Community Structure in Jazz

Using a database of jazz recordings we study the collaboration network of jazz musicians. We define the network at two different levels. First we study the collaboration network between individuals, where two musicians are connected if they have played in the same band. Then we consider the collaboration between bands, where two bands are connected if they have a musician in common. The community structure analysis reveals that these constructions capture essential ingredients of the social interactions between jazz musicians. We observe correlations between recording locations, racial segregation and the community structure. A quantitative analysis of the community size distribution reveals a surprising similarity with an e-mail based social network recently studied.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, Revtex4 format, Acknowledgments update

The evaluation of human collaboration and its supporting technologies

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Engineering.The various research on collaboration extends to text-based chat, audio-conferencing, video-conferencing, forums, code inspections, 3D virtual worlds, tangible interfaces, the automation of link establishment and disestablishment, group decision support systems, and brainstorming. Moreover, this list is by no means exhaustive! The eight essential ingredients are formulated to draw together these disparate contexts, approaches, and implementations by describing the constants and commonalities of collaboration. The ingredients, then, which are common to all collaboration sessions regardless of the underlying technology are: people; a shared space; time; a common objective; focus on the objective; common language; knowledge in the area of the objective; and interaction. There may be other aspects which affect collaboration, but these ultimately will be expressed in either one, or a combination of these ingredients. Additionally, there is little consensus on the evaluation of collaboration and its supporting technologies. It seems that many researchers focus on their application without much thought on its accompanying evaluation method or how their evaluation fits with other approaches. The various approaches to evaluation fit into a layered understanding of collaboration, through the comparison of one layer’s affects on another and/or through the examination of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction of a particular layer. Furthermore, the analysis of various approaches are placed in a matrix, which can lead to the identification of ‘gaps’ in the evaluation research field and help to identify where an evaluation approach fits in. In addition, a new method of evaluation is introduced on the basis of the eight essential ingredients, thus rendering it applicable to any collaboration session. Its technological independence and numerical results provide it with strong potential for improving collaboration and its supporting technologies. To demonstrate the operation of the measure, a pilot study was conducted. The measure was found to be useful, but potentially quite expensive to implement. The expense, however, can be reduced through the automation of some of the aspects of the measure

Long Term Collaborative Business Relationships: The Impact of Trust and C3 Behaviour

Long-term, collaborative business relationships are like marriages where tolerance, forbearance and some reduction of freedom as well as innovation are necessary to ensure success. Trust and co-operative behaviours are known to be essential ingredients in securing an environment of continuous improvement but, how they are correlated has yet to be tested. The paper describes a research project within a sample of long-term monopoly businesses as a novel approach to bringing trust and cooperation, co-ordination and collaboration (C3 Behaviour) into sharper focus without competitive distractions. It was found that a correlation between trust and C3 Behaviour and the success of the collaborative relationship exists

Preface "Nonlinear processes in oceanic and atmospheric flows"

Nonlinear phenomena are essential ingredients in many oceanic and atmospheric processes, and successful understanding of them benefits from multidisciplinary collaboration between oceanographers, meteorologists, physicists and mathematicians. The present Special Issue on ``Nonlinear Processes in Oceanic and Atmospheric Flows'' contains selected contributions from attendants to the workshop which, in the above spirit, was held in Castro Urdiales, Spain, in July 2008. Here we summarize the Special Issue contributions, which include papers on the characterization of ocean transport in the Lagrangian and in the Eulerian frameworks, generation and variability of jets and waves, interactions of fluid flow with plankton dynamics or heavy drops, scaling in meteorological fields, and statistical properties of El Ni\~no Southern Oscillation.Comment: This is the introductory article to a Special Issue on "Nonlinear Processes in Oceanic and Atmospheric Flows'', published in the journal Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, where the different contributions are summarized. The Special Issue itself is freely available from http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/special_issue103.htm

Pseudoscalar transition form factors and the hadronic light-by-light contribution to the muon g−2g-2

We report on our progress toward the computation of the $\pi^0$, $\eta$ and $\eta^{\prime}$ transition form factors using staggered quarks on $N_f=2+1+1$ gauge ensembles generated by the Budapest-Marseille-Wuppertal collaboration. These form factors are essential ingredients to evaluate the pseudoscalar-pole contributions to the hadronic light-by-light scattering in the muon $g-2$. Preliminary results for the pseudoscalar-pole contributions are presented, at finite lattice spacing, for all three light mesons.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, contribution to the 39th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theor

Reformulating the Problem of Translatability: A Case of Literary Translaboration with the Poetry of Francisco Brines

Forms of collaboration are particularly prevalent in translation of literature, especially of poetry, whereby the synergy of different perspectives of co-participants may be among the essential ingredients for creative success. In this study, we explore the dynamics of a collaborative translation into English of the contemporary Spanish poet Francisco Brines, addressing how certain key questions of translational practice, including the translation of gender values, can be fruitfully problematised and resolved in a theoretically grounded collaborative approach. In elucidating these dynamics, including those which destabilise and generate knowledge, we use the notion of translaboration, synthesising concepts drawn from activity theory and communities of practice theory. We illustrate and review this notion through a critical narrative of selected aspects of the translational work

Molecular Gastronomy: A Food Fad or an Interface for Science-based Cooking?

A review is given over the field of molecular gastronomy and its relation to science and cooking. We begin with a brief history of the field of molecular gastronomy, the definition of the term itself, and the current controversy surrounding this term. We then highlight the distinction between molecular gastronomy and science-based cooking, and we discuss both the similarities and the distinctions between science and cooking. In particular, we highlight the fact that the kitchen serves as an ideal place to foster interactions between scientists and chefs that lead to benefits for the general public in the form of novel and high-quality foods. On the one hand, it can facilitate the implementation of new ideas and recipes in restaurants. On the other hand, it challenges scientists to apply their fundamental scientific understanding to the complexities of cooking, and it challenges them to expand the scientific understanding of many chemical and physical mechanisms beyond the common mass-produced food products. In addition, molecular gastronomy forms an ideal base to educate the general public about the basic principles of science and cooking and how they can be utilized to improve the awareness of the role of food and nutrition for the quality of life

Data Mining a Medieval Medical Text Reveals Patterns in Ingredient Choice That Reflect Biological Activity against Infectious Agents

We used established methodologies from network science to identify patterns in medicinal ingredient combinations in a key medieval text, the 15th-century Lylye of Medicynes, focusing on recipes for topical treatments for symptoms of microbial infection. We conducted experiments screening the antimicrobial activity of selected ingredients. These experiments revealed interesting examples of ingredients that potentiated or interfered with each other’s activity and that would be useful bases for future, more detailed experiments. Our results highlight (i) the potential to use methodologies from network science to analyze medieval data sets and detect patterns of ingredient combination, (ii) the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration to reveal different aspects of the ethnopharmacology of historical medical texts, and (iii) the potential development of novel therapeutics inspired by premodern remedies in a time of increased need for new antibiotics.The pharmacopeia used by physicians and laypeople in medieval Europe has largely been dismissed as placebo or superstition. While we now recognize that some of the materia medica used by medieval physicians could have had useful biological properties, research in this area is limited by the labor-intensive process of searching and interpreting historical medical texts. Here, we demonstrate the potential power of turning medieval medical texts into contextualized electronic databases amenable to exploration by the use of an algorithm. We used established methodologies from network science to reveal patterns in ingredient selection and usage in a key text, the 15th-century Lylye of Medicynes, focusing on remedies to treat symptoms of microbial infection. In providing a worked example of data-driven textual analysis, we demonstrate the potential of this approach to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and to shine a new light on the ethnopharmacology of historical medical texts