Algorithmics, Social choice, Market Design, and Other Topics

Sylvia Nasar, author of a 'A Beautiful Mind'--- the biography of John Nash--- has written a new book titled 'Grand Pursuit: A Story of Economic Genius'. In comparison to 'A Beautiful Mind', the new book 'is thus no longer the story of one man or one set of ideas, but of dozens of men and ideas, and covers not years but centuries, as Nasar tells us how modern economic theory emerged and then evolved, from Adam Smith in the late 18th century to Amartya Sen today' ---[ The Globe and Mail ]. This should be an interesting read. 

Jon Kleinberg's talks about how data from social networks 'offers a radically new perspective on fundamental questions in the social sciences.'

A short video by the Economist magazine ...

The 2010 Turing Award lecture by Les Valiant is now online  

The Guardian has an interesting report on how G erman academics at the  Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research  "have used the mathematics behind the strategic behaviour of countries to propose a way though the myriad impasses".  The relevant paper is available from here .

 There is an interesting mini workshop on 'Recent Developments in Market Design' on 14th September 2011 at Maastricht University. The abstract of the talks are available .

Mathematical biologist, Martin Nowak talks about his new book ' Supercooperators: Evolution, Altruism and Human Behaviour or, Why We Need Each Other to Succeed '.