"Role Detection in Bicycle-Sharing Networks Using Multilayer Stochastic Block Models"

A new paper of mine was published in final form today. The project started in January 2017 as a group project by students in the first course that I ever taught at UCLA. It's taken awhile, but we're finally done!

Title: Role Detection in Bicycle-Sharing Networks Using Multilayer Stochastic Block Models

Authors: Jane Carlen†, Jaume de Dios Pont, CassidyMentus, Shyr-Shea Chang, Stephanie Wang, and Mason A. Porter

Abstract: In urban systems, there is an interdependency between neighborhood roles and transportation patterns between neighborhoods. In this paper, we classify docking stations in bicycle-sharing networks to gain insight into the human mobility patterns of three major cities in the United States. We propose novel time-dependent stochastic block models, with degree-heterogeneous blocks and either mixed or discrete block membership, which classify nodes based on their time-dependent activity patterns. We apply these models to (1) detect the roles of bicycle-sharing stations and (2) describe the traffic within and between blocks of stations over the course of a day. Ourmodels successfully uncover work blocks, home blocks, and other blocks; they also reveal activity patterns that are specific to each city. Our work gives insights for the design and maintenance of bicycle-sharing systems, and it contributes new methodology for community detection in temporal and multilayer networks with heterogeneous degrees.

A Gallery of Ancience d20 Dice

Here is a gallery of ancient d20 dice. I love it! (It includes the one that I discussed in this post. Also see this post and this post. The second of these also showed up in a previous post.

Also, this reminds me: I need more dice.

(Tip of the cap to Chris Klausmeier.)