Advancing The Science of Networks in Communities
One might think that targeting the network with the most users is the most successful form of advertising, but recent studies show otherwise. While big networks drive more traffic, targeted marketing in niche networks typically generates a higher return on investment. It goes to show that a better understanding of online networks can aid in the design of successful marketing campaigns.
Read more here: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/addshoppers-social-networks-roi-2014/614729
“The world is going to teamwork. In the 1950s, about half of our work was done in teams. Today, by one measure, it’s more like 90 percent. Maybe it’s at the office. Maybe it’s on Google Hangout. Maybe it’s at the PTA. But what makes a good team? A smart team? It’s not just a bunch of smart people, says a big new study. It’s a crew that shares the floor, the talking time, it claims. It’s a team that has high social sensitivity. And it’s often, it says, a team with more women. We need a cultural revolution, they say, to optimize our teams. This hour On Point: Are you onboard? We’re talking teamwork.” -Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
Anita Woolley, professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.
Thomas Malone, professor management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. Author of “The Future of Work.” (@twmalone)
Morris Shechtman, founder of Fifth Wave Leadership.
Listen to the entire podcast here: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/01/27/team-building-women-silicon-valley
Original Article:
Summary:
Konaris et al at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece expanded on existing legal network analysis by extracting “all the documents from the European Community’s legal database dating back to 1951” and organizing the texts into three subnetworks: treaties between countries, regulations and directives that are based on these treaties, and case laws that have emerged from the application of these regulations. Analysis of each subsection showed that “all were small world networks in themselves” that generally demonstrate high levels of resilience. This model produced a novel perspective because it takes into account both the temporal dynamism and hierarchical nature of European law. In addition to mapping citations (references that do not modify the target document) Konaris also represented legal bias (edit references that modify either the text or the lifecycle of the target document) and accounted for their effects over time. This revealed “a steep increase in the density of links within the network over time”. Ultimately, Konaris suggests that the clusters and related connections illustrated by this work may “help legislators determine the effect of proposed changes and improve the effectiveness of legal information retrieval”.
Paper:
According to a recent article in Forbes, the majority of people “spend most of their time in closed networks”. However, closed networks in the workplace, although seemingly effective for a managerial standpoint, are actually less conducive for long-term career success. Open networks promote innovation and according to this study, “simply being in an open network instead of a closed one is the best predictor of career success.”
Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelsimmons/2015/01/15/this-is-the-1-predictor-of-career-success-according-to-network-science/
Cuba has been in the headlines recently with the president Obama’s decision to lift the 55-year-long trade embargo on the country.
But what do we know about Cuba’s networks, specifically their online networks? If you thought China had tough internet laws, at least they have the internet. Cuba, on the other hand, bans internet use for all but a few Cubans and “charges nearly a quarter of a month’s salary for an hour online in government-run hotels and Internet centers”. And yet, a small group of primarily young Cubans have created a pseudo-online network consisting of over 9,000 nodes using hidden Wi-Fi hotspots and cables strung across rooftops. The network is essentially a giant “lan party” for young Cubans to chat, play games, and organize events. This presents an opportunity to research one of the few remaining insular networks.
Read more here: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/technology/article/Cuban-youth-build-secret-computer-network-despite-6040159.php#photo-7437801
Christopher Monterola of that A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore and co-researchers at and The Logistics Institute-Asia Pacific put forth a computer model that predicts the most expedient over-ground routes using real-time data uploaded by agents on the scene. This model allows users to project the “flow of goods and other relief efforts, and quantify the reachability of critical loci within a geographic area”. To create this tool, Moterola’s team “developed a procedure that automatically transforms street maps into a network of nodes (road intersections) and edges (road segments)”. By allowing for continuous updates from crowd-sourced platforms like OpenStreetMap, the model incorporates a flexibility that enables local governments to visualize multiple infrastructure destruction scenarios.
The team achieved this by comparing “two different model networks: a grid lattice common in cities and a ‘scale-free’ road network that represents a mix of urban hubs and rural spokes”. In the resulting paper, Monterola et al. discuss “the inaccuracy of assuming that road networks follow a structure similar to the more commonly studied scale-free, random, and/or grid (regular) network configurations” – contradicting conventional assumptions used in preparedness planning. Hopefully, these findings will help correct the flaws of existing practices that forestall relief to victims (like those of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013) and mitigate the loss of life and property.
News Article:
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-algorithm-automatically-quickest-calamity-affected-sites.html#jCp
Full Article:
http://www.worldscientific.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/doi/pdf/10.1142/S0129183114500478
Ivan Hernandez is a collaborative post-doctoral researcher at Northwestern University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. in Psychology from the University of Florida, and his PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
He is currently working on the Gates Project here at SONIC.
http://sonic.northwestern.edu/people/postdocs-graduate_students/ivan-hernandez/
SONIC Lab is proud to welcome Dan Newman, who will present a talk on January 29th, 2015 at 2:00 P.M. in SONIC Lab in the Frances Searle Building, room 1.459. All are welcome to attend. To schedule a one-on-one meeting with a Dr. Newman please schedule a time at http://bit.ly/SonicSpeaker. Please contact Nancy McLaughlin with any questions/comments.
In recent years, the spread of information over social networks has become a global phenomenon. Scientists have begun to study how information spreads from person to person, and how individuals’ motivations can cause a cascade effect in behavior. Researchers note that often “cascading behavior in a social network is guided by an entity that wants to achieve a certain outcome, for example… a political movement might be trying to guide the success of its message in a population.”
Further research will shed light on what guides the spread of information over social networks, and how individual behaviors play a role in information trends.
Read more here: http://zeenews.india.com/news/space/the-math-of-how-decisions-cascade-in-social-networks_1528658.html
The study of the network of networks, or interdependent networks, has become increasingly important. Interdependent networks are hugely prevalent especially in food, water, and fuel delivery systems. Scientists at Northeastern, Beihang, and Bar-Ilan Universities wrote in the National Science Review that the study of network of networks is “one of the most important directions in network science”.
Read more here: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-