Comments on: Network Analysis & Disease/Population Control http://72.10.34.174/vss/2008/10/network-analysis-diseasepopulation-control/ An ARC Collaboration Thu, 20 May 2010 03:21:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Onur Ozgode http://72.10.34.174/vss/2008/10/network-analysis-diseasepopulation-control/comment-page-1/#comment-18523 Onur Ozgode Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:39:59 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/?p=220#comment-18523 Hi Lyle, I was posting an extensive comment to your comment, but somehow it did not go through and I lost it. As comment was pretty long, I am not sure if i can reproduce it. Yet, here is a brief version: But just as a small note: I think you are absolutely right. The distinction between optimization and minimization/maximization is very interesting, and I think it serves a very interesting purpose for reconciling deeply contradictory and often mutually exclusive norms and normative rationalities. So, for instance the problem you are posing in your post maximization of the health of the population vs intervention and then vs the question of the autonomy of the population as a political ontological form within liberal thinking is in a way answered through the technique of optimization. I think it would not bee too wild to imagine a case where an infectious disease epidemic breaks out in an isolated town in the wilderness, and you have to quarantine the town (an example F. referred to in STP). The 19th century response would be isolate the town. But with this technique you can isolate critical nodes without necessarily isolating the town. Probably in reality these two practices of population-security would be used in tandem with each other and respond to different pragmatic problems that the experts are having on the ground. As to the application of these techniques. I am not sure how wide spread they are, but I know different funding agencies including NIH is extremely interested in studies deploying these techniques. One example is this <a href="http://www.iserp.columbia.edu/research/working_papers/downloads/2002_04.pdf" rel="nofollow">paper</a>: Hi Lyle,

I was posting an extensive comment to your comment, but somehow it did not go through and I lost it. As comment was pretty long, I am not sure if i can reproduce it. Yet, here is a brief version:

But just as a small note: I think you are absolutely right. The distinction between optimization and minimization/maximization is very interesting, and I think it serves a very interesting purpose for reconciling deeply contradictory and often mutually exclusive norms and normative rationalities. So, for instance the problem you are posing in your post maximization of the health of the population vs intervention and then vs the question of the autonomy of the population as a political ontological form within liberal thinking is in a way answered through the technique of optimization.

I think it would not bee too wild to imagine a case where an infectious disease epidemic breaks out in an isolated town in the wilderness, and you have to quarantine the town (an example F. referred to in STP). The 19th century response would be isolate the town. But with this technique you can isolate critical nodes without necessarily isolating the town. Probably in reality these two practices of population-security would be used in tandem with each other and respond to different pragmatic problems that the experts are having on the ground.

As to the application of these techniques. I am not sure how wide spread they are, but I know different funding agencies including NIH is extremely interested in studies deploying these techniques. One example is this paper:

]]> By: Lyle Fearnley http://72.10.34.174/vss/2008/10/network-analysis-diseasepopulation-control/comment-page-1/#comment-18490 Lyle Fearnley Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:18:44 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/?p=220#comment-18490 Thanks for this Onur, very interesting. It does seem to map usefully on to the approach to 'vital nodes' we've seen in other domains, particularly electricity. Treating population as a network that can be optimized for norms, not of 'health' per se, but infection minimization. Also interesting, and perhaps contestable, is the mirroring of information and disease spread, by focusing on the object of 'relationships' and 'interactions'. Influenza and influence of course have the same root. I'm not certain how much this conceptualization has been taken up in public health practice, although something like ring-vaccination strategies (in which you try to vaccinate people in rings around a node of infection rather than mass vaccination of a population) use clunkier version of the basic idea. Thanks for this Onur, very interesting. It does seem to map usefully on to the approach to ‘vital nodes’ we’ve seen in other domains, particularly electricity. Treating population as a network that can be optimized for norms, not of ‘health’ per se, but infection minimization. Also interesting, and perhaps contestable, is the mirroring of information and disease spread, by focusing on the object of ‘relationships’ and ‘interactions’. Influenza and influence of course have the same root. I’m not certain how much this conceptualization has been taken up in public health practice, although something like ring-vaccination strategies (in which you try to vaccinate people in rings around a node of infection rather than mass vaccination of a population) use clunkier version of the basic idea.

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