Stefaan Verhulst

Jeffrey M. Perkel at Nature: “From Fortran to arXiv.org, these advances in programming and platforms sent biology, climate science and physics into warp speed….In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope team gave the world the first glimpse of what a black hole actually looks like. But the image of a glowing, ring-shaped object that the group unveiled wasn’t a conventional photograph. It was computed — a mathematical transformation of data captured by radio telescopes in the United States, Mexico, Chile, Spain and the South Pole¹. The team released the programming code it used to accomplish that feat alongside the articles that documented its findings, so the scientific community could see — and build on — what it had done.

It’s an increasingly common pattern. From astronomy to zoology, behind every great scientific finding of the modern age, there is a computer. Michael Levitt, a computational biologist at Stanford University in California who won a share of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on computational strategies for modelling chemical structure, notes that today’s laptops have about 10,000 times the memory and clock speed that his lab-built computer had in 1967, when he began his prizewinning work. “We really do have quite phenomenal amounts of computing at our hands today,” he says. “Trouble is, it still requires thinking.”

Enter the scientist-coder. A powerful computer is useless without software capable of tackling research questions — and researchers who know how to write it and use it. “Research is now fundamentally connected to software,” says Neil Chue Hong, director of the Software Sustainability Institute, headquartered in Edinburgh, UK, an organization dedicated to improving the development and use of software in science. “It permeates every aspect of the conduct of research.”

Scientific discoveries rightly get top billing in the media. But Nature this week looks behind the scenes, at the key pieces of code that have transformed research over the past few decades.

Although no list like this can be definitive, we polled dozens of researchers over the past year to develop a diverse line-up of ten software tools that have had a big impact on the world of science. You can weigh in on our choices at the end of the story….(More)”.

Hal Hershfield and Ilana Brody at Scientific American: “Campaigns to change behavior thrive on three factors: social influence, social norms and vivid examples…In late 1956, Elvis Presley was on the precipice of global stardom. “Heartbreak Hotel” had reached number one on the charts earlier that year and Love Me Tender, his debut film,would be released in November. In the midst of this trajectory, he was booked as a guest on the most popular TV show at the time, The Ed Sullivan Show. But he wasn’t only there to perform his hits. Before the show started, and in front of the press and Ed Sullivan himself, Presley flashed his swoon-worthy smile, rolled up his sleeves and let a New York state official stick a needle loaded up with the polio vaccine in his arm.

At that point, the polio virus had been ravaging the American landscape for years, and approximately 60,000 children were infected annually. By 1955, hope famously arrived in the form of Jonas Salk’s vaccine. But despite the literally crippling effects of the virus and the promising results of the vaccination, many Americans simply weren’t getting vaccinated. In fact, when Presley appeared on the Sullivan show, immunization levels among American teens were at an abysmal 0.6 percent.

You might think that threats to children’s health and life expectancy would be enough to motivate people to get vaccinated. Yet, convincing people to get a vaccine is a challenging endeavor. Intuitively, it seems like it would be wise to have doctors and other health officials communicate the need to receive the vaccine. Or, failing that, we might just need to give people more information about the effectiveness of the vaccine itself…(More)”.

Brief by the Center on Gender Equity and Health at the University of California at San Diego (UC San Diego): “Over the past decade, social media platforms have become ubiquitous, serving as a democratic space for activism and providing new opportunities for social movements. Twitter has emerged as a popular tool used by feminist activists for spreading awareness and organizing. Research examining feminist movements on social media have highlighted the role of Twitter in emphasizing issues related to gender-based violence (GBV) victimization including the MeToo movement, as well as calling out male privilege and regressive gender norms.

Scholars have examined the high levels of engagement in Twitter discussions and debates by grassroots feminists, as well as the effect of this activity on advancing the feminist agenda in the digital space and amplifying minority voices. Studying Twitter conversations of feminist activists can help identify gender issues that need attention but are underprioritized politically. This brief presents findings from
our analysis of a corpus of tweets by 59 Indian feminist activists, tweeted between March and August 2020. The analysis examines how the feminist community in India has used Twitter as a tool for activism during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to providing insights related to mainstream gender issues in India, this analysis hopes to contribute to methodological advancement in gender research….(More)”.

Book by Paul Reilly: “How are platforms such as Facebook and Twitter used by citizens to frame contentious parades and protests in ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland? What do these contentious episodes tell us about the potential of information and communication technologies to promote positive intergroup contact in the deeply divided society?

These issues are addressed in what is the first in-depth qualitative exploration of how social media were used during the union flag protests (December 2012-March 2013) and the Ardoyne parade disputes (July 2014 and 2015). The book focuses on the extent to which affective publics, mobilised and connected via expressions of solidarity on social media, appear to escalate or de-escalate sectarian tensions caused by these hybrid media events. It also explores whether citizen activity on these online platforms has the potential to contribute to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland….(More)”.

Report by México Evalúa: “This document offers a brief review of decisions, initiatives and implementation processes of various policies designed by the judiciary to incorporate the use of new technologies in their work. We are interested in highlighting the role that these tools can play not only in diversifying the means through which the public accesses the service of imparting justice, but also in facilitating and improving the organization of work in the courts and tribunals. We also analyzed the way in which the application of certain technological developments in justiciary tasks, in particular tele or videoconferences, has redefined the traditional structure of the judicial proceeding by allowing remote, simultaneous and collective interaction of the subjects involved. We also reflect on the dilemmas, viability and not always intended effects of the use of new technologies in the administration of justice.

(…)

We chose to analyze them from the focus of the procedural moment in which they intervene, that is, from the user’s perspective, because although technological solutions may have a wide range of objectives, it seems to us that, behind any technological development, the goal of facilitating, expanding and improving citizens’ access to justice should always prevail. We report several experiences aimed at reorganizing the processing of legal proceedings in the various phases that structure them, from the activation stage procedural (filing of lawsuit or judicialization of a criminal investigation) to the execution of court rulings (judgments, arbitral awards), passing through the processing of cases (hearings, proceedings). We would like to emphasize that access to justice includes everything from the processing of cases to the timely enforcement of court rulings. That vision can be summarized with the following figure:…(More)”.

Essay by Jean-Claude Burgelman: “The world of scientific communication has changed significantly over the past 12 months. Understandably, the amazing mobilisation of research and scholarly publishing in an effort to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 and find a vaccine has overshadowed everything else. But two other less-noticed events could also have profound implications for the industry and the researchers who rely on it.

On 10 January 2020, Taylor and Francis announced its acquisition of one of the most innovative small open-access publishers, F1000 Research. A year later, on 5 January 2021, another of the big commercial scholarly publishers, Wiley, paid nearly $300 million for Hindawi, a significant open-access publisher in London.

These acquisitions come alongside rapid change in publishers’ functions and business models. Scientific publishing is no longer only about publishing articles. It’s a knowledge industry—and it’s increasingly clear it needs to be regulated like one.

The two giant incumbents, Springer Nature and Elsevier, are already a long way down the road to open access, and have built up impressive in-house capacity. But Wiley, and Taylor and Francis, had not. That’s why they decided to buy young open-access publishers. Buying up a smaller, innovative competitor is a well-established way for an incumbent in any industry to expand its reach, gain the ability to do new things and reinvent its business model—it’s why Facebook bought WhatsApp and Instagram, for example.

New regulatory approach

To understand why this dynamic demands a new regulatory approach in scientific publishing, we need to set such acquisitions alongside a broader perspective of the business’s transformation into a knowledge industry. 

Monopolies, cartels and oligopolies in any industry are a cause for concern. By reducing competition, they stifle innovation and push up prices. But for science, the implications of such a course are particularly worrying. 

Science is a common good. Its products—and especially its spillovers, the insights and applications that cannot be monopolised—are vital to our knowledge societies. This means that having four companies control the worldwide production of car tyres, as they do, has very different implications to an oligopoly in the distribution of scientific outputs. The latter situation would give the incumbents a tight grip on the supply of knowledge.

Scientific publishing is not yet a monopoly, but Europe at least is witnessing the emergence of an oligopoly, in the shape of Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, and Taylor and Francis. The past year’s acquisitions have left only two significant independent players in open-access publishing—Frontiers and MDPI, both based in Switzerland….(More)”.

Book edited by Lucy Bernholz, Helene Landemore, and Rob Reich: “One of the most far-reaching transformations in our era is the wave of digital technologies rolling over—and upending—nearly every aspect of life. Work and leisure, family and friendship, community and citizenship have all been modified by now-ubiquitous digital tools and platforms. Digital Technology and Democratic Theory looks closely at one significant facet of our rapidly evolving digital lives: how technology is radically changing our lives as citizens and participants in democratic governments.

To understand these transformations, this book brings together contributions by scholars from multiple disciplines to wrestle with the question of how digital technologies shape, reshape, and affect fundamental questions about democracy and democratic theory. As expectations have whiplashed—from Twitter optimism in the wake of the Arab Spring to Facebook pessimism in the wake of the 2016 US election—the time is ripe for a more sober and long-term assessment. How should we take stock of digital technologies and their promise and peril for reshaping democratic societies and institutions? To answer, this volume broaches the most pressing technological changes and issues facing democracy as a philosophy and an institution….(More)”.

Carissa Véliz at Nature: “The coronavirus pandemic has permanently changed our relationship with technology, accelerating the drive towards digitization. While this change has brought advantages, such as increased opportunities to work from home and innovations in e-commerce, it has also been accompanied with steep drawbacks, which include an increase in inequality and undesirable power dynamics.

Power asymmetries in the digital age have been a worry since big tech became big. Technophiles have often argued that if users are unhappy about online services, they can always opt-out. But opting-out has not felt like a meaningful alternative for years for at least two reasons.

First, the cost of not using certain services can amount to a competitive disadvantage — from not seeing a job advert to not having access to useful tools being used by colleagues. When a platform becomes too dominant, asking people not to use it is like asking them to refrain from being full participants in society. Second, platforms such as Facebook and Google are unavoidable — no one who has an online life can realistically steer clear of them. Google ads and their trackers creep throughout much of the Internet¹, and Facebook has shadow profiles on netizens even when they have never had an account on the platform².

Citizens have responded to the countless data abuses in the past few years with what has been described as a ‘techlash’³. Tech companies whose business model is based on surveillance ceased to be perceived as good guys in hoodies who offered services to make our lives better. They were instead data predators jeopardizing, not only users’ privacy and security, but also democracy itself. During lockdown, communication apps became necessary for any and all social interaction beyond our homes. People have had to use online tools to work, get an education, receive medical attention, and enjoy much-needed entertainment. Gratefulness for having technology that allows us to stay in contact during such circumstances has thus watered down the general techlash. Big tech’s stocks have been consistently on the rise during the pandemic, in line with its accumulating power.

As a result of the pandemic, however, any lingering illusion of voluntariness in the use of technology has disappeared. It is not only citizens who rely on big tech to perform their jobs: businesses, universities, health services, and governments need the platforms to carry out their everyday functions. All over the world, governmental and diplomatic meetings are being carried out on platforms such as Zoom and Teams. Since governments do not have full control over the platforms they use, confidentiality is uncertain.

Enhanced power asymmetries have also worsened the vulnerability of ordinary citizens in areas that range from the interaction with government to ordering food online, and almost everything in between. The pandemic has, for example, led to an increase in the surveillance of employees as they work from home⁴. Students are likewise being subjected to more scrutiny: by their schools and teachers, and above all, by the companies on which they depend⁵. Surveillance for public health purposes has likewise increased. Privacy losses disempower citizens and often lead to further abuses of power. In the UK, for example, companies collecting data for pubs and restaurants for contact-tracing purposes have sold on that information⁶.

Such abuses are not isolated events. For the past two decades, we have allowed an unethical business model that depends on the systematic violation of the right to privacy to run amok. As long as we treat personal data as a commodity, there will be a high risk of it being misused — by being stolen in a hack or by being sold to the highest bidder (which often includes nefarious agents)….(More)”.

Foreword by Sheryl Sandberg: “When Facebook launched the Data for Good program in 2017, we never imagined it would play a role so soon in response to a truly global emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic is not just a public health crisis, but also a social and economic one. It has caused hardship in every part of the world, but its impact hasn’t been felt equally. It has hit women and the most disadvantaged communities the hardest – something this work has helped shine a light on.

In response to the pandemic, Facebook has been part of an unprecedented collaboration between technology companies, the public sector, universities, nonprofits and others. Our partners operate in some of the most challenging environments in the world, where lengthy analysis and debate is often a luxury they don’t have. The policies that govern delivery of vaccines, masks, and financial support can mean the difference between life and death. By sharing tools that provide real-time insights, Facebook can make decision-making on the ground just a little bit easier and more effective.

This report highlights some of the ways Facebook data – shared in a way that protects the privacy of individuals – assisted the response efforts to the pandemic and other major crises in 2020. I hope the examples included help illustrate what successful data sharing projects can look like, and how future projects can be improved. Above all, I hope we can continue to work together in 2021 and beyond to save lives and mitigate the damage caused by the pandemic and any crises that may follow….(More)”.

Twitter Developer Blog: “When we introduced the next generation of the Twitter API in July 2020, we also shared our plans to invest in the success of the academic research community with tailored solutions that better serve their goals. Today, we’re excited to launch the Academic Research product track on the new Twitter API. 

Why we’re launching this & how we got here

Since the Twitter API was first introduced in 2006, academic researchers have used data from the public conversation to study topics as diverse as the conversation on Twitter itself – from state-backed efforts to disrupt the public conversation to floods and climate change, from attitudes and perceptions about COVID-19 to efforts to promote healthy conversation online. Today, academic researchers are one of the largest groups of people using the Twitter API. 

Our developer platform hasn’t always made it easy for researchers to access the data they need, and many have had to rely on their own resourcefulness to find the right information. Despite this, for over a decade, academic researchers have used Twitter data for discoveries and innovations that help make the world a better place.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve taken iterative steps to improve the experience for researchers, like when we launched a webpage dedicated to Academic Research, and updated our Twitter Developer Policy to make it easier to validate or reproduce others’ research using Twitter data.

We’ve also made improvements to help academic researchers use Twitter data to advance their disciplines, answer urgent questions during crises, and even help us improve Twitter. For example, in April 2020, we released the COVID-19 stream endpoint – the first free, topic-based stream built solely for researchers to use data from the global conversation for the public good. Researchers from around the world continue to use this endpoint for a number of projects.

Over two years ago, we started our own extensive research to better understand the needs, constraints and challenges that researchers have when studying the public conversation. In October 2020, we tested this product track in a private beta program where we gathered additional feedback. This gave us a glimpse into some of the important work that the free Academic Research product track we’re launching today can now enable….(More)”.