Lecture

Social and Information Networks: Structure

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In course

COM-308: Internet analytics

Internet analytics is the collection, modeling, and analysis of user data in large-scale online services, such as social networking, e-commerce, search, and advertisement. This class explores a number of the key functions of such online services that have ...

Description

This lecture covers the structure of social and information networks, including models for social and technical systems, key properties like giant components and clustering, the formation of ties in social networks, and the impact of strong and weak ties. It also discusses the emergence of giant components in random graphs, the connectivity of G(n,p) models, and the importance of clustering and short paths in network analysis.

Instructor

Matthias Grossglauser

Matthias Grossglauser is a Professor of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he co-directs the Information and Network Dynamics lab. His current research interests center on machine learning, stochastic networks, and discrete choice models, and on their applications in artificial intelligence, reinforcement learning, network science, computational social sciences, and recommender systems. He is also a member of the Federal Communications Commission (ComCom), the indepe

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mathematics

Discrete mathematics: Graph theory

Related concepts (26)

Social network

A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these structures. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.

Network science

Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct elements or actors represented by nodes (or vertices) and the connections between the elements or actors as links (or edges). The field draws on theories and methods including graph theory from mathematics, statistical mechanics from physics, data mining and information visualization from computer science, inferential modeling from statistics, and social structure from sociology.

Social network analysis

Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of nodes (individual actors, people, or things within the network) and the ties, edges, or links (relationships or interactions) that connect them. Examples of social structures commonly visualized through social network analysis include social media networks, meme spread, information circulation, friendship and acquaintance networks, peer learner networks, business networks, knowledge networks, difficult working relationships, collaboration graphs, kinship, disease transmission, and sexual relationships.

Small-world network

A small-world network is a mathematical graph in which most nodes are not neighbors of one another, but the neighbors of any given node are likely to be neighbors of each other. Due to this, most neighboring nodes can be reached from every other node by a small number of hops or steps. Specifically, a small-world network is defined to be a network where the typical distance L between two randomly chosen nodes (the number of steps required) grows proportionally to the logarithm of the number of nodes N in the network, that is: while the global clustering coefficient is not small.

Network theory

In mathematics, computer science and network science, network theory is a part of graph theory. It defines networks as graphs where the nodes or edges possess attributes. Network theory analyses these networks over the symmetric relations or asymmetric relations between their (discrete) components. Network theory has applications in many disciplines, including statistical physics, particle physics, computer science, electrical engineering, biology, archaeology, linguistics, economics, finance, operations research, climatology, ecology, public health, sociology, psychology, and neuroscience.

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