Uncovers the growing and expanding phenomenon of human behavior, social constructs, and communication in online environments.

Growing more quickly than we can study or come to fully understand it, social computing is much more than the next thing. Whether it is due more to technology-driven convenience or to the basic human need to find kindred connection, online communication and communities are changing the way we live. Social Computing and Virtual Communities compiles contributions from international experts to offer the sort of multidisciplinary study that is required in any investigation of communities. Delving fully into theories and methods, application areas, and types of online social environments, this book — Introduces several theories regarding online social interaction Provides a general overview of methodologies, qualitative and quantitative, for analyzing and evaluating virtual communities Makes an in-depth investigation into e-learning communities and the formation of social networks of learners Examines healthcare communities motivated by physical pain, illness, and burdensome symptoms Discusses intellectual property (IP) issues, including those involving user-generated content Delves into the topic of online trust Introduces virtual communities, in which users immerse themselves in a 3D virtual environment, including MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing games) Presents an unusual community of older people of Chinese culture who perceive virtual communities as a place where old beliefs and traditional norms can be preserved Explores the rapid rise of social networking sites (SNS) Books of this kind are uncommon. This work not only provides case studies of different domains of virtual communities and different types of social technologies but also emphasizes theoretical and methodological aspects required to research and analyze such communities.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Social Computing and Social Media, SCSM 2016, held as part of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2016, held in Toronto, ON, Canada, in July 2016. The total of 1287 papers and 186 posters presented at the HCII 2016 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4354 submissions. The papers thoroughly cover the entire field of Human-Computer Interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The 43 contributions included in the SCSM 2016 proceedings were organized in the following topical sections: designing and developing social media; users behaviour in social media; social media, policy, politics and engagement; social network analysis; social media in learning and collaboration; and enterprise social media.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the application of artificial intelligence in social computing, from fundamental data processing to advanced social network computing. To broaden readers’ understanding of the topics addressed, it includes extensive data and a large number of charts and references, covering theories, techniques and applications. It particularly focuses on data collection, data mining, artificial intelligence algorithms in social computing, and several key applications of social computing application, and also discusses network propagation mechanisms and dynamic analysis, which provide useful insights into how information is disseminated in online social networks. This book is intended for readers with a basic knowledge of advanced mathematics and computer science.

We are in the era of computing. Computing is experiencing its most exciting moments in history, permeating nearly all areas of human activities. Computing is any activity that involves using computers. It includes designing and building hardware and software systems for a wide range of purposes. It has resulted in deep changes in infrastructures and development practices of computing. It is a critically important, integral component of modern life. Advancement in technology has led to several computing schemes such as cloud computing, grid computing, green computing, DNA computing, soft computing, organic computing, etc. This book covers the most important 70 computing techniques. It is divided into three volumes to cover all the topics. This is the third volume and it has 21 chapters. The book is a friendly introduction to various computing techniques. The presentation is clear, succinct, and informal, without proofs or rigorous definitions. The book provides researchers, students, and professionals a comprehensive introduction, applications, benefits, and challenges for each computing technology.

A compilation of expertise in Internet law and in ethical considerations concerning social computing in emergencies.

Social computing is concerned with the study of social behavior and social context based on computational systems. Behavioral modeling provides a representation of the social behavior, and allows for experimenting, scenario planning, and deep und- standing of behavior, patterns, and potential outcomes. The pervasive use of computer and Internet technologies by humans in everyday life provides an unprecedented en- ronment of various social activities that, due to the platforms under which they take place, generate large amounts of stored data as a by-product, often in systematically organized form. Social computing facilitates behavioral modeling in model building, analysis, pattern mining, and prediction. Numerous interdisciplinary and interdepe- ent systems are created and used to represent the various social and physical systems for investigating the interactions between groups, communities, or nation-states. This requires joint efforts to take advantage of the state-of-the-art research from multiple disciplines improving social computing and behavioral modeling in order to document lessons learned and develop novel theories, experiments, and methodologies to better explain the interaction between social (both informal and institutionalized), psyc- logical, and physical mechanisms. The goal is to enable us to experiment, create, and recreate an operational environment with a better understanding of the contributions from each individual discipline, forging joint interdisciplinary efforts. This volume comprises the proceedings of the third international workshop on - cial Computing, Behavioral Modeling and Prediction, which has grown trem- dously.