News Finding: The same wasn't true for so-so thinking from major universities.
Paper Finding: When a set of curves are parameterized special cases of a more general function, the generic function can be identified and estimated by "rescaling" the individual curves so that they collapse onto each other .
News Context: When mid-level ideas began at less prestigious schools, they tended to stall, not reaching the full network. The same wasn't true for so-so thinking from major universities. "If you start a medium- or low-quality idea at a prestigious university, it goes much farther in the network and can infect more nodes than an idea starting at a less prestigious university," Morgan said.
Paper Context: This analysis reveals that ideas originating from the lowest-prestige universities, even if they are of the highest quality, are unlikely to spread to the whole network (red line, Figure 8A ), and again reinforces the substantial structural advantage afforded to more prestigious universities. When a set of curves are parameterized special cases of a more general function, the generic function can be identified and estimated by "rescaling" the individual curves so that they collapse onto each other . This ansatz converts p and d into an "effective" transmission probability p * , and its form illustrates the exponential rescaling effect of prestige (via the decile variable d now) on the raw transmission probability p. Hence, as the prestige of the originating university decreases, in order to produce an epidemic of equivalent size, the transmission probability of the idea must increase at an exponential rate to compensate.