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 Barry Wellman
 _______________________________________________________________________

  S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC              NetLab Director
  Department of Sociology                        University of Toronto
  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388                  Toronto Canada M5S 2J4
  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman            fax:+1-416-978-3963
  Updating history:     http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
         Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days
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 _______________________________________________________________________

The Diplomat's Dilemma: Maximal Power for Minimal Effort in Social
Networks

Excerpt: Closeness is a global measure of centrality in networks, and a
proxy for how influential actors are in social networks. In most network
models, and many empirical networks, closeness is strongly correlated with
degree.  However, in social networks there is a cost of maintaining social
ties. This leads to a situation (that can occur in the professional social
networks of executives, lobbyists, diplomats and so on) where agents have
the conflicting objectives of aiming for centrality while simultaneously
keeping the degree low.

The Diplomat's Dilemma: Maximal Power for Minimal Effort in Social
Networks, Petter Holme, Gourab Ghoshal, 2008/05/26, DOI: 0805.3909, arXiv
http://uk.arXiv.org/abs/0805.3909

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Measuring Research Output with Science & Technology Indicators ,

Excerpts: The measurement of research output and the ranking of
universities has become an industry in itself. Ranking, however, is based
on reducing the complexity to a single number. The weighting of different
dimensions remains a problem. Research output measurements are based on
indicators such as impact factors. These indicators have been clearly
defined, but for other purposes (Garfield, 1979). For example, impact
factors can vary by an order of magnitude between mathematics and the
life-sciences. Would a university be well advised to close its mathematics
department in order to improve its ranking?

Measuring Research Output with Science & Technology Indicators, Loet
Leydesdorff, 08/06/04, Scirus.com
http://topics.scirus.com/Measuring_Research_Output_with_Science_Technology_Indica
tors.html

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Perpetuating The Al-Qaeda-Iraq Myth

Excerpts: They "stand up" al-Qaeda as the enemy in Iraq, he said, even
behind closed doors. In the teeth of the facts, they ignore that the enemy
we're fighting in Iraq is a half a dozen homegrown insurgencies, an
incipient civil war, and criminal gangs. They ignore the fact that
although a handful of Osama bin Laden's followers showed up in Iraq after
the invasion, in a futile attempt to hijack the Sunni resistance, al-Qaeda
is not the main enemy in that country.

Perpetuating The Al-Qaeda-Iraq Myth, Robert Baer, 08/06/02, Time
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1811318,00.html

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