Filialų steigimo užsienyje modeliavimas plėtojant universiteto tarptautiškumą

It is argued in literature that the competitiveness of higher education institutions (HEIs) will increasingly depend on their ability to operate internationally in the near future (Delgado-Márquez et al., 2013; De Haan, 2014; De Wit, 2010; Graf, 2009). The emergence of entrepreneurial university phenomena as well as a shift in movement from students to the movement of programmes and universities lead to the emergence of one of the riskiest and unexplored entry modes to international markets in higher education – international branch campus (IBC). Risk reduction strategies of IBC establishment are analysed and suggested in this thesis. The object of present study is international development of HEIs using a branch campus, thus addressing the problem of the lack of comprehensive theoretical and practical frameworks of transnational education activities. The aim of the thesis is to develop a decision support model for international branch campus establishment enhancing the university competitiveness in the foreign market. The dissertation consists of the introduction, three chapters, general conclusions and 8 annexes. Chapter 1 reviews literature on the contemporary issues of internationalisation of higher education focusing on IBC management. Internationalisation theories and foreign market entry modes are analysed in business and higher education. The chapter is finalised with the formulation of the scientific problem of the dissertation. Chapter 2 starts of by reviewing the research methodology for the development of the decision support model for IBC establishment enhancing the university competitiveness. Further, the empirical research for the development of the decision support model is presented. The following research methods have been used: analysis of statistical data, 4 expert surveys (3 on IBC development, 1 on networking), Delphi method, multicriteria decision support method (FARE), semi structured interviews, and computer assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAS) using Nvivo software. Chapter 3 suggests and explains in detail the decision support model for the establishment of IBC. The model is based on the synergy of theoretical and empirical research results. During the theoretical analysis of the thesis, the theoretical basis of the model was formed, which was reasoned, elaborated and validated by the empirical research with the participation of four international expert groups. The model itself is presented in the third chapter, describing its empirical validation, as well as revealing the perspectives and limitations of its application. Also the model approbation is presented. 9 scientific articles focusing on the subject discussed in the dissertation have been issued (3 in international journals, 6 in international conference proceedings) and 1 chapter in a book published abroad.Doctoral dissertatio

Nonparametric Bayesian methods in robotic vision

In this dissertation non-parametric Bayesian methods are used in the application of robotic vision. Robots make use of depth sensors that represent their environment using point clouds. Non-parametric Bayesian methods can (1) determine how good an object is recognized, and (2) determine how many objects a particular scene contains. When there is a model available for the object to be recognized and the nature of perceptual error is known, a Bayesian method will act optimally.In this dissertation Bayesian models are developed to represent geometric objects such as lines and line segments (consisting out of points). The infinite line model and the infinite line segment model use a non-parametric Bayesian model, to be precise, a Dirichlet process, to represent the number of objects. The line or the line segment is represented by a probability distribution. The lines can be represented by conjugate distributions and then Gibbs sampling can be used. The line segments are not represented by conjugate distributions and therefore a split-merge sampler is used.A split-merge sampler fits line segments by assigning points to a hypothetical line segment. Then it proposes splits of a single line segment or merges of two line segments. A new sampler, the triadic split-merge sampler, introduces steps that involve three line segments. In this dissertation, the new sampler is compared to a conventional split-merge sampler. The triadic sampler can be applied to other problems as well, i.e., not only problems in robotic perception.The models for objects can also be learned. In the dissertation this is done for more complex objects, such as cubes, built up out of hundreds of points. An auto-encoder then learns to generate a representative object given the data. The auto-encoder uses a newly defined reconstruction distance, called the partitioning earth mover’s distance. The object that is learned by the auto-encoder is used in a triadic sampler to (1) identify the point cloud objects and to (2) establish multiple occurrences of those objects in the point cloud.Algorithms and the Foundations of Software technolog

Common Worlding Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education: Storying situated processes for living and learning in ecologically precarious times

As a society, we must prepare children for unknown futures—to live well amid the ruinous effects of ongoing human-induced climate change and the growing waste crisis. Given these enormous challenges, early childhood education for the 21st century requires a significant shift in pedagogical and curricular approaches that are both creative enough and receptive enough to meet them. This integrated thesis is based on a project that engages with the problematics that surround educating future generations faced by ecological devastation. I do this by engaging with common worlding pedagogies in early childhood education, in two different classrooms in two different locations. In the first classroom, an educator, young children, and I focused on noticing and responding to the liveliness of seen and unseen more-than-human others that live(d) in the nearby forest we visited regularly. In the second classroom, the researchers, educators, and children focused on plastic waste, and how keeping plastics “in sight and in mind” allowed us to notice plastic’s liveliness. In this dissertation that comprises three articles, I offer complex, creative, and situated pedagogies together with speculative storying of entangled and embodied encounters to rethink the pedagogical and curricular processes that took place. In article 1, I introduce ghosting pedagogies and speculative stories to reveal how stories of the shadowy and mythical disrupted child-centered approaches to early childhood environmental education. In article 2, I describe how inundating an early childhood classroom with excess plastic waste provoked a kind of governance that troubled the roles of educator and child, as well as the very materiality of the classroom. Article 3 stories how plastic’s excess challenged the management approach to waste and created otherwise possibilities for responding to the overwhelming plastics crisis. The research presented in each of the three articles is not intended to provide a prescriptive curricular blueprint for early childhood education but rather to provide context-specific snippets of how common worlding pedagogies offer enduring approaches that respond to the situated messy and damaged common worlds in which children, educators, and more-than-human others live

Strategic public management for sme competitiveness in processes of internationalisation of the italian economy

2016 - 2017With respect to the achievement of the research goals inherent to the Doctoral Thesis, it was considered opportune in PART ONE to examine developments in processes of internationalisation in Italy, with a focus on competitiveness in foreign markets as well as the relations underpinning SMEs and the European scenario. Starting with a brief summary of recent trends in the global economy, it emerged that the complex process of internationalisation has afforded SMEs the opportunity to invest in foreign markets, penetrate the same and gradually acquire ever more relevant market share. In this context, delocalisation, i.e. firms transferring productive units to emerging countries characterised by low production costs, has enabled firms to enhance their own markets of reference with added value. The macroeconomic outcomes of globalisation were found to be even more evident in the destructuring processes in terms of organising production, prompting Governments to put in place non interventist policies in favour of productive organisation, extending delocalisation and mobility of investments. ... [edited by Author]XVI n.s