Preparing students’ entry into the business world. The case of European University Cyprus

The aim of the project is to investigate the requirements of the business sector in light of the skills and competencies students should have in order to be recruited. In addition, the project aims to identify methods and/or techniques that European University Cyprus can utilize in order to ensure the even more effective and efficient introduction of these skills and competencies to students. Finally, the project proposes ways to offer, practical experience prior to students’ graduation and boost their chances of employment. More specifically, the “Problem” investigated involves the review of the various business sectors in Cyprus in addition to the business programs offered at EUC. In this fashion, the study intends to measure the importance of the skills and competencies sought by the business world, revealing ways through which students can develop such skills. Furthermore, the study aims to identify and recommend specific, practical, non-academic but effective methods so that students obtain the best possible applied knowledge, more practically prepared for entering the workplace. In general the objectives of the study are: Explore and define skills, competencies and practical experience, as seen through the international literature. - Evaluate the importance of the above skills and competencies. - Identify the most important skills and competencies for a successful career in the business world. - Measure the degree of students’ possession of the above skills and competencies - Identify and validate the gap that exists between what the business world is looking for and what students perceive they posses in terms of skills and competencies. - Identify and recommend specific methods that Universities can utilize to minimize that gap

Analyze Mass Spectrometry data with Artificial Intelligence to assist the understanding of past habitability of Mars and provide insights for future missions

This paper presents an application of artificial intelligence on mass spectrometry data for detecting habitability potential of ancient Mars. Although data was collected for planet Mars the same approach can be replicated for any terrestrial object of our solar system. Furthermore, proposed methodology can be adapted to any domain that uses mass spectrometry. This research is focused in data analysis of two mass spectrometry techniques, evolved gas analysis (EGA-MS) and gas chromatography (GC-MS), which are used to identify specific chemical compounds in geological material samples. The study demonstrates the applicability of EGA-MS and GC-MS data to extra-terrestrial material analysis. Most important features of proposed methodology includes square root transformation of mass spectrometry values, conversion of raw data to 2D sprectrograms and utilization of specific machine learning models and techniques to avoid overfitting on relative small datasets. Both EGA-MS and GC-MS datasets come from NASA and two machine learning competitions that the author participated and exploited. Complete running code for the GC-MS dataset/competition is available at GitHub.1 Raw training mass spectrometry data include [0, 1] labels of specific chemical compounds, selected to provide valuable insights and contribute to our understanding of the potential past habitability of Mars

THE GREEK NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT POLICY: THE EXPANDING INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

European Union has adapted an employment strategy since the decade of the 1990s that has affected all its member states. This policy is referred in the European Employment Strategy as the set of microeconomic and social policies that affect the labor supply and demand, the functioning of the labor market and the organization of internal labor of businesses. In fact, the national employment policy choices of the member states are appreciably reduced over the years. Indeed, European Union has a special competence in employment affairs in accordance with European Union Treaties. However, European Union priorities and European Integration have shaped a broader framework within which the member states implement their national employment policies. The resulting conclusion is that the European Union actually directs the member states' employment policy choices and there is not a fundamental margin for them to plan national employment policy. Especially in the case of Greece, which came under the strong supervision of European institutions during the last years of economic crisis of 2008, the possibility of pursuing an autonomous national employment policy was more limited, due to the financial constraints and the policies it was obliged to follow during the memoranda and enhanced supervision period. Regardless of this, the conclusion that emerges is that the European Union essentially directs the member states' employment policy choices, especially those with fiscal problems such as Greece. Keywords: National employment policy, Greece, European Union, governance, Europeanization. &nbsp

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs): Potential Impacts and Critical Success Factors

In recent years, PPPs have been increasingly used to implement projects and provide public services. The governments have made the necessary legislative and financial efforts in order to promote PPPs, given the need to acquire know-how from the private sector and the advantages they bring to the public sector and the citizens. However, the use of PPPs should be carefully planned as, in addition to the wider social and economic impacts, failures and negative results have been observed. This article attempts to present the main characteristics of PPPs, cite their possible impacts and quote their critical success factors in order to make PPPs more beneficial for the involved parties and the citizens

Neuropsychological Functions and Cognitive Neurorehabilitation in Multiple Sclerosis

Although cognitive difficulties are not frequently reported by patients among the initial symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), there is sufficient evidence that cognitive impairment is present from the early stage of the disease. Today it is commonly accepted that roughly one-half of individuals with MS will experience cognitive dysfunction over the course of the disease. Though MS was originally considered a disease of white matter, more recent investigations with advanced immunohistochemistry techniques have revealed that demyelination of gray matter is a common neuropathological feature in MS contributing significantly to cognitive impairment. However, despite now been recognized as a core symptom of MS, evidence up till now is only modest regarding the efficacy of pharmacological agents on cognitive dysfunction and non-pharmacological interventions such as cognitive rehabilitation also provide incomplete evidence on whether they might improve or stabilize cognitive impairment and especially over long follow up periods. Despite this general consensus, there are studies that have reported the efficacy of cognitive neurorehabilitation in reducing MS associated cognitive deficits. In this chapter we provide a selective review of the most relevant features related to this topic

Improving Chemical Plant Safety Training Using Virtual Reality

The chemical engineering industry often requires people to work in hazardous environments and to operate complicated equipment which often limits the type of training that be carried out on site. The daily job of chemical plant operators is becoming more demanding due to the increasing plant complexity together with increasing requirements on plant safety, production capacity, product quality and cost effectiveness. The importance of designing systems and environments that are as safe as possible to educate and train personnel is vital for the chemical process industries. Virtual reality offers the potential to expose personnel to hazardous situations in a safe, highly visual and interactive manner. Virtual reality has been proposed as a technological breakthrough that holds the power to facilitate learning. The ability to visualise complex and dynamic systems involving personnel, equipment and layouts during any real operation is a potential advantage of such an approach. Virtual reality and multimedia training is commonly used in many industries, aiding understanding and memory retention and creating a more interactive learning experience. Four desktop virtual reality training environments were developed for this research which highlighted issues related to chemical process dynamic simulation and plant safety. The pump training system is a virtual reality environment, which was built using the SAFE-VR virtual engine, to train personnel to operate two centrifugal pumps. The virtual hazard spotting exercise focuses on improving the users' safety awareness of electrical and occupational hygiene hazards. The virtual boiler plant is a complicated and high detailed virtual training environment, which is characterised by its flexibility and by a real time dynamic simulation of the steam generation chemical process. The virtual flooding and gas absorption experiment was based on an undergraduate laboratory experiment for the Chemical Engineering degree course at the University of Nottingham, focusing primarily on training and safety issues of students using the equipment. The dynamic features of the virtual absorption column simulation give high level of realism in the virtual environment

Comparative Study and Application of the EFA-4 Diagnostic Tool to Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Speech is a cortical function that includes virtual, mobile and sensory part for the understanding and the expression of spoken and written word. This study shows the Greek adaptation of the diagnostic tool «Examining for aphasia» or EFA -4. In dementia and especially in Alzheimer’s disease–AD, the speech disorders are among the main diagnostic feature, along with the impairment of memory. How, however, will we recognize Dementia and separate it from the early stage of Mild Cognitive Impairment- MCI according to speech disorders?The diagnostic tool EFA-4 is a regulatory, reliable and valid measure of the speech disorders. The test was administered to 50 normal elders, 50 patients with AD and 31 patients with MCI. The sample selection, although it had a uniform age, was regardless of origin, marital status and socioeconomic status. According to the results of the research, the EFA-4 is perceived to be particularly useful in the setting of language deficits of the patients with AD, who participated in the survey.Specifically, the cut offs showed that the average of the EFA-4 for the normal range ranged from 74,5 – 74,8. Moreover the cut offs showed that the average of EFA-4 for patients with AD ranges from 36.8-46.1 and for patients with MCI ranges from 62.2 - 66.7

Improving Chemical Plant Safety Training Using Virtual Reality

The chemical engineering industry often requires people to work in hazardous environments and to operate complicated equipment which often limits the type of training that be carried out on site. The daily job of chemical plant operators is becoming more demanding due to the increasing plant complexity together with increasing requirements on plant safety, production capacity, product quality and cost effectiveness. The importance of designing systems and environments that are as safe as possible to educate and train personnel is vital for the chemical process industries. Virtual reality offers the potential to expose personnel to hazardous situations in a safe, highly visual and interactive manner. Virtual reality has been proposed as a technological breakthrough that holds the power to facilitate learning. The ability to visualise complex and dynamic systems involving personnel, equipment and layouts during any real operation is a potential advantage of such an approach. Virtual reality and multimedia training is commonly used in many industries, aiding understanding and memory retention and creating a more interactive learning experience. Four desktop virtual reality training environments were developed for this research which highlighted issues related to chemical process dynamic simulation and plant safety. The pump training system is a virtual reality environment, which was built using the SAFE-VR virtual engine, to train personnel to operate two centrifugal pumps. The virtual hazard spotting exercise focuses on improving the users' safety awareness of electrical and occupational hygiene hazards. The virtual boiler plant is a complicated and high detailed virtual training environment, which is characterised by its flexibility and by a real time dynamic simulation of the steam generation chemical process. The virtual flooding and gas absorption experiment was based on an undergraduate laboratory experiment for the Chemical Engineering degree course at the University of Nottingham, focusing primarily on training and safety issues of students using the equipment. The dynamic features of the virtual absorption column simulation give high level of realism in the virtual environment

Lexical and grammatical aspect in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s disease

This study aims at investigating the ability of Greek-speaking individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to comprehend and produce verbs that vary with respect to their lexical and grammatical aspect. Lexical aspect concerns situation types with different temporal and semantic features, such as activity (run), state (know), achievement (break), semelfactive (hit), accomplishment (build) verbs (Smith 1997). Grammatical aspect is divided into perfective (I untied) and imperfective (I was untying) (Comrie 1976). The interaction of lexical and grammatical aspect and how that might be affected by patients’ linguistic impairment is also examined