Chula Fine and Applied Arts lecturer receives overall Best Presenters Award from “Plastic Sea” Project

Dr. Haisang Javanalikhikara, a lecturer from the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University, has received the Overall Best Presenters award at the 8th International Conference on Arts and Humanities (2021) on Wednesday, September 22, 2021.

Dr. Haisang’s presentation on “Plastic Sea: Art Exhibition on Plastic Marine Pollution”, a project created to encourage people to reduce plastic waste via interactive data visualization art, is one of the creative research projects under the FAAMAI Digital Arts Hub, supported by the Chulalongkorn University Second Century Fund (C2F).

The 8th International Conference on Arts and Humanities (ICOAH) was co-organized by the Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Canada; the Faculty of Music, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia; and the International Association for Social Science and Humanities, Sri Lanka.  More than 100 participants from 25 countries joined the virtual conference.

UiTM organizes “Enhancing Research Idea Using Pitching Framework” seminar

The Faculty of Business and Management (FBM), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) held a research seminar with the theme of “Enhancing Research Idea Using Pitching Framework” on 18th August 2021 via Zoom and Facebook live platforms.

It was organized by the Research and Innovation (RENOVA) Unit of FBM-UiTM. The seminar targeted at creating awareness among the faculty’s community on the presence of this framework and holds onto the understanding that high quality research outputs can be produced by the academics and post-graduate students if their research ideas are established in a more novelty-driven way.

Emeritus Prof. Dr. Robert W. Faff, a distinguished Finance Professor of Bond University, Australia was invited as a speaker. He is the founder of this research planning tool called “Pitching Research Framework” which nowadays has received worldwide attention in the research environment.

He has published various articles promoting the use of this new tool in the research area, which aims to challenge novice researchers to effectively communicate their research ideas, provides a simple and succinct research planning framework in the form of a 2-page pitching template. The logic is to deliver essential, brief information across a broad range of essential dimensions that any academic expert or research collaborator would need, to make a reliable evaluation of the quality of a research idea and proposal.

Applying the pitching template that promotes communication of research ideas with a total allocation of 1,000 words ± 20%, academics and post-graduate students are able to identify and evaluate the novelty of their research in a simple form. Thus, the application of this framework would assist them in producing more novelty-driven research outputs.

In his speech, Prof. Dr Robert Faff, emphasized that two biggest obstacles impeding any research project are the start and the endpoint of the project. As pitching a research framework is all about establishing a sound start, the identification of whether researchers have identified a worthwhile research topic will indicate the novelty of the research topic and the potential of the research outputs for publication in highly ranked international academic journals.

He added, a research idea, which will be itemized in the pitching template, will avoid the academics and post-graduate students from wasting precious time and resources on ideas that may merely be a replication element or “flimsy” addition to the existing literature.

Expressing her gratitude on the presence of Emeritus Prof. Dr. Robert Faff as a speaker in the seminar, Prof. Dr Noryati Ahmad, the Dean of FBM-UiTM, agreed on the suitability of this framework in research supervision activities.

She added this framework may reduce the time consumed in understanding students’ research idea at the early supervision phase which eventually help the students having a good grasp of their research direction.

The seminar yields insightful guidance for communicating research ideas and establishing a novelty-driven research topic.

President University qualifies PK-KM selection

President University (PresUniv) successfully passed the selection of the Program Kompetisi Kampus Merdeka (PK-KM) held by the Directorate General of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology. PK-KM is a higher education development program aimed at improving the quality and relevance of higher education by achieving eight Main Performance Indicators (IKU) to contribute to increasing the nation’s competitiveness.

PresUniv managed to qualify for the 3rd league for colleges with 1,000-5,000 students.

The three stages of selection were administrative evaluation, evaluation of the quality and feasibility of proposals, and feasibility verification in online visits. PresUniv received an online visit by three assessors on Thursday (29/4) in the feasibility verification stage.

Under this program, two PresUniv Study Programs will receive IDR 3 billion annually for three years. Two study programs participating in this program are Information Technology and Business Administration, both of which already have A accreditation and are currently applying for international accreditation. Donald Samuel, Head of the Student Affairs Bureau of PresUniv, said, “This grant is given so that we can implement the program Kampus Merdeka well.”

PresUniv has prepared four activities for this, namely activities on professional streams, entrepreneurship, scholarships, and institutional internationalization in the form of internationalization of study programs focusing on tourism, digital business, global business, and retail through impactful capacity building to provide world-class education.

UiTM receives grant for students’ career advancement

Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Malaysia was recently awarded Marketability Grant worth RM1,135,000. The funding is granted to the researchers from the College of Engineering headed by Assoc. Prof. Ir Ts Dr Azita Laily Yusof with team members; Assoc. Prof. Ir Ts Dr Juliana Johari, Assoc. Prof. Ir Ts Dr Norsuzila Ya’acob, Ir Ts Dr Nani Fadzlina Naim and Ir Ts Dr Suhaila Subahir.

The Marketability Grant is explicitly for the Telecommunications Engineering Competency Certification Course Program under the KPT Career Advancement Program (Penjana KPT-CAP). The grant is intended to enhance the added value of graduates in terms of professional qualifications, personal skills and personality of graduates.

This accredited Telecommunications Engineering Competency Certification Course Program is a certification awarded to those who have successfully gone through comprehensive training covering telecommunication networks, data communications, wireless communications and microwave devices. With this certification, they are recognized to have achieved competency skills levels from the Telco, DOSH and CIDB industries.

Those who receive this certification are recognized as highly skilled, quality and a source of reference for the department as they have obtained complete accreditation and no longer need to take outside certification to start new jobs. This is part of UiTM’s efforts to help increase the marketability of graduates in achieving the status of a developed country in the era of the Industrial Revolution 4.0.

Modernization of Educational Programs in Kazakhstan

The signing of the Bologna Declaration by the Republic of Kazakhstan was a powerful impetus for the modernization of higher education. It entailed not only the optimization of the existing education system but also the introduction of new educational forms and methods.

The practical implementation of the Bologna Agreement at the present stage is accompanied by the development of new methods of teaching, the search and development of our own professional paradigms adapted to the modern concept of education in
Kazakhstan.

The educational program is a set of measures approved by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, with the help of which it is possible to identify the level of skills, knowledge and abilities for different courses of study at the university. In such a program, it is clearly spelt out what the student should study in each course.

At the Caspian State University of Technology and Engineering named after Sh. Yessenov, educational programs are developed and annually updated in accordance with the Classifier of areas for training personnel with higher and postgraduate education, the requirements of the State Educational Standard of Education and other regulatory legal acts in the field of higher and postgraduate education, as well as the Academic Policy of the University.

In this regard, within the framework of the project ” National Online Academy of Teachers” in February 2021, an intensive “Pedagogical design” was held at the Caspian State University of Technologies and Engineering named after Sh. Yessenov.

It was attended by the candidate of economic sciences, analyst Kurganbaeva Gulmira
Amanzholovna and university professors, as well as leaders of educational programs. The content of the intensive included such items as: a roadmap of changes at the university, a generation Z competency model, design and design of academic programs, analysis and development of new programs, presentation of updated
educational programs.

As a result of the intensive, in order to increase the efficiency of mastering the competencies of an academic bachelor’s degree in engineering, business and law, economics, etc., as well as to meet the challenges of calling the time into educational programs, it was proposed to introduce new disciplines such as emotional intelligence and life design, BigData, project organization and management, global ecology and sustainable development, etc.

Thammasat University develops COVID-19 screening assessment

Thai Health Promotion Foundation in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Administration, Thammasat University and the network of social workers competency development project have developed a COVID-19 screening assessment to support communities and migrant workers.

Mrs Rapeepan Kumhom, Dean of the Faculty of Social Administration, Thammasat University, the project leader said, “The project started since the first wave of COVID-19. It has strengthened the community to prepare for the new wave of the pandemic and social workers were trained to use the assessment form for screening to support patients and their families.”

“This has allowed an efficient and proactive approach to patients with depression and the risk of suicide. Social workers may further use such tools during crises or emergencies. It is in the progress of coordinating with associated organizations and this tool will be deployed digitally in the future.”

This tool has been adopted in accordance with the international accounting concept for The World Health Organization (WHO) ’s International Classification of Function, Health and Disability (ICF). 14 questions covering the aspect of family, health, social and economy have been examined by specialists for improvement and trial with Thammasat University Field Hospital.

It has been consequently used by over 300 volunteer social workers to assess more than 1,400 COVID-19 patients which can take the self-assessment regarding social problems by completing the information through Google Forms via mobile phone which takes only 5 minutes. After that, the method will be adopted by another 40 hospitals. Currently, it is still under evaluation.

The tool will be deployed for patients with serious and emerging infectious diseases and will be standardized. The use of assessment tools with local COVID-19 patients will allow the operations more reliable, referrable and it also helps to design a simple and effective treatment program with quick planning.

Thai Health Promotion Foundation is another network of partners in the project to develop the competency of social workers that takes part as a consultant, a coordinator with hospitals to support migrant workers to receive healthcare by granting them access through mobile phone and Facebook, contacting interpreters speaking cross-border languages including Burmese, Lao and Khmer to provide suggestions and collaborate with public and private agencies.

From the first wave of COVID-19 until the present, more than 30,000 people from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand have been supported with money and donated relief supplies of more than 14 million baht.

BBA Chula students win first place at Thailand Social Case Competition 2021

Fourth-year BBA students from the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, Chulalongkorn University, have won the Thailand Social Case Competition 2021.

Organized by AIESEC in Thailand, the competition was held to encourage students to present innovative and practical ideas to solve social problems in the country, while at the same time coming up with solutions that are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This year 225 teams from 20 academic institutions joined the competition.

The “401 Consulting” team members included Miss Nattaya Jaruvekin, Miss Phimlaphas Munikanond, Miss Natrida Apairatana and Miss Pimlaplus Chatvattananon. In the first round, the team presented a business model that offered jobs for the homeless, which is a major issue in Thailand, and reduce food waste problems.

Miss Nattaya Jaruvekin revealed that in the final round, the team selected the case study from Nestlé (Thai) Ltd. to up-cycle the PET plastic water bottles into a new product that can benefit society. Turning plastic bottles into school uniforms is very challenging, but the competition has shed light on the real issues of plastic waste, the behaviour of plastic water bottle consumers, and the path of trash.

“We’re very proud that our efforts have added to the university’s name. The four of us have put a lot of effort in this competition.  With the positive results and the feasibility of our business plan, I think we have impressed the judges, making them see that our team deserved the winning prize. This competition has opened us to new knowledge, solving problems related to sustainability and inequality in society, as well as learning about the up-cycling system of PET bottles and up-cycled products”, Nattaya concluded.

UNAIR academics and international researchers develop Covid-19 risk detection tool

Researchers from Indonesia in collaboration with international teams have developed an online test tool to estimate a person’s risk to contract and transmit the coronavirus. The online test was made based on the Science of Behavioral Change which is a branch of Psychology.

Triana Kesuma Dewi, Health Psychology Lecturer and Researcher, Faculty of Psychology (F.Psi), Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR), which is affiliated with a research group from Indonesia, explained that the test equipment was different from the existing test tool.

“We made this tool based on the Reasoned Action Approach (Fishbein & AJzen, 2010). So it does not only see the behaviours displayed but also considers what factors influence the behaviour, making it possible to identify what interventions are relevant to enhance the expected protective behaviour,” he explained.

Users of the test will know risk estimation of them being infected or transmitting the coronavirus. The estimation is measured from three risk factors : maintaining hand hygiene; maintaining a safe distance (social distancing) in public places, and staying at home or avoiding crowds.

Triana said the idea of an online test tool was originally by Gjalt-Jorn Peters from Open University and Sylvia Roozen from Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

The test result data will be published in an open access repository so that it can be accessed by anyone.

This online detection tool was first launched in the Netherlands on May 7, 2020. The tool has been translated into 27 languages and launched in various countries in the world.

“Hopefully, this test tool can provide recommendations in understanding the protective behaviour related to COVID-19, the causing factors of the behaviour, and what approaches are relevant for changing the behaviour. Thus, we hope it can provide recommendations for the government and health organizations to make policies and public information relevant,” she concluded.

Besides Triana, several researchers from Indonesia who were involved were Astin Sokang, PhD (UKRIDA); Sali Rahadi Asih, PhD (UI); Andrian Liem, PhD (University of Macau); and Ratri Nurwanti, M.Psi, psychologist (Universitas Brawijaya).

President University holds the Sport Olympiad 2021

President University (PresUniv) opened its biggest annual sporting event, Sport Olympiad President University (SOPU). Unlike SOPU in previous years which was held offline, SOPU 2021 was held virtually.

Approximately 3,250 students attended the SOPU 2021 competition.

The switch from offline to online made the types of competition contested change too. If previously it involved many physical activities, such as futsal, basketball, volleyball, and triathlon, now it has changed to e-Sports Competition, like Valorant, Dota 2, Mobile Legends, Point Blank, Stumble Guys, PUBG, and Chess.com.

Prof. Dr. Jony Oktavian Haryanto, Rector of PresUniv, supported the implementation of SOPU 2021. “I hope SOPU 2021 will be beneficial for all participants including the supporters. Please support each other. Have fun, and good luck to all participants and supporters.” said Prof Jony in his opening speech in SOPU 2021.

Anthony Emmanuel, Chief Executive of SOPU 2021, hopes that the euphoria from the match can be maintained until SOPU 2021 ends. “This is the first time SOPU will use the online concept. I am very thankful for all of the committee who have worked hard to create SOPU 2021 and hope that the competition can run smoothly and the enthusiasm of the participants will last until it finishes,” said Anthony.

HKBU’s discovery of new coral and nudibranch species reflects Hong Kong’s rich marine biodiversity

Biologists from Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) have discovered in Hong Kong waters a new species of hard coral and two new species of nudibranch, a type of marine mollusc, that have never been identified anywhere else in the world. The discoveries of new species from these commonly seen animal groups are a vivid reflection of Hong Kong’s rich marine biodiversity.

The new marine species were identified by research teams led by Professor Qiu Jianwen, Professor of HKBU’s Department of Biology. The descriptions of the new coral and nudibranch species were published in the academic journals Zootaxa and Zoological Studies, respectively.

The new coral species belongs to the genus Tubastraea, which is commonly known as sun coral due to its bright orange polyps (individuals making up the colony) and the circle of tentacles that surround its mouth. HKBU biologists discovered the new species while conducting underwater surveys at the Breaker Reef in the eastern waters of Hong Kong in the summer of 2020.

The team named the coral Tubastraea megacorallita, with “mega” and “corallite” meaning “big” and “skeletal cup”, respectively. The species name reflects the fact that it has the biggest and most structurally complex corallite among the eight recognised Tubastraea species around the world. This species forms small colonies of between three and 12 polyps, and they share a common calcareous skeleton.

Sun corals are different from most reef-building corals, as they do not host symbiotic algae that produce energy via photosynthesis. Instead, these corals gain energy and nutrients by capturing small animals called zooplankton from seawater using their tentacles. While reef-building corals in Hong Kong typically inhabit shallower waters up to a depth of 10 metres, sun corals live in deeper waters at a depth of between 10 and 30 metres.

“Although 98 species of hard coral have been recorded in Hong Kong, the last time a new coral species was discovered in Hong Kong waters was in 2000. It is in over around 20 years a new hard coral species discovered and named in Hong Kong,” said Professor Qiu.

Nudibranchs, commonly known as sea slugs, are gastropod molluscs that only have a shell during their larval stage. They are eye-catching animals, and they can often be spotted on coral reefs due to their vivid body colour patterns.

The HKBU team also discovered in Hong Kong waters two coral-eating species of nudibranch, both belonging to the genus Phestilla that has only nine recognised species prior to these discoveries. One of them, named Phestilla goniophaga, was collected from Sharp Island and Chek Chau. The word “goniophaga” derives from the name of the host coral, “Goniopora”, which is commonly known as flowerpot coral, and the Latin word “phaga”, which means “eat”.

Phestilla goniophaga is rather big, and its body is around three centimetres long. It can be distinguished from other species of the genus by the large number of long finger-like, brown and white striped projections called cerata, and the white rounded hump on its back. The hump resembles the host coral’s mouth, while the cerata resemble the coral’s tentacles. This mimicry makes it difficult for its potential predators, such as fish, to spot them. Its egg masses, however, are bright orange in colour and they can normally be found glued to the coral skeleton.

The other newly discovered nudibranch species is smaller in size, and its body is less than one centimetre long. It lays eggs and feeds on the tissue of the leaf coral Pavona decussata. It has a white body with brown stripes and exhibits excellent mimicry against the colour pattern of its coral host. It was named Phestilla fuscostriata, with the species epithet adopting the Latin words “fuscus” and “striatus”, which mean “brown” and “streaky”.

This new species was discovered while culturing the leaf coral samples collected from Sharp Island during a study of coral bleaching mechanisms. The HKBU team discovered the new nudibranch species and its crescent-shaped white egg masses after noticing the wounds on the coral surface caused by its feeding.

While the seas around Hong Kong are only 1,651 square kilometres in size, the territory has around six thousand marine species – one-quarter of all the marine species recorded in China.

The work conducted by Professor Qiu’s team highlights the rich biodiversity found in Hong Kong, and reflects the urgent need to train local young talent to implement the Hong Kong Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.