‘Idea of Environmental Protection Should Become Part of Foreign Policy’
To improve its global competitiveness, Russia needs an independent environmental agenda along with a concept for environmental protection, and it makes sense to suggest a ‘global clean deal’ to Europe. A report outlining this, prepared by a team of experts from HSE University, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and environmentalists, was presented at TASS.
Researchers Develop Microscopic Theory of Polymer Gel
Russian scientists have proposed a theory of phase transformation in polymer gels. It explains the mechanisms of the dramatic reduction in volume of zwitterionic hydrogels when they are cooled. The results are published in the journal Chemical Communications (ChemComm).
Scientists Assess the Effectiveness of Forest Fires Suppression in the Russian Regions
April officially marked the beginning of the peak forest fire season across Russia, and preventative measures have recently been discussed at the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters (also known as The Ministry of Emergency Situations, MChS) and at a meeting in which the President of the Russian Federation participated. Regions have already started taking measures to prevent forest fires, and a team of researchers from the Faculty of Economic Sciences of HSE University has proposed a mathematical model by which the effectiveness of these measures can be evaluated. Using this algorithm, they compared Russian regions in terms of the success of their firefighting activities. Details of the work have been published in the collection ‘Dynamics of Disasters: Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions’.
Exploring the History of Places and Environment in Russia
The collective volume Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History, co-edited by David Moon, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and HSE researcher Alexandra Bekasova, was recently presented at a seminar of the Laboratory for the Environmental and Technological History of the Centre for Historical Research at HSE – St. Petersburg. The book is one of the fruits of a networking project carried out in 2013-2016 with active participation of HSE researchers.
Magnetic Impulses Help Create Muscle Activity Maps to Diagnose Motor Disorders
Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, Russians scientists were able to precisely track inter-muscle interactions between cortical representations of arm muscles. In the future, this method will help track brain changes in patients with motor disorders. The study was published in Human Brain Mapping. The project was supported by the Presidential Programme of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF).
Group Testing Method Developed for COVID-19
Researchers Mario Guarracino from the HSE Laboratory of Algorithms and Technologies for Networks Analysis in Nizhny Novgorod and Julius Žilinskas and Algirdas Lančinskas from Vilnius University, have proposed a new method of testing for COVID-19. This group method allows results to be obtained 13 times faster as compared to individual testing of each sample. The research paper was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Artificial Neurons Help Decode Cortical Signals
Russian scientists have proposed a new algorithm for automatic decoding and interpreting the decoder weights, which can be used both in brain-computer interfaces and in fundamental research. The results ofthe study were published in the Journal of Neural Engineering.
3D-Modelling Helps Read Ancient Russian Inscriptions of the 12th and 13th Centuries
Using 3D-modelling, researchers of HSE and the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) have restored and deciphered an ancient literary monument of North-Eastern Ancient Rus — inscriptions about the murder of Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky written in 1175–1176 on a wall of the cathedral in Pereslavl-Zalessky. The study was published in Slověne = Словѣне. International Journal of Slavic Studies.
Researchers Find a Connection Between Trump’s Tweets and the Exchange Rate of the Rouble
Tweets about Russia by Donald Trump during his presidency caused short but noticeable depreciations of the rouble. Meanwhile, the introduction of new sanctions, upon which the president did not comment, had no such effect. This was the finding of a group of researchers, which included Elena Fedorova, Professor of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of HSE University. The group published their findings in in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.
COVID-19 Denial Depends on a Population’s Trust in Social Institutions
An international team of scholars studied how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Europeans’ stress levels and their trust in their national governments and the healthcare systems. They found that respondents were most stressed by the state of the national economy, and only after that, by the risk of catching COVID-19 and possibly being hospitalized. In Western Europe, people trust their governments more than in other EU countries. The results of the study were published in Royal Society Open Science.
Deadline for applications to present academic reports - January 20, 2025