January 2022 - news - Mailing lists@ IFISC

IFISC News - IFISC People: Esteve Seguí
by ifisc＠ifisc.uib-csic.es 28 Jan '22

28 Jan '22

IFISC People: Esteve Seguí We are pleased to introduce Esteve Seguí to the other IFISC members. Esteve has a degree in web development, having done an internship at APSL. He is also a qualified microcomputer and network technician, with an internship at BEL Informática, and holds certifications in programming and computer security. He has carried out several programming projects with different languages available in his portfolio. At IFISC he will work as web developer in charge of the maintenance and management of the institute's multiple web services. http://ifisc.uib-csic.es/en/news/ifisc-people-esteve-segui/

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IFISC News - The shape of memory in temporal networks
by ifisc＠ifisc.uib-csic.es 25 Jan '22

25 Jan '22

The shape of memory in temporal networks An international team of researchers, with participation of IFISC (UIB-CSIC), have proposed a mathematical framework to estimate the memory structure of temporal networks. These findings are published in the latest issue Nature Communications.Temporal Networks (those whose structure changes over time) are a very useful tool for studying complex systems. But the properties of a temporal network not only depend on the patterns of activities of each of its links, but also on the ways in which these activities influence each other across the network. This rich dynamic gives rise to the notion of network memory, this is, the dependence of a temporal network’s structure on its past.To this objective, an interdisciplinary and international team of researchers, with the participation of IFISC (UIB-CSIC), have proposed a mathematical framework to unveil the microscopic structure of a network’s memory. Their results suggest that, contrary to previously assumed, it is not possible to reduce the structure of such memory to a number: memory is inherently high-dimensional, it is not just one number, it is more like a shape. As Richard Feynman famously said, “there is more room at the bottom”, and this is true for network’s memory. Furthermore, they showed that inside such memory shape, weird things happen. Like the emergence of so-called virtual loops, consisting in resonance effects that happen when the future of a link depends on the past of a second link whose future, in turn, depends on the past of the first one. While a priori only a mathematical curiosity, it turns out that these virtual loops are physically felt by the system: the outcome of an epidemic process running on top of a network is very different if virtual loops emerge.The researchers applied this framework to characterize the memory of a large number of real-world networks, including urban transport networks in European cities (such as bus, train or metro), cortical brain networks, communication networks (SMS or email) and even contact networks between university students. Studying these systems, they found, among other results, that network memory is much higher in offline networks. In other words, a current state has a greater capacity to affect future configurations since offline social interactions are more mediated by tight schedules, which facilitate the emergence of various orders of memory. The analysis of real-world temporal networks also revealed that there are asymmetries in the contribution of links to the evolution of the network in terms of followers/influencers. All together provides evidence that memory shapes can very heterogeneous in real-world systems. The manuscript also provides implementations of the algorithms proposed hoping that their framework will prompt further studies and applications in other areas of complex systems. Williams, O.E., Lacasa, L., Millán, A.P. et al. The shape of memory in temporal networks. Nat Commun 13, 499 (2022). Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28123-z http://ifisc.uib-csic.es/en/news/shape-memory-temporal-networks/

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IFISC News - IFISC's researchers in the World's top 2% scientists of 2021 according to Stanford's University
by ifisc＠ifisc.uib-csic.es 17 Jan '22

17 Jan '22

IFISC's researchers in the World's top 2% scientists of 2021 according to Stanford's University Stanford University has published the World’s Top 2% Scientists 2021, a global ranking of the world's most cited scientists in various disciplines. This ranking, considered one of the most prestigious in the world, is based on bibliometric information from the Scopus database (published by Elsevier) and includes more than 180,000 of the more than 8 million researchers considered to be active worldwide. A dozen CSIC researchers in the Balearic Islands, including researchers from IFISC, appear in this ranking. In the ranking of scientific production in 2020, IFISC researchers Massimiliano Zanin, Víctor M. Eguíluz, Ingo Fischer, Miguel C. Soriano, Gian Luca Giorgi, Claudio Mirasso and Apostolos Argyris are at the top. On the other hand, according to the scientific production of the entire research career until 2020, the researchers Raúl Toral, Claudio Mirasso, Ingo Fischer, Llorenç Serra and Apostolos Argyris appear in the ranking. To compile the list, Scopus data is analysed on the scientists' careers (in this latest update, from 1996 to the end of 2020), the number of articles published and the number of times each research has been cited. However, IFISC would like to point out that this kind of ranking does not objectively evaluate the value of researchers and should not be used as the only way to quantify the careers of scientists. http://ifisc.uib-csic.es/en/news/ifiscs-researchers-worlds-top-2-scientists…

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IFISC News - Capturing the diversity of multilingual societies
by ifisc＠ifisc.uib-csic.es 12 Jan '22

12 Jan '22

Capturing the diversity of multilingual societies Multilingualism is a pervasive phenomenon worldwide with around 6000 spoken languages in 200 nations. In almost every country, the presence of more than one language naturally leads to speech communities of different sizes, with many individuals belonging to these communities using two or more of them. This occurs independently of the official status and the educational prevalence of those languages. Therefore, understanding what mechanisms lead to language extinction and which of them might enable coexistence is key to preserve cultural diversity. To this end, the IFISC (UIB-CSIC) researchers collected geolocalized Twitter posts from 16 countries between 2015 and 2019 with the aim of exploring spatial patterns of language coexistence in multilingual societies. This allowed them to determine the extent of spatial segregation, defined as the difference in how speakers of a language group are distributed compared to the total population. The researchers observed countries or regions with a high segregation of monolingual communities, such as Switzerland, while others, such as Catalonia, are a paradigmatic example of the opposite behavior, characterized by a high mixing among groups. The work also highlights the fact that in certain bilingual societies monolingual speakers of one language are virtually extinct, as is the case in Catalonia, Quebec or the Basque Country. In these situations, bilinguals act as a linguistic reservoir for the endangered language, keeping it alive for long periods of time. The proposed mathematical model takes into account the cultural attachment of bilinguals for one of the two languages. This preference can act as a defense mechanism of the endangered language since its use by bilingual speakers may suffice to save it despite a possibly lower social prestige of this language. The researchers find that this novel preference parameter is critical to determine whether languages can coexist or not. Overall, these findings shed light on the role of the heterogeneous speech communities in multilingual societies and they may help shape the objectives of language planning policies in countries where accelerated changes are threatening cultural diversity. Capturing the diversity of multilingual societies. Louf, Thomas; Sánchez, David; Ramasco José J. Physical Review Research 3, 043146 (1-11) (2021)El Diari de la UIB http://ifisc.uib-csic.es/en/news/capturing-diversity-multilingual-societies/

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