Research & Expertise

What can modern genetics do? Can a robot learn how to write poetry? How can big data be used to predict crime? The ubiquity of digital technology in our everyday lives and in sciencewas the main theme of a festival organized by HSE University at the Digital October platform.

Couples with three or more children often feel that others judge or refuse to understand them. Their decision to have many children seems to annoy their extended family, neighbours, colleagues, health professionals and government bureaucrats. Very often, other large families are the only one who offer them support. Based on findings from in-depth interviews, HSE researchers describe the effect that social interactions can have on fertility.

Little is known to science about the origins of dementia, except in cases stemming from such external causes as traumatic brain injuries and infections. At present, the dominant theory points to a link with Alzheimer’s — itself a disease whose causes have not been explained and that lacks reliable diagnostic criteria. Professor Vasily Vlasov of the Health Care Administration and Economics Department of the Social Sciences Faculty at HSE University explains what science currently knows about dementia.

On October 18, Professor Kimmo Rentola (University of Helsinki) presented his recent book, Stalin and the Fate of Finland,in an event hosted by HSE’s International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and its Consequences. HSE News Service spoke with Professor Rentola about how he became interested in history, his book, and what brings him to HSE University.

In 2013, Russia banned smoking in public places such as cafes, restaurants and nightclubs, as well as on trains, in playgrounds, etc. Statistical analysis has revealed, however, that 26% of male and 28% of female smokers do not always comply with these smoking bans. A full report from a study by Ludmila Zasimova, Assistant Professor at the HSE Department of Applied Economics, has been published in the International Journal of Public Health.

The tenth International Russian Higher Education Conference (RHEC) has commenced in Moscow this week and will last until October 25. This year’s conference focuses on ‘Contributions of Higher Education to Society and Economy: Global, National and Local Perspectives.’

An international team of researchers, which includes physicists from HSE University and the RAS Space Research Institute (IKI), have discovered that, with an impending earthquake, the parameters of internal gravity waves (IGWs) can change five days before a seismic event. This data can help experts develop short-term earthquake forecast methods. The results of the study have been published in the journal Doklady Earth Sciences.

HSE University, together with Intexpertise LLС, Russian foreign economy research centre, will create a Centre for African Studies. The Centre will be based at the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs and will be a leading analytical platform in support of Russian-African relations. The founding of the Centre will be announced at the Russia-Africa Economic Forum, which begins in Sochi on October 23.

A team of researchers from Russia, Germany and the USA have identified the mechanisms that form the basis for the impact of the brain’s current state on sensory processing. The results of the study were published in the paper ‘Multiple Mechanisms Link Prestimulus Neural Oscillations to Sensory Responses’ in eLIFE. 

HSE University has once again placed in two subject rankings of the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings: Computer Science (in the top 400) and Engineering and Technology (in the 601-800 range).