Banking Fraud Solved by Graph Analysis
Most of us have seen the crime movies where the investigator has his/her cliche bulletin board with the lines of yarn linking various pieces of evidence. However, just because Hollywood likes to overuse the setup, doesn’t mean it’s effectiveness in the real world is devalued. Mapping crimes as graphs makes it much easier for investigators […]
Forecasting the Paris Climate Talks
It time again for an international climate talk, but this one is different – contrary to the expectations of political rhetoric and empty promises, this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris is expected to introduce some changes that matter. Recent earnest pledges made by the United States and China are among the key […]
How Do You Get Into College??
From the moment I arrived at Ithaca last August, I entered a point of no return- my status as a freshman at Cornell was nonrefundable and I finally felt closure from the previous chapter of my life, one characterized by college admissions stress, stress-induced anxiety, and stress-induced peer pressure. I was quickly able to adjust to my life […]
Prison
Networks represent the interactions between multitudes of people with different personalities and backgrounds. Regardless of details such as residency, age, nationality, gender, etc. many people are connected to one another through the idea of “Six Degrees of Separation” which states that on average the length of the path, from you to […]
Postmortem Social Media
There is a thought-provoking concept coming from the UK based tech company/social network Eter9. Eter9 analyzes user behavior and patterns with regards to posting, commenting, and smiling (similar to a Facebook “like”) and through an AI program it can begin to do these activities on a user’s behalf. The idea is that even if a […]
A Network Model of Genetic Mutation
As the science of human genetics develops over time, increasing numbers of diseases are being traced and attributed to gene mutations. A gene is a section of DNA that contains encoded instructions that allow a cell to synthesize a specific protein, and when no genetic mutations are present, we expect all biochemical cellular processes to […]
How to Properly Score Pickup Basketball
Have we been playing basketball wrong this whole time? Kirk Goldsberry, of ESPN’s Grantland.com, writes a fascinating article about how the commonly accepted scoring system in most pickup basketball games is fundamentally unfair. Ideally, in any sport, all strategies are equally fair in leading a team or player to victory, with success relying on how […]
Open vs. Closed Social Graphs
The TechCrunch article cited below talks about how many social media companies – like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn – are starting to shutdown or restrict their API services. An API is an Application Programming Interface that allows developers to access the datasets, social graph, and other information that a company may store. Many of these […]
Geography and Networking
This study uses analysis of cell phone data to determine social networks. Two people calling or texting creates a tie between them, and the study uses the distance between their cell phone billing addresses as the approximate distance between the two individuals. People then voluntarily reported who their actual friends were in a blog. “Communities” […]
Tennis and Game Theory
Federer’s hopes of winning another US Open were recently squashed by Djokovic in an intense four set championship last Sunday. Although Federer managed to take the second set, at 34, his chances of coming back and defeating Novak late in the match were slim. In tennis, even more than other sports, trying to figure out […]
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