NetSE: Medium: Robust Socio-Technological Networks: An Inter-Disciplinary Approach to Theoretical Foundation and Experimentation

网络是我们社会的中心，包括虚拟网络空间中的社交网络和通信设备中的技术网络。建立强大的社会技术网络正成为国家安全、救灾和经济稳定的头等大事。该项目汇集了一个真正的跨学科团队来开发基础研究方法，并为实现这一目标进行大规模的人体实验。智力优势：(1)开发健壮网络的基础工具。我们从一套数学和统计工具中得出两个驱动应用：(i)从社会结构、政策影响和通信恢复的角度对冲击的鲁棒性，以及（ii）拓扑对信息价值和传播的影响。(2)跨学科互动。这个团队由来自三个系的四名教员组成：电气工程、社会学和政治学。总的来说，研究人员借鉴了从大规模的、基于社会网络的人类行为研究到异构通信设备的随机优化的专业知识。(3)弥合理论与实践的差距。社会网络研究的一个主要瓶颈是缺乏涉及创新研究议程和人类受试者的实验测试平台。该团队开发了两套独特的实验平台：在线游戏社区和共享市场。更广泛的影响。除了在三个部门之间的课程开发方面进行创新外，该团队还积极接触各种社区，从非政府组织到高中生和在线游戏玩家，从通信网络领域的大公司到对社会科学与工程交叉感兴趣的本科生。

Networks stand at the center of our society, including social networks in virtual online space and technology networks among communication devices. Making socio-technological networks robust is becoming a paramount concern for national security, disaster relief, and economic stability. This project brings together a truly inter-disciplinary team to develop the fundamental research methodologies and perform large-scale human subject experimentations towards this goal. Intellectual Merit: (1) Developing Foundational Tools for Robust Networking. We draw from a suite of mathematical and statistical tools on two driving applications: (i) robustness against shocks, from the angles of social structures, policy influence, and communication recovery, and (ii) topology's impact on information value and propagation. (2) Interacting Across Disciplinary Boundaries. This team consists of four faculty members from three departments: Electrical Engineering, Sociology, and Political Science. Collectively the researchers draw upon expertise ranging from large-scale, social-network-based human behavior study to stochastic optimization over heterogeneous communication devices. (3) Bridging Theory-Practice Gap. A major bottleneck to social network study is the lack of an experimental testbed involving both innovative research agenda and human subjects. There are two sets of unique experimental platforms developed by the team: Online Gaming Community and Sharing Mart. Broader Impacts. In addition to innovations in curriculum development across three departments, this team also actively reaches out to a variety of communities, from Non-Government-Organizations to high school students and online gamers, from major companies in the communication networking sector to undergraduates interested in the intersection between social sciences and engineering.