scholarly journals Word of Mouth, Viral Marketing and Open Data: A Large-Scale Simulation for Predicting Opinion Diffusion on Ethical Food Consumption

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agostino G. Bruzzone ◽  
Matteo Agresta ◽  
Jen Hsien Hsu

AbstractThis paper presents the first results of a large-scale-Agent-Based Simulation devoted to simulate individual behaviour inside a medium sized city (600,000 inhabitants). Humans are simulated as Intelligent Individual entities characterized by several attributes created from the Open Data available by means of a multi-layer approach. The work presented is divided into two main parts: the first part aims to describe the multi-layer approach adopted with the inclusion of the social network layer devoted to capture how social networks can be correlated with human activities and how an “Individual Opinion” can changes based on social interactions. The second part is devoted to present a preliminary case study for simulating the propagation dynamics of the individual opinion in the form of an ethical value function. The basic idea is to capture the changes in the individual opinion based on the social interactions predicted by the simulation. Finally, a food choice model for predicting individual choices based on the individual opinion function is presented; the model is based on three parameters: accessibility of ethical shops, price difference with standard products, and ethical value propagation.

Author(s):  
Gulbarshyn Chepurko ◽  
Valerii Pylypenko

The paper examines and compares how the major sociological theories treat axiological issues. Value-driven topics are analysed in view of their relevance to society in times of crisis, when both societal life and the very structure of society undergo dramatic change. Nowadays, social scientists around the world are also witnessing such a change due to the emergence of alternative schools of sociological thought (non-classical, interpretive, postmodern, etc.) and, subsequently, the necessity to revise the paradigms that have been existed in sociology so far. Since the above-mentioned approaches are often used to address value-related issues, building a solid theoretical framework for these studies takes on considerable significance. Furthermore, the paradigm revision has been prompted by technological advances changing all areas of people’s lives, especially social interactions. The global human community, integral in nature, is being formed, and production of human values now matters more than production of things; hence the “expansion” of value-focused perspectives in contemporary sociology. The authors give special attention to collectivities which are higher-order units of the social system. These units are described as well-organised action systems where each individual performs his/her specific role. Just as the role of an individual is distinct from that of the collectivity (because the individual and the collectivity are different as units), so too a distinction is drawn between the value and the norm — because they represent different levels of social relationships. Values are the main connecting element between the society’s cultural system and the social sphere while norms, for the most part, belong to the social system. Values serve primarily to maintain the pattern according to which the society is functioning at a given time; norms are essential to social integration. Apart from being the means of regulating social processes and relationships, norms embody the “principles” that can be applied beyond a particular social system. The authors underline that it is important for Ukrainian sociology to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of axiology and make good use of those ideas because this is a prerequisite for its successful integration into the global sociological community.


1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Bicchieri ◽  
Yoshitaka Fukui

Norms of discrimination against women and blacks, norms of revenge still alive in some Mediterranean countries, and norms that everybody dislikes and tries to circumvent, such as the invisible norms of reciprocity that hold among the Iks studied by Turnbull, are all examples of unpopular and inefficient norms that often persist in spite of their being disliked as well as being obviously inefficient from a social or economic viewpoint. The world of business is not immune to this problem. In all those countries in which corruption is endemic, bribing public officials to get lucrative contracts is the norm, but it is often true that such a norm is disliked by many, and that it may lead to highly inefficient social outcomes (Bicchieri and Rovelli 1995).From a functionalist viewpoint such norms are anomalous, since they do not seem to fulfill any beneficial role for society at large or even for the social groups involved in sustaining the norm. In many cases it would be possible to gain in efficiency by eliminating, say, norms of racial discrimination, in that it would be possible to increase the well-being of a racial minority without harming the rest of society. To social scientists who equate persistence with efficiency, the permanence of inefficient norms thus presents an anomaly. They rest their case on two claims: when a norm is inefficient, sooner or later this fact will become evident. And evidence of inefficiency will induce quick changes in the individual choices that sustain the norm. That is, no opportunity for social improvement remains unexploited for long. Unfortunately, all too often this is not the case, and this is not because people mistakenly believe inefficient norms to be good or efficient.


Author(s):  
N.N. Tinus

Any political theory is built on the foundation of a certain ontology, an integral part of which is the problem of an individual. For a long time, the ontological primacy in the European thought was attached to the concept of an individual that was understood as a complete and selfsufficient unit. However, today one can talk about the growing popularity of the approach that views an individual as a relative reality in a state of continuous formation i.e., the process of individuation. This approach is developed by the Italian intellectuals, whose general ideological view is known as autonomism (P.Virno, M.Lazzarato, A.Negri etc.). The article examines the origins of the theory of individuation and its political implications within the autono mist thought. The first part of the article examines the ways of representing an individual in the ontologies of B.Spinoza and G.Simondon. The author demonstrates that the procedural and relational understanding of an individual proposed by these philosophers contributes to bridging the gap between the collective and the individual not only in politics, but also in thinking. An individual is a consequence of the concretization of the general and retains a connection with it. The second part analyzes the psychological and linguistic aspects of individuation, elaborated in L.Vygotsky’s psychology and M.Bakhtin’s philosophy of dialogue. Individuation is interpreted as a movement from the social to the individual, carried out with the help of various tools, primarily by the means of the language. The author evaluates the reception of these thinkers’ ideas in the context of autonomism. The author concludes that the autonomist concept of individuation is a synthetic theory that brings together the general aspects of the consi dered above schools of thought into a single perspective. In fact, the concept is a large-scale revision of the ontological and anthropological foundations of thinking about politics. Its goal is to destroy the idea of a “sovereign individual”, which was born within the liberal tradition, and, as a consequence, to liberate the sphere of the collective from the control of capital.


2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Liebig ◽  
Carsten Sauer

AbstractDuring the last years the focus of sociological justice research has been on the measurement of justice attitudes of the people outside the laboratory via large scale and internationally comparative surveys. Within these surveys one attempt has been to identify the social determinants and the consequences of individual justice attitudes. However, the theoretical foundation of this research within exiting sociological theories and concepts has been neglected. Therefore, the sociological justice research is so far not able to provide theoretically sound answers to at least two questions: (1) why do people think justice is important, and (2) what are the reasons for substantively different justice attitudes? By using the theory of social production functions and the goal-framing theory this contribution tries to overcome this shortcoming and suggests an explanation why justice is seen as a desirable goal and why norms of justice are in the very own interest of the individual. Assumptions are derived under which conditions individuals declare themselves in favor of a specific principle of justice to solve conflicts of allocation and distribution. The aim of this paper is to derive theoretically substantive and empirically testable predictions based on a general theory of action and thus to contribute to a stronger theoretical foundation of sociological justice research.


Africa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 462-478
Author(s):  
Rijk van Dijk

AbstractWhereas Michael Lambek situates the exploration of the significance of ‘ordinary ethics’ in the everyday as the study of ‘the ethical in the conjunction or movement between explicit local pronouncements and implicit local practices and circumstances’, this article takes the opposite view by drawing attention to special events that appear to engage – or provide space for – extraordinary ethics. Special events and their extraordinary ethics bring into relief the implicitness of the ordinary in everyday ethics. Weddings in Botswana are moments in the social life of the individual, the family and the community that produce such event ethics. On one level, the event ethics relate to the execution of these highly stylized weddings in terms of concerns about their performance and marital arrangements. On another level, the event ethics can have tacit dimensions that belong to the special nature of the occasion. This article argues not only that ‘ordinary ethics’ may be privileged through the study of what is tacit in social interactions, but that ‘event ethics’ also demonstrate the importance of the tacit.


Behaviour ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 59 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 96-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen Mcbride

AbstractThis paper presents a theoretical model of and a practical approach to the study of social systems. It was prepared after discussions at the XI and XII International Ethological Conferences, and each draft was presented to many ethologists for comment, and many responded. The paper looks at the social organization within animal species, and at the way animals build, maintain, and change it by their behaviour. The questions asked move always from the individual behaviours, through the social interactions, to the social reiationships and groups which are stable features of societies. The main societal subsystems discussed are: I. Social phases, or social structures which are maintained for periods of time; 2. Organic specialization by castes; 3. Social specialization in groups ; 4. The pattern of dispersal of individuals or groups; 5. The social organization of sexual and parent-offspring behaviour; 6. The organization of behaviour in relation to the environment; 7. The dynamic aspects of animal societies, particularly with changes in density. In each section, questions aim to draw out the pattern of behavioural organization, emphasising the structural features of the theoretical model presented.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Afdhal Afdhal ◽  
Irvansyah Irvansyah

The right to confidentiality or privacy is something unique between a patient's relationship with a doctor because it is based on trust. This patient-doctor relationship is unique because the patient believes in the doctor's ability and the patient believes the doctor will keep the patient's secret. The influence of the covid 19 outbreak has made people nervous and afraid because the virus is very easy to spread and spreads globally. The community asks to open data related to the secrets of Covid 19 patients, both in the form of names, addresses, symptoms, diagnosis, and interactions that have been made. Patient data which is classified as a basic right to privacy is an important component in breaking the chain of the spread of Covid 19 because the government has implemented large-scale social restrictions in certain areas to maintain social interactions so that the community can avoid exposure to this virus. This needs to be studied in depth regarding the Forms of Disclosure of Medical Secrets in the PANDEMIC Covid 19 Situation in Indonesia.This type of research is normative juridical research or what is known as doctrinal research. Normative juridical research is research that looks at problems through the aims and objectives to be achieved using surgical tools in the form of statutory regulations and regulations in a formal hierarchy of regulations as well as theoretical studies of updated and modern literature.Covid 19 Patient Information is data stored in medical records that can be provided based on patient consent or the law. But in Article 57 paragraph (2) of Health Law, the right to confidentiality is excluded, one of which is for the benefit of society. The doctor's obligation to keep information related to the patient's medical condition is an obligation as described in the Republic of Indonesia Minister of Health Regulation Number 269 / MENKES / PER / III / 2008 concerning Medical Records but in the event of an outbreak or pandemic covid 19, the disclosure of secrets is carried out with the covid procedure, namely by evaluating the interaction of patients who have been in SWAB Positive and carry out self-isolation for COVID 19 patients without symptoms and medical isolation for patients with symptoms. Keyword: Information, Covid 19, Hukum, Privacy


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Scarabaggio ◽  
Raffaele Carli ◽  
Mariagrazia Dotoli

The main characteristic of social networks is their ability to quickly spread information between a large group of people. This phenomenon is generated by the social influence that individuals induce on each other.<br>The widespread use of online social networks (e.g., Facebook) increases researchers' interest in how influence propagates through these networks. One of the most important research issues in this field is the so-called influence maximization problem, which essentially consists in selecting the most influential users (i.e., those who are able to maximize the spread of influence through the social network).<br>Due to its practical importance in various applications (e.g., viral marketing, target advertisement, personalized recommendation), such a problem has been studied in several variants. Different solution methodologies have been proposed. Nevertheless, the current open challenge in the resolution of the influence maximization problem still concerns achieving a good trade-off between accuracy and computational time. <br>In this context, based on the well-known independent cascade and the linear threshold models of social networks, we propose a novel low-complexity and highly accurate algorithm for selecting an initial group of nodes to maximize the spread of influence in large-scale networks. In particular, the key idea consists in iteratively removing the overlap of influence spread induced by different seed nodes. Application to several numerical experiments based on real datasets proves that the proposed algorithm effectively finds practical near-optimal solutions of the addressed influence maximization problem in a computationally efficient fashion. Finally, comparison with the best performing state of the art algorithms demonstrates that in large scale scenarios, the proposed approach shows higher performance in terms of influence spread and running time.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Fernández-López ◽  
Djamila Daoudi ◽  
Lucía Rey-Ares

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the linkage between households' social interactions and credit context and how these interactions may influence household borrowing decisions.Design/methodology/approachBased on a sample of 45,907 individuals referred to 18 countries, drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, different probit regressions are used to test the four hypotheses proposed.FindingsEmpirical evidence confirms that intensive and extensive sociability are positively related to consumer debt holding. However, when social activities are considered separately, there is weak evidence that they are also related to mortgage debt holding and over-indebtedness. Moreover, at this level of analysis, the different nature of the social activities in which the individual participates in may condition the relationship with borrowing behaviour. The findings also show that relative income plays a passive role in household borrowing behaviour, since low-income households are more likely to hold mortgage and informal loans or to be over-indebted in highly indebted countries.Originality/valueFirst, this paper extends the knowledge of the relationship between social interactions and borrowing behaviour by considering not only the intensity and diversity of the social activities in which the individual participates, but also the different nature of these activities. Second, it proposes that social interactions may play a passive role on borrowing decision, suggesting that household's behaviour might be passively affected by the density of borrowers surrounding it. To the best of our knowledge, there has not been any attempt to test this issue regarding household borrowing decisions. Third, unlike the few empirical papers on the topic, the paper also analyses previous issues by distinguishing between different types of debts; a distinction that revels the different role played by social interactions.


Author(s):  
Alex Lambert ◽  
Scott McQuire ◽  
Nikos Papastergiardis

Public Wi-Fi services are rolling out across Australia, with city councils and telcos building large-scale networks in urban areas. Questions as to the value of public Wi-Fi have never been more significant in the Australian context. In this article we explore how free Wi-Fi services offered by cultural institutions and municipalities influence public spaces, and ask how such services can engender practices which promote the social good. Drawing on ethnographic research into six Wi-Fi equipped spaces in Victoria, we find a variety of issues which influence whether a service will be popular and hence have a significant influence on public space. Services which are popular enable a range of uses, and this can add to the appeal and atmosphere of a space. However, Wi-Fi has yet to truly facilitate the kind of social interactions and rich civic placemaking we associate with the social good.


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