The interweaving of diaries and lives : diary-keeping behaviour in a diary-interview study of international students’ employability management

This article explores ‘diary-keeping behaviour’, or the ways in which participants conduct the completion and submission of diaries in diary research. There is a paucity of methodologically oriented literature on diary method and as such this article makes a contribution to extending the existing knowledge of this method. The primary aim of this article is to set out in detail the key issues relating to diary-keeping behaviour, in order to provide a foundation for future critical explorations of this facet of diary research. The research that this paper is based on involved a 12-month diary-interview study. This project explored the employability management of Chinese international Master’s students in social sciences studying in the UK during one academic year. The article sets out key facets of diary-keeping behaviour and explores specific considerations for diary studies in higher education contexts, where diary research has been particularly neglected

In two places at once : the impact of caring responsibilities on academic's conference participation : final project report

The study departs from the perspective that conferences are important but neglected research sites. Equality and diversity studies of the academic profession tend to focus on issues of care in relation to higher education institutions, rather than professional spaces that academics circulate in outside of their ‘home’ institution/s. Studies of care and the academic profession and/or mobility seldom focus on conferences. Therefore this study fills a gap in knowledge about academics, care and conferences. Conferences come to represent a particular type of challenge for care, because they are interruptions to the care routine. Challenges relating to care and conferences can involve the challenges of being accompanied to the conference and managing the dual role of care-giver and conference attendee, and/or ensuring that ongoing care support is provided at home during the conference

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Enhancing the Employability of Chinese International Students: Identifying Achievements and Gaps in the Research Field

This article shows what achievements have been made by existing studies on graduate employability, and what gaps need to be filled in this field. It starts with a retrospective account of the changing concept of employability, followed by a presentation of the practices that have been used to support graduate employability enhancement in different countries. Moreover, this article gives a critical review of Chinese contexts of graduate labour market. Last but not least, limitations of existing studies are identified, which reflect an expectation for future research on graduate employability to meet the demand of an increasingly international dimension of higher education

Revisioning the employability of international students : a longitudinal diary-based study of Chinese master’s students in the UK from a capabilities perspective

As the largest source country for international students, China has witnessed a huge wave of returnees over the last five years. Chinese international students, who expect positive benefits from overseas higher education (HE) with regard to their career prospects, are beginning to confront employment difficulties in the Chinese labour market. However, insufficient research exists on Chinese students’ understanding of the relationship between their overseas learning experience and employability enhancement. This research takes Chinese international students (who completed undergraduate studies in China) studying social sciences taught Master’s programmes in the UK as the sample, adopting the Capabilities Approach as its theoretical framework and employing semi-structured interviews and solicited diaries to explore their employability management (EM), specifically regarding their motivations for receiving HE abroad, expectations with regard to employability enhancement via international HE, employability management practices during their overseas journeys, and factors impacting their EM and career plans. This thesis argues that participants choose to receive HE abroad out of both intrinsic and instrumental motivations, with career development standing out in the motivation set. Participants’ expectations regarding employability enhancement, as achieved by receiving HE abroad, are not only for graduate employment outcomes but also for long-term personal development. Regarding overseas journey as living abroad rather than simply studying abroad, participants’ EM practices permeate their overseas daily lives in addition to specific events relating to learning and working. Moreover participants’ EM is not only determined by their own choices, but also the impact of conversion factors, including their previous experiences, important “others” involved in their overseas lives, and their own agency of enlarging internal capabilities and interacting with external contexts. Receiving HE abroad is effective in supporting graduate employability of participants by equipping them with capabilities and functionings which are difficult to achieve without international experience; however, it is as participants’ freedom of career choice is heavily impacted by strong conversion factors such as family background, relationship status, financial status and gender

Graduate Education of Christian Universities in Modern China: A Case Study of Nanking University

From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, traditional Chinese society experienced a significant period of gradual development toward modernization. Along with the transformation of social institutions, people’s thoughts were also changing. Christian missionaries in China began to continue their mission by establishing Christian universities in the midst of the drastic changes in modern Chinese society. These Christian universities brought Western scientific and cultural knowledge to China, and gradually bridged the gap between the Chinese intellectual community and the outside world. From the acquisition of the right to award degrees to the approval of the Chinese government and, subsequently, to the development of graduate education localized in modern China, Christian universities have made new attempts on the ancient Chinese land. The existing literature, however, often ignores the cultural value and ideological enlightenment contributions made by these Christian universities. This paper attempts to describe the arduous exploration process of Christian universities, employing historical examples to analyze the motivations of Christian universities to develop degree education. The key argument of this article is that Christian universities in modern China are not only “imported” but also a product of “sinicization”, which represents the exchange and collision between Chinese and Western cultures during a special period of time

Graduate Education of Christian Universities in Modern China: A Case Study of Nanking University

From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, traditional Chinese society experienced a significant period of gradual development toward modernization. Along with the transformation of social institutions, people’s thoughts were also changing. Christian missionaries in China began to continue their mission by establishing Christian universities in the midst of the drastic changes in modern Chinese society. These Christian universities brought Western scientific and cultural knowledge to China, and gradually bridged the gap between the Chinese intellectual community and the outside world. From the acquisition of the right to award degrees to the approval of the Chinese government and, subsequently, to the development of graduate education localized in modern China, Christian universities have made new attempts on the ancient Chinese land. The existing literature, however, often ignores the cultural value and ideological enlightenment contributions made by these Christian universities. This paper attempts to describe the arduous exploration process of Christian universities, employing historical examples to analyze the motivations of Christian universities to develop degree education. The key argument of this article is that Christian universities in modern China are not only “imported” but also a product of “sinicization”, which represents the exchange and collision between Chinese and Western cultures during a special period of time

Structural Characteristics and the Antioxidant and Hypoglycemic Activities of a Polysaccharide from <i>Lonicera caerulea</i> L. Pomace

In this study, a novel polysaccharide, LPP, was obtained from Lonicera caerulea L. pomace by ultrasonic-assisted heating and was purified by Sephadex G-100. The structural characteristics of LPP showed that the molecular weight (Mw) was 8.53 × 104 Da; that it was mainly composed of galacturonic acid, followed by galactose; that it possessed the characteristic functional groups of polysaccharides; and that it had an absence of O-glycosidic bonds and crystalline and triple helix structures. Furthermore, LPP exhibited a favorable thermodynamic stability and antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and hypolipidemic activities in a dose-dependent manner in vitro, demonstrating that LPP can be used as an agent to regulate glycolipid metabolism. Additionally, the relationship between its bio-activities is discussed in this paper. The results revealed that the RP, •OH, and NO2− radicals had synergistic promoting effects, and polysaccharides with a strong antioxidant ability may have excellent hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects. Collectively, these results suggest that LPP has a strong bio-activity, and that Lonicera caerulea L. pomace can be used as a potential polysaccharide source