Social Networks

The social role determination protocol [2, 5] is proposed for capturing and monitoring the social interactions of primates. The nodes are intended to be attached to the primates forming a mobile network. The local interaction patterns among the nodes are analyzed and the roles of animals are determined based on the research on primate social structure. The network formation and mobility models [1] are also provided to model the mobility of a group of primates to be used for social life monitoring. A novel spatial cut-off preferential attachment model and a center of mass concept are used and extended for the models. The results of the approach is compared to real-life primate networks using various social network metrics.

The role determination approach is then adapted to human networks to develop an ego network generation and friend ranking protocol [3, 4]. This protocol generates the social network of a person by using different sources of available interaction data such as physical proximity, text messages, phone calls and video chats. The approach is applied to a real-life dataset of a group of high school students.

[1] M. I. Akbas, M. R. Brust, C. H. C. Ribeiro and D. Turgut. “Deployment and Mobility for Animal Social Life Monitoring Based on Preferential Attachment” In the Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), pp. 488–495, October 2011.

[2] M. I. Akbas, M. R. Brust, C. H. C. Ribeiro and D. Turgut. “fAPEbook – Animal Social Life Monitoring with Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks”. In the Proceedings of the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), pp. 1–5, December 2011.

[3] M. I. Akbas, M. R. Brust, and D. Turgut. “Social Network Generation and Role Determination Based on Smartphone Data”. In IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) Student Workshop, March 2012.

[4] M. I. Akbas, R. N. Avula, M. A, Bassiouni, D. Turgut. “Social Network Generation and Friend Ranking Based on Mobile Phone Data” In the Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communications 2013 (ICC), June 2013.

[5] M. I. Akbas, M. R. Brust, D. Turgut and C. H. C. Ribeiro. “A Preferential Attachment Model for Primate Social Networks”. Elsevier Computer Networks Journal, 76 (0), pp. 207-226, 2015.