We are surrounded by networks. The Internet, one of the most advanced artifacts ever created by mankind, is the paradigmatic example of a "network of networks" with unprecedented technological, economical and social ramifications. Online social networks have become a major driving phenomenon on the web since the Internet has expanded as to include users and their social systems in its description and operation. Technological networks such as the cellular phone network or the energy grid support many aspects of our daily life. Moreover, there is a growing number of highly-popular user-centric applications in Internet that rely on social networks for mining and filtering information, for providing recommendations, as well as for ranking of documents and services. In this course we will present the design principles and the main structural properties and theoretical models of online social networks and technological networks, algorithms for data mining in social networks, and the basic network economic issues, with an eye towards the current research issues in the area.

Announcements

Homework 2 is out. It is due on June 20.

The deadline of homework 1 has been postponed to May 23.

Homework 1 is out. It is due on May 9.

Classes start on February 22.

Remember to register your email; if you do not know how, send an email to Aris.

Topics that we will cover

• Properties of social networks
• Models for social networks
• Community detection
• Spectral techniques for community detection
• Centrality measures
• Cascading behavior in social networks and epidemics
• Influence maximization and viral marketing
• Influence and homophily
• Game theory on networks
• Network traffic
• Selfish routing and price of anarchy
• Auctions
• Algorithmic market design
• Market Equilibria: characterization and computation
• Two-sided markets and sharing economy

 

Instructors

Aris Anagnostopoulos, Sapienza University of Rome

George Birmpas, Sapienza University of Rome

 

When and where:

Monday 14.00–17.00, Via Ariosto 25, Room A5

Thursday 17.00–19.00, Via Ariosto 25, Room A5

 

Office hours

You can use the office hours for any question regarding the class material, general questions on networks, the meaning of life, pretty much anything. Send an email to the instructors for arrangement.

 

Textbook and references

The main textbook is the book Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World, by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg.

In addition, we will cover material from various other sources, which we will post online as the course proceeds.

 

Exam format

The evaluation has two parts: a set of two theoretical homeworks, which will be due during the semester, and a final project, or a final presentation. During the exam period we will assess the quality of the projects and the extent you have learned the class material. Students are highly encouraged to do the homeworks. Whoever does not do the homeworks will have to do a final exam on the entire class material and a final project. In this case as well we will have an oral exam during the exam session.

 

Syllabus

Date	Topic	Reading
February 22	Introduction to social networks and online markets.	Chapters 1, 2, slides
February 25	Properties of complex networks.	Notes
March 1	Tie strength, affiliation networks.	Chapters 3-3.4, 4-4.4
March 4	Random-graph models for social networks.
March 8	Random-graph model (cont.), preferential-attahment model
March 11	Preferential-attachment model (cont.).
March 15	Community detection and densest subgraph.	Sections 1 and 3 of Moses Charikar's paper
March 18	Graph clustering and sparsest cut.	Chapter 1 of Luca Trevisan's notes
March 22	Algebraic formulation of the sparsest cut.	Chapter 2 of Luca Trevisan's notes
March 25	Cheeger's inequalities.
March 29	Cheeger's inequalities (cont.).
April 8	Introduction to game theory.	Slides
April 12	Solution concepts in games.	Slides
April 15	Solution concepts in games (cont).	Slides
April 15	Solution concepts in games (cont)., congestion games.	Slides on solution concepts and on congestion games
April 22	Efficiency at equilibrium.	Slides
April 26	Single-item auctions.	Slides
April 29	Single-item auctions (cont.).	Slides
May 3	Multi-item auctions.	Slides
May 6	Multi-item auctions (cont.).
May 10	Laboratory.
May 13	Computational social choice.	Slides
May 17	Voting.	Slides
May 20	Voting (cont.).	Slides
May 24	Epidemics and influence	Slides

 

Homeworks

• Homework 1 (due: 9/5/2021 23/5/2021, 23.59)
• Homework 2 (due: 9/5/2021 20/6/2021, 23.59)

 

Collaboration policy (read carefully!): You can discuss with other students of the course about the homeworks and the projects. However, you must understand well your solutions and the final writeup must be yours and written in isolation. In addition, even though you may discuss about how you could implement an algorithm, what type of libraries to use, and so on, the final code must be yours. You may also consult the internet for information, as long as it does not reveal the solution. If a question asks you to design and implement an algorithm for a problem, it's fine if you find information about how to resolve a problem with character encoding, for example, but it is not fine if you search for the code or the algorithm for the problem you are being asked. For the homeworks and projects, you can talk with other students of the course about questions on the programming language, libraries, some API issue, and so on, but both the solutions and the programming must be yours. If we find out that you have violated the policy and you have copied in any way you will automatically fail. If you have any doubts about whether something is allowed or not, ask the instructor.