PhD Scholarships at IMT Lucca (www.imtlucca.it) in Economics and Management Science. Deadline for applications: September 26th 2012.

On Tue 11 September 2012 we will hold an interdisciplinary workshop at ETH Zurich. Our aim is to bring together different scientific communities working on economic problems by using methods from other disciplines (e.g. computational methods, agent-based modeling, statistical physics, network theory). We invite contributed talks (30 min) to three parallel tracks: Modeling financial systems, Agent-based Models in Economics, Econophysics Colloquium. Deadline: June 30, 2012.

Recommender systems have been recognized as a promising way to solve the information overload problem, whose main task is to find out what their users might like. Recent evidence demonstrates the significance of social influence and indicate that recommendations made by advanced techniques and algorithms are often less appreciated than those coming from our friends or acquaintances. The emergence of large-scale social network services, such as Facebook and Twitter, is facilitating the development of social recommendation. Beyond theoretical interests, academic studies on social recommender systems can immediately find industrial applications. We seek high-qualified, original submissions of reports on research covering all the aspects of designs, techniques, algorithms, experiments, and empirical analyses on social recommender systems.

The workshop "Complex Network Analysis: From Graph Theory to Systems Biology" will take place in the city of Hall near Innsbruck in Austria from 2 to 4 October 2012. The concept of this workshop is that we want to bring together mathematicians, working on graph analysis and characterization, and scientists interested in application of mathematical methods to particular physical and biological systems. There is no registration fee and we can help you in booking accommodation in Hall.

Social simulation is a multidisciplinary research field that uses multi-agent computational models to approach the study and understanding of complex social phenomena such as the functioning of markets, the emergence of social norms, the ethnogenesis, or the dissemination of information in societies among others. The Summer School in Social Simulation: A hands-on approach program, organized by the Laboratory for Socio-Historical Dynamics Simulation (LSDS - UAB) offers an intensive hands-on course on multi-agent modeling applied to the social sciences using the Netlogo modeling environment. Participants will be able to debut immediately in the field and to present their own simulation model at the end of the course. The program will be conducted by researchers in artificial intelligence, sociology, economics, archeology and other fields in the social sciences who, parallel to the course, will present the state-of-the-art research on the implementation of social simulation in their fields of expertise. The course is mainly directed to advanced students and researchers in the various fields of the social sciences who wish to approximate or to deepen in the knowledge of agent-based simulation to analyze complex phenomena in the context of social dynamics.

From 12 - 14 September 2012, we (Frank Schweitzer, Ernst Fehr und Didier Sornette) organize the Latsis Symposium 2012 "Economics on the Move: Trends and Challenges from the Natural Sciences" as a high-level conference, including a Satellite Workshop, to be held at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. More information can be be found in the attached CFP as well as at the conference homepage: http://web.sg.ethz.ch/Latsis_2012/.

We would like to announce the II Gefenol Summer School on Statistical Physics of Complex and Small Systems organized by the Grupo de Fisica Estadística y No Lineal (GEFENOL) of the Spanish Physical Society. The School will take place at the “Centro de Ciencias Pedro Pascual” in Benasque, Huesca, Spain on September 3-14 2012. Applications to attend the school can be submitted through the school web page until June 15. Fellowships covering the lodging cost will be available.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences started a computational humanities programme this year. In one of the projects, "Elite Network Shifts", a postdoc position is offered for a person with a profile in physics/mathematics/engineering (preferably complex networks) and interest for social and political dynamics and history. While this is a unique possibility we are aware that it is also a challenge to find such a person, and this is why I would like to alert you to this positions and also ask you to send the advertisement to possible candidates. Deadline for application is June 30.

The focus of SocialCom is on information and communication technologies aimed at modeling, analysis and synthesis of social interactions. The program will cover the whole spectrum of contexts where computers play a role in human-human and human-machine interaction, from co-located, face-to-face dyadic interactions up to large-scale on-line social networks. Submission deadline: May 18, 2012.

The 2012 edition addresses PhD students and young researchers to the forefront of research activity on data mining and modeling of complex techno-socio-economic systems. Recognized authorities in the field will give formal lectures tailoring these for an interdisciplinary audience. Participants will also have the opportunity to present the results of their research during a short communication session. As a whole, the planned summer school will allow participants to be exposed to cutting edge results in one of the most challenging research area, while at the same time enjoying the relaxing atmosphere of one of the most beautiful italian islands.