Academic Visit Research Articles

Positive Influence: Negotiating a Church Historiographical Canon with the West

The present article discusses the way in which the historiographical canon on the history of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches in Transylvania during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was reconceptualized during and in the aftermath of the academic visit of Western specialists in Romania. Keith Hitchins’s visit to Romania in the early 1970s to undertake research in the church archives for his work on the history of the Romanian intelligentsia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire made an impact on how the history of the Greek Catholic Church was portrayed in the religious journals of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The subtle shifts in the canon included distinguishing the Greek Catholics from the Orthodox in Transylvania and reintroducing the Greek Catholic interwar historiography into the interpretation.

An Exploration of Accounting Student’s Perspective on Factors Influencing Audit Career Choice

This study aims to explore the factors influencing undergraduate accountancy students at Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka branch to pursue careers in auditing. A structured questionnaire, distributed to participants via Google Forms, was employed to gather feedback from the students. The participants, categorized based on their academic levels, represent various stages of both theoretical and practical exposure to auditing subjects. The research team administered a questionnaire to evaluate accounting students' perceptions and intentions on the factors influencing careers in auditing. There is a strong positive correlation between job security and career intention followed by career development and a moderately significant positive correlation between job satisfaction and financial reward toward students’ intention to become auditors. A general lack of interest in the profession and concern about work-life balance contribute to the challenges of not pursuing a career in audit. Students perceived that real exposure to the auditing profession via academic visits, engaging experts through seminars, and interactive teaching methods could bridge the gap between academic learning and professional practice. Enhancing the alignment of educational offerings with industry requirements and students’ career aspirations with curriculum development, enhancing teaching methods, and partnerships between academia and industry will assist accounting students in developing a positive view of auditing careers and better preparedness for their future careers in this field.

Outh Participation in Local Process: Reflections of Bangsamoro Youth in Policymaking in Malaysia

This note details our reflections on participating in an academic visit and learning exchange on public policymaking in Malaysia. The Institute of Public Policy and Management (INPUMA) at Universiti Malaya and The Bangsamoro Youth Commission (BYC) of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority jointly organised the program. Our executive summary covers the event and includes reflections from BYC participants participating in the program and policy lab simulation. We want to thank Professor Dr Khadijah Md Khalid and her team at INPUMA for their impactful and intellectual contributions to the event. During the program, we also considered Malaysia's history of the peace process in Mindanao and the cultural exchange between Malaysians and Bangsamoro. We are grateful to the professors and speakers who have enriched our public policy, governance, and youth development knowledge. INPUMA's commitment to empowering the BYC is commendable, and we appreciate all those who contributed to the program's success. We would like to recognise the BYC Coordinator and their team for their exceptional efforts in coordinating logistics and ensuring a successful learning exchange. Their professionalism and dedication ensured that everyone had a productive and enriching experience.

Preface: 2023 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Database and Machine Learning (AIDML 2023)

The 2023 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Database and Machine Learning (AIDML 2023) was held in Rotterdam, Netherlands during June 24-25, 2023. This annual event aims to serve as an international forum to gather academicians, scientists, engineers, and researchers working in the fields of algorithms, big data, computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to exchange views, share their professional knowledge, experience, and research results, and discuss the challenges and future directions in their professional fields.
 AIDML 2023 will mainly feature keynote speeches and peer-reviewed paper speeches. In addition, social activities or academic visits will be arranged to encourage exchanges, discussions, or cooperation between researchers. The conference also had many invited lectures and workshops which discuss many in-depth topics related to the main themes.
 We sincerely hope that AIDML 2023 would not only show the participants a broad overview of the latest research results, but also provide them with a significant platform for academic connection and exchange. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the keynote speakers, reviewers, and editors for their hard work, precious time and endeavor preparing for the conference.
 AIDML 2023 Organizing Committee
 Rotterdam, Netherlands

International visiting scholars’ ways of interacting with their academic hosts

ABSTRACT The type of interaction international visiting scholars has with their academic hosts plays a key role in the success of academic visits. However, few studies have focused on this visiting scholar–academic host interaction. The study uncovers and explicates three different ways international visiting scholars experience their academic interaction with their faculty hosts, namely alienating, facilitating and mentoring. The study offers practical suggestions on how to improve visiting scholar–academic host interactions to make scholarly visits more successful and fruitful. The findings fill a gap in the literature by articulating the different ways of experiencing the interaction between international visiting scholars and academic hosts.

Prehospital emergency health services in Qatar

The provision of prehospital emergency healthcare around the world varies greatly. Each country implements a delivery model according to its own economy, population, culture, policy and geography, including Qatar. In the past decade, in preparation to host the FIFA 2022 World Cup, significant technological investments have been made to improve and develop the country's prehospital emergency health services. This article is based on an academic visit of two Turkish academics with an interest in prehospital care to Qatar. It was conducted in January 2020 and is supported by information from the literature. Qatar's prehospital healthcare system was found to be highly developed and organised as it is managed by a national ambulance service. Some comparisons are also made with respect to prehospital care in Turkey.

Academic Visits as Transformative Learning Opportunities: The Case of Chinese Visiting Academics

Cross-border academic visits by university faculty members are becoming prevalent globally. Unlike previous research, which has focused on the cross-cultural adaptation arising from the cross-border movement of people, we view scholars’ visiting experiences as a learning opportunity in light of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory (TLT). We employ Addleman et al.’s three-stage proposal to better understand the transformative learning process of Chinese visiting scholars. Drawing on Hoggan’s typology, we identify changes in scholars’ worldviews, selves, and behavior as outcomes of transformative learning. We conclude that international experience is beneficial for scholars and call for more study abroad opportunities for Chinese university faculty.

Motel Builders of the Modern West

Motel Builders of the Modern West

Bioaerosols emission characteristics from wastewater treatment aeration tanks and associated health risk exposure assessment during autumn and winter

Aeration tanks from activated sludge wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can release a large amount of bioaerosols that can pose health risks. However, risk characterization of bioaerosols emissions form wastewater treatment plants is currently not systematically carried out and still in its infancy. Therefore, this study investigated emission characteristic of two indicator model bioaerosols Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, emitted from aeration tanks of a municipal WWTP. Monte Carlo simulation was then used to quantitatively assess microbial risk posed by different aeration modes under optimistic and conservative estimates. Further to this, two different exposure scenarios were considered during 3 days sampling campaign in autumn and winter. Results showed that the bioaerosol concentration from microporous aeration tank (20–262 CFU m−3) was one order of magnitude lower than rotating disc aeration tank. Average aerosolization rate was 7.5 times higher with mechanical aeration mode. Health risks of exposed populations were 0.4 and 9.6 times higher in winter than in autumn for E. coli and S. aureus bioaerosol, respectively. Health risks of staff members were 10 times higher than academic visitors. Interesting results were observed for academic visitors without personal protective equipment (PPE) respectively exposed to S. aureus and E. coli bioaerosol in autumn and winter: while the derived infection risk met the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) benchmark under optimistic estimation, the disease risk burden was over the World Health Organization (WHO) benchmark under conservative estimation. These revealed that only satisfying one of the two benchmarks didn't mean absolute acceptable health risk. This study could facilitate the development of better understanding of bioaerosol quantitative assessment of risk characterizations and corresponding appropriate risk control strategies for wastewater utilities.

Seasonal variation of quantitative microbial risk assessment for three airborne enteric bacteria from wastewater treatment plant emissions

Airborne E. coli, fecal coliform, and Enterococcus are all related to sewage worker’s syndrome and therefore used as target enteric bioaerosols about researches in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). However, most of the studies are often inadequately carried out because they lack systematic studies reports bioaerosols emission characteristics and health risk assessments for these three enteric bacteria during seasonal variation. Therefore, quantitative microbial risk assessment based on Monte Carlo simulation was utilized in this research to assess the seasonal variations of health risks of the three enteric bioaerosols among exposure populations (academic visitors, field engineers, and office staffs) in a WWTP equipped with rotating-disc and microporous aeration modes. The results show that the concentrations of the three airborne bacteria from the rotating-disc aeration mode were 2–7 times higher than the microporous aeration mode. Field engineers had health risks 1.5 times higher than academic visitors due to higher exposure frequency. Health risks of airborne Enterococcus in summer were up to 3 times higher than those in spring and winter. Similarly, health risks associated to E. coli aerosol exposure were 0.3 times higher in summer compared to spring. In contrast, health risks associated with fecal coliform aerosol were between 2 and 19 times lower in summer compared to spring and winter seasons. Data further suggest that wearing of N95 mask could minimize health risks by 1–2 orders of magnitude. This research shed light on seasonal variation of health risks associated with bioaerosol emission from wastewater utilities.

70 Years of Logic in China, 1949-2019

This article outlines the history of logic in China from 1949 to 2019. Firstly, it presents a rough picture of Chinese logic before 1949 using broad brushstrokes. Secondly, it divides the whole process of development into two stages. In the first 30 years from 1949 to 1979, Chinese logic made some achievements, but also went along some detours, and its overall situation was unsatisfactory. In the latter 40 years from 1979 to 2019, due to Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening up, many Chinese logicians went abroad for academic visits or to study degrees in foreign universities or research institutes, gradually became familiar with and even integrated into the international mainstream of logic teaching and research, and ushered in the great flourishing of logic in China we see today. Finally, it draws four lessons from this process of development, as follows. 1) Let politics and academia live in peace, by respecting and adhering to the idea of academic freedom. 2) Academic advances cannot be achieved in isolation from the world, so we should fully embrace the international academic community, while insisting on our own independent thinking. 3) We should always adhere to the policy of “letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend”, so that different academic viewpoints and tendencies can be improved and developed in their mutual collision. 4) We should cultivate academic self-confidence, gradually make the change from pure follow-up learning to original work in some fields of logic.

University English Teachers’ Professional Development Through Academic Visits: Using Identity as a Theoretical Lens

Academic visitor programs aim to enhance university teachers’ teaching and research capacity and intercultural competence. Its impact, however, has remained under-researched. Using the data collected from two rounds of in-depth interviews with 13 Chinese university English teachers over a year and a half, this study explored their experiences as academic visitors in the UK through the lens of professional identity. Findings revealed that the participants came with various expectations and negotiated and constructed different identities during their academic visits. The participants’ developing identities in turn affected their investment in their professional development in their situated contexts. The study provides important implications for academic visit programs which need to be designed in line with the complex needs and identities of university teachers.

Sustaining Faculty Development through Visiting Scholar Programmes: A Transformative Learning Perspective

International academic visits by university faculty members are common around the world. While most researchers approach such an international experience in terms of intercultural communication and acculturation, in this study we view the travel experience as a learning opportunity in light of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory (TLT). Drawing on Singleton’s ‘3H model’ (head-heart-hands), we find that the outcomes of transformative learning (TL) are related to cognitive, affective and behavioral domains, the prevalence of which were then explored among 314 visiting scholars. The results are further interpreted by drawing on key concepts from TLT to better understand the learning process. We conclude that the international experience is beneficial for scholars’ sustainable development, and call for more study abroad opportunities for Chinese university faculty.

Preface

The 30th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems (IAHR2020) was held virtually between March 21-26, 2021, and organized by École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.EPFL is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology. With the status of a federal institute since 1969, the young engineering school has grown in many dimensions, to the extent of becoming one of the most famous European institutions of science and technology. Like its sister institution in Zurich, ETHZ, it has three core missions: training, research and technology transfer. Associated with the four specialised research institutes, the two Institutes of Technology form the ETH/EPF domain, which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER). EPFL counts some 6,000 employees and 1,500 academic visitors per year who work at our five schools, two colleges, 28 institutes, 354 laboratories and sites in five cantons and who span over a hundred different professions (professors, secretaries, PhD researchers, lab technicians, tech support staff, etc.).List of About the conference, Conference themes, Conference Sessions, Organizing Committee, Executive Committee, Scientific Committee are available in this pdf.

Soviet Americanists, Academic Exchanges, the KGB and the Promotion of Video Media from Capitalist America during the Cold War

This essay is an attempt, made by using the personal stories of Soviet Americani-sts, to study the role of Soviet academic visitors, approved and supervised by the KGB, in promoting the cultural products from the USA - mainly such visual media as films and television - in the USSR during the period of academic exchanges after 1959. During their visits to the United States, Soviet Americanists used their leisure time not only for sightseeing, visiting museums and shopping, but also for various forms of cultural entertainment, from watching films and television shows to visiting concerts of classical and popular music. These experiences eventually affected the recommenda-tions about American cultural products, which Soviet visitors submitted to the KGB and their supervisors after their return home. During the 1970s and the 1980s, Soviet admi-nistration benefited from such useful advice about American popular films and televi-sion programs, which could be promoted in the USSR. Even the KGB administration in the Soviet Union studied the lists of recommendations made by those scholars, and used them for promoting the "progressive, humanistic" American cultural products among local Communist and Komsomol leaders for the education of Soviet audience.

Reflections in the environment of audiovisual translation: Interview with Claudia Moreno

Interesadas en debatir cuestiones vinculadas a la traducción audiovisual (TAV), un campo que a veces se ignora en el universo académico, pero que atrae a los aficionados por este arte y que acciona cada vez más a los profesionales, socializamos esta entrevista con la traductora mexicana Claudia Moreno, por su expresiva experiencia en dicho universo. El primer contacto con la entrevistada surge de la experiencia posdoctoral de una de las autoras de esta publicación ”” Profa. Dra. Leandra Cristina de Oliveira ”” en un país de importancia reconocida en la industria de la TAV hispánica: México. Con la indicación del Prof. Dr. Erik Daniel Franco Trujillo, del Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios de El Colegio de México (CELL/COLMEX), donde se realizaba la estancia académica, entrevistamos a Claudia Moreno y platicamos ”” como dicen los mexicanos ”” sobre temas diversos, tales como: su trayectoria profesional, sus experiencias en proyectos de distintas lenguas-culturas, la relación entre las teorías y la práctica en Traducción, la industria, los conflictos, retos y decisiones lingüísticas, entre otros. El tiempo que a nosotras dedicó la profesional va plasmado en el texto a continuación. Â

Finitude, temporality and the criticism of religion in Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free (2019)

Based on two presentations during a February 2020 South African academic visit at the University of Pretoria and the University of Johannesburg, in this contribution, the authors of this article engage with one of the bestselling recent volumes in philosophy, Martin Hagglund’s This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free (here, the 2020 edition; initial publication date, 2019). In this book, Hagglund propagates ideas akin to those promoted within secular humanism. Whilst on the one hand this article elaborates the shortcomings of Hagglund’s criticism of religion, on the other hand it also strives for an empathetic reading of his secular humanist philosophy. The authors place this conversation within the post-secular religio-cultural climate currently rising internationally, along with some further contextualising remarks. The most important part of this article is the last section (‘Pitting some theological voices…’) in which the authors engage Hagglund’s main arguments theologically, which elaborate on the finitude of human life all the whilst denying it a prospect of immortality. The debate in this section procceeds along the lines of religious thought of Emmanuel Falque, Ebenhard Jungel and Dewi Zephania Phillips, with a view to reconcile the radical awareness of finitude and temporality of human life, characteristic for modern discourse(s), with the religious language practices sustaining belief in eternal life. Contribution: This article engages with how Martin Hagglund’s This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free does not fairly convey aspects of the sense of secularism, and can additionally on the senses of finitude and temporality be improved by insights from Emmanuel Falque, Ebenhard Jungel and Dewi Zephania Phillips.

Quantitative microbial risk assessment of bioaerosols in a wastewater treatment plant by using two aeration modes.

Nonnegligible emission of bioaerosols usually occurs during aeration of wastewater in aerator tanks in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Literature had shown that the respiratory and intestinal diseases of workers at WWTPs are related to bioaerosols. Thus, quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) based on Monte Carlo simulation was utilized in this research to assess the health risks of Gram-negative bacteria bioaerosol (GNBB) and Staphylococcus aureus bioaerosol (SAB) among academic visitors and staffs. Results showed that the concentrations of GNBB and SAB in the inverted umbrella aeration mode were consistently higher than those in the microporous aeration mode under all six size distribution ranges of the Anderson six-stage impactor. Thus, GNBB and SAB can be highly threatening to the weasand and first bronchus (or alveoli and third bronchus) for the exposure populations. The health risks (annual probability of infection (Py) and disease burden (DB)) of males were constantly higher than those of females for each certain exposure scenario. The health risks of staffs were higher than those of academic visitors when assessed by Monte Carlo simulation. The wearing of mask is an effective measure to minimize health risks through reducing the bioaerosol concentration intake. Especially, for the academic visitors and staffs exposed to GNBB, all their DB failed to meet the World Health Organization DB benchmark under various credible intervals when they were without a mask on. In a word, the results of health risk assessment in this research can be utilized as an educational tool and policy basis to facilitate the implementation of efficacious prevention measures to protect the public health from bioaerosol health threats in WWTPs.

Academic detailing program for rheumatoid arthritis: a contribution to Brazilian public health system sustainability

Abstract Objectives In Brazil, specialty medicines for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment are provided by the national health system (NHS) according to mandatory protocols. Knowing the rules for prescription of these biological agents is crucial to ensuring patient access to treatment. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of an academic detailing strategy to promote the quality use of the medicines available in NHS among prescribers. Methods Forty-three specialists and general practitioners were visited by researchers to perform an academic detailing of the Clinical Protocols and Therapeutic Guidelines (PCDT) for RA adopted by NHS. After the visits, a survey was performed with prescribers to measure their perception in terms of satisfaction and information reliability with the academic visits. At the end, we perform a cost analysis to permit comparisons of this strategy with other educational activities. Key findings From 43 physicians that were visited, 28 responded to the telephone survey. Of these, 68% were very satisfied with the visit, 50% rated the content of the visit relevant to their practice, 64.3% agreed the duration of the visit did not affect their work, 60.7% agreed the distributed material would be useful for their professional practice, and 57.1% agreed that the visits added to their knowledge. A total of USDPPP 162.96 per prescriber (USDPPP 7,007.20, BRL14,185.00) were spent on the program. Conclusion The prescribers visited represent a large number of deferrals for the Specialized Component of Pharmaceutical Care (CEAF) drug applications. Therefore, the total amount spent on the implementation of this program and its potential for improving access to these medicines has the possibility to have a positive impact on the targeting of public expenditures and avoiding litigation against NHS. Academic detailing has the capability to become an effective strategy for PCDT dissemination and implementation.

Peter Chadwick. 23 March 1931—12 August 2018

Peter Chadwick studied mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of Manchester, graduating with first-class honours in 1952, from where he moved to Cambridge and completed a PhD on the thermal history of the Earth in the Department of Geodesy and Geophysics under the supervision of Dr Robert Stoneley. His research then developed to focus primarily on the propagation of waves, and he made a major contribution to the mathematical theory of elastic wave propagation and became a world-leading authority in this area. He also made fundamental advances in the modelling of the thermo-elastic properties of rubberlike materials. At the University of East Anglia, where he was a professor for 26 years, he was the driving force behind the development of a research group in theoretical mechanics in the School of Mathematics and Physics, leading by example and supporting and encouraging fellow faculty members, especially the younger staff, academic visitors and students. He gave considerable service to the University of East Anglia in a number of capacities, including a period as Dean of the School, and to the scientific community, through substantial journal editorial activities and as a member of several national and international committees.