Synwalk: community detection via random walk modelling

Complex systems, abstractly represented as networks, are ubiquitous in everyday life. Analyzing and understanding these systems requires, among others, tools for community detection. As no single best community detection algorithm can exist, robustness across a wide variety of problem settings is desirable. In this work, we present Synwalk, a random walk-based community detection method. Synwalk builds upon a solid theoretical basis and detects communities by synthesizing the random walk induced by the given network from a class of candidate random walks. We thoroughly validate the effectiveness of our approach on synthetic and empirical networks, respectively, and compare Synwalk’s performance with the performance of Infomap and Walktrap (also random walk-based), Louvain (based on modularity maximization) and stochastic block model inference. Our results indicate that Synwalk performs robustly on networks with varying mixing parameters and degree distributions. We outperform Infomap on networks with high mixing parameter, and Infomap and Walktrap on networks with many small communities and low average degree. Our work has a potential to inspire further development of community detection via synthesis of random walks and we provide concrete ideas for future research.

Co-creation methodology with Smart technologies in Health and well-being to enable communication between isolated and disperse small communities: a literature review

Objective: The objective is to determine reported cases of co-creation methodology about the use of smart technologies in public spaces in order to create new forms of social interactions and practices, which in turn creates new socio-spatial relations and promotes interactions and communication between isolated and disperse communities. Methods: The literature published in the last 5 years (2016-2020) has been reviewed. Searches on Co-creation methodology and ICTs in Health and Biomedicine, on topics such as interaction among users, ICT and social behaviour, spatial analyses, planning methodologies and public involvement, on-line gaming, self‐learning, and the prevention of risky habbits are made manually. Results: Search strategies developed through electronic databases and manual search identified a total of 180 references, included in the supplementary material. They have been divided by the technologies used in the studies, co-creation methodology, and according to the type of socio-medical application. This research highlights the penetration of ICT in social and healthcare environments and clearly demonstrates the high number of publications that have come out over recent years and a lack of publications that evaluate co-creation methodology in this field. Conclusions: Most of the papers included only partially cover the subject matter of ICT in Health and Biomedicine and how to use smart technologies to transform public spaces in small communities into people-friendly human environments. The research carried out for this paper clearly demonstrates the high number of publications concerning technology assessment. However, there is a distinct lack of publications that evaluate co-creation methodology.

Healing at the Periphery

India has long occupied an important place in Tibetan medicine's history and development. However, Indian Himalayan practitioners of Tibetan medicine, or amchi, have largely remained overlooked at the Tibetan medical periphery, despite playing a central social and medical role in their communities. Power and legitimacy, religion and economic development, biomedical encounters and Indian geopolitics all intersect in the work and identities of contemporary Himalayan amchi. This volume examines the crucial moment of crisis and transformation that occurred in the early 2000s to offer insights into the beginnings of Tibetan medicine's professionalization, industrialization, and official recognition in India and elsewhere. Based on fine-grained ethnographic studies in Ladakh, Zangskar, Sikkim, and the Darjeeling Hills, Healing at the Periphery asks how the dynamics of capitalism, social change, and the encounter with biomedicine affect small communities on the fringes of modern India, and, conversely, what local transformations of Tibetan medicine tell us about contemporary society and health care in the Himalayas and the Tibetan world. Contributors. Florian Besch, Calum Blaikie, Sienna R. Craig, Barbara Gerke, Isabelle Guérin, Kim Gutschow, Pascale Hancart Petitet, Stephan Kloos, Fernanda Pirie, Laurent Pordié

Peran Institusi Masjid dalam Pembangunan Ekonomi Lokal: Studi Kasus pada Masjid Jogokariyan Yogyakarta

This study is motivated by a phenomenon of the low level of welfare and the economy of the Indonesian people. The concept of Local Economic Development (LED) by utilizing local institutions in developing the economy can be one solution. This study aims to find out the role of the Jogokariyan Mosque institutions in efforts to develop the local economy. Yogyakarta Jogokariyan Mosque is one example of successful mosque institutions in efforts to encourage local economic development by looking at the effects of change and the many achievements. The type of this study is qualitative research, with a case study approach. The results show that there are four roles played by the Jogokariyan Mosque institutions in local economic development efforts, namely expansion of opportunities for small communities in employment and business opportunities, expansion for the community to increase income, empowerment of micro business institutions in the production and marketing process and institutional empowerment of partnership network between the government, private sector entity and local community. This study shows that the existence of mosques in Indonesia is very strategic and has the potential to overcome public problems, especially economic problems in local communities.AbstrakPenelitian ini dilatarbelakangi oleh fenomena rendahnya tingkat kesejahteraan dan perekonomian bangsa Indonesia. Konsep Pembangunan Ekonomi Lokal (PEL) dengan pemanfaatan institusi lokal dalam pembangunan ekonomi dapat menjadi salah satu solusi atas permasalahan tersebut. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis peran Masjid Jogokariyan Yogyakarta terhadap pembangunan ekonomi lokal. Masjid Jogokariyan Yogyakarta merupakan salah satu contoh insitusi masjid yang berhasil mendorong pembangunan ekonomi lokal terbukti dengan dampak perubahan dan banyaknya prestasi yang diperoleh oleh Masjid Jogokariyan Yogyakarta. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif, dengan pendekatan studi kasus. Hasil penelitian menemukan bahwa terdapat empat dampak atas peranan yang dilakukan oleh institusi Masjid Jogokariyan dalam upaya pembangunan ekonomi lokal yaitu perluasan kesempatan bagi masyarakat kecil dalam kesempatan kerja dan usaha, perluasan bagi masyarakat untuk meningkatkan pendapatan, keberdayaan lembaga usaha mikro dalam proses produksi dan pemasaran dan keberdayaan lembaga jaringan kerja kemitraan antara pemerintah, entitas swasta, dan masyarakat lokal. Penelitian ini membuktikan bahwa keberadaan masjid sangat strategis dan potensial untuk mengatasi permasalahan publik khususnya masalah ekonomi di masyarakat lokal.

Family language policy in Russian-Estonian and Russian-Spanish multilingual settings

This paper primarily focuses on the family language policy of bilingual Russian-Estonian and Russian-Spanish families in relation to the maintenance of Russian as a heritage language. Its main objective is to identify social factors that either help or hinder this process. In doing so, this paper searches for commonalities and specificities of the mainstream attitudes towards Russian as a heritage language in Estonia and Spain, by analysing the sociolinguistic situation of Russian in both countries and by examining the factors conditioning the maintenance of Russian as a heritage language in family settings. Our research is based on an in-depth analysis of a variety of sources, mainly quantitative statistical and demographic data on self-reported language behaviour and language ideologies in mixed families from Estonia (n = 40) and Spain (n = 40). The main results of our comparative study confirm the general positive attitude towards Russian as a heritage language, but they also highlight an important variability of these attitudes both between countries and within each community. We show that these attitudes directly determine the principles of family language policy, the parents strategies to transmit Russian as a heritage language, and the level of proficiency in Russian as a heritage language in the second generation. These results allow us to conclude that, as a heritage language, Russian relies on strong attitudinal support in even small communities, like Estonian or Spanish, but also that its confident transmission should rely on external subsidy.

Some unexpected but conspicuous shortcomings in Toni Morrison’s last novel

In the last five decades, Toni Morrison’s fiction has covered such intricate topics as the impact of the past on the present, the damage produced on bodies and minds by different types of abuses, and the power and perils of small communities. She revisits some of those themes in her last novel, God Help the Child (2015), but this time zooms in more closely on the topics of child abuse and colorism – an internal racism of blacks against those with darker skin shades. God Help the Child proves innovative because the story is set in present-day fictional California, where the rate of child molestation – especially against black children – is just overwhelming. This article intends to show that, despite Morrison’s audacious narrative form and storytelling skills, there are some evident shortcomings in the structure and characterization of the novel that are not to be found in her earlier works.

Collective knowledge and the dynamics of culture in chimpanzees

Social learning in non-human primates has been studied experimentally for over 120 years, yet until the present century this was limited to what one individual learns from a single other. Evidence of group-wide traditions in the wild then highlighted the collective context for social learning, and broader ‘diffusion experiments’ have since demonstrated transmission at the community level. In the present article, we describe and set in comparative perspective three strands of our recent research that further explore the collective dimensions of culture and cumulative culture in chimpanzees. First, exposing small communities of chimpanzees to contexts incorporating increasingly challenging, but more rewarding tool use opportunities revealed solutions arising through the combination of different individuals' discoveries, spreading to become shared innovations. The second series of experiments yielded evidence of conformist changes from habitual techniques to alternatives displayed by a unanimous majority of others but implicating a form of quorum decision-making. Third, we found that between-group differences in social tolerance were associated with differential success in developing more complex tool use to exploit an increasingly inaccessible resource. We discuss the implications of this array of findings in the wider context of related studies of humans, other primates and non-primate species. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines’.

Human pathogenic RNA viruses establish non-competing lineages by occupying independent niches

Many pathogenic viruses are endemic among human populations and can cause a broad variety of diseases, some potentially leading to devastating pandemics. How virus populations maintain diversity and what selective pressures drive population turnover, is not thoroughly understood. We conducted a large-scale phylodynamic analysis of 27 human pathogenic RNA viruses spanning diverse life history traits in search of unifying trends that shape virus evolution. For most virus species, we identify multiple, co-circulating lineages with low turnover rates. These lineages appear to be largely noncompeting and likely occupy semi-independent epidemiological niches that are not regionally or seasonally defined. Typically, intra-lineage mutational signatures are similar to inter-lineage signatures. The principal exception are members of the family Picornaviridae, for which mutations in capsid protein genes are primarily lineage-defining. The persistence of virus lineages appears to stem from limited outbreaks within small communities so that only a minor fraction of the global susceptible population is infected at any time. As disparate communities become increasingly connected through globalization, interaction and competition between lineages might increase as well, which could result in changing selective pressures and increased diversification and/or pathogenicity. Thus, in addition to zoonotic events, ongoing surveillance of familiar, endemic viruses appears to merit global attention with respect to the prevention or mitigation of future pandemics.SignificanceNumerous pathogenic viruses are endemic in humans and cause a broad variety of diseases, but what is their potential of causing new pandemics? We show that most human pathogenic RNA viruses form multiple, co-circulating lineages with low turnover rates. These lineages appear to be largely noncompeting and occupy distinct epidemiological niches that are not regionally or seasonally defined, and their persistence appears to stem from limited outbreaks in small communities so that a minor fraction of the global susceptible population is infected at any time. However, due to globalization, interaction and competition between lineages might increase, potentially leading to increased diversification and pathogenicity. Thus, endemic viruses appear to merit global attention with respect to the prevention of future pandemics.