Opinion Dynamics on Social Networks

Fall 2022

Objective:

The aim of the course is to provide an introduction to various classes of opinon dynamics model on `social networks', and to study their emerging dyamical properties.

Organization

around 10 lectures (2h each, once/twice a week). Lectures in hybrid mode (in person + via zoom). Zoom links will be made available to registered participants.

Schedule

• Lecture 1: Wednesday 28th September, at 13:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 2: Friday 30th September, at 13:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 3: Tuesday 4th October, at 10:15 in Transformer
• Lecture 4: Friday 7th October, at 13:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 5: Tuesday 11th October, at 10:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 6: Friday 14th October, at 13:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 7: Tuesday 18th October, at 10:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 8 (HW1 discussion): Friday 21st October, at 13:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 9: Tuesday 25th October, at 8:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 10: Friday 28th October, at 13:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 11 (HW2 discussion): Friday 4th November, at 10:15 in Nollstallet
• Lecture 12: (HW3 discussion) Tuesday 22nd November, at 10:15 in Nollstallet

Registration

Students interested in attending the course should send an email to claudio.altafini@liu.se.

Course content:

Tentative outline.

• Introduction to the course; Examples.
• Distributed dynamics; Positive, cooperative & monotone systems; Perron-Frobenius theorem. Continuos and discrete-time stability. Markov chains. PageRank.
• Consensus problem. Synchronization.
• Friedkin-Johnsen model.
• Consensus in presence of antagonism.
• Bounded confidence: Hegselmann-Krause models.
• Biased assimilation model.

Lecturer and examinator:

• Claudio Altafini, tel +46 13 281373, claudio.altafini@liu.se

Course material:

• C. Altafini: Notes for a course: Opinion Dynamics on Social Networks, 2022.
• Anton V. Proskurnikov and R. Tempo. A Tutorial on Modeling and Analysis of Dynamic Social Networks. Part I and II, Annual Reviews in Control, 43:65-79, 2017, and 45:166-190, 2018.
• F. Bullo: Lectures on Network Systems, 2020.

Exam and Credits:

Exam: 3 homework sets (due 2 weeks after they are handed out), plus an optional final miniproject/seminar (details to be provided later on).

Credits: passing the homeworks gives 6 credits (up to 8/9 if together with the final seminar/miniproject).

Homeworks (hand in 2 weeks after the assignement)

• Homework set #1, Data file.
• Homework set #2.
• Homework set #3.

Page responsible: Claudio Altafini
Last updated: 2023-01-18