Background Information: The degree of separation in a network is equal to the average length of the shortest path between pairs of nodes. Extracting the degrees of separation for a large network is computationally demanding. The computation involves averaging the degrees of separation of each individual node in the network. Thus, the time required to […]

In my last blog, I investigated the time taken for a giant component to develop in a social network.In that experiment, when the largest component contained the majority of people in the population, I stopped the simulation and recorded the time taken. If I were to continue the simulation, we’ll observe that the giant component […]

This article explores how the Syphilis evolved from different forms to become more evolutionary stable.
Syphilis was known to cause “Boils that stood out like Acorns, from whence issued such filthy stinking Matter, that whosoever came within the Scent, believed himself infected. The Colour of these was of a dark Green and the very Aspect as […]

Scientists have found that the brain works like a social network or the internet. The brain carries information from one area to another in the same way that information is spread on the internet or through a social network. Information spreads through small networks of nodes and to get from one node to another only […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/health/research/29heart.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=login
This article from the New York Times titled “Genes Explain Race Disparity in Response to a Heart Drug” explains why some heart patients experience no improvement in their condition when taking beta blockers. As it turns out, there is a certain kind of gene variant in up to 40% of blacks and up to 2% […]

It has been frequently mentioned in class that the spread of disease, technology, or ideas may be modeled by social networks. In addition to those aspects, however, it was found by the National Institute of Health (NIH) that the spread of obesity can also be modeled by social networks, such as the social influence of […]

There is an interesting article in the MIT technology review about a research project called “Reality Mining” that was tangentially related to our discussion of disease today in lecture. In partnership with Nokia Research, Nathan Eagle, a doctoral student, and his advisor, Sandy Pentland use mobile phones to collect data about user behavior. This data […]

Networks through Vaccination
 NY Times Article/Letter
Most people would think, flu season is coming up, time to get a flu vaccination.  It’s natural to want to be protected from the latest or upcoming epidemics, such as the flu or measles.  Unfortunately that is not the case with everyone.  Some adults are not willing to pay for vaccinations […]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/320/5874/323
In relation to the “Rich get richer phenomena” and “power laws”, Geoscience recently published an article describing how these emerging studies are relevent beyond the social world of stocks, social networks, and web page popularity. The article focuses on complexity and non-universiality (non-normal models). “One such avenue is based on the science of complexity, […]

In our class, we have discussed a simplistic model to analyze to the diffusion of new technologies through a network of people. Our model operates in the framework of a coordination game, where we consider the payoffs to a pair of adjacent nodes if they adopt either technology. From these payoffs, a threshold value can […]