Category: News and Events

CSS Seminar

On Friday, October 20, Peter Revay, CSS PhD Candidate, will present Modeling the Co-Evolution of Culture, Signs and Network Structure: Theory and Applications. In Peter’s words: “I focus on the drivers of diffusion and adoption of cultural traits, such as values, beliefs, and behaviors. I adopt an evolutionary view of cultural dynamics. I use concepts from dual-inheritance theories of cultural evolution to develop and test an agent-based model capable of simulating the changing distributions of cultural traits in a large population of actors over the course of prolonged periods of time. Particularly, I pay close attention to the mechanisms of indirectly biased transmission of traits and guided variation, which are both hypothesized to be significant aspects of cultural dynamics. Indirectly biased transmission consists of the adoption of specific trait variants on the basis of possession of initially unrelated external markers. Guided variation is then individual adaptation driven by self-exploration.

“Furthermore, I make use of large publicly available datasets to validate my models. The first one of these is the database of bill co-authorship in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1973 to 2008. The other is a comprehensive dataset of scientific co-authorship in various disciplines stretching back for over a century.

“The results show that cultural evolution models based on indirectly biased transmission and guided variation are suitable to explaining the dynamics of various complex social networks.”

The talk will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall, and be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

These sessions will be live-streamed on the newly created CSS program YouTube channel.

For announcements regarding these and future streams, please join the : CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group.

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please click here.

The next Krasnow Institute seminar will be held on Monday, October 16, at 4:00pm in the Krasnow conference room. (Refreshments will precede at 3:30pm).
Prof. Guoqiang Yu from VaTech will speak on the topic of “Modeling and quantification of astrocyte activity from calcium imaging” (abstract below).

TIME: 4:00-5:00pm
LOCATION: Lecture Room (Room 229
Krasnow Institute Building
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

Abstract: Recent studies have suggested that astrocytes exert proactive regulatory effects on brain information processing and that they are deeply involved in normal brain development and disease pathology. Recording astrocyte activity is now technically feasible, due to recent advances in modern microscopy and ultrasensitive cell-type specific genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators for long-time imaging. However, there is a big gap between the data generation and methods of understanding the data. Indeed, current practice is essentially manual, which not only limits analysis throughput but also risks introducing bias and missing important information latent in complex, dynamic big data. In this talk, I will discuss our recent work on this problem. For those who are interested in biology, I will demonstrate how our work can be used to assist your study of decoding the functional roles of astrocyte in brain. For those who are interested in the algorithm and tool development, I will show you how the astrocyte activity analysis is a booming research area and how the problem can serve as a motivating example for generic algorithm development.

10/10/17

CSS Seminar

On Friday, October 13, Annetta Burger, CSS PhD Candidate, will speak on “Organizing Theories for Disaster Study in Computational Social Science.” Based on evolving understandings of the complex, interconnected characteristics of disasters and social adaptations we propose to organize disaster theories in the interdisciplinary context of complex adaptive systems (CAS). Within this context disasters can be understood to consist of three sets of interacting systems, the socio-ecological system, the system of collective, social behavior, and the individual actor’s cognitive system. Ongoing dynamic forces within each set periodically build to disrupt events and cause failures in the overall system. In this talk, we will explore the dominant theory and frameworks in disaster studies from the perspective of these sets, demonstrate how they explain disasters, and discuss how Computational Social Science methodologies can support theory-building. By identifying evolving understandings and research questions co-located in disaster theory and CAS we find that the CAS features of heterogeneity, flows, interacting subsystems, emergence from self-organization and bottom-up processes, and adaptation and learning are integral to disaster studies.

The talk will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall, and be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

These sessions will be live-streamed on the newly created CSS program YouTube channel.

For announcements regarding these and future streams, please join the : CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group.

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please click here.

The final speakers in the spring semester schedule of Friday CSS seminars will be Patrick McLaughlin, Program Director and Oliver Sherouse, Research Analyst Program for Economic Research on Regulation, Mercatus Center, George Mason University. The talk, entitled “QuantGov: An Open-Source Platform for Policy Analytics ” (abstract below), is scheduled for Friday, May 12, at 3:00pm in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the newly created CSS program YouTube channel.

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group.

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, click here.

We hope to see you on Friday, May 12th.

Please note this is the last seminar for the spring semester. A new schedule will commence in the fall.

Abstract: The Mercatus Center at George Mason University recently launched QuantGov, an open-source policy analytics platform designed to facilitate policy-relevant research. QuantGov deploys text analysis and machine-learning algorithms to identify the latent governance indicators buried in policy documents, such as legislation or administrative code. QuantGov grew out of the RegData project, which was designed to capture novel metrics in regulations that would advance our understanding of the United States’ federal regulatory process in ways that were previously infeasible. QuantGov is the next generation in that project’s evolution.

The CSS seminar speaker for Friday, May 5 will be Paul Albert, Independent Scholar. Mr. Albert’s talk entitled “Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Tableau” (abstract below) is scheduled to begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the newly created CSS program YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

Abstract: In January of 2017, Forbes Magazine listed the top technical job skills showing the highest growth in demand from 2011 to 2015. The number three position, with 1,581% growth, was Tableau, a software solution that helps people see and understand their data.

Tableau offers free licenses for academic research.

In this session, Paul Albert will:

1. Provide a hands-on overview of Tableau to show how it can help people do more with their data
2. Show examples of Tableau data visualizations relevant to the CSS world
3. Discuss how Tableau might be able to alter paradigms for sharing academic findings
4. Discuss free resources available to learn more about Tableau

Paul recently retired from Tableau and has started graduate studies with the GMU Art History program. His initial focus is on applying quantitative analysis and social theory to art markets. His secondary focus is on exploring how products like Tableau can be used to support new ways of presenting academic research and findings.

While at Tableau, Paul coordinated and conducted over 60 training events for over 1,100 participants. Paul was also one of four finalists, out of a field of over 200 contestants, in the annual Tableau “Viz Wiz” data visualization contest for 2016.

Posted 5/2/17

Recent Postings

will be the speaker at next Monday’s Krasnow seminar. Refreshments will be served at 3:30pm. Come chat with colleagues and like-minded researchers and students prior to the talk, which will begin at 4:00pm.

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TITLE: G protein signaling, the cytoskeleton and the neurobiology of depression and antidepressants

SPEAKER: Mark M. Rasenick (Director, Biomedical Neuroscience Training Program, Research Service, Jesse Brown VAMC, UIC College of Medicine)

DATE: Monday, 1 May, 2017
TIME: 4:00-5:00pm
LOCATION: Lecture Room (Room 229)
Krasnow Institute Building
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

Abstract:

GPCR signaling through heterotrimeric G proteins is regulated both by specialized membrane domains (lipid rafts) and cytoskeletal elements, particularly tubulin and microtubules. The role of this interaction will be discussed, with relationship to neurotransmitter action, neuroplasticity and to the possible substrates for both mood and therapeutic intervention for mood disorders.

Posted 4/26/17

Recent Postings

The CSS seminar speakers for Friday, April 28 will be Stephen Davies and Hannah Zontine from the University of Mary Washington. Their talk entitled The “Hidden Trump Model”: Modeling social desirability bias through ABMs (abstract below) is scheduled to begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the newly created CSS program YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group.

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit here.

We hope to see you on Friday, April 28th.

ABSTRACT: Social desirability bias is a tendency people have to lie about their opinions if they perceive they will be judged or rejected. We present an Opinion Dynamics model in which agents may not be truthful about their opinions when they interact with their social circle. We model two processes through which agents influence one another: an online anonymous process in which agents can interact with anyone and do not fear social rejection, and a face-to-face process where they interact only with friends and may feel compelled to conform. In a political setting, this would apply to a race in which one of the candidates bears a social stigma and therefore some agents are reluctant to voice support for him or her. The results that these nonlinear and asymmetrical processes will have on the overall electorate are not obvious, and are well suited to an agent-based study.

We hypothesize that this model will produce a “poll bias” of the kind we saw in the 2016 Presidential election — i.e., a significant difference between the number of agents who say they will vote for a candidate and the number who actually do so on election day. We present an analysis of this “Hidden Trump model” and describe the way in which poll bias depends on the strength of the various interaction processes.

Recent Postings

You are invited to attend the next scheduled Krasnow Monday Seminar on March 20. Dr. Bill Kennedy, Center for Social Complexity and CSS, will present “The Challenge of Modeling Cognition for Computational Social Science.”

Abstract

Computational Social Science (CSS) uses models of cognition, mostly human cognition. Zero intelligence agents may be useful for some economic experiments and agents with preferences about their neighbors and moving randomly may demonstrate the emergence of segregation, but better models of individual’s cognition are needed to advance CSS. This talk will review the development of some of the models of cognition that have been used in the Center for Social Complexity, are being developed in the Center, and are being planned for the future.

Krasnow seminars are held in room 229 of the Krasnow Building on Mason’s Fairfax campus Mondays from 4pm-5pm.

Recent Postings

Due to the CDS department all-day training session on March 10 and spring break on March 17, there will be no CSS seminars on these dates. The seminar series will resume on Friday, March 24 with Antoine Mandel, Associate Professor, CES-Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne. Professor Mandel’s talk entitled “Endogenous Growth in Production Networks” (abstract follows) is scheduled to begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments. Dr. Mandel’s paper is available upon request to Karen Underwood.

The session will be live-streamed on the newly created CSS program YouTube channel.

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group.

Please visit the CDS calendar to see list of upcoming seminar speakers.

CSS Seminars are scheduled by the Department of Computational Data Sciences and co-hosted by CDS and the Center for Social Complexity.

Recent Postings

The CSS seminar speaker for Friday, February 27 will be Yang Zhou, PhD Student, Computational Social Science, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University. Yang’s talk, entitled “The Origin of Agriculture in the Peiligang Culture: An Agent-based Modeling Approach” (abstract below), is scheduled to begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.
This session will be live-streamed on the newly created CSS program YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

Abstract: The emergence of agriculture played an important role in human history as it allowed people to move from a nomadic (i.e. hunter-gather) to a sedentary (i.e. agricultural) lifestyle. This shift in lifestyle not only provided abundant food, but also sufficient numbers of non-cultivating specialists, which are necessary conditions for the rise of a civilization. However, questions about how and why agriculture originated have remained controversial. This paper explores the origin hypotheses of agriculture, using the canonical theory of social complexity as a framework to study the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies in the region of the Peiligang in China based on existing literature, and develops an agent-based model to simulate the transition process. The model assumes that a combination of population growth and gaining knowledge on plants drove the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. Results show that based on the basic hypotheses and assumptions, the model is able to generate the key phases that are identical with the existing literature on such a transaction.

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group .

Visit our calendar to see list of upcoming seminar speakers.

Recent Postings