Network Analytic Perspective Research Articles

Risk and protective factors for the severity of long COVID – A network analytic perspective

Background and objectivesIn light of the late stage of COVID-19 pandemic, the occurrence of persistent symptoms after COVID-19 infection has become more frequent. To date, there are no standardized treatments. Underlying mechanisms, risk and protective factors for severe persisting symptoms should be investigated to develop effective interventions. MethodsAn online questionnaire was used to assess gender, presence of prior mental disorder, severity of COVID-19 infection, and social connectedness (SCS-R) to determine their influence on symptom severity of persisting symptoms. The sample used to examine risk and protective factors consisted of 693 participants. ResultsThe analysis revealed no significant gender differences for severity of persisting symptoms. However, prior mental health condition was associated with severity of persisting symptoms. Moreover, there was a positive association between symptom severity during COVID-19 infection and Post COVID 19. Social connectedness was found to be negatively associated with Post COVID 19 symptoms. Social connectedness was shown to be negatively associated with depressive symptoms and disordered self-organization. The symptoms of energy loss and concentration had the highest centrality. ConclusionThe results of the study indicate that severity of post-covid symptoms is associated with higher levels of psychopathological symptoms and a lower level of social connectedness. In conclusion, social connectedness may be an important factor in the development of post-COVID symptoms and should be considered for future interventions. The results from the network analyses provide a first step for a more granular syndrome profile.

Shaping the climate transition: Multistakeholder networks, elites, and sustainable finance policy in Europe

Abstract As sustainable finance has entered the mainstream, it has become an area of contestation among civil society, political and business. In response, policy makers seek to resolve stalemates and enhance legitimacy by utilising multistakeholder, consensus-driven approaches to policymaking. In this paper, we examine these emergent ‘cooperative’ structures from a network analytic perspective. Our structural analysis is based on six national and three EU policy spaces. We conduct compositional analyses to explore the makeup of the network(s) and use a range of centrality measures to capture emerging elites. We find an increase in civil society participation in these policy spaces over time; however, financial firms and pro-business voices remain dominant players. We also find a small cluster of elite actors from a range of stakeholder groups. We conclude that the increasing structural balance of stakeholder interests, however, does not translate into power for civil society to alter the direction of policymaking, but appears to serve enhancing the legitimacy of a policy process that departs from the priority and aspirations of civil society organisations.

Does academic freedom matter for global student mobility? Results from longitudinal network data 2009–2017

Academic freedom and global student mobility are both topics high on the scientific and political agenda. However, the relationship between transnational student mobility and academic freedom in national higher education systems has not yet been investigated cross-nationally. This study intends to answer the question on how a countries’ level of academic freedom impacts on its’ attractiveness as a study destination. We analyse this connection from a network analytic perspective. While our data covers 167 countries as receivers and senders, our network analysis takes the attributes of countries and their relationship to each other into account in order to estimate the net effect of academic freedom ties in the network of global student mobility. We expect global student mobility to be directed from countries with low levels of academic freedom to countries with high levels of academic freedom. At the same time, academic freedom might be an attractive characteristic of a country to retain students in its domestic higher education system.

Agencies without borders: Explaining partner selection in the formation of transnational agreements between regulators

AbstractTransnational collaboration between regulatory agencies has proliferated rapidly within the last three decades. However, given that information regarding the motives, trustworthiness, and capabilities of potential partners is typically imperfect, decisions about with whom to collaborate are inevitably characterized by a degree of uncertainty. To better capture these dynamics, this article uses a network analytical perspective and hypothesizes that agencies are more likely to form agreements with agencies to whom they are already indirectly connected (transitivity), that are highly connected (preferential attachment), or with whom they share tie‐characteristics (assortativity). To test these hypotheses, a stochastic actor‐oriented model is used to analyze an original, self‐coded data set in which bilateral information exchange agreements between national securities agencies (n = 143) are mapped out over a 18‐year period. The results show that the formation of agreements between regulatory agencies is driven by (i) the number of shared partners (i.e. triadic closure); and (ii) similarity regarding agency characteristics (i.e. homophily).

Using network analysis to explore cognitive domains in patients with unipolar versus bipolar depression: a prospective naturalistic study.

Despite growing evidence in the field of cognitive function in mood disorders, the neurocognitive profiles of patients with unipolar and bipolar depression still need further characterization. In this study, we applied network analysis, hypothesizing this approach could highlight differences between major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD) from a cognitive perspective. The cognitive performance of 109 patients (72 unipolar and 37 bipolar depressed outpatients) was assessed through the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and a series of clinical variables were collected. Differences in cognitive performance between MDD and BD patients were tested using non-parametric tests. Moreover, a network graph representing MoCA domains as nodes and Spearman's rho correlation coefficients between the domains as edges was constructed for each group. The presence of mild cognitive impairment was observed in both MDD and BD patients during depression. No statistical significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of overall cognitive performance and across single domains. Nonetheless, network analytic metrics demonstrated different roles of memory and executive dysfunction in MDD versus BD patients: in particular, MDD network was more densely interconnected than BD network, and memory was the node with the highest betweenness and closeness centrality in MDD, while executive function was more central in BD. From a network analytic perspective, memory impairment displays a central role in the cognitive impairment of patients with unipolar depression, whereas executive dysfunction appears to be more central in bipolar depression. Further research is warranted to confirm our results.

Analyzing the network structure and gender differences among the members of the Networked Knowledge Organization Systems (NKOS) community

In this paper, we analyze a major part of the research output of the Networked Knowledge Organization Systems (NKOS) community in the period 2000 to 2016 from a network analytical perspective. We focus on the papers presented at the European and U.S. NKOS workshops and in addition four special issues on NKOS in the last 16 years. For this purpose, we have generated an open dataset, the "NKOS bibliography" which covers the bibliographic information of the research output. We analyze the co-authorship network of this community which results in 123 papers with a sum of 256 distinct authors. We use standard network analytic measures such as degree, betweenness and closeness centrality to describe the co-authorship network of the NKOS dataset. First, we investigate global properties of the network over time. Second, we analyze the centrality of the authors in the NKOS network. Lastly, we investigate gender differences in collaboration behavior in this community. Our results show that apart from differences in centrality measures of the scholars, they have higher tendency to collaborate with those in the same institution or the same geographic proximity. We also find that homophily is higher among women in this community. Apart from small differences in closeness and clustering among men and women, we do not find any significant dissimilarities with respect to other centralities.

On the nature of international sales and sales management research: a social network–analytic perspective

This research uses a combination of text mining, co-word analysis, and social network analysis (SNA) to review 132 international sales and sales management (ISSM) articles published between 1980 and 2017. The study provides a unique view of the past and future of ISSM research and provides three principal contributions. First, from a social network–analytic perspective, it offers a unique examination of the ways ISSM research topics are interconnected, as reflected by keyword network structure. Second, by conducting SNA across two periods (1980–1999 and 2000–2017) and examining the changes in network centrality measures, the study offers initial insights into the evolving nature of the ISSM literature. Third, the study reports keyword network disconnections (i.e., structural holes) to propose a fruitful agenda for future ISSM research. Taken together, this research offers a current perspective of the ISSM research domain's evolving nature.

Political Deadlock: A Network Analysis of Decision Processes in Urban Politics

Urban stakeholders face a diverse range of socio-economic, cultural, and technical challenges that each demand diverging and partially conflicting answers. In this context, local and regional public actors’ capacity to smoothly govern decision- making processes is structurally limited. Rather typically, conflicts may occur between public administration and the business community or the civil society. Moreover, actors within public administration notoriously clash over priorities. In this paper, we address the case of decision blockades and non-action in urban development politics. More specifically, we advance a network analytical perspective to explore the dynamics that lead to a political deadlock and persistent non-action in the case of Deutz Harbour in Cologne, Germany. Our findings indicate that a distribution of power and a non-prioritisation of frames effectively hinder action towards decision-making.

Public orchestration, social networks, and transnational environmental governance: Lessons from the aviation industry

AbstractThis article contributes to current debates on the potential and limitations of transnational environmental governance, addressing in particular the issue of how private and public regulation compete and/or reinforce each other – and with what results. One of the most influential approaches to emerge in recent years has been that of “orchestration.” But while recent discussions have focused on a narrow interpretation of orchestration as intermediation, we argue that there is analytical traction in studying orchestration as a combination of directive and facilitative tools. We also argue that a social network analytical perspective on orchestration can improve our understanding of how governments and international organizations can shape transnational environmental governance. Through a case study of aviation, we provide two contributions to these debates: first, we propose four analytical factors that facilitate the possible emergence of orchestration (issue visibility, interest alignment, issue scope, and regulatory fragmentation and uncertainty); and second, we argue that orchestrators are more likely to succeed when they employ two strategies: (i) they use a combination of directive and facilitative instruments, including the provision of feasible incentives for industry actors to change their behavior, backed up by regulation or a credible regulatory threat; and (ii) they are robustly embedded in, and involved in the formation of, the relevant transnational networks of actors and institutions that provide the infrastructure of governance. © 2017 JohnWiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

The association of posttraumatic stress disorder, complex posttraumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder from a network analytical perspective

BackgroundPosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex PTSD, and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) share etiological risk factors and an overlapping set of associated symptoms. Since the ICD-11 proposal for trauma-related disorders, the relationship of these disorders has to be clarified. A novel approach to psychopathology, network analysis, allows for a detailed analysis of comorbidity on symptom level. MethodsSymptoms were assessed in adult survivors of childhood abuse (N=219) using the newly developed ICD-11 Trauma-Questionnaire and the SCID-II. The psychopathological network was analyzed using the network approach. ResultsPTSD and Complex PTSD symptoms were strongly connected within disorders and to a lesser degree between disorders. Symptoms of BPD were weakly connected to others. Re-experiencing and dissociation were the most central symptoms. ConclusionsMental disorders are no discrete entities, clear boundaries are unlikely to be found. The psychopathological network revealed central symptoms that might be important targets for specific first interventions.

Is the United States Still Dominant in the Global Pharmaceutical Innovation Network?

The dramatic growth of research and development activities in the pharmaceutical sector in emerging economies raises the question of whether the United States still keeps its dominant role in the global pharmaceutical innovation landscape. This paper focuses on investigating the role of the United States in global pharmaceutical innovation, and differs from previous studies by shifting attention to a network analytic perspective to track the global distribution of pharmaceutical inventions. Our sample is composed of key patents covering all new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration between 1996 and 2010. The results show that the United States still dominates in the global pharmaceutical innovation network, especially when it comes to essential core inventions. However, the United States shows a slightly decreasing prominence in the networks of either total new drugs or New Molecular Entity (NME) drugs in the time period 2006–2010 as compared to previous time periods, revealed by subtle traces of network centralities.

A dynamic network analytic perspective on the state of computational social science

A dynamic network analytic perspective on the state of computational social science

What makes the prefrontal cortex so appealing in the era of brain imaging? A network analytical perspective

It is thought that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves cognitive control processes by coordinating the flow of information in the cerebral cortex. In the network of cortical areas the central position of the PFC makes difficult to dissociate processing and the cognitive function mapped to this region, especially when using whole brain imaging techniques, which can detect frequently activated regions. Accordingly, the present study showed particularly high rate of increase of published studies citing the PFC and imaging as compared to other fields of the neurosciences on the PubMed. Network measures used to characterize the role of the areas in signal flow indicated specialization of the different regions of the PFC in cortical processing. Notably, areas of the dorsolateral PFC and the anterior cingulate cortex, which received the highest number of citations, were identified as global convergence points in the network. These prefrontal regions also had central position in the dominant cluster consisted exclusively by the associational areas of the cortex. We also present findings relevant to models suggesting that control processes of the PFC are depended on serial processing, which results in bottleneck effects. The findings suggest that PFC is best understood via its role in cortical information processing.

Modeling History Dependence in Network-Behavior Coevolution

Spatial interdependence—the dependence of outcomes in some units on those in others—is substantively and theoretically ubiquitous and central across the social sciences. Spatial association is also omnipresent empirically. However, spatial association may arise from three importantly distinct processes:common exposureof actors to exogenous external and internal stimuli, interdependence of outcomes/behaviors across actors (contagion), and/or the putative outcomes may affect the dimensions along which the clustering occurs (selection). Accurate inference about any of these processes generally requires an empirical strategy that addresses all three well. From a spatial-econometric perspective, this suggests spatiotemporal empirical models with exogenous covariates (common exposure) and spatial lags (contagion), with the spatial weights being endogenous (selection). From a longitudinal network-analytic perspective, the same three processes are identified as potential sources of network effects and network formation. From that perspective, actors' self-selection into networks (by, e.g., behavioralhomophily) and actors' behavior that is contagious through those network connections likewise demands theoretical and empirical models in which networks and behaviorcoevolveover time. This paper begins building such models by, on theoretical side, extending a Markov type-interaction model to allow endogenous tie-formation, and, on empirical side, merging a simplespatial-laglogit model of contagious behavior with a simplep*-logit model of network formation. One interesting consequence of network-behavior coevolution—identically, endogenous patterns of spatial interdependence—emphasized here is how it can produce history-dependent political dynamics, including equilibriumphatand path dependence (Page 2006). The paper concludes with an illustrative application to alliance formation and conflict behavior among the great powers in the first half of the twentieth century.

Communities, Places, and Social Networks

This article analyzes the concept of community using the network analysis perspective. In opposition to classical studies (sociological and anthropological) that identify communities with particular residential units, it is necessary to study a community as a network of relations rather than as a spatially defined unit. The community is not a “place” but a network of meaningful social relations with friends, neighbors, relatives, and work colleagues who do not necessarily belong to the same residential unit. This article analyzes personal relations and various forms of communication and exchange that take place in different ambits and argues that community studies must be approached from a network analytic perspective. Although social and spatial dimensions may condition and reinforce each other, communities are not places that can be circumscribed spatially. Rather than the spatial dimension, social networks integrate and separate, defining exclusion from or inclusion in particular domains.

Communication Networks from the Enron Email Corpus “It's Always About the People. Enron is no Different”

The Enron email corpus is appealing to researchers because it represents a rich temporal record of internal communication within a large, real-world organization facing a severe and survival-threatening crisis. We describe how we enhanced the original corpus database and present findings from our investigation undertaken with a social network analytic perspective. We explore the dynamics of the structure and properties of the organizational communication network, as well as the characteristics and patterns of communicative behavior of the employees from different organizational levels. We found that during the crisis period, communication among employees became more diverse with respect to established contacts and formal roles. Also during the crisis period, previously disconnected employees began to engage in mutual communication, so that interpersonal communication was intensified and spread through the network, bypassing formal chains of communication. The findings of this study provide valuable insight into a real-world organizational crisis, which may be further used for validating or developing theories and dynamic models of organizational crises; thereby leading to a better understanding of the underlying causes of, and response to, organization failure.

Les anneaux matrimoniaux : une approche formelle

The paper deals with matrimonial rings, a particular kind of cycles in kinship networks which result when spouses are linked to each other by ties of consanguinity or affinity. By taking a network-analytic perspective, the paper endeavours to put this classical issue of structural kinship theory on a general basis, such as to allow conclusions which go beyond isolated discussions of particular ring types (like cross-cousin marriage, sister exchange, and so forth). The paper provides a definition and formal analysis of matrimonial rings, a method of enumerating all isomor-phism classes of matrimonial rings within given genealogical bounds, a series of network-analytic tools - such as the census graph - to analyse ring structures in empirical kinship networks, and techniques to effectuate these analyses with the computer program pajek. A program package containing the required macros can be downloaded from the web. The working of the method is illustrated at the example of kinship networks from four different parts of the world (South-America, Africa, Australia and Europe).

A Critical Comment on the Taylor Approach for Measuring World City Interlock Linkages

In the study of economic‐geographic structures, the shifting focus from the national state to the city and its region has highlighted the lack of reliable interurban data sets. The abundance of usable data sets on international structures and flows has no counterpart when studying interurban relations, which makes it hard to draw any extensive conclusions regarding the structure of world city networks.Instead of relying on available data sets, Peter Taylor has developed a method for generating data sets that, it is argued, can be used in research on the structure of the world city network. In this approach, actors are defined as cities with internal attribute service values, values reflecting the presence of different transnational service‐producing corporations in each city. The structural values between each pair of cities are then established by a mathematical formula based on the service value of each firm in each pair of cities.This procedure can be criticized on two accounts. First, although internal attributes on exceptional occasions can be used as a proxy and as a rough estimate for structural values, such studies must have a firm theoretical underpinning in order to be valid from a network‐analytical perspective. If not, such generated structural values become nothing more than a function of internal attributes, thus losing the whole basic idea of social network analysis. Second, the Taylor function used for generating structural values can be questioned. Why should a large presence of TNC offices in a pair of cities imply a larger city interlock link than would be the case between a high‐ranked city and a low‐ranked city, as the city with the larger service value probably serves cities with a lower service value with economic command, control, and support functions?

A Critical Comment on the Taylor Approach for Measuring World City Interlock Linkages

In the study of economic-geographic structures, the shifting focus from the national state to the city and its region has highlighted the lack of reliable interurban data sets. The abundance of usable data sets on international structures and ?ows has no counterpart when studying interurban relations, which makes it hard to draw any extensive conclusions regarding the structure of world city networks. Instead of relying on available data sets, Peter Taylor has developed a method for generating data sets that, it is argued, can be used in research on the structure of the world city network. In this approach, actors are defined as cities with internal attribute service values, values reflecting the presence of different transnational service- producing corporations in each city. The structural values between each pair of cities are then established by a mathematical formula based on the service value of each firm in each pair of cities. This procedure can be criticized on two accounts. First, although internal attributes on exceptional occasions can be used as a proxy and as a rough estimate for structural values, such studies must have a firm theoretical underpinning in order to be valid from a network-analytical perspective. If not, such generated structural values become nothing more than a function of internal attributes, thus losing the whole basic idea of social network analysis. Second, the Taylor function used for generating structural values can be questioned. Why should a large presence of TNC offices in a pair of cities imply a larger city interlock link than would be the case between a high-ranked city and a low-ranked city, as the city with the larger service value probably serves cities with a lower service value with economic command, control, and support functions? (Less)

On the Meaning and Pattern of Legal Citations: Evidence from State Wrongful Discharge Precedent Cases

This study examines citation data in state wrongful discharge precedent cases from a network analytic perspective. The main question posed is whether, or to what extent, judges use citations as indicators of substantive influence on their decisionmaking versus devices primarily intended to justify decisions reached on other grounds (i.e., for legitimation). To address this question, I obtained evidence on the usefulness of distinguishing between “strong” and “weak” citations and between citation frequency and breadth. I conclude that citations in legal decisions are meaningful data and that there is evidence of both intercourt influence and legitimation at work.