Related papers: The extensive nature of group quality
Academic research groups are treated as complex systems and their cooperative behaviour is analysed from a mathematical and statistical viewpoint. Contrary to the naive expectation that the quality of a research group is simply given by the…
Using the results of the UK's research assessment exercise, we show that the size or mass of research groups, rather than individual caliber or prestige of the institution, is the dominant factor which drives the quality of research teams.…
In recent years, evaluation of the quality of academic research has become an increasingly important and influential business. It determines, often to a large extent, the amount of research funding flowing into universities and similar…
We show that accounting for internal character among interacting, heterogeneous entities generates rich phase transition behavior between isolation and cohesive dynamical grouping. Our analytical and numerical calculations reveal different…
In many real network systems, nodes usually cooperate with each other and form groups, in order to enhance their robustness to risks. This motivates us to study a new type of percolation, group percolation, in interdependent networks under…
Group-based reinforcement can induce discontinuous transitions from inactive to active phases in higher-order contagion models. However, these results are typically obtained on static interaction structures or within mean-field…
A continuous-time Markov process is proposed to analyze how a group of humans solves a complex task, consisting in the search of the optimal set of decisions on a fitness landscape. Individuals change their opinions driven by two different…
Emergent collective group processes and capabilities have been studied through analysis of transactive memory, measures of group task performance, and group intelligence, among others. In their approach to collective behaviors, these…
Recent empirical research has shown that links between groups reinforce individuals within groups to adopt cooperative behaviour. Moreover, links between networks may induce cascading failures, competitive percolation, or contribute to…
We study the collective behaviour of an ensemble of coupled motile elements whose interactions depend on time and are alternatively attractive or repulsive. The evolution of interactions is driven by individual internal variables with…
How can minorities of individuals overturn social conventions? The theory of critical mass states that when a committed minority reaches a critical size, a cascade of behavioural changes can occur, overturning apparently stable social…
An essential task of groups is to provide efficient solutions for the complex problems they face. Indeed, considerable efforts have been devoted to the question of collective decision-making related to problems involving a single dominant…
Representing social systems as networks, starting from the interactions between individuals, sheds light on the mechanisms governing their dynamics. However, networks encode only pairwise interactions, while most social interactions occur…
Human and artificial organizations may be described as networks of interacting parts. Those parts exchange data and control information and, as a result of these interactions, organizations produce emergent behaviors and purposes -- traits…
The spontaneous formation and subsequent growth, dissolution, merger and competition of social groups bears similarities to physical phase transitions in metastable finite systems. We examine three different scenarios, percolation, spinodal…
Identifying key players in collective dynamics remains a challenge in several research fields, from the efficient dissemination of ideas to drug target discovery in biomedical problems. The difficulty lies at several levels: how to single…
Many-variable differential equations with random coefficients provide powerful models for the dynamics of many interacting species in ecology. These models are known to exhibit a dynamical phase transition from a phase where population…
The title refers to the area of research which studies infinite groups using measure-theoretic tools, and studies the restrictions that group structure imposes on ergodic theory of their actions. The paper is a survey of recent developments…
We study the critical behavior of a general contagion model where nodes are either active (e.g. with opinion A, or functioning) or inactive (e.g. with opinion B, or damaged). The transitions between these two states are determined by (i)…
A collective of identical agents in a multi-agent system often works together towards the common goal. In situations where no supervisor agents are present to make decisions for the group, these agents must achieve some consensus via…