Title:  Control and Influence in Social Networks

Committee: 

Dr. Egerstedt, Advisor

Dr. Shamma, Co-Advisor      

Dr. Yezzi, Chair

Dr. Dovrolis

Abstract:

The objective of the proposed research is to extend concepts within control theory to make them more applicable to control and influence in social networks. Past work has provided a relaxation of controllability via the introduction of herdability, a point to set condition rather than a point to point condition, as well as a herdability-based centrality measure, which ranks the importance of single nodes in a graph by their ability to herd the dynamical system withich acts over the graph. Future work will explore how the more general framework of herdability can be applied to social networks by considering how to select groups to herd from, how system identification changes herdability centrality, and how new models of product adoption fit with the framework of herdable systems.