Murder by Structure
Source: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/departments/society-human-development-and-health/files/a.p.art.2009.pdf The above link goes to a paper titled, “Murder by Structure: Dominance Relations and the Social Structure of Gang Homicide.” I apologize for the length of the article, but definitely try and read the abstract, intro and scan through the article for the accompanying diagrams of the network structure that results from gang […]
The Curse of Curves
One of the major issues in an academic setting is cheating. And, there is significant evidence that it is more widespread than most would imagine. According to this source: http://www2.newsadvance.com/lifestyles/2011/sep/19/lifetime-cheating-ar-1321580/ 82% of alumni admit to having cheated in college. Why is this? Most students at Cornell are familiar with the curve system. Grades in many […]
Network Analysis of the ownership of Global Corporations
A recent study by Vitali, Glattfelder, and Battiston entitled “The network of global corporate control” revealed several remarkable aspects of the ownership interactions between a sample set of the 600,508 most powerful trans-national corporations (TNCs). This type of analysis has been previously attempted and failed to gather any significant results, however all previous attempts have […]
Game of Chicken in NCAA Sports
Syracuse and Pittsburgh recently announced that they will be leaving the Big East athletic conference to join the ACC. This move could be the first domino to fall in a major realignment of college athletic programs. Texas and Oklahoma are currently in talks to move to the Pac-12, and would most likely bring Texas Tech […]
The Strength of Weak Ties
I recently learned about Business Networks International. It is an organization of people who provide referrals for each other. One special feature of the organization is that, to prevent competition among chapter members, only one person from a professional specification or specialty can be a member of a given chapter. BNI’s website claims to have […]
Game Theory in “The Dark Knight”
In 2008, director Christopher Nolan produced award winning movie, “The Dark Knight.” Not only does this film have spectacular cinematography and an accomplished cast, but “The Dark Knight” also incorporates game theory that leads to the demise of many cast members. While game theory is intertwined throughout the entire movie, I would like to examine […]
Doping in Cycling
In cycling, doping has been a serious issue for many years. Numerous winners of the Tour de France and elite cyclists have been caught using performance enhancing drugs and been banned from the sport for varying periods of time. This widespread cheating can easily be explained by game theory, as the author shows. He starts […]
Circles, Smart Lists, What’s Next?
Click here for the related article! In a direct response to Google Plus’ social networking “Circles” feature, Facebook recently revamped its friend categorization process with the introduction of “Smart Lists.” Both features involve organizing friends into groups. Ideally, these groups make it easier to manage the information users share with different types of “friends” (because […]
Virtual Economies
http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/4_1/kent.html In our modern world, millions of people log into online games everyday to spend hours in a seemingly meaningless virtual reality. But the worlds of MMOs (massive multiplayer online) and MMORPGs (massive multiplayer online role playing games) are just that, worlds. Their servers house networks of players that are larger than entire countries. They […]
Sustainability with Game Theory
With a new study from scientists at Michigan State University, there may be a possibility to incorporate game theory into UN sustainability talks (article here). The idea is that the current model of motivating countries to adopt sustainability plans and meet environmental goals does not really work and it only makes the countries not want […]
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