Courses

SPRING 2012: Networks and Its Applications

MAS 961 (MIT) | API 309 (HKS) – Spring 2012 (Starting Feb 9)

Instructor: Cesar A. Hidalgo PhD

We will have class Thursday April 26! This will help make up for the time lost last week. Tell your classmates if you see this!

Goal:

Networks are an ubiquitous way to represent complex systems, including those in the social and economic sciences. The goal of the course is to equip students with conceptual tools that can help them understand complex systems that emerge in both nature and social systems. This is a course intended for a general audience and will discuss applications of networks and complexity to diverse systems, including epidemic spreading, social networks and the evolution of economic development.

Summary:

Complex systems, such as the cell, cities or the economy, are formed by heterogeneous collections of components and interactions. During recent years the science of networks emerged as an alternative approach to analyze the structure and evolution of complex systems. In this course, we introduce the basic concepts and applications of network science for a general audience. The course will cover:

Basic network models;
A wide array of statistics used to characterize the structure and dynamics of networks;
Examples of naturally occuring networks in biology, technology, and social systems, including social networks and economic networks; and
Theories and applications of networks and complexity science that can be used to explain and understand the structure of the studied systems.

Evaluation

Students will be evaluated through homework, presentations, class participation and by the questions students ask the invited speakers.

40% Homework – There will be four HW assignments in total.
50% Presentation/Class Project – Students will hone their skills developed during the course through a research project that they will conduct as a team. This year’s project will be “The Connected History.”
10% Class Participation/Attendance

The readings presented in the course are suggested.

When readings are required they will be announced in class.

The class will not follow any text book closely, but we recommend Mark Newman’s book “Networks, An Introduction” for those interested in a text book they can use for reference.

Class Plan

Feb 9 Intro & Random Networks
Feb 16 Small World and Scale Free Networks (HW1)
Feb 23 Implications of Scale Free Networks
March 1 Structural Measures in Networks (HW2)
March 8 Social Networks
March 15 (Harvard Spring Break)Measurements and Information in Systems (HW3)
March 22 —-In Class Project Push—-
March 29 SPRING BREAK MIT(No Class)
April 5 Economic Complexity
April 12 The Product Space (HW4)
April 19 Evolution
April 26 MIT Member’s Week (There will be class!!! )
May 3 — Final Project Push—-
May 10 Project Presentation