Excited to share our new preprint (and my first research contribution!) now available on arXiv: “Ant Swarm Functional Control via Stigmergic Reinforcement Learning Agents”
Riccardo Gallotti
@ricgallotti.bsky.social
Interdisciplinary physicist Head of the CHuB research unit at FBK Human behaviour, mobility, transport, decision making, infodemics, data science
Many thanks to my co-authors @andreaguizzo.bsky.social and @lferrarotti.bsky.social and to @ricgallotti.bsky.social and Bruno Lepri for leading the project. Read the preprint: lnkd.in/eWJKugS4
Honored to receive the "Una tesi per la sicurezza nazionale" Award at Palazzo Dante (Rome, IT)! 🎓 Huge thanks to the Committee & my supervisors for their incredible guidance. 🌸 Congrats to all winners! 🤝 #NationalSecurity #DIS #Research #YoungResearchers
Congratulazioni, Elisa 👏🏼👏🏼 un riconoscimento davvero meritato 🎓
Honored to receive the "Una tesi per la sicurezza nazionale" Award at Palazzo Dante (Rome, IT)! 🎓 Huge thanks to the Committee & my supervisors for their incredible guidance. 🌸 Congrats to all winners! 🤝 #NationalSecurity #DIS #Research #YoungResearchers
Our study of 400 million tweets shows that the “war on science” is far more complex than a simple clash between truth and falsehood. 🔍 read more in our latest article magazine.fbk.eu/en/news/what... @ricgallotti.bsky.social @chub-fbk.bsky.social @vtraag.bsky.social
What a 400-Million-Tweet study revealed about the “War on Science”
The European project “Understanding Misinformation and Science in Societal Debates” (UnMiSSeD) aims at understanding the overlap between science and misinformation with a particular focus on the COVID...
magazine.fbk.eu
Q4. If AI is the answer to online disinfo, what role is left for human judgement in deciding what counts as trustworthy information? #AICODEPROJECT
Q5. Will AI tools empower citizens to spot disinfo themselves – or just hand more power to platforms and gatekeepers? #AICODEPROJECT
Q3. Can AI really foster trust online, or do we first need to rebuild trust in the people/institutions deploying it? #AICODEPROJECT
Q2. Is the biggest challenge building better AI, or convincing the public that AI-backed systems can be fair and transparent? #AICODEPROJECT
🚨 Finally our paper "Predicting human cooperation: sensitizing drift-diffusion model to interaction and external stimuli" is out 🤩 doi.org/10.1098/rsif... Laura Ferrarotti, Bruno Lepri and @ricgallotti.bsky.social @mobs-fbk.bsky.social @chub-fbk.bsky.social
Predicting human cooperation: sensitizing drift-diffusion model to interaction and external stimuli | Journal of The Royal Society Interface
Human cooperation arises naturally and is essential for the development of successful societies. This study aims to identify which aspects of the interaction influence societal cooperation and defection. Specifically, we investigate human cooperation ...
doi.org
Scale-free Points-of-Interest Distribution in a City Emerging from Homogeneous Poissonian-point Processes https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01699
Also seen yesterday at @css-conference.bsky.social a work on reinforcement learning applied to ants behaviour by Alessio Pitteri, our study of the historical evolution of EU projects by @verorsanigo.bsky.social and the study on Coordinated Behavior by @elisamurators.bsky.social #CCS2025
The studies presented analyse respectively: Twitter by @annabertani.bsky.social Telegram by @tlouf.bsky.social Mastodon by @arregui.bsky.social Youtube by @matteoscianna.bsky.social #CCS2025
Wide coverage of social media and disinformation analysis yesterday from our lab at the @css-conference.bsky.social, with four talks presenting our works associate to the European projects #AI4TRUST #AICODE_EU #HATEDEMICS
New pre-print out ! Work led by @eleandre.bsky.social, in collaboration with M. Napolitano and @ricgallotti.bsky.social. Using Foursquare data from Bologna, we find that the distribution of POIs follows a clear power-law pattern at the city scale. To explain this, we introduce a framework where ...
Scale-free Points-of-Interest Distribution in a City Emerging from Homogeneous Poissonian-point Processes https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01699
2nd keynote Manlio De Domenico discusses approaches to figure out functionalities of complex systems #CCS2025
Yesterday was our first day at @css-conference.bsky.social in Siena 🇮🇹. We presented on Telegram data collection @elisamurators.bsky.social , city growth @ulyssemarquis.bsky.social and urban traffic (Alberto Amaduzzi). Excited for 5 more talks today! #CCS2025
📣🚨 New work out on @plos.org Computational Biology! Excited and proud to have provided the world with more maps of Puglia🕷️ Thank you all @luzuzek.bsky.social Oriol Artime @ricgallotti.bsky.social @mtizzoni.bsky.social journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... 💊main results below👇
Comparing the effectiveness of ring and block-vaccination strategies on networks
Author summary Infectious diseases such as measles and Ebola have shown how quickly outbreaks can spread and how essential vaccination is to protect individuals. In our work, we investigate a spectrum...
journals.plos.org
Great energy at the poster session today! It was a pleasure to be part of it presenting our work "How to design a collection strategy for monitoring disinformation and hate speech in Telegram". Excited for round two tomorrow – see you all there! ☀️
Today’s Poster Session in pictures – thank you to all presenters!
This research was done by @luzuzek.bsky.social zek.bsky.social, Juan Pablo Bascur, @annabertani.bsky.social, and @ricgallotti.bsky.social. This project is supported by European Media and Information Fund. ⤴️
New preprint! 🚨 We study the interaction between misinformation and science on Twitter during COVID-19 based on ~407M tweets. Both science and misinformation featured prominently during the pandemic, but the interaction between the two has not been studied on this scale before. 🧵 (1/10)
So excited to see this come together! 🎉 Our latest study explores the interplay between science and misinformation in public debates during COVID-19 🔍 arxiv.org/abs/2507.01481 👇Take a look
Mapping the interaction between science and misinformation in COVID-19 tweets
During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific understanding related to the topic evolved rapidly. Along with scientific information being discussed widely, a large circulation of false information, labelle...
arxiv.org
New preprint! 🚨 We study the interaction between misinformation and science on Twitter during COVID-19 based on ~407M tweets. Both science and misinformation featured prominently during the pandemic, but the interaction between the two has not been studied on this scale before. 🧵 (1/10)
New preprint! 🚨 We study the interaction between misinformation and science on Twitter during COVID-19 based on ~407M tweets. Both science and misinformation featured prominently during the pandemic, but the interaction between the two has not been studied on this scale before. 🧵 (1/10)
The Grand Amphithéâtre of @sorbonne-universite.fr is definitively not a bad venue for a the keynote session of @sunbelt2025paris.bsky.social #Sunbelt2025
🚨 check out our latest work 👇🏼
How do cities expand? Using surface growth physics, we found a unique exponent governing their local geometry. Instead, their dynamics range from smooth diffusion to abrupt coalescence, with demographic pressure driving where each city lands on that spectrum. arxiv.org/abs/2506.10656
Paris, croissants, and network science! 🌐✨ Presenting at #Sunbelt2025 on how domain-level signals help fact-checkers outsmart misinformation. Vive la vérité! @sunbelt2025paris.bsky.social @insna.bsky.social
🚨If you're around Paris come to see @tlouf.bsky.social talking today about the structure and dynamics of information flow on Telegram at @sunbelt2025paris.bsky.social and @css-fr.bsky.social
🎙️Busy morning today at @sunbelt2025paris.bsky.social for CHuB talking about mis/disinformation on Twitter and Mastodon @ricgallotti.bsky.social @kaveh-kadkhoda.bsky.social @annabertani.bsky.social
I finally have the pleasure of attending Sunbelt in person for the first time, together with four members of my unit @chub-fbk.bsky.social This year among the organisers we also have many familiar faces such as @camcom.bsky.social , @chavalarias.org , Floriana Gargiulo and Emmanuel Lazega.
🎙️Busy morning today at @sunbelt2025paris.bsky.social for CHuB talking about mis/disinformation on Twitter and Mastodon @ricgallotti.bsky.social @kaveh-kadkhoda.bsky.social @annabertani.bsky.social
How do cities expand? Using surface growth physics, we found a unique exponent governing their local geometry. Instead, their dynamics range from smooth diffusion to abrupt coalescence, with demographic pressure driving where each city lands on that spectrum. arxiv.org/abs/2506.10656
Universal roughness and the dynamics of urban expansion
We present a new approach to quantify urban sprawl using tools from surface growth physics. Analyzing built-up area expansion in 19 cities (1985-2015), we uncover anisotropic growth with branch-like e...
arxiv.org