News

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).

History students and colleagues from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences travelled to an excavation site in the North Caucasus region of southern Russia. HSE News Service spoke with Professor Andrey Vinogradov of the Faculty of Humanities about the burials they discovered, field work, and the joys of archaeology.

HSE master’s programme alumni and an HSE doctoral student received an international Catalyst Grant from Digital Science in support of the development of their startup, MLprior, a service for researchers and scientists. HSE News Service spoke with Vladislav Ishimtsev, one of the startup creators, about the biggest ‘thorns’ in researchers’ sides, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of a machine uprising.

More than 40% of Russian citizens consider changing their place of residence due to environmental problems. This was a statistic cited by Lyaila Sinyatullina, Head of the Department of Advanced Studies at HSE University’s Institute for Public Administration and Governance, at a roundtable dedicated to an environmental information bill that will be reviewed by the Russian State Duma.