Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Christopher Bail, Duke University "Cultural Bridges: Combining Social Network Analysis and Natural Language Processing to Explain how Social Media Posts go Viral"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Title:
Cultural Bridges: Combining Social Network Analysis and Natural Language Processing to Explain how Social Media Posts go Viral
Speaker:
Christopher Bail, Douglas and Ellen Lowey Associate Professor, Duke University
Talk Abstract:
Social media sites are rapidly becoming one of the most important forums for public deliberation about advocacy issues. However, social scientists have not explained why some advocacy organizations produce social media messages that inspire far-ranging conversation among social media users, whereas the vast majority of them receive little or no attention. I argue that advocacy organizations are more likely to inspire comments from new social media audiences if they create “cultural bridges,” or produce messages that combine conversational themes within an advocacy field that are seldom discussed together. I use natural language processing, network analysis, and a social media application to analyze how cultural bridges shaped public discourse about autism spectrum disorders on Facebook over the course of 1.5 years, controlling for various characteristics of advocacy organizations, their social media audiences, and the broader social context in which they interact. I show that organizations that create substantial cultural bridges provoke 2.52 times more comments about their messages from new social media users than those that do not, controlling for these factors. This study thus offers a theory of cultural messaging and public deliberation and computational techniques for text analysis and application-based survey research.
Speaker Bio:
Chris Bail is the Douglas and Ellen Lowey Assistant Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University. He is an internationally recognized leader in the study of political extremism as well as the emerging field of computational social science. Bail’s work tracks the growth of political extremism by developing new quantitative techniques to analyze the rapidly increasing amount of textual data available from social media sites and other digital sources as well as field experiments. His research has been published by Princeton University Press, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Journal of Public Health, American Sociological Review, and other leading journals. In 2017, he was one of thirty scholars worldwide honored by an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, Google, and Amazon, among others. Bail regularly presents his work to policy makers and public audiences. He was recently invited to present the findings of his book, Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream to the 2016 Democratic National Convention as well as the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America—the largest Muslim organization in the United States. His research has also been featured in major media outlets such as NBC News, National Public Radio, and the Washington Post. Prior to joining Duke University Bail was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2011.
Further Reading:
Bail, Christopher A. 2016. "Combining Network Analysis and Natural Language Processing to Examine how Advocacy Organizations Stimulate Conversation on Social Media." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113:42 11823-11828
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, November 15, 2017 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lauren Balmert, Northwestern University "A Tale of Two Statisticians: Methods and Applications"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Lauren Balmert, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Title:
A Tale of Two Statisticians: Methods and Applications
Abstract:
Faculty and staff in the Biostatistics Collaboration Center (BCC) work with investigators in various aspects of their research projects, with involvement in study design, data analysis, and dissemination of findings. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss my role as a collaborative statistician in a medical department. In the second part of my talk, I will transition to my statistical methodology research interests by briefly introducing time-to-event data and existing methods of analysis. I will then describe the concept of lost lifespan, or life lost, a new summary measure for cumulative information inherent in time-to-event data. An estimation and inference procedure will be proposed, as well as an extension to a regression setting. The methodology will be illustrated with a breast cancer clinical trial application.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Balmert's is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine – Division of Biostatistics. Her research interests are primarily collaborative and include the application of biostatistics to a wide range of areas including urology, audiology, and pediatric medicine. She is currently the biostatistician on several ongoing clinical trials (PROPHY; Cerebral Autoregulation Monitoring; High Intensity Walking Intervention; Variability in Hearing Aid Outcomes). As the lead faculty statistician for the Biostatistics Research Core (BRC), she provides ongoing statistical support to Lurie Children’s investigators. Additionally, her methodological research focuses on nonparametric methods for time-to-event data analysis.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Monica Olvera de la Cruz, Northwestern University "TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Monica Olvera de la Cruz, Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Research in the Olvera de la Cruz group is centered around the development of models to describe the self-assembly of heterogeneous molecules including amphiphiles, copolymers, and synthetic and biological polyelectrolytes, as well as the segregation and interface adsorption in multicomponent complex fluids. Work by the group has resulted in a revised model of ionic-driven assembly: demonstrating the electrostatic spontaneous symmetry breaking of ionic fibers and membranes, and identifying its relevance to biological functions and to the design of functional materials. The group's investigations into soft and condensed matter physics have advanced scientific knowledge and opened new research fields of technological importance, including gel electrophoreses dynamics, self-organization of molecular electrolytes into bio-mimetic materials, self-assembly of heterogeneous molecules into complex nanostructures, interface adsorption and phase segregation dynamics and structure of multicomponent fluids.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - Jan 2019 Meeting TBA
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
6:30 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
JANUARY MEETING: Date TBA at 6:30pm in Chambers Hall, Evanston
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly hack nights on popular data science topics, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Each night will feature one hour of structured programming followed by a hacking night with data science project or learning groups of your choice.
Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!
Agenda:
TBA
For more info: data-science-nights.org
Supporting Groups:
This event is supported by the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems, and the Northwestern Data Science Initiative.
Time
Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Leslie DeChurch, Northwestern University "TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Leslie DeChurch, Professor of Communication Studies, Northwestern University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Leslie DeChurch’s research investigates teamwork and leadership in organizations. She is Professor of Communication Studies, and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychology, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences. She is President and Chairperson of the Board of INGRoup, the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research.
Professor DeChurch leads the ATLAS lab: Advancing Teams, Leaders, and Systems. ATLAS explores the dynamics through which teams form, and how these dynamics affect their performance as teams, and their ability to work as larger organizational systems (multiteam systems). ATLAS conducts laboratory and online experiments, meta-analytic integrations, and field studies of teams and leaders to understand their core organizing processes. Such processes include: leadership networks, team cognition, team conflict and motivation, and team information sharing.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Chris Wolverton, Northwestern University "TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Chris Wolverton, Jerome B. Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Chris Wolverton's research group is centered on computational materials science, and specifically first-principles quantum mechanical simulation tools. These computational tools have advanced to the point now where materials may be "synthesized virtually", with their properties predicted on a computer before ever being synthesized in a laboratory. These tools also open the field of "materials informatics" where we can use machine learning tools to explore materials datasets and discover new materials. In this work, his group is working towards a goal of being able to suggest new materials in the same way that Netflix and Amazon can recommend movies or books.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Sera Young, Northwestern University "TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Sera Young, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
The focus of Dr. Young’s work is on the reduction of maternal and child-undernutrition in the first 1000 days, especially in low-resource settings. Methodologically, she draws on her training in medical anthropology (MA, University of Amsterdam), international nutrition (PhD, Cornell) and HIV (Fellowship, University of California San Francisco) to take a biocultural approach to understanding how mothers in low-resource settings cope to preserve their health and that of their families.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)