On Universality in Human Correspondence Activity
On Universality in Human Correspondence Activity
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DOI：
10.1126/science.1174562
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发表时间：
2009-09-25
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
Amaral, Luis A. Nunes
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Malmgren, R. Dean;Stouffer, Daniel B.;Amaral, Luis A. Nunes
人类活动模式的识别和建模对从预测疾病传播到优化资源分配的各种应用具有重要的影响。由于其相关性和可用性，书面通信为研究人类活动提供了一个强大的代理。一种学派认为，人类通信是由对收到的通信的响应驱动的，这一观点需要一种不同的响应机制来解释电子邮件和信件通信的观察结果。我们证明，像电子邮件通信一样，16位作家、表演者、政治家和科学家的信件通信模式可以通过昼夜循环、任务重复和不断变化的沟通需求来很好地描述。我们通过重新调整信件和电子邮件通信统计数据来揭示它们潜在的相似性，从而确认了这些机制的普遍性。
The identification and modeling of patterns of human activity have important ramifications for applications ranging from predicting disease spread to optimizing resource allocation. Because of its relevance and availability, written correspondence provides a powerful proxy for studying human activity. One school of thought is that human correspondence is driven by responses to received correspondence, a view that requires a distinct response mechanism to explain e-mail and letter correspondence observations. We demonstrate that, like e-mail correspondence, the letter correspondence patterns of 16 writers, performers, politicians, and scientists are well described by the circadian cycle, task repetition, and changing communication needs. We confirm the universality of these mechanisms by rescaling letter and e-mail correspondence statistics to reveal their underlying similarity.