Intercultural competency among engineering doctoral students

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce B. Main ◽  
Yanbing Wang

Purpose Although engineering doctoral students are at the forefront of discovery and innovation and have great potential for establishing partnerships to address engineering challenges crossing national borders, there are few studies of their intercultural competency. The purpose of this study is to identify factors that are associated with intercultural competency – the ability to work effectively in multicultural environments. Design/methodology/approach The intercultural competency levels of 390 engineering doctoral students were measured by using the Miville–Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale-Short Form (MGUDS-S). Data were analyzed using ordinary linear squares regression. Results are considered descriptive, rather than causal. Findings Results show that female engineering doctoral students are more likely to score higher on the MGUDS-S than male engineering doctoral students. Proficiency in multiple languages and previous work- or volunteer-related travel experiences are positively associated with doctoral students’ intercultural competency. Originality/value As internationalization of engineering research and innovation continues to expand, findings suggest that providing students with more opportunities and support for work- or volunteer-related travel and opportunities for learning new languages may help facilitate the development of intercultural competency and students’ willingness to engage in long-term international professional opportunities and research partnerships.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Howell Gregory ◽  
Amanda Kate Burbage

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of critical friendship on a first- and last-year doctoral student’s novice and expert mindsets during role transitions. Doctoral students are challenged to navigate role transitions during their academic programs. Experiences in research expectations, academy acculturation and work-life balance, may impact doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets and contribute to the costly problem of attrition. Universities offer generic doctoral support, but few support sources address the long-term self-directed nature of self-study. Design/methodology/approach The authors participated in a collaborative self-study over a 30-month period. The authors collected 35 personal shared journal entries and 12 recorded and transcribed discussions. The authors conducted a constant comparative analysis of the data, and individually and collaboratively coded the data for initial and focused codes to construct themes. Findings The critical friendship provided a safe space to explore the doctoral experiences and novice-expert mindsets, which the authors were not fully able to do with programmatic support alone. The authors identified nine specific strategies that positively impacted the novice-expert mindsets during the following role transitions: professional to student, student to graduate and graduate to professional. Originality/value While researchers have identified strategies and models for doctoral student support targeting specific milestones, this study identified strategies to support doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets during role transitions. These strategies may benefit other graduate students, as well as faculty and program directors, as they work to support student completion.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharina Juul Kristensen

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine conflicts of interest (COI) in qualitative social research with multiple and often powerful stakeholders such as organisations and funders.Design/methodology/approachThe article offers an explorative qualitative analysis of a selected group of Danish doctoral students' experiences and negotiations of COI in their qualitative, multiple stakeholder research. The point of departure is that while potential and readily identifiable sources of COI, such as funding institutions, are important to disclose this may provide inadequate insight into stakeholders' actual – and potentially undue – influence on the research during the research process. This calls for a focus on research practice. Finally, the current neoliberal policy changes affecting universities provide the backdrop for the study.FindingsFocusing on negotiations around COI in practice, the analysis illuminates the complex reality of negotiating different – and sometimes conflicting – expectations and interests when conducting long-term qualitative studies. It also shows examples of stakeholders' attempts to potentially, and unduly, influence doctoral students' research. Finally, it suggests that stakeholders and researchers alike can be both powerful and potentially vulnerable when engaging in qualitative research.Originality/valueThe article contributes to the existing literature by explicitly focusing on COI in qualitative social research, and by exploring experiences and negotiations of COI in practice.


2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-57
Author(s):  
John A. Tetnowski

Abstract Cluttering is discussed openly in the fluency literature, but few educational opportunities for learning more about cluttering exist in higher education. The purpose of this manuscript is to explain how a seminar in cluttering was developed for a group of communication disorders doctoral students. The major theoretical issues, educational questions, and conclusions are discussed.


1998 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Schwartz ◽  
B. Leonard Holman ◽  
Joseph F. Polak ◽  
Basem M. Garada ◽  
Marc S. Schwartz ◽  
...  

Object. The study was conducted to determine the association between dual-isotope single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) scanning and histopathological findings of tumor recurrence and survival in patients treated with high-dose radiotherapy for glioblastoma multiforme. Methods. Studies in which SPECT with 201Tl and 99mTc-hexamethypropyleneamine oxime (HMPAO) were used were performed 1 day before reoperation in 47 patients with glioblastoma multiforme who had previously been treated by surgery and high-dose radiotherapy. Maximum uptake of 201Tl in the lesion was expressed as a ratio to that in the contralateral scalp, and uptake of 99mTc-HMPAO was expressed as a ratio to that in the cerebellar cortex. Patients were stratified into groups based on the maximum radioisotope uptake values in their tumor beds. The significance of differences in patient gender, histological characteristics of tissue at reoperation, and SPECT uptake group with respect to 1-year survival was elucidated by using the chi-square statistic. Comparisons of patient ages and time to tumor recurrence as functions of 1-year survival were made using the t-test. Survival data at 1 year were presented according to the Kaplan—Meier method, and the significance of potential differences was evaluated using the log-rank method. The effects of different variables (tumor type, time to recurrence, and SPECT grouping) on long-term survival were evaluated using Cox proportional models that controlled for age and gender. All patients in Group I (201Tl ratio < 2 and 99mTc-HMPAO ratio < 0.5) showed radiation changes in their biopsy specimens: they had an 83.3% 1-year survival rate. Group II patients (201T1 ratio < 2 and 99mTc-HMPAO ratio of ≥ 0.5 or 201Tl ratio between 2 and 3.5 regardless of 99mTc-HMPAO ratio) had predominantly infiltrating tumor (66.6%); they had a 29.2% 1-year survival rate. Almost all of the patients in Group III (201Tl ratio > 3.5 and 99mTc-HMPAO ratio ≥ 0.5) had solid tumor (88.2%) and they had a 6.7% 1-year survival rate. Histological data were associated with 1-year survival (p < 0.01); however, SPECT grouping was more closely associated with 1-year survival (p < 0.001) and was the only variable significantly associated with long-term survival (p < 0.005). Conclusions. Dual-isotope SPECT data correlate with histopathological findings made at reoperation and with survival in patients with malignant gliomas after surgical and high-dose radiation therapy.


2004 ◽  
pp. 406-412
Author(s):  
Paul Okunieff ◽  
Michael C. Schell ◽  
Russell Ruo ◽  
E. Ronald Hale ◽  
Walter G. O'Dell ◽  
...  

✓ The role of radiosurgery in the treatment of patients with advanced-stage metastatic disease is currently under debate. Previous randomized studies have not consistently supported the use of radiosurgery to treat patients with numbers of brain metastases. In negative-results studies, however, intracranial tumor control was high but extracranial disease progressed; thus, patient survival was not greatly affected, although neurocognitive function was generally maintained until death. Because the future promises improved systemic (extracranial) therapy, the successful control of brain disease is that much more crucial. Thus, for selected patients with multiple metastases to the brain who remain in good neurological condition, aggressive lesion-targeting radiosurgery should be very useful. Although a major limitation to success of this therapy is the lack of control of extracranial disease in most patients, it is clear that well-designed, aggressive treatment substantially decreases the progression of brain metastases and also improves neurocognitive survival. The authors present the management and a methodology for rational treatment of a patient with breast cancer who has harbored 24 brain metastases during a 3-year period.


2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Martin ◽  
Christopher J. Hammond ◽  
H. Jane Dobbs ◽  
Safa Al-Sarraj ◽  
Nicholas W. M. Thomas

✓ Long-term survivors of Hodgkin disease may develop second primary tumors caused by the mutagenic effects of radio- and chemotherapy. The authors describe the case of a 35-year-old woman who presented with an unusual meningioma of the cervical spine 9 years after undergoing combined-modality treatment for Hodgkin disease. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of spinal meningioma as a complication of such therapy. Whereas radiation-induced intracranial meningiomas are well described in the literature, treatment-induced meningiomas of the spine have not been widely recognized.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 717-717
Author(s):  
Edward Miller ◽  
Pamela Nadash ◽  
Marc Cohen

Abstract This presentation documents the continuing failure to tackle the problem of financing long-term services and supports (LTSS)—a failure most recently seen in the only national legislation ever enacted to comprehensively address LTSS costs: the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. The CLASS Act was included in the Affordable Care Act, but was repealed in 2013. Subsequently, policy experts and some Democrats have made proposals for addressing the LTSS financing crisis. Moreover, significant government action is taking place at the state level, both to relieve financial and emotional burdens on LTSS recipients and their families and to ease pressure on state budgets. Lessons from these initiatives could serve as opportunities for learning how to overcome roadblocks to successful policy development, adoption, and implementation across states and for traversing the policy and political tradeoffs should a policy window open once again for addressing the problem of LTSS financing nationally.


Author(s):  
Loay Shoubash ◽  
Jörg Baldauf ◽  
Marc Matthes ◽  
Michael Kirsch ◽  
Matthias Rath ◽  
...  

AbstractThe aim of this study is to analyze the long-term quality of life after surgery of cavernoma. A monocentric retrospective study was conducted on 69 patients with cavernoma treated microsurgically between 2000 and 2016. The eloquence was adopted from Spetzler-Martin definition. A most recent follow-up was elicited between 2017 and 2019, in which the quality of life (QoL) was evaluated with the Short Form-12 questionnaire (SF12). Forty-one lesions were in eloquent group (EG), 22 in non-eloquent group (NEG), 3 in orbit, and 3 in the spinal cord. Postoperative worsening of the modified Rankin scale (mRS) occurred in 19.5% of cases in EG versus 4.5% in NEG. After a mean follow-up of 6.5 years (SD 4.6), the neurological status was better or unchanged compared to baseline in 85.4% of EG and 100% of NEG. Regarding QoL assessment of 44 patients (EG n = 27, NEG n = 14) attended the last follow-up. Patients after eloquent cavernoma resection reported a non-inferior QoL in most SF12 domains (except for physical role) compared to NEG. However, they reported general health perception inferior to norms, which was affected by the limited physical and emotional roles. At a late follow-up, the surgical morbidity was transient in the NEG and mostly recovered in the EG. The QoL comparison between eloquent and non-eloquent cavernomas created interesting and new data after prolonged follow-up. These results add value for decision-making as well as patient counseling for future encountered cases. Preoperative evaluation of QoL is recommended for future studies to assess QoL dynamics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 1309-1336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarang Joshi ◽  
Manoj Kharat ◽  
Rakesh Raut ◽  
Sachin Kamble ◽  
Sheetal Kamble

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between supplier development practices (SDPs) and supplier-buyer relationship practices from the supplier’s perspective (SBRSP), and seek to understand how specific SDPs may impact a buyer’s operational performance as well as supplier-buyer relationship practices. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a survey of 512 respondents from the different manufacturing firms in India and applied structural equation modelling to test a structural model that proposes the impacts of various efforts of SDPs on a buyer’s performance as well as SBRSP. Findings The study concludes that SDPs and SBRSP together improve the relationship between a buyer and supplier, and this improved relationship leads to competitive advantages (CAs) followed by profitability. Results indicate that supplier perspective of buyer-supplier relationship can be improved under the condition of SDPs and SBRSP together. SDPs are driven by productive measure and competitive pressure, whereas customer uncertainty is found to be statistically insignificant. Research limitations/implications The study was carried out in North Maharashtra Industrial Zone of India, where the auto sector and machine/components manufacturing firms have been established for a considerable period of time. Results of the study are limited to manufacturing organizations predominantly focussing on the automobile sector and machine/components manufacturing firms. Practical implications This study provides significant insights into the specific impact of various SDPs and SBRSP for both academics and practitioners. SDPs along with SBRSP practices lead to improvement in the relationship leading to CAs. SBRSP suggests that trust, long-term commitments and the supplier’s perspective are important practices for relationship improvement. Originality/value The current study attempts to identify what are the success factors for the supplier-buyer relationship from the supplier’s perspective and SDPs and how the supplier-buyer relationship can be improved under the condition of SDPs and SBRSP. Hence, the aim is to develop a more thorough understanding of the outcomes of a supplier-buyer relationship improvement from both buyer’s and supplier’s perspective, under the conditions of supplier development to achieve CAs leading to profitability. Furthermore, the study analyses the effect of the improved supplier-buyer relationship for achieving CAs leading to profitability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-303
Author(s):  
Marta Mori ◽  
Ronan McDermott ◽  
Saut Sagala ◽  
Yasmina Wulandari

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how culture, including traditions and social structures, can influence resilience and how culturally sensitive relief operations can put affected people and their context at the core of any interventions. Design/methodology/approach A case study of the Mt Sinabung volcano area in Indonesia was undertaken. As part of the case study, an analysis of interventions was conducted, which was complemented by semi-structured interviews with Karo cultural experts and humanitarian organisations. Findings Culture influences the manner in which the Karo people react to volcano eruptions with varying implications for recovery. In addition, relief organisations which understand people’s actions through a cultural lens have better managed to tailor programs with long-term impact, thereby avoiding aid dependency. Practical implications Practical examples of disaster management activities that adequately account for the beneficiaries’ way of living prior to the eruptions are provided. Aid actors are provided with guidance concerning how to better tailor their activities in line with a cultural lens. Originality/value The study provides empirical grounding for claims concerning the role of culture in planning interventions in Indonesia and other similar contexts.


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