We are pleased to announce that Zachary Stine’s paper “Characterizing the language-production dynamics of social media users” has been published in the latest issue of Social Network Analysis and Mining, a multidisciplinary journal serving researchers and practitioners in academia and industry.    Abstract: In this paper, we propose a characterization of social media users based on language usage over time in order to make more rigorous the notions of organic and inorganic online behavior. This characterization describes the extent to which a user’s word usage within a particular time period subverts expectations based on preceding time periods. To do this, we adapt the use of anRead More →

Doctoral student Zachary Stine’s article “Characterizing the Language‑Production Dynamics of Social Media Users” was accepted for publication by Springer’s Social Network Analysis and Mining (SNAM) on September 28, 2019. The article, co-authored by Dr. Nitin Agarwal, was published online on October 3. Abstract:  In this paper, we propose a characterization of social media users based on language usage over time in order to make more rigorous the notions of organic and inorganic online behavior. This characterization describes the extent to which a user’s word usage within a particular time period subverts expectations based on preceding time periods. To do this, we adapt the use ofRead More →

On Friday, August 30th, doctoral student Zachary Stine presented research from an ongoing comparative study regarding online religious communities.  Stine and fellow researchers Dr. Nitin Agarwal and Dr. James Deitrick, used Reddit to try to understand the differences and similarities between the religious cultures Buddhism and Christianity by analyzing their discussion text for specific lexicons on a more structural level.   Stine described using topic modeling  in order to look at how both communities discuss certain topics. Buddhist and Christian communities were chosen simply because they had the largest amount of discussion text available. The researchers anticipated possible problems with this study, particularly the issue ofRead More →

Doctoral student Zachary Stine presented research about machine learning and the legislative evolution of Ukraine during the EIT Colloquium on March 1.  Stine and co-author Dr. Nitin Agarwal explored methods on how to quantify change in Ukrainian legislation over time in order to provide a complementary view into the larger political dynamics of the country. In order for the audience to understand the legislative evolution of Ukraine, Stine provided an overview of the recent political events. Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has gone through several political challenges.  The ongoing conflict with Russia became a global focal point when Russia annexedRead More →