The Anatomy of Large Facebook Cascades
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/the-anatomy-of-large-facebook-cascades/10151549884868859/ In class we discussed the concept of information cascades and how the cascade actually begins. In an information cascade each person can observe what other people do but not what they can see, and they use the information deduced from other people’s actions to make a choice on what action they should take. In […]
Why the branching process cannot model how epidemic spreads in the real world
Why the branching process cannot model how epidemic spreads in the real world Link: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-tracking-epidemic-requires-modelsbut-wrong.html In the lecture, we discussed the branching process to model how the epidemic spreads: once we have a patient zero and a basic reproductive number R, the disease will spread to R people from one patient per step. The […]
Increasing Rural Network Speeds to Create Stronger Inter-connectivity Throughout America
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/ajit-pai-wants-to-raise-rural-broadband-speeds-from-10mbps-to-25mbps/ The Federal Communications Commission or FCC plans to raise the bandwidth of rural areas from 10 Mbps to 25 Mbps. Chairman Ajit Pai, who previously fought to repeal Net Neutrality, states that rural Americans deserve services that are comparable to urban areas. The FCC already funds providers to bring broadband to sparsely populated areas […]
A Multiplex Model for Epidemic Spreading
Article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180614212651.htm This article describes a model for the spread of an epidemic throughout a network that accounts for changes in human behavior throughout the course of the disease spreading. Typically, models, such as those we studied in class, treat human behavior as being constant; however, in reality, people change their behavior to limit their […]
Initiative Q and Popularity
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lelalondon/2018/11/01/is-initiative-q-the-new-bitcoin/ Initiative Q is personally one of the most interesting events to pop up in recent months. It is the only example I’ve seen personally, where direct-benefit effects have caused an idea to emerge so quickly. Many services across the industry offer referral bonuses to their customers. For example, if you’ve recently purchased a Tesla […]