Calendar

COLLOQUIUM ON COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES AND INFORMATICS

Michael Eichler
Strategic Planning Advisor
Metro Office of Planning
WMATA

Metrorail and Metrobus, Data Sources and Information Needs

Monday, February 12,  4:30-5:45
Exploratory Hall, Room 3301

Abstract:  Modernization of nearly all the technology that underlies the provision of rail and bus transit service over the past 30 years has resulted in a vast amount of data that until recently has been more or less neglected.  Meanwhile, challenges that face rail and bus transit systems continue to mount, from maintaining a state of good repair to capturing and keeping riders in the age of Uber/Lyft and bike share.  The key to providing safe, convenient, affordable, and reliable transit service into the next century lies in the hands of data scientists and policy analysts.  This talk will review the different data-generating technologies and the types of data they create, followed by an exploration of the pressing issues faced by transit agencies and the questions begging for answers. 

Bio:    Michael currently serves as Strategic Planning Advisor at WMATA in the Office of Planning’s Applied Planning Intelligence unit, where he focuses on transforming data into information to help inform policy and planning decisions.  He currently focuses on fare policy, crowding, GTFS data and online tools, and customer-focused performance metrics.  Before joining WMATA in 2010, he worked for Oracle Corporation, an IT start-up, and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.   He holds a BS in Systems Analysis and Engineering from The George Washington University, and masters in City and Regional Planning and Transportation Engineering from UC Berkeley. 

COLLOQUIUM ON COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES AND INFORMATICS

 Sean Mallon, Associate Vice President
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
George Mason University
and
Eric Koefoot
Founder and CEO of PublicRelay

The Journey and Stories of a Data Science Entrepreneur

Monday, February 19, 4:30-5:45
Exploratory Hall, Room 3301

This session will feature conversation between Sean Mallon, Mason’s AVP for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Eric Koefoot, founder and CEO of PublicRelay, a venture-backed data analytics and media intelligence startup based in McLean, VA. During the discussion we will explore a wide range of topics, ranging from what inspired the initial business idea, to customer discovery, to product development challenges, to fundraising, to customer acquisition strategies, and much more. This will be a highly interactive seminar and participants are encouraged to come with questions and personal experiences to share.

Sean Mallon, Associate Vice President, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Office of the Provost. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services/George Mason University

Sean Mallon Bio: Sean Mallon is Mason’s Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Before joining Mason in 2016, Sean spent many years as an entrepreneur and early-stage technology investor. Sean hold a Bachelor’s in History from Princeton and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Eric Koefoot Bio: Formerly the CEO of U.S. News Ventures, CEO at Five Star Alliance, CFO and later VP Global Sales at Washington Post Digital, Eric is the founder and CEO of PublicRelay and brings substantial media experience and understanding. Eric holds a Bachelor’s in Engineering from MIT and an MBA from the Sloan School at MIT.

COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE FRIDAY SEMINAR

Qing Tian, Assistant Professor
Computational and Data Sciences
George Mason University

 Introduction to R for Computational and Data Science

Friday, February 23, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity Suite
3rd Floor, Research Hall

ABSTRACT:  R is a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It has gained substantially increased popularity in recent years. In addition to classical statistical analysis functionalities, it includes a wide range of packages with capabilities of data mining and machine learning, text analysis, spatial statistics, and social network analysis etc. This seminar will focus mostly on a suite of R packages that are designed to facilitate data (including social networks) visualization. These visualization functions are useful for exploratory analysis of real world data as well as output data from simulations.

COLLOQUIUM ON COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES AND INFORMATICS

Eduardo Lopez, Assistant Professor
Department of Computational and Data Sciences
George Mason University

A Network Theory of Inter-Firm Labor Flows

Monday, March 5, 4:30-5:45
Exploratory Hall, Room 3301

Abstract: Using detailed administrative microdata for two countries, we build a modeling framework that yields new explanations for the origin of firm sizes, the firm contributions to unemployment, and the job-to-job mobility of workers between firms. Firms are organized as nodes in networks where connections represent low mobility barriers for workers. These labor flow networks are determined empirically, and serve as the substrate in which workers transition between jobs. We show that highly skewed firm size distributions are a direct consequence of the connectivity of firms. Further, our model permits the reconceptualization of unemployment as a local phenomenon, induced by individual firms, leading to the notion of firm-specific unemployment, which is also highly skewed. In coupling the study of job mobility and firm dynamics the model provides a new analytical tool for industrial organization and may make it possible to synthesize more targeted policies managing job mobility.

COLLOQUIUM ON COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES AND INFORMATICS

James Glasbrenner, Assistant Professor
Department of Computational and Data Sciences
George Mason University

Using data science and materials simulations to control the corkscrew magnetism of MnAu₂

Monday, March 19, 4:30-5:45
Exploratory Hall, Room 3301

Materials occupy a foundational role in our society, from the silicon-based chips in our smartphones to the metals used to manufacture automobiles and construct buildings. The sheer variety in materials properties enables this wide range of use, and studying the atoms that bond together to form solids reveals the microscopic origin behind these properties. Remarkably, many properties can be traced to the behavior of and interaction between electrons, and computational simulations such as density functional theory calculations are used to study the features and macroscopic effects of this electronic structure. This computational approach can be further enhanced through recent advances in data science, which provide powerful tools and methods for analyzing and modeling data and for handling and storing large datasets.

In this talk, I will: 1) introduce the basic concepts of computational materials science and density functional theory in an accessible manner, and 2) present calculations on the material MnAu₂ where I use density functional theory and modeling to analyze its magnetic properties. The MnAu₂ structure is layered and its magnetic ground state forms a noncollinear corkscrew that rotates approximately 50° between neighboring manganese layers. Using the results of my calculations, I will explain the electronic origin of this corkscrew state and how to control its angle using external pressure and chemical substitution. In addition to discussing the electron physics, I will place a particular emphasis on the connection between data science and how modeling was used to analyze and interpret the density functional theory calculations. This will include a new, critical reexamination of my model fitting procedure using cross-validation and feature selection techniques, which will formally test the underlying assumptions I made in the original study.

Computational Social Science Friday Seminar

Ryan Zelnio, Ph.D.
Chief Analytics Officer
Office of Naval Research

 The Creation of the Office of Naval Research’s Data & Analytics Lab

Friday, March 23, 3:00-4:30 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity Suite
Research Hall, 3^rd Floor

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. It administers the Naval Research Enterprise (NRE) investment portfolio of $2B annually in Naval relevant science and technologies (S&T) ranging from basic research to technology prototyping. This portfolio covers over 3000 grant and contract awards annually over a large variety of technologies.  In FY2017 alone, the basic and applied research portfolio (which is less than 50% of its budget) funded 4,411 scientific articles, 2,732 conference papers, 343 theses, 204 books & book chapters and 88 patents. However, while this portfolio is large, it is a drop in the bucket within the global research & development (R&D) enterprise.  In an attempt to understand this vast amount of data being produced both within the NRE and globally, ONR recently stood up the Data & Analytics Lab.  Its mission is to support strategic decision making at the Office of Naval Research with in-depth analysis of the NRE portfolio to enhance mission effectiveness for U.S. Naval Forces. This new lab is led by Mr. Matt Poe and includes Dr. Ryan Zelnio (2013 GMU SPP grad) serving as the Chief Analytics Officer and LCDR Nick Benes serving as the Chief Data Officer.  This lab seeks to harness ONR’s investments in social network analysis, machine learning, natural language processing, data visualization, supervised and unsupervised clustering, and many other data science tools to support decision processes across the NRE. Their talk will cover the range of challenges facing their lab as they stand up their effort and discuss the broader move within the federal government to better apply the tools of data science to understand the complexity of the R&D enterprise.  They will also discuss future partnering and internship opportunities.

COLLOQUIUM ON COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES AND INFORMATICS

Dr. Peer Kröger, Professor
Chair of Database Systems and Data Mining
Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich

TBA

Monday, March 26, 4:30-5:45
Exploratory Hall, Room 3301

Details coming soon….

COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE FRIDAY SEMINAR

By Christopher Carroll and Jacquelyn Kazil

Christopher Carroll, Professor
Department of Economics
Johns Hopkins University

Title: Introduction to The Economics ARK (Algorithmic Repository and toolKit)

Abstract:
The Econ-ARK/HARK toolkit is a modular and extensible open source toolkit for solving, simulating, and estimating heterogeneous-agent (HA) models in economics and the social sciences. Although the value of models of this kind has been clear both to academics and to policymakers for a long time, the code for implementing such models has so far been handcrafted and idiosyncratic. As a result, it may take years of human capital development for a new researcher to become proficient enough in these methods to contribute to the literature. The seminar will describe how the Heterogeneous Agents Resources and toolKit (HARK) eases this burden by providing a robust framework in which canonical examples of such models are solved. The toolkit provides object-oriented tools for representing heterogeneous agents, solution methods for solving or characterizing their dynamic choice problems, and a framework for representing the environment in which agents interact. The aim of the toolkit is to become the go-to resource for heterogeneous agent modelers, by providing a well-designed, well-documented, and powerful platform in which they can develop their own work in a robust and replicable manner.

Bio:
I am a professor of economics at JHU and co-chair of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s working group on the Aggregate Implications of Microeconomic Consumption Behavior. Originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, I received my A.B. in Economics from Harvard University in 1986 and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990. After graduating from M.I.T., I worked at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington DC, where I prepared forecasts for consumer expenditure. I moved to Johns Hopkins University in 1995 and also spent 1997-98 working at the Council of Economic Advisors in Washington, where I analyzed Social Security reform proposals, tax and pension policy, and bankruptcy reform. Aside from my current work at Hopkins and the NBER, I am also an associate editor at the Review of Economics and Statistics,(ReStat) the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, (JBES) and the Berkeley Electronic Journal of Macroeconomics (BEJM).

My research has primarily focused on consumption and saving behavior, with an emphasis on reconciling the empirical evidence from both microeconomic and macroeconomic sources with theoretical models. (In addition to articles in economic journals, I’ve authored Encyclopedia Britannica articles on consumption related topics.) My most recent research has focused on the dynamics of expectations formation, particularly on how expectations reflect households’ learning from each other and from experts. This focus flows from a career-long interest in consumer sentiment and its determinants.

Jacquelyn Kazil
CSS PhD Student
Title: Mesa, Agent-based modeling library in Python 3

Abstract:
Python has grown significantly in the scientific community, but there is no tool or reusable framework to do agent-based modeling (ABM) in Python. While there are well-established frameworks in other languages, the lack of one in the Python language is at odds with the growth of Python in the scientific community. As a result, we created an ABM framework called Mesa in Python 3 with sustained contributions. Mesa is built to be modular, so the backend server, the frontend visualization and tooling, the batch runner, and the data collector are each separate components that can be upgraded independently from each other. In addition to this, Mesa is extensible and meant to be decoupled from domain specific add-ons. This empowers the community to develop features and add-ons independent of the core Mesa library. In this talk, Jackie will set the stage for her Ph.D by providing an overview Mesa’s past, present, and proposed future, along with how that fits in the ABM ecosystem of other tooling.

COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE FRIDAY SEMINAR

Henry Smart, III, PhD candidate
Virginia Tech

Friday, April 20,  3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity Suite
3rd Floor, Research Hall

Abstract:
Colorism is the allocation of privilege and disadvantage based on skin color, with a prejudice for lighter skin. This project uses agent-based modeling (computational simulation) to explore the potential effects of colorism on local policing. I argue that colorism might help to explain some of the racial disparities in the United States’ criminal justice system. I use simulated scenarios to explore the plausibility of this notion in the form of two questions: 1) How might colorism function within an organization; and 2) What might occur when managers apply the typical dilemmatic responses to detected colorism? The simulated world consists of three citizen-groups (lights, mediums, and darks), five policy responses to detected colorism, and two policing behaviors (fair and biased). Using NetLogo, one hundred simulations were conducted for each policy response and analyzed using one-way ANOVA and pairwise comparison of means. When the tenets of colorism were applied to an organizational setting, only some of the tenets held true. For instance, those in the middle of the skin color spectrum experienced higher rates incarceration when aggressive steps were taken to counter colorism, which ran counter to the expectations of the thought experiment. The study identified an opportunity to expand the description of colorism to help describe the plight of those in the middle of the skin color spectrum. The major contributions from this work include a conceptual model that describes the relationship between the distinct levels of colorism and it progresses the notion of interactive colorism. The study also produced conditional statements that can be converted into hypotheses for future experiments.

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.