On February 15th Stephen J. Dubner posted an interesting compilation of opinions regarding the net effect of the technological boom of social networking on his the Freakonomics NY Times blog.  He asked a variety of renowned experts on social networking and technology through their latest studies at some of the leading universities in the United […]

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The results of the political bargaining process play a great role in decisions concerning foreign policy. Therefore, game theory lies at the heart of Democratic Peace Theory, which stipulates that democratic states seldom go to war against one another. This theory is strongly supported by observed evidence and data and has been extensively discussed; however, […]

The study of networks has grown substantially in the last decade or so. Mathematicians, sociologists, and scientists from various disciplines have found new ways in which network theory can be applied to an existing situation. An interesting article by Patrick Radden Keefe of the NY Times examines the role that network theory may play […]

Professor Easley’s lecture on online advertisements can be closely related to the New York Times article “Where Every Ad Knows Your Name” by Louise Story: link
Many big Internet companies, such as AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google, are expanding into the advertisements business. Since these companies collect a ton of information on users, a thought […]

Ryan Thomas’ dissertation talks about the advantages of implementing a cognitive network. Unlike many of the networks and game theory methods discussed in class this network runs on the notion of what is best for all parties involve instead or being centralized on each individual node in the network. The concept of learn and rationalizing […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html?pagewanted=2&sq=pagerank&st=nyt&scp=1
This article from the New York Times discusses Google’s ongoing mission to improve its search engine. Specifically, the company aims to better satisfy its users and ultimately decrease the number of people who leave the site not having found what they were looking for. In order to close this “gap between often (finding what you […]

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/05/BAGFVDQ1S.DTL  In 2005, Thomas Schelling won the Nobel Prize in Economics for, in the words of the Nobel committee, “having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.” Schelling is attributed to having helped the United States avoid nuclear warfare with the Soviets during the Cold War, and, once again, his strategies may be […]

This was only briefly mentioned in class in the first lecture, but one property of a dynamic network is the death of nodes. Bruce Schneier comments on an internet-specific form of nodal death called “link rot.” Link rot is, quite simply, the disappearance of information linked to on the internet.
There are two general […]

Recently, the world economy has been having large problems in the credit markets. The sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US real estate market has had grave repercussions in the banking systems in many banking markets. It has affected almost all of the major players in the market including Credit Agricole, HSBC, UBS, Merrill Lynch, and […]

So we all know about non-cooperative game theory: it’s every man for himself. But, cooperative game theory has some interesting applications. The difference between the two is that cooperative game theory has groups or coalitions that enforce players to cooperate. Every possible coalition that can be formed gives a payoff to the players who form […]