News

The International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and its Consequences at HSE University held a Graduate Student Seminar in Soviet History together with Sciences Po (France) on June 17 – 18, 2019. HSE News Service spoke with participants and instructors of the seminar, which examinedthe impact of WWII on the Soviet Union and surrounding regions, as well as aspects of the Soviet system from Stalin up to the 1980s.

The HSE University competition committee has announced the winners of an international competition for new physics laboratory proposals. Two proposed projects were selected: the Laboratory of van der Waals Heterostructures, headed by Davit Ghazaryan, and the Laboratory of Nanophotonics and Functional Materials, headed by Andrey Krasavin.

The subject of bilingualism, with its attendant pros and cons, has been surrounded by myths. This Card File is based on a series of lectures by Irina Dubinina, Associate Professor at Brandeis University, discussing the phenomenon of bilingualism, its impact on the human brain, and whether it is possible to raise a bilingual child in the Russian context.

The existing approach to brain stimulation for rehabilitation after a stroke does not take into account the diversity of lesions and the individual characteristics of patients’ brains. This was the conclusion made by researchers of the Higher School of Economics and the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Sciences in their article, ‘Predicting the Response to Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation in Stroke’.

On June 24-25, HSE University held the international academic conference, ‘The 1990s: A Social History of Russia’ organized by International Center for the History and Sociology of World World War II and its Consequences, the Boris Yeltsin Center, the Egor Gaider Foundation, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. HSE News Service spoke with Roberto Rabbia, one of the international participants, about how he became interested in Soviet history, why he reads Soviet newspapers, and what he has learned from his research.

David Szakonyi, Assistant Professor of Political Science from George Washington University, recently attended the 8th Annual Conference of the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development (ICSID) held at HSE University in Moscow this June. He has spoken to HSE News service about the conference and his cooperation with HSE University.

Andrey Savchenko, Professor at HSE University, has developed a method that can help to enhance image identification on videos. In his project, a network was taught by a new algorithm and can now make decisions on image recognition and classification 10 times faster than before.

The HSE Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces studies bilateral brain-computer communications and creates neuro interfaces for neuro rehabilitation and developing bionic prosthetics. This allows scientists to successfully rehabilitate patients who have suffered strokes, develop prosthetics with better sensitivity, and even provide ways to assess the competency of simultaneous interpreters.

A survey showed the 48% of Russians live their lives from day to day, focusing only on immediate tasks and concerns, without planning for the distant future. The remainder of society, meanwhile, works on carrying out short-term and long-term plans. In a survey data analysis, HSE researchers concluded that Russians’ main goals and desires generally reflect Russia’s unresolved social and domestic problems.A survey showed the 48% of Russians live their lives from day to day, focusing only on immediate tasks and concerns, without planning for the distant future. 

It is believed that carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere are mainly regulated by ‘direct’ economic instruments - the carbon tax and the Emissions Trading System (ETS). However, a comparative analysis has shown that ‘indirect’ instruments, such as excise taxes on motor fuel and other energy taxes, did not yield any lesser impact than their ‘direct’ counterparts, and, over time, were even more effective. This is the conclusion drawn by HSE researcher Ilya Stepanov in his article, ‘Taxes in the Energy Sector and Their Role in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions’.