Dominância hierárquica, organização social e perfil de hidrocarbonetos cuticulares de Pachycondyla striata Fr. Smith, 1858 (Formicidae: Ponerinae)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Análisis organizacional del partido de la democracia social brasileña en el estado de San Pablo (1988-2006)

The article represents a theoretical and methodological approach to the analysis of organizational dynamics of political parties today, based on a study of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) in the State of Sao Pãulo (period between 1988 to 2006). It is hypothesized that the structure and the institutional rules of a particular party, or even their election results, are insufficient to explain the inner workings, such as the role of party organization in the electoral system. An approach that articulates the relationship patterns, election results and posts held in the party, identified the factors that explain the political capital that circulated within the party and ensured its organizational dynamics over the period analyzed.

Redes sociais na Internet: uma investigação sobre práticas de compartilhamento de arquivos no Facebook

The social networking sites have experienced a large and rapid growth in recent years and bring together millions of users in Brazil and worldwide. Such networks allow adding groups of people with common interests or relationships, enabling members of this group to communicate and exchange information. Some social networks have specific goals, for example, aggregate individuals with common interests and professional relationships. However, they all share information in some way, whether in the form of short texts, photos, videos, among others. Sharing information in files is also a growing activity on the Internet and can be done in various ways, from sending files via email to multiple contacts to make available areas shared by the same contacts. However, applications are not yet available to enable file sharing on Facebook, considered the premier social network today. Given the growing demand for sharing files over the Internet, and a large number of users familiar with the use of these integrated applications for Facebook there is a demand for applications that allow users to share files with their contacts in this social network. This study aims to investigate how users use Facebook, and their practices for file sharing. It is believed that the results will substantiate future projects to develop software for file sharing on Facebook. Due to the exploratory nature of this research, the choice was made for a survey to collect data, applied through the web. From the results obtained, was possible to observe a frequent use of file sharing, but no interest in paid services. Regarding Facebook, was possible to observe their extensive use in both the frequency of access as the hours spent, as well as an increased use of applications (games, quiz, etc.). The full set of results shows a favorable environment for developing applications for sharing files on Facebook.

Social networks on the Internet: a practical investigation about file sharing on Facebook

The social networks on the internet have experienced rapid growth and joined millions of users in Brazil and throughout the world. Such networks allow groups of people to communicate and exchange information. Sharing information in files is also a growing activity on the internet and is done in various ways. However, applications are not yet available to enable file sharing on Facebook, the premier social network today. This study aims to investigate how users use Facebook, and their practices for file sharing. Due to the experimental nature of this research, we opted for a data collection survey, applied over the web. From the data analysis, we have found a frequent use of file sharing, but no interest in paid services. As for Facebook, there was an extensive use of applications. The set of results shows a favourable scenario for applications that allow file sharing on Facebook.

Gênero, cultura e rede social: a construção social da desigualdade de gênero por meio da linguagem

Based on systemic-cybernetic-new paradigm vision and social constructionism, the paper is an invitation to reflect on the importance of language in the maintenance and the possibility of changing unequal relational patterns, mainly related to issues of gender. Studies on language and verbal behavior of women and men, besides their representation in the media, are examples to illustrate the need advocated here, to changing patterns of inequality guided by gender differences that influence and are influenced by the culture, conveyed in our social network. This paper is a contribution for the clinical work with families and couples, from the perspective of the current behaviors, based on refrains spread by the media which became popular, since it is based on clinical and nonclinical observations about human relationships and its representation in the media and artistic productions.

The Flower Workshop: a social self-organizing practice in mental health nursing

Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Disentangling social networks from spatiotemporal dynamics: the temporal structure of a dolphin society

Social networks are static illustrations of dynamic societies, within which social interactions are constantly changing. Fundamental sources of variation include ranging behaviour and temporal demographic changes. Spatiotemporal dynamics can favour or limit opportunities for individuals to interact, and then a network may not essentially represent social processes. We examined whether a social network can embed such nonsocial effects in its topology, whereby emerging modules depict spatially or temporally segregated individuals. To this end, we applied a combination of spatial, temporal and demographic analyses to a long-term study of the association patterns of Guiana dolphins, Sotalia guianensis. We found that association patterns are organized into a modular social network. Space use was unlikely to reflect these modules, since dolphins' ranging behaviour clearly overlapped. However, a temporal demographic turnover, caused by the exit/entrance of individuals (most likely emigration/immigration), defined three modules of associations occurring at different times. Although this factor could mask real social processes, we identified the temporal scale that allowed us to account for these demographic effects. By looking within this turnover period (32 months), we assessed fission-fusion dynamics of the poorly known social organization of Guiana dolphins. We highlight that spatiotemporal dynamics can strongly influence the structure of social networks. Our findings show that hypothetical social units can emerge due to the temporal opportunities for individuals to interact. Therefore, a thorough search for a satisfactory spatiotemporal scale that removes such nonsocial noise is critical when analysing a social system. (C) 2012 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social cliques in male northern muriquis Brachyteles hypoxanthus

Analyses of spatial relationships and social interactions provide insights into the social structure of animal societies and the ways in which social preferences among and between dyads affect higher order social relationships. In this paper we describe the patterns of spatial associations and social interactions among adult male northern muriquis in order to evaluate the dynamics of their social networks above the dyadic levels. Systematic observations were made on the 17 adult males present in a multi-male/multi-female group from April 2004 through February 2005, and in July 2005. Analyses of their spatial relationships identified two distinct male cliques; some adult males (called "N" males) were more connected to the females and immatures than other adult males ("MU" males), which were more connected to one another. Affiliative interactions were significantly higher among dyads belonging to the same clique than to different cliques. Although frequencies of dyadic agonistic interactions were similarly low among individuals within and between cliques, MU males appeared to be subordinate to N males. Nonetheless, there were no significant differences in the copulation rates estimated for MU males and N males. Mutual benefits of cooperation between MU and N cliques in intergroup encounters might explain their ongoing associations in the same mixed-sex group [Current Zoology 58 (2): 342-352, 2012].

Multidimensional Projections for Visual Analysis of Social Networks

Visual analysis of social networks is usually based on graph drawing algorithms and tools. However, social networks are a special kind of graph in the sense that interpretation of displayed relationships is heavily dependent on context. Context, in its turn, is given by attributes associated with graph elements, such as individual nodes, edges, and groups of edges, as well as by the nature of the connections between individuals. In most systems, attributes of individuals and communities are not taken into consideration during graph layout, except to derive weights for force-based placement strategies. This paper proposes a set of novel tools for displaying and exploring social networks based on attribute and connectivity mappings. These properties are employed to layout nodes on the plane via multidimensional projection techniques. For the attribute mapping, we show that node proximity in the layout corresponds to similarity in attribute, leading to easiness in locating similar groups of nodes. The projection based on connectivity yields an initial placement that forgoes force-based or graph analysis algorithm, reaching a meaningful layout in one pass. When a force algorithm is then applied to this initial mapping, the final layout presents better properties than conventional force-based approaches. Numerical evaluations show a number of advantages of pre-mapping points via projections. User evaluation demonstrates that these tools promote ease of manipulation as well as fast identification of concepts and associations which cannot be easily expressed by conventional graph visualization alone. In order to allow better space usage for complex networks, a graph mapping on the surface of a sphere is also implemented.

Essays on Bayesian Inference for Social Networks

This thesis presents Bayesian solutions to inference problems for three types of social network data structures: a single observation of a social network, repeated observations on the same social network, and repeated observations on a social network developing through time. A social network is conceived as being a structure consisting of actors and their social interaction with each other. A common conceptualisation of social networks is to let the actors be represented by nodes in a graph with edges between pairs of nodes that are relationally tied to each other according to some definition. Statistical analysis of social networks is to a large extent concerned with modelling of these relational ties, which lends itself to empirical evaluation. The first paper deals with a family of statistical models for social networks called exponential random graphs that takes various structural features of the network into account. In general, the likelihood functions of exponential random graphs are only known up to a constant of proportionality. A procedure for performing Bayesian inference using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods is presented. The algorithm consists of two basic steps, one in which an ordinary Metropolis-Hastings up-dating step is used, and another in which an importance sampling scheme is used to calculate the acceptance probability of the Metropolis-Hastings step. In paper number two a method for modelling reports given by actors (or other informants) on their social interaction with others is investigated in a Bayesian framework. The model contains two basic ingredients: the unknown network structure and functions that link this unknown network structure to the reports given by the actors. These functions take the form of probit link functions. An intrinsic problem is that the model is not identified, meaning that there are combinations of values on the unknown structure and the parameters in the probit link functions that are observationally equivalent. Instead of using restrictions for achieving identification, it is proposed that the different observationally equivalent combinations of parameters and unknown structure be investigated a posteriori. Estimation of parameters is carried out using Gibbs sampling with a switching devise that enables transitions between posterior modal regions. The main goal of the procedures is to provide tools for comparisons of different model specifications. Papers 3 and 4, propose Bayesian methods for longitudinal social networks. The premise of the models investigated is that overall change in social networks occurs as a consequence of sequences of incremental changes. Models for the evolution of social networks using continuos-time Markov chains are meant to capture these dynamics. Paper 3 presents an MCMC algorithm for exploring the posteriors of parameters for such Markov chains. More specifically, the unobserved evolution of the network in-between observations is explicitly modelled thereby avoiding the need to deal with explicit formulas for the transition probabilities. This enables likelihood based parameter inference in a wider class of network evolution models than has been available before. Paper 4 builds on the proposed inference procedure of Paper 3 and demonstrates how to perform model selection for a class of network evolution models.

Audiovisivi e Social Networks: il testo e i modi dell'esperienza 2007-2010

The doctoral research project "Audiovisuals and Social Networks: Text and Experiences 2007-2010" is mainly based on the analysis of the international audiovisuals landscape and of the promotional strategies of these products in Social Networks environment. The aim is to understand what kind of changes we can find about the concept of "text", users and marketing. The thesis is focused not just on Social Network marketing but also on new media development, such as Social TV and mobile.

MongoDB: analisi e prototipazione su applicazioni di social business intelligence

L’ultimo decennio ha visto un radicale cambiamento del mercato informatico, con la nascita di un numero sempre maggiore di applicazioni rivolte all’interazione tra utenti. In particolar modo, l’avvento dei social network ha incrementato notevolmente le possibilità di creare e condividere contenuti sul web, generando volumi di dati sempre maggiori, nell’ordine di petabyte e superiori. La gestione di tali quantità di dati ha portato alla nascita di soluzioni non relazionali appositamente progettate, dette NoSQL. Lo scopo di questo documento è quello di illustrare come i sistemi NoSQL, nello specifico caso di MongoDB, cerchino di sopperire alle difficoltà d’utilizzo dei database relazionali in un contesto largamente distribuito. Effettuata l'analisi delle principali funzionalità messe a disposizione da MongoDB, si illustreranno le caratteristiche di un prototipo di applicazione appositamente progettato che sfrutti una capacità peculiare di MongoDB quale la ricerca full-text. In ultima analisi si fornirà uno studio delle prestazioni di tale soluzione in un ambiente basato su cluster, evidenziandone il guadagno prestazionale.

Thinkmix: dall'idea alla progettazione dello story network

Thinkmix è un network con componenti social che permette agli utenti di creare storie collaborando. La tesi illustra tutti gli step che hanno portato alla realizzazione di questo network: l'idea, la progettazione, lo sviluppo e la pubblicazione. Ritengo si tratti di un progetto ben riuscito e completo che mi ha permesso di esprimere totalmente le capacità acquisite durante il corso nelle varie materie (e non unicamente nella materia di riferimento) e di avvicinarmi a tematiche esterne a una laurea triennale (sicurezza informatica, marketing, acquisto e gestione di server dedicati, burocrazia per la pubblicazione di applicazione iOS e sito web con dominio).

Networking: the "making of" social networks. A closer look at the process and antecedents of some resourcing-oriented behaviors in organizations.

Social networks are one of the “hot” themes in people’s life and contemporary social research. Considering our “embeddedness” in a thick web of social relations is a study perspective that could unveil a number of explanations of how people may manage their personal and social resources. Looking at people’s behaviors of building and managing their social networks, seems to be an effective way to find some possible rationalization about how to help people getting the best from their resources . The main aim of this dissertation is to give a closer look at the role of networking behaviors. Antecedents, motivations, different steps and measures about networking behaviors and outcomes are analyzed and discussed. Results seem to confirm, in a different setting and time perspective, that networking behaviors include different types and goals that change over time. Effects of networking behaviors seem to find empirical confirmation through social network analysis methods. Both personality and situational self-efficacy seem to predict networking behaviors. Different types of motivational drivers seem to be related to diverse networking behaviors.