An agenda for rethinking mid-career master programs in public administration

The pace of societal change and the development of societal challenges have speeded up considerably during the last couple of decades, with substantial impact on different levels, i.e. ranging from global to local, or from business to government. When focusing on the public domain, these changes and challenges have had a major impact on public professionals, who face different and frequently changing questions. Mid-career programs in Public Administration (MPA) have the mission to support enrolled professionals in dealing with these changes and challenges. This article is about the development of such MPAs. Both substantive and didactic development is needed. To counter institutional inertia it seems vital to institutionalize a regular rethinking and adaptation of curricula and didactic strategies. This article identified some important points of attention and some options to deal with these in order to continuously improve the contribution of MPA programs to relevant and effective professional development and ongoing professional learning

TET family dioxygenases and DNA demethylation in stem cells and cancers

The methylation of cytosine and subsequent oxidation constitutes a fundamental epigenetic modification in mammalian genomes, and its abnormalities are intimately coupled to various pathogenic processes including cancer development. Enzymes of the Ten-eleven translocation (TET) family catalyze the stepwise oxidation of 5-methylcytosine in DNA to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine and further oxidation products. These oxidized 5-methylcytosine derivatives represent intermediates in the reversal of cytosine methylation, and also serve as stable epigenetic modifications that exert distinctive regulatory roles. It is becoming increasingly obvious that TET proteins and their catalytic products are key regulators of embryonic development, stem cell functions and lineage specification. Over the past several years, the function of TET proteins as a barrier between normal and malignant states has been extensively investigated. Dysregulation of TET protein expression or function is commonly observed in a wide range of cancers. Notably, TET loss-of-function is causally related to the onset and progression of hematologic malignancy in vivo. In this review, we focus on recent advances in the mechanistic understanding of DNA methylation-demethylation dynamics, and their potential regulatory functions in cellular differentiation and oncogenic transformation

Heutagogy in Postgraduate Education: Cognitive Advantages for Higher Degree Online Students

As the nature of postgraduate education changes with the inclusion of diverse groups of students who may live at a distance (sometimes in remote areas) and new and emerging technological affordances, shifts are signaled in relationships with peers, teaching staff, and higher education organizations. Heutagogy, as a self-directed approach to learning, supports higher-level cognitive function, double-loop learning, and a shift from educator centered to learner initiated and driven learning. Provided is an account of heutagogy in the form of three case studies that illustrate heutagogy in the teaching, learning, and supervision of online postgraduate education students through a variety of traditional, immersive, and engaging emerging online tools. By discussing the use of both traditional and emerging innovative ICT tools, provided is an overview of how postgraduate students can demonstrate heutagogical approaches to learning, offering readers ideas and alternatives to use in their profession as online educators

Towards Successful Implementation of a Virtual Classroom for Vocational Higher Education in Indonesia

The virtual classroom continues to grow, but it is becoming more and more the norm, and it is fundamentally different from the vocational students at the Indonesian university. With the promised benefits of the virtual classroom, many challenges and difficulties come in the implementation. Although there are already successful design principles for virtual classrooms that support organizations in overcoming the challenges, the approach to implementing the design principles of virtual classroom at the vocational higher education in Indonesia is still lacking. In this study, we aim to answer the research gap and used the design sciences research by interviewing the lecturers to design the solutions. The proposed design approaches were implemented in a course and evaluated with students from two different groups. Overall, the evaluation of the proposed approaches shows 1 significant results as an indicator of the benefits of the implementation of a virtual classroom for vocational students in Indonesia.peerReviewe