CS599: Structure and Dynamics of Networked Information

Most recent message posted: 03/31/2008

Administrativa

• Time and Location: Monday and Wednesday, from 2:00-3:20, in room GFS 107.
• Instructor: David Kempe
• Office hours: by appointment (i.e., drop by whenever you want to talk)
• There are no TAs.

Scope of Course

Thanks in large part to the Internet and World Wide Web, we are now seeing an explosion in networked resources, and in particular of networked information. The network structure and information content interact in many ways, creating challenging and exciting problems. A sample of the questions we will examine in the course: How does link structure between documents help us evaluate content, relevance, relatedness, or importance? What are natural models for the growth of networks? What graph-theoretic properties do these networks have? What properties of networks allow for easy routing or searching? How should we design networks to allow searching for information? How should we disseminate information through a network if we can design the network? How should we do it if we can't? Using tools from graph theory, linear algebra and probabilistic analysis, we will examine these questions focusing on the theoretical aspects.

Topics

• Properties of the Internet and WWW
• Latent Semantic Analysis, Eigenvector-based link analysis (HITS, PageRank, ...)
• Link-based classification
• Community Structure
• Models for graphs and graph growth
• Small-world networks and decentralized search
• Peer-to-peer systems
• Gossip, Broadcast, and Epidemic Algorithms
• Diffusion of information, Social networks

Prerequisites

• There are no formal prerequisites, but students who have not yet taken CS 570 (or obtained a grade worse than B) should check with the instructor, as they likely will not derive much benefit from the course.
• In addition, familiarity with mathematical reasoning, in particular basic linear algebra and probabilities, is required.

Readings and Assignments

The readings for the course will be mostly recent (and a few not so recent) research papers from the areas covered. A preliminary reading list is available, and will be updated soon.

The grade will be based mostly on a substantial final project. In addition a few shorter reaction papers are assigned during the semester. There will not be a midterm or final exam.

Scribe Notes

Scribe notes from a previous iteration of this course (Spring 2005) are available below. These are currently being assembled into a coherent course manuscript, which will be made available here soon. A few lectures will cover topics not covered before. For those lectures, students are expected to scribe notes, which will be posted here to share with other students. These scribe notes are expected in LaTeX, and should use the following style file. Here is a very brief example file showing how to use the style file. The scribe notes should be written in English sentences, and understandable by someone who did not attend that lecture.

Messages

• 03/31/2008: The project proposal should be submitted by 04/14 in class. The project itself will be due during exam week. The project should be about a 10--15 page paper including some new results, theoretical, experimental, or a mixtuer of both. Projects should ideally be done in groups of 2--4 students. If you want to do a project in a different group size, please contact me immediately. The project proposal will not be graded. However, the feedback will likely be useful in altering the project to make sure it can be completed successfully. Therefore, you should strive to submit your proposal, with an outline of the research questions you are planning to investigate and the approaches you are planning to take, by the suggested deadline.
• 03/31/2008: The third reaction paper has been assigned. It is due by Friday, 04/11. It can cover any topic from class (including ones not yet covered), except from the first month.
• 03/03/2008: The second reaction paper has been assigned. It is due by Friday, 03/14.
• 02/01/2008: The first reaction paper has been assigned. It is due in class by Monday, 02/11.
• Check back here frequently for information about this course.