Linked:

How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means

The Berry Center is pleased to host a student reading group for interested students across campus. There will be two reading group sessions facilitated by Professor Santhi Hejeebu from the Department of Economics and Business.

From author Albert-László Barabási's bio on the Northeastern University Center for Complex Network Research: Albert-László Barabási is a Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University, where he directs the Center for Complex Network Research, and holds appointments in the Departments of Physics, Computer Science and Biology, as well as in the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women Hospital, and is a member of the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. His work lead to the discovery of scale-free networks in 1999, and proposed the Barabasi-Albert model to explain their widespread emergence in natural, technological and social systems, from the cellular telephone to the WWW or online communities.

About the book (from Amazon.com):  A cocktail party. A terrorist cell. Ancient bacteria. An international conglomerate.

All are networks, and all are a part of a surprising scientific revolution. Albert-László Barabási, the nation's foremost expert in the new science of networks, takes us on an intellectual adventure to prove that social networks, corporations, and living organisms are more similar than previously thought. Grasping a full understanding of network science will someday allow us to design blue-chip businesses, stop the outbreak of deadly diseases, and influence the exchange of ideas and information. Just as James Gleick brought the discovery of chaos theory to the general public, Linked tells the story of the true science of the future.

• Students from all majors and class years are encouraged to apply.
• This is a competitive reading group where only 15-20 students will be accepted, depending upon the quality of the applications.
• Lunch will be provided to all students attending the reading group meetings.
• The deadline to apply is 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 26, 2012.
• Students will be notified of selection decisions via email by Monday, January 30, 2012.
• Selected students will have their FREE copy of the book placed in their campus mailbox by 3 p.m. on Tuesday, January 31, 2012.