I was across in Bath last week for a meeting titled ‘Uncertainty in Interaction Networks’, a launch event for Bath’s new centre of network science (and collective behaviour!). I had the chance to show off my latest poster and I thought the quality and diversity of the speakers was excellent. There were participants from a wide range of fields and disciplines all interested in using networks as part of their research; whether it be transmitting data across the internet in an efficient way, understanding the processes leading to animal group social behaviour, or analysing how financial markets think and interact.
The field of network science is relatively new; and interdisciplinary at heart. It was great to hear many of the speakers mention this and how approaching networks from slightly different disciplinary angles with different objectives has really helped push the field to where it is today and provides a great opportunity to collaborate on interdisciplinary problems.
My particular highlight was Sheri Markose’s talk on financial markets and how they should be regulated. It turns out that most banks have been thinking about risk and uncertainty only in connection to themselves rather than at the scale of the larger collective network — leading to the creation of few, large, interconnected hubs that meant that when one bank failed the rest of the system was highly susceptible to the resulting aftershocks in a ‘financial contagion’ as witnessed in the recent recession. It also turns out that standard measures are not good for looking for early warning signals – a story that is ringing true for a variety of systems. However, it turns out that looking at eigenvector/value ideas – highly intersected with mathematical ideas of stability may provide such a system and a means of regulating members of the industry – such that banks with more dominant eigenvalues should be taxed more. Robert May, famed for forging progress in many areas in mathematical and community ecology, also spoke of market stability and how the perception of sharing risk across the market was not quite what it seemed. Derivatives may be a risky business! He also gave some advice for people entering a new field of research or starting on a new problem. That one should think first, then draw up an idealised schematic or toy model of the problem, before jumping into the literature and asking the experts what they think.
Also several people were using twitter as a large social media dataset. Yamir Moreno analysed data related to the 15-M spanish revolution (related to the Occupy and Arab Spring movements of 2010-11), while John Bryden showed that by taking twitter as a whole network, it can be decomposed into closely interacting groups that share a common sociolect which reflects their shared interests – whether that be the education profession or sharing their love of J. Bieber!
It was a well organised meeting with lots of inspiring talks, which are meant to become available online at some point in the near future. Thanks very much to the organisers for putting together such a great event and helping me see networks everywhere!
Phage on toast 