My high school friend was recently a contestant on NBC’s game show “Deal or No Deal.” As any responsible engineering-student friend would do, I asked her (after they already filmed her episode) if she researched the game theory involved. Her response was had something to do with makeup and interviews, and boiled down to “no”.
Searching for “Deal […]

http://wwwlisc.clermont.cemagref.fr/ImagesProject/FinalReport/literature_scientific_bacground/final_rep_1.3_fichiers/final_rep_1.3.pdf
In class we have been touching on the subject of network diffusion, and how it can result in innovation diffusion, with early adopters, etc. The linked paper expands upon those ideas. It takes into consideration several factors, including the risk of early adoption, how the media affects this diffusion, and the idea of “critical mass”. […]

In a recent issue of Forbes, the meaning of networks was probed and articles were selected covering four different sectors: network breakthroughs, lifestyle, technology, and community. In the community division of networks, an article titled A Small Circle of Friends by Virginia Postrel discusses a particular type of network, the self-help group. The workings of […]

With the recent, high-profile public discourse surrounding the potential for virulent outbreaks—be they from an outbreak of Avian Flu or an incident of bioterrorism—epidemiological modeling has been a vital tool used to assess the threat of an epidemic facing the nation. Epidemiological models often have two key components, a method of modeling the spread of […]

In class a large focus has been on links and how they increasingly make the world seem to be a smaller space. An issue that comes up because of this is the smaller seperation or space a node is able to take up the less privacy that node has. Privacy is also affected […]

When reviewing the class blog, one can see that most of our news stories come from very few sources. Major examples being, Wired.com, Slashdot.org, CNN.com, and other major news sources. This means, that by the time I read an article online, and then go to check the blog to post about it, *someone* has […]

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415?cookieSet=1
This paper published by sociologists McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook touches on a number of topics that have been discussed in class and, for me, brings the study of social networks around full circle. In their paper, these researchers discuss the existence of homophily in the following categories: race and ethnicity, age, religion, education, occupation, social […]

The other day in class, Professor Kleinburg spoke briefly of Judith Kleinfeld, the psychologist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who wrote a paper discrediting Stanley Milgram’s famous “six degrees of separation” findings, and his “small world problem.” To find some more information on Kleinfeld’s problem with Milgram’s famous study, I found the paper in […]

http://oracleofbacon.org/
 
The common game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is an example of the small world phenomenon.  The object of the game is to connect a given actor to Kevin Bacon through connecting movie roles in as few steps as possible, but no more than 6 steps.  The website http://oracleofbacon.org/ has several tools on it to […]

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_action=doc&p_topdoc=1&p_docnum=1&p_sort=YMD_date:D&p_product=AWNB&p_text_direct-0=document_id=(%2011896FD25C08D970%20)&p_docid=11896FD25C08D970&p_theme=aggregated4&p_queryname=11896FD25C08D970&f_openurl=yes&p_nbid=D62H49REMTE3Nzg5NDQ4NS42MTEwMzM6MToxMToxMjguMjUzLjAuMA&&p_multi=NYTB
This article was written a bit after the shooting at Virginia Tech, and talks about the tension in other universities and schools across the nation in the days following the attack. Many schools canceled classes in response to various threats and suspicious activities. These incidents highlight the way in which diffusion and network effects, as […]