Walsh, Fergal (2013) The spatial structure of mobile communication networks. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Abstract
There has been a recent surge of interest in the relationship between the spatial
and topological structure of communication networks with the availability of
large scale anonymous datasets on the communication and mobility patterns of
individuals. These datasets, captured as a by-product of modern communications
technology, provide a detailed view of the daily interpersonal interactions
of millions of people. Mobile phone call logs in particular offer an unparalleled
source of information given their personal portable nature and ubiquity in
modern society. The use of mobile phones has become so common that these
datasets are no longer merely communication logs but close approximations of
the network of interpersonal relationships that forms society. The analysis of
these proxy networks has the potential to uncover knowledge about society at
a scale never previously possible.
Networks, and social networks in particular, have been the subject of investigation
for more than a century with a rich corpus of theory and methods
now available to researchers. Computational approaches to the study of networks
are more recent but there are now a wide variety of structural analysis
methods that have been developed and applied across many different disciplines
and subject areas. The study of interactions across space has developed
in parallel with theory, methods, models and a variety of applications.
Recent studies of these proxy networks have tended to use computational
approaches for analysing community structure and modelling spatial interacitions without much regard for the theory upon which they were built. The
underlying assumption has been that all phenomena that can be represented
as networks can be analysed with the same methods. In this thesis we
demonstrate that this is not the case and identify a number of problems and
misinterpretations that can arise when inappropriate methods or network representations
are employed. Through a detailed theoretical and empirical analysis
we identify appropriate combinations of network representation, spatial
scale, and analysis methods for studying the spatial structure of communication
networks. Using these findings we demonstrate the potential of such
analysis when the appropriate methodology is employed.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
---|---|
Keywords: | spatial structure; mobile communication networks; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > National Centre for Geocomputation, NCG |
Item ID: | 4477 |
Depositing User: | IR eTheses |
Date Deposited: | 12 Sep 2013 11:12 |
URI: | https://mu.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/4477 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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