Network GPS - Navigating Network Dynamics

Event Details

Type

Center for Studies in Physics and Biology Seminars

Speaker(s)

Baruch Barzel, Ph.D., associate professor, Bar-Ilan University

Speaker bio(s)

In the past two decades we made significant advances in mapping the structure of social, biological and technological networks. The challenge that remains is to translate everything we know about network structure into its actual observed dynamics. In essence, whether it's communicable diseases, genetic regulation, or the spread of failures in an infrastructure network, these dynamics boil down to the patterns of information spread in the network. It all begins with a local perturbation, such as a sudden disease outbreak or a local power failure, which then propagates to impact all other nodes. The challenge is that the resulting spatio-temporal propagation patterns are diverse and unpredictable - indeed, a zoo of spreading patterns - that seem to be only loosely connected to the network structure. We show that we can tame this zoo by exposing a systematic translation of network structural elements into their dynamic outcome, allowing us to navigate networks, and, most importantly, to expose a deep universality behind their seemingly diverse dynamics. Along the way, we predict how long it takes for viruses to spread between countries, which metabolites contribute most to the system's information flow, and how to resuscitate a collapsed microbial network back into functionality.

Open to

Public

Contact

Melanie Lee

Phone

(212) 327-8636

Sponsor

Melanie Lee
(212) 327-8636
leem@rockefeller.edu