Globalisation Of Postgraduate Logistics Programmes; Challenges And Perspectives For Transnational Higher Education

CONTEXT The purpose of this paper is to investigate key challenges and issues relating to the sudden and rapid development of Transnational Higher Education, with particular emphasis on Logistics Education. Knight (2005) reflects, while the Observatory of Borderless Higher Education in the UK tracks recent developments and reports on them, there is still a real need to ensure that ‘cross-border education reflects and helps to meet individual countries’ educational goals, culture, priorities and policies’. RESEARCH QUESTION/PURPOSE The research question asks ‘What are the challenges of cross-border education and what does this mean for the development of Logistics programmes involved in Transnational Higher Education? As already discussed by Zinn and Goldsby (2014), the merger of logistics, operations, supply management, and related disciplines into the broader field of supply chain management (SCM) has brought together academic fields with different professional identities and competing visions of what SCM ought to be; what students ought to be taught, and what the priorities for research and publication should be. KEY FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Globerson and Wolbrum (2014) state that academia continuously struggles with the content identification of logistics courses, wishing to support industry's needs. As expressed by Gravier and Farris (2008), articles about logistics education had progressed from asking, "Who are we?" in the 1960s and 1970s, to asking" What are we teaching?" from the 1980s. The debate concerning the content of a logistics programmes will always be around since practitioners' needs are dynamic. These initial findings support the fact that an interest in logistics education has been growing, but the author has identified that a third dimension concerning transnational discussions is not apparent

Examining key quality management issues in transnational higher education: how do global partnerships ensure academic credibility of programmes?

This thesis has explored practices of quality management for transnational higher education (TNE) across a University’s partnerships in Singapore, Sri Lanka and the UK. The need for this research was identified as I observed that colleagues in diverse regions at partnerships viewed quality management of programmes differently. These differences in opinion demanded further investigation to examine quality management practices in differing regions and were complemented using literature. Quality management practices were separated out into seven themes for investigation. These practice-led, literature-based themes were (1) strategy, (2) managing partnership expectations, (3) TNE development, (4) TNE challenges, (5) quality assurance practices, (6) culture and (7) postcolonialism. This inquiry of quality management development and practices has been conducted through literature and by interviewing regional colleagues as TNE academic practitioners. Three interviews were conducted in each country: Singapore, Sri Lanka and the UK; at strategic, tactical and operational levels respectively. These hierarchical, semi-structured interviews enabled data collection from a purposive sample of nine practitioners. Academic leaders were interviewed for strategic level considerations, programme leaders for the tactical level and operations managers for the operational level. Semi-structured interview questions were developed from the seven themes, supported by findings in the literature. Using keyword analysis, significant findings within each theme were identified as ‘units of quality’ management. These units have been organised into a framework. The framework provides a mechanism through which expectations and perceptions can be better managed and shaped for TNE. The framework can be used by TNE practitioners in any region, at any hierarchical level and at any given time in the partnership. This affords an opportunity to revise and revisit current quality management practices of TNE, with respect to time, growth and maturity of partnerships, to ensure academic programme credibility

Protein fiber linear dichroism for structure determination and kinetics in a low-volume, low-wavelength couette flow cell

High-resolution structure determination of soluble globular proteins relies heavily on x-ray crystallography techniques. Such an approach is often ineffective for investigations into the structure of fibrous proteins as these proteins generally do not crystallize. Thus investigations into fibrous protein structure have relied on less direct methods such as x-ray fiber diffraction and circular dichroism. Ultraviolet linear dichroism has the potential to provide additional information on the structure of such biomolecular systems. However, existing systems are not optimized for the requirements of fibrous proteins. We have designed and built a low-volume (200 μL), low-wavelength (down to 180 nm), low-pathlength (100 μm), high-alignment flow-alignment system (couette) to perform ultraviolet linear dichroism studies on the fibers formed by a range of biomolecules. The apparatus has been tested using a number of proteins for which longer wavelength linear dichroism spectra had already been measured. The new couette cell has also been used to obtain data on two medically important protein fibers, the all-β-sheet amyloid fibers of the Alzheimer's derived protein Aβ and the long-chain assemblies of α1-antitrypsin polymers

The Supersymmetric Singlet Majoron

We study the supersymmetrized version of the singlet majoron model and, performing an analysis of the renormalization group equation improved potential, we find that a spontaneous breaking of $R$-parity can be achieved for a wide range of the parameters. Studying the finite temperature effective potential, we show that the phase transition leading to $R$-parity breaking can be of the first order and can occur at temperatures below the weak scale, thus avoiding any constraint coming from the requirement of the preservation of the baryon asymmetry in the early Universe.Comment: 24 pages, CERN-TH 6656/92 DFPD 92/TH/43 SISSA-127/92 AP, 2 figures available upon e-mail reques

Supernova Bounds on Supersymmetric RR-parity Violating Interactions

We re-examine resonant massless-neutrino conversions in a dense medium induced by flavour changing neutral current (FCNC) interactions. We show how the observed $\bar\nu_e$ energy spectra from SN1987a and the supernova $r$-process nucleosynthesis provide constraints on supersymmetric models with $R$ parity violation, which are much more stringent than those obtained from the laboratory. We also suggest that resonant massless-neutrino conversions may play a positive role in supernova shock reheating. Finally, we examine the constraints on explicit $R$-parity-violating FCNCs in the presence of non-zero neutrino masses in the eV range, as indicated by present hot dark matter observations.Comment: latex file, 19 pages, including 5 figure

A pilot study on the kinetics of metabolites and microvascular cutaneous effects of nitric oxide inhalation in healthy volunteers

RATIONALE: Inhaled nitric oxide (NO) exerts a variety of effects through metabolites and these play an important role in regulation of hemodynamics in the body. A detailed investigation into the generation of these metabolites has been overlooked. OBJECTIVES: We investigated the kinetics of nitrite and S-nitrosothiol-hemoglobin (SNO-Hb) in plasma derived from inhaled NO subjects and how this modifies the cutaneous microvascular response. FINDINGS: We enrolled 15 healthy volunteers. Plasma nitrite levels at baseline and during NO inhalation (15 minutes at 40 ppm) were 102 (86-118) and 114 (87-129) nM, respectively. The nitrite peak occurred at 5 minutes of discontinuing NO (131 (104-170) nM). Plasma nitrate levels were not significantly different during the study. SNO-Hb molar ratio levels at baseline and during NO inhalation were 4.7E-3 (2.5E-3-5.8E-3) and 7.8E-3 (4.1E-3-13.0E-3), respectively. Levels of SNO-Hb continued to climb up to the last study time point (30 min: 10.6E-3 (5.3E-3-15.5E-3)). The response to acetylcholine iontophoresis both before and during NO inhalation was inversely associated with the SNO-Hb level (r: -0.57, p = 0.03, and r: -0.54, p = 0.04, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Both nitrite and SNO-Hb increase during NO inhalation. Nitrite increases first, followed by a more sustained increase in Hb-SNO. Nitrite and Hb-SNO could be a mobile reservoir of NO with potential implications on the systemic microvasculature

A dysfunctional Cl inhibitor protein with a new reactive center mutation (Arg-444→Leu)

AbstractA Pl mutation (Arg-444→Leu) was identified in a dysfunctional Cl inhibitor from a patient with type 2 hereditary angioneurotic edema. The mutation was defined at the level of the protein (by sequence analysis of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa elastase-derived reactive center peptide), and the mRNA (CGC→CTC) (by sequence analysis of PCR-amplified DNA)

Function and Distribution of Apolipoprotein A1 in The Artery Wall Are Markedly Distinct From Those in Plasma

Background—Prior studies show that apolipoprotein A1 (apoA1) recovered from human atherosclerotic lesions is highly oxidized. Ex vivo oxidation of apoA1 or high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cross-links apoA1 and impairs lipid binding, cholesterol efflux, and lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase activities of the lipoprotein. Remarkably, no studies to date directly quantify either the function or HDL particle distribution of apoA1 recovered from the human artery wall. Methods and Results—A monoclonal antibody (10G1.5) was developed that equally recognizes lipid-free and HDL-associated apoA1 in both native and oxidized forms. Examination of homogenates of atherosclerotic plaque–laden aorta showed \u3e100-fold enrichment of apoA1 compared with normal aorta (P\u3c0.001). Surprisingly, buoyant density fractionation revealed that only a minority (\u3c3% of total) of apoA1 recovered from either lesions or normal aorta resides within an HDL-like particle (1.063≤d≤1.21). In contrast, the majority (\u3e90%) of apoA1 within aortic tissue (normal and lesions) was recovered within the lipoprotein-depleted fraction (d\u3e1.21). Moreover, both lesion and normal artery wall apoA1 are highly cross-linked (50% to 70% of total), and functional characterization of apoA1 quantitatively recovered from aorta with the use of monoclonal antibody 10G1.5 showed ≈80% lower cholesterol efflux activity and ≈90% lower lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase activity relative to circulating apoA1. Conclusions—The function and distribution of apoA1 in human aorta are quite distinct from those found in plasma. The lipoprotein is markedly enriched within atherosclerotic plaque, predominantly lipid-poor, not associated with HDL, extensively oxidatively cross-linked, and functionally impaired