Chris Arney

Bio: Chris Arney is an academic researcher from United States Military Academy. The author has contributed to research in topics: Network science & Network model. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 36 publications receiving 5330 citations.

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Abstract: NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Abstract: ANTIFRAGILE: THINGS THAT GAIN FROM DISORDER Nassim Nicholas Taleb Random House, New York, 2012, 519 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4000-6782-4Antifragile is a book about the structure and behavior of dynamic systems. To a mathematician, this is mainstream mathematics. However, Taleb, writing for a general audience, seems to try to hide the formal mathematics and obscure its usefulness by his focus on a more literary, historical, and philosophical presentation. Yet, in the end, enough mathematical evidence and explanation of Taleb's antifragile theory as well as examples make this book worthy of consideration. Taleb's theory is simple enough. He classifies systems by the nonlinearity (convexity and concavity) of their utility or health functions as either antifragile or fragile. While never producing a precise measure for this property for systems or entities, he does give myriad interesting examples of his theory in systems, items, and concepts from biology, human nature, natural science, information science, social science, business, literature, politics, and philosophy. Taleb's reason for inventing the term "antifragile" is interesting: "Half of life - the interesting half of life - we don't have a name for." (p. 33)It's a shame that Taleb does not take a more mathematical and scientific approach to his fragility concept, because many excellent points could be made and insights developed that could help to understand his examples. Taleb uses the word "antifragile" to describe systems that are the opposite of fragile, and therefore, usually, a property to celebrate, advocate, design and use to one's benefit. Systems and items that improve or gain from disorder and stress are antifragile to that disorder or stress. The nonlinearity of antifragility can come from many properties of the system: redundancy, complexity, volatility, randomness, and asymmetry, the author's interesting examples come from all areas of life. Some that are rich in flavor and insight include health, medicine, love, banking, traffic, research, decision making, education, ethics, government, religion, smoking, technology, and weightlifting. The author is careful to contrast the antifragility property with related but different concepts of robustness and resilience.This book contains seven sections (called books), a glossary, a bibliography, and two appendices. The first and most insightful table is a five-page Table of Triads - a classification of dozens of elements by their range of fragility (fragility on one end, antifragile on the other, and robustness in the middle - thus the term triad). For example, directed research is fragile, opportunistic research is robust, and stochastic tinkering is antifragile. Corporate employment is fragile, the dental profession is robust, and taxi driving can be considered antifragile. Bureaucrats are fragile and entrepreneurs are antifragile. In literature, e-readers are fragile, books are robust, and oral tradition is antifragile. Mother Nature is Taleb's prime example of antifragility - living things like "a certain measure of randomness and disorder", (p. …

Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread - the Lessons from a New Science

Abstract: SOCIAL PHYSICS: HOW GOOD IDEAS SPREAD - THE LESSONS FROM A NEW SCIENCE Alex Pentland New York, Penguin Press, 2014,300 pp. ISBN: 978-1-59420-565-1This book is about "mathematizing" the social sciences. Here information and network science are used in the forms of analysis and big data models to develop the means of improving an understanding of society in order to create and operate better social and human systems. From a slightly different perspective, this book provides a new, more quantitative modeling framework for studying, understanding, and shaping society in order to make it better. The most cogent line in the book is the first line, which establishes the author's perspective: "I live in the future." (p. vii)Based on that futuristic perspective, maintained by his position at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, Alex Pentland has laid out a viable, inspiring road map for society to follow into its future. One of Pentland's goals is to "get the language of social physics into general use, where it can provide much needed nuance to the traditional language of market competition and regulation", (p. x) He states that "the social physics that is emerging brings together branches of economics, sociology, and psychology, along with network, complexity, decision, and ecology sciences and fuses them together using big data", (p. 17) His other goal for this work is to help "build a society that is better at avoiding market crashes, ethnic and religious violence, political stalemates, widespread corruption, and dangerous concentration of power", (p. 17)Pentland is systematic and precise in his writing. He is careful to define his important terms in a chart. These terms include information, idea, idea flow, social influence, social learning, social norms, social pressure, society, strategy, trust, and value.This book is divided into four main parts: Social Physics, Idea Machines, Data-Driven Cities, and Data-Driven Society. Since I am interested in organization structure and process, I perused and enjoyed "Idea Machines" with its chapters on Collective Intelligence, Shaping Organizations, and Organizational Change. Pentland begins by introducing the ideas of collective intelligence and social engagement: "The collective intelligence of a community comes from idea flow; we learn from the ideas that surround us, and others learn from us. ... When the flow of ideas incorporates a constant stream of outside ideas as well, then the individuals in the community make better decisions than they could on their own. ... So even though today's society tends to glorify the individual, the vast majority of our decisions are shaped by common sense, the habits and beliefs we have in common with our peers. …

The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence

Abstract: This paper undertakes an assessment of a rapidly growing body of economic research on financial literacy. We start with an overview of theoretical research which casts financial knowledge as a form of investment in human capital. Endogenizing financial knowledge has important implications for welfare as well as policies intended to enhance levels of financial knowledge in the larger population. Next, we draw on recent surveys to establish how much (or how little) people know and identify the least financially savvy population subgroups. This is followed by an examination of the impact of financial literacy on economic decision-making in the United States and elsewhere. While the literature is still young, conclusions may be drawn about the effects and consequences of financial illiteracy and what works to remedy these gaps. A final section offers thoughts on what remains to be learned if researchers are to better inform theoretical and empirical models as well as public policy.

Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights

Abstract: Over the last three decades, the prevailing view of information technology strategy has been that it is a functional-level strategy that must be aligned with the firm's chosen business strategy. Even within this so-called alignment view, business strategy directed IT strategy. During the last decade, the business infrastructure has become digital with increased interconnections among products, processes, and services. Across many firms spanning different industries and sectors, digital technologies (viewed as combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies) are fundamentally transforming business strategies, business processes, firm capabilities, products and services, and key interfirm relationships in extended business networks. Accordingly, we argue that the time is right to rethink the role of IT strategy, from that of a functional-level strategy--aligned but essentially always subordinate to business strategy--to one that reflects a fusion between IT strategy and business strategy. This fusion is herein termed digital business strategy. We identify four key themes to guide our thinking on digital business strategy and help provide a framework to define the next generation of insights. The four themes are (1) the scope of digital business strategy, (2) the scale of digital business strategy, (3) the speed of digital business strategy, and (4) the sources of business value creation and capture in digital business strategy. After elaborating on each of these four themes, we discuss the success metrics and potential performance implications from pursuing a digital business strategy. We also show how the papers in the special issue shed light on digital strategies and offer directions to advance insights and shape future research.

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Abstract: In this paper, we question the simplicity of the common prescription that more thinking leads to better 26 moral choices In three studies, we discover that the relationship between how complexly one reasons 27 before making a decision with moral consequences is related to the outcome of that decision in a curvi

Poverty impedes cognitive function

Abstract: The poor often behave in less capable ways, which can further perpetuate poverty. We hypothesize that poverty directly impedes cognitive function and present two studies that test this hypothesis. First, we experimentally induced thoughts about finances and found that this reduces cognitive performance among poor but not in well-off participants. Second, we examined the cognitive function of farmers over the planting cycle. We found that the same farmer shows diminished cognitive performance before harvest, when poor, as compared with after harvest, when rich. This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or work effort. Nor can it be explained with stress: Although farmers do show more stress before harvest, that does not account for diminished cognitive performance. Instead, it appears that poverty itself reduces cognitive capacity. We suggest that this is because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for other tasks. These data provide a previously unexamined perspective and help explain a spectrum of behaviors among the poor. We discuss some implications for poverty policy.

Molecular ecological network analyses

Abstract: Background: Understanding the interaction among different species within a community and their responses to environmental changes is a central goal in ecology. However, defining the network structure in a microbial community is very challenging due to their extremely high diversity and as-yet uncultivated status. Although recent advance of metagenomic technologies, such as high throughout sequencing and functional gene arrays, provide revolutionary tools for analyzing microbial community structure, it is still difficult to examine network interactions in a microbial community based on high-throughput metagenomics data. Results: Here, we describe a novel mathematical and bioinformatics framework to construct ecological association networks named molecular ecological networks (MENs) through Random Matrix Theory (RMT)-based methods. Compared to other network construction methods, this approach is remarkable in that the network is automatically defined and robust to noise, thus providing excellent solutions to several common issues associated with highthroughput metagenomics data. We applied it to determine the network structure of microbial communities subjected to long-term experimental warming based on pyrosequencing data of 16 S rRNA genes. We showed that the constructed MENs under both warming and unwarming conditions exhibited topological features of scale free, small world and modularity, which were consistent with previously described molecular ecological networks. Eigengene analysis indicated that the eigengenes represented the module profiles relatively well. In consistency with many other studies, several major environmental traits including temperature and soil pH were found to be important in determining network interactions in the microbial communities examined. To facilitate its application by the scientific community, all these methods and statistical tools have been integrated into a comprehensive Molecular Ecological Network Analysis Pipeline (MENAP), which is open-accessible now (http://ieg2.ou.edu/MENA). Conclusions: The RMT-based molecular ecological network analysis provides powerful tools to elucidate network interactions in microbial communities and their responses to environmental changes, which are fundamentally important for research in microbial ecology and environmental microbiology.