Most research investigating impression formation during early stages of a relationship on social network sites adopts unrealistic, ecologically invalid social scenarios. This thesis used an ecologically valid social scenario to improve understanding of impression formation during the early stages of a relationship on social network sites. Three studies investigated how students get to know each other on social network sites in the weeks before starting university. A focus group study, a questionnaire study and an experiment demonstrated that incoming undergraduate students form impressions about groups of people (e.g. a group of housemates) and specific individuals (e.g. a housemate) during university transition. The studies highlighted that it is too simplistic to suggest that impression formation about a group of people is different from impression formation about a specific individual. Instead, the coherence of the social target, the nature of the affiliation with that social target, and the strategies used to get to know that social target on social network sites influence how confident students are in their impressions of each other during university transition. Explanations are proposed that, if substantiated, would require expansion of the Hamilton and Sherman’s and cues-filtered in theories of impression formation. The studies highlighted that impression formation and the influence of those three factors can partially explain the intensity of students’ worries about the academic and social aspects of their future university experience. The findings are practically applied as guidance for university and pastoral support services and further research is proposed to test the tentative explanations.

Interdisciplinary Research (IDR) has received a lot of attention from academics, policy-makers, and decision-makers alike. RCUK invests £3 billion in research grants each year (RCUK 2017); half of the grants are provided to investigators who hail from different departments. There is mounting awareness of the challenges facing IDR, and a large body of literature trying to establish how IDR can be analysed (Davidson 2015, Yegros-Yegros, Rafols et al. 2015). Of these, the majority have been qualitative studies and it has been noticed that there is a distinct lack of quantitative studies that can be used to identify how to enable IDR. The literature shows that many of the barriers to IDR can be classified as either cultural or administrative (Katz and Martin 1997, Cummings and Kiesler 2005, Rafols 2007, Wagner, Roessner et al. 2011), neither of which are easily changed over a short period of time. The perspective taken in this research is that change can be affected by enabling the individuals who conduct IDR. Herein lies the main challenge; how can these future leaders of IDR be identified so that they can be properly supported. No existing datasets were deemed suitable for the purpose, and a new dataset was created to analyse IDR. To isolate dynamics within an organisation, hard boundaries were drawn around research-organisations. The University of Bath journal co-authorship dataset 2000-2017 was determined to be suitable for this purpose. From this dataset a co-authorship network was created. To analyse this, established models from literature were adapted and used to identify differences in disciplinary and interdisciplinary archetypes. This was done through a correlational study. No statistically significant differences between such author archetypes were found. It was therefore concluded that an alternative approach was necessary. By adapting the networks framework to account for different types of links between edges, a multilayer perspective was adopted. This resulted in a rank-3 tensor, node-aligned framework being proposed, allowing disciplines to be represented in the network. By using this framework to construct the University of Bath multiplex co-authorship network, an exemplar structure was established through use of a series of proposed structural metrics. A growth model was proposed and successfully recreated the structure and thereby uncovered mechanics affecting real-world multiplex networks. This highlighted the importance of node entities and the layer closeness centrality. This implies that it is very difficult to carry over benefits across disciplines, and that some disciplines are better suited to share and adapt knowledge than others. The growth model also allowed an analytical expression for the rate of change of disciplinary degree, thereby providing a model for who is most likely to enable and sustain IDR.

Research into the social behaviour of wild animals living in groups has demonstrated the importance of social structure dynamics and their consequences for an individual’s fitness. Many aspects of animal behaviour and ecology, including interactions with conspecifics, habitat use and willingness to take risks, can be a reflection of personality. One of the key concerns of captive animal husbandry is the social environment, as it is regularly modified and can shape the social behaviour of the animals in question in different ways. In this thesis I explore how meerkat, Suricata suricatta, social dynamics and individual positions may differ between wild and captive groups; I explore personality in the context of social networks and, lastly, I explore how physical and husbandry factors vary across enclosures and how this corresponds to a variation in the social structure of meerkats. Differences were found between the fifteen groups of captive meerkats when considering association networks based on foraging and resting. Some of these differences could be explained by intrinsic differences between the groups. An individual’s position within a network as described by their centrality and closeness measures could be predicted by their age and status, but rarely by their sex. I did not detect consistent patterns of non-random assortment amongst group members based on their sex, age or status. Groups of wild and captive meerkats differed in various aspects of their social network structure. Such differences may be due to individuals occupying different network positions and the difference in their number and strength of their connections to other individuals. This distinct way of interacting and associating could be a result of group specific attributes, such as group size, and/or the attributes of the donor and recipient, including sex, status or age. Critically, the differences may be explained by the dissimilar living environment that each encounters. The current results suggest that a meerkat social network in captive conditions can be less consistent than in their wild environment in the way they associate with one another, and in the manner they occupy particular positions in the network. Principal component analysis of the four personality traits revealed two personality dimensions, Friendliness and Aggressiveness, across the fifteen groups of meerkats. However, within a subset of my data (five groups), Friendliness was the only measure that robustly captured consistent individual differences across at least one year. A relationship was not found between attributes and personality dimensions due to age, status, and sex. Individuals with high Friendliness scores were more central in networks of foraging competitions. Aggressiveness did not explain an individual’s position in any form of interaction. There was no evidence that meerkats preferentially associated with or avoid others based on each of their personality scores. A relationship was found in the way animals associate with one another in the resting network based on the size and complexity of the enclosure and the type of shelter. Individuals were less likely to associate with others of the same sex or dominance status in enclosures that were larger or more complex. All the six external measures (the size and complexity of the enclosure, the type of barrier and day shelter, environmental enrichment frequency and human contact) influenced how individuals interacted with other group members within grooming, playing and dominance networks. In general, it seems to be that the key features to address in meerkat management in zoos are those of enclosure size and complexity (and perhaps provision of adequate shelters). Providing captive meerkats with more naturalistic and complex enclosures can help to preserve their natural social system.

Cette thèse analyse le marché du travail dans l’industrie cinématographique, plus spécifiquement le marché des techniciens. Trois équipes de travail sont au cœur de l’analyse : l’équipe caméra, l’équipe électrique et l’équipe machinerie. Ensemble elles constituent le département image. Nous explorons les liens entre travail et carrière dans le contexte de la fluidité des relations d’emploi. À partir d’entretiens, d’observations et d’une base de données permettant de reconstruire les réseaux de collaborations, nous explorons ce que signifie « faire carrière » pour ces techniciens. La comparaison internationale nous permet de mettre en perspective le poids de chacune des régulations nationales sur la forme des carrières et les stratégies individuelles mises en œuvre par les acteurs. La première partie de la thèse montre comment la structure des collaborations supporte l’existence d’un monde social au sein duquel les individus partagent des conventions et des normes, et, au niveau des équipes de travail, des routines. Nous montrons comment l’activité et les relations entre les individus sur le plateau s’inscrivent dans la perspective plus large des carrières.La seconde partie de la thèse explore la question des entrées dans la carrière, montrant la place des réseaux relationnels. Les façons de recruter des individus, et particulièrement des chefs de poste, structurent les opportunités offertes aux individus. La troisième partie de la thèse se concentre sur le cas français pour explorer les combats des chefs opérateurs pour la reconnaissance de leur travail, notamment à travers les actions des associations professionnelles et par l’introduction d’un nouvel intermédiaire du marché du travail. / This dissertation deals with issues of labor market organization in the motion-picture industry, especially for the labor market of technicians. Three workteams are studied: the camera crew, electric crew and grip crew. As a whole, they constitute what is sometimes referred to as the “image department”. We explore the link between work and career in a context of fluid employment relations. Drawing from interviews, observations and a database allowing us to reconstruct collaboration networks, we explore what a career means for those technicians. The international comparison allows us to put into perspective the weight of national regulations on the form of careers and on the individual strategies of actors. The first part of the dissertation shows how the structure of collaborations sustains a social world in which individuals share conventions and norms, and, at the team level, routines. We show how activity and relations between people on set evolve in the larger context of careers. The second part of the dissertation deals with the question of entering the labor market, showing the role of social networks. The means used to recruit people, especially team leaders, structures opportunities for people. The third part of the dissertation focus on the french case to study the struggle of cinematographers to see their work recognized. In particular, we study the role of professionnal associations and of a new intermediary on the labor market.

Information networks represent relations in data, relationships typically ignored in iid (independent and identically distributed) data. Such networks abound, like coauthorships in bibliometrics, cellphone call graphs in telecommunication, students interactions in Education, etc. A large body of work has been devoted to the analysis of these networks and the discovery of their underlying structure, specifically, finding the communities in them. Communities are groups of nodes in the network that are relatively cohesive within the set compared to the outside. This thesis proposes Top Leaders, a fast and accurate community mining approach for both weighted and unweighted networks. Top Leaders regards a community as a set of followers congregating around a potential leader and works based on a novel measure of closeness inspired by the theory of diffusion of innovations. Moreover, it proposes Meerkat-ED, a specific and practical toolbox for analyzing students interactions in online courses. It applies social network analysis techniques including community mining to evaluate participation of students in asynchronous discussion forums.

With the continuous development of Internet technology, the mode of website operation has become much closer to users. Various types of network operation appear constantly as Web2.0 technology becomes matured, and the shiniest one is Virtual Community. The early development patterns of virtual community were BBS systems, blogs and then the recent social network and micro-blogging(or microblog). Rheingold et al. scholars also believe that virtual communities have become new methods of interaction among people, and this developing pattern is inevitable. Although virtual community is developing rapidly, the relevant domestic literatures and researches on development strategy for virtual community are still very limited. Hence, this research aims to use a systematic way to collect literatures by which we can understand the development background of virtual communities, the operation pattern of virtual community, and how to create the value which between virtual community and Internet users. In addition, this research also chooses a representative case for deep analysis by which we can understand what is the business environment for virtual community in domestic, how to find a niche market to avoid direct contention with competitors when the resources are insufficient, and we can also explore the development strategy for the case and give future recommendations. In conclusion, this study found that virtual community has the following characteristics: website members are not only consumers but also producers, and they can strengthen the interaction features and deepen website users¡¦ preference. Moreover, by combining virtual and physical mode to create win-win situations, focusing on a niche market can create a higher identification among users. Finally, how to overcome the market differences will be the key to expand overseas markets.

A social network approach was used to investigate the structural features of various emergent leadership systems in a large financial organization (n = 137), including transactional and transformational-style leadership relations. Results indicate that macro-level patterns of leadership nominations may be explained by a small number of underlying structural features, some of which vary across types of leadership networks. Leadership nominations were shown to be less hierarchical, more reciprocal, and more triadic than traditionally thought. On top of effects associated with individual differences in sex, supervisor status, tenure, and physical location, leadership networks displayed tendencies towards reciprocity and loose core-periphery structures based on transitive hierarchies. There was also some evidence that transformational leadership networks tended to be slightly less centralized and more transitive than transactional leadership networks. Implications for bridging leadership theory across levels of analysis are discussed.

In Taiwan, the clan associations have some leverage over local affairs, including elections of legislator, county mayor, county congressman, township heads, town heads and town councilman, and so on. Some critics observe that the clan associations have far more significant influence than political party in some counties such as Tao-yuan, Hsin-chu, etc. This thesis aims to explore the interaction between local faction and clan association in Taiwan through analysis on several cases about Tao-yuan county. The author will focus on the social network and bring forward the following assumptions: (1) politicians influence the result of an election by involving themselves in local faction; (2) politicians influence the result of an election by involving themselves in clan association; (3) local faction forms an alliance with clan association to influence the result of an election. In sum, the interactive patterns between local faction and clan association can be divided into four categories: (1) clan faction, i.e. local faction comprised primarily of members of clan association; (2) clan faction with some other clan ; (3) non-clan faction, i.e. local faction comprised primarily not of members of clan association; (4) local faction unrelated to any clan association. The author attempts to explain the following aspects: first of all, how local faction develops cooperation relationship with clan association in various elections in Tao-yuan county; secondly, the alliance between local faction and clan association will be a short-term or long-term relationship; furthermore, if clan association will be in the cooperative process dwindled into factious clubs. Finally, what kind of interest exchanges will exist between local faction and clan association? The major findings of this study were as the following: (1) local faction develops a long-term cooperation relationship with clan association in various elections in order to win; (2) local factions win over clan associations by providing service and fellowship; (3) clan association has tendency to dwindle into factious clubs.

No description available.

Currently, mobile computing is mandating or influencing the direction of new developments in information technology. The high level of adoption that mobile devices have among individuals allows for multiple opportunities for new developments applicable to academic communities, governments and businesses. Data of various types can be collected in a crowd-sourced manner. As such, this thesis examines the collection and application of data collected through a purpose-designed app relying on Bluetooth and geo-location technologies on mobile devices. Through three distinct development iterations and using Bluetooth connectivity, information about connectivity to other mobile devices can be obtained, and in this way the number, type, and device names of “connecting” devices are gathered and stored. Another interesting aspect associated with this type of data collection is that the mobile device may be either moving or stationary during the data collection process. Information can be collected and mined to help map real-life events such as traffic patterns or crowd movement within mass gatherings, as well as ethereal social interactions, and these data can in turn be used as input to various models and simulators. When geo-location technologies are incorporated, a higher level of detail can be obtained on the location of devices. This technology allows for mapping movement and contacts made between people, allowing for the gathering of more detailed social patterns of individuals. As part of this study, the technology developed using Bluetooth connectivity and geo-location is then taken to an additional iteration to develop a mobile system that is able to find and establish direct connections with other individuals and initiate real-life interactions. The work demonstrates that mobile technologies can provide a broad framework of action for the generation and collection of valuable data that can be used for behavioural studies, simulations and other type of research that involves real-life social interactions.