Heavy Metal is a popular sub culture, and in itself is highly tribalized, which makes it an interesting domain to research how cultures and sub cultures relate and evolve. To study this, we scrape... Show moreHeavy Metal is a popular sub culture, and in itself is highly tribalized, which makes it an interesting domain to research how cultures and sub cultures relate and evolve. To study this, we scrape the Encyclopaedia Metallum heavy metal music archive website to generate a large scale networked data set. Bands are linked through shared musicians, and each band can be labelled with multiple user contributed genres. By applying Word2Vec on genre co-occurences, and hierarchical network clustering on the band collaboration graph, we gain insight into how music genres relate to each other. While the Word2Vec results show some interesting patterns with regards to the observed clusters, the hierarchical clustering proves to be more inconclusive, partially caused by factors beyond genre that generate the network. From a machine learning point of view, this case is an instance of the more general problem of understanding label structure in networked data. Show less
This thesis is about algorithms for analyzing large real-world graphs (or networks). Examples include (online) social networks, webgraphs, information networks, biological networks and scientific... Show moreThis thesis is about algorithms for analyzing large real-world graphs (or networks). Examples include (online) social networks, webgraphs, information networks, biological networks and scientific collaboration and citation networks. Although these graphs differ in terms of what kind of information the objects and relationships represent, it turns out that the structure of each these networks is surprisingly similar.For computer scientists, there is an obvious challenge to design efficient algorithms that allow large graphs to be processed and analyzed in a practical setting, facing the challenges of processing millions of nodes and billions of edges. Specifically, there is an opportunity to exploit the non-random structure of real-world graphs to efficiently compute or approximate various properties and measures that would be too hard to compute using traditional graph algorithms. Examples include computation of node-to-node distances and extreme distance measures such as the exact diameter and radius of a graph. Show less
Horace Walpole (1717-1797) was not only a politician, author and patron of the arts, he was also one of the most prolific letter writers in all of English history. Many of the letters which he sent... Show moreHorace Walpole (1717-1797) was not only a politician, author and patron of the arts, he was also one of the most prolific letter writers in all of English history. Many of the letters which he sent and received have been collected, edited and published. They are a treasure trove of information on eighteenth-century politics, arts and society. However, the current study rather focuses on Walpole__s social network and the language as contained in the letters of the network members. Although Walpole and his correspondents wrote their letters during a period in which the standard language was being established and written down in grammars, this book challenges the view that the language use of these members of the upper class was uniformly standard. Several case studies are used to map linguistic variety in the network and demonstrate the functionality of social network analysis in a historical context. The aim is to establish network structures in order to explain usage variation within the network. The author provides an overview of earlier and more recent work on the historical application of social network analysis, and furthermore suggests an adaptation of the model for improved functionality when used with historical data Show less
The world is regularly confronted in the media with dramatic images of African boat migrants. Seemingly desperate, these Africans, most of them males, are willing to risk a perilous journey at sea,... Show moreThe world is regularly confronted in the media with dramatic images of African boat migrants. Seemingly desperate, these Africans, most of them males, are willing to risk a perilous journey at sea, hoping for a better life in Europe. And, even worse, hundreds more are believed to die each year, swallowed up anonymously by the choppy waters off Africa's coast. This book focuses on fishermen who have played a pivotal role in boat migration from Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands, advancing various reasons for the fishermen's prominent role. Besides their long history of migration, their proven experience with navigating, their family's push and investment, their perceptions and ideologies about Europe, there is also their growing marginalization as a result of the deepening crisis in the Senegalese fishing sector and the inadequate policies of the Senegalese government that prevents them from having any bright prospects of improving their standards of living. The book provides insights into the meaning of boat migration, and on the effects of success or failure on the migrants and their families. It goes beyond the usual economic explanations to convincingly situate boat migration within the long-standing West African culture of migration, and highlight the significance of sociocultural and political factors. Among the findings are the perception of migration as status enhancing and a rite de passage in the Senegalese fishing communities, and the profound roles of the extended family, social networks and, above all, religion, especially the widespread influence of the marabout. The importance of information and communication technologies in sustaining transnational networks is equally highlighted. [Book abstract] Show less
