You’re invited!

Friday, May 8, 3:00pm
Research Hall, 3rd floor, Center for Social Complexity
Andre Lhuillier, PhD Student, Department of Computational Social Science, George Mason University

Why Little Samson Didn’t Defeat The Hedgehog: A Story Of Social Influence And The Relevance Of Distribution For Successful Information Goods

ABSTRACT: In 1992 during one of the fiercest battles of the so called ‘console wars’, a modest game was released in the mist of the industry frenzy. Although ‘Little Samson’ is recognized by those who know it as a great game, it remains unknown for most of the consumers today. On the other side of the battlefield, Sega’s thriving Hedgehog was convincing everyone that they have seized their main competitor ‘Mario Kart’. Despite this momentary victory in consumer’s memory and affection, the real winner was not in the center of the industry’s attention. Having less media presence, the sequel of Super Mario Land for the Game Boy was the most purchased game with almost 200% units of what ‘Sonic 2’ sold. This kind of unpredictable and divergent behavior is a unique characteristic of information goods markets. In this presentation I survey the last 30 years of the video game sector and show its particular composition and evolution. Following De Vany’s approach to Hollywood movie industry I dwell into an analysis of this industry with special emphasis in consumer behavior. Re-visiting De Vany’s proposal I make a simple ABM approach to model and show how placement or distribution properties may induce long tail distributions. Following the relevance of information diffusion and the development of hype in this industry another model is presented. In this case the relevance of a consumer social system and its dynamics. After an analysis of the industry history, consumer’s social influence, sales and distribution/access is reviewed; I present several findings and propose a model to understand them. A final discussion will be opened with the presentation

You’re invited!
Friday, May 1, 3:00 p.m.
Research Hall, 3rd floor, Center for Social Complexity

Max Wasserman, Ph.D., Applied Math, Northwestern University, Amaral Lab Alumnus, will present “The IMDb Film Connections Network and Objective Evaluation of Movie Significance.”

You Are Invited

Friday, April 24, 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity Suite
Research Hall, Third Floor

TALK: TBA

Presenter: Cristina Cherkashin, PhD Candidate
Computational Social Science
George Mason University

ABSTRACT: TBA

You Are Invited

Friday, April 17: 3:00 p.m.
Center for Social Complexity Suite
Research Hall, Third Floor

Massively Interactive Systems: Thinking and Deciding in the Age of Big Data

Presenter: Christopher L. Barrett, Executive Director, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Professor of Computer Science, Virginia Tech

ABSTRACT: This talk discusses advanced computationally assisted reasoning about large interaction-dominated systems. Current questions in science, from the biochemical foundations of life to the scale of the world economy, involve details of huge numbers and levels of intricate interactions. Subtle indirect causal connections and vastly extended definitions of system boundaries dominate the immediate future of scientific research. Beyond sheer numbers of details and interactions, the systems are variously layered and structured in ways perhaps best described as networks. Interactions include, and often co-create, these morphological and dynamical features, which can interact in their own right. Such “massively interacting” systems are characterized by, among other things, large amounts of data and branching behaviors. Although the amount of associated data is large, the systems do not even begin to explore their entire phase spaces. Their study is characterized by advanced computational methods. Major methodological revisions seem to be indicated.

Heretofore unavailable and rapidly growing basic source data and increasingly powerful computing resources drive complex system science toward unprecedented detail and scale. There is no obvious reason for this direction in science to change. The cost of acquiring data has historically dominated scientific costs and shaped the research environment in terms of approaches and even questions. In the several years, as the costs of social data, biological data and physical data have plummeted on a per-unit basis and as the volume of data is growing exponentially, the cost drivers for scientific research have clearly shifted from data generation to storage and analytical computation-based methods. The research environment is rapidly being reshaped by this change and, in particular, the social and bio–sciences are revolutionized by it. Moreover, the study of socially– and biologically–coupled systems (e.g., societal infrastructures and infectious disease public health policy analysis) is in flux as computation-based methods begin to greatly expand the scope of traditional problems in revolutionary ways.

How does this situation serve to guide the development of “information portal technology” for complex system science and for decision support? An example of an approach to detailed computational analysis of social and behavioral interaction with physical and infrastructure effects in the immediate aftermath of a devastating disaster will be described in this context.

You Are Invited

On April 24, 2015, Douglas Hofstadter of the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition
at Indiana University, will present “Discovering the Hofstadter Butterfly: A Story of Luck, Both Bad and Good.”

Time:11am-Noon

Location: Exploratory Hall, Room 3301, George Mason University

Douglas Hofstadter is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

You are invited to the Monday seminar at Krasnow:

TITLE: Imaging Life at High Spatiotemporal Resolution

SPEAKER: Dr. Eric Betzig (Group Leader, Janelia Research Campus, HHMI)

DATE: Monday, 23 March, 2015

TIME: 4:00-5:00 pm (join us for refreshments at 3:30)

LOCATION: Lecture Room (Room 229)
Krasnow Institute Building
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

ABSTRACT:

As our understanding of biological systems as increased, so has the complexity of our questions and the need for more advanced optical tools to answer them. For example, there is a hundred-fold gap between the resolution of conventional optical microscopy and the scale at which molecules self-assemble to form sub-cellular structures. Furthermore, as we attempt to peer more closely at the dynamic complexity of living systems, the actinic glare of our microscopes can adversely influence the specimens we hope to study. Finally, the heterogeneity of living tissue can seriously impede our ability to image at high resolution, due to the resulting warping and scattering of light rays. I will describe three areas focused on addressing these challenges: super-resolution microscopy for imaging specific proteins within cells down to near-molecular resolution; plane illumination microscopy using non-diffracting beams for noninvasive imaging of three-dimensional dynamics within live cells and embryos; and adaptive optics to recover optimal images from within optically heterogeneous specimens.

What: CSS seminar
When: Friday, December 12, 3pm
Where: Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall
Speaker: Regina Astrid Martinez Fernandez, Lecturer, Department of Economics, Columbian School of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University.
Abstract: This paper examines the relation between international banking flows and episodes of domestic credit expansion that end in financial crises (“bad” credit booms). It also analyzes the drivers of each of the two types of international banking flows: flows to the banking sector and to the non-banking sector. With a sample of 80 countries from 1980 to 2012, the results indicate that international banking flows to the banking sector are related to ‘bad” credit booms in the recipient country, while those to the non-banking sector are not. This paper also finds that the composition of the international banking loans is driven by the monitoring technology used by international bank lenders to monitor each borrowing sector. The “safer” sector will be less monitored and, since monitoring is costly, it is optimal for the international lender to lend more to this sector. Thus, countries with mechanisms in place to make the banking sector more “safe” – such as government guarantees, fiscal capacity to execute them, and high institutional quality – will receive more international interbank loans, which makes these countries more vulnerable to “bad” credit booms.

The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

Please visit www.css.gmu.edu to see a list of upcoming seminar speakers.

Krasnow Monday Seminar, November 24, 2014, 4-5pm, Room 229, Krasnow Institute Building, Fairfax Campus

Michelle Harris-Love, PhD, PT, is Assistant Professor, Georgetown University Medical Center Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, and Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery, and also Research Scientist, MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital Neuroscience Research Center and Mechanisms of Therapeutic Rehabilitation Laboratory

ABSTRACT:
For over two decades, the neural mechanisms of motor recovery in mildly impaired stroke patients with full or partial recovery of hand movements have been widely studied. Comparatively little is known about more severely impaired patients who have little or no voluntary hand movement but retain some voluntary movement of the shoulder and elbow. The latter group is large and represents those in particular need of interventions to enhance recovery. The mechanisms of recovery in upper arm muscles of more severely impaired patients are likely to differ from those identified in recovery of hand movements in patients with mild impairment. The results of recent studies aimed at identifying mechanisms of reaching movement recovery in severely impaired stroke patients will be discussed.

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Parking Note: The former meter/pay-station lot across Shenandoah
River Lane has been converted to a loading/unloading zone and can no
longer served for Monday seminar visitor parking. Visitors should park
in one of the campus decks.
For additional directions or information call 703-993-4333 or browse to
http://krasnow.gmu.edu/location/

Friday, November 21, 3pm, CSC, 3rd floor, Research Hall.

The CSS seminar speaker will be J. Daniel Rogers, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution and Wendy Cegielski, Ph.D. Student, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University. Their talk entitled “Archaeological Use of Agent-Based Models: Some Challenges and Emerging Directions” (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.

Abstract: For the last 100 years archaeologists have investigated cultural differences and the dynamics of long-term change. These studies have relied on interpretation of material remains and their depositional context as the sources of information. By the 1960s, new paradigms had developed that focused on process over description and this movement ushered in an era of multivariate statistical analyses and inferences. Although the first computational simulations were run in the 1970s, disciplinary counter-currents emphasized alternative narrative perspectives effectively discouraging further exploration into contributions that computational simulations might make to the field. After 2000, however, a substantial growth in the use of agent-based models can be documented. In this presentation we evaluate examples of published results that illustrate different computational modeling strategies currently employed in archaeology. In a time of dramatic growth it is appropriate to make a critical assessment of the successes along with persistent challenges and emerging opportunities. We have identified several larger issues: the perception of simulations as overly complex, the lack of clarity in the appropriate use of simulations, and the integration of simulation into established fields. As we move forward with this research we are actively seeking input about what practitioners see as the major challenges and emerging directions in computational social science.​

Please visit www.css.gmu.edu to see list of upcoming seminar speakers.

Presenter:  Kalev H. Leetaru

Date and Time:  Friday, May 9, 2014 – 3pm

Location:  Research 381

Kalev H. Leetaru is the 2013-2014 Yahoo! Fellow in Residence for International Values, Communications Technology and the Global Internet at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He holds three US patents (cited by a combined 44 other issued US patents) and his work has been profiled in Nature, the New York Times, The Economist, BBC, Discovery Channel and the media of more than 100 countries. His most recent work includes the first in-depth study of the geography of social media and the changing role of distance and location in online communicative behavior around the world (named by Harvard’s Nieman Lab as the top social media study of 2013), the creation of the GDELT Project, a database of more than a quarter-billion georeferenced global events 1979-present and the people, organizations, locations, and themes connecting the world, and the creation of the SyFy Channel’s Twitter Popularity Index, the first realtime character “leaderboard” created for television. Most recently he was named as one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013. More on his latest projects can be found on his website at http://www.kalevleetaru

Abstract:  What does it take to build a system that monitors the entire world, analyzing global news media in real time, compiling catalogs of everything happening in the world and makes that data accessible for analysis, visualization, forecasting, and operational use? What does it take to support querying of a quarter-billion-record-by-58-column database in near-real time? How do you visualize networks with hundreds of millions of nodes, tease structure from chaotic real-world observational graphs, or explore networks in the multi-petabyte range? How do you process and geographically visualize the emotion of the live Twitter Decahose in real time? How do you rethink tone mining from scratch to power a flagship new reality television show? How do you adapt systems to work with machine translation, OCR and closed captioning error, and the messiness of real-world data? How do you process half a million hours of television news, five billion pages of historic books, or 60 million images dating back 500 years?

This talk will pull back the curtain and present a behind-the-scenes view of what its really like to work with really big data. How does one blend the world’s most powerful supercomputers, virtual machines, cloud storage, infrastructure as a service, plus a ton of software, into a single end-to-end environment that supports all of this research? I’ll be deep-diving on the GDELT Project (http://gdeltproject.org/), a catalog of human societal-scale behavior and beliefs across all countries of the world, connecting every person, organization, location, count, theme, news source, and event across the planet into a single massive network that captures what’s happening around the world, what its context is and who’s involved, and how the world is feeling about it, every single day. What does it take to build and run a system that monitors the entire world each day and delivers a quantitative model that increasingly powers operational conflict watchboards across the world?

This is the last in the spring 2014 CSC Seminar Series.