The Web of Human Sexual Contacts
TLDR
In this article, the authors analyze data on the sexual behavior of a random sample of individuals, and find that the cumulative distributions of the number of sexual partners during the twelve months prior to the survey decays as a power law with similar exponents for females and males.Abstract:
Many ``real-world'' networks are clearly defined while most ``social'' networks are to some extent subjective. Indeed, the accuracy of empirically-determined social networks is a question of some concern because individuals may have distinct perceptions of what constitutes a social link. One unambiguous type of connection is sexual contact. Here we analyze data on the sexual behavior of a random sample of individuals, and find that the cumulative distributions of the number of sexual partners during the twelve months prior to the survey decays as a power law with similar exponents $\alpha \approx 2.4$ for females and males. The scale-free nature of the web of human sexual contacts suggests that strategic interventions aimed at preventing the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases may be the most efficient approach.read more
Citations
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Metoder för risk- och sårbarhetsanalys ur ett systemperspektiv
Henrik Tehler,Henrik Hassel +1 more
TL;DR: An operational definition of vulnerability is proposed and several problems related to analysing the vulnerability of a complex sociotechnical system to a specific perturbation are identified and discussed.
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Networks as constrained thermodynamic systems.
TL;DR: It is shown how a network of interconnections between nodes can be constructed to have a specified distribution of nodal degrees by treating the network as a thermodynamic system subject to constraints and rewiring the system to maintain the constraints while increasing the entropy.
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Creativity and Cultural Production: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Creativity Through an Ethnographic Study of Songwriting.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the results of a ten-year long ethnographic study of contemporary western popular music songwriting, and present evidence to support the idea that creativity is less the province of singular and extraordinary individuals working beyond structural constraints but is, instead, the emergent property of a complex system at work.