Dr. Yaniv Altshuler

Contact Information

MIT Media Lab, E15-388

77 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA, 02139

About me

I am a post-doctoral associate at the MIT Media Lab, at the Human Dynamics group headed by Prof. Alex “Sandy” Pentland and affiliated with the City Science Center. I am also an adjunct faculty at the Computer Science department at the Technion.

I received my Ph.D in Computer Science from the Technion in 2010, under the supervision of Prof. Alfred Bruckstein and Dr. Israel Wagner. After I graduated from the Technion and before arriving to MIT I was a post-doctoral researcher at Deutsche Telekom Lab, working with the lab’s director, Prof. Yuval Elovici.

I am also an alumnus of the Technion Chais Excellence program.

My research interests include information flow and diffusion models in social networks and communities, collective and swarm intelligence, urban computing and intelligence transportation systems, collaborative security and network optimization. A book I edited on these subjects can be ordered here.

For the past decade and in parallel to my academic studies, I have been working as a researcher for companies such as IBM and Rafael.
In 2007 I have co-founded Memoraze, a start-up company in the field of behavior analysis in computer games that had offered innovative tools for leading game engines, and had even become an integral part of one of the world’s prominent game engines.

If you are interested in the way social networks can be used for improving financial trading, see our Network Tuning work with eToro here or here.

Here is an interesting article about my work in the Financial Times.

My complete CV can be found here.

Publications

Published Journal Papers

1. The Social Amplifier – Reaction of Human Communities to Emergencies (under publication)
Y. Altshuler, M. Fire, E. Shmueli, Y. Elovici, A. Bruckstein, A. Pentland and D. Lazer, Journal of Statistical Physics, 2013

2. Augmented Betweenness Centrality for Environmentally-Aware Traffic Monitoring in Transportation Networks
R. Puzis, Y. Altshuler, Y. Elovici, S. Bekhor, Y. Shiftan and A. Pentland, Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2013

3. Stealing Reality: When Criminals Become Data Scientists (or Vice Versa)

Y. Altshuler, N. Aharony, Y. Elovici, A. Pentland and M. Cebrian, IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2011

4. Static and Expanding Grid Coverage with Ant Robots : Complexity Results

Y. Altshuler and A. Bruckstein, Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), 2011

5. Multi-agent Cooperative Cleaning of Expanding Domains

Y. Altshuler, V. Yanovski, I. Wagner, and A. Bruckstein, International Journal of Robotic Research, 2010

6. Cooperative Cleaners: A Study in Ant Robotics

I. Wagner, Y. Altshuler, V. Yanovski and A. Bruckstein, International Journal of Robotic Research, 2008

7. Efficient Cooperative Search of Smart Targets Using UAV Swarms

Y. Altshuler, V. Yanovski, I. Wagner and A. Bruckstein, ROBOTICA, 2008

8. Workforce Optimization: Identification and Assignment of Professional Workers Using Constraint Programming

Y. Naveh, Y. Richter, Y. Altshuler, D. Gresh and D. Connors, IBM Journal of R&D, 2007

9. Multi-agent Physical A* with Large Pheromones

A. Felner, Y. Shoshani, Y. Altshuler and A. Bruckstein, Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi Agents Systems, 2006

10. A Novel Linear Coder Nomenclature for Complex Carbohydrates

E.Banin, Y.Neuberger, Y.Altshuler, A.Halevi, O.Inbar, N.Dotan, A. Dukler, Trends in Glycoscience and Glycotechnology, 2002

Books

1. Swarms and Network Intelligence in Search, Springer Publishing, 2013

Y. Altshuler, A. Pentland and A. Bruckstein (under editing, accepted for publication)

2. Security and Privacy in Social Networks, Springer Publishing, 2012

Y. Altshuler, Y. Elovici, A. Cremers, N. Aharony and A. Pentland (Editors)

Book Chapters

1. Optimizing Surveillance and Monitoring Stations Locations Using Transportation Oriented Augmented Betweenness Centrality

Y. Altshuler, R. Puzis, Y. Elovici, S. Bekhor and A. Pentland, Securing Transportation Systems, Protecting Critical Infrastructures Series, Springer, 2012 (in press)

2. TTLed RandomWalks for Collaborative Monitoring in Mobile and Social Networks

Y. Altshuler, S. Dolev and Y. Elovici, Handbook of Optimization in Complex Networks, Springer, 2012

3. Swarm Intelligence – Searchers, Cleaners and Hunters

Y. Altshuler, I. Wagner, V. Yanovski and A. Bruckstein, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Springer, 2006

Refereed Conference Papers

1. Detecting Anomalous Behaviors Using Structural Properties of Social Networks

Y. Altshuler, M. Fire, E. Shmueli, Y. Elovici, A. Bruckstein, A. Pentland and D. Lazer, SBP 2013

2. Trade-offs in Social and Behavioral Modeling in Mobile Networks

Y. Altshuler, M. Fire, N. Aharony, Z. Volkovich, Y. Elovici and Alex Pentland, SBP, 2013

3. Decoding Social Influence and the Wisdom of the Crowd in Financial Trading Network

W. Pan, Y. Altshuler and A. Pentland, IEEE Social Computing, 2012

1. Trends Prediction Using Social Diffusion Models

Y. Altshuler, W. Pan and A. Pentland, SBP, 2012

2. How Many Makes a Crowd? On the Correlation between Groups' Size and the Accuracy of Modeling

Y. Altshuler, M. Fire, N. Aharony, Y. Elovici and A. Pentland, SBP, 2012

3. The Complexity of Grid Coverage by Swarm Robotics

Y. Altshuler and A.M. Bruckstein, ANTS (International Conference on Swarm Intelligence), 2010

4. Collaborative Exploration in Grid Domains

Y. Altshuler, I. Wagner, and A. Bruckstein, ICINCO, 2009

5. Swarm Ant Robotics for a Dynamic Cleaning Problem - Upper Bounds

Y. Altshuler, V. Yanovski, I. Wagner, and A. Bruckstein, ICARA, 2009

6. Swarm Ant Robotics for a Dynamic Cleaning Problem - Analytic Lower Bounds and Impossibility Results

Y. Altshuler, V. Yanovski, I. Wagner, and A. Bruckstein, ICARA, 2009

7. On Minimal Perimeter Polyminoes

Y. Altshuler, V. Yanovski, D. Vainsencher, I. Wagner and A. Bruckstein, Discrete Geometry for Computational Imagery, 2006

8. On the Complexity of Physical Problems and a Swarm Algorithm for k-Clique Search in Physical Graph

Y. Altshuler, A. Matsliah and A. Felner, ECCS, 2005

9. Swarm Robotics for a Dynamic Cleaning Problem

Y. Altshuler, I. Wagner and A. Bruckstein, IEEE Swarm Intelligence Symposium, 2005

Refereed Workshop Papers

1. Accurate Decision Making in Social Networks

Y. Altshuler and A. Pentland, NetSci, 2013

2. Temporal Percolation in Scale-Free Networks

E. Shmueli, Y. Altshuler and A. Pentland, NetSci, 2013

3. The Social Amplifier – Reaction of Human Communities to Emergencies
Y. Altshuler, M. Fire, E. Shmueli, Y. Elovici, A. Bruckstein, A. Pentland and D. Lazer, NetMob, 2013

1. Trends Prediction in Social Networks Using Influence Diffusion Models

Y. Altshuler, W. Pan and A. Pentland, Interdisciplinary Workshop on Decisions in Networks (WIDS), 2012

2. Incremental Learning with Accuracy Prediction of Social and Individual Properties from Mobile-Phone Data

Y. Altshuler, N. Aharony, M. Fire, Y. Elovici and A. Pentland, WS3P, IEEE Social Computing, 2012

3. Trends Prediction Using Social Diffusion Models

Y. Altshuler, W. Pan and A. Pentland, NetSci, 2012

1. Real World Anomalous Events Detection Based on Social Signals in Mobile Networks Traffic

Y. Altshuler, A. Pentland, A. Bruckstein, M. Fire, Y. Elovici and D. Lazer, NetSci, 2012

2. What’s the Problem? Using the Internet to Explain Transport Network Anomalies

F. Pereira, Y. Altshuler, NetSci, 2012

3. Decoding Social Influence in Speculation from Social Trading

W. Pan, Y. Altshuler, A. Pentland, NetSci, 2012

4. Traffic Assignment Model Based on Betweenness

R. Puzis, Y. Altshuler, Y. Elovici, S. Bekhor, Y. Shiftan and A. Pentland, NetSci, 2012

5. Information Flow in Networks : Trendsetters, Bellwethers and Shepherd Dogs

Y. Altshuler and A. Pentland, Workshop on Information in Networks (WIN), 2011

6. Stealing Reality: When Criminals Become Data Scientists

Y. Altshuler, N. Aharony, Y. Elovici, A. Pentland and M. Cebrian, Workshop on Information in Networks (WIN), 2011

7.  Augmented Betweenness Centrality for Mobility Prediction in Transportation Networks

Y. Altshuler, R. Puzis, Y. Elovici, S. Bekhor and A. Pentland, Finding Patterns of Human Behaviors in Network and Mobility Data (NEMO), 2011

8. Information Flow in Networks : Trendsetters, Bellwethers and Shepherd Dogs

Y. Altshuler and A. Pentland, Interdisciplinary Workshop on Decisions in Networks (WIDS), 2011

9. Stealing Reality

Y. Altshuler, N. Aharony, M. Cebrian, Y. Elovici, A. Pentland, Workshop on Information in Networks (WIN), 2010

10. Efficient Collaborative Application Monitoring Scheme for Mobile Networks

Y. Altshuler, S. Dolev, Y. Elovici and N. Aharony, Analysis of Mobile Phone Networks, NetMob (in NetSci), 2010

11. TTLed Random Walks for Collaborative Monitoring

Y. Altshuler, S. Dolev, Y. Elovici and N. Aharony, NetSciCom (in IEEE INFOCOM), 2010

12. To Add With Caution - Decreasing a Swarm Robotics' Efficiency by Imprudently Enhancing the Robots' Capabilities

Y. Altshuler, I. Wagner, and A. Bruckstein, ICINCO (MARS Workshop), 2007

13. Ant - Swarm Robotics for a Dynamic Cleaning Problem

Y. Altshuler, I. Wagner, V. Yanovski and A. Bruckstein, ROBOMAT, 2007

14. Shape Factor's Effect on a Dynamic Cleaners Swarm

Y. Altshuler, I. Wagner and A. Bruckstein, ICINCO (MARS Workshop), 2006

15. On Swarm Optimality in Dynamic and Symmetric Environments

Y. Altshuler, I. Wagner and A. Bruckstein, ICINCO (MARS Workshop), 2005

16. The Cooperative Hunters - Efficient Cooperative Search for Smart Targets Using UAV Swarms

Y. Altshuler, I. Wagner, V. Yanovski and A. Bruckstein, ICINCO (MARS Workshop), 2005

Teaching Experience

· Lecturer (2010) :

o Computability Theory

o Introduction to Digital Systems

o Algorithms in Graph Theory and Data Structures

· Co-Advisor of graduation projects (over 20 projects) (2005 – 2009):

o Project in Image Processing and Analysis.

o Project in Artificial Intelligence.

o Project in Intelligent Systems.

· Teaching Assistant (2003 – 2008):

o Computer Organization and Programming (2003\4\8).

o Introduction to Robotics (2007\8).