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Call for Proposals: First MethodsNET Conference

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Open Large Language Models in Comparative Research When: Thursday 31 October – Friday 1 November 2024Where: Louvain-la-Neuve, BelgiumOrganisers: Orsolya Ring – MiklĂłs SebƑk, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest, Artificial Intelligence National Laboratory, CSS, Budapest  With this Call for Proposals, we solicit papers for a panel on Open Large Language Models in Comparative Political Research at the First MethodsNET Conference at UCLouvain. The conference will take place between 31 October and 1 November 2024. The proposed panel is focused on the use of open large language models (LLMs, such as BERT, XLM-RoBERTa etc.) in comparative political and communication research. While our primary interest is not in applications based on proprietary models (such as GPT4), we encourage submissions on the comparison of the performance of open vs. closed models on various tasks.  We are particularly interested in papers addressing the following problems: Optimal utilisation of existing LLMs: Papers showcasing the effective utilisation of current LLMs in research endeavours, including classification tasks, along with discussions on their potential benefits and challenges. Advancements in LLM technology relevant to social science: Papers about new technical developments in LLMs that are significant to the social science community. The advantages and disadvantages of using open fine-tuned LLMs vs. proprietary models (such as GPT4) in research, with particular attention to validation and replicability issues.  Original-Translated-Multilingual: the usage of LLMs in the social sciences, either in the original language or with data translated into English or multilingual.  We expect four papers to be selected, subject to the decision of the conference organisers. The final papers need to be uploaded by 9 October. Please note that participation is self-funded. The conference has a standalone fee of €220. However, the price is reduced if you become a MethodsNET member. Please see more information here. How to submit? Please submit your proposal on this form by 17 June 2024. Should you have any questions, please contact us at ring.orsolya[at]tk.hu and sebok.miklos[at]tk.hu. 

2-4 May, 2024 – poltextLAB at the COMPTEXT 2024 Conference

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Members of poltextLAB attended the Sixth International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Quantitative and Computational Analysis of Textual Data, held in Amsterdam between 2-4 May, 2024. At the COMPTEXT conference, poltextLAB’s research was showcased in the following presentations: Miklós SebƑk, Levente Pakot, Orsolya Ring, Csaba Molnár, Ákos Holányi:Drifting towards the East? An AI-supported analysis of the sentiment of Central-Eastern European parliaments towards great powers. Áron Buzogány, Miklós SebƑk, Melinda Manczinger:Evoking and Contesting Expertise in Parliaments: An AI-supported Analysis of Climate Change Debates in Seven Countries. István Üveges, Orsolya Ring, Gabriella Szabó:Emotions over time. Are political debates more passionate than before? Orsolya Ring, László Kiss:Uncovering disinformation: analyzing the thematic patterns and emotional content of Hungarian fake news portals during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukrainian war. You can find the full conference program here.

20 April, 2024 – New publication on the AI analysis of American presidential speeches by MiklĂłs SebƑk and co-authors in Policy Studies Journal

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On April 20, 2024, a new article has been published by Miklós SebƑk (co-authored by  Amnon Cavari and Akos Mate) in the Policy Studies Journal. The title of the article is “Staying on the democratic script? A deep learning analysis of the speechmaking of U.S. presidents.” The publication is available here: https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12534. 

26 March, 2024 – Melinda Manczinger presents AI analysis of climate frames at the ECPR Joint Sessions

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On March 26th, Melinda Manczinger presented the paper (co-authored by MiklĂłs SebƑk and Áron BuzogĂĄny) entitled “Evoking and Contesting Expertise in Parliaments: An AI-supported Analysis of Climate Change Debates in Seven Countries” at the Tracing Climate Policy Linkages using Text-as-Data: New Perspectives, ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops at Leuphana University, in LĂŒneburg. The programme of the workshop is available here: https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/WorkshopDetails/14470. 

26 March, 2024 – Ákos HolĂĄnyi’s presentation on New Pact on Migration and Asylum at the ECPR Joint Sessions

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On March 26th, Ákos HolĂĄnyi presented the paper entitled “Negotiating the New Pact on Migration: does populism explain the outcome of Council of the EU deliberations?” at the Populist ‘Unpolitics’: How Populist Governments Affect EU Policymaking, ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops at Leuphana University, in LĂŒneburg. The programme of the workshop is available here: https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/WorkshopDetails/14468. 

23 March, 2024 – New publication by Orsolya Ring, IstvĂĄn Üveges et al. in Language Resources and Evaluation about sentiment analysis of Hungarian news

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On March 23, 2024, a new article has been published by Orsolya Ring, Martina Katalin SzabĂł, Csenge Guba, BendegĂșz VĂĄradi and IstvĂĄn Üveges in the  Language Resources and Evaluation. The title of the article is:  “Approaches to sentiment analysis of Hungarian political news at the sentence level.” The publication is available here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10579-023-09717-5. 

14 March, 2024 – Hajo G. Boomgaarden’s lecture on “The challenge of measuring disinformation”

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On March 14, Hajo G. Boomgaarden gave a lecture at the HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Political Science. The title of his lecture was “The challenge of measuring disinformation.”  Hajo G. Boomgaarden is Professor of Methods in the Social Sciences with a focus on Text Analysis at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna. Much of his work revolves around the analysis of (news) media coverage and its effects on political cognitions, attitudes and behaviour. He has co-authored more than 40 articles in international journals and numerous book chapters. As Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Vienna, Hajo Boomgaarden deals with further advancements of computerized methods of text analysis and multimedia analysis, in addition to his ongoing work on political communication.

12 March, 2024 – MiklĂłs SebƑk’s presentation at the MILAB LegalTech Meetup on the NLP research at poltextLAB

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On 12 March 2024, MiklĂłs SebƑk gave a presentation entitled “Analysis of legal regulations with AI-based large language models in the poltextLAB research laboratory” at a professional meeting of the Artifical Intelligence National Laboratory (MILAB) and MONTANA Knowledge Management Ltd. The event’s topic was natural language processing and the possibilities of using large language models in the field of legal text processing.  The presentations of the 5th MILAB Meetup are available here (in Hungarian): https://mi.nemzetilabor.hu/hu/hirek/sikerrel-lezajlott-az-otodik-milab-meetup-ami-az-mi-es-jog-kerdeskoret-jarta-korbe. 

27 February, 2024 – Orsolya Ring’s presentation at the EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory) Scientific Conference

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On February 27 2024, Orsolya Ring and László Kiss presented their paper titled “Uncovering Disinformation: Analyzing The Thematic Patterns And Emotional Content Of Hungarian Fake News Portals During The COVID-19 Pandemic And The Ukrainian War” at the EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory) Scientific Conference in Amsterdam. This study aims to understand the patterns of fake news with advanced AI-based approaches such as LDA topic modelling and state-of-the-art large language models. The programme of the conference is available here:https://edmo.eu/event/edmo-scientific-conference-2024/