Information on Networks conference

From Sinan Aral, at NYU:

We are organizing an exciting workshop on “Information in Networks” in New York September 25-26.

The purpose of the workshop is to bring together leading researchers studying information in networks from different perspectives in order to lay the foundation for ongoing relationships and to build a multidisciplinary research community. Speakers will share their recent research, which may have been published elsewhere, but which may not be widely known outside of their own disciplines. As the workshop is intended to facilitate interaction, the program will include substantial time for discussion. We hope the energy of New York City will inspire the gathering, and that our participants will leave with new ideas and a stronger sense of community.

Confirmed Participants as of July 1, 2009 include:

Lada Adamic, University of Michigan
Ron Burt, University of Chicago
Damon Centola, MIT
Pedro Domingos, U Wash
Christos Faloutsos, Carnegie Mellon
James Fowler, UCSD
Bernardo Huberman, HP Labs
Matt Jackson, Stanford
Michael Kearns, U Penn
Jon Kleinberg, Cornell
David Lazer, Harvard
Jure Leskovic, Stanford
Michael Macy, Cornell
Sandy Pentland, MIT
Duncan Watts, Yahoo! Research

We’d like to invite you to submit your work. A Call for Participation with more details is attached. Feel free to forward the call to any colleagues or graduate students you think would be interested in submitting and attending.

Please let us know if we can answer any questions and please cc Shirley Lau (info@winworkshop.net) on any correspondence.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Sinan, Foster and Arun

–

Sinan Aral
Assistant Professor, NYU Stern School of Business.
Research Affiliate, MIT Sloan School of Management.
Personal Webpage: http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~saral
SSRN Page: http://ssrn.com/author=110270

Martin Everett on “Core/Periphery Structures in 2-Mode Data”

LINKS Center Colloquium
Friday, June 19th at 11am in B&E 446

Martin Everett has a master’s degree in mathematics and completed a doctorate on social networks at Oxford University under Clyde Mitchell, one of the pioneers of the subject. He has been an active in social network research for over thirty years and has published over 100 articles mainly on social networks. In 1987 during a sabbatical at the University of California Irvine he teamed up with Steve Borgatti. They have collaborated ever since researching and publishing on methods for social networks, teaching workshops and producing the software program UCINET. Martin has been the president of INSNA the international professional body for social network analysis and still serves on the board; in 2001 he was awarded the Simmel award from the society, the highest award available.

Conclusion

Just wanted to say thanks for making it a great class this year. I enjoyed it, and I hope some of you will continue to be involved in the network field.

Grades will be posted as soon as your papers are in.

I need your titles and abstracts

I need your titles and abstracts for your presentations on Friday, May 1st AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. 

They will be posted here:

http://www.analytictech.com/mgt780/topics/presentations.htm

Also, links to PDFs of your presentations will be posted there as well. The PDFs will live on the Google group, so they will only be accessible by class members.

Steve

Network-based dissertation defense

You may be interested in attending the dissertation defense of Goce Andrevski (at least the presentation part). He is looking at firm-level innovation from a network point of view. A key variable for him is structural holes. Goce is a dynamic, passionate speaker. Should be good. (I unfortunately can’t make it.)

The dissertation is entitled Competitive Strategy, Alliance Networks and Firm Performance and will be presented Monday, April 20th at 9:30 AM in the Dean’s Conference Room (Business & Economics building, Room 253).

Dan Halgin quoted in Sloan Management Review

Check out this discussion of Calipari and coaching careers in general in the Sloan Management Review.

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/improvisations/2009/04/03/management-insights-from-ncaa-basketball/

The article is based on his dissertation, which can be found here:

http://www2.bc.edu/~halgin/default_files/Halgin_dissertation.pdf

Conference on 2-mode data

Is this cool or what? An entire conference devoted exclusively to 2-mode networks. Organized by some really sharp people. And a great excuse to visit Amsterdam. For more info, here’s the conference url:

http://home.fsw.vu.nl/f.agneessens/2mode/overview.htm

The conference includes several workshops.

Schedule changed

Ginny suggested that later parts of the course will be a lot easier to grasp if we can do statistical analyses using the measures that will be introduced. So I moved hypothesis testing from the end of the course to this week.

Blue 2.0 — this is pretty useful

Good morning,

As promised, TASC’s Blue 2.0 has re-launched on its original site as a resource for groups or individuals who want to work through Web 2.0 tutorials. You are welcome to use these and share them.

http://connectedcampus.wordpress.com/

These tutorials may also be used as the basis for workshop requests from TASC (contact me about that at pcarr3@uky.edu).

I still have to add social networking back in as its own separate module, and I expect to add more modules in an ongoing manner, so the site will not languish with just a few tutorials forever.

New topics for this launch include web conferencing and, under Assorted Web 2.0, information about how to get OCS (Office Communicator) and GoToMeeting. I’ve also added Jing under Assorted Web 2.0. Please let me know if you run across anything that needs changing or updating, or if you’d like to see something in particular added.

Best regards,

Patsy Carruthers
TASC
(859) 257-8272 ext. 223/mobile (859) 327-2759

Research Assistant Position Announcement

Jen Havens, who sat in on our class last year, sends this RA position announcement:

Study Title: Social networks and HIV risk among rural drug users

Duties: The Research Assistant will assist Dr. Jennifer Havens in all aspects of conducting an NIH-funded R01, including entering and analyzing quantitative data, conducting literature reviews, writing manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals, and presentations at national and international conferences. There is ample opportunity to co-author manuscripts as well as utilize data for thesis/dissertation (baseline data collection will be complete by early 2010).  Applicant should possess strong analytical, organizational, communication, methodological, and writing skills.  Knowledge of multilevel modeling and/or social network analysis particularly desirable.

Dates: May 2009 to May 2010 (Start Date Negotiable)

Pay: Summer salary for 2009, TA stipend for the 09-10 year, tuition

Study Overview: The overall goal of this NIH-funded R01 (NIDA) is to examine the prevalence, incidence, and risk factors for HIV and other blood borne infections (BBIs) such as hepatitis C (HCV) and herpes simplex-2 virus (HSV-2) among rural Appalachian drug users using social network analysis and multilevel modeling. HIV continues to be a major public health problem in the United States, especially among drug users. However, little is known about HIV in rural areas in which there are marked health disparities. Therefore, given that studies among urban drug users have found that social network indicators are robust predictors of HIV risk, both social network and individual characteristics will be measured for their association with HIV risk among rural drug users. The specific aims are: 1) To determine the prevalence and incidence of HIV, HCV and HSV-2 among rural injection and non-injection drug users; 2) To examine HIV and other BBI risk among rural injection and non-injection drug users; and 3) To examine longitudinal changes in rural HIV, HCV and HSV-2 risk at 6-months, 12-months and 18-months post-baseline. To meet these aims, a sample 500 rural injection and non-injection drug users will be recruited using respondent driven sampling (RDS). In addition to biologic testing for HIV, HCV and HSV-2, rural participants will be given an interviewer-administered questionnaire pertaining to their social networks (drug, sexual and support networks), sociodemographics, drug use, HIV risk behaviors, psychiatric diagnoses, intravention and norms. Since individuals will be nested within networks, data will be analyzed using multilevel random effects regression that allows for the simultaneous examination of social network and individual-level risk.

To Apply: Please submit a cover letter and CV to Jennifer Havens at jhave2@uky.edu by March 6, 2009.