Evolution of Information Discovery
by Victor Lee

The Network of Foreign Assistance
by Ted Perkins

Links invites people from all academic disciplines interested in the intersection between Networks, Economic Complexity, Visualizations and Development.

Location:

Links will take place at the MIT Media Lab Conference Space, Located in the 6th Floor of MIT’s E-14 Building.

Dates: July 22-23, 2013	Focus Areas: Economic Complexity & Development Networks Cultural Expresions & Digital Humanities Information Visualization Art and Technology Cities	Scientific Committee: To be announced	Keynotes: Beth Noveck, NYU Ethan Zuckerman, MIT Media Lab Fernanda Viegas & Martin Wattenberg, Google Manuel Lima, Microsoft Jessika Trancik, MIT Mauro Martino, IBM

Call for Papers:

We are inviting the wide academic community to contribute talks by submitting a short abstract describing the work being presented. The time allocated for each presentation will be determined after submissions have been collected with the goal of being as inclusive possible.

Submissions will be accepted up to June 14, 2013.

Call for Artwork:

We are inviting people wanting to exhibit their works of Art to submit brief descriptions of the Art work they are looking to present. Artwork should be such to be presented in the conference space.

Submissions will be accepted up to June 14, 2013.

Program:

Registration for this program is free. Please register HERE.

	Monday July 22		Tuesday July 23
	9:00-9:10am	Welcome	9:00-9:50am	Keynote 2
	9:10-10:30am	Contributed Session 1	9:50-10:10am	Coffee Break
	10:50-11:30am	Keynote 1	10:10am-12:10pm	Contributed Session 4
	11:30-12:30pm	Contributed Session 2	12:10pm-1:30pm	Lunch
	12:30-2:00pm	Lunch	1:30pm-2:10pm	Keynote 3
	2:00pm-4:00pm	Contributed Session 3	2:10pm-4:00pm	Contributed Session 5
	4:00pm-5:00pm	Tea Time	4:10pm-5:00pm	Closing Remarks
	5:00pm-8:00pm	World Economic Forum G.A.C. Design & Innovation G.A.C. on Complexity*	5:00pm-8:00pm	Reception

*G.A.C. = Global Agenda Council

Instructors: Catherine Havasi, Cesar A. Hidalgo, Sepandar Kamvar and Ethan Zuckerman

Meeting Days and Format:

DCP will meet 6 times during the fall semester. During these meetings students will present their projects and will receive feedback from the faculty and students. Faculty will use the presentations to discover the strength and weakness of students and adapt the lecture materials to strengthen the perceived weaknesses.

Meeting Days:

1. Tuesday, October 9 (3pm-5pm)

All Students will bring with them a 5-7 minute presentation summarizing what they are planning to work on during the semester. The presentation should summarize (i) What is the project about? (ii) Why is that a relevant object of study? (iii) How are they planning to push the project forward? (iv) What are the challenges that they are currently facing?

2. Tuesday, November 6 (3pm-5pm)

3. Tuesday, November 20 (3pm-5pm)

4. Tuesday, December 4 (3pm-5pm)

5. Tuesday, December 11 (3pm-5pm)

6. Tuesday, December 18 (3pm-5pm)

Grading:

DCP is a letter-graded course. Students will be evaluated based on presentations summarizing their progress.

Requirements:

Since DCP is a project-oriented course, students are encouraged to come with their own research project. Students that want to joint he course, but are not involved in a research project are invited to either develop a project or collaborate with other students. Basic ability to program and create graphics is a must.

Final Project Videos:

Disclaimer: These videos are not representative of the views or opinions of MIT or the Media Lab. Any and all information perceived in these videos should be considered the sole opinions of the producers and writers of the videos. If you have questions about the content, please contact the creator(s) of the video.

MAS 581 (MIT) | API 309 (HKS) – Spring 2013 (Starting Feb 5)

An Introduction to Network Science

Instructor: Cesar A. Hidalgo PhD

Teaching Assistants: Amy Yu & Daniel Smilkov

Prof. Hidalgo Office Hours in E14-348H:

Fridays, 4-5PM only. Please email varounny@media.mit.edu to make an appointment.

Teaching Assistants:

Office Location: E14-464K
Amy Yu Office Hours: Fridays, 12-1PM only.
Daniel Smilkov Office Hours: Wednesdays, 11AM-12PM only.
To schedule with TAs please email: mas581@media.mit.edu

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.

Guidelines for homework:
• Label all figures clearly.
• When using formulas, provide descriptions for all variables.
• Typeset all submissions (using Microsoft Word is acceptable)
• Staple your homework.
• Put your name on your homework.

• 50% Presentation/Class Project – Students will hone their skills developed during the course through a research project that they will conduct as a team or individually.
• 10% Class Participation/Attendance

Class Projects:

The course will be divided into two modes of evaluation: Learners and Researchers.

The learner track is designed for students that want to become familiar with the basic concepts in network science, but are not actively pursuing research involving networks.  During the semester, students in this track will produce a video of no more than 20-minutes that will teach a general educated audience about one of the topics described in the course.  It is the responsibility of the student to make sure the video is well produced, understandable and engaging.

Learners will be required to hit the following milestones:

March 5 – Storyboard

Learners will present a storyboard describing the video they are looking to create.

April 2 – Rough Cut

Learners will show a first complete version of the video they are producing.  This will be uploaded into YouTube and the URL will be shared with the class no later than March 30.  The video will be reviewed in class on April 2.

May 7, 14 – Final Video Screening

Students will present their final video lesson, incorporating the comments and suggestions collectied during the semester.  Learners can team up into teams of no more than 2 people.

The researcher track is designed for students actively engaging in research in the field of networks and/or data science.  Students willing to participate in the research track will need to have a clear idea of the research project they will be conducting during the semester.

Researchers will be required to present updates of their work satisfying the following milestones:

February 12 – Proposal

Students will present a 5-minute talk outlining the research they will be conducting throughout the course.

March 12 – Five-Minute Talk

Students will present a 5-minute talk summarizing their preliminary findings.

April 9 – Poster Presentation

Students will present a conference quality poster summarizing their findings.

May 7, 14 – Ten-Minute Talk

Students will give a TED-type talk of no more than 10 minutes summarizing their key findings. Researchers can team up into teams of no more than 2 people.

Schedule:

Feb 5-Intro & Random Networks

Feb 12-Small World and Scale Free Networks (HW1)

Feb 19-NO CLASS

Feb 26-Implications of Scale Free Networks (HW1 due, HW2)

March 5-Structural Measures in Networks

March 12-Structural Measures in Networks (2) (HW2 due)

March 19-Preliminary Findings / Social Networks (Harvard Spring Break, Will have classes)

March 26-SPRING BREAK MIT – NO CLASS

April 2-Measurements and Information in Systems (HW3)

April 9-The Product Space & Economic Complexity

April 16-Formal Models of Economic Complexity (HW3 due)

April 23-MIT Member’s Week – NO CLASS


April 30-Economic Complexity continued

May 7-Project Presentations 1

May 14-Project Presentations 2

Class Material

Class 1

Download PPT (1): Networks Complexity and their Applications

Class 2

Readings

Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age

Rich Get Richer

Hubs and Connectors

Six Degrees of Separation

The network takeover

Homework

Homework 1
Homework 1 Solution

Slides

Download PPT(2): Structure of Random Networks

Class 3

Readings

Predictability of Epidemics

Epidemic Spreading on Scale-Free Networks

Error and Attack Tolerance

Slides

Download PPT(3): Implications of Small World and Scale-Free Networks

Class 4

Readings

The Architecture of Complexity

Slides

Download PPT(4): Network Measures

Class 5

Readings

Dunbar, The Social Brain Hypothesis

Newman Short Modularity Review

Slides

Download PPT(5), Community Structure

Homework

Homework 2 Due
Homework 2 Solution

Class 6

Homework

HW3, due Apr 16
HW3 Script

Class 7

Readings

Christakis and Fowler, The Spread of Obesity

Coleman, Social Capital

Link Prediction Problem

Slides

Download PPT(6), Social Network

Class 8

Readings

Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society

Hidalgo, What you loose when you add (working chapter)

McPherson, Smith-Lovin & Cook, Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks

Homework

Homework 3 Due

Slides

Download PPT(7), Measurements and Simplifications

Class 9

Readings

The Atlas of Economic Complexity (Read Chapters 1-7)

The Network Structure of Economic Output (don’t get overwhelmed by the formulas if you are not mathematical)

Slides

Download PPT(8), Economic Complexity and The Wealth of Nations

We Got Connected!

Thanks to everyone! This turned out to be an amazing learning opportunity!!

Logistics

(X,Y) = E14-633, The MIT Media Lab

T = December 17, 2012 (Starting 10am, until the last talk is done ~7ish)

After Hours= Social Event To Be Decided.

Scientific Committee (alphabetical):

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
Nicholas Christakis
Nathan Eagle
Marta Gonzalez
Ricardo Hausmann
Cesar A. Hidalgo
David Lazer (pronounced as “Lazar”)
Jukka-Pekka Onnela
Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland
Alessandro Vespignani

Applications/Submission/Selection Criteria:

Students and postdocs wanting to apply to Connect1ons will need to submit a document, or email, with (i) title, name and affiliation, plus a ~100-500 word abstract, and (ii) a figure/visualization/info-graphic associated with the work. The deadline for submissions is Friday, December 7.

The committee will make its best to accomodate as many presentations as possible, and will communicate the program, together with the length of the presentations by Wednesday December 12. The selection will consider the scientific contribution but also a set of diversity, criteria, such as gender diversity, and the inclusion of people from different research groups or labs.

Submissions need to be sent to varounny@media.mit.edu . Please include “Submission to Connections by NAME” in the Email Title.

Program

Talks need to be 10 minutes or less.

Please bring your own laptop.  There will be a Mac Doyle, a clicker, and a projector.  

* The themes of the program reflect the loosely emergent themes from the submissions received. In some cases, it was not possible to group submissions into a topic.

** For brevity and simplicity, we indicate the name of research groups using the last name of the advisor, when this was made available.

9:30am-9:50am Muffins and Coffee.

10:00am-10:05am Introduction

10:05am-11:05am Session 1: Network Sampling

-Segiy Nesterko. Harvard Statistics Department (Blitzstein’s Lab)
Visualizing and modeling respondent driven systems.

-Ravi Goyal. Harvard Biostatistics Department
Network Construction for Sampled Ego-Centric Data Applied to HIV Intervention Programs

-Michele Coscia, Muhammed Yildirim and Frank Neffke. Harvard Center for International Development (Hausmann’s Lab)
A Random Walk Based Approach to the Creation of Network Maps from N-Partite Data

-Fabio Ciulla. Northeastern University.
Detecting Damage in Sampled Networks

-Carlos Herrera. MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering (Gonzalez’s Lab)
A geographic model for social relationships.

11:05am-12:05pm Session 2: Epidemic Spreading

-Marcelo Gomes. Northeastern University (Vespignani’s Lab)
Spreading of Infectious Diseases Considering Age Contact Patterns for Latin America.

-Rumi Chunara. Harvard Medical School.
Empirical Measurement of Influenza Serial Interval in Household Networks.

-Luca Rossi. Northeastern University (Vespignani’s Lab)
Global and Local Outbreak for a metapopulation SEIR model with isolation measures.

-Jeff Alstott. University of Cambridge.
Determinants of Mobilization Speed on Social Networks.

-Alison Hill. Harvard University (Nowak’s Lab)
Disease Competition in Network Structured Populations

12:05am-12:35pm Short Session 1: (Pout-pourri)

-Mikail Rubinov, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge.
Weighted and spatial characterization of human brain functional connectomes.

-Deepak Jagdish. The MIT Media Lab (Hidalgo’s Lab)
Immersion

12:35pm-2:00pm Lunch

Please use lunch as an opportunity to connect with other people. Lunch options in Kendall include the Clover food truck, Au Bon Pain, Champions, Qdoba, Momo Goose Food Truck, Sebastian’s and Cosi.

2:00pm-3:00pm Session 3: Economics and Political Science

-Dhaval Adjodah, The MIT Media Lab (Pentland’s Lab)
Untitled work on social incentives.

-Michael Kowal, University of Massachusetts.
The Fates of Challengers in U.S. House Elections: The Role of Extended Party Networks.

-Daniel Stock, The MIT Media Lab (Hidalgo’s Lab)
Untitled on the predictability of industry-location networks.

-Julian Caballero, The Inter-American Development Bank (Powell Lab)
Network Analysis of the Syndicated Loan Market.

-Jameson Toole. MIT ESD (Gonzalez’s Lab)
Layoff detection through mobile phones

3:00pm-4:00pm Session 4: Culture and Digital Humanities

-Shahar Ronen, The MIT Media Lab (Hidalgo’s Lab)
The Language Group Network

-Andrea Baronchelli, Northeastern University.
Spatial and temporal scales in Twitter signal.

-Zenovia Toloudi, Harvard GSD.
Connecting Tastes with Architectural Identities through a crowdsourced Language of Form.

-Qian Zhang. Northeastern University (Vespignani’s Lab)
Characterizing scientific production and consumption in physics.

-Amy Yu. The MIT Media Lab (Hidalgo’s Lab)
Cultural Exports

4:00pm-4:10pm Break

4:10pm-5:10pm Session 5: Mobiles, Social Media and Privacy

-Marton Karsai. Northeastern University.
Spatiotemporal correlations of handset-based service usage.

-Christian Schneider. MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering. (Gonzalez’s Lab)
Self Similarity in Human Behavior.

-Scott Greenwald. The MIT Media Lab (Pentland’s Lab)
WeBrowse: Navigating high dimensional data sharing settings with a data-driven search process.

-Erez Shmueli. The MIT Media Lab (Pentland’s Lab)
Privacy by Diversity in Sequential Releases of Databases.

-Yu-Ru Lin. Northeastern University (Lazer’s Lab)
Rising tides or rising stars? Dynamics of shared attention on Twitter during media events.

5:10pm-6:10pm Session 6: Transportation and Public Health

-Dimitris Papanikolaou. Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The Market Economy of Trips: A Matching Market Mechanism for Self-organizing Bike Sharing Systems.

-Serdar Colak. MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering (Gonzalez’s Lab)
Emergence of Congestion In Road Networks.

-Alison Hwong & David Kim. Harvard Medical School (Christakis Lab)
Network-Based Health Interventions in Rural Honduras.

-Abigail Horn. MIT ESD.
Entropy as a measure of network traceability.

-Vivek Singh. The MIT Media Lab (Pentland’s Lab)
Untitled on what makes people happy.

6:10pm-7:10pm Session 7: Last Session

-Daniel Smilkov. The MIT Media Lab (Hidalgo’s Lab)
Heterogeneity and homophily in epidemic spreading.

-Wei Pan. The MIT Media Lab (Pentland’s Lab)
Eliciting Predictions from a Connected Crowd of Traders.

-Brian Keegan. Northeastern University (Lazer’s Lab)
Voices of Victory: A Computational Focus Group Framework for Tracking Opinion Shifts in Real Time

-Maksim Kitsak. Northeastern University. (Barabasi’s Lab)
Network Cosmology.

-Ozge Karanfil, MIT Sloan
Framingham Obesity Model: Spread of Obesity and Network Based Interventions

7:10pm Adjourn

7:30pm Beer at Champions

For those that still have energy after the event, Champions is the bar located next to the Marriot, near the Kendall T-Stop.

Cambridge Nights is a Science Late Night show that we make at the MIT Media Lab. Check it out here

As with most historical hypotheticals, we will never know. We are in 2012, however, and despite the Internet, most countries are still stuck in one-bit democracies, where people are required to choose between two choices every four to six years.

People, however, do not appear to be extremely happy with the outcomes of one-bit democracies. One-bit democracies have important design limitations. For example, their requirement to choose candidates, rather than issues, focuses the little bandwidth available in the political system on candidates’ personas, rather than on relevant issues.

This time around, however, technology is ready to provide alternatives. The web is the ideal media to handle a large number of discussions, about different issues, in an asynchronous and decentralized manner. The web is the technological vehicle that democracy had always been waiting for, if we give it a little push.

We need direct online participation because people tend to own the decisions that they make, more than the decisions that are made for them by those whom they have chosen to represent them. Direct forms of online participation will not only empower people with the power to decide, but will also help transfer the political responsibility of their decisions back to them.

Participie is a small design effort started by Ali Almossawi and Cesar A. Hidalgo as a course project at The MIT Media Lab. It is our modest attempt to start discovering what designs work and how to create active communities around them.

To make direct participation work, we need your participation. In this first release we are making available two questions. “How should the Federal Budget be distributed?” and “What should Obama and Romney clarify their positions about?“ We hope that you enjoy our little experiment, and we hope to grow together with your clicks and comments!

Looking forward to your participation!

For more information on Place Pulse visit the project’s site at Place Pulse , or take a look at some of the popular press coverage of the project atThe Guardian or at FastCo Design , Spanish Television, Pop Up City and Microsiervos.