Motivated by applications to information networks such as wireless and ad-hoc, this research will explore fundamental informational properties of networks under communication constraints. In the standard approach, the network is assumed to be fully connected and/or the information it carries is treated as a commodity. Here, we will investigate a markedly different paradigm where limitations on the nodes’ connectivity in the network are imposed and pieces of information can be combined. Examples include storage systems in which the links are established by physical proximity or system architecture, as well as low-power wide-area networks for Internet-of-Things applications. We will consider a broad spectrum of models and topics ranging from efficient information encoding and network resiliency to information loss under corrupt nodes to cooperative models and network information accessibility. We will study these topics under specific network families and random networks. While prominently theoretic, the proposed investigation is expected to yield insights and design rules for the construction of information networks, e.g., via new data placement techniques and communication protocols. Moreover, we plan to devote part of our study to practical aspects by implementing and testing the theory developed in real-world networks. Such developments may well lead to a paradigm shift in the design of resource-limited wireless communication systems, and potentially reduce energy consumption, delays, and increase the overall information reliability. Lastly, our motivation stems from the perception that naturally occurring phenomena in general networks are dependent on the information carried by them; this perception is what drives both the research questions we pose and the mathematical model we define. Consequently, the theoretical results are expected to be practical and influential across different disciplines and research areas.

The ultimate goal of this project is to free science and society from the unfounded dogma of sex categories as all-encompassing dichotomies, and to promote a world in which the male-female categories are restricted to the domains in which they have been shown to play a central role (e.g., reproductive medicine), rather than a-priori assumed to do so (e.g., mind and brain). According to the modern normative view of sex and gender (the ‘gender binary’), each of two biological sexes (male/female) is associated with a typical, coherent gender identity (man/woman), sexual attraction towards the ‘other’ sex, a set of psychological and behavioral characteristics (masculinity/femininity), and the neural substrates on which these rely (‘male’/‘female’ brains). In the past decade I led a scientific research project challenging the binary view of human brains. Using diverse analytical tools, we discovered that brains are not ‘female’ or ‘male’ but rather comprised of unique ‘mosaics’ of female-typical and male-typical features. On the basis of the mosaic framework, the multi-level analysis tools we developed, and my expertise in psychology, the proposed research project will use self-reports and indirect measures to collect rich data from large and diverse samples on the four psychological components of the gender binary (psychological characteristics, gender identity, attitudes towards the sexed body, and sexuality) and their interrelations to discover how they are best described when freed from the dogmatic binary framework. Focusing also on the experiences of presumably ‘typical’ populations (i.e., cisgender, heterosexual individuals) we will map variability in domains assumed to be homogenous and advance thinking about nonconformity as a matter of diversity rather than pathology. More broadly, the proposed research project will undermine the ancient categorization of humans into men and women and the unjust gendered social order this categorization helps maintain.