The Internet as a Complex System

Networked Systems/Complex Systems Seminar

Featuring Kihong Park, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science

Purdue University



Free and open to the public



Abstract:

In this talk, Park will discuss "complex system" aspects of networked systems with focus on the Internet. Over the past couple of decades, the Internet and its component systems have been shown to exhibit complex system features such as fractalness, correlation-at-a-distance, phase transition, and chaos, among others. Three empirical discoveries -- self-similarity of Internet traffic, power-law connectivity of autonomous systems and the World Wide Web -- have significantly impacted science and engineering transcending the confines of networked communication systems. What is perhaps especially noteworthy about complex system aspects of the Internet is their real world relevance with engineering implications. Park will discuss select features, some well-known, others less so, that despite their varied nature, may be examined from a shared viewpoint of stability and optimality of dynamical systems.



About the Speaker:

Kihong Park is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University. He received a B.A. degree from Seoul National University and a Ph.D. degree in computer science from Boston University. Park's research interests include noncooperative game theory of networks with externalities, containment of network attacks in power-law networks, and fault-tolerant cellular automata. He has edited two books with Walter Willinger, "Self-Similar Network Traffic and Performance Evaluation," Wiley-Interscience (2000), and "The Internet as a Large-Scale Complex System," Oxford University Press (2005). Park was a recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award and a Fellow-at-Large of the Santa Fe Institute.