CMN 170V Final Review PDF

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CMN 170 final review with some notes regarding week 5 through week 8...

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CMN 170V Final Exam Study Guide

Week 5 & 6: Digitalization and its Effects Objectives 1. What are the characteristics of digitalization? 2. What are some of the effects of digitalization? Lecture Questions 1. Timeless time refers to the fact that a. time doesn’t matter in the digital age b. time doesn’t have a sequence in an asynchronous world digital realm c. the combination of synchronous and asynchronous information processing allows to negate sequence 2. What is an example of a many to one communication in online social networks? a. direct messaging (one to one) b. posting of a picture on a public timeline (one to many) c. liking of a post 3. What’s the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web? a. the world wide web is used for email, file transfer, and conferencing b. I use them as synonyms c. the world wide web represents the network of cables and radio waves, and the Internet services d. the internet is the physical infrastructure and the world wide web is a generic service 4. Social network analysis exclusively applies to online networks like Facebook. a. true b. false (social network analysis applies to all kinds of social networks, also offline, for example when you think about who you should invite to the movies) 5. If you knew somebody, who knows somebody, who knows the president of the US, how many degrees of separation were you away from the president? Answer: 3 (1 from you to the somebody, 2 from the somebody to the other somebody, 3 from the other somebody who knows the president) 6. Take a piece of paper and follow the same logic we just did. Count how many degrees of separation it takes to go from node 3 to everybody.

(3*3) + 2 + 1 + 0 + (1 + 2 + 3)*2 = 24 7. What is true with regard to positive and negative network externalities? a. negative network externality means the more people, the more benefit for everybody b. positive network externality means the more people, the more benefit for everybody c. negative network externality means the less people, the less benefit for everybody

8. With 4 phones (nodes) how many distinct calls (degrees) are possible? Answer: 12 9. With 5 phones (nodes) how many distinct calls (degrees) are possible? Answer: 20 10. Why is Facebook interested in connecting everybody to Facebook? a. to help them overcome poverty b. to help them in finding access to educational information c. to increase the positive network externalities of the Facebook network d. some of all of the above (b and c?) 11. In digital products, most costs are related to a. variable costs b. marginal costs c. fixed costs 12. According to the media richness theory, which kind of communication channel should a groom use when asking for a bride’s hand in marriage? a. text messaging b. e-mail c. video conferencing d. in person e. all of the above can be correct depending on how “complex” this information is to both 13. Why do you think social online networks like Facebook are interested in pushing toward more transparency? a. Facebook loves democracy and thinks that transparency is an important part of it b. Facebook thinks that information wants to be free c. Facebook makes its money with analyzing user data and wants users to be less stringent about it d. A bit of all of the above 14. All digital applications always have all 10 of the characteristics a. true b. false 15. Media concentration can work 2 ways: 1) previous competitors can join. 2) suppliers and providers can join. a. true b. false 16. What are some of the characteristics of digitalization that contribute to the reduction of transaction costs? a. timeless time b. death of distance c. economies of scale d. algorithmication e. all of the above 17. Want are some of the “transaction costs” (in the sense economists use the word) involved in the retail music industry?

a. costs associated w/ searching for music b. costs associated w/ settling for a price (including time it needs to compare prices) c. distribution costs of music (including sales person or an internet connection) d. enforcement costs (including supervision of the seller and buyer e. all of the above 18. If internal transaction costs are lower than external transaction costs, what does transaction cost theory predict? a. the company will become smaller b. the company will become bigger (because you INSOURCE and do it all yourself) 19. Think about a tailor at a high end clothes store who takes personal measurements. Does the store go for individualization/differentiation or for scale/cost leadership? a. individualization/differentiation b. scale/cost leadership 20. If Amazon makes you a recommendation on which book to read next, do they use information from previous customers or information from your past shopping behavior? a. from previous customers only b. from your past behavior only c. both 21. How many terrorist attacks were prevented thanks to the fact that all American phone calls were monitored for 7 years? a. thousands b. hundreds c. dozens d. maybe one 22. Whistleblowing is easier because of the following characteristics Answer: digital footprint, timeless time, death of distance, poly-directionality Reading Notes Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy (Shapiro C, Varian H) - Durable economic principles can guide you in today’s fast changing business environment - Basic economic data has held true in business 100 years ago and today and can be used to predict the future of a company and keep it afloat. - Characteristics: Economies of scale, poly-directionality, algorithmication, media richness selection, (positive) network externalities, - Effects: media concentration, crowdsourcing, transaction cost theory, mass customization, human-machine merger, - Information = software, technology = hardware The Rise of the Network Society (Manuel Castells) - Currently there is a historical transition between different forms of society. We are transitioning into the network society and it is a time of great confusion. - Characteristics: network structure, Reading Questions 1. The relative cost structure of producing information consitst of

a. low fixed costs and high marginal costs b. low fixed costs and low marginal costs c. high fixed costs and low marginal costs d. high fixed costs and high marginal costs 2. The face that “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” creates the much-cited information overload. Shapiro and Varian say that in ths arising Economics of Attention, companies use all but the following strategies to confront this scarcity of attention: a. designing information products that are highly customized b. making products incredibly cheap or giving them away for free c. prohibiting the consumption of information products from others 3. Manuel Castells claims that the global financial crisis around 2008 was due to a variety of factors. He includes all but the following: a. the size of the US government which is too big to fail and should be made leaner(???) b. global liberalization and deregulation of financial markets which overwhelms the regulatory capacity of national regulators c. new technologies made possible the calculation of numerous exotic financial products d. globally interconnected financial markets with digital transactions effected at lightning speed (NOT THIS ONE) 4. Manuel Castells coined the concept of the “space of flows” in the digital age. He argues that the increasing importance of the space of flows leads to the end of cities, as advanced telecommunications make the spatial concentration or people and activities unnecessary. a. true, he argues that with modern telecommunication there is no need to live in cities as what matters, because what matters is the flow of information b. false, he argues that the space of flows increases the importance of the global networking logic, leading to a concentration in metropolitan regions 5. Manuel Castells coined the concept of “timeless time” in the digital age, by which he refers to a. systemic perturbation in the sequential order in the information age (???) b. the fact that nobody has time in the information age, due to the information overload c. the unimportance of time in the information age Week 7: Big Data and E-Science Objectives 1. How does digitalization help us to understand society? 2. What is big data and what role does it play? 3. What are computer simulations and what role do they play? Lecture Questions 1. If you do a survey about people’s opinion and then analyze it, is this empirical or theoretical? a. empirical b. theoretical 2. The empirical leg of science is quantitative while the theoretical leg of science is qualitative. a. true

b. false Theoretical work can be qualitative, but most successful scientific theories are very quantitative. Think about Einstein's formulas... Empirical methods often use statistics (quantitative) Theoretical methods often use pure math (also quantitative) 3. Digitalization effects both aspects of science: empirical data work (observations of the real world) and theoretical modelling (hypothetical constructs). a. true b. false 4. Big Data is defined as really large databases (often above 1 petabyte) a. true b. false 5. In some of the less developed African countries, how many children do you think have a birth certificate? a. less than half (40%) b. half c. about two thirds d. over 90% 6. Which is correct (in terms of statistics)? a. the large N usually stands for a small sample of the larger universe of all subjects n. b. the small n usually stands for a small sample of the larger universe of all subjects N. 7. Do the results of searches online of terms like “sexless marriage” and concerns about relationships capture everybody in the world? In other words, is this an example of n=N? a. yes b. no 8. Older men like younger women and younger men like older women. a. true b. false (men no matter how old they are always prefer women who are 20/21) 9. Data fusion makes use of complementary data sources to fill out missing data points, including different kinds of sources such as images, audio, and video. a. true b. false 10. Big Data is made possible by technologies like Hadoop and MapReduce. Their power consists in processing large amounts of data centralized in one giant processing chip. a. true b. false 11. For the creation of the translation service Google Translate, the company employed the leading linguists, who understood the algorithmic structure of language grammar. a. true b. false 12. In order to build their famous flu/disease trend algorithm, Google employed the world’s best epidemiologists and medical doctors who had profound knowledge about the predictive patterns of the underlying big data sources. a. true b. false (no theory and nobody with domain knowledge were involved. Only machine learning and related experts from computer science and the like)

13. The rule each individual is given in this set up demonstrating Schelling’s segregation model is: if you’re not happy (not at least 50% of your neighbors are like you) then: a. move to the next free space and re-evaluate if you’re happy now b. look for others of the same color c. stay put and hope for better times 14. “Tipping points”, “phase transitions”, or “non-linearities” refer in this case to the fact that: a. agents move non-linear over the grid transitioning from one side to the other over a donutshaped grid b. small changes in the behavior/attitudes of individuals can make big differences in the collective behavior of society c. by forcing agents to transition in phases over the grid, they tip into each other in non-linear ways 15. Schelling’s segregation model simulation results: 2400 agents: 51% similarity wanted = 49% = 33% = 26% = segregation level of about 70% VS. 25% = segregation level of about 56% 75% = segregation level of about 99% VS. 76% = segregation level of about 50% 16. Computer simulations are less powerful and less insightful than formal mathematical models (such as analytical differential equations) because they are not quantitative. a. true b. false 17. Doing scientific modeling with the help of computer simulations: a. requires to start to 0 every time a new model is developed. b. faces the problem that one size does not fit all program code, and best practices cannot be transferred across countries c. allows to re-use code from previous models, while adjusting for new settings 18. The Presidential Election was quite right with Obama winning 51% of the votes. What percentage of the final voters is represented by the 16 million carefully monitored voters? a. less than 1% b. between 1-10% c. between 10-15% (16 million of a total of 126 million voters in 2012 represents ~13% of total voters. The campaign made sure to have a good margin or monitoring to assure to capture the most important swing voters) d. more than 15% 19. People say that all models are wrong because a. scientists always make mistakes in their assumptions b. scientists don’t know enough math and programming to do good models c. models necessarily only capture part of reality 20. Until when do you think there will be a computer simulation model that models every single person on Earth? Answer: never

Reading Notes Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think (Mayer Schonberger, Kenneth Cukier) Big Data Analytics Give Electoral Edge (Alex Woodie) - Obama’s 2012 campaign using digital tech (simulations of voter behavior) - Used Facebook to persuade voters to vote for Obama - This app allowed for 78% of those undecided to vote for Obama - Widely successful and will be implemented in future campaigns ICT4ICTD: Computational Social Science For Digital Development (Martin Hilbert) If Smallpox Strikes Portland… (Barrett C., Eubank S., Smith J.) Reading Questions 1. Analyzing online search engine entries, researchers from Google were able to predict the spread of the winter flu in the US in almost real time. They achieved this by analyzing: a. the 50 million most common search terms and correlating them in 450 million models against actual flu cases from the past b. who appeared in the official statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention c. who searched for flu related terms that deviate from normal search behavior, by running 450 million correlation models d. who searched for “medicine for cough and fever” and as such identifying who might have the flu 2. Hadoop and MapReduce are 2 pioneering Big Data solutions that made the processing of vast amounts of data possible for the first time. As explained in one of the videos, based on Google search technology, MapReduce… a. reduces large datasets to the necessary parts through a mapping process b. maps large datasets across multiple servers and then gets it back as a summary in the reduced stage c. maps all the information into one giant server without reducing it 3. The ultimate theoretical limit to the power of Big Data for making predictions in a changing world consists in the fact that: a. data is always from the past and cannot predict unprecedented future dynamics b. databases have gotten too big to be analyzed c. producing data is expensive and the skill gap leads to a lack of data analysts 4. During the 2012 Presidential campaign, the team of President Obama: a. decided to spent most of its budget on generic TV adds, considering that online social media is not useful for influencing voting behavior b. used a team of a dozen data analysts to analyze social media opinions about voting preferences, convincing 50 % of the targeted voters c. spent $ 1,000 million and used Facebook apps that convinced almost 80 % of targeted undecided voters to vote for Obama 5. Through the combination of real-world data sources and computer simulations, researchers were able to show that in the case of an outbreak of smallpox in the city of Portland, the first and second important elements to detain the spread of the outbreak were:

a. the extent of mass vaccination of the population and the speed of response b. the choice of the actual response strategy chosen and the extent of mass vaccination c. the speed and delay in the response 6. Big data analytics does not merely refer to the volume of data. In class we identified other characteristics. The following is not one of them: a. it is big enough to be exploited by machine learning algorithms without the need of theory b. data is available in real-time c. complementary data sources are combined to complete datasets d. sampling techniques are often not required e. machine learning makes data fusion unnecessary Week 8: Globalization and Human Development Objectives 1. What does the global context of the digital age look like? 2. What is human development to begin with? 3. What is the global context of globalization in the digital age? Lecture Questions 1....