eprintid: 2119
rev_number: 8
eprint_status: archive
userid: 6
dir: disk0/00/00/21/19
datestamp: 2014-01-24 13:16:33
lastmod: 2014-01-24 13:16:33
status_changed: 2014-01-24 13:16:33
type: monograph
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Quattrociocchi, Walter
creators_name: Amblard, Frederic
creators_id: walter.quattrociocchi@imtlucca.it
creators_id: 
title: Emergence through selection: the evolution of a scientific challenge
ispublished: submitted
subjects: QA75
divisions: CSA
full_text_status: none
monograph_type: working_paper
keywords: social networks analysis, evolving structures, scientific commu-
nities, emergence, time-varying graphs, temporal metrics, social selection.
abstract: One of the most interesting scientific challenges nowadays deals with
the analysis and the understanding of complex networks' dynamics and how their
processes lead to emergence according to the interactions among their components.
In this paper we approach the definition of new methodologies for the visualization
and the exploration of the dynamics at play in real dynamic social networks.We
present a recently introduced formalism called TVG (for time-varying graphs), which
was initially developed to model and analyze highly-dynamic and infrastructure-less
communication networks. As an application context, we chose the case of scientific
communities by analyzing a portion of the ArXiv repository (ten years of publications
in physics). The analysis presented in the paper passes through different data
transformations aimed at providing different perspectives on the scientific community
and its evolutions.
On a first level we discuss the dataset by means of both a static and temporal
analysis of citations and co-authorships networks. Afterward, as we consider that
scientific communities are at the same time communities of practice (through coauthorship)
and that a citation represents a deliberative selection pointing out the
relevance of a work in its scientific domain, we introduce a new transformation aimed
at capturing the interdependencies between collaborations' patterns and citations'
effects and how they make evolve a goal oriented systems as Science.
Finally, we show how through the TVG formalism and derived indicators, it is
possible to capture the interactions patterns behind the emergence (selection) of
a sub-community among others, as a goal-driven preferential attachment toward a
set of authors among which there are some key scientists (Nobel prizes) acting as
attractors on the community.
date: 2011
date_type: published
number:  
publisher: ArXiv
pages: 19
institution: IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca
official_url: http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.0257
related_url_url: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.0257v1.pdf
citation:   Quattrociocchi, Walter and Amblard, Frederic  Emergence through selection: the evolution of a scientific challenge.  Working Paper  # /2011    ArXiv       (Submitted)