9th ANN / SONIC / NICO Network Theory Workshop – Success

This past weekend over 35 scholars at leading-edge brain science and social network gathered for the 9th annual ANN-SONIC-NICO Network Theory Workshop under the theme of “Brain Science and Social Networks.” The workshop was held at Northwestern’s Kellogg Global Hub and sponsored by the Annenberg Networks Network (ANN), Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC), Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), and the Army Research Office (ARO).

Details about the workshop can be found at:

Website: https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news-events/conference/international-workshop-on-network-theory/​

Conference presentation videos and slides will be available on the website shortly.

The conference organizers would like to thank all the speakers and participants for their attendance.

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Diego presents at MESO in Buenos Aires

Diego presents the paper, “How can we assemble better interdisciplinary teams? The ‘My Dream Team’ experience at the Universidad of Buenos Aires” at the MESO Conference titled, “Contemporary Developments on Media, Culture and Society: Argentian and America Latina,” in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

 

Citation:
Gómez-Zará, D., Andreoli, S., DeChurch, L., and Contractor, N. (2018). “How can we assemble better interdisciplinary teams? The “My Dream Team” experience at the Universidad of Buenos Aires.” MESO Conference  “Contemporary Developments on Media, Culture and Society: Argentina and America Latina”, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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Noshir Contractor presents at Inaugural Case Workshop on Digital Innovation

On Thursday, October 18th, Noshir Contractor will present, “Inhaling digital exhaust data from Enterprise Social Media to understand and enable teaming,” a paper with Paul Leonardi (UC Santa Barbara), Leslie DeChurch, and SONIC alum Jackie Ng (Harvard Business School) at The Inaugural Case Workshop on Digital Innovation at Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. The workshop will gather an interdisciplinary community to spark ideas that will draw out the implications of digital innovation for customers and markets, organizations, industries as well as the broader economy and society.

Link: https://weatherhead.case.edu/events/digital-innovation/

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Noshir Contractor presents at Amazon

Noshir Contractor presented research on teams going into isolated (space) environments, titled “Social isolation: A challenge in and out of this world.”  at an invitational workshop organized by Amazon on October 17 in Seattle titled “All Boats Rise? Social Capital, Promise and Peril” in a session titled “No One is an (I) Land.”

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Kyosuke Tanaka’s paper accepted to #ComplexNetworks2018 conference

SONIC research graduate, Kyosuke will be traveling to Cambridge, UK for the Complex Networks 2018 conference. A paper by Kyosuke Tanaka and Agnes Horvat, an Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at Northwestern, has been accepted and will also be included in the conference proceedings.
Their paper, titled “Network Strategies and Efficiency in Human Communication Networks,” explains the effect of networking strategies on efficiency in communication networks. Tanaka and Horvat use data-driven computer simulations to examine how manipulations in the form of added, deleted, strengthened and weakened communication channels alter the local and global efficiency of communication networks. Their results indicate that there is a clear trade-off between networking strategies and efficiency. Their findings reassess conventional wisdom about the effectiveness of networking strategies.
Citation: Tanaka, K., & Horvát, E-Á. In Press. Networking Strategies and Efficiency in Human Communication Networks. Proceedings The 7th International Conference on Complex Networks and Their Applications COMPLEX NETWORKS 2018.
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Diego Gómez-Zará presents at MESO 2018

Diego Gómez-Zará, a Ph.D. student in Technology and Social Behavior, is going to present at the Center for the Study on Media and Society in Argentina (MESO), University of San Andrés. The presentation is titled “How can we assemble better interdisciplinary teams? The ‘My Dream Team’ experience at the Universidad of Buenos Aires.” Prof. Noshir Contractor, Prof. Leslie DeChurch, and Silvia Andreoli co-authored this presentation.

He will present the My Dream Team research project conducted at Universidad de Buenos Aires in 2017. The panels will deal with topics such as networks, culture, political communication, the entertainment industry, among other topics. There will be presentations from scholars affiliated with universities throughout the region.

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Complexity Explorables by Dirk Brockmann

Complexity Explorables is a website where people easily explore some complex systems examples while playing models with fun.

For example, “I herd you!” enables you to explore how different network structures impact the spread of a disease in a population. Consequently, you can understand a phenomenon called “herd immunity”, defined that “a disease can be eradicated even if not the entire population is immunized.” The webpage is simple, yet very informative.

If you’re interested, there are many other examples and models. Check them out at http://www.complexity-explorables.org/explorables/!

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Cameron DeChurch & Noshir Contractor will present their paper in Cambridge

SONIC summer research intern Cameron DeChurch will be traveling to Cambridge, UK to present his paper at the Complex Networks 2018 conference. This summer he used historical records to construct digital networks of the collaboration among Florentine Renaissance painters. His paper with Noshir Contractor, “Using Network Science to Discover the Grand Masters of the Florentine Renaissance” finds that rather than the household names of Michelangelo and DaVinci, it was the grand masters like Verrochio and Perugino who ultimately had more impact through their lineage, by training painters who would go on to produce great works.
  
Citation:
DeChurch, C.J., & Contractor, N.S. (2018, December). Using Network Science to Discover the Grand Masters of the Florentine Renaissance. Paper presented at the International Conference on Complex Networks and Their Applications. Cambridge, UK.
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