Search

This paper describes the procedure followed to implement a double-degree master program in mechatronics engineering between Jordanian and European universities. Initially, a study of world-wide master curricula was carried out, followed by a survey of Jordanian industry and academia. This helped clarify the structure and content of the desired master program, such that it addressed the needs of the perspective students and the job market in Jordan and the region. To formulate a final degree structure and course content, it was necessary to work closely with European partners in an iterative approach. Some of the problematic questions that had to be answered pertained to: varying course credit systems; amount of time students spend at each university; student academic background; country-specific accreditation rules; university specific needs. This work is one result of a three-year European funded TEMPUS project between October 2011 and October 2014. The first double degree students enrolled in the developed program at Philadelphia University, in Amman - Jordan, in October 2013 with two German universities as partners.

This chapter consolidates the process and the findings from the four benchmark reports. It presents (i) the methodology and methods employed for data collection and data analysis; (ii) the comparative analysis of HE sectors and respective education systems in these countries; (iii) the executive summaries of the benchmark reports. Reflections on this benchmark exercise conclude this chapter.

The broad fields of Bioengineering (BE) and Medical Informatics (MI) are among the most prominent and fastest developing scientific areas. These are considered as key, out of a few, challenges within crucial research and innovation strategies worldwide. Almost every university wanting to be in accordance with a technological progress offers a curricula in BE&MI at master and doctoral levels, and numerous offer bachelor level degrees, as well. Where it is not the case, state and universities authorities are making efforts to open dedicated study programs. Following the evident needs European Commission promotes such actions through its educational strategies and corresponding projects, Tempus being one of these. The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) granted regional Tempus project “Studies in Bioengineering and Medical Informatics - BioEMIS” aiming at introducing devoted study programs at Western Balkan countries, namely Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following short study highlights the main guidelines of BE&MI study programs development, respecting European good practice.

Establishing methods for secure long term storage of RNA is critical to realizing the promise of biobanks in biomedical research. Here, we describe the results of yearly analyses of the same set of umbilical cord and adult whole blood RNA collected in Tempus Blood RNA tubes and stored at -80°C, over a period of up to six years. We systematically investigated the effects of long-term storage of samples (75 Tempus tubes form three adult donors and 30 Tempus tubes from three cord blood donors) on the RNA quality and transcript stability of six selected genes (CDKN1A, FOS, IL1B, IL8, MYC and TP53). This is the first systematic study of both cord and adult blood samples stored for many years. The RNA purity and integrity, expressed as RIN-values, were stable up to six years of storage, and there were no storage-related deleterious effects on RNA purity. There were limited intra- and inter-individual variations in RNA yields; however, no consistent trend of decreasing RNA yield was observed with the duration of storage. Some long-term storage effects were found on the relative transcript levels of the six genes when compared to the year 0 samples. However, these changes were within ± 2–fold for both types of blood samples, except for two genes. Our results show that storage of these samples for up to six years did not have significant effects on the RNA quality and transcript stability of the six genes. Blood RNA is stable in Tempus tubes stored at -80°C over a period of six years. Intact and good-quality RNA suitable for transcript profiling analyses in epidemiological studies was obtained from blood samples stored in Tempus tubes. This suggests that blood samples collected in large biobanks–such as the Mother and Child (MoBa) Cohort at Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) and frozen in suitable collection tubes for total RNA stabilization, can be used for quantitative studies after at least six years of storage.

Background Gene expression profiling from blood is sensitive to technology choices. For example, the main blood RNA collection systems—the PAXgene and Tempus tubes—differently influence RNA expression signatures. The aim of this study was to establish a common RNA isolation protocol for these two systems and investigate if it could reduce the differences in gene expression between them. Results We collected identical blood samples on the PAXgene and Tempus systems and retrieved blood samples from two independent biobanks—NOWAC and HUNT3—which are based on PAXgene and Tempus, respectively. High-quality RNA was extracted from both sampling systems by using their original protocols and our common modified protocol, and were profiled on Illumina microarrays. Regardless of the protocol used, we found most of the measured transcripts to be differently affected by the two sampling systems. However, our modified protocol reduced the number of transcripts that were significantly differentially expressed between PAXgene and Tempus by approximately 50%. Expression differences between PAXgene and Tempus were highly reproducible both between protocols and between different independent sample sets (Pearson correlation 0.563–0.854 across 47323 probes). Moreover, the modified protocol increased the microRNA output of the system with lowest microRNA yield, the PAXgene system. Conclusions Most transcripts are affected by the choice of sampling system, but these effects are highly reproducible between independent samples. We propose that by running a control experiment with samples on both systems in parallel with biologically relevant samples, researchers may adjust for technical differences between the sampling systems. © The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated

International audience; The completed ERAMIS and the ongoing PROMIS are European Union (EU) Tempus projects for setting up a new Master degree titled “Informatics as a Second Competence” taking as a model a similar existing degree of the University of Grenoble Alpes, France. Both projects can be consideredbig and having quite long implementation periods – more than three years each. There were seventeen partners from eight countries in the ERAMIS project, and there are now twenty one partners including three companies coming from ten countries in the PROMIS project. In both cases, EU partners collaborated with partners from regions that differ culturally, namely, Central Asia and Russia. Although those projects were not the biggest in the Tempus program, they could be classified as large in terms of their budget and the number of partners involved.The core results of the statistical overview of parameters of the Tempus programme projects are presented in this paper. The analysis was performed in two dimensions: project budget and number of partner countries. It allowed classifying ERAMIS and PROMIS projects as large in comparison to other EU Tempus projects. To clarify the context, the short descriptions of both projects are given, followed by the summary of the evaluation of problems encountered by the EU partner project teams. Issues arose from different areas, such as project activities, scheduling, legal procedures, and so on. Some issues were due to the international nature of the project, for example, varying level of language skills, different culture, legislation and ways of handling tasks, work motivation, etc. Leverage came from the people: all teams consisted of academics in the same field. They had approximately the same level of knowledge and skills, used the similar reference works and similar technologies. We consider this isessential for the success of such projects.By pointing out the various issues encountered in these two projects, we aim to raise awareness about the problems that need to be dealt with and planned for in this kind of large projects as to allow others to avoid them or address these issues smoothly.

International audience; The overall objective of the two Tempus projects, MathGeAr and MetaMath, is toimprove the quality of STEM education in the South Caucasian region (Armenia andGeorgia) and Russia, by modernizing and improving the curricula and teachingmethods in the field of Mathematics.This article presents an analysis of the engineering students’ perceptions of theirmathematics courses. We present the methodology of data acquisition, the mainthemes that the study investigates and the preliminary results. We do validate the factthat each institution carries its own educational tradition which yields a very strongindicator of the origin of students.

In their comments on “Models of Fact”, Charnes, Cooper, DeVoe and Learner [Charnes, A., W. W. Cooper, J. K. DeVoe, D. B. Learner. 1971. Models of fact and laws of behaviour. Management Sci. 17 367–369.] state that they will avoid a direct reply to my claims and criticisms. In following this precedent, I remark briefly on the pertinent use of references, an important matter in our work.

The World of Mathematics: A Small Library of the Literature of Mathematics from A'h-mose the Scribe to Albert Einstein. Commenteries and notes by James R. Newman Tempus Books, 16011 NE 36th Way, Box 97017, Redmond, Washington 98073–9717: 195611988. Four volumes, pp.2,448 plus indexes. Distributed by Harper & Row, hbk $99.95, pbk $50.

The present writer has employed the phrase "African hemiola-style" in describing the most important rhythmic style of Africa. As used in European musical tradition from the Renaissance onward, the term "hemiola" refers, of course, to the interplay of two groups of three notes with three groups of two notes. This is accomplished without any durational change in the basic pulse unit, so that two groups of 3/4, for example, may become three groups of 2/4 without any metronome change in the quarter note. The important overall effect here is the quantitative alternation of two "conductor's" durations, one of which is longer or shorter than the other. This exchange of "long" and "short" is always in the ratio of 2:3, or 3:2, i. e., the longer duration is always one and one-half times the length of the shorter duration. Thus, the dotted-half note may be replaced by the half-note, or vice versa; the dottedquarter by the quarter; the dotted-eighth by the eighth, etc. The ancient Greek "hemiolia" meant just this--by one and onehalf--and referred to the paeonic or five-beat meter, which was realized in practice as a dotted-quarter plus a quarter (5/8), or a half plus a dotted-half (5/4). (Sachs, 1943:261). In Europe, the hemiola already existed in the fourteenth century, being designated by means of note-coloration. Although the term "hemiola" is sometimes confused with "sesquialtera," which represented a rhythmic alteration also designated by note-coloration, the two derive from quite different rhythmic concepts: The hemiola derives from an unequal, asymmetric rhythmic approach, and the sesquialtera from an equal, symmetric rhythmic approach. The rhythms of Ancient Greece, India, and the Middle East exemplify the first, asymmetric style, while seventeenth to nineteenth century Western rhythms exemplify the second, or symmetric style. Curt Sachs calls the asymmetric style an additive style--by virtue of the emphasis within this style on the succession or addition of assorted durations, i. e., the exchange of "longs" and "shorts." In contradistinction, he calls the symmetric style a divisive style--by virtue of the emphasis here on equally-divided measures, i. e., measures divided into regular durations. (Sachs, 1953:24-25). Note-coloration within an imperfect tempus (i. e., binary) gave rise to triplets (the im?erfect breve U or two quarters 3 became a triplet 4 0 ; )--this was sesquialtera; note-coloration within a perfect tempus (i. e., ternary) gave rise to regrouping rather than substitution (two perfect breves N 8 or two groups of three quarters JJ , AJJ became three

Indo-Europeanists have often disagreed on the use of determinatives and root-determinatives in word-analysis; Persson's work was criticized by Bloomfield' and Hirt's later by Petersen.2 These criticisms were made from a diachronic standpoint. That axOoiaLt is longer by one element than x Benveniste used to advantage a synchronic study of the dh-determinative in his explanation of the Gk. infinitive in -oaea and the Indo-Iranian infinitive in -dhydi.6 This paper is a synchronic study of the IE dh-determinative in the Germanic languages.7 Persson defined determinatives as root-enlargements, either consonantal or vocalic, with no clearly recognizable meaning.8 But he did not differentiate between determinatives and nominal or tense formants. On the contrary he says: 'In den genannten Hinsichten eine Parallele zwischen den Tempusund Nominalformantien einerseits und den Determinativen anderseits zu ziehen, ist umsomehr berechtigt, als diese Elemente vielfach in einander iiberfliessen und offenbar in genetischem Zusammenhang stehen. .... Die Determinative lassen sich zum Teil als verallgemeinerte Tempussuffixe fassen. Zum Teil mag auch die Beschrinkung dieser Formantien auf ein bestimmtes Tempus sekundar sein.'9 Thus Persson admits a connection between determinatives and tense formants, and the possible development of a definite function for determinatives.