Luca Maria Aiello

Yahoo

Dreaming is a fundamental but not fully understood part of human experience that can shed light on our thought patterns. Traditional dream analysis practices, while popular and aided by over 130 unique scales and rating systems, have limitations. Mostly based on retrospective surveys or lab studies, they struggle to be applied on a large scale or t...

While sleep positively impacts well-being, health, and productivity, the effects of societal factors on sleep remain underexplored. Here we analyze the sleep of 30,082 individuals across 11 countries using 52 million activity records from wearable devices. Our data are consistent with past studies of gender and age-associated sleep characteristics....

The strength of social relations has been shown to affect an individual's access to opportunities. To date, however, the correspondence between tie strength and population's economic prospects has not been quantified, largely because of the inability to operationalise strength based on Granovetter's classic theory. Our work departed from the premis...

The strength of social relations has been shown to affect an individual’s access to opportunities. To date, however, the correspondence between tie strength and population’s economic prospects has not been quantified, largely because of the inability to operationalise strength based on Granovetter’s classic theory. Our work departed from the premis...

Which messages are more effective at inducing a change of opinion in the listener? We approach this question within the frame of Habermas' theory of communicative action, which posits that the illocutionary intent of the message (its pragmatic meaning) is the key. Thanks to recent advances in natural language processing, we are able to operationali...

Which messages are more effective at inducing a change of opinion in the listener? We approach this question within the frame of Habermas’ theory of communicative action, which posits that the illocutionary intent of the message (its pragmatic meaning) is the key. Thanks to recent advances in natural language processing, we are able to operationali...

We quantify Non Fungible Token (NFT) rarity and investigate how it impacts market behaviour by analysing a dataset of 3.7M transactions collected between January 2018 and June 2022, involving 1.4M NFTs distributed across 410 collections. First, we consider the rarity of an NFT based on the set of human-readable attributes it possesses and show that...

We quantify Non Fungible Token (NFT) rarity and investigate how it impacts market behaviour by analysing a dataset of 3.7M transactions collected between January 2018 and March 2022, involving 1.3M NFTs distributed across 410 collections. First, we consider the rarity of an NFT based on the set of human-readable attributes it possesses and show tha...

In January 2021, retail investors coordinated on Reddit to target short-selling activity by hedge funds on GameStop shares, causing a surge in the share price and triggering significant losses for the funds involved. Such an effective collective action was unprecedented in finance, and its dynamics remain unclear. Here, we analyse Reddit and financ...

The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams is continuous with the dreamer's waking experiences. Given the unprecedented nature of the experiences during COVID-19, we studied the continuity hypothesis in the context of the pandemic. We implemented a deep-learning algorithm that can extract mentions of medical conditions...

The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams is continuous with the dreamer's waking experiences. Given the unprecedented nature of the experiences during COVID-19, we studied the continuity hypothesis in the context of the pandemic. We implemented a deep-learning algorithm that can extract mentions of medical conditions...

While current meeting tools are able to capture key analytics from both text and voice (e.g., meeting summarization), they do not often capture important types of conversations (e.g., a heated discussion resulting in a conflict being resolved). We developed a framework that not only analyzes text and voice, but also quantifies fundamental types of...

The authors would like to make the following corrections to the published paper [...]

On-line social networks are complex ensembles of inter-linked communities that interact on different topics. Some communities are characterized by what are usually referred to as deviant behaviours, conducts that are commonly considered inappropriate with respect to the society’s norms or moral standards. Eating disorders, drug use, and adult conte...

Disruptions resulting from an epidemic might often appear to amount to chaos but, in reality, can be understood in a systematic way through the lens of “epidemic psychology”. According to Philip Strong, the founder of the sociological study of epidemic infectious diseases, not only is an epidemic biological; there is also the potential for three ps...

Quantifying a society’s value system is important because it suggests what people deeply care about—it reflects who they actually are and, more importantly, who they will like to be. This cultural quantification has been typically done by studying literary production. However, a society’s value system might well be implicitly quantified based on th...

Throughout history, maps have been used as a tool to explore cities. They visualize a city's urban fabric through its streets, buildings, and points of interest. Besides purely navigation purposes, street names also reflect a city's culture through its commemorative practices. Therefore, cultural maps that unveil socio-cultural characteristics enco...

Quantifying a society's value system is important because it suggests what people deeply care about -- it reflects who they actually are and, more importantly, who they will like to be. This cultural quantification has been typically done by studying literary production. However, a society's value system might well be implicitly quantified based on...

Since the uptake of social media, researchers have mined online discussions to track the outbreak and evolution of specific diseases or chronic conditions such as influenza or depression. To broaden the set of diseases under study, we developed a Deep Learning tool for Natural Language Processing that extracts mentions of virtually any medical cond...

The paper presents a method to operationalize Jan Gehl’s questions for public space into metrics to map Russian monotowns’ urban life in 2017. With the use of social media data, it becomes possible to scale Gehl’s approach from the survey of small urban areas to the analysis of entire cities while maintaining the human scale’s resolution. When unde...

Sleep scientists have extensively validated the continuity hypothesis, according to which our dreams reflect what happens during our waking life. Yet, only a few attempts have been made to increase the general public’s awareness about the benefits of dream analysis in better understanding and improving our daily life. We designed “The Dreamcatcher,...

Empathy is the tendency to understand and share others' thoughts and feelings. Literature in psychology has shown through surveys potential beneficial implications of empathy. Prior psychology literature showed that a particular type of empathy called "situational empathy" --- an immediate empathic response to a triggering situation (e.g., a distre...

Since the uptake of social media, researchers have mined online discussions to track the outbreak and evolution of specific diseases or chronic conditions such as influenza or depression. To broaden the set of diseases under study, we developed a Deep Learning tool for Natural Language Processing that extracts mentions of virtually any medical cond...

While great emphasis has been placed on the role of social interactions as a driver of innovation growth, very few empirical studies have explicitly investigated the impact of social network structures on the innovation performance of cities. Past research has mostly explored scaling laws of socio-economic outputs of cities as determined by, for ex...

Music can motivate many daily activities as it can regulate mood, increase productivity and sports performance, and raise spirits. However, we know little about how to recommend songs that are motivational for people given their contexts and activities. As a first step towards dealing with this issue, we adopt a theory-driven approach and operation...

Affective sharing within groups strengthens coordination and empathy, leads to better health outcomes, and increases productivity and performance. Existing tools for affective sharing face one main challenge: creating a representation of collective emotional states that is relatable and universally accessible. To overcome this challenge, we propose...

Throughout history, maps have been used as a tool to explore cities. They visualize a city's urban fabric through its streets, buildings, and points of interest. Besides purely navigation purposes, street names also reflect a city's culture through its commemorative practices. Therefore, cultural maps that unveil socio-cultural characteristics enco...

Noise is considered the second factor after air pollution to impact citizens' health and well-being in densely populated urban areas, as it takes a heavy toll on the health of the circulatory and nervous systems. Traditionally, research on urban noise was conducted through surveys with a limited temporal and spatial coverage, and focused on a subse...

Sleep scientists have shown that dreaming helps people improve their waking lives, and they have done so by developing sophisticated content analysis scales. Dream analysis entails time-consuming manual annotation of text. That is why dream reports have been recently mined with algorithms, and these algorithms focused on identifying emotions. In so...

Human physiology is a window to our physical, mental, and emotional states; our well-being. Today, a new wave of objective data, derived from consumer-grade body sensors---like those equipped by smartwatches---paves the way towards a new approach in how well-being is being measured, continuously and unobtrusively. Here, we developed a framework for...

Disruptions resulting from an epidemic might often appear to amount to chaos but, in reality, can be understood in a systematic way through the lens of "epidemic psychology". According to the father of this research field, Philip Strong, not only is the epidemic biological; there is also the potential for three social epidemics: of fear, moralizati...

Wearable devices make self-monitoring easier by the users, who usually tend to increase physical activity and weight loss maintenance over time. But in terms of behavior adaptation to these goals, these devices do not provide specific features beyond monitoring the achievement of daily goals, such as a number of steps or miles walked and caloric ou...

We present the Tesco Grocery 1.0 dataset: a record of 420 M food items purchased by 1.6 M fidelity card owners who shopped at the 411 Tesco stores in Greater London over the course of the entire year of 2015, aggregated at the level of census areas to preserve anonymity. For each area, we report the number of transactions and nutritional properties...

Decades of social science research identified ten fundamental dimensions that provide the conceptual building blocks to describe the nature of human relationships. Yet, it is not clear to what extent these concepts are expressed in everyday language and what role they have in shaping observable dynamics of social interactions. After annotating conv...

In the area of computer vision, deep learning techniques have recently been used to predict whether urban scenes are likely to be considered beautiful: it turns out that these techniques are able to make accurate predictions. Yet they fall short when it comes to generating actionable insights for urban design. To support urban interventions, one ne...

In the area of computer vision, deep learning techniques have recently been used to predict whether urban scenes are likely to be considered beautiful: it turns out that these techniques are able to make accurate predictions. Yet they fall short when it comes to generating actionable insights for urban design. To support urban interventions, one ne...

To complement traditional dietary surveys, which are costly and of limited scale, researchers have resorted to digital data to infer the impact of eating habits on people's health. However, online studies are limited in resolution: they are carried out at regional level and do not capture precisely the composition of the food consumed. We study the...

While great emphasis has been placed on the role of social interactions as driver of innovation growth, very few empirical studies have explicitly investigated the impact of social network structures on the innovation performance of cities. Past research has mostly explored scaling laws of socio-economic outputs of cities as determined by, for exam...

Integrative Complexity (IC) is a psychometric that measures the ability of a person to recognize multiple perspectives and connect them, thus identifying paths for conflict resolution. IC has been linked to a wide variety of political, social and personal outcomes but evaluating it is a time-consuming process requiring skilled professionals to manu...

Integrative Complexity (IC) is a psychometric that measures the ability of a person to recognize multiple perspectives and connect them, thus identifying paths for conflict resolution. IC has been linked to a wide variety of political, social and personal outcomes but evaluating it is a time-consuming process requiring skilled professionals to manu...

Wearable devices make self-monitoring easier by the users, who usually tend to increase physical activity and weight loss maintenance over time. But in terms of behavior adaptation to these goals, these devices do not provide specific features beyond monitoring the achievement of daily goals, such as a number of steps or miles walked, and caloric o...

The richness that characterizes relationships is often absent when they are modeled using computational methods in network science. Typically, relationships are represented simply as links, perhaps with weights. The lack of finer granularity is due in part to the fact that, aside from linkage and strength, no fundamental or immediately obvious dime...

Place ambiance has a huge influence over how we perceive places. Despite its importance, ambiance has been crucially overlooked by urban planners and scientists alike, not least because it is difficult to record and analyze at scale. We explored the possibility of using social media data to reliably map the ambiance of neighborhoods in the entire c...

Information visualization has great potential to make sense of the increasing amount of data generated by complex machine-learning algorithms. We design a set of visualizations for a new deep-learning algorithm called FaceLift (goodcitylife.org/facelift). This algorithm is able to generate a beautified version of a given urban image (such as from G...

This tutorial introduces the audience to the latest breakthroughs in the area of interpreting unstructured content through an analysis of the key enabling scientific results along with their real-world applications. With technical presentations of problems like named-entity disambiguation and dynamically updating the knowledge hierarchy with domain...

Over the last few decades, public life has taken center stage in urban studies, but that is about to change. At times, indoor activities have been shown to matter more than what is publicly visible (they have been found to be more predictive of future crimes, for example). Until recently, however, data has not been available to study indoor activit...

Our internal experience of time reflects what is going in the world around us. Our body's natural rhythms get disrupted for a variety of external factors, including exposure to collective events. We collect readings of steps, sleep, and heart rates from 11K users of health tracking devices in London and San Francisco. We introduce measures to quant...

Urban economists have put forward the idea that cities that are culturally interesting tend to attract “the creative class” and, as a result, end up being economically successful. Yet it is still unclear how economic and cultural dynamics mutually influence each other. By contrast, that has been extensively studied in the case of individuals. Over...

Among platform designers there is still little actionable knowledge about how to foster community engagement, and new community platforms are likely to fail. Much research has documented effects that could inform better designs, however there is a lack of practical methods to review particular concerns. We design a lightweight method for systematic...

User participation in online communities is driven by the intertwinement of the social network structure with the crowd-generated content that flows along its links. These aspects are rarely explored jointly and at scale. By looking at how users generate and access pictures of varying beauty on Flickr, we investigate how the production of quality i...

Users in online social networks naturally organize themselves into overlapping and interlinked communities that are formed around common identity or shared topical interests. Some communities gather people around specific deviant behaviors, conducts that are commonly considered inappropriate with respect to the society’s norms or moral standards su...

Uber is a popular ride-sharing application that matches people who need a ride (or riders) with drivers who are willing to provide it using their personal vehicles. Despite its growing popularity, there exist few studies that examine large-scale Uber data, or in general the factors affecting user participation in the sharing economy. We address thi...

Ego-networks are fundamental structures in social graphs, yet the process of their evolution is still widely unexplored. In an online context, a key question is how link recommender systems may skew the growth of these networks, possibly restraining diversity. To shed light on this matter, we analyze the complete temporal evolution of 170M ego-netw...

With mobile shopping surging in popularity, people are spending ever more money on digital purchases through their mobile devices and phones. However, few large-scale studies of mobile shopping exist. In this paper we analyze a large data set consisting of more than 776M digital purchases made on Apple mobile devices that include songs, apps, and i...

The structure of a social network is fundamentally related to the interests of its members. People assort spontaneously based on the topics that are relevant to them, forming social groups that revolve around different subjects. Online social media are also favorable ecosystems for the formation of topical communities centered on matters that are n...

The Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe) provides a Terabyte-scale historical and ongoing collection of approximately 70 billion public tweets.

On-line social networks are complex ensembles of inter-linked communities that interact on different topics. Some communities are characterized by what are usually referred to as deviant behaviors, conducts that are commonly considered inappropriate with respect to the society's norms or moral standards. Eating disorders, drug use, and adult conten...

Sponsored search aims at retrieving the advertisements that in the one hand meet users' intent reflected in their search queries, and in the other hand attract user clicks to generate revenue. Advertisements are typically ranked based on their expected revenue that is computed as the product between their predicted probability of being clicked (i.e...

The study of social phenomena is becoming increasingly reliant on big data from online social networks. Broad access to social media data, however, requires software development skills that not all researchers possess. Here we present the IUNI Observatory on Social Media , an open analytics platform designed to facilitate computational social scien...

We focus on the problem of contributor-task matching in mobile crowd-sourcing. The idea is to identify existing social media users who posses domain expertise (e.g., photography) and incentivize them to perform some tasks (e.g., take quality pictures). To this end, we propose a framework that extracts the potential contributors’ expertise based on...

Community question answering (CQA) sites use a collaborative paradigm to satisfy complex information needs. Although the task of matching questions to their best answers has been tackled for more than a decade, the social question-answering practice is a complex process. The factors influencing the accuracy of question-answer matching are many and...

People are able to detect up to 1 trillion odors. Yet, city planning is concerned only with a few bad odors, mainly because odors are currently captured only through complaints made by urban dwellers. To capture both good and bad odors, we resort to a methodology that has been recently proposed and relies on tagging information of geo-referenced pi...

The study of social phenomena is becoming increasingly reliant on big data from online social networks. Broad access to social media data, however, requires software development skills that not all researchers possess. Here we present the IUNI Observatory on Social Media, an open analytics platform designed to facilitate computational social scienc...

The study of social phenomena is becoming increasingly reliant on big data from online social networks. Broad access to social media data, however, requires software development skills that not all researchers possess. Here we present the IUNI Observatory on Social Media, an open analytics platform designed to facilitate computational social scienc...

This tutorial aims at outlining fundamental methods for studying typical social science research questions with organic data (i.e., data that has not been designed for a specific research purpose but can be found on the Web). Further, social theories, statistical methods and models that help to understand the processes that generated the data will...

Our daily urban experiences are the product of our perceptions and senses, yet the complete sensorial range is strikingly absent from urban studies. Sight has been historically privileged over the other senses and urban studies. However, smell and sound have also a huge influence over how we perceive places, they impact our behavior, attitudes and...

Urban sound has a huge influence over how we perceive places. Yet, city planning is concerned mainly with noise, simply because annoying sounds come to the attention of city officials in the form of complaints, whereas general urban sounds do not come to the attention as they cannot be easily captured at city scale. To capture both unpleasant and p...

Consumer spending accounts for a large fraction of economic footprint of modern countries. Increasingly, consumer activity is moving to the web, where digital receipts of online purchases provide valuable data sources detailing consumer behavior. We consider such data extracted from emails and combined with with consumers' demographic information,...

On-line social networks are complex ensembles of inter-linked communities that interact on different topics. Some communities are characterized by what are usually referred to as deviant behaviours, conducts that are commonly considered inappropriate with respect to the society’s norms or moral standards. Eating disorders, drug use, and adult conte...