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Cheating in auction

Cheating is achieving some goals with dishonest means. It occurs in many areas, including auction, especially online auction. Either a bidder or an auctioneer could cheat in auction. For example, a bidder can bid on the same item multiple times with different aliases online. This is called Multiple bidding. Another way of cheating is bid […]

Proximity and Triadic Closure

The article entitled “The dynamics of the inventor network in German biotechnology: geographic proximity versus triadic closure” by Ann L. J. Ter Wal  (http://joeg.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/01/25/jeg.lbs063.full) discusses how proximity plays a role in networks, especially with regard to triadic closure: the idea that if A has a strong relationship with both B and C,  then B and C […]

Game Theory of Everyday Decisions

Everyday people make multiple decisions, both big and small, where they evaluate options and make decisions based on what their friends and family are doing. Larger decisions range from deciding whether to accept a new job and quit an old one, move to a new city, or start a new relationship. In general, we are […]

Social Connectivity: Opposite of Loneliness?

Relationships are an integral part of life: physical attraction/repulsion caused by magnetism/gravity, chemical bonds between molecules/ions, biogeographically separated ecological niches, and socioeconomic ingroups/outgroups. These are all networks. And so we come to the one people are most familiar with, social networks. We identify ourselves by the social units and relationships that tether us, and consequently, […]

Mapping the spread of ebola, past, present, and future

About 9 months ago, what would become the worst ebola outbreak in recorded history began. The US has just pledged a significant amount of both military personnel and medical supplies to the Ebola-stricken countries. Because ebola can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or body, a graph […]

Bipartite Graphs: A Useful Tool for Monsoon Season

Some of the most devastating weather events have been recorded during the monsoon season in India. In Kolkata, pre-monsoon season occurs in April and May, a time in which life-threatening thunderstorms, hail, high winds, and occasional tornadoes cause much devastation. In order to decrease the extent of this devastation, better modeling of weather systems has […]

Sari sellers and the strength of weak ties

In class, we discussed how many people found pertinent information relating to their present jobs through acquaintances instead of their close friends. This is at odds with what we may commonly believe as it is assumed that we know our close friends better and that they are more likely to offer help as compared to […]

Social Networking and Happiness

A large social network that can connect you to your future job or internship may be deemed as practical. However, some people may not realize that the convenience of having a large group of friends may also make you feel happier. According to the research that was published by the British Medical Journal that drew […]

Improving Drug Delivery using Network Analysis

An interesting application of networks and graph theory is the improvement of drug delivery systems and locations. A short lecture given by Ernest Fraenkel (sourced below) touches on the intersection between system biology and network systems. Cells, proteins, genes, chemicals, and other biological components can potentially be as viewed as nodes, while their interactions–for example, […]

Athlete’s dilemma – The Economist

This article presents an interesting discussion about drug usage in sports and it’s relation to concepts of game theory. Usually, game theory analysis of drug usage in sports considers only the competitors point of view, and this may not be an adequate model to describe the situation. In the simplest analysis, the game is similar […]

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