Food riots, revolutions, ethnic violence, urban health, fads and panics arise from collective actions. Complex systems science provides new opportunities to understand these collective behaviors by describing the patterns of behavior of individuals interacting through social networks.
Teams
Society is facing a new and unprecedented challenge — responding to its own overwhelming complexity. The structure of our society must change.
Yaneer Bar-Yam and David Kantor, A mathematical theory of interpersonal interactions and group behavior, NECSI Report 2018-12-02 (December 30, 2018).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Why teams?, NECSI (January 29, 2017).
Taeer Bar-Yam and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Educating teams, NECSI (January 22, 2017).
Taeer Bar-Yam, Hiring teams, NECSI (January 22, 2017).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Teams: A manifesto, NECSI (July 31, 2016).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Ethical values: A multiscale scientific perspective, NECSI (May 19, 2016).
Global Harm and Precaution
Policy makers today are making decisions that have global consequences. If an action has a suspected risk of causing severe harm globally, then it should not be taken in the absence of scientific near-certainty about its safety. NECSI analyzes when such precaution is warranted.
John Sterman, Offers for paris climate talks would reduce warming by 1°C, Climate Interactive (2015).
Joseph Norman, Rupert Read, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Climate models and precautionary measures, Issues in Science and Technology (Summer 2015).
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Rupert Read, Raphael Douady, Joseph Norman, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Response to review by Trevor Charles re: Precautionary Principle, NECSI (November 28, 2014).
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Rupert Read, Raphael Douady, Joseph Norman, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, The precautionary principle (with application to the genetic modification of organisms), arXiv:1410.5787 (October 17, 2014).
Pandemics
In the era of global connectivity, it is easier than ever for epidemics to spiral into pandemics. NECSI analysis shows how best to contain them.
Raphael Parens, H. Frederik Nijhout, Alfredo Morales, Felipe Xavier Costa, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, A possible link between pyriproxyfen and microcephaly, PLOS Currents Outbreaks (November 27, 2017).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, H. Frederik Nijhout, Raphael Parens, Felipe Costa, and Alfredo J. Morales, The case for pyriproxyfen as a potential cause of microcephaly; from biology to epidemiology, arXiv:1703.03765 (2017).
Dan Evans, Fred Nijhout, Raphael Parens, Alfredo J. Morales, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, A possible link between pyriproxyfen and microcephaly, NECSI (April 14, 2016).
Raphael Parens and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Zika and other potential causes of microcephaly in Brazil: Status March 8, 2016, NECSI (2016).
Yaneer Bar-Yam and Rebecca Menapace, DRAFT Zika virus community response, NECSI (February 5, 2016).
Daniel Cooney, Vincent Wong, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Beyond contact tracing: Community-based early detection for Ebola response, PLoS Currents Outbreaks (May 19, 2016).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Risking it all: Why are public health authorities not concerned about Ebola in the US? Part I. Fat tailed distributions, arXiv:1411.1472 (November 5, 2014).
Kia Hall and Yaneer Bar-Yam, The potential for increase in global Ebola transmission during end of year Liberian holiday travel, NECSI (October, 2014).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Is the response in Liberia succeeding? Positive indications, NECSI (October 17, 2014).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Stopping Ebola globally and in West Africa, NECSI Report 2014-10-01 (October 15, 2014).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Response to CDC Director Frieden’s opposition to a travel ban, NECSI (October 13, 2014).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, DRAFT New Ebola response strategy: Local care team early detection response, NECSI (October 12, 2014).
Matthew Hardcastle and Yaneer Bar-Yam, The threat of Ebola in the West, NECSI Report 2014-09-02 (2014).
Matthew Hardcastle and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Effective Ebola response: A multiscale approach, NECSI Report 2014-09-01 (September 19, 2014).
Government
NECSI research shows that in the realm of governmental regulation, cost-benefit analysis can predict the efficacy of policy and the likelihood of corruption.
Alexander Siegenfeld and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Negative representation and instability in democratic elections, Nature Physics (January 13, 2020).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Power and leadership: A complex systems science approach Part I—Representation and dynamics, arXiv:1811.02896 (November 7, 2018).
Yaneer Bar-Yam and Alexander Siegenfeld, When representative democracy isn’t, NECSI (November 20, 2016).
Yaneer Bar-Yam and Taeer Bar-Yam, A lesson in the errors of statistical thinking: Nate Silver on Trump, NECSI (July 16, 2016).
Dominic K. Albino, Anzi Hu, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Corporations and regulators: The game of influence in regulatory capture, arXiv:1310.0057 (October 1, 2013).
Yaneer Bar-Yam and Mark Woolsey, Debt limit: The future of democracy?, NECSI Report 2007-05-01 (May, 2007)
Riots and Revolutions
What will the outcome of social unrest be? Will the protestors achieve what they desire? And if not, what strategies can be used to prevent the suffering that causes unrest and the suffering that results from it?
Jason Koebler, The math that explains the world: The Arab Spring, Motherboard (June 17, 2017).
Raphael Parens and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Six-year report on the Arab Spring, NECSI (February 24, 2017).
Yaneer Bar-Yam and Casey Friedman, Swiss-ification: Syria's best chance for peace, NECSI Report 2013-09-02 (September 4, 2013).
Casey Friedman, Dominic K. Albino, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Political stability and military intervention in Egypt, arXiv:1307.3982 (July 8, 2013).
Alexander S. Gard-Murray and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Complexity and the limits of revolution: What will happen to the Arab Spring?, arXiv:1212.3041 (December 11, 2012, Re-released July 16, 2013).
Marco Lagi, Karla Z. Bertrand, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, The food crises and political instability in North Africa and the Middle East, arXiv:1108.2455 (August 10, 2011).
Marco Lagi, Yavni Bar-Yam, Karla Z. Bertrand, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, UPDATE February 2012 — The food crises: Predictive validation of a quantitative model of food prices including speculators and ethanol conversion, arXiv:1203.1313 (March 6, 2012).
Yavni Bar-Yam, Marco Lagi, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, South African riots: Repercussion of the global food crisis and US drought, arXiv:1307.526 (January 8, 2013).
Karla Bertrand and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Contagion and cascades through the Middle East: Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria..., NECSI Technical Report 2011-2-01 (February 1, 2011).
Yaneer Bar-Yam and Alexander S. Gard-Murray, Framing a complexity theory solution to the Middle East crises, NECSI Technical Report 2011-2-02 (February 24, 2011).
Global Food
Increases in food prices have driven vulnerable populations to desperation. NECSI research shows how US agricultural policies have affected food prices and triggered the global food crisis and global unrest taking place today.
Dominic K Albino and Yaneer Bar-Yam, NECSI at 'Biofuels and American Energy' panel discussion (April 11, 2014).
Casey Friedman, Dominic K. Albino, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Comment: Renewable fuel standard assessment white paper on agricultural sector impacts, NECSI Report 2013-04-02 (April 29, 2013).
Dominic K. Albino, Casey Friedman, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Global security and the Renewable Fuel Standard, NECSI Report 2013-04-01 (April 29, 2013).
Dominic K. Albino and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Myths and facts about the Renewable Fuel Standard, NECSI Report 2013-01-01 (January 31, 2013).
Yavni Bar-Yam, Marco Lagi, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, South African riots: Repercussion of the global food crisis and US drought, arXiv:1307.526 (January 8, 2013).
Dominic K. Albino, Karla Z. Bertrand, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Food for fuel: The price of ethanol, arXiv:1210.6080 (October 4, 2012).
Karla Z. Bertrand, Greg Lindsay, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Food briefing, NECSI Report 2012-09-28 (September 28, 2012).
Marco Lagi, Yavni Bar-Yam, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, UPDATE July 2012 — The food crises: The US drought, arXiv: 1209.6376 (July 23, 2012).
Marco Lagi, Alexander S. Gard-Murray, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Impact of ethanol conversion and speculation on Mexico corn imports, NECSI (May 2012).
Marco Lagi, Yavni Bar-Yam, Karla Z. Bertrand, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, UPDATE February 2012 — The Food Crises: Predictive validation of a quantitative model of food prices including speculators and ethanol conversion, arXiv:1203.1313 (March 6, 2012).
Michael J. Widener, Yavni Bar-Yam, Andrea Gros, Sara S. Metcalf, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Modeling policy and agricultural decisions in Afghanistan, GeoJournal 78(4): 591-599 (2013).
Marco Lagi, Yavni Bar-Yam, Karla Z. Bertrand, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, The food crises: A quantitative model of food prices including speculators and ethanol conversion, arXiv:1109.4859 (September 21, 2011).
Marco Lagi, Karla Z. Bertrand, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, The food crises and political instability in North Africa and the Middle East, arXiv:1108.2455 (August 10, 2011).
Ethnic Violence
NECSI analysis reveals how geography is key to predicting areas of friction between ethnic groups.
Andrea Gros, Alexander S. Gard-Murray, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Conflict in Yemen: From ethnic fighting to food riots, arXiv:1207.5778 (July 24, 2012).
Alex Rutherford, Dion Harmon, Justin Werfel, Alexander S. Gard-Murray, Shlomiya Bar-Yam, Andreas Gros, Ramon Xulvi-Brunet, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Good fences: The importance of setting boundaries for peaceful coexistence, PLoS ONE 9(5): e95660 (May 21, 2014).
May Lim, Richard Metzler, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Global pattern formation and ethnic/cultural violence, Science 317(5844): 1540-1544 (2007).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Global control, ethnic violence and terrorism, in Making Things Work (Knowledge Press, 2005).
Social Networks
NECSI has its finger on the pulse of social networks,tracking sentiment in real time and mapping news-sharing.
Alfredo J. Morales, Xiaowen Dong, Yaneer Bar-Yam and Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland, Segregation and polarization in urban areas, Royal Society Open Science 6(10): 190573 (October 23, 2019).
Leila Hedayatifar, Rachel A. Rigg, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Alfredo J. Morales, U.S. social fragmentation at multiple scales, Journal of the Royal Society Interface (October 8, 2019).
Leila Hedayatifar, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Alfredo J. Morales, Social fragmentation at multiple scales, arXiv:1809.07676 (September 20, 2018).
Vincent Wong and Yaneer Bar-Yam, How do people differ? A social media approach, arXiv:1708.02900 (August 9, 2017).
Alfredo J. Morales and Yaneer Bar-Yam, US social fragmentation, NECSI (March 10, 2017).
Alfredo J. Morales, Vaibhav Vavilala, Rosa M. Benito, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Global patterns of synchronization in human communications Journal of the Royal Society Interface (March 1, 2017).
Urbano França, Hiroki Sayama, Colin McSwiggen, Roozbeh Daneshvar, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Visualizing the “heartbeat” of a city with Tweets, Complexity (April 21, 2015).
Karla Z. Bertrand, Maya Bialik, Kawandeep Virdee, Andreas Gros, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Sentiment in New York City: A high resolution spatial and temporal view, arXiv:1308.5010 (August 20, 2013).
Julius Adebayo, Tiziana Musso, Kawandeep Virdee, Casey Friedman, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, An exploration of social identity: The structure of the BBC news-sharing community on Twitter, Complexity 19(5): 55-63 (2014).
Amaç Herdağdelen, Wenyun Zuo, Alexander S. Gard-Murray, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, An exploration of social identity: The geography and politics of news-sharing communities in Twitter, Complexity 19: 10-20 (2013).
Dan Braha, Blake Stacey, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Corporate competition: A self-organized network, Social Networks 33(3): 219-230 (July 2011).
Dan Braha and Yaneer Bar-Yam, From centrality to temporary fame: Dynamic centrality in complex networks, Complexity 12: 59-36 (2006).
Yaneer Bar-Yam, The transition from search to social media: The future of information networks, NECSI Report 04-01-2011 (April 5, 2011).
Communications Systems
NECSI researchers modeled the Internet2 network to show function and disfunction in complex systems.
Vedant Misra, Dion Harmon, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Vulnerability analysis of high dimensional complex systems, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6366: 560-572 (2010).
Urban Food
In the urban environment, geography can limit access to nutritious food, and how we can design policies to overcome these limitations. NECSI analysis shows the implications for public health.
Michael J. Widener, Sara S. Metcalf, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Developing a mobile produce distribution system for low-income urban residents in food deserts, Journal of Urban Health (2012).
Michael J. Widener, Sara S. Metcalf, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Dynamic urban food environments: A temporal analysis of access to healthy foods, American Journal of Preventive Medicine 41(4): 439-441 (2011).
Michael J. Widener, Sara S. Metcalf, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Agent-based modeling of policies to improve urban food access for low-income populations, Applied Geography 40: 1-10 (2013).
