Tag "IQ"

After collapsing in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand has partly recovered in Russia. The lowest point in consumer confidence seems to be behind us, but we should not expect a noticeable recovery any time soon, according to HSE ISSEK Centre for Business Tendency Studies (CBTS). Based on a recent consumer survey in Russia, IQ compares consumer sentiments as we are entering the second wave of the pandemic with those reported at the start of its first wave.

'I am the state' ('L'etat c'est moi') is a phrase attributed to French king Louis XIV. For Russian undergraduates today, the motto seems to be 'the state owes me'. According to many of them, the government must support younger people above all else, and this is what they understand by social justice. Read on to learn what else Russian undergraduates think about justice and why they are not willing to make sacrifices to achieve it, based on a paper by HSE political scientists Valeria Kasamara, Marina Maximenkova and Anna Sorokina.

While 9th-graders and 11th-graders are busy respectively preparing for the Basic State Exam (BSE) and Unified State Exam (U.S.E.), their parents are the ones who lay the groundwork for their success. However, if parental assistance turns into pressure, it can produce the opposite effect on young people, HSE University researchers note. Here, we look at how parents can help their children do well on the Unified State Exam.

A group of Moscow scientists has discovered and explained the activity mechanism of a new anti-cancer molecule — diphenylisoxazole. This molecule has been shown to be effective against human cancer cells. The research, published in the journal Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, makes it possible to produce an affordable cancer treatment drug.

The new model, created by computational social scientist Ivan Smirnov of HSE University, predicts the academic success of Russian high school students with an accuracy of 94%. The model generates its predictions based on users’ distinctive vocabulary and speech patterns, and the predictions have strongly correlated with students’ Unified State Exam (USE) scores.

According to Natalia Tikhonova, a social scientist with HSE University, gender asymmetry has been on the rise in Russia's labour market over the past 20 years. Gender asymmetry is reflected in the ‘feminisation’ of white-collar jobs and a disproportionate number of men among blue-collar workers. In addition to this, increasing automation in traditionally male industrial sectors is leading to fewer jobs available to men. In contrast, occupations with a growing demand for skills tend to be those which are mainly filled by women.

Researchers at the HSE University Centre for Language and Brain, in cooperation with a professor of neuropsychology from Lomonosov Moscow State University and specialists from the Centre for Speech Pathology and Neuro-rehabilitation, evaluated the diagnostic validity of the Standardized Assessment of Reading Skills in Russian (SARS) and checked whether the available normative data are current. The results of the study, the updated levels for reading speed, as well as the control levels for evaluating these indicators, were published in The Russian Journal of Cognitive Science. 

Experts often blame income inequality for a wide range of social ills. They usually calculate its severity using special statistical indices drawn from official tax data or large-scale surveys of individual households. Such analyses create an objective picture and indicate the degree of inequality and the basic factors behind it.

People who inject drugs (PWID) are 24 times more likely to be infected with HIV than the rest of the population. Therefore, HIV and AIDS prevention policy among this group should be different. However, the question remains—how effective is it?

For years, Russians have failed to develop the ability to adapt to financial vulnerability — that is, to the risk of falling below the poverty line. This is associated with the fact that Russians are less satisfied with life and rate their well-being lower as well. With the prospect of falling poverty an ongoing problem, these indicators have not improved.