Academic Visit Research Articles

Personal perspective on inequality: conference attendance as an Iranian citizen.

Science is expected to be borderless and inclusive of any interested individuals. The efforts made by academic institutions to promote diversity and inclusiveness are unfortunately undermined by discriminatory government policies. Iranian researchers suffer from limited mobility for attending scientific gatherings and are underrepresented due to lack of exposure, as they can be subject to discrimination for entering some countries, e.g. the US travel ban. As an Iranian citizen, I was denied an academic visitor visa to attend FEMS congress in Glasgow in 2019 to share my Ph.D. research results. This resulted in considerable waste of time, funds and efforts leaving me with a great deal of pain and frustration. In this article, I share my story to help raise awareness about compromised equity in the scientific community as a result of institutional discrimination and racism.

2019 5th International Conference on Environment and Renewable Energy

PREFACEIt is our great pleasure to welcome all of you to the 5th International Conference on Environment and Renewable Energy (ICERE 2019) which was held in 25-28th February, 2019, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. ICERE 2019 is dedicated to issues related to Environment and Renewable Energy.ICERE 2019 is supported by Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This conference is highlighted by several professional speakers. Assoc. Prof. DAM SAO MAI who is the Dean of the Biotechnology and Food Technology Institute, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam; Prof. Hee-Je Kim from Pusan National University, South Korea; Prof. Tseung-Yuen Tseng form National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan; Prof. Dr. Georg Bastian from Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Germany had attended the conference as keynote speakers. We also have four invited speakers. They are Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hung Anh, Dr. Thanh-Ba Nguyen, Dr. Gia-Buu Tran, Dr. Ngoc-Nam Trinh. All of them are form Industrial University of Ho-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam.There were seven sub-sessions and one poster session with different topics: Renewable Energy and Energy Engineering, Food Science and Engineering, Resource Science and Engineering, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Photovoltaic System and Power System Management, Building and Energy, Building and Energy. It was a golden opportunity for students, researchers and engineers to interact with the experts and specialists to get their advice or consultation on technical matters, dissemination and marketing strategies.On the third day of the conference, we had half day academic visit in Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, visiting their laboratories, exchanging ideas with local professional staffs and half day city tour to enjoy the view of Ho Chi Minh City. This proceeding presents a selection from papers submitted to the conference from universities, research institutes and industries. All papers were subjected to peer-review by conference committee members and international reviewers. The papers were selected based on high quality and relevancy to the conference scope. The volume is presenting recent advances in the field of Environment and Renewable Energy and various related areas, such as Energy-saving Technology, Energy Materials, Environmental Protection, Nuclear Energy Engineering, Power Machinery and Engineering.We would also express our sincere gratitude to organizing committee and the volunteers who had dedicated their time and efforts in planning, promoting, organizing and helping the conference.Prof. Dr. Georg BastianRhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Germany2019-05-22

Overexpression of IGF2BP3 As a Potential Oncogene in Ovarian Clear Cell Carcinoma

Ovarian Clear Cell Carcinoma (OCCC) displays distinctive clinical and molecular characteristics and confers the worst prognosis among all ovarian carcinoma histotypes when diagnosed at advanced stage because of the lack of effective therapy. IGF2BP3 is an RNA binding protein that modulates gene expression by posttranscriptional action. In this study, we investigated the roles of IGF2BP3 in the progression of OCCC. We used 328 OCCCs from the AOVT (the Alberta Ovarian Tumor Type study) and the COEUR (the Canadian Ovarian Experimental Unified Resource) cohorts to elucidate the associations between IGF2BP3 expression and clinicopathological parameters, with positive IGF2BP3 expression defined as diffuse block staining, being more frequently observed at stage III (P=0.0056) and significantly associated with unfavorable overall survival (HR=1.59, 95% CI 1.09 - 2.33) in multivariate analysis. IGF2BP3 mRNA gene expression was markedly increased in OCCC cell lines compared to normal tissue such as ovarian surface epithelium. We chose two IGF2BP3-overexpressing cell lines ES2 and OVMANA for in vitro and in vivo knockdown experiments. The proliferation and viability of both cell lines were significantly inhibited by 2 IGF2BP3 siRNAs and similar suppression was observed in cell migration and invasion by Wound Healing and Transwell assays. The percentage of apoptotic cancer cells was enhanced by both IGF2BP3 siRNAs. In vivo experiments showed a significantly reduced size of tumors when treated with IGF2BP3 siRNA compared to controls. Furthermore, cancer metastasis-indicators MMP2 and MMP9 proteins were down-regulated. In conclusion, our study shows that IGF2BP3 expression is a promising biomarker for prognostication of women diagnosed with OCCC with multiple effects on key cell functions, supporting its role as an important cellular regulator with potential oncogenic activity, and as a potential target for future intervention strategies. Funding Statement: This study used resources provided by the Canadian Ovarian Cancer Research Consortium’s COEUR biobank funded by the Terry Fox Research Institute (grant #2009-15) and supervised by the Centre hospitalier de l’Universite de Montreal (CHUM). The Consortium acknowledges contributions to its COEUR biobank from institutions across Canada. Wenrang Kan participated in basic experimental work as a volunteer. This work was supported by grants of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC30970119, 81030029, 81271786, NSFC-NIH 81161120416, 81671980, 81871623) and College students’ Innovation & Entrepreneurship project in Heilongjiang Province (201410226047 J.J.K, D.Y.; 201510226020 D.S.L, L.Y., T.L., L.Q., L.L.G.; 201610226095 H.Y.W., Z.H.S. T.T.G., S.J.H., S.G.; 201610226094 Y.Y.Q., M.Y.; 201710226073 S.J.H., S.G.). H.D.L. is supported by a scholarship from China Scholarship Council, CSC No. 201508230143, for an academic visit to the University of Calgary (Univ. of Calgary ID number: 30016355). We also thank the Health and Family Planning Commission of Heilongjiang Province (2016-188), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Provincial Universities (2017JCZX57), the Young Innovative Talents in Universities of Heilongjiang Province (UNPYSCT-2018064), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M630380) and the Heilongjiang Postdoctoral Financial Assistance (LBH-Z18198) program for their support. Declaration of Interests: There are no competing interest concerns with any of the authors. Ethics Approval Statement: All animal experiments were executed in accordance with the Institutional Ethics Committee of Harbin Medical University.

Improving Scientific Writing Skills and Publishing Capacity by Developing University-Based Editing System and Writing Programs.

Scholarly article writing and publishing in international peer-reviewed journals can become an overwhelming task for many medical, nursing, and healthcare professionals in a university setting, especially in countries whose native language is not English. To help improve their scientific writing skills and publishing capacity, a university-based editing system and writing programs can be developed as educational platforms. These are delivered by a team of specialist editors composed of tenured faculty members who have a strong medical background and extensive experience in teaching courses on medical research, editing, writing, and publishing. For the editing system, the specialist editors provide comprehensive editing, personalized consultation, full editorial support after peer review, guidance with online submissions/resubmissions, and detailed editorial review at different stages of the manuscript writing. In addition, the specialist editors can develop writing programs such as medical writing and editing internships, academic courses in medical writing or research study designs and reporting standards, special interactive lectures and sessions on predatory publishing, seminars on updated editorial guidance of global editorial associations, academic visits on medical writing and editing, medical writing mentoring program, networking programs in scholarly communication, and publication resources in medical writing and scholarly publishing. These editing system and writing programs can serve as integrated platforms for improving scientific writing skills and publishing capacity by providing continuing education in medical writing, editing, publishing, and publication ethics.

2018 4th International Conference on Environment and Renewable Energy (ICERE 2018)

PREFACEIt is our great pleasure to welcome you to 2018 4th International Conference on Environment and Renewable Energy (ICERE 2018) which was held in 25-27 February 2018, Da Nang, Vietnam. ICERE 2018 is dedicated to issues related to Environment and Renewable Energy.ICERE 2018 is supported by Duy Tan University, Vietnam. The major goal and feature of the conference is to bring academic scientists, engineers, and industry researchers together to exchange and share their experiences and research results, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted.The rector of Duy Tan University, Vietnam Sir Le Cong Co did opening remark for the conference. Prof. Kondo Akira from Osaka University, Japan have attended the conference as keynote speaker and delivered keynote speech on 25th February. Prof. Wallace C. H. Choy from Hong Kong University; Assoc. Prof. Dam Sao Mai from Industrial university of HCMC, Vietnam have attended the conference as keynote speakers and delivered keynote speeches regarding latest information in their respective expertise areas on 26th February. There were six sub-sessions and one poster session with different topics: Power and Mechanical Engineering, Renewable Energy and Energy Saving, Biomass Pyrolysis and Combustion, Power Generation and Energy System Management, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Environmental Management and Sustainable Development. It was a golden opportunity for students, researchers and engineers to interact with the experts and specialists to get their advice or consultation on technical matters, sales and marketing strategies. On the third day of the conference, we had academic visit in two campuses of Duy Tan University visiting their laboratories, exchanging ideas with professional staff there.This proceeding presents a selection from papers submitted to the conference from universities, research institutes and industries. All papers were subjected to peer-review by conference committee members and international reviewers. The papers selected depended on their quality and their relevancy to the conference. The volume tends to present to the readers the recent advances in the field of Environment and Renewable Energy and various related areas, such as Energy-saving Technology, Energy Materials, Environmental Protection, Nuclear Energy Engineering, Power Machinery and Engineering, etc.We would like to thank all the authors who have contributed to this volume, and also the organizing committee, reviewers, speakers, chairpersons, sponsors and all the conference participants for their support to ICERE 2018.Dr. Vu Dinh TuanInstitute of Research & Development, Duy Tan University, 3 Quang Trung, Da Nang, VietnamMarch 14, 2018

“The Changing of the Guards”?

ABSTRACTOver the past 30 years, Britain’s large archaeological museums and collections have shifted their focus away from academic visitors exploring their stores and collections and toward the dynamic presentation of permanent and temporary displays. These are arranged to emphasize compelling and relevant interpretative narratives over the presentation of large numbers of objects. The shift to digitization and the online presentation of collections is a major feature of public engagement activities at many museums but also might open older and less accessible collections up to research. In this article, we consider what role digital platforms may have in the future of British museum-based archaeology, with special reference to initiatives at the British Museum. We suggest that online collections have the potential to mediate between engaging the public and allowing professional archaeologists to develop sophisticated research programs, since these platforms can present multiple narratives aimed at different audiences.

Illness during international academic visit: A short note

Illness during international academic visit: A short note

International ward round: a 10-day academic visit of Professor Eugenio Pompeo in China.

On the early morning of July 17, 2015 in Xiaoshan international airport in Hangzhou, I was delighted to meet Professor Eugenio Pompeo from Tor Vergata University of Rome in Italy. With great honor, in the next 10 days I had a chance to witness the significant academic and clinical communications between Professor Eugenio Pompeo and Chinese doctors and scholars, as well as the interesting stories behind by accompanying Professor Eugenio Pompeo throughout his whole trip in China ( Figure 1 ).

Patient Understanding of the Role of the Orthopedic Resident

Patients have identified the knowledge of a physician's level of training as important. Previous studies show equally poor patient's understanding of the medical education hierarchy. Given the importance to the patient and the possible effect on patient satisfaction, it is critical to evaluate patient's understanding of the orthopedic educational hierarchy. The specific aim of this study is to evaluate patient's understanding of the role of an orthopedic resident as it pertains to their orthopedic care. Adult, English-speaking patients presenting to an outpatient academic orthopedic practice completed surveys similar to those utilized in prior research on this topic. Each questionnaire compiled demographics, questions assessing knowledge of the role of the resident in patient care, and questions to assess the patient's preferences regarding resident physician's role in their care. The knowledge section of the questionnaire was scored with 1 point given to each correct answer. The individual questions with the worst scores from the entire patient population were further evaluated to find demographic predictors of success. In addition to percent correct responses for the entire population, a linear regression model was used to evaluate the effect of age, gender, level of education, ethnicity, and number of academic visits on the knowledge section score. One hundred seventy-four (n = 174) patients completed the survey. Among them, 40% were male, 27% had a high school education or less, 82% were Caucasian, and for 18% it was their first visit to an academic hospital. The average score for the knowledge section was 10.2 (standard deviation±4.0) out of a possible of 16. Linear regression controlling for noted demographic variables revealed higher level of education to be predictive of a better score (coefficient 3.2; 95% confidence interval 1.9-4.7). The 3 worst scoring questions were regarding knowledge of (1) residents having completed medical school, (2) residents performing surgery with attending supervision, and (3) whether or not residents were actually doctors. For these questions higher level of education correlated with more correct answers (p = 0.005, p = 0.001, p = 0.000, respectively). Among the patients, 90% agreed that it was important for them to know the level of training of their physicians and 76% felt it was okay for residents to "learn" on them as long as they were supervised. Patient's knowledge of the role the resident physician provides, in their care, is variable. Higher levels of education appear predictive of better understanding. Patients have difficulty discerning where residents fit in the medical hierarchy. Despite this misunderstanding, patients find it very important that they know the physician's level of training. Given the patient's high priority of knowing the level of training of the doctors who care for them and their frequent misunderstanding of the medical hierarchy, steps should be taken to better educate patients as to who is caring for them. Besides being important for patient's informed consent, it may improve patient satisfaction.

The Curiosity of Nations: Shakespeare and International Electronic Collaboration

The Curiosity of Nations:Shakespeare and International Electronic Collaboration Sheila T. Cavanagh (bio) The World Shakespeare Project (WSP)—www.worldshakespeareproject.org—co-directed by Sheila T. Cavanagh and Kevin Quarmby of Emory University, is crafting a model for global twenty-first-century higher education through an interconnected series of live, interactive collaborations that cross international, institutional, disciplinary, sociocultural, religious, linguistic, economic, and other disparate academic divides. As the recent Observatory on Borderless Higher Education Report suggests, traditional conceptualizations of tertiary education are rapidly becoming outmoded, but new educational constellations are often problematic: Although branch campuses and partnerships with foreign universities are on the rise, they require a level of investment and risk management that can be intimidating, even for universities with big endowments. But investment in online learning will allow universities to benefit from economies of scale and meet increasing demand from developing countries. (Katsomitros par. 1) [End Page 121] The twenty-first century offers complex financial, technological, and internationalization issues that demand more rapid change than American universities traditionally provide. In response to this need, the WSP is creating, evaluating, and disseminating a multi-faceted educational structure that can be adapted for use globally and across the disciplines. It was recognized in 2012 as the only recipient of Emory University Research Committee's "High Risk/ High Potential Initiative," which was established to promote non-traditional interdisciplinary collaborations, innovative methods, and inquiries regarding emerging areas. It has also received several other internal grants and a US Challenge Grant from the Royal Society of the Arts in order to expand its partnerships with North American Indian Colleges. The WSP links disparate international Shakespearean faculty and students together electronically. The expertise of Emory's Educational Technology staff allows us to establish live communication with institutions lacking comparable facilities. Cavanagh is WSP's founding director, and she has made regular academic visits to India since 2000. Consequently, the WSP has forged numerous connections between Atlanta and communities in India, including, for example, tribal colleges serving first-generation learners in West Bengal and other regions in Eastern India. The WSP also possesses significant links with the United Kingdom, drawing in part from Quarmby's lengthy prior career as a professional actor in London. In addition, the WSP currently works with Université Hassan II and Al Akhawayn University in Morocco, with universities associated with Fundación Shakespeare Argentina, and with Shakespearean faculty and students in Brazil. With the cooperation of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, it has also expanded its collaborative network to reach American Tribal Colleges, such as Cankdeska Cikana Community College in North Dakota and Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College in Michigan. In addition, we are partnering with Gretchen Minton from Montana State University and Scott Jackson from Shakespeare Notre Dame to investigate the further inclusion of western American Indian students. These tribal connections, along with our growing international community, deepen all WSP collaborative experiences. Our live and electronic guest lecturers as well as our undergraduate research, internship, collaborative, and exchange opportunities enable us to involve an eclectic local and "virtual" group in meaningful ways. Emory's Halle Institute for Global Learning and its Hightower Fund, for example, have generously sponsored residencies with London stage and opera director Stephen Unwin and with Peabody Award-winning documentary maker Steve Rowland. Future residencies, such as the 2013 visits of [End Page 122] Shakespeare in Prison directors Curt Tofteland and Tom Magill, will broaden the diverse scope of WSP classroom endeavors. WSP sessions typically involve live videoconference discussions and performance exercises shared between faculty and students in each location. For some of our partners, Shakespeare holds an important place in the curriculum; for others, these mutual classes primarily promote internationalization efforts or offer opportunities to join broad educational discussions. We aim to create a widely accessible learning environment, which constitutes one of the most challenging, but essential, aspects of our venture. Some of the international and tribal college students are the first in their families to receive a formal education and have had limited travel experiences. Other WSP students live in cosmopolitan regions, such as Kolkata or Casablanca. Most of our international partners encounter English as non-native speakers. Each student population, however, whether at Emory...

Post-Processing Treatments in Hybrid Polymer/Titanium Dioxide Multilayer Solar Cells

The authors thank Prof. James Durrant, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, for permitting them to take transient absorption spectroscopic measurements in his laboratory. PR and JN thank the Royal Society for financial support of PR's academic visit to Imperial College London. We also thank the EPSRC Excitonic Supergen Programme (EP/G031088) and the EPSRC Materials for Energy Programme (EP/E036341/1) for financial support. PA acknowledges the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science for a post-doctoral fellowship.

Sexuality in Heterotopia: time, space and love between women in the historic house

The presentation of historic houses in Britain generally reflects dominant ideas about the national past, and mobilises familiar narratives about aristocracy, class, lineage and family in order to forge a sense of stability and national identity. While the representation of women, ethnic and national identities and sexuality has been widely contested and debated in museum studies over recent years, these themes remain under-explored in the literature on historic houses as heritage, despite their huge importance for public history and its relationship to academic history, public policy and visitor demands. Does the heritage industry construct normatively gendered and heterosexualised space in presenting the historic house to the visitor? This essay will use two case studies of historic houses associated with women who led unconventional lives, Shibden Hall, near Halifax and Sissinghust in Kent, to push forward debate and analysis. It will question whether there is a unified or necessarily conservative approach to sexuality in the heritage industry and tease out some interesting complexities around sexed and gendered space.

Dealing with editors: ‘nice n’ easy does it every time’

Dealing with editors: ‘nice n’ easy does it every time’

Globalization of scientific and engineering talent: international mobility of students, workers, and ideas and the world economy

This paper documents the five main ways in which globalization of scientific and engineering has proceeded: (1) expansion of mass higher education worldwide; (2) growth in number of international students; (3) immigration of scientists and engineers; (4) non-immigration trips: academic visitors, conferences; (5) greater international co-authorship and co-patenting. It is argued that by accelerating the rate of technological change and speeding the adoption of best practices around the world, these developments should benefit advanced and developing countries but that they threaten the comparative advantage of advanced countries in high-tech sectors and the edge that their citizens have in access to the highest quality university education and jobs; and risk creating greater divisions between modern and traditional sectors in developing countries. How economies around the world take advantage of the benefits and minimize the costs of globalization of knowledge will be a major determinant of economic progress.

Alfred Brian Pippard

Alfred Brian Pippard

Holidays in the sun

If you are reading this editorial in the week of publication, chances are that you do not work in one of the countries bordering the Mediterranean. If you are in Scandinavia, this is probably your first opportunity even to read my editorial from July. Most of Europe now takes a full four or five weeks of vacation, usually corresponding to the calendar month of July in the north or August in the south. In part, this is dictated by the timing of school holidays; however, in many industrial or governmental organizations, employees are virtually obliged to take their vacations at the appointed time. Mostly this is considered to enhance, rather than detract from total productivity, although it can have obviously damaging consequences on scientific research. If everyone wants to take a vacation at the same time, who is left to take care of laboratory animals, cell‐lines or equipment, let alone make sure that inexperienced summer students do not run amok in the lab? There are other, even less desirable …

Do Public Funds Increase Days of Instruction in Primary Schools?: A Study of 3 Districts in India

This article investigates the role of public funds in ensuring that primary schools in India have at least a certain minimum number of instructional days. Using data on primary schools from three districts, we first document that the distribution of instructional days may reasonably be thought of as a binary variable where a school is either functional (Le., with more than 201 instructional days) or is not (i.e., has less than 201 instructional days). Secondly, we show that receiving any public funds is important for schools to be functional; however, the marginal effect of doses of public funding diminishes with larger amounts of funding. Finally, monitoring schools in terms of the number of academic visits, visits by BR.C and CRC coordinators as well as the presence of head teachers are important in ensuring that primary schools are functional in the sense that we have defined. These findings seem to point to important ways to improve the quality of primary schooling in India.

Innovating Our Higher Education Models Based on Experience in UK and USA

Our higher education need to innovate education models and actively connect every member in big social system, for example, enterprises, society and environment. This paper shows some new ideas on innovating educational development based on author’s studying experience in UK and in USA. Keywords: Industry university, Contract education, Higher education, Social system, Operation UK and American are not only big but also strong countries in education. The top ten universities in the world are all in these two countries. Fortunately, as an academic visitor, I studied in both USA from March 2007 to March 2008 and UK from April 2001 to August 2002. During the period in both countries, I visited many top universities, such as Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University and Cambridge University, Oxford University, Birmingham University and experienced studying process and educational model in person. Based on the studying experience, this paper introduced educational models happening to universities in both countries, and then analyzed their educational features with system theory. Finally, this paper gave some new ideas on innovating our higher education models.

Musculoskeletal Training for Orthopaedists and Nonorthopaedists in China

No diploma for orthopaedic surgery is available in the current medical education and licensing system in China. The orthopaedist generally receives on-the-job training in a clinical practice after getting a license to practice surgery. There are multiple training pathways to and opportunities in orthopaedic surgery, and these vary from hospital to hospital and from region to region. These include on-the-job training, academic visits, rotation through different departments based on local medical needs, fellowship training in large general or teaching hospitals (locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally), English language training, postgraduate diploma training, and Internet CME. Due to the current training system, orthopaedic techniques and skill levels vary greatly from hospital to hospital.

An approach to measure compliance to clinical guidelines in psychiatric care.

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to measure six months compliance to Swedish clinical guidelines in psychiatric care after an active supported implementation process, using structured measures derived from the guidelines.MethodsIn this observational study four psychiatric clinics each participated in active implementation of the clinical guidelines for the assessment and treatment of depression and guidelines for assessment and treatment of patients with suicidal behaviours developed by The Stockholm Medical Advisory Board for Psychiatry. The implementation programme included seminars, local implementation teams, regular feedback and academic visits. Additionally two clinics only received the guidelines and served as controls. Compliance to guidelines was measured using indicators, which operationalised requirements of preferred clinical practice. 725 patient records were included, 365 before the implementation and 360 six months after.ResultsAnalyses of indicators registered showed that the actively implementing clinics significantly improved their compliance to the guidelines. The total score differed significantly between implementation clinics and control clinics for management of depression (mean scores 9.5 (1.3) versus 5.0 (1.5), p < 0.001) as well as for the management of suicide (mean scores 8.1 (2.3) versus 4.5 (1.9), p < 0.001). No changes were found in the control clinics and only one of the OR was significant.ConclusionCompliance to clinical guidelines measured by process indicators of required clinical practice was enhanced by an active implementation.