2,102 research outputs found
The Internationalisation of Higher Education in the Mediterranean
The internationalisation of higher education is aimed at enhancing the quality and standards of
teaching and research. This study addresses mobility and cross-border education trends in the
Euro-Mediterranean region, with special emphasis on academic exchange, involving students,
scholars and administrative staff, as well as on the strategic international partnerships across
the globe. The study focuses on 10 countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya,
Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia. It aims to investigate the internationalisation of
higher education focusing especially on resources and opportunities available at the national and
regional levels, to identify obstacles and challenges and to outline transferable inspiring practices
and finally to make a series of recommendations for the Union for the Mediterranean to foster
regional integration. As for the methodology, a survey investigating teaching and administrative
staff as well as student mobility was submitted to a sample of universities representing the 10
target countries; further interviews with international and regional stakeholders were conducted,
focus groups were established, involving the universities covered by the study and a thorough
desk research was undertaken. As a result, the report presents a detailed context analysis
with a focus on mobility flows to and from the 10 target countries, complemented by a wide
range of inspiring and scalable practices, as well as an overview of the role played by regional
organisations in providing opportunities, creating synergies and making resources available for
the higher education institutions in the Mediterranean. Country-specific recommendations were
designed in order to address national challenges. At the end of the research and consultative
process, a number of common themes for the Euro-Mediterranean region were also identified,
in relation to which additional recommendations were drafted, with the aim of enhancing the
internationalisation of higher education in the region. We are still far from the finish line and this
report has the ambitious goal to represent a building block for those willing to further explore
the issue. Here follow the main findings, which are common to more than one country: Erasmus+
emerged as the programme generating the largest impact on the internationalisation strategies
of higher education institutions; the need for university leadership to consider the administrative
staff as a key element to support internationalisation; the high fragmentation in the procedures
and systems of credit recognition and assessment of qualifications; difficulties were encountered
in collecting reliable and comparable data. Obtaining visas for international mobility, especially
for MENA countries to access Europe, has always been a serious obstacle to exchanges and
international cooperation should focus more on human and social sciences, often neglected
compared to hard sciences. Above all, the study highlights how, in most cases, internationalisation
is simply identified as mobility, while a more comprehensive internationalisation strategy would
be highly beneficial for institutions and staff and may increase attractiveness and participation
Pilot study on the influence of stress caused by the need to combine work and family on occupational accidents in working women
The influx of a large number of women into the workforce involves the need for these women to combine family and work responsibilities. Multiple roles lead to workâfamily conflict. This study analyzes the influence of workâfamily conflict on the causes of minor occupational accidents suffered by working women. A survey was done on working women in the Madrid region, who had suffered a minor occupational accident in 2004. The main finding was that nearly half of the women with children considered that the stress and fatigue caused by trying to combine work and family played a part in the accident; 21% of the respondents whose accidents took place while traveling to or from work and 11% the respondents who suffered the accident in the workplace said that family reasons played a part. Additionally, 50% of the women suffered after-effects as a result of the accident; children had to change their routine in almost 1 in 4 cases; nearly a quarter of the respondents said their work situation had been temporarily modified. This point to a need for polices that encourage men and employers to contribute more to solve workâfamily conflicts
Temperature dependence of plankton community metabolism in the subtropical and tropical oceans
Here we assess the temperature dependence of the metabolic rates (gross primary production
(GPP), community respiration (CR), and the ratio GPP/CR) of oceanic plankton communities. We compile
data from 133 stations of the Malaspina 2010 Expedition, distributed among the subtropical and tropical
Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. We used the in vitro technique to measured metabolic rates during 24 h
incubations at three different sampled depths: surface, 20%, and 1% of the photosynthetically active
radiation measured at surface. We also measured the % of ultraviolet B radiation (UVB) penetrating at surface
waters. GPP and CR rates increased with warming, albeit different responses were observed for each sampled
depth. The overall GPP/CR ratio declined with warming. Higher activation energies (Ea) were derived for
both processes (GPPChla = 0.97; CRChla = 1.26; CRHPA = 0.95 eV) compared to those previously reported. The
Indian Ocean showed the highest Ea (GPPChla = 1.70; CRChla = 1.48; CRHPA = 0.57 eV), while the Atlantic
Ocean showed the lowest (GPPChla = 0.86; CRChla = 0.77; CRHPA = 0.13 eV). We believe that the difference
between previous assessments and the ones presented here can be explained by the overrepresentation of
Atlantic communities in the previous data sets. We found that UVB radiation also affects the temperature
dependence of surface GPP, which decreased rather than increased under high levels of UVB. Ocean
warming, which causes stratification and oligotrophication of the subtropical and tropical oceans, may lead
to reduced surface GPP as a result of increased penetration of UVB radiation.En prens
Observation of an Exotic Baryon in Exclusive Photoproduction from the Deuteron
In an exclusive measurement of the reaction , a
narrow peak that can be attributed to an exotic baryon with strangeness
is seen in the invariant mass spectrum. The peak is at
GeV/c with a measured width of 0.021 GeV/c FWHM, which is largely
determined by experimental mass resolution. The statistical significance of the
peak is . The mass and width of the observed peak are
consistent with recent reports of a narrow baryon by other experimental
groups.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
First measurement of direct photoproduction on the proton
We report on the results of the first measurement of exclusive
meson photoproduction on protons for GeV and GeV. Data were collected with the CLAS detector at the Thomas
Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The resonance was detected via its
decay in the channel by performing a partial wave analysis of the
reaction . Clear evidence of the meson
was found in the interference between and waves at GeV. The -wave differential cross section integrated in the mass range of
the was found to be a factor of 50 smaller than the cross section
for the meson. This is the first time the meson has been
measured in a photoproduction experiment
Search for pentaquark in high statistics measurement of at CLAS
The exclusive reaction was studied in the
photon energy range between 1.6-3.8 GeV searching for evidence of the exotic
baryon . The decay to requires the assignment of
strangeness to any observed resonance. Data were collected with the CLAS
detector at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility corresponding to
an integrated luminosity of 70 . No evidence for the
pentaquark was found. Upper limits were set on the production cross section as
function of center-of-mass angle and mass. The 95% CL upper limit on the
total cross section for a narrow resonance at 1540 MeV was found to be 0.8 nb.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Letter
Onset of asymptotic scaling in deuteron photodisintegration
We investigate the transition from the nucleon-meson to quark-gluon
description of the strong interaction using the photon energy dependence of the
differential cross section for photon energies above 0.5 GeV and
center-of-mass proton angles between and . A possible
signature for this transition is the onset of cross section scaling
with the total energy squared, , at some proton transverse momentum, .
The results show that the scaling has been reached for proton transverse
momentum above about 1.1 GeV/c. This may indicate that the quark-gluon regime
is reached above this momentum.Comment: Accepted by PRL; 5 pages, 2 figure
First measurement of coherent -meson photoproduction on deuteron at low energies
The cross section and decay angular distributions for the coherent \phi meson
photoproduction on the deuteron have been measured for the first time up to a
squared four-momentum transfer t =(p_{\gamma}-p_{\phi})^2 =-2 GeV^2/c^2, using
the CLAS detector at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The
cross sections are compared with predictions from a re-scattering model. In a
framework of vector meson dominance, the data are consistent with the total
\phi-N cross section \sigma_{\phi N} at about 10 mb. If vector meson dominance
is violated, a larger \sigma_{\phi N} is possible by introducing larger t-slope
for the \phi N \to \phi N process than that for the \gamma N \to \phi N
process. The decay angular distributions of the \phi are consistent with
helicity conservation.Comment: 6 page
Exclusive electroproduction on the proton at CLAS
The reaction has been measured, using the 5.754
GeV electron beam of Jefferson Lab and the CLAS detector. This represents the
largest ever set of data for this reaction in the valence region. Integrated
and differential cross sections are presented. The , and
dependences of the cross section are compared to theoretical calculations based
on -channel meson-exchange Regge theory on the one hand and on quark handbag
diagrams related to Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) on the other hand.
The Regge approach can describe at the 30% level most of the features
of the present data while the two GPD calculations that are presented in this
article which succesfully reproduce the high energy data strongly underestimate
the present data. The question is then raised whether this discrepancy
originates from an incomplete or inexact way of modelling the GPDs or the
associated hard scattering amplitude or whether the GPD formalism is simply
inapplicable in this region due to higher-twists contributions, incalculable at
present.Comment: 29 pages, 29 figure
Two-Nucleon Momentum Distributions Measured in 3He(e,e'pp)n
We have measured the 3He(e,e'pp)n reaction at 2.2 GeV over a wide kinematic
range. The kinetic energy distribution for `fast' nucleons (p > 250 MeV/c)
peaks where two nucleons each have 20% or less, and the third nucleon has most
of the transferred energy. These fast pp and pn pairs are back-to-back with
little momentum along the three-momentum transfer, indicating that they are
spectators. Experimental and theoretical evidence indicates that we have
measured distorted two-nucleon momentum distributions by striking the third
nucleon and detecting the spectator correlated pair.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR
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