Factors that influence triadic closure in social networks
A recent study has sought to establish a predictive model of the factors that influence the formation of closed triads in two popular microblogging sites: Twitter and Weibo. The property of strong triadic closure holds that in a situation where two nodes (A and B, for example) are linked by strong ties to a third […]
The Oracle of Bacon
There is a statistic available for any actor known as that actor’s “Bacon Number.” It reports fewest number of links needed to relate that actor to Kevin Bacon through movies. Two people are linked if they were in a movie together. For example George Clooney was in “And They Are Off” with Bill Allen, and […]
Hinge – Optimizing Strong Triadic Closure Through Online Dating
Meeting people via dating apps is becoming increasingly status quo, however there are several apps that mainly focus on encouraging hookups between two parties, instead of fostering connections based on mutual friends or mutual interests. For example, Tinder, an incredibly popular app, brings people together based on a user’s Facebook profile picture and swipes to […]
Chimp Outperforms Human in Game
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chimps-outplay-humans-in-brain-games1/ A game was set up in which two different players have two potential moves. Each player can either choose to press button 1 or button 2. The catch is that player A wins if both players press the same button. Player B wins if the two buttons differ. This game is performed repetitively, forcing […]
Braess’ Paradox in Chemical Processes
Braess’ Paradox is the situation where a more convenient path between two points is added, yet the Nash Equilibrium payoffs for all the players are lower. Sure, this sounds like a fun bit of trivia, but what if we got rid of human choice and replaced it with chemical equilibria? After all, chemicals have their […]
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