Self-learning computer programmes can do a great deal today: predict the weather, discover tumours in X-rays, play chess better than any human being. How the algorithms draw their conclusions, however, is often not even known by those who programmed them. Researchers at the University of Augsburg and the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) have now compared two approaches to shed some light on this "black box".

Christmas would be a silent holiday without the ringing of bells − but would you have guessed that there is a connection between bells and measuring acoustic emissions in the field of materials research?  

The Augsburg Science Prize for Intercultural Studies 2021 goes to Dr Laura Otto (University of Bremen) for her dissertation on young refugees. Jennifer Adolé Akue-Dovi (University of Hamburg) receives the sponsorship award for her Master's thesis on racist stereotypes in children's media. A special prize, unique this year, will be awarded to Dr Nora Haakh (Free University of Berlin).

While the university's medical campus is still under construction, the research operations of the new university medicine chairs are already underway. In order to provide the professors with the appropriate infrastructure until this is completed, a total of around 6,300 m² of research space has been rented at four locations.

Prof. Dr Elisabeth André was awarded the international ICMI Sustained Accomplishment Award in Montréal. The award is given to researchers whose contributions have significantly advanced the development of multimodal interaction, interfaces and systems.

At the Institute for Materials Resource Management, the research project "CU EcoCeramic" investigates the potential ecological and economic optimization of fibre reinforced ceramic composite structures based on a Life Cycle Assessment, starting with the manufacturing processes and ending with the recycling options.

University of Augsburg kicked off the winter semester 2021/22 with the introduction and orientation week starting on October 11, with classes beginning on October 18.  "We are pleased that after a long time we finally have more presence on our campus and welcome especially our freshmen very warmly," welcomes Prof. Dr. Sabine Doering-Manteuffel, President of the University of Augsburg.

The University and the Faculty of Business and Economics congratulate their honorary doctor Prof. David Audretsch, Ph.D., on being named a Citation Laureate™ by the Institute for Scientific Information. Since 2002, the Institute has annually named the most influential researchers in the disciplines of medicine, physics, chemistry and economics from the more than 52 million articles indexed in the Web of Science since 1970.

An international study shows that especially in the northern latitudes, plant growth has decreased by 10.6 percent compared from 1982-1998 to 2000-2016. The reasons are climate extremes, especially drought. The results illustrate that ecosystems are becoming increasingly vulnerable to warm droughts and that negative impacts on the uptake of CO2 by plants and on agriculture are consequences.

Carbon dioxide can be bound by finely ground rock that is introduced into ecosystems. A new study estimates for the first time the amount of CO2 absorption that can be achieved by rock flour. This biological effect is significantly higher than previously thought, the research team reports in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The Augsburg AI Production Network, founded in January, is an association of the University of Augsburg with the Fraunhofer Institute for Foundry, Composites and Processing Technology IGCV and the Centre for Lightweight Production Technology of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). The aim is joint research into AI-based production technologies at the interface between materials, manufacturing technologies and data-based modelling.

The Rüdiger Kurt Bode-Stiftung is awarding the 2021 Water Resource Prize, endowed with 100,000 Euros, to Prof. Dr. Harald Kunstmann, Chair of Regional Climate and Hydrology at the University of Augsburg and Deputy Director of the Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research - Atmospheric Environmental Research at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the KIT Alpine Campus.