171,415 research outputs found
Early Warning Analysis for Social Diffusion Events
There is considerable interest in developing predictive capabilities for
social diffusion processes, for instance to permit early identification of
emerging contentious situations, rapid detection of disease outbreaks, or
accurate forecasting of the ultimate reach of potentially viral ideas or
behaviors. This paper proposes a new approach to this predictive analytics
problem, in which analysis of meso-scale network dynamics is leveraged to
generate useful predictions for complex social phenomena. We begin by deriving
a stochastic hybrid dynamical systems (S-HDS) model for diffusion processes
taking place over social networks with realistic topologies; this modeling
approach is inspired by recent work in biology demonstrating that S-HDS offer a
useful mathematical formalism with which to represent complex, multi-scale
biological network dynamics. We then perform formal stochastic reachability
analysis with this S-HDS model and conclude that the outcomes of social
diffusion processes may depend crucially upon the way the early dynamics of the
process interacts with the underlying network's community structure and
core-periphery structure. This theoretical finding provides the foundations for
developing a machine learning algorithm that enables accurate early warning
analysis for social diffusion events. The utility of the warning algorithm, and
the power of network-based predictive metrics, are demonstrated through an
empirical investigation of the propagation of political memes over social media
networks. Additionally, we illustrate the potential of the approach for
security informatics applications through case studies involving early warning
analysis of large-scale protests events and politically-motivated cyber
attacks
How does militant violence diffuse in regions? Regional conflict systems in international relations and peace and conflict studies
Regional conflict systems are characterised by their complexity of actors, causes, structural conditions and dynamics. Such complexity poses difficulties to those looking to undertake scientific analysis of the regional dynamics of violence. It is still quite unclear how militant violence diffuses in regions and under which conditions a regional conflict system can emerge. This review of existing approaches to regional conflict dynamics in international studies and peace and conflict studies focuses on how the regional conflict dynamics and the causal mechanisms behind the development of regional conflict systems are dealt with, considering process dynamics in space and time as well as in the interactions between possible causal factors. The primary gaps in existing research are identified and possible new research directions sketched out.Regional conflict systems are characterised by their complexity of actors, causes, structural conditions and dynamics. Such complexity, however, poses difficulties to those looking to undertake scientific analysis of these processes. In the present paper existing approaches to regional conflict dynamics in international studies and peace and conflict studies are reviewed. Of particular interest is the question how these approaches dealt with regional violence in areas with limited or no statehood as this is one of the striking conditions for the emergence and diffusion of regional conflict systems. Starting from this question, the main research gaps that exist in the current literature on regional conflicts will be detected. Furthermore, new research directions will be pointed out
The Lifecycle and Cascade of WeChat Social Messaging Groups
Social instant messaging services are emerging as a transformative form with
which people connect, communicate with friends in their daily life - they
catalyze the formation of social groups, and they bring people stronger sense
of community and connection. However, research community still knows little
about the formation and evolution of groups in the context of social messaging
- their lifecycles, the change in their underlying structures over time, and
the diffusion processes by which they develop new members. In this paper, we
analyze the daily usage logs from WeChat group messaging platform - the largest
standalone messaging communication service in China - with the goal of
understanding the processes by which social messaging groups come together,
grow new members, and evolve over time. Specifically, we discover a strong
dichotomy among groups in terms of their lifecycle, and develop a separability
model by taking into account a broad range of group-level features, showing
that long-term and short-term groups are inherently distinct. We also found
that the lifecycle of messaging groups is largely dependent on their social
roles and functions in users' daily social experiences and specific purposes.
Given the strong separability between the long-term and short-term groups, we
further address the problem concerning the early prediction of successful
communities. In addition to modeling the growth and evolution from group-level
perspective, we investigate the individual-level attributes of group members
and study the diffusion process by which groups gain new members. By
considering members' historical engagement behavior as well as the local social
network structure that they embedded in, we develop a membership cascade model
and demonstrate the effectiveness by achieving AUC of 95.31% in predicting
inviter, and an AUC of 98.66% in predicting invitee.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, to appear in proceedings of the 25th
International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2016
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Transition in place: dynamics, possibilities, and constraints
The Transition Movement is a translocal phenomenon circulated through transnational grassroots networks.
This study explores the geographies of the Transition Movement with a theoretical framework that perceives it as both a social movement and a grassroots innovation. Participant-observation of Transition Salt Lake (TSL), located in the suburban metropolis of Salt Lake City, Utah, was conducted, as the United States remains a largely understudied country in regards to this particular movement. In this pursuit, we asked: (i) how and what this transition initiative draws from geographically extensive and intensive relations, (ii) how it combines place-specific elements and generalized models (embeddedness), and (iii) how this impacts the success of the transition initiative and how these impacts (positive or negative) are generated. Place, space, and scale played a large role in defining the nature, dynamics, possibilities, and constraints of this transition initiative. Specifically, geographically intensive and extensive relations were critical for the mobilization of complementary resources. The Transition model was found to be flexible, allowing for the initiative to adopt those elements that worked in place and to focus on locally relevant topics. TSL faced many challenges identified by previous researchers regarding finances, participation, diversity, and intragroup competition. While networking with other similar groups, TSL demonstrated that fertile environments of activism are incubatory pools for grassroots innovations
and social movements, and a trade-off was found with competition for resources between local groups
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