Mason Porter (Mathematical Institute, Oxford)
Networks arise pervasively in biology, physics, technology, social science, and myriad other areas. An ordinary network consists of a collection of entities (called nodes) that interact via edges. "Multilayer networks" are a more general representation that can be used when nodes are connected to each other via multiple types of edges or a network changes in time. In this talk, Mason Porter will discuss how to find dense sets of nodes called "communities" in multilayer networks and some applications of community structure to problems in neuroscience and other areas.
This quarter the Forum has adopted a junior-senior co-presentation format. Accordingly, Jacob Reidhead will introduce the speaker and highlight some ways in which being able to analyze community structure in multilayer networks will advance efforts in the social sciences to model the co-evolution of transaction networks and structured meaning (i.e. culture and cognition).
Below is the link to a truly monumental review on Multilayer Networks which Mason co-authored and has submitted for publication. The manuscript may be found online at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.7233v4.pdf. Also available for download is a set of slides from a talk on the same subject, but directed to an audience in mathematical biology, so most of the examples are in neuroscience rather than social science, http://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/porterm/temp/multislice_nottingham.pdf. Both the review and slides are well-organized and visually intuitive and participants are encouraged to look over both in advance of Wednesday's Forum.
Light refreshments will be provided.