Enhancing Overseas Chinese Graduate Employability: The Case of Chinese Graduates with Finnish Academic Qualifications

This paper explores ways to enhance overseas Chinese graduate employability by taking Finnish-educated Chinese students/graduates as an example. In so doing, it understands that graduate employability development is a joint effort of multiple stakeholders including students, graduates, academics, program coordinators, employers, and policymakers. Accordingly, it provides arguments and suggestions for how to enhance the employability of these graduates in terms of the labor market context, employers’ beliefs and actions, the responsibilities of higher education institutions, and student/graduate commitment. It also points out two major challenges faced by overseas Chinese graduates as well as their educational providers, which are linked respectively to gaps between what graduates acquire in higher education and what is required in the labor market, as well as gaps from the employers’ perspective: areas where employers need to understand more about universities and catch up with new ideas generated by them.     

Cognitions of Expert Supervisors in Academe: A Concept Mapping Approach

Eighteen expert supervisors reported their thoughts while preparing for, conducting, and evaluating their supervision sessions. Concept mapping (Kane & Trochim, 2007 ) yielded 195 cognitions classified into 25 cognitive categories organized into 5 supervision areas: conceptualization of supervision, supervisee assessment, supervisory relationship, supervisor self‐assessment, and administration of supervision. Implications for future research and supervisor training programs are discussed.     

Stability of Core Language Skill from Early Childhood to Adolescence: A Latent Variable Approach

This four‐wave prospective longitudinal study evaluated stability of language in 324 children from early childhood to adolescence. Structural equation modeling supported loadings of multiple age‐appropriate multisource measures of child language on single‐factor core language skills at 20 months and 4, 10, and 14 years. Large stability coefficients (standardized indirect effect = .46) were obtained between language latent variables from early childhood to adolescence even when accounting for child nonverbal intelligence and social competence and maternal verbal intelligence, education, speech, and social desirability. Stability coefficients were similar for girls and boys. Stability of core language skill was stronger from 4 to 10 to 14 years than from 20 months to 4 years, so early intervention to improve lagging language is recommended.     

How Moroccan mothers and fathers view child development and their role in their children's education

Despite the documented importance of parental engagement in early learning, little is known about how parents in the Middle East and North Africa understand child development. To inform the literature, a small-scale study involving four focus groups was conducted with parents of children aged six years and under living in Casablanca. The purpose of this study was to explore parents' understanding of and support for their children's early development. Results reveal that parents see a vital role for themselves in their children's upbringing as supporters and nurturers, but little role as teachers. Across different education and income levels, parents in this small-scale qualitative study believe that children's experiences in their first years of life do not affect their longer-term intellectual development or school success and see little value in early intellectual stimulation or formal preschool education. Our results suggest that parents need to understand their role as their child's first educators. Also, it is essential that parents are taught how to promote their children's early cognitive development without undermining their nurturing roles.     

Comparative account of serum lipids,lipoproteins and apolipoprotein-B in patients of coronary artery disease

Serum total lipids (cholesterol and triglyceride), lipoproteins (VLDL, LDL and HDL) and Apolipoprotein-B levels of normal healthy individuals (n=25) and coronary artery disease patients (n=25) were estimated. The objective of the present study was to ascertain the role of apo-B in causation and inheritance of coronary artery disease. It was observed that on an average serum total cholesterol and triglyceride more than 200 mg/dl bring the individuals to a risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) irrespective of the age. CAD patients achieved this value at an early age (35–45 years). Similarly VLDL and LDL levels were found to be significantly raised in CAD patients when compared to that of age matched normal individuals, with patients achieving risk values at an early age. HDL levels were found to be significantly lower in CAD patients as compared to normal individuals. Serum apo-B levels were significantly raised in CAD patients as compared to age matched normal individuals. Patients with positive family history of CAD had raised serum apo-B levels than those having negative family history. A positive coefficient of correlation was observed between serum apo-B and LDL levels suggesting that more the number of Apo-B particles, more will be the synthesis of atherogenic particle (LDL). Patients with negative family history had serum apo-B levels closer to those of normal individuals and in these individuals HDL levels were found to be significantly lowered, suggesting that loss of scavenger role of HDL could be the risk factor responsible for the causation of CAD in these patients, with negative family history of coronary artery disease.     

A Multidimensional Analysis of the Disability Digital Divide: Some Evidence for Internet Use

Over the last few years, information and communication technologies have become an essential part of daily life, affecting education, employment, and leisure, among other activities. Nonetheless, many individuals still reap few or no benefits from these technologies, and there are resilient gaps in their use. Within this larger context, the authors examine the Internet digital divide between people with and without disabilities from a multidimensional approach. Rather than analyzing the gap in terms of “haves” and “have-nots,” a range of Internet-related dimensions—affordability, motivation and attitudes, skills, usage, and others—is taken into account.     

Mechanism of Antidiabetic Action of Compound GII Purified from Fenugreek (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Trigonella foenum graecum</Emphasis>) Seeds

To study the mechanism of action of water soluble compound GII purified from fenugreek (Trigonella foenum graecum) seeds which was shown earlier to have antidiabetic effect in the subdiabetic, moderately and severely diabetic rabbits. In rabbits (1–1.5 kg bw) diabetes was induced by intravenous injection of 80 mg/kg bw of alloxan. They were fed with GII at a dose of 50 mg/kg bw daily once in the morning for 15 days in the subdiabetic and moderately diabetic and 30 days in the severely diabetic rabbits. Serum total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), LDL + VLDL cholesterol [(LDL + VLDL)C], HDL cholesterol [(HDL)C], total tissue lipids, glycogen and enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism (glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, polyol pathway) hexokinase, glucokinase, pyruvate kinase, malic enzyme, glucose-6-phosphatase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, aldose reductase and sorbitol dehydrogenase and antioxidant enzymes glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase and superoxide dismutase were estimated. Liver and kidney function parameters were also estimated. Treatment with GII for 15 days in the subdiabetic and moderately diabetic rabbits and for 30 days in the severely diabetic rabbits (i) decreased the elevated lipids TC, TG, (LDL + VLDL)C and increased the decreased (HDL)C, (ii) decreased the elevated liver and heart total lipids, TC and TG, (iii) increased the decreased liver and muscle glycogen, (iv) increased the decreased hexokinase, glucokinase, pyruvate kinase, malic enzyme, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, (v) decreased the increased glucose-6-phosphatase, sorbitol dehydrogenase, aldose reductase. Results thus show that treatment with GII compound purified from fenugreek seeds for 15 days in the subdiabetic and moderately diabetic and 30 days in the severely diabetic rabbits corrects the altered serum lipids, tissue lipids, glycogen, enzymes of glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, glycogen metabolism, polyol pathway and antioxidant enzymes. Histopathological abnormalities (fatty infiltration and other cellular changes) seen in the pancreas, liver, heart and kidneys were repaired after treatment with GII. In fact partially damaged pancreas was repaired. Liver and kidney function test results were normal in the GII treated animals indicating that GII treatment is safe and free from any side effects.     

Green intellectual capital and environmental product innovation: the mediating role of green social capital

Although the importance of intellectual capital has already been highlighted in the management literature, few articles have focused on the importance of its green counterpart, green intellectual capital. Nowadays, when environmental concerns cannot be ignored by firms, it is therefore time to explore the role of green intellectual capital in environmental improvement. For that reason, our research aims to explore the relationships between green intellectual capital components and the environmental performance of the firms. In particular, we try to show the importance of green organizational and social capital in the development of environmental product innovations, which are vital to the development and implementation of environmental strategies since, as scholars have pointed out, they generate some of the greatest environmental impacts. The empirical results show that green organizational capital has an indirect impact on environmental product innovation through green social capital, meaning that the latter is a significant mediator of that relationship, and at the same time emphasizing that informal relationships play a key role in the improvement of the environmental performance of the firm and, more specifically, in the development of environmental product innovations.     

Ethics and technology design

This article offers a discussion of the connection between technology and values and, specifically, I take a closer look at ethically sound design. In order to bring the discussion into a concrete context, the theory of Value Sensitive Design (VSD) will be the focus point. To illustrate my argument concerning design ethics, the discussion involves a case study of an augmented window, designed by the VSD Research Lab, which has turned out to be a potentially surveillance-enabling technology. I call attention to a “positivist problem” that has to do with the connection between the design context and the use context, which VSD seems to presuppose, and I argue that it is necessary to clearly distinguish between the two, since the designers’ intentions do not always correspond with the users’ practice; in fact, the relation between design and use is very complex and principally unpredictable. Thus, a design theory must accept that foresight is limited to anticipation rather than prediction. To overcome the positivist problem, I suggest a phenomenological approach to technology inspired by Don Ihde’s concept of multistability. This argument, which is general in nature and thus applies to any theory of design ethics, is intended as a constructive criticism, which can hopefully contribute to the further development of design ethics.