In this article we present two studies about the relations between peer relationships and somatic complaints in children in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. In the first study (n=711), when the children were average 10 years old, we focused on social status as rated by classmates (popular, neglected, controversial, rejected, and average), self-reported social anxiety and somatic complaints. The seco...

Although the structural properties of online social networks have attracted much attention, the properties of the close-knit friendship structures remain an important question. Here, we mainly focus on how these mesoscale structures are affected by the local and global structural properties. Analyzing the data of four large-scale online social networks reveals several common structural properti...

To remove a cognitive dissonance in interpersonal relations, people tend to divide our acquaintances into friendly and hostile parts, both groups internally friendly and mutually hostile. This process is modeled as an evolution towards the Heider balance. A set of differential equations have been proposed and validated (Kulakowski et al, IJMPC 16 (2005) 707) to model the Heider dynamics of this...

This paper presents a hybrid conversation group of talking heads, and discusses some solutions concerning emotions and social-emotional signs in more detail. A hybrid conversation group consists of real and virtual members, which meet to discuss some specific theme. The use of such a group, together with digital storytelling techniques, is a promising way of engaging the user in the exploration...

We show that three basic actor characteristics, namely normalized reciprocity, three cycles, and triplets, can be expressed using an unified framework that is based on computing the similarity index between two sets associated with the actor: the set of her/his friends and the set of those considering her/him as a friend. These metrics are extended to multiplex networks and then computed for tw...

Until 1990, participation in recreation activities by persons with disabilities generally was assumed to result in the formation of healthy friendships and social relationships with their nondisabled peers. Research has since proven that not all of the relationships formed through inclusion in recreation activities are true friendships in the traditional sense. In this article, varying levels o...

According to the norms and collective efficacy model, the levels of social connectedness within a local community are a function of neighborhood structural characteristics, such as socioeconomic status and ethnic composition. The current work aims to determine whether neighborhood structural and institutional features (neighborhood wealth, percentage of immigrants, population density, opportuni...

PURPOSE This study explored how nursing home residents define quality of care. DESIGN AND METHODS Data were collected through in-depth interviews and were analyzed using grounded dimensional analysis. RESULTS Residents defined quality in three ways: (a) Care-as-service residents focused on instrumental aspects of care. They assessed quality using the parameters of efficiency, competence, an...

A graph G is H-saturated if G does not contain H as a subgraph but for any nonadjacent vertices u and v, G+uv containsH as a subgraph. The parameter sat(H, n) is theminimum number of edges in an H-saturated graph of order n. In this paper, we determine sat(H, n) for sufficiently large nwhen H is a union of cliques of the same order, an arbitrary union of two cliques and a generalized friendship...