Performance Analysis of Online Social Platforms

We introduce an original mathematical model to analyze the diffusion of posts within a generic online social platform. Each user of such a platform has his own Wall and Newsfeed, as well as his own self-posting and re-posting activity. As a main result, using our developed model, we derive in closed form the probabilities that posts originating from a given user are found on the Wall and Newsfeed of any other. These probabilities are the solution of a linear system of equations. Conditions of existence of the solution are provided, and two ways of solving the system are proposed, one using matrix inversion and another using fixed-point iteration. Comparisons with simulations show the accuracy of our model and its robustness with respect to the modeling assumptions. Hence, this article introduces a novel measure which allows to rank users by their influence on the social platform, by taking into account not only the social graph structure, but also the platform design, user activity (self- and re-posting), as well as competition among posts.Comment: Preliminary version of accepted paper at INFOCOM 2019 (Paris, France

Designing a gamified social platform for people living with dementia and their live-in family caregivers

In the current paper, a social gamified platform for people living with dementia and their live-in family caregivers, integrating a broader diagnostic approach and interactive interventions is presented. The CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD (C-MMD) platform constitutes a support tool for the patient and the informal caregiver - also referred to as the dyad - that strengthens self-care, and builds community capacity and engagement at the point of care. The platform is implemented to improve social collaboration, adherence to treatment guidelines through gamification, recognition of progress indicators and measures to guide management of patients with dementia, and strategies and tools to improve treatment interventions and medication adherence. Moreover, particular attention was provided on guidelines, considerations and user requirements for the design of a User-Centered Design (UCD) platform. The design of the platform has been based on a deep understanding of users, tasks and contexts in order to improve platform usability, and provide adaptive and intuitive User Interfaces with high accessibility. In this paper, the architecture and services of the C-MMD platform are presented, and specifically the gamification aspects. © 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Critical Review of Research on Families and Family Policies in Europe Conference Report

This report was produced by FAMILYPLATFORM. FAMILYPLATFORM (SSH-2009-3.2.2 Social platform on research for families and family policies) is funded by the EU’s 7th Framework Programme (€1,400,000) and has a duration of 18 months (October 2009 – March 2011). The consortium consists of the following 12 organisations: 1) Technical University Dortmund (Coordinators); 2) State Institute for Family Research, University of Bamberg; 3) Family Research Centre, University of Jyväskylä; 4) Austrian Institute for Family Studies, University of Vienna; 5) Demographic Research Institute, Budapest; 6) Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon; 7) Department of Sociology and Social research, University of Milan-Bicocca; 8) Institute of International and Social Studies, Tallinn University; 9) London School of Economics; 10) Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union (COFACE), Brussels; 11) Forum delle Associazioni Familiari, Italy; 12) Mouvement Mondial des Mères, Brussels; Contact [email protected] or visit http://www.familyplatform.eu for more information.The aim of this Critical Review Report is to describe and report on the international conference "Families and Family Policies in Europe - A Critical Review", wich took place in Lisbon, at the Institute for Social Sciences (University of Lisbon), in May 2010. Organized by FAMILYPLATFORM consortium, the main objective of this 3 day conference was to carry out a critical review of existing research on families and family policies in Europe. Drawing on expert reviews of the state of the art, critical statements by stakeholders and policy makers, and debate on the major challenges for research and policies, the conference was organized with a view to providing a major forum for discussing and identifying the design of future family policies and research.FAMILYPLATFORM (SSH 2009.2.2 Social platform on research for families and family  policies):  funded  by  the  European  Unions 7th Framework Programme for 18 months (October 2009 – March 2011)

Does Campaigning on Social Media Make a Difference? Evidence from candidate use of Twitter during the 2015 and 2017 UK Elections

Social media are now a routine part of political campaigns all over the world. However, studies of the impact of campaigning on social platform have thus far been limited to cross-sectional datasets from one election period which are vulnerable to unobserved variable bias. Hence empirical evidence on the effectiveness of political social media activity is thin. We address this deficit by analysing a novel panel dataset of political Twitter activity in the 2015 and 2017 elections in the United Kingdom. We find that Twitter based campaigning does seem to help win votes, a finding which is consistent across a variety of different model specifications including a first difference regression. The impact of Twitter use is small in absolute terms, though comparable with that of campaign spending. Our data also support the idea that effects are mediated through other communication channels, hence challenging the relevance of engaging in an interactive fashion

Old Methods, New Means: Persuasive Technology in a Social Platform

Persuasive Technology, technology that is designed to change users’ attitudes or behaviors, has been exercised for a long time. Designing a technology that can change users’ attitudes or behaviors is a process that needs to be carefully thought through. Captology makes this process easier by defining the most important factors that technology needs to contain in order to be classified as Persuasive Technology. Echo It is the object of study, which is used as a particular example to test our theories. The most significant theory is a framework called “the Functional Triad”, a framework which is helping developers to identify what role a technology plays. Being aware of the role is important. However, for a technology to fully persuade its users, it is also important that it contains accurate information and has an appearance that attracts users. The purpose of this thesis is to establish guidelines for how Persuasive Technology should be designed in order to reach the target goal of helping users to change a behavior. The knowledge contribution is the guidelines which can be used by designers and developers and help them design and evaluate Persuasive Technology

A Bayesian social platform for inclusive and evidence-based decision making

Against the backdrop of a social media reckoning, this paper seeks to demonstrate the potential of social tools to build virtuous behaviours online. We must assume that human behaviour is flawed, the truth can be elusive, and as communities we must commit to mechanisms to encourage virtuous social digital behaviours. Societies that use social platforms should be inclusive, responsive to evidence, limit punitive actions and allow productive discord and respectful disagreement. Social media success, we argue, is in the hypothesis. Documents are valuable to the degree that they are evidence in service of, or to challenge an idea for a purpose. We outline how a Bayesian social platform can facilitate virtuous behaviours to build evidence-based collective rationality. The chapter outlines the epistemic architecture of the platform's algorithms and user interface in conjunction with explicit community management to ensure psychological safety. The BetterBeliefs platform rewards users who demonstrate epistemically virtuous behaviours and exports evidence-based propositions for decision-making. A Bayesian social network can make virtuous ideas powerful.Comment: 38 pages, 3 tables, 13 figures submitted for peer review for inclusion in M. Alfano, C. Klein and J de Ridder (Eds.) Social Virtue Epistemology. Routledge [forthcoming