Mathematics background of engineering students in Northern Ireland and Finland

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development investigated numeracy proficiency among adults of working age in 23 countries across the world. Finland had the highest mean numeracy proficiency for people in the 16 – 24 age group while Northern Ireland’s score was below the mean for all the countries. An international collaboration has been undertaken to investigate the prevalence of mathematics within the secondary education systems in Northern Ireland and Finland, to highlight particular issues associated with transition into university and consider whether aspects of the Finnish experience are applicable elsewhere. In both Northern Ireland and Finland, at age 16, about half of school students continue into upper secondary level following their compulsory education. The upper secondary curriculum in Northern Ireland involves a focus on three subjects while Finnish students study a very wide range of subjects with about two-thirds of the courses being compulsory. The number of compulsory courses in maths is proportionally large; this means that all upper secondary pupils in Finland (about 55% of the population) follow a curriculum which has a formal maths content of 8%, at the very minimum. In contrast, recent data have indicated that only about 13% of Northern Ireland school leavers studied mathematics in upper secondary school. The compulsory courses of the advanced maths syllabus in Finland are largely composed of pure maths with a small amount of statistics but no mechanics. They lack some topics (for example, in advanced calculus and numerical methods for integration) which are core in Northern Ireland. This is not surprising given the much broader curriculum within upper secondary education in Finland. In both countries, there is a wide variation in the mathematical skills of school leavers. However, given the prevalence of maths within upper secondary education in Finland, it is to be expected that young adults in that country demonstrate high numeracy proficiency.

Introducing the CTA concept

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Lean learning academy: an innovative framework for lean manufacturing training

Worldwide competitiveness poses enormous challenges on managers, demanding a continuous quest to increase rationality in the use of resources. As a management philosophy, Lean Manufacturing focuses on the elimination of activities that do not create any type of value and therefore are considered waste. For companies to successfully implement the Lean Manufacturing philosophy it is crucial that the human resources of the organization have the necessary training, for which proper tools are required. At the same time, higher education institutions need innovative tools to increase the attractiveness of engineering curricula and develop a higher level of knowledge among students, improving their employability. This paper describes how Lean Learning Academy, an international collaboration project between five EU universities and five companies, from SME to Multinational/Global companies, developed and applied an innovative training programme for Engineers on Lean Manufacturing, a successful alternative to the traditional teaching methods in engineering courses.

Análisis de la producción científica colombiana en medicina social y medicina básica Base de datos Thomson ISI (1975-2005)

En este documento se realiza una descripción de la producción científica colombiana en las disciplinas de medicina social y medicina básica para la base de datos Thompson ISI en el periodo comprendido entre 1975 y 2005. La caracterización de medicina social permite observar una baja producción de artículos internacionales de alto impacto propios de la disciplina, pues los artículos más citados siempre se encontraban clasificados en más de una disciplina; caso contrario al de medicina básica. De otra parte, se observa una alta concentración de los artículos de medicina social en publicaciones relacionadas con salud pública, siendo éstas una mayoría significativa dentro de la disciplina. A su vez, en las dos disciplinas es posible identificar una alta concentración de las citaciones en pocos artículos, siendo mayor en medicina social, reflejando un menor impacto promedio de las publicaciones en esta disciplina. Por último, los documentos más citados en medicina social se caracterizan por su interdisciplinariedad, colaboración internacional, interacción entre instituciones públicas y privadas, al igual que métodos no convencionales.

Caracterización clínica, microbiológica y ecocardiográfica de pacientes con Endocarditis infecciosa en la Fundación Cardioinfantil 2002-2012

Introducción: La endocarditis infecciosa es una infección microbiana del endocardio poco estudiada en nuestro país, la cual se asocia con múltiples complicaciones clínicas, y que presenta una mortalidad importante, que no ha disminuido a lo largo del tiempo sin importar los cambios epidemiológicos, de tratamiento y el aumento de la cirugía valvular que se presentan en la actualidad. Metodología: Se realizó la búsqueda de los pacientes adultos con diagnóstico de endocarditis infecciosa entre los años 2002 a 2012 en la Fundación Cardioinfantil para la revisión de los registros médicos y la descripción de las características clínicas, microbiológicas y ecocardiográficas. Resultados: se detectaron 144 pacientes hallando un predominio de la lesión de válvula nativa y el compromiso de válvula aórtica, encontrando como germen más común el S. aureus, sin embargo una tasa de 32.6% de hemocultivos negativos. La mortalidad intrahospitalaria fue de 22.2%. Discusión: los datos hallados en general son semejantes a los descritos en la literatura mundial con excepción de algunas variables discordantes en cuanto a la válvula aórtica mayormente comprometida y factores asociados a la endocarditis tricuspidea. Conclusión: la epidemiología de la endocarditis infecciosa de nuestra serie es muy semejante a la de la literatura actual de los países industrializados, aunque con algunas excepciones, requiriéndose la implementación y profundización del estudio de esta patología a nivel nacional.

Occupational therapy and its relevance in social projects. relationships, learning and opportunities: collection of experiences of University of Alberta Mscot students in Bogotá, Colombia

Occupational therapists are equipped to promote wellbeing through occupation and to enable participation and meaningful engagement of people in their social and physical environments (WFOT, 2012). As such, the role of the occupational therapists is profoundly linked to the social, cultural and environmental characteristics of the contexts in which occupations take place. The central role that context plays in occupational performance creates an interesting dichotomy for the occupational therapist: on one hand, a profound understanding of cultural and social factors is required from the Occupational Therapy (OT) in order to develop a meaningful and successful collaboration with the person; on the other hand, the ability of the occupational therapists to recognize and explore the contextual factor of an occupation-person dyad transcends cultural and spatial barriers. As a result, occupational therapists are equipped to engage in international collaboration and practice, and as such face unique and enriching challenges. International fieldwork experiences have become a tool through which occupational therapists in training can develop the critical skills for understanding the impact of cultural and social factors on occupation. An OT student in an international fieldwork experience faces numerous challenges in leading a process that is both relevant and respectful to the characteristics of the local context: language, cultural perceptions of occupation and personhood, religious backgrounds, health care access, etc. These challenges stand out as ethical considerations that must be considered when navigating an international fieldwork experience (AOTA, 2009). For more than five years now, the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine (FRM) of the University of Alberta (UoFA) and the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario (UR), Bogota, Colombia, have sustained a productive and meaningful international collaboration. This collaboration includes a visit by Dr. Albert Cook, professor of the FRM and former dean, to the UR as the main guest speaker in the International Congress of Technologies for Disability Support (IBERDISCAP) in 2008. Furthermore, Dr. Cook was a speaker in the research seminar of the Assistive Technology Research Group of the Universidad del Rosario. Following Dr. Cook’s visit, Professors Liliana Álvarez and Adriana Ríos travelled to Edmonton and initiated collaboration with the FRM, resulting in the signing of an agreement between the FRM and the UR in 2009, agreement that has been maintained to this day. The main goal of this agreement is to increase academic and cultural cooperation between the UR and the UofA. Other activities have included the cooperation between Dr. Kim Adams (who has largely maintained interest and effort in supporting the capacity building of the UR rehabilitation programs in coordinating the provision of research placement opportunities for UR students at the UofA), an Assistive Technology course for clinicians and students led by Dr. Adams, and a research project that researched the use of basic cell phones to provide social interaction and health information access for people with disabilities in a low-income community in Colombia (led by Tim Barlott, OT, MSc, under the supervision of Dr. Adams). Since the beginning, the occupational therapy programs of the Universidad del Rosario and the University of Alberta have promoted this collaboration and have strived to engage in interactions that provide further development opportunities for students and staff. As part of this process, the international placement experience of UofA OT students was born under the leadership of: Claudia Rozo, OT program director at UR, placement and academic leadership of Elvis Castro and Angélica Monsalve, professors of the occupational therapy program at UR; and Dr. Lili Liu, OT department director at UofA, Cori Schmitz, Academic coordinator of clinical education at the UofA; and Tim Barlott and Liliana Álvarez leading the international and cross-cultural aspect of this collaboration.This publication summarizes and illustrates the process of international placement in community settings in Colombia, undertaken by occupational therapy students of the University of Alberta. It is our hope that this document can provide and document the ethical considerations of international fieldwork experience, the special characteristics of communities and the ways in which cultural and social competences are developed and help international students navigate the international setting. We also hope that this document will stimulate discussion among professional and academic communities about the importance and richness of international placement experiences and encourage staff and students to articulate their daily efforts with the global occupational therapy agenda.

Inmunoterapia en pacientes con cáncer de pulmón de células no pequeñas versus terapia convencional. Revisión sistemática

RESUMEN Antecedentes y Justificación: El cáncer de pulmón es la principal causa de muerte relacionada con Cáncer en el mundo. El cáncer pulmonar de células no pequeñas (Non-Small-cell lung cancer NSCLC) representa el 85% de todos los cánceres de pulmón y en un 40% es diagnosticado tardíamente y con los tratamientos disponibles actualmente (cirugía, radioterapia y quimioterapia) presenta una supervivencia a 5 años entre el 10 y el 15%. En los últimos años han surgido nuevos tratamientos basados en la inmunoterapia que prometen mejorar la supervivencia de estos pacientes. Objetivo: Determinar la eficacia de la inmunoterapia en el tratamiento del cáncer de pulmón de células no pequeñas (NSCLC) con el fin de integrar la información disponible para su posterior uso en la clínica. Metodología: Se realizó búsqueda exhaustiva de la literatura disponible del 1 de Enero de 2003 al 31 de Diciembre de 2013. Se examinaron las siguientes bases de datos: Pubmed, Scielo, Medline, Lilacs, EMBASE, Bandolier, peDRO y Cochrane. Se utilizaron los términos MeSH de búsqueda: immunotherapy, NSCLC, clinical trials. Resultados: de 163 referencias identificadas en las bases de datos, 12 fueron seleccionadas para la revisión. Se identificaron 11 estrategias inmunoterapéuticas que fueron complementarias al uso de quimioterapia, radioterapia o ambas. No se encontró diferencia significativa entre la supervivencia global de los grupos de intervención y controles con excepción de 1 artículo. La mayoría de efectos secundarios fueron de leves a moderados y no hubo diferencias significativas entre los grupos. Discusión: no se evidenció un aumento significativo de la supervivencia global con la utilización de inmunoterapias, a excepción de la que emplea células asesinas inducidas por citocinas junto a células dendríticas. Sin embargo es necesario esperar resultados de estudios fase III en curso.

La incidencia de la actualización del tratado de amistad India-Bután 2007 en las orientaciones en materia de política exterior de Bután. 2007-2014

El interés de este estudio de caso es analizar la incidencia de la actualización del Tratado de Amistad entre India y Bután firmado en 2007 en las disposiciones de política exterior de Bután en el periodo 2007-2014. Este trabajo se enmarca en los conceptos de identidad nacional, tomadores de decisiones, proceso de toma de decisión y análisis de política exterior, a partir de los cuales se pretende comprobar que el tratado de 2007 tuvo principalmente un efecto cristalizador en la política exterior de Bután, manifestado de manera significativa en materia de cooperación internacional, moderada en materia de representación política internacional y muy modesta en materia de apertura económica y comercial.

Endocarditis infecciosa por Staphylococcus Aureus Meticilino sensible y resistente en la Fundación Cardioinfantil – Instituto de Cardiología

Introducción y objetivos: La endocarditis infecciosa (EI) es una enfermedad grave producida por diversos gérmenes que afectan las válvulas cardiacas y el tejido endomiocárdico. El objetivo fue describir las características epidemiológicas, clínicas, ecocardiográficas y microbiológicas de la endocarditis infecciosa por Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) meticilino sensible y resistente de la Fundación Cardioinfantil – Instituto de Cardiología (FCI-IC) en el periodo de tiempo 2010- 2015. Métodos: Cohorte retrospectiva de casos de EI por S. aureus en la FCIIC para el período 2010-2015. Se realizó descripción de las variables generales de la población a estudio utilizando medidas de tendencia central y dispersión. Análisis de desenlaces teniendo cuenta la concentración inhibitoria mínima de vancomicina. Resultados: En el estudio se presentaron 27 casos de EI, con una mayor proporción de pacientes de sexo masculino, con hipertensión, diabetes y hemodiálisis. La fiebre fue la manifestación más frecuente seguida de fenómenos vasculares. La válvula más comprometida fue la mitral, principalmente nativa. Discusión: La presentación clínica de los pacientes con EI por S. aureus es aguda por lo que la fiebre es la principal manifestación clínica presentada, lo anterior favorece un rápido diagnóstico clínico. De las cepas de S. aureus causante de EI no se encontró gérmenes con sensibilidad intermedia ni resistente a la vancomicina según criterios establecidos por CLSI. Se encontró mayor proporción de pacientes con un valor de CMI para vancomicina mayor a 0,5μg/ml lo cual es importante dado que podemos estar enfrentándonos a cepas hetero VISA (hVISA).

High-resolution global climate simulations with the ECMWF model in Project Athena: experimental design, model climate, and seasonal forecast skill

The sensitivity to the horizontal resolution of the climate, anthropogenic climate change, and seasonal predictive skill of the ECMWF model has been studied as part of Project Athena—an international collaboration formed to test the hypothesis that substantial progress in simulating and predicting climate can be achieved if mesoscale and subsynoptic atmospheric phenomena are more realistically represented in climate models. In this study the experiments carried out with the ECMWF model (atmosphere only) are described in detail. Here, the focus is on the tropics and the Northern Hemisphere extratropics during boreal winter. The resolutions considered in Project Athena for the ECMWF model are T159 (126 km), T511 (39 km), T1279 (16 km), and T2047 (10 km). It was found that increasing horizontal resolution improves the tropical precipitation, the tropical atmospheric circulation, the frequency of occurrence of Euro-Atlantic blocking, and the representation of extratropical cyclones in large parts of the Northern Hemisphere extratropics. All of these improvements come from the increase in resolution from T159 to T511 with relatively small changes for further resolution increases to T1279 and T2047, although it should be noted that results from this very highest resolution are from a previously untested model version. Problems in simulating the Madden–Julian oscillation remain unchanged for all resolutions tested. There is some evidence that increasing horizontal resolution to T1279 leads to moderate increases in seasonal forecast skill during boreal winter in the tropics and Northern Hemisphere extratropics. Sensitivity experiments are discussed, which helps to foster a better understanding of some of the resolution dependence found for the ECMWF model in Project Athena

Knowledge dissemination in the global service marketing community

Purpose– The evolution of the service marketing field was marked by the emergence of a global, vigorous and tolerant community of service marketing researchers. This paper seeks to examine the history of the service marketing community and argues that it may be an archetype for building the emergent global service research community. Design/methodology/approach– The study combines qualitative and quantitative approaches. The authors interviewed four pioneering service scholars and also collected descriptive data (e.g. Authorship, Affiliation, Title, Keywords) of all service related articles published in 13 top peer‐reviewed marketing and service journals over the last 30 years (5,432 articles; 6,450 authors). In a dynamic analysis the authors mapped global collaboration between countries over time and detected clusters of international collaboration. Findings– Findings suggest a growing international collaboration for the USA and the UK, while for other countries like Israel the global collaboration started from a high level and decreases now. Further, the service marketing community never became polarized and there were always contributions from researchers all over the world. Research limitations/implications– As the global service research community is developing, service marketing becomes a research neighborhood within the broader service research community. Simultaneously, other research neighborhoods are emerging within this new community (e.g. service arts, service management, service engineering, service science). Originality/value– Anchored on the social evolution and biological evolution metaphors, this study explains the evolution of the service marketing field from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Furthermore, it explains the development of the service marketing community as an archetype for building the global service research community.

An integrated database on ticks and tick-borne zoonoses in the tropics and subtropics with special reference to developing and emerging countries

Tick-borne zoonoses (TBZ) are emerging diseases worldwide. A large amount of information (e.g. case reports, results of epidemiological surveillance, etc.) is dispersed through various reference sources (ISI and non-ISI journals, conference proceedings, technical reports, etc.). An integrated database-derived from the ICTTD-3 project (http://www.icttd.nl)-was developed in order to gather TBZ records in the (sub-)tropics, collected both by the authors and collaborators worldwide. A dedicated website (http://www.tickbornezoonoses.org) was created to promote collaboration and circulate information. Data collected are made freely available to researchers for analysis by spatial methods, integrating mapped ecological factors for predicting TBZ risk. The authors present the assembly process of the TBZ database: the compilation of an updated list of TBZ relevant for (sub-)tropics, the database design and its structure, the method of bibliographic search, the assessment of spatial precision of geo-referenced records. At the time of writing, 725 records extracted from 337 publications related to 59 countries in the (sub-)tropics, have been entered in the database. TBZ distribution maps were also produced. Imported cases have been also accounted for. The most important datasets with geo-referenced records were those on Spotted Fever Group rickettsiosis in Latin-America and Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever in Africa. The authors stress the need for international collaboration in data collection to update and improve the database. Supervision of data entered remains always necessary. Means to foster collaboration are discussed. The paper is also intended to describe the challenges encountered to assemble spatial data from various sources and to help develop similar data collections.

Application of information and communication technologies for health systems in Belgium, Denmark, Spain, the United Kingdom and Sweden

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Global Competence: Determination of its Importance for Engineers Working in a Global Environment

We live and work in a world that is even more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. Engineers must now not only develop technical engineering competence, but must also develop additional skills and competencies including global competence to obtain success within a global engineering environment. The purpose of this study was to determine whether multinational companies considered global competence an important skill in mechanical engineering graduates when making hiring decisions. The study was an exploratory study that utilized an extensive literature review to identify eight global competencies for engineering success within a global environment and also included a survey instrument completed by Brigham Young University (BYU) mechanical engineering alumni in 48 states and 17 countries. The study focused on an evaluation of standard hiring technical engineering competencies with eight global competencies identified in the literature review. The study established that standard engineering technical competencies were the most important consideration when hiring mechanical engineers, but global competence was also considered important by a majority of all survey respondents with six of the eight global competencies rated important by 79 to 91% of respondents with an ability to communicate cross-culturally the highest-rated global competence. The importance of global competence in engineers when making hiring decisions, as considered by large companies who employed more than 10,000 employees or who had annual revenue exceeding $1 billion (US$) per year, was particularly strong. The majority of respondents (70%) indicated that companies were willing to provide training and experience to help engineers obtain success in a global engineering environment. In addition, a majority of respondents (59.9%) indicated that companies valued the efforts of higher educational engineering institutions to prepare engineers for success in a global environment with only 4.8% of respondents indicating that they did not value the efforts of higher education engineering institutions. However, only 27% of respondents agreed that colleges and universities were successful in this endeavor. Globalization is not a passing phenomenon, it is here to stay. Colleges and universities throughout the world need to recognize the importance of globalization and the interdependence and interconnectedness among the world’s population. Therefore, it is important to identify, develop, and provide opportunities for international collaboration and interaction among students and faculty throughout the world and to focus on developing global competence as an important outcome for engineering graduates.

Tokamak TCABR: Acquisition system, data analysis, and remote participation using MDSplus

Each plasma physics laboratory has a proprietary scheme to control and data acquisition system. Usually, it is different from one laboratory to another. It means that each laboratory has its own way to control the experiment and retrieving data from the database. Fusion research relies to a great extent on international collaboration and this private system makes it difficult to follow the work remotely. The TCABR data analysis and acquisition system has been upgraded to support a joint research programme using remote participation technologies. The choice of MDSplus (Model Driven System plus) is proved by the fact that it is widely utilized, and the scientists from different institutions may use the same system in different experiments in different tokamaks without the need to know how each system treats its acquisition system and data analysis. Another important point is the fact that the MDSplus has a library system that allows communication between different types of language (JAVA, Fortran, C, C++, Python) and programs such as MATLAB, IDL, OCTAVE. In the case of tokamak TCABR interfaces (object of this paper) between the system already in use and MDSplus were developed, instead of using the MDSplus at all stages, from the control, and data acquisition to the data analysis. This was done in the way to preserve a complex system already in operation and otherwise it would take a long time to migrate. This implementation also allows add new components using the MDSplus fully at all stages. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.