Discourse research spans a broad range of themes, including questions of educational justice, environmental problems, problems associated with the pandemic, as well as identity conflicts and migration. From the 30th to the 31st of March, leading researchers will meet at the University of Augsburg for the international conference “The Discursive Construction of Reality V,” organised by the Chair of Sociology. Alongside research, the conference will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the “Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung (ZfD),” which was founded in Augsburg.

As part of the EmmA project, the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Augsburg has developed a coaching assistant avatar designed to provide psychological support in times of occupational stress. It can recognise a user’s emotional moods via their mobile device and react appropriately in real time. The avatar is based on machine learning and complex data processing. The results of the project will be used in a follow-up study with people suffering from depression and is also part of an international collaborative project aimed at providing vulnerable people with access to personalised psychosocial services.

With the €200 one-off energy price allowance, the federal government and the states are providing financial assistance to students to offset increased heating, electricity, and food prices. Applications for the one-off energy price allowance can be submitted from the 15th of March 2023. This is how the application process works.

How was scientific evidence produced, communicated, and socially negotiated during the Corona crisis? To answer this question, media and communication scientists from Augsburg are analyzing around 1,000 newspaper articles from established media sources such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung and BILD.

Low-pressure plasmas are commonly used for coating spectacles or producing microchips. Yet very high-energy UV radiation is produced in these plasmas, which under certain circumstances can disrupt production. In order to measure the intensity and wavelength distribution of UV radiation, large and expensive devices have been relied on up until now. Researchers at the University of Augsburg have now developed an alternative system that is both portable and inexpensive.

Non-fungible tokens are based on blockchain technology known from cryptocurrencies. NFTs create a ‘proof of authenticity’ for digital works and confirm personal ownership of them, which is what makes it possible to trade virtual images. Twain Stolz, an art historian and economist, is researching the effects of NFTs on the art market.

The University of Augsburg is participating at the first Bavarian International Conference on AI, AI.BAY 2023, which will take place from the 23rd to 24th of February. The new forum brings together leading representatives of the Bavarian AI Network, international, high-profile guests, as well as state politicians to discuss the future of AI and international developments.

The German parliament has awarded Augsburg researcher Mechthild Roos with the 2023 academic prize. She shares the award of €10,000 with Oliver Haardt. The jury selected Roos, a political scientist in the Chair of Political Science - Comparative Systems Analysis (Europe and North America), from 35 submissions. The president of the German parliament, Bärbel Bas, is expected to award the prize on the 10^th of May 2023.

The Centre of Advanced Analytics and Predictive Sciences (CAAPS), which brings together data-gathering and data-processing research as part of a new multidisciplinary centre at the University of Augsburg, is hosting a colloquium on the 23rd of February 2023. The colloquium features two internationally renowned guest speakers in the fields of quantum science and quantum computing.

Scientists at the University of Augsburg and Helmholtz Munich have made an important breakthrough in better understanding early processes in the development of type 2 diabetes by identifying a previously unknown transmission of messenger substances from adipose tissue to the pancreas.

The Elite Network of Bavaria is funding a new international early-career research group at the University of Augsburg. From May 2023, it will focus on illuminating culturally shaped eating habits as key sites of environmental transformation and through a culinary lens rethink the environment. The project will be led by cultural historian L. Sasha Gora.

In a recently published article in the leading physics journal "Nature Physics", a team of researchers with the participation of the University of Augsburg reports about unexpectedly universal correlations between the thermal expansion and the glass-transition temperature of glass-forming materials, providing new insights into the complex nature of the transition from the liquid into the solid glass.