Monthly Archives: January 2022

First NERDS papers of 2022 published: Epidemic Dreams and Conflicts versus Polarization

We start 2022 with two new papers!

    1. Epidemic dreams: dreaming about health during the COVID-19 pandemic, by S. Šćepanović, L.M. Aiello, D. Barrett and D. Quercia, published in Royal Society Open Science

      Luca and collaborators ask: Why were our dreams during the pandemic weird? Their computer analysis unearthed buried psychological reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic: expressions in waking life reflected a linear and logical thought process and, as such, described realistic symptoms or related disorders (e.g. nasal pain, SARS, H1N1); those in dreaming life reflected a thought process closer to the visual and emotional spheres and, as such, described either conditions unrelated to the virus (e.g. maggots, deformities, snake bites), or conditions of surreal nature (e.g. teeth falling out, body crumbling into sand).
    2. How minimizing conflicts could lead to polarization on social media: An agent-based model investigation, by M. Coscia and L. Rossi, published in PLOS ONE
       

       The paper explores an agent based model on how policing content and backlash on social media (i.e. conflict) can lead to an increase in polarization for both users and news sources. We find that the tendency of users and sources to avoid policing, backlash and conflict in general can increase polarization online. Specifically polarization comes from the ease of sharing political posts, intolerance for opposing points of view causing backlash and policing, and volatility in changing one’s opinion when faced with new information. On the other hand, it seems that the integrity of a news source in trying to resist the backlash and policing has little effect.
      Learn more on Michele’s blogpost.

Call for PhD scholarships by the Danish Data Science Academy

The new Danish Data Science Academy (DDSA), which we helped to establish, invites applications for ten three-year PhD scholarships for individual research projects within any field of data science, including all research topics pursued by NERDS. The DDSA encourages visionary and ambitious young data scientists to develop their own research projects with the assistance of a supervisor from a Danish university (like ITU).

See more information here: https://ddsa.dk/open-calls/open-call-for-phd-scholarships/
Deadline for application is 20 March 2022

Given that both our currently existing PhD students (Anastassia and Ane) were hired through similar calls, there is a good probability to make this also work out for future candidates. If your research interests overlap with ours and you are interested please get in touch with one of our assistant or associate professors to explore options to apply!

You will need to come up with your own research plan, but feel free to get inspired by our most recent master level project ideas: https://nerds.itu.dk/2021/09/01/research-project-market-2021/

 

 

Ane Rahbek Vierø has joined NERDS

Happy new year! 🥳

We are thrilled to welcome Ane Rahbek Vierø to our research group!

Ane joins us as PhD student for 3 years, funded by the Danish Ministry of Transport for an application which she authored, supported by her new supervisor Michael Szell. She completed her Master’s degree in 2020 from Lund University on a thorough analysis of Copenhagen’s bicycle network, and has been working since then as research assistant at Aalborg University. Her background is in Geographical Information Science which is a great complement for our existing NERDS expertise. She is also well connected in the Danish cycling research community, having co-organized the recent CRBAM21, which will additionally strengthen our research group’s connections within Denmark.

Given her professional expertise in bicycle network analysis, her GIS background and procedural approach via Python, and her past experience – such as an internship in the cycling development team of the municipality of Copenhagen – she is the perfect person to undertake this ambitious PhD project: Network analysis of the Danish cycling infrastructure.

Together with our PhD student Anastassia, who works on a very similar topic and who also joined recently, we anticipate an increasing output in cycling research in the coming years. Our goal is not just producing research papers, but more importantly to improve the Danish cycling landscape locally, and to provide general insights and methods towards a modal shift to sustainable transport on the global level.