11/4/2009

From the Web to the cell, Nov. 10 Scientia to exam network systems

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

Physicist and author Albert-László Barabási, an expert in the science of networks, will present the Scientia's annual Bochner Lecture Nov. 10. Titled "Networks and the Architecture of Complexity: From the WWW to the Cell," the lecture will be at 7 p.m. in McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall.


	ALBERT-LÁSZLÓ BARABÁSI

In his lecture, Barabási will discuss the amazing order characterizing the interconnected world and its implications to network robustness and spreading processes, with applications to marketing, social organizations, trade patterns or the spreading of rumors and ideas in the society.

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's Hospital. His research focuses on the study of complex networks and their relationships to biological and communications systems. He is the author of "Linked: The New Science of Networks," co-author of "Fractal Concepts in Surface Growth" and co-editor of "The Structure and Dynamics of Networks."

The theme of this year's Scientia lecture series is networks; lectures will consider not only the ways in which networks are changing people's lives, but also how insights into the operation and architecture of networks may generate solutions to a wide variety of problems.

Scientia is an institute of Rice University faculty founded in 1981 by the mathematician and historian of science Salomon Bochner. Scientia provides an opportunity for scholarly discussion across disciplinary boundaries; its members and fellows come from a wide range of academic disciplines.

Scientia lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~scientia/.