Call for papers for Special Section in Network Science on “Networks in space and in time: Methods and applications”

Call for papers for Special Section in Network Science on “Networks in space and in time: Methods and applications”

Social network research is rapidly evolving toward the inclusion of geography and time into the social space, Accounting for their effect on network structure and on network dynamics.

The special section of Network Science will publish a range of high quality research papers about the analysis of spatial-temporal network data and its substantive applications. The main goal is to present the most relevant results and the most recent methodological developments in social network research, when data are collected across space and time.

Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

• Dynamic network visualization
• Large networks
• Longitudinal social networks
• Statistical and computational models for spatial-temporal networks
• Networks and geography
• Network data collection
• Social network analysis methods for longitudinal data
• International Networks

The special section will be guest-edited by Luca De Benedictis (University of Macerata, Italy), Maria Prosperina Vitale (University of Salerno, Italy), and Stanley Wasserman (Indiana University, USA).

Submission details

Researchers and practitioners are requested to submit any relevant and innovative papers for publication in this Special Section. Submitted papers can be based on presentations made at ARS 13 – Fourth International Workshop on Social Network Analysis in June 2013, Rome (Italy); however, submissions not based on presentations at this conference will also be considered.

Submitted papers must contain original unpublished work that has not been submitted for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts submitted to the special section will undergo double-blind review which is used for submission to Network Science.

Papers should be submitted following the instructions given at the journal homepage http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/nws.

Important dates
• Submission of full paper for the special section: December 15, 2013 at the latest (earlier submission is encouraged)
• Notification to authors: June 15, 2014 (tentative)
• Final paper for the special section: October 15, 2014 (tentative)

For details, visit the website http://www.ars13.unisa.it

PhD Opportunity at Manchester

University of Manchester

Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis, School of Social Sciences, Doctoral award in Social Network Methodology

The award will be based in the world renowned Mitchell Centre, an interdisciplinary group of social network analysts based in the School of Social Sciences. The project is funded by Leverhulme (RPG-2013-140) and the successful student will work alongside a project entitled: “Collecting and analyzing secondary covert social network data”

Standard social network data consist of relations amongst an homogenous group of actors. So that when we represent the data in matrix form the rows and the columns represent the same actors. In contrast, in two mode data we have two types of actors (modes) and there are only connections between different types of actors and no connections within each type. The modes usually represent very different sorts of data. The classic example is when one mode is people and the other mode is events. It should be noted that a lot of historical data and as a consequence covert network data is derived from who attended particular events. Keeping the data in this form allows us to have greater flexibility in any subsequent analysis. However, this means we need to develop innovative and new methods which recognise the restrictions in structure that data in this form implies.

The classic way of analyzing such data is to convert it to two one mode datasets by pre and post matrix multiplication to produce two new matrices. These matrices are proximity matrices and there is a wide variety of standard method available for analyzing such matrices. However, when the data are valued it is not quite so simple to convert them and other projection techniques for example using correlation or the Jaccard coefficient may be preferable.

Also very little consideration has been given to directed two mode data and very little work has been done on the development of new methods which specifically recognize the nature of two mode data. Recently consideration has been given by Everett and Borgatti (2013) to combining both the projections and mapping these results back onto the original data. While some preliminary results look promising there is much work to be done in combining the different projection methods with this approach. In addition there is an opportunity to look in detail at some of the more statistical methods that have recently been developed for two mode data and combining these with some of the multivariate techniques discussed above.

Hence the studentship will focus one or more of the following areas:

Investigate alternative and novel projection methods for valued data. Consider issues with respect to normalization of projected networks. Develop new methods (either mathematical or statistical or both) for the direct analysis of multi mode data in particular valued and directed data. Extend and evaluate the dual approach to multimode networks. Examine the relationship between the various approaches available for multi-mode networks.

Studentship details - The studentship comprise an annual stipend of £13,700, payment of fees up to the level charged for UK/EU students (currently £3,900; overseas students would need to pay the balance in fees themselves) and £750 for research training. The studentship will be for direct entry onto the three year PhD programme. The programme will commence in October 2013. Continuation of the award is subject to satisfactory performance.

Entry Requirements - Applicants must have (or expect to gain) a UK Masters level degree (or overseas equivalent) at Merit level (overall taught course average of 60% and a dissertation mark of 60% or more) in a mathematically or statistically orientated subject.

How to apply - Applicants should email martin.everett@manchester.ac.uk a full cv together with a covering letter. The successful candidate will be required to submit a full University of Manchester on-line application, plus supporting documents (two academic references and degree transcripts) to fulfill the normal admissions process.

Further information - For further information or to discuss your proposal, please email martin.everett@manchester.ac.uk

Deadline - The deadline for applications is 30th August, 2013.

Workshop on Empirical Methods

Swiss Political Science Association, Annual convention 2014, University of Berne

January 30/31, 2014

Submit your abstract!

(Social) Network Analysis has its origins in mathematics and is widely used and further developed in fields as diverse as biology, statistics, sociology and anthropology. More recently, it has been successfully applied in political science – examples include political discourse networks, legislative networks in parliaments, social networks influencing political behaviour, trade networks or policy diffusion among states, or formal models with strategic interactions along network ties. Unlike many other methods, SNA doesn’t treat the dependencies between observations as a mere nuisance to be modeled away, but as the main parameter of interest. Assuming that observations are independent is often highly problematic in social sciences, and SNA thus promises solutions to major challenges for statistical analysis. But it also offers a different lens to look at data, or, in fact, the overall topic of interest.

The advent of “Big Data” has, in the meantime, opened up vast amounts information with an inherent network structure (social media, mapping of web pages, etc), which complement the more traditional approaches of gathering network data through interviews, questionnaires, and document analysis.

The workshop thus welcomes papers that apply such new methods for gathering and analysing political network data (e.g. using exponential random graph or stochastic actor-oriented models), explore the limits of commonly used methods, develop models of strategic interaction within and formation of political networks formally and/or test such models empirically.

Call for Papers: International Conference on Digital Information Processing

The International Conference on Digital Information Processing,
E-Business and Cloud Computing (DIPECC2013)

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

October 23-25, 2013

http://sdiwc.net/conferences/2013/dipecc2013/

All accepted papers will published in SDIWC digital library.
===================

The proposed conference on the above theme will be held at Islamic
Azad University, UAE Branch, Academic City Campus, Dubai, UAE from
October 23-25, 2013 which aims to enable researchers build connections
between different digital applications.

The conference welcome papers on the following (but not limited to)
research topics:
- Biometrics Technologies
- Cloud Engineering
- Cloud Security
- Computer Architecture and Design
- Data Compression
- Data Management in Mobile Networks
- Distributed and Parallel Applications
- E-Commerce Security
- E-Technology
- Forensics, Recognition Technologies and Applications
- Image Processing
- Information and Data Management
- Mobile, Ad Hoc and Sensor Network Management
- Network Security
- Semantic Web and Ontologies
- User Interface and Usability Issues for Mobile Applications
- Web Services Architecture, Modeling and Design
- Wireless Communications
- Cloud Computing
- Cloud Gaming
- Computational Intelligence
- Cryptography and Data Protection
- Data Embedding and Watermarking
- Data Stream Processing in Mobile/Sensor Networks
- E-Business
- E-Learning
- Embedded Systems and Software
- Fuzzy and Neural Network Systems
- Information Content Security
- Mobile Networking, Mobility and Nomadicity
- Multimedia Computing
- Real-Time Systems
- Signal Processing, Pattern Recognition and Applications
- User Interfaces, Visualization and Modeling
- Web Services Security
- Wireless Sensor Networks

Researchers are encouraged to submit their work electronically. All
papers will be fully refereed by a minimum of two specialized
referees. Before final acceptance, all referees comments must be
considered.

Important Dates
===============
Submission Deadline: September 1, 2013
Notification of Acceptance: September 15, 2013
Camera Ready Submission: September 20, 2013
Registration: September 20, 2013
Conference Dates: October 23-25, 2013

COINS13: Call for Submissions

When: August 11-13, 2013
Where: Santiago de Chile, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Papers: Paper submission deadline May 15, 2013 (extended to May 31)
Workshops: Proposal submission deadline May 15, 2013 (extended to May 31)
Artifacts: Proposal submission deadline June 1, 2013
Web: http://www.coinschile.com

The Collaborative Innovation Networks Conference (COINS) invites you to submit your papers, workshop proposals, and artifacts to the 4th annual international conference to be held in Santiago de Chile, hosted by Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile from August 11 to August 13, 2013. COINS13 brings together practitioners, researchers and students of the emerging science of collaboration to share their work, learn from each other, and get inspired through creative new ideas. Conference activities will take place throughout the historic cities of Santiago and Valparaiso. Attendees will be encouraged to engage with the community, meet local entrepreneurs, artists, and designers, take a guided tour of the city, and participate in hands-on workshops and interactive sessions.

Where science, design, business and art meet, COINS13 looks at the emerging forces behind the phenomena of open-source, creative, entrepreneurial and social movements. Through interactive workshops, professional presentations, and fascinating keynotes, COINS13 combines a wide range of interdisciplinary fields such as social network analysis, group dynamics, design and visualization, information systems, collective action and the psychology and sociality of collaboration.

The best papers will be selected for a special issue of the International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering (IJODE; http://www.inderscience.com/jhome.php?jcode=IJODE).

Program Chairs: Marisa Von Bülow (UC) & Cristobal Garcia (UC)
Proceedings Chair: Peter Gloor (MIT)

Learning from the Swarm

The COINS13 conference committee seeks original paper submissions, creative workshop ideas and concepts, unique artifacts or installations, and engaging rapid-fire presentations celebrating the theme “Learning from the Swarm”. This year we are asking what is relevant with regard to the innovative powers of creative and civic swarms, what are the observable qualities of virtual collaboration and mobilization, and how does the quest for global cooperation affect local networks. We invite both theoretical and practice-based dialogues, case studies, scientific papers, technological solutions, research studies, and interactive artifacts that thoroughly reflect this year’s conference theme.

We invite researchers and designers to submit their latest scientific results and experimental design solutions as full research papers, workshop proposals, and artifact demonstrations in the following conference themes:

● Networks & Collaboration in a Global Context: Optimization through Collaboration | Teamwork through virtually enhanced Collaboration | Measuring the performance of COINs | Patterns of swarm creativity
● Group Dynamics, Social Movements & Net Activism: Collaborative Learning | Collaborative Leadership | Design & visualization of interdisciplinary collaboration | Virtual Teaming
● Individual & Social Learning: The psychology and sociality of collaboration and collective action | Social Behavior Modeling | Social Intelligence and Social Cognition
● Tools and Methods: Social System Design and Architectures | Dynamic Social Network Analysis | Semantic Social Network Analysis | Actor Network Theory

The increase of online social network communication opens up unprecedented opportunities to read the collective mind, revealing trends while they are still being hatched by small groups of creative individuals. The Web has become a mirror of the real world, allowing researchers, in fields of social & behavioral science as well as design, to study and better understand why some new ideas change our lives, while others never make it from the drawing board of the innovator. Collaborative Innovation Networks, or COINs, are cyberteams of self-motivated people with a collective vision, enabled by technology to collaborate, challenge the status-quo and innovate by sharing ideas, information, resources and work. COINs are powered by swarm creativity, wherein people work together in a structure that enables a fluid creation and exchange of ideas. ‘Coolhunting’ – the discovering, analyzing, and measuring of trends and trendsetters as well as movers and shakers – puts COINs to productive use.

Below are the details and deadlines for the submission of Papers, Workshops, and Artifacts sessions.
For up to date information and additional details please visit our website: www.coinschile.com
To engage with the broader COINs community, follow us on twitter @coinschile and join our Facebook page (Collaborative Innovation Networks: COINs Conference).

Papers:
Submission Deadline May 15, 2013 (extended to May 31)
COINS13 seeks original, high-quality papers that reflect the full breadth and scope of collaboration science and design including: bold research ideas, conceptual developments, research investigations, methodological & theoretical advances, design ideas, development experiences and more. Submissions should report original research, reflections on theoretical concerns, methodological advances, or other insights that contribute to our understanding of all aspects of collaboration and help advance the state of knowledge for the community. We encourage perspectives from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Papers should be submitted in .doc or .pdf format.
Authors are required to attend the conference to present their work.
Submit papers by May 31, 2013 on EasyChair: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=coins13

Important Dates:
May 15, 2013 | Deadline for Paper Submissions (extended to May 31)
June 30, 2013 | Author(s) will be notified of provisional acceptance of the paper
July 30, 2013 | Final copy for conference to publications chair
August 11-13 | Paper presentations at COINS13, Santiago, Chile


Workshops: Proposals Submission Deadline May 15, 2013 (extended to May 31)
Workshops will take place during the conference and will form part of the main program. This year we are accepting proposals for both two-hour and four-hour sessions.
Workshops are intended to provide a forum for exchanging ideas, sharing experiences, fostering conversation and research communities, learning from each other, exploring controversies, engaging in debate, envisioning future directions and elaborating new methods and perspectives.
Workshop activities can range from open forum discussion, to demonstrations or presentations with discussion, to collaborative activities such as structured brainstorming, illustrative games or role-plays. Whatever the focus or format, organizers will be required to schedule time for conversation, reflection, discussion, and debate. Although we envision most workshop activities to take place in one setting, let us know if your workshop will venture out into other sites in Santiago.

Workshop proposals should include:

● a summary of 500 words describing the theme(s) of the workshop
● a longer detailed description of the workshop structure, activities and goals
● the names, contact information and background of the organizer(s)
● the maximum number of participants you'd like to attend the workshop
● anticipated A/V requirements.

Please be as specific as possible as it helps us in selection, and in helping you plan the workshop.
Workshop participants will be registered on a first come first served basis by the conference committee, so the workshop organizers will not be able to select their participants.
Accepted workshops will be publicized via the COINS13 website within a month after organizers are notified. Workshop organizers will also be encouraged to promote COINS13 and their workshops to potential attendees.

Submit proposals by May 15, 2013 to:https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=coins13. Additionally, please include your email address and other contact details.

Important Dates:
May 15, 2013 | Deadline for workshop submissions (extended to May 31)
June 30, 2013 | Author(s) will be notified of provisional acceptance of the workshop
August 11-13 | Workshop at COINS13, Santiago, Chile


Artifacts:
Proposals Submission Deadline June 1, 2013
The artifacts category seeks to provide participants with an opportunity to present work in a forum that facilitates open discussion and enables direct interaction with conference attendees. A dedicated session will be held during the conference to present the artifacts.

Artifacts can be anything from design sketchbooks, to reformed organizational processes, to ads you’ve produced, to products you’ve made, to short films, to conceptual objects, etc. We encourage submissions that are thought provoking and visually engaging, and which cover exploratory/speculative work, smaller projects, unusual representations of ethnographic work, and so on. The form of the presented materials is open. In keeping with the category title artifacts though, we encourage submissions based on some material instantiation that can be exhibited at the conference. Our hope is that it will be the ‘thinginess’ of the artifacts that will, in part, prompt interaction with and between conference attendees.

Submissions should include a single page describing or illustrating the proposed submission (the one page inclusive of any and all figures and references, where appropriate). This page should convey to reviewers what the artifact being submitted is and how it is hoped to provoke discussion. The page will also be included in the published conference proceedings.

Also included in the submissions should be a paragraph and image (no more that 150 words) that can be displayed on the conference website.

Please submit these submission materials by June 1, 2013 to: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=coins13 Additionally, please include your email address and other contact details.

Important Dates:
June 1, 2013 | Deadline for artifacts submissions
June 30, 2013 | Author(s) will be notified of provisional acceptance of the artifact. Accepted submissions will have their 150 word descriptions posted on the COINS13 website. Descriptions (including images) of accepted artifacts will be published in the COINS13 Proceedings.
July 30, 2013 | Final papers due
August 11-13 | artifacts presentations at COINS13, Santiago, Chile. The artifact itself should be transported to Santiago for the conference.

Academic Committee:
Jose Allard, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Jana Diesner, UIUC
Jorge Fabrega, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez
Kai Fischbach, Bamberg University
Karin Frick, GDI
Sebastián Gatica - Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Takashi Iba, Keio University
Emmanuel Lazega, Paris Dauphine
Ionna Likorenzu, INRIA
Takis Metaxas, Wellesley & Harvard
Meghan Pierce, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Alvaro Pina-Stranger, Ecole des Mines
Johannes Putzke, University of Cologne
Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert, Universidad del Desarrollo
Erica Salvaj, Universidad del Desarrollo
Daiane Scarboto, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Detlef Schoder, Cologne University
Yang Song, University of Amsterdam
Ruth Stock-Homburg, Technical University of Darmstadt
Marisa Von Büllow, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Steering Committee:
Cristobal Garcia, PUC
Peter Gloor, MIT
Julia Gluesing, Wayne State University
Casper Lassenius, Aalto University
Christine Miller, SCAD
Maria Paasivaara, Aalto University
Ken Riopelle, Wayne State University

More information: http://www.coinschile.com

CALL FOR LISTENERS/PARTICIPANTS

Conditions of Mediation: Phenomenological Approaches to Media, Technology and Communication

2013 International Communication Association (ICA) Preconference

ICA Theory, Philosophy and Critique Division

17 June 2013, Birkbeck, University of London

Conference website (includes full conference programme and registration details):

http://conditionsofmediation.wordpress.com

Confirmed keynote speakers:

· Dr David Berry, Swansea University
· Professor Nick Couldry, Goldsmiths, University of London
· Professor Graham Harman, American University of Cairo
· Professor Shaun Moores, University of Sunderland
· Professor Lisa Parks, University of California Santa Barbara
· Professor Paddy Scannell, University of Michigan


Conference Outline:

Media theory seems to have reached a moment in which it is effectively orthodox to presume we must pay attention first and foremost to the intricacies of everyday experience. Ethnographic audience studies, for example, have attacked assumptions that there is a discrete relationship between media content and audiences, arguing that media forms, content and technologies have indeterminate and multifaceted significance within the daily rhythms and spaces of their everyday lives. Studies of digital and networked media, meanwhile, have put into question the very notion of ‘audiences’ as the starting point for understanding mediated experience.

For some, accounting for the intricacies of everyday mediated experience has implied asking people what they actually do with media. But for others this is not enough: instead, the question is what constitutes the conditions of media experience in the first place. How do political configurations of discourses and inherited dispositions prefigure mediated action? How do material arrangements themselves constitute environments for mediated experience? How might we account for nonhuman agency, for example the ways in which software objects interact not only with human perceptions but also each other? Such questions point to a renewed confidence in explaining not just how but also why media, technology and communication are experienced as they are – all the while resisting a reversion to functionalism.

These interests in the very conditions of mediation suggest, if sometimes only implicitly, an emerging interest in a phenomenology of media. Indeed, phenomenology – broadly the structuring of perception – has seemingly obvious relevance for recent academic interests in media experience. Yet its use or invocation in media studies has been scattered. While this might simply reflect the considerable diversity of phenomenological philosophies and their applications, there have also been concerted efforts recently to rethink phenomenology across the social sciences and humanities. Paired with recent interests in mediated experience, the time seems apt to reassess what it might mean to theorize media phenomenologically.

Conditions of Mediation seeks to bring together scholars from a very wide range of perspectives – such as media history, media archaeology, audience studies, political theory, metaphysics, software studies, science and technology studies, digital aesthetics, cultural geography and urban studies – to reflect explicitly on the phenomenological groundings of their work on media. The phenomenological thinking to which participants might connect will be broad-based, ranging from core thinkers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre to those with looser affiliations to phenomenology per se, for example Arendt, Bergson, Bourdieu, Deleuze, Garfinkel, Ingold, Latour, Whitehead and Harman.

In short, the overall aim is that this conference goes beyond a mere congregation of media phenomenologists. Instead, it will encourage critical reflection on what various readings of phenomenology might offer media and technology studies that other approaches cannot. Conversely, it will also welcome reflections on the limits of phenomenological approaches in philosophical, theoretical, political and empirical terms.

If you have any inquiries, please email both:
Scott Rodgers (s.rodgers@bbk.ac.uk) and Tim Markham (t.markham@bbk.ac.uk)

Call for Papers - International workshop ARS’13

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CALL FOR PAPERS
deadline for tentative title submission: February 15, 2013
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International workshop ARS’13
“Networks in space and time: models, data collection and applications”
www.ars13.unisa.it

The fourth biennial ARS workshop will be held on 20-22 June at the Università Roma Tre, Rome, Italy

ARS'13 aims at
• Presenting the most relevant results in Social Network Analysis when data are collected across space and time. • Looking at the development of new space/time representations and methods for the analysis of networks in society, economics and nature.

The workshop also aims to deepen existing scientific cooperation between social network analysts, to establish new cooperation between researchers, and to provide a multi-disciplinary forum for exchange of ideas.

The workshop will include invited and contributed sessions. The Scientific board is very pleased to announce a number of world-class keynote speakers for ARS’13 invited sessions:

• Invited session on "Analyzing and visualizing large networks" (Organizers: V.Batagelj/P.Doreian)
Invited Speakers: Vladimir Batagelj (University of Ljubljana), Jure Leskovec (Stanford University), Ludo Waltman (Leiden University)
• Invited session on "Data collection" (Organizers: A. Ferligoj/M.P. Vitale)
Invited Speakers: Peter Marsden (Harvard University), Tina Kogovšek (University of Ljubljana), Betina Hollstein (University of Hamburg )
• Invited session "Networks and international relations" (Organizers: L. De Benedictis/G. Fagiolo)
Invited Speakers: Marc Berthelemy (CEA- Saclay), Lucia Tajoli (Politecnico di Milano), Ethan Cohen-Cole (University of Maryland )
• Invited session on "Networks and space: a multidisciplinary perspective"(Organizers: M. Maggioni/M.R. D'Esposito/S. Zaccarin)
Invited speakers: Patrick Doreian (University of Pittsburgh and University of Ljubljana),Philippa E. Pattison(University of Melbourne), Nicolas Carayol (University of Bordeaux)
• Invited session on "Network Dynamics" (Organizers: G. Giordano/P. Panzarasa/A. Ferligoj)
Invited Speakers: Alessandro Vespignani (Indiana University ), Carter Butts (University of California Irvine ), Johan Koskinen (University of Manchester)


The organizing committee is soliciting abstracts for paper presentations on any facet of network analysis relating, but by no means limited, to:
• Dynamic network visualization
• Large networks
• Longitudinal social networks
• Models for spatial-temporal networks
• Networks and geography
• Network data collection
• Social Network Analysis methods for longitudinal data
• International networks
• Statistical methods for network data

We especially welcome papers that cross disciplines and methodologies.

Authors who wish to submit a contributed paper should send a tentative title, via our website:
www.ars13.unisa.it, by FEBRUARY 15, 2013 filling in the online form.

An abstract should be submitted by APRIL 15, 2013 following the online procedure.
Full details about the abstract submission process can be found on the workshop website.
Abstracts should be no longer than 1000 words.

Acceptance will be notified to the authors by APRIL 30, 2013.

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Key deadlines:
• February 15, 2013: Tentative title
• April 15, 2013: Abstract submission
• April 30, 2013: Acceptance notification
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www.ars13.unisa.it