Research & Expertise news at HSE University

HSE University’s Institute for Public Administration and Governance (IPAG) has conducted a proactive independent study of digital travel services. Based on the results of this, a rating of 40 tourism platforms was compiled. The platforms were assessed according to 75 parameters. The ratings include those platforms that, in addition to hotel booking services, provide a set of additional options for tourists, are also present in various industry lists, and are often mentioned in media reviews.

HSE researcher Frol Sapronov believes that doing science, for all its complexity and seriousness, should be fun. He told the HSE Young Scientists project how he researches dyslexia in adults and why he tries not to be offended by criticism of his work.

An international consortium of research organisations from China, India, and Russia, including HSE University’s Faculty of Urban and Regional Development represented by experts from the Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urban Studies and Planning and the Centre for Social Research and Technological Innovation (CITY), is developing an index of technological and spatial urban development (the Urban & Innovation Environment Index). Recently, a list of the top 10 largest cities of the BRICS countries was published on the project’s website. The Russian capital took the first place in the ranking, followed by Beijing, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, and Guangzhou.

A team of researchers from HSE University, jointly with the Yandex School of Data Analysis and Yandex Cloud, have developed a neural network for anticipating El Niño climate anomalies. The new algorithm enables more precise predictions of changes in the average surface temperature of oceanic waters that can trigger natural disasters in specific regions of the world. At present, the model is capable of predicting El Niño events one and a half years in advance, and the researchers are working towards extending the forecast period to two years.

On October 26–28, HSE University’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Sciences at the Faculty of Computer Science will hold a conference titled Fall into ML 2023 withsupport from the HSE University AI Research Centre . The event is dedicated to promising directions of fundamental AI development.

Alexander Tarasov is the Head of the Department of Theoretical Economics at the Faculty of Economic Sciences (FES) and Leading Research Fellow at the Centre for Market Studies and Spatial Economics at HSE University-St Petersburg. In his interview, Alexander talks about the appeal of academia, the challenges that await graduate students, and his research into the impact of railroads on economic growth, affirmative action in university admissions, and much more.

A team of researchers, including scientists of the HSE Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, have analysed the evolutionary path of the coronavirus from the Wuhan variant to Omicron. Their findings indicate that many genomic mutations in SARS-CoV-2 are shaped by processes occurring in the intestines and lungs, where the virus acquires the ability to evade the inhibitory effects of microRNA molecules. The study findings have been published in the Journal of Medical Virology.

The history of the invention of telephony reads like a captivating detective novel, but even more intriguing are the events that contributed to the worldwide adoption of this  technology. In this series of columns on IQ.HSE, Anton Basov, HSE Faculty of Computer Science editor, discusses how telephones have become an integral part of our everyday life. The second episode in the series recounts the story of Alexander Graham Bell, who along with his wife and partners embarked on the journey of creating their 'start-up', seeking investments, promoting the telephone in Europe, and grappling with the absence of patent laws.