Social Structure Of Community Research Articles

Using a Social-ecological Regime Shift Approach to Understand the Transition from Livestock to Game Farming in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

This study explored the shift in land use from livestock farming to game farming in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, from a social-ecological regime shift perspective. A regime shift can be defined as a large, persistent change in the structure and function of the intertwined social and ecological components of a landscape. This research focused on the Amakhala game reserve as a case study to understand how the shift affected the provision of ecosystem services and human wellbeing. We used remote sensing techniques to quantify changes in vegetation and found evidence of vegetation recovery following the shift. We then conducted interviews with both landowners and farmworkers and used participatory mapping to understand their perceptions of the main drivers and social-ecological impacts of the shift in land use. Social narratives revealed stark differences in different stakeholders’ perceptions, highlighting that the change in land use had varied implications for, and were perceived differently by, different stakeholders. Farmworkers emphasized changes in social structures that weakened community bonds and erased valued connections to the land. At the same time, they increased employment of women, skills development, and increased wages as benefits of the new game farming regime. Landowners, on the other hand, indicated financial gains from the land use change. The transition therefore resulted in trade-offs that surfaced as social, economic, and cultural losses and gains. These changes, especially in social relationships and community structures, have implications for resilience and possible future pathways of development in the region.

THE IMPACT OF USING MODERN COMMUNICATIONS ON SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY ON BOLAK ABO EL-ELA DISTRICT

This current study drives at defining and showing the impact of modern communications on the social structure of local communities and defining the impact of this use on the social structure of kinship and social relationship. The study examines the impact of the use of communication methods on social relations inside and outside the family represented in the relationships between the husband and his wife and between the husband and his children and the wife and her children and the relations between the brothers and as for from outside the family researches social relations with neighbors, friends and co-workers. The study sample is selected from (Bolak Abou El-Ela) quarter and consisting of (120) items, applying the anthropological approach, the social survey method and the descriptive method. The study raised the following questions: What are the characteristics of the study population sample? What is the impact of using modern communications on social structure? Is there a statistically significant relationship between the average scores of modern communication uses of means of (phone or computer) and the average scores of the social structure of relationships’ systems in the local community of the Bolak Abou El-Ela district? A questionnaire form is used after checking validity and reliability using Cronbach. The study presents the characteristics of the group in the form of a graph, statistical tables containing ratios, frequencies and statistical significance of Chi-Square 2 test. The study comes to these results: It was found that the rate of 57.5%, see negligence in visits with family and relatives due to the use of modern means of communication. The results confirm that despite the increased means of communication with the Internet or the phone, social structure and relations between people in Bolak Abou El-Ela are still strong and effective. The study ended with a number of recommendations, including: Making room for more studies and research on the study topic of using modern communications and studying its various effects on society. The necessity of setting policies for the social protection of communication technology to meet quick changes of this technology.

Community Detection Based on Individual Topics and Network Topology in Social Networks

Detecting community structures is an important research topic in social network analysis. Unfortunately, the fundamental factors that drive the generation of social networks (i.e., the network topology and content) and community structures have not been well investigated. In this paper, according to the natural characteristics of social networks, we reveal that individual topics play a core role in community generation. If two individuals are in the same community and are interested in similar topics, it is more likely that a link will form between them. Otherwise, the probability of generating a link depends on the relationships between their communities and the topics they talk about. Based on the above observations, a novel generative community detection model is proposed that simulates the generation of the network topology and network content by considering individual topics. Moreover, our model utilizes a topic model to generate network content. The model is evaluated on two real-world datasets. The experimental results show that the community detection results outperform all the state-of-the-art baselines. In addition to accurate community detection results, we identify each individual topic distribution and the most popular users corresponding to different topics in each community.

A Triangular NodeTrix Visualization Interface for Overlapping Social Community Structures of Cyber-Physical-Social Systems in Smart Factories

This work proposes a cyber-physical-social system (CPSS) framework for smart factories which associates the social-network-based physical factory circumference with the cyber control through a visualization interface based on NodeTrix. The NodeTrix representation consisting of adjacency matrices and node-link diagrams has been popularly used in social network analysis. Different from previous works on NodeTrix based on square-shaped matrices, the proposed NodeTrix applies triangle-shaped matrices for visualizing overlapping communities to save the displaying space, and a simulated annealing algorithm is used to reduce the crossings among links and communities. In the CPSS for smart factories, working-in-process (WIP) products are categorized according to their attributes, and are placed at different storage locations for later different production processes. By the NodeTrix-based interface for CPSS, when users with different domains and experiences work together to make instant decisions on production and logistics, the physical production environment will be adjusted accordingly and immediately through technological support of Industry 4.0. Through the interface, the information on locations, parameters, and interoperability of WIP products can be visualized and adjusted in time. By comparison with other works, the proposed representation looks promising in displaying social networks for the CPSS with fewer crossings within a smaller screen space.

THE POSSIBILITY OF DEMOCRACY IN SYRIA WITH SWOT ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE

Suriye krizinin çözümü ile ülkedeki kalıcı barışın tesis edilmesinde önemli bir faktör olarak görülen demokrasiyi kısaca analiz eden bu çalışma, Suriye için nasıl bir demokrasinin olabileceğini SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats-Güçlü yönleri, Zayıf yönleri, Fırsatlar, Tehditler) analiz bağlamında incelemektedir. Suriye’deki toplumlar arasındaki çatışmalara yol açan faktörlere ve Suriye’deki hükümet ve muhalif unsurlarının demokrasiyle ilgili yaklaşımlarına değinen bu çalışma, Suriye’nin toprak bütünlüğü dahilinde bütün farklı etnik, dinsel ve mezhepsel unsurların barış içinde demokratik bir yapıda yaşamaları konusunda fırsat alanlarını araştırmaktadır. Çok katmanlı toplum görüntüsünü veren Suriye toplumunun sosyal yapısı ile siyasal özelliklerini dikkate alarak demokrasi yönünden Suriye’nin güçlü ve zayıf yönlerini inceleyen çalışmamız bu konuda fırsatların ve tehditlerin neler olduğunu ortaya koymaktadır.

Contextualizing the social-ecological outcomes of coral reef fisheries management

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have emerged as a valuable tool in biodiversity conservation and fisheries management. However, the effective use of MPAs depends upon the successful integration of social and ecological information. We investigated relationships between the social system structure of coastal communities alongside biological data describing the status and trends in fish communities around Yap, Micronesia. Traditional marine tenure made Yap an ideal place to investigate the underlying principles of social-ecological systems, as communities own and manage spatially-defined coastal resources. Analysis of social survey data revealed three social regimes, which were linked to corresponding gradients of ecological outcomes. Communities with decentralized decision-making and a preference for communal forms of fishing had the greatest ecological outcomes, while communities lacking any form of leadership were linked to poor ecological outcomes. Interestingly, communities with strong top-down leadership were shown to have variable ecological outcomes, depending on the presence of key groups or individuals. We last investigated whether social perception could successfully predict the status of fish assemblages within non-managed reefs. Several biological metrics of fish assemblages within non-managed areas were significantly predicted by a gradient of human access, suggesting social perception could not predict the growing human footprint over the study period. These findings highlight the potentially overlooked role that community-oriented decision-making structures and fishing methods could play in successful conservation efforts, and the limitations of perception data. Policies that promote communal marine resource use offer a novel approach to improve fisheries management and promote social-ecological resilience.

THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE GREEK COMMUNITY OF SİNOP IN THE 19th CENTURY

Her ne kadar tarihin belirli bir evresinden sonra yol ayrımına girilmiş olsa da Türklerle Rumlar uzun yıllar bir arada yaşamayı başardılar. Bu süreçte iki toplum arasındaki etkileşim, duruma göre bazen sınırlı bazense daha geniş alanda oldu. Her bölge veya şehirde bu vaziyet değişkenlik göstermiştir. Sinop’taki Türk ve Rum toplumlarının yaşanmışlıkları ise Anadolu’daki iki halkın paylaşımlarına dair asgari düzeyde fikir verecektir.Sinop’ta Müslüman halk içkale olarak tabir edilen sur içinde yaşarken gayrimüslim haneleri surun dışında yer alıyordu. Dolayısıyla bu çalışmada surun içindekiler değil, surun dışındakiler incelendi. Bu bağlamda Sinop Rumları özelinden hareketle bir toplumun 19. yüzyıldaki demografik, içtimaî, iktisadi, dinî ve çeşitli tarihsel vakıasına ışık tutulmaya çalışıldı. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı’nda yer alan arşiv vesikaları ile çeşitli telif ve tetkik eserler ise çalışma sırasında istifade edilen başlıca kaynaklar oldu. Ortaya çıkan bilgiler çerçevesinde Sinop kent monografisine katkı sağlanması amaçlandı.

Social Capital and Household Welfare: A Review of Contemporary Empirical Literature

Most studies on social capital especially in Africa, have adopted econometric models in explaining its role in the different developmental paths of societies with similar endowments. From a historical perspective, relying on aggregative national survey data on social welfare, ‘wellbeing’, ‘national happiness index’ to an examination using increasingly structured proximate measures of formal community organisational activities, in particular, membership participation and benefits and their impact on the rural household welfare, almost to the exclusion of informal social capital. Although the influence of technology, especially with the increasing penetration, access and massive impact of the social media have stimulated further research interest in social capital, particularly in Europe and America, econometric modeling and analytical techniques still dominates, while most African researchers have been more interested in how formal social capital impact the welfare of the poor rural farming households as a way to develop rural communities. This paper argues, following an extensive review of the literature that the fixation with ‘econometric analysis’ and ‘formal social capital’, presents only a partial view - it does not explain the significant role of informal social capital - resources that inhere in informal, yet durable social networks and relations that characterise the community social structure and are encapsulated in its social history. The paper further opines that greater attention should be given to the role of informal social capital in rural household welfare enhancement towards creating a structured role for kinship based groups in the development process, stripping them of the ‘negative’, ‘anti-development’ toga and optimise their potential capacity for mobilisation of rural poor households for active participation in the design and implementation of pro-poor policies and schemes. It would also help redirect research efforts and provide the much-needed evidence for realistic policies especially on ‘bottom-up’, community participatory implementation strategy for developing rural communities.

The Impact of Culture and Gender on the Production of Online Speech Acts among Jordanian Facebook Users

This study of speech acts offers deep insights into the social structure and gender differences of any speech community. Most relevant research on online speech acts has shed much light on Western speech communities, neglecting the speech act behavior of Arabic speaking communities. This study aimed to examine the influence of gender differences and the Jordanian cultural norms on the use of speech acts in Facebook Status Updates (FSUs). A total of 1718 FSUs were collected over a period of 2 months. Then, they were categorized according to Searle’s speech acts taxonomy. Results showed that women made an average of 6 updates to their Facebook status, while men averaged four. In addition, the results revealed that females and males differ in their linguistic repertoires. Male participants were inclined to use more assertive speech acts, whereas females were more likely to use expressive speech acts. Islam and tribalism are factors that were found to play an important role in defining the cultural norms of the Jordanian speech community. .

Individual differences in learning social and nonsocial network structures.

How do people acquire knowledge about which individuals belong to different cliques or communities? And to what extent does this learning process differ from the process of learning higher-order information about complex associations between nonsocial bits of information? Here, the authors use a paradigm in which the order of stimulus presentation forms temporal associations between the stimuli, collectively constituting a complex network. They examined individual differences in the ability to learn community structure of networks composed of social versus nonsocial stimuli. Although participants were able to learn community structure of both social and nonsocial networks, their performance in social network learning was uncorrelated with their performance in nonsocial network learning. In addition, social traits, including social orientation and perspective-taking, uniquely predicted the learning of social community structure but not the learning of nonsocial community structure. Taken together, the results suggest that the process of learning higher-order community structure in social networks is partially distinct from the process of learning higher-order community structure in nonsocial networks. The study design provides a promising approach to identify neurophysiological drivers of social network versus nonsocial network learning, extending knowledge about the impact of individual differences on these learning processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Inclusive rural development: a scientific discourse

The article considers the essential features of rural development as a multi-vector process, which not only involves economic growth in rural areas, but also requires its adaptation to human behavior, social and political structure of rural communities and their involvement in development processes. It also reflects systemic positive changes in rural areas, which are initiated "from bottom" and supported "from top". In this concept of rural development, inclusiveness is inherent. The authors show that the development of the concept of "inclusive rural development" took place in the process of enrichment and specification of the theoretical concepts of sustainable development, inclusive growth and inclusive development in relation to the rural sector of society. This concept denotes a development whose result consists in the creation of proper conditions for the rural population for such purposes as: the use of land and other local resources in the economic activities; adequate distribution of the results of economic growth in the agriculture and other sectors of the rural economy; and participation in social and public life for the consolidation of communities and observance of human rights. Such development leads to the reduction of poverty, overcoming the economic, social and political exclusion of people residing in rural areas. It is pointed out that ensuring the inclusive development is a function of the state regulation of national economy. To implement it in Ukraine, it is necessary to ensure, first of all, the implementation, in the regulatory and legal framework, of the global goals of sustainable development and the objectives for their achievement. That could be realized by adopting the Law on the Strategy for Sustainable Development until 2030, and, in the part of inclusive rural development, also the Law on the Basic Principles of the State Agrarian Policy and State Policy of Rural Development.

Capitalizing The Sacred: Marketing Blessed Water as Religious Theraphy in Krejengan Probolinggo

This study considers a question of whether blessings are commodified in the ritual practices of religious therapy associated with the certain religious figures. Buying the Air Berkah (Holy Water) from Habib Hasan Al Muhdor, a religios leader of Majelis Shalawat Ahbabul Musthofa, is a continuous tradition practiced by local Muslims at Widoro Krejengan Probolinggo. By observing this religious (or economic?) therapy, this study attempts to argue that they have been transmitting the material thing, money, into the blessing of the attendant spirit mediums. As they received blessing and magical item from the medium air berkah, they reached for wallets to make donation. This study goes to analyze the ways their stock of knowledge are constructed through ritualized practices of buying air berkah and the ways it reproduced the social structure of Krejengan community associated with their religious belief in the commodified item of blessing. It leads this study to conclusion that religion of the masses requires holy men to satisfy the needs of ordinary men and women, and hence the sacred and charisma are corrupted by the demand for miracles and spectacles through certain mechanism, including religious therapy.

The Role of Elders in the Wellbeing of a Contemporary Australian Indigenous Community.

Traditional Elders are integral to the social structure of Australian Indigenous communities. Due to progressive loss of traditional way of life, however, the role of Elders has been eroding. This study aims to develop a conceptual model of the role of Elders in an Australian Indigenous community, with the goal of attaining strategies to strengthen the role of Elders. The study, conducted in a regional Indigenous community in Australia, adopted a community-based participatory approach. Design and focus of the project were informed by a community forum (Yarning Circle). One-on-one semistructured interviews and focus groups with community members were conducted by Indigenous researchers. Group concept mapping (GCM) was applied to elicit major themes in qualitative data, from the point of view of community members, and to derive a conceptual model of the role of Elders. Fifty members of the Indigenous community took part in interviews and focus groups. The participants' median age was 45 years (range 18-76 years); 31 (62%) were female. An additional 24 Indigenous community members took part in the data sorting task of GCM. GCM identified seven major aspects of the role of Elders, including Community relations, Passing down the knowledge, Dealing with racism and oppression, Building a better resourced community, Intergenerational connectedness, Safeguarding our identity, and Caring for our youth. Elders fulfill many important roles in contemporary Indigenous communities. Our results can be used to assist the community to codesign a program to increase community wellbeing.

Who is really in my social circle?

Tie strength allows to classify social relationships and identify different types of them. For instance, social relationships can be classified as persistent and similar based respectively on the regularity with which they occur and the similarity among them. On the other hand, rare and somewhat similar relationships are random and cause noise in a social network, thus hiding the actual structure of the network and preventing an accurate analysis of it. In this article, we propose a method to handle social network data that exploits temporal features to improve the detection of communities by existing algorithms. By removing random relationships, we observe that social networks converge to a topology with more pure social relationships and better quality community structures.

Social cohesion and intra-population community structure in southern Australian bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.)

Defining intra-population community variation in group living mammals provides insights about the impact of environmental, social, and anthropogenic factors on population sub-structuring. Here, we use generalised affiliation indices (GAIs) and social network analysis to investigate social cohesion and intra-population community structure of southern Australian bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) inhabiting Adelaide’s metropolitan coast in South Australia. Information on the sex and site fidelity of photographically identified individuals was used to investigate the potential link between these parameters and preferred affiliations at the population level. Genetic data was also used to investigate genetic relatedness within and between sex and communities. Overall, dolphins showed non-random associations, with preferred associates prominent amongst females and resident individuals. Dolphins were clustered into two social communities that showed little spatial overlap and were associated with different habitats: a northern, shallow-water community (NSWC) and a southern, deep-water community (SDWC). As expected, preferred associations were more prevalent within than between communities, and analyses of genetic relatedness indicated that dolphins, particularly females, were on average more related within than between communities. Social network metrics varied between communities, with the temporal stability of associations for both communities characterised by rapid disassociations and casual acquaintances. We suggest that these two dolphin communities likely arose due to a combination of ecological and socio-genetic factors. This study enhances our understanding of factors shaping social groups in long-lived mammals and our ability to manage human activities that can impact upon their behaviour and social structure. Determining how and why individual animals interact and form groups is important for understanding the evolution of sociality and designing management strategies for wildlife conservation. We investigated association patterns and social community structure in southern Australian bottlenose dolphins in Gulf waters of South Australia. Within the study area, dolphins were divided into two separate communities associated with different habitat types. Within these two communities, dolphins formed groups with particular individuals and mostly related individuals amongst females. These findings enhance our understanding of the factors shaping mammalian groups and our ability to manage human activities that can impact upon their behaviour and social structure.

Znaczenia ziemi rolniczej w kształtowaniu struktury społecznej polskiej wsi

Celem pracy było wskazanie ewolucji znaczenia ziemi w kształtowaniu struktury społecznej. Analizy zagadnienia dokonano na podstawie wybranych pozycji krajowej literatury przedmiotu. Zakres czasowy dotyczy lat 1944–2016. Ziemia pełni ważną funkcję w kształtowaniu struktury społecznej polskiej wsi. Wielkość gospodarstwa była dawniej podstawowym kryterium statusu społecznego na wsi i wśród rolników. Obecnie o miejscu w strukturze społecznej polskiej wsi w wysokim stopniu decyduje również obszar użytkowanej ziemi (w formie własności lub dzierżawy). Zmienia się sytuacja użytkowników ziemi rolniczej. Są nimi bowiem nie tylko osoby identyfi kujące się z zawodem rolnika. W składzie struktury społecznej polskiej wsi znajduje się coraz więcej osób, które w świetle prawa są rolnikami (posiadają wymagany areał gruntów rolnych), ale wieś jest dla nich tylko miejscem zamieszkania. Następną grupę tworzą tzw. nieobecni właściciele, których z wsią łączy posiadanie gruntów rolnych, które traktują często jako lokatę kapitału (wzrost cen gruntów i możliwość otrzymywania dopłat ze środków Unii Europejskiej i z budżetu krajowego). W wyniku transformacji ustrojowej swoje usytuowanie w strukturze społecznej wsi znaleźli także dzierżawcy i nabywcy ziemi przejętej do Zasobu Własności Rolnej Skarbu Państwa po byłych państwowych gospodarstwach rolnych.

Long- and short-term changes in social wasp community structure in an urban area

The success of social wasps in anthropic environments is related to their ability to nest both in vegetation and human constructions, and, as humans modify their own environments, wasps community structure may shift as well. Our aim was to assess the diversity of social wasps and their interactions with nesting substrates seasonally in an urban squares area in Southeastern Brazil, 15 years after the first diversity study in this area. We actively searched for nests in the rainy season between 2014 and 2015 and in the dry season of 2015. Although social wasp species richness did not change since the 2000 assessment (13 species in 5 genera), the abundance decreased substantially. Additionally, wasps showed a general trend of nesting on the man-made materials Metal (n = 115, 60%) and Concrete (n = 106, 36%), especially by the two most common species sampled: Mischocyttarus cassununga and Polistes versicolor. We suggest that abundance decrease may correspond to the reduction of green areas in the assayed locations. These results support the well-known importance of maintaining green areas in urban environments to promote the growth and conservation of diverse social wasp communities.

DAMPAK PENETRASI TEKNOLOGI INFORMASI DALAM TRANSFORMASI SISTEM PENYULUHAN PERTANIAN DI INDONESIA

The world today has entered to the era of information society connected in a virtual world. Not only in urban areas, this phenomenon is also commonly found in rural areas. Farmers in the village have begun to take advantage of their use of information technology to meet their needs. The result is a response from the government to develop an extension system based on the use of information technology called cyber extension. Based on this phenomenon, it takes a study of the effect of what is caused by the existence of cyber extension and the theory behind it. The approach used is qualitative approach using descriptive method and discourse analysis. The data used are secondary data collected through literature study method. From the discussion is known that cyber extension has given many changes in the social structure and culture of farming communities. Changes that there are moving towards the positive but there is also a precisely cyber extension causing changes to the negative direction. However, the change is not because of the reason because according to Castell, the growing information technology such as cyber extension is present in order to provide a positive effect for human life. While Bourdeau view cyber extension as an arena in which there is a fight capital owned by farmers and extension workers. So as to form a new habitus and give birth to a different social practice prior to the extension activities conducted in the virtual space.
 Key word: information technology, cyber extension, extension, agriculture

Dampak Penetrasi Teknologi Informasi Dalam Transformasi Sistem Penyuluhan Pertanian Di Indonesia

The world today has entered to the era of information society connected in a virtual world. Not only in urban areas, this phenomenon is also commonly found in rural areas. Farmers in the village have begun to take advantage of their use of information technology to meet their needs. The result is a response from the government to develop an extension system based on the use of information technology called cyber extension. Based on this phenomenon, it takes a study of the effect of what is caused by the existence of cyber extension and the theory behind it. The approach used is qualitative approach using descriptive method and discourse analysis. The data used are secondary data collected through literature study method. From the discussion is known that cyber extension has given many changes in the social structure and culture of farming communities. Changes that there are moving towards the positive but there is also a precisely cyber extension causing changes to the negative direction. However, the change is not because of the reason because according to Castell, the growing information technology such as cyber extension is present in order to provide a positive effect for human life. While Bourdeau view cyber extension as an arena in which there is a fight capital owned by farmers and extension workers. So as to form a new habitus and give birth to a different social practice prior to the extension activities conducted in the virtual space.
 Key word: information technology, cyber extension, extension, agriculture

Simple foraging rules in competitive environments can generate socially structured populations.

Social vertebrates commonly form foraging groups whose members repeatedly interact with one another and are often genetically related. Many species also exhibit within‐population specializations, which can range from preferences to forage in particular areas through to specializing on the type of prey they catch. However, within‐population structure in foraging groups, behavioral homogeneity in foraging behavior, and relatedness could be outcomes of behavioral interactions rather than underlying drivers. We present a simple process by which grouping among foragers emerges and is maintained across generations. We introduce agent‐based models to investigate (1) whether a simple rule (keep foraging with the same individuals when you were successful) leads to stable social community structure, and (2) whether this structure is robust to demographic changes and becomes kin‐structured over time. We find the rapid emergence of kin‐structured populations and the presence of foraging groups that control, or specialize on, a particular food resource. This pattern is strongest in small populations, mirroring empirical observations. Our results suggest that group stability can emerge as a product of network self‐organization and, in doing so, may provide the necessary conditions for the evolution of more sophisticated processes, such as social learning. This taxonomically general social process has implications for our understanding of the links between population, genetic, and social structures.