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Structural Balance Property in the Rock Hyrax Community

Although social networks of humans have been studied extensively with regards to concepts such as the Structural Balance Property, not much research has been been done in attempts to apply these theories and properties to animal networks. In their paper, “Structural balance in the social networks of a wild mammal”, Amiyaal Ilany, Adi Barocas, Lee […]

Jakarta’s Gridlock

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/jakarta-to-enforce-no-garage-no-car-rule-to-tackle-traffic-jams/news-story/cb90e5fac6b0ac36bd8db88283700a70 Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, frequently ranks as having some of the worst traffic in the world. The city has been trying to tackle this issue for some time. They have started construction on a new subway system (the city’s first) in an attempt to provide functional public transportation as an alternative to driving. […]

Game Theory in Disaster Relieve

Source: http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Response-to-natural-disasters-like-Harvey-could-12115890.php The article presents some insights about how game theory can be used to improve natural disaster relief, which I think is important, especially during the period that hurricane Irma and Maria are hitting the nation and continuously cause devastation. It is worth to notice that disaster relief organizations face huge challenges, as they need to […]

Diffusion of Morality and Emotion on Twitter

Many of us would like to believe that the diffusion and acceptance of an idea or moral is based solely on its strength of structure and sound logic. But alas, this is a naive notion; like it or not, it is human nature that emotions will likely be involved in almost all forms of discourse. […]

Using Game Theory to Your Advantage

We have all been taught about how game theory works in multiple examples in class but how can we use this information to enhance our everyday lives? Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a political scientist and professor at NYU found how to use simple game theory to beat the trickiest of car salesmen at their own game. […]

Winner’s Curse and Vickrey Auction

Usually during auctions, you make your bid based on the value you are willing to pay for the object and no outside information like what other people are bidding on the same item or the true value of the item. The bidders know their own values for the item, but not the values of everyone […]

Use game theory to design buildings

There is a fascinating example of applying game theory to the design of building in this article. Mzo Tarr has used the prisoner’s dilemma and the public goods contribution game as models for designing structure. The first case introduced in this article is The Warming Hut which aimed to comfort ice skaters. It was a […]

North Korea and the Structural Balance Property

Last Thursday, North Korea flew a missile over the Japan mainland. This is just one of many North Korean missile tests since the beginning of this year. Despite the country making significant progress in its ability to miniaturize a warhead and launch at another country, the international community has found themselves in a political gridlock, […]

On Cooperation — Takeaways from Axelrod’s Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma

Source: Axelrod, Robert (1984), The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-02122-0 http://www.eleutera.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/The-Evolution-of-Cooperation.pdf   In the past, students on this same blog have alluded to Robert Axelrod’s famous Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma tournament, choosing to highlight the success of the TIT-FOR-TAT strategy (and rightfully so), and yet they fail to make full sense of the paper and some of the […]

Using Triadic Closure as a Tool for Friendship

Source: http://dailytimes.com.pk/infotainment/10-Nov-16/psychological-tricks-to-make-people-like-you-immediately The article “Psychological tricks to make peoples like you immediately” discusses how subtle tricks and small interactions can cause a person to want to be you friend. The article explores how friendships can form more by the subconscious mind than the conscious mind. In fact, some of the strategies that are used to […]

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