[Colloquium] Seminar Announcement: The Frontier of Science

[Ninfa Mayorga]

~Reminder

Computation Institute Presentation - Data Lunch Seminar (DLS)

Speaker: Feng "Bill" Shi, Computation Institute, University of Chicago
Host:  Tanu Malik 
Date:  August 15, 2014
Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location: University of Chicago, Searle 240A, 5735 S. Ellis Ave.

The Frontier of Science

Abstract:
Science is a complex system. Following Latour's "actor-network-theory", we model articles as a dynamic hypergraph and explore how this provides a substrate for future scientific discovery. Using millions of biomedical abstracts from MEDLINE, we show that distance between things (i.e., people, methods, diseases, chemicals) is surprisingly small. We then show how science moves from questions answered in one year to problems investigated in the next through a weighted random walk model. This yields intriguing modal dispositions in the way biomedical science evolves: things of one type connect through things of another, and methods play a bridging role.

Bio:
Feng "Bill" Shi is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago, working with Dr. James Evans on the mathematical modeling and analysis of knowledge. His work currently focuses on understanding the processes that generate and shape the knowledge in scientific systems, for example, the beliefs, preferences, biases, and strategies that guide scientists in their exploration of the natural world. Bill received his PhD from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in applied mathematics, with a specialty on complex networks.

Information: Lunch will be provided


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