Predicting panic is of critical importance in many areas of human and animal behavior, notably in the context of economics. The recent financial crisis is a case in point. Panic may be due to a specific external threat, or self-generated nervousness. Here we show that the recent economic crisis...

The last few years have led to a series of discoveries that uncovered statistical properties, which are common to a variety of diverse real-world social, information, biological and technological networks. The goal of the present paper is to investigate, for the first time, the statistical...

A substantial number of studies have extended the work on universal properties in physical systems to complex networks in social, biological, and technological systems. In this paper, we present a complex networks perspective on interfirm organizational networks by mapping, analyzing and...

We develop a new approach to the study of the dynamics of link utilization in complex networks using records of communication in a large social network. Counter to the perspective that nodes have particular roles, we find roles change dramatically from day to day. Local hubs have a power law...

Civil unrest is a powerful form of collective human dynamics, which has led to major transitions of societies in modern history. The study of collective human dynamics, including collective aggression, has been the focus of much discussion in the context of modeling and identification of...

Execution of a complex product development project is facilitated through its decomposition into an interrelated set of localized development tasks. When a local task is completed, its output is integrated through an iterative cycle of system-wide integration activities. Integration is often...

It is often observed that superiors within an organization can lead subordinates because the former are smarter or have more organization-related knowledge. In this paper, we argue that even without such superior talent or prior knowledge, superiors can outperform and lead subordinates....

Execution of a complex product development project is facilitated through its decomposition into an interrelated set of localized development tasks. When a local task is completed, its output is integrated through an iterative cycle of system-wide integration activities. Integration is often...

Why was the $6 billion FAA air traffic control project scrapped? How could the 1977 New York City blackout occur? Why do large scale engineering systems or technology projects fail? How do engineering changes and errors propagate, and how is that related to epidemics and earthquakes? In this...