Calendar

Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences 

Kieran Marray, Laidlaw Scholar 
St. Catherine’s College
University of Oxford

FORTEC: Forecasting the Development of Artificial Intelligence up to 2050 Using Agent-Based Modeling

Friday, August 31, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity, 3rd Floor Research Hall

All are welcome to attend.

Kieran is a Laidlaw Scholar from St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. He has been visiting the Center for Social Complexity over the summer to do research in complexity economics supervised by Professor Rob Axtell.

Due to a welcome reception for new and returning CDS student, there will be no colloquium on Friday, September 7. The next one will be held on Friday, September 14.  Speaker and topic to be announced later.

Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences

William Kennedy, PhD, Captain, USN (Ret.)
Research Assistant Professor
Center for Social Complexity
Computational and Data  Sciences
College of Science

Characterizing the Reaction of the Population of NYC to a Nuclear WMD

Friday, September 14, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity, 3rd Floor Research Hall

All are welcome to attend.

Abstract:  This talk will again review the status of our multi-year project to characterize the reaction of the population of a US megacity to a nuclear WMD event 2 years into the project. Our approach has been to develop an agent-based model of the New York City area, with agents representing each of the 23 million people, and establish a baseline of normal behaviors before exploring the population’s reactions to small (5-10Kt) nuclear weapon explosions. We have the modeled the environment, agents, and their interactions, but there have been some challenges in the last year. I’ll review our status, successes, and challenges as well as near term plans.

Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences

Michael Eagle, Asst. Professor
Department of Computational and Data Sciences
George Mason University

Understanding Behavior in Interactive Environments: Deriving Meaningful Insights from Data 

Friday, September 21, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity, 3rd Floor Research Hall

All are welcome to attend.

Abstract:  Advanced learning technologies are transforming education as we know it. These systems provide a wealth of data about student behavior. However, extracting meaning from such datasets is a challenge for researchers; and often impossible for the instructors. Understanding learner behavior is critical to finding, extracting, and acting on insight found in educational data. It is equally important to have strong evaluative methodologies to explore the effectiveness of new interventions, and pinpoint when, where, and precisely what students are learning.

This talk covers the ways I have combined human modeling, qualitative, quantitative (statistical and machine learning) methods enable researchers to make sense of behavior and to produce data-driven personalization. I will have a focus on modeling of humans in interactive problem-solving environments, such as intelligent tutoring systems, online courses, and educational video games. Combining results from experimental design, machine learning, and cognitive models results in large improvements to existing learning systems, as well as powerful insights for instructors and researchers on how students behave and learn in interactive environments.

Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /
Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences

Robert Axtell, Professor
Computational Social Science Program,
Department of Computational and Data Sciences
College of Science
and
Department of Economics
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
George Mason University

Are Cities Agglomerations of People or of Firms? Data and a Model

Friday, September 28, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity, 3rd Floor Research Hall

All are welcome to attend.

Abstract:  Business firms are not uniformly distributed over space. In every country there are large swaths of land on which there are very few or no firms, coexisting with relatively small areas on which large numbers of businesses are located—these are the cities. Since the dawn of civilization the earliest cities have husbanded a variety of business activities. Indeed, often the raison d’etre for the growth of villages into towns and then into cities was the presence of weekly markets and fairs facilitating the exchange of goods. City theorists of today tend to see cities as amalgams of people, housing, jobs, transportation, specialized skills, congestion, patents, pollution, and so on, with the role of firms demoted to merely providing jobs and wages. Reciprocally, very little of the conventional theory of the firm is grounded in the fact that most firms are located in space, generally, and in cities, specifically. Consider the well-known facts that both firm and city sizes are approximately Zipf distributed. Is it merely a coincidence that the same extreme size distribution approximately describes firm and cities? Or is it the case that skew firm sizes create skew city sizes? Perhaps it is the other way round, that skew cities permit skew firms to arise? Or is it something more intertwined and complex, the coevolution of firm and city sizes, some kind of dialectical interplay of people working in companies doing business in cities? If firm sizes were not heavy-tailed, but followed an exponential distribution instead, say, could giant cities still exist? Or if cities were not so varied in size, as they were not, apparently, in feudal times, would firm sizes be significantly attenuated? In this talk I develop the empirical foundations of this puzzle, one that has been little emphasized in the extant literatures on firms and cities, probably because these are, for the most part, distinct literatures. I then go on to describe a model of individual people (agents) who arrange themselves into both firms and cities in approximate agreement with U.S. data.

Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /
Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences

Maciej Latek, Chief Technology Officer, trovero.io./
Ph.D. in Computational Social Science 2011
George Mason University

Industrializing multi-agent simulations:
The case of social media marketing, advertising and influence campaigns

Friday, October 12, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity, 3rd Floor Research Hall

All are welcome to attend.

Abstract:  System engineering approaches required to transition multi-agent simulations out of science into decision support share features with AI, machine learning and application development, but also present unique challenges. In this talk, I will use trovero as an example to illustrate how some of these challenges can be addressed.

As platform to help advertisers and marketers plan and implement campaigns on the social media, trovero is comprised of social network simulations for optimization and automation and network population synthesis used to preserve people’s privacy while maintaining a robust picture of social media communities. Social network simulations forecast campaign outcomes and pick the right campaigns for given KPIs. Simulation is the only viable way to reliably forecast campaign outcomes: Big data methods fail to forecast campaign outcomes, because they are fundamentally unfit for social network data. Network population synthesis enables working with aggregate data without relying on data sharing agreements with social media platforms that are ever more reluctant to share user data with third parties after GDPR and the Cambridge Analytica debacle.

I will outline how these two approaches complement one another, what computational and data infrastructure is required to support them and how workflows and interactions with social media platforms are organized.

Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /
Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences

J. Brent Williams

Founder and CEO
Euclidian Trust

Improved Entity Resolution as a Foundation for Model Precision 

Friday, November 2, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity, 3rd Floor Research Hall

All are welcome to attend.

Abstract: Analyzing behavior, identifying and classifying micro-differentiations, and predicting outcomes relies on the establishment of a core foundation of reliable and complete data linking. Whether data about individuals, families, companies, or markets, acquiring data from orthogonal sources results in significant matching challenges. These matching challenges are difficult because attempts to eliminate (or minimize) false positives yields an increase in false negatives. The converse is true also.

This discussion will focus on the business challenges in matching data and the primary and compounded impact on subsequent outcome analysis. Through practical experience, the speaker led the development and first commercialization of novel approach to “referential matching”. This approach leads to a more comprehensive unit data model (patient, customer, company, etc.), which enables greater computational resolution and model accuracy by hyper-accurate linking, disambiguation, and detection of obfuscation. The discussion also covers the impact of enumeration strategies, data obfuscation/hashing, and natural changes in unit data models over time.

Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /
Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences

William Lamberti, CSI PhD Student
Department of Computational and Data Sciences
George Mason University

Classifying Pill Spies Using Storks 

Friday, November 9, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity, 3rd Floor Research Hall

All are welcome to attend.

Abstract:  Simple and intuitive measures of shape are substantial challenges in image analysis and computer vision.  While measures of shape do exist, there are only a few intuitive and mathematically derived measures for other polygons.  In this talk, a measure, which we call shape proportions, for regular polygons and circles are shown.  From these proportions, we find the corresponding encircled image-histograms for classification purposes.  This method of using shape proportions and encircled image-histograms is called SPEIs (which is pronounced as ‘spy’).  An analysis using simulated and actual shape images were compared to ensure its utility.  Future work regarding applying SPEIs to NIH pill data using stratified over-representative k-folds cross-validation (abbreviated as STORKC, which is pronounced as ‘stork’) will be discussed.

Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences

Sanjay Nayar
CSS PhD Student

Title: Interlocking Directorates Analysis: Evidence from India BSE-100

Friday, November 30, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity, 3rd Floor Research Hall

All are welcome to attend.

Abstract:

Interlocked directorates among companies are common across the world and have been studied quite extensively in the Western World. This study focuses on interlocking directorates, also referred to as inter-organizational elite cooptation (Allen, 1974), among the top 100 publicly traded companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE-100) in India. The time period analyzed is between 2006 and 2010, the years spanning the recent great recession. While De (2012) looked at the performance effects of interlocking directorates within Indian business groups irrespective of their membership in BSE-100, it did not address in the analysis the key players, cliques, etc., the evolution of the interlocking over time, or any comparisons with the United States. This broad exploratory study is the first to look at the BSE-100 interlocking directorates’ network to see how it has or has not been dominated by a select group of individuals, companies or sectors during 2006-2010, along with the companies’ performances in the longer-term, given their position in the network. Some comparisons are also made with the US market using information available in published papers (Everard, 2002). This study also serves a secondary purpose of being an introduction to the interconnections between some of the biggest players in the Indian Economy/Stock Market and thus would also be of interest to those studying business in India.