Self-Assessment Report for International Accreditation – Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes in Industrial Management

Self-assessment report for accreditation of the Bachelor's and Master's degree programs in Industrial Management.

Self assessment report for international accreditation - Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes in Mechanical Engineering

Itsearviointiraportissa kuvataan Lappeenrannan teknillisen yliopiston konetekniikan kandidaatin ja diplomi-insinöörin tutkinto-ohjelmat opetussuunnitelman 2011-2012 mukaisesti. Itsearviointiraportti on tuotettu saksalaisen ASIIN-akkreditointiorganisaation raportointimallin mukaisesti.

Self-Assessment Report for International Accreditation - Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes in Environmental Technology

Ympäristötekniikan kandidaatin ja diplomi-insinöörin tutkinto-ohjelmien itsearviointiraportissa käsitellään tutkinto-ohjelmien osaamistavoitteita ja niiden saavuttamista. Raportissa käydään läpi myös käytössä olevat resurssit sekä tutkinto-ohjelmiin liittyviä tunnuslukuja. Itsearviointi on toteutettu kansainvälisen akkreditointijärjestön kriteerien mukaisesti (ASIIN ja EUR-ACE).

Self-assessment report for international accreditation - Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes in Information Technology

Lappeenrannan teknillisen yliopiston Tietotekniikan kandidaatin ja maisterin tutkinto-ohjelmien itsearviointi toteutettiin v. 2012 kansainvälistä akkreditointia varten. Itsearviointiraportissa kuvataan tutkinto-ohjelmien tavoitteet, toteutus ja arviointimenettelyt sekä tulokset.

Assessment of the degree of contamination of rat germ cell preparations using specific cDNA probes

Recent reports showing a decrease in sperm count in men have brought new concerns about male infertility. Animal models have been widely used to provide some relevant information about the human male gamete, and extrapolations are made to men and to the clinical context. The present study assesses one of the methods used for separation of germ cells of the adult rat testis, namely centrifugal elutriation followed by density gradients (Percoll®). This method was chosen since it presents the best results for cell purity in separating germ cells from the rat testis. A comparison between continuous and discontinuous Percoll® gradients was performed in order to identify the best type of gradient to separate the cells. Maximal cell purity was obtained for spermatocytes (81 ± 8.2%, mean ± SEM) and spermatids (84 ± 2.6%) using centrifugal elutriation followed by continuous Percoll® gradients. A significant difference in purity was observed between elongating spermatids harvested from continuous Percoll® gradients and from discontinuous gradients. Molecular analysis was used to assess cell contamination by employing specific probes, namely transition protein 2 (TP2), mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase II (COX II), and sulfated glycoprotein 1 (SGP1). Molecular analysis of the samples demonstrated that morphological criteria are efficient in characterizing the main composition of the cell suspension, but are not reliable for identifying minimal contamination from other cells. Reliable cell purity data should be established using molecular analysis

Specific insulin and proinsulin in normal glucose tolerant first-degree relatives of NIDDM patients

In order to identify early abnormalities in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) we determined insulin (using an assay that does not cross-react with proinsulin) and proinsulin concentrations. The proinsulin/insulin ratio was used as an indicator of abnormal ß-cell function. The ratio of the first 30-min increase in insulin to glucose concentrations following the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT; I30-0/G30-0) was taken as an indicator of insulin secretion. Insulin resistance (R) was evaluated by the homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) method. True insulin and proinsulin were measured during a 75-g OGTT in 35 individuals: 20 with normal glucose tolerance (NGT) and without diabetes among their first-degree relatives (FDR) served as controls, and 15 with NGT who were FDR of patients with NIDDM. The FDR group presented higher insulin (414 pmol/l vs 195 pmol/l; P = 0.04) and proinsulin levels (19.6 pmol/l vs 12.3 pmol/l; P = 0.03) post-glucose load than the control group. When these groups were stratified according to BMI, the obese FDR (N = 8) showed higher fasting and post-glucose insulin levels than the obese NGT (N = 9) (fasting: 64.8 pmol/l vs 7.8 pmol/l; P = 0.04, and 60 min post-glucose: 480.6 pmol/l vs 192 pmol/l; P = 0.01). Also, values for HOMA (R) were higher in the obese FDR compared to obese NGT (2.53 vs 0.30; P = 0.075). These results show that FDR of NIDDM patients have true hyperinsulinemia (which is not a consequence of cross-reactivity with proinsulin) and hyperproinsulinemia and no dysfunction of a qualitative nature in ß-cells.

Evaluating land-use related environmental impacts of biomass value chains for decision-support : Comparison and testing of methodologies proposed for environmental life cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the most established quantitative tools for environmental impact assessment of products. To be able to provide support to environmentally-aware decision makers on environmental impacts of biomass value-chains, the scope of LCA methodology needs to be augmented to cover landuse related environmental impacts. This dissertation focuses on analysing and discussing potential impact assessment methods, conceptual models and environmental indicators that have been proposed to be implemented into the LCA framework for impacts of land use. The applicability of proposed indicators and impact assessment frameworks is tested from practitioners' perspective, especially focusing on forest biomass value chains. The impacts of land use on biodiversity, resource depletion, climate change and other ecosystem services is analysed and discussed and the interplay in between value choices in LCA modelling and the decision-making situations to be supported is critically discussed. It was found out that land use impact indicators are necessary in LCA in highlighting differences in impacts from distinct land use classes. However, many open questions remain on certainty of highlighting actual impacts of land use, especially regarding impacts of managed forest land use on biodiversity and ecosystem services such as water regulation and purification. The climate impact of energy use of boreal stemwood was found to be higher in the short term and lower in the long-term in comparison with fossil fuels that emit identical amount of CO2 in combustion, due to changes implied to forest C stocks. The climate impacts of energy use of boreal stemwood were found to be higher than the previous estimates suggest on forest residues and stumps. The product lifetime was found to have much higher influence on the climate impacts of woodbased value chains than the origin of stemwood either from thinnings or final fellings. Climate neutrality seems to be likely only in the case when almost all the carbon of harvested wood is stored in long-lived wooden products. In the current form, the land use impacts cannot be modelled with a high degree of certainty nor communicated with adequate level of clarity to decision makers. The academia needs to keep on improving the modelling framework, and more importantly, clearly communicate to decision-makers the limited certainty on whether land-use intensive activities can help in meeting the strict mitigation targets we are globally facing.

The modest but growing Brazilian presence in psychiatric, psychobiological and mental health research: assessment of the 1998-2002 period

The objective of the present survey was to assess the Brazilian scientific production in psychiatry, psychobiology, and mental health during the 1998-2002 period. The universities' graduate programs concentrate the vast majority of the scientific production in Brazil. We assessed the annual reports from the graduate programs to the Brazilian Ministry of Education concerning master's and doctoral theses and the articles published in journals indexed by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI). There are nine Master's and Doctoral graduate programs dedicated to research in psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, psychobiology, and mental health in the country, seven being located in southern states. During the 5-year period, from 1998 to 2002, 186 students received their doctorate degree (37/year). The programs published 637 articles in journals indexed by ISI, the majority of them in journals with an impact factor higher than 2. The research advisors' productivity varied among graduate programs, ranging from 0.6 to 2.0 articles per year in ISI-indexed journals. Despite the substantial barriers faced by the Brazilian scientific community (mainly financial and writing difficulties), Brazil's scientific mental health production is on the rise. The number of articles published in ISI-indexed journals has doubled without a significant increase in the number of graduate theses, suggesting that there was an improvement in both the quality of the scientific production and the productivity of the graduate programs. Based on these data, it is reasonable to predict a tendency to an increase in production over the next few years.

An Assessment of the Degree of Implementation of the Lean Aerospace Initiative Principles and Practices within the US Aerospace and Defense Industry

This report is a formal documentation of the results of an assessment of the degree to which Lean Principles and Practices have been implemented in the US Aerospace and Defense Industry. An Industry Association team prepared it for the DCMA-DCAAIndustry Association “Crosstalk” Coalition in response to a “Crosstalk” meeting action request to the industry associations. The motivation of this request was provided by the many potential benefits to system product quality, affordability and industry responsiveness, which a high degree of industry Lean implementation can produce.

An international experiment with eRubrics : an approach to educational assessment in two courses of the early childhood education degree

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

The equity aspect within the framework of the assessment of the quality of Higher Education : developing indicators to identify students with a higher risk of failure at university with a view to improving equality of chances of succes

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

A toxicokinetic model for thiamethoxam in rats: implications for higher-tier risk assessment

Risk assessment for mammals is currently based on external exposure measurements, but effects of toxicants are better correlated with the systemically available dose than with the external administered dose. So for risk assessment of pesticides, toxicokinetics should be interpreted in the context of potential exposure in the field taking account of the timescale of exposure and individual patterns of feeding. Internal concentration is the net result of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME). We present a case study for thiamethoxam to show how data from ADME study on rats can be used to parameterize a body burden model which predicts body residue levels after exposures to LD50 dose either as a bolus or eaten at different feeding rates. Kinetic parameters were determined in male and female rats after an intravenous and oral administration of 14C labelled by fitting one-compartment models to measured pesticide concentrations in blood for each individual separately. The concentration of thiamethoxam in blood over time correlated closely with concentrations in other tissues and so was considered representative of pesticide concentration in the whole body. Body burden model simulations showed that maximum body weight-normalized doses of thiamethoxam were lower if the same external dose was ingested normally than if it was force fed in a single bolus dose. This indicates lower risk to rats through dietary exposure than would be estimated from the bolus LD50. The importance of key questions that should be answered before using the body burden approach in risk assessment, data requirements and assumptions made in this study are discussed in detail.

The Mixed-Method Library: Qualitative Research and the Future of Assessment in Higher Education

This presentation was offered as part of the CUNY Library Assessment Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment, held at the City University of New York in June 2014.