This book represents Alina Stoica's PhD dissertation. The main goal of the research was to characterize individuals connected in a social network by analyzing the local structure of the graph. For that, a method that describes the way nodes are embedded in the network was proposed. The method is related to the analysis of egocentred networks in sociology and to the local approach in the study of complex graphs. It can be applied to small networks, to fractions of networks and also to large networks, due to its small complexity. The proposed method was applied to two large social networks, one...

This volume, Scopes and Challenges for Regional Integration: A Comparative Perspective with the European Union (EU), is the result of research carried out within the Jean Monnet Module "EU Cultural Diplomacy in the Andean Community" (2020-2023). The paper addresses, in essence, the process of regional integration through the creation of EU institutions that respond to common problems that go beyond and cross national borders. While the supranational structure of the European Union is clearly defined, in South America there are several regional integration initiatives - such as the Andean...