October 1, 2015
Doon Campus
In less than a decade, online social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have dramatically changed how communities and individuals share information.Such networks provide the platform for highly intellectual debates such as the colour of the dress (it is clearly white and gold), rapidly spreading information about natural disasters and missing persons, to darker uses such as the ubiquitous monitoring and profiling of online user discussions, enabling online abuse, and spreading the propaganda of repressive regimes.
This presentation discusses how and why a physicist approaches developing a computational model of a social network.
Our open source tool, #k@ (hashKAT) is a dynamical network simulation engine designed to model the growth of, and information propagation within, an online social network.
It incorporates all elements present in such networks, including multiple user profiles (e.g. standard users, organizations, celebrities, and bots), user messaging, trending topics, and advertising. Agents within the network make decisions (e.g. follow, unfollow, broadcast, and rebroadcast) based on a variety of user-defined factors, including geography, political affiliation, musical interests, and humour.
This seminar will outline the challenges faced and solutions developed for treating such a system, as well as specific results for the growth of the Twitter network.
Please join us for this free seminar as the SHARCNET @ Conestoga Seminar Series begins its second season.
Speaker:
Isaac Tamblyn is Assistant Professor in Department of Physics at University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and holds a joint appointment with National Research Council of Canada. Before joining the university, Isaac completed post docs at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at University of California. He earned his PhD in Physics from Dalhousie University. He has very few followers on Twitter.
Time:
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location:
Conestoga College, Doon Campus, 299 Doon Valley Drive, Main Building, Room 2A301