Time: 4:00 - 5:00pm Venue: BR 3.01 Bancroft Road
Title: THE NEW SCIENCE OF NETWORKS
Abstract. Networks constitute the backbone of complex systems, from the human brain to computer communications, transport infrastructures to online social systems andmetabolic reactions to financial markets. Characterising their structure improves our understanding of the physical, biological, economic and social phenomena that shape our world. As a result, complex networks have become an essential ingredient in the background of any scientist. In this seminar I will present an overview of the new theory and methods of network science, of the main results found, and of some of the still open challenges.I will concentrate, in particular, on the structure and dynamics of multi-layer networks (namely multiplex networks and temporal networks) discussing cases where the presence of many layers gives rise to the emergence of novel behaviours, otherwise unobserved in single-layer networks.Reference. V. Latora, V. Nicosia and G. Russo, Complex Networks: Principles, Methods and Applications, Cambridge University Press (2017) Bio. Vito Latora is Chair of Complex Systems and head of the Complex Syste ms and Networks group at the School of Mathematical Sciences of Queen Mary University of London. He received his PhD in Physics in 1996 from the University of Catania, in Italy, and has been postdoc at MIT, Harvard and Paris XI from 1996 to 2002, and associate professor of physics at Catania from 2002 to 2012, before moving to QMUL. Vito has a background in theoretical physics and studies the structure and the dynamics of complex systems by using methods proper to statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics. He has pioneered papers on the efficient behaviour of weighted networks, on spatial networks and on dynamical processes on complex topologies. He is currently interested in the mathematics of multiplex networks and in the modelling of biological and socio-economic systems, and is working with neuroscientists and with urban designers to understand the growth of networks as diverse as the human brain or the infrastructures of a city. Vito's recent research has been funded by grants such as: EPSRC GALE, Global Accessibility to Local Experience (EP/K020633/1) and EPSRC Nash equilibria for load balancing in networked power systems (EP/N013492/1). He has been the scientific director of the EC-project LASAGNE, multi-LAyer SpAtio temporal Generalized NEtworks (318132), successfully coordinating the activities of 7 European partners on the development of a novel mathematical framework for analysing and modelling dynamic multilayer networks. See http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~latora.