In this video, Harvard professor Nicholas Christakis explains how it is possible to predict epidemics by using social network theory. The interesting thing is that he did this without actually having to map a human social network.
Instead, he used a known fact about social networks, the so called "Friendship Paradox": The friends of people that were randomly chosen have more friends and are more central in the network than the randomly chosen people themselves.
He tested this fact on an outbreak of H1N1 flu at Harvard. In this study, 1300 randomly selected undergraduates from Harvard nominated their friends. The researchers then followed both the randomly selected undergraduates as well as the friends daily in time to see whether they had the flu or not. By monitoring the friends group, the research group got a sixteen days advance warning concerning the pending epidemics.
Dennis P.
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