Section outline

  • Announcements

    Collapse all Expand all
    • Research Scholarship: Machine learning e Data Science for Migration Studies Page
    • Final Project 2021 File
    • Groups spreadsheet URL
      In this document you can find the results of the student survey: use them to form groups.

      Rules:
      • Groups can be composed of up to 4 members.
      • Groups (whenever possible) should be heterogeneous w.r.t. the MS degrees of their components (it's a Social Network Analysis course... socialize!)
      • Once a group is formed specify its id in the spreadsheet's dedicated column for each of its components. 
      • Finally, send an email to prof. Rossetti (cc Morini) with the final group members.

  • Introduction

    Goals


    Over the past decade there has been a growing public fascination with the complex “connectedness” of modern society. This connectedness is found in many contexts: in the rapid growth of the Internet and the Web, in the ease with which global communication now takes place, and in the ability of news and information as well as epidemics and financial crises to spread around the world with surprising speed and intensity. These are phenomena that involve networks and the aggregate behavior of groups of people; they are based on the links that connect us and the ways in which each of our decisions can have subtle consequences for the outcomes of everyone else.

    This crash course is an introduction to the analysis of complex networks, made possible by the availability of big data, with a special focus on the social network and its structure and function. Drawing on ideas from computing and information science, complex systems, mathematic and statistical modelling, economics and sociology, this lecture sketchily describes the emerging field of study that is growing at the interface of all these areas, addressing fundamental questions about how the social, economic, and technological worlds are connected.

    Syllabus

    • Big graph data and social, information, biological and technological networks
    • The architecture of complexity and how real networks differ from random networks: node degree and long tails, social distance and small worlds, clustering and triadic closure. Comparing real networks and random graphs. The main models of network science: small world and preferential attachment.
    • Strong and weak ties, community structure and long-range bridges. Robustness of networks to failures and attacks. Cascades and spreading. Network models for diffusion and epidemics. The strength of weak ties for the diffusion of information. The strength of strong ties for the diffusion of innovation.
    • Practical network analytics with Cytoscape and Gephi. Simulation of network processes with NetLogo. Simulation of network diffusion processes with NDlib.

  • 2021 schedule and instructors

    Schedule

    Monday, h 11:00 - 13:00, online
    Thursday, h 11:00 - 13:00, online

    Contacts

    Dino Pedreschi | Università di Pisa | Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Lab | dino.pedreschi@unipi.it  
    Giulio Rossetti | ISTI-CNR | Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Lab | giulio.rossetti@isti.cnr.it | Office @CNR: room C37, 1st floor, gate 20
    Virginia Morini | ISTI-CNR | Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Lab | virginia.morini@isti.cnr.it

  • Textbooks and material

    Textbooks:


    Reading:

    Additional readings (mostly scientific papers) are listed on the course slides. Among them,

    • M. E. J. Newman. "The structure and function of complex networks." SIAM Review, Vol. 45, p. 167-256, 2003. 
    • A.-L. Barabasi. "Linked". PLUME, Penguin Group, 2002.
    • Duncan J. Watts.  "Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age." Norton, New York,  2003.
    • Anand Rajaraman, Jeffrey D. Ullman. "Mining of Massive Datasets".


    Past Exams, Slides, Python Notebooks:


    Exams Dates:

    The final project must be submitted within the following deadlines:

    • June and July, 2021, TBD

    Oral exam dates will be fixed after each deadline.

    NB 1: each student of the group must register for the exam at least 5 days before the specified deadlines.

    NB 2: the report, in pdf format, must be submitted via email to all professors and assistants (specifying in the subject [SNA-Project])

  • Lecture calendar

    Lectures take place online on Microsoft Teams 668AA 20/21 - SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS. (For the setup guide, refer to the UNIPI documentation.)



    		DateTopic (and teacher)Learning materialHomework
     
     1

    		 
     15.02.2021

    		 
     Introduction to Complex Network Analysis
    (Dino Pedreschi, Giulio Rossetti)
    slides
    video 2021

    		 
    Reading:     Chapter 1, 2 of Kleinberg's book and Chapter 1 of Barabasi's book.

     
     2

    		 
     17.02.2021
         		 
     Graphs and networks. Basic measures
    (Dino Pedreschi)

    slides
    video 2021

    		 
    Reading: Chapter 2 of Barabasi's book.

     
     3

    		 
     22.02.2021

    		 
     Graphs and networks. Basic measures.
    (Dino Pedreschi)
    		slides
    video 2021    		 
    Reading: Chapter 2 of Barabasi's book.

     
     4

    		 
     24.03.2021
         		 
     Random networks
    (Dino Pedreschi)
    		slides
    video
    video 2021
     Reading: Chapter 3 of Barabasi's book.


     5

    		 
     1.03.2021
         		 
     It's a small world!
    (Dino Pedreschi, Giulio Rossetti)
    		 slides
    video
    video 2021
     Reading: Chapter 20 of Kleinberg’s book.
     Milgram's 6 degrees paper. 
     Watts-Strogatz's Small World paper.

     
     6

    		 
     3.03.2021

     8.03.2021

    		 Scale-free networks
    (Dino Pedreschi, Giulio Rossetti)
    		 slides 
    video1
    video2
    video 2021 (pt1)
    video 2021 (pt2)    		 Reading: Chapters 4 & 5 of Barabasi's book
     Barabasi-Albert Preferential Attachment model.
     
     7

    		 
     10.03.2021

    		 
     Centrality & Assortative Mixing
    (Giulio Rossetti)
    		slides
    video
    video 2021
      Reading: Chapter 3 & 4 of Kleinberg's book

     
     8

    		 
     15.03.2021

    		 
     Tie Strength & Resilience
    (Giulio Rossetti)
    		slides
    video
    video 2021
      Reading: Chapter 8 of Barabasi's book and Chapter 3 of Kleinberg's book

     9 17.03.2020 Gephi & Cytoscape Tutorial
    (Dino Pedreschi, Giulio Rossetti)
    		video
    video 2021
     

     10 22.03.2021 Community Discovery
    (Dino Pedreschi, Giulio Rossetti)
    		slides
    video 
    video 2021
     Reading: Chapter 9 of Barabasi's book
     Survey: Community Detection in Graphs
     Algorithm specific papers as reported in the slides

     11 24.03.2021 Dynamic Of Networks
    (Giulio Rossetti)
    		slides
    video     		 
     Survey: Temporal Networks
     Stream graphs and link streams for the modeling of interactions over time

     12 29.03.2021 Link Prediction
    (Dino Pedreschi, Giulio Rossetti)
    slides
    video

    		 Survey: The link‐prediction problem for social networks.
     13 31.03.2021  Dynamic Community Discovery
    (Giulio Rossetti)    		slides
    video    		 
     Challenges in community discovery on temporal networks
     Survey: Community Discovery in Dynamic Networks: a Survey

     
     14

    		 7.04.2021

     12.04.2021     		 Diffusion: Decision-based models
    (Dino Pedreschi)
    slides
    video1
    video2
    video3
    video4
    video5
    video6
         		 
     Reading:     Chapter 19 of Kleinberg's book     
     Threshold models of collective behavior
     
     Book:
     Rogers, E. M. “Diffusion of innovations”
      
      15 
     14.04.2021

     19.04.2021

    		 
     Diffusion: Epidemics*
    (Dino Pedreschi)
    slides
    video1
    video2
     video3 

    		  Reading: Chapter 21 of Kleinberg's book and Chapter 10 of Barabasi's book
     
      16

    		 21.04.2021 Diffusion: Opinion Dynamics
    (Dino Pedreschi, Giulio Rossetti)    		 
    slides
    video


     Opinion dynamics: models, extensions and external effects.
     Algorithmic bias amplifies opinion fragmentation and polarization: A bounded confidence model

     
      17

    		 26.04.2021 
     Case Studies: Complex Network Analysis @KDD Lab
    (Giulio Rossetti) 
     
    slides
    video
         		 
     
     


  • Software, tutorials and datasets

    Visual Tools: 


    Python >=3.7: 


    Lectures' Notebooks:


    Network Data Repository:



  • Call For Thesis in Network Analysis

    Have you enjoyed the SNA course so much that you are considering a thesis on related subjects? Great!

    Here a few ideas we would like to work on... of course you can also propose something new and completely different!

    • NDlib: diffusion model comparison framework
    • NDlib: modeling competing diffusion processes
    • NDlib: definition of novel diffusion models tailored for specific scenarios (e.g., fake news, opinion dynamics...)
    • COVID19 modelling

    • CDlib: comparative analysis of Community Discovery algorithms
    • CDlib: definition of novel community discovery approaches for dynamic/multiplex networks
    • CDlib-viz: a visual framework for the analysis of community partitions 

    • XAI: Explaining Community Discovery Algorithms
    • DyNetX: a library for modeling and studying dynamic network topologies
    • Graph Embedding: representing (static|dynamic) networks in low dimensional space to support prediction and clustering
    • High Order Networks: studying and modeling high-order temporal networks

    • Country-wide Agent-Based simulation systems
    • Network Medicine applications
    • Semantic Network Analysis
    • Scholarly Data Analysis
    • Migration through the lenses of Social Media Platform
    • Fake News, Echo Chambers, Polarization
    • ...


    A thesis can focus either on the definition of a new model/algorithm or on the usage of complex network analysis methodologies as tools for studying specific phenomena.

    Contact Dino Pedreschi and Giulio Rossetti for more details.