Archive for the 'Mathematics' Category

Choosiness and Cooperation in Human Behavior

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7175/full/nature06455.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7175/box/nature06455_BX1.html
“The coevolution of choosiness and cooperation” from Nature magazine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy
Supplementary Wikipedia article: “Evolutionarily Stable Strategy”
The motivation for analyzing choosiness and cooperation between individuals is to seek a better understanding of biological systems and human societies. The interaction that occurs specifically between non-relatives is what the article focuses on.
The way choosiness and cooperation relate to the […]

Posted in Topics: Mathematics, Science

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Traffic Routing in the Cellphone/GPS Age

The equilibrium-based analysis of traffic routing that we studied earlier in the semester (in connection with Braess’ Paradox) assumes that the traffic delay functions are known in advance by all drivers. Drivers are assumed to be taking the same trip day after day, to experiment with alternative routes, and to develop an instinct about […]

Posted in Topics: Education, Mathematics, Technology

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Road coloring theorem solved

The road coloring conjecture was proved recently after almost four decades by an Israeli mathematician. The theorem states that given a finite number of roads, it is possible to draw a universal color-coded map that leads to a particular destination regardless of the point of origin. This is equivalent to saying there is a set […]

Posted in Topics: Education, Mathematics

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Movie Seating

Have you ever gone to the movies and worried about who you’re going to sit next to?  This comic illustrates the common dilemma moviegoers face when filling the theatre aisles.

www.xkcd.com/173
The complex relationships between each pair of people in a group can be reflected in an acquaintance graph, such as the one shown above in the comic. […]

Posted in Topics: Mathematics, social studies

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Game Theory, Transaction Costs, and Microsoft

Ending in 2002, the lengthy anti-trust case against Microsoft illuminated current economic theories on imperfect competition and transaction costs, which involve game theory to analyze the behavior of companies. In classical economics, companies operating in a perfectly competitive environment have no influence over the price, which is determined entirely by market factors. Most industries are […]

Posted in Topics: General, Mathematics

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Disease, Fear, and Flight in a Population

At the beginning of the semester we were given a sheet depicting numerous real life models of a variety of social networks. Most of edges concerned interaction between nodes, such as the spread of informational e-mails, friendships within organizations and clubs, or the outbreak of a disease. This blog focuses on a more theoretical […]

Posted in Topics: General, Health, Mathematics

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Biology and game theory

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article3399671.ece
http://findarticales.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_4_166/ai_n6151880/
In a recent article on the timesonline.co.uk website, game theory was related to the politics in relations to the Tories. In the article,game theory’s selfish strategies and cooperative strategies are discussed and an interesting point about vampire bats were mentioned. Upon some searching, I came across and article in Science News further explaining the example […]

Posted in Topics: General, Mathematics, Science

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A Social Exchange Network in Mozart’s “La Finta Giardiniera”

On the Thursday evening when I should have been working on “Networks” Homework #3 I escaped with my wife to a performance at Ithaca College of “La Finta Giardiniera”, a comic opera written by Mozart when he was 18 years old.  But there in the program for the performance I found “Notes from the Director” consisting […]

Posted in Topics: Education, General, Mathematics

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Word Networks in the Human Brain

In a study at Kansas University conducted by Michael Vitevich, an attempt is made to map out the words of our vocabulary as they are represented in the human brain. What Vitevich hopes to learn from charting out our vocabularies in the brain is how victims of brain trauma regain their language skills, but […]

Posted in Topics: General, Mathematics, Science, social studies

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Game Theory - Not Applicable In All Situations

        In this article, the author describes the entrance of a new competitor into the mobile market.  In particular, in Great Britain, a new company, Hutchison 3G has attempted to break into the ultra-competitive wireless communications industry.  However, as expected, they have had a considerable amount of difficulty persuading customers to leave their […]

Posted in Topics: Education, General, Mathematics, Technology, social studies

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