http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/social-networking-technology-unlocks-mystery-chimp-civil-war-n103206 Notes of the Chimpanzees were taken over a four year period. The alpha male had died and some of the chimps followed a male named Humphrey, in the North. Others followed two brothers, Hugh and Charlie, in the South. One of the software pieces that helped figure out the social ties between chimps was UCINET. It showed that the chips decided who to stay with based upon the amount of time they had spent together before the alpha male, Leakey, passed away.
Managed Practice Networks Prove Effective in Preventing Heart Disease Mortality
In the United Kingdom, Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust allocated their 34 local practices into 8 geographical networks, equipped with a network manager, administrative assistant, and an educational budget to deliver care packages for diabetes, childhood immunization, chronic obstructive lung disease, and cardiovascular disease. Tower Hamlets PCT outpaced England and surrounding PCTs in the coming years in reducing deaths due to cardiovascular disease and increasing the amount of cholesterol prescriptions.
The gponline article can be found at: http://www.gponline.com/local-gp-practice-networks-save-lives-boost-qof-scores-study-finds/cardiovascular-system/myocardial-infarction-left-ventricular-dysfunction/article/1293427
The British Journal of General Practice paper can be found at: http://bjgp.org/content/64/622/e268.full.pdf+html
How Much Is Your Facebook Page Worth?
A short answer: less than $4/month. Data brokering is a multibillion dollar industry to collect, analyze and sell your personal information. Would you rather sell it by yourself? Tom Brewster @ BBC put his information on EBay including “one month’s worth of browsing history, posts from Facebook and Twitter accounts, three email addresses in frequent use and 10 photos.” It is a no-go. Only 31 viewers in 7 days. Later, he did manage to sell his data from Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to DataCoup for $4 a month. It’s an interesting experiment on the data privacy issue. Read more at: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140509-how-much-is-your-facebook-worth
Why you should talk to more strangers
If you’ve ever been on a subway or public bus, you know the rules. Don’t make eye contact, stay as far away from other people as the space allows, and for the love of God, don’t talk to anyone. But what if the rules are wrong? Behavioral scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder approached commuters in a Chicago area train station and asked them to break the rules. Read about what happened here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/opinion/sunday/hello-stranger.html?smid=tw-nytimes
30 million people use this social network … and you’ve probably never heard of it
“We Heart It” has 30 million monthly active users. Most of them are teenage girls. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/05/07/30-million-people-use-this-social-network-and-youve-probably-never-heard-of-it/
New App Helps You Avoid “Friends”
A new iPhone app called Cloak is marketing itself as “Incognito mode for real life.” The app is essentially a map that uses location data provided from social media friends on Foursquare and Instagram to show you where your “friends” are located. The app doesn’t seem to provide any services that aren’t already available through Foursquare or Facebook’s new Nearby Friends feature, but it does differ simply by marketing itself as an app for avoiding your friends. What do you think; is social media making us more anti-social? Read more at: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/04/the-antisocial-media-app.html
SONIC member Lindsay Young starting in August 2014 as post doctoral scholar at University of Chicago
Starting in August, Lindsay will be joining the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination (CCHE) at the University of Chicago as a Postdoctoral Scholar. Under the leadership of Dr. John Schneider (MD, MPH) CCHE is dedicated to eliminating HIV transmission by utilizing social, sexual and other risk networks to identify 1) pathways of HIV transmission; 2) how behavior and influence are transmitted through these same networks; and 3) how these networks can be leveraged for integrated prevention interventions. Lindsay will be engaging in research activities that include analysis of data from men having sex with men (MSM) networks and other network interventions in South Chicago and South India.
Noshir Contractor will be a co-Principle Investigator on a $8.7-million NIH grant titled “Multilevel Influences on HIV and Substance use in a YMSM Cohort”
This will be the largest comprehensive study of young men who sleep with men ( MSM ) recently launched. The multidisciplinary study will include psychologists, physicians, virologists, developmentalists, network scientists and statisticians from Northwestern University, Oxford University and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Dr. Brian Mustanski—director of the IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University—will lead the study. For more, click here.
Emmanuel Lazega to present in the SONIC Speaker Series
SONIC Lab is proud to welcome Emmanuel Lazega, who will present a talk on Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (9:00am) in SONIC Lab in the Frances Searle Building room 1.459. All are welcome to attend. To schedule a one-on-one meeting with a SONIC speaker please schedule a time at bit.ly/SonicSpeaker (april 28, from 10 am to 4 pm).
A Spinning Top Model of the Dynamics of Advice Networks
We argue that a spinning top model is a useful heuristic for intra-organizational learning in advice networks. This model proposes that a stabilized ‘elite’ shapes and preserves accumulated knowledge in an organization that overall experiences high turnover and systematic job rotation. We test the model by analysing the structure and dynamics of advice networks among 240 judges in a Commerical Court. Applying the model helps identify an endogenous process of increasing then decreasing centralization of the network over time. It raises questions about the maintenance and stability of its pecking order and about relationship between organizational learning in such an institution and joint regulation of markers.
About Emmanuel Lazega
Emmanuel Lazega is a professor of sociology at Sciences Po, Paris. He is a member of the editorial board of Social Networks. One of the focuses of his research is on collective learning in intra- and inter-organizational networks. In this area, he has published Micropolitics of Knowledge, New York, Aldine-de Gruyter (1992) and The Collegial Phenomenon, Oxford University Press (2001), as well as specialized papers theorizing collective learning based on empirical analyses, conducted with colleagues and doctoral students, of advice networks in various professional social settings. His publications can be found here: elazega.fr
Noshir Contractor presented SONIC research as part of the A. Watson Armour III Research Seminar Series at the Field Museum, Chicago on April 23, 2014
For more information click here.