Vito DP Servedio

Senior scientist @CSHVienna

[Vidit Gujrathi @viditchess]

Explaining World championship to my friends. It’s simple guys…

[Andrew Zhao @_AndrewZhao]

❄️Introducing Absolute Zero Reasoner: Our reasoner learns to both propose tasks that maximize learnability and improve reasoning by solving them, entirely through self-play—with no external data! It overall outperforms other "zero" models in math & coding domains.
🧵 1/

[Complexity Science Hub @CSHVienna]

When scientists crumple a sheet of paper...

... #chaostheory takes an unexpected turn. "Flat sheets transform into mysterious objects that exist between dimensions – not quite surfaces, not quite volumes, but a puzzling 2.5 dimension in between," says CSH scientist and video co-star Vito Servedio (@vitelot).

Through careful measurements and some enthusiastic paper-throwing sessions, our hero discovers that these fractal balls don’t just defy conventional geometry – they travel through the air with surprising stability, while flat sheets just flutter and dive.

Isn’t it wonderful? -- The hidden mathematics of everyday objects, where a humble crumpled page reveals the beautiful complexity that surrounds us all.

🎥 "Foundations of Complex Systems E03"
Performance by the marvelous Mirta Galesic and @vitelot, @cshvienna scientists and clearly unrecognized acting talents
Film by Karol Jalochowski (@jalochowski)
Music by Kajetan Jalochowski
https://t.co/sjK9ZMYJMz

#shortmovie #documentary #complexity #complexsystems #sandpile #physics

[Karol Jalochowski @jalochowski]

X decided to dematerialise the last post, I'll try again. It was about @CSHVienna, the research being done there, and the attitude that is crucial for such investigations. It also introduced @vitelot, a researcher at the Hub, who explains this in his breakthrough role.

[Complexity Science Hub @CSHVienna]

What are the biggest challenges society will face in the next years?
💻 #AI-driven job loss? 🚚 #SupplyChain disruptions? 📨 Threats to #democracy? ☀️ Or obstacles to a #GreenTransition? Complexity science helps us uncover the hidden networks and vulnerabilities that shape these issues, allowing us to identify key intervention points.

❄️ The 2025 CSH Winter School will gather #students, #postdocs, #researchers, and #practitioners from diverse fields, alongside expert #faculty from the CSH network. Participants will dive into production networks, labor markets, cities, crime, and more, seeking to integrate models and data to better understand and prepare for future shocks.

The program is ideal for graduate students, postdocs, early-career faculty, and research professionals, but also welcomes participants from government, NGOs, and industry. Ready to deepen your expertise and build a more resilient future?

🗓️ Apply now until December 1st!
🔗 https://t.co/cq3fFmfhsz

#ComplexityScience #WinterSchool2025 #Resilience

with our members @AITtomorrow2day | @BOKUvienna | @ceu | @MedUni_Wien | @tugraz | @tu_wien | @unikrems @VetmeduniVienna | @wu_vienna | @WKOe

[Complexity Science Hub @CSHVienna]

The applications for our CSH #Postdoc Program are officially OPEN!

Starting today, early-career researchers can apply for our two-year fellowship funded by @BMKlimaschutz.

Program Highlights:
👉 Fully funded fellowship
👉 Independent research program
👉 Access to unique datasets and cutting-edge methods
👉 Comprehensive professional development
👉 Personalized mentorship from global advisors

🔗 Learn more and apply: https://t.co/jdg9nu8Dv0

Postdocs at CSH will benefit from the collective expertise of our international network of collaborators, including our members: @AITtomorrow2day | @BOKUvienna | @ceu | @MedUni_Wien | @tugraz | @tu_wien | @unikrems @VetmeduniVienna | @wu_vienna | @WKOe

[Complexity Science Hub @CSHVienna]

🚀 Unlock Your Future with CSH #Education Opportunities!

Ready to take your career in complexity science to the next level? The @CSHVienna is excited to offer a range of programs tailored to every stage of the academic journey.

Whether you're a #Bachelor's or #Master's student looking for an internship, a PhD student-to-be interested in joining the CSH Graduate Program, or a #PhD ready to dive into our PostDoc program – great opportunities await!

From internships to advanced research positions, find your #perfectmatch and seize the opportunity to contribute to the future -- and change the world with complexity science!

🗓️ Check the image for key dates and application deadlines!

More info: https://t.co/q4A8XaAkvN

These programs are made possible thanks to our members: @AITtomorrow2day | @BOKUvienna | @ceu | @MedUni_Wien | @tugraz | @tu_wien | @unikrems @VetmeduniVienna | @wu_vienna | @WKOe

[Vito DP Servedio @vitelot]

Just got an interesting twist! Article rejected by Journal XYZ 2 months ago, posted it on arXiv, and now an editor from XYZ is offering to publish it. #AcademicLife #ResearchJourney #PublishingTwists

[Vito DP Servedio @vitelot]

#pay2get3 #specialoffer #scienceisexpensive #feedmykids #everylittlehelps

[Complexity Science Hub @CSHVienna]

🎶 Ever wondered how friends influence our #music taste?
@NiklasReisz, @vitelot and Stefan Thurner from @CSHVienna analyzed 10M songs and 2.7M users. Their findings? By factoring in #friendship networks, prediction precision for new hits increased by 50%

https://t.co/xVoJTCqMIG

[César A. Hidalgo @cesifoti]

A very interesting pre-print about economic complexity appeared this week on the arxiv. It is a paper led by @vitelot exploring the cost functions minimized by the Economic Complexity Index (ECI).

In other words, if the economic complexity is a solution to a mathematical problem, then what mathematical problem is that?

The paper starts with the usual formulation and moves quickly to a unipartite network representation where countries and products are concatenated in a long vector (V). This is quite straightforward and can be done using an anti-diagonal block matrix A (which means countries are still only connected to products and vice-versa). Using this new matrix they can define ECI and PCI together using a "one-liner" iterative map (equation 14 in the paper).

The cool part comes right after that. By integrating that map they show that ECI and PCI are the minimum of the following cost function (see picture in post).

U=1/4 sum_{i,j} A_{ij}(V_i-V_j)^2

But what does this cost function mean?

Remember that Aij still connects countries to products (or cities to industries). So what this cost function means is that, if we wanted to define a single number for each country and a single number for each product, and we wanted the difference between a country's numbers and the numbers of the products that it exports to be the minimum possible, then the solution to that problem is ECI and PCI. That makes ECI and PCI quites special, since it is a rather parsimonious mathematical problem (you cannot find a better one number representation for each economy and each activity that minimizes the distance between an economy and its activities)

Certainly, the fact that ECI is an average of the PCIs and vice versa, gives us that intuition, since the value of a country is the "center of mass" of the ensemble of products it exports (and vice versa). But finding numbers that simultaneously satisfy this for all countries and all products (or all cities and industries, etc.), is not that trivial. That solution is the good old ECI and PCI we all now.

This is a very exciting formalization of the idea of economic complexity to cost and/or utility functions. It is one of the most interesting results I've seen in economic complexity theory in a while.

Kudos to the team!

Hopefully I interpreted this properly in this attempt to communicate them to a more general audience.

(link to source: https://t.co/KALUU4DpIN)

[Complexity Science Hub @CSHVienna]

We're thrilled to announce the launch of our #graduate program in complexity science! 🚀 An initiative of the Digital Innovation School, the program will welcome its first cohort of #PhD students this fall. ➡️ https://t.co/KVWwxKjeFM

[Eduardo G. Altmann @EduardoGAltmann]

2y-postdoc opening in our project "Learning the meso-scale organization of complex networks" with T Alexander,@olgarithmic,@tiagopeixoto at @SydneyMaths @arc_gov_au

Research in complex systems, networks, data science, & comp social sci.

Apply by 29/4: https://t.co/CwIDN8t6ge

[Riccardo Di Clemente @ric_dicle]

👇👇👇Few days still to apply! 2 PhD positions👇👇👇 Join our @Connections_Lab at @NUnetsi @NortheasternLDN

[Steven Strogatz @stevenstrogatz]

I’ve just started reading this book, and it’s fantastic! Super informative and funny. I don’t know the author, Michael Littman, personally, but it’s obvious from every page that he is a marvelous teacher. HIGHLY Recommended!

[Simone Daniotti @simone_daniotti]

The Cocktail Project was a great success! Thanks to the great team and everyone who attended the event! @GiordanoMarzo

[Giordano De Marzo @GiordanoMarzo]

We started this great scientific project more than one year ago and now the data collection is over! How can you use network theory to get drunk? We will soon share the answer with all of you!

[Vito DP Servedio @vitelot]

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Physics
University of North Texas
Tenure-track Assistant Professor
https://t.co/RhD54oXTyV

[Complexity Science Hub @CSHVienna]

Eager to delve into the dynamics of local labor markets during times of profound change? 👋Join us now and be part of @FrankNeffke 's research group at the @CSHVienna.

https://t.co/XECoi3zczR

[Complexity Science Hub @CSHVienna]

What a reason to celebrate! 🥳Congratulations, @NiklasReisz, on achieving your PhD! 🎓👏 Your hard work and dedication have paid off brilliantly, and we look forward to seeing your future successes. 🌟🥳