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Using Networks to Survive Disasters

This article by postdoctoral fellow Cristina Ruiz Martin and professor Gabriel Wainer, both at Carleton University, was about communications during disasters and how concepts in networks can be leveraged to create an improved model for communications during these times. The story first starts by citing several examples of previous disasters including Hurricanes Dorian and Irma, […]

“Why so many guilty pleas?”—Closer Look at the”Courtroom Workgroup” from the Homans’ Human Group Theory

Related reading: Workgroup Decision-Making: https://www.albany.edu/understanding-guilty-pleas/Core_3_Courtroom_Workgroup_Decision_Making.php Homans’ Theory Of The Human Group: Applications To Problems of Administration, Policy, and Staff Training In Group Service Agencies: https://www.bjpa.org/search-results/publication/5390Courtroom The first resource summarizes the concept of “courtroom wrokgroup”  and the current theories attempting to address the driving factors behind this informal arrangement; and also the theoretical insights the related […]

The Network Effects of Polls

https://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/0472099213-ch11.pdf There have been many studies on the impact of prediction polls on voter behavior and election results. This paper, Do Polls Influence Votes, highlights evidence in support of polls changing voter behavior and concludes that the polls “affected voters’ perception of the various parties’ chances of winning” and “strategic voting as some voters became […]

Social Experiment: Information Cascade

http://dailyoftheday.com/social-experiment-of-the-day-social-conformity/   The article and video (in the article) discuss social conformity. The video shows a social experiment that was done. A woman walked into an optometrist’s waiting room. The waiting room was full of other “patients” that were part of the experiment. A little after she sat down, there was a beep in the […]

The Market for Lemons and the Refurbished Industry

https://www.forbes.com/sites/vianneyvaute/2019/02/22/stopping-the-lemon-effect-how-to-save-the-refurbished-industry-and-the-circular-economy/#3e0cdc66f703   In class, we discussed the market for lemons, which is explained in the used car market. As the buyers tend to accept a price between the price for ‘peach’ cars and the price for ‘lemon’ cars, most of the deals between buyers and sellers will be buying the ‘lemon’ cars. After some time, customers’ expectation on second-hand […]

How Unfortunate Incident Combines People for Better Good

Recently, unfortunate news dragged numerous people into despair. One of the most famous K-Pop idols, a member of the all-female group Kara, Hara Goo, was found dead at home. After investigation, the police concluded that she has taken her own life away. This news once again surfaced her struggles during her lifetime; she was a […]

AI for Avalon

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.02330.pdf This paper discussed the implementation and testing of an implemented AI for the game Avalon, where players try to figure out who the good and bad guys are within a certain number of rounds. Currently, the AI only utilizes people’s actions and ignore all messages in chat. I found it fascinating that the AI […]

Epidemic Models (SIR), (SIS), and Sexually Transmitted Diseases

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1578276/pdf/rsif20050051.pdf This academic paper – Networks and Epidemic models (2005) – by Matt J. Keeling,  and Ken T. D. Eames applies standard epidemic theory and the susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) and (SIS) models to discuss sexually transmitted diseases, providing a more complex understanding of the subject than we had time in class.  First, the paper outlines the […]

How Game Theory Fixed NYC’s High School Application Process

In New York City, eighth grade students have to go through a series of tests and applications to get placed in a public high school. In the past, this process had been very difficult and selective, and oftentimes left students not getting placed in any of the schools the preferred. To solve this problem, three […]

Information Cascades Affecting Financial Markets

This article begins by giving background information about what is an information cascade and how they are formed. It is a theory that is used in behavioral economics a lot because it affects the decision making of many individuals based on what is happening around them. An information cascade is formed when an individual makes […]

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