A group of researchers have developed a system to make accurate predictions on the network performance between two arbitrary computers on the Internet. In the paper (Google HTML version), they define iPlane, a system that, in addition to doing simple tests on round-trip latency and throughput, accounts for the actual network topology. Such […]

Game theory has been applied to many abstract networks in the course, from trading networks to social networks. One example that merits further investigation is a wireless ad hoc network.
Wireless ad hoc networks can easily be understood with the concepts presented in this class. Computers are nodes in the network and wireless radio links are […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/business/yourmoney/25proto.html?ex=1173243600&en=66a8673994e7a9d5&ei=5070 
 
This article describes recent quorum sensing research in bacteria and its connection with social networks.  Quorum sensing is the ability of bacteria groups to communicate and coordinate behavior through signaling molecules and pathways.  This phenomenon is what enables bacteria colonies to accumulate enough bacteria to act, developing infections, illnesses, and biofilms.  Studying quorum sensing has […]

Internet traffic is as succeptible to Braess’ paradox as is vehicle traffic. Kagan Tumer and David H. Wolpert at NASA Ames Research Center present an improvement to greedy internet traffic routing algorithms in their paper “Avoiding Braess’ Paradox through Collective Intelligence”.
We have talked about how imposing rules from outside the system can help improve […]

The small world phenomenon in social networks is quite a surprising property when one first learns of it [wikipedia: small world phenomenon]. Six degrees of separation - the idea that each person is connected to every other person by a path of length 6 on average - is quite remarkable. Yet we observe […]

Note: This was also posted on my own blog: http://aysz88.livejournal.com/27137.html . It may look better there.
In the February 16, 2007 issue of Science, Brendan J. Frey and Delbert Dueck apply “message-passing” networks to a problem that doesn’t seem particularly natural in that context: how does one cluster large numbers of objects, and then find […]

So far we have discussed very basic mathematical methods in analyzing social networks, using basic graph theory and other mathematics traditionally used in network study. This paper* presents an analysis of social networks using a strictly physical analogy—that is, applying laws of kinematics within a closed set of people to show that clear social […]

As the debate over global warming rages on, there’s one thing we can all agree on. It’s stupid! It’s like wondering if the can of varnish you drank was half-full or half-empty. Pollution is bad. Period.
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http://www.cmu.edu/joss/content/articles/volume2/Bonacich.html
This article was taken from the Journal of Social Structure, an online journal on social structure, and provides an in depth look at almost the exact same information that we have been learning about in class. The purpose of the paper is to do look at the various types of social structures and the way […]

Besides its applications to human behavior, game theory can also aid in explaining biological phenomenon, such as the evolution of viruses.
A research paper from American Scientist Online argues that cheating is a dominant strategy in viruses evolving in a laboratory setting.  The results from the experiment are consistent with the evolutionary version of the prisoner’s […]