As a teenager I spent my lunch hour staring at strangers in the mall, trying to figure out their relationship to each other based on no criteria whatsoever, mostly because I was reading Deepak Chopra, the Celestine Prophecy, and Carlos Castaneda, and I thought maybe you really could develop superpowers and see invisible energy fields connecting people together. I did not develop Kirlian vision, but I did learn how to read mostly invisible body language and subtle interpersonal dynamics. Maybe there was some rudimentary social network mapping going on as well:
Math can help people identify the bonds of friendship
Apr 2023, phys.org
People use statistical information to determine bonds between people. It found that children as young as five can enter a room and use statistics on social cues to determine whether two people are friends.Researchers presented participants with diagrams of social networks that showed lines drawn between two main characters and other people in the group. Participants were told that these lines indicated friendship, and importantly, researchers did not show a line connecting the two main characters. Researchers then asked participants how likely it was that the two main characters were friends.Both children and adults thought the two main characters were friends when they had a lot of overlap in their social connections in common. This pattern was found in children as young as five years old.Participants were also able to conclude the strength of social connections from the size of the network. For example, when a character had many mutual connections with someone with a smaller network, participants saw this as more meaningful than having many mutual connections with someone with a larger social network.
via University of Waterloo: Claudia G. Sehl et al, The social network: How people infer relationships from mutual connections., Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (2022). DOI: 10.1037/xge0001330
Totally unrelated image credit: AI Art - Artificial Meat_2 - 2024
Spike in major league home runs tied to climate change
Apr 2023, phys.org
With enough data, you can see all kinds of things
While the researchers attribute only 1% of recent home runs to climate change, they found that rising temperatures could account for 10% or more of home runs by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions and climate change continue unabated."There's a very clear physical mechanism at play in which warmer temperatures reduce the density of air. Baseball is a game of ballistics, and a batted ball is going to fly farther on a warm day," said senior author Justin Mankin, an assistant professor of geography.The researchers analyzed more than 100,000 major league games and 220,000 individual hits to correlate the number of home runs with the occurrence of unseasonably warm temperatures.
via Dartmouth: Christopher W. Callahan et al, Global warming, home runs, and the future of America's pastime, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (2023). DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0235.1
The more stakeholders are included in policy planning, the better their policies protect them
Jun 2023, phys.org
This relates to network science in that it relies on a big complex system (of people and decision making) for maximum effect
"It's a big deal that we found empirical evidence that stakeholder integration leads to better protection. There are very few published papers that show this connection empirically.""I was pretty stunned. I thought this was going to be a different paper." (Surprise!)
via University of California Santa Barbara: Debra Perrone et al, Stakeholder integration predicts better outcomes from groundwater sustainability policy, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39363-y
 |
| AI Art - Artificial Meat_3 - 2024 |
Ridesourcing platforms thrive on socio-economic inequality, say researchers
Apr 2024, phys.org
Platforms that offer rides to passengers, such as Uber and DiDi, thrive on socio-economic inequality. It explains why in some cities ridesourcing services can be big players in the mobility system, while in other cities they don't get off the ground."In cities like Amsterdam, with relatively low inequality, short travel distances and well-established bicycle and public transport networks, Uber is unlikely to flourish," researcher Arjan de Ruijter explains. "Therefore, transport authorities in such cities should rather focus on providing shared bikes and scooters to improve station access."Conversely, in cities marked by significant inequality, like Johannesburg or Rio de Janeiro, Uber-like ridesourcing platforms thrive. Various explanations, taking into account driver's and passenger's behavior, emerge in the study. The platform capitalizes on a workforce willing to accept lower wages, leading to a service with limited waiting times for passengers. Moreover, it acknowledges the demand for mobility on demand among the affluent segments of unequal societies, willing to pay for a premium-like service."In a society with high inequality, companies can charge higher commissions to drivers, as drivers have limited alternative labor opportunities.""On the other hand, in societies with low inequality, all else being equal, pricing strategies must attract more selective job seekers, resulting in lower commission rates."
via Delft University of Technology: Arjan de Ruijter et al, Ridesourcing platforms thrive on socio-economic inequality, Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-57540-x
Families will change dramatically over the years to come, says study
Jan 2024, phys.org
Gentle reminder
- The number of relatives that an individual has is expected to decrease by more than 35% in the near future.
- In 1950, a 65-year-old woman had an average of 41 living relatives. By 2095, a woman of the same age will have an average of only 25 living relatives.
- The number of cousins, nieces, nephews and grandchildren will decline sharply, while the number of great-grandparents and grandparents will increase significantly.
- The effects will be felt less in North America and Europe and more in South America and the Caribbean.
via Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, University of Buenos Aires, and University of Amsterdam: Diego Alburez-Gutierrez et al, Projections of human kinship for all countries, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2315722120
No comments:
Post a Comment