Online construction of romantic relationships on social media

This study draws on Knapp’s offline relationship development model to examine how people construct romantic relationships on social media, with particular attention to the role of affordances in this process. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 30 relational partners, we show that Knapp’s five traditional stages of relationship construction merge online into three because of social media affordances, including searchability, visibility, anonymity, persistence, storage, and editability. These affordances allow users to search and obtain information about potential partners quickly, conveniently, and anonymously before, during, and after the first interaction. They also enable users to initiate or avoid romantic interactions relatively easily, present shared memories, build a sense of togetherness, and edit or erase online content about previous partners. The findings suggest that most participants perceived Facebook, more than Instagram, as a platform of choice for relationship construction. Addressing the interplay between social media affordances, online relational practices, and offline relationship dynamics, the study shows that offline and online spaces are highly interrelated in terms of interinfluence. Therefore, we argue that the merger of stages is not merely a technical rearrangement but an indication of the fundamental role that online practices play in people’s offline realities, including romantic relationships.

Alternative Constructions of Partner Relationships in Chronic Illness: A Qualitative Study Exploring Concurrent Relationships

Chronic illness can have a profound impact on couples’ relationships. In dealing with relational changes, new constructions and forms of relationships may arise. In the context of a larger grounded theory study on relational processes and practices in couples faced with chronic illness, this article focuses on concurrent relationships as an alternative form of relationship construction which embodies an additional relationship existing parallel to that of the couple confronted with chronic illness. Based on qualitative interviews with a subsample of five persons within the larger study, conditions for the development and characteristics of concurrent relationships are presented. From an individual and shared life questioned by chronic illness, concurrent relationships are formed in the attempt to be able to live on together in a new partner relationship and a continued care relationship. This can lead to new constructions of relationships, family life, and social relations in everyday life.

‘Re-socialisation' in isolated spaces: A case study on the social organisation of Fangcang shelter hospital patients under extreme spatial conditions

Fangcang shelter hospitals – erected by installing medical equipment in large public venues – played an essential role during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Their isolation, interior density and patients' mutual exposure deviate from normal living conditions, necessitating the study on the adaptation, social organisation and emotional response of patients. For this purpose, we conducted spatial analysis, semi-structured interviews with patients and medical workers and social media mining. We found: (1) Patients were deprived of former identities and equalised upon hospitalisation, which formed the basis of later self-organised hierarchical social relationships. (2) Intimate spatial structures expedited relationship construction among neighbouring patients and facilitated community building by expanding the influence that the more active patients exerted on the passive ones. (3) These social situations generally helped alleviate patients' anxiety. Our study reveals the social and emotional ramifications of such emergency spaces on people, thus providing insight for pandemic response and other global emergencies. It also responds to the theory of ‘the production of space' and elucidate the theory of ‘total institutions' from a new perspective.

Automatic Relationship Construction in Domain Ontology Engineering using Semantic and Thematic Graph Generation Process and Convolution Neural Network

In recent studies, Ontology construction plays an important role in translating raw text into useful knowledge. The proposed methodology supports efficient retrieval using multidimensional theory and implements integrated data training techniques before enter the trial process. The proposed approach has used the Semantic and Thematic Graph Generation Process to extract useful knowledge, and uses data mining techniques and web solutions to present knowledge as well as improve search speed and information retrieval accuracy. Established ontology can help clarify what it means for different ideas and relationships. Due to the rise of the ontology repository, the process of matching can take a long time. To avoid this, the method produces a hierarchical structure with in-depth interpretation of the data. A system is designed to remove domain dependencies using a dynamic labeling scheme using basic theorem, and the results show that it is possible to automatically and independently construct an independent domain

An MFF-SLIC Hybrid Superpixel Segmentation Method with Multi-Source RS Data for Rock Surface Extraction

Multi-Source RS data integration is a crucial technology for rock surface extraction in geology. Both Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and Photogrammetry are primary non-contact active measurement techniques. In order to extract comprehensive and accurate rock surface information by the integration of TLS point cloud and digital images, the segmentation based on the integrated results generated by registration is the crux. This paper presents a Multi-Features Fusion for Simple Linear Iterative Clustering (MFF-SLIC) hybrid superpixel segmentation algorithm to extract the rock surface accurately. The MFF-SLIC algorithm mainly includes three contents: (1) Mapping relationship construction for TLS point cloud and digital images; (2) Distance measure model establishment with multi-features for initial superpixel segmentation; (3) Hierarchical and optimized clustering for superpixels. The proposed method was verified with the columnar basalt data, which is acquired in Guabushan Geopark in China. The results demonstrate that the segmentation method could be used for rock surface extraction with high precision and efficiency, the result of which would be prepared for further geological statistics and analysis.