Global learning: Definition, assessment, and approaches

Global learning has become a fundamental aspect of international education. Yet, a clear understanding of global learning and how to develop it remain unclear. Using the dynamic systems approach, this paper analyzed the reasons, methods, and knowledge, skills, and attitudes(KSA) of global learning in higher education. Global learning is the higher education institutions’ critical response to globalization. It is the essential learning outcome of comprehensive internationalization of curriculum requiring students to develop KSA about the external world and their internal selves in their daily lives across local and global communities. With survey results from 142 undergraduate students in one U.S. university and a global learning rubric and publication, this paper demonstrated how global learning is interpreted and approached differently at various levels and further proposed pedagogical approaches to enhance global learning in higher education.

The Unspeakable Nature of Death & Dying During Childhood: A Silenced Phenomenon in Pediatric Care

In pediatric settings, the concept of hope is frequently positioned as a fundamental aspect of care and at odds with the possibility and proximity of death. This arguably fosters silence about death and dying in childhood despite evidence indicating the benefits of open communication at the end of life. In this paper, we describe the unspeakable nature of death and dying in childhood, including its conceptual and clinical causes and dimensions, its persistence, and the associated challenges for children and youth facing critical illnesses, their families, and society. We explore how the tension between hope and death can be reframed and apply our analysis to the context of medical assistance in dying for mature minors in Canada. Considering the lack of related literature, this paper offers initial reflections to form a framework for the unspeakable nature of death and dying in childhood and to advance the crucial need for research.

Regulation of immune receptor kinase plasma membrane nanoscale organization by a plant peptide hormone and its receptors

Spatial partitioning is a propensity of biological systems orchestrating cell activities in space and time. The dynamic regulation of plasma membrane nano-environments has recently emerged as a key fundamental aspect of plant signaling, but the molecular components governing it are still mostly unclear. The receptor kinase FERONIA (FER) controls ligand-induced complex formation of the immune receptor kinase FLAGELLIN SENSING 2 (FLS2) with its co-receptor BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1-ASSOCIATED KINASE 1 (BAK1), and perception of the endogenous peptide hormone RAPID ALKALANIZATION FACTOR 23 (RALF23) by FER inhibits immunity. Here, we show that FER regulates the plasma membrane nanoscale organization of FLS2 and BAK1. Our study demonstrates that akin to FER, leucine-rich repeat (LRR) extensin proteins (LRXs) contribute to RALF23 responsiveness, regulate BAK1 nanoscale organization and immune signaling. Furthermore, RALF23 perception leads to rapid modulation of FLS2 and BAK1 nanoscale organization, and its inhibitory activity on immune signaling relies on FER kinase activity. Our results suggest that perception of RALF peptides by FER and LRXs actively modulates plasma membrane nanoscale organization to regulate cell surface signaling by other ligand-binding receptor kinases.

Menanamkan Spiritual Leadership di Era Milenial untuk Membangun Jiwa Kepemimpinan

<p><em>This study aims to provide an effort in the Millennial Era in terms of leadership by instilling Spiritual Leadership values. This is because the millennial era is an agent of change and is also the spearhead of the leadership relay in building this nation's civilization. The approach used in this research is a library research approach. This approach is carried out by examining theories, concepts and principles related to the discussion. While data collection is done by document study techniques, namely data obtained from the relevant literature. The data were analyzed by qualitative descriptive analysis, in which all the collected data will be analyzed systematically. The results showed that Spiritual Leadership as a fundamental aspect of motivation from an action and behavior in the effectiveness of building a leadership spirit in the Millennial Era. Because, Spiritual Leadership contains exemplary, service, integrity, love, and divine values in goals, processes, culture and attitudes that are very much needed in the Millennial Era in responding to technological challenges.</em></p>

Maturation of prefrontal input to dorsal raphe increases behavioral persistence in mice

The ability to persist towards a desired objective is a fundamental aspect of behavioral control whose impairment is implicated in several behavioral disorders. One of the prominent features of behavioral persistence is that its maturation occurs relatively late in development. This is presumed to echo the developmental time course of a corresponding circuit within late-maturing parts of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, but the specific identity of the responsible circuits is unknown. Here, we describe the maturation of the projection from layer 5 neurons of the prefrontal cortex to the dorsal raphe nucleus in mice. We show using pathway-specific optogenetic stimulation that this connection undergoes a dramatic increase in synaptic potency between postnatal weeks 3 and 8, corresponding to the transition from juvenile to adult. We then show that this period corresponds to an increase in the behavioral persistence that mice exhibit in a foraging task. Finally, we use genetic targeting to selectively ablate this pathway in adulthood and show that mice revert to a behavioral phenotype similar to juveniles. These results suggest that the prefrontal to dorsal raphe pathway is a critical anatomical and functional substrate of the development and manifestation of behavioral control.

Kindness as a practice of Kittay’s ‘doulia’ in higher education: caring for student carers during COVID-19 and beyond

Recognising dependency as a fundamental aspect of existence and activating Kittay’s reciprocity principle, ‘doulia’, we investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on student carers at an Australian university, to what extent teaching staff care for student carers and which pedagogies and teaching practices aid student carers. Analysing the experiences of social science students shortly after the lockdown in 2020, we find that pedagogies of kindness and flexibility support student carers. We call on teaching staff to recognise students’ inevitable dependencies and commit to pedagogies of kindness.

The Impact of Logistics on Marketing Margin in the Philippine Agricultural Sector

The logistics industry is a fundamental aspect of fulfilling the supply chain in agriculture. Agricultural farmers in the Philippines often use the services of middlemen to transact on their behalf since these intermediaries possess better information, and engaging in logistics affects the marketing margin in the process. Frequently, logistics costs cause marketing margin to increase, leading to high farm-retail prices of agricultural goods. This paper examines if the existence of middlemen improves farmers' wages even with the additional logistics costs incurred. The variables' secondary data were all gathered from the Philippine Statistics Authority, and its annual frequency spanned the period of 1995 to 2019. Using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis procedure and diagnostic tests prove that logistics cost negatively affects marketing margin while farmers' wages have a positive relationship. The findings of this study address the presence of a longer supply chain, asymmetric information, technology, storage and facilities, and added logistics costs in agricultural transactions. Although middlemen have greater market power than the farmers, these mediators are still affected by the changes in the logistics costs since it is unavoidable for them to reduce the price due to the need to competitively sell the commodities.

A Review of the Research on Mongolia’s Perception of China

Mutual perception is an important indicator of the degree of closeness between countries, and it can more intuitively reflect the degree of mutual favorability between the two peoples and the perception of each other's national image. Mongolia's perception of China is an important fundamental aspect in the bilateral relations. This article reviews and examines the current research status of the given topic in academic circles. In general, (1) The public opinion surveys of some research institutes on Mongolia’s perception of China are relatively objective and neutral, so their survey results have higher reference value and application value. (2) Regarding the specific studies of Mongolia’s perception of China, some studies are relatively neutral, objective and of keen insights, and some are difficult to divorce from the perspective of the ‘self’ or the western interpretation mode, often presuppose their positions and tend to place too much emphasis on historical and cultural factors. Mongolia's perception of China is the result of the interaction of various factors mainly including history, emotion/psychology, realistic issues, and external factor. Хятадын талаарх монголчуудын ойлголтын тухай судалгааны тойм Хураангуй: Монголчуудын Хятадын талаарх ойлголтын тухай асуудал бол хоёр улсын харилцааны чухал сэдвийн нэг байдаг. Энэхүү өгүүлэл нь академик судалгааны хүрээнд уг сэдвийн судалгааны өнөөгийн байдлыг ангилан дүгнэж харуулах юм. Ерөнхийдөө: (1) судалгааны байгууллагуудын монголчуудын Хятадыг танин мэдэх ойлголттой холбоотой тоо баримт санал асуулга харьцангуй бодитой, тийм учраас судалгааны үр дүн хэрэглээний ач холбогдол өндөр гэж үзэж болно. (2) Хятадын талаарх монголчуудын ойлголтын тухай нарийвчилсан судалгаанаас харахад, зарим судалгаа харьцангуй бодитой төвийг сахисан, гүнзгийрүүлж судалсан байдаг ч зарим судалгаа нь нэг талыг барьсан, соёл хоорондын мөргөлдөөний онолоор тайлбарлаж, анхнаасаа байр суурь дүгнэлт нь тодорхой, хэт түүх соёлын хүчин зүйлийг дөвийлгөсөн шинжтэй байдаг. Монголчуудын Хятадыг танин мэдэх ойлголт нь түүх, сэтгэл зүй, бодит нөхцөл байдал, гадаад хүчин зүйлс зэргийн харилцан үйлчлэлийн үр дүнд бүрэлдсэн юм. Түлхүүр үгс: Монгол, Хятадыг танин мэдэх ойлголт, судалгаа, онцлог

Big Data as “Practical Ontology”: The Ontotheology Underlying the Interpretation of Reality as Data

The article discusses the emergence of a “practical ontology” in some of the most triumphalist discourses on Big Data. Such an interpretation can be drawn from the Heideggerian critique of ontotheology, a term he used as an equivalent to Western metaphysics. Following his perspective, the article argues that the reduction of reality to data, as in many Big Data discourses, means putting functionality as the fundamental aspect of beings, hence – the idea of a practical ontology. The Heideggerian critique of ontotheology, however, not only makes the ontological core of Big Data’s practical discourses more transparent but also points out the theoretical limits of that ontology and, furthermore, of most discourses around Big Data. It could be said that eventually Big Data’s practical ontology conceals the very moment of unconcealment of beings as data, undermining a proper comprehension of its object of analysis – the data.

Mathematical Approach to N-Centered DFT and Associated Methods for the Study of Open Systems

A fundamental aspect of the study of N−electronic systems (systems containing N electrons) is to obtain information on the states in which these systems have minimal energy. In practice a numerical search of such states is impossible to carry out, so that alternative approaches have been developped, the one around which this work revolves being to consider electronic systems through their electronic density rather than their state. This approach, known today as Density Functional Theory (DFT), was formalised in Kohn and Sham’s seminal article [1] and its mathematical aspects were studied a few years later by Lieb [2]. Since then, the ideas leading to the construction of DFT have been adapted to the context of electronic systems with a fractionnal number of electrons (open systems), first through PPLB DFT[3] and more recently through the definition of N−centered DFT[4, 5]. In both cases it is unclear wherether the mathematical properties established for classical DFT can be expected to hold true. This question is the main problematic of our work, in which we shall study the analogy between N−centered and classical DFT, from their construction to the methods that are derived from them. This will lead us to construct a Kohn-Sham scheme for N−centered DFT, investigate the links between this theory and optimal transport and present the Hubbard Dimer in this particular situation.