Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

M.J. Crockett @mjcrockett.bsky.social · 21h

Great piece in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social on why AI won't solve the loneliness epidemic:

"presenting AI as a scalable solution to the loneliness epidemic risks overlooking the structural and societal roots of the problem and may allow us to abdicate our responsibility as a society."

Can AI really help solve the loneliness epidemic?

Advances in artificial intelligence offer an enticing solution to a global problem: perhaps interacting with large language models (LLMs) can help all…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 2d

This was a fun talk to give. Our new results show that "Meta-learning optimizes predictions of missing links in real-world networks" (arxiv.org/abs/2508.09069). tl;dr: graph neural networks are a limited tool for predicting missing links in most networks
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRYz...

GraphGeeks Talk: Meta-Learner That Finds the Best Link Prediction Model

YouTube video by GraphGeeks

www.youtube.com

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Jeff Lockhart @jwlockhart.bsky.social · 4d

I'm excited to share my new paper with a former student, Tommy Smith. "'This Work Would Not Have Been Possible without...': The Length of Acknowledgments in Sociology Books"

Open Access in @sociusjournal.bsky.social : doi.org/10.1177/2378...

Main figure from the paper. Violin plots showing the length of acknowledgments sections in books by sociologists, broken out by gender, race, sexuality, parents’ education, millennium of author’s PhD, and publisher type.

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Vincent Traag @vtraag.bsky.social · 5d

🤩 Fantastic new network plotting package available in Python by Fabio Zanini. The package supports both networkx and igraph networks, and has a wide variety of styling options. iplotx.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Gallery of various network visualisations.

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

ELLIS @ellis.eu · 7d

🎓 The application portal for the #ELLISPhD Program is open today! Info & link: https://bit.ly/45DSe75

ELLIS PhD Program: Call for Applications 2025

The ELLIS mission is to create a diverse European network that promotes research excellence and advances breakthroughs in AI, as well as a pan-European PhD program to educate the next generation of AI...

ellis.eu

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Sebastian Stier @sebstier.bsky.social · 6d

📢 We're hiring a Doctoral Student in Research Software Engineering for Digital Behavioral Data!
Work at the intersection of computer science and social science, develop innovative tools, and pursue your doctoral degree with us.

👉 Apply here: www.gesis.org/en/institute...

Details

GESIS Leibniz Institut für Sozialwissenschaften

www.gesis.org

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

ChiSocNet @chisocnet.bsky.social · 6d

📢 Last call! Applications for the 2nd Summer School on Social Network Research (ChiSocNet) close on October 6.
Meet our instructors - leading experts in social network analysis 🌐
👉 Apply now: snlab-cl.github.io/summerschool/
#SocialNetworkAnalysis #ChiSocNet

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

Zachary Neal @zpneal.bsky.social · 7d

Want to promote transparency and clarity in network research by helping develop 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 (𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐃)?

Sign up to get involved here: tinyurl.com/help-with-GR...

▪️ All career stages welcome
▪️ All fields welcome
▪️ Be compensated for your time

GRAND Recruitment

Complete this short questionnaire to help develop Guidelines for Reporting About Network Data (GRAND).

tinyurl.com

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 11d

A few hours left to submit your extended abstract!!! Friday, Sep. 26, 23:59 AoE.

Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 19d

📢 We’ve heard your requests! The deadline is extended to: *Sep 26 (AoE)*

✅ Registration is open & we're exploring a support fund for attendees.

🔗 netscix2026.github.io

@mluczak.bsky.social @ProfMSmall @droneale.bsky.social @danielapaolotti.bsky.social @gabridibo.bsky.social @netplace.bsky.social

Skyline of Auckland, New Zealand at sunset with the Sky Tower prominent. On the right, bold text reads “CALL FOR ABSTRACTS.” Subtext says “You’ve got 1 more week to submit your work and join the dialogue on diversity in network science.” A yellow banner highlights: “Deadline 23:59 AoE, Friday, 26 September 2025.” The bottom includes the conference URL: netscix2026.github.io.

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

David Garcia @dgarcia.eu · 13d

🚨Call for papers for the 2026 Inequality conference in Konstanz. I'm co-organizing it and we welcome submissions from Computational Social Science. The deadline is approaching quickly!
inequality-conference.de

In_equality Conference 2026

The "Politics of Inequality” research center invites interdisciplinary & international researchers to Konstanz, Germany, for the In_equality Conference, 15-17 April 2026.

inequality-conference.de

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

Chantal @chantalsh.bsky.social · 14d

"AI slop" seems to be everywhere, but what exactly makes text feel like "slop"?

In our new work (w/ @tuhinchakr.bsky.social, Diego Garcia-Olano, @byron.bsky.social ) we provide a systematic attempt at measuring AI "slop" in text!

arxiv.org/abs/2509.19163

🧵 (1/7)

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Complexity Cat 🐱 @amahury.bsky.social · 16d

University of Zurich | Ethics in Complex Systems: Perspectives and challenges

Registration deadline: October 1

#Ethics #ComplexSystems #Workshop #Society ./3

@yasasgari.bsky.social

amahury.github.io/posts/worksh...

University of Zurich Ethics in Complex Systems: Perspectives and challenges

This one-day interdisciplinary workshop aims at bridging the gap between researchers in complexity science and ethics and offers a new perspective on why ethics discussions are necessary in such a com...

amahury.github.io

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

EurIPS Conference @euripsconf.bsky.social · 15d

Most of the #EurIPS workshops now have their websites online 🙌

A lot of them have active call for participation and/or papers, so if you see something relevant to your field of research please consider submitting!

Links for most workshops are available at: eurips.cc/workshops/

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 17d

Huge thanks to @LiuhuayingYang & @csh.ac.at for creating such a creative space every year. 👏👏👏

If you want to explore how science & data can be translated into playful, pedagogical, and artistic forms, apply for the next edition in 2026!

vis.csh.ac.at/vis-workshop...

🧵5/5

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 17d

For our work on ranking audits doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05434-1:

- SHROOM BOOM board game [visualizing-complexity-science-group4.netlify.app]
- Hidden Network interactive exhibit
- Network interactive tool
- Rave of Fairness visual + audio learning [adrigabzu.github.io/rave_of_fairness]

🧵4/5

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 17d

For our work on auditing LLMs in scholar recommendations (arxiv.org/abs/2506.00074) 3 groups created:

- The Invisibles: UV light exposing overlooked scientists
- Artificial Intelligence: Pepper's ghost illusions
- GroundTruth: coffee filter metaphor [dizzy-swarm-74427371.figma.site]

🧵3/5

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 17d

I presented my work on inequalities, biases & fairness in socio-technical systems (node ranking, and LLM recommendations).

What amazed me: participants reimagined my research in ways I'd never have thought of: beyond scatterplots & bar charts. 💡🤯

🧵2/5

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 17d

A couple of weeks ago @LiuhuayingYang & Paul Kahn hosted the annual Data Visualization Workshop at @csh.ac.at.

@DanieleBarolo & I joined as invited scientists to share our research with artists, designers & data journalists.

It was so much fun ✨

🧵1/5

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 19d

📢 We’ve heard your requests! The deadline is extended to: *Sep 26 (AoE)*

✅ Registration is open & we're exploring a support fund for attendees.

🔗 netscix2026.github.io

@mluczak.bsky.social @ProfMSmall @droneale.bsky.social @danielapaolotti.bsky.social @gabridibo.bsky.social @netplace.bsky.social

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · 20d

I strongly recommend applying! I worked with @juhi153.bsky.social during my master’s thesis (she was my supervisor, mentor, and became a great friend). She’s great, supportive, and makes science fun. :-) Plus, you get to live in Finland: great social system, clean air, and even the northern lights!

Juhi Kulshrestha @juhi153.bsky.social · 21d

We are hiring multiple PhD and postdocs for two newly funded projects at the intersection of mental health and political polarization at the CS Dept at Aalto, Finland. The PIs are Juhi Kulshrestha, Talayeh Aledavood, and Mikko Kivelä.

Full call text and link to apply: www.aalto.fi/en/open-posi...

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

Juhi Kulshrestha @juhi153.bsky.social · 21d

We are hiring multiple PhD and postdocs for two newly funded projects at the intersection of mental health and political polarization at the CS Dept at Aalto, Finland. The PIs are Juhi Kulshrestha, Talayeh Aledavood, and Mikko Kivelä.

Full call text and link to apply: www.aalto.fi/en/open-posi...

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Reposted by Lisette Espín-Noboa

Markus Luczak-Roesch @mluczak.bsky.social · 23d

Last week for submissions to the NetSci-X 2026 conference to be held in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 2026! netscix2026.github.io

NetSciX 2026 - International School and Conference on Network Science - Auckland, New Zealand

netscix2026.github.io

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Joachim Baumann @joachimbaumann.bsky.social · 26d

🚨 New paper alert 🚨 Using LLMs as data annotators, you can produce any scientific result you want. We call this **LLM Hacking**.

Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.08825

$We present our new preprint titled "Large Language Model Hacking: Quantifying the Hidden Risks of Using LLMs for Text Annotation". We quantify LLM hacking risk through systematic replication of 37 diverse computational social science annotation tasks. For these tasks, we use a combined set of 2,361 realistic hypotheses that researchers might test using these annotations. Then, we collect 13 million LLM annotations across plausible LLM configurations. These annotations feed into 1.4 million regressions testing the hypotheses. For a hypothesis with no true effect (ground truth $p > 0.05$), different LLM configurations yield conflicting conclusions. Checkmarks indicate correct statistical conclusions matching ground truth; crosses indicate LLM hacking -- incorrect conclusions due to annotation errors. Across all experiments, LLM hacking occurs in 31-50\% of cases even with highly capable models. Since minor configuration changes can flip scientific conclusions, from correct to incorrect, LLM hacking can be exploited to present anything as statistically significant.$

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PROTEMO Project @protemo.bsky.social · Sep 3

💡📚 Passionate about emotions, gender & migration?
We’re hiring a Research Associate for the #PROTEMO project at @uni-saarland.de! 🌍

Focus: migrant women’s experiences of domestic violence & how emotions, security & politics intersect.

📝 Apply by 10 Sept 2025
👉 www.protemo.eu/news-post/we...

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Lisette Espín-Noboa @lespin.bsky.social · Sep 4

📢Take a breath, you have extra days to finish!
Due to technical issues with @openreviewnet this week, we’ve extended all deadlines by 2 weeks.

🗓️New deadline for abstracts: Sept 19, 23:59 AoE

📷 More info: netscix2026.github.io
@MLuczak @ProfMSmall @droneale @danielapaolotti

Promotional graphic for NetSciX 2026 in Auckland, New Zealand. The text reads:

“CALL FOR ABSTRACTS. You’ve got 2 more weeks to submit your work and join the dialogue on diversity in network science. Deadline Friday, 19 September 2025, 23:59 AoE. More information: netscix2026.github.io.”

The design features a photo of a person working on a laptop with a notebook, pencil, and cup of coffee on the desk. The layout uses white, black, and orange accents.

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