With the proliferation of mobile devices and wireless connectivity technologies, mobile social communities offer novel opportunities for targeted marketing by service or product providers. Unfortunately, marketers are still unable to realize the full potential of these markets due to their inability to effectively target right audiences. This thesis presents a novel middleware for identifying spontaneous social communities (SSCs) of mobile users in ad hoc networks in order to facilitate marketers' advertisements. The contributions of the presented work are two fold; the first is a novel model for SSCs that captures their unique dynamic nature, in terms of community structure and interest in different \textit{hot-topics} over time. These time-varying interests are represented through an inferred \textit{community profile prototype} that reflects dominant characteristics of community members. This prototype is then employed to facilitate the identification of new potential members. The selected community prototypes are also used by marketers to identify the right communities for their services or products promotions. The second contribution of this paper is novel distributed techniques for efficient calculation of the community prototypes and identification of potential community links. In contrast to traditional models of detecting fixed and mobile social networks that rely on pre-existing friendships among its members to predict new ones, the proposed model focuses on measuring the degree of similarity between the new user's profile and the profiles of members of each community in order to predict new users' relationships in the community. The adopted model of SSCs can foster many existing and new socially-aware applications such as recommender systems for social events and tools for collaborative work. It is also an ideal target for business-oriented applications such as short-message-service (SMS) advertisement messages, podcasting news feeds in addition to location/context-aware services. The performance of the proposed work was evaluated using the NetLogo platform where obtained experimental results demonstrate the achieved high degree of stability in the resulting communities in addition to the effectiveness of the proposed middleware in terms of the reduction in the number of routing messages required for advertisements.

With the proliferation of mobile devices and wireless connectivity technologies, mobile social communities offer novel opportunities for targeted marketing by service or product providers. Unfortunately, marketers are still unable to realize the full potential of these markets due to their inability to effectively target right audiences. This thesis presents a novel middleware for identifying spontaneous social communities (SSCs) of mobile users in ad hoc networks in order to facilitate marketers' advertisements. The contributions of the presented work are two fold; the first is a novel model for SSCs that captures their unique dynamic nature, in terms of community structure and interest in different \textit{hot-topics} over time. These time-varying interests are represented through an inferred \textit{community profile prototype} that reflects dominant characteristics of community members. This prototype is then employed to facilitate the identification of new potential members. The selected community prototypes are also used by marketers to identify the right communities for their services or products promotions. The second contribution of this paper is novel distributed techniques for efficient calculation of the community prototypes and identification of potential community links. In contrast to traditional models of detecting fixed and mobile social networks that rely on pre-existing friendships among its members to predict new ones, the proposed model focuses on measuring the degree of similarity between the new user's profile and the profiles of members of each community in order to predict new users' relationships in the community. The adopted model of SSCs can foster many existing and new socially-aware applications such as recommender systems for social events and tools for collaborative work. It is also an ideal target for business-oriented applications such as short-message-service (SMS) advertisement messages, podcasting news feeds in addition to location/context-aware services. The performance of the proposed work was evaluated using the NetLogo platform where obtained experimental results demonstrate the achieved high degree of stability in the resulting communities in addition to the effectiveness of the proposed middleware in terms of the reduction in the number of routing messages required for advertisements.

With the proliferation of mobile devices and wireless connectivity technologies, mobile social communities offer novel opportunities for targeted marketing by service or product providers. Unfortunately, marketers are still unable to realize the full potential of these markets due to their inability to effectively target right audiences. This thesis presents a novel middleware for identifying spontaneous social communities (SSCs) of mobile users in ad hoc networks in order to facilitate marketers' advertisements. The contributions of the presented work are two fold; the first is a novel model for SSCs that captures their unique dynamic nature, in terms of community structure and interest in different \textit{hot-topics} over time. These time-varying interests are represented through an inferred \textit{community profile prototype} that reflects dominant characteristics of community members. This prototype is then employed to facilitate the identification of new potential members. The selected community prototypes are also used by marketers to identify the right communities for their services or products promotions. The second contribution of this paper is novel distributed techniques for efficient calculation of the community prototypes and identification of potential community links. In contrast to traditional models of detecting fixed and mobile social networks that rely on pre-existing friendships among its members to predict new ones, the proposed model focuses on measuring the degree of similarity between the new user's profile and the profiles of members of each community in order to predict new users' relationships in the community. The adopted model of SSCs can foster many existing and new socially-aware applications such as recommender systems for social events and tools for collaborative work. It is also an ideal target for business-oriented applications such as short-message-service (SMS) advertisement messages, podcasting news feeds in addition to location/context-aware services. The performance of the proposed work was evaluated using the NetLogo platform where obtained experimental results demonstrate the achieved high degree of stability in the resulting communities in addition to the effectiveness of the proposed middleware in terms of the reduction in the number of routing messages required for advertisements.

My diploma work discusses the topic of internet social communities in Czech Republic. I look through this topic from the enterpreneur side of view and I am trying to examine how to extract this area for commercial advantage. This is also the reason why I compile the work as a business plan. I am trying to find out if project of this concept is in Czech Republic long-term viable, profitable and competitive. The business plan which I am trying to sketch in the practical part is example of business startup project and it's goal is to acquire an investment for the project development and promotion. The key aspect for this project is to analyze the size of the market. It means to discover if the market in Czech Republic is big enough to provide enough money. The social community portal which is the main object of the business plan is aiming relatively narrow group of users (mothers with children, pregnant woman).

Orientador: Zula Garcia Giglio / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-07T21:23:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Antunes_DeniseCastanho_M.pdf: 3787418 bytes, checksum: db1419dd4b6f26a04ee7b9b8264a282b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Introdução: Pesquisas gerontológicas têm ressaltado a importância da reconstrução de memórias de pessoas mais velhas para favorecimento de reflexões acerca do sentido de vida e do estabelecimento de novas metas e formas de enfrentamento. Objetivos: Reconstruir a memória social de grupos comunitários de bairros populares que se envolveram ativamente nos processos de criação e manutenção de grupos comunitários como Mulheres da Periferia, Grupo Reviver, Cantinho da Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe e Giravida. Procuramos identificar a) os significados atribuídos pelos moradores à participação nos movimentos sociais; b) fatores que influenciaram no envolvimento inicial dos participantes e sua permanência nos grupos; c) a relação entre a sua participação social atual e passada e as características de sua rede de suporte social e d) a relação entre geratividade e a participação em grupos comunitários dos segmentos meia-idade, velhice e velhice avançada. Procedimentos: A pesquisa utilizou-se da metodologia da História Oral. Os depoimentos foram coletados através de entrevistas e um Inventário de Geratividade (Neri, 1998), em um grupo de 14 mulheres todas praticantes do catolicismo, e membros e/ou organizadoras grupos comunitários. Análise de dados: As histórias e outras informações foram analisadas dentro do paradigma fenomenológico, com vistas a favorecer a compreensão do envelhecimento através das informações sobre as trajetórias de vida dos atores sociais que fizeram - e ainda fazem - a história da região estudada. Resultados: Atitudes pessoais como religiosidade e envolvimento com novos projetos apareceram como favoráveis para a formações de valores de solidariedade e geratividade, ambos associados à dedicação ao outro. Esses fatores tem forte relação com melhoria da qualidade de vida e implementação de uma visão mais positiva do envelhecimento. A reconstrução da memória, a partir dos depoimentos orais, favoreceu o desenvolvimento da consciência das depoentes sobre sua função social pelo fato de serem detentoras de informações históricas que, uma vez divulgadas na comunidade, pode exercer importante papel agregador e educacional; além disso, descobriram-se como marcos da trajetória do engajamento feminino na região. Conclusões: O envolvimento em grupos comunitários foi favorável para o bem envelhecer das depoentes devido à ampliação na rede de suporte social através de redes solidárias, visão positiva sobre o envelhecimento e desejo de perpetuação dos grupos. A História Oral constituiu uma importante ferramenta, que permitiu reviver informações úteis a compressão das relações sociais; por outro lado, favoreceu aos idosos, que participaram como informantes, uma reconstrução de suas histórias, melhoria na auto ¿estima e valorização social / Abstract: Introduction: Researches in Gerontology have highlighted the importance of rebuilding the memories of older people to aid the awareness on the sense of life and the establishment of new goals and ways of coping. Objectives: To rebuild the social memory of community groups of popular suburbs which involved actively in the processes of creation and maintenance of community groups as Mulheres da Periferia, Grupo Reviver, Cantinho da Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe and Giravida. We tried to identify a) meanings to the participation in social movement assigned by the residents; b) factors which influenced the initial involvement and maintenance of participants in groups; c) the relation between the current and past social participation and the features of the social network support and, d) the relation between the generativity and the participation in community groups of middle-age, aging and advanced aging. Procedures: The research used the methodology of Oral History. The testimonies were collected through interviews and an inventory of Generativity (Neri, 1998), in a group of 14 women all catholic practicioners, and members and/or organizers of community groups. Data Analysis: The stories and other information were analysed according to phenomenological paradigm, aiming at aiding the understanding of aging through the information about the ways of life of social players who made - and still make ¿ the story of the region studied. Results: The themes related to personal attitudes, as religiosity and involvement in new projects, appear as favorable in the formation of solidarity values and generativity which both are associated to the dedication to the other. Those factors seemed to have strong relation with improvement of life quality and implementation of a more positive view of aging. The rebuilding of memory, from the oral testimonies, will have aided the development of the consciousness of the tellers by having a social function for the fact of having historical information, which once difused, the community can have an important aggregating and educational role and besides this, being markers of the way of female engagement in the region. Conclusions: The involvement in community groups was favorable for the well aging of the tellers due to the enlargement of the social network support through the solidarity networks, positive view about aging and will of perpetuation of the groups. Oral History is an important tool which allows, on one hand, to revive useful information for the understanding of social relations. On the other hand, it aids the elderly who participated as tellers, a rebuilding of their stories, improvement of self-steem and social valorization / Mestrado / Mestre em Gerontologia

The impact of computer-mediated communication (CMC) on relational behavior is a topic of increasing interest to communication scholars (McQuillen, 2003; Tidwell & Walther, 2002). One of the most interesting issues that CMC raises concerns the impact of CMC on relational maintenance and development. Using dialectical theory, social exchange theory, social information processing theory, and the hyperpersonal perspective as theoretical frameworks, this study used quantitative and qualitative analyses to identity potential effects of CMC on relationships. Study 1 (n=317) examined the effects of CMC on relational closeness, satisfaction, and social support. Study 2 (n=196) explored the reasons individuals provide for privileging computer-mediated forms of communication, and the perceived effects of using CMC in relational communication. Results indicated that quality of CMC predicted increased perceptions of social support and relationship satisfaction. Results further suggested that CMC enabled participants to manage more effectively relational tensions of autonomy-connection and openness-closedness. Specifically, individuals used CMC to retain higher levels of conversational control, and to maintain greater numbers of relationships with decreased levels of investment. This paper concludes with a discussion of implications and directions for future research.