Orgnet.com

For many years, LPA has been working closely with Valdis Krebs, an American-Latvian researcher, author, and consultant in the field of social and organizational network analysis. Valdis is the founder and chief scientist of Orgnet, and the creator of the popular Inflow software, which Wired Magazine called one of the most advanced tools for analyzing and visualizing networks. Popular Science has described Valdis as a "leading expert"and a "pioneer" of network analysis,while Military.com's DefenseTech blog has called him a leading authority in the field.

InFlow Provides Insight into Social Networks

InFlow is a highly visual Windows desktop application completely implemented in LPA WIN-PROLOG. SNA is a mathematical method for 'connecting the dots' and provides a way to model, map, visualize and measure complex, and sometimes covert, human groups and organizations. InFlow has been used in many areas including fraud detection and military intelligence circles due to its ability to yield insight into the way people in hidden organizations interact.

Detecting and Understanding Networks of Terror

The use of InFlow in counter-intelligence continues to expand; for some more insights into the applications of InFlow, check out the fascinating "Connecting the Dots", here!

Or you can read this seminal paper entitled Mapping Networks of Terrorist Cells which looks at the difficulty in mapping covert networks.

Or read this paper from First Monday entitled Uncloaking Terrorist Networks.

Mapping County Corruption

Valdis has used social network maps to provide evidence of corruption, and help a non-profit group prosecute a slumlord conspiracy, and visualize the "ecosystem" of fraud in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme scandal.

Transmission Network Analysis to Complement Routine Tuberculosis Contact Investigations

Working with medical researchers, Valdis has used InFlow to complement routine tuberculosis (TB) contact investigation procedures during an outbreak. They reviewed hospital, health department, and jail records and interviewed TB patients, and various other data items. Read the article here!

Consumer Patterns

Since 2004 Krebs has periodically published infographics showing the political polarization of American book-buying patterns. Firstly in the NYT, and secondly in TechPresident. Valdis has claimed that the web leads people to narrower, more extreme viewpoints (similar to the "bubble effect"), and suggests cultivating diversity in social networks, a process he calls "network weaving".