In this seminar I will describe two different approaches for
understanding the driving forces underlying the formation of human
patterns.
In the first part of the talk, using a big data approach, I will show
the results of an analysis of the patterns in researcher’s mobility.
Starting from the dataset of the publication corpus of the APS I
reconstruct the individual researchers trajectories. I characterise
these patterns in terms of topological network properties and I
analyse the dependence of an academic path across different
dimensions : the distance between two subsequent positions, the
relative importance of the institutions and some socio-cultural
traits. I show that distance is not always a good predictor for the
next affiliation while other factors like ’’the previous steps’’ of
the career of the researchers or the linguistic and historical
similarity between two countries can have an important impact. I show
that the dataset exhibit a memory effect.
In the second part of the talk I will shortly present a metapopulation
implementation of the Schelling model. This simple variation of the
traditional model shows that moving rules linked to intolerance, in
this framework not only generate the usual segregation patterns but
also heterogeneity in the population density (urban skylines).