Interconnectedness in Education Systems

Candia, C., Pulgar, J., & Pinheiro, F. L. (2022). Interconnectedness in Education Systems. Manuscript submitted for publication. arXiv: Physics: Physics Education. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2203.05624Traditional methods used in education sciences often disregard the underlying complexity of the educational system and consequently its emergence phenomena. Underlying complex systems, there is a rich web of interconnected components that determine the relational properties of the system. Here, we argue that an interconnected vision of educational systems -- from classrooms to an organizational level -- is key to improving learning, social integration, well-being, and decision making, all fundamental aspects of the educational experience. Hence, understanding the education system as an interconnected network of people, degree programs, and/or institutions requires methods and concepts from computational social sciences. Thus, we can leverage institutional records and experimental designs to elicit the relational maps of key players in education and derive their implications in their functioning at all scales. Here, in different settings, from elementary classrooms to higher education programs, we show how mapping the network relationships between entities can lead to the inference of novel insights about education systems and the development of solutions with societal implications.preprintsubmitte

connecting degree programs from individuals’ choices

Candia, C., Encarnação, S., & Pinheiro, F. L. (2019). The higher education space: connecting degree programs from individuals’ choices. EPJ Data Science, 8(1), [39]. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-019-0218-4Data on the applicants’ revealed preferences when entering higher education is used as a proxy to build the Higher Education Space (HES) of Portugal (2008–2015) and Chile (2006–2017). The HES is a network that connects pairs of degree programs according to their co-occurrence in the applicants’ preferences. We show that both HES network structures reveal the existence of positive assortment in features such as gender balance, application scores, unemployment levels, academic demand/supply ratio, geographical mobility, and first-year drop-out rates. For instance, if a degree program exhibits a high prevalence of female candidates, its nearest degree programs in the HES will also tend to exhibit a higher prevalence when compared to the prevalence in the entire system. These patterns extend up to two or three links of separation, vanishing, or inverting for increasing distances. Moreover, we show that for demand/supply ratio and application scores a similar pattern occurs for time variations. Finally, we provide evidence that information embedded in the HES is not accessible by merely considering the features of degree programs independently. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the higher education systems at revealing and leveraging its non-trivial underlying organizing principles. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first network science approach for improving decision-making and governance in higher education systems.publishersversionpublishe

Disfunções temporomandibular e dor facial

Dissertação para obtenção do grau de Mestre no Instituto Universitário Egas MonizAs desordens temporomandibulares são um grupo de alterações que acometem a articulação temporomandibular e as suas estruturas anexas, gerando uma série de sinais e sintomas clínicos nos pacientes. Dentre os principais sintomas temos as dores relacionadas com a musculatura facial, dores articulares e em alguns casos dores de cabeça. A relação entre a enxaqueca e as desordens temporomandibulares é muito complexa, sendo alterações altamente prevalentes e que ocorrem muitas vezes em conjunto. Este trabalho procura reunir evidência científica disponível na literatura sobre a relação entre desordens temporomandibulares e dor orofacial, procurando de forma a estabelecer um referencial de diagnostico e tratamento para os pacientes que apresentem essa combinação de problemas nos consultórios de medicina dentária.Temporomandibular disorders are a group of changes that affect the temporomandibular joint and its attached structures, generating a series of clinical signs and symptoms in patients. Among the main symptoms we have pain related to facial muscles, joint pain and in some cases headaches. The relationship between migraine and temporomandibular disorders is very complex, being highly prevalent and often occurring together. This work seeks to gather scientific evidence available in the literature on the relationship between temporomandibular disorders - acronym and orofacial pain, seeking to establish a framework for diagnosis and treatment for patients who present this combination of problems in dentistry offices

Verbal signals of the Verb: A Study on Language and Interiority in Augustine

The meditation proposed by Augustine in the dialogue De Magistro points to the limitations of language. Starting from this observation, Augustine then assimilates the role of language, realising that the external verbs alone cannot reach what men need most: the Truth. However, this fault does not prevent them from searching the Truth, but works as an exercise to perceive that all truth comes from the inner verb that points out to Christ, the embodied divine Truth himself, the Verb of GodA meditação proposta por Agostinho no diálogo De Magistro aponta para as limitações da linguagem. A partir desse apontamento, Agostinho passa a interiorizar o papel da linguagem, percebendo que apenas os verbos exteriores não conseguem alcançar o que o homem mais carece: a Verdade. Porém, essa falha não impossibilita o homem de buscar a Verdade, e sim serve de exercício para que ele perceba que toda a verdade provém do verbo interior, que aponta para Cristo, a própria Verdade divina encarnada, o Verbo de Deu

From Co-Location Patterns to an Informal Social Network of Gig Economy Workers

Pilatti, G., Candia, C., Montini, A., & Pinheiro, F. L. (2023). From Co-Location Patterns to an Informal Social Network of Gig Economy Workers. Applied Network Science, 8, 1-15. [77]. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2742628/v1, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41109-023-00603-1---GP, AM, and FLP are very grateful for the suggestions given by the audience and peer review of the Complex Networks and Their Applications XI conference, in which we were able to clarify some points and enrich the research. The authors are thankful to the food delivery platform for sharing the data for this study. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed by the authors in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of the food delivery platform. FLP acknowledges the financial support provided by FCT Portugal under the project UIDB/04152/2020 – Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC).The labor market has transformed with the advent of the gig economy, characterized by short-term and flexible work arrangements facilitated by online platforms. As this trend becomes increasingly prevalent, it presents unique opportunities and challenges. In this manuscript, we comprehensively characterize the social networks of gig economy workers in each of the 15 cities studied. Our analysis reveals a scaling relationship between networks and the city population. In particular, we note the high level of modularity of the networks, and we argue that it results from the natural specialization of couriers along different areas of the cities. Furthermore, we show that degree and betweenness centrality is positively correlated with income but not with tenure. Our findings shed new light on the social organization of the gig economy workers and provide valuable insights for the management and design of gig economy platforms.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Stable leaders pave the way for cooperation under time-dependent exploration rates

Pinheiro, F. L., Pacheco, J. M., & Santos, F. C. (2021). Stable leaders pave the way for cooperation under time-dependent exploration rates. Royal Society Open Science, 8(2), [200910]. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.200910The exploration of different behaviours is part of the adaptation repertoire of individuals to new environments. Here, we explore how the evolution of cooperative behaviour is affected by the interplay between exploration dynamics and social learning, in particular when individuals engage on prisoner's dilemma along the edges of a social network. We show that when the population undergoes a transition from strong to weak exploration rates a decline in the overall levels of cooperation is observed. However, if the rate of decay is lower in highly connected individuals (Leaders) than for the less connected individuals (Followers) then the population is able to achieve higher levels of cooperation. Finally, we show that minor differences in selection intensities (the degree of determinism in social learning) and individual exploration rates, can translate into major differences in the observed collective dynamics.publishersversionpublishe

Consensus and polarization in competing complex contagion processes

Vasconcelos, V. V., Levin, S. A., & Pinheiro, F. L. (2019). Consensus and polarization in competing complex contagion processes. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 16(155), [20190196]. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2019.0196The rate of adoption of new information depends on reinforcement from multiple sources in a way that often cannot be described by simple contagion processes. In such cases, contagion is said to be complex. Complex contagion happens in the diffusion of human behaviours, innovations and knowledge. Based on that evidence, we propose a model that considers multiple, potentially asymmetric and competing contagion processes and analyse its respective population-wide dynamics, bringing together ideas from complex contagion, opinion dynamics, evolutionary game theory and language competition by shifting the focus from individuals to the properties of the diffusing processes. We show that our model spans a dynamical space in which the population exhibits patterns of consensus, dominance, and, importantly, different types of polarization, a more diverse dynamical environment that contrasts with single simple contagion processes. We show how these patterns emerge and how different population structures modify them through a natural development of spatial correlations: structured interactions increase the range of the dominance regime by reducing that of dynamic polarization, tight modular structures can generate structural polarization, depending on the interplay between fundamental properties of the processes and the modularity of the interaction network.authorsversionpublishersversionpublishe