Dissemination of Health Information within Social Networks

In this paper, we investigate, how information about a common food born health hazard, known as Campylobacter, spreads once it was delivered to a random sample of individuals in France. The central question addressed here is how individual characteristics and the various aspects of social network influence the spread of information. A key claim of our paper is that information diffusion processes occur in a patterned network of social ties of heterogeneous actors. Our percolation models show that the characteristics of the recipients of the information matter as much if not more than the characteristics of the sender of the information in deciding whether the information will be transmitted through a particular tie. We also found that at least for this particular advisory, it is not the perceived need of the recipients for the information that matters but their general interest in the topic

Mining email to leverage knowledge networks in organizations

There is nothing new about the notion that in today‟s knowledge driven economy, knowledge is the key strategic asset for competitive advantage in an organization. Also, we have learned that knowledge is residing in the organization‟s informal network. Hence, to leverage business performance from a knowledge management perspective, focus should be on the informal network. A means to analyze and develop the informal network is by applying Social Network Analysis (SNA). By capturing network data in an organization, bottlenecks in knowledge processes can be identified and managed. But where network data can easily be captured by means of a survey in small organizations, in larger organizations this process is too complex and time-intensive. Mining e-mail data is more and more regarded as a suitable alternative as it automates the data capturing process and enables longitudinal research possibilities. An increasing amount of tools for mining e-mail data into social networks is available, but the question remains to what extent these tools are also capable of conducting knowledge network analysis: the analysis of networks from a knowledge perspective. It is argued that in order to perform knowledge network analysis, a tool is required that is capable of analyzing both the header data and the body data of e-mail messages. In this paper two e-mail mining tools are elaborated. One focuses on the analysis of e-mail header data and the other focuses on the analysis of e-mail body data. Both tools are embedded in their theoretical background and compared to other e-mail mining tools that address e-mail header data or e-mail body data. The aim of this paper is two-fold. The paper primarily aims at providing a detailed discussion of both tools. Continuing, from the in-depth review, the integration of both tools is proposed, concluding towards a single new tool that is capable of analyzing both e-mail header and body data. It is argued how this new tool nurtures the application of knowledge network analysis

Studying and Modeling the Connection between People's Preferences and Content Sharing

People regularly share items using online social media. However, people's decisions around sharing---who shares what to whom and why---are not well understood. We present a user study involving 87 pairs of Facebook users to understand how people make their sharing decisions. We find that even when sharing to a specific individual, people's own preference for an item (individuation) dominates over the recipient's preferences (altruism). People's open-ended responses about how they share, however, indicate that they do try to personalize shares based on the recipient. To explain these contrasting results, we propose a novel process model of sharing that takes into account people's preferences and the salience of an item. We also present encouraging results for a sharing prediction model that incorporates both the senders' and the recipients' preferences. These results suggest improvements to both algorithms that support sharing in social media and to information diffusion models.Comment: CSCW 201

Characterizing Phishing Threats with Natural Language Processing

Spear phishing is a widespread concern in the modern network security landscape, but there are few metrics that measure the extent to which reconnaissance is performed on phishing targets. Spear phishing emails closely match the expectations of the recipient, based on details of their experiences and interests, making them a popular propagation vector for harmful malware. In this work we use Natural Language Processing techniques to investigate a specific real-world phishing campaign and quantify attributes that indicate a targeted spear phishing attack. Our phishing campaign data sample comprises 596 emails - all containing a web bug and a Curriculum Vitae (CV) PDF attachment - sent to our institution by a foreign IP space. The campaign was found to exclusively target specific demographics within our institution. Performing a semantic similarity analysis between the senders' CV attachments and the recipients' LinkedIn profiles, we conclude with high statistical certainty (p $< 10^{-4}$) that the attachments contain targeted rather than randomly selected material. Latent Semantic Analysis further demonstrates that individuals who were a primary focus of the campaign received CVs that are highly topically clustered. These findings differentiate this campaign from one that leverages random spam.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication by the IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security in September 2015 at Florence, Italy. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl

Porqpine: a peer-to-peer search engine

In this paper, we present a fully distributed and collaborative search engine for web pages: Porqpine. This system uses a novel query-based model and collaborative filtering techniques in order to obtain user-customized results. All knowledge about users and profiles is stored in each user node?s application. Overall the system is a multi-agent system that runs on the computers of the user community. The nodes interact in a peer-to-peer fashion in order to create a real distributed search engine where information is completely distributed among all the nodes in the network. Moreover, the system preserves the privacy of user queries and results by maintaining the anonymity of the queries? consumers and results? producers. The knowledge required by the system to work is implicitly caught through the monitoring of users actions, not only within the system?s interface but also within one of the most popular web browsers. Thus, users are not required to explicitly feed knowledge about their interests into the system since this process is done automatically. In this manner, users obtain the benefits of a personalized search engine just by installing the application on their computer. Porqpine does not intend to shun completely conventional centralized search engines but to complement them by issuing more accurate and personalized results.Postprint (published version

Person‐Centered Emotional Support and Gender Attributions in Computer‐Mediated Communication

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98127/1/hcre12006.pd

Factors influencing informal cross-border knowledge sharing via enterprise social software

Knowledge sharing is an essential activity for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in today’s multinational companies (MNCs). The difficulty for an MNC’s geographically and functionally dispersed knowledge workers to informally share their knowledge across borders gives rise to enterprise social software platforms (ESSPs) and their tools to facilitate the sharing activity. In light of knowledge worker reluctance to contribute to these tools, this research analyzes determinants of an ESSP’s tools adoption and usage behaviour. This research addresses one main research question with three sub-questions. The main question investigates the factors that influence a knowledge worker’s willingness and contributions to informal cross-border knowledge sharing via an ESSP’s tools. The sub-questions explore a knowledge worker’s attitude, behavioural intention, and behavioural usage, through identifying motivational drivers and inhibiting barriers. Exploratory qualitative research was employed within this empirical study to answer the research questions through conducting nine semi-structured interviews. All interviewees were knowledge workers within one case company which provided an ESSP with the following tools exhibiting varying usage: user profiles, a wiki, and a discussion board. Content analysis of the data was structured around the theory of planned behaviour, the unified theory of the acceptance and use of technology, and social relationship theories. This resulted in the development of an integrative framework which illuminated the interrelated influence of individual, technological, and social factors resulting in a knowledge worker’s adoption and behavioural usage of an organization’s ESSP’s tools for informally sharing their knowledge across borders. In addition to individual attitudinal determinants, behavioural intention was found to be influenced primarily by the existence of technological motivational drivers in the form of perceived valued outcomes and inhibiting barriers embodied by one’s perceived effort. These were moderated by social factors related to one’s perceived social influence for each tool and the perceived support from the contextual organizational environment.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

The design and evaluation of EKE, a semi-automated email knowledge extraction tool

This paper presents an approach to locating experts within organisations through the use of the indispensable communication medium and source of information, email. The approach was realised through the email expert locator architecture developed by the authors, which uses email content in the modelling of individuals' expertise profiles. The approach has been applied to a real-world application, EKE, and evaluated using focus group sessions and system trials. In this work, the authors report the findings obtained from the focus groups sessions. The aim of the sessions was to obtain information about the participants' perceptions, opinions, underlying attitudes, and recommendations with regard to the notion of exploiting email content for expertise profiling. The paper provides a review of the various approaches to expertise location that have been developed and highlights the end-users' perspectives on the usability and functionality of EKE and the socio-ethical challenges raised by its adoption from an industrial perspective. © 2012 Operational Research Society. All rights reserved

Using role sets to engage and persuade visitors of websites that promote safe sex.

Promoting safe sexual behavior is difficult because of the face threatening nature of such messages. Too much facework involves the risk of the message to become unclear and noncommittal, while too little facework might end in the reader resisting the message, and even boomerang effects (reactance). In this paper, it is argued that creating appropriate author and reader roles (role sets) might be an effective way to escape from this dilemma. Some examples are analyzed to identify different role sets and to discuss how they can help. The paper concludes with some considerations on the effect of creating role sets on the persuasiveness of Web sites

Conceptualizing the Electronic Word-of-Mouth Process: What We Know and Need to Know About eWOM Creation, Exposure, and Evaluation

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is a prevalent consumer practice that has undeniable effects on the company bottom line, yet it remains an over-labeled and under-theorized concept. Thus, marketers could benefit from a practical, science-based roadmap to maximize its business value. Building on the consumer motivation–opportunity–ability framework, this study conceptualizes three distinct stages in the eWOM process: eWOM creation, eWOM exposure, and eWOM evaluation. For each stage, we adopt a dual lens—from the perspective of the consumer (who sends and receives eWOM) and that of the marketer (who amplifies and manages eWOM for business results)—to synthesize key research insights and propose a research agenda based on a multidisciplinary systematic review of 1050 academic publications on eWOM published between 1996 and 2019. We conclude with a discussion of the future of eWOM research and practice