International degree student conceptions of employability

Abstract. Employability has become a core directive of higher education. In Europe, the Bologna Process has been instrumental in strengthening the ties between higher education and the labour market to meet the needs of the knowledge economy. As higher education institutions are prescribed an increasingly important responsibility in contributing to national welfare and maintaining an economic competitive edge, internationalisation strategies aimed at attracting international talent are implemented both at the national and institutional levels. As an EU member state, Finland has incorporated such policies as part of its internationalisation strategy. However, student perspectives on employability are underrepresented in the prevailing employer-driven discourse and academic research. This thesis responds to the need for contextually relevant research on the role of higher education in employability development in Finland. It aims to fill the gap by investigating the perspectives of international degree students enrolled at the University of Oulu. Using phenomenography this thesis investigates (a) international students’ conceptual understanding of employability and, (b) their perceptions of and expectations of the employability development opportunities provided by the University of Oulu. The findings show that international students have a predominantly instrumental understanding of employability and expect the University of Oulu to provide them with more opportunities to find work. Students also indicate that they feel unprepared to enter the Finnish job market after graduation. A theoretical exploration of employability reveals that employer-driven definitions of employability are formulated narrowly. Alternatives propose a more comprehensive approach to graduate employability development which can be useful to the University of Oulu. A customisable model of graduate capital, in addition to developing an inclusive campus community with the input of the university’s new Career Centre, may provide options for a new employability agenda that can support the attraction and retention of international talent

Assessment of combined scale/corrosion inhibitors - A combined jar test/bubble cell

The formation of calcium carbonate scale and the occurrence of CO corrosion are both widespread phenomena observed within pipework during oil and gas production. The most common form of treatment for both processes is the application of chemical inhibition through corrosion and/or scale inhibitors. Surface scaling of pipework rarely occurs in environments where no corrosion exists, yet techniques used to develop and assess the performance of scale inhibitors tend to focus on assessing and reducing solely bulk/surface scaling, without affording consideration towards corrosion, whilst corrosion inhibitors are frequently evaluated in non-scaling environments. Furthermore, both chemicals tend to be evaluated independently meaning that any potential antagonistic effects between the chemicals can go unrecognised. This paper addresses this very issue by presenting a unique setup and methodology to enable the occurrence of scale and corrosion to be monitored simultaneously in a CO-saturated environment in the presence and absence of combined scale and corrosion inhibitors. The test cell focuses on evaluating four key parameters which are quantified either throughout the duration of the test, or from the implementation of post-test surface analysis techniques. The multiple assessment of (i) bulk scale precipitation, (ii) surface scaling, (iii) general corrosion and (iv) localised corrosion permits a full assessment of the chemical blends propensity to mitigate both scaling and corrosion. Non-inhibited tests were initially conducted at 60 °C to form a baseline for comparison. Four combined scale/corrosion inhibitors were subsequently used at low concentrations in order to understand their mechanisms and highlight any competitive effect which existed in reducing either scale or corrosion. The results demonstrate that the methodology implemented is effective at assessing the efficiency of combined inhibitors in reducing both corrosion and scale in environments where both processes occur simultaneously. The limitations of conducting solely bulk scaling or corrosion tests in non-scaling environments are discussed relative to the results obtained in this work. The results of each individual inhibitor are discussed and markedly different behaviour is observed according to the concentration administered, as well as the particular blend of chemicals applied

Vers un autre modèle de relations Nord-Sud. Éléments d'un plan de coopération CEE-Amérique centrale

Estievenart Georges. Vers un autre modèle de relations Nord-Sud. Éléments d'un plan de coopération CEE-Amérique centrale. In: Tiers-Monde, tome 24, n°96, 1983. La coopération Sud-Sud. Etat et perspectives, sous la direction de Abdelkader Sid-Ahmed. pp. 853-858

Predicting secondary structure with dynamine -- Informatique

info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe

On MITL and alternating timed automata on infinite words

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Exporting Databases in XML - A Conceptual and Generic Approach

This paper describes a generic conceptual framework in which semantics-based XML DTD can be derived from existing, and more generally legacy, databases. It consists in first recovering the conceptual schema of the database through reverse engineering techniques, then in converting this schema, or part of it, into XML-compliant data structures