The Impact of Social Curiosity on Information Spreading on Networks

Most information spreading models consider that all individuals are identical psychologically. They ignore, for instance, the curiosity level of people, which may indicate that they can be influenced to seek for information given their interest. For example, the game Pok\'emon GO spread rapidly because of the aroused curiosity among users. This paper proposes an information propagation model considering the curiosity level of each individual, which is a dynamical parameter that evolves over time. We evaluate the efficiency of our model in contrast to traditional information propagation models, like SIR or IC, and perform analysis on different types of artificial and real-world networks, like Google+, Facebook, and the United States roads map. We present a mean-field approach that reproduces with a good accuracy the evolution of macroscopic quantities, such as the density of stiflers, for the system's behavior with the curiosity. We also obtain an analytical solution of the mean-field equations that allows to predicts a transition from a phase where the information remains confined to a small number of users to a phase where it spreads over a large fraction of the population. The results indicate that the curiosity increases the information spreading in all networks as compared with the spreading without curiosity, and that this increase is larger in spatial networks than in social networks. When the curiosity is taken into account, the maximum number of informed individuals is reached close to the transition point. Since curious people are more open to a new product, concepts, and ideas, this is an important factor to be considered in propagation modeling. Our results contribute to the understanding of the interplay between diffusion process and dynamical heterogeneous transmission in social networks.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Exploring the Potentials of Community Theatre as a Tool for Social Change: the Participatory Communication Method

It is observed that most development modalities employed over the years for achieving community development in Africa have not leaved up to expectation in terms of involving the majority of people in the quest for national transformation and development; rather, these modalities tend to complicate the very problems they are set out to solve. The situation is mostly like this because the adopted development strategies have not taken adequate cognizance the essence of effective communication methods and the importance of people’s perspectives and peculiarities in these processes. Mostly, the so-called outsiders and experts in development matters who are physically and socially separated from the people think for them and about their development. This situation is inimical to genuine and sustainable development. It is important therefore to note that development can only be meaningful and sustainable when it is people generated; involving people’s real needs and their participation in the process of achieving them. It is at this point therefore that community theatre can come handy as it has the potentials to bring people together to discuss issues that disempowered them and participatorily proffer solutions to the negatives. Community theatre can be explored to work with rural and urban people; mostly the rural dwellers who are mostly disempowered. In view of this therefore, this paper posits that community theatre is a method of participatory communication towards achieving social change

\u3ci\u3eFrontier folk of the Afghan border and beyond\u3c/i\u3e

The book gives a detailed description of the Frontier history and its people. Some twenty different tribes, their lives and customs are covered by the author. The author lived in a mission hospital on the Frontier was providing medical services to people of various backgrounds

Socio-political entrepreneurship in Israel: the case of the Northern Islamic Movement

This paper examines the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel by using ‘socio-political entrepreneurship’ as the analytical framework. While the notion of entrepreneurship originated in the field of economics, it has also taken hold in the social sciences as ‘social entrepreneurship’ and ‘political entrepreneurship’. Social entrepreneurship refers to initiatives taken to ameliorate social issues through economic means, while political entrepreneurship describes the way in which policies are changed in unexpected ways, generally at high levels of government. However, there is a gap in which the literature fails to explain social entrepreneurship with political undertones, or the case of the politician as social entrepreneur. This paper proposes the concept, and various aspects of, ‘socio-political entrepreneurship’, which combines elements of social and political entrepreneurship. The aim of socio-political entrepreneurship is to work on behalf of society to improve social conditions; while this has political undertones, the enterprise need not necessarily, or exclusively, be about changing politics. The Northern Islamic Movement is a social and religious movement that focuses mainly on socio-religious activities in the Israeli Arab communities, but also exhibits goals, rhetoric, and functions with strong political undertones. Thus, the use of ‘socio-political entrepreneurship’ allows for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the functions of the Northern Islamic Movement in Israeli Arab society

The Curvilinear Relationship between Political Terror and Internal Armed Conflict

I examine the relationship between political terror and the annual incidence of internal armed conflict. Studies have found that other factors associated with violence have a curvilinear relationship to internal conflict, including regime type, GDP, and ethnic fractionalization. I seek to find if political terror has a significant impact on instances of conflict and, more particularly, whether a curvilinear relationship exists between these two variables. I hypothesize that the relationship will be significant and in the shape of an inverse U. If a country uses no political terror, or extensive political terror, then the number of internal armed conflicts will be low. If the level of political terror employed by a regime is somewhere in the middle, I expect to see a greater number of internal armed conflicts. The results of my test do not support my hypothesis. There is a statistically significant relationship between political terror and instances of internal armed conflict, and the relationship is curvilinear. However, the relationship is convex, rather than being concave as I had predicted. This is a relationship I had yet to come across in previous literature. It could add a new dimension of thought for policy makers and scholars, requiring them to consider different roles violence may play in preventing and starting internal conflicts

Public Support for Black Lives Matter

I hypothesize that in a comparison of individuals, those who have believe in, or have been subject to discrimination, are more likely to support BLM. I am doing research regarding American politics and social structure; I want to take into account the whole nation, and I\u27m not concerned about data from outside the U.S. This data set includes information about respondents, race, gender, and sexuality, all of which I need to know if I want to take into account the effects of oppression on support of Black Lives Matter. I am only going to use the nes2016 dataset because no other dataset had information on feelings specifically towards Black Lives Matter. Lastly, rather than looking at historical data, I wanted to use information collected in the present. Since social issues are always changing and the Black Lives Matter organization is new, it is essential I use the most recent data I have available. A constraint of this survey is the data has no information on protests in general, so there is no distinction between those who only support the ideology and those who actually go out to protest

The Relationship Between Women in Parliament and Globalization

I examine the relationship between women in national parliaments and globalization. Existing scholarship has thoroughly examined how globalization affects women’s representation but there is a distinct lack of research examining the obverse relationship. I seek to examine whether the saturation of women in the legislature has a significant impact on the level of globalization within a given nation and, more specifically, whether a curvilinear relationship exists between these two variables. I hypothesize that there exists a significant relationship of a concave nature, with parliaments that have no or a small percentage of women exhibiting low levels of globalization and globalization levels rising as the percentage of women in parliament increases. Eventually, as the proportion of women in parliament continues to increase, countries will see lower levels of globalization. By looking at data from the period 1946 to 2021, the result of my test supports my hypothesis

Postcard: Booze Running in the Gutter, Independence, Kansas Jan. 3, 1913

This black and white photographic postcard features a group of men standing in the street with barrels and boxes full of alcohol. A pile of smashed containers lies in front of the group. Alcohol runs along the gutter into the foreground. Written text is towards the bottom of the card.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/tj_postcards/2180/thumbnail.jp

Performing edge detection by difference of Gaussians using q-Gaussian kernels

In image processing, edge detection is a valuable tool to perform the extraction of features from an image. This detection reduces the amount of information to be processed, since the redundant information (considered less relevant) can be unconsidered. The technique of edge detection consists of determining the points of a digital image whose intensity changes sharply. This changes are due to the discontinuities of the orientation on a surface for example. A well known method of edge detection is the Difference of Gaussians (DoG). The method consists of subtracting two Gaussians, where a kernel has a standard deviation smaller than the previous one. The convolution between the subtraction of kernels and the input image results in the edge detection of this image. This paper introduces a method of extracting edges using DoG with kernels based on the q-Gaussian probability distribution, derived from the q-statistic proposed by Constantino Tsallis. To demonstrate the method's potential, we compare the introduced method with the traditional DoG using Gaussians kernels. The results showed that the proposed method can extract edges with more accurate details.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, IC-MSQUARE 201