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Networks of Echoes

Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders

  • Book
  • © 2014

Overview

Authors:
  1. Bruce J. West

    1. Information Sciences Directorate, Army Research Office, Research Triangle Park, USA

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  2. Malgorzata Turalska

    1. Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, USA

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    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  3. Paolo Grigolini

    1. Department of Physics, University of North Texas, Denton, USA

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    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Uses a single relatively simple computational model to investigate consensus
  • Explores the different complexities in time and network topology
  • Features criticality and phase transition to explain consensus and neuronal avalanches
  • Demonstrates the sensitivity of consensus to the destabilizing influence of zealots
  • Explains how the dynamic behavior of herds and flocks depend on information transfer
  • Insightfully overviews recent tools and their uses may serve as an introduction and curriculum guide in related courses

Part of the book series: Computational Social Sciences (CSS)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Networking Perspective

    • Bruce J. West, Malgorzata Turalska, Paolo Grigolini
    Pages 1-25

  3. Complexity Primer

    • Bruce J. West, Malgorzata Turalska, Paolo Grigolini
    Pages 27-64

  4. A Model of Decision Making

    • Bruce J. West, Malgorzata Turalska, Paolo Grigolini
    Pages 65-112

  5. Criticality and Crowds

    • Bruce J. West, Malgorzata Turalska, Paolo Grigolini
    Pages 113-168

  6. Networks of Influence

    • Bruce J. West, Malgorzata Turalska, Paolo Grigolini
    Pages 169-198

  7. Critical Networks

    • Bruce J. West, Malgorzata Turalska, Paolo Grigolini
    Pages 199-215

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 217-225
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Keywords

About this book

Networks of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders is a mathematically rigorous and data rich book on a fascinating area of the science and engineering of social webs. There are hundreds of complex network phenomena whose statistical properties are described by inverse power laws. The phenomena of interest are not arcane events that we encounter only fleetingly, but are events that dominate our lives. We examine how this intermittent statistical behavior intertwines itself with what appears to be the organized activity of social groups. The book is structured as answers to a sequence of questions such as: How are decisions reached in elections and boardrooms? How is the stability of a society undermined by zealots and committed minorities and how is that stability re-established? Can we learn to answer such questions about human behavior by studying the way flocks of birds retain their formation when eluding a predator? These questions and others are answered using a generic model of a complex dynamic network—one whose global behavior is determined by a symmetric interaction among individuals based on social imitation. The complexity of the network is manifest in time series resulting from self-organized critical dynamics that have divergent first and second moments, are non-stationary, non-ergodic and non-Poisson. How phase transitions in the network dynamics influence such activity as decision making is a fascinating story and provides a context for introducing many of the mathematical ideas necessary for understanding complex networks in general. The decision making model (DMM) is selected to emphasize that there are features of complex webs that supersede specific mechanisms and need to be understood from a general perspective. This insightful overview of recent tools and their uses may serve as an introduction and curriculum guide in related courses.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Information Sciences Directorate, Army Research Office, Research Triangle Park, USA

    Bruce J. West

  • Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, USA

    Malgorzata Turalska

  • Department of Physics, University of North Texas, Denton, USA

    Paolo Grigolini

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