Looking Forward to the 2012 Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction (SBP) Conference

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Registration is now open for SBP12, the 2012 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction.

SBP12 will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, April 2 – April 5, 2012.

The call for participation for the SBP 2012 conference is being circulated widely.

This year's conference should be terrific, as were the previous two, which I attended.

Two years ago, Patrick Qiang and I gave a tutorial on the theme of our Fragile Networks book and last year I became the Tutorial Chair for this conference. This year I am again serving as the Tutorial Chair.

THERE ARE SOME VERY EXCITING ITEMS ON THE PROGRAM!

New in 2012 – SBP 2012 Challenge – see: http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/conferences/sbp2012/challenge.html

TUTORIALS:

Morning and afternoon tutorials are offered on Monday, April 2 (comes with registration fee, lunch included):

· Dynamic Network Analysis – Kathleen M. Carley;

· Crowdsourcing, Human Computation, and Collective Intelligence − Haym Hirsh; and

· Public Health Concepts: An Introduction for Modelers − Nathaniel Osgood & Patricia L. Mabry
To see a full description of tutorials, see: http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/conferences/sbp2012/tutorials.html


SBP12 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Dr. Bobby Milstein
Fannie E. Rippel Foundation
http://rippelfoundation.org/rethink-health/rethink-health-dynamics/whos-involved/
− April 3, 8:30 − 9:15am

Dr. Patrick A. Mason
Director, Human Performance, Training, and BioSystems Directorate
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/conferences/sbp2012/mason.pdf
− April 4, 8:15 − 9:00am

Dr. Joshua Epstein
Professor of Emergency Medicine.
Director, Center for Advanced Modeling in the Social, Behavioral and Health Sciences (CAM)
Departments of Economics, Biostatistics, and Environmental Health
Johns Hopkins University
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/emergencymedicine/Faculty/JHH/EPSTEIN_joshua.html
− April 5, 8:15 − 9:00am

Please visit the conference website for further information:
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/conferences/sbp2012/index.html

Operations Research Tutorials from Sports Scheduling to Black Swans and Severe Uncertainty, Fragile Networks, and Humanitarian Logistics

The two volume edition of the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR) is now available and just in time (see the Table of Contents above). The January-March 2012 double volume is a refereed compendium of papers, edited by Celso Ribeiro and Irene Loiseau, and is based on tutorials given at the ALIO-INFORMS meeting that took place in glorious Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 6-9, 2010.

I am using two of the tutorial papers in my new course, Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare, that I am teaching this coming term at the Isenberg School of Management. The syllabus is available online.

These papers are: Using OR to adapt supply chain management best practices to humanitarian logistics (pages 307–322) by Luk N. Van Wassenhove and Alfonso J. Pedraza Martinez, and the paper that I co-authored with Q. Qiang: Fragile networks: identifying vulnerabilities and synergies in an uncertain age (pages 123–160).

I have also read several other tutorials in this volume including the very intriguing one by M. Sniedovich,

Black Swans, New Nostradamuses, Voodoo decision theories, and the science of decision making in the face of severe uncertainty (pages 253–281). In his tutorial paper, Sniedovich has quotes from Nassim Taleb, who not only is a best-selling author, much quoted in the Wall Street Journal, but also had a faculty appointment in my department at the Isenberg School for a period of time. Indeed, Taleb's published papers that year were included in our Research Beat of 2005 (along with those of other faculty) and he even published with Emanuel Derman of Columbia, who is the featured interviewee in the most recent INFORMS podcast with Barry List!

Sniedovich cites the book, Algorithms for Worst-Case Design and Applications to Risk Management, by Rustem and Howe, published by Princeton University Press. In addition, he cites the book Minimax and Applications by Du and Pardalos, and published by Springer. Coincidentally, I know both Berc Rustem and Panos Pardalos well and they were among the invited speakers in the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Workshop on Humanitarian Logistics: Networks for Africa that I organized and that took place in May 2008.
I had the pleasure of attending several of the tutorials at the ALIO-INFORMS conference, including Celso Ribeiro's one on sports scheduling (with a focus on soccer, which was perfect since the World Cup was just beginning) and, of course, I was there to give the tutorial on Fragile Networks (the theme of my book with Q. Qiang). My tutorial can be accessed in part I, part II, and part III.

For photos taken at the conference, including several of the tutorial givers, see this post on this blog and this one.

I tried to capture some of the magic of this historical city in other photos as well.

The SBP 2011 Tutorial Presentations Are Now Online!

If you missed the three excellent tutorials that were delivered this past Monday, as part of the Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction (SBP) 2011 Conference at the University of Maryland College Park, you may access the presentations online!

Tutorial 1: Toolkits for Computational Social Science: Using Honest Signals to Predict and Shape Human Responses

Alex `Sandy' Pentland, MIT

Tutorial Slides: funf Mobile Sensing System

Tutorial Slides: Influence Model

Tutorial 2: Social Network Analysis of Personal and Group Networks

Allen Tien, Medical Decision Logic

Chris McCarty, University of Florida Survey Research Center

Eric C. Jones, University of North Carolina-Greensboro

Tutorial Slides

Tutorial 3: Understanding Social Media: Tools, Applications, and Processes

Nitin Agarwal, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Tutorial Slides

The above photos were taken at these tutorials.

Thanks again to the outstanding presenters and to the audiences for the great questions and discussions! Also, thanks to the tutorial presenters for making their lecture slides available!

Hope to See You at the Northeast Regional INFORMS Conference at UMass Amherst!

The program with schedule for the First Northeast Regional INFORMS Conference, which will take place at UMass Amherst, May 6-7, 2011 is now searchable online! Feel free to search for your favorite "key word" to see the list of exciting presentations.

With three outstanding plenary speakers: Dr. Brenda Dietriich of IBM, Dr. Alex "Sandy" Pentland of the Media Lab at MIT, and Dr. Simchi-Levi of MIT, plus two terrific tutorials: by Greg H. Parlier and Tom Donnelly, and three panels: The Academic Job Search Process, Research in Academia and Industry, and How to Run a Successful INFORMS Student Chapter, and with dozens of invited and contributed sessions with papers on topics ranging from supply chains to health care and even social networks, it will be a very exciting and informative conference.

The early registration deadline is April 8, 2011.

The Conference Committee has worked very hard to provide an excellent set of presentations as well as social events. We acknowledge financial support from the Isenberg School of Management, the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst as well as from the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement at UMass Amherst!

Also, special thanks go to the INFORMS folks who have been so wonderful in supporting the General Chair, Dr. Hari Balasubramanian, the Program Co-Chairs, Drs. Les Servi and Tamas Terlaky, and the Program Committee.

We look forward to welcoming you to UMass Amherst in early May!

Info on the 2011 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction (SBP 2011) is Now Online!

I am delighted to announce that the 2011 SBP conference program, along with tutorial information, and keynotes, is now posted online on the conference website.

The program committee has worked very hard and the conference speaker lineup is terrific. I might add that this conference has single track talks and all the talks are based on rigorously reviewed papers, which will appear in a Springer Proceedings volume, which is now in press.

The Keynote speakers and their keynotes are:

Kimberly Thompson
Kid Risk, Inc.
Using Models to Inform Policy: Insights from Modeling the Complexities of Global Polio Eradication
- March 29, 8:30-9:15am

Peter Cramton
University of Maryland
Medicare Auctions: A Case Study of Market Design in Washington, DC
- March 29, 1:00-1:45pm

Herbert Gintis
Central European University and the Santa Fe Institute
Agent-based Models of Complex Dynamical Systems of Market Exchange
- March 30, 1:00-1:45pm

Sarit Kraus
Bar-Ilan University and University of Maryland
Agents that Negotiate Proficiently with People
- March 31, 8:15-9:00am

The Tutorials take place on March 28, 2011 and the presenters and their tutorials are:

Tutorial, March 28, 8:30am–12:30pm:

Toolkits for Computational Social Science: Using Honest Signals to Predict and Shape Human Responses
Alex `Sandy' Pentland, MIT

Tutorial, March 28, 2:00–5:30pm:

Social Network Analysis of Personal and Group Networks
Allen Tien, Medical Decision Logic
Chris McCarty, University of Florida Survey Research Center
Eric C Jones, University of North Carolina-Greensboro

Tutorial, March 28, 2:00–5:30pm:

Behavioral Informatics: Data Management and Mining Techniques Enabling Computational Behavioral Science Jaideep Srivastava, University of Minnesota

Come and learn about topics ranging from health issues via Twitter to optimization-based influencing of village social networks in counterinsurgencies to location privacy protection on social networks and even to promoting coordination for disaster relief -- from crowdsourcing to coordination!

There will also be cross-fertilization roundtables.

Registration will soon be open!

Exciting Tutorials at the International SBP 2011 Conference!

I am very pleased that the tutorials have been finalized for the 2011 SBP (Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction) Conference, which will take place March 28-31, 2011 at the University of Maryland College Park.

Confirmed tutorial givers and their tutorial titles at SBP 2011 are:

Dr. Alex "Sandy" Pentland of the Media Lab at MIT: "Toolkits for Computational Social Science: Using Honest Signals to Predict and Shape Human Responses;"

Dr. Patty Mabry of NIH and Dr. Nate Osgood of the University of Saskatchewan: "Public Health Concepts: An Introduction for Modelers;"

Dr. Allen Tien of MDLOGIX and two team members: "Social Network Analysis of Personal and Group Networks," and

Dr. Jarideep Srivastava of the University of Minnesota: "Behavioral Informatics: Data Management and Mining Techniques Enabling Computational Behavioral Science."

The above tutorials will be delivered on March 28, 2011.

Tutorials and keynote talks are some of my favorite events at professional conferences so I hope that you can join us next March.

As the tutorial chair for this conference I am delighted with the above list of speakers and look forward to their tutorials! I might add that the program committee has been wonderful in identifying outstanding keynote speakers, which include Dr. Kim Thompson of Harvard's School of Public Health and Dr. Herb Gintis of the Santa Fe Institute (and a former colleague of mine at UMass Amherst).

Keep on checking the above conference website link, as information will continue to get posted.

2011 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction (SBP) Call for Papers

Mark your calendars!

Information on the 2011 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction is now available on the conference website! The conference will take place March 29-31, 2011 at the University of Maryland College Park, with tutorials on March 28.

I enjoyed last year's conference so much at which Dr. Patrick Qiang and I presented a tutorial on Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World that I agreed to be the tutorial chair at this year's conference.

This conference is truly interdisciplinary and the researchers and practitioners that we met last year were fascinating to interact with.

Call for Papers and Posters

Papers or posters are solicited on research issues, theories, and applications. Topics of interests include, but are not limited to:

1. Military and security applications of SBP
   1. Group formation and evolution in the political context
   2. Technology and flash crowds
   3. Networks and political influence
   4. Information diffusion
   5. Group representation and profiling
2. Health applications of SBP
   1. Social network analysis to understand health behavior
   2. Modeling of health policy and decision making
   3. Modeling of behavioral aspects of infectious disease spread
   4. Intervention design and modeling for behavioral health
3. Basic research on sociocultural and behavioral processes using SBP
   1. Group interaction and collaboration
   2. Group formation and evolution
   3. Group representation and profiling
   4. Cultural patterns and representation
   5. Social conventions and social contexts
   6. Influence process and recognition
   7. Public opinion representation
   8. Viral marketing and information diffusion
   9. Psycho-cultural situation awareness
4. Methodological issues in SBP
   1. Verification and validation
   2. Sensitivity analysis
   3. Matching technique or method to research questions
   4. Metrics and evaluation
   5. Methodological innovation
   6. Model federation and integration
   7. Limitations of and barriers to SBP
   8. Research gaps and opportunities

The full call for papers can also be downloaded here in pdf format and the deadline for paper submissions is November 6, 2010.

For the 2011 SBP Conference Committee click here.

Operations Research Tutorials at ALIO-INFORMS Conference

There is a wealth of tutorials at the very soon to take place ALIO-INFORMS Conference, as well as exciting plenary talks and keynote speeches. The venue is Buenos Aires, Argentina, which has been called the "Paris of the South."

The topics of the tutorials and plenary and keynote speeches are varied and exciting and include a wide spectrum: from optimization in sports to portfolio management, OR education, revenue management, dynamic games, humanitarian operations, telecommunications applications, cliques in graphs, among others. The full list can be read here.

Mike Trick has a blog post that he is also off to the conference and has been working on his tutorial.

I am sure that this conference will be covered well by the bloggers in attendance and plan on posting from Buenos Aires!

The tutorial that I will be giving is on Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain Age and I have made the slides available (along with those for a presentation and for the International Collaborations panel that I will be on). An invited paper, based on this tutorial, and in press in the journal, International Transactions in Operational Research, joint with my co-author of the Fragile Networks book, can be downloaded (in pdf format).