Are we humans or are we numbers?

The digital revolution is changing many aspects of our lives. How digital data describing the way we move and interact can help research areas such as epidemiology and social science? In this talk, Nicola will show how the unprecedented data now available can be used to create realistic epidemic models able to predict the unfolding of infectious diseases on a global scale. 

Social conventions shape every aspect of our lives, from how we greet each other to the languages we speak. Since ancient times sociologists, philosophers and economists have tried to understand how conventions arise. In this talk, Andrea will present novel experimental results demonstrating how conventions can emerge spontaneously without any central coordinating authority.

Languages behave similarly to living species. They display diversity, differentiate in space and time, emerge and disappear. Linguists have estimated that half of the world’s languages will disappear in the 21st century. In this talk, Anne will present a mathematical framework to model language shift. This framework can be applied to the Gaelic-English shift situation in Scotland to estimate how strong intervention policies have to be in order to alter the language shift dynamic seen today. We will discuss the benefits and limitations of applying mathematical modelling to real-world scenarios