Investigating local-scale interactions within a network makes it possible to test hypotheses about the mechanisms of global network connectivity and to ask whether there are general rules underlying network function across systems. Here we use motif analysis to determine whether the interactions within social insect colonies resemble the patterns exhibited by other animal associations or if they exhibit characteristics of biological regulatory systems. Colonies exhibit a predominance of feed-forward interaction motifs, in contrast to the densely interconnected clique patterns that characterize human interaction and animal social networks. The regulatory motif signature supports the hypothesis that social insect colonies are shaped by selection for network patterns that integrate colony functionality at the group rather than individual level, and demonstrates the utility of this approach for analysis of selection effects on complex systems across biological levels of organization.
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Showing posts with label network. Show all posts
Showing posts with label network. Show all posts
What Facebook Knows / Tom Simonite
Even as Facebook has embedded itself into modern life, it hasn't done
that much with what it knows about us. Its stash of data looms like an oversize
shadow. Everyone has a feeling that this resource will yield something big, but
nobody knows quite what. [...]
He found that our close friends strongly sway which information we
share, but overall their impact is dwarfed by the collective influence of
numerous more distant contacts—what sociologists call "weak ties." It
is our diverse collection of weak ties that most powerfully determines what
information we're exposed to.
“I Didn't Tell Facebook I'm Engaged, So Why Is It Asking About My Fiancé?” / Sarah Marie Watson
In Alexis
Madrigal's response to Zadie Smith he writes, "You get to
determine your level of investment in the digital world around you. You get to
choose the people you listen and talk to. You have control over your data. You
get to define who you are, no matter what your Facebook profile says. All that
is not lost unless we choose to lose it." I couldn't agree more. We are
not defined by our social profiles, but what happens when we Facebook starts to
introduce new social behaviors into our personal lives? For many couples , making a relationship "Facebook official" is as
important a milestone as the first time they utter those three little words.
It's a line item in the relationship progression discussion checklist, on par
with or perhaps even replacing the "are we exclusive" or "are
you my boyfriend/girlfriend" talks. Even if you choose not to link to each
other's profile by naming your significant other, it's a public (and
feed-publicized) statement of commitment. But how did Facebook insert itself
into our most personal relationships like this? As I think my writing this
article makes clear, for me, this isn't even a privacy issue. It's more about
my relationship to the machine, and the scary glimpse I just got of where
design decisions and algorithmic assumptions are heading.
“Too, Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook” / Stephanie Tom Tong
To be designated as ‘‘friend,’’ an individual
directs the Facebook system to initiate a request to be recognized as someone’s
friend, to which the two parties—the friend request initiator and the friend
request sender—must agree. When individuals become friends, the system reveals
their personal profiles as well as all their links to other members of their
social networks. New friendship links often snowball via the enlarging and
overlapping friends’ networks thus started.
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