A Biased Review of Sociophysics

Various aspects of recent sociophysics research are shortly reviewed: Schelling model as an example for lack of interdisciplinary cooperation, opinion dynamics, combat, and citation statistics as an example for strong interdisciplinarity.Comment: 16 pages for J. Stat. Phys. including 2 figures and numerous reference

The Indivisibility of Social Media, Corporate Branding, and Reputation Management

From 1995 to 2004, the internet hosted static, one-way websites; these were places to visit passively, retrieve information from, and perhaps post comments about by electronic mail. This Web 1.0 was about getting people connected, even if its applications were largely proprietary and only displayed information their owners wished to publish. Today,Web 2.0 enables many-to-many connections in countless domains of interest and practice. People are connected and expect the internet to be user-centric. They generate content, business intelligence, reviews and opinions, products, networks of contacts, statements on the value of web pages, connectivity, and expressions of taste and emotion that search engines, not portals, fetch. They hold global conversations in forms dubbed, collectively, as social media

Rethinking Corporate social Responsibility: A Fleishman-Hillard/National Consumers League Study

In late 2006, Fleishman-Hillard Inc. and the National Consumers League prepared for the second annual survey of Americans' perceptions of corporate social responsibility against the backdrop of sweeping national political change following the 2006 midterm elections. Democrats had captured both chambers of Congress as well as many governorships across the country. For the first time in more than six years, a greater percentage of Independents voted with Democrats, helping to turn the tide against incumbent Republicans.In the wake of the November 2006 elections, we wondered whether Americans were viewing corporate social responsibility from a fourth perspective — as a voter.  This year's survey, therefore, investigates Americans' perception of corporate social responsibility based on political party affiliations. We also used the survey findings to determine whether Americans expect government to play a role in realigning corporate America's priorities and values with their own. We identified several compelling themes that appeared throughout the data. In particular, a substantial majority of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents believe that:1. The American public's priorities appear to be out of alignment with corporate practices.2. U.S. corporations do not act responsibly.3. Government should be involved.Our survey findings lead us to believe that Americans have reached a tipping point with their expectations of — and frustrations with — business. So much so, that they are now willing to have government step in to help realign corporate behavior with the values and priorities that they value

IP Law Book Review: \u3cem\u3eConfiguring the Networked Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Every Day Practice\u3c/em\u3e

Julie Cohen\u27s Configuring the Networked Self is an extraordinarily insightful book. Cohen not only applies extant theory to law; she also distills it into her own distinctive social theory of the information age. Thus, even relatively short sections of chapters of her book often merit article-length close readings. I here offer a brief for the practical importance of Cohen’s theory, and ways it should influence intellectual property policy and scholarship

Values-Based Network Leadership in an Interconnected World

This paper describes values-based network leadership conceptually aligned to systems science, principles of networks, moral and ethical development, and connectivism. Values-based network leadership places importance on a leader\u27s repertoire of skills for stewarding a culture of purpose and calling among distributed teams in a globally interconnected world. Values-based network leadership is applicable for any leader needing to align interdependent effort by networks of teams operating across virtual and physical environments to achieve a collective purpose. An open-learning ecosystem is also described to help leaders address the development of strengths associated with building trust and relationships across networks of teams, aligned under a higher purpose and calling, possessing moral fiber, resilient in the face of complexity, reflectively competent to adapt as interconnected efforts evolve and change within multicultural environments, and able to figure out new ways to do something never done before

Communicating for change: media and agency in the networked public sphere

This paper is aimed at anyone who is interested in the role of media as an influence on power and policy. It especially about the role of news journalism, NGOs and other activists who use communication for change. It looks at the context for those actors and their actions. It asks how much the Internet and social networks are changing advocacy. It takes an ethical and political rather than technological or theoretical approach. It ask whether the ‘public sphere’ needs to be redefined. If that is the case, I argue, then we need to think again about journalism, advocacy communications and the relationship between mediation and social, political or economic change. I would identify three overlapping, interrelated media dynamics that might add up to the need for a new notion of the public sphere: the disruption of communication power; the rise of networked journalism; the dual forces for online socialisation and corporatisation. This is not only a theoretical concern. From these dynamics flow all the other arguments about what kind of media we want or need, and what effect it will have on our ability to communicate particular kinds of issues or information. Unless we understand the strategic context of these changes we will continue to make the kind of tactical blunders that Kony2012, for example, represents. This is not just an academic question, it is an ethical, political and practical set of problems

Post-Westgate SWAT : C4ISTAR Architectural Framework for Autonomous Network Integrated Multifaceted Warfighting Solutions Version 1.0 : A Peer-Reviewed Monograph

Police SWAT teams and Military Special Forces face mounting pressure and challenges from adversaries that can only be resolved by way of ever more sophisticated inputs into tactical operations. Lethal Autonomy provides constrained military/security forces with a viable option, but only if implementation has got proper empirically supported foundations. Autonomous weapon systems can be designed and developed to conduct ground, air and naval operations. This monograph offers some insights into the challenges of developing legal, reliable and ethical forms of autonomous weapons, that address the gap between Police or Law Enforcement and Military operations that is growing exponentially small. National adversaries are today in many instances hybrid threats, that manifest criminal and military traits, these often require deployment of hybrid-capability autonomous weapons imbued with the capability to taken on both Military and/or Security objectives. The Westgate Terrorist Attack of 21st September 2013 in the Westlands suburb of Nairobi, Kenya is a very clear manifestation of the hybrid combat scenario that required military response and police investigations against a fighting cell of the Somalia based globally networked Al Shabaab terrorist group.Comment: 52 pages, 6 Figures, over 40 references, reviewed by a reade