Professor Alexey Tameev of HSE MIEM, along with a team of colleagues, has proposed a calculation method to determine the optimal photoactive layer thickness which can maximize the power conversion efficiency of solar cells. Applicable for both polymer andperovskite solar cells, the method can become a milestone on the path from laboratory samples to solar cells made from new generation materials. The results of the research are covered in ‘A common optical approach to thickness optimization in polymer and perovskite solar cells’, an article published in Scientific Reports.
Professor Konstantin Arutyunov of the HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM HSE), together with Chinese researchers, has developed a graphene-based mechanical resonator, in which coherent emission of sound energy quanta, or phonons, has been induced. Such devices, called phonon lasers, have wide potential for application in information processing, as well as classical and quantum sensing of materials. The study is published in the journal Optics express.
On Friday, June 11, UNESCO held a ceremony to launch its new UNESCO Science Report, which arrives at a crucial moment as countries reach the halfway mark of meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The Report shows that, over the past five years, countries of all income levels have begun efforts to transition to economies that are both digital and green. At the ceremony, six of the Report’s authors provided overviews of trends in their regions. Representing the East European region was Professor Leonid Gokhberg, First Vice Rector of the HSE University and Director of the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK).
At the end of January, Rosstat presented preliminary data on Russia's economic performance during 2019. In anticipation of the official publication, IQ.HSE interviewed a prominent Russian expert, Director of the HSE Centre for Business Tendency Studies (CBTS) Georgy Ostapkovich, about the 2019 results and the outlook for 2020.
People’s values of personal choice, suсh as their attitudes towards abortion, divorce, and premarital sex, are usually determined their level of education, age, religiosity, and social status. At least this is the case in many countries such as the US and those in Europe. In a recent study, HSE sociologists found that in post-Soviet countries, personal values are most determined by people’s level of patriotism.
Migration, both domestic and abroad, is playing a major role in transforming the world’s largest cities, and Moscow is no exception. Researchers at HSE University, the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IGRAN) and Strelka KB identified which cities’ residents are buying newly built apartments in the capital and how economic inequality between Russia’s regions is changing the face of the city.
According to forecasts, 96% of all payments and money transfers in Russia will be performed with the help of innovative services by 2035. The financial technology industry is trying to simplify interactions with money as much as possible. In this article, IQ.HSE draws on a report by the Centre of Development Institute to explain current developments in the fintech industry.
LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty) collaboration, one of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiments, reported that their detector has identified particles that have not previously been detected in physics experimentally – excited omega baryons (Ω-b). Just several years ago, detecting such particles in LHC was believed to be next to impossible. Among proton particles, the excited ‘charmed omegas’ were preselected by an algorithm created by staff from the HSE Laboratory of Methods for Big Data Analysis and Yandex LLC. IQ.HSE talked to Denis Derkach and Fedor Ratnikov about their collaboration’s ‘fresh catch’ and about the point of ‘fishing’ on LHCb in general.
Moscow, like any modern big city, attracts migrants from different regions and countries. Some of them speak very little or no Russian. Their adaptation and successful integration depend in part on how fast they can learn Russian and in part on whether the city makes an effort to accommodate other languages. According to linguist Mira Bergelson, this latter factor is particularly important if the city is to benefit from immigration.
Unlike the case in many developed countries, the Russian government is ready to provide financial support to all people who are registered unemployed. Researchers from the HSE Centre for Labour Market Studies undertook a study of how the unemployed are treated in other countries and proposed measures for improving the situation on Russia’s labour market.
Children from families with high professional and educational status are twice as likely to enter a prestigious university as their peers from low-resource families, HSE University researchers have found. The ‘privileged’ adolescents benefit from strong family attitudes towards a good education, parental investment in their studies and the high academic performance associated with it. At the same time, even when they have good grades, students from poorly educated families do not even try to get into prestigious universities.
The year 2019 ended with an important event: Russia approved its first national standards for artificial intelligence. Starting in September 2020, AI-based smart systems will need to comply with these new regulations. It is far more difficult, however, to regulate people's attitudes towards such systems. People tend to fear and idolise AI, but should they really? Henry Penikas, Assistant Professor of the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences, discusses why they probably shouldn't and how algorithms can be fooled.
Why does greater trust in society increase GDP? How can you measure inequality? Before whom is the government to blame? Who earns more? Learn the answers to these questions in this summary of last year's IQ.HSE articles and research by HSE University scholars.
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