On-light: optical social network

Social networks are a recent phenomenon of communication, with a high prevalence of young users. This concept serves as a motto for a multidisciplinary project, which aims to create a simple communication network, using light as the transmission medium. Mixed team, composed by students from secondary and higher education schools, are partners on the development of an optical transceiver. A LED lamp array and a small photodiode are the optical transmitter and receiver, respectively. Using several transceivers aligned with each other, this con guration creates a ring communication network, enabling the exchange of messages between users. Through this project, some concepts addressed in physics classes from secondary schools (e.g. photoelectric phenomena and the properties of light) are experimentally veri ed and used to communicate, in a classroom or a laboratory.

Joint Optimization for Social Content Delivery in Wireless Networks

Over the last decade, success of social networks has significantly reshaped how people consume information. Recommendation of contents based on user profiles is well-received. However, as users become dominantly mobile, little is done to consider the impacts of the wireless environment, especially the capacity constraints and changing channel. In this dissertation, we investigate a centralized wireless content delivery system, aiming to optimize overall user experience given the capacity constraints of the wireless networks, by deciding what contents to deliver, when and how. We propose a scheduling framework that incorporates content-based reward and deliverability. Our approach utilizes the broadcast nature of wireless communication and social nature of content, by multicasting and precaching. Results indicate this novel joint optimization approach outperforms existing layered systems that separate recommendation and delivery, especially when the wireless network is operating at maximum capacity. Utilizing limited number of transmission modes, we significantly reduce the complexity of the optimization. We also introduce the design of a hybrid system to handle transmissions for both system recommended contents ('push') and active user requests ('pull'). Further, we extend the joint optimization framework to the wireless infrastructure with multiple base stations. The problem becomes much harder in that there are many more system configurations, including but not limited to power allocation and how resources are shared among the base stations ('out-of-band' in which base stations transmit with dedicated spectrum resources, thus no interference; and 'in-band' in which they share the spectrum and need to mitigate interference). We propose a scalable two-phase scheduling framework: 1) each base station obtains delivery decisions and resource allocation individually; 2) the system consolidates the decisions and allocations, reducing redundant transmissions. Additionally, if the social network applications could provide the predictions of how the social contents disseminate, the wireless networks could schedule the transmissions accordingly and significantly improve the dissemination performance by reducing the delivery delay. We propose a novel method utilizing: 1) hybrid systems to handle active disseminating requests; and 2) predictions of dissemination dynamics from the social network applications. This method could mitigate the performance degradation for content dissemination due to wireless delivery delay. Results indicate that our proposed system design is both efficient and easy to implement.

Relações interorganizacionais e eficiência coletiva: um estudo de caso no arranjo produtivo local de confecções do Agreste de Pernambuco

This work is a study in the Local Productive Arrangement of confections from Agreste of Pernambuco, as a relevant sector in economic and social aspect. This research has as central aim to understand how the inter-organizational relations influence the collective efficiency of arrangement. The theoretical framework employed highlights the approaches that deal with the benefits of business agglomeration for the develop­ment of firms and regions. It has discussed the approach of small and medium enter­ prises and industrial districts (SCHMITZ, 1997), which introduce the concept of col­ lective efficiency, explaining that only those externalities explained by Marshall (1996) are not sufficient to explain the competitive advantage of enterprises, expand­ing the idea that organizations achieve competitive advantage not acting alone. To examine the influences of relations in the collective efficiency, it has been taken as analytical perspective theory of social networks (GRANOVETTER, 1973, 1985; BURT, 1992; UZZI, 1997) because it has believe that this approach provides subsi­ dies for a structural analysis of social relationships in face the behavior of human ac­tion. By examining the organizations in a social network, you should understand the reason of this establishment of the relationship, their benefits, and as the information flow takes place and density of links between the actors (Powell; SMITH-DOERR, 1994). As for the methods, this study is characterized as a case study, in according to the purposed objectives, in addition to qualitative method. Also, due to recovering of the historical milestones of the arrangement, it is used a sectional approach with longitudinal perspective (VIEIRA, 2004). The primary and secondary data were used in order to understand the evolutionary process of the sector and their inter-actors re­ lationships in the arrangement for the promotion of development, for both, was used the contend and documentary analysis technique, respectively (DELLAGNELO ; SIL­VA, 2005). The approach of social networks has permitted understand that social re­lationships may extend the collective efficiency of the arrangement, and therefore need to develop policies that encourage the legalization of informal companies in ar­rangement, by showing up themselves representative. Thus, the relations estab­ lished in LPA of confections from Agreste of Pernambuco need for more effective mechanisms to broaden the collective efficiency. Therefore, this way as take place has directly benefited only a group of companies that are linked in some way the sup­portive institutions. So we can conclude that the inter-actor relations have limited the collective efficiency of LPA, being stimulated by the institutions in support only to groups of entrepreneurs, even those that produce external relations for all clustered companies

Entre el terrorismo y el terrorismo en red, un debate a propósito de los lobos solitarios en Estados Unidos (2001-2014)

El interés de esta disertación es otorgar una respuesta a la fenomenología del Lobo Solitario, que se alza como amenaza frente a los Estados, y es necesaria su correcta comprensión para poder contrarrestar sus efectos sobre la sociedad. De esta manera, se propone un debate entre los conceptos de terrorismo expuesto por un lado por Bruce Hoffman, y por el otro por Luis de la Corte Ibáñez, quienes aportarán herramientas de análisis para lograr entender la fenomenología. Para terminar proponiendo la teoría de redes, expuesta por Arquilla y Ronfeldt y Charles Perrow, como mecanismo de solución a la brecha conceptual existente, definiendo a los lobos solitarios a nivel operacional como nodos sin red, y a nivel de adoctrinamiento como redes de débil acople.

Who or what decides how stakeholders are optimally engaged by governance networks delivering public outcomes?

As the problems involving infrastructure delivery have become more complex and contentious, there has been an acknowledgement that these problems cannot be resolved by any one body working alone. This understanding has driven multi-sectoral collaboration and has led to an expansion of the set of actors, including stakeholders, who are now involved in delivery of infrastructure projects and services. However, more needs to be understood about how to include stakeholders in these processes and the optimal ways of developing the requisite combination of stakeholders to achieve effective outcomes. This thesis draws on stakeholder theory and governance network theory to obtain insights into how three networks delivering public outcomes within the Roads Alliance in Queensland engage with stakeholders in the delivery of complex and sensitive infrastructure services and projects. New knowledge about stakeholders will be obtained by testing a model of Stakeholder Salience and Engagement which combines and extends the stakeholder identification and salience theory (Mitchell, Agle, and Wood, 1997), ladder of stakeholder management and engagement (Friedman and Miles, 2006) and the model of stakeholder engagement and moral treatment of stakeholders (Greenwood, 2007). By applying this model, the broad research question: “Who or what decides how stakeholders are optimally engaged by governance networks delivering public outcomes?” will be addressed. The case studies will test a theoretical model of stakeholder salience and engagement which links strategic management decisions about stakeholder salience with the quality and quantity of engagement strategies for engaging different types of stakeholders. The outcomes of this research will contribute to and extend stakeholder theory by showing how stakeholder salience impacts on decisions about the types of engagement processes implemented. Governance network theory will be extended by showing how governance networks interact with stakeholders through the concepts of stakeholder salience and engagement. From a practical perspective this research will provide governance networks with an indication of how to optimise engagement with different types of stakeholders.

Remediating vernacular creativity : photography and cultural citizenship in the Flickr photosharing network

Read through a focus on the remediation of personal photography in the Flickr photosharing website, in this essay I treat vernacular creativity as a field of cultural practice; one that that does not operate inside the institutions or cultural value systems of high culture or the commercial popular media, and yet draws on and is periodically appropriated by these other systems in dynamic and productive ways. Because of its porosity to commercial culture and art practice, this conceptual model of ‘vernacular creativity’ implies a historicised account of ‘ordinary’ or everyday creative practice that accounts for both continuity and change and avoids creating a nostalgic desire for the recuperation of an authentic folk culture. Moving beyond individual creative practice, the essay concludes by considering the unintended consequences of vernacular creativity practiced in online social networks: in particular, the idea of cultural citizenship.

Do board contacts matter? : an analysis of the relationship between boards of directors’ ties and the performance of Australia’s largest companies.

Boards of directors are thought to provide access to a wealth of knowledge and resources for the companies they serve, and are considered important to corporate governance. Under the Resource Based View (RBV) of the firm (Wernerfelt, 1984) boards are viewed as a strategic resource available to firms. As a consequence there has been a significant research effort aimed at establishing a link between board attributes and company performance. In this thesis I explore and extend the study of interlocking directorships (Mizruchi, 1996; Scott 1991a) by examining the links between directors’ opportunity networks and firm performance. Specifically, I use resource dependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978) and social capital theory (Burt, 1980b; Coleman, 1988) as the basis for a new measure of a board’s opportunity network. I contend that both directors’ formal company ties and their social ties determine a director’s opportunity network through which they are able to access and mobilise resources for their firms. This approach is based on recent studies that suggest the measurement of interlocks at the director level, rather than at the firm level, may be a more reliable indicator of this phenomenon. This research uses publicly available data drawn from Australia’s top-105 listed companies and their directors in 1999. I employ Social Network Analysis (SNA) (Scott, 1991b) using the UCINET software to analyse the individual director’s formal and social networks. SNA is used to measure a the number of ties a director has to other directors in the top-105 company director network at both one and two degrees of separation, that is, direct ties and indirect (or ‘friend of a friend’) ties. These individual measures of director connectedness are aggregated to produce a board-level network metric for comparison with measures of a firm’s performance using multiple regression analysis. Performance is measured with accounting-based and market-based measures. Findings indicate that better-connected boards are associated with higher market-based company performance (measured by Tobin’s q). However, weaker and mostly unreliable associations were found for accounting-based performance measure ROA. Furthermore, formal (or corporate) network ties are a stronger predictor of market performance than total network ties (comprising social and corporate ties). Similarly, strong ties (connectedness at degree-1) are better predictors of performance than weak ties (connectedness at degree-2). My research makes four contributions to the literature on director interlocks. First, it extends a new way of measuring a board’s opportunity network based on the director rather than the company as the unit of interlock. Second, it establishes evidence of a relationship between market-based measures of firm performance and the connectedness of that firm’s board. Third, it establishes that director’s formal corporate ties matter more to market-based firm performance than their social ties. Fourth, it establishes that director’s strong direct ties are more important to market-based performance than weak ties. The thesis concludes with implications for research and practice, including a more speculative interpretation of these results. In particular, I raise the possibility of reverse causality – that is networked directors seek to join high-performing companies. Thus, the relationship may be a result of symbolic action by companies seeking to increase the legitimacy of their firms rather than a reflection of the social capital available to the companies. This is an important consideration worthy of future investigation.

Loneliness and classroom participation in adolescents with learning disabilities : a social cognitive view

Students with learning disabilities (LD) often experience significant feelings of loneliness. There is some evidence to suggest that these feelings of loneliness may be related to social difficulties that are linked to their learning disability. Adolescents experience more loneliness than any other age group, primarily because this is a time of identity formation and self-evaluation. Therefore, adolescents with learning disabilities are highly likely to experience the negative feelings of loneliness. Many areas of educational research have highlighted the impact of negative feelings on learning. This begs the question, =are adolescents with learning disabilities doubly disadvantaged in regard to their learning?‘ That is, if their learning experience is already problematic, does loneliness exacerbate these learning difficulties? This thesis reveals the findings of a doctoral project which examined this complicated relationship between loneliness and classroom participation using a social cognitive framework. In this multiple case-study design, narratives were constructed using classroom observations and interviews which were conducted with 4 adolescent students (2 girls and 2 boys, from years 9-12) who were identified as likely to be experiencing learning disabilities. Discussion is provided on the method used to identify students with learning disabilities and the related controversy of using disability labels. A key aspect of the design was that it allowed the students to relate their school experiences and have their stories told. The design included an ethnographic element in its focus on the interactions of the students within the school as a culture and elements of narrative inquiry were used, particularly in reporting the results. The narratives revealed all participants experienced problematic social networks. Further, an alarmingly high level of bullying was discovered. Participants reported that when they were feeling rejected or were missing a valued other they had little cognitive energy for learning and did not want to be in school. Absenteeism amongst the group was high, but this was also true for the rest of the school population. A number of relationships emerged from the narratives using social cognitive theory. These relationships highlighted the impact of cognitive, behavioural and environmental factors in the school experience of lonely students with learning disabilities. This approach reflects the social model of disability that frames the research.

Governance networks and stakeholders : engaging through salience

Across Australia, construction and redevelopment of public infrastructure, continues to be a key factor in economic development. Within this context, road transport has been identified as key building block of Queensland‟s future prosperity. However, since the late twentieth century, there has been a shift away from delivery of large infrastructure, including road networks, exclusively by the state. Subsequently, a range of alternative models, have emerged in infrastructure project delivery. Among these, governance networks have become a widespread mechanism for planning and delivering infrastructure. However, despite substantial public investments in road infrastructure that are made through governance networks, little is known about how these networks engage with stakeholders who are potentially affected by road infrastructure projects. Although governance networks undertake management functions, it is unclear what drives stakeholder engagement within this networked environment and how stakeholder relationship management is operationalised. This paper proposes that network management functions undertaken by governance networks incorporate stakeholder engagement and that network managers play a key role in creating and sustaining connections between governance networks and their stakeholders Drawing on stakeholder theory and governance network theory, this paper contributes to the literature by showing that stakeholder engagement is embedded within network management and identifying the critical role of network managers in establishing and maintaining stakeholder engagement.

Stakeholder engagement by governance networks

As the problems involving infrastructure delivery have become more complex and contentious, there has been an acknowledgement that these problems cannot be resolved by any one body working alone. This understanding has driven multi-sectoral collaboration and has led to an expansion of the set of actors, including stakeholders, who are now involved in delivery of infrastructure projects and services. However, more needs to be understood about how to include stakeholders in these processes and ways of developing the requisite combination of stakeholders to achieve effective outcomes. This thesis draws on stakeholder theory and governance network theory to obtain insights into how three multi-level networks within the Roads Alliance in Queensland engage with stakeholders in the delivery of complex and sensitive infrastructure services and projects. New knowledge about stakeholders will be obtained by testing a model of Stakeholder Salience and Engagement which combines and extends the stakeholder identification and salience theory, ladder of stakeholder management and engagement and the model of stakeholder engagement and moral treatment of stakeholders. By applying this model, the broad research question: “Who or what decides how stakeholders are engaged by governance networks delivering public outcomes?” will be addressed. The case studies will test a theoretical model of stakeholder salience and engagement which links strategic decisions about stakeholder salience with the quality and quantity of engagement strategies for engaging different types of stakeholders. A multiple embedded case study design has been selected as the overall approach to explore, describe, explain and evaluate how stakeholder engagement occurs in three governance networks delivering road infrastructure in Queensland. The research design also incorporates a four stage approach to data collection: observations, stakeholder analysis, telephone survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The outcomes of this research will contribute to and extend stakeholder theory by showing how stakeholder salience impacts on decisions about the types of engagement processes implemented. Governance network theory will be extended by showing how governance networks interact with stakeholders through the concepts of stakeholder salience and engagement. From a practical perspective this research will provide governance networks with an indication of how to optimise engagement with different types of stakeholders. 2

Education for the creative economy : innovation, transdisciplinarity, and networks

The question posed in this chapter is: To what extent does current education theory and practice prepare graduates for the creative economy? We first define what we mean by the term creative economy, explain why we think it is a significant point of focus, derive its key features, describe the human capital requirements of these features, and then discuss whether current education theory and practice are producing these human capital requirements. The term creative economy can be critiqued as a shibboleth, but as a high level metaphor, it nevertheless has value in directing us away from certain sorts of economic activity and toward other kinds. Much economic activity is in no way creative. If I have a monopoly on some valued resource, I do not need to be creative. Other forms of economic activity are intensely creative. If I have no valued resources, I must create something that is valued. At its simplest and yet most profound, the idea of a creative economy suggests a capacity to compete based on engaging in a gainful activity that is different from everyone else’s, rather than pursuing the same endeavor more competitively than everyone else. The ability to differentiate on novelty is key to the concept of creative economy and key to our analysis of education for this economy. Therefore, we follow Potts and Cunningham (2008, p. 18) and Potts, Cunningham, Hartley, and Ormerod (2008) in their discussion of the economic significance of the creative industries and see the creative economy not as a sector but as a set of economic processes that act on the economy as a whole to invigorate innovation based growth. We see the creative economy as suffused with all industry rather than as a sector in its own right. These economic processes are essentially concerned with the production of new ideas that ultimately become new products, service, industry sectors, or, in some cases, process or product innovations in older sectors. Therefore, our starting point is that modern economies depend on innovation, and we see the core of innovation as new knowledge of some kind. We commence with some observations about innovation.

Cultivating Innovation through Social Relationships: A Qualitative Study of Outstanding Australian Innovators in Science, Technology and the Creative Industries

In this chapter, we describe and explore social relationship patterns associated with outstanding innovation. In doing so, we draw upon the findings of 16 in-depth interviews with award-winning Australian innovators from science & technology and the creative industries. The interviews covered topics relating to various influences on individual innovation capacity and career development. We found that for all of the participants, innovation was a highly social process. Although each had been recognised individually for their innovative success, none worked in isolation. The ability to generate innovative outcomes was grounded in certain types of interaction and collaboration. We outline the distinctive features of the social relationships which seem to be important to innovation, and ask which ‘social network capabilities’ might underlie the ability to create an optimal pattern of interpersonal relationships. We discuss the implications of these findings for universities, which we argue play a key role in the development of nascent innovators.

Developing trust networks based on user tagging information for recommendation making

Recommender systems are one of the recent inventions to deal with ever growing information overload. Collaborative filtering seems to be the most popular technique in recommender systems. With sufficient background information of item ratings, its performance is promising enough. But research shows that it performs very poor in a cold start situation where previous rating data is sparse. As an alternative, trust can be used for neighbor formation to generate automated recommendation. User assigned explicit trust rating such as how much they trust each other is used for this purpose. However, reliable explicit trust data is not always available. In this paper we propose a new method of developing trust networks based on user’s interest similarity in the absence of explicit trust data. To identify the interest similarity, we have used user’s personalized tagging information. This trust network can be used to find the neighbors to make automated recommendations. Our experiment result shows that the proposed trust based method outperforms the traditional collaborative filtering approach which uses users rating data. Its performance improves even further when we utilize trust propagation techniques to broaden the range of neighborhood.

Challenges of tracking topical discussion networks online

Attempts to map online networks, representing relationships between people and sites, have covered sites including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. However, the predominant approach of static network visualization, treating months of data as a single case rather than depicting changes over time or between topics, remains a flawed process. As different events and themes provoke varying interactions and conversations, it is proposed that case-by-case analysis would aid studies of online social networks by further examining the dynamics of links and information flows. This study uses hyperlink analysis of a population of French political blogs to compare connections between sites from January to August 2009. Themes discussed in this period were identified for subsequent analysis of topic-oriented networks. By comparing static blogrolls with topical citations within posts, this research addresses challenges and methods in mapping online networks, providing new information on temporal aspects of linking behaviors and information flows within these systems.