Seminar Announcement

　　Title: Network, Popularity and Social Cohesion: A Game-Theoretic Approach

  　Speaker: Jiamou Liu (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

　　https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~jliu036/

  　Time: 15:30, November 29th, 2016

  　Venue: Seminar Room (334), Level 3, Building 5, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

　　Abstract:

  　In studies of social dynamics, cohesion refers to a group's tendency　to stay in unity, which -- as argued in sociometry -- arises from the　network topology of interpersonal ties. We follow this idea and　propose a game-based model of cohesion that not only relies on the　social network, but also reflects individuals' social needs. In　particular, our model is a type of cooperative games where players may　gain popularity by strategically forming groups. A group is socially　cohesive if the grand coalition is core stable. We study social　cohesion in some special types of graphs and draw a link between　social cohesion and the White and Harary's notion of structural　cohesion . We then focus on the problem of deciding whether a given　social network is socially cohesive and show that this problem is　CoNP-complete.

  　Biography:

  　Jiamou Liu is a lecturer of computer science at the University of　Auckland, New Zealand. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the　University of Auckland and carried out post-doctoral study at　University of Leipzig, Germany (2009-2010) and worked at Auckland　　University of Technology as a senior lecturer (2011-2015), and an　invited researcher at Paris Universite 7 - Diderot, France (2013). He　　was the recipient of Vice-Chancellor's teaching and research awards　at Auckland University of Technology. Jiamou's interests lies within　multiagent systems, social network analysis and computational　logic. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles in journals　and conferences.