News

From 12–16 October 2022, the ‘Balkan Dialogue’ event took place at the Russian House in Belgrade and the Vojvodina Archives in Novi Sad, Serbia. Balkan Dialogue is an international programme organised annually by the Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund. Students and professors from HSE University and other Russian universities were among the participants of the programme. The academic supervisor of the event was Professor Ekaterina Entina, Director of the Mediterranean Studies Centre at the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs.

In September, HSE University announced the results of a competition of digital projects by early-career HSE scientists. The event was organised within the framework of the strategic project ‘Digital Transformation: Technologies, Effects, Efficiency’. The organisers selected 8 out of 22 applications. The research teams have already started to implement their projects, and the results will be presented at the end of November. The HSE News Service shares the details of three of the highest-scoring projects in the competition. The creators of the projects are staff members of the HSE Center for Language and Brain, MIEM, and the Faculty of Computer Science.

Researchers at the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience have shown experimentally that magnetic stimulation of the prefrontal cortex of the brain causes test subjects to act less rationally, changing how they assess possible outcomes at the moment they make risky decisions. The scientists believe that the discovery will provide a better understanding of the mechanisms that give rise to gaming addiction. The results of the study were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

A team of researchers of the HSE Faculty of Chemistry  Joint Department of Inorganic Chemistry and Materials Science with the RAS Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry have designed a novel type of hybrid ion-exchange membrane. Such membranes can be used to produce drinking water from seawater, which is particularly relevant for areas with access to the sea and a shortage of drinking water. The study is published in Desalination.

Researchers from HSE University propose using online TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) to study the dynamics of cognitive dissonance. The study findings are published in Pavlov Journal of Higher Nervous Activity.

From the rise of platform capitalism to somatisation—this is the scope of the topics discussed at ‘Society’, a thematic platform of the NAUKA 0+ All-Russian Science Festival held by HSE University in October. In addition, experts discussed the timely issue of science popularisation.

According to researchers of the Moscow City Pedagogical University (MSPU) and HSE University Vladimir Postavnev, Irina Postavneva, Vadim Peskov and Alexey Dvoinin, certain personality traits can help older scholars stay productive and creative for a long time. The study findings are published in Acta Biomedica Scientifica.

Russia and Nigeria have good prospects for cooperation in many economic sectors—from mining, petrochemicals, agriculture, and high-tech manufacturing to education and mutual investment. The Embassy of Nigeria in Russia, together with NUIA Consulting and HSE University, has held a business briefing on ‘Entering New Markets: Nigeria—Opportunities, Prospects and Practical Experience of Russian Companies’.

Ambivalence and a combination of contradictory principles are vividly manifested in the actions of government, its individual agents and institutions, as well as the everyday practices of economic subjects and citizens. The participants of the HSE Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology seminar discussed the book The Ambivalence of Power in the Twenty-First Century Economy: Cases from Russia and Beyond, recently published in the UK. Prepared by researchers from HSE University and foreign universities, the book focuses on the study of ambivalence in Russia and beyond.

An international group of scientists and medical specialists, including HSE researchers, examined the role played by microRNA (miRNA) and long non-coding RNAs on the progression of ovarian cancer. Having analysed more than a hundred tumour samples, they found that miRNA can prevent cell mutation while long non-coding RNAs have the opposite effect of enabling such mutations. These findings can help design new drugs which act by regulating miRNA concentrations. The study was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.