2,587 research outputs found
The network organisation of consumer complaints
Interaction between consumers and companies can create conflict. When a
consensus is unreachable there are legal authorities to resolve the case. This
letter is a study of data from the Brazilian Department of Justice from which
we build a bipartite network of categories of complaints linked to the
companies receiving those complaints. We find the complaint categories
organised in an hierarchical way where companies only get complaints of lower
degree if they already got complaints of higher degree. The fraction of
resolved complaints for a company appears to be nearly independent on the
equity of the company but is positively correlated with the total number of
complaints received. We construct feature vectors based on the edge-weight -
the weight of an edge represents the times complaints of a category have been
filed against that company - and use these vectors to study the similarity
between the categories of complaints. From this analysis, we obtain trees
mapping the hierarchical organisation of the complaints. We also apply
principal component analysis to the set of feature vectors concluding that a
reduction of the dimensionality of these from 8827 to 27 gives an optimal
hierarchical representation.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl
Foundation Focus (Issue 17): Social Dialogue - For a Competitive, Fair and Modern Europe
Social dialogue is a key part of the European social model, with European social dialogue having been launched at the historic Val Duchesse meeting 30 years ago. However, since then, established approaches to social dialogue in Europe have been challenged by industrial and social change. Ongoing shifts towards greater decentralisation of collective bargaining have resulted in a polarisation of Member States and the crisis has resulted in an increased trend towards unilateral decisionmaking by governments at the expense of social partners’ autonomy. In response to these challenges, the new Juncker Commission has set about a ‘relaunching’ of social dialogue. This issue of Foundation Focus looks at the current state of play of social dialogue in Europe, focusing in particular on Eurofound’s extensive research findings from both its Europe-wide surveys and its observatories
Disentangling agglomeration and network externalities : a conceptual typology
Agglomeration and network externalities are fuzzy concepts. When different meanings are (un)intentionally juxtaposed in analyses of the agglomeration/network externalities-menagerie, researchers may reach inaccurate conclusions about how they interlock. Both externality types can be analytically combined, but only when one adopts a coherent approach to their conceptualization and operationalization, to which end we provide a combinatorial typology. We illustrate the typology by applying a state-of-the-art bipartite network projection detailing the presence of globalized producer services firms in cities in 2012. This leads to two one-mode graphs that can be validly interpreted as topological renderings of agglomeration and network externalities
Children, family and the state : revisiting public and private realms
The state is often viewed as part of the impersonal public sphere in opposition to the private family as a locus of warmth and intimacy. In recent years this modernist dichotomy has been challenged by theoretical and institutional trends which have altered the relationship between state and family. This paper explores changes to both elements of the dichotomy that challenge this relationship: a more fragmented family structure and more individualised and networked support for children. It will also examine two new elements that further disrupt any clear mapping between state/family and public/private dichotomies: the third party role of the child in family/state affairs and children's application of virtual technology that locates the private within new cultural and social spaces. The paper concludes by examining the rise of the 'individual child' hitherto hidden within the family/state dichotomy and the implications this has for intergenerational relations at personal and institutional levels
Open budget data: mapping the landscape
This report offers analysis of the emerging issue of open budget data, which has begun to gain traction amongst advocates and practitioners of financial transparency.
Issues and initiatives associated with the emerging issue of open budget data are charted in different forms of digital media. The objective is to enable practitioners – in particular civil society organisations, intergovernmental organisations, governments, multilaterals and funders – to navigate this developing field and to identify trends, gaps and opportunities for supporting it.
How public money is collected and distributed is one of the most pressing political questions of our time, influencing the health, well-being and prospects of billions of people. Decisions about fiscal policy affect everyone - determining everything from the resourcing of essential public services, to the capacity of public institutions to take action on global challenges such as poverty, inequality or climate change.
Digital technologies have the potential to transform the way that information about public money is organised, circulated and utilised in society, which in turn could shape the character of public debate, democratic engagement, governmental accountability and public participation in decision-making about public funds. Data could play a vital role in tackling the democratic deficit in fiscal policy and in supporting better outcomes for citizens
Complex networks analysis in socioeconomic models
This chapter aims at reviewing complex networks models and methods that were
either developed for or applied to socioeconomic issues, and pertinent to the
theme of New Economic Geography. After an introduction to the foundations of
the field of complex networks, the present summary adds insights on the
statistical mechanical approach, and on the most relevant computational aspects
for the treatment of these systems. As the most frequently used model for
interacting agent-based systems, a brief description of the statistical
mechanics of the classical Ising model on regular lattices, together with
recent extensions of the same model on small-world Watts-Strogatz and
scale-free Albert-Barabasi complex networks is included. Other sections of the
chapter are devoted to applications of complex networks to economics, finance,
spreading of innovations, and regional trade and developments. The chapter also
reviews results involving applications of complex networks to other relevant
socioeconomic issues, including results for opinion and citation networks.
Finally, some avenues for future research are introduced before summarizing the
main conclusions of the chapter.Comment: 39 pages, 185 references, (not final version of) a chapter prepared
for Complexity and Geographical Economics - Topics and Tools, P.
Commendatore, S.S. Kayam and I. Kubin Eds. (Springer, to be published
Decentralizing Coordination in Open Vehicle Fleets for Scalable and Dynamic Task Allocation
One of the major challenges in the coordination of large, open,
collaborative, and commercial vehicle fleets is dynamic task allocation.
Self-concerned individually rational vehicle drivers have both local and global
objectives, which require coordination using some fair and efficient task
allocation method. In this paper, we review the literature on scalable and
dynamic task allocation focusing on deterministic and dynamic two-dimensional
linear assignment problems. We focus on multiagent system representation of
open vehicle fleets where dynamically appearing vehicles are represented by
software agents that should be allocated to a set of dynamically appearing
tasks. We give a comparison and critical analysis of recent research results
focusing on centralized, distributed, and decentralized solution approaches.
Moreover, we propose mathematical models for dynamic versions of the following
assignment problems well known in combinatorial optimization: the assignment
problem, bottleneck assignment problem, fair matching problem, dynamic minimum
deviation assignment problem, -assignment problem, the semiassignment
problem, the assignment problem with side constraints, and the assignment
problem while recognizing agent qualification; all while considering the main
aspect of open vehicle fleets: random arrival of tasks and vehicles (agents)
that may become available after assisting previous tasks or by participating in
the fleet at times based on individual interest
- …