Social Network Analysis Framework Research Articles

The rise of syndicates: Social network analyses of construction waste haulers in Hong Kong using a novel InfoMap-XGBoost method

In areas with a low entry barrier, small businesses tend to organize into informal syndicates to survive or thrive. However, there is little empirical evidence to show how these syndicates evolve, and ultimately, impact business and environment. This research investigates syndicates evolving among construction waste haulers in Hong Kong and their broad impacts. It does so by applying a novel social network analysis (SNA) framework named InfoMap-XGBoost to a big data set covering over 10 million payload trips conducted by waste haulers over the past 10 years. Our analyses show that (a) syndicates spontaneously emerge as the whole social network expands by merging with each other; (b) occupying a higher centrality within the syndicate is more significant than joining a larger syndicate in helping actors receive more hauling orders with bigger values; (c) larger and denser syndicates help alleviate adverse environmental impact by improving the overall business efficiency.

A stakeholder perspective on social stability risk of public–private partnerships project for water environmental governance in China: A social network analysis

The pluralism of stakeholders in PPP project for water environmental governance and the complex interrelationship among stakeholders are the important factors affecting social stability risk. Previous studies have mainly focused on risk identification and assessment. We aim to investigate the key social risks of PPP project for water environmental governance, to understand which social risks stakeholders are concerned about, and what interactions they follow. First, relevant risks and their interrelationships were investigated through a literature review and interviews. Second, the key social stability risks were identified based on social network analysis. Third, strategies were proposed to mitigate the social stability risks. The results show that government corruption, government intervention risk, approved risk, poor contract design risk price change and policy and regulation risk are the key risks with the highest in/out-degree, centrality and ego network size. Four core stakeholder groups (i.e., government, contractors, project companies, and the public and the media) and four core challenges (i.e., difficulties in financing, lack of mass incidents prevention mechanism, incomplete project schedule control system and improper handling of benefit compensation issues) have intensive relationships. We concluded that controlling the complicated relationships among four core stakeholder groups can reduce the social stability risks. The social network analysis framework combining stakeholder management and risk management provides a reference for the management of PPP projects for water environmental governance.

Knowledge sharing and innovation in open networks of tourism businesses

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the information flows, in terms of content and process, underpinning the sharing of knowledge by managers and owners. Such an examination reveals similarities and differences that will influence the generation and dissemination of knowledge used in tourism business operations and contribute to innovation.Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines information flows within the theoretical and methodological framework of social network analysis. The findings were derived from a quantitative study of tourism managers and owners of a tourism hub in South-West England.FindingsThe main finding was that network structure characteristics determine the flow of information within owners’ and managers’ social networks. The owners of smaller businesses received information from several sources and, therefore, had fewer structural constraints and reported larger structural holes. In comparison, the managers had more brokerage opportunities to disseminate the information within their social networks.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper highlights knowledge sharing between tourism business managers and owners in an open network structure. First, an open network structure builds innovation through the provision of nonredundant information. This is determined through the effective size of structural holes and the dissemination of information through brokerage roles. Second, the knowledge capability of a destination is built up through the social networking of managers and owners. The generation and dissemination of knowledge in a tourism destination are facilitated by the social networking activities of managers and owners.Practical implicationsManagers and owners of tourism businesses require knowledge through information to assist with innovative business practices. The practical implication of this is that the social networks of managers and owners have different network characteristics, and that these differences result in consequences for the innovation of business practices. Another practical implication relates to the importance of managers in knowledge dissemination based on having several brokerage roles in the tourism destination.Originality/valueThese findings are important because an understanding of social networks and the flow of information is one of the keys to determining the influences on knowledge sharing within tourism destination knowledge networks of owners or managers and their potential contributions to innovation.

Understanding Frailty: Probabilistic Causality between Components and Their Relationship with Death through a Bayesian Network and Evidence Propagation

Identifying relationships between components of an index helps to gain a better understanding of the condition they define. The Frailty Index (FI) measures the global health of individuals and can be used to predict outcomes as mortality. Previously, we modelled the relationship between the FI components (deficits) and death through an undirected graphical model and a social network analysis framework. Here, we model the FI components and death through an averaged Bayesian network obtained through a structural learning process and resampling, in order to understand how the FI components and death are causally related. We identified that components are not similarly related between them and that deficits are related according to their type. Two deficits were the most relevant in terms of their connections, and two others were directly associated with death. We obtained the strength of the relationships in order to identify the most plausible, identifying clusters of deficits. Finally, we propagated evidence and studied how FI components predict mortality, obtaining a correct assignation of almost 74% and a true positive rate (TPR) of 56%. Values were obtained after changing the model threshold (via Youden’s Index maximization) whose possible values are represented in a Receiving Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (TPR vs. 1-True Negative Rate). The greater number of deficits included for the evidence, the best performances; nevertheless, the FI does not seem to be quite efficient to correctly differentiate between dead and living people.

Research on the Coordinated Governance Mechanism of Cross-Regional and Cross-Basin Ecological Compensation in the Yangtze River Delta.

The development of a regionally integrated economy promotes the development of river basin ecological compensation toward cross-regional coordinated governance. The ecological compensation in the Yangtze River Delta has developed by leaps and bounds, which is conducive to the research on the collaborative governance mechanism. Taking the ecological compensation policy data in the Yangtze River Delta as the research object, and using the social network analysis method, this paper analyzes the current situation of cross-basin cooperation in the Yangtze River Delta. A collaborative governance network is formed with 74 ecological compensation agreements, and the distribution law of the overall collaborative network is found. Using IAD to decompose the ecological compensation agreement rules, 303 institutional units were obtained, of which, 198 were selection rules, accounting for 65%. The research results show that: (1) The ecological compensation cooperation in the Yangtze River Delta region is mainly concentrated in the Jiaxing Jiashan, Wujiang District, Suzhou, and Qingpu District, Shanghai, forming a close cooperation triangle network, and Shanghai plays a strong “intermediary” role in it. (2) In institutional grammar analysis, the formulation of rules is biased toward choice rules and payoff rules, that is to say, the content of the rules is mostly how to cooperate and how to reward and punish but there is a lack of specific action scenarios and standards. The combination of social network and institutional analysis and development framework is conducive to the study of the ecological collaborative governance mechanism of the Yangtze River Delta, breaking the gap between different fields and regions, enhancing the enthusiasm for multi-subject governance in the Yangtze River Delta region, and giving full play to the effectiveness of multi-subject governance.

Analysing (In)formal Relations and Networks in Security Force Assistance: The Case of Niger

ABSTRACT Studies on Security Force Assistance (SFA) have hitherto been dominated by different iterations of the principal-agent perspective to explain relations between provider and recipient. Yet, while such frameworks aptly illustrate these dynamics from a macro perspective, they are inadequate when analysing the complexity of practices on the ground. To mitigate this short-coming, the present article uses a Social Network Analysis framework to provide an in-depth micro analysis of relations between different SFA providers and the recipient state: Niger, focusing on the Belgian Special Forces. Drawing on field observations and more than 40 interviews in Niger, the present study increases our understanding of how dynamic (in)formal social networks impact the development of SFA. It points to the importance of timing, contingency and individual encounters as central in the understanding of how SFA develops and at times strays from strategies.

사회관계망분석을 활용한 노화와 신체활동 프로그램 간의 구조적 관계

The purpose of this study was to assess how meaningful words extracted from previous studies are interconnected one another under the framework of social network analysis. In order to extract aging-related articles and/or examine the elders’ experiences and interactions in the context of sport and daily physical activity, the following key words, “old”, “elder”, and “aging”, were used to collect peer-reviewed articles published in 2010 through 2019 from major journals in the field of sport and the UCINET 6.0 program is used to reveal relationship which might be assumed to be existed among important words occurred in the articles. Results of degree centrality obtained from social network analysis using the UCINET program indicated that five words such as exercise, strength, older, present, and lower had a relatively high level of degree centrality seems to stay in the aging-related-research as those words are more integrated into the network, and results shown in betweenness centrality implied that words such as exercise, present, older, and elder play an important role in a network. Furthermore, results shown in closeness centrality implied that indication, explanation, patient, outcome, outcome, and woman play an important role to spread information in a network. In conclusion, this study shows connectivity of key words and structural associations between key words through visualization, and results of this study suggest aging of older adults deserves more focused attention by program developers.

Decrease in social cohesion in a colonial seabird under a perturbation regime

Social interactions, through influence on behavioural processes, can play an important role in populations’ resilience (i.e. ability to cope with perturbations). However little is known about the effects of perturbations on the strength of social cohesion in wild populations. Long-term associations between individuals may reflect the existence of social cohesion for seizing the evolutionary advantages of social living. We explore the existence of social cohesion and its dynamics under perturbations by analysing long-term social associations, in a colonial seabird, the Audouin’s gull Larus audouinii, living in a site experiencing a shift to a perturbed regime. Our goals were namely (1) to uncover the occurrence of long-term social ties (i.e. associations) between individuals and (2) to examine whether the perturbation regime affected this form of social cohesion. We analysed a dataset of more than 3500 individuals from 25 years of monitoring by means of contingency tables and within the Social Network Analysis framework. We showed that associations between individuals are not only due to philopatry or random gregariousness but that there are social ties between individuals over the years. Furthermore, social cohesion decreased under the perturbation regime. We sustain that perturbations may lead not only to changes in individuals’ behaviour and fitness but also to a change in populations’ social cohesion. The consequences of decreasing social cohesion are still not well understood, but they can be critical for the population dynamics of social species.

Breaking the Treadmill? Climate Change Policy Networks and the Prospects for Low Carbon Futures in Australia and Finland

The Treadmill of Production Theory (TPT) argues that in advanced capitalist societies, business organizations, trade unions, and state actors form a constellation that prioritizes economic growth over environmental concerns. We combine this perspective with the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and use methods of social network analysis, survey data on key organizations in Finland and Australia, and in-depth interviews to map the policy network structures that resist low carbon transitions, and identify potential for change in these structures. We find that a coalition of economic, labor, and governmental organizations resists a low carbon transition in both countries. However, we also find several possible avenues of incremental change through changes in the network structures and the beliefs held by actors in the networks. Theoretically, this suggests that the TPT is correct in its diagnosis of the current situation, but the ACF may be a more fruitful perspective for identifying potential for change.

An Attitudinal Impacts Analysis of Social Media Platforms And Brand Relationship Quality at Music Festivals

The purpose of this study is determination of ways in which music festival organizers can target their social media communication with greater certainty toward younger generations (i.e., Generation Z, also called "digital natives"). This research has two core purposes: the first is to investigate how music festivals' use of social media can affect their brand relationship quality (BRQ) with their audience, and the second is to determine how connecting to online brand communities prior to, during, and after a music festival affects the satisfaction and loyalty of attendees. The research follows a positivist epistemological framework and a deductive research approach. The research design grew from a collected body of e-research and uses asynchronous data from the social media platform Twitter to understand consumers' perception of brands in a music festival context. A social network analysis framework is applied. The findings show that social media does affect brand experience, brand image transfer, and BRQ in a positive way and that social media can, therefore, strengthen BRQ with Generation Z music event attendees. The results indicate that music festivals can strengthen BRQ with young consumers through social networking platforms if digital marketing strategies are utilized to their full potential. Reflection is made of the psychosocial value of this networking for young people at a time of socioeconomic turbulence. The practical implications for these findings are also discussed.

Audit on the incidence & management of drug-related hospital admissions for drug-induced gastro-intestinal bleeding.

The complex healthcare system that provides patients with medicines places them at risk when care is transferred between healthcare organisations, for example discharge from hospital. Consequently, understanding and improving medicines management, particularly at care transfers, is a priority.This study aimed to explore the medicines management system as patients experience it and determine differences in the patient-perceived importance of people in the system.We used a Social Network Analysis framework, collecting ego-net data about the importance of people patients had contact with concerning their medicines after hospital discharge. Single- and multi-level logistic regression models of patients' networks were constructed, and model residuals were explored at the patient level. This enabled us to identify patients' networks with support tie patterns different from the general patterns suggested by the model results. Qualitative data for those patients were then analysed to understand their differing experiences.Networks comprised clinical and administrative healthcare staff and friends and family members. Networks were highly individual and the perceived importance of alters varied both within and between patients. Ties to spouses were significantly more likely to be rated as highly important and ties to community pharmacy staff (other than pharmacists) and to GP receptionists were less likely to be highly rated. Patients with low-value medicines management networks described having limited information about their medicines and a lack of understanding or help. Patients with high-value networks described appreciating support and having confidence in staff.Patients experienced medicines management as individual systems within which they interacted with healthcare staff and informal support to manage their treatment. Multilevel models indicated that there are unexplained variables impacting on patients' assessments of their medicines management networks. Qualitative exploration of the model residuals can offer an understanding of networks that do not have the typical range of support ties.

Patient and Prescriber Characteristics Associated with the Use of Antidepressant Monotherapy in Pediatric Patients with Bipolar Disorder

The complex healthcare system that provides patients with medicines places them at risk when care is transferred between healthcare organisations, for example discharge from hospital. Consequently, understanding and improving medicines management, particularly at care transfers, is a priority.This study aimed to explore the medicines management system as patients experience it and determine differences in the patient-perceived importance of people in the system.We used a Social Network Analysis framework, collecting ego-net data about the importance of people patients had contact with concerning their medicines after hospital discharge. Single- and multi-level logistic regression models of patients' networks were constructed, and model residuals were explored at the patient level. This enabled us to identify patients' networks with support tie patterns different from the general patterns suggested by the model results. Qualitative data for those patients were then analysed to understand their differing experiences.Networks comprised clinical and administrative healthcare staff and friends and family members. Networks were highly individual and the perceived importance of alters varied both within and between patients. Ties to spouses were significantly more likely to be rated as highly important and ties to community pharmacy staff (other than pharmacists) and to GP receptionists were less likely to be highly rated. Patients with low-value medicines management networks described having limited information about their medicines and a lack of understanding or help. Patients with high-value networks described appreciating support and having confidence in staff.Patients experienced medicines management as individual systems within which they interacted with healthcare staff and informal support to manage their treatment. Multilevel models indicated that there are unexplained variables impacting on patients' assessments of their medicines management networks. Qualitative exploration of the model residuals can offer an understanding of networks that do not have the typical range of support ties.

SYMBOLS: SOFTWARE FOR SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

The unique possibilities of the online social networks such as real-time data access, knowledge of users’ changing preferences and access to their statuses provide the possibility for innovation in the analysis of people’s behavior and opinions, when compared to classical offline methods. Literature review shows lack of studies about the use of public Facebook data in Serbia for the improvement of different product sale, political or promotional campaigns, recommender systems, etc. In this paper, we present the way how data from Facebook can be collected in order to gain insight into the individuals’ preferences and statuses, as well as their connection to a company's fan pages. In particular, we present data collection framework – Symbols – used for collecting individual specific data. The framework stores data into local database and involves a module for graph and content-based analysis of these data. The proposed framework for social network analysis can be used as a decision-making system in users’ preferences implementation thus creating a space for business improvements in various areas.

A Heterogeneous Graph Embedding Framework for Location-Based Social Network Analysis in Smart Cities

In recent years, with the advancement of wireless communication and location acquisition technology in the context of modern smart cities, and the increasing popularity of mobile devices with location capabilities based on Social Internet of Things, we can now easily introduce location services into traditional social networks. How to effectively use these massive data to provide decision support for smart cities is an emerging task. It is necessary to find an efficient way to effectively extract and represent useful information from location-based social networks (LBSNs) by dealing with the data heterogeneity. Against this background, this article proposes a heterogeneous graph embedding framework for LBSN analysis named location based social network embedding (LBSNE). LBSNE framework first constructs the heterogeneous neighborhood of a node by formalizing a metapath-based random walk on LBSNs. Then, it leverages the learned heterogeneous neighborhood sequence to do network embedding by employing a heterogeneous skip-gram model. The effectiveness of the proposed model is evaluated on the tasks of location recommendation and visitor predict on two LBSN datasets.

Cardiology patients' medicines management networks after hospital discharge: A mixed methods analysis of a complex adaptive system.

The complex healthcare system that provides patients with medicines places them at risk when care is transferred between healthcare organisations, for example discharge from hospital. Consequently, understanding and improving medicines management, particularly at care transfers, is a priority. This study aimed to explore the medicines management system as patients experience it and determine differences in the patient-perceived importance of people in the system. We used a Social Network Analysis framework, collecting ego-net data about the importance of people patients had contact with concerning their medicines after hospital discharge. Single- and multi-level logistic regression models of patients' networks were constructed, and model residuals were explored at the patient level. This enabled us to identify patients' networks with support tie patterns different from the general patterns suggested by the model results. Qualitative data for those patients were then analysed to understand their differing experiences. Networks comprised clinical and administrative healthcare staff and friends and family members. Networks were highly individual and the perceived importance of alters varied both within and between patients. Ties to spouses were significantly more likely to be rated as highly important and ties to community pharmacy staff (other than pharmacists) and to GP receptionists were less likely to be highly rated. Patients with low-value medicines management networks described having limited information about their medicines and a lack of understanding or help. Patients with high-value networks described appreciating support and having confidence in staff. Patients experienced medicines management as individual systems within which they interacted with healthcare staff and informal support to manage their treatment. Multilevel models indicated that there are unexplained variables impacting on patients' assessments of their medicines management networks. Qualitative exploration of the model residuals can offer an understanding of networks that do not have the typical range of support ties.

Georg Simmel and the “Relational Turn”. Contributions to the foundation of the Lebenssoziologie since Simmel

The first aim of the paper is an interpretation of Georg Simmel’s sociology in “relational terms” – i.e., under the categories of the “relational sociology”; it focuses, thus, to show how Simmel’s social theory and philosophy of culture fit for the construction of aLebensoziologie. Considering Simmel as a “relational sociologist” means to demonstrate how his contribution is decisive to the history of sociology, since he defines the “Wechselwirkung” (reciprocity, relational exchange) and itsformsas the very matter of the social sciences. Simmel represents the “relational turn” in the wide sociologicalmilieu. Since Simmel’s contribution, sociology attempted to consider and investigate social facts in terms of “relation” and reciprocity. The current sociological debate insists on considering Simmel as a “relational” sociologist in various declinations (coherent to Bourdieu’s social theory or to the social network analysis framework). In his late essays and books Simmel gives a “vitalist” accent to the analysis of social facts: the social is above all “social life”, according to the consolidated forms/contents dialectical model.Grundfragen der Soziologie. Individuum und Gesellschaftrepresents his last attempt to corroborate a sort of “sociology of life” (Lebenssoziologie). Even if this term does not explicitly appear in Simmel’s words, it summarizes his social and cultural theory - since the volumeSoziologie- and offers some key-concepts for the successive sociological debate.

Using Exponential Random Graph Models to Analyze the Character of Peer Relationship Networks and Their Effects on the Subjective Well-being of Adolescents.

The influences of peer relationships on adolescent subjective well-being were investigated within the framework of social network analysis, using exponential random graph models as a methodological tool. The participants in the study were 1,279 students (678 boys and 601 girls) from nine junior middle schools in Shenzhen, China. The initial stage of the research used a peer nomination questionnaire and a subjective well-being scale (used in previous studies) to collect data on the peer relationship networks and the subjective well-being of the students. Exponential random graph models were then used to explore the relationships between students with the aim of clarifying the character of the peer relationship networks and the influence of peer relationships on subjective well being. The results showed that all the adolescent peer relationship networks in our investigation had positive reciprocal effects, positive transitivity effects and negative expansiveness effects. However, none of the relationship networks had obvious receiver effects or leaders. The adolescents in partial peer relationship networks presented similar levels of subjective well-being on three dimensions (satisfaction with life, positive affects and negative affects) though not all network friends presented these similarities. The study shows that peer networks can affect an individual’s subjective well-being. However, whether similarities among adolescents are the result of social influences or social choices needs further exploration, including longitudinal studies that investigate the potential processes of subjective well-being similarities among adolescents.

A network perspective filling a gap in assessment of agricultural advisory system performance

Agricultural advisory systems aim to improve livelihoods and well-being of the rural community by enhancing information exchange and capacity for collective action. In East Africa, advisory systems are becoming more demand driven and are being provided by an increasingly complex range of actors using participatory approaches. Social network analysis (SNA) provides a tool to examine farmer networks for broad assessment of agricultural advisory systems. This paper proposes a framework linking social network measures to information flow and capacity for collective action and applies it to personal (egocentric) networks in 11 sites within East Africa. The results provide valuable insight into performance of existing advisory systems and areas for improvement. Limited capacity for collective action, based on information networks, anecdotal evidence and literature, within farmer groups and communities was found in the Rwanda and to some degree in the Kenyan sites. In Tanzania, few connections with external information sources were found, potentially limiting new innovations entering the communities. In applying the framework, consideration of external factors that can influence social network structures is required so that attribution is not overstated. Use of egocentric networks and recall error challenges exist but can be managed. The proposed SNA framework provides a new and useful assessment tool, particularly combined with broader frameworks, for government agriculture ministries, development practitioners and researchers to support the design and assessment of agricultural advisory systems.

Organizational Networks in Times of Crisis: Lessons from Katrina

The purpose of this study was to examine how well organizations that could have potentially aided in the response to Hurricane Katrina were integrated into the relief effort following the disaster using a social network analysis framework. It was hypothesized that a number of organizations were kept isolated from or peripheral to mitigation efforts. Quantitative content analysis of media reports and government documents was performed to test this hypothesis, which was confirmed. The results of this study suggest that if relief efforts are to be more successful in the future, organizations with valuable resources must be included in the interorganizational networks of responders before and immediately after disasters take place.

Computational Analysis of Merchant Marine GPS Data

Abstract : A series of quantitative and structural analyses are applied to geospatial data regarding the movement of Merchant Marine vessels in the English Channel. CASOS has been tasked with developing new computational techniques for analyzing data about Merchant Marine behavior under a Social Network Analysis framework. In this paper we describe an experiment doing so for geospatial data from AIS transponders in 1700+ Merchant Marine vessels during exercise in the English Channel. Our analysis has three phases: Spatial clustering algorithms are used to detect places of interest and relationships between entities the data. Extracted relational information is analyzed in network form. A suite of network analytic measures are applied to find patterns on the network and individual node levels. We apply an intervention analysis which models an intervention (surveying ships at ports) and suggests a strategy for allocating surveillance. The analysis framework is unusual in taking a relational perspective to spatial data, and novel in its principled treatment of the relationship between spatial, two mode, and one mode network representations of data, and in its approach to proposing intervention strategy.