Social Phenomena
Social Phenomena

Author: Bruno Gonçalves

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-08-14

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 3319140116

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This book focuses on the new possibilities and approaches to social modeling currently being made possible by an unprecedented variety of datasets generated by our interactions with modern technologies. This area has witnessed a veritable explosion of activity over the last few years, yielding many interesting and useful results. Our aim is to provide an overview of the state of the art in this area of research, merging an extremely heterogeneous array of datasets and models. Social Phenomena: From Data Analysis to Models is divided into two parts. Part I deals with modeling social behavior under normal conditions: How we live, travel, collaborate and interact with each other in our daily lives. Part II deals with societal behavior under exceptional conditions: Protests, armed insurgencies, terrorist attacks, and reactions to infectious diseases. This book offers an overview of one of the most fertile emerging fields bringing together practitioners from scientific communities as diverse as social sciences, physics and computer science. We hope to not only provide an unifying framework to understand and characterize social phenomena, but also to help foster the dialogue between researchers working on similar problems from different fields and perspectives.

Global Phenomena and Social Sciences
Global Phenomena and Social Sciences

Author: Jean-Sylvestre Bergé

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-10-26

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 3319601806

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This book offers new perspectives on global phenomena that play a major role in today’s society and deeply shape the actions of individuals, organizations and nations. In a complex and rapidly changing environment, decision-makers need to gain a better understanding of global phenomena to adapt and to anticipate the evolution of the global context. The authors—ten renowned international scholars of anthropology, economics, law, management and political science—propose an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to social sciences. They analyse how international phenomena, such as globalisation or transnationalisation, transform the disciplines of social sciences from an epistemological standpoint. Explaining what ‘global' means in difference disciplines, the authors analyse several global phenomena that characterise today’s international environment such as the circulation of norms and ideas, the linkages between war and globalization, corporate governance, and the impact of multinational enterprises on sustainable development and poverty reduction. Providing examples of analytical disciplinary approaches and guidelines for decision-makers in a fast-changing global context this book will be useful to scholars and students of anthropology, economics, law, management and political science as well as practitioners in the private and public sectors.

On the Measurement of Social Phenomena
On the Measurement of Social Phenomena

Author: Marco Delmastro

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-08-13

Total Pages: 91

ISBN-13: 3030775364

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This book explores the analysis of social phenomena, using a multidisciplinary approach while addressing statistical, economic, sociological, as well as psychological issues. The author presents a detailed account of the procedures and techniques used to gather, process, and analyze data. Topics covered include, but are not limited to survey data, content analysis data, data visualization, as well as data about crimes. The book addresses this methodological framework that drives applied social sciences in an applicative and simple way, by analyzing key social phenomena such as the threats to journalism, the so-called chilling effect, and the market for news. Finally, the author examines the data and measures of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This book is a must-read for everybody interested in a better understanding of the methodological analysis of social phenomena, social and political methodology, and applied science in general.

Complex Spreading Phenomena in Social Systems
Complex Spreading Phenomena in Social Systems

Author: Sune Lehmann

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-21

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 3319773321

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This text is about spreading of information and influence in complex networks. Although previously considered similar and modeled in parallel approaches, there is now experimental evidence that epidemic and social spreading work in subtly different ways. While previously explored through modeling, there is currently an explosion of work on revealing the mechanisms underlying complex contagion based on big data and data-driven approaches. This volume consists of four parts. Part 1 is an Introduction, providing an accessible summary of the state of the art. Part 2 provides an overview of the central theoretical developments in the field. Part 3 describes the empirical work on observing spreading processes in real-world networks. Finally, Part 4 goes into detail with recent and exciting new developments: dedicated studies designed to measure specific aspects of the spreading processes, often using randomized control trials to isolate the network effect from confounders, such as homophily. Each contribution is authored by leading experts in the field. This volume, though based on technical selections of the most important results on complex spreading, remains quite accessible to the newly interested. The main benefit to the reader is that the topics are carefully structured to take the novice to the level of expert on the topic of social spreading processes. This book will be of great importance to a wide field: from researchers in physics, computer science, and sociology to professionals in public policy and public health.

Complexity of Social Phenomena
Complexity of Social Phenomena

Author: Leonardo Salvatore Alaimo

Publisher: Sapienza Università Editrice

Published: 2022-11-30

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 8893772515

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What is complexity? What are the characteristics of a complex system? What does it mean to measure? How to develop an efficient tool for measuring socio-economic phenomena? What is synthesis? What are the main statistical tools for synthesis of multi-indicator systems? These are the research questions that are attempted to be answered in this book, the result of the author’s research work during his PhD. The book offers a conceptual and methodological analysis of the topic of synthesis of complex social phenomena, also proposing interesting applications to real cases. Winner of the Competition “Prize for PhD Thesis 2020” arranged by Sapienza University Press.

The Authoritarian Dynamic
The Authoritarian Dynamic

Author: Karen Stenner

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-07-25

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0521827434

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What is the basis for intolerance? This book addresses that question by developing a universal theory about what causes intolerance of difference in general, which includes racism, political intolerance (e.g. restriction of free speech), moral intolerance (e.g. homophobia, supporting censorship, opposing abortion) and punitiveness. It demonstrates that all these seemingly disparate attitudes are principally caused by just two factors: individuals' innate psychological predispositions to intolerance ('authoritarianism') interacting with changing conditions of societal threat.

Simulating Societies
Simulating Societies

Author: Nigel Gilbert

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 1351165100

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The most exciting and productive areas of academic inquiry are often where the interests of two disciplines meet. This is certainly the case for the subject of this book, originally published in 1994, which explores the contribution that computer-based modelling and artificial intelligence can make to understanding fundamental issues in social science. Simulating Societies shows how computer simulations can help to clarify theoretical approaches, contribute to the evaluation of alternative theories, and illuminate one of the major issues of the social sciences: how social phenomena can "emerge" from individual action. The authors discuss how simulation models can be constructed using recently developed artificial intelligence techniques and they consider the methodological issues involved in using such models for theory development, testing and experiment. The introductory chapters situate the book within social science, and suggest why the time was ripe for significant progress, before defining basic terminology, showing how simulation has been used to theorize about organizations, and indicating through examples some of the fundamental issues involved in simulation. The main body of the text provides case studies drawn from economics, anthropology, archaeology, planning, social psychology and sociology. The appeal of this path-breaking book was twofold. It offered an essential introduction to simulation for social scientists and it provided case study applications for computer scientists interested in the latest advances in the burgeoning area of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) at the time.

New Frontiers in the Study of Social Phenomena
New Frontiers in the Study of Social Phenomena

Author: Federico Cecconi

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-03-11

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 3319239384

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This book studies social phenomena in a new way, by making judicious use of computer technology. The book addresses the entire spectrum of classic studies in social science, from experiments to the computational models, with a multidisciplinary approach. The book is suitable for those who want to get a picture of what it means to do social research today, and also to get an indication of the major open issues. The book is connected to a database of code for simulations, experimental data and allows to activate a subscription to a teaching tool using NetLogo, a programming language widely used in the social studies. The authors are researchers with first-hand experience research projects, both basic and applied. The work will be useful for those who want to understand more of the social, economic and political phenomena via computer applications.

Capitalism and Modern Social Theory
Capitalism and Modern Social Theory

Author: Anthony Giddens

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1971

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780521097857

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Offers a new analysis of the ideas of the 3 authors who have contributed most to the establishment of the basic framework of contemporary sociology.

Information Dynamics in Cognitive, Psychological, Social, and Anomalous Phenomena
Information Dynamics in Cognitive, Psychological, Social, and Anomalous Phenomena

Author: Andrei Y. Khrennikov

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-29

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9401704791

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In this book we develop various mathematical models of information dynamics, I -dynamics (including the process of thinking), based on methods of classical and quantum physics. The main aim of our investigations is to describe mathematically the phenomenon of consciousness. We would like to realize a kind of Newton-Descartes program (corrected by the lessons of statistical and quantum mechanics) for information processes. Starting from the ideas of Newton and Descartes, in physics there was developed an adequate description of the dynamics of material systems. We would like to develop an analogous mathematical formalism for information and, in particular, mental processes. At the beginning of the 21st century it is clear that it would be impossible to create a deterministic model for general information processes. A deterministic model has to be completed by a corresponding statistical model of information flows and, in particular, flows of minds. It might be that such an information statistical model should have a quantum-like structure.