Introduction When we eat out, we will often times look for reviews online on websites ranging from just Google or perhaps Yelp and the like. Indeed, Yelp being one of the largest platforms for reviews means that the public dataset that they released is particularly useful — especially when we consider what is possible here. […]
Motivation War is something that has always been a part of human history whether we like it or not. The human race collectively has been known to resort to it to resolve disputes over resources, ideologies, and other differences. Depending on how out of hand these disputes become, the size of these wars can range […]
Introduction In lecture we discussed ideas of SCC and clusters or components which seem more “connected”. We learned about Mark Granovetter’s work on modelling a graph using strong and weak ties, and implications of this in our graphs. In this paper we will discuss the existence of global factions and overall “connectedness” of these factions […]
Introduction In class, we discussed the work of Mark Granovetter where he makes a connection between the social and structural roles of an edge and claims that weak ties have access to different parts of the network. In the slides, we learned of the strength of weak ties theory which states that networks are composed of […]
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Strong Ties in Recommendations
We all know by now that recommendation systems are embedded into many web applications that we use today. In social media, they are what keeps us hooked to the platform, and in e-commerce, is what would get you to buy more products from them. Targeted advertising uses user data to so that they could bring […]
If you are someone who has been on Reddit for some time, you might have gotten a feeling that you can predict what will happen to a post/comment in the near future. The feeling persists all across Reddit, ranging from likes/comments behaviors on political news posts to the horrifying fate of comments with emojis (except […]
Motivation As we enter the month of October, something important that determines the next four years occurs across all of Ontario; that is the municipal elections taking place on October 24th! Also, the provincial election that occurred in June resulted in the lowest voter turnout rate at just 45.53%. This news article published by Cornell […]
Motivation Constructing a fictional universe is an immense challenge with a multitude of factors that must be taken into consideration. Oftentimes, it takes teams of people to effectively balance creating a coherent universe that adheres to its timeline while also developing unique and interesting individual stories or characters. Many times, when these fictional universes grow […]
Game of Thrones – Network science to find the most important characters Motivation I am watching Game of Thrones right now again. The prequel House of the Dragon just dropped, so I’m going to watch both simultaneously. This got me thinking about ways we can categorize characters, their relationships, and their importance within the […]
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Are Remote Jobs Really the Best?
In a post-lockdown world, some employers are giving their employees the option to stay remote, work in-person, or hybrid; some are mandating in-person. Perhaps they are justified. Introduction We learned in class about Mark Granovetter’s research (1973) on strong and weak ties where he proposes that weak ties enable the spread of information and ideas […]
Motivation Music has been a core part of human entertainment for thousands of years. By having diverse and rich music taste, we make ourselves less ignorant toward other cultures, we can derive more enjoyment and appreciation for music as a whole, and we open our minds to new ideas. Spotify, as the world’s leading streaming […]
It’s always quite a pleasant surprise whenever some random situation ends up tying back into graph theory. One particular scenario I recently read about is a group of 7 friends deciding to have a party due to COVID-19 restrictions being somewhat lifted. They get the idea to see if each one of them can shake […]
Introduction In the course so far, we have seen various networks used to represent a wide range of relationships and situations such as friendship bonds, email ties, and website linkages with the help of graph theory. The concept of network graphs might seem very simple, yet is such a powerful tool for multiple fields to […]
If you like football (soccer) and video games just like me, you’re probably also thrilled about the upcoming release of FIFA 23 on September 30th. Otherwise, you probably don’t even know what FIFA 23 is, so I’ll provide a quick explanation. FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) is the association that governs football around the […]
Hi everyone, welcome to the blog! This is where you should publish your blog posts. Social and information networks are absolutely everywhere, including your favourite areas, interests, and hobbies. The blog posts are an opportunity for you to explore how others (or you!) have used the language of network analysis to explore interconnection in something […]