Research & Expertise news at HSE University

An international team of researchers including Alexander Tonevitsky, Professor at HSE’s Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, found that pituitary hormones may produce different effects on the left and right sides of the body following a traumatic brain injury. These differences can accelerate the development of motor disorders. Researchers are trying to determine whether treatment that blocks the corresponding hormones can counteract these effects. The results of the study were published in the journal eLife.

Women are more likely to live to old age because they are less prone to indulge in bad habits than men. A whole range of social, biological and other factors—such as women being more likely to visit the doctor and exercise—also play an important role. Experts from HSE University and RANEPA analyzed the effects of various factors on the reduction in men's life expectancy, which varies based on habits and ideas about male behavior in different countries.

Aleksey Kychkin, Associate Professor in the Department of Information Technologies in Business at HSE University in Perm, together with Georgios Chasparis, a scientist at the Software Competence Center Hagenberg (SCCH, Austria), built models to predict energy consumption in residential buildings for the day ahead. The electricity consumption profile of a group of residential buildings, which is determined for the day ahead, will allow electricity demand to be effectively managed. The results of the research were published in ‘Energy and Buildings’journal.

An international team of researchers, including Artem Baklanov, Research Fellow of the International Laboratory of Game Theory and Decision Making, HSE University, has proposed treating greenhouse gas emissions as financial debt in a new research article published in Nature. This approach could provide immediate economic incentives for enterprises to begin mitigating the harmful effects of their business activities.

How has higher education influenced the evolution of nations since the Second World War—and vice versa? Stanford professor Mitchell Stevens and Institute of Education researcher Ekaterina Shibanova have tried to answer this question in a special issue of the European Journal of Higher Education. They invited renowned historians, political experts, sociologists and economists to develop ‘a consensus on the role of higher education in political and social history after 1945.’ The special issue was created with input from researchers from Canada, Luxembourg, Russia, Germany, France, the UK, and Sweden.

Psychologists acknowledge that there is no longer any public consensus on gender relations and issues. The HSE Media Practices Centre held a training session on ‘How to Find Common Ground with People Living in the New Ethical Reality,’ in which experts discussed key elements of ‘new ethics’ and their influence on social relationships.

In Soviet times, relocation to northern monocities was seen as an attractive option, with high pay and good perks, along with a well-developed infrastructure, perceived as offsetting the harsh climate. The situation is different today, with some cities on the verge of vanishing into extinction. A prominent and rather striking example of this process is Vorkuta in the Komi Republic. A team of researchers from the HSE and Politecnico di Milano, having examined the progressive shrinkage of this once booming monocity, concluded that the case of Vorkuta could suggest effective approaches to managing urban depopulation in the Russian Arctic.

The UN member states pledged to achieve 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 that are aimed at saving the planet’s resources and increasing overall well-being. One — Goal 7 — sets out to “ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy.”