Uncovering Hierarchical Structure in Social Networks using Isospectral Reductions

We employ the recently developed theory of isospectral network reductions to analyze multi-mode social networks. This procedure allows us to uncover the hierarchical structure of the networks we consider as well as the hierarchical structure of each mode of the network. Additionally, by performing a dynamical analysis of these networks we are able to analyze the evolution of their structure allowing us to find a number of other network features. We apply both of these approaches to the Southern Women Data Set, one of the most studied social networks and demonstrate that these techniques provide new information, which complements previous findings.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, 5 table

Water and dreams

This essay explores dreams and dreaming with reference to Gaston Bachelard’s rather overlooked essay Water and Dreams (1941), where he defines two modes of imagination that are discrete but not disconnected. First is the formal mode that arises from emotions and sensations; next is the material mode, where images arise directly from matter: in this case, water. The phenomenological perspective he offers on water and its oneiric properties aligns very well with creative practice-led research – which, for us, comprises poetry (Jen Webb) and painting (Lorraine Webb). We explore Bachelard’s notion of dream, which departs from the conventional views to suggest a different way of understanding what dreaming might be for creative practitioners. This, the concept of waking dreams, provides one conceptual frame for the affordances of dream for creative practice. The second frame attends to the fragmentary, aleatory, and haphazard nature of living in the world, and this we draw from Bertrand Russell’s writing (1953), which incorporates both day and night dreams, and their poetic, allegorical qualities. We work through and around these two conceptual frames to reflect on the often confounding issue: how to be and to become, in a life that is both dream and concrete reality.</jats:p

Eating dust:Electronic media and regional arts

Traditional 'bush culture' has for the best part of a century been a definingcharacteristic of Australian identity, but now new media and new modalities ofcommunication and entertainment are posing a challenge to its centrality. The impact of television and video even in remote regions, the increasing attention being paid to contemporary culture by government initiatives and the (generally) cautious curiosity of the arts community towards new media, suggests the emergence of a visible intersection between 'past' and 'present' forms of culture. In this paper, I examine the connections between traditional practices and narratives of identity and contemporary arts practice, with a particular focus on regional central Queensland communities

Touching, ferocious and poetic:the Miles Franklin shortlist is worthy of your attention

The literary calendar is marked by big public events: writers festivals, book fairs, and the announcements first of shortlists and then of winners of major literary awards. For Australian writers and readers, the Miles Franklin is a lodestone, our Big Award – the one that celebrates not just writing, not just fiction, but particularly and peculiarly Australian writing