Speaker:

Yong-Yeol "YY" Ahn, Associate Professor, Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington

Title:

Science of science, law of law, and patterns of patents: universal citation dynamics in knowledge systems

Abstract:

Citation is a fundamental way for humans to acquire and expand on existing knowledge. Although many laws and regularities of citation dynamics have been discovered from scientific citations, it is unclear whether and to what extent these regularities are inherent in how humans seek, use, and create knowledge. We show that, despite many stark differences between these systems, the citation dynamics in science, law, and patents share universal patterns. Given the differences in procedure and incentives that exist between judges, inventors, and scientists, our findings suggest that universal citation dynamics may be innate to any cumulative human knowledge system. Our model demonstrates that the evolution of collective attention and a handful of fundamental mechanisms can produce observed universal patterns of citation dynamics.

Speaker Bio:

Yong-Yeol (YY) Ahn is an Associate Professor at Indiana University School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. He was a Visiting Professor at MIT during 2020-2021. Before joining Indiana University, he worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University and as a visiting researcher at the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute after earning his PhD in Statistical Physics from KAIST in 2008. His research focuses on developing network science and machine learning methods, and applying them to complex social and biological systems. He is a recipient of several awards including Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship and LinkedIn Economic Graph Challenge.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/93818374439
Passcode: NICO23

About the Speaker Series:

Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.

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