Dynamics of Social Networks: Multi-agent Information Fusion, Anticipatory Decision Making and Polling

This paper surveys mathematical models, structural results and algorithms in controlled sensing with social learning in social networks. Part 1, namely Bayesian Social Learning with Controlled Sensing addresses the following questions: How does risk averse behavior in social learning affect quickest change detection? How can information fusion be priced? How is the convergence rate of state estimation affected by social learning? The aim is to develop and extend structural results in stochastic control and Bayesian estimation to answer these questions. Such structural results yield fundamental bounds on the optimal performance, give insight into what parameters affect the optimal policies, and yield computationally efficient algorithms. Part 2, namely, Multi-agent Information Fusion with Behavioral Economics Constraints generalizes Part 1. The agents exhibit sophisticated decision making in a behavioral economics sense; namely the agents make anticipatory decisions (thus the decision strategies are time inconsistent and interpreted as subgame Bayesian Nash equilibria). Part 3, namely {\em Interactive Sensing in Large Networks}, addresses the following questions: How to track the degree distribution of an infinite random graph with dynamics (via a stochastic approximation on a Hilbert space)? How can the infected degree distribution of a Markov modulated power law network and its mean field dynamics be tracked via Bayesian filtering given incomplete information obtained by sampling the network? We also briefly discuss how the glass ceiling effect emerges in social networks. Part 4, namely \emph{Efficient Network Polling} deals with polling in large scale social networks. In such networks, only a fraction of nodes can be polled to determine their decisions. Which nodes should be polled to achieve a statistically accurate estimates

Digital vernetztes Handeln verstehen: Eine Fallstudie zu #HomeToVote und dem irischen Abtreibungsreferendum 2018

Digitally networked action (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012) has become a prominent political reality. This article explores the evolution of digitally networked action, considering the Twitter hashtag #HomeToVote in 2018 as a relevant case. The case study features the return of Irish expatriates to their home country to vote in the referendum on abortion rights, since no postal votes were available to Irish citizens abroad. We investigated how actors participated in digitally networked action on Twitter, viewed from three perspectives: composition, diffusion, and dynamics. Through an @-mention network with 7,373 edges and 5,198 nodes, built on all original tweets (N = 33,927) about #HomeToVote, we interpreted the digitally networked action based on social interaction and information distribution between and beyond categorized subgroups of actors during four phases. The early phases of #HomeToVote are related to engagement and mobilization, while the latter phases are associated with experience sharing and solidarity declaration. Throughout the development of #HomeToVote, individuals and organizational actors show collective endeavors to promote digitally networked action, while media actors use Twitter to consistently depict moments of #HomeToVote. The findings suggest that #HomeToVote, as an organizationally enabled advocacy network, has a large political capacity to share communication linkages, facilitate flexible affiliations, and employ personalized engagement mechanisms.Dieser Artikel untersucht den Twitter-Hashtag #HomeToVote im Jahr 2018 als relevanten Fall der Entwicklung der „digitally networked action“ (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). In der Fallstudie geht es um die Rückkehr irischer Auswanderer in ihr Heimatland, um an dem Referendum über Abtreibungsrechte teilzunehmen, da irischen Bürger*innen im Ausland keine Briefwahl möglich war. Wir untersuchten, wie Akteure an der „digitally networked action“ auf Twitter teilnahmen, aus drei Perspektiven: Zusammensetzung, Diffusion und Dynamik. Anhand eines @-mention-Netzwerks mit 7.373 Kanten und 5.198 Knoten, das auf allen Original-Tweets (N = 33.927) zum Thema #HomeTo-Vote aufgebaut wurde, interpretierten wir die „digitally networked action“ anhand der sozialen Interaktion und Informationsverteilung zwischen kategorisierten Untergruppen von Akteuren innerhalb von vier Phasen. Die frühen Phasen von #HomeToVote stehen im Zusammenhang mit Engagement und Mobilisierung, während die späteren Phasen mit Erfahrungsaustausch und Solidaritätserklärungen verbunden sind. Während der gesamten Entwicklung von #HomeToVote zeigen Individuen und organisatorische Akteure kollektive Bemühungen, um „digitally networked action“ zu fördern, während Medienakteure Twitter nutzen, um Momente von #HomeToVote konsistent darzustellen. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass #HomeToVote als organisatorisch ermöglichtes Advocacy-Netzwerk eine große politische Kapazität hat, um Kommunikationsverbindungen zu teilen, flexible Zugehörigkeiten zu erleichtern und personalisierte Engagement-Mechanismen zu ermöglichen

Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCL’s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was “Global Challenges”, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

International review of women and leadership: Special issue, volume 2 number 1: women and politics

This year is the 75th anniversary of the election of Edith Cowan to the Western Australian parliament, the first woman to be elected to an Australian parliament. It is highly appropriate that the International Review of Women and Leadership should commemorate this anniversary with a special issue dedicated to women and politics. This has enabled us to use Edith Cowan\u27s experience of parliamentary politics as a prism through which to examine continuing dilemmas of women\u27s representation in public life - including concepts of women\u27s interests, equality and difference, separatism versus integration and independence versus partisanship..

Dynamics of Constitutionalism Between Democracy and Authoritarianism as a Complex Adaptive System

International democratization of authoritarian states has created a complex political dynamic pitting the goal of democratic diffusion against the objective of maintaining dictatorial power. By enacting legal reforms while episodically upholding rights or freedoms, amid repression, semi-authoritarian regimes generate diverse political grievances for obtaining constitutional rights and observations of those rights. Semi-authoritarian regimes have developed new tactics of manipulation of information exchange to address these grievances. This dissertation argues that to model semi-authoritarian constitutionalism, scholars must tackle complex multi-level interactions of aggrieved sub-national and state actors under influences of democratization. This dissertation develops a theory, and testable hypotheses, of semi-authoritarian resilience modeled as a complex adaptive system of systems (CASoS). This approach emphasizes concepts such as initial conditions, system structure, information exchange, and emergent phenomena. Using the logic of abduction, through iteration between theory and empirical evidence, a parsimonious explanation is inferred with policy implications for reexamining how democracy is fostered across borders on multiple levels. A multi-level, multi-dimensional representation of interactions across the systems demonstrates a non-monotonic relationship between mobilization, grievance, and repression over time in which a convergence of preferences for more immediate, partial democratic reforms lowers mobilization under semi-authoritarianism, but incentivizes some groups to mobilize outside the existing constitutional system. This dissertation’s pragmatic, multi-method research design explores implications of the developed model over time in the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey, from 1876 to present, and also spatially in contemporary Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, a theory of a constitutional semi-authoritarian dynamic of cycles through phases of repression, reform, and rights over time is developed as an emergent phenomenon of the CASoS. Citizens’ discourse over constitutional reform in public communication processes in Turkey is analyzed using Structural Topic Modeling to understand stealth authoritarian resilience through information exchange and control. Finally, the evolution of Kurdish groups making constitutional claims for self-determination and their cooperation across borders in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, under various influences of democratization, is analyzed as an inter-organizational network, demonstrating the adaptive mechanisms that can deepen sub-national grievances, prolonging conflict, but enhancing the resilience of constitutional semi-authoritarianism

Amsterdam human capital

The familiar shape of western cities is changing dramatically. For long times the urban core was taken for granted as the focal point for international contacts and day-to-day activities in the region. Currently, the urban scope is transforming into multi centred forms at metropolitan scale. The transition is not just a matter of spatial form, it is reflecting social, economic and cultural processes. The question is what new identities may develop in such changing historical conditions of space and place. The book is a first attempt to analyse the process of urban transformation in an integral way. The focus is on the region of Amsterdam. All contributions are written by senior researchers of the Amsterdam studycentre for the Metropolitan Environment (AME). AME is the interdisciplinary urban research institute of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. As the urban research institute at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Amsterdam studycentre for the Metropolitan Environment (AME) analyses the economic, social and cultural aspects of this spatial transformation, usually in international comparative research. All contributions to this book are written by senior researchers of AME in an attempt to analyse in an integral way the present and future dilemmas out of the historical growth paths of this dynamic city

Diversity in leadership: Australian women, past and present

This book provides a new understanding of the historical and contemporary aspects of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s leadership in a range of local, national and international contexts. Overview While leadership is an over-used term today, how it is defined for women and the contexts in which it emerges remains elusive. Moreover, women are exhorted to exercise leadership, but occupying leadership positions has its challenges. Issues of access, acceptable behaviour and the development of skills to be successful leaders are just some of them. Diversity in Leadership: Australian women, past and present provides a new understanding of the historical and contemporary aspects of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s leadership in a range of local, national and international contexts. It brings interdisciplinary expertise to the topic from leading scholars in a range of fields and diverse backgrounds. The aims of the essays in the collection document the extent and diverse nature of women’s social and political leadership across various pursuits and endeavours within democratic political structures