Geographic constraints on social network groups

Social groups are fundamental building blocks of human societies. While our social interactions have always been constrained by geography, it has been impossible, due to practical difficulties, to evaluate the nature of this restriction on social group structure. We construct a social network of individuals whose most frequent geographical locations are also known. We also classify the individuals into groups according to a community detection algorithm. We study the variation of geographical span for social groups of varying sizes, and explore the relationship between topological positions and geographic positions of their members. We find that small social groups are geographically very tight, but become much more clumped when the group size exceeds about 30 members. Also, we find no correlation between the topological positions and geographic positions of individuals within network communities. These results suggest that spreading processes face distinct structural and spatial constraints.     

A device to record primate social behavior

A method is described for recording many separate primate social behaviors in one session. The equipment utilized to facilitate these recordings offers the following advantages over conventional paper and pencil shorthand scoring systems: 1) an entire session may be recorded without losing sight of the subjects, 2) higher interobserver reliabilities are obtained, 3) sessions are accurately timed and exactly repeatable, 4) absolute rather than modified frequencies and durations are recorded, and 5) no upper limits are imposed on the data obtained.Supported by NIH Grant FR-00169 to the National Center for Primate Biology, University of California, Davis, California, and by NIH Grants MH-17425 and HDOH-335.     

A new primate social behaviour category system

A brief critical review of some primate behavioural recording techniques is presented. A new device and scoring system, from which frequency, duration, duration/frequency, and modified frequency data of a large number of behaviours can be obtained, is described using an adding machine and printout counter. Data collected using this system is illustrated. The system, factorially arranged, differentiates five behaviour types, six directions, mobility, contact, and reciprocity. Four types of reliability are estimated using films; intercorrelations and factor analyses are presented.     

A social network analysis of treatment discoveries in cancer

Controlled clinical trials are widely considered to be the vehicle to treatment discovery in cancer that leads to significant improvements in health outcomes including an increase in life expectancy. We have previously shown that the pattern of therapeutic discovery in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) can be described by a power law distribution. However, the mechanism generating this pattern is unknown. Here, we propose an explanation in terms of the social relations between researchers in RCTs. We use social network analysis to study the impact of interactions between RCTs on treatment success. Our dataset consists of 280 phase III RCTs conducted by the NCI from 1955 to 2006. The RCT networks are formed through trial interactions formed i) at random, ii) based on common characteristics, or iii) based on treatment success. We analyze treatment success in terms of survival hazard ratio as a function of the network structures. Our results show that the discovery process displays power law if there are preferential interactions between trials that may stem from researchers' tendency to interact selectively with established and successful peers. Furthermore, the RCT networks are "small worlds": trials are connected through a small number of ties, yet there is much clustering among subsets of trials. We also find that treatment success (improved survival) is proportional to the network centrality measures of closeness and betweenness. Negative correlation exists between survival and the extent to which trials operate within a limited scope of information. Finally, the trials testing curative treatments in solid tumors showed the highest centrality and the most influential group was the ECOG. We conclude that the chances of discovering life-saving treatments are directly related to the richness of social interactions between researchers inherent in a preferential interaction model.     

The influence of social structure on the propagation of social information in artificial primate groups: a graph-based simulation approach

Observations of primate groups have shown that social learning can lead to the development of temporal stable traditions or even proto-culture. The social structure of primate groups is highly diverse and it has been proposed that differences in the group structure shall influence the patterns of social information transmission. While empirical studies have mainly focused on the psychological mechanisms of social learning in individuals, the phenomenon of information propagation within the group has received relatively little attention. This might be due to the fact that formal theories that allow actual testing have not been formulated, or were kept too simple, ignoring the social dynamics of multi-agent societies. We want to propose a network approach to social information transmission that (1) preserves the complexity of the social structure of primate groups and (2) allows direct application to empirical data. Results from simulation experiments with artificial group structures confirm that association patterns of group-members influence the expected speed of information transmission during the propagation process. Introducing a forgetting rate shows that under certain conditions the proportion of informed individuals will reach a stable rate in some systems while it will drop to zero in others. This suggests that the likelihood to observe temporal stable traditions shall differ between social systems with different structure.     

Birth sex ratio and social rank: consistency and variability within and between primate groups

Variations in birth sex ratios in primates are notoriously inconsistentand have been repeatedly suggested to be mainly owing to stochasticprocesses. An examination of temporal consistency within primatepopulations revealed that the effect of dominance rank on birthsex ratio tends to remains stable over time. Furthermore, ameta-analysis of published data on sex ratio variations in primatesshows that although no overall effect was detectable, the relationbetween birth sex ratio and dominance rank was affected by levelof resource availability and degree of sexual dimorphism. Theseresults suggest that purely stochastic processes are unlikelyto explain observed variations in primate birth sex ratios,and may explain why adaptive sex ratio variations in primateshave been so difficult to demonstrate.     

Females drive primate social evolution

Within and across species of primates, the number of males in primate groups is correlated with the number of females. This correlation may arise owing to ecological forces operating on females, with subsequent competition among males for access to groups of females. The temporal relationship between changes in male and female group membership remains unexplored in primates and other mammalian groups. We used a phylogenetic comparative method for detecting evolutionary lag to test whether evolutionary change in the number of males lags behind change in the number of females. We found that change in male membership in primate groups is positively correlated with divergence time in pairwise comparisons. This result is consistent with male numbers adjusting to female group size and highlights the importance of focusing on females when studying primate social evolution.     

Nepotistic cooperation in non-human primate groups

Darwin was struck by the many similarities between humans and other primates and believed that these similarities were the product of common ancestry. He would be even more impressed by the similarities if he had known what we have learned about primates over the last 50 years. Genetic kinship has emerged as the primary organizing force in the evolution of primate social organization and the patterning of social behaviour in non-human primate groups. There are pronounced nepotistic biases across the primate order, from tiny grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) that forage alone at night but cluster with relatives to sleep during the day, to cooperatively breeding marmosets that rely on closely related helpers to rear their young, rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) females who acquire their mother''s rank and form strict matrilineal dominance hierarchies, male howler monkeys that help their sons maintain access to groups of females and male chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) that form lasting relationships with their brothers. As more evidence of nepotism has accumulated, important questions about the evolutionary processes underlying these kin biases have been raised. Although kin selection predicts that altruism will be biased in favour of relatives, it is difficult to assess whether primates actually conform to predictions derived from Hamilton''s rule: br > c. In addition, other mechanisms, including contingent reciprocity and mutualism, could contribute to the nepotistic biases observed in non-human primate groups. There are good reasons to suspect that these processes may complement the effects of kin selection and amplify the extent of nepotistic biases in behaviour.     

The social nature of primate cognition

The hypothesis that the enlarged brain size of the primates was selected for by social, rather than purely ecological, factors has been strongly influential in studies of primate cognition and behaviour over the past two decades. However, the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, also known as the social brain hypothesis, tends to emphasize certain traits and behaviours, like exploitation and deception, at the expense of others, such as tolerance and behavioural coordination, and therefore presents only one view of how social life may shape cognition. This review outlines work from other relevant disciplines, including evolutionary economics, cognitive science and neurophysiology, to illustrate how these can be used to build a more general theoretical framework, incorporating notions of embodied and distributed cognition, in which to situate questions concerning the evolution of primate social cognition.     

Environment damage assessment: A literature review using social network analysis

Rapid development of environment science and ecology has witnessed the emerging of economical tools applying to environmental issues, especially environment damage assessment. This study applied bibliometrics tools to the environment damage assessment methods based on on-line SCI-E and SSCI from 2007 to 2016, and described the bibliometric characteristics including publications number, journals, and disciplines. Moreover, the concept of social network was introduced into bibliometrics analysis, and the collaboration relationship network of countries, authors, and institutions are generated. Furthermore, frequency analysis of keywords revealed five most widely used methods in environment damage assessment, including market valuation, contingent valuation method, choice experiment method, travel cost method, and hedonic price method, which are specifically reviewed on developing trend, economic basis, and operating process.     

A comparative social network analysis of wasp colonies and classrooms: Linking network structure to functioning

A major question in current network science is how to understand the relationship between structure and functioning of real networks. Here we present a comparative network analysis of 48 wasp and 36 human social networks. We have compared the centralisation and small world character of these interaction networks and have studied how these properties change over time. We compared the interaction networks of (1) two congeneric wasp species (Ropalidia marginata and Ropalidia cyathiformis), (2) the queen-right (with the queen) and queen-less (without the queen) networks of wasps, (3) the four network types obtained by combining (1) and (2) above, and (4) wasp networks with the social networks of children in 36 classrooms. We have found perfect (100%) centralisation in a queen-less wasp colony and nearly perfect centralisation in several other queen-less wasp colonies. Note that the perfectly centralised interaction network is quite unique in the literature of real-world networks. Differences between the interaction networks of the two wasp species are smaller than differences between the networks describing their different colony conditions. Also, the differences between different colony conditions are larger than the differences between wasp and children networks. For example, the structure of queen-right R. marginata colonies is more similar to children social networks than to that of their queen-less colonies. We conclude that network architecture depends more on the functioning of the particular community than on taxonomic differences (either between two wasp species or between wasps and humans).     

A female signal reflects MHC genotype in a social primate

Background  

Males from many species are believed to advertise their genetic quality through striking ornaments that attract mates. Yet the connections between signal expression, body condition and the genes associated with individual quality are rarely elucidated. This is particularly problematic for the signals of females in species with conventional sex roles, whose evolutionary significance has received little attention and is poorly understood. Here we explore these questions in the sexual swellings of female primates, which are among the most conspicuous of mammalian sexual signals and highly variable in size, shape and colour. We investigated the relationships between two components of sexual swellings (size and shape), body condition, and genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) in a wild baboon population (Papio ursinus) where males prefer large swellings.     

The evolution of nonhuman primate social behavior

A review of the recent literature concerning evolutionary mechanisms and possible genetic contributions to social behavior reveals a concentration on function rather than mechanism. Although functional consequences may influence future genetic changes in a population, they do not necessarily reflect evolutionary history. More important, genes cannot code for functions. Only when the anatomical structures and behavioral patterns of individuals are described can we study genetic contributions to social organization. Discussions of function in the abstract, without specification of mechanism, do not fall within the realm of scientific testing.     

A guide to choosing and implementing reference models for social network analysis

Analysing social networks is challenging. Key features of relational data require the use of non-standard statistical methods such as developing system-specific null, or reference, models that randomize one or more components of the observed data. Here we review a variety of randomization procedures that generate reference models for social network analysis. Reference models provide an expectation for hypothesis testing when analysing network data. We outline the key stages in producing an effective reference model and detail four approaches for generating reference distributions: permutation, resampling, sampling from a distribution, and generative models. We highlight when each type of approach would be appropriate and note potential pitfalls for researchers to avoid. Throughout, we illustrate our points with examples from a simulated social system. Our aim is to provide social network researchers with a deeper understanding of analytical approaches to enhance their confidence when tailoring reference models to specific research questions.     

Dimensions of a comparative biology of primate groups

The eruption time of deciduous teeth of the Bengalee children was noted and compared with the published material from other countries. It has been seen that the onset of eruption in the Bengalee children is appreciably late compared with the others (Japanese, Korean, American and Whites).     

基于社会网络分析法的生态工业园典型案例研究

以丹麦卡伦堡和广西贵港生态工业园为例,应用社会网络分析法分析典型生态工业园的组织结构和网络结构。用簇系数、平均最短距离、传递性以及核心-边缘结构来衡量其稳定性,分析其不同结构特征。卡伦堡生态工业园的簇系数为0.715,远高于贵港生态工业园的0.246,说明其聚合性较好;从最短距离长度来看,卡伦堡和贵港分别为2.110和2.236,复杂性弱;从传递性来看,两者传递性皆低于25%,节点之间联系性不够强;从核心-边缘结构来看,卡伦堡各节点之间的异质性(0.057)高于贵港(0.005),可见贵港参与主体的中心性较为均衡,而卡伦堡差异性较大。两者都以一个产业或者企业集团为网络核心;网络内其他节点联系不够紧密,长链条联结较少;网络复杂性弱。