Ohio State nav bar

Applied Math Seminar - Chris Danforth

Chris Danforth
February 6, 2020
1:50PM - 2:45PM
Math Tower 154

Date Range
Add to Calendar 2020-02-06 13:50:00 2020-02-06 14:45:00 Applied Math Seminar - Chris Danforth Title: Sociotechnical Dynamics Revealed by Books & Social Media   Speaker: Chris Danforth - University of Vermont   Abstract: This talk will describe a suite of physically inspired instruments we've developed to enable exploration of large-scale text data, illuminate collective behavioral patterns, and develop a science of stories. Along with our flagship effort at http://hedonometer.org, we show how Instagram photos reveal markers of depression prior to formal diagnosis, and Twitter topic dynamics rank Trump as being more popular than God. Finally, we present evidence in support of a hypothesis posed by author Kurt Vonnegut, namely that there are only a few emotional arcs (or modes) exhibited by the vast majority of works of fiction.   Bio: Chris Danforth co-directs the Computational Story Lab, a group of applied mathematicians at the undergraduate, masters, phd, and postdoctoral level working on large-scale, system problems in many fields including sociology, nonlinear dynamics, networks, ecology, and physics. Danforth’s background is in the application of chaos theory to weather & climate prediction. His current work is in Computational Social Science, exploring human behavior through social media data. Danforth is the co-inventor of http://hedonometer.org, a socio-technical instrument measuring daily happiness based on 100 billion Twitter messages. He has also developed algorithms to identify predictors of depression from Instagram photos. His research has been covered by the New York Times, Science Magazine, and the BBC among others. Descriptions of his projects are available at his website: http://uvm.edu/~cdanfort   Seminar Link Math Tower 154 Department of Mathematics math@osu.edu America/New_York public
Title: Sociotechnical Dynamics Revealed by Books & Social Media
 
Speaker: Chris Danforth - University of Vermont
 
Abstract: This talk will describe a suite of physically inspired instruments we've developed to enable exploration of large-scale text data, illuminate collective behavioral patterns, and develop a science of stories. Along with our flagship effort at http://hedonometer.org, we show how Instagram photos reveal markers of depression prior to formal diagnosis, and Twitter topic dynamics rank Trump as being more popular than God. Finally, we present evidence in support of a hypothesis posed by author Kurt Vonnegut, namely that there are only a few emotional arcs (or modes) exhibited by the vast majority of works of fiction.
 
Bio: Chris Danforth co-directs the Computational Story Lab, a group of applied mathematicians at the undergraduate, masters, phd, and postdoctoral level working on large-scale, system problems in many fields including sociology, nonlinear dynamics, networks, ecology, and physics. Danforth’s background is in the application of chaos theory to weather & climate prediction. His current work is in Computational Social Science, exploring human behavior through social media data. Danforth is the co-inventor of http://hedonometer.org, a socio-technical instrument measuring daily happiness based on 100 billion Twitter messages. He has also developed algorithms to identify predictors of depression from Instagram photos. His research has been covered by the New York Times, Science Magazine, and the BBC among others. Descriptions of his projects are available at his website: http://uvm.edu/~cdanfort
 

Events Filters: