4 ms·

This is my field, too. I am a Ph.D. candidate in computational social science, working on a computational model of social belief systems. I'm quite happy to se

This is my field, too. I am a Ph.D. candidate in computational social science, working on a computational model of social belief systems. I'm quite happy to see this on HN. Like many other disciplines, our field is blossoming with the rise of cheap, high performance computing! If your involved in this field and on HN, please reach out to me at @generativist on twitter. I'm in the process of setting up a community for CSS work, and will be soliciting feedback soon!

harlanji 9y ago
Can you talk about what software packages, perhaps data structures and algorithms you use? Any shortcomings / low hanging fruit? I see the domain as an invaluable tool for a few applications... any particularly strong ones you can see?
- neuromantik8086 9y ago
  Wrt to algorithms / techniques used, you might want to check out this textbook by some of the Cornell folks: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/ http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/ They also made an EdX course for it: https://www.edx.org/course/networks-crowds-markets-cornellx-info2040x-2 https://www.edx.org/course/networks-crowds-markets-cornellx-...
  - randcraw 9y ago
    Coursera offers about a half dozen courses in subjects seemingly related to CompSoc: Social and Economic Networks: Models and Analysis, Stanford Networks: Friends, Money, and Bytes, Princeton Sampling People, Networks and Records, Michigan Applied Social Network Analysis in Python, Michigan Capstone: Analyzing (Social) Network Data, UCSD Social Computing, UCSD Measuring Causal Effect in the Social Sciences, U Copenhagen Smart Cities, EPFL Organizational Analysis, Stanford
- pathdependent 9y ago
  To play with some ideas, nothing is more accessible than NetLogo: https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/
- denzil_correa 9y ago
  The important thing here is the objective : there are different methods and tools to reach that objective. Primarily, the objective of Computational Social Science is to understand human behavior but with computational methods. Traditionally, social science was done offline with surveys. But, with the increase in social information on the Internet could we use that data to know more about humans? How? There are various methods on how one could do so - network theory, statistics, text mining etc. are some tools that are useful to achieve the objective.
anatoly 9y ago
>a computational model of social belief systems. Can you give more details (accessible to programmers rather than social scientists) how that'd work, what do you actually model and aim to find out? Sounds pretty interesting.
- pathdependent 9y ago
  I'll be posting some things to HN soon. My writing style is very accessible, to anyone. I always shoot for an "explain it to your grandmother"-level of writing. Also, my entire dissertation is Python/Cython/Jupyter with a prebuilt docker container, so, it's also low-friction to play with. But, complicated by dissertation rules for sharing pre-publication (i.e. "is this definitely your work, because it's on github and you accepted PRs?").

harlanji 9y ago

Can you talk about what software packages, perhaps data structures and algorithms you use? Any shortcomings / low hanging fruit? I see the domain as an invaluable tool for a few applications... any particularly strong ones you can see?

neuromantik8086 9y ago
Wrt to algorithms / techniques used, you might want to check out this textbook by some of the Cornell folks: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/ http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/ They also made an EdX course for it: https://www.edx.org/course/networks-crowds-markets-cornellx-info2040x-2 https://www.edx.org/course/networks-crowds-markets-cornellx-...
- randcraw 9y ago
  Coursera offers about a half dozen courses in subjects seemingly related to CompSoc: Social and Economic Networks: Models and Analysis, Stanford Networks: Friends, Money, and Bytes, Princeton Sampling People, Networks and Records, Michigan Applied Social Network Analysis in Python, Michigan Capstone: Analyzing (Social) Network Data, UCSD Social Computing, UCSD Measuring Causal Effect in the Social Sciences, U Copenhagen Smart Cities, EPFL Organizational Analysis, Stanford
pathdependent 9y ago
To play with some ideas, nothing is more accessible than NetLogo: https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/
denzil_correa 9y ago
The important thing here is the objective : there are different methods and tools to reach that objective. Primarily, the objective of Computational Social Science is to understand human behavior but with computational methods. Traditionally, social science was done offline with surveys. But, with the increase in social information on the Internet could we use that data to know more about humans? How? There are various methods on how one could do so - network theory, statistics, text mining etc. are some tools that are useful to achieve the objective.

anatoly 9y ago

>a computational model of social belief systems. Can you give more details (accessible to programmers rather than social scientists) how that'd work, what do you actually model and aim to find out? Sounds pretty interesting.

pathdependent 9y ago
I'll be posting some things to HN soon. My writing style is very accessible, to anyone. I always shoot for an "explain it to your grandmother"-level of writing. Also, my entire dissertation is Python/Cython/Jupyter with a prebuilt docker container, so, it's also low-friction to play with. But, complicated by dissertation rules for sharing pre-publication (i.e. "is this definitely your work, because it's on github and you accepted PRs?").