This book constitutes the joint refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Modeling and Simulation of Social-Behavioral Phenomena in Creative Societies, MSBC 2022, held in Vilnius, Lithuania, in September 2022. The 14 full papers and 1 short paper presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: simulation of behavioral processes; modeling of sustainability; and data science and modeling.

This book addresses the challenges of social network and social media analysis in terms of prediction and inference. The chapters collected here tackle these issues by proposing new analysis methods and by examining mining methods for the vast amount of social content produced. Social Networks (SNs) have become an integral part of our lives; they are used for leisure, business, government, medical, educational purposes and have attracted billions of users. The challenges that stem from this wide adoption of SNs are vast. These include generating realistic social network topologies, awareness of user activities, topic and trend generation, estimation of user attributes from their social content, and behavior detection. This text has applications to widely used platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and appeals to students, researchers, and professionals in the field.

This book addresses the challenges of social network and social media analysis in terms of prediction and inference. The chapters collected here tackle these issues by proposing new analysis methods and by examining mining methods for the vast amount of social content produced. Social Networks (SNs) have become an integral part of our lives; they are used for leisure, business, government, medical, educational purposes and have attracted billions of users. The challenges that stem from this wide adoption of SNs are vast. These include generating realistic social network topologies, awareness of user activities, topic and trend generation, estimation of user attributes from their social content, and behavior detection. This text has applications to widely used platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and appeals to students, researchers, and professionals in the field.

This work addresses the gap in the current collective action literature exposed by the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) landscape by bringing together qualitative and quantitative studies from computational and social sciences. The book offers a rigorous and systematic investigation of both methodological and theoretical underpinnings and, thus, collectively promotes a symbiotic and synergistic advancement of the multiple interconnected disciplines in studying online collective actions. More specifically, the book is intended to illuminate several fundamental and powerful yet theoretically undeveloped and largely unexplored aspects of collective action in the participatory media (e.g., social media). Through in-depth exploration of relevant concepts, theories, methodologies, applications, and case studies, the reader will gain an advanced understanding of collective action with the advent of the new generation of ICTs enabled by social media and the Internet. The developed theories will be valuable and comprehensive references for those interested in examining the role of ICTs not only in collective action but also in decision and policy making, understanding the dynamics of interaction, collaboration, cooperation, communication, as well as information flow and propagation, and social network research for years to come. Further, the book also serves as an extensive repository of data sets and tools that can be used by researchers leading to a deeper and more fundamental understanding of the dynamics of the crowd in online collective actions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction, SBP 2015, held in Washington, DC, USA, in March/April 2015. The 24 full papers presented together with 36 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 118 submissions. The goal of the conference was to advance our understanding of human behavior through the development and application of mathematical, computational, statistical, simulation, predictive and other models that provide fundamental insights into factors contributing to human socio-cultural dynamics. The topical areas addressed by the papers are social and behavioral sciences, health sciences, engineering, computer and information science.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction, SBP 2014, held in Washington, DC, USA, in April 2014. The 51 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 101 submissions. The SBP conference provides a forum for researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and government agencies to exchange ideas on current challenges in social computing, behavioral-cultural modeling and prediction, and on state-of-the-art methods and best practices being adopted to tackle these challenges. The topical areas addressed by the papers are social and behavioral sciences, health sciences, military science, and information science.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the various concepts and research issues about blogs or weblogs. It introduces techniques and approaches, tools and applications, and evaluation methodologies with examples and case studies. Blogs allow people to express their thoughts, voice their opinions, and share their experiences and ideas. Blogs also facilitate interactions among individuals creating a network with unique characteristics. Through the interactions individuals experience a sense of community. We elaborate on approaches that extract communities and cluster blogs based on information of the bloggers. Open standards and low barrier to publication in Blogosphere have transformed information consumers to producers, generating an overwhelming amount of ever-increasing knowledge about the members, their environment and symbiosis. We elaborate on approaches that sift through humongous blog data sources to identify influential and trustworthy bloggers leveraging content and network information. Spam blogs or "splogs" are an increasing concern in Blogosphere and are discussed in detail with the approaches leveraging supervised machine learning algorithms and interaction patterns. We elaborate on data collection procedures, provide resources for blog data repositories, mention various visualization and analysis tools in Blogosphere, and explain conventional and novel evaluation methodologies, to help perform research in the Blogosphere. The book is supported by additional material, including lecture slides as well as the complete set of figures used in the book, and the reader is encouraged to visit the book website for the latest information. Table of Contents: Modeling Blogosphere / Blog Clustering and Community Discovery / Influence and Trust / Spam Filtering in Blogosphere / Data Collection and Evaluation

Surviving Neurosurgery: Vignettes of Resilience is a practical guide to the inner workings of the lives of neurosurgeons, healthcare partners, and patients. To this end, this text serves as a first-hand documentary of the unique challenges faced as one progresses through their career. It is a snapshot in time capturing the experiences of both patients and providers. The text is divided into seven parts that run the gamut of a neurosurgeon's career symbolic of the seven years of neurosurgical training. These narratives include, but are not limited to, residency challenges, surgical nuances, research and funding, embracing humanity, patient experiences, and overcoming hurdles along the journey. Chapters share the wisdom and experiences of over 100 authors consisting of patients, trainees, advanced practice providers, and attending neurosurgeons.

This book describes the methodologies and tools used to conduct social cyber forensic analysis. By applying these methodologies and tools on various events observed in the case studies contained within, their effectiveness is highlighted. They blend computational social network analysis and cyber forensic concepts and tools in order to identify and study information competitors. Through cyber forensic analysis, metadata associated with propaganda-riddled websites are extracted. This metadata assists in extracting social network information such as friends and followers along with communication network information such as networks depicting flows of information among the actors such as tweets, replies, retweets, mentions, and hyperlinks. Through computational social network analysis, the authors identify influential actors and powerful groups coordinating the disinformation campaign. A blended social cyber forensic approach allows them to study cross-media affiliations of the information competitors. For instance, narratives are framed on blogs and YouTube videos, and then Twitter and Reddit, for instance, will be used to disseminate the message. Social cyber forensic methodologies enable researchers to study the role of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the evolution of information campaign and coordination. In addition to the concepts and methodologies pertaining to social cyber forensics, this book also offers a collection of resources for readers including several datasets that were collected during case studies, up-to-date reference and literature surveys in the domain, and a suite of tools that students, researchers, and practitioners alike can utilize. Most importantly, the book demands a dialogue between information science researchers, public affairs officers, and policy makers to prepare our society to deal with the lawless "wild west" of modern social information systems triggering debates and studies on cyber diplomacy.

The contributors in this book share, exchange, and develop new concepts, ideas, principles, and methodologies in order to advance and deepen our understanding of social networks in the new generation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) enabled by Web 2.0, also referred to as social media, to help policy-making. This interdisciplinary work provides a platform for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students from sociology, behavioral science, computer science, psychology, cultural studies, information systems, operations research and communication to share, exchange, learn, and develop new concepts, ideas, principles, and methodologies. Emerging Research Challenges and Opportunities in Computational Social Network Analysis and Mining will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and graduate students from the various disciplines listed above. The text facilitates the dissemination of investigations of the dynamics and structure of web based social networks. The book can be used as a reference text for advanced courses on Social Network Analysis, Sociology, Communication, Organization Theory, Cyber-anthropology, Cyber-diplomacy, and Information Technology and Justice.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the First International EURO Mini Conference on Modelling and Simulation of Social-Behavioural Phenomena in Creative Societies, MSBC 2019, held in Vilnius, Lithuania, in September 2019. The 8 full papers and 2 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: computational intelligence in social sciences; modeling and analysis of social-behavioral processes.

The quintessential guide providing a one-stop roadmap to a neurosurgical career! Neurological surgery is a complex, highly selective specialty. For medical students and residents, navigating a huge array of neurosurgical information can be overwhelming. Neurosurgery Fundamentals by Nitin Agarwal is a portable reference enabling swift assimilation of neurosurgical care essentials. The book starts with a roadmap to a career in neurosurgery. It concludes with Advice from the Masters, featuring invaluable resources and insights from prominent neurosurgeons. Comprehensive technical overviews are provided on the neurological exam, neuroanatomy, neuroradiology, neurocritical care, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, degenerative and deformity spine, neurovascular surgery, neurosurgical oncology, pediatric neurosurgery, functional neurosurgery, stereotactic radiosurgery, neurological infectious diseases, and interdisciplinary care. Socioeconomic topics include training, licensure, credentialing, and advocacy. Key Features Fundamental diseases, tests, and operative approaches are summarized. Top Hits feature the most salient questions, aiding in retention of knowledge. High-yield resources are highlighted to augment reader identification. Neurosurgical Pearls offer advice from the masters relevant to each chapter. High-quality illustrations, photographs, and radiographs enrich understanding. Aspiring neurosurgical providers will benefit from the easy-to-digest wealth of information in this concise, yet comprehensive guide. This book includes complimentary access to a digital copy on https://medone.thieme.com.

With the high prevalence of autism spectrum disorders among the younger generation, there is a shortage of adequate resources to deliver care for these individuals. Therefore, social media and online forums help create a sense of community and a sense of social network, where members provide support for each other. Assessing Social Support and Stress in Autism-Focused Virtual Communities: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a critical reference volume featuring the latest academic research on online communities and how using social media can provide stress relief for families and individuals diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Including coverage among a variety of applicable viewpoints and subjects such as social media concepts, stress relief, and healthcare communities, this book is ideally designed for academics and practitioners as well as healthcare professionals, researchers, students, academics, and practitioners looking for innovative research on autism spectrum disorders.

Physicians have long pledged to adhere to four basic moral principles, a concise framework for the larger field of medical ethics. As is commonly known, those values consist of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. However, in order to advocate for these principles for patients, medical professionals must first ensure patients have appropriate medical resources from which to glean information. This book serves to underscore this concept and advance the field of patient education.