Comparative Network Analysis: Mapping Global Social Interactions

创建工具来映射全球网络结构 该项目旨在推进方法，描述性和理论知识的变化在全球范围内的非人类社会。在方法上，该项目将开发便于使用的数据收集、管理和分析工具，用于绘制国家一级的网络拓扑图。此外，该项目还开发了统计上有效和高效的方法，用于比较大小和密度不同的社交网络。 作为全球社交网络的第一个比较地图，该项目将提供一个更详细和全面的图片的相似性和差异的模式，社会互动的国家不同的文化，政治制度，流动模式和经济发展水平。 从理论上讲，该项目将解决具有不同网络拓扑结构的国家之间的社会和结构差异的基本问题。该项目将利用广泛使用的个人主义和集体主义的跨国措施来测试美国，英国，中国和韩国之间的假设结构差异。研究结果将促进强调共性（如统计力学）和差异（如社会学和人类学中的跨文化研究）的学科的网络科学家之间的理论和方法对话。 该项目将有广泛的应用：1）病原体的传播和公共卫生对策，2）关于“数字鸿沟”的经济和文化相关性的政策研究，3）关于创新传播的市场研究，4）关于“多米诺骨牌效应”的社会运动研究，如前苏联的级联崩溃和最近的阿拉伯之春，（5）社会资本与经济发展的比较研究。计算机科学家将受益于比较数据，这可能有助于定制在线社交网站的设计。网络科学家将能够在全球范围内获得丰富的社交网络数据的新来源。最后，开发和传播有效的方法来收集，管理，分析和比较数亿节点的多个网络将对社会科学界做出重大贡献，特别是当与社会科学本科生和研究生的技术教育和培训相结合时，有效地利用研究工具和分布式/并行计算框架来分析非常大的数据集。

Creating Tools to Map Global Network Structures The project aims to advance methodological, descriptive, and theoretical knowledge of variations inhuman societies on a global scale. Methodologically, the project will develop accessible data collection,management, and analysis tools for mapping network topology at the national level. In addition, the projectwill develop statistically valid and efficient methods for comparing social networks that differ in size and density. Descriptively, as the first comparative mapping of global social networks, the project will provide a more detailed and comprehensive picture of the similarities and differences in patterns ofsocial interaction across countries with diverse cultures, political systems, mobility patterns, andlevels of economic development. Theoretically, the project will address fundamental questions about social and structural differences between countries with different network topologies. The project will draw upon widely used cross-nationalmeasures of individualism and collectivism to test hypothesized structural differences between the US, UK, China and Korea. The findings will catalyze theoretical and methodological dialog between networkscientists in disciplines that emphasize universals (e.g. statistical mechanics)and variations (e.g. cross-cultural studies in sociology and anthropology).Broader Impacts This project will have broad applications: 1)for the spread of pathogens and public health countermeasures,2) for policy research on the economic and cultural correlates of the "digital divide",3) for marketresearch on the diffusion of innovations, 4) for social movement research on "domino effects" like thoseobserved in the cascading collapse of the former Soviet Union and more recently in the Arab Spring,and 5) comparative studies of social capital and economic development. Computer scientists will benefitfrom comparative data that may be helpful for tailoring the design of online social networksites. Network scientists will have access to a rich new source of social network data on a global scale. Finally, thedevelopment and dissemination of effective methods to collect, manage, analyze, and comparemultiple networks of hundreds of millions of nodes will constitute a significant contribution to thesocial science community, especially when coupled with technical education and training of socialscience undergraduate and graduate students to effectively utilize research tools anddistributed/parallel computing frameworks for analyzing very large datasets.