Tag Archives: fbk

Researcher position available in SoNet at FBK, Trento, Italy about social side of Wikipedia

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A position is available in the SoNet (Social Networking) research unit at Bruno Kessler Foundation, Center for Information Technology, Trento, Italy. The SoNet research unit focuses its research on the social side of Wikipedia and wikis in general.

The successful candidate will join our group working on a project whose goal is to mine, analyze and computationally model the individual and collective behaviour in communities and social networks of Wikipedia users.
The ideal candidate should have:
* Ph.D. level education in a relevant discipline
* A good record of relevant research published in peer-reviewed conferences or journals
* Strong empirical and analytical orientation, with experience in handling large amounts of data coming from user action logs and social networks
* Experience with statistics and with analysis of complex networks
* Knowledge of at least one of Python, Perl, C/C++, R, Java
* Proficiency in both written and spoken English
Additional requirements:
* Prior experience in using social media for disseminating personal research
* Interdisciplinary background
* Experience with GNU/Linux systems

Type of contract: co.co.pro (collaboration contract) for one year. Initial appointments are for one year and renewal is based on performance. Gross Salary offer will be approximately Euro 22.500,00 and can be increased based on experience and skills of the candidate.

Feel free to contact me if you have any question and you can find more information about how to apply.

Random hacks of kindness (RHOK) in Trento

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Trento is a small Italian city but it is a great city from many perspectives. The quality of life of very good and the cultural offering is really good. Some posts from my blog show a talk by Larry Wall and one by PhdComics creator, a visit of Dalai Lama, Microsoft opening a research center in Trento and a great annual Festival of Economics but there it actually much more in this little city.


Today I announce that on June 4th and 5th, Random Hacks of Kindness (RHOK) is coming to Trento too (precisely in the research center where I work).
The goal is to put together hackers, coders, designers, engineers, programmers and geeks of every variety to tackle some real-world problems (disaster risk and climate change) and hack for humanity.
RHOK is going to take place in 15 locations around the globe and among them there is Trento, the smallest of the participating cities in fact. Below the list of cities where RHOK will take place simultaneously with the number of inhabitants (data from Wikipedia).

Jakarta, Indonesia 9,580,000
Santiago, Chile 6,676,745
Bangalore, India 5,438,065
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. 5,325,000
Toronto, Canada 4,753,120
Melbourne, Australia 4,077,036
Berlin, Germany 3,450,889
Nairobi, Kenya 3,138,295
Buenos Aires, Argentina 2,891,082
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. 2,712,205
Lusaka, Zambia 1,742,979
Aarhus, Denmark 249,709
Basel, Switzerland 169,019
Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. 124,512
Trento, Italy 115,243

Wikipedia datasets released

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I strongly believe in replicability of science and I tend to release all the datasets I work on for other people use, improvement and testing. This is what I’ve done when I was working on trust metrics and recommender systems (see the datasets I released on Trustlet.org time ago) and this is also what I do with the SoNet group now that we explore the social side of Wikipedia (see the datasets at http://sonetlab.fbk.eu/data/: they are social network extracted from User talk pages, data about activity patterns on Wikipedia pages, and also about social capital (not on Wikipedia)). Enjoy!

Developer position available in SoNet at FBK

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The group I lead (SoNet at FBK, Trento, Italy) is looking for a developer. Python and web programming are the key skills we are looking for.
See the call at ec.europa.eu/euraxess. Feel free to contact me if you have any question!

The SoNet research unit focuses its research on modeling social networks, analyzing their evolution in time and which incentives and strategies are needed in order to keep them lively and successful. The main focus at present it modeling sociality inside Wikipedia.
The successful candidate will support researchers of the group by writing Python and/or Java programs in order to test research hypotheses, and by creating simple web sites where research results are visualized.
Salary offer will be approximately Euro 19.000 before tax per year but can be increased based on experience and skills of the candidate.

My invited talk at Future Networked Technologies event

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Few days ago I gave an invited talk at the the Future Networked Technologies event in Graz.
It was organized by FIT-IT, the largest Austrian national public funding programme for research in information technology, for the opening of competitive calls for collaborative research projects, in 3 areas: Semantic Systems and Services, Trust in IT Systems and Visual Computing.

It was not an easy task being inspirational for many different researchers coming from these 3 different backgrounds.
I talked about what I did during my PhD Thesis (work on trust metrics and trust-aware recommender systems), about what we are doing in my research group SoNet (research on social networks in Wikipedia and about Enterprise2.0) and a bit about my research institute, FBK. I used the research lines I work(ed) on as motivating examples for what I advocated today research should be: interoperable on the open web and aimed at creating services for real users.
Examples I pointed at toward the end (all of them related to Semantic Systems and services” call) were: DBpedia, Microformats, RDFa, LinkedData.

The slides of my talk are embedded below:

Invited talk at Future Networked Technologies / FIT-IT research calls opening Graz, Austria – June 9th, 2010

View more presentations from Paolo Massa.

The meeting was very interesting. There were around 40 or 50 researchers from Austria. I got a chance to talk with some of them after my talk and got interesting feedback and suggestions. I hope I gave them some food for thought.
Among the projects I discovered (funded in the past by FIT-IT) I particularly liked:
* DYONIPOS – DYnamic ONtology based Integrated Process OptimiSation (which is more impressive than the website would make you imagine, and more importantly it was used and evaluated empirically by the Austrian Ministry of Finance).
* Caleydo, an innovative Visualization Framework for Gene Expression Data in its Biological Context (below a demo of it).

Researchers’ Night at Fondazione Bruno Kessler

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Experiments, demonstrations, performances, meetings, exhibitions, guided tours, open workshops and a party to learn all about the world of science.
On September 25, 2009 Trento will be animated by “The Researchers’ night”, an event sponsored by the European Commission and organized by Fondazione Bruno Kessler (where I work) in collaboration with the Istituto Agrario S. Michele all’Adige, the University of Trento, Trentino Sviluppo, the Institute for evaluative research on public policies (IRVAPP), the Municipality of Trento and the Autonomous Province of Trento.

Check the Program and the video on Youtube.
The night will end up with a party and I’m sure you will not miss the opportunity to dance with a researcher! ;)

Children and adults will have the opportunity to understand science by experiencing its day-to-day practices, by frequenting the spaces and places where research is carried out and by coming into contact with its machinery and equipment, but above all by talking to those directly involved. The public participating will be actively involved in hands-on experiments, in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, using also an accessible wording also for non scientists . Each of the venues for the day’s events will plan a “European corner”, providing information on Europe and European interventions in favour of researchers and research.

Through offering the public at large and specifically young people the opportunity to directly get in touch with researchers in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, the Researchers’ Night project not only allows the participants to better understand the input of research in economic growth, employment and competition and in their dally lives, but also offers a unique occasion to discover the “human face” of researchers. While discovering the fascinating aspects of the job, the visitors will also share with researchers their hopes, dreams, hobbies, concerns …and perceive them as “ordinary people”.

In the following the program but you better check the Program on the FBK web site.

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Great opportunity for post-doc positions in the SoNet (Social Networking) Group at the FBK-irst research institute in Trento, Italy.

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Since one year together with my colleague napo, I started and lead a research group in FBK, called SoNet. Our research focus is studying Web2.0 and social networking. You can have a look at our SoNet blog if you are interested (still a bit under construction …)

Well, there is now a great opportunity for post-doc positions in our group here in Trento, Italy.
Find information at http://www.uniricerca.provincia.tn.it/bandi_ricerca_en.asp . If you have any question about the position, please contact me!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the deadline is Monday September 14th, 2009.!

The opportunity
* incoming: funding of individual research projects, both “post-doc” and “team”, promoted by *Italian and foreign researchers* who will carry out the research activity inside Trento province;
* re-integration: funding of individual research projects, both “post-doc” and “team”, promoted by researchers who have been carrying out *research activity in a foreign country for at least three years* and aimed at their possible definitive return to Trentino.

What is SoNet
So Net is a research group inside FBK (Fondazione Bruno Kessler) research institute. FBK is located in Trento, north-east of Italy, and counts more than 350 researchers in a variety of areas, such as Information Technologies, Materials and Microsystems, and Humanities.
SoNet’s research focus is Social Networking and its impacts: more info at http://sonet.fbk.eu

Research in Trentino, Italy
Trentino is the right place in Italy for research. It hosts a large number of research labs from environmental studies to high-tech technologies. The Province of Trento allocates several resources such as infrastructure, real estate and funds to encourage research and innovation. Many institutes, both public and private, local, national and international have established their research units in Trento and Rovereto. Trentino is located in north-east Italy in a charming area of mountains and lakes.

Please forward this message to anybody who might be interested.

See you soon in Trento!

Social networking 4 your business

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I presentation I gave on June 10th 2009 at Trentino Sviluppo, local agency in charge of developing local businesses. It is about the how and why (and why not) of using social networking systems such as Facebook or Twitter for small businesses. The slides are released under Creative Commons By-Attribution so share them, play with them, tear them apart! The only exception are the two photos below for which I don’t know who the copyright holder is. If you know please get in contact with me. Thanks!

Social Networking 4 your business

Two talks by David Orban in Trento on April 8th: The Open Internet Of Things, and

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The SoNet FBK research group is happy to invite you to two talks by David Orban on April 8th in Trento.
The first talk, “The Open Internet Of Things”, will be about OpenSpime. It will be interesting if you are interested in sensors, positioning devices and memory, social, Web 2.0-style services in the real world, green technology, tech applied to the environment, open hardware and software, communications protocols, and future in general.
The second talk, “Preparing Humanity For The Impact Of Accelerating Technological Change”, will talk about the Singularity University, a recent new initiative funded by Nasa, Google and more.
I’ll wait you on April 8th!

First talk: The Open Internet Of Things
8 April 2009 – at 10.00 – Conference Room – Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Povo (TN) (up in the hills, see the map)
If we want the the forthcoming Internet of Things to flourish, the distributed smart sensor networks which take the current infrastructures for granted and base their necessarily autonomous activities on massive data collection, then we have to adopt an open architecture. Only an interoperable approach to the design of the next generation of hardware and software systems is going to be able and leverage the dramatic effects, and express the value to human civilization that the network of tens, or thousands of billions of new objects, the spime network is going to shape. For more info see http://www.openspime.com

Second talk: Preparing Humanity For The Impact Of Accelerating Technological Change
8 April 2009 – at 15.00 – Conference Room – Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Trento (downtown, see the map)
The impact of advanced technologies on our societies is becoming more and more extreme, exposing new tensions in our models of human relationships, learning, and values in policies, politics, and business. While relinquishment has been recommended by some, it appears that the way ahead will be the use of more, not less technology, as billions of people aim to achieve a high quality of life for themselves, and their children. The Singularity University, recently formed on an open, international and interdisciplinary approach employs an advanced curriculum to analyze how the future leaders of enterprise, culture, and science can best prepare to face the serious challenges ahead.

About the speaker:
David Orban is an entrepreneur and visionary. In recognition of his lifetime contribution to exponentially advancing technologies, he has been honored with the position of Advisor and European Lead to the prestigious Singularity University.
He is a Founder and Chief Evangelist of WideTag, Inc., a high technology start-up company providing the infrastructure for an open Internet of Things. David cuts across the limits of deep specialization to contribute to the new renaissance. He explains, “My vision is at the crossroads of technology and society as defined by their co-evolution.” David Orban’s personal motto is, “What is the question I should be asking?” This concept is his vehicle to accelerating cycles of invention and innovation in order to build the new world ahead.

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FBK retreat 2009: the future of scientific and technological research

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Very interesting retreat at my research institute FBK (Fondazione Bruno Kessler)! Here there is the program of the retreat. There are many uber-interesting invited speaker. Personally I’m really looking forward to listen Prabhakar Raghavan (Head of Yahoo! Research) – USA, Hendrik Berndt (VP & CTO of DoCoMo Eurolabs) – Germany/Japan, Ray Perrault (Director Artificial Intelligence Center – SRI) – USA and Wolfgang Wahlster (CEO and Scientific Director of DFKI) – Germany.
Let me know if you would like to join us!

FBK retreat

New directions for scientific and technological research: a comparison of diverse views
Start: 29/01/2009 – 00:30
End: 30/01/2009 – 19:00
THE FUTURE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL RESEARCH
PRO>RETREAT OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL CENTERS OF FBK
Trento, Italy, January 29-30 2009
(for the schedule of January 28th, see moreover)
Sala Conferenze Ovest, FBK
Via Sommarive 18, Povo (TN), Italy

January 29th (in streaming da giovedi’ 29/01)
9.00-9.30
Welcome & Opening Welcome by Andrea Zanotti (president of FBK)
The FBK Research Programs
Andrea Simoni (Director Center for Materials and Microsystems – FBK)
Paolo Traverso (Director Center for Information Technology – FBK)

9.30-11.00 – Nano & Micro Technologies (1)
Chairs: Pierluigi Bellutti – Head of MTLab, FBK; Lorenzo Gonzo – Head of Smart Optical Sensors and Interfaces, FBK
Bruno Murari (Scientific Advisor ST Microelectronics) – Italy
Peter Seitz (Vice-President Nano-medicine, CSEM SA) – Switzerland

11.00-11.30 Coffee break

11.30-13.00 Future Internet (1)
Chairs: Massimo Zancanaro –Head of Intelligent Interfaces & Interaction, FBK; Luciano Serafini – Head of Data & Knowledge Management, FBK
Mark Maybury (Executive Director – MITRE) – USA
Klaus Tochtermann (Director Know-Center Graz) – Austria

13.00-14.30 Lunch

14.30-16.00 Nano & Micro Technologies (2)
Chairs: Alberto Lui – New Materials and Analytical Methods for Biosensors and Bioelectronics Group, FBK; Leandro Lorenzelli – BioMEMS Group, FBK
Pietro Siciliano (Resp. IMM CNR – Sezione di Lecce) – Italy
David Holden (CEA- Minatec) – France

16.30-18.00 Future Internet (2)
Chair: Marco Pistore – Head of Service Oriented Applications, FBK
Hendrik Berndt (VP & CTO of DoCoMo Eurolabs) – Germany/Japan
Roger Kilian-Kehr (Research Architekt, SAP Research Center CEC Karlsruhe)

January 30th (in streaming da venerdì 30/01)
9.00-10.30 2009 – The Year of Innovation – The Challenges for ICT (1)
Chair: Alessandro Cimatti – Head of Embedded Systems, FBK
João da Silva (Director of the Network & Communication DG-INFSO)
Malik Ghallab (CEO for Science and Technology – INRIA) – France

10.30-11.00 Coffee break

11.00-12.30 Future Internet (3)
Chairs: Marcello Federico & Bernardo Magnini — Heads of Human Language Technologies, FBK
Yuichi Matsushima (Vice President of NICT) – Japan
Prabhakar Raghavan (Head of Yahoo! Research) – USA

12.30-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.30 Embedded Intelligence: Ambient Computing & Intelligent Interaction
Chair: Oliviero Stock – Senior Fellow, FBK

Ray Perrault (Director Artificial Intelligence Center – SRI) – USA
Wolfgang Wahlster (CEO and Scientific Director of DFKI) – Germany

15.30-16.00 Coffee break

16.00-17.30 2009 – The Year of Innovation – The Challenges for ICT (2)
Chair: Paolo Traverso, Director Center for Information Technology, FBK
Lutz Heuser (Vice President of SAP Research) – Germany
Dario Avallone (Director R&D Engineering) – Italy

17.30-19.00 Concluding Remarks – Moderatore: Michele Lanzinger (Direttore Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali)
Lorenzo Dellai – President of the Trentino Autonomous Province
Andrea Zanotti – President of FBK
Andrea Simoni – Director Center for Materials and Microsystems
Paolo Traverso – Director Center for Information Technology
Discussion & Remarks by the Invited Speakers

19.00-20.00 Aperitif

Sala Conferenze Ovest, FBK
Via Sommarive 18, Povo, Trento, Italy
reatreatinfopoint@fbk.eu

PLEASE NOTE: the talks are in English and attendance is upon invitation

As far as the Center for Information Technology is concerned, two additional days are being added to the programme, as follows:

– The first part on Wednesday, Jan. 28, starting from 9 a.m. and dealing with the Trentino Research System
– The second part on Monday, Feb. 2, starting from 9.30 a. m. for FBK researchers only

January 28th (no streaming!)
9.00 – 9.30 Welcome & Introduction — Paolo Traverso Director of the Center for Information Technology, FBK

9.30 – 10.00 Francesco De Natale
Director of the Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Scienza dell’Informazione (DISI), University of Trento

10.00 – 10.30 Imrich Chlamtac
President of the CREATE-NET Research Consortium

10.30 – 11.00 Coffee Break

11.00 – 11.30 Raffaele De Amicis
Director of the Center for Advanced Computer Graphics
Technologies (GraphiTech)

11.30 – 12.00 Corrado Priami
President & CEO of The Microsoft Research – University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems Biology (CoSBi)

12.00 – 12.30 Remo Job
Dean of Facoltà di Scienze Cognitive, Università di Trento

12.30 – 13.00 Discussion & Concluding Remarks