The communication practised by politicians is highly calculated, supporting their aim to transport their own messages and to sway the voters. Applying a linguistic perspective, Marta Degani has studied speeches by US-American politicians, including election addresses by Barack Obama, but also by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
The University of Klagenfurt is part of the UNIVERS alliance project. UNIVERS aims to create an effective university structure that transcends Europe’s national borders. The project, which involves eight partners in five countries spanning seven borders, is currently competing for funding within the scope of the European Universities Initiative.
Weighing in at just over 800 pages, the recently published Cambridge Handbook of Wisdom was edited by Robert J. Sternberg (Cornell University) and Judith Glück (University of Klagenfurt). The handbook offers an overview of the state of research on wisdom, an area of study that is still something of a rarity at universities, and presents various perspectives describing how a greater understanding of wisdom could contribute to a better world.
While the consequences of smoking, drinking alcohol, being active etc. have been carefully researched and are well understood as far as life expectancy is concerned, very few studies explore how individual decisions which result in becoming a parent or getting married influence the probability of dying and causes of death. Miguel Portela (Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal) and Paul Schweinzer (University of Klagenfurt, Austria) have recently conducted studies using data from Great Britain. Their biblically inspired conclusion is: “Let the little children come to me.”
In-flight icing of aircraft wings represents one of the biggest safety risks in aviation. Researchers have developed new wireless sensors allowing improved detection of ice formation. Read more →
Every year, around 8,400 employees transport more than 100 million tonnes of goods on behalf of Rail Cargo Austria. 620 traction units and 21,500 goods wagons are required purely for rail cargo operations. In the case of highly complex logistics tasks such as this, the deployment of man and machine requires careful planning. Mathematicians working on a project funded by FFG are now developing algorithms designed to significantly enhance the planning process.
Economists endeavour to emulate the behaviour of actors in economic contexts in order to calculate the consequences. The difficulty is this: Many at times restrictive assumptions concerning the behaviour of actors do not reflect the real world. A new project funded by the Anniversary Fund of the OeNB (Oesterreichische Nationalbank) aims to get a better grasp on reality.
Scientists working on the research project SWILT are developing Industry 4.0 algorithms inspired by nature.
Facebook, Twitter and Co. are centralised platforms that are owned by private corporations and that control the respective networks unilaterally. An international project financed by EU-H2020 under the project leadership of Radu Prodan (University of Klagenfurt) aims to create a decentralised social media ecosystem using blockchain technology.
Researchers from the fields of computer science and medicine are collaborating to make better use of microscopic videos that record surgical procedures relating to the eyes for the purpose of teaching, research and documentation.
