Familial vasculitides: granulomatosis with polyangitis and microscopic polyangitis in two brothers with differing anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibody specificity

Anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV) is a group of rare autoimmune diseases. Although the aetiology of AAV is uncertain, it is likely that genetic and environmental factors contribute. We report the unusual case of two brothers presenting with AAV with differing clinical pictures and differing ANCA specificity. There is a recently identified difference in genetic risk factors associated with ANCA specificity, making it surprising that first-degree relatives develop AAV with differing clinical and serological features. Our report illustrates the complex aetiology of AAV and suggests that further research on the interaction of genetic and environmental factors is needed

Measuring Uncertainty in Games: Design and Preliminary Validation

Uncertainty is an important element of game play, which is widely believed to act as a precondition for player experience (PX). To investigate the concept and examine its relation to other PX concepts, we should be able to measure it. We present the design and preliminary results of the validation of the Player Uncertainty in Games (PUG) questionnaire. Based on various sources from games user research and work done with regards to searching digital archives, we designed a questionnaire that measures the experience of uncertainty in games. The scale was refined down to 66 items via interviews with players and expert reviews, which was then validated and further refined based on data gathered from gamers in an online survey. The Principal Component Analysis showed high level of internal consistency for the scale and each of its four factors: Disorientation, Exploration, Prospect, and Randomness. This work demonstrates the initial findings towards a validated tool for measuring uncertainty of players in digital games

Phase and Intensity Distributions of Individual Pulses of PSR B0950+08

The distribution of the intensities of individual pulses of PSR B0950+08 as a function of the longitudes at which they appear is analyzed. The flux density of the pulsar at 111 MHz varies strongly from day to day (by up to a factor of 13) due to the passage of the radiation through the interstellar plasma (interstellar scintillation). The intensities of individual pulses can exceed the amplitude of the mean pulse profile, obtained by accumulating 770 pulses, by more than an order of magnitude. The intensity distribution along the mean profile is very different for weak and strong pulses. The differential distribution function for the intensities is a power law with index n = -1.1 +- 0.06 up to peak flux densities for individual pulses of the order of 160 Jy

South-South student migration: Socially integrating students from Portuguese-speaking Africa at UNILAB, Brazil

The Brazilian University for International Integration of the Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB) was created to host students from Portuguese-speaking Africa and Brazil. In this article, we look at the aims and objectives of UNILAB, which include the social integration of these students at the university. We present results from interviews conducted at UNILAB in 2018 with 63 international and domestic students. Analysis of this material shows that despite acknowledgement of the value of internationalization at UNILAB, the social integration level of Portuguese-speaking students from outside Brazil at the university is characteristically weak among the interviewees, a situation they attribute to a lack of suitable preparation for staff at the host institution and prejudice towards African students in the local community. We consider what these findings mean for the future of UNILAB and the development of Global South-South student migration.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Institutionalized mobility inside and outside Erasmus

Having looked at various aspects of free movement in tertiary education in the previous section of this book, we now direct our attention towards young people’s participation in student mobility programmes, the most prominent example being the European Commission supported Erasmus programme. The popularity of Erasmus as a research topic is equally evident, to the point where the study of student mobility is largely equated with Erasmus, although many other less well documented institutionally hosted platforms can be found throughout the globalized world of tertiary education. Given that Erasmus is so familiar, this section of the book will move beyond describing the programme and consider what other exchange mechanisms contribute to our understanding of youth migration.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Managing student mobility during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An immobility turn in internationalized learning?

This article looked at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the management of internationalized learning, and the disruption to the transitions to adulthood among students reliant upon the freedom to move within and between countries. We started by outlining the place of mobility in transitions, connected to debates about the ‘Mobility Turn,’ with particular relevance to developments in the European context, including the expansion of successive Erasmus student mobility programmes. Following the start of the pandemic, we hypothesize that we are now experiencing an ‘Immobility Turn’ in youth transitions, which, even if temporary, has the potential to disrupt personal and professional development of many young people in problematizing stays abroad at foreign universities. To explore this issue, we drew on evidence from Portugal, discussing issues including the measures taken by host institutions to maintain a safe environment and secure the integrity of educational courses for their international students, thus keeping open their mobile transition pathways. This research also enables us to illustrate the changes in the materiality of internationalized higher education that took place during the pandemic, and the challenges facing academic staff members. In conclusion, we look towards the future of mobile transitions, recognizing the important role played by staff members, and look towards future developments, including the heightened use of virtual mobility platforms for students with the potential to further transform the meaning of internationalized tertiary education.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

On the estimation of temporal mileage rates

Peer reviewedPostprin

“Es mejor ser pobre aquí”: procesos de toma de decisiones sobre migración y consideraciones políticas y de estilo de vida entre brasileños calificados en Portugal

This article looks at the migration of qualified Brazilians to Portugal, with reference to the impact of political developments in Brazil on migration decision-making processes and their lifestyle aspirations in the host society. Original fieldwork consists of twenty in-depth interviews conducted with qualified Brazilians in the Lisbon area during 2019. These interviews illustrate how political and economic instability in Brazil contributed to establishing a strong migration imperative. In this scenario, Portugal is chosen as a destination due to its perceived social stability and emergence as a fashionable destination for skilled workers, with the promise of a “cosmopolitan” life. In conclusion, we emphasise the need to consider how political conditions in a sending society and lifestyle considerations interact in the migration decision-making of skilled migrants. This approach confronts assumptions that serve to disguise the precariousness of many Brazilian migrants in Portugal due to their relatively high skill levels and raising long-term concerns regarding the sustainability of lifestyle-oriented migration.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Southern Europe perspectives on international student mobility

During the last four decades, higher education institutions (hereafter, HEIs) have experienced an unprecedented level of internationalization, closely linked to pressures induced by economic globalization (Kehm and Teichler 2007). The dominance of post-industrial capitalism, a revolution brought about by new information technologies and the postcolonial scenario of emerging countries demanding access to higher education are at the core of a worldwide engagement with internationalization (Lumby and Foskett 2016). The demand for status-generating tertiary education from middle class and elite families in countries such as China, India, South Korea, Brazil and Nigeria has stimulated the struggle between nations that seek to dominate the global education market (Waters and Leung 2013). The most prominent universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Germany have begun offering distance education courses, joint programmes and academic partnerships, opening campus branches overseas and, of course, recruiting as many mobile students as possible (Walker 2014). In this sense, internationalization might rather be labelled ‘transnationalization’ as its principal feature is not the expansion of HEIs on an international scale but rather the commercialization of educational goods and services worldwide (Verger et al. 2016). In fact, educational goods are now included in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO).info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio