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Dear all, it is time for the second newsletter on mental health among doctoral researchers and mental health in science in general. In case you missed the first one, catch up here. This time, we are talking about the statistics. What does the data show regarding mental health in academia and research? How is the Helmholtz Association doing on the topic of mental health, according to the 2019 survey? We wrap up with pointing to some common stressors: how to recognize them in others and ourselves; as well as how to help those who experience these stressors. Last, but not least, we invite you toRead More →

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Dear all, October is officially a mental health awareness month. In order to raise awareness among the doctoral researchers, Helmholtz Juniors have prepared a series of informative letters to be sent out each Thursday in the course of October. However, since we – the team of representatives of the doctoral researchers at HZB – believe that this is a topic concerning everyone, we have decided to share some of this information with the whole HZB community. Take a moment, sit back, breathe and relax. We all know that doing a PhD can be really challenging, not only scientifically but also on the personal side. ThereRead More →

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“Be a diamond. Flourish under pressure” – Maureen Joyce Connolly To most people diamonds are well-known as the marvelous gemstones which used in a piece of jewelry. However, they are not only “a girl’s best friends”. Due to their remarkable physical and optical properties diamonds can be used by scientists and engineers as well! With this blogpost I’ll guide you through my research here at HZB and, hopefully, will share the delight and enjoyment of working with diamonds. Why diamonds? To have a better understanding of diamond it is useful to have a look at its crystalline structure. The strong sp3 covalent bonds between carbonRead More →

Jian Ren and Prof. Brian Paul Schmidt in #LINO19

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Science Without Borders: Impressions from the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (2019) Guestpost by Jian Ren As a doctoral researcher in Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, I have been offered many opportunities to expand my horizons by working in an optimal international research environment and by participating in international conferences. Recently, I received another gift from HZB – I was nominated and financially supported by HZB to take part in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. 580 young scientists meet Nobel Laureates The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings have become an event of great importance for the exchange between generations of scientists each summer since 1951. In this year, theRead More →

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If you try to search for “PSO” abbreviation in wiki you may find Pacific Symphony Orchestra or Phase-shift oscillator. However, my project at HZB is about neither music nor electricity, but mathematics. For almost a month here I have been working on an algorithm called Particle Swarm Optimization method and I would like you to have some impression of it.  Optimization Actually, the definition of optimization problem is quite simple. One has a function of n-variables f(x1, …, xn) and seeks to find such values of variables that give minimum to the function. However, the solution is not that simple, because in general you cannotRead More →