The Challenges of Strategic Human Resources Management in Southeast Asian Universities

Nowadays the Higher Education Institutions face major challenges in its development. Demanding from different actors and the orientation of the research, more oriented to innovation and value creation, request news capacities to answer to that. Southeast Asia shows a strong economic growth with a large increase in GDP and a growing improvement in the position of The Human Development Index promoted by United Nations. This reality creates a different pressure on the higher education institutions in southeast Asia that requires a change in the universities, in the way they implement the mission and in the requested capacities, specially the human resources capacities. In this way, a new paradigm and model of human resources management for southeast higher education institutions need be developed to create the conditions to answer to this new reality, where the main analysis variables will be talent, performance, motivation and retention, coaching, cross cultural, integrity and permanent adaptability and flexibility. The main objective of this communication is to reflect and contextualize in terms of theoretical models where we find the assumptions for the implementation of strategic human resources management for southeast Asian universities. What kind of profile is request for the staff in this new reality? What we need to change in human resources management? How can this change be implemented? What HRM tools are most relevant to this reality? These are the main issues on which we will reflect with a critical thinking approach in order to present a set of clues to southeast Asian universities according to our analysis and interpretation, as Portuguese and European

HLA-DR in Cytotoxic T lymphocytes predicts breast cancer patients' response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Prediction of breast cancer response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy (NACT) is an urgent need to promptly direct non-responder patients to alternative therapies. Infiltrating T lymphocytes, namely cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) have been appointed as predictors of response. However, cancer cells have the ability to dampen CTLs' activity and thus, the prognostic value of the CTLs, per se, is debatable. Here, we disclose that more than the occurrence of CTLs, it is their activation state, revealed by HLA-DR expression, that can accurately predict response to NACT. Flow cytometry analysis of breast cancer biopsies showed that the frequency of CTLs and other lymphocytes were similar regardless disease stage and between NACT responders and non-responders. However, only breast cancer patients without axillary lymph node metastasis and NACT responders have HLA-DRhi CTLs. Interestingly, HLA-DR levels in tumor CTLs is correlated with HLA-DR levels in systemic CTLs. These HLA-DR+ CTLs produce IFN-γ and Granzyme B, enlightening their effector and probable anti-tumor activity profile. Moreover, the level of HLA-DR in CTLs is negatively correlated with the level of HLA-DR in T regulatory lymphocytes and with immunosuppressive and pro-tumor molecules in the tumor microenvironment. Hence, HLA-DR levels in CTLs is a highly sensitive and specific potential predictive factor of NACT-response, which can be assessed in blood to guide therapeutic decisions.Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia: PD/BD/114023/2015; PTDC/BBB-BMD/4497/2014. Liga Portuguesa Contra o Cancroinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Capacity Building for Higher Education ERASMUS+ Project: Strategic Human Resources Management for Southeast Asian Universities (HR4ASIA)

The development and optimization of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is becoming more and more important. Consequently, Human Resources Management (HRM) has gained greater prominence in the management of these institutions. Due to the complexity of academic contexts of HEIs, HRM models need to be able to respond to new challenges. These challenges concern selection, motivation and development of their staff. Currently, especially in Southeast Asian countries, Human Resources approaches need to be more efficient and tailored to current labor and societal needs. In order to support Higher Education organizational changes in Southeast Asia, a consortium of 4 institutions from Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy and Lithuania) and 8 from Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand) lead by the University of Danang (Vietnam), applied to a Capacity Building for Higher Education project under the framework of the Erasmus+ Program. The project “Strategic Human Resources Management for Southeast Asian Universities” (HR4Asia) approved in 2016 and co-funded by the European Commission aims at contributing to Higher Education organizational reform in Southeast Asia by improving HRM at the target HEIs from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and Thailand. Each partner has well defined tasks according to the work packages established on the project. This research is focused on the competences that workers need to achieve to have a better performance in the institution. It was necessary to present and deconstruct, among others, the concepts of competence as capacity and competency as performance, to learn how to measure competencies and to manage competency and Human Resources. Staff involved in this project will be able to design and define the competencies model of the structures of each HEI to define the competency model per structure (mapping of organizational competencies and a model of competences of structures). This is one more step to achieve the following final goals: introduce in Southeast Asian HEIs a scheme to developing and implementing innovative HRM approaches, paying attention to transversal and additional skills, such as communication and self-learning. Tailor-made dissemination activities addressing non-partner HEIs, Ministries of Higher Education and other stakeholders will promote the project objectives, paving the way for its sustainability

Between the local and the global: The pedagogical experience of Raúl Hestnes Ferreira

This article intends to emphasize Raúl Hestnes Ferreira’s (1931-2018) merits in three fields: architectonic practice, pedagogical experience, and architectural research. His remarkable and important contribution to Portuguese architecture was recognized by Coimbra University in 30th of September 2007, when he was awarded with the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa. He is an honorary member of Portuguese Institute of Architects (2010) and he owns a renown and awardwinning professional practice. The article addresses Ferreira’s experiences in Scandinavia, in the late 1950s, where he looked at Alvar Aalto’s architecture, and in the USA, in the early 1960s, where he did a master in Pennsylvanian University and collaborated with Louis Kahn. Ferreira’s research focused on Cassiano Branco’s production, where he reflected about the relationship between ideology and architecture in the 1930s and the role of engineers in the change of the Lisbon image after that decade.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

On simple Filippov superalgebras of type B(0,n), II

It is proved that there exist no simple finite-dimensional Filippov superalgebras of type B(0, n) over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0.Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant 05–01–00230); SB RAS grants for Young Scientists (Presidium decree N29 of 26/01/2006) and Complex Integration Projects 2006.1.9; CMUC/FC

Thermal inactivation of Byssochlamys nivea in pineapple nectar combined with preliminary high pressure treatments

Byssochlamys nivea is a thermal resistant filamentous fungi and potential micotoxin producer. Recent studies have verified the presence of ascospores of such microorganism in samples of pineapple nectars. Although the majority of filamentous fungi have limited heat resistance and are easily destroyed by heat, Byssochlamys nivea ascospores have shown high thermal resistance. The aim of this work was to evaluate the application of linear and Weibull models on thermal inactivation (70, 80 and 90ºC) of Byssochlamys nivea ascospores in pineapple nectar after pretreatment with high pressure (550MPa or 650MPa during 15min). Following the treatments, survival curves were built up for each processing temperature and adjusted for both models. It was observed that survival curves at 90°C after high pressure pretreatment at 550 MPa/15 min did not fit well to linear and Weibull models. For all the other treatments, the Weibull model presented a better fit. At 90ºC without pressure treatment, the Weibull model also showed a better adjustment, having a larger R2 and a smaller RMSE. Regarding the process effectiveness, a 5-log reduction (t5), as recommended for pasteurization, was only achieved for Byssochlamys nivea ascospores presented in pineapple nectar at 90ºC/10.7 min with previous high pressure treatment of 650 MPa for 15 min. Considering the high intensity and energy demanding process with possibly product damage, other preventive and alternative treatments are being investigated

A study of automatic contingency selection algorithms for steady-state security assessment of power systems and the application of parallel processing

The performance of various Contingency Selection methods has been investigated within the framework of accuracy for application to steady-state power system security assessment and suitability for execution in a real-time environment. In the study the following requirements have been considered: (a) Effectiveness: in identifying contingencies which may cause limit violations and discarding all others; (b) Adaptability: to model both permanent and temporary changes in the system; (c) Flexibility: to model any number and type of contingencies; (d) Computational efficiency: in terms of speed in selecting the sub-set of contingencies as well as in terms of storage requirements; (e) Ability: to update and augment on-line the list of contingencies given the actual system operating data. [Continues.

Multiscale quality: micro, meso and macro concepts

The quality concept can be defined according to different points of view, dimensions, and characteristics. Quality can be considered as a multiscale concept. This leads to the need of understanding how quality measurements and evaluations are done across products, processes, people, organizations and territories. The aim of this paper is to build a quality holistic view to the problems that arise in different management levels through a measurement system of quality.A preliminary literature review is presented and the main insights that come up from it are shown and explained, resulting in a definition of multiscale quality, as well as a first approach to the characterization of macro, meso and micro dimensions.The added value of this paper is the comprehension and clarification of several terms related to multiscale quality, as the terms micro, meso and macro have been increasingly used in different fields of application and knowledge.The future work intends to develop a model that can be used in companies as it integrates quality measurements of different management levels of an organization in a single integrated and consistent model.- The first author would like to acknowledge the Portuguese funding institution FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia for supporting its research with the grant no. SFRH/BD/131285/2017. This work has been supported by FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020

Reconstruction of a genome-scale metabolic network for Streptococcus pneumoniae R6

The gram-positive, lancet-shaped bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae thrives in almost any environment. Under certain conditions this pathogen can cause several infections such as meningitis, otitis media, endocarditis or pneumonia. Genome-scale metabolic networks (GSMs) are commonly used to study phenotype-genotype relationships using biochemical, physiological and genomic information. These relationships might shed some light on identification of targets for metabolic engineering or, in the case of S. pneumoniae, determine if the bacteria´s increased invasiveness and virulence is dependent on specific genomic regions or determined by environmental conditions. In order to obtain a robust and reliable metabolic model, a proper, up-to-date genome annotation must be performed. In our work we aimed to re-annotate the genome of Streptococcus pneumoniae strain R6 and which would be used to reconstruct a metabolic network at a genomic level. For these tasks merlin was used, a software tool capable of performing automatic annotation of the genome using the amino acid sequences as well as reconstruction of the metabolic network. For validation purposes, another in-house tool (Optflux) capable of performing simulations and optimization tasks was used. Re-annotation of the genome was performed in accordance to an in-house generated pipeline which established rules for gene identification acceptance (and attribution of confidence levels) or rejection. Out of the 2043 genes present in S. pneumoniae´s genome, an initial 822 were identified as metabolic, representing an increase of almost 9 and 15% when compared to those of KEGG and Uniprot. An extended comparison revealed that a large number of genes (359 and 271 when compared to Uniprot and KEGG, respectively) were only present in our re-annotation. Although a significant amount of genes (113) were identified as only being present in KEGG and not in our study, this can be explained by the dismissal of genes associated to DNA and RNA processes from the statistical analysis. The metabolic network is comprised of 795 genes, 776 that only encode enzymes and 19 that only encode transporters. The biomass equation was adapted from close-related organisms such as B. subtilis and L. lactis cross-referenced with the biomass equation determined by ModelSEED for S. pneumoniae R6. Despite the considerable amount of essential genes in our model (83), only 38 were in accordance to literature regarding gene essentiality although it identified others (45) which have not been studied to date. The mismatch between results might be related to strain metabolic specificities, regulatory phenomena or even the dismissal of genes that affect DNA and RNA processes and capsule synthesis which should be addressed in future work. In order to validate the accuracy of the model, simulations were performed using experimental data retrieved from literature. The results obtained were very similar to the ones described in in vitro studies elevating the confidence level of the reconstructed model