SYSEN 5420 - Network Systems and Games

Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: MATH 2930, MATH 2940, ECE 2200, or permission of instructor. Co-meets with ECE 6970.

F. Parise.

Network systems pervade our society in both social and technological contexts. On the one hand, social networks play a central role in the transmission of information and viruses with fundamental consequences for product marketing, technology adoption, voting decisions, spread of false news and epidemiology. On the other hand, network topology fundamentally affects the performance and resilience properties of large-scale multi-agent systems, such as the electric power grid, the internet of things, traffic or robotic sensor networks.

The main objective of this course is to introduce fundamental mathematical tools to model and control the behavior of both social and engineered network systems. Questions of interest will be how the network structure impacts the dynamics of network systems, how network properties can be exploited to maximize system performance or resilience and how one can address these questions while accounting for strategic human behavior. The course will introduce tools that can be used to address these questions and overcome challenges related to the coupled, distributed, and large-scale nature of network systems.

Outcome 1: understand how to mathematically describe network interactions

Outcome 2: analyze linear and nonlinear dynamics over networks

Outcome 3: understand and analyze strategic behavior over networks