Abbas K. Rizi
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abbasrizi.bsky.social
Abbas K. Rizi
@abbasrizi.bsky.social
Networks, Epidemics & Social Behavior

Postdoc Researcher at DTU Compute & SODAS
Editor-in-chief & Science Writer at sitpor.org

abbas.sitpor.org
What you expect the least from the reviewers and the editor is exactly checking for the main claims!
Doing non-causal inference (and being explicit about it), yet using a causal word as second word in the title.

If you pay Nature € 10.690, they will publish this in Nature Ageing.

I can tell you what I think of that for free.

www.nature.com/articles/s43...
November 14, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Being in #academia as someone not from the global north be like:

#phdchat #phdlife
November 13, 2025 at 12:10 PM
“Physicists are very good and famous for getting the right answers for the wrong reasons.” Why? Here’s a clue: noisy philosophizing!

Sean commenting on Nima's talk, Two Cheers for Shut Up and Calculate, at the Natural Philosophy Symposium 2025
November 2, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
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...
September 17, 2025 at 10:22 AM
We should switch from paper to screen posters—more eco-friendly and far more engaging. Elisa’s poster already showed us how creative this can be.

@elisamurators.bsky.social @cssociety.bsky.social
September 5, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Thank you for this opportunity. The slides of my talk & the preprint are available at abbas.sitpor.org
September 5, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Excited to present 2 of our recent works at @css-conference.bsky.social

“Social & Special Landscape of Covid-19 Immunity in Denmark”
- Tue at 15:30, Room 13
- Thu at 12:30, Old Chapel Room

“Homophily Within and Across Groups”
- Thu at 10:30, Room 13, CSS Satellite
September 1, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
PNAS: Strength and weakness of disease-induced herd immunity in networks
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2421460122?af=R
August 15, 2025 at 1:12 PM
@jsaramak.bsky.social you will love this!
Permanent link to this comic: xkcd.com/833/
August 1, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
All the keynote recordings are available now, enjoy! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
IC2S2'25 Norrköping - YouTube
This playlist contains all keynotes from IC2S2'25 in Norrköping, Sweden.
www.youtube.com
July 25, 2025 at 3:49 PM
AI & Public Health: Between Hype and Hope — Interview with Samir Bahtt
youtu.be/L-_pFPOZvV0

From outbreak forecasting to shaping public policy, AI promises transformative impacts—but what are its true capabilities and limitations?
@sjbhatt.bsky.social
AI & Public Health: Between Hype and Hope — with Samir Bahtt
YouTube video by Abbas K. Rizi
youtu.be
July 23, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
New paper in PNAS!🎉 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Is herd immunity to infectious diseases effective when induced by natural infection? Earlier studies have suggested that population heterogeneity makes disease-induced herd immunity more effective than previously thought. Our work challenges this notion.
Strength and weakness of disease-induced herd immunity in networks | PNAS
When a fraction of a population becomes immune to an infectious disease, the population-wide infection risk decreases nonlinearly due to collective...
doi.org
July 19, 2025 at 4:50 PM
What if #herd_immunity isn’t just about how many people are immune, but how they’re 'spatially' connected? Our new PNAS paper explores this concept. We show how the topology and geometry of social networks influence the dynamics of herd immunity, whether it arises from infection or #vaccination. 1/2
July 10, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
1/3 What happens if one repeatedly retrains a machine on data primarily generated from itself? For example when students use LLMs to write their essays that they then put online. And then profs use LLMs to write a paper on that topic and so on 😎
arxiv.org/abs/2506.20623
Lost in Retraining: Roaming the Parameter Space of Exponential Families Under Closed-Loop Learning
Closed-loop learning is the process of repeatedly estimating a model from data generated from the model itself. It is receiving great attention due to the possibility that large neural network models ...
arxiv.org
July 10, 2025 at 9:49 AM
What is #emergence, after all?
arxiv.org/abs/2507.04951

We unpack its meaning across science & philosophy, drawing on examples ranging from physics to bird flocking & epidemics. We feature how #herd_immunity emerges as immune individuals form overlapping firewalls that grow into a dominant shield.
July 8, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
My "Math, Revealed" series is freely available to anyone -- no paywall! -- in the thread below.
July 4, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
Are you interested in doing a PhD in data science in Denmark?

The Danish Advanced Research Academy (DARA) has open PHD calls 👇

Reach out to me if you are interested in
1) ML/AI robustness
2) Algorithmic fairness
3) Intersection of Climate change and human behavior

daracademy.dk/fellowship/f...
Dara
daracademy.dk
June 28, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
Presented our work with @c0rrad0.bsky.social, @bolozna.bsky.social, and Barbara Keller on user behavior change after cross-party interactions at #ICWSM today! Was a great experience and got a lot of interesting questions 🙌
Also: currently looking for postdoc opportunities - happy to chat!
June 24, 2025 at 4:39 PM
@sunelehmann.com got me thinking:

Are there things that will always remain beyond human understanding, but not for AI? Is there a cognitive upper bound for us—due to our biology—much like a cat can't grasp the mathematics of spacetime curvature?

Oh, and the reference totally sealed the deal 😄
June 18, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Today was the opening of the @icssi.bsky.social in Copenhagen—a remarkable gathering. But, for the first time in my life, I found myself unable to hear a word in a conference. My mind remained fixed—utterly and immovably—on the faces of those I love in #Iran.

1/3
June 16, 2025 at 8:35 PM
In this episode, @jsaramak.bsky.social shares his personal journey into Network Science. Jari talks about his motivation and research methods as well as how he selects interesting scientific questions. He emphasizes the importance of collaborative partnerships.

youtu.be/HwdZS6Fy8X8
June 9, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Reposted by Abbas K. Rizi
Hurray! 🎉 @arash.network (left) is the 24th recipient of the Zachary's Karate Club CLUB prize. For his talk @netsciconf.bsky.social NetSci 2025, he was entrusted with the illustrious trophy 🏆 from @nwlandry.bsky.social #networkscience networkkarate.tumblr.com
June 4, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Cool hypergraph approach for modeling homophily explicitly at each interaction size! Samantha told us how shifting homophily across hyperedge sizes can amplify inequality in who gets timely information—a perfect hypergraph companion to our clique-layer story. arxiv.org/abs/2412.07901 #netsci2025
June 5, 2025 at 10:27 AM
If you're looking for a quite handy multitype branching process framework for modeling diffusion in networks with communities check this work by @davidjpos.bsky.social and friends. @netsciconf.bsky.social #netsci2025
June 5, 2025 at 9:48 AM
🎶 Temporal networks as music? Jari’s audio demo makes temporal networks audible—and it’s oddly mesmerizing.

Wild stuff—hear it for yourself and find more here:
jarisaramaki.fi/2024/03/19/t...

@jsaramak.bsky.social @netsciconf.bsky.social #netsci2025
June 4, 2025 at 4:24 PM