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As humanity reaches the 5.0 industrial revolution, education plays a critical role in boosting the quality of human resources. This paper reports bibliometric research on emerging TiP during 1993-2022 in the educational field to analyse its development on any level of education during the last three decades. This study employed a Scopus database. The findings are that the trend of TiP publication in educational fields has tended to increase every year during the past three decades and conference paper became the most published document type, the USA is the country which produces the most publications; "Students" being the most occurrences keyword and total link strength. The publication of the TiP is ranked to the Quartile 1, which implies that a publication with the cited performance is a publication with credibility because the publisher has a good reputation. Researchers can find the topics most relevant to other metadata sources such as Web of Science, Publish, and Perish.

Social regulation as a tool is designed to change behavior and ultimately protect the public from some form of harm. In this sense, social work regulation is a tool with the primary goal of public protection. Social work practice regulations vary widely within the United States, and the concept becomes more distorted when examined through an international lens. This manuscript outlines the regulation of social work practice in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Economic Area. Regulation in this context is examined through the framework of governance. Attention is given to the mechanism of regulation that is the regulatory body. The regulation of social work practice in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Economic Area share many similarities and several fundamental differences.

This paper examines the interplay of creativity, education, and the expressive arts. We begin by presenting a narrative literature review focusing on the use of artistic tools to promote creativity, self-expressiveness, and meaningful aspects of emotional and social learning. This review reveals strong connections between the different components of this interplay, and a special attention is given to the use of arts to promoting creativity and meaningful learning. We then propose the Empowering Creative Education Model (ECEM), which aims to provide a practical framework for employing artistic tools in each of the model's four developmental circles: I, Us, Educational and Community. Each of the four circles includes unique aspects of personal development.

Background: Mentorship is critical to success in postgraduate science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM) settings. As such, the purpose of this study is to comprehensively explore the state of mentorship interventions in postgraduate STEMM settings to identify novel practices and future research directions. The selection criteria for reviewed articles included: (1) published between 2002 and 2022, (2) peer-reviewed, (3) in English, (4) postgraduate mentees, (5) a program where mentorship is a significant, explicit focus, and (6) a description of mentee outcomes related to the mentorship intervention. Overall, 2583 articles were screened, and 109 articles were reviewed. Results: Most postgraduate STEMM mentorship intervention studies lack strong evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention, with only 5.5% of articles designed as randomized controlled trials. Most mentorship interventions (45.6%) were created for faculty, and few (4%) were for postdoctoral researchers. Also, only 18.8% of interventions focused on underrepresented groups in STEMM. Most interventions (53.7%) prescribed a dyadic structure, and there was more mentorship training for mentors than mentees. Conclusion: Overall, these findings identify gaps in mentorship interventions and provide step-by-step guidance for future interventions, including a consideration for underrepresented groups and postdoctoral scholars, robust mentorship training, and more randomized controlled trials.

With student and staff wellbeing a growing concern, several authors have asked whether existing data might help institutions provide better support. By analogy with the established field of Learning Analytics, this might involve identifying causes of stress, improving access to information for those who need it, suggesting options, providing rapid feedback, even early warning of problems. But just investigating the possibility of such uses can create significant risks for individuals: feelings of creepiness or surveillance making wellbeing worse, inappropriate data visibility destroying trust, assessments or interventions becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. To help institutions decide whether and how to explore this area, and to reassure individuals that this is being done safely, we propose a Wellbeing Analytics Code of Practice. This starts from an existing Learning Analytics Code, confirms that its concerns and mitigations remain relevant, and adds additional safeguards and tools for the wellbeing context. These are derived from a detailed analysis of European and UK data protection law, extracting all rules and safeguards mentioned in relation to health data. We also develop context-specific tools for managing risk and evaluating data sources. Early feedback suggests that these documents will indeed increase confidence that this important area can be safely explored.

This article focuses on article 28 (right to education), article 29 (goals of education) and article 30 (children from minority or indigenous groups) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and their implementation in the several national policies of Western Europe, especially the UK and Ireland, and to a lesser extent, France. The present research looked more particularly into the situation of children from two communities: Gypsy, Roma and Travellers (referred to as GRT) and Irish Travellers. Although they are from different backgrounds, the analysis proved relevant because of the bridges that exist between their cultures and lifestyles, and because of their minority status within larger dominant communities, placing their children in the frontline of the UNCRC battle. The text of the UNCRC itself was a starting point. The research was mainly based on a series of reports from governments, from organizations such as the Traveller Movement, on articles from newspapers, and testimonies from GRT children and Irish Travellers. The results showed that the implementation of articles 28 to 30 of the UNCRC was being by and large slowly carried out by the countries under study. Yet, national disparities were evident. Also, their national policies revealed different contexts. Ireland seemed to be paving the way for the inclusion of minorities within the educational system.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) recently had its 30th anniversary. Emerging from the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, it has since become the most ratified international human rights treaty ever. Most European countries ratified it and are thus obliged to ensure the implementation of children's rights in practice. Operationalizing the UNCRC raises practical, conceptual and ethical issues. For example, questions arise concerning children and young people's competence to make autonomous decisions in different social domains, especially in education. There are also debates about children's involvement in dispute resolution and the extent to which rights must always be associated with redress in order to make them meaningful. Clearly, the relationship between the rights of children and young people on the one hand and those of parents and teachers on the other are particularly salient. In addition, challenges may arise in relation to children from the Roma-minority in educational institutions. Article 28 (1) of the UNCRC stresses that "States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity". Nonetheless, Roma students frequently experience multiple forms of discrimination in educational institutions which amplify their existing disadvantage. Across Europe, there have been different rates of progress in terms of incorporating aspects of the UNCRC into domestic law and put them into practice in schools and other education institutions, and in many cases Roma children have yet to experience the benefits of enhanced children's rights.

This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the literature on sports nutrition as recovery published between 1964 and 2022. This study illustrates the structure and trends in sports nutrition publications by using scientific mapping and analyzing publication performance. This study identified the contributions of authors, journals, countries, and widely cited articles. While there was no massive expansion in the first year of publication, the results show that high growth emerged in the 2010s. Several countries have made significant contributions to recovery research in sports nutrition. European countries account for the majority of publications on this subject. Latin American and Asian countries are also keeping an eye on the study's growth. Another finding is that various multidisciplinary publishers publish articles about sports nutrition. The International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, on the other hand, is the journal that publishes the most articles. Burke L.M. has established himself as a prolific writer in this field, producing many documents and total citations. Several keywords have large nodes associated with their frequency of occurrence. The keyword relationship provides information about the relationship between keywords frequently appearing in one study. Visualizations of research trends are presented to provide an up-to-date reference guide for academics, revealing critical research gaps and potential research avenues for future studies to advance the discipline's consolidation.

I consider in this paper the question of balance in popular education between what we can call annunciation and denunciation, inspired by the work of Paulo Freire. By annunciation, I mean the role of love, affirmation, encouragement and profound encounters with otherness; by denunciation, I have in mind the spirit of critique and challenge to the established order of things. In the process, I question the marginalisation of liberation theology in Paulo Freire's work among some radical educators. There has, I suggest, been a sundering of spirituality, and especially religious insight, from rational enquiry in the academic mainstream, which has influenced readings of Freire. Modernity has privileged intellectualism and critical rationality as the only valid way of knowing; matters of faith and varieties of religious experience have correspondingly been privatised.

Age-classes are a salient feature of modern schooling. Yet how did age-grouping come to prevail in entire school systems? And how was this form of grouping related to educational and pedagogic discussions at the time of its emergence? The article addresses these issues by looking at the historical context within which age classes came to a dominant position: the European nineteenth century. From the perspective of a governmental theorising of modern schooling, the article reconstructs the pace of their imposition and the main arguments in their favour through the analysis of a sample of 125 manuals of school management and organization of teaching. Against the usual description of age classification as a clear sign of the bureaucratic nature of modern schooling, the manuals show a concern about educational issues such as (de)motivation, encouragement and intelligence when discussing the role of age for the organization of elementary schools. The general idea of the modern school as an 'assembling' calls for more nuanced historical analyses of different combinations of the pastoral and the bureaucratic as techniques defining this institution.

Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs) face various challenges caused by conflicting and contradictory organizational subcultures in knowledge-intensive organizations (KIOs), but their human capital, such as skills and personality traits, helps RMAs to maintain job and organizational engagement and professional growth. Focusing on self-leadership of RMAs, the effects of the RMAs' human capital on their performance and job satisfaction are statistically tested with the Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP) wave-1 dataset that captures the current states of RMA around the world. RMAs more willing to mobilize their self-leadership are more successful in terms of their career development and are happier with the job, and thus, they are surviving even in conflicting and contradictory subcultures. Implications are also provided about human capital and agency of RMAs as well as human resources practices of KIOs.

The current stage of society development is very closely related to the digitalization of all spheres of public life without exception. Education in this regard should become the starting point or the basis for the competent and conscious application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, neural networks, and other cyber-physical systems based on AI, as well as robots and robotics objects. Digitalization in education is promoted by economic, social and structural prerequisites. The introduction of these technologies provides new opportunities to improve the educational process, but at the same time the application of these technologies faces some risks, the identification of negative consequences of which is delayed. The aim of the article is to provide the ways for the development of legal regulation of AI, robots and robotics objects in education. The study considers the experience of different countries in the implementation of AI technologies in the educational process, provides the opinions of international UNESCO experts, Russian and foreign researchers. According to the results of the research, three main directions of the relationship between the development of AI technologies and education are identified: 1) training with the help of AI technologies; 2) scientific and practical research of AI and its technologies; 3) training qualified specialists to work with AI in the process of obtaining secondary and higher education. The factors that hinder the implementation of these technologies, as well as the risks of negative consequences of their use in the form of violations of the students' rights are revealed. Findings and proposals for each of the identified areas are formulated.

The Roma are Europe's largest minority ethnic group, yet too few Roma achieve a level of education that enables them to secure employment or positive life chances. Gaps in their attainment compared to other ethnic groups start to appear in the earliest years, with Roma participating in early education at half the rate of their peers. The European Commission has established expectations to increase participation rates, but change is painfully slow. Institutionalized discrimination and poverty underpin many structural factors, such as shortages of preschool places and unaffordable fees and costs, that are in a large part responsible for the low participation of Roma in early education. Yet multiple reports highlight cultural barriers as an additional significant challenge for Roma families, and recommend employing Roma as teaching assistants to bridge cultural differences. This article presents evidence from two qualitative studies that explore the impact of employing Roma in early childhood settings. The first, a survey conducted in the 21 European countries with the largest Roma populations, establishes current hiring trends and motivations for hiring Roma early childhood education staff, and estimates that at least 40,000 additional Roma staff are needed to ensure their proportionate representation in the workforce. The second uses case study methodology to capture learning from Serbia and the UK, where introducing Roma assistants is helping to bridge cultural barriers to Roma participation in early education. The article concludes with the observation that the social inclusion of Roma will also require interventions that start well before children enter formal education.

Widespread use of the Internet in 21st century society is not risk-free. This paper studies the comorbidity of some problematic uses of Internet with depression in order to assess their correlation. With that aim, a meta-analysis of 19 samples obtained from 13 different studies (n=33,458) was carried out. The subjects of these studies are adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years ([mu]=15.68) from different cultures and continents (Europe, Euro-Asia, America and Asia). The effect size obtained from the use of a random-effects model (r=0.3, p<0.000) is significant, moderate and positive, thus confirming the relation between pathologic uses of the Internet and depression. Moreover, meta-regression test results showed that 9% of the variance (R2=0.09) is associated with the male gender, while age and culture are not significant variables. The variability rate of the studies is high (I2=87.085%), as a consequence of heterogeneity rather than publication bias, as Egger's regression test shows (1-tailed p-value=0.25; 2-tailed p-value=0.50, and [sigma]=1.57). Therefore, the need for specific interventions in secondary education dealing with this issue is evident to ensure that it does not extend into adult life.

Purpose: This study aims to examine the current state of mobile Internet experience of the children in Turkey and to compare the Internet experiences of the children in Turkey to the children living in seven European countries included in the Net Children Go Mobile (NCGM) project. Research Methods: In this study, a descriptive research design was employed and the participants consisted of 784 children between the ages of 9 and 16 from 12 different regions. Findings: Results revealed that the ratio of Turkish children having Internet access in their own bedrooms and outside and also the ratio of them owning mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, is above the European average. It was seen that Turkish and European children used the Internet mostly for performing leisure and communicative activities. Although Turkish children's Internet use skills seemed to above the European average, it was seen that their skills towards safe Internet browsing like filtering unwanted content, blocking pop-up windows lacked behind their European counterparts. Thus, it was revealed that Turkish children were facing more Internet risks compared to the children in Europe. Implications for Research and Practice: Future studies can utilize more detailed evaluation methods, such as performance tasks to assess the children's mobile device and Internet use. Researchers can also design applications and activities that aim to redirect the children's attention from using the Internet for entertainment and communication purposes to using it for research and study and then evaluate the effectiveness of the designs.

Across Europe, educational institutions are essential in assisting exploration of politics, culture and history, and the use of creative arts appears crucial to supporting this aim. This article reports on Creative Connections, a multi-partner research project that facilitated exchanges for young people to explore their European identities using online art galleries and blogging technologies. Their multimodal conversations revealed an openness to consider artworks as sources of knowledge and experience. Participants did not focus on the nationality of the artist, but concentrated on the relationship that the subject matter of the work had with their own concerns. Anxiety related to populism, exclusive nationalism, social inequality and new forms of labour appeared to impact young European citizens' relationships and their perceptions of democracy.

The use of analytical methods from learning analytics (LA) research combined with visualizations of learning activities using learning design (LD) tools and frameworks has provided important insight into how instructors design for learning. Nonetheless, there are many subtle nuances in instructors' design decisions that might not easily be captured using LA tools. Therefore, this study sets out to explore how and why instructors design for learning in an online and distance higher education setting by employing a mixed-method approach, which combined semi-structured interviews of 12 instructors with network analyses of their LDs. Our findings uncovered several underlying factors that influenced how instructors designed their modules and highlighted some discrepancies between instructors' pedagogical beliefs and their actual LD as captured by the Open University Learning Design Initiative (OULDI). This study showcases the potential of combining LA with qualitative insights for a better understanding of the complex design process in online distance higher education.

The premise of this brief opinion piece is that the fundamental paradigm of education appeared with Plato. It is that there is a co-location in time and space of learners, teachers, and resources. The absence of any of these elements can lead to shortcomings in the meaning of the term "to be educated". Recent events such as COVID-19 demonstrate that the paradigm is subject to challenge but that its premises are firmly established. It is recognised that there are complex philosophical and theoretical arguments surrounding distance education debates. It is not possible in a short article like this to canvass all the possible philosophical positions that affect education. Pointers to these debates are referenced in the article. For the purpose of this article, "philosophy" is taken to mean that department of knowledge or study that deals with ultimate reality, or with the general causes and principles of things. More narrowly, it is the study of general principles of some particular branch of knowledge, experience, or activity--in this case, distance education or flexible learning. "Theory" is taken to mean a scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena.

This paper provides an account of the topological and its description of contemporary culture and use as a research methodology, a topological lens, generally, and in education research specifically. Some commentary is proffered on the relationships between the topological and the topographical, between relations and locations. A critical account is then provided on each of the papers in the special issue on the topological in education research and the specific contributions of each. The editors of the special issue make the important point that the topological is a spatio-temporal phenomenon, not just a spatial one. The topological does not exist in time and space, but rather constructs both and they change in a conjoint manner. As such, a topological lens rejects a construction of space as static and of time (and the temporal) as simply linear and chronological. The topological has been facilitated and articulated by and through practices of commensuration, datafication and digitalisation, flows and scapes, global connectivities and new relations, mobilities of various kinds and multiple networks. The paper argues that much greater emphasis has been given to the spatial in topological research; that is, there has been some neglect of the temporal in the spatio-temporal character of topologies.

Student learning outcomes assessment examines whether programs cover the material stated in their learning goals, whether students are learning the material, and the impact on student retention, graduation, post-graduation outcomes, and institutional accreditation, with the aim of providing faculty with data that can be used to help programs evolve or improve. While there is a plethora of research regarding effective methods of assessment used in the United States, little has been written regarding cross-national comparisons of assessment methodologies. This paper examines the current state of assessment in several nations and regions, and draws parallels in practices across countries. A literature search using the term "outcomes assessment" yielded 228 articles, of which, only 35 described practices outside the United States. Generally, searches on the terms "outcomes assessment" and "global" tend to return studies of outcomes assessment of teaching about global issues as it is practiced in the United States, rather than results about outcomes assessment practices used in other countries.

This literature review aims to examine the approach given to open science policy in the different studies. The main findings are that the approach given to open science has different aspects: policy framing and its geopolitical aspects are described as an asymmetries replication and epistemic governance tool. The main geopolitical aspects of open science policies described in the literature are the relations between international, regional, and national policies. There are also different components of open science covered in the literature: open data seems much discussed in the works in the English language, while open access is the main component discussed in the Portuguese and Spanish speaking papers. Finally, the relationship between open science policies and the science policy is framed by highlighting the innovation and transparency that open science can bring into it.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a highly heterogeneous set of neurodevelopmental disorders with the global prevalence estimates of 2.20%, according to DSM5 criteria. With the advancements of technology and availability of huge amount of data, assistive tools for diagnosis of ASD are being developed using machine learning techniques. The present study examines the possibility of automating the Autism diagnostic tool using various machine learning techniques on a dataset of 701 samples that contains 10 fields from AQ-10-Adult and 10 from individual characteristics. It takes two scenarios into consideration. First one is ideal case, where there are no missing values in the test cases. In this case Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Random Forest (RF) classifiers are trained and tested on the pre-processed dataset. To reduce computational complexity Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) based feature selection algorithm is applied. To deal with the real-world data, in the second case missing values are introduced in the test dataset for the fields' 'age', 'gender', 'jaundice', 'autism', 'used_app_before' and their three combinations. Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, Decision Tree and Logistic Regression based RFE algorithm is introduced to handle this scenario. ANN, SVM and RF classifier based learning models are trained with all the cases. Twelve classification models were generated with RFE, out of which best performing models specific to missing value were evaluated using test cases and suggested for ASD Diagnosis.

The full potential of e-learning, a trend that is of growing importance lately, will not be reaped unless the users fully utilize the system, triggering extensive research to be conducted in order to provide valuable insight on a myriad of variables influencing user acceptance in e-learning systems. The main purpose of the study is to determine the factors that affect the intention of users to use e-learning and to get results which can guide system developers and researchers. In accordance with this purpose, 203 studies investigating the e-learning acceptance of the users through the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) were found in the literature. In those studies, variables which are suggested to determine Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and results of related hypotheses are analyzed. Finally, a model is proposed. In this model, the most widely accepted hypotheses, affecting PU and PEOU according to the literature are included in the original TAM. As a result; it determines Self Efficacy-PEOU, Subjective Norm-PU, Self Efficacy-PU, Interaction-PU, Enjoyment-PEOU, Anxiety-PEOU, Enjoyment-PU, Compatibility-PU, Subjective Norm-PEOU and Interaction-PEOU as variables that have statistical significance in users' PU and PEOU, respectively. Moreover, the study examines the relationship between the User Satisfaction and original TAM variables, and proposes the Acceptance and Satisfaction Model for E-Learning (ASME) as a model to best explain the dependent variables described above.

This paper introduces a learning analytics policy and strategy framework developed by a cross-European research project team -- SHEILA (Supporting Higher Education to Integrate Learning Analytics), based on interviews with 78 senior managers from 51 European higher education institutions across 16 countries. The framework was developed adapting the RAPID Outcome Mapping Approach (ROMA), which is designed to develop effective strategies and evidence-based policy in complex environments. This paper presents four case studies to illustrate the development process of the SHEILA framework and how it can be used iteratively to inform strategic planning and policy processes in real world environments, particularly for large-scale implementation in higher education contexts. To this end, the selected cases were analyzed at two stages, each a year apart, to investigate the progression of adoption approaches that were followed to solve existing challenges, and identify new challenges that could be addressed by following the SHEILA framework.

The article examines current trends in the development of the national models of higher education in Russia and European countries. The paper reveals the key problems of their functioning in the context of the processes of globalization, standardization, and integration into the pan-European and global educational space. These processes are described through the prism of the national interests of the states. Emerging from the comparative description, content presentation and qualitative analysis, the article assesses the level of development of the national models of higher education, i.e., Russian, European and American. This allowed identifying key similarities, as well as the most important differences, which mainly stem from the difference in the state regulation of national educational systems. It is the role of the state that is leading in the formation of national educational systems and the creation of high-quality models of higher education. The state is also responsible for the transformation and adaptation of these models. The models target providing the national and world labor market with highly professional human resources. Based on the comparative aspects outlined in the article, as well as on the qualitative analysis data, the authors have come to the following main conclusions regarding the trends and prospects for the development of the Russian higher education sector: a) Firstly, the Russian model of higher education was built during an accelerated transition from a one-level to a multilevel education. The result of this shift is the labor market disbalance, which nowadays does not allow the formation of the adequate perception of specialists holding a "bachelor's degree" which is unfamiliar and obscure to many employers; b) Secondly, the Russian educational system, and the higher education model, replicate the Western European and American approaches without considering the realities of the national educational market and the labor market. Therefore, the high proportion of the population with higher education cannot provide the necessary socio-economic development potential of the country; c) Thirdly, the reform of the Russian model of higher education should continue but not in terms of accelerating the processes of its integration into the world educational system. There is much evidence that the correct direction lies within the domain of creating incentives and conditions that will ensure the training of highly skilled professionals correlating with the market demand.

This paper analyzed elementary teacher education (hereafter 'TED') programs in the top performing European (TIMSS) countries to help inform future elementary TED policy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Methodological emphasis revolved around how much emphasis should be placed on general content knowledge (GCK), as opposed to general pedagogical knowledge (GPK), as opposed to methodological pedagogical knowledge (MPK). This study explored these questions while analyzing the elementary TED programs of Germany, Finland, and the U.K. relying mainly on peer-reviewed literature on these topics published between 2000 and 2016 in the English language. Three theoretical frames of reference, aside from TIMSS, were also analyzed during this process: whether the programs were consecutive or concurrent, the model of partnership followed between universities and institutions where field experiences took place, and the overall status and role of teachers in the society as categorized by career-based or position-based. It was found that the top performing European TIMSS countries usually: have consecutive and concurrent options; attract the top academic achievers into their programs; have strict filters for admission; provide very intensive TED experiences to their students focusing on practical and diverse field experiences; enforce students to major in at least one academic subject and place more emphasis on academic subject expertise than pedagogy; have challenging criteria (including exams and portfolios) for graduation from the program; have national accreditation institutes for unifying standards; their sponsor countries enforce various types of induction and professional development once in the field; and lastly these countries offer salaries competitive with other professions that require the same amount of years and training since they are usually career-based positions.

In this study we compare the titles of scientific letters and those of research papers published in the field of astrophysics in order to identify the possible differences and/or similarities between both genres in terms of several linguistic and extra-linguistic variables (length, lexical density, number of prepositions, number of compound groups, number of authors and number of countries mentioned in the paper bylines). We also carry out a cross-genre and cross-journal analysis of the referred six variables. Our main findings may be summarized as follows: (1) When compared to research paper titles, scientific letter titles are usually shorter, they have a lower lexical density, they include a higher number of prepositions per number of words and a lower number of compound groups per number of words, although they have more up to 4-word compound groups, i.e. the simplest ones. As a consequence, scientific letter titles include less information, which is also less condensed, than research paper titles. (2) The predominance of compound adjectives over compound nouns in the titles of both genres highlights the scientificity of astrophysical discourse. (3) In general terms, our data show a positive correlation between title length and the number of countries mentioned in the bylines for both genres. The positive correlation between title length and number of authors is only met in the case of research papers. In light of these findings, it may be concluded that scientific letters are a clear example of a timeliness and more "immediate" science, whereas research papers are connected to a more timeless and "elaborate" science. It may also be concluded that two different collaboration scenarios are intertwining on the basis of three separate geographic and linguistic publication contexts (Mainland Europe, The United Kingdom and The United States of North America).

This essay explores and examines how rankings and league tables have played (and continue to play) a major and consequential role in how contemporary business schools manage their affairs. It introduces and advances the proposition that rankings promote the short-term manipulation of public reputation (image) projected by business schools at the expense of the long-term investments in quality improvement. When schools shift scarce resources to actions aimed at enhancing their public image in the short-term, the consequences for the quality of the professional education is significantly compromised in the long-term to the detriment of the constituencies that they serve. While this paper focuses mainly on business schools in the United States and Canada, where this author has experienced these consequences first-hand, the effects are similar if perhaps less dramatic, for those professional business programs located in higher education institutions operating in the United Kingdom and Europe. While ranking systems are not going away anytime soon, some potential ways are identified for business schools to escape the deleterious and perverse effects of being captive players in the deadly rankings game.

One of the major issues that concerns tertiary institutions around the world is the student retention rate. In general, higher rates of completion give more positive image about the academic, administrative and financial statues of these institutions. However, improving the student completion and retention rates can be a challenging task. One way toward this goal is utilising strategies and techniques that are informed by the findings of theoretical models and empirical studies. Therefore, this paper reviews some of the contemporary studies in the student retention literature from different higher educational contexts around the world followed by a list of the variables that are commonly linked to the student retention phenomenon in higher education and a discussion of the factors that are most frequently associated with student attrition as reported by these studies. A summary of the factors associated with the student attrition phenomenon suggested that, the central factors were the quality of students' institutional experiences and their level of integration into the academic and social systems of their academic institutions. These factors relate to students' experiences with the administrative system of their academic institution, including the admission, registration and disciplinary rules and policies and the availability and quality of student services and facilities.

What is the significance of regulations of job contracts and wages when it comes to young people's access to labour market? This is an issue that has attracted and continues to attract a great deal of interest in both research and politics. Proposals for deregulated employment protection and reduced entry-level pay recur regularly in public debate. In our view it is incomprehensible how sectors of the labour market that are dominated by jobs with low productivity and unstable employment conditions could be expected to offer a permanent solution for the large group of young people who are currently finding it difficult to enter the labour market and reach an acceptable standard of living. Instead, the responses to the challenges facing young people in the labour market could involve training in the form of apprenticeships rather than more insecure jobs and/or lower pay. Essentially, our starting point is that apprenticeship training could provide a more accurate response to the challenges facing young people in working life. This response would not involve the costs in terms of increased social polarisation and increased social risks that may follow in the wake of an increasingly deregulated labour market.

The academic profession has been long recognized as a pivotal source of belief and identity alongside the discipline and the institution of belonging. However, the ways in which academics as a professional group organize themselves towards common objectives that possibly transcend systems, institutions and disciplines, has not been explored so far. Therefore, the goal of this article is investigate how academics organize themselves in the pursuit of their professional, scientific and scholarly interests outside the university setting and across national higher education systems. We address this question by studying European academic associations. Drawing from World Polity Theory, studies on Professions and Professionalism, as well as on Interest Groups, we derive expectations as to the growth in number of academic associations and their aims. Based on the analysis of 324 associations, our findings show that assuming that the founding of academic associations is related primarily to the emergence or presence of international organizations needs to be revisited, as foundations appear to be affected by other contingent events as well. As to their aims, there is more variety than usually posited and five types of academic associations can be identified. We discuss the implications of on-going European integration in higher education and research from theory and policy perspectives.

Internationally, the political appetite for educational measurement capable of capturing a metric of value for money and effectiveness has momentum. While most would agree with the need to assess costs relevant to quality to help support better governmental policy decisions about public spending, poorly understood measurement comes with unintended consequences. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the development of measures of learning gain in higher education, exploring political contexts, methodological challenges, and the multiple purposes and potential of learning gain metrics for quality assurance, accountability and enhancement, and most importantly, we argue, the enhancement of learning and teaching. Learning gain approaches should be integral to curriculum design and delivery and not extraneous to it. Enhancing shared understandings of concepts, measures, and instruments, transparency in reporting and investment in developing pedagogical research literacy, including effective use of data are essential in the pursuit of meaningful approaches to measuring learning gain within higher education.

Objectives: To examine the effect of spirituality and spiritual training on resilience in primary caregiver parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Methods: A cross-country pre- and post-test-based experimental design has been used. The sample of this one-year-long study comprised 1687 parents of children with ASD in 15 countries. A six-day customized spiritual lessons package was administered to the study participants. Three scales have been used: Resilience Scale (RS), Sense of Coherence Scale (29-items) (SOC-29), and Parenting and Family Adjustment Scale (PAFAS-30). Results: Results of the paired t-test showed that post-test RS and SOC-29 scores of the participants were higher indicating greater resilience and sense of coherence post treatment. Post-test PAFAS-30 scores were lower indicating lower dysfunction and better adjustment. Logistic regression and structural equation models showed that parents from European countries including the UK, US, Canada, and Australia, Christians, those who did three--four rounds of the spiritual lessons through the study period and those who self-practiced, had higher post-test scores. Further mothers and middle-class parents were likely to have higher post-test resilience scores. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that self-practice was the most significant predictor of participants' post-test scores. Conclusion: The study findings re-inforce the resilience-promoting potential of spirituality/spiritually sensitive interventions for parents of children with ASD, contingent on variations due to domicile country, religion, rounds of spiritual lessons, and self-practice as critical predictors, and sex and economic class as secondary predictors.

Wearable devices and ambient sensors can monitor a growing number of aspects of daily life and work. We propose to use this context data as content for learning applications in workplace settings to enable employees to reflect on experiences from their work. Learning by reflection is essential for today's dynamic work environments, as employees have to adapt their behavior according to their experiences. Building on research on computer-supported reflective learning as well as persuasive technology, and inspired by the Quantified Self community, we present an approach to the design of tools supporting reflective learning at work by turning context information collected through sensors into learning content. The proposed approach has been implemented and evaluated with care staff in a care home and voluntary crisis workers. In both domains, tailored wearable sensors were designed and evaluated. The evaluations show that participants learned by reflecting on their work experiences based on their recorded context. The results highlight the potential of sensors to support learning from context data itself and outline lessons learned for the design of sensor-based capturing methods for reflective learning.

Identification of genomic variability in population plays an important role in the clinical diagnostics of human genetic diseases. Thanks to rapid technological development in the field of massive parallel sequencing technologies, also known as next-generation sequencing (NGS), complex genomic analyses are now easier and cheaper than ever before, which consequently leads to more effective utilization of these techniques in clinical practice. However, interpretation of data from NGS is still challenging due to several issues caused by natural variability of DNA sequences in human populations. Therefore, development and realization of projects focused on description of genetic variability of local population (often called "national or digital genome") with a NGS technique is one of the best approaches to address this problem. The next step of the process is to share such data via publicly available databases. Such databases are important for the interpretation of variants with unknown significance or (likely) pathogenic variants in rare diseases or cancer or generally for identification of pathological variants in a patient's genome. In this paper, we have compiled an overview of published results of local genome sequencing projects from United Kingdom and Europe together with future plans and perspectives for newly announced ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale, aims and objective: Substituting outpatient hospital care with primary care is seen as a solution to decrease unnecessary referrals to outpatient hospital care and decrease rising healthcare costs. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effects on quality of care, health and costs outcomes of substituting outpatient hospital care with primary care-based interventions, which are performed by medical specialists in face-to-face consultations in a primary care setting. Method: The systematic review was performed using the PICO framework. Original papers in which the premise of the intervention was to substitute outpatient hospital care with primary care through the involvement of a medical specialist in a primary care setting were eligible. Results: A total of 14 papers were included. A substitution intervention in general practitioner (GP) practices was described in 11 papers, three described a joint consultation intervention in which GPs see patients together with a medical specialist. This study showed that substitution initiatives result mostly in favourable outcomes compared to outpatient hospital care. The initiatives resulted mostly in shorter waiting lists, shorter clinic waiting times and higher patient satisfaction. Costs for treating one extra patient seemed to be higher in the intervention settings. This was mainly caused by inefficient planning of consultation hours and lower patient numbers. Conclusions: Despite the fact that internationally a lot has been written about the importance of performing substitution interventions in which preventing unnecessary referrals to outpatient hospital care was the aim, only 14 papers were included. Future systematic reviews should focus on the effects on the Triple Aim of substitution initiatives in which other healthcare professions than medical specialists are involved along with new technologies, such as e-consults. Additionally, to gain more insight into the effects of substitution initiatives operating in a dynamic healthcare context, it is important to keep evaluating the interventions in a longitudinal study design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a growing contributor to the global burden of noncommunicable diseases. Early diagnosis and treatment can reduce the severity of kidney damage and the need for dialysis or transplantation. It is not known whether mild-to-moderate renal pelvis dilatation (RPD) identified at 18-20 weeks gestation is an early indicator of renal pathology. The aim of this follow-up to the Welsh Study of Mothers and Babies was to assess the risk of hospital admission in children with mild-to-moderate antenatal RPD compared with children without this finding. We also examined how the natural history of the RPD (whether the dilatation persists in later pregnancy or postpartum) or its characteristics (unilateral versus bilateral) changed the risk of hospital admission.Methods/findings: This population-based cohort study included singleton babies born in Wales between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2011 (n = 22,045). We linked ultrasound scan data to routinely available data on hospital admissions from the Patient Episode Database for Wales (PEDW). The outcome was a hospital admission for urinary tract causes (defined by an expert study steering group) in the first three years of life. We used Cox regression to model time to first hospital admission, according to whether there was evidence of RPD at the fetal anomaly scan (FAS) and/or evidence of dilatation in later investigations, adjusting for other predictors of admission. We used multiple imputation with chained equations to impute values for missing data. We included 21,239 children in the analysis. The risk of at least one hospital admission was seven times greater in those with RPD (n = 138) compared with those without (n = 21,101, conditional hazard ratio [cHR] 7.23, 95% confidence interval [CI] 4.31-12.15, p < 0.001). The risk of hospital admission was higher in children with RPD at the FAS and later dilatation (cHR 25.13, 95% CI 13.26-47.64, p < 0.001) and in children without RPD at the FAS who had later dilatation (cHR 62.06, 95% CI 41.10-93.71, p < 0.001) than in children without RPD (n = 21,057). Among children with RPD at the FAS but no dilatation in later pregnancy or postpartum, we did not find an association with hospital admissions (cHR 2.16, 95% CI 0.69-6.75, p = 0.185), except when the initial dilatation was bilateral (cHR 4.77, 95% CI 1.17-19.47, p = 0.029). Limitations of the study include small numbers in subgroups (meaning that these results should be interpreted with caution), that less severe outcomes (such as urinary tract infections [UTIs] managed in the community or in outpatients) could not be included in our analysis, and that obtaining records of radiological investigations later in pregnancy and postpartum was challenging. Our conclusions were consistent after conducting sensitivity analyses to account for some of these limitations.Conclusions: In this large population-based study, children with RPD at the FAS had higher rates of hospital admissions when there was persistent dilatation in later pregnancy or postpartum. Our results can be used to improve counselling of parents and develop care pathways for antenatal screening programmes, including protocols for reporting and further investigation of RPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freshwater ecosystems rank among the most endangered ecosystems in the world and are under increasing threat from aquatic invasive species (AIS). Understanding the range expansion of AIS is key for mitigating their impacts. Most approaches rely on Species Distribution Models (SDMs) to predict the expansion of AIS, using mainly environmental variables, yet ignore the role of human activities in favouring the introduction and range expansion of AIS. In this study, we use five SDM algorithms (independently and in ensemble) and two accuracy measures (TSS, AUC), combined with a null modelling approach, to assess the predictive performance of the models and to quantify which predictors (environmental and anthropogenic from the native and introduced regions) best explain the distribution of nine freshwater invasive species (including fish, arthropods, molluscs, amphibians and reptiles) in a large island (Great Britain), and which species characteristics affect model performance. Our results show that the distribution of invasive species is difficult to predict by SDMs, even in cases when TSS and AUC model accuracy values are high. Our study strongly advocates the use of null models for testing SDMs performance and the inclusion of information from the native area and a variety of both human-related and environmental predictors for a more accurate modelling of the range expansion of AIS. Otherwise, models that only include climatic variables, or rely only on standard accuracy measures or a single algorithm, might result in mismanagement of AIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Readmissions are a recognised challenge for providers of healthcare and incur financial penalties in a growing number of countries. However, the scale of unscheduled hospital contacts including attendances at emergency departments that do not result in admission is not well known. In addition, little is known about the route to readmission for patients recently discharged from an emergency hospital stay. Methods: This is an observational study of national hospital administration data for England. In this retrospective cohort study, we tracked patients for 30 days after discharge from an emergency admission for heart failure (HF) or chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). Results: The majority of patients (COPD:79%; HF:75%) had no unscheduled contact with secondary health care within 30 days of discharge. Of those who did have unscheduled contact, the most common first unscheduled contact was emergency department (ED) attendance (COPD:16%; HF:18%). A further 5% of COPD patients and 4% of HF patients were admitted for an emergency inpatient stay, but not through the ED. A small percentage of patients (COPD:<1%, HF:2%) died without any known contact with secondary care. ED conversion rates at first attendance for both COPD and HF were high: 75% and 79% respectively. A quarter of patients who were not admitted during this first ED attendance attended the ED again within the 30-day follow-up period, and around half (COPD:56%; HF:63%) of these were admitted at this point. Patients who live alone, had an index admission which included an overnight stay and were comorbid had higher odds of being admitted through the ED than via other routes. Conclusion: While the majority of patients did not have unscheduled contact with secondary care in the 30 days after index discharge, many patients attended the ED, often multiple times, and many were admitted to hospital, not always via the ED. More frail patients were more likely to be admitted through the ED, suggesting a possible area of focus as discharge bundles are developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Harmful levels of alcohol consumption in young people are prevalent and of increasing public concern in the western world. Rates of alcohol-related emergency hospital admissions in children and young people between 10 to 17 years were described, and the reasons for these admissions and their association with socio-demographic factors were examined. Methods: E-cohort data were extracted from the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Databank, which contained alcohol-related emergency hospital admissions (N = 2968) from 2006 to 2011 in children and adolescents aged 10 to 17 years in Wales. A generalised linear mixed model was fitted using a log-link with a population offset to the data to calculate incident rate ratios (IRRSs). Results: There was a general decreasing trend from 2006 to 2011 in the number and rate of alcohol-related emergency hospital admissions; the mean age of admission was 15.4 (standard deviation 1.4) years. In each of the four youngest age groups (10–13,14,15,16 years), females had higher IRRs than males. Males had slightly higher IRR compared to females only in the oldest age group (17 years). IRRs increased with increasing deprivation. The majority (92%) of the admissions lasted one day and most of the admissions (70%) occured during the last three days of the week with a peak on Saturday. The length of stay in hospital was longer in cases when self-harm were present. Multiple admissions showed high prevalance of serious self-harm cases in females. The number of admissions with injuries and falls were higher for males than females. Conclusion: Female children and adolescents were more likely to be admitted to hospital for alcohol-related reasons. These data illustrate the significant burden of alcohol-related harm in young people and highlight the need for interventions and policies that promote safe drinking practices among young people to prevent future alcohol-related harm during the life-course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patient and public involvement (PPI) is a requirement for UK health and social care research funding. Evidence for how best to implement PPI in research programmes, such as National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaborations for Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs), remains limited. This paper reports findings from an action research (AR) project called IMPRESS, which aims to strengthen PPI within CLAHRC East of England (EoE). IMPRESS combines AR with Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) to explore PPI within diverse case study projects, identifying actions to implement, test and refine to further embed PPI. Methods: We purposively selected CLAHRC EoE case study projects for in-depth analysis of PPI using NPT. Data were generated from project PPI documentation, semi-structured qualitative interviews with researchers and PPI contributors and focus groups. Transcripts and documents were subjected to abductive thematic analysis and triangulation within case. Systematic across case comparison of themes was undertaken with findings and implications refined through stakeholder consultation. Results: We interviewed 24 researchers and 13 PPI contributors and analysed 28 documents from 10 case studies. Three focus groups were held: two with researchers (n = 4 and n = 6) and one with PPI contributors (n = 5). Findings detail to what extent projects made sense of PPI, bought in to PPI, operationalised PPI and appraised it, thus identifying barriers and enablers to fully embedded PPI. Conclusion: Combining NPT with AR allows us to assess the embeddedness of PPI within projects and programme, to inform specific local action and report broader conceptual lessons for PPI knowledge and practice informing the development of an action framework for embedding PPI in research programmes. To embed PPI within similar programmes teams, professionals, disciplines and institutions should be recognised as variably networked into existing PPI support. Further focus and research is needed on sharing PPI learning and supporting innovation in PPI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vaginal lubricants are commonly used by couples trying-to-conceive. However, most vaginal lubricants are sperm toxic and therefore should not be used by couples trying-to-conceive. Despite this, lubricant sperm toxicity is insufficiently reported and guidance for healthcare professionals (HCPs) is absent. In this study, lubricant-related practices of fertility-based HCPs in Scotland were sampled via an online survey. Lubricants identified as being utilised in the fertility setting were subsequently incubated with prepared sperm samples to establish effects on sperm motility. HCP recommendations (n = 32) on lubricant use were varied although knowledge related to sperm toxicity was generally poor. HCPs infrequently asked about lubricant use and were unaware of guidance in this area. Aquagel, the only prescribed lubricant identified in this study, reduced sperm progressive motility to 49% of control after 10 minutes, even at concentrations as low as 5%. Vitality testing suggested the deterioration in progressive motility with Aquagel was not as a result of cell death. Conversely, Pré Vaginal Lubricant, a ‘sperm-safe’ lubricant, did not significantly affect any markers of sperm function assessed. Development of clinical guidance in this area is recommended to ensure HCPs deliver informed advice as lubricant use in couples trying-to-conceive may inadvertently contribute to delay in conception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine cross-sectional and prospective associations between perceived discrimination in daily life (based on a range of attributes), sexual orientation discrimination, and health and wellbeing in middle-aged and older lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people. Methods: Data were from 304 LGB men and women aged 41–85 years participating in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Perceived discrimination in daily life was reported in 2010/11. Participants could attribute their discrimination experience to characteristics including age, sex, race, physical disability, and sexual orientation. Self-rated health, limiting long-standing illness, depressive symptoms, quality of life, life satisfaction and loneliness were assessed in 2010/11 and 2016/17. Analyses adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, partnership status and socioeconomic position. Results: Perceived discrimination in daily life was reported by 144 (47.4%) participants. Cross-sectionally, perceived discrimination in daily life was associated with increased odds of depressive symptoms (OR = 2.30, 95% CI 1.02 to 5.21), loneliness (OR = 3.37, 95% CI 1.60 to 7.10) and lower quality of life (B = -3.31, 95% CI -5.49 to -1.12). Prospectively, perceived discrimination in daily life was associated with increased odds of loneliness (OR = 3.12, 95% CI 1.08 to 8.99) and lower quality of life (B = -2.08, 95% CI -3.85 to -0.31) and life satisfaction (B = -1.92, 95% CI -3.44 to -0.39) over six-year follow-up. Effect sizes were consistently larger for participants who attributed experiences of discrimination to their sexual orientation compared with those who attributed experiences of discrimination to other reasons (e.g. age, sex, race). Conclusion: These results provide cross-sectional and prospective evidence of associations between perceived discrimination in daily life and health and wellbeing outcomes in middle-aged and older LGB adults in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the high prevalence of common mental disorders (CMDs) and individuals living alone in the United Kingdom, the goal of this study using English nationally representative data was to examine the association between living alone and CMDs, and to identify potential mediating factors of this association. The data were drawn from the 1993, 2000 and 2007 National Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys. CMDs were assessed using the Clinical Interview Schedule-Revised (CIS-R), a questionnaire focusing on past week neurotic symptoms. The presence of CMDs was defined as a CIS-R total score of 12 and above. Multivariable logistic regression and mediation analyses were conducted to analyze the association between living alone and CMDs, and to identify mediators in this association. The prevalence of CMDs was higher in individuals living alone than in those not living alone in all survey years. Multivariable analysis showed a positive association between living alone and CMDs in all survey years (1993: odds ratio [OR] = 1.69; 2000: OR = 1.63; and 2007: OR = 1.88). Overall, loneliness explained 84% of the living alone-CMD association. Living alone was positively associated with CMDs. Interventions addressing loneliness among individuals living alone may be particularly important for the mental wellbeing of this vulnerable population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]