"Adapting InfoMap to Absorbing Random Walks Using Absorption-Scaled Graphs"

One of my papers just came out in final published form. Here are some details.

Title: Adapting InfoMap to Absorbing Random Walks Using Absorption-Scaled Graphs

Authors: Esteban Vargas Bernal, Mason A. Porter, and Joseph H. Tien

Abstract: InfoMap is a popular approach to detect densely connected "communities" of nodes in networks. To detect such communities, InfoMap uses random walks and ideas from information theory. Motivated by the dynamics of disease spread on networks, whose nodes can have heterogeneous disease-removal rates, we adapt InfoMap to absorbing random walks. To do this, we use absorption-scaled graphs (in which edge weights are scaled according to absorption rates) and Markov time sweeping. One of our adaptations of InfoMap converges to the standard version of InfoMap in the limit in which the node-absorption rates approach 0. We demonstrate that the community structure that one obtains using our adaptations of InfoMap can differ markedly from the community structure that one detects using methods that do not account for node-absorption rates. We also illustrate that the community structure that is induced by heterogeneous absorption rates can have important implications for susceptible–infected–recovered (SIR) dynamics on ring-lattice networks. For example, in some situations, the outbreak duration is maximized when a moderate number of nodes have large node-absorption rates.

Shohei Ohtani Joins the 50/50 Club (and Has One of the Best Single-Game Performances in Baseball History)

Shoehei Ohtani makes a habit of doing things that none of us have ever seen before.

During today's game, he became the inaugural member of the "50/50 Club", as he now has both 50+ home runs and 50+ stolen bases this year. No member of the 50-home-run club had ever stolen even as many as 30 bases before.

He also joined the club in spectular fashion today with a game for the ages. Ohtani's performance today was one of the best single-game performances in Major League Baseball history. He went 6 for 6 with 2 doubles, 3 home runs, 10 runs batted in, 4 runs, and 2 stolen bases. There have been only 16 games in Baseball history in which a player has 10+ RBIs; this is the first one by a Dodger. This is the first time in Baseball history that a player has had 3+ home runs and 2+ stolen bases in the same game.

Since the RBI became an official statistic in 1920, Shohei Ohtani is now the only player in Baseball history who has a game — any game, so they each can occur in different games — in their career with 10+ RBIs, 6+ hits, 5+ extra-base hits, 3+ HRs, and 2+ SBs. Any game. Ohtani did them all in the same game. Amazing!

I have never seen any game like this in my life before.

(P.S. The Dodgers clinched a playoff berth with their victory today.)

2024 Ig Nobel Prizes

The 2024 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded in a ceremony this evening.

There are so many great ones this year that it's hard to pick my favorites.

What Happens in Ann Arbor Stays in Ann Arbor

I am off to Ann Arbor, Michigan. I'll be visiting University of Michigan to give a colloquium in their Department of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics.