How social networks predict epidemics
In class, we have been talking about epidemics and its spread in a network. However, we don’t know whether we can detect the epidemic before the CDC learns about its nature. This is what Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician, studied through the help of social networks, defined as the group of connections people make […]
The Shipping stocks rally in November
http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/17/a-perfect-storm-sent-this-shipping-stock-up-2000-t.aspx The stock market, as unpredictable as it is, does follow some patterns. The most common pattern observed during periods of high volatility is one-directional movement. For instance, reaction to a Federal Reserve decision, or an election result, is usually followed by sharp and heavy movement of the commodity in one direction, depending on the […]
Higher Education as Signaling Quality
Suppose there is a labor market with productive workers and not productive workers. The workers, sellers of their own labor, know if they’re productive or not because there’s information asymmetry. The worker’s potential employers, who are buying this labor, would rather hire productive workers. Higher education has a two-fold benefit: it can improve the workers’ […]
Contagion and the Spread of HIV through Opiate Abuse
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has identified opiate abuse as a major factor in the spread of HIV. Addicts tend to share and reuse needles when injecting drugs such as heroin into their blood stream. This is a practice that is particularly widespread among white addicts, as 45 percent of which reported sharing […]
The Fake News Paradox
Since the election, the news has been playing an interesting meta game with itself, generating article after article about news, more specifically fake news. While there have been innumerable inflammatory articles on exaggerated and twisted statements made by various presidential candidates, even more startling are the outrageous stories such as the fake CNN porn scare that spread […]
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