Networks travelling. Machine Learning and Social Computing at NetGloW conference

NetGloW conference was held from 4th till 6th of July at the St. Petersburg State University and was devoted to networks analysis. It is organized every two years by the Center for German and European Studies. Participants of our Research Group not only presented their research but also were organizers of the session “Social Networks as Valuation Devices: Reputation, Ranking, Recommendations”.

At the beginning of the conference, a series of workshops was conducted by well-known researchers in social network analysis. Many of them were aimed at statistical analysis of networks. For example, Tom Snijders talked about the package in R RSiena, which allows modelling dynamic networks, Peng Wang was talking about ERGM models, Vladimir Batagelj had a workshop on the analysis of bibliographic networks in Pajek. Within the framework of the activities of our Research Group, we are going to apply statistical network analysis in almost all of the our works, related to SNA. So, it was a very useful experience and an opportunity to learn from the best researchers. The variety of sections allowed everyone to find something in what they are interested in and listen to famous keynote lecturers.

Anastasiya Kuznetsova and Olga Dornostup about their impressions after the conference:

 Despite the fact that our Research Group exists for just over a year, for many of our participants it was not the first NetGlow conference, including myself. At the same time, the conference was held almost immediately after Sunbelt'18, so, there were many participants from that conference as well. That seemed that the whole network "party" just moved from Utrecht to St. Petersburg, so it was very interesting to meet already familiar people. I liked the workshops very much, because I always wanted to learn a little more about the statistical analysis of networks. I was also very impressed by the lecturers - this great feeling, when you listen to those whose work you’ve read many times. Our work was highly assessed, some people said that we are "overqualified". Also our session about the ranking with the help of networks turned out to be pretty cool. I hope to participate in NetGlow conference again in two years!

Anastasiya Kuznetsova
A graduate of BA Sociology, Research Group participant

 It was my first time giving a presentation at the international conference. Besides, there was a friendly atmosphere during the discussions as a lot of my colleagues came to listen to me. The presentations I have attended were really informative, the research questions raised were absolutely different, but they all were solved using the network analysis approach. For myself, I have noted some non-trivial ways of data visualisation, allowing to reflect many features simultaneously

Olga Dornostup
A graduate of BA Economics, Research Group participant