Search results for "Small worlds"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
Small worlds with a difference
2011
Political discussions on social network platforms represent an increasingly relevant source of political information, an opportunity for the exchange of opinions and a popular source of quotes for media outlets. We analyzed political communication on Twitter during the run-up to the German general election of 2009 by extracting a directed network of user interactions based on the exchange of political information and opinions. In consonance with expectations from previous research, the resulting network exhibits small-world properties, lending itself to fast and efficient information diffusion. We go on to demonstrate that precisely the highly connected nodes, characteristic for small-world…
A topological phase transition between small-worlds and fractal scaling in urban railway transportation networks?
2009
Abstract Fractal and small-worlds scaling laws are applied to study the growth of urban railway transportation networks using total length and total population as observational parameters. In spite of the variety of populations and urban structures, the variation of the total length of the railway network with the total population of conurbations follows similar patterns for large and middle metropolis. Diachronous analysis of data for urban transportation networks suggests that there is second-order phase transition from small-worlds behaviour to fractal scaling during their early stages of development.