SONIC Speaker – George G. Vega Yon March 20th at 2pm
Please join the SONIC Lab in Frances Searle Room 1-483 on March 20th at 2pm to welcome SONIC Speaker, George G. Vega Yon of USC’s Keck School of Medicine, who will present his talk “Big Problems for Small Networks: Statistical Analysis of Small Networks and Team Performance.” Followed by a workshop on R packages ‘ergmito’ and ‘gnet’ for applying the methods introduced during the talk.
Abstract:
Small network data such as team, family, or personal networks, is common in many fields that study social networks. Although the analysis of small networks may appear simplistic relative to the difficulties posed by “big” datasets, there are at least two key challenges: (1) fitting statistical models to explain the network structure in small groups, and (2) testing if structural properties of small networks are associated with group-level outcomes; for example, team performance. In this presentation, we introduce two new statistical methods that use a revisited version of Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) in the context of small networks. Using exhaustive enumeration of networks in the support, we are able to calculate exact likelihood functions for ERGMs, which allows us to obtain maximum likelihood estimates directly (without using simulations), avoiding common problems that arise from methods that rely on approximations instead. This is joint work with Prof. Kayla de la Haye (USC).
Press Coverage: IIT Madras hosts the first RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium’
Publication: The Times of India
Headline: IIT-Ms web science symposium to help community exchange ideas
Headline: IIT-Ms web science symposium to help community exchange ideas
Publication: The New Indian Express (clip attached)
Headline: IIT–Madras hosts web science symposium
Headline: IIT–Madras hosts web science symposium
Publication: UNI
Headline: IIT Madras hosts the first RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium‘
Headline: IIT Madras hosts the first RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium‘
Publication: Dinamani
Headline: சென்னை ஐஐடி-யில் இணைய அறிவியல் கருத்தரங்கம் (IIT Madras hosts Web Sciencesymposium)
Publication: BW Education
Headline: IIT Madras Hosts The First RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium’
Publication: DT Next
Headline: IIT-M hosts two-day Web Science Symposium
Headline: IIT-M hosts two-day Web Science Symposium
Publication: Infodea
Headline: IIT Madras hosts the first RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium’
Headline: IIT Madras hosts the first RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium’
Publication: Techi Expert
Headline: IIT Madras Hosts The First RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium’
Headline: IIT Madras Hosts The First RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium’
Publication: Penn News
Headline: IIT Madras hosts the first ‘Web Science Symposium’
Headline: IIT Madras hosts the first ‘Web Science Symposium’
Publication: The Hindu Tamil
Headline: IIT Madras hosts the first RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium’
Publication: India Education Diary
Headline: IIT Madras hosts the first RBCDSAI ‘Web Science Symposium’
Publication: The Statesman
Headline: Exchanging ideas
Welcoming our latest high school intern – Steven Ding
We are delighted to welcome Steven Ding to SONIC for the next couple of weeks. Steven is originally from Beijing and is currently a junior at St. Andrews High School in Delaware. He is interested in study behavioral economics and the psychology of decision making. While at SONIC, he hopes to learn more about research, handling data, and network analysis.
Contractor provides keynote to RBC-DSAI at IIT Madras
Prof Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University, presents a memento to Prof. Dame Wendy Hall, Executive Director, Web Science Institute.
Keynote Citation: Contractor, N. (February 26, 2019). People Analytics: Understanding and Enabling the Future of Work. Keynote address at the Robert Bosch Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence – Webs Science Symposium at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India.
Listen in to Noshir and Leslie’s CBC interview
Contractor and DeChruch speak to Anna Maria Tremonti on CBC Radio One: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live/radio1/ottawa
Press coverage for Mars Mission research
Science Daily – “Weak spots for Mission to Mars revealed.”
The Times of India – “Weak spots for Nasa’s manned Mars mission revealed.”
New Atlas – “Simulated space journeys to help keep the peace on manned trips to Mars.”
The Economist Babbage Podcast – “Joker AAAStrounauts.”
AAAS Annual Meeting – “Building a Winning Team for Missions to Mars.”
Tech2 – “NASA developing models to predict conflicts among crew members for manned Mars missions.”
Global Science – “Pensiero creativo e problem solving: gli umani sfidano Marte.”
EuropaPress – “Un modelo para predecir fallos psicológicos en el viaje a Marte.”
Space.com – “Astronauts Struggle with Finishing Tasks on Mock Space Missions.”
CBC Radio – “It’s like a hall of mirrors: In a spacecraft, personalities work better than others.”
cnBeta.com – “西北大学开展模拟太空旅行计划 帮助宇航员更顺利抵达火星”
DigitalJournal.com – “Space agencies preparing for 3-year round-trip journey to Mars.”
rmf24.pl – “Lot na Marsa będzie jeszcze trudniejszy…”
The Daily Northwestern – “Northwestern professors build model for NASA Mars expedition.”
North by Northwestern – “On a mission to Mars, teamwork makes the dream work.”
The Times of India – “Mental health of Mars’ crew to be monitored.”
WBEZ – “Who Can Handle Trip To Mars? Northwestern Helps NASA Predict Strains On Astronauts.”
AAAS Press Briefing – “Building a Winning Team for Mission to Mars”
My Dream Team paper accepted at CHI 2019
A My Dream Team paper titled “Who Would You Like to Work With? Use of Individual Characteristics and Social Networks in Team Formation Systems,” was accepted at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings (CHI).
In this paper, we conducted a field study where 530 participants used a team formation system to assemble project teams. We describe how users’ traits and social networks influence their teammate searches, teammate choices, and team composition. Our results show that (a) what users initially search for differs from what they finally choose: initially they search for experts and sociable users, but they are ultimately more likely to choose their prior social connections; (b) users’ decisions lead to non- diverse and segregated teams, where most of the expertise and social capital are concentrated in a few teams.
Citation: Diego Gómez-Zará, Matthew Paras, Marlon Twyman, Jacqueline N. Lane, Leslie A. DeChurch, and Noshir S. Contractor. 2019. Who Would You Like to Work With?: Use of Individual Characteristics and Social Networks in Team Formation Systems. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings (CHI 2019), May 4–9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland Uk. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 15 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300889
The SONIC & ATLAS Teams present at NASA HRP IWS
Contractor provides a seminar at PUC in Santiago
Contractor, N. (2019, January). “Avances y proyecciones de Computational Social Sciences”. Presented at the Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile, Facultad de Comunicaciones, Santiago, Chile.