SPRING 2013 CIS 8590-001: Topics in Analysis and Modeling of Social Networks

Time: Thursday, 5:30-8:00pm, Place: Tuttleman 302

Instructor: Zoran Obradovic www.dabi.temple.edu/~zoran

303 Wachman Hall, zoran.obradovic@temple.edu, phone: 215 204 6265

Office hours: Thursday 3-4pm and by appointment

Goals:

Individuals have a tendency to interact with others of similar interests. In turn, their social interactions often influence their activities. The objective of this course is to introduce students to methods for analyzing and modeling the structures and dynamics of social network entities consisting of individuals and the connections among them. The course is structured to provide ample opportunity for participants to learn how groups function in large social and information networks. This will be a practical course that will allow students to scout around for promising social network analysis and modeling research topics by a hands-on experience.

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge in database systems; programming skills; basic statistics, graph theory, and linear algebra.

Texts:

Easley, D. and Kleinberg, J. Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World, Cambridge, 2010. 0-321-32136-7.

Newman, M. Networks: An introduction Oxford University Press, 2010

Topics: Content will include methods for analyzing and modeling the following aspects of social networks:

I. The small-world network models;

II. Centralized and decentralized social network search algorithms;

III. Power-laws and preferential attachment;

IV. Diffusion and information propagation in social networks;

V. Influence maximization in social networks;

VI. Community detection in social networks;

VII. Models of network cascades;

VIII.Models of evolving social networks;

IX. Link and attributes prediction;

Grading: Homework (30%), midterm exam (20%), reading/presenting assignments (20%) and an individual research project (30%).

Late Policy and Academic Honesty: An automatic extension of homework submission is acceptable with 20% penalty per day. Discussing materials with fellow students is acceptable, but programs, experiments and the reports must be done individually.