A Network Text Analysis of Fight Club

Network Text Analysis (NTA) involves the creation of networks of words and/or concepts from linguistic data. Its key insight is that the position of words and concepts in a text network provides vital clues to the central and underlying themes of the text as a whole. Recent research has used an inductive or bottom-up approach to the question of theme extraction. In this paper we take a top-down or deductive approach in that we first establish prior expectations as to the key themes to be found in the text. We then compare and contrast the results of our network analysis with the results of literary and cultural analyses of the film Fight Club as reported in over four dozen other peer-reviewed publications. While our results are remarkably consistent with and complementary to results in those studies, our analysis permits something the others do not—an analytical framework for relating those underlying and central themes to one another

Pricing Banner Advertisements in a Social Network of Political Weblogs

Abstract: This paper employs social network analysis to explain variation in the pricing of 846 banner advertisements appearing in a community formed by 89 “Liberal” and 84 “Conservative” weblogs. As predicted, weblogs that bridge “structural holes” between otherwise disconnected segments of the community command significantly higher prices for their advertisements. Also as predicted, the price of banner ads increases with the number of impressions received, with the size of the ad, when the ad is located higher on the page, and when fewer other ads appear

ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN, ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING, AND THE MARKET VALUE OF THE FIRM

We compare market returns associated with firms' creation of new units focused on e-business. Two aspects of organization design - governance and leadership - are considered with regard to exploitation - and exploration-oriented organization learning. We find that exploitation in governance (high centralization) is associated with a lower mean and variance in returns; that exploitation in leadership (appointment of outsiders) is associated with the same mean yet higher variance; and, among units exhibiting both modes of learning, the variance of returns are not equal

Information Technology and the Volatility of Firm Performance

This study investigates the impact of IT investments and several contextual variables on the volatility of future earnings. We find evidence that IT investments strongly increases the volatility of future earnings and that four contextual factors - industry concentration, sales growth, diversification, and leverage - strongly moderate IT's effect on earnings volatility. It is notable that while the main effect of IT spending on earnings volatility is strongly positive, not all of the moderators are. This suggests that there are conditions under which the positive risk-return relation can be either offset or even reversed. Taken together, these results suggest an explanation for what has recently been termed the "new productivity paradox", i.e. the apparent under-investment in information technology despite evidence of highly positive returns for doing so

Showrunners’ Scripts are More Cognitively Complex

The term “showrunner” is used in the US entertainment industry to describe the person who is the chief executive and creative officer of a television TV series. The position is very prestigious, often very financially rewarding, and thus highly sought-after. While there are many paths to the role-and even instances of almost overnight success-the vast majority of current showrunners worked their way up over several years from staff writing positions to production-related roles, often across several different series in the process. Conventional wisdom about how to climb the ladder from writer to showrunner strongly emphasizes the importance of both writing and of originality. While there is research linking objective characteristics of pilot episode scripts to success of the subsequent series, we are aware of no studies that consider whether and how scripts written by showrunners differ from those written by staff writers. Towards that end, in this study we compare the scripts written by showrunners with those written by their staff writers for two highly-acclaimed dramatic series from the last decade-The Good Wife (2009) and The Mentalist (2008). Specifically, we test for differences in the “cognitive complexity” of the two groups of scripts. As expected, we find that, on average, scripts written by showrunners exhibited higher cognitive complexity than those written by staff writers. We also found that scripts by writing team members who later became showrunners for original new series had higher cognitive complexity than those written by staff writers who have yet to attain to this role

The Social Construction of Napster

This paper attempts to unpack a few of the vast array of assumptions implicit in how "the technology" known as Napster was understood by several of its key constituencies. Our approach examines discourse about Napster in several areas - legal, economic, social, and cultural. This approach enables us to understand "the technology" as an ongoing encounter, rather than the accomplishment of any one inventor, team of inventors, dominant institution, or rule of law. We do not offer proscriptive advice. While there is value in other research that has tried to determine the "impact of Napster on" a particular market or industry, we argue that a multidimensional understanding is necessary both as a foundation for such research as well as in its own right. In only the past four years, dominant interpretations of Napster have not only emerged, but also have been inscribed into laws, business plans, and purchasing decisions, in effect, determining what "tools" - precedents, myths, data sets, prior objects, capabilities - will be available in the future. Our paper tries to show how and why certain (subjective) significations increasingly have taken on the status of truth, while other (equally subjective) discourses have been pushed farther and farther out to the fringe

Predicting the Success of New Cable Series from their Pilot Episode Scripts: An Empirical Approach

In this study we develop an empirical model to explain failure rates of new television series. Specifically, we test the ability of three factors to predict the success of new dramatic series appearing on 31 cable networks over the last 10 years. Those factors are the originality of the story, the track record of its creator(s), and the cognitive complexity of its pilot episode script—all of which are known well in advance of a network’s decision to greenlight a new series. As predicted, we find that all three variables—both individually and in combination—strongly predict the success rate of new dramatic series in their first two seasons

The nature of the dwarf starforming galaxy associated with GRB 060218 / SN2006aj

We present high resolution VLT UVES and low resolution FORS optical spectroscopy of supernova 2006aj and its host galaxy, associated with the nearby (z = 0.03342) gamma-ray burst GRB 060218. This host galaxy is a unique case, as it is one of the few nearby GRB host galaxies known, and it is only the second time high resolution spectra have been taken of a nearby GRB host galaxy (after GRB 980425). The resolution, wavelength range and S/N of the UVES spectrum combined with low resolution FORS spectra allow a detailed analysis of the circumburst and host galaxy environments. We analyse the emission and absorption lines in the spectrum, combining the high resolution UVES spectrum with low resolution FORS spectra and find the metallicity and chemical abundances in the host. We probe the geometry of the host by studying the emission line profiles. Our spectral analysis shows that the star forming region in the host is metal poor with 12 + log(O/H) = 7.54 (+0.17, -0.10) (~0.07 Z_sun), placing it among the most metal deficient subset of emission-line galaxies. It is also the lowest metallicity found so far for a GRB host from an emission-line analysis. Given the stellar mass of the galaxy of ~10^7 M_sun and the SFR (H alpha) = 0.065 +/- 0.005 M_sun/yr, the high specific star formation rate indicates an age for the galaxy of less than ~200 Myr. The brightest emission lines are clearly asymmetric and are well fit by two Gaussian components separated by ~22$ km/s. We detect two discrete Na I and Ca II absorption components at the same redshifts as the emission components. We tentatively interpret the two components as arising from two different starforming regions in the host, but high resolution imaging is necessary to confirm this.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, A&A accepte

Stellar Forensics with the Supernova-GRB Connection

Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and Type Ib/c Supernovae (SNe Ib/c) are amongst nature's most magnificent explosions. While GRBs launch relativistic jets, SNe Ib/c are core-collapse explosions whose progenitors have been stripped of their hydrogen and helium envelopes. Yet for over a decade, one of the key outstanding questions is which conditions lead to each kind of explosion and death in massive stars. Determining the fates of massive stars is not only a vibrant topic in itself, but also impacts using GRBs as star formation indicators over distances of up to 13 billion light-years and for mapping the chemical enrichment history of the universe. This article reviews a number of comprehensive observational studies that probe the progenitor environments, their metallicities and the explosion geometries of SN with and without GRBs, as well as the emerging field of SN environmental studies. Furthermore, it discusses SN 2008D/XRT 080109 that was discovered serendipitously with the Swift satellite via its X-ray emission from shock breakout, and that has generated great interest amongst both observers and theorists while illustrating a novel technique for stellar forensics. The article concludes with an outlook on how the most promising venues of research - with the existing and upcoming innovative large-scale surveys such as the Palomar Transient Factory and LSST - will shed new light on the diverse deaths of massive stars.Comment: Ludwig-Biermann Award Lecture 2010, 17 pages, 5 figures, submitted April 1 2011, published in AN 332, 43

Application of the Principles of Systems Biology and Wiener’s Cybernetics for Analysis of Regulation of Energy Fluxes in Muscle Cells in Vivo

The mechanisms of regulation of respiration and energy fluxes in the cells are analyzed based on the concepts of systems biology, non-equilibrium steady state kinetics and applications of Wiener’s cybernetic principles of feedback regulation. Under physiological conditions cardiac function is governed by the Frank-Starling law and the main metabolic characteristic of cardiac muscle cells is metabolic homeostasis, when both workload and respiration rate can be changed manifold at constant intracellular level of phosphocreatine and ATP in the cells. This is not observed in skeletal muscles. Controversies in theoretical explanations of these observations are analyzed. Experimental studies of permeabilized fibers from human skeletal muscle vastus lateralis and adult rat cardiomyocytes showed that the respiration rate is always an apparent hyperbolic but not a sigmoid function of ADP concentration. It is our conclusion that realistic explanations of regulation of energy fluxes in muscle cells require systemic approaches including application of the feedback theory of Wiener’s cybernetics in combination with detailed experimental research. Such an analysis reveals the importance of limited permeability of mitochondrial outer membrane for ADP due to interactions of mitochondria with cytoskeleton resulting in quasi-linear dependence of respiration rate on amplitude of cyclic changes in cytoplasmic ADP concentrations. The system of compartmentalized creatine kinase (CK) isoenzymes functionally coupled to ANT and ATPases, and mitochondrial-cytoskeletal interactions separate energy fluxes (mass and energy transfer) from signalling (information transfer) within dissipative metabolic structures – intracellular energetic units (ICEU). Due to the non-equilibrium state of CK reactions, intracellular ATP utilization and mitochondrial ATP regeneration are interconnected by the PCr flux from mitochondria. The feedback regulation of respiration occurring via cyclic fluctuations of cytosolic ADP, Pi and Cr/PCr ensures metabolic stability necessary for normal function of cardiac cells