Knowledge Production in International Research Collaboration: A Comparative Study of Canadian and Colombian Research Networks

Given the increasing interconnectivity in today’s globalized world, academics from different disciplines, countries, generations, and cultural backgrounds are urged to work together on common research projects that cross national boundaries. Producing knowledge in collaboration with other scholars internationally has the potential to create rich and groundbreaking research practices to understand complex phenomena. Thus, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of international research collaboration (IRC) among scholars and how this transnational initiative contributes to knowledge production. The theoretical framework of this study draws upon ‘post-foundational’ spatial approaches to inform the analysis of my findings. Post-foundational approaches engage with epistemological pluralism to overcome exclusions and misunderstandings whilst studying IRC knowledge production in different contextual realities. Spatiality approaches illuminate the notion of transnational space as relational, mobile, heterogeneous, and socially produced, which is made up interconnections. This is a multiple-case study that explores and compares practices of IRC knowledge production within and across three distinct research networks, which are linked to universities in two geographical sites, Canada and Colombia. This study involves two methodological approaches: Qualitative social network analysis (SNA) helps to map the configuration of the three distinct research networks and the interconnections between network’s actors, as practices of IRC knowledge production. Foucauldian discourse analysis informs the analysis of my findings to disclose the underpinning disciplinary/interdisciplinary discourses of IRC knowledge production within the networks. This analysis contributes to unveil power/knowledge relations entangled in global/local flows and disjunctures as enablers and constraints of IRC knowledge production. It also helps to illustrate the uneven terrain in which the three research networks are situated. Participants in the three networks include professors, students, and staff members from the universities to which these research networks are tied. Data sources comprise semi-structured interviews and research and policy documents. The study aims addressing a gap in the literature regarding international comparative studies, which explore new qualitative venues from a critical perspective on practices of knowledge production in IRC. It brings new insights about the qualitative nature of these practices to other researchers and policy makers who are interested in internationalization of higher education, specifically in IRC

Towards Cultural Humility: Theorising Cultural Competence as Institutionalised Whiteness

Cross-cultural competence became a buzzword in the 1990s in the English-speaking world, particularly in professional settings, as practitioners were increasingly working with people from culturally diverse backgrounds and wanted to do so sensitively. It is a term that has often been used as descriptor for a set of strategies, policies, and training programs to demonstrate that organisations and professions are ‘dealing’ with cultural diversity. Discursively, the emphasis on competence has led to a transference of a set of skills that enable those who undergo its programmatic delivery to state that they are culturally competent. This often means that culture in the term is transformed into a substitutable absence; that is, it dissolves into relative insignificance as mastery is the central aim. In this there is a power relation; moreover, aspects of that power are racialised. In this paper we contend that cultural competence, as it has come to be used in the Western world, by extension in the professions, and here we focus more specifically on the profession of Social Work, has resulted in a discourse that seeks to neutralise racialised power by deflecting it, and thereby retaining its power. It does this through the quick resolution of a tension posed by the bringing together of the two terms, one of which represents complexity – culture – and the other its ready resolution

Improving the acquisition of English language competencies with international workgroups of university finance students

[EN] This paper discusses a teaching innovation project that integrates technological communication advances with the small group methodology to improve the English competency of university students of finance. This is a fundamental competency for studies in finance considering the increasingly international framework of financial business and the increasingly required mobility of human resources in all types of financial careers. This methodology requires the cooperation of a foreign university to help students understand the practical implications of using English when applying the theoretical concepts and methodologies studied in class in an international professional setting. As a first approach, we implement and assess the implementation of this methodology and its impact on students’ learning process in an elective module offered in an official degree in finance in Spain.Tascon, M.; Castro, P.; Castaño, F. (2017). Improving the acquisition of English language competencies with international workgroups of university finance students. En Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 667-678. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD17.2017.534466767

Logical Implications for Visual Question Answering Consistency

Despite considerable recent progress in Visual Question Answering (VQA) models, inconsistent or contradictory answers continue to cast doubt on their true reasoning capabilities. However, most proposed methods use indirect strategies or strong assumptions on pairs of questions and answers to enforce model consistency. Instead, we propose a novel strategy intended to improve model performance by directly reducing logical inconsistencies. To do this, we introduce a new consistency loss term that can be used by a wide range of the VQA models and which relies on knowing the logical relation between pairs of questions and answers. While such information is typically not available in VQA datasets, we propose to infer these logical relations using a dedicated language model and use these in our proposed consistency loss function. We conduct extensive experiments on the VQA Introspect and DME datasets and show that our method brings improvements to state-of-the-art VQA models while being robust across different architectures and settings

CYTools: A Software Package for Analyzing Calabi-Yau Manifolds

We provide a user's guide to version 1.0 of the software package CYTools, which we designed to compute the topological data of Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in toric varieties. CYTools has strong capabilities in analyzing and triangulating polytopes, and can easily handle even the largest polytopes in the Kreuzer-Skarke list. We explain the main functions and the options that can be used to optimize them, including example computations that illustrate efficient handling of large numbers of polytopes. The software, installation instructions, and a Jupyter notebook tutorial can be found at https://cy.tools.Comment: v1: 42 pages, 2 figures. Software package available at https://cy.tool

Direct Coupling of Dispersive Extractions with Magnetic Particles to Mass Spectrometry via Microfluidic Open Interface

Microextraction coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) has great potential in analytical chemistry laboratories operating in a variety of fields. Indeed, microextraction methods directly coupled to MS can be of large value given that they can provide not only analyte extraction and enrichment but also effective sample cleanup. In recent years, the practicality in handling high active surface area, versatility, and environmentally friendly features of magnetic dispersive microextraction technologies has contributed to an explosion in the number of methods and technologies reported in the literature for a wide range of applications. However, to the best of our knowledge, no technology to date has been capable of efficiently merging these two rising concepts in a simple and integrated analytical workflow. In this context, the microfluidic open interface is presented for the direct coupling of dispersive magnetic extraction to mass spectrometry. This technology operates under the concept of a flow-isolated desorption volume, which generates a stagnant droplet open to ambient conditions while continuously feeding the ionization source with solvent by means of the self-aspiration process intrinsic of the electrospray ionization (ESI) interface. To improve the efficiency of the final analytical workflow, a novel dispersive magnetic micro- and nanoparticle extraction protocol for biofluid droplets was developed. The final methodology entailed the dispersion of a small amount of magnetic particles (20-70 μg) in a droplet of biofluid (≤40 μL) for extraction, followed by a particle collection step using a homemade 3D-printed holder containing an embedded rare-earth magnet. In the final step, the holder is set on top of the microfluidic open interface (MOI) for desorption in the isolated droplet. Switching the valve transfers the desorbed analytes to the ESI source in less than 5 s. As proof of concept, the completely new setup was applied to the determination of prohibited substances from phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and human urine using Fe 2 O 3 magnetic nanoparticles (50 nm) functionalized with C 18 . The limits of quantitation (LOQs) obtained were in the low-ppb range in all cases, and acceptable precision (≤20%) and accuracy (80-120%) were attained. Also, taking advantage of the fast extraction kinetics provided by the radial diffusion associated with small particles, we employed the methodology for the selective extraction of phosphopeptides from 40 μL of tryptic β-casein digest using 70 μg of magnetic Ti-IMAC microparticles. To conclude, the technology and methodology herein presented provided excellent capabilities comparable to those of other solid-phase microextraction (SPME-MS) approaches while dramatically minimizing the amount of sample and sorbent required per analysis, as well as affording significantly fast extraction times due to the enhanced kinetics of extraction.Fil: Tascon, Marcos. University of Waterloo; Canadá. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Singh, Varoon. University of Waterloo; CanadáFil: Huq, Mohammad. University of Waterloo; CanadáFil: Pawliszyn, Janusz. University of Waterloo; Canad

Direct Coupling of Dispersive Extractions with Magnetic Particles to Mass Spectrometry via Microfluidic Open Interface

Microextraction coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) has great potential in analytical chemistry laboratories operating in a variety of fields. Indeed, microextraction methods directly coupled to MS can be of large value given that they can provide not only analyte extraction and enrichment but also effective sample cleanup. In recent years, the practicality in handling high active surface area, versatility, and environmentally friendly features of magnetic dispersive microextraction technologies has contributed to an explosion in the number of methods and technologies reported in the literature for a wide range of applications. However, to the best of our knowledge, no technology to date has been capable of efficiently merging these two rising concepts in a simple and integrated analytical workflow. In this context, the microfluidic open interface is presented for the direct coupling of dispersive magnetic extraction to mass spectrometry. This technology operates under the concept of a flow-isolated desorption volume, which generates a stagnant droplet open to ambient conditions while continuously feeding the ionization source with solvent by means of the self-aspiration process intrinsic of the electrospray ionization (ESI) interface. To improve the efficiency of the final analytical workflow, a novel dispersive magnetic micro- and nanoparticle extraction protocol for biofluid droplets was developed. The final methodology entailed the dispersion of a small amount of magnetic particles (20-70 μg) in a droplet of biofluid (≤40 μL) for extraction, followed by a particle collection step using a homemade 3D-printed holder containing an embedded rare-earth magnet. In the final step, the holder is set on top of the microfluidic open interface (MOI) for desorption in the isolated droplet. Switching the valve transfers the desorbed analytes to the ESI source in less than 5 s. As proof of concept, the completely new setup was applied to the determination of prohibited substances from phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and human urine using Fe 2 O 3 magnetic nanoparticles (50 nm) functionalized with C 18 . The limits of quantitation (LOQs) obtained were in the low-ppb range in all cases, and acceptable precision (≤20%) and accuracy (80-120%) were attained. Also, taking advantage of the fast extraction kinetics provided by the radial diffusion associated with small particles, we employed the methodology for the selective extraction of phosphopeptides from 40 μL of tryptic β-casein digest using 70 μg of magnetic Ti-IMAC microparticles. To conclude, the technology and methodology herein presented provided excellent capabilities comparable to those of other solid-phase microextraction (SPME-MS) approaches while dramatically minimizing the amount of sample and sorbent required per analysis, as well as affording significantly fast extraction times due to the enhanced kinetics of extraction.Fil: Tascon, Marcos. University of Waterloo; Canadá. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Singh, Varoon. University of Waterloo; CanadáFil: Huq, Mohammad. University of Waterloo; CanadáFil: Pawliszyn, Janusz. University of Waterloo; Canad