This thesis examines several nuanced issues, including equitable access, regarding long-distance intercity travel. In the United States, studies of transportation equity focus on affordable access to local destinations and basic services. The limited studies of long-distance intercity travel focus on observed demand, ignoring latent or unmet demand. Both quantitative and qualitative data are used to explore the differences between those who participate in long-distance travel and those with unmet need for it. This thesis found that the ability to participate in long-distance travel plays a role in one’s overall well-being. Undertaking long-distance trips facilitates access to opportunity for cultural and educational experiences, as well as the maintenance and creation of social capital, factors which were indicated by study participants. The first part of the thesis examines equity in access to long-distance travel between individuals by using data from a state-wide survey completed by 2,232 Vermonters for the Vermont Agency of Transportation in 2016. Five ordinal logistic regression models that approximate different levels of realized and unmet travel are used to understand how access to intercity travel differs by socioeconomic, geographic location, and household characteristics. A total of 22 percent of respondents indicated they had unmet demand at least once per year. Furthermore, there was a significant correlation between those who had unmet demand within Vermont and outside of Vermont, proxies for local and intercity travel, respectively. Income level, Internet access, and education level were found to be significant predictors of realized long-distance travel. Household size and composition, household vehicles, age, income, and self-reported urban residence were predictors of both unmet local and long-distance travel need. In addition, full-time employment was significant for local unmet need, while miles to the nearest metropolitan area was a significant predictor for longer travel needs. Models of actual travel were stronger than for unmet demand, indicating that other unmeasured predictor variables may be important, thus requiring qualitative exploration. The second part of the thesis consists of an in-depth examination using semi-structured interviews regarding intercity travel with 24 women living in Chittenden County, Vermont. In addition to the qualitative survey methods, data from a social network geography survey designed specifically for the study and an overall well-being survey were used. Interviews were coded by theme relating to travel type, barriers to travel, and impact on quality of life. A majority of participants felt long-distance travel was very important or essential to their well-being and they wished to increase the amount they did. Additionally, participants felt the need to meet with friends and family in-person, therefore necessitating long-distance travel to those who lived further away. There was also a discrepancy between the desire to meet with friends and family and how often the participants actually were able to do so. Those with higher incomes had less unmet long-distance travel need.

The role of social networking has widely been embraced in an entrepreneurial context due to its nature of providing easy access to information, support and other complementary resources needed for the creation and development of entrepreneurial venture (Omta et al., 2001; Johannisson,1990 cited in Song et al., 2017). The entrepreneurs’ network is affiliated with the study of social relations that can influence the creation and development of new business by shedding light on the functionality of social ties in the diffusion of resources that are vital for the establishment of firms (Greve, 1995). Therefore, studying the field of entrepreneurship in the context of social network can offer a fruitful perspective on entrepreneurship (Greve, 1995).Despite the vast and diverse research in the field of networking and entrepreneurship, there are still some gaps concerning what is actually going on in a network and the understanding about network operation, their nature and role in influencing business performance still limited to fairly broader and theoretical perspective (Jack, 2005). So, in line with these views, the purpose of this study is to explore and enhance the understanding of the networking in an entrepreneurial context by shedding light on the role of strong and weak social ties. The foundation of this study relies on Granovetter’s (1973, 1985) strong and weak tie hypothesis and Jack (2005) work, that by highlighting the characteristics, formation, and outcome of strong and weak social relationships contribute to building the concept of entrepreneur’s social network.A multiple case study of five entrepreneurs, operating their networks and businesses in Linköping, Sweden, has been conducted to achieve the purpose of this study. This research work uses a qualitative approach and is based on the semi-structured interviews, which allows a deeper insight into the studied area through analysis of multiple cases.The result of this study indicates that both the strong and weak social ties, in which an entrepreneur is bonded, are used to a varying level in terms of information flow. Strong relationships, that relies on frequent interaction, hold great importance in providing quality information as compared to weak relationships but simultaneously accountable for providing information that is useless and not up-to date. On, the other hand weak-ties contacts are dispersed in a social network and rarely interact with each other. But these weak connections are also important and play their role once get activated by entrepreneurs. Considering the information flow weaker relationships also occurred to be useful however the relatively small size of the town can mean that similar information is repeated by several connections. Since, the aspect of individual knowledge and experience help in the formation of new relationships but the result of this study highlights that, a personal motivation and drive towards networking also plays a crucial role in the formation of both strong and weak ties.The study findings can benefit the researchers and the entrepreneurs in developing their knowledge about networking and role of social ties in providing access to information and resources necessary for the creation and the development of venture. However, the strong connections hold a dominant position concerning the information and the resource flow but weak connections are also crucial and provide support in areas that strong connections lack. Thus, the entrepreneur that keeps the balance between both his/her strong and weak connections can efficiently reap the benefit of social networking.

Le principal objectif de cette thèse est d'évaluer les protocoles qui prennent en considération la protection de la vie privée et qui nécessitent seulement des métadonnées locales pour détecter les comportements malveillants sur les réseaux sociaux décentralisés. En appliquant des techniques d'analyse de réseaux sociaux qui réduisent la quantité de métadonnées sensibles, nous obtenons des résultats acceptables comparé aux techniques qui ne préservent pas la vie privée. De plus, nous prévoyons d'élaborer une série de recommandations pour construire de futurs réseaux sociaux décentralisés qui découragent cette type des comportements abusifs. / The main goal of this thesis is to evaluate privacy-preserving protocols to detect abuse in future decentralised online social platforms or microblogging services, where often limited amount of metadata is available to perform data analytics. Taking into account such data minimization, we obtain acceptable results compared to techniques of machine learning that use all metadata available. We draw a series of conclusion and recommendations that will aid in the design and development of a privacy-preserving decentralised social network that discourages abusive behavior.

This research examined demographic factors and reported preferential learning mode among a sample of Florida Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) members compared to a national sample profile of OLLI members. This study was prompted by an earlier study of OLLI members conducted by the National Resource Center (NRC) for OLLIs, which produced a national profile describing OLLI members. Although there was a national profile for OLLI members, there were no existing profiles of Florida OLLI members that could be used by OLLI administrators and instructors. This study employed an online survey to compare data between the national OLLI member profile and the Florida profile. Demographic factors such as age, gender, marital status, educational level, employment status, and relocation after retirement, as well as reported preferential learning mode were compared. The data resulting from this comparison indicated that although the gender and marital status distributions of the sample participants were similar, a majority of the other demographic variables were different for the Florida and national OLLI samples. The reported preferential learning mode between national and Florida OLLI members also were significantly different, in contrast to earlier research, which suggested that OLLI members were a homogenous group. The findings from this study suggest that it is important for adult education field educators, administrators, and OLLI instructors to recognize the growing diversity and technical proficiency of current retirees in order to continue to promote effective lifelong learning practices.

Keeping forestland intact has emerged as a critical policy objective at state and federal levels. This target has been supported by substantial public investment. The collective impact from the bequest decisions of millions of landowning individuals and families has the potential to affect the extent and functionality of future forests in the United States. Despite a growing body of research devoted to studying these transitions in forest ownership, much remains unknown about how family forest owners make decisions in this arena. The social and emotional dimensions of woodland succession planning have been particularly under-examined. This thesis explores the process of planning for the future use and ownership of woodlands through in-depth analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews with family forest owners in Massachusetts, Maine, New York, and Vermont. The first article investigates how family forest owners evaluate and integrate stories derived from their social networks when planning for the future of their woodlands. Analysis of the themes contained in stories framed as “cautionary tales” revealed common fears surrounding succession planning. The second article explores the complexity of emotional relationships with family forests showing how emotional geographies manifest in the succession planning process. Together, these studies deepen understanding of how family forest owners plan for the future of private woodlands and offer implications for Extension and outreach.

The subject of diploma thesis are online social networks and how they can be used in education. The first part deals how social networks can help in education, it analyses communi-cation as crucial aspect educational process. Theoretical part is also trying to define online social network with the aim on education, few of social networks are presented with exam-ples how can they be used in practise. The practical part consists in the implementation of a chosen social network (proba-bly Yammer) into the real teaching courses of the Department of system analysis - intro-ductory on subjects 4SA615 - Information Management and 4SA526 - New media and social networks. Questionnaire is used to evaluate the results and to get feedback from the student on the implemented project (social network). Recommendations are proposed based on the feedback, which could be applied to improve the courses in upcoming semes-ters. In the best-case scenario, the conclusion of this diploma thesis could lead to imple-menting the social network for whole department, or even university.

Historically human endeavors around the globe are in search of bilateral relationships. Knowledge and commerce has played a very significant role in increasing the ability for humans to connect for the betterment of the human species. As the means of communication improve, mutual benefits to the community as a whole also increase. Moreover, the benefits are filtered down to members of the overall community. Recent advancement in electronic communication technologies and in knowledge, in particular, physical, chemical, engineering and medical sciences and philosophies, have facilitated nearly instantaneous multi-cultural interactions. Local problems and solutions have become global. This has generated a need for cooperation, coordination, and co-management at local and global levels. This instant communication and easy access to almost all members of the global community, with minimal cost and effort, causes an increase in uncertainty and lack of clarity in communication and misunderstanding between the members of the community. This leads to a fuzzy and stochastic environment. In short, the 21st century has seen a significant increase in the need to consider all human endeavors as being subject to random environmental fluctuations. More precisely, currently the human species is highly mobile. In this work, an attempt is made (1) to balance communities working cooperatively and cohesively with one another while preserving member ability to retain individuality and fostering an environment of cultural state diversity. We develop (2) constructive analytic algorithms that provide tools to study qualitative and quantitative properties of multicultural diverse dynamic social networks. Under network parametric space/set conditions (3) cohesion and co-existence of members of multicultural dynamic network are insured. The parametric conditions (4) are algebraically simple, easy to verify, and robust. Moreover, the presented study of parametric representations of cohesion, co-existence and consensus attributes and robustness of multicultural dynamic networks provides a quantitative tool for planning, policy and performance of human mobility processes for members of a multicultural dynamic network. We develop and investigate (5) a deterministic dynamic multicultural network. To exhibit the significance of the analysis, ideas, the complexity and limitations, we present a specific prototype model. This serves to establish the framework for finding explicit sufficient conditions in terms of system parameters for studying a complex dynamic network. Further, we decompose the cultural state domain into invariant subsets (6) and consider the behavior of members within each cultural state subset. Moreover, we analyze the relative cultural affinity between individual members relative to the center of the social network. We then (7) outline the general method for investigating a multicultural cultural network. We also demonstrate the degree of conservatism of the estimates using Euler type numerical approximation schemes. We are then able to consider how changes in the various parametric effects are reflected on the dynamics of the network. The deterministic multicultural dynamic model and analysis is extended (8) to a multicultural dynamic network under random environmental perturbations. We present a detailed prototype model for the purpose of investigation. Introducing the concept of stochastic cohesion and consensus in the context of probabilistic modes of convergence (9), the explicit sufficient conditions in terms of system parameters are given to exhibit the cohesive property of the stochastic network. The effects of random fluctuations are characterized. We then extend the stochastic model (10) to a multicultural hybrid stochastic dynamic network model. By considering a hybrid dynamic, we can explore the properties of a multicultural dynamic under the influence of both continuous-time and discrete-time cultural dynamic systems. This model captures external influences and internal changes that may have an impact on the members and system parameters of the dynamic network. We extend the ideas of global cohesion and consensus to local cohesion and consensus (11). Again, the detailed study is focused on a prototype hybrid multicultural dynamic network. Using the ideas and tools developed from the stochastic network (12), we are able to establish conditions on the network parameters for which the cultural network is locally cohesive. Using Euler-Maruyama type numerical approximation schemes to model the network, we better understand to what extent the analytically developed estimates are feasible.

Online Social Network (OSN) services provided by Internet companies bring people together to chat, share the information, and enjoy the information. Meanwhile, huge amounts of data are generated by those services (they can be regarded as the social media ) every day, every hour, even every minute, and every second. Currently, researchers are interested in analyzing the OSN data, extracting interesting patterns from it, and applying those patterns to real-world applications. However, due to the large-scale property of the OSN data, it is difficult to effectively analyze it. This dissertation focuses on applying data mining and information retrieval techniques to mine two key components in the social media data — users and user-generated contents. Specifically, it aims at addressing three problems related to the social media users and contents: (1) how does one organize the users and the contents? (2) how does one summarize the textual contents so that users do not have to go over every post to capture the general idea? (3) how does one identify the influential users in the social media to benefit other applications, e.g., Marketing Campaign? The contribution of this dissertation is briefly summarized as follows. (1) It provides a comprehensive and versatile data mining framework to analyze the users and user-generated contents from the social media. (2) It designs a hierarchical co-clustering algorithm to organize the users and contents. (3) It proposes multi-document summarization methods to extract core information from the social network contents. (4) It introduces three important dimensions of social influence, and a dynamic influence model for identifying influential users.

How do local homeland security organizations respond to catastrophic events such as hurricanes and acts of terrorism? Among the most important aspects of this response are these organizations ability to adapt to the uncertain nature of these “focusing events” (Birkland 1997). They are often behind the curve, seeing response as a linear process, when in fact it is a complex, multifaceted process that requires understanding the interactions between the fiscal pressures facing local governments, the institutional pressures of working within a new regulatory framework and the political pressures of bringing together different levels of government with different perspectives and agendas. This dissertation has focused on tracing the factors affecting the individuals and institutions planning, preparing, responding and recovering from natural and man-made disasters. Using social network analysis, my study analyzes the interactions between the individuals and institutions that respond to these “focusing events.” In practice, it is the combination of budgetary, institutional, and political pressures or constraints interacting with each other which resembles a Complex Adaptive System (CAS). To investigate this system, my study evaluates the evolution of two separate sets of organizations composed of first responders (Fire Chiefs, Emergency Management Coordinators) and community volunteers organized in the state of Florida over the last fifteen years. Using a social network analysis approach, my dissertation analyzes the interactions between Citizen Corps Councils (CCCs) and Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in the state of Florida from 1996- 2011. It is the pattern of interconnections that occur over time that are the focus of this study. The social network analysis revealed an increase in the amount and density of connections between these organizations over the last fifteen years. The analysis also exposed the underlying patterns in these connections; that as the networks became more complex they also became more decentralized though not in any uniform manner. The present study brings to light a story of how communities have adapted to the ever changing circumstances that are sine qua non of natural and man-made disasters

In recent years, a surprising new phenomenon has emerged in which globally-distributed online communities collaborate to create useful and sophisticated computer software. These open source software groups are comprised of generally unaffiliated individuals and organizations who work in a seemingly chaotic fashion and who participate on a voluntary basis without direct financial incentive. The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between the social network structure of these intriguing groups and their level of output and activity, where social network structure is defined as 1) closure or connectedness within the group, 2) bridging ties which extend outside of the group, and 3) leader centrality within the group. Based on well-tested theories of social capital and centrality in teams, propositions were formulated which suggest that social network structures associated with successful open source software project communities will exhibit high levels of bridging and moderate levels of closure and leader centrality. The research setting was the SourceForge hosting organization and a study population of 143 project communities was identified. Independent variables included measures of closure and leader centrality defined over conversational ties, along with measures of bridging defined over membership ties. Dependent variables included source code commits and software releases for community output, and software downloads and project site page views for community activity. A cross-sectional study design was used and archival data were extracted and aggregated for the two-year period following the first release of project software. The resulting compiled variables were analyzed using multiple linear and quadratic regressions, controlling for group size and conversational volume. Contrary to theory-based expectations, the surprising results showed that successful project groups exhibited low levels of closure and that the levels of bridging and leader centrality were not important factors of success. These findings suggest that the creation and use of open source software may represent a fundamentally new socio-technical development process which disrupts the team paradigm and which triggers the need for building new theories of collaborative development. These new theories could point towards the broader application of open source methods for the creation of knowledge-based products other than software.