On the Localization of the Personalized PageRank of Complex Networks

In this paper new results on personalized PageRank are shown. We consider directed graphs that may contain dangling nodes. The main result presented gives an analytical characterization of all the possible values of the personalized PageRank for any node.We use this result to give a theoretical justification of a recent model that uses the personalized PageRank to classify users of Social Networks Sites. We introduce new concepts concerning competitivity and leadership in complex networks. We also present some theoretical techniques to locate leaders and competitors which are valid for any personalization vector and by using only information related to the adjacency matrix of the graph and the distribution of its dangling nodes

Heads or Tails? How leaving the selection of public offices to chance could revitalise democracy

Representative democracy has come under severe criticism lately, with a number of commentators pointing at the way it restrains public participation. In this blog post, Romance Porrot seeks to explore the way in which sortition – i.e. drawing lots in politics – is increasingly called upon to reshape the political arena and empower ordinary citizens. She argues that, to be implemented properly, sortition would need to be accompanied by a deep reshaping of the current power structures

Whither of the Electoral College?

America\u27s Electoral College: Origins, Logic and Implication

Secuestros de doncellas. El control jurisdiccional del matrimonio en el obispado de Barcelona de 1600 a 1700

En el III Concilio de Toledo (año 589) los obispos asumen la protección de los desvalidos en la figura del defensors civitatis, que pervive en los visigodos desde que los romanos lo instauraron como Tribuni Plebs, o tribuno de la plebe; estos podían anular cualquier decisión de un magistrado, ya que se constituían como el contrapoder plebeyo frente al poder patricio. De ahí provienen los fundamentos legales que adquirieron los obispos para defender al pueblo de los abusos, y la forma en que lo hacían era decretando el Secuestro (Secuestrum

Breaking the Hard Limits: Romance, Pornography, and the Question of Genre in the Fifty Shades Trilogy

The Fifty Shades series has brought erotic fiction to a broader and more mainstream audience than ever before. In its wake, a number of erotic romance series have achieved unprecedented popularity, such as Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series and Lisa Renee Jones’ Inside Out series. These books do not fit comfortably into the genres of romance or pornography: rather, they fuse the romantic and pornographic together. This locates the multiple climaxes of pornography within the overarching emotional climax of romance and creates a structure that is both finite and infinite, allowing the books to create both instant and delayed gratification. This article examines The Sheik as a textual forebear to Fifty Shades before moving on to examine the ways in which romance and pornography are fused, overcoming the limits of serialization in romance, and creating a romantic “pornotopia.