, Lenka

2010-01-01

Diploma thesis deals with social networking sites and their use in education. Thesis is divided into two general parts. The first part deals with theory of learning; Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives and new educational theory based on learning in networks -- Connectivism. After that thesis focuses on the definition of social networking sites, introduction of some of the best known social networking sites and examples of their use in foreign and domestic educational practice. The sec...

Online social network sites and social capital: a case of facebook

OpenAIRE

Naseri, Samaneh

2017-01-01

The present study is a theoretical and literary review of online social network sites and their impact on social capital. In this review, the Facebook is selected as one popular and important online social networking site in the world today. To This end, first two main concepts of social capital, bridging and bonding social capital has been provided. Next, the concept of online social networks and the impact of FB on social networks are discussed.

NATO Advanced Study Institute on Evolution from Cellular to Social Scales

CERN Document Server

Skjeltorp, Arne T

2008-01-01

Evolution is a critical challenge for many areas of science, technology and development of society. The book reviews general evolutionary facts such as origin of life and evolution of the genome and clues to evolution through simple systems. Emerging areas of science such as "systems biology" and "bio-complexity" are founded on the idea that phenomena need to be understood in the context of highly interactive processes operating at different levels and on different scales. This is where physics meets complexity in nature, and where we must begin to learn about complexity if we are to understand it. Similarly, there is an increasingly urgent need to understand and predict the evolutionary behavior of highly interacting man-made systems, in areas such as communications and transport, which permeate the modern world. The same applies to the evolution of human networks such as social, political and financial systems, where technology has tended to vastly increase both the complexity and speed of interaction, whic...

Conceptualizing of Social Networking Sites

OpenAIRE

J. S. Sodhi; Shilpi Sharma

2012-01-01

People often move to their friends, families and colleagues when they feel urge and having doubts or queries to solve. Participation in social networking site has dramatically increased in recent years. Many social networking sites boost with million of members using their network on regular basis to communicate, share , create and collaborate with others. In this paper we explore the phenomenon of using social networking site to trace a link of the search from the community of users for bett...

Cooperative networks overcoming defectors by social influence

Science.gov (United States)

Gomez Portillo, Ignacio

2014-01-01

We address the cooperation problem in structured populations by considering the prisoner’s dilemma game as a metaphor of the social interactions between individuals with imitation capacity. We present a new strategy update rule called democratic weighted update where the individual’s behavior is socially influenced by each one of their neighbors. In particular, the capacity of an individual to socially influence other ones is proportional to its accumulated payoff. When in a neighborhood there are cooperators and defectors, the focal player is contradictorily influenced by them and, therefore, the effective social influence is given by the difference of the accumulated payoff of each strategy in its neighborhood. First, by considering the growing process of the network and neglecting mutations, we show the evolution of highly cooperative systems. Then, we broadly show that the social influence allows to overcome the emergence of defectors into highly cooperative systems. In this way, we conclude that in a structured system formed by a growing process, the cooperation evolves if the individuals have an imitation capacity socially influenced by each one of their neighbors. Therefore, here we present a theoretical solution of the cooperation problem among genetically unrelated individuals.

Social Network Analysis and informal trade

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Walther, Olivier

networks can be applied to better understand informal trade in developing countries, with a particular focus on Africa. The paper starts by discussing some of the fundamental concepts developed by social network analysis. Through a number of case studies, we show how social network analysis can...... illuminate the relevant causes of social patterns, the impact of social ties on economic performance, the diffusion of resources and information, and the exercise of power. The paper then examines some of the methodological challenges of social network analysis and how it can be combined with other...... approaches. The paper finally highlights some of the applications of social network analysis and their implications for trade policies....

Social networking services: technologies and applications

OpenAIRE

Puzyrnyy, Oleksandr

2011-01-01

Puzyrnyy, Oleksandr. 2011. Social networking services: technologies and applications. Bachelor's Thesis. Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences. Business and Culture. Pages 52. The aim of this thesis is to describe the concept of social networking, its technological base, business opportunities and future perspectives. The study discovers how social networks are made and which different purposes they might have. In addition, social networking is viewed as a part of business strategy o...

Brand Marketing Model on Social Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jolita Jezukevičiūtė

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The paper analyzes the brand and its marketing solutions onsocial networks. This analysis led to the creation of improvedbrand marketing model on social networks, which will contributeto the rapid and cheap organization brand recognition, increasecompetitive advantage and enhance consumer loyalty. Therefore,the brand and a variety of social networks are becoming a hotresearch area for brand marketing model on social networks.The world‘s most successful brand marketing models exploratoryanalysis of a single case study revealed a brand marketingsocial networking tools that affect consumers the most. Basedon information analysis and methodological studies, develop abrand marketing model on social networks.

Analyzing complex networks evolution through Information Theory quantifiers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carpi, Laura C.; Rosso, Osvaldo A.; Saco, Patricia M.; Ravetti, Martin Gomez

2011-01-01

A methodology to analyze dynamical changes in complex networks based on Information Theory quantifiers is proposed. The square root of the Jensen-Shannon divergence, a measure of dissimilarity between two probability distributions, and the MPR Statistical Complexity are used to quantify states in the network evolution process. Three cases are analyzed, the Watts-Strogatz model, a gene network during the progression of Alzheimer's disease and a climate network for the Tropical Pacific region to study the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) dynamic. We find that the proposed quantifiers are able not only to capture changes in the dynamics of the processes but also to quantify and compare states in their evolution.

Social Network Perspective: Model of Student Knowledge Sharing On Social Network Media

OpenAIRE

Bentar Priyopradono; Danny Manongga; Wiranto H. Utomo

2012-01-01

Recently, the role and development of information technology especially the internet, gives impact and influence in social relationship especially for social network site services users. The impact and influence the use of Internet which is related to exchange information and knowledge sharing still become one of the interesting topics to be researched. Now, the use of social media network by students are the best way to them to increase their knowledge as communication media such as, exchang...

Using Social Network Research in HRM

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kaše, Robert; King, Zella; Minbaeva, Dana

2013-01-01

; the impact of social networking sites on perceptions of relationships; and ethical issues in organizational network analysis, we propose specific suggestions to bring social network perspectives closer to HRM researchers and practitioners and rebalance our attention to people and to their relationships.......The article features a conversation between Rob Cross and Martin Kilduff about organizational network analysis in research and practice. It demonstrates the value of using social network perspectives in HRM. Drawing on the discussion about managing personal networks; managing the networks of others...

Mobile social networking an innovative approach

CERN Document Server

Zhang, Daqing

2014-01-01

The use of contextually aware, pervasive, distributed computing, and sensor networks to bridge the gap between the physical and online worlds is the basis of mobile social networking. This book shows how applications can be built to provide mobile social networking, the research issues that need to be solved to enable this vision, and how mobile social networking can be used to provide computational intelligence that will improve daily life. With contributions from the fields of sociology, computer science, human-computer interaction and design, this book demonstrates how mobile social networks can be inferred from users' physical interactions both with the environment and with others, as well as how users behave around them and how their behavior differs on mobile vs. traditional online social networks.

Staying Safe on Social Network Sites

Science.gov (United States)

... Tips Security Tip (ST06-003) Staying Safe on Social Networking Sites Original release date: January 26, 2011 | Last revised: ... so you should take certain precautions. What are social networking sites? Social networking sites, sometimes referred to as "friend- ...

One Health in social networks and social media.

Science.gov (United States)

Mekaru, S R; Brownstein, J S

2014-08-01

In the rapidly evolving world of social media, social networks, mobile applications and citizen science, online communities can develop organically and separately from larger or more established organisations. The One Health online community is experiencing expansion from both the bottom up and the top down. In this paper, the authors review social media's strengths and weaknesses, earlier work examining Internet resources for One Health, the current state of One Health in social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and online social networking sites (e.g. LinkedIn and ResearchGate), as well as social media in One Health-related citizen science projects. While One Health has a fairly strong presence on websites, its social media presence is more limited and has an uneven geographic distribution. In work following the Stone Mountain Meeting,the One Health Global Network Task Force Report recommended the creation of an online community of practice. Professional social networks as well as the strategic use of social media should be employed in this effort. Finally, One Health-related research projects using volunteers (citizen science) often use social media to enhance their recruitment. Including these researchers in a community of practitioners would take full advantage of their existing social media presence. In conclusion, the interactive nature of social media, combined with increasing global Internet access, provides the One Health community with opportunities to meaningfully expand their community and promote their message.

Brand marketing model on social networks

OpenAIRE

Jezukevičiūtė, Jolita; Davidavičienė, Vida

2014-01-01

Paper analyzes the brand and its marketing solutions on social networks. This analysis led to the creation of improved brand marketing model on social networks, which will contribute to the rapid and cheap organization brand recognition, increase competitive advantage and enhance consumer loyalty. Therefore, the brand and a variety of social networks are becoming a hot research area for brand marketing model on social networks. The world‘s most successful brand marketing models exploratory an...

Network Structure and Community Evolution on Twitter: Human Behavior Change in Response to the 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Xin; Brelsford, Christa

2014-10-01

To investigate the dynamics of social networks and the formation and evolution of online communities in response to extreme events, we collected three datasets from Twitter shortly before and after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We find that while almost all users increased their online activity after the earthquake, Japanese speakers, who are assumed to be more directly affected by the event, expanded the network of people they interact with to a much higher degree than English speakers or the global average. By investigating the evolution of communities, we find that the behavior of joining or quitting a community is far from random: users tend to stay in their current status and are less likely to join new communities from solitary or shift to other communities from their current community. While non-Japanese speakers did not change their conversation topics significantly after the earthquake, nearly all Japanese users changed their conversations to earthquake-related content. This study builds a systematic framework for investigating human behaviors under extreme events with online social network data and our findings on the dynamics of networks and communities may provide useful insight for understanding how patterns of social interaction are influenced by extreme events.

Social disadvantage and borderline personality disorder: A study of social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Beeney, Joseph E; Hallquist, Michael N; Clifton, Allan D; Lazarus, Sophie A; Pilkonis, Paul A

2018-01-01

Examining differences in social integration, social support, and relationship characteristics in social networks may be critical for understanding the character and costs of the social difficulties experienced of borderline personality disorder (BPD). We conducted an ego-based (self-reported, individual) social network analysis of 142 participants recruited from clinical and community sources. Each participant listed the 30 most significant people (called alters) in their social network, then rated each alter in terms of amount of contact, social support, attachment strength and negative interactions. In addition, measures of social integration were determined using participant's report of the connection between people in their networks. BPD was associated with poorer social support, more frequent negative interactions, and less social integration. Examination of alter-by-BPD interactions indicated that whereas participants with low BPD symptoms had close relationships with people with high centrality within their networks, participants with high BPD symptoms had their closest relationships with people less central to their networks. The results suggest that individuals with BPD are at a social disadvantage: Those with whom they are most closely linked (including romantic partners) are less socially connected (i.e., less central) within their social network. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

An Improved Routing Optimization Algorithm Based on Travelling Salesman Problem for Social Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naixue Xiong

2017-06-01

Full Text Available A social network is a social structure, which is organized by the relationships or interactions between individuals or groups. Humans link the physical network with social network, and the services in the social world are based on data and analysis, which directly influence decision making in the physical network. In this paper, we focus on a routing optimization algorithm, which solves a well-known and popular problem. Ant colony algorithm is proposed to solve this problem effectively, but random selection strategy of the traditional algorithm causes evolution speed to be slow. Meanwhile, positive feedback and distributed computing model make the algorithm quickly converge. Therefore, how to improve convergence speed and search ability of algorithm is the focus of the current research. The paper proposes the improved scheme. Considering the difficulty about searching for next better city, new parameters are introduced to improve probability of selection, and delay convergence speed of algorithm. To avoid the shortest path being submerged, and improve sensitive speed of finding the shortest path, it updates pheromone regulation formula. The results show that the improved algorithm can effectively improve convergence speed and search ability for achieving higher accuracy and optimal results.

Social multimedia signals a signal processing approach to social network phenomena

CERN Document Server

Roy, Suman Deb

2014-01-01

This book provides a comprehensive coverage of the state-of-the-art in understanding media popularity and trends in online social networks through social multimedia signals. With insights from the study of popularity and sharing patterns of online media, trend spread in social media, social network analysis for multimedia and visualizing diffusion of media in online social networks. In particular, the book will address the following important issues: Understanding social network phenomena from a signal processing point of view; The existence and popularity of multimedia as shared and social me

Energy efficient evolution of mobile broadband networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Micallef, G.

2013-04-15

Over the last decade, the mobile communications industry has broken through some remarkable barriers, pushing further and transforming the way people communicate and access information. As the volume of traffic carried by mobile networks maintains an insatiable growth, mobile network operators are required to ensure that networks can scale accordingly. In addition to upgrading existing networks, a number of operators have already started to rollout a further radio access technology layer, Long Term Evolution, or LTE. In addition to enhancing network capacity, operators are also required to adhere to public commitments for reducing their energy and carbon footprint. In 2008 Vodafone stated that by the year 2020, efforts for reducing emissions are expected to halve emissions registered in the year 2006/7. In addition to presenting a more environmentally conscious brand, this is also hoped to reduce costs, which, based on increasing energy prices and necessary network upgrades are likely to increase. Since base station sites make up for about 75% of the power consumption in mobile networks, studies are focused on this specific network element. A number of factors believed to play a role in the power consumption of mobile networks are separately investigated and later combined, providing a realistic indication of how the consumption is expected to evolve. This is also used as an indication to determine how likely it is for operators to achieve power consumption and emission targets. In order for mobile network operators to upgrade existing infrastructure different options are available. Irrespective of the selected option, capacity upgrades are bound to increase the power consumption of the network. Carried through case studies, a first analysis compares a number of network evolution strategies, determining which provides the necessary performance while limiting the increase in power consumption. Overall, it is noted that a hybrid solution involving the upgrade of

Energy efficient evolution of mobile broadband networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Micallef, G.

2013-04-15

Over the last decade, the mobile communications industry has broken through some remarkable barriers, pushing further and transforming the way people communicate and access information. As the volume of traffic carried by mobile networks maintains an insatiable growth, mobile network operators are required to ensure that networks can scale accordingly. In addition to upgrading existing networks, a number of operators have already started to rollout a further radio access technology layer, Long Term Evolution, or LTE. In addition to enhancing network capacity, operators are also required to adhere to public commitments for reducing their energy and carbon footprint. In 2008 Vodafone stated that by the year 2020, efforts for reducing emissions are expected to halve emissions registered in the year 2006/7. In addition to presenting a more environmentally conscious brand, this is also hoped to reduce costs, which, based on increasing energy prices and necessary network upgrades are likely to increase. Since base station sites make up for about 75% of the power consumption in mobile networks, studies are focused on this specific network element. A number of factors believed to play a role in the power consumption of mobile networks are separately investigated and later combined, providing a realistic indication of how the consumption is expected to evolve. This is also used as an indication to determine how likely it is for operators to achieve power consumption and emission targets. In order for mobile network operators to upgrade existing infrastructure different options are available. Irrespective of the selected option, capacity upgrades are bound to increase the power consumption of the network. Carried through case studies, a first analysis compares a number of network evolution strategies, determining which provides the necessary performance while limiting the increase in power consumption. Overall, it is noted that a hybrid solution involving the upgrade of

The Possibilities of Network Sociality

Science.gov (United States)

Willson, Michele

Technologically networked social forms are broad, extensive and in demand. The rapid development and growth of web 2.0, or the social web, is evidence of the need and indeed hunger for social connectivity: people are searching for many and varied ways of enacting being-together. However, the ways in which we think of, research and write about network(ed) sociality are relatively recent and arguably restricted, warranting further critique and development. This article attempts to do several things: it raises questions about the types of sociality enacted in contemporary techno-society; critically explores the notion of the networked individual and the focus on the individual evident in much of the technology and sociality literature and asks questions about the place of the social in these discussions. It argues for a more well-balanced and multilevelled approach to questions of sociality in networked societies. The article starts from the position that possibilities enabled/afforded by the technologies we have in place have an effect upon the ways in which we understand being in the world together and our possible actions and futures. These possibilities are more than simply supplementary; in many ways they are transformative. The ways in which we grapple with these questions reveals as much about our understandings of sociality as it does about the technologies themselves.

Social Rewards and Social Networks in the Human Brain.

Science.gov (United States)

Fareri, Dominic S; Delgado, Mauricio R

2014-08-01

The rapid development of social media and social networking sites in human society within the past decade has brought about an increased focus on the value of social relationships and being connected with others. Research suggests that we pursue socially valued or rewarding outcomes-approval, acceptance, reciprocity-as a means toward learning about others and fulfilling social needs of forming meaningful relationships. Focusing largely on recent advances in the human neuroimaging literature, we review findings highlighting the neural circuitry and processes that underlie pursuit of valued rewarding outcomes across non-social and social domains. We additionally discuss emerging human neuroimaging evidence supporting the idea that social rewards provide a gateway to establishing relationships and forming social networks. Characterizing the link between social network, brain, and behavior can potentially identify contributing factors to maladaptive influences on decision making within social situations. © The Author(s) 2014.

From biological and social network metaphors to coupled bio-social wireless networks

Science.gov (United States)

Barrett, Christopher L.; Eubank, Stephen; Anil Kumar, V.S.; Marathe, Madhav V.

2010-01-01

Biological and social analogies have been long applied to complex systems. Inspiration has been drawn from biological solutions to solve problems in engineering products and systems, ranging from Velcro to camouflage to robotics to adaptive and learning computing methods. In this paper, we present an overview of recent advances in understanding biological systems as networks and use this understanding to design and analyse wireless communication networks. We expand on two applications, namely cognitive sensing and control and wireless epidemiology. We discuss how our work in these two applications is motivated by biological metaphors. We believe that recent advances in computing and communications coupled with advances in health and social sciences raise the possibility of studying coupled bio-social communication networks. We argue that we can better utilise the advances in our understanding of one class of networks to better our understanding of the other. PMID:21643462

Fundamental structures of dynamic social networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sekara, Vedran; Stopczynski, Arkadiusz; Jørgensen, Sune Lehmann

2016-01-01

Social systems are in a constant state of flux, with dynamics spanning from minute-by-minute changes to patterns present on the timescale of years. Accurate models of social dynamics are important for understanding the spreading of influence or diseases, formation of friendships...... and their interactions in the network of real-world person-to-person proximity measured via Bluetooth, as well as their telecommunication networks, online social media contacts, geolocation, and demographic data. These high-resolution data allow us to observe social groups directly, rendering community detection......, and the productivity of teams. Although there has been much progress on understanding complex networks over the past decade, little is known about the regularities governing the microdynamics of social networks. Here, we explore the dynamic social network of a densely-connected population of ∼1,000 individuals...

The Private Lives of Minerals: Social Network Analysis Applied to Mineralogy and Petrology

Science.gov (United States)

Hazen, R. M.; Morrison, S. M.; Fox, P. A.; Golden, J. J.; Downs, R. T.; Eleish, A.; Prabhu, A.; Li, C.; Liu, C.

2016-12-01

Comprehensive databases of mineral species (rruff.info/ima) and their geographic localities and co-existing mineral assemblages (mindat.org) reveal patterns of mineral association and distribution that mimic social networks, as commonly applied to such varied topics as social media interactions, the spread of disease, terrorism networks, and research collaborations. Applying social network analysis (SNA) to common assemblages of rock-forming igneous and regional metamorphic mineral species, we find patterns of cohesion, segregation, density, and cliques that are similar to those of human social networks. These patterns highlight classic trends in lithologic evolution and are illustrated with sociograms, in which mineral species are the "nodes" and co-existing species form "links." Filters based on chemistry, age, structural group, and other parameters highlight visually both familiar and new aspects of mineralogy and petrology. We quantify sociograms with SNA metrics, including connectivity (based on the frequency of co-occurrence of mineral pairs), homophily (the extent to which co-existing mineral species share compositional and other characteristics), network closure (based on the degree of network interconnectivity), and segmentation (as revealed by isolated "cliques" of mineral species). Exploitation of large and growing mineral data resources with SNA offers promising avenues for discovering previously hidden trends in mineral diversity-distribution systematics, as well as providing new pedagogical approaches to teaching mineralogy and petrology.

A meta-analysis of social networking online and social capital

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liu, Dong; Ainsworth, Sarah E.; Baumeister, Roy F.

2016-01-01

Social networking sites offer new avenues for interpersonal communication that may enable people to build social capital. The meta-analyses reported in this paper evaluated the relationship between social network site (SNS) use and 2 types of social capital: bridging social capital and bonding

Use of social network sites and instant messaging does not lead to increased offline social network size, or to emotionally closer relationships with offline network members.

Science.gov (United States)

Pollet, Thomas V; Roberts, Sam G B; Dunbar, Robin I M

2011-04-01

The effect of Internet use on social relationships is still a matter of intense debate. This study examined the relationships between use of social media (instant messaging and social network sites), network size, and emotional closeness in a sample of 117 individuals aged 18 to 63 years old. Time spent using social media was associated with a larger number of online social network "friends." However, time spent using social media was not associated with larger offline networks, or feeling emotionally closer to offline network members. Further, those that used social media, as compared to non-users of social media, did not have larger offline networks, and were not emotionally closer to offline network members. These results highlight the importance of considering potential time and cognitive constraints on offline social networks when examining the impact of social media use on social relationships.

Analyzing complex networks evolution through Information Theory quantifiers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Carpi, Laura C., E-mail: Laura.Carpi@studentmail.newcastle.edu.a [Civil, Surveying and Environmental Engineering, University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan NSW 2308 (Australia); Departamento de Fisica, Instituto de Ciencias Exatas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antonio Carlos 6627, Belo Horizonte (31270-901), MG (Brazil); Rosso, Osvaldo A., E-mail: rosso@fisica.ufmg.b [Departamento de Fisica, Instituto de Ciencias Exatas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antonio Carlos 6627, Belo Horizonte (31270-901), MG (Brazil); Chaos and Biology Group, Instituto de Calculo, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellon II, Ciudad Universitaria, 1428 Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Argentina); Saco, Patricia M., E-mail: Patricia.Saco@newcastle.edu.a [Civil, Surveying and Environmental Engineering, University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan NSW 2308 (Australia); Departamento de Hidraulica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingenieria y Agrimensura, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Avenida Pellegrini 250, Rosario (Argentina); Ravetti, Martin Gomez, E-mail: martin.ravetti@dep.ufmg.b [Departamento de Engenharia de Producao, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antonio Carlos, 6627, Belo Horizonte (31270-901), MG (Brazil)

2011-01-24

A methodology to analyze dynamical changes in complex networks based on Information Theory quantifiers is proposed. The square root of the Jensen-Shannon divergence, a measure of dissimilarity between two probability distributions, and the MPR Statistical Complexity are used to quantify states in the network evolution process. Three cases are analyzed, the Watts-Strogatz model, a gene network during the progression of Alzheimer's disease and a climate network for the Tropical Pacific region to study the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) dynamic. We find that the proposed quantifiers are able not only to capture changes in the dynamics of the processes but also to quantify and compare states in their evolution.

SOCIAL NETWORKS AND INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Veronica GHEORGHIȚĂ

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Social networks visible influence people's ability to interact and communicate. Extending social circles by establishing virtual links involves a number of positive aspects such as: instant access to options for interaction, sharing of information to large communities of people, intensification of acts of communication, high levels of feedback and trust with people with whom we communicate. On the other hand, social networks adversely affects communication by decreasing the interaction face to face, by imposing superficial communications experiences, grammatical and spelling erosion of the language. Therefore, the study aims to capture the spread of social networks, their use and impact on interpersonal communication. More specifically, they look for the answer to the question: what is the nature of interpersonal communication that is found on social networking sites: personal, emotional, private or shared, informal, and public?

On cooperative and efficient overlay network evolution based on a group selection pattern.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakao, Akihiro; Wang, Yufeng

2010-04-01

In overlay networks, the interplay between network structure and dynamics remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we study dynamic coevolution between individual rational strategies (cooperative or defect) and the overlay network structure, that is, the interaction between peer's local rational behaviors and the emergence of the whole network structure. We propose an evolutionary game theory (EGT)-based overlay topology evolution scheme to drive a given overlay into the small-world structure (high global network efficiency and average clustering coefficient). Our contributions are the following threefold: From the viewpoint of peers' local interactions, we explicitly consider the peer's rational behavior and introduce a link-formation game to characterize the social dilemma of forming links in an overlay network. Furthermore, in the evolutionary link-formation phase, we adopt a simple economic process: Each peer keeps one link to a cooperative neighbor in its neighborhood, which can slightly speed up the convergence of cooperation and increase network efficiency; from the viewpoint of the whole network structure, our simulation results show that the EGT-based scheme can drive an arbitrary overlay network into a fully cooperative and efficient small-world structure. Moreover, we compare our scheme with a search-based economic model of network formation and illustrate that our scheme can achieve the experimental and analytical results in the latter model. In addition, we also graphically illustrate the final overlay network structure; finally, based on the group selection model and evolutionary set theory, we theoretically obtain the approximate threshold of cost and draw the conclusion that the small value of the average degree and the large number of the total peers in an overlay network facilitate the evolution of cooperation.

HIV/AIDS, social capital, and online social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Drushel, Bruce E

2013-01-01

The prospects for online social networks as sites of information-gathering and affiliation for persons with AIDS and others concerned about HIV/AIDS not only represent the latest development in a trend toward circumventing traditional media and official information sources, but also may offer hope for a revitalization of HIV/AIDS discourse in the public sphere. This article provides an overview of three decades of information-seeking on the pandemic and its social and personal implications, as well as case studies of three examples of social networking surrounding HIV/AIDS. It finds preliminary evidence of the formation of strong and weak ties as described in Social Network Theory and suggests that the online accumulation of social capital by opinion leaders could facilitate dissemination of messages on HIV/AIDS awareness and testing.

Network evolution model for supply chain with manufactures as the core

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Dali; Fang, Ling; Yang, Jian; Li, Wu; Zhao, Jing

2018-01-01

Building evolution model of supply chain networks could be helpful to understand its development law. However, specific characteristics and attributes of real supply chains are often neglected in existing evolution models. This work proposes a new evolution model of supply chain with manufactures as the core, based on external market demand and internal competition-cooperation. The evolution model assumes the external market environment is relatively stable, considers several factors, including specific topology of supply chain, external market demand, ecological growth and flow conservation. The simulation results suggest that the networks evolved by our model have similar structures as real supply chains. Meanwhile, the influences of external market demand and internal competition-cooperation to network evolution are analyzed. Additionally, 38 benchmark data sets are applied to validate the rationality of our evolution model, in which, nine manufacturing supply chains match the features of the networks constructed by our model. PMID:29370201

Network evolution model for supply chain with manufactures as the core.

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Haiyang; Jiang, Dali; Yang, Tinghong; Fang, Ling; Yang, Jian; Li, Wu; Zhao, Jing

2018-01-01

Building evolution model of supply chain networks could be helpful to understand its development law. However, specific characteristics and attributes of real supply chains are often neglected in existing evolution models. This work proposes a new evolution model of supply chain with manufactures as the core, based on external market demand and internal competition-cooperation. The evolution model assumes the external market environment is relatively stable, considers several factors, including specific topology of supply chain, external market demand, ecological growth and flow conservation. The simulation results suggest that the networks evolved by our model have similar structures as real supply chains. Meanwhile, the influences of external market demand and internal competition-cooperation to network evolution are analyzed. Additionally, 38 benchmark data sets are applied to validate the rationality of our evolution model, in which, nine manufacturing supply chains match the features of the networks constructed by our model.

Network evolution model for supply chain with manufactures as the core.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Haiyang Fang

Full Text Available Building evolution model of supply chain networks could be helpful to understand its development law. However, specific characteristics and attributes of real supply chains are often neglected in existing evolution models. This work proposes a new evolution model of supply chain with manufactures as the core, based on external market demand and internal competition-cooperation. The evolution model assumes the external market environment is relatively stable, considers several factors, including specific topology of supply chain, external market demand, ecological growth and flow conservation. The simulation results suggest that the networks evolved by our model have similar structures as real supply chains. Meanwhile, the influences of external market demand and internal competition-cooperation to network evolution are analyzed. Additionally, 38 benchmark data sets are applied to validate the rationality of our evolution model, in which, nine manufacturing supply chains match the features of the networks constructed by our model.

Social Networks and Technology Adoption

OpenAIRE

Hogset, Heidi

2005-01-01

This study analyzes social network effects on Kenyan smallholders' decision to adopt improved natural resource management techniques. These effects are decomposed into effects from social influence and learning through networks (strong ties), group effects, weak ties effects, informal finance, and conflicts arising from technological externalities, controlling for non-network effects.

Social networks, social support and psychiatric symptoms: social determinants and associations within a multicultural community population.

Science.gov (United States)

Smyth, Natasha; Siriwardhana, Chesmal; Hotopf, Matthew; Hatch, Stephani L

2015-07-01

Little is known about how social networks and social support are distributed within diverse communities and how different types of each are associated with a range of psychiatric symptoms. This study aims to address such shortcomings by: (1) describing the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of social networks and social support in a multicultural population and (2) examining how each is associated with multiple mental health outcomes. Data is drawn from the South East London Community Health Study; a cross-sectional study of 1,698 adults conducted between 2008 and 2010. The findings demonstrate variation in social networks and social support by socio-demographic factors. Ethnic minority groups reported larger family networks but less perceived instrumental support. Older individuals and migrant groups reported lower levels of particular network and support types. Individuals from lower socioeconomic groups tended to report less social networks and support across the indicators measured. Perceived emotional and instrumental support, family and friend network size emerged as protective factors for common mental disorder, personality dysfunction and psychotic experiences. In contrast, both social networks and social support appear less relevant for hazardous alcohol use. The findings both confirm established knowledge that social networks and social support exert differential effects on mental health and furthermore suggest that the particular type of social support may be important. In contrast, different types of social network appear to impact upon poor mental health in a more uniform way. Future psychosocial strategies promoting mental health should consider which social groups are vulnerable to reduced social networks and poor social support and which diagnostic groups may benefit most.

Understanding Social Networks: Theories, Concepts, and Findings

Science.gov (United States)

Kadushin, Charles

2012-01-01

Despite the swift spread of social network concepts and their applications and the rising use of network analysis in social science, there is no book that provides a thorough general introduction for the serious reader. "Understanding Social Networks" fills that gap by explaining the big ideas that underlie the social network phenomenon.…

Networking for philanthropy: increasing volunteer behavior via social networking sites.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Yoojung; Lee, Wei-Na

2014-03-01

Social networking sites (SNSs) provide a unique social venue to engage the young generation in philanthropy through their networking capabilities. An integrated model that incorporates social capital into the Theory of Reasoned Action is developed to explain volunteer behavior through social networks. As expected, volunteer behavior was predicted by volunteer intention, which was influenced by attitudes and subjective norms. In addition, social capital, an outcome of the extensive use of SNSs, was as an important driver of users' attitude and subjective norms toward volunteering via SNSs.

Analyzing negative ties in social networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mankirat Kaur

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Online social networks are a source of sharing information and maintaining personal contacts with other people through social interactions and thus forming virtual communities online. Social networks are crowded with positive and negative relations. Positive relations are formed by support, endorsement and friendship and thus, create a network of well-connected users whereas negative relations are a result of opposition, distrust and avoidance creating disconnected networks. Due to increase in illegal activities such as masquerading, conspiring and creating fake profiles on online social networks, exploring and analyzing these negative activities becomes the need of hour. Usually negative ties are treated in same way as positive ties in many theories such as balance theory and blockmodeling analysis. But the standard concepts of social network analysis do not yield same results in respect of each tie. This paper presents a survey on analyzing negative ties in social networks through various types of network analysis techniques that are used for examining ties such as status, centrality and power measures. Due to the difference in characteristics of flow in positive and negative tie networks some of these measures are not applicable on negative ties. This paper also discusses new methods that have been developed specifically for analyzing negative ties such as negative degree, and h∗ measure along with the measures based on mixture of positive and negative ties. The different types of social network analysis approaches have been reviewed and compared to determine the best approach that can appropriately identify the negative ties in online networks. It has been analyzed that only few measures such as Degree and PN centrality are applicable for identifying outsiders in network. For applicability in online networks, the performance of PN measure needs to be verified and further, new measures should be developed based upon negative clique concept.

Underage Children and Social Networking

Science.gov (United States)

Weeden, Shalynn; Cooke, Bethany; McVey, Michael

2013-01-01

Despite minimum age requirements for joining popular social networking services such as Facebook, many students misrepresent their real ages and join as active participants in the networks. This descriptive study examines the use of social networking services (SNSs) by children under the age of 13. The researchers surveyed a sample of 199…

Networking, or What the Social Means in Social Media

OpenAIRE

Taina Bucher

2015-01-01

This article questions the meaning of the social in social media. It does this by revisiting boyd and Ellison’s seminal paper and definition of social network sites. The article argues that social media are not so much about articulating or making an existing network visible. Rather, being social in the context of social media simply means creating connections within the boundaries of adaptive algorithmic architectures. Every click, share, like, and post creates a connection, initiates a rela...

Can evolutionary design of social networks make it easier to be 'green'?

Science.gov (United States)

Dickinson, Janis L; Crain, Rhiannon L; Reeve, H Kern; Schuldt, Jonathon P

2013-09-01

The social Web is swiftly becoming a living laboratory for understanding human cooperation on massive scales. It has changed how we organize, socialize, and tackle problems that benefit from the efforts of a large crowd. A new, applied, behavioral ecology has begun to build on theoretical and empirical studies of cooperation, integrating research in the fields of evolutionary biology, social psychology, social networking, and citizen science. Here, we review the ways in which these disciplines inform the design of Internet environments to support collective pro-environmental behavior, tapping into proximate prosocial mechanisms and models of social evolution, as well as generating opportunities for 'field studies' to discover how we can support massive collective action and shift environmental social norms. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Brand Marketing Model on Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Jolita Jezukevičiūtė; Vida Davidavičienė

2014-01-01

The paper analyzes the brand and its marketing solutions onsocial networks. This analysis led to the creation of improvedbrand marketing model on social networks, which will contributeto the rapid and cheap organization brand recognition, increasecompetitive advantage and enhance consumer loyalty. Therefore,the brand and a variety of social networks are becoming a hotresearch area for brand marketing model on social networks.The world‘s most successful brand marketing models exploratoryanalys...

Philosophy of social networking

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Markova T. V.

2018-04-01

Full Text Available the article is devoted to the study of social networks impact on an individual, which are an important part of a modern society. Through reflections the reasons of the popularity of the phenomenon of virtual communication in the 21st century are determined: what drives a person when he / she registers on the sites for communication, premises for his / her actions and consequences. The latter is viewed from both a social and a personal point of view. After analyzing the charts of social networks popularity, the authors come to the conclusion that there is an increase in the population of the virtual communication supporters. It allows to assert that the problem of the termination of live communication is relevant to this day. Dualism of social networks influence on the consciousness of an individual is stated: together with negative consequences positive aspects are considered. By analyzing social media researches, as well as by the means of a survey, the dominant reason for the world wide web entering is identified. After that, it is clearly shown what a typical site for communication is; as a result, the pros and cons of such time spending are specified. The conclusion states the predominance of the Internet dependence over the other types of dependencies, also forecasts are made for the future of both social networks and the people caught in their web.

Volunteerism: Social Network Dynamics and Education

Science.gov (United States)

Ajrouch, Kristine J.; Antonucci, Toni C.; Webster, Noah J.

2016-01-01

Objectives . We examine how changes in social networks influence volunteerism through bridging (diversity) and bonding (spending time) mechanisms. We further investigate whether social network change substitutes or amplifies the effects of education on volunteerism. Methods . Data (n = 543) are drawn from a two-wave survey of Social Relations and Health over the Life Course (SRHLC). Zero-inflated negative binomial regressions were conducted to test competing hypotheses about how changes in social network characteristics alone and in conjunction with education level predict likelihood and frequency of volunteering. Results . Changes in social networks were associated with volunteerism: as the proportion of family members decreased and the average number of network members living within a one-hour drive increased over time, participants reported higher odds of volunteering. The substitution hypothesis was supported: social networks that exhibited more geographic proximity and greater contact frequency over-time compensated for lower levels of education to predict volunteering more hours. Discussion . The dynamic role of social networks and the ways in which they may work through bridging and bonding to influence both likelihood and frequency of volunteering are discussed. The potential benefits of volunteerism in light of longer life expectancies and smaller families are also considered. PMID:25512570

Social networks and environmental outcomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Barnes, Michele L; Lynham, John; Kalberg, Kolter; Leung, PingSun

2016-06-07

Social networks can profoundly affect human behavior, which is the primary force driving environmental change. However, empirical evidence linking microlevel social interactions to large-scale environmental outcomes has remained scarce. Here, we leverage comprehensive data on information-sharing networks among large-scale commercial tuna fishers to examine how social networks relate to shark bycatch, a global environmental issue. We demonstrate that the tendency for fishers to primarily share information within their ethnic group creates segregated networks that are strongly correlated with shark bycatch. However, some fishers share information across ethnic lines, and examinations of their bycatch rates show that network contacts are more strongly related to fishing behaviors than ethnicity. Our findings indicate that social networks are tied to actions that can directly impact marine ecosystems, and that biases toward within-group ties may impede the diffusion of sustainable behaviors. Importantly, our analysis suggests that enhanced communication channels across segregated fisher groups could have prevented the incidental catch of over 46,000 sharks between 2008 and 2012 in a single commercial fishery.

Online networks destroy social trust

OpenAIRE

Sabatini, Fabio; Sarracino, Francesco

2014-01-01

Studies in the social capital literature have documented two stylised facts: first, a decline in measures of social participation has occurred in many OECD countries. Second, and more recently, the success of social networking sites (SNSs) has resulted in a steep rise in online social participation. Our study adds to this body of research by conducting the first empirical assessment of how online networking affects two economically relevant aspects of social capital, i.e. trust and sociabilit...

Link prediction in multiplex online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Jalili, Mahdi; Orouskhani, Yasin; Asgari, Milad; Alipourfard, Nazanin; Perc, Matjaž

2017-02-01

Online social networks play a major role in modern societies, and they have shaped the way social relationships evolve. Link prediction in social networks has many potential applications such as recommending new items to users, friendship suggestion and discovering spurious connections. Many real social networks evolve the connections in multiple layers (e.g. multiple social networking platforms). In this article, we study the link prediction problem in multiplex networks. As an example, we consider a multiplex network of Twitter (as a microblogging service) and Foursquare (as a location-based social network). We consider social networks of the same users in these two platforms and develop a meta-path-based algorithm for predicting the links. The connectivity information of the two layers is used to predict the links in Foursquare network. Three classical classifiers (naive Bayes, support vector machines (SVM) and K-nearest neighbour) are used for the classification task. Although the networks are not highly correlated in the layers, our experiments show that including the cross-layer information significantly improves the prediction performance. The SVM classifier results in the best performance with an average accuracy of 89%.

Role of social media in retail network operations and marketing to enhance customer satisfaction

OpenAIRE

Ramanathan, U; Subramanian, N; Parrott, G

2017-01-01

Purpose: The technology evolution compels retail networks to introduce unique business models to retain customers and to gain a competitive advantage. Customer reviews available through social media need to be taken into account by retail networks to design a model with unique service operations and marketing approaches that will improve loyalty by adding value to customers. Furthermore, the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer spending behaviour is very weak and needs furt...

The model of social crypto-network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Марк Миколайович Орел

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The article presents the theoretical model of social network with the enhanced mechanism of privacy policy. It covers the problems arising in the process of implementing the mentioned type of network. There are presented the methods of solving problems arising in the process of building the social network with privacy policy. It was built a theoretical model of social networks with enhanced information protection methods based on information and communication blocks

Animal welfare: a social networks perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Kleinhappel, Tanja K; John, Elizabeth A; Pike, Thomas W; Wilkinson, Anna; Burman, Oliver H P

2016-01-01

Social network theory provides a useful tool to study complex social relationships in animals. The possibility to look beyond dyadic interactions by considering whole networks of social relationships allows researchers the opportunity to study social groups in more natural ways. As such, network-based analyses provide an informative way to investigate the factors influencing the social environment of group-living animals, and so has direct application to animal welfare. For example, animal groups in captivity are frequently disrupted by separations, reintroductions and/or mixing with unfamiliar individuals and this can lead to social stress and associated aggression. Social network analysis ofanimal groups can help identify the underlying causes of these socially-derived animal welfare concerns. In this review we discuss how this approach can be applied, and how it could be used to identify potential interventions and solutions in the area of animal welfare.

Social Networks and Social Revolution. Evidence from Romania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Androniciuc Andra

2017-01-01

No other means of communication have had such a rapid development as the Internet, a mediumthat is undoubtedly changing the rules of the political game. In this article, we take a look at theuse of social networks during social and political movements, with particular focus on the 2014,2015 and 2017 Romanian protests. We conclude that social networks alone do not instigaterevolutions, but they are valuable tools for citizens to organize free protests, recruit and trainparticipants, which can lead to further collective action and social change.

Online social support networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Mehta, Neil; Atreja, Ashish

2015-04-01

Peer support groups have a long history and have been shown to improve health outcomes. With the increasing familiarity with online social networks like Facebook and ubiquitous access to the Internet, online social support networks are becoming popular. While studies have shown the benefit of these networks in providing emotional support or meeting informational needs, robust data on improving outcomes such as a decrease in health services utilization or reduction in adverse outcomes is lacking. These networks also pose unique challenges in the areas of patient privacy, funding models, quality of content, and research agendas. Addressing these concerns while creating patient-centred, patient-powered online support networks will help leverage these platforms to complement traditional healthcare delivery models in the current environment of value-based care.

RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS IN SOCIAL NETWORKS

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Cleomar Valois Batista Jr

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The continued and diversified growth of social networks has changed the way in which users interact with them. With these changes, what once was limited to social contact is now used for exchanging ideas and opinions, creating the need for new features. Users have so much information at their fingertips that they are unable to process it by themselves; hence, the need to develop new tools. Recommender systems were developed to address this need and many techniques were used for different approaches to the problem. To make relevant recommendations, these systems use large sets of data, not taking the social network of the user into consideration. Developing a recommender system that takes into account the social network of the user is another way of tackling the problem. The purpose of this project is to use the theory of six degrees of separation (Watts 2003 amongst users of a social network to enhance existing recommender systems.

Topology evolution in macromolecular networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kryven, I.

2014-01-01

Governed by various intermolecular forces, molecular networks tend to evolve from simple to very complex formations that have random structure. This randomness in the connectivity of the basic units can still be captured employing distributional description of the state of the system; the evolution

Connecting Mobile Users Through Mobile Social Networks

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Faisal Alkhateeb

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, social networks become popular with the emerging of web-based social networking services. Recently, several mobile services are developed to connect users to their favourite social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. However, these services depends upon the existing web-based social networks. In this paper, we present a mobile service for joining groups across communities. The originality of the work is that the framework of the service allows creating and joining social networks that are self-contained for mobile company servers. The service consists of several sub-services such as users invitation, group finding and others. Users, regardless of their disability, can use the service and its sub-services without the need to create their own accounts on social web sites and thus their own groups. We also propose a privacy control policy for mobile social networks.

Social networks and employment in India

OpenAIRE

Tushar K. Nandi

2010-01-01

We investigate the influence of social networks on employment. Using data from India, we estimate the effect of caste based social networks on employment. We use a methodology that allows us to control for several omitted variable biases that often confound network effect. Our results indicate that caste based social networks are important determinant of employment in India. The implication of our findings is that a policy of positive discrimination in labour market for disadvantaged caste is...

Build your own social network laboratory with Social Lab: a tool for research in social media.

Science.gov (United States)

Garaizar, Pablo; Reips, Ulf-Dietrich

2014-06-01

Social networking has surpassed e-mail and instant messaging as the dominant form of online communication (Meeker, Devitt, & Wu, 2010). Currently, all large social networks are proprietary, making it difficult to impossible for researchers to make changes to such networks for the purpose of study design and access to user-generated data from the networks. To address this issue, the authors have developed and present Social Lab, an Internet-based free and open-source social network software system available from http://www.sociallab.es . Having full availability of navigation and communication data in Social Lab allows researchers to investigate behavior in social media on an individual and group level. Automated artificial users ("bots") are available to the researcher to simulate and stimulate social networking situations. These bots respond dynamically to situations as they unfold. The bots can easily be configured with scripts and can be used to experimentally manipulate social networking situations in Social Lab. Examples for setting up, configuring, and using Social Lab as a tool for research in social media are provided.

Network analysis of metabolic enzyme evolution in Escherichia coli

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kraulis Per

2004-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The two most common models for the evolution of metabolism are the patchwork evolution model, where enzymes are thought to diverge from broad to narrow substrate specificity, and the retrograde evolution model, according to which enzymes evolve in response to substrate depletion. Analysis of the distribution of homologous enzyme pairs in the metabolic network can shed light on the respective importance of the two models. We here investigate the evolution of the metabolism in E. coli viewed as a single network using EcoCyc. Results Sequence comparison between all enzyme pairs was performed and the minimal path length (MPL between all enzyme pairs was determined. We find a strong over-representation of homologous enzymes at MPL 1. We show that the functionally similar and functionally undetermined enzyme pairs are responsible for most of the over-representation of homologous enzyme pairs at MPL 1. Conclusions The retrograde evolution model predicts that homologous enzymes pairs are at short metabolic distances from each other. In general agreement with previous studies we find that homologous enzymes occur close to each other in the network more often than expected by chance, which lends some support to the retrograde evolution model. However, we show that the homologous enzyme pairs which may have evolved through retrograde evolution, namely the pairs that are functionally dissimilar, show a weaker over-representation at MPL 1 than the functionally similar enzyme pairs. Our study indicates that, while the retrograde evolution model may have played a small part, the patchwork evolution model is the predominant process of metabolic enzyme evolution.

Information filtering on coupled social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Nie, Da-Cheng; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Zhou, Jun-Lin; Fu, Yan; Zhang, Kui

2014-01-01

In this paper, based on the coupled social networks (CSN), we propose a hybrid algorithm to nonlinearly integrate both social and behavior information of online users. Filtering algorithm, based on the coupled social networks, considers the effects of both social similarity and personalized preference. Experimental results based on two real datasets, Epinions and Friendfeed, show that the hybrid pattern can not only provide more accurate recommendations, but also enlarge the recommendation coverage while adopting global metric. Further empirical analyses demonstrate that the mutual reinforcement and rich-club phenomenon can also be found in coupled social networks where the identical individuals occupy the core position of the online system. This work may shed some light on the in-depth understanding of the structure and function of coupled social networks.

Handbook of social network technologies and applications

CERN Document Server

Furht, Borko

2010-01-01

Social networking is a concept that has existed for a long time; however, with the explosion of the Internet, social networking has become a tool for people to connect and communicate in ways that were impossible in the past. The recent development of Web 2.0 has provided many new applications, such as Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The purpose of ""Handbook of Social Networks: Technologies and Applications"" is to provide comprehensive guidelines on the current and future trends in social network technologies and applications in the field of Web-based Social Networks. This handbook includes

The Analysis of Duocentric Social Networks: A Primer.

Science.gov (United States)

Kennedy, David P; Jackson, Grace L; Green, Harold D; Bradbury, Thomas N; Karney, Benjamin R

2015-02-01

Marriages and other intimate partnerships are facilitated or constrained by the social networks within which they are embedded. To date, methods used to assess the social networks of couples have been limited to global ratings of social network characteristics or network data collected from each partner separately. In the current article, the authors offer new tools for expanding on the existing literature by describing methods of collecting and analyzing duocentric social networks, that is, the combined social networks of couples. They provide an overview of the key considerations for measuring duocentric networks, such as how and why to combine separate network interviews with partners into one shared duocentric network, the number of network members to assess, and the implications of different network operationalizations. They illustrate these considerations with analyses of social network data collected from 57 low-income married couples, presenting visualizations and quantitative measures of network composition and structure.

Networks in social policy problems

CERN Document Server

Scotti, marco

2012-01-01

Network science is the key to managing social communities, designing the structure of efficient organizations and planning for sustainable development. This book applies network science to contemporary social policy problems. In the first part, tools of diffusion and team design are deployed to challenges in adoption of ideas and the management of creativity. Ideas, unlike information, are generated and adopted in networks of personal ties. Chapters in the second part tackle problems of power and malfeasance in political and business organizations, where mechanisms in accessing and controlling informal networks often outweigh formal processes. The third part uses ideas from biology and physics to understand global economic and financial crises, ecological depletion and challenges to energy security. Ideal for researchers and policy makers involved in social network analysis, business strategy and economic policy, it deals with issues ranging from what makes public advisories effective to how networks influenc...

Spreading in online social networks: the role of social reinforcement.

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Muhua; Lü, Linyuan; Zhao, Ming

2013-07-01

Some epidemic spreading models are usually applied to analyze the propagation of opinions or news. However, the dynamics of epidemic spreading and information or behavior spreading are essentially different in many aspects. Centola's experiments [Science 329, 1194 (2010)] on behavior spreading in online social networks showed that the spreading is faster and broader in regular networks than in random networks. This result contradicts with the former understanding that random networks are preferable for spreading than regular networks. To describe the spreading in online social networks, a unknown-known-approved-exhausted four-status model was proposed, which emphasizes the effect of social reinforcement and assumes that the redundant signals can improve the probability of approval (i.e., the spreading rate). Performing the model on regular and random networks, it is found that our model can well explain the results of Centola's experiments on behavior spreading and some former studies on information spreading in different parameter space. The effects of average degree and network size on behavior spreading process are further analyzed. The results again show the importance of social reinforcement and are accordant with Centola's anticipation that increasing the network size or decreasing the average degree will enlarge the difference of the density of final approved nodes between regular and random networks. Our work complements the former studies on spreading dynamics, especially the spreading in online social networks where the information usually requires individuals' confirmations before being transmitted to others.

Egocentric Social Network Analysis of Pathological Gambling

Science.gov (United States)

Meisel, Matthew K.; Clifton, Allan D.; MacKillop, James; Miller, Joshua D.; Campbell, W. Keith; Goodie, Adam S.

2012-01-01

Aims To apply social network analysis (SNA) to investigate whether frequency and severity of gambling problems were associated with different network characteristics among friends, family, and co-workers. is an innovative way to look at relationships among individuals; the current study was the first to our knowledge to apply SNA to gambling behaviors. Design Egocentric social network analysis was used to formally characterize the relationships between social network characteristics and gambling pathology. Setting Laboratory-based questionnaire and interview administration. Participants Forty frequent gamblers (22 non-pathological gamblers, 18 pathological gamblers) were recruited from the community. Findings The SNA revealed significant social network compositional differences between the two groups: pathological gamblers (PGs) had more gamblers, smokers, and drinkers in their social networks than did nonpathological gamblers (NPGs). PGs had more individuals in their network with whom they personally gambled, smoked, and drank with than those with who were NPG. Network ties were closer to individuals in their networks who gambled, smoked, and drank more frequently. Associations between gambling severity and structural network characteristics were not significant. Conclusions Pathological gambling is associated with compositional but not structural differences in social networks. Pathological gamblers differ from non-pathological gamblers in the number of gamblers, smokers, and drinkers in their social networks. Homophily within the networks also indicates that gamblers tend to be closer with other gamblers. This homophily may serve to reinforce addictive behaviors, and may suggest avenues for future study or intervention. PMID:23072641

Egocentric social network analysis of pathological gambling.

Science.gov (United States)

Meisel, Matthew K; Clifton, Allan D; Mackillop, James; Miller, Joshua D; Campbell, W Keith; Goodie, Adam S

2013-03-01

To apply social network analysis (SNA) to investigate whether frequency and severity of gambling problems were associated with different network characteristics among friends, family and co-workers is an innovative way to look at relationships among individuals; the current study was the first, to our knowledge, to apply SNA to gambling behaviors. Egocentric social network analysis was used to characterize formally the relationships between social network characteristics and gambling pathology. Laboratory-based questionnaire and interview administration. Forty frequent gamblers (22 non-pathological gamblers, 18 pathological gamblers) were recruited from the community. The SNA revealed significant social network compositional differences between the two groups: pathological gamblers (PGs) had more gamblers, smokers and drinkers in their social networks than did non-pathological gamblers (NPGs). PGs had more individuals in their network with whom they personally gambled, smoked and drank than those with who were NPG. Network ties were closer to individuals in their networks who gambled, smoked and drank more frequently. Associations between gambling severity and structural network characteristics were not significant. Pathological gambling is associated with compositional but not structural differences in social networks. Pathological gamblers differ from non-pathological gamblers in the number of gamblers, smokers and drinkers in their social networks. Homophily within the networks also indicates that gamblers tend to be closer with other gamblers. This homophily may serve to reinforce addictive behaviors, and may suggest avenues for future study or intervention. © 2012 The Authors, Addiction © 2012 Society for the Study of Addiction.

A Bayesian approach to the evolution of metabolic networks on a phylogeny.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aziz Mithani

2010-08-01

Full Text Available The availability of genomes of many closely related bacteria with diverse metabolic capabilities offers the possibility of tracing metabolic evolution on a phylogeny relating the genomes to understand the evolutionary processes and constraints that affect the evolution of metabolic networks. Using simple (independent loss/gain of reactions or complex (incorporating dependencies among reactions stochastic models of metabolic evolution, it is possible to study how metabolic networks evolve over time. Here, we describe a model that takes the reaction neighborhood into account when modeling metabolic evolution. The model also allows estimation of the strength of the neighborhood effect during the course of evolution. We present Gibbs samplers for sampling networks at the internal node of a phylogeny and for estimating the parameters of evolution over a phylogeny without exploring the whole search space by iteratively sampling from the conditional distributions of the internal networks and parameters. The samplers are used to estimate the parameters of evolution of metabolic networks of bacteria in the genus Pseudomonas and to infer the metabolic networks of the ancestral pseudomonads. The results suggest that pathway maps that are conserved across the Pseudomonas phylogeny have a stronger neighborhood structure than those which have a variable distribution of reactions across the phylogeny, and that some Pseudomonas lineages are going through genome reduction resulting in the loss of a number of reactions from their metabolic networks.

Mobile Social Network in a Cultural Context

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Jun

2010-01-01

, and mobile phone rumours, this study observes that mobile social networks are a way that Chinese people cultivate, maintain and strengthen their guanxi networks. Embedding the reliability of guanxi, the message spreading via mobile communication always enjoys high credibility, while mutual obligation...... of mobile social network in China therefore emanate not only from Information and Communication Technologies, but also from the socio-cultural source - guanxi - deeply rooted in Chinese society.......the chapter “Mobile Social Network in a Cultural Context” examines the guanxi-embedded mobile social network in China. By focusing on three concrete case studies with 56 in-depth interviews, including New Year text message greetings, mobile social networks for job allocations among migrant workers...

Dynamic social networks based on movement

Science.gov (United States)

Scharf, Henry; Hooten, Mevin B.; Fosdick, Bailey K.; Johnson, Devin S.; London, Joshua M.; Durban, John W.

2016-01-01

Network modeling techniques provide a means for quantifying social structure in populations of individuals. Data used to define social connectivity are often expensive to collect and based on case-specific, ad hoc criteria. Moreover, in applications involving animal social networks, collection of these data is often opportunistic and can be invasive. Frequently, the social network of interest for a given population is closely related to the way individuals move. Thus, telemetry data, which are minimally invasive and relatively inexpensive to collect, present an alternative source of information. We develop a framework for using telemetry data to infer social relationships among animals. To achieve this, we propose a Bayesian hierarchical model with an underlying dynamic social network controlling movement of individuals via two mechanisms: an attractive effect and an aligning effect. We demonstrate the model and its ability to accurately identify complex social behavior in simulation, and apply our model to telemetry data arising from killer whales. Using auxiliary information about the study population, we investigate model validity and find the inferred dynamic social network is consistent with killer whale ecology and expert knowledge.

Our teacher likes you, so I like you: A social network approach to social referencing.

Science.gov (United States)

Hendrickx, Marloes M H G; Mainhard, Tim; Boor-Klip, Henrike J; Brekelmans, Mieke

2017-08-01

A teacher is a social referent for peer liking and disliking when students adjust their evaluations of a peer based on their perceptions of teacher liking and disliking for this peer. The present study investigated social referencing as an intra-individual process that occurs over time, using stochastic actor-oriented modeling with RSiena. The co-evolution of peer-perceived teacher liking and disliking networks with peer liking and disliking networks was analyzed in 52 fifth-grade classes in the Netherlands, with 1370 students (M age =10.60). Results showed that when a student viewed the teacher to like a peer, this student would also like this peer. Regarding disliking, there was a stronger effect in the opposite direction, indicating that students' disliking a peer increased the likelihood that they would view the peer as disliked by the teacher as well. In sum, partial evidence for social referencing as an intra-individual process was found. For teachers this implies that the cues they provide regarding their liking of a student, and not necessarily their disliking, may affect individual peers' liking of this student. Copyright © 2017 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dissemination Patterns and Associated Network Effects of Sentiments in Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hillmann, Robert; Trier, Matthias

2012-01-01

. The dissemination patterns analyzed in this study consist of network motifs based on triples of actors and the ties among them. These motifs are associated with common social network effects to derive meaningful insights about dissemination activities. The data basis includes several thousand social networks...... with textual messages classified according to embedded positive and negative sentiments. Based on this data, sub-networks are extracted and analyzed with a dynamic network motif analysis to determine dissemination patterns and associated network effects. Results indicate that the emergence of digital social...... networks exhibits a strong tendency towards reciprocity, followed by the dominance of hierarchy as an intermediate step leading to social clustering with hubs and transitivity effects for both positive and negative sentiments to the same extend. Sentiments embedded in exchanged textual messages do only...

Pareto evolution of gene networks: an algorithm to optimize multiple fitness objectives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Warmflash, Aryeh; Siggia, Eric D; Francois, Paul

2012-01-01

The computational evolution of gene networks functions like a forward genetic screen to generate, without preconceptions, all networks that can be assembled from a defined list of parts to implement a given function. Frequently networks are subject to multiple design criteria that cannot all be optimized simultaneously. To explore how these tradeoffs interact with evolution, we implement Pareto optimization in the context of gene network evolution. In response to a temporal pulse of a signal, we evolve networks whose output turns on slowly after the pulse begins, and shuts down rapidly when the pulse terminates. The best performing networks under our conditions do not fall into categories such as feed forward and negative feedback that also encode the input–output relation we used for selection. Pareto evolution can more efficiently search the space of networks than optimization based on a single ad hoc combination of the design criteria. (paper)

Pareto evolution of gene networks: an algorithm to optimize multiple fitness objectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Warmflash, Aryeh; Francois, Paul; Siggia, Eric D

2012-10-01

The computational evolution of gene networks functions like a forward genetic screen to generate, without preconceptions, all networks that can be assembled from a defined list of parts to implement a given function. Frequently networks are subject to multiple design criteria that cannot all be optimized simultaneously. To explore how these tradeoffs interact with evolution, we implement Pareto optimization in the context of gene network evolution. In response to a temporal pulse of a signal, we evolve networks whose output turns on slowly after the pulse begins, and shuts down rapidly when the pulse terminates. The best performing networks under our conditions do not fall into categories such as feed forward and negative feedback that also encode the input-output relation we used for selection. Pareto evolution can more efficiently search the space of networks than optimization based on a single ad hoc combination of the design criteria.

Structural Approaches to Sequence Evolution Molecules, Networks, Populations

CERN Document Server

Bastolla, Ugo; Roman, H. Eduardo; Vendruscolo, Michele

2007-01-01

Structural requirements constrain the evolution of biological entities at all levels, from macromolecules to their networks, right up to populations of biological organisms. Classical models of molecular evolution, however, are focused at the level of the symbols - the biological sequence - rather than that of their resulting structure. Now recent advances in understanding the thermodynamics of macromolecules, the topological properties of gene networks, the organization and mutation capabilities of genomes, and the structure of populations make it possible to incorporate these key elements into a broader and deeply interdisciplinary view of molecular evolution. This book gives an account of such a new approach, through clear tutorial contributions by leading scientists specializing in the different fields involved.

[Social Networks of Children with Mentally Ill Parents].

Science.gov (United States)

Stiawa, Maja; Kilian, Reinhold

2017-10-01

Social Networks of Children with Mentally Ill Parents Mental illness of parents can be a load situation for children. Supporting social relations might be an important source in such a situation. Social relations can be shown by social network analysis. Studies about social networks and mental health indicate differences regarding structure and potential for support when compared with social networks of healthy individuals. If and how mental illness of parents has an impact on their children's network is widely unknown. This systematic review shows methods and results of studies about social networks of children with mentally ill parents. By systematic search in electronic databases as well as manual search, two studies were found who met the target criteria. Both studies were conducted in the USA. Results of studies indicate that parental mental illness affects the state of mental health and social networks of children. Symptomatology of children changed due to perceived social support of network contacts. Impact of social support and strong network contacts seems to depend on age of children and the family situation. That's why support offers should be adapt to children's age. Focusing on social networks as potential resource for support and needs of the family affected seems appropriate during treatment.

Privacy Breach Analysis in Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Nagle, Frank

This chapter addresses various aspects of analyzing privacy breaches in social networks. We first review literature that defines three types of privacy breaches in social networks: interactive, active, and passive. We then survey the various network anonymization schemes that have been constructed to address these privacy breaches. After exploring these breaches and anonymization schemes, we evaluate a measure for determining the level of anonymity inherent in a network graph based on its topological structure. Finally, we close by emphasizing the difficulty of anonymizing social network data while maintaining usability for research purposes and offering areas for future work.

Social behaviour and gut microbiota in red-bellied lemurs (Eulemur rubriventer): In search of the role of immunity in the evolution of sociality.

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Raulo, Aura; Ruokolainen, Lasse; Lane, Avery; Amato, Katherine; Knight, Rob; Leigh, Steven; Stumpf, Rebecca; White, Bryan; Nelson, Karen E; Baden, Andrea L; Tecot, Stacey R

2018-03-01

Vertebrate gut microbiota form a key component of immunity and a dynamic link between an individual and the ecosystem. Microbiota might play a role in social systems as well, because microbes are transmitted during social contact and can affect host behaviour. Combining methods from behavioural and molecular research, we describe the relationship between social dynamics and gut microbiota of a group-living cooperative species of primate, the red-bellied lemur (Eulemur rubriventer). Specifically, we ask whether patterns of social contact (group membership, group size, position in social network, individual sociality) are associated with patterns of gut microbial composition (diversity and similarity) between individuals and across time. Red-bellied lemurs were found to have gut microbiota with slight temporal fluctuations and strong social group-specific composition. Contrary to expectations, individual sociality was negatively associated with gut microbial diversity. However, position within the social network predicted gut microbial composition. These results emphasize the role of the social environment in determining the microbiota of adult animals. Since social transmission of gut microbiota has the potential to enhance immunity, microbiota might have played an escalating role in the evolution of sociality. © 2017 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2017 British Ecological Society.

A Multilevel Network Study of the Effects of Delinquent Behavior on Friendship Evolution

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Snijders, T.A.B.; Baerveldt, Chris

2003-01-01

A multilevel approach is proposed to the study of the evolution of multiple networks. In this approach, the basic evolution process is assumed to be the same, while parameter values may differ between different networks. For the network evolution process, stochastic actor-oriented models are used,

The New Paradigm of Social Evolution: Modern Society between Hope and Tragedy

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Dimitar Tchurovsky

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Social evolution is a continuation of biological evolution. The difference is the presence of mind, language and thinking. Therefore, society can be viewed as a living and rational system. The engine of social evolution is knowledge. Development of society is determined bilaterally by objective and subjective factors. Objective factors determine the form of society, subjective – the content. Society has three subsystems: social consciousness, economics and governance. The changes which take place in society are quantitative (evolutionary and qualitative (revolutionary. The spiral of social evolution begins with a cultural revolution that consistently changes economic relations and the organization of society, leading to the emergence of civilization. Declining civilization is a prerequisite for the emergence of a new cultural revolution. From this point of view humanity today faces dramatic changes – the emergence of social self-consciousness and transition from a hierarchical social structure to a horizontal organization. The New World Order advocated by power and the financial elite is impossible to implement because it contradicts the principles of social evolution. Throughout human history, social evolution has been a theory of qualitative changes in social structure, aiming to discover the fundamental laws of the origin and development of humanity as a whole. Social evolution complements several basic research fields in human sciences like history, cultural evolution, anthropology, philosophy of history, social and developmental psychology, etc. The process of social evolution is very complicated and controversial. During the last two centuries, a dozen approaches, theories, concepts and paradigms have been trying to describe and explain how society works and evolves. Modern theories provide models clarifying the relationship between social structure, economy, technology, social values, etc. Nevertheless, social evolution remains

Social Networks and Welfare in Future Animal Management.

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Koene, Paul; Ipema, Bert

2014-03-17

It may become advantageous to keep human-managed animals in the social network groups to which they have adapted. Data concerning the social networks of farm animal species and their ancestors are scarce but essential to establishing the importance of a natural social network for farmed animal species. Social Network Analysis (SNA) facilitates the characterization of social networking at group, subgroup and individual levels. SNA is currently used for modeling the social behavior and management of wild animals and social welfare of zoo animals. It has been recognized for use with farm animals but has yet to be applied for management purposes. Currently, the main focus is on cattle, because in large groups (poultry), recording of individuals is expensive and the existence of social networks is uncertain due to on-farm restrictions. However, in many cases, a stable social network might be important to individual animal fitness, survival and welfare. For instance, when laying hens are not too densely housed, simple networks may be established. We describe here small social networks in horses, brown bears, laying hens and veal calves to illustrate the importance of measuring social networks among animals managed by humans. Emphasis is placed on the automatic measurement of identity, location, nearest neighbors and nearest neighbor distance for management purposes. It is concluded that social networks are important to the welfare of human-managed animal species and that welfare management based on automatic recordings will become available in the near future.

The evolution of cooperation on geographical networks

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Li, Yixiao; Wang, Yi; Sheng, Jichuan

2017-11-01

We study evolutionary public goods game on geographical networks, i.e., complex networks which are located on a geographical plane. The geographical feature effects in two ways: In one way, the geographically-induced network structure influences the overall evolutionary dynamics, and, in the other way, the geographical length of an edge influences the cost when the two players at the two ends interact. For the latter effect, we design a new cost function of cooperators, which simply assumes that the longer the distance between two players, the higher cost the cooperator(s) of them have to pay. In this study, network substrates are generated by a previous spatial network model with a cost-benefit parameter controlling the network topology. Our simulations show that the greatest promotion of cooperation is achieved in the intermediate regime of the parameter, in which empirical estimates of various railway networks fall. Further, we investigate how the distribution of edges' geographical costs influences the evolutionary dynamics and consider three patterns of the distribution: an approximately-equal distribution, a diverse distribution, and a polarized distribution. For normal geographical networks which are generated using intermediate values of the cost-benefit parameter, a diverse distribution hinders the evolution of cooperation, whereas a polarized distribution lowers the threshold value of the amplification factor for cooperation in public goods game. These results are helpful for understanding the evolution of cooperation on real-world geographical networks.

Social support and social network as intermediary social determinants of dental caries in adolescents.

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Fontanini, Humberto; Marshman, Zoe; Vettore, Mario

2015-04-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between intermediary social determinants, namely social support and social network with dental caries in adolescents. An adapted version of the WHO social determinants of health conceptual framework was used to organize structural and intermediary social determinants of dental caries into six blocks including perceived social support and number of social networks. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a representative sample of 542 students between 12 and 14 years of age in public schools located in the city of Dourados, Brazil in 2012. The outcome variables were caries experience (DMFT ≥ 1) and current dental caries (component D of DMFT ≥ 1) recorded by a calibrated dentist. Individual interviews were performed to collect data on perceived social support and numbers of social networks from family and friends and covariates. Multivariate Poisson regressions using hierarchical models were conducted. The prevalence of adolescents with caries experience and current dental caries was 55.2% and 32.1%, respectively. Adolescents with low numbers of social networks and low levels of social support from family (PR 1.47; 95% CI = 1.01-2.14) were more likely to have DMFT ≥ 1. Current dental caries was associated with low numbers of social networks and low levels of social support from family (PR 2.26; 95% CI = 1.15-4.44). Social support and social network were influential psychosocial factors to dental caries in adolescents. This finding requires confirmation in other countries but potentially has implications for programmes to promote oral health. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Network evolution: rewiring and signatures of conservation in signaling.

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Mark G F Sun

Full Text Available The analysis of network evolution has been hampered by limited availability of protein interaction data for different organisms. In this study, we investigate evolutionary mechanisms in Src Homology 3 (SH3 domain and kinase interaction networks using high-resolution specificity profiles. We constructed and examined networks for 23 fungal species ranging from Saccharomyces cerevisiae to Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We quantify rates of different rewiring mechanisms and show that interaction change through binding site evolution is faster than through gene gain or loss. We found that SH3 interactions evolve swiftly, at rates similar to those found in phosphoregulation evolution. Importantly, we show that interaction changes are sufficiently rapid to exhibit saturation phenomena at the observed timescales. Finally, focusing on the SH3 interaction network, we observe extensive clustering of binding sites on target proteins by SH3 domains and a strong correlation between the number of domains that bind a target protein (target in-degree and interaction conservation. The relationship between in-degree and interaction conservation is driven by two different effects, namely the number of clusters that correspond to interaction interfaces and the number of domains that bind to each cluster leads to sequence specific conservation, which in turn results in interaction conservation. In summary, we uncover several network evolution mechanisms likely to generalize across peptide recognition modules.

Social network analysis for startups finding connections on the social web

CERN Document Server

Tsvetovat, Maksim

2011-01-01

Does your startup rely on social network analysis? This concise guide provides a statistical framework to help you identify social processes hidden among the tons of data now available. Social network analysis (SNA) is a discipline that predates Facebook and Twitter by 30 years. Through expert SNA researchers, you''ll learn concepts and techniques for recognizing patterns in social media, political groups, companies, cultural trends, and interpersonal networks. You''ll also learn how to use Python and other open source tools-such as NetworkX, NumPy, and Matplotlib-to gather, analyze, and vis

Evolution of students’ friendship networks: Examining the influence of group size

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Valentina Sokolovska

2017-01-01

Full Text Available  The main aim of this study was to examine the effect of the network size on formation and evolution of students’ friendship relations. Data was collected from two groups of sociology freshmen: a group from the University of Belgrade, which represents a larger group, and a group from the University of Novi Sad, which represents a smaller group. The data was collected in three periods of one academic year. We analyzed the structural features of students’ networks and constructed a stochastic model of network evolution in order to explore how friendships form and change during one year. The results showed that structural features of the larger and the smaller group differ in each stage of friendship formation. At the beginning of group forming, small world structure was noticeable in the larger group, although full small world structure was not confirmed in both groups. Furthermore, transitivity of triads had effect on the evolution of the larger network, while balance or structural equivalence had effect on the evolution of the smaller network. Results of the structural analysis are in line with findings of the network evolution model and together they provide an insight into how friendship evolves in groups of different sizes.

Contributions of Social Networking for Innovation

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Daniela Maria Cartoni

2013-04-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the role of virtual social networks as a mechanism complementary to formal channels of technology transfer represented by ICT and by private centers of R & D in industry. The strengthening of Web 2.0 has provided the expansion of collaborative tools, in particular the social networks, with a strong influence on the spread of knowledge and innovation. To evaluate the potential of virtual networks, a survey had been conducted to identify and describe the characteristics of some of the major social networks used in Brazil (LinkedIn, Orkut and Twitter. Even this phenomenon is not mature, the study identified the potential and benefits of social networks as informal structures that help in generation of knowledge and innovation diffusion, as a field to be explored and developed.

Privacy in Online Social Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Beye, Michael; Jeckmans, Arjan; Erkin, Zekeriya; Erkin, Zekeriya; Hartel, Pieter H.; Lagendijk, Reginald; Tang, Qiang; Abraham, A.

Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become part of daily life for millions of users. Users building explicit networks that represent their social relationships and often share a wealth of personal information to their own benefit. The potential privacy risks of such behavior are often underestimated

Social networking policies in nursing education.

Science.gov (United States)

Frazier, Blake; Culley, Joan M; Hein, Laura C; Williams, Amber; Tavakoli, Abbas S

2014-03-01

Social networking use has increased exponentially in the past few years. A literature review related to social networking and nursing revealed a research gap between nursing practice and education. Although there was information available on the appropriate use of social networking sites, there was limited research on the use of social networking policies within nursing education. The purpose of this study was to identify current use of social media by faculty and students and a need for policies within nursing education at one institution. A survey was developed and administered to nursing students (n = 273) and nursing faculty (n = 33). Inferential statistics included χ², Fisher exact test, t test, and General Linear Model. Cronbach's α was used to assess internal consistency of social media scales. The χ² result indicates that there were associations with the group and several social media items. t Test results indicate significant differences between student and faculty for average of policies are good (P = .0127), policies and discipline (P = .0315), and policy at the study school (P = .0013). General Linear Model analyses revealed significant differences for "friend" a patient with a bond, unprofessional posts, policy, and nursing with class level. Results showed that students and faculty supported the development of a social networking policy.

The Strategic Paradox of Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-18

United States claimed to have met online.9 And in 2010, Facebook claimed over 500 million users, which would make the social networking service the...service culture, or occupational specialty. One drawback with social networks concerns the protection of individual privacy. Facebook , for...St ra te gy R es ea rc h Pr oj ec t THE STRATEGIC PARADOX OF SOCIAL NETWORKS BY COLONEL ROBERT COTE United States Marine Corps

The Social Origins of Networks and Diffusion.

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Centola, Damon

2015-03-01

Recent research on social contagion has demonstrated significant effects of network topology on the dynamics of diffusion. However, network topologies are not given a priori. Rather, they are patterns of relations that emerge from individual and structural features of society, such as population composition, group heterogeneity, homophily, and social consolidation. Following Blau and Schwartz, the author develops a model of social network formation that explores how social and structural constraints on tie formation generate emergent social topologies and then explores the effectiveness of these social networks for the dynamics of social diffusion. Results show that, at one extreme, high levels of consolidation can create highly balkanized communities with poor integration of shared norms and practices. As suggested by Blau and Schwartz, reducing consolidation creates more crosscutting circles and significantly improves the dynamics of social diffusion across the population. However, the author finds that further reducing consolidation creates highly intersecting social networks that fail to support the widespread diffusion of norms and practices, indicating that successful social diffusion can depend on moderate to high levels of structural consolidation.

The social support and social network characteristics of smokers in methadone maintenance treatment.

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de Dios, Marcel Alejandro; Stanton, Cassandra A; Caviness, Celeste M; Niaura, Raymond; Stein, Michael

2013-01-01

Previous studies have shown social support and social network variables to be important factors in smoking cessation treatment. Tobacco use is highly prevalent among individuals in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). However, smoking cessation treatment outcomes in this vulnerable subpopulation have been poor and social support and social network variables may contribute. The current study examined the social support and social network characteristics of 151 MMT smokers involved in a randomized clinical trial of smoking cessation treatments. Participants were 50% women and 78% Caucasian. A high proportion (57%) of MMT smokers had spouses or partners who smoke and over two-thirds of households (68.5%) included at least one smoker. Our sample was characterized by relatively small social networks, but high levels of general social support and quitting support. The number of cigarettes per day was found to be positively associated with the number of smokers in the social network (r = .239, p social support and social networks of smokers in MMT.

Risk aversion and social networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kovářík, J.; van der Leij, M.J.

2014-01-01

This paper first investigates empirically the relationship between risk aversion and social network structure in a large group of undergraduate students. We find that risk aversion is strongly correlated to local network clustering, that is, the probability that one has a social tie to friends of

Social networks practices by TV broadcasters: a new freedom for the viewer and an audience management tool for the broadcaster

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patrizia SPINA

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This article studies the evolution from digital TV to social TV, being the TV that uses social networks as a mean to communicate with the audience. More precisely, we study the role of social TV as a social catalyst (Aldo Grasso, 2009 or of ceremony TV (Dayan Daniel 2000, as well as its capacity to establish a bidirectional communication channel.

Social network analysis and supply chain management

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Raúl Rodríguez Rodríguez

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with social network analysis and how it could be integrated within supply chain management from a decision-making point of view. Even though the benefits of using social analysis have are widely accepted at both academic and industry/services context, there is still a lack of solid frameworks that allow decision-makers to connect the usage and obtained results of social network analysis – mainly both information and knowledge flows and derived results- with supply chain management objectives and goals. This paper gives an overview of social network analysis, the main social network analysis metrics, supply chain performance and, finally, it identifies how future frameworks could close the gap and link the results of social network analysis with the supply chain management decision-making processes.

Use intensity of social networks in southern Brazil

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Rafaele Matte Wojahn

2017-08-01

Full Text Available A social network implies in connect people. This article aims to identify the use intensity of social network in Southern Brazil. The research was characterized by quantitative approach, descriptive, cross-sectional and survey, with a sample of 372 respondents. To data analysis was used descriptive analysis to characterize the sample, verify the access frequency of social networks and the daily access time, and Pearson’s Correlation to identify the daily access time and the social networks. The results indicated the social network used in more intensity is the Facebook and then Whatsapp, and the access occurs at home. However, all the social networks promote interactions toward users.

The Social Life of Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Robertson, Scott P.; Vatrapu, Ravi; Medina, Richard

2009-01-01

dialogues wished to send other participants. We show a strong integration of the Web 2.0 and new media technologies of social networking, online video, and blogs. Outside of video content, users tended to direct others to groups and applications within the Facebook community, but this homophilous behavior......This paper examines the linkage patterns of people who posted links on the Facebook “walls” of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain over two years prior to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Linkage patterns indicate the destinations to which participants in these social networking...

[Social networks and medicine].

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Bastardot, F; Vollenweider, P; Marques-Vidal, P

2015-11-04

Social networks (social media or #SoMe) have entered medical practice within the last few years. These new media--like Twitter or Skype--enrich interactions among physicians (telemedicine), among physicians and patients (virtual consultations) and change the way of teaching medicine. They also entail new ethical, deontological and legal issues: the extension of the consultation area beyond the medical office and the access of information by third parties were recently debated. We develop here a review of some social networks with their characteristics, applications for medicine and limitations, and we offer some recommendations of good practice.

Analysing the Correlation between Social Network Analysis Measures and Performance of Students in Social Network-Based Engineering Education

Science.gov (United States)

Putnik, Goran; Costa, Eric; Alves, Cátia; Castro, Hélio; Varela, Leonilde; Shah, Vaibhav

2016-01-01

Social network-based engineering education (SNEE) is designed and implemented as a model of Education 3.0 paradigm. SNEE represents a new learning methodology, which is based on the concept of social networks and represents an extended model of project-led education. The concept of social networks was applied in the real-life experiment,…

The edge of neutral evolution in social dilemmas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cremer, Jonas; Frey, Erwin [Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics and Center for NanoScience, Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen, Theresienstrasse 37, D-80333 Muenchen (Germany); Reichenbach, Tobias [Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience, Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065 (United States)], E-mail: jonas.cremer@physik.uni-muenchen.de

2009-09-15

The functioning of animal as well as human societies fundamentally relies on cooperation. Yet, defection is often favorable for the selfish individual, and social dilemmas arise. Selection by individuals' fitness, usually the basic driving force of evolution, quickly eliminates cooperators. However, evolution is also governed by fluctuations that can be of greater importance than fitness differences, and can render evolution effectively neutral. Here, we investigate the effects of selection versus fluctuations in social dilemmas. By studying the mean extinction times of cooperators and defectors, a variable sensitive to fluctuations, we are able to identify and quantify an emerging 'edge of neutral evolution' that delineates regimes of neutral and Darwinian evolution. Our results reveal that cooperation is significantly maintained in the neutral regimes. In contrast, the classical predictions of evolutionary game theory, where defectors beat cooperators, are recovered in the Darwinian regimes. Our studies demonstrate that fluctuations can provide a surprisingly simple way to partly resolve social dilemmas. Our methods are generally applicable to estimate the role of random drift in evolutionary dynamics.

The edge of neutral evolution in social dilemmas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cremer, Jonas; Frey, Erwin; Reichenbach, Tobias

2009-01-01

The functioning of animal as well as human societies fundamentally relies on cooperation. Yet, defection is often favorable for the selfish individual, and social dilemmas arise. Selection by individuals' fitness, usually the basic driving force of evolution, quickly eliminates cooperators. However, evolution is also governed by fluctuations that can be of greater importance than fitness differences, and can render evolution effectively neutral. Here, we investigate the effects of selection versus fluctuations in social dilemmas. By studying the mean extinction times of cooperators and defectors, a variable sensitive to fluctuations, we are able to identify and quantify an emerging 'edge of neutral evolution' that delineates regimes of neutral and Darwinian evolution. Our results reveal that cooperation is significantly maintained in the neutral regimes. In contrast, the classical predictions of evolutionary game theory, where defectors beat cooperators, are recovered in the Darwinian regimes. Our studies demonstrate that fluctuations can provide a surprisingly simple way to partly resolve social dilemmas. Our methods are generally applicable to estimate the role of random drift in evolutionary dynamics.

Social networking site (SNS) use by adolescent mothers: Can social support and social capital be enhanced by online social networks? - A structured review of the literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Nolan, Samantha; Hendricks, Joyce; Ferguson, Sally; Towell, Amanda

2017-05-01

to critically appraise the available literature and summarise the evidence relating to adolescent mothers' use of social networking sites in terms of any social support and social capital they may provide and to identify areas for future exploration. social networking sites have been demonstrated to provide social support to marginalised individuals and provide psycho-social benefits to members of such groups. Adolescent mothers are at risk of; social marginalisation; anxiety disorders and depressive symptoms; and poorer health and educational outcomes for their children. Social support has been shown to benefit adolescent mothers thus online mechanisms require consideration. a review of original research articles METHOD: key terms and Boolean operators identified research reports across a 20-year timeframe pertaining to the area of enquiry in: CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Medline, Scopus, ERIC, ProQuest, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Health Collection (Informit) and Google Scholar databases. Eight original research articles met the inclusion criteria for this review. studies demonstrate that adolescent mothers actively search for health information using the Internet and social networking sites, and that social support and social capital can be attributed to their use of specifically created online groups from within targeted health interventions. Use of a message board forum for pregnant and parenting adolescents also demonstrates elements of social support. There are no studies to date pertaining to adolescent mothers' use of globally accessible social networking sites in terms of social support provision and related outcomes. further investigation is warranted to explore the potential benefits of adolescent mothers' use of globally accessible social networking sites in terms of any social support provision and social capital they may provide. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers.

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Apicella, Coren L; Marlowe, Frank W; Fowler, James H; Christakis, Nicholas A

2012-01-25

Social networks show striking structural regularities, and both theory and evidence suggest that networks may have facilitated the development of large-scale cooperation in humans. Here, we characterize the social networks of the Hadza, a population of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. We show that Hadza networks have important properties also seen in modernized social networks, including a skewed degree distribution, degree assortativity, transitivity, reciprocity, geographic decay and homophily. We demonstrate that Hadza camps exhibit high between-group and low within-group variation in public goods game donations. Network ties are also more likely between people who give the same amount, and the similarity in cooperative behaviour extends up to two degrees of separation. Social distance appears to be as important as genetic relatedness and physical proximity in explaining assortativity in cooperation. Our results suggest that certain elements of social network structure may have been present at an early point in human history. Also, early humans may have formed ties with both kin and non-kin, based in part on their tendency to cooperate. Social networks may thus have contributed to the emergence of cooperation.

Aperiodic dynamics in a deterministic adaptive network model of attitude formation in social groups

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Ward, Jonathan A.; Grindrod, Peter

2014-07-01

Adaptive network models, in which node states and network topology coevolve, arise naturally in models of social dynamics that incorporate homophily and social influence. Homophily relates the similarity between pairs of nodes' states to their network coupling strength, whilst social influence causes coupled nodes' states to convergence. In this paper we propose a deterministic adaptive network model of attitude formation in social groups that includes these effects, and in which the attitudinal dynamics are represented by an activato-inhibitor process. We illustrate that consensus, corresponding to all nodes adopting the same attitudinal state and being fully connected, may destabilise via Turing instability, giving rise to aperiodic dynamics with sensitive dependence on initial conditions. These aperiodic dynamics correspond to the formation and dissolution of sub-groups that adopt contrasting attitudes. We discuss our findings in the context of cultural polarisation phenomena. Social influence. This reflects the fact that people tend to modify their behaviour and attitudes in response to the opinions of others [22-26]. We model social influence via diffusion: agents adjust their state according to a weighted sum (dictated by the evolving network) of the differences between their state and the states of their neighbours. Homophily. This relates the similarity of individuals' states to their frequency and strength of interaction [27]. Thus in our model, homophily drives the evolution of the weighted ‘social' network. A precise formulation of our model is given in Section 2. Social influence and homophily underpin models of social dynamics [21], which cover a wide range of sociological phenomena, including the diffusion of innovations [28-32], complex contagions [33-36], collective action [37-39], opinion dynamics [19,20,40,10,11,13,15,41,16], the emergence of social norms [42-44], group stability [45], social differentiation [46] and, of particular relevance

Knowledge Strategies in Using Social Networks

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Contantin BRĂTIANU

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Knowledge strategy selection is a multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM problem, and requires adequate methods to solve it appropriately. Knowledge strategies are also intrinsically linked to individuals and their ability to comprehend the world and leverage their intellectual assets to respond e!ectively to a fast changing environment. the essential features of social networking sites include but are not limited to: blogging, grouping, networking and instant messaging. Since the social networks facilitate communication and interaction among users, there is a continuous need of researches to examine what are the motives that a!ect the acceptance of usage of the social networks. This study aims at examining the role of the knowledge strategies that individuals employ in using social networks with respect to the overall objective of increasing the knowledge level. For this purpose we have used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP mathematical model since it allows us a structuring of the overall objective on the main components. For the present research we considered a structure composed of three levels: L1 – the purpose of networking, L2 – strategies used to achieve that purpose, and L3 – activities needed for strategies implementation. At the upper level (L1, the main objective of a person in using social networks is to increase its knowledge level. To obtain the aforementioned objective we considered for the second level (L2 the following strategies: S1 – to learn from other persons; S2 – to make new friends; S3 – to increase the personal experience and visibility. the implementation of these strategies is realized through the following activities considered at the third hierarchy level (L3: A1– joining general social networks (e.g. Facebook, Google+, MySpace, Hi5 etc.; A2– joining professional social networks (e.g. LinkedIn etc.; A3– creating a personal blog (e.g. Blogster, Wordpress etc.; A4– joining online communities of

PRIVACY PROTECTION PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL NETWORKS

OpenAIRE

OKUR, M. Cudi

2011-01-01

Protecting privacy has become a major concern for most social network users because of increased difficulties of controlling the online data. This article presents an assessment of the common privacy related risks of social networking sites. Open and hidden privacy risks of active and passive online profiles are examined and increasing share of social networking in these phenomena is discussed. Inadequacy of available legal and institutional protection is demonstrated and the effectiveness of...

Social network analysis of study environment

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Blaženka Divjak

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Student working environment influences student learning and achievement level. In this respect social aspects of students’ formal and non-formal learning play special role in learning environment. The main research problem of this paper is to find out if students' academic performance influences their position in different students' social networks. Further, there is a need to identify other predictors of this position. In the process of problem solving we use the Social Network Analysis (SNA that is based on the data we collected from the students at the Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb. There are two data samples: in the basic sample N=27 and in the extended sample N=52. We collected data on social-demographic position, academic performance, learning and motivation styles, student status (full-time/part-time, attitudes towards individual and teamwork as well as informal cooperation. Afterwards five different networks (exchange of learning materials, teamwork, informal communication, basic and aggregated social network were constructed. These networks were analyzed with different metrics and the most important were betweenness, closeness and degree centrality. The main result is, firstly, that the position in a social network cannot be forecast only by academic success and, secondly, that part-time students tend to form separate groups that are poorly connected with full-time students. In general, position of a student in social networks in study environment can influence student learning as well as her/his future employability and therefore it is worthwhile to be investigated.

Online Identities and Social Networking

Science.gov (United States)

Maheswaran, Muthucumaru; Ali, Bader; Ozguven, Hatice; Lord, Julien

Online identities play a critical role in the social web that is taking shape on the Internet. Despite many technical proposals for creating and managing online identities, none has received widespread acceptance. Design and implementation of online identities that are socially acceptable on the Internet remains an open problem. This chapter discusses the interplay between online identities and social networking. Online social networks (OSNs) are growing at a rapid pace and has millions of members in them. While the recent trend is to create explicit OSNs such as Facebook and MySpace, we also have implicit OSNs such as interaction graphs created by email and instant messaging services. Explicit OSNs allow users to create profiles and use them to project their identities on the web. There are many interesting identity related issues in the context of social networking including how OSNs help and hinder the definition of online identities.

Epidemic dynamics on a risk-based evolving social network

Science.gov (United States)

Antwi, Shadrack; Shaw, Leah

2013-03-01

Social network models have been used to study how behavior affects the dynamics of an infection in a population. Motivated by HIV, we consider how a trade-off between benefits and risks of sexual connections determine network structure and disease prevalence. We define a stochastic network model with formation and breaking of links as changes in sexual contacts. Each node has an intrinsic benefit its neighbors derive from connecting to it. Nodes' infection status is not apparent to others, but nodes with more connections (higher degree) are assumed more likely to be infected. The probability to form and break links is determined by a payoff computed from the benefit and degree-dependent risk. The disease is represented by a SI (susceptible-infected) model. We study network and epidemic evolution via Monte Carlo simulation and analytically predict the behavior with a heterogeneous mean field approach. The dependence of network connectivity and infection threshold on parameters is determined, and steady state degree distribution and epidemic levels are obtained. We also study a situation where system-wide infection levels alter perception of risk and cause nodes to adjust their behavior. This is a case of an adaptive network, where node status feeds back to change network geometry.

Evolution of Wireless Sensor Networks for Industrial Control

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arthur Low

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Technologies evolve in a process of gradual scientific change, but the commercial application of technologies is discontinuous. Managers interested in technology evolution can integrate these contrasting ideas using a powerful theoretical framework, based on the concept of punctuated equilibrium from evolutionary biology. The framework, which enables the differentiation of the technical evolution of a technology from its market application, is used in this article to compare the two standards for wireless sensor networks (WSN for industrial instrumentation and control: WirelessHART and ISA100.11a. The two WSN standards are the product of two different market contexts, which have selected different minimum viable technologies for evolution in their respective niches. Network security issues present some important selection criteria. Both WSN standards implement security countermeasures against localized wireless network attacks based on the application of the AES encryption standard, but some specific security threats – some local, others remotely launched – are only well-defended by the adoption of public-key cryptographic (PKC protocols, which only ISA100.11a supports. This article concludes that the mainstream market potential of the Internet has influenced the evolution of ISA100.11a and will continue to demand that each WSN standard evolve in ways that are difficult to predict.

Consumer Activities and Reactions to Social Network Marketing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bistra Vassileva

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to understand consumer behavioural models with respect to their reactions to social network marketing. Theoretical background is focused on online and social network usage, motivations and behaviour. The research goal is to explore consumer reactions to the exposure of social network marketing based on the following criteria: level of brand engagement, word-of-mouth (WOM referral behaviour, and purchase intentions. Consumers are investigated based on their attitudes toward social network marketing and basic socio-demographic covariates using data from a sample size of 700 Bulgarian respondents (age group 21–54 years, Internet users, urban inhabitants. Factor and cluster analyses are applied. It is found that consumers are willing to receive information about brands and companies through social networks. They like to talk in social networks about these brands and companies and to share information as well (factor 2, brand engagement. Internet users are willing to share information received through social network advertising (factor 1, wom referral behaviour but they would not buy a certain brand as a result of brand communication activities in social networks (factor 3, purchase intention. Several practical implications regarding marketing activities through social networks are drawn.

Things online social networking can take away: Reminders of social networking sites undermine the desirability of offline socializing and pleasures.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Shiang-Shiang; Chang, Yevvon Yi-Chi; Chiou, Wen-Bin

2017-04-01

People are beginning to develop symbiotic relationships with social networking sites (SNSs), which provide users with abundant opportunities for social interaction. We contend that if people perceive SNSs as sources of social connection, the idea of SNSs may reduce the desire to pursue offline social activities and offline pleasures. Experiment 1 demonstrated that priming with SNSs was associated with a weakened desirability of offline social activities and an increased inclination to work alone. Felt relatedness mediated the link between SNS primes and reduced desire to engage in offline social activities. Experiment 2 showed that exposure to SNS primes reduced the desirability of offline socializing and lowered the desire for offline pleasurable experiences as well. Moreover, heavy users were more susceptible to this detrimental effect. We provide the first experimental evidence that the idea of online social networking may modulate users' engagement in offline social activities and offline pleasures. Hence, online social networking may satisfy the need for relatedness but undercut the likelihood of reaping enjoyment from offline social life. © 2016 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Statistical Models for Social Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Snijders, Tom A. B.; Cook, KS; Massey, DS

2011-01-01

Statistical models for social networks as dependent variables must represent the typical network dependencies between tie variables such as reciprocity, homophily, transitivity, etc. This review first treats models for single (cross-sectionally observed) networks and then for network dynamics. For

myCourse: An Educational Content Management Platform with Social Networking Characteristics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ioannis Ignatiadis

2010-12-01

Full Text Available We adopt the direction towards new educational and pedagogic paradigms, where learning is a process of emergence and co-evolution of the individual, the social group and the wider society. In this direction, Service-Oriented Architectures are becoming a popular system paradigm for e-learning. In this article, we present our research and development efforts to provide a social networking learning platform for developing services which address the personal learning needs of the users and enable them to create value. We also present the specific characteristics of our community driven service framework and discuss our approach in comparison to other similar approaches and frameworks.

Social Support and Social Networks in COPD: A Scoping Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, Christopher; Effing, Tanya W; Cafarella, Paul

2015-01-01

A scoping review was conducted to determine the size and nature of the evidence describing associations between social support and networks on health, management and clinical outcomes amongst patients with COPD. Searches of PubMed, PsychInfo and CINAHL were undertaken for the period 1966-December 2013. A descriptive synthesis of the main findings was undertaken to demonstrate where there is current evidence for associations between social support, networks and health outcomes, and where further research is needed. The search yielded 318 papers of which 287 were excluded after applying selection criteria. Two areas emerged in which there was consistent evidence of benefit of social support; namely mental health and self-efficacy. There was inconsistent evidence for a relationship between perceived social support and quality of life, physical functioning and self-rated health. Hospital readmission was not associated with level of perceived social support. Only a small number of studies (3 articles) have reported on the social network of individuals with COPD. There remains a need to identify the factors that promote and enable social support. In particular, there is a need to further understand the characteristics of social networks within the broader social structural conditions in which COPD patients live and manage their illness.

Regional Use of Social Networking Tools

Science.gov (United States)

2014-12-01

4 2.1.7 Tumblr 4 2.1.8 Instagram 4 2.2 Local Social Networking Services 5 3 Regional Preferences for Social Networking Tools 6 4 African Region...YouTube 280 million Twitter 255 million LinkedIn n/a Pinterest n/a Tumblr 300 million Instagram 200 million The active-user base numbers...so this percentage may decline in the future. 2.1.8 Instagram Instagram , acquired by Facebook in 2012, is a mobile social networking service that

Social networks and human development / Redes sociales y desarrollo humano

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sara Gallego Trijueque

2011-10-01

Full Text Available The aim of this work is a brief introduction to the concept of social networks and their importance in society. Social networks have been responsible over the centuries to preserve community values, in addition to being facilitators of social interaction in human development processes, through communication and relationships between individuals.

Computational Social Network Analysis

CERN Document Server

Hassanien, Aboul-Ella

2010-01-01

Presents insight into the social behaviour of animals (including the study of animal tracks and learning by members of the same species). This book provides web-based evidence of social interaction, perceptual learning, information granulation and the behaviour of humans and affinities between web-based social networks

Business socialising: women’s social networking perceptions

OpenAIRE

13104802 - Bogaards, Marlene; Mostert, Karina; 10868445 - De Klerk, Saskia

2012-01-01

The primary research objective of the study was to investigate the perceptions of the social networking practices of businesswomen. A non-probability purposive voluntary sample, followed by snowball sampling, was used to select businesswomen (n = 31) living and working in the Gauteng province for in-depth interviews. Various perceptions of businesswomen of social networking practices were identified. A number of networking challenges that businesswomen experience in their social networking ef...

Review of Social Networking Sites' Security and Privacy

OpenAIRE

YANG, SHUN

2015-01-01

Nowadays social media networking has dramatically increased. Social networking sites like Facebook make users create huge amount of profiles and share personal information within networking of different users. Social networking exposes personal information far beyond the group of friends. And that information or data on social media networking could be potential threat to people's information security and privacy. In this review, we are going to view the privacy risks and security problem...

Evolution of semilocal string networks. II. Velocity estimators

Science.gov (United States)

Lopez-Eiguren, A.; Urrestilla, J.; Achúcarro, A.; Avgoustidis, A.; Martins, C. J. A. P.

2017-07-01

We continue a comprehensive numerical study of semilocal string networks and their cosmological evolution. These can be thought of as hybrid networks comprised of (nontopological) string segments, whose core structure is similar to that of Abelian Higgs vortices, and whose ends have long-range interactions and behavior similar to that of global monopoles. Our study provides further evidence of a linear scaling regime, already reported in previous studies, for the typical length scale and velocity of the network. We introduce a new algorithm to identify the position of the segment cores. This allows us to determine the length and velocity of each individual segment and follow their evolution in time. We study the statistical distribution of segment lengths and velocities for radiation- and matter-dominated evolution in the regime where the strings are stable. Our segment detection algorithm gives higher length values than previous studies based on indirect detection methods. The statistical distribution shows no evidence of (anti)correlation between the speed and the length of the segments.

Second-Order Assortative Mixing in Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhou, Shi; Cox, Ingemar; Hansen, Lars Kai

2017-01-01

In a social network, the number of links of a node, or node degree, is often assumed as a proxy for the node’s importance or prominence within the network. It is known that social networks exhibit the (first-order) assortative mixing, i.e. if two nodes are connected, they tend to have similar node...... degrees, suggesting that people tend to mix with those of comparable prominence. In this paper, we report the second-order assortative mixing in social networks. If two nodes are connected, we measure the degree correlation between their most prominent neighbours, rather than between the two nodes...... themselves. We observe very strong second-order assortative mixing in social networks, often significantly stronger than the first-order assortative mixing. This suggests that if two people interact in a social network, then the importance of the most prominent person each knows is very likely to be the same...

Organizational Application of Social Networking Information Technologies

Science.gov (United States)

Reppert, Jeffrey R.

2012-01-01

The focus of this qualitative research study using the Delphi method is to provide a framework for leaders to develop their own social networks. By exploring concerns in four areas, leaders may be able to better plan, implement, and manage social networking systems in organizations. The areas addressed are: (a) social networking using…

The Social Network Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Bunus, Peter

Online social networking is an important part in the everyday life of college students. Despite the increasing popularity of online social networking among students and faculty members, its educational benefits are largely untested. This paper presents our experience in using social networking applications and video content distribution websites as a complement of traditional classroom education. In particular, the solution has been based on effective adaptation, extension and integration of Facebook, Twitter, Blogger YouTube and iTunes services for delivering educational material to students on mobile platforms like iPods and 3 rd generation mobile phones. The goals of the proposed educational platform, described in this paper, are to make the learning experience more engaging, to encourage collaborative work and knowledge sharing among students, and to provide an interactive platform for the educators to reach students and deliver lecture material in a totally new way.

Network interventions - How citizens’ social media networks influence their political participation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ohme, Jakob; de Vreese, Claes Holger; Albæk, Erik

Social media platforms are special places of information exposure because they are structured around a user’s social network and not around content, like other news media. Studies could show that news exposure on social media can affect citizens’ political participation due to the personalized......, targeted, & inadvertent exposure. However, previous research did not strongly focus on how the characteristics of a citizens’ social media network might alter this relationship. We tests how political information exposure via three different media channels affects political participation among Danish...... citizens and examine possible moderation effects of users network size, network diversity and the newly introduced parameter of perceived network activity. To this end, a two-wave online survey (n=858) among the Danish population was conducted, applying a smartphone-based media diary study. We find strong...

Social Media and Social Networking Applications for Teaching and Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Yeo, Michelle Mei Ling

2014-01-01

This paper aims to better understand the experiences of the youth and the educators with the tapping of social media like YouTube videos and the social networking application of Facebook for teaching and learning. This paper is interested in appropriating the benefits of leveraging of social media and networking applications like YouTube and…

Social network, social support, and risk of incident stroke: Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study.

Science.gov (United States)

Nagayoshi, Mako; Everson-Rose, Susan A; Iso, Hiroyasu; Mosley, Thomas H; Rose, Kathryn M; Lutsey, Pamela L

2014-10-01

Having a small social network and lack of social support have been associated with incident coronary heart disease; however, epidemiological evidence for incident stroke is limited. We assessed the longitudinal association of a small social network and lack of social support with risk of incident stroke and evaluated whether the association was partly mediated by vital exhaustion and inflammation. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study measured social network and social support in 13 686 men and women (mean, 57 years; 56% women; 24% black; 76% white) without a history of stroke. Social network was assessed by the 10-item Lubben Social Network Scale and social support by a 16-item Interpersonal Support Evaluation List-Short Form. During a median follow-up of 18.6 years, 905 incident strokes occurred. Relative to participants with a large social network, those with a small social network had a higher risk of stroke (hazard ratio [95% confidence interval], 1.44 [1.02-2.04]) after adjustment for demographics, socioeconomic variables, marital status, behavioral risk factors, and major stroke risk factors. Vital exhaustion, but not inflammation, partly mediated the association between a small social network and incident stroke. Social support was unrelated to incident stroke. In this sample of US community-dwelling men and women, having a small social network was associated with excess risk of incident stroke. As with other cardiovascular conditions, having a small social network may be associated with a modestly increased risk of incident stroke. © 2014 American Heart Association, Inc.

Social networking for well-being

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Steen, M.G.D.; Aarts, O.A.J.; Broekman, C.C.M.T.; Prins, S.C.L.

2011-01-01

In this paper, we present some of the work that is being done in the WeCare project (in the AAL programme). The project’s goal is to introduce social networking services in the lives of older people, in order to improve their well-being. Participation in social networks, both online and ‘in real

Competing opinion diffusion on social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Haibo

2017-11-01

Opinion competition is a common phenomenon in real life, such as with opinions on controversial issues or political candidates; however, modelling this competition remains largely unexplored. To bridge this gap, we propose a model of competing opinion diffusion on social networks taking into account degree-dependent fitness or persuasiveness. We study the combined influence of social networks, individual fitnesses and attributes, as well as mass media on people's opinions, and find that both social networks and mass media act as amplifiers in opinion diffusion, the amplifying effect of which can be quantitatively characterized. We analytically obtain the probability that each opinion will ultimately pervade the whole society when there are no committed people in networks, and the final proportion of each opinion at the steady state when there are committed people in networks. The results of numerical simulations show good agreement with those obtained through an analytical approach. This study provides insight into the collective influence of individual attributes, local social networks and global media on opinion diffusion, and contributes to a comprehensive understanding of competing diffusion behaviours in the real world.

Information diffusion in structured online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Pei; Zhang, Yini; Qiao, Fengcai; Wang, Hui

2015-05-01

Nowadays, due to the word-of-mouth effect, online social networks have been considered to be efficient approaches to conduct viral marketing, which makes it of great importance to understand the diffusion dynamics in online social networks. However, most research on diffusion dynamics in epidemiology and existing social networks cannot be applied directly to characterize online social networks. In this paper, we propose models to characterize the information diffusion in structured online social networks with push-based forwarding mechanism. We introduce the term user influence to characterize the average number of times that messages are browsed which is incurred by a given type user generating a message, and study the diffusion threshold, above which the user influence of generating a message will approach infinity. We conduct simulations and provide the simulation results, which are consistent with the theoretical analysis results perfectly. These results are of use in understanding the diffusion dynamics in online social networks and also critical for advertisers in viral marketing who want to estimate the user influence before posting an advertisement.

Social networks and factor markets

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Abay, Kibrom Araya; Kahsay, Goytom Abraha; Berhane, Guush

In the absence of well-established factor markets, the role of indigenous institutions and social networks can be substantial for mobilizing factors for agricultural production. We investigate the role of an indigenous social network in Ethiopia, the iddir, in facilitating factor market...... transactions among smallholder farmers. Using detailed longitudinal household survey data and employing a difference-in-differences approach, we find that iddir membership improves households’ access to factor markets. Specifically, we find that joining an iddir network improves households’ access to land...

Adoption of Social Networking in Education: A Study of the Use of Social Networks by Higher Education Students in Oman

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Mukhaini, Elham M.; Al-Qayoudhi, Wafa S.; Al-Badi, Ali H.

2014-01-01

The use of social networks is a growing phenomenon, being increasingly important in both private and academic life. Social networks are used as tools to enable users to have social interaction. The use of social networks (SNs) complements and enhances the teaching in traditional classrooms. For example, YouTube, Facebook, wikis, and blogs provide…

Social networking mining, visualization, and security

CERN Document Server

Dehuri, Satchidananda; Wang, Gi-Nam

2014-01-01

With the proliferation of social media and on-line communities in networked world a large gamut of data has been collected and stored in databases. The rate at which such data is stored is growing at a phenomenal rate and pushing the classical methods of data analysis to their limits. This book presents an integrated framework of recent empirical and theoretical research on social network analysis based on a wide range of techniques from various disciplines like data mining, social sciences, mathematics, statistics, physics, network science, machine learning with visualization techniques, and security. The book illustrates the potential of multi-disciplinary techniques in various real life problems and intends to motivate researchers in social network analysis to design more effective tools by integrating swarm intelligence and data mining.  

Online and Offline Social Networks: Use of Social Networking Sites by Emerging Adults

Science.gov (United States)

Subrahmanyam, Kaveri; Reich, Stephanie M.; Waechter, Natalia; Espinoza, Guadalupe

2008-01-01

Social networking sites (e.g., MySpace and Facebook) are popular online communication forms among adolescents and emerging adults. Yet little is known about young people's activities on these sites and how their networks of "friends" relate to their other online (e.g., instant messaging) and offline networks. In this study, college students…

Brain networks of social comparison.

Science.gov (United States)

Kedia, Gayannée; Lindner, Michael; Mussweiler, Thomas; Ihssen, Niklas; Linden, David E J

2013-03-27

Social comparison, that is, the process of comparing oneself to other people, is a ubiquitous social cognitive mechanism; however, so far its neural correlates have remained unknown. The present study tested the hypothesis that social comparisons are supported by partly dissociated networks, depending on whether the dimension under comparison concerns a physical or a psychological attribute. We measured brain activity with functional MRI, whereas participants were comparing their own height or intelligence to that of individuals they personally know. Height comparisons were associated with higher activity in a frontoparietal network involved in spatial and numerical cognition. Conversely, intelligence comparisons recruited a network of midline areas that have been previously implicated in the attribution of mental states to oneself and others (Theory of mind). These findings suggest that social comparisons rely on diverse domain-specific mechanisms rather than on one unitary process.

Evolution of regulatory networks towards adaptability and stability in a changing environment

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Deok-Sun

2014-11-01

Diverse biological networks exhibit universal features distinguished from those of random networks, calling much attention to their origins and implications. Here we propose a minimal evolution model of Boolean regulatory networks, which evolve by selectively rewiring links towards enhancing adaptability to a changing environment and stability against dynamical perturbations. We find that sparse and heterogeneous connectivity patterns emerge, which show qualitative agreement with real transcriptional regulatory networks and metabolic networks. The characteristic scaling behavior of stability reflects the balance between robustness and flexibility. The scaling of fluctuation in the perturbation spread shows a dynamic crossover, which is analyzed by investigating separately the stochasticity of internal dynamics and the network structure differences depending on the evolution pathways. Our study delineates how the ambivalent pressure of evolution shapes biological networks, which can be helpful for studying general complex systems interacting with environments.

Activity-Driven Influence Maximization in Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kumar, Rohit; Saleem, Muhammad Aamir; Calders, Toon

2017-01-01

-driven approach based on the identification of influence propagation patterns. In the first work, we identify so-called information-channels to model potential pathways for information spread, while the second work exploits how users in a location-based social network check in to locations in order to identify...... influential locations. To make our algorithms scalable, approximate versions based on sketching techniques from the data streams domain have been developed. Experiments show that in this way it is possible to efficiently find good seed sets for influence propagation in social networks.......Interaction networks consist of a static graph with a timestamped list of edges over which interaction took place. Examples of interaction networks are social networks whose users interact with each other through messages or location-based social networks where people interact by checking...

Social networks and bronchial asthma.

Science.gov (United States)

D'Amato, Gennaro; Cecchi, Lorenzo; Liccardi, Gennaro; D'Amato, Maria; Stanghellini, Giovanni

2013-02-01

To focus on both positive and negative aspects of the interaction between asthmatic patients and the social networks, and to highlight the need of a psychological approach in some individuals to integrate pharmacological treatment is the purpose of review. There is evidence that in some asthmatic patients, the excessive use of social networks can induce depression and stress triggering bronchial obstruction, whereas in others their rational use can induce beneficial effects in terms of asthma management. The increasing asthma prevalence in developed countries seen at the end of last century has raised concern for the considerable burden of this disease on society as well as individuals. Bronchial asthma is a disease in which psychological implications play a role in increasing or in reducing the severity of bronchial obstruction. Internet and, in particular, social media are increasingly a part of daily life of both young and adult people, thus allowing virtual relationships with peers sharing similar interests and goals. Although social network users often disclose more about themselves online than they do in person, there might be a risk for adolescents and for sensitive individuals, who can be negatively influenced by an incorrect use. However, although some studies show an increased risk of depression, other observations suggest beneficial effects of social networks by enhancing communication, social connection and self-esteem.

Mining social networks and security informatics

CERN Document Server

Özyer, Tansel; Rokne, Jon; Khoury, Suheil

2013-01-01

Crime, terrorism and security are in the forefront of current societal concerns. This edited volume presents research based on social network techniques showing how data from crime and terror networks can be analyzed and how information can be extracted. The topics covered include crime data mining and visualization; organized crime detection; crime network visualization; computational criminology; aspects of terror network analyses and threat prediction including cyberterrorism and the related area of dark web; privacy issues in social networks; security informatics; graph algorithms for soci

Regulation, Competition and Network Evolution in Aviation

Science.gov (United States)

Gillen, David; Morrison, William

2003-01-01

Our focus is the evolution of business strategies and network structure decisions in the commercial passenger aviation industry. The paper reviews the growth of hub-and-spoke networks as the dominant business model following deregulation in the latter part of the 20 century, followed by the emergence of value-based airlines as a global phenomenon at the end of the century. The paper highlights the link between airline business strategies and network structures, and examines the resulting competition between divergent network structure business models. In this context we discuss issues of market structure stability and the role played by competition policy.

A Social Networks in Education

Science.gov (United States)

Klimova, Blanka; Poulova, Petra

2015-01-01

At present social networks are becoming important in all areas of human activities. They are simply part and parcel of everyday life. They are mostly used for advertising, but they have already found their way into education. The future potential of social networks is high as it can be seen from their statistics on a daily, monthly or yearly…

Social Networking Goes to School

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Michelle R.

2010-01-01

Just a few years ago, social networking meant little more to educators than the headache of determining whether to penalize students for inappropriate activities captured on Facebook or MySpace. Now, teachers and students have an array of social-networking sites and tools--from Ning to VoiceThread and Second Life--to draw on for such serious uses…

Experimental resource pulses influence social-network dynamics and the potential for information flow in tool-using crows.

Science.gov (United States)

St Clair, James J H; Burns, Zackory T; Bettaney, Elaine M; Morrissey, Michael B; Otis, Brian; Ryder, Thomas B; Fleischer, Robert C; James, Richard; Rutz, Christian

2015-11-03

Social-network dynamics have profound consequences for biological processes such as information flow, but are notoriously difficult to measure in the wild. We used novel transceiver technology to chart association patterns across 19 days in a wild population of the New Caledonian crow--a tool-using species that may socially learn, and culturally accumulate, tool-related information. To examine the causes and consequences of changing network topology, we manipulated the environmental availability of the crows' preferred tool-extracted prey, and simulated, in silico, the diffusion of information across field-recorded time-ordered networks. Here we show that network structure responds quickly to environmental change and that novel information can potentially spread rapidly within multi-family communities, especially when tool-use opportunities are plentiful. At the same time, we report surprisingly limited social contact between neighbouring crow communities. Such scale dependence in information-flow dynamics is likely to influence the evolution and maintenance of material cultures.

Information and influence propagation in social networks

CERN Document Server

Chen, Wei; Lakshmanan, Laks V S

2013-01-01

Research on social networks has exploded over the last decade. To a large extent, this has been fueled by the spectacular growth of social media and online social networking sites, which continue growing at a very fast pace, as well as by the increasing availability of very large social network datasets for purposes of research. A rich body of this research has been devoted to the analysis of the propagation of information, influence, innovations, infections, practices and customs through networks. Can we build models to explain the way these propagations occur? How can we validate our models

Urbanism, Neighborhood Context, and Social Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Cornwell, Erin York; Behler, Rachel L

2015-09-01

Theories of urbanism suggest that the urban context erodes individuals' strong social ties with friends and family. Recent research has narrowed focus to the neighborhood context, emphasizing how localized structural disadvantage affects community-level cohesion and social capital. In this paper, we argue that neighborhood context also shapes social ties with friends and family- particularly for community-dwelling seniors. We hypothesize that neighborhood disadvantage, residential instability, and disorder restrict residents' abilities to cultivate close relationships with neighbors and non-neighbor friends and family. Using data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), we find that older adults who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods have smaller social networks. Neighborhood disadvantage is also associated with less close network ties and less frequent interaction - but only among men. Furthermore, residents of disordered neighborhoods have smaller networks and weaker ties. We urge scholars to pay greater attention to how neighborhood context contributes to disparities in network-based access to resources.

[Social networks in drinking behaviors among Japanese: support network, drinking network, and intervening network].

Science.gov (United States)

Yoshihara, Chika; Shimizu, Shinji

2005-10-01

The national representative sample was analyzed to examine the relationship between respondents' drinking practice and the social network which was constructed of three different types of network: support network, drinking network, and intervening network. Non-parametric statistical analysis was conducted with chi square method and ANOVA analysis, due to the risk of small samples in some basic tabulation cells. The main results are as follows: (1) In the support network of workplace associates, moderate drinkers enjoyed much more sociable support care than both nondrinkers and hard drinkers, which might suggest a similar effect as the French paradox. Meanwhile in the familial and kinship network, the more intervening care support was provided, the harder respondents' drinking practice. (2) The drinking network among Japanese people for both sexes is likely to be convergent upon certain types of network categories and not decentralized in various categories. This might reflect of the drinking culture of Japan, which permits people to drink everyday as a practice, especially male drinkers. Subsequently, solitary drinking is not optional for female drinkers. (3) Intervening network analysis showed that the harder the respondents' drinking practices, the more frequently their drinking behaviors were checked in almost all the categories of network. A rather complicated gender double-standard was found in the network of hard drinkers with their friends, particularly for female drinkers. Medical professionals played a similar intervening role for men as family and kinship networks but to a less degree than friends for females. The social network is considerably associated with respondents' drinking, providing both sociability for moderate drinkers and intervention for hard drinkers, depending on network categories. To minimize the risk of hard drinking and advance self-healthy drinking there should be more research development on drinking practice and the social network.

Mining of the social network extraction

Science.gov (United States)

Nasution, M. K. M.; Hardi, M.; Syah, R.

2017-01-01

The use of Web as social media is steadily gaining ground in the study of social actor behaviour. However, information in Web can be interpreted in accordance with the ability of the method such as superficial methods for extracting social networks. Each method however has features and drawbacks: it cannot reveal the behaviour of social actors, but it has the hidden information about them. Therefore, this paper aims to reveal such information in the social networks mining. Social behaviour could be expressed through a set of words extracted from the list of snippets.

SocialBrowsing: Integrating Social Networks and Web Browsing

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Golbeck, Jennifer; Wasser, Michael M

2007-01-01

.... The extension is paired with services provided by social networking websites, analyzes the page's contents, and adds tooltips and highlighting to indicate when there is relevant social information...

Social Software: Participants' Experience Using Social Networking for Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Batchelder, Cecil W.

2010-01-01

Social networking tools used in learning provides instructional design with tools for transformative change in education. This study focused on defining the meanings and essences of social networking through the lived common experiences of 7 college students. The problem of the study was a lack of learner voice in understanding the value of social…

EXPLORING THE ROLE OF BUSINESS SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR ORGANIZATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Damjana Jerman

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This article explores the relationship between communication, with the emphasis on public relations, and social network perspectives. What, then, does social networking for business mean in communication, particularly in public relations? This paper argues that business social networking play an important role in improving organizations communications. The goal of our paper is to identify the basic characteristics of social networks and its role for public relations for the effective implementation of social networking initiatives and tools in the workplace. Business social networking tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn are being used by organizations to reach the corporate objectives and to create a positive company image. Specific social networks, such the personalised networks of influence, are perceived to be one of the main strategic resources for organizations.

Internet gaming disorder, social network disorder and laterality: handedness relates to pathological use of social networks.

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Bouna-Pyrrou, Polyxeni; Mühle, Christiane; Kornhuber, Johannes; Lenz, Bernd

2015-08-01

The internet age bears new challenges that include health risks. It is agreed that excessive internet use may reach pathological levels. However, the concept of internet addiction lacks specificity and, therefore, warrants studies on its diagnostic and etiologic classification. This study was conducted to characterize the novel DSM-5 criteria for internet gaming disorder and the adapted criteria for the "social network disorder". Based on the established association of handedness and substance use disorders, we also explored whether internet use related to laterality. For this study, 3,287 volunteers participated in the online survey and gave particulars concerning their internet use in general, internet gaming and use of social networks, laterality markers (hand, foot, eye, ear, rotational preference in gymnastics, and head turning asymmetry) and health status. Of the participants, 1.1 % fulfilled the criteria for internet gaming disorder, and 1.8 % fulfilled the criteria for social network disorder. The applied criteria were highly correlated with the time spent on the respective internet activities (p social networks (p ≤ 4 × 10(-2)). The provided criteria proved to be user-friendly, comprehensible and well accepted. The results contribute to a better understanding of pathological internet gaming and social network use and provide evidence that biological markers of substance use disorders are involved in internet addiction.

Scientific Collaboration in Chinese Nursing Research: A Social Network Analysis Study.

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Hou, Xiao-Ni; Hao, Yu-Fang; Cao, Jing; She, Yan-Chao; Duan, Hong-Mei

2016-01-01

Collaboration has become very important in research and in technological progress. Coauthorship networks in different fields have been intensively studied as an important type of collaboration in recent years. Yet there are few published reports about collaboration in the field of nursing. This article aimed to reveal the status and identify the key features of collaboration in the field of nursing in China. Using data from the top 10 nursing journals in China from 2003 to 2013, we constructed a nursing scientific coauthorship network using social network analysis. We found that coauthorship was a common phenomenon in the Chinese nursing field. A coauthorship network with 228 subnetworks formed by 1428 nodes was constructed. The network was relatively loose, and most subnetworks were of small scales. Scholars from Shanghai and from military medical system were at the center of the Chinese nursing scientific coauthorship network. We identified the authors' positions and influences according to the research output and centralities of each author. We also analyzed the microstructure and the evolution over time of the maximum subnetwork.

Modification of feeding circuits in the evolution of social behavior.

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Fischer, Eva K; O'Connell, Lauren A

2017-01-01

Adaptive trade-offs between foraging and social behavior intuitively explain many aspects of individual decision-making. Given the intimate connection between social behavior and feeding/foraging at the behavioral level, we propose that social behaviors are linked to foraging on a mechanistic level, and that modifications of feeding circuits are crucial in the evolution of complex social behaviors. In this Review, we first highlight the overlap between mechanisms underlying foraging and parental care and then expand this argument to consider the manipulation of feeding-related pathways in the evolution of other complex social behaviors. We include examples from diverse taxa to highlight that the independent evolution of complex social behaviors is a variation on the theme of feeding circuit modification. © 2017. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Earth Regimes Network Evolution Study (ERNESt): Introducing the Space Mobile Network

Science.gov (United States)

Menrad, Bob

2016-01-01

Speaker and Presenter at the Lincoln Laboratory Communications Workshop on April 5, 2016 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, MA. A visual presentation titled Earth Regimes Network Evolution Study (ERNESt).

Interworking evolution of mobile satellite and terrestrial networks

Science.gov (United States)

Matyas, R.; Kelleher, P.; Moller, P.; Jones, T.

1993-01-01

There is considerable interest among mobile satellite service providers in interworking with terrestrial networks to provide a universal global network. With such interworking, subscribers may be provided a common set of services such as those planned for the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), and future Intelligent Networks (IN's). This paper first reviews issues in satellite interworking. Next the status and interworking plans of terrestrial mobile communications service providers are examined with early examples of mobile satellite interworking including a discussion of the anticipated evolution towards full interworking between mobile satellite and both fixed and mobile terrestrial networks.

"I Don't Know What Fun Is": Examining the Intersection of Social Capital, Social Networks, and Social Recovery.

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Boeri, Miriam; Gardner, Megan; Gerken, Erin; Ross, Melissa; Wheeler, Jack

The purpose of this paper is to understand how people with problematic drug use access positive social capital. Social capital is defined as relations that provide valuable resources to individuals through participation in social networks. People with low socioeconomic status remain at a disadvantage for acquiring positive social capital, a component of recovery capital. The concept of social recovery emphasises the relational processes of recovery. In-depth life history data were collected from 29 individuals who used heroin, cocaine, crack, or methamphetamine for at least five years, have less than a high school education, and unstable employment and housing. Qualitative data were coded for social networks accessed throughout the life course, distinguished by bonding, bridging and linking social capital. Social networks included drug treatment programs; non-drug-using family and friends; religious/spiritual groups; workplace networks, and social clubs/activities. Bonding and/or bridging social capital were acquired through treatment, family and friends, religious/spiritual groups, workplaces, and social clubs. Linking social capital was not acquired through any social networks available, and many barriers to accessing mainstream social networks were found. This is a small study conducted in the US. A greater focus on social recovery is needed to achieve sustained recovery for individuals lacking access to and engagement in mainstream social networks. Social recovery is proposed as an analytical tool as well as for developing prevention, intervention, and treatment strategies.

Swiss innovation and social networks: a thematic analysis in French-speaking print media and in the newspaper Le Temps

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ZIMMERLI Virginie

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Currently the themes of innovation and social networks appear in the content of press articles. Living in an Internet society where the users are increasingly involved in the innovation process, thus acting upon the notion of “Bottom–Up innovation”, as coined by Eric von Hippel (1998, 2005, 2013, indicates it is worthwhile to analyse the place of these terms in respect to our daily lives as well as their evolution over time. Are the terms innovation and social networks important in public debates? Which principles define the model of Swiss Innovation, often compared to that of Silicon Valley? As Switzerland’s position improves within the global innovation rankings over time, is it possible to observe in parallel increased occurrences of these themes in the press? Could the two notions of innovation and social networks be interlinked? Are there any enterprises, which appear through the media press, as particularly present in the fields of innovation and/or social networks?

Building ties: social capital network analysis of a forest community in a biosphere reserve in Chiapas, Mexico

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luis Rico García-Amado

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Governance of the commons depends on the capacity to generate collective action. Networks and rules that foster that collective action have been defined as social capital. However, their causal link is still not fully understood. We use social network analysis to assess social capital, decision-making, and collective action in a forest-based common pool resource management in La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve (Chiapas, Mexico. Our research analyzes the productive networks and the evolution of coffee groups in one community. The network shows some centrality, with richer landholders tending to occupy core positions and poorer landless peasants occupying peripheral ones. This has fostered the community's environmentally oriented development but has also caused internal conflicts. Market requirements have shaped different but complementary productive networks, where organic coffee commercialization is the main source of bridging ties, which has resulted in more connectivity and resilience. Conservation attitudes, along with the institutional setting of the community, have promoted collective action. The unresolved conflicts, however, still leave some concerns about governance in the future.

Networks of Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Bettencourt, Luis; Kaiser, David

2004-03-01

Based on an a historically documented example of scientific discovery - Feynman diagrams as the main calculational tool of theoretical high energy Physics - we map the time evolution of the social network of early adopters through in the US, UK, Japan and the USSR. The spread of the technique for total number of users in each region is then modelled in terms of epidemic models, highlighting parallel and divergent aspects of this analogy. We also show that transient social arrangements develop as the idea is introduced and learned, which later disappear as the technique becomes common knowledge. Such early transient is characterized by abnormally low connectivity distribution powers and by high clustering. This interesting early non-equilibrium stage of network evolution is captured by a new dynamical model for network evolution, which coincides in its long time limit with familiar preferential aggregation dynamics.

Social networks of patients with psychosis: a systematic review.

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Palumbo, Claudia; Volpe, Umberto; Matanov, Aleksandra; Priebe, Stefan; Giacco, Domenico

2015-10-12

Social networks are important for mental health outcomes as they can mobilise resources and help individuals to cope with social stressors. Individuals with psychosis may have specific difficulties in establishing and maintaining social relationships which impacts on their well-being and quality of life. There has been a growing interest in developing social network interventions for patients with psychotic disorders. A systematic literature review was conducted to investigate the size of social networks of patients with psychotic disorders, as well as their friendship networks. A systematic electronic search was carried out in MEDLINE, EMBASE and PsychINFO databases using a combination of search terms relating to 'social network', 'friendship' and 'psychotic disorder'. The search identified 23 relevant papers. Out of them, 20 reported patient social network size. Four papers reported the mean number of friends in addition to whole network size, while three further papers focused exclusively on the number of friends. Findings varied substantially across the studies, with a weighted mean size of 11.7 individuals for whole social networks and 3.4 individuals for friendship networks. On average, 43.1 % of the whole social network was composed of family members, while friends accounted for 26.5 %. Studies assessing whole social network size and friendship networks of people with psychosis are difficult to compare as different concepts and methods of assessment were applied. The extent of the overlap between different social roles assessed in the networks was not always clear. Greater conceptual and methodological clarity is needed in order to help the development of effective strategies to increase social resources of patients with psychosis.

Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons Learned.

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Kuss, Daria J; Griffiths, Mark D

2017-03-17

Online social networking sites (SNSs) have gained increasing popularity in the last decade, with individuals engaging in SNSs to connect with others who share similar interests. The perceived need to be online may result in compulsive use of SNSs, which in extreme cases may result in symptoms and consequences traditionally associated with substance-related addictions. In order to present new insights into online social networking and addiction, in this paper, 10 lessons learned concerning online social networking sites and addiction based on the insights derived from recent empirical research will be presented. These are: (i) social networking and social media use are not the same; (ii) social networking is eclectic; (iii) social networking is a way of being; (iv) individuals can become addicted to using social networking sites; (v) Facebook addiction is only one example of SNS addiction; (vi) fear of missing out (FOMO) may be part of SNS addiction; (vii) smartphone addiction may be part of SNS addiction; (viii) nomophobia may be part of SNS addiction; (ix) there are sociodemographic differences in SNS addiction; and (x) there are methodological problems with research to date. These are discussed in turn. Recommendations for research and clinical applications are provided.

First Steps Towards a University Social Network on Personal Learning Environments

OpenAIRE

Verónica Marín-Díaz; Ana Isabel Vazquez Martinez; Karen Josephine McMullin

2014-01-01

The evolution of the media and the Internet in education today is an unquestionable reality. At the university level, the use of Web 2.0 tools has become increasingly visible in the new resources that professors have been incorporating both into the classroom and into their research, reinforcing the methodological renewal that the implementation of the EHEA has demanded. The aim of this article is to introduce DIPRO 2.0, an educational social network for university professors to develop their...

Composite Social Network for Predicting Mobile Apps Installation

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-02

Social network tools (such as the Facebook app and the Twitter app) can observe users’ online friendship network . In this work, our key idea is...the friendship network from phones by collecting data from social networking apps such as the Facebook and Twitter apps. We summarize all the networks ...ar X iv :1 10 6. 03 59 v1 [ cs .S I] 2 J un 2 01 1 Composite Social Network for Predicting Mobile Apps Installation Wei Pan

Evolution of cooperation driven by social-welfare-based migration

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Li, Yan; Ye, Hang; Zhang, Hong

2016-03-01

Individuals' migration behavior may play a significant role in the evolution of cooperation. In reality, individuals' migration behavior may depend on their perceptions of social welfare. To study the relationship between social-welfare-based migration and the evolution of cooperation, we consider an evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) in which an individual's migration depends on social welfare but not on the individual's own payoff. By introducing three important social welfare functions (SWFs) that are commonly studied in social science, we find that social-welfare-based migration can promote cooperation under a wide range of parameter values. In addition, these three SWFs have different effects on cooperation, especially through the different spatial patterns formed by migration. Because the relative efficiency of the three SWFs will change if the parameter values are changed, we cannot determine which SWF is optimal for supporting cooperation. We also show that memory capacity, which is needed to evaluate individual welfare, may affect cooperation levels in opposite directions under different SWFs. Our work should be helpful for understanding the evolution of human cooperation and bridging the chasm between studies of social preferences and studies of social cooperation.

How can social network analysis contribute to social behavior research in applied ethology?

Science.gov (United States)

Makagon, Maja M; McCowan, Brenda; Mench, Joy A

2012-05-01

Social network analysis is increasingly used by behavioral ecologists and primatologists to describe the patterns and quality of interactions among individuals. We provide an overview of this methodology, with examples illustrating how it can be used to study social behavior in applied contexts. Like most kinds of social interaction analyses, social network analysis provides information about direct relationships (e.g. dominant-subordinate relationships). However, it also generates a more global model of social organization that determines how individual patterns of social interaction relate to individual and group characteristics. A particular strength of this approach is that it provides standardized mathematical methods for calculating metrics of sociality across levels of social organization, from the population and group levels to the individual level. At the group level these metrics can be used to track changes in social network structures over time, evaluate the effect of the environment on social network structure, or compare social structures across groups, populations or species. At the individual level, the metrics allow quantification of the heterogeneity of social experience within groups and identification of individuals who may play especially important roles in maintaining social stability or information flow throughout the network.

The relation between multilocus population genetics and social evolution theory.

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Gardner, Andy; West, Stuart A; Barton, Nicholas H

2007-02-01

Evolution at multiple gene positions is complicated. Direct selection on one gene disturbs the evolutionary dynamics of associated genes. Recent years have seen the development of a multilocus methodology for modeling evolution at arbitrary numbers of gene positions with arbitrary dominance and epistatic relations, mode of inheritance, genetic linkage, and recombination. We show that the approach is conceptually analogous to social evolutionary methodology, which focuses on selection acting on associated individuals. In doing so, we (1) make explicit the links between the multilocus methodology and the foundations of social evolution theory, namely, Price's theorem and Hamilton's rule; (2) relate the multilocus approach to levels-of-selection and neighbor-modulated-fitness approaches in social evolution; (3) highlight the equivalence between genetical hitchhiking and kin selection; (4) demonstrate that the multilocus methodology allows for social evolutionary analyses involving coevolution of multiple traits and genetical associations between nonrelatives, including individuals of different species; (5) show that this methodology helps solve problems of dynamic sufficiency in social evolution theory; (6) form links between invasion criteria in multilocus systems and Hamilton's rule of kin selection; (7) illustrate the generality and exactness of Hamilton's rule, which has previously been described as an approximate, heuristic result.

The structural and functional brain networks that support human social networks.

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Noonan, M P; Mars, R B; Sallet, J; Dunbar, R I M; Fellows, L K

2018-02-20

Social skills rely on a specific set of cognitive processes, raising the possibility that individual differences in social networks are related to differences in specific brain structural and functional networks. Here, we tested this hypothesis with multimodality neuroimaging. With diffusion MRI (DMRI), we showed that differences in structural integrity of particular white matter (WM) tracts, including cingulum bundle, extreme capsule and arcuate fasciculus were associated with an individual's social network size (SNS). A voxel-based morphology analysis demonstrated correlations between gray matter (GM) volume and SNS in limbic and temporal lobe regions. These structural changes co-occured with functional network differences. As a function of SNS, dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex showed altered resting-state functional connectivity with the default mode network (DMN). Finally, we integrated these three complementary methods, interrogating the relationship between social GM clusters and specific WM and resting-state networks (RSNs). Probabilistic tractography seeded in these GM nodes utilized the SNS-related WM pathways. Further, the spatial and functional overlap between the social GM clusters and the DMN was significantly closer than other control RSNs. These integrative analyses provide convergent evidence of the role of specific circuits in SNS, likely supporting the adaptive behavior necessary for success in extensive social environments. Crown Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Social Network Sites, Individual Social Capital and Happiness

NARCIS (Netherlands)

E. Arampatzi (Efstratia); M.J. Burger (Martijn); N.A. Novik (Natallia)

2016-01-01

textabstractCan online social contacts replace the importance of real-life social connections in our pursuit of happiness? With the growing use of social network sites (SNSs), attention has been increasingly drawn to this topic. Our study empirically examines the effect of SNS use on happiness for

Social networking and privacy attitudes among

OpenAIRE

Kristen A. Carruth; Harvey J. Ginsburg

2014-01-01

Daily use of social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook has become routine for millions of Internet users. Facebook is currently still the most popular social media site. Social networking has been rapidly adopted by societies around the world. In particular, social media like Facebook provide sites where users can personalize a profile with their information, pictures, and videos that can be shared with other users. This information can be used in ways that may violate users’ privacy ...

A Social Network Analysis of Occupational Segregation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Buhai, Ioan Sebastian; van der Leij, Marco

We develop a social network model of occupational segregation between different social groups, generated by the existence of positive inbreeding bias among individuals from the same group. If network referrals are important for job search, then expected homophily in the contact network structure...

Energy Efficient Evolution of Mobile Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Micallef, Gilbert; Mogensen, Preben

2011-01-01

options for how to evolve their networks, allowing them to carry the expected increase in traffic. The best solution is generally selected based on two main criteria, performance and cost. However, pushed by a variety of environmental and energy challenges, MNOs are now also showing interest...... in understanding the impact that different options can have on the energy consumption of their networks. This paper investigates the possible energy gains of evolving a mobile network through a joint pico deployment and macro upgrade solution over a period of 8 years. Besides the network energy consumption, energy...... efficiency in Mbps/kWh is also analyzed. Furthermore, a cost analysis is carried out, to give a more complete picture of the different options being considered. Focusing on the last year of the evolution analysis, results show that deploying more pico sites reduces the energy consumption of the network...

More Questions than Answers: Assessing the Impact of Online Social Networking on a Service-Learning Project

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Moeller, Mary R.; Nagy, Dianne

2013-01-01

This article details the evolution and results of a service-learning project designed to extend cross-cultural relationships via online social networking between students at a U.S. Bureau of Indian Education boarding school and teacher candidates in a required diversity course. The goals for the partnership included helping Native American…

Social networking sites use and the morphology of a social-semantic brain network.

Science.gov (United States)

Turel, Ofir; He, Qinghua; Brevers, Damien; Bechara, Antoine

2017-09-30

Social lives have shifted, at least in part, for large portions of the population to social networking sites. How such lifestyle changes may be associated with brain structures is still largely unknown. In this manuscript, we describe two preliminary studies aimed at exploring this issue. The first study (n = 276) showed that Facebook users reported on increased social-semantic and mentalizing demands, and that such increases were positively associated with people's level of Facebook use. The second study (n = 33) theorized on and examined likely anatomical correlates of such changes in demands on the brain. Findings indicated that the grey matter volumes of the posterior parts of the bilateral middle and superior temporal, and left fusiform gyri were positively associated with the level of Facebook use. These results provided preliminary evidence that grey matter volumes of brain structures involved in social-semantic and mentalizing tasks may be linked to the extent of social networking sites use.

Characterizing Social Interaction in Tobacco-Oriented Social Networks: An Empirical Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Yunji; Zheng, Xiaolong; Zeng, Daniel Dajun; Zhou, Xingshe; Leischow, Scott James; Chung, Wingyan

2015-06-19

Social media is becoming a new battlefield for tobacco "wars". Evaluating the current situation is very crucial for the advocacy of tobacco control in the age of social media. To reveal the impact of tobacco-related user-generated content, this paper characterizes user interaction and social influence utilizing social network analysis and information theoretic approaches. Our empirical studies demonstrate that the exploding pro-tobacco content has long-lasting effects with more active users and broader influence, and reveal the shortage of social media resources in global tobacco control. It is found that the user interaction in the pro-tobacco group is more active, and user-generated content for tobacco promotion is more successful in obtaining user attention. Furthermore, we construct three tobacco-related social networks and investigate the topological patterns of these tobacco-related social networks. We find that the size of the pro-tobacco network overwhelms the others, which suggests a huge number of users are exposed to the pro-tobacco content. These results indicate that the gap between tobacco promotion and tobacco control is widening and tobacco control may be losing ground to tobacco promotion in social media.

SOCIAL NETWORKS BETWEEN ICTS AND MORAL DECADENCE

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Domingo Alarcón Ortiz

2013-07-01

Full Text Available The paradox of social networks in organizations is that they are a very important means of formation, training, update, information and communication, but also represent a symptom of cultural decay, because with them have been provided and processes of disinformation uncontrolled distribution of malicious information, which is assaulted by people. The abuse as to upload information indiscriminately leads to pathological, anti-social and cynical time’s behaviors. As many users of social networks does not assume a code of ethics according to social needs, then its limits of performance in terms of dignity and self-respect will not operate, constitute a serious social threat, against which the appropriate response has not been generated.  To participate in social networks, people end up exposing itself to that your privacy was hurt with impunity and thereby will limit or annul the opportunity to defend their dignity, turning them into a set of highly vulnerable entities. But as there is social by joining the network pressure, the question is it worth being in these networks? If you want to stay informed and share information, raises the dilemma of to where it can and should go.

Dynamic Evolution of Financial Network and its Relation to Economic Crises

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Ya-Chun; Wei, Zong-Wen; Wang, Bing-Hong

2013-02-01

The static topology properties of financial networks have been widely investigated since the work done by Mantegna, yet their dynamic evolution with time is little considered. In this paper, we comprehensively study the dynamic evolution of financial network by a sliding window technique. The vertices and edges of financial network are represented by the stocks from S&P500 components and correlations between pairs of daily returns of price fluctuation, respectively. Furthermore, the duration of stock price fluctuation, spanning from January 4, 1985 to September 14, 2009, makes us to carefully observe the relation between the dynamic topological properties and big financial crashes. The empirical results suggest that the financial network has the robust small-world property when the time evolves, and the topological structure drastically changes when the big financial crashes occur. This correspondence between the dynamic evolution of financial network and big financial crashes may provide a novel view to understand the origin of economic crisis.

Stories in Networks and Networks in Stories: A Tri-Modal Model for Mixed-Methods Social Network Research on Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Baker-Doyle, Kira J.

2015-01-01

Social network research on teachers and schools has risen exponentially in recent years as an innovative method to reveal the role of social networks in education. However, scholars are still exploring ways to incorporate traditional quantitative methods of Social Network Analysis (SNA) with qualitative approaches to social network research. This…

Connecting Social Networks with Ecosystem Services for Watershed Governance: a Social-Ecological Network Perspective Highlights the Critical Role of Bridging Organizations

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Kaitlyn J. Rathwell

2012-06-01

Full Text Available In many densely settled agricultural watersheds, water quality is a point of conflict between amenity and agricultural activities because of the varied demands and impacts on shared water resources. Successful governance of these watersheds requires coordination among different activities. Recent research has highlighted the role that social networks between management entities can play to facilitate cross-scale interaction in watershed governance. For example, bridging organizations can be positioned in social networks to bridge local initiatives done by single municipalities across whole watersheds. To better understand the role of social networks in social-ecological system dynamics, we combine a social network analysis of the water quality management networks held by local governments with a social-ecological analysis of variation in water management and ecosystem services across the Montérégie, an agricultural landscape near Montréal, Québec, Canada. We analyze municipal water management networks by using one-mode networks to represent direct collaboration between municipalities, and two-mode networks to capture how bridging organizations indirectly connect municipalities. We find that municipalities do not collaborate directly with one another but instead are connected via bridging organizations that span the water quality management network. We also discovered that more connected municipalities engaged in more water management activities. However, bridging organizations preferentially connected with municipalities that used more tourism related ecosystem services rather than those that used more agricultural ecosystem services. Many agricultural municipalities were relatively isolated, despite being the main producers of water quality problems. In combination, these findings suggest that further strengthening the water management network in the Montérégie will contribute to improving water quality in the region. However, such

Unscrewing social media networks, twice

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)