Academic team formation as evolving hypergraphs

This paper quantitatively explores the social and socio-semantic patterns of constitution of academic collaboration teams. To this end, we broadly underline two critical features of social networks of knowledge-based collaboration: first, they essentially consist of group-level interactions which call for team-centered approaches. Formally, this induces the use of hypergraphs and n-adic interactions, rather than traditional dyadic frameworks of interaction such as graphs, binding only pairs of agents. Second, we advocate the joint consideration of structural and semantic features, as collaborations are allegedly constrained by both of them. Considering these provisions, we propose a framework which principally enables us to empirically test a series of hypotheses related to academic team formation patterns. In particular, we exhibit and characterize the influence of an implicit group structure driving recurrent team formation processes. On the whole, innovative production does not appear to be correlated with more original teams, while a polarization appears between groups composed of experts only or non-experts only, altogether corresponding to collectives with a high rate of repeated interactions

Extreme and Inconsistent: A Case-Oriented Regression Analysis of Health, Inequality, and Poverty

A methodological paradox characterizes macro-comparative research: it routinely violates the assumptions underlying its dominant method, multiple regression analysis. Comparative researchers have substantive interest in cases, but cases are largely rendered invisible in regression analysis. Researchers seldom recognize the mismatch between the goals of macro-comparative research and the demands of regression methods, and sometimes they end up engaging in strenuous disputes over particular variable effects. A good example is the controversial relationship between income inequality and health. Here, the authors offer an innovative method that combines variable-oriented and case-oriented approaches by turning ordinary least squares regression models “inside out.” The authors estimate case-specific contributions to regression coefficient estimates. They reanalyze data on income inequality, poverty, and life expectancy across 20 affluent countries. Multiple model specifications are dependent primarily on two countries with values on the outcome that are extreme in magnitude and inconsistent with conventional theoretical expectations. © SAGE Publications Inc.. All rights reserved.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]