Cross-Border Higher Education : The Expansion of International Branch Campuses

The international expansion of higher education has intensified in recent decades with a rapidly growing number of international branch campuses appearing on the scene. This study investigates the economic, cultural and institutional, and educational determinants of transnational higher education on both the extensive margin (number of international branch campuses), and the intensive margin (the total number of educational programmes offered). Using the gravity equation, we applied fixed-effect empirical methods to a panel dataset that combined and extended the raw data from campuses and master's programmes in 33 source countries and 76 host countries in the period from 1948 to 2016. Estimates reveal that although cultural, economic and institutional ties foster cross-border educational relationships, their effect differs significantly from one margin to another. The study highlights the relevance of globalisation, research activities, and aggregate demand in international higher education

Introduction: Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

Introductory article for the site 'Is This What Democracy Looks Like?'. "This dossier takes its cue from one of the Occupy movement’s bedrock slogans, 'This Is What Democracy Looks Like' (though the catchword was first nurtured, as were many Occupy paradigms, tactics, and customs, in the global justice movement that came of age in Seattle in 1999). This proud assertion, stiffened by populist certitudes about the '99%' hypermajority, exercised a clear appeal to protesters. It is self-congratulatory, confrontational, and also quite articulate as a political statement. Not everyone has to believe the slogan to chant it. But what if it were taken up as a more literal goal? What if the Occupy model of horizontalism, explicated below, were to be pushed into every venue of civil society, eventually supplanting the roots of our representative democracy system? Who would gain and who would lose? How would our own institutions, organizations, and networks be transformed in the process? The radical innocence of Occupy allowed such questions to be asked. After more than a year of operations under its name, the record allows some provisional answers to be offered.

Introduction: Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

Introductory article for the site 'Is This What Democracy Looks Like?'. "This dossier takes its cue from one of the Occupy movement’s bedrock slogans, 'This Is What Democracy Looks Like' (though the catchword was first nurtured, as were many Occupy paradigms, tactics, and customs, in the global justice movement that came of age in Seattle in 1999). This proud assertion, stiffened by populist certitudes about the '99%' hypermajority, exercised a clear appeal to protesters. It is self-congratulatory, confrontational, and also quite articulate as a political statement. Not everyone has to believe the slogan to chant it. But what if it were taken up as a more literal goal? What if the Occupy model of horizontalism, explicated below, were to be pushed into every venue of civil society, eventually supplanting the roots of our representative democracy system? Who would gain and who would lose? How would our own institutions, organizations, and networks be transformed in the process? The radical innocence of Occupy allowed such questions to be asked. After more than a year of operations under its name, the record allows some provisional answers to be offered.

Urban agriculture - A necessary pathway towards urban resilience and global sustainability?

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MThe Covid-19 pandemic newly brings food resilience in cities to our attention and the need to question the desired degree of food self-sufficiency through urban agriculture. While these questions are by no means new and periodically entering the global research focus and policy discussions during periods of crises - the last time during the global financial crisis and resulting food price increases in 2008 - urban and peri-urban agriculture continue to be replaced by land-uses rendering higher market values (e.g. housing, transport, leisure). The loss of priority for urban agriculture in urban land-use planning is a global trend with only a few exceptions. We argue in this essay that this development has widely taken place due to three blind spots in urban planning. First, the limited consideration of social and ecological vulnerabilities and risk-related inequalities of urban inhabitants, food shortage among them, in the face of different scenarios of global change, including climate change or pandemic events such as Covid-19. Second, the disregard of the intensified negative environmental (and related social) externalities caused by distant agricultural production, as well as lacking consideration of nutrient recycling potentials in cities (e.g. from wastewater) to replace emission intensive mineral fertilizer use. Third, the lack of accounting for the multifunctionality of urban agriculture and the multiple benefits it provides beyond the provision of food, including social benefits and insurance values, for instance the maintenance of cultural heritage and agro-biodiversity. Along these lines, we argue that existing and new knowledge about urban risks and vulnerabilities, the spatially explicit urban metabolism (e.g. energy, water, nutrients), as well as ecosystem services need to be stronger and jointly considered in land-use decision-making

Mapping direct N2O emissions from peri-urban agriculture : the case of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MAltres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UABGeographically explicit datasets reflecting local management of crops are needed to help improve direct nitrous oxide (N2O) emission inventories. Yet, the lack of geographically explicit datasets of relevant factors influencing the emissions make it difficult to estimate them in such way. Particularly, for local peri-urban agriculture, spatially explicit datasets of crop type, fertilizer use, irrigation, and emission factors (EFs) are hard to find, yet necessary for evaluating and promoting urban self-sufficiency, resilience, and circularity. We spatially distribute these factors for the peri-urban agriculture in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB) and create N2O emissions maps using crop-specific EFs as well as Tier 1 IPCC EFs for comparison. Further, the role of the soil types is qualitatively assessed. When compared to Tier 1 IPCC EFs, we find 15% more emissions (i.e. 7718 kg N2O-N year−1) than those estimated with the crop-specific EFs (i.e. 6533 kg N2O-N year−1) for the entire AMB. Emissions for most rainfed crop areas like cereals (e.g. oat and barley) and non-citric fruits (e.g. cherries and peaches), which cover 24% and 13% of AMB's peri-urban agricultural area respectively, are higher with Tier 1 EF. Conversely, crop-specific EFs estimate higher emissions for irrigated horticultural crops (e.g. tomato, artichoke) which cover 33% of AMB's peri-urban agricultural area and make up 70% of the total N2O emissions (4588 kg N2O-N year−1 using crop-specific EFs). Mapping the emissions helps evaluate spatial variability of key factors such as fertilizer use and irrigation of crops but carry uncertainties due to downscaling regional data to represent urban level data gaps. It also highlighted core emitting areas. Further the usefulness of the outputs on mitigation, sustainability and circularity studies are briefly discussed

Identification of N-terminal protein acetylation and arginine methylation of the voltage-gated sodium channel in end-stage heart failure human heart

The α subunit of the cardiac voltage-gated sodium channel, Naᵥ1.5, provides the rapid sodium inward current that initiates cardiomyocyte action potentials. Here, we analyzed for the first time the post-translational modifications of Naᵥ1.5 purified from end-stage heart failure human cardiac tissue. We identified R526 methylation as the major post-translational modification of any Naᵥ1.5 arginine or lysine residue. Unexpectedly, we found that the N terminus of Naᵥ1.5 was: 1) devoid of the initiation methionine, and 2) acetylated at the resulting initial alanine residue. This is the first evidence for N-terminal acetylation in any member of the voltage-gated ion channel superfamily. Our results open the door to explore Naᵥ1.5 N-terminal acetylation and arginine methylation levels as drivers or markers of end-stage heart failure

Estrategias metodológicas para desarrollar la inteligencia lingüística en los niños de primer año de Educación Básica inferior de la Unidad Educativa Dos de Marzo, de la ciudad de Atuntaqui en el año lectivo 2012-2013

Objetivo General Identificar el nivel de inteligencia lingüística de los niños del Primer Año de Educación General Básica, mediante la aplicación de instrumentos de investigación para conocer el tipo de estrategias que se aplican en el aula.Esta investigación parte del problema de ¿Qué estrategias promueven el desarrollo de la inteligencia lingüística en los niños del Primer Año de Educación General Básica, de la Unidad Educativa ¿Dos de Marzo¿ de la Ciudad de Atuntaqui , en el año lectivo 2012 ¿ 2013 ? El objetivo de investigación es Identificar el nivel de inteligencia lingüística de los niños del Primer Año de Educación General Básica, mediante la aplicación de instrumentos de investigación para conocer el tipo de estrategias que se aplican en el aula. El diseño metodológico que se escogió es una investigación documental, descriptiva, propositiva y de campo, apoyada en el método descriptivo, analítico ¿ sintético, inductivo ¿ deductivo y estadístico. Esta investigación tiene su fundamento filosófico en la Teoría Humanista que tiene como objeto de estudio el desarrollo de la personalidad y las condiciones de crecimiento existencial el desarrollo intelectual, enfatizando fundamentalmente la experiencia subjetiva, la libertad de elección y la relevancia del significado individual. Pedagógicamente se fundamentó en la Teoría Ecológica Contextual que destaca el papel que juega el contexto histórico, geográfico, ecológico, cultural, social, económico, familiar, escolar, de aula, en el proceso educativo y en el aprendizaje en particular. Psicológicamente en la Teoría Cognitiva que tiene por objeto de estudio al aprendizaje en función de la forma como este se organiza y al estudiante como un agente activo de su propio aprendizaje, donde el maestro es un profesional creativo quien planifica experiencias, contenidos con materiales cuyo único fin es que el niño logre aprendizajes significativos. Sociológicamente se fundamentó en la Teoría Socio- Crítica que concibe como principio esencial las múltiples dimensiones del desarrollo integral del ser humano, revalora la cultura y la ciencia acumulada por la humanidad, reivindica al individuo como centro del proceso de aprendizaje. La novedad de este trabajo de grado es el análisis de las estrategias para desarrollar la inteligencia lingüística en los niños de Primer Año de Educación General Básica, sus lineamientos teóricos, fundamentos, características y ejemplos con talleres, lo que garantiza el éxito al ser llevado a la práctica

Attitudes Towards Indebtedness and Relationship with the Psychological Well-Being of Postgraduate Students at Temuco

Globalization has impacted the dynamics of relationships within Chilean society, with important changes at all levels, both social, cultural, and economic, where emphasis has been placed on practices associated with consumption and indebtedness. The purpose of the research was to know the relationship between attitudes towards indebtedness and psychological well-being, for postgraduate students of Temuco. A non-experimental exploratory cross-sectional research design was used, with a correlational explanatory scope. The information was collected through the measurement instrument that allowed measuring attitudes towards indebtedness through 2 dimensions: austere and hedonistic, and on the other hand, an instrument which allowed measuring psychological well-being through 6 dimensions: self-perception, positive relationships, autonomy, mastery of the environment, personal growth, and purpose in life. The results indicate that there is a relationship between attitudes towards indebtedness and psychological well-being in postgraduate students. It was determined that the hedonistic profile has an inverse relationship with some dimensions of psychological well-being such as autonomy, personal growth, and mastery of the environment, while the austere profile is directly related to the dimension, positive relationships, corresponding to psychological well-being