Speech Register Switching Causes Brain to Struggle with Comprehension
According to researchers at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain, processing a word which is markedly different in style from the rest of the sentence uses the same brain mechanisms as making sense of a semantically incongruent word. These mechanisms reflect the brain’s efforts to process an unexpected term. The study findings have been published in the Journal of Neurolinguistics. The research was financed by a grant from the Russian Government as part of the 'Science and Universities' National Project.
Machine Learning Algorithm to Reduce Tester Workload
Researchers from HSE University and the Russian Technological University (RTU MIREA) have developed an intelligent system to automate software testing on a variety of platforms. Its computer vision feature is capable of recognising elements in a graphical user interface even after a redesign. The details are published in the Journal of the Siberian Federal University.
Job-Education Mismatch Reduces Earnings of Russians by up to 14%
About a third of Russians with higher education do not work in the field that they studied, with this indicator being highest in agriculture and service. Researchers from the HSE Laboratory for Labour Market Studies, together with their colleagues from Portugal, have found out that this job-education mismatch results in a salary reduction of between 7 and 14%. The study was published in the Journal of Education and Work.
Cliometrics: 20th-century Revolutions Came in Waves
Having studied the 20th century revolutionary processes, Andrey Korotayev (HSE), Leonid Grinin (HSE) and Anton Grinin (MSU) have put together an extensive evidence base, proposed a new typology of revolutions and revolutionary waves, and introduced the concept of 'analogues of revolutions'. Their study '20th Century Revolutions: Characteristics, Types, and Waves' is the follow-up to an earlier paper published in Russian. The new findings are presented in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications.
Using Simple Salts to Produce Safer Electrolytes for Aqueous Batteries
A team of Russian scientists including HSE MIEM researchers have used superconcentrated salt solutions to produce effective water-based electrolytes that demonstrate high conductivity and electrochemical stability and require lower amounts of non-toxic salts, making the batteries safer and less expensive than classical non-aqueous ones. The study is published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
HSE Researchers Learn to Determine the Level of Happiness of Russians by Posts in Social Networks
Researchers at the HSE Graduate School of Business have created a model for calculating the indicator of subjective well-being, based on the analysis of 7.2 million posts on the Odnoklassniki social network. They found that the lowest level of observed subjective well-being can be registered in the morning, and the highest can be found in the late evening. The results of the study were published in the Mathematics journal.
Only Left Hemisphere Involved in Action Naming
An international team including researchers from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain and the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience have demonstrated the critical role of the left, but not the right, inferior frontal gyrus in action naming. The study findings are published in Brain Structure and Function.
Machine Learning Predicts Epileptogenic Activity from High-Frequency Oscillation Rates
In an innovative study, researchers from HSE University, RAN Institute of Linguistics, and the National Medical and Surgical Centre named after N.I. Pirogov measured and analysed high-frequency oscillations (HFO) in different regions of the brain. An automated detector predicted seizure outcomes based on HFO rates with an accuracy rate of 85%, and by applying machine learning, made it possible to distinguish between epileptogenic and non-epileptogenic HFO. The study’s findings are published in Frontiers in Human Neurosciences.
Optimism Makes Algorithm for Reinforcement Learning More Effective
An international team of scientists from Russia, France and Germany (including researchers of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, the HSE Artificial Intelligence Centre and the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute) have developed a new reinforcement learning algorithm (Bayes-UCBVI). This is the first Bayesian algorithm that has a mathematical proof of effectiveness and has been successfully tested in Atari games. The result was presented at the ICML-2022 conference.
Research Finds Genes Associated with Most Aggressive Kidney Cancer
HSE researchers have found genes characteristic of the most aggressive subtype of clear cell renal carcinoma. Having studied data on tumour samples from 456 patients, Grigory Puzanov, research fellow at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science International Laboratory of Bioinformatics, identified cancer subtypes associated with either a favourable or unfavourable course of the disease. The paper is published in Scientific Reports.