Identifying and Evaluating Anomalous Structural Change-based Nodes in Generalized Dynamic Social Networks

Recently, dynamic social network research has attracted a great amount of attention, especially in the area of anomaly analysis that analyzes the anomalous change in the evolution of dynamic social networks. However, most of the current research focused on anomaly analysis of the macro representation of dynamic social networks and failed to analyze the nodes that have anomalous structural changes at a micro level. To identify and evaluate anomalous structural change-based nodes in generalized dynamic social networks that only have limited structural information, this research considers undirected and unweighted graphs and develops a multiple-neighbor superposition similarity method ( ), which mainly consists of a multiple-neighbor range algorithm ( ) and a superposition similarity fluctuation algorithm ( ). introduces observation nodes, characterizes the structural similarities of nodes within multiple-neighbor ranges, and proposes a new multiple-neighbor similarity index on the basis of extensional similarity indices. Subsequently, maximally reflects the structural change of each node, using a new superposition similarity fluctuation index from the perspective of diverse multiple-neighbor similarities. As a result, based on and , not only identifies anomalous structural change-based nodes by detecting the anomalous structural changes of nodes but also evaluates their anomalous degrees by quantifying these changes. Results obtained by comparing with state-of-the-art methods via extensive experiments show that can accurately identify anomalous structural change-based nodes and evaluate their anomalous degrees well.

Cues to gender and racial identity reduce creativity in diverse social networks

The characteristics of social partners have long been hypothesized as influential in guiding group interactions. Understanding how demographic cues impact networks of creative collaborators is critical for elevating creative performances therein. We conducted a randomized experiment to investigate how the knowledge of peers’ gender and racial identities distorts people’s connection patterns and the resulting creative outcomes in a dynamic social network. Consistent with prior work, we found that creative inspiration links are primarily formed with top idea-generators. However, when gender and racial identities are known, not only is there (1) an increase of $$82.03\%$$ 82.03 % in the odds of same-gender connections to persist (but not for same-race connections), but (2) the semantic similarity of idea-sets stimulated by these connections also increase significantly compared to demography-agnostic networks, negatively impacting the outcomes of divergent creativity. We found that ideas tend to be significantly more homogeneous within demographic groups than between, taking away diversity-bonuses from similarity-based links and partly explaining the results. These insights can inform intelligent interventions to enhance network-wide creative performances.

Managing Cost-Based Risks in Construction Supply Chains: A Stakeholder-Based Dynamic Social Network Perspective

In construction projects, cost-related risks are challenges that need to be coped with. These cost-related risks interact with each other along with the project progress and involve different stakeholders, forming a stakeholder-cost risk network. Previous studies have discussed the stakeholder-cost risk network; however, few studies have considered its dynamic characteristics. Different from traditional methods, this study employed the social network analysis (SNA) to explore the key indicators of cost-related risks within the supply chain and identify the key risks and stakeholders across four project stages: the planning start-up stage, design preparation stage, construction period, and operations and maintenance period. From a horizontal point of view (i.e., network development process), the complexity of the stakeholder-cost risk network demonstrates a U-shaped development process during the project life cycle, ranging from simple to complex to simple. From a vertical point of view (i.e., network hierarchical characteristics), the important cost-based risks are diversified within each stage. The current study contributes to forming a better understanding of the stakeholder-cost risk network from a dynamic perspective as well as the crucial cost-based risks within each stage of the project. The findings provide implications for managers to better align cost-based risk intervention strategies, thereby facilitating the achievement of construction project success.