Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lightning Talks with Northwestern Post Doctoral Fellows and Scholars!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speakers:
Joshua Becker - Post Doctoral Fellow, Kellogg and NICO
Yixue Wang - Ph.D. Student, Technology and Social Behavior
Frank van der Wouden - Post Doctoral Fellow, Kellogg and NICO
Igor Zakhlebin- Ph.D. student, Technology and Social Behavior
Abstracts and Bios:
Joshua Becker - Collected vs Collective Intelligence in the Wisdom of Crowds
Abstract: A common assumption in research on the wisdom of crowds is that in order to produce accurate decisions, groups must be composed of individuals who are socially and statistically independent. However, our research shows both computationally and experimentally that social influence can improve belief accuracy, as long as people are embedded in decentralized communication networks. These results hold in domains such as financial forecasting, physician diagnoses, and even political belief formation in echo chambers.
Bio: Joshua Becker is a postdoctoral fellow at NICO and the Kellogg School of Management specializing in collective intelligence. Their current research focuses on the “wisdom of crowds” and seeks to understand how social information processing impacts belief accuracy. Joshua’s mix of formal theoretical models and web-based experiments has been published in venues including Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Yixue Wang - The Role of Professional Feedback in Online News Comment Quality and Engagement
Abstract: News commenting is a prevalent form of online interaction, but it is fraught with issues, such as a low quality of discussion that often takes place. While various forms of moderation can be used to maintain quality, one technique that is underexplored is the role of professional feedback in normative signaling that helps set quality expectations for commenters. This talk will present an analysis of more than 13 million NYT comments and provide evidence that professional feedback in the form of NYT Picks is associated with an increase in quality and frequency of user commenting.
Bio: Yixue Wang is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Technology and Social Behavior program at Northwestern, focusing on computational journalism and social science. She analyzes human behavioral data as a means to enhance diversity, maintain civility and eliminate biases. She is a member of the Computational Journalism Lab at Northwestern, a Data Science fellow at Northwestern Data Science Initiative, and was a data engineer at a political analytics startup before her Ph.D.
Frank van der Wouden - The Adjacent Possible: Why some technological combinations are driving innovation
Abstract: Why are some technological combinations driving innovation? From all possible technological combinations, only very few occur. We use 7.8 million US patents to build networks of technological co-occurrence. We find that technologies sharing a common neighbor are most likely to be introduced in subsequent years. This is because inventors with experience in the commonly shared technology recognizes its value.
Bio: Frank van der Wouden is a post-doctoral research at Kellogg School of Management and NICO. He is interested in networks of collaboration, technological evolution and the spatial distribution of economic activities.
Igor Zakhlebin - Diffusion of Scientific Articles across Online Media
Abstract: Based on millions of social media posts, news articles, blog entries and other web pages, we quantify the cross-medium dynamics and structure of diffusion for scientific articles. We find that initial bursts of posting activity tend to co-occur in time across media, which helps us determine the speed at which individual media pick up scientific information. We use a network inference algorithm to study the underlying structure of diffusion and analyze the structure of the resulting network.
Bio: Igor is a PhD student in Technology and Social Behavior, a joint degree in Computer Science and Communication. He works with mentions of scientific research on social media to understand how information cascades originating in different media interact with each other as well as the role of individual users in dissemination of such information.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, March 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: Steve Cicala, University of Chicago "Imperfect Markets versus Imperfect Regulation in U.S. Electricity Generation"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Steve Cicala - Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
Title:
Imperfect Markets versus Imperfect Regulation in U.S. Electricity Generation
Abstract:
This paper evaluates changes in electricity generation costs caused by the introduction of market mechanisms to allocate production in the United States. I use the staggered transition to markets from 1999-2012 to estimate the causal impact of liberalization using a differences-in-differences design on a comprehensive hourly panel of electricity demand, generators' costs, capacities, and output. I find that markets reduce production costs by 5% by reallocating production: Gains from trade across service areas increase by 55% based on a 25% increase in traded electricity, and costs from using uneconomical units fall 16%.
Speaker Bio:
Steve Cicala is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His work focuses on the economics of regulation, particularly with respect to environmental and energy policy.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, October 16, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
One Book Margot Shetterly Keynote: Evanston Campus
One Book One Northwestern 2019-20
4:30 PM
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Ryan Auditorium, Technological Institute
Details
Faculty Co-Chairs, Associate Professor of Molecular Biosciences Heather Pinkett and Dean Teresa Woodruff of the Graduate School, will be in conversation with author of Hidden Figures Margot Lee Shetterly. There will be a book signing after the talk.
MARGOT LEE SHETTERLY is a writer, researcher, entrepreneur and author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, which was a top book of 2016 for both TIME and Publisher’s Weekly, a USA Today bestseller, and a #1 New York Times bestseller.
Shetterly is also the founder of the Human Computer Project, a digital archive telling the stories all of NASA’s “Human Computers,” women from all backgrounds whose work tipped the balance in favor of the United States in WWII, the Cold War, and the Space Race. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities support her research. She is currently a scholar-in-residence at the University of Virginia, with joint appointments at the McIntire School of Commerce and the School of Engineering.
Time
Thursday, October 17, 2019 at 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Location
Ryan Auditorium, Technological Institute Map
Contact
Calendar
One Book One Northwestern 2019-20
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Suzan van der Lee, NU Earth and Planetary Sciences "Title TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Suzan van der Lee - Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Suzan van der Lee is a seismologist and a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University. She has a Ph.D. in Geological and Geophysical Sciences from Princeton University and an M.Sc. in Geophysics from the University of Utrecht.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, October 23, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
CS Colloquium - Ágnes Horvát - "The Science of Sharing and the Sharing of Science: Diffusion of Scientific Articles across Online Platforms"
Department of Computer Science
12:00 PM
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3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)
Details
Title: The Science of Sharing and the Sharing of Science: Diffusion of Scientific Articles across Online Platforms
Abstract
Online platforms such as social media sites, electronic news outlets, blogs, and wikis are now used by most scholars for sharing their findings. They have also become the primary source of information about scientific advances for the wider public. As the online dissemination of scientific findings increasingly influences personal decision-making and government action, there is a growing necessity and interest in studying how people share research findings online. In this talk, I report results on analyses of the diffusion of scientific articles across major online platforms based on 63 million mentions of about 7.2 million articles over a 7-year period. First, I show commonalities between people sharing science and other content such as news articles and memes. Second, I explore specifics of sharing science. We reconstruct the likely underlying structure of information diffusion and investigate the transfer of information about scientific articles within and across different platforms. In particular, we (1) study the role of different users in the dissemination of information to better understand who are the prime sharers of knowledge, (2) explore the propagation of articles between platforms, and (3) analyze the structural virality of individual information cascades to place science sharing on the spectrum between pure broadcasting and actual peer-to-peer diffusion. This work provides the broadest study to date about the sharing of science online and builds the basis for an informed model of the dynamics of research coverage across platforms.
Bio
Ágnes Horvát (PhD, Heidelberg University) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, an affiliated faculty of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), the Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC), and the Department of Management and Organizations of the Kellogg School of Management (by courtesy). Her current research develops data science approaches to promote cultural innovation processes that integrate individual creativity, collaboration networks, crowdsourcing and machine learning tools. With training in Physics (BSc, MSc, and PhD) and Film and Media (BA), her work uses a multidisciplinary empirical approach to measure and understand success dynamics in cultural and knowledge markets, as well as to identify expressions of the wisdom of crowds that facilitate innovation and ensure better decision-making. Her research group's work is funded by the National Science Foundation through a CRII award. Before starting her appointment in the School of Communication, Horvát was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO).
Time
Wednesday, October 23, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) Map
Contact
Calendar
Department of Computer Science
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Keara Lane, NU Molecular Biosciences "Title TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Keara Lane - Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Biosciences, Northwestern University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Keara Lane is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences and the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program, Northwestern University. The Lane lab is focused on developing tools and approaches to explore the time dimension, or dynamics, of bacterial infection in individual cells.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, October 30, 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: Lori Ziegelmeier, Macalester College "Title TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Lori Ziegelmeier - Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, Macalester College
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Lori Ziegelmeier is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science at Macalester College. Her research is broadly interested in geometric and topological data analysis, an area of mathematics at the intersection of many mathematical fields: geometry, topology, linear algebra, optimization, computing, and machine learning. She is particularly interested in developing and applying tools from computational geometry and topology to a wide variety of data sets from hyperspectral imagery to biological aggregations.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, November 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: Hamed Alhoori, Northern Illinois University "Title TBA"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Hamed Alhoori, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Northern Illinois University
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bio:
Hamed Alhoori is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science, and the Director of DATA lab at Northern Illinois University. The Data Lab focuses on Data Science, Text Analytics, Social Media Mining, Science of Science, Computational Social Science, and Human-Centered Computing.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, November 20, 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: Lightning Talks with Northwestern Fellows and Scholars!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
NICO is hosting a lightning talk seminar each term as a part of our Wednesdays@NICO seminar series. Northwestern graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are invited to participate. To sign up, please visit: https://bit.ly/2lRqSXK
Title:
TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Speaker Bios:
TBA
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Winter Break Begins
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Winter Break Begins
Time
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar
Winter Classes begin 8 a.m.
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Winter Classes begin 8 a.m.
Time
Monday, January 6, 2020
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar