Politicians Lie to Win
https://theconversation.com/why-we-still-fall-for-influencers-salesmen-and-politicians-who-lie-173542 Just like monopoly and car dealerships, understanding how to attract people’s attention is a competition. In this article, the author describes an experiment of a social influence model in order to understand how attention is attracted. Through a game played by three people, the author demonstrates that the optimal strategy to gain people’s attention […]
The Use of Graphs in the Analysis of Post-Tonal Music
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228981643_A_graph-theoretical_approach_for_pattern_matching_in_post-tonal_music_analysis The paper linked above uses graphs to analyze post-tonal music; that is, music which does not use the tonal harmonic conventions which dominated the common practice period and thus cannot be analyzed using traditional music theory. The authors present an algorithm to find common streams, which are chains of sequential “events.” An “event” is […]
Game Theory in Best Buy vs. Amazon, 2012
Source: https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/amazon-almost-killed-best-buy-then-best-buy-did-something-completely-brilliant.html In 2012, Best Buy seemed to be falling apart. Employee engagement was falling, but more importantly, Amazon was growing. Best Buy was losing money as customers would go to Best Buy to try out items, then go home and buy them for cheaper from Amazon. In this situation, Best Buy and Amazon were […]
Tit for Tat, Game Theory in real life
Cooperation amongst communities shows a frequent biological pattern throughout generations of multiple species. Reciprocal teamwork, respect, and altruism are shown time and time again to drive evolutionary success. The term “tit-for-tat” was a phrase that coined this act of mimicking one’s behavior. A sense of matching another energy; for example, on a basic level, if […]
Detection of Malicious Accounts in Social Networks
Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2016.11.030 The paper, “Malicious accounts: Dark of the social network,” by Adewole, Anuar, Kamsin, Varathan, and Razak, provides a comprehensive review about the emergence of malicious activities such as spamming, phishing and distribution of malware as online social networks (OSNs) scales immensely over the past decade. In response to these malicious practices that exploit […]
An Application of Networks In Understanding Political Science
https://www.cse.msu.edu/~derrtyle/papers/icdmw218-congressional_analysis_signed_networks.pdf In the study above, a network analysis of signed edges and balance theory related to votes of the US Congress was conducted. The study analyzes the votes of a yea or a nay, to gain insights into congressional voting behavior. The study mentions balance theory and explains the significance of a structurally balanced network, […]
Using Networks Analysis to Understand Written Chinese
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-319-05401-8_30.pdf In my personal experience of studying Mandarin Chinese, the thing that was the most daunting when I first started learning, like many students learning Chinese as a second language, was the writing system, 汉字(hàn zi), written symbols that represent words instead of sounds. In earlier forms, Chinese characters were pictographs—as it developed into a […]
Nash-Equilibria Relating to Competitive Strategy Games
One of the more personally compelling applications of Nash-Equilibria relates a personal hobby of mine, competitive card games such as Magic: The Gathering. These competitions are strategy games where a careful use of resources, timing, synergy, and a bit of luck can lead to competition wins of hundreds of thousands of dollars . However, in many […]
Auction Sales Hit Record $15 Billion as Young, Wealthy Collectors Enter the Market
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/20/auction-sales-hit-record-15-billion-fueled-by-younger-collectors.html In recent times, auction houses have seen a huge surge in sales as record numbers are being reported, from almost every category. These numbers are appearing due to a multitude of reasons, including the general increase in wealth of the top 1%, with this small group holding over $40 trillion in assets. As […]
Social Networks in relation to the Queen’s Passing
The recent passing of Queen Elizabeth’s has sparked lots of commentary regarding England’s past. The world has reacted in different ways. Many were deeply saddened, such as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while others were relieved, such as Carnegie Mellon lecturer Uju Anya, which sparked controversy over whether it was the Queen’s fault for supplying Nigeria […]
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