Workshop on Social Networks

February 20-24, 2012

Venue:

Feb 20-22: Ramanujan Auditorium, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai

Feb 23-24: Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Talks:

Titles and Abstracts

Niloy Ganguly

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Talk 1: Growth with restriction in online social networks

Talk 2: Understanding link farming and list in twitter network

Neelima Gupte

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Talk: Statistical characterizers of model and real networks

Sanjay Jain

University of Delhi, Delhi

Talk 1: Complex systems and social networks

Talk 2: Modeling innovation and economic growth through evolving networks

Rabindranath Jana

Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

Talk: On social networks: Formation, data and few analytic techniques

Raman Mahadevan

Independent Researcher & Economic Historian, Chennai

Talk: Community/Kinship networks and Capital Accumulation in Colonial India: A case study of the Nattukottai Chettiars

Abstract: This presentation attempts to throw light on the importance of social networking at a particular historical conjuncture and how this facilitated the process of capital accumulation in Colonial India through a case study of one of the better known traditional business communities of South India, the Nattukottai Chettiars.

At a time when modern Commercial and economic infrastructure was still relatively underdeveloped Community networks through a host of institutional mechanisms were critical in enabling credit and resource flows across space and thus favored Chettiar’s in this case as well as other kin groups elsewhere to seize the emerging economic opportunities to their advantage.

Paradoxically this system worked relatively smoothly mainly during the initial phase of growth and consolidation of Chettiar capital which also coincidentally happened to be a period of relative economic quiescence. It wasn’t developed or adapted to whether major external shocks such as the world wide depression which set in by 1929 /30 and increasingly came apart during the 1930s and 1940s. The increasing internal differentiation within the community during this period served to act as an additional corrosive element toward caste and community sodality, thus rendering community networks largely infructuous.

S S Manna

Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for the Basic Sciences, Kolkata

Talk: International Trade Network

Animesh Mukherjee

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Talk 1: Statistical physics of language dynamics

Abstract: Language dynamics is a rapidly growing field that focuses on all processes related to the emergence, evolution, change and extinction of languages. Recently, the study of self-organization and evolution of language and meaning has led to the idea that a community of language users can be seen as a complex dynamical system, which collectively solves the problem of developing a shared communication framework through the back-and-forth signaling between individuals.

We shall review some of the progress made in the past few years and highlight potential future directions of research in this area. In particular, the emergence of a common lexicon and of a shared set of linguistic categories will be discussed, as examples corresponding to the early stages of a language. The extent to which synthetic modeling is nowadays contributing to the ongoing debate in cognitive science will be pointed out. In addition, the burst of growth of the web is providing new experimental frameworks. It makes available a huge amount of resources, both as novel tools and data to be analyzed, allowing quantitative and large-scale analysis of the processes underlying the emergence of a collective information and language dynamics.

Talk 2: Opinion formation on time-varying social networks

Abstract: We study the dynamics of the Naming Game as an opinion formation model on time-varying social network. This agent-based model captures the essential features of the agreement dynamics by means of a memory-based negotiation process. Our study focuses on the impact of time-varying properties of the social network of the agents on the Naming Game dynamics. We find that networks with strong community structure hinder the system from reaching global agreement; the evolution of the Naming Game in these networks maintains clusters of coexisting opinions indefinitely leading to metastability. Further, we investigate the naming game dynamics in perfect synchronization with the evolving social network shedding new light on the basic emergent properties of the game that differs largely from what is reported in the existing literature.

Ramasuri Narayanam

IBM India Research Lab, Bangalore

Talk: Game Theoretic Models for Social Network Analysis

Abstract: With increasing demand for online social network based activities, it is very important to understand not only the structural properties of social networks but also how social networks form and function to better exploit their promise and potential. It is important to note that the well known methods and tools for social network analysis (SNA) have a major inadequacy: they do not capture the behavior (such as rationality and intelligence) of individuals nor do they model the strategic

interactions that occur among these individuals. Game theory is a natural tool to overcome this inadequacy since it provides rigorous mathematical models of strategic interaction among autonomous, intelligent, and rational agents. This talk brings out how a game theoretic approach helps analyze social networks better.

There are two parts in this talks. In the first part of the talk, I will focus on introducing a few key

SNA tasks including the well known centrality measures. I also give a brief introduction to game theory at the end of it. In the second part of talk, I will first focus on presenting a few basic network formation models. I then present a few advanced models of network formation and also provide

certain important analytical results using these models.

Sony Pellissery

Institute of Rural Management, Anand

Talk 1: Human Organisational Networks I

Abstract: I am intending to provide a history of how from anthropologists (Malinowski's works) through socilogists/social psychologists (Moreno) Network emerged as a discipline of interdisciplinary study of mathematicians and computer scientists.

Talk 2: Human Organisational Networks II

Abstract: I will show some applications in this actor-actor traditions and techniques of brokerage, power index etc.

Talk 3: Policy Networks

Abstract: I will talk about idea-idea networks and how they are applied in Policy Network Analysis.

Rowena Robinson

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Talk: Kinship structures and social cohesion

Abstract: The study of kinship is basic to anthropology. It is a key social institution, which orders marriage, reproduction, succession, inheritance, the distribution of resources and other forms of social interaction. Kinship is generally about rules, terminologies and modes of behavior associated with these. At the same time, one needs to pay attention to actual relationships. This presentation will briefly introduce basic kinship concepts (descent, affinity, alliance etc.) and then try to examine how social network theory can help in and learn from the way in which anthropologists have used kinship studies, particularly genealogical studies, to examine forms of structured endogamy and the mapping of kin ties on other social and political links including class and status, economic and labor relations, structures of support and exchange, religious affiliations and relations of patronage and clientage.

Santanu Sengupta

Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata

Talk: The local experiences of a global network: Armenians in 17th-18th century Bengal

Abstract: The presentation intends to look at the local experiences and identities of the Armenian network in the context of the contestations in the field of trade and politics in 17th-18th century Bengal and rethink the characteristics of operation of the Armenian global network.

Anindya Sinha

National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore

Talk 1: Food, sex and society: Ecological variability in social networks and individual behavioural strategies in a wild primate population

Abstract: The bonnet macaque, endemic to peninsular India, usually occurs in large multimale multifemale groups in seasonal tropical deciduous forests. Bonnet macaques, however, may be remarkable amongst seasonally breeding macaques in having evolved, in recent years, a high proportion of small, but stable, unimale troops within one particular population; about 52% of the troops in the Bandipur National Park – Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary of southern India are unimale. A long-term demographic and socioecological study of this population indicates that, compared to multimale troops, unimale troops are relatively depleted in subadult and juvenile males, exhibit a female-biased birth sex ratio and display extensive female dispersal, all of which may have evolved in response to reproductive monopolisation by the solitary male. Several ecological factors, including provisioning by tourists, may have led to the evolution of this unique social organisation with its typical individual behavioural strategies. This rather unusual phenomenon for a seasonally breeding cercopithecine demonstrates the behavioural plasticity of a primate species, the potential of life-history strategies to change rapidly under social pressures and the value of demographic studies of multiple populations to detect rare evolutionary phenomena.

Talk 2: Of the mind, memes and macaques: Phenotypic flexibility, behavioural traditions and distributed cognition in primate social networks

Abstract: Phenotypic flexibility, or the within-genotype context-dependent variation in behaviour expressed by single reproductively mature individuals during their lifetimes, often impart a selective advantage to organisms and profoundly influence their survival and reproduction. Another phenomenon, apparently not under direct genetic control, is behavioural inheritance whereby higher animals are able to acquire information from the behaviour of others by social learning, and, through their own modified behaviour, transmit such information between individuals and across generations. This talk will examine the impact of phenotypic flexibility, behavioural inheritance and cultural traditions in shaping the structure and dynamics of a primate society – that of the bonnet macaque, a cercopithecine primate endemic to peninsular India. I will also briefly reflect on how the phenomena of social learning and phenotypic flexibility contribute to our understanding of distributed cognition, a relatively new approach that treats communicative interactions within social networks as directly observable cognitive events rather than using behaviour as a basis for inferences to invisible mental events such as intentions, in primates.

Srinath Srinivasa

IIIT, Bangalore

Talk: Information Networks and Semantics

Abstract: Social networks are a class of information networks, where the unit of exchange (acquaintance, knowledge, attention) is in terms of information, rather than physical material. Information networks are characteristically different from material networks. While material networks are primarily about transfer of energy, information networks are driven by the need to model or represent underlying semantics. In this talk, we will first look contrast information and material networks. We will then look into different kinds of semantics that can be discerned from the way information elements have been connected.

Lakshmi Subramanian

Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata

Talk 1: Merchant networks in the Indian Ocean in historical perspective

Talk 2: Piracy networks in the Indian Ocean