Internal Lunch Seminars

Internal Lunch Seminars provide an informal forum for local researchers to present their work in progress and receive feedback and criticism from colleagues. Speakers present preliminary findings of their research (ideally with paper draft available). Talks should last no longer than 30 minutes, leaving ample time for discussion. All interested parties are welcome to attend, and we encourage participants to bring their own lunch or sandwich. Small sandwiches will be provided before the seminar from 12:00 to 12:15. Talk will start at 12:15. If you wish to present your work, please drop us an email.

Upcoming seminars

16 Apr

12:00

Causal Mechanisms of Relative Age Effects on Adolescent Risky Behaviours

Luca Fumarco (Masaryk University - Department of Economics) ESF Academic Club Personal website

We investigate the effect of students’ age relative to their classmates on adolescents’ risky behaviors across European countries. Using data from the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children survey and employing a two-stage least squares approach, we provide causal estimates that disentangle relative age effects from absolute age and season-of-birth effects. Our findings indicate that relatively younger students are generally more prone to risky behaviors. We explore two sets of mechanisms underlying these effects. First, causal mediation analyses reveal that academic self-concept, well-being, self-esteem, and peer support act as amplifiers of relative age effects on substance use. Second, additional analyses on European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs data suggest that relatively younger students perceive lower risks associated with substance consumption and believe substance use is more prevalent among their peers.

23 Apr

12:00

Distributed and trustworthy digital twin platform based on blockchain and Web3 technologies

Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini Bamakan (Masaryk University - Department of Business Management) ESF Academic Club

The fourth industrial revolution has significantly increased the adoption of Digital Twins (DTs) across various sectors, including intelligent manufacturing, automation, logistics, and medical analysis. Despite substantial progress in deploying DT projects, numerous challenges remain, such as managing distributed data flows, protecting commercial confidentiality, securing intellectual property, and ensuring privacy and security. This research introduces a novel approach to addressing these challenges by leveraging blockchain and Web3 technologies, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Distributed Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). The study aims to develop a distributed, tamper-proof DT cooperation platform that facilitates traceable and trustworthy data sharing while preserving intellectual property rights and enabling decentralized governance. This platform enhances idea and invention ownership, promotes collective decision-making through consensus protocols, and explores innovative solutions like blockchain-based federated learning and efficient DT project fundraising tools. Relying on security models and analysis tools, this study addresses several important security analysis methods that are known as practical analysis methods. They can strongly prove every claimed security feature of DT projects. The proposed solutions set the stage for future academic and industrial advancements, supported by a comprehensive SWOT (Strongness - Weakness - Opportunity - Threat) analysis, and outline potential future research directions.