We’ve had yet another interesting and eye-opening week of posts on network structure and dynamics. One prevalent theme was that of cascades through a network. In one example, gblogger explained the link between cascades and political primaries, specifically the currently ongoing Democratic race for the Presidential nomination. The author explained how certain demographics of voters tend to be more influenced by external signals than others, that the staunchly partisan voters within the Democratic Party are not easily swayed. In further blog posts, other authors dived into the way the media can be influenced by cascades, and how this can subsequently induce or intensify cascades within the public.

Another interesting example of cascades that a few authors discussed were emotional rather than information-based. In his post, the engine driver, went into the biology behind emotional cascades. As it turns out, we as humans are biologically hard-wired to feel empathy for others through what are known as “mirror neurons” that trigger the emotions within ourselves that observe of those around us. In another post on a similar topic, Guitar Guy, discusses laughter cascades. Recent research in the field of emotion has yielded results that confirm the conventional wisdom that laughter is in fact contagious.

Lastly, one poster, llenroc, examined Metcalfe’s Law, in terms of its original context, Ethernet. Today, Metcalfe’s Law extends far beyond this one example and is commonly cited in the study of network dynamics.