adjacent possible air traffic complex network complexity complex_networks complex_systems creativity cuskley data_compression dynamical_systems evolutionary_dynamics gravino information_theory innovation_dynamics kreyon language_dynamics language_games local optimization loreto monechi opinion_dynamics phylogeny relevant_literature servedio social_dynamics statistical_physics techno_social_systems tria XTribe zippers
2016 |
Monechi, Bernardo; Gravino, Pietro; Servedio, Vito DP; Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio Significance and Popularity in Music Production Paper (Journal Article) Open Science, 4 (7), pp. 170433, 2016. (Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: complex networks, creativity, kreyon, music, popularity) @article{Monechi2016, title = {Significance and Popularity in Music Production Paper}, author = {Bernardo Monechi and Pietro Gravino and Vito DP Servedio and Francesca Tria and Vittorio Loreto }, editor = {The Royal Society}, url = {http://xtribe.eu/sites/default/files/kreyon_files/Significance_and_Popularity_in_Music_Production.pdf}, year = {2016}, date = {2016-03-05}, journal = {Open Science}, volume = {4}, number = {7}, pages = {170433}, publisher = {submitted to PLoS ONE}, abstract = {In the world of creative productions there is a constant struggle to achieve fame and popularity. While highly popular creations are usually well remembered throughout the years, many influential works that did not achieve that status are long-forgotten. Due to their relevance for the whole artistic production, it is important to identify them and save their memory for obvious cultural reasons. In this paper we focus on the musical context and we analyze the dynamics of the tagging process on Last.fm, an on-line catalog of music albums. We define a set of general metrics aiming at characterizing the creative potential and the long-term significance of creative products and we apply them to the case of musical albums. We then adopt these metrics to implement an automated prediction method of both the commercial success of a creation and its belonging to expert validated lists of particularly creative and important works. We show that our metrics are not only useful to asses such predictions, but can also highlight important differences between culturally relevant and simply popular products of human creative production.}, keywords = {complex networks, creativity, kreyon, music, popularity}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {article} } In the world of creative productions there is a constant struggle to achieve fame and popularity. While highly popular creations are usually well remembered throughout the years, many influential works that did not achieve that status are long-forgotten. Due to their relevance for the whole artistic production, it is important to identify them and save their memory for obvious cultural reasons. In this paper we focus on the musical context and we analyze the dynamics of the tagging process on Last.fm, an on-line catalog of music albums. We define a set of general metrics aiming at characterizing the creative potential and the long-term significance of creative products and we apply them to the case of musical albums. We then adopt these metrics to implement an automated prediction method of both the commercial success of a creation and its belonging to expert validated lists of particularly creative and important works. We show that our metrics are not only useful to asses such predictions, but can also highlight important differences between culturally relevant and simply popular products of human creative production. |
Gravino, Pietro; Monechi, Bernardo; Servedio, Vito DP; Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio Crossing the horizon: exploring the adjacent possible in a cultural system (Proceeding) Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Computational Creativity, June 2016, 2016. (Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: adjacent possible, complex network, creativity, innovation_dynamics, kreyon, movies) @proceedings{Gravino2016, title = {Crossing the horizon: exploring the adjacent possible in a cultural system}, author = {Pietro Gravino and Bernardo Monechi and Vito DP Servedio and Francesca Tria and Vittorio Loreto}, url = {http://www.computationalcreativity.net/iccc2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Crossing-the-horizon.pdf}, year = {2016}, date = {2016-03-05}, journal = {submitted to "ICCC 2016 - The Seventh International Conference on Computational Creativity"}, publisher = {Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Computational Creativity, June 2016}, abstract = {It is common opinion that many innovations are triggered by serendipity whose notion is associated with fortuitous events leading to unintended consequences. One might argue that this interpretation is due to the poor understanding of the dynamics of innovations. Very little is known, in fact, about how innovations proceed and samples the space of potential novelties. This space is usually referred to as the adjacent possible, a concept originally introduced in the study of biological systems to indicate the set of possibilities that are one step away from what actually exists. In this paper we focus on the problem of defining the adjacent possible space, and analyzing its dynamics, for a particular system, namely the cultural system of the network of movies. We synthesized to this end the graph emerging from the Internet Movies Database (IMDb) and looked at the static and dynamical properties of this network. We deal, in particular, with the subtle mechanism of the adjacent possible by measuring the expansion and the coverage of this elusive space during the global evolution of the system. Finally, we introduce the concept of adjacent possibilities at the level of single node and try to elucidate its nature by looking at the correlations with topological and user annotation metrics.}, keywords = {adjacent possible, complex network, creativity, innovation_dynamics, kreyon, movies}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {proceedings} } It is common opinion that many innovations are triggered by serendipity whose notion is associated with fortuitous events leading to unintended consequences. One might argue that this interpretation is due to the poor understanding of the dynamics of innovations. Very little is known, in fact, about how innovations proceed and samples the space of potential novelties. This space is usually referred to as the adjacent possible, a concept originally introduced in the study of biological systems to indicate the set of possibilities that are one step away from what actually exists. In this paper we focus on the problem of defining the adjacent possible space, and analyzing its dynamics, for a particular system, namely the cultural system of the network of movies. We synthesized to this end the graph emerging from the Internet Movies Database (IMDb) and looked at the static and dynamical properties of this network. We deal, in particular, with the subtle mechanism of the adjacent possible by measuring the expansion and the coverage of this elusive space during the global evolution of the system. Finally, we introduce the concept of adjacent possibilities at the level of single node and try to elucidate its nature by looking at the correlations with topological and user annotation metrics. |
2014 |
Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio; Servedio, Vito Domenico Pietro; Strogatz, Steven The dynamics of correlated novelties (Journal Article) Nature Scientific Reports, 4 (5890), 2014. (Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: creativity, innovation, innovation_dynamics, kreyon, loreto, novelties, servedio, tria) @article{b, title = {The dynamics of correlated novelties}, author = {Francesca Tria and Vittorio Loreto and Vito Domenico Pietro Servedio and Steven H. Strogatz}, url = {http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140731/srep05890/full/srep05890.html}, year = {2014}, date = {2014-01-01}, journal = {Nature Scientific Reports}, volume = {4}, number = {5890}, publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}, abstract = {Novelties are a familiar part of daily life. They are also fundamental to the evolution of biological systems, human society, and technology. By opening new possibilities, one novelty can pave the way for others in a process that Kauffman has called expanding the adjacent possible . The dynamics of correlated novelties, however, have yet to be quantified empirically or modeled mathematically. Here we propose a simple mathematical model that mimics the process of exploring a physical, biological, or conceptual space that enlarges whenever a novelty occurs. The model, a generalization of Polya\'s urn, predicts statistical laws for the rate at which novelties happen (Heaps\' law) and for the probability distribution on the space explored (Zipf\'s law), as well as signatures of the process by which one novelty sets the stage for another. We test these predictions on four data sets of human activity: the edit events of Wikipedia pages, the emergence of tags in annotation systems, the sequence of words in texts, and listening to new songs in online music catalogues. By quantifying the dynamics of correlated novelties, our results provide a starting point for a deeper understanding of the adjacent possible and its role in biological, cultural, and technological evolution.}, keywords = {creativity, innovation, innovation_dynamics, kreyon, loreto, novelties, servedio, tria}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {article} } Novelties are a familiar part of daily life. They are also fundamental to the evolution of biological systems, human society, and technology. By opening new possibilities, one novelty can pave the way for others in a process that Kauffman has called expanding the adjacent possible . The dynamics of correlated novelties, however, have yet to be quantified empirically or modeled mathematically. Here we propose a simple mathematical model that mimics the process of exploring a physical, biological, or conceptual space that enlarges whenever a novelty occurs. The model, a generalization of Polya's urn, predicts statistical laws for the rate at which novelties happen (Heaps' law) and for the probability distribution on the space explored (Zipf's law), as well as signatures of the process by which one novelty sets the stage for another. We test these predictions on four data sets of human activity: the edit events of Wikipedia pages, the emergence of tags in annotation systems, the sequence of words in texts, and listening to new songs in online music catalogues. By quantifying the dynamics of correlated novelties, our results provide a starting point for a deeper understanding of the adjacent possible and its role in biological, cultural, and technological evolution. |