Extremism propagation in social networks with hubs

One aspect of opinion change that has been of academic interest is the impact of people with extreme opinions (extremists) on opinion dynamics. An agent-based model has been used to study the role of small-world social network topologies on general opinion change in the presence of extremists. It has been found that opinion convergence to a single extreme occurs only when the average number of network connections for each individual is extremely high. Here, we extend the model to examine the effect of positively skewed degree distributions, in addition to small-world structures, on the types of opinion convergence that occur in the presence of extremists. We also examine what happens when extremist opinions are located on the well-connected nodes (hubs) created by the positively skewed distribution. We find that a positively skewed network topology encourages opinion convergence on a single extreme under a wider range of conditions than topologies whose degree distributions were not skewed. The importance of social position for social influence is highlighted by the result that, when positive extremists are placed on hubs, all population convergence is to the positive extreme even when there are twice as many negative extremists. Thus, our results have shown the importance of considering a positively skewed degree distribution, and in particular network hubs and social position, when examining extremist transmission

Opinion modeling on social media and marketing aspects

We introduce and discuss kinetic models of opinion formation on social networks in which the distribution function depends on both the opinion and the connectivity of the agents. The opinion formation model is subsequently coupled with a kinetic model describing the spreading of popularity of a product on the web through a social network. Numerical experiments on the underlying kinetic models show a good qualitative agreement with some measured trends of hashtags on social media websites and illustrate how companies can take advantage of the network structure to obtain at best the advertisement of their products

FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF INNOVATION IN LOCAL

Elena Dotsenko. FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF INNOVATION IN LOCAL/. Wiższa Szkoła Bankowa we Wroclawiu, Wroclaw. Poland. 2011The article highlighted the basic problem of financing innovation development in Ukraine and discussed the types of financial resources that can promote innovation, and give reasons for lack of budget funding. Due to limited budgetary innovative development at the local level, to review the functions of local authorities and the proposed indirect methods of influence on the process of financing innovation

Elite Networks, Political Belief Formation and Government Performance: An agent-based approach to a general political economy equilibrium

This paper investigates the impact of the embeddedness of politicians in a local elite network on government performance in decentralized and centralized political systems. Formal political decision-making among a set of legislators is modeled via a mean voter decision rule derived from a modified non-cooperative legislative bargaining game of a Baron-Ferejohn type. Legislators’ policy preferences are derived endogenously from political support maximization based on legislators’ beliefs how a rural development policy translates into the welfare of the agrarian and non-agrarian population. Legislators are generally uncertain regarding the political technology, i.e. the welfare changes induced by a policy. Accordingly, legislators communicate with the local elite to learn more about the true political technology and hence to undertake better informed political decisions. However, local elites might be biased in favor of a specific population group, i.e. communication might also bias political beliefs. A trade-off between more efficient policy learning and an increased policy bias induced by an increased embeddedness in local elite networks is identified. Policy bias is attenuated in centralized when compared to decentralized systems, while vice versa the speed of policy learning through local elite networks is c.p. higher in decentralized when compared to centralized systems. Moreover, within a constitutional system elite network structures such as local size, clustering or centralization have an impact on overall efficiency of political decsion-making

Effects of presenting forest simulation results on the forest values and attitudes of forestry professionals and other forest users in Central Labrador

This research tested whether demonstration of the long term effect of different forest management scenarios in a large forested area changes people's forest values and attitudes. Forestry professionals and other forest users in Central Labrador were shown simulation results of three alternative forest management scenarios illustrating possible long term effects on various indicators. Forest values and attitudes towards forestry were measured before and after the presentation. Our conception of values and attitudes is based on the cognitive hierarchy model of human behaviour which states that values are more enduring and more difficult to change than attitudes. It was thus hypothesized that attitudes would change but not values and that change in forestry professionals would be less than in other forest users since foresters are trained to think about long-term effects and large-scale processes of forest management scenarios. We also hypothesized that a greater number of people would have an opinion on forest management after the presentation. All three hypotheses were partially supported by the results. The results indicated that some attitude change occurred, but that values also changed somewhat. Most of the significant changes occurred when persons with no clear opinion on several forest-related questions formed an opinion. Long-term, landscape simulation results provide valuable information and enhance understanding of both forestry professionals and other forest users. However, being provided the same information, the two groups learned different things. While forest users gained more confidence in the current forest management plan and were motivated to further participate, professionals learned more specific things. This reflects differences between technical and local knowledge

A robust fuzzy possibilistic AHP approach for partner selection in international strategic alliance

The international strategic alliance is an inevitable solution for making competitive advantage and reducing the risk in today’s business environment. Partner selection is an important part in success of partnerships, and meanwhile it is a complicated decision because of various dimensions of the problem and inherent conflicts of stockholders. The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical approach to the problem of partner selection in international strategic alliances, which fulfills the gap between theories of inter-organizational relationships and quantitative models. Thus, a novel Robust Fuzzy Possibilistic AHP approach is proposed for combining the benefits of two complementary theories of inter-organizational relationships named, (1) Resource-based view, and (2) Transaction-cost theory and considering Fit theory as the perquisite of alliance success. The Robust Fuzzy Possibilistic AHP approach is a noveldevelopment of Interval-AHP technique employing robust formulation; aimed at handling the ambiguity of the problem and let the use of intervals as pairwise judgments. The proposed approach was compared with existing approaches, and the results show that it provides the best quality solutions in terms of minimum error degree. Moreover, the framework implemented in a case study and its applicability were discussed

Uncertainty and risk: politics and analysis

In environmental and sustainable development policy issues, and in infrastructural megaprojects and issues of innovative medical technologies as well, public authorities face emergent complexity, high value diversity, difficult-to-structure problems, high decision stakes, high uncertainty, and thus risk. In practice, it is believed, this often leads to crises, controversies, deadlocks, and policy fiascoes. Decision-makers are said to face a crisis in coping with uncertainty. Both the cognitive structure of uncertainty and the political structure of risk decisions have been studied. So far, these scientific literatures exist side by side, with few apparent efforts at theoretically conceptualizing and empirically testing the links between the two. Therefore, this exploratory and conceptual paper takes up the challenge: How should we conceptualize the cognitive structure of uncertainty? How should we conceptualize the political structure of risk? How can we conceptualize the link(s) between the two? Is there any empirical support for a conceptualization that bridges the analytical and political aspects of risk? What are the implications for guidelines for risk analysis and assessment

Re-emerging landscapes : militarised territories from the Cold War period

This paper is part of my research that investigates the large-scale remains of military activities from the Cold War period. The aim of the research is to provide a meta-perspective on the post-militarised spaces and their different developmental trajectories, that may lead to various outcomes, such as heritage status, requalifiaction or destruction. I am conducting the research on the evolution of the remains, the discourses concerning their transformation and the relevant heritage policies. Different case studies from the Belgian and the European mainland context are taken into account, where artefacts of Cold War military spaces are found within or in the immediate proximity of inhabited areas. Throughout the history of the modern military, different warfare techniques have created a non-linear succession of distinct military spaces. Such large-scale military heritage from the past has been subject to preservation efforts as well as thorough redevelopment. This led to structures becoming urban heritage in their original form, or by undergoing subsequent transformations. However, the transformation process of the large scale Cold War military structures brings particular challenges, due to the dual nature of the military institutions in this period, that is being both 'invisible' and 'omnispresent'. Looking at the various case studies in my research, the artefacts of Cold War military spaces are being (re)interpreted in the frameworks of different landscape transformation processes. Relating to the overall topic of this seminar, my research is presented in the light of the relevance of this research for the nowadays state of urbanism as a discipline. The paper is discussing the complex situation that arises from the perceived ‘vacant’ spaces and the ‘disappearance’ of a powerful agent such as the military. Namely, the transformation of the post-militarised structures comes in part as a result of the neo-liberal tendencies (‘less state’). Furthermore, the very transformation process is a result of negotiations performed within networks that involve a myriad of actors and agencies, with often conflicting views and agendas. The main working hypothesis is that the 'non-human' agency of the material artefacts, renders these networks as flat, rather than hierarchical structures. This in turn allows both for multiple meanings to be ascribed to the artefacts, coming from actors and agencies that are usually perceived as acting from different 'levels' (local, national, global). As a consequence, the transformation policies come as a result of the process, rather than a predefined guideline. The paper takes closer look at the transformation of the military domain in Koksijde. There, a vast area has been used by the military during few decades, resulting in significant changes to the surrounding system of settlements, while preserving certain landscape elements that were otherwise lost outside of the domain. At the present moment, there is an ongoing procedure for defining a vision as well as legal framework for the transformation of the domain that would include various non-military activities