In the paper, we consider a preference heterogeneity problem in large-scale multicast applications. Abundant content, data type and diverse members’ interests naturally lead to preference heterogeneity within a multicast session requiring frequent communication within subgroups of members sharing common interests/requirements. In this paper, we take an overlay approach which builds topology-sen...

Ranking documents in response to users' information needs is a challenging task, due, in part, to the dynamic nature of users' interests with respect to a query. We hypothesize that the interests of a given user are similar to the interests of the broader community of which he or she is a part and propose an innovative method that uses social media to characterize the interests of the community...

Conflicts of interest (COIs) have been defined by the American Thoracic Society as "a divergence between an individual's private interests and his or her professional obligations such that an independent observer might reasonably question whether the individual's professional actions or decisions are motivated by personal gain, such as direct financial, academic advancement, clinical revenue st...

Children in single-parent families, particularly children born to unmarried parents, are at high risk for experiencing material hardship. Previous research based on cross-sectional data suggests that father involvement, especially visitation, diminishes hardship. This article uses longitudinal data to examine the associations between nonresident fathers' involvement with their children and mate...

Medical decisions for children are usually justified by the claim that they are in a child's best interests. More recently, following criticisms of the best interests standard, some advocate that the family's interests should influence medical decisions for children, although what is meant by family interests is often not made clear. I argue that at least two senses of family interests may be d...

Rheingold made the point that the future of the Internet is linked to the future of community, as well as the respective futures of democracy , education, science and intellectual life in general, and vice versa. Many of the traditional units of social organization, such as the church, are less powerful than they were in the past. Increased mobility has also contributed to the breakdown of a se...


 Purpose: This paper examines necessary competencies in virtual communities Higher Education. Therefore, we explore which are needed to participate a community and how these can be captured developed.
 Study design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted achieve the research objectives.
 Findings: As result, five core were identified: digital com...

The relationship of friends in social networks can be strong or weak. Some research works have shown that a close relationship between friends conducts good community structure. Based on this result, we propose an effective method in detecting community structure in social networks based on the closeness of relations among neighbors. This method calculates the gravity between each neighbor node...