Search

In an era overwhelmed by academic big data, students grapple with identifying academic papers that resonate with their learning objectives and research interests, due to the sheer volume and complexity of available information. This study addresses the challenge by proposing a novel academic paper recommendation system designed to enhance personalized learning through the nuanced understanding of academic social networks. Utilizing the theory of social homogeneity, the research first constructs a sophisticated academic social network, capturing high-order social relationships, such as co-authorship and advisor–advisee connections, through hypergraph modeling and advanced network representation learning techniques. The methodology encompasses the development and integration of a hypergraph convolutional neural network and a contrastive learning framework to accurately model and recommend academic papers, focusing on aligning with students' unique preferences and reducing reliance on sparse interaction data. The findings, validated across multiple real-world datasets, demonstrate a significant improvement in recommendation accuracy, particularly in addressing the cold-start problem and effectively mapping advisor–advisee relationships. The study concludes that leveraging complex academic social networks can substantially enhance the personalization and precision of academic paper recommendations, offering a promising avenue for addressing the challenges of academic information overload and fostering more effective personalized learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital heritage portal interfaces are generally similar to digital library and search engine interfaces in displaying search results as a list of brief metadata records. The knowledge organization and search result display of these systems are item-centric, with little support for identifying relationships between items. This paper proposes a knowledge graph system and visualization interface as a promising solution for digital heritage systems to support users in browsing related items, understanding the relationships between items, and synthesizing a narrative on an issue. The paper discusses design issues for the knowledge graph, graph database, and graph visualization, and offers recommendations based on the authors' experience in developing three knowledge graph systems for archive and digital humanities resources: the Zubir Said personal archive collection at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore; Singapore Pioneers social network; and Polyglot Medicine knowledge graph of Asian traditional and herbal medicine. Lessons learned from a small user study are incorporated in the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cancer is a major public health challenge globally. However, little is known about the evolution patterns of cancer research communities and the influencing factors of their research capacity and impact, which is affected not only by the social networks established through research collaboration but also by the knowledge networks in which the research projects are embedded. Methods: The focus of this study was narrowed to a specific topic – 'synthetic lethality' – in cancer research. This field has seen vibrant growth and multidisciplinary collaboration in the past decade. Multi-level collaboration and knowledge networks were established and analysed on the basis of bibliometric data from 'synthetic lethality'-related cancer research papers. Negative binomial regression analysis was further applied to explore how node attributes within these networks, along with other potential factors, affected paper citations, which are widely accepted as proxies for assessing research capacity and impact. Results: Our study revealed that the synthetic lethality-based cancer research field is characterized by a knowledge network with high integration, alongside a collaboration network exhibiting some clustering. We found significant correlations between certain factors and citation counts. Specifically, a leading status within the nation-level international collaboration network and industry involvement were both found to be significantly related to higher citations. In the individual-level collaboration networks, lead authors' degree centrality has an inverted U-shaped relationship with citations, while their structural holes exhibit a positive and significant effect. Within the knowledge network, however, only measures of structural holes have a positive and significant effect on the number of citations. Conclusions: To enhance cancer research capacity and impact, non-leading countries should take measures to enhance their international collaboration status. For early career researchers, increasing the number of collaborators seems to be more effective. University–industry cooperation should also be encouraged, enhancing the integration of human resources, technology, funding, research platforms and medical resources. Insights gained through this study also provide recommendations to researchers or administrators in designing future research directions from a knowledge network perspective. Focusing on unique issues especially interdisciplinary fields will improve output and influence their research work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is impairment of the spinal cord that adversely affects patients' health and quality of life (QoL). The aim of the study was to assess the quality of life (QoL) and related factors in patients with traumatic spinal cord injury in Middle Eastern countries. Methods: PubMed, Ovid Medline, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), EBSCOhost, psycINFO, and Google Scholar were systematically searched for eligible studies published in peer-reviewed journals up till October 2023. Results: Out of 1060 papers found in the literature, only 18 studies from Iran, Lebanon, and Turkey met the inclusion criteria. The majority of the studies employed the SF-36 scale to assess for QoL. In general, all SCI patients had reduced QoL scores when compared to the healthy population. Some of the factors such as age, education level, the level of injury, time since injury onset, marriage, and job opportunities were correlated with SCI subjects QoL. Our papers were assessed and found to be of both good and high quality. Conclusion: This review emphasizes the significant shortage of QoL studies among SCI patients in the Middle East countries and highlights the importance of improving the QoL of this marginalized population. This work should enhance the governments to establish rehabilitation centers, social and economic support systems, and mental health services to diminish complications arising from SCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social isolation/marginalization in sub-Saharan Africa is under-researched, despite increasing evidence of weakening traditional community-based social support. This paper aims to develop a typology of social networks capable of accounting for social marginalization in a rural community in Western Senegal and to describe the socio-demographic characteristics of network profiles. Building on prior qualitative work, we carry out a latent profile analysis using a unique and extensive social network data set, identifying four different network profiles: Locally integrated, Constrained relationships, Locally marginalized, and Local elites. This paper provides the first empirically supported classification of social integration and marginalization in social networks in rural sub-Saharan Africa. In doing so, it can serve as a reference for future research seeking to understand both the broader scope of social integration and marginalization and the consequences of differential access to social capital through social networks on access to health resources and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In social network applications, competitive influence propagation often exhibits a certain degree of time lag. In the scenario of positive and negative competitive propagation studied in this paper, under the premise that negative nodes are activated first, how to find a set of positive seed nodes to participate in competitive propagation is studied, aiming to minimize the spread of negative influence. In the current study, the time complexity of the improved algorithms based on greedy strategies is high, which limits their scope of application in practical scenarios; some heuristic algorithms achieve better scalability, but there is still much room for improvement. Therefore, this paper proposes a new method to solve the influence propagation problem of delayed competition, also known as a heuristic propagation factor evaluation algorithm (HeuPFE). The main process is as follows: (1) We build a shortest path snapshot for the nearest propagation region of negative nodes and reduce the search space of competing nodes. (2) Then, we construct a node propagation factor evaluation method based on this shortest negative-oriented node path snapshot to reduce computational complexity. Comparing results with those of traditional heuristic algorithms, we carry out experiments on real datasets and verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a permissionless social network environment, it is difficult for a user to assess the trustworthiness of other users. Thus, trust management becomes a crucial issue for securing social activities. The conventional method for assessing trust involves an authority to identify fakes. However, generative AI is gradually reducing the ability to distinguish by producing vivid news or images. Additionally, modern social networks are becoming flatter and more diverse, making conventional trust management methods unfeasible. There is an urgent need to design a suitable blockchain consensus for decentralized trust management. In this paper, we propose a novel three-layer autonomous trust management model for online social users based on blockchain technology and group decision making. Instead of solving a hash puzzle, which consumes too much computational resources for social network users, this paper proposes a lightweight and verifiable blockchain consensus proof of trust for decentralized trust management. Furthermore, performance analysis and simulation results show that our model is valid and flexible for both synthetic networks and real social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Friendship Paradox is a simple and powerful statement about node degrees in a graph. However, it only applies to undirected graphs with no edge weights, and the only node characteristic it concerns is degree. Since many social networks are more complex than that, it is useful to generalize this phenomenon, if possible, and a number of papers have proposed different generalizations. Here, we unify these generalizations in a common framework, retaining the focus on undirected graphs and allowing for weighted edges and for numeric node attributes other than degree to be considered, since this extension allows for a clean characterization and links to the original concepts most naturally. While the original Friendship Paradox and the Weighted Friendship Paradox hold for all graphs, considering non-degree attributes actually makes the extensions fail around 50% of the time, given random attribute assignment. We provide simple correlation-based rules to see whether an attribute-based version of the paradox holds. In addition to theory, our simulation and data results show how all the concepts can be applied to synthetic and real networks. Where applicable, we draw connections to prior work to make this an accessible and comprehensive paper that lets one understand the math behind the Friendship Paradox and its basic extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support for school-age children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) usually takes place within the school setting. Successful outcomes for children with SLCN rely on effective collaborative working between speech and language therapists (SLTs), school staff and families. We need to understand the current evidence regarding the joint working practices, relationships and collaboration experiences of SLT and teaching staff within mainstream primary schools, in order to identify whether sufficient research exists for a systematic review within this field, and to inform practice. The purpose of this scoping review was to identify what research currently exists regarding collaboration, roles and relationships of SLTs and teaching staff within mainstream UK primary schools, and clarify the nature, participants and concepts described within this literature. A scoping review framework was used, consisting of identification of the review objectives, identification of relevant studies, study selection and iterative searches, data charting and reporting of the results. Information regarding research question, participants, data collection and analysis and terms used for key concepts was extracted. This scoping review identified 14 papers, however, collaboration was the primary focus of only 5 of these. Clarity and perceptions of roles were key themes within six of the papers. Whilst facilitators and barriers to collaboration are discussed in all 14 papers, only 4 studies aimed to investigate barriers and facilitators. Teaching assistant (TA) views are underrepresented within the research. Drawing conclusions from the body of research is challenging due to the varied ways in which the key concept 'collaboration' is used. Currently, there is insufficient literature to carry out a systematic review. This scoping review highlights the need for research that considers collaboration within the complex social network of school staff (including TAs) and SLTs, in order to ensure that future guidance is rooted in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research productivity relies upon the contribution of statisticians, who are typically clustered in statistics and biostatistics departments, isolated from clinical researchers. Most academic health centres have created consultation hubs or research incubators to make statisticians available for individual collaboration to support the clinical research enterprise. Additionally, some clinical departments within academic health centres have recognized the value in colocating statisticians within their clinical departments to improve availability for collaboration with physicians/researchers. Embedded statisticians encounter the same challenges of isolated statisticians regarding professional support and networking, mentorship and clear role expectations. While for all collaborative statisticians, it is important to effectively communicate value to both collaborators and supervisors, this may be especially problematic for embedded statisticians in clinical departments where their supervisors may not have backgrounds in research or statistics. Previous papers have reported valuable metrics for statisticians, particularly those associated with Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design Cores. There is a knowledge gap regarding metrics tailored to meet the needs of the embedded statistician and clinical supervisors. This paper is a first step towards addressing this important need. In this paper, we explore (1) the critical role of collaborative statisticians and the benefits and challenges of the embedded statistician model, (2) the need for additional metrics specific to embedded statisticians which measure value and (3) how to design a value report. We offer a framework for evaluation of the contributions of the embedded statistician with the following domains: (1) collaboration, (2) research output/productivity, (3) mentoring and (4) education. Metrics that are particularly specific to embedded statisticians and that are not routinely captured include time from project initiation to completion/outcome, time from initial statistical consultation to statistical outcome completion and summary of level of contribution for manuscripts and presentations in addition to author order. We conclude with thoughts on future directions for development of metrics and reporting systems for statisticians embedded in clinical departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the ways ageing migrants perceive and experience a sense of belonging in a mediascape during the pandemic. It underscores how 15 elderly people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Victoria, Australia stayed connected among their networks in and beyond Australia by accessing and consuming COVID-19 information via traditional and digital channels. By analysing the data based on conducting remote interviews in 2020 and 2021, the findings highlight the paradoxical nature of mediated belonging. On the one hand, ageing migrants forged connections at a distance with their familial and social networks by circulating and consuming COVID-19 information. This practice provided ageing migrants an assurance of their safety and their networks. On the other hand, differentiation and racialisation stirred frustrating, polarising and exclusionary-mediated environments. In this case, they deployed connective strategies to negotiate connections and belonging. In sum, this paper reveals the possibilities and politics of mediated belonging fuelled by intersecting structural and technological divides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the non-progressive spread of influence with threshold model in social networks. Consider a graph G with a threshold function t on its vertex set. Spread of influence is a discrete dynamic process as follows. For a given set of initially infected vertices at time step 0 each vertex v gets infected at time step i, i = 1, if and only if the number of infected neighbors are at least t (v) in time step i-1. Our goal is to find the minimum cardinality of initially infected vertices (perfect target set) such that eventually all of the vertices get infected at some time step l. In this paper an upper bound for the convergence time of the process is given for graphs with general thresholds. Then an integer linear programming for the size of minimum perfect target set is presented. Then we give a lower bound for the size of perfect target sets with strict majority threshold on graphs which all of the vertices have even degrees. It is shown that the later bound is asymptotically tight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin (2019) is a fantasy-documentary film directed by Kim Dong-ryung and Park Kyoung-tae. The film narrates the story of Park In-sun, a former sex worker in the United States military camp-town in South Korea. This paper closely analyzes four key scenes from the film – interview, field visit, revenge, and recalcitrance – to present two arguments. Firstly, the film illustrates the infliction of secondary violence by academia. I specifically examine scenes involving scholar figures’ interviews and field visits to disentangle the politics of knowledge production in the posthumous memorialisation. Secondly, this paper expands the sociocultural meaning of death, considering it as the starting point for imagining new ways of memorialising past violence. To achieve this, I demonstrate how the film’s brilliant delivery of creative and performative re-enactment of survivors’ dream images proposes recalcitrance as a generative analytical concept for memorialising difficult histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the textile trade data of 66 countries along the Belt and Road from 2001 to 2020, this paper uses the social network analysis method to measure the network centrality, uses the block model method to investigate the competitive and complementary relationship of textile trade among countries along the Belt and Road, and uses the QAP method to analyze the structure of textile trade network and its influencing factors. The results show that since the implementation of the "Belt and Road" Initiative, the density of textile trade network has increased significantly, and the network presents an obvious core-edge structure. China has always been in the center of textile trade network. Before and after the "Belt and Road" Initiative is put forward, core countries such as China, India and Thailand changed from internal sector to two-way overflow sector, and textile trade competition existed among core countries. The influencing factors on the textile trade network of countries along the Belt and Road are, in descending order, economic scale, regional trade agreements between countries, population scale, cultural proximity and geographical distance. Based on the research conclusions and combined with the textile trade network pattern of the Belt and Road countries, this paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions to promote high-quality development of textile trade between China and "The Belt and Road" countries from the perspective of social network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identities and roles of women known as beguines in late medieval Europe have long been the subject of scholarly debate. Classic studies argued that beguines troubled a binary of heretical and orthodox movements, and that they were the object of clerical and lay suspicion. Recent work on medieval religious women has done much to enrich understandings of how diverse their roles could be. The records for the beguines of the central Rhineland, however, have not been the focus of examination in some decades. This paper draws on unpublished and understudied documents to examine how beguines were agents and catalysts of regional movement, and how their symbolic and physical emplacement in urban environments was understood. In doing so, it employs mobility theory, a lens heretofore little used by premodernists. This paper argues that the beguines of Mainz were neither exceptional nor marginal. Rather, they cultivated a distinctive identity while remaining integrated in local social and religious networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is what we have as a great breakthrough in the 5G network. Although the 5G network can support several Internet of Everything (IoE) services, 6G is the network to fully support that. This paper is a survey research presenting the 5G and IoT technology and the challenges coming, with the 6G network being the new alternative network coming to solve these issues and limitations we are facing with 5G. A reference to the Control Plane and User Plane Separation (CUPS) is made with IPv4 and IPv6, addressing which is the foundation of the network slicing for the 5G core network. In comparison to other related papers, we provide in-depth information on how the IoT is going to affect our lives and how this technology is handled as the IoE in the 6G network. Finally, a full reference is made to the 6G network, with its challenges compared to the 5G network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to systematic literature review (SLR) of the research of Born Global (BG) and Social Capital (SC). This study aims to fill gaps in the literature by discussing scientific contributions and highlighting the main issues with previous research findings regarding the role of SC as antecedents and consequences in BG. This research is SLR from the 94 reputable journals that have discussed BG and SC in Scopus journals published from 2003 to 2020 based on a topic limitation search. This study found a growing body of research on BG and SC, with heterogeneity in methodology, antecedent, and unit analysis. Most BG research has discussed the role of network, capital, and SC as antecedents to the BG performance. This paper found that there were individual firm-level SC resources that could be used as potential tools to encourage BG performance. The literature on BG associated with SC is limited, and there is still no generally accepted model linking the two. On the other hand, for academics and practitioners, this study also offers an opportunity for further empirical studies of BG and SC with multilevel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to comprehensively define village social capital, assess its multifaceted dimensions in relation to farmers' entrepreneurial decision-making, and investigate the mediating role of rural development. The research sample consists of 14,133 farmers selected through a multi-stage proportional-to-size unequal probability sampling method. Data collection was carried out using questionnaires as part of the "Chinese Thousand Village Survey" project. Empirical analysis was conducted using binary logit and basic linear regression models, supplemented by probit models and other robustness testing methods. The findings indicate that village social capital exerts a significant and favorable influence on farmers' entrepreneurial decision-making. Controlling for other variables, a unit increment in farmers' village social network, village social participation, and village social trust is associated with a respective increase in farmers' odds of entrepreneurial decision-making by 3.96, 5.42, and 16.28%. Village social trust emerges as the most influential factor. Additionally, rural harmony and rural economy partially mediate the relationship between village social capital and farmers' entrepreneurial decision-making. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between village social capital and farmers' entrepreneurial decision-making, offering valuable guidance for farmers looking to leverage village social capital in their entrepreneurial endeavors. It lays a theoretical foundation for relevant entities to strengthen village social capital and cultivate a supportive environment for rural entrepreneurship. To our knowledge, this paper is among the earlier studies that investigate farmers' entrepreneurial decision-making. Besides, the relationship between village social capital and rural development is rarely studied in the literature as two determinants of farmers' entrepreneurial decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the method of Social Network Analysis to generate new insights into the life and trial of the dissident theologian and translator Ludwig Hätzer. With the help of the programme visone, the corpus of letters in which Hätzer is mentioned during his lifetime is visualised and analysed, incorporating the different evaluations Hätzer receives in the correspondence. The network analysis reveals the important role the brothers Ambrosius and Thomas Blarer in Constance played in connecting different parts of the network. It also shows that communication between theologians and cities seems to have taken place conspicuously separately. The paper argues that letters by individuals like Wolfgang Capito and Martin Bucer might, in the end, have been more relevant in preparing the ground for Hätzer's execution than polemical pamphlets. It also reveals that the turning point for Hätzer's reputation must have been his acquaintance with Hans Denck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the role of personal ties in migration decisions has received considerable attention. However, this aspect has seldom been studied in the context of retirement. This paper addresses this gap by shedding light on the composition of personal networks, types of mobility patterns and retirement locations for four groups of older adults. To this end, two methodological approaches are employed: (1) a qualitative Social Network Analysis to examine the composition of older adults' personal networks and (2) thematic coding to analyse the relational aspects of migration decisions. This paper draws on 29 semi‐structured interviews conducted in Spain and Switzerland in 2020 and 2021. The findings demonstrate that pre‐retirement migration trajectories shape personal network composition. Moreover, personal ties play a critical role in older adults' mobility patterns and choices of retirement location. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the impact of personal networks on migration decisions of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on Vietnamese PhD students' imaginative geographies of their destination countries. Using the data collected from in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 Vietnamese PhD students, the study examines the participants' preparation for their sojourn before their departure, as well as their first multi-sensory experiences of the study countries on the first days of arrival, which then revealed how their imaginative geographies had been constructed and how they perceived the contrast between their imaginative geographies and reality. The findings of the study suggest that when the students chose to study overseas, they had diverse imaginations of the destinations that had been constructed over long periods of time thanks to the influences of movies, newspapers, media, and experiences of those in their social networks. Furthermore, the paper also highlights the collective imagination about countries in the West and the imagination of the collective West among Vietnamese students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The approximate uniform sampling of graph realizations with a given degree sequence is an everyday task in several social science, computer science, engineering etc. projects. One approach is using Markov chains. The best available current result about the well-studied switch Markov chain is that it is rapidly mixing on P-stable degree sequences (see DOI:10.1016/j.ejc.2021.103421). The switch Markov chain does not change any degree sequence. However, there are cases where degree intervals are specified rather than a single degree sequence. (A natural scenario where this problem arises is in hypothesis testing on social networks that are only partially observed.) Rechner, Strowick, and Müller–Hannemann introduced in 2018 the notion of degree interval Markov chain which uses three (separately well studied) local operations (switch, hinge-flip and toggle), and employing on degree sequence realizations where any two sequences under scrutiny have very small coordinate-wise distance. Recently, Amanatidis and Kleer published a beautiful paper (DOI:10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2023.7), showing that the degree interval Markov chain is rapidly mixing if the sequences are coming from a system of very thin intervals which are centered not far from a regular degree sequence. In this paper, we substantially extend their result, showing that the degree interval Markov chain is rapidly mixing if the intervals are centered at P-stable degree sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the digitalization of museum marketing as an innovative tool for customer evaluation. The content analysis of digital tools created by the most visited museums in the world on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were carried out. To obtain statistical information about the pages of museums in social networks, the social media analytics and management tool Fanpage Karma was used. According to the selected indicators, Fanpage Karma filters the rating of the networks' current strongest content. The correlation between the number of museum visits and indicators showing the interaction of the museum with visitors using social networks, such as the number of fans, the page performance index, the number of posts per day, the growth rate of followers, post interactions, and the number of total reactions and comments, was evaluated. The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of museum marketing digitalization processes on museum visits by tourists and, as a result, the economic development of the museum business. To monitor the digitalization strategy of the museum's marketing activities, a mixed approach based on qualitative and quantitative analysis was used. Multivariate analysis was carried out to determine the relationship between museum attendance and the interaction between museums and subscribers in social networks. It has been proven that the introduction of digital technologies in museum marketing can attract visitors and put the institution at the new informational level. The number of museum visits and the number of fans, the number of posts per day, interactions, and the number of reactions and comments are the same across all social networks. The paper allows us to know the potential audience of the museum and its needs and requests and to predict the interests of certain categories of museum visitors. The scientific novelty and originality of the research consists of the use of digital marketing tools for evaluating their influence on client behaviour. The results of the study may be useful for the development of monitoring systems and strategic management of marketing when evaluating the behaviour of consumers on the content of social networks at enterprises in various industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is evident from movies and social media discussions that coping mechanisms are conceived as a common lifestyle. However, coping mechanism is much more than a lifestyle to migrants, given that they also see it as a survival mechanism. In spite of this, not much scholarly attention has been devoted to migrant’s use of coping mechanisms. Through the purposive sampling technique, this paper attempts to examine the theme of coping mechanisms of immigrants using Nigerian immigrant women in Durban as a case study vis-à-vis their relevance to adaptation in foreign land. The study employs the intersectionality theory to capture the experience of Nigerian women. The findings show that the Nigerian immigrant women in Durban have experimented with a number of coping techniques at the individual and group levels. These range from learning the indigenous language to acquiring new skills that will help them extend social networks through utilising social support schemes and any other identified virtue from immigrant home culture. The paper concludes that their challenges stem from navigating the complexities of two spatial worldviews (those of their host country and those of their homeland), which also impacts how they adapt to these complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online digital networks, including social networks, have significantly impacted individuals' personal and professional lives. Aside from exchanging news and topics of interest, digital networks play an essential role in the diffusion of information, which frequently significantly impacts worldwide societies. In this paper, we present a new mathematical epidemic model for digital networks that considers the sentiment of solitary misinformation in the networks and characteristics of human intelligence that play an important role in judging and spreading misinformation inside the networks. Our mathematical analysis has proved the existence and validity of the system in a real-time environment. Considering the real-world data, our simulation predicts how the misinformation could spread among different global communities and when an intervention mechanism should have to be carried out by the policyholders. Our simulation using the model proves that effective intervention mechanisms by isolating the fake news can effectively control the spread of misinformation among larger populations. The model can analyze the emotional and social intelligence of groups frequently subjected to disinformation and disseminating fake news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residents' participation is crucial for sustainable old neighborhood regeneration. Residents' intentions to participate in the regeneration are low in China, resulting in unsustainable neighborhood development problems. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the drivers of residents' participation. Residents' behavioral mechanisms are deeply embedded in their social networks, especially in acquaintance social networks typical of old neighborhoods in China. By constructing a mediated moderation model based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and danwei system and taking the old neighborhood regeneration in Xi'an as a case study, this paper investigates the paths and mechanisms of the social network embeddedness, TPB, and danwei system on residents' participation intention. The results show that social network embeddedness can improve residents' intention to participate in regeneration through both direct and indirect pathways, and its indirect effect is much larger than the direct effect. Attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control significantly and positively mediated the contribution of social network embeddedness on participation intention. However, the specific mediating effect of attitude is significantly smaller than the other two. The danwei system has a significant moderating effect in the first stage of the relationship between social network embeddedness and participation intention. These imply that the extrinsic social factor of social network embeddedness is internalized as a driving force for convergence and motivation of residents' participation intentions mainly through the normative pressure and exchange of experiences between acquaintances and that the danwei system reinforces this extrinsic-intrinsic facilitation process through the danwei's "physical presence." These findings provide revelatory countermeasures for exploring the factors that motivate residents to participate actively in neighborhood regeneration and encourage their involvement at the intervention level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, people spend a lot of time in the information space, communicating within various social platforms. Content of those platforms can influence people’s feelings and personalities, which is especially relevant for young people. In this research, we made an attempt to prove this hypothesis. For the experiment, we selected the VKontakte social network and analysed users profiles together with the results of the psychological tests passed by them. The goal of the experiment was to find correlations between the information provided within the social network communities and the users’ personalities. Moreover, in this paper, we made an attempt to enhance the results of the classifier accuracy using the sentiment analysis. The experiments were conducted to test the sentiment analysis models, to analyse the proposed feature based on posts’ sentiment, and test the classifier for the detection of the potentially destructive impacts. The analysis of the correlation of the proposed feature with the communities that have potentially destructive impacts on anxiety is conducted. The analysis of the obtained results is provided. During the experiments, the authors found out that consideration of the posts’ sentiment allows increasing accuracy of the classifier for anxiety destructive impacts on 12.24 %. Additionally, we analysed the relationship between the user sentiments metric and destructiveness. We confirmed that the assessment of the user’s posts’ sentiment can be used to compile his psychological characteristics and determine possibility of destructiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In relational event networks, the tendency for actors to interact with each other depends greatly on the past interactions between the actors in a social network. Both the volume of past interactions and the time that has elapsed since the past interactions affect the actors' decision-making to interact with other actors in the network. Recently occurred events may have a stronger influence on current interaction behavior than past events that occurred a long time ago–a phenomenon known as "memory decay". Previous studies either predefined a short-run and long-run memory or fixed a parametric exponential memory decay using a predefined half-life period. In real-life relational event networks, however, it is generally unknown how the influence of past events fades as time goes by. For this reason, it is not recommendable to fix memory decay in an ad-hoc manner, but instead we should learn the shape of memory decay from the observed data. In this paper, a novel semi-parametric approach based on Bayesian Model Averaging is proposed for learning the shape of the memory decay without requiring any parametric assumptions. The method is applied to relational event history data among socio-political actors in India and a comparison with other relational event models based on predefined memory decays is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the impact of the COVID-19-induced economic crisis on tribal street vendors in Aizawl, India, using the framework of resilience theory. The paper uses a case-study approach to examine how street vendors recouped their economic losses after the relaxed lockdown phase during the region's most celebrated Christmas and New Year festivals. A total of 74 street vendors were interviewed for this study using a semi-structured questionnaire. The study discusses that despite the relaxation of lockdowns, vendors faced extreme challenges in earning their daily wages, causing an inability to satisfy basic requirements like food, paying rent, and experiencing harsher workplace conditions. We observe that street vendors had heterogeneous motives toward street vending and were not driven by a single theoretical perspective. We present that most street vendors during the lockdowns reflect resilience in their businesses, socioeconomic, and workplace conditions through their indigenous coping mechanisms and social networking. We find that street vendors displayed entrepreneurial qualities during the lockdowns by either changing the goods they sold or how they were sold before the pandemic. The study recommends different economic and financial policies for street vendors at the ground level such as improving basic workplace amenities, safety, and awareness among street vendors and consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, by using a lifecycle perspective, four stages related to the extraction, refining and processing of copper were identified. The different behaviors of countries in the import/export networks at the four stages synthetically reflect their position in the global network of copper production and consumption. The trade flows of four commodities related to the extraction, refining and processing of copper of 142 nations with population above 2 millions based on the UN Comtrade website (https://comtrade.un.org/data/), in five years from 2017 to 2021, were considered. The observed trade flows in each year have been modelled as a directed multilayer network. Then the countries have been grouped according to their structural equivalence in the international copper flow by using a Multilayer Stochastic Block Model. To put further insight in the obtained community structure of the countries, a deep learning model based on adapting the node2vec to a multilayer setting has been used to embed the countries in an Euclidean plane. To identify groups of nations that play the same role across time, some distances between the parameters obtained in consecutive years were introduced. We observe that 97 countries out of 142 consistently occupy the same position in the copper supply chain throughout the five years, while the other 45 move through different roles in the copper supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2015, when the so‐called migrant crisis exploded in Italy, Rome has become a transit crossroads for a huge number of people who arrived in Europe through the Mediterranean route (Lendaro et al. 2019). This phenomenon determined the development of a heterogeneous network of solidarity supporting migrants in transit (Giliberti & Potot 2021). Over the years, following the transformations of Italian and European policies for the management of migration processes, the solidarity networks have begun to meet other subjects in addition to migrants in transit: 'orbiters' around the city, awaiting access to international protection or recently expelled from the Italian reception system, forced to live in a state of stasis that allows them to be defined as 'lifelong in‐betweener' subjects and representing the concept of 'turbulence migration' (Papastergiadis 2000). This article focuses on the transformation of the solidarity practices and on the new mobility strategies acted by migrants, both linked with the social/juridical features of those we defined 'orbiters'. From a methodological point of view, this paper is based on different moments of ethnographic observation in some key sites for solidarity to migrants in Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines how relational positivity and negativity within personal networks shape the return experiences of Hungarian migrants. Previous studies have hinted at the potential ‘dark side’ to personal networks for returnees, but no research has explored how different types of positive and negative ties impact return experiences. To address this gap, the study collected personal network data from 69 returning migrants in Hungary and analysed the effects of social support, relational negativity, and ambivalence on their self‐evaluated return experience score. The findings reveal that migrants' return experiences are significantly influenced by both relational positivity and negativity, affected by factors such as relational context, emotional closeness, geographical location, and social status. Particularly, relationships with family members and romantic partners are susceptible to relational negativity, which can adversely affect return experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of network and multimedia technologies, the widespread use of images in social networks, military applications, and other fields has led to substantial demands for image encryption. To protect images from potential threats, most protocols perform multiple rounds of confusion and diffusion until a satisfactory security level is attained. However, this strategy is time-consuming and unable to meet the requirements for real-time video encryption. Consequently, many works realize video encryption by simplifying the encryption process, e.g. employing a single round of confusion and diffusion to encrypt each frame. To enhance security to the level of image encryption while ensuring real-time performance, this paper proposes a real-time video encryption protocol based on multi-round confusion-diffusion architecture. It splits the frame into subframes, uses a set of threads to concurrently perform confusion and diffusion. The statistical and security analyses demonstrate the proposed protocol exhibits exceptional statistical properties and is resistant to various attacks. The encryption speed evaluation shows that our method significantly enhances computational efficiency, achieving latency-free encryption of 5 1 2 × 5 1 2 24FPS videos using the Intel Xeon Gold 6226R@2.9 GHz CPU. Even with the execution of four rounds of confusion and six rounds of diffusion operations on each frame, the average encryption time remains below 30 ms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtualization fundamentally changes how social relations form, but its effect on network structure in collaborative teams is poorly understood. This paper compares team networks from nine government-funded projects that were conducted virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic with 15 prepandemic projects from the same funding program. Results of our comparative analysis of 2,746 dyadic ties in 24 teams showed lower levels of network density, clustering, and structural cohesion in virtualized projects, indicating fragmented virtual teams. Furthermore, expressive networks, defined by the sharing of personal information, were affected more than instrumental networks, which revolve around the sharing of expert knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we concentrate on the neolithisation process in Mediterranean Iberia through a diachronic view (from 8600–6800 cal. BP), focusing on social interaction as a factor in articulating new cultural ties. To do this, we apply techniques centred on similarities in material culture by applying Social Network Analysis (SNA). For the first time, we point to the geometric projectiles, taking into account their recurrence in both Mesolithic and Neolithic groups as part of their characteristic hunting equipment. We hypothesise that patterns of cultural variability would express the changing flow of information between communities according to their mobility strategies (last hunter-gatherer groups), including economic and social behaviour, and that these relationships will be restructured with the arrival of the newcomer farmers and herders and their new spatial and social arrangement. The results obtained allow us to describe a connected and homogeneous Late Mesolithic network dramatically structured by the Neolithic arrival. Since then, a heterogenous pattern emerged, involving connected periods, network ruptures, and small-world phenomena. The emergence of this characteristic could support the flow of information when the network presents a clustered structure, the last probably due to regionalisation events. These diachronic dynamics fit well with demographic and socioecological trends observed from regional literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In area of group abnormity detection, deep learning-based methods have received more attention in recent years. But existing research works mostly failed to well-integrate complex graph-level characteristics of social network context into feature representation. To deal with this issue, this paper proposes an enhanced group abnormity detection model in social networks through multi-scale knowledge graph-based deep learning. First, multi-scale knowledge graph is formulated to extract and field knowledge as the fundamental support. Then, a recurrent neural network structure is utilized to express graph-level features, so as to aggregate the information of the surrounding nodes. For output of group abnormity detection results, the interaction information among users is further considered, and the correlation analysis of abnormal behaviors is conducted based on the probability expression. On this basis, probabilistic soft logic is used to express the relationship between abnormal association users and their behavior occurrence. Finally, a set of identification rules are developed to discover abnormal association users, and those who have the same association probability value are identified as abnormal user groups. Experiments are conducted on social network dataset to evaluate performance of the proposed model. The results reveal that it can make group abnormity identification with higher accuracy compared with baseline methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technologies and social networks have modified the habits of their users, affecting their health and well-being. An exponent of these affectations of daily life is the phenomenon of vamping, this is the habit in which people use their mobile or computer during the night and early morning, with the consequence of symptoms such as insomnia, fatigue, and mood swings in those who practice it. In this paper, we propose a scale to assess the tendency to vamping in adults, for its validation in the Argentine context. With a sample of 1004 cases, whose mean age was 44.29 years (SD = 11.73) and a mean age of 18–65 years, with 51.89% (n = 521) being women and 48.11% men (n = 483). The scale showed an adequate consistency for 11 items and two dimensions. The first dimension is nocturnal habits, that is, the tendency to stay up late to surf the Internet and social networks, and the second dimension is behavioural commitment, that is, the affectation and daytime correlate caused by changes in sleep pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Works of fiction play a crucial role in the production of cultural stereotypes. Concerning gender, a widely held presumption is that many such works ascribe agency to men and passivity to women. However, large-scale diachronic analyses of this notion have been lacking. This paper provides an assessment of agency attributions in 87,531 fiction works written between 1850 and 2010. It introduces a syntax-based approach for extracting networks of character interactions. Agency is then formalized as a dyadic property: Does a character primarily serve as an agent acting upon the other character or as recipient acted upon by the other character? Findings indicate that female characters are more likely to be passive in cross-gender relationships than their male counterparts. This difference, the gender agency gap, has declined since the 19th century but persists into the 21st. Male authors are especially likely to attribute less agency to female characters. Moreover, certain kinds of actions, especially physical and villainous ones, have more pronounced gender disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main sources of information dissemination is social networks. Changes in social and Internet of Things (IoT) relationships can affect the quality of service (QoS) of device-to-device (D2D) communication in fifth-generation (5G) networks. Integration of social networks and IoT networks will allow users to improve their communication abilities with proximity users. The most challenging issues are interference and channel uncertainty due to massive connectivity and random movement of users in an urban dynamic environment. In this paper, D2D-based social Internet of Things (D2D–social IoT) in a 5G network is modeled for urban regions. To address these issues, we formulate a throughput maximization problem under the maximum power and QoS constraints. The problem is divided into multiple subproblems to reduce interference and enhance throughput. First, we leverage the interference channel link for intelligent resource sharing with better QoS by the spatiotemporal method. The second one involves bisection-based power search optimization by utilizing the Mellin transformation method for latency and power minimization. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves the network performance in terms of throughput, sum rate, and reduction in network latency by up to 19.91%, 26.24%, and 31.57%, respectively. It is expected that an inclusive implementation of the said method can enable resource allocation in 5G-enabled social IoT networks for the development of smart city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classical Shapley value for cooperative games determines a payoff vector considering that the formation of the grand coalition is made by incorporating players one by one. Later, this method was generalized for games with restricted cooperation by several known mathematical structures: partitions, graphs, convex geometries, antimatroids, matroids or simplicial complexes. In this paper we consider games over simplicial complex with an extra information about the relationships of the agents, a filtration of the complex. Filtrations are very known simplicial structures in the social and neuronal networks. We propose a Shapley value for these situations and an axiomatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn recent years, there has been growing research interest in aligning technological designs with users’ lived experiences. The goal of this work is to review existing work on the current state-of-the-art on incorporating individual and community values and beliefs into various kinds of interactive computerized technologies, emphasizing socio-cultural sensitivity. After screening 235 records, 45 papers were included in this review. Our research reveals that researchers are at the forefront of developing advanced socio-cultural digital tools and interactive educational platforms. They frequently employ techniques like collaborative dialogue facilitation, personalized linguistic support, and the integration of culturally significant design principles, such as cultural narratives and symbols. This commitment to technology’s transformative potential extends beyond education, making its mark in healthcare, social networks, finance, and other domains. We conclude by providing an overview of the questions that other researchers can investigate in the future for designing technologies that are socio-culturally sensitive. Future studies would benefit from a wider use of theories to account for the complexity of human behavior while designing socio-culturally sensitive technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a significant gap in drug market literature by examining high-level drug trafficking networks in Japan. We focus on three aspects: the structure of drug importation networks, the impact of transport methods on these structures, and the role of Japan’s mafia, the yakuza. Using novel statistical techniques that extend exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to multi-network samples, we analyse 573 Japanese trial documents on wholesale drug importation. We test the theory that trafficking operations with higher information-processing demands exhibit more efficiency-oriented network structures, while governance-type groups avoid expanding into trade activities. Our findings support these theories, showing that networks with higher information-processing demands are more efficiency-oriented but maintain security. Conversely, smaller networks with simpler transport methods prioritise security and concealment. Additionally, the yakuza do not organisationally engage in drug trafficking; when involved, yakuza members act as independent entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The propagation of online rumors is rapid, and its propagation mechanism has always been a research difficulty. In this paper, the network rumors are compared to the nuclear fission process, and a network rumors propagation model is constructed. First, the initial online rumors are compared to neutrons, uranium nuclei are compared to individual rumor receivers, and fission barriers are compared to individual active propagation thresholds. Second, the process of nuclear fission is analyzed and the degree of energy accumulation is used to compare the social impact of online rumors. Finally, the online rumor propagation model based on nuclear fission is constructed. Through experimental simulation, it has been shown that compared to classic infectious disease models, this model can better describe the propagation process of rumors in social networks. Through research and analysis, suggestions for suppressing rumors have been proposed, providing new ideas and references for future researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scripts can help us understand the designer–user relationship, by offering analysis of designers' intent in technological objects and examination of users' behaviors through willingness (and unwillingness) to take on scripts. But how are we to understand these relationships in the context of cybersecurity, in the face of adversaries determined to gain unauthorized access to computer systems by actively subverting scripts? In effect, cybersecurity attacks involve re-scripting of computing systems to gain unauthorized access through unscripted features of these systems. Cybersecurity attacks are always uncertain events: attackers can never be certain when re-scripting will be successful, and defenders can never be certain when or where to expect an attack, as unscripted features are difficult to know until they are exploited. In this paper, I study practices of cybersecurity incident response to examine how cybersecurity engineers respond to the novel attacks they encounter daily. I show how these are fundamentally unscripted practices emerging in response to unstable scripts, structured through the uncertainties inherent in cybersecurity engineering practice. The improvised practices and changing networks of social relations which I trace demonstrate the limits of stable scripts and provide new tools for analyzing unstable scripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differential privacy, a cornerstone of privacy-preserving techniques, plays an indispensable role in ensuring the secure handling and sharing of sensitive data analysis across domains such as in census, healthcare, and social networks. Histograms, serving as a visually compelling tool for presenting analytical outcomes, are widely employed in these sectors. Currently, numerous algorithms for publishing histograms under differential privacy have been developed, striving to balance privacy protection with the provision of useful data. Nonetheless, the pivotal challenge concerning the effective enhancement of precision for small bins (those intervals that are narrowly defined or contain a relatively small number of data points) within histograms has yet to receive adequate attention and in-depth investigation from experts. In standard DP histogram publishing, adding noise without regard for bin size can result in small data bins being disproportionately influenced by noise, potentially severely impairing the overall accuracy of the histogram. In response to this challenge, this paper introduces the SReB_GCA sanitization algorithm designed to enhance the accuracy of small bins in DP histograms. The SReB_GCA approach involves sorting the bins from smallest to largest and applying a greedy grouping strategy, with a predefined lower bound on the mean relative error required for a bin to be included in a group. Our theoretical analysis reveals that sorting bins in ascending order prior to grouping effectively prioritizes the accuracy of smaller bins. SReB_GCA ensures strict ϵ -DP compliance and strikes a careful balance between reconstruction error and noise error, thereby not only initially improving the accuracy of small bins but also approximately optimizing the mean relative error of the entire histogram. To validate the efficiency of our proposed SReB_GCA method, we conducted extensive experiments using four diverse datasets, including two real-life datasets and two synthetic ones. The experimental results, quantified by the Kullback–Leibler Divergence (KLD), show that the SReB_GCA algorithm achieves substantial performance enhancement compared to the baseline method (DP_BASE) and several other established approaches for differential privacy histogram publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the level of influence of the posts published by famous people on social networks on the formation of the cryptocurrency exchange rate is investigated. Celebrities who are familiar with the financial industry, especially with the cryptocurrency market, or are somehow connected to a certain cryptocurrency, such as Elon Musk with Dogecoin, are chosen as experts whose influence through social media posts on cryptocurrency rates is examined. This research is conducted based on statistical analysis. Real cryptocurrency exchange rate forecasts for the selected time period and predicted ones for the same period, obtained using three algorithms, are utilized as a dataset. This paper uses methods such as statistical hypotheses regarding the significance of Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient and Pearson’s correlation. It is confirmed that the posts by famous people on social networks significantly affect the exchange rates of cryptocurrencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]