An index for quantifying flocking behavior

One of the classic research topics in adaptive behavior is the collective displacement of groups of organisms such as flocks of birds, schools of fish, herds of mammals and crowds of people. However, most agent-based simulations of group behavior do not provide a quantitative index for determining the point at which the flock emerges. We have developed an index of the aggregation of moving individuals in a flock and have provided an example of how it can be used to quantify the degree to which a group of moving individuals actually forms a flock.

Statistical mechanics of multi-edge networks

Statistical properties of binary complex networks are well understood and recently many attempts have been made to extend this knowledge to weighted ones. There are, however, subtle yet important considerations to be made regarding the nature of the weights used in this generalization. Weights can be either continuous or discrete magnitudes, and in the latter case, they can additionally have undistinguishable or distinguishable nature. This fact has not been addressed in the literature insofar and has deep implications on the network statistics. In this work we face this problem introducing multiedge networks as graphs where multiple (distinguishable) connections between nodes are considered. We develop a statistical mechanics framework where it is possible to get information about the most relevant observables given a large spectrum of linear and nonlinear constraints including those depending both on the number of multiedges per link and their binary projection. The latter case is particularly interesting as we show that binary projections can be understood from multiedge processes. The implications of these results are important as many real-agent-based problems mapped onto graphs require this treatment for a proper characterization of their collective behavior.

The effect of skewness and kurtosis on the Kenward-Roger approximation when group distributions differ

This study examined the independent effect of skewness and kurtosis on the robustness of the linear mixed model (LMM), with the Kenward-Roger (KR) procedure, when group distributions are different, sample sizes are small, and sphericity cannot be assumed. Methods: A Monte Carlo simulation study considering a split-plot design involving three groups and four repeated measures was performed. Results: The results showed that when group distributions are different, the effect of skewness on KR robustness is greater than that of kurtosis for the corresponding values. Furthermore, the pairings of skewness and kurtosis with group size were found to be relevant variables when applying this procedure. Conclusions: With sample sizes of 45 and 60, KR is a suitable option for analyzing data when the distributions are: (a) mesokurtic and not highly or extremely skewed, and (b) symmetric with different degrees of kurtosis. With total sample sizes of 30, it is adequate when group sizes are equal and the distributions are: (a) mesokurtic and slightly or moderately skewed, and sphericity is assumed; and (b) symmetric with a moderate or high/extreme violation of kurtosis. Alternative analyses should be considered when the distributions are highly or extremely skewed and samples sizes are small.

Towards combining interactive mobile TV and smart spaces : architectures, tools and application development

Technological developments in microprocessors and ICT landscape have made a shift to a new era where computing power is embedded in numerous small distributed objects and devices in our everyday lives. These small computing devices are ne-tuned to perform a particular task and are increasingly reaching our society at every level. For example, home appliances such as programmable washing machines, microwave ovens etc., employ several sensors to improve performance and convenience. Similarly, cars have on-board computers that use information from many di erent sensors to control things such as fuel injectors, spark plug etc., to perform their tasks e ciently. These individual devices make life easy by helping in taking decisions and removing the burden from their users. All these objects and devices obtain some piece of information about the physical environment. Each of these devices is an island with no proper connectivity and information sharing between each other. Sharing of information between these heterogeneous devices could enable a whole new universe of innovative and intelligent applications. The information sharing between the devices is a diffcult task due to the heterogeneity and interoperability of devices. Smart Space vision is to overcome these issues of heterogeneity and interoperability so that the devices can understand each other and utilize services of each other by information sharing. This enables innovative local mashup applications based on shared data between heterogeneous devices. Smart homes are one such example of Smart Spaces which facilitate to bring the health care system to the patient, by intelligent interconnection of resources and their collective behavior, as opposed to bringing the patient into the health system. In addition, the use of mobile handheld devices has risen at a tremendous rate during the last few years and they have become an essential part of everyday life. Mobile phones o er a wide range of different services to their users including text and multimedia messages, Internet, audio, video, email applications and most recently TV services. The interactive TV provides a variety of applications for the viewers. The combination of interactive TV and the Smart Spaces could give innovative applications that are personalized, context-aware, ubiquitous and intelligent by enabling heterogeneous systems to collaborate each other by sharing information between them. There are many challenges in designing the frameworks and application development tools for rapid and easy development of these applications. The research work presented in this thesis addresses these issues. The original publications presented in the second part of this thesis propose architectures and methodologies for interactive and context-aware applications, and tools for the development of these applications. We demonstrated the suitability of our ontology-driven application development tools and rule basedapproach for the development of dynamic, context-aware ubiquitous iTV applications.

Understanding organizational wrongdoing

The topic is white collar crime in its organizational form. The research question is why otherwise law-abiding people engage in wrongful behavior within legitimate organizations and what kinds of dynamics are involved in wrongful organizational processes. This is a theoretical inquiry the method of which is to bring together relevant literature on organizational behavior regardless of the branch of science. In addition to criminological and sociolegal writings, I mostly refer to works of social psychology and organization theory. At first, I discuss the terminological multiplicity related to organizational white collar crime. In conclusion from a critical analysis of the dominant terms and definitions, I argue for the concept of organizational wrongdoing. The approach of organizational wrongdoing captures unethical, illegal and criminal organizational behavior. Thus, it is not retricted by legislative categories but ethical reasoning. The approach aims at grasping a behavioral entity, and state law crimes do not constitute an ontology of behavior. In order to understand organizational wrongdoing, the dominant criminological theories applied to white collar crime are discussed. To a surprisingly large extent, they lack a sophisticated organizational perspective and do not offer viable frameworks for building a plausible theory of organizational white collar crime. In order to fill the gap, I incorporate the social psychological dynamics of organizational behavior and present several findings on collective behavior that criminological theorization must come to terms with. ------ This publication has been first presented and accepted as a master's thesis at the Faculty of Law, University of Turku. It has been published on the series: Criminal Law and Judicial Procedure, Series B: 15, in print format. The publication was digitized in 2015 and published online.

Moden unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rolle von Neuheit - am Beispiel der Bekleidung

Verschiedene Bedeutungen sind mit dem Begriff Mode verbunden. Mode ist nicht ausschließlich ein Synonym für Bekleidung. Vielmehr bezeichnet Mode den ständigen Wandel kollektiver Verhaltensweisen und bildet damit das Gegenstück zu Traditionen. Die Vergänglichkeit einer Mode ist ebenso Merkmal wie ein Verhalten, daß aus der Interaktion der Menschen resultiert. Mode läßt sich als exogener Schock modelliert oder durch endogene Prozesse erzeugt abbilden. Im synergetischen Modell erzeugen Personen auf der Makroebene bestimmte Ordner, die als Moden interpretiert werden können und an denen sich die Individuen wiederum orientieren. Neben einer umfassenden Betrachtung des Terminus Mode wird der Stand der sozial- und wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Forschung zur Erklärung von Mode referiert. Ausgangspunkt der Dissertation ist das Fehlen eines ökonomischen Erklärungsansatzes der Mode, der unter Berücksichtigung der wesentlichsten Motive menschlichen Handelns die Vielseitigkeit dieses kollektiven Phänomens in einem mathematischen Modell abbildet. Ein solches Modell wird in der Arbeit entwickelt. Neben den sozial abhängigen Verhaltensweisen, die ein fundamentales Wesensmerkmal der Mode darstellen, gilt dem Aspekt der Neuheit im Kontext der Mode besondere Aufmerksamkeit. Auf das Problem, Neugierdeverhalten und Neuheit zu modellieren, wird detailliert eingegangen. Es ist weder Ziel der Arbeit, den Ursprung der inhaltlichen Ausgestaltung einer Mode zu identifizieren, noch die konkreten Entstehungszusammenhänge von Neuheit herauszuarbeiten. Vielmehr wird der Wirkungszusammenhang von Neuem im Kontext der Mode analysiert, um verschiedene Entstehungszusammenhänge von Mode darstellen zu können. Außerdem wird eine eigene empirische Studie zum Verhalten von Personen in bezug auf Kleidung und deren Neuartigkeit vorgestellt. Die Erhebungsdaten werden mit Hilfe der sogenannten Kohonenkarte klassifiziert, wobei insbesondere nichtlineare Zusammenhänge zwischen den Variablen berücksichtigt werden können. Im Rahmen eines synergetischen Erklärungsansatzes ist diese Karte deshalb von großem Interesse, weil sie sich selbst organisiert und deshalb dem synergetischen Erklärungsansatz modelladäquat ist.

Networked Life: Module CIS 112, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2008

What kind of science is appropriate for understanding the Facebook? How does Google find what you're looking for... ...and exactly how do they make money doing so? What structural properties might we expect any social network to have? How does your position in an economic network (dis)advantage you? How are individual and collective behavior related in complex networks? What might we mean by the economics of spam? What do game theory and the Paris subway have to do with Internet routing? What's going on in the pictures to the left and right? Networked Life looks at how our world is connected -- socially, economically, strategically and technologically -- and why it matters. The answers to the questions above are related. They have been the subject of a fascinating intersection of disciplines including computer science, physics, psychology, mathematics, economics and finance. Researchers from these areas all strive to quantify and explain the growing complexity and connectivity of the world around us, and they have begun to develop a rich new science along the way. Networked Life will explore recent scientific efforts to explain social, economic and technological structures -- and the way these structures interact -- on many different scales, from the behavior of individuals or small groups to that of complex networks such as the Internet and the global economy. This course covers computer science topics and other material that is mathematical, but all material will be presented in a way that is accessible to an educated audience with or without a strong technical background. The course is open to all majors and all levels, and is taught accordingly. There will be ample opportunities for those of a quantitative bent to dig deeper into the topics we examine. The majority of the course is grounded in scientific and mathematical findings of the past two decades or less.

El liderazgo organizacional: una aproximación desde la perspectiva etológica

La presente investigación plantea la necesidad fundamental de generar un proceso de análisis, tendiente a proponer dinámicas organizativas humanas, desde un enfoque etológico. La etología aparece entonces como un estudio sistemático del comportamiento animal, sus formas de asociación, su disparidad, pero sobre todo, su accionar orgánico en la búsqueda de un comportamiento colectivo que propenda por el bien común. En esta medida el liderazgo surge como una posibilidad clara de fomentar relaciones humanas centradas en las diferentes vertientes relacionales; cultura, comunicación, comunidad, axiología, y finalmente etología. Así mismo, se examinan las diferentes estrategias que el liderazgo como posibilidad de cambio dentro de las organizaciones, puede ser fundamentado mediante procesos de comparación etológica, y así generar propuestas que configuren un quehacer organizacional desde la solidaridad, el liderazgo, y el desenvolvimiento interno y externo de las organizaciones.

El trabajo en equipo en el Proceso Administrativo y de Compras en OPL Carga de Bucaramanga

El proceso administrativo y de compras de OPL Carga tiene algunas falencias entre ellas: fallas en la Comunicación entre el personal operativo, no se realizan llamadas internas usando con frecuencia el email, produciendo la saturación de solicitudes las cuales terminan sin ser resueltas en cuanto a roles se refiere, no hay enfoque de procesos en vista que no se tiene claras las tareas de cada cargo, adicionalmente no hay claridad en los subprocesos, perjudicando el proceso con el aumento de costos, pérdida de tiempo, las responsabilidades de los funcionario no todas las veces se ejecutan en el tiempo asignado, el liderazgo compartido presenta ambigüedades. Objetivos: Definir el trabajo en equipo en el proceso administrativo y de compras en OPL carga de Bucaramanga. La investigación que a realizar es de tipo descriptivo, busca descubrir las falencias o características que permiten diseñar y desarrollar un modelo de solución para los problemas del equipo de OPL Carga S.A.S. Materiales y métodos: La investigación efectuada es de tipo descriptivo, el objetivo es definir el modelo del trabajo en equipo y describir las falencias en el proceso administrativo y de compras en OPL carga de Bucaramanga, que permitan obtener un diagnóstico integral que conlleve a la implementación de estrategias de solución. Resultados: Se identificaron las falencias en los siguientes aspectos: Variable comunicación, rendimiento, destrezas complementarias, propósito significativo y meta específicas de los funcionarios en OPL carga sección administrativa. Conclusiones: El modelo de trabajo en equipo que OPL aplica es jerárquico, en el que se ofrece estabilidad, seguridad, se toman decisiones en forma piramidal, mediante la planeación de tareas, la colaboración, igualdad y respeto por los miembros, trabajando en pro de la solución de problemas. Se construyó un plano conceptual que permitió exponer la interpretación que la estudiante tiene de las teorías, investigaciones y antecedentes válidos para la comprensión del problema investigado. Área comunicacional: Coordinar acciones tendientes para que los funcionarios respondan a tiempo los emails atenientes a su trabajo. Área condiciones de trabajo: Clarificar y diseñar las reglas de comportamiento al interior de los equipos de trabajo que redunden en el mejoramiento del mismo y la búsqueda de soluciones oportunas. Área metas específicas: Procurar mediante auditorías el cumplimiento de las metas y objetivos propuestos por cada equipo de trabajo.

Overview of mathematical approaches used to model bacterial chemotaxis II: bacterial populations

We review the application of mathematical modeling to understanding the behavior of populations of chemotactic bacteria. The application of continuum mathematical models, in particular generalized Keller-Segel models, is discussed along with attempts to incorporate the microscale (individual) behavior on the macroscale, modeling the interaction between different species of bacteria, the interaction of bacteria with their environment, and methods used to obtain experimentally verified parameter values. We allude briefly to the role of modeling pattern formation in understanding collective behavior within bacterial populations. Various aspects of each model are discussed and areas for possible future research are postulated.

Growth of transcendental meditation: a sociological study

Sociology, in concerning itself with methodology and cultural determinism,may have overlooked the value of human experience in determining social action. We feel that the structural-functionalist point of view is not mutually exclusive with that of symbolic interaction theory. The field of collective behavior has not adequately explained a certain incidence of human activity called Transcendental Meditation. This paper will define Transcendental Meditation in sociological terms and explore its growth in terms of structural-functionalism,as well as in terms of the symbol-making faculty of human experience. In the first chapter, the author will state his biases and background as well as the problem and purpose of the paper. In the second chapter, Transcendental Meditation will be defined through an explanation of its concepts in sociological terms. A view of the TM program will also be reported. Following this in the third chapter, the origins of TM will be discussed~showing its basis to be in a tradition of Indian gurus and following its development in the United states until the present. The history of TM will proceed through biography of leading figures, with special mention of innovations in the TM institution of teaching and events in the growth of the 'movement' of TOO that are of key importance. Having set down the history of TM, in the fourth chapter we will discuss TM in terms of various sociological models. We will try to identify TM as either a social movement; a charismatic organization or a bureaucracy. In the fifth chapter we will look more closely at the structure of the organization that teaches TM in regard to its own functioning; that is, compliance, communication, socialization and recruitment, and also in regard to its relationship with national institutions, such as military, industry, religion, and government. Finally, we will explore TM in terms of individual and group goals and offer an explanation defining the growth of TM. Throughout-the paper, sociological perspectives will be applied to phenomena that exist in the society today. It is not within the scope of this paper to verify all the sociological implications and appraisals offered. It is hoped that this will not invalidate the ensuing discussion. It is also hoped that this paper will expand the horizons of sociology and offer some direction in future studies of collective behavior. If this is accomplished, the author will be gratified and indebted to his teachers. If not the author takes full responsibility. This paper is dedicated therefore to Mr. Birge, Mr Morrione, Mr. Geib as well as to my parents who have encouraged me, my friends whom I have interviewed, and to His Holiness, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi whose teaching has uplifted hundred of thousands of people in the world and may bring about the development of new thresholds of peace and prosperity for mankind.

Aplicação de modelos de agentes e redes complexas na caracterização e estudo da interação entre insetos sociais, com enfoque em formigas

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Fontes para o estudo do Neopentecostalismo brasileiro: O caso da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus

Denomina-se Neopentecostalismo o movimento religioso que se configurou no Brasil, na década de 1970, como uma ramificação do chamado Pentecostalismo clássico, surgido nos Estados Unidos da América, no início do século XX. Para a pesquisa do tema proposto, adotam-se como principais fontes as literaturas neopentecostais, matérias jornalísticas da mídia impressa, depoimentos de líderes e fiéis, observações presenciais e programas veiculados pela mídia. Utilizam-se como referencial teórico-metodológico, parâmetros da Nova História Cultural, priorizando-se os conceitos de apropriação, circulação cultural, habitus, imaginário e longa duração. Da análise aqui empreendida, constata-se que a leitura da Bíblia exerce um papel preponderante nas práticas deste segmento religioso ao orientar o comportamento coletivo e configurar um fertilíssimo passado cultural. Na magia dos ritos e na riqueza símbólica ali adotados, percebe-se um substrato cultural legado das crenças afro e da religiosidade popular católica, o qual é sincreticamente re-significado a partir de elementos da tradição evangélica.

The structure and resilience of financial market networks

Financial markets can be viewed as a highly complex evolving system that is very sensitive to economic instabilities. The complex organization of the market can be represented in a suitable fashion in terms of complex networks, which can be constructed from stock prices such that each pair of stocks is connected by a weighted edge that encodes the distance between them. In this work, we propose an approach to analyze the topological and dynamic evolution of financial networks based on the stock correlation matrices. An entropy-related measurement is adopted to quantify the robustness of the evolving financial market organization. It is verified that the network topological organization suffers strong variation during financial instabilities and the networks in such periods become less robust. A statistical robust regression model is proposed to quantity the relationship between the network structure and resilience. The obtained coefficients of such model indicate that the average shortest path length is the measurement most related to network resilience coefficient. This result indicates that a collective behavior is observed between stocks during financial crisis. More specifically, stocks tend to synchronize their price evolution, leading to a high correlation between pair of stock prices, which contributes to the increase in distance between them and, consequently, decrease the network resilience. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3683467]

The 3C cooperation model applied to the classical requirement analysis

Aspects related to the users' cooperative work are not considered in the traditional approach of software engineering, since the user is viewed independently of his/her workplace environment or group, with the individual model generalized to the study of collective behavior of all users. This work proposes a process for software requirements to address issues involving cooperative work in information systems that provide distributed coordination in the users' actions and the communication among them occurs indirectly through the data entered while using the software. To achieve this goal, this research uses ergonomics, the 3C cooperation model, awareness and software engineering concepts. Action-research is used as a research methodology applied in three cycles during the development of a corporate workflow system in a technological research company. This article discusses the third cycle, which corresponds to the process that deals with the refinement of the cooperative work requirements with the software in actual use in the workplace, where the inclusion of a computer system changes the users' workplace, from the face to face interaction to the interaction mediated by the software. The results showed that the highest degree of users' awareness about their activities and other system users contribute to a decrease in their errors and in the inappropriate use of the system.