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Background: The authenticity of foodstuffs and associated fraud has become an important area. It is estimated that global food fraud costs approximately $US49b annually. In relation to testing for this malpractice, analytical technologies exist to detect fraud but are usually expensive and lab based. However, recently there has been a move towards non-targeted methods as means for detecting food fraud but the question arises if these techniques will ever be accepted as routine. Scope and approach: In this opinion paper, many aspects relating to the role of non-targeted spectroscopy based methods for food fraud detection are considered: (i) a review of the current non-targeted spectroscopic methods to include the general differences with targeted techniques; (ii) overview of in-house validation procedures including samples, data processing and chemometric techniques with a view to recommending a harmonized procedure; (iii) quality assessments including QC samples, ring trials and reference materials; (iv) use of “big data” including recording, validation, sharing and joint usage of databases. Key findings and conclusions: In order to keep pace with those who perpetrate food fraud there is clearly a need for robust and reliable non-targeted methods that are available to many stakeholders. Key challenges faced by the research and routine testing communities include: a lack of guidelines and legislation governing both the development and validation of non-targeted methodologies, no common definition of terms, difficulty in obtaining authentic samples with full traceability for model building; the lack of a single chemometric modelling software that offers all the algorithms required by developers.

Student peer mentor programs are recognised as a valid component of a multi-faceted strategy to improve student engagement within higher education. This paper reports some preliminary results from research investigating how such programs help support diverse student needs in a multicultural environment. Our results are from a study of a pilot postgraduate student peer mentoring program set up to support new students in the Faculty of Business and Law at Deakin University, Australia. The postgraduate student body at Deakin is quite diverse and includes a large proportion of international students. We present examples to show how a peer mentoring program can improve the social engagement of students, help overcome cross-cultural communication barriers and contribute to the development of academic skills.

The aim of the study was to discover and describe how International Graduates experience and adjust to their home country upon re-entry. Sixty seven graduates of New Zealand Universities were interviewed. Twenty eight in Singapore, twenty five in Malaysia and fourteen in Indonesia. The interviews were conducted face to face without undue time constraints. The first phase of each interview was non-directed and simply asked the graduate to describe their experiences of leaving New Zealand and re-entering their home society. In the second phase, the graduate was directed to comment on their experience in the light of the general categories of graduate re-entry adjustment listed in the rather sparse literature on the subject. The first phase elicited information relating to graduate re-entry adjustment from the viewpoint and perceptions of the graduates themselves. Each had a unique experience of re-entry. In the second phase interviewees covered the full range of adjustments mentioned in the literature on graduate re-entry, but the categories listed proved to be indicative rather than exhaustive and some categories featured very little in the lives of interviewees. What stood out in this study were three areas of adjustment common to all who were interviewed, and felt strongly by all. These three areas were drawn from the non directed phase and carried a strong sense of perception amongst those interviewed as being the areas of readjustment for them. Certainly the three areas were universal to all interviewed and although there was overlap with the categories used in phase two of the interviews, it was apparent that such universality made these three the major adjustments graduates face. Therefore, the three categories of: work environment; world view change; and lifestyle expectations are the three major areas focused on in this study. Several non-universal indications were found in this study. In phase II of the interviews a check was made of a category list of indic