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Month: January 2022

Enhancing International Networking through expert sharing

Posted on by fspppeditorialteam

Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) via the Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies (FSPPP) is honoured to be an academic partner to the Faculty of Administration, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia, and Herzegovina (UNSA). UNSA is the beacon of higher learning institutions in Bosnia, consisting of 22 faculties, 3 academies and 5 research institutes. To commemorate the partnership and kick off the collaboration between UNSA and FSPPP, UiTM, the faculty organized a Guest Lecture session involving academics from both institutions. The lecture series is also part of FSPPP’s efforts in encouraging active engagement in academic discourse amongst its staff and students via its internationalization strategy.

The lecture series was held on the 16th and 17th June 2021, involving six academics, of which four were from FSPPP and the other two from UNSA. The esteemed Dr Emir Tahirovic, Assistant Professor cum Dean and Dr Amel Delic, Deputy Dean from the Faculty of Administration, represented the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Meanwhile, FSPPP was represented by Associate Profesor Dr Nor Hafizah Mohd Harith, Dr Aida Abdullah, Profesor Datuk Dr Nasrudin Mohammed and Dr Memiyanty Hj Abdul Rahim.

The sharing sessions revolved around policy implementation and public administration, considering ethical issues in administration. Also discussed was the topic of ratio analysis of financial statements, which is vital in the corporate sector and public agencies. The sharing and interactive dialogue between the two academic partners are essential for enhancing lecturers’ knowledge and enabling them to provide a deeper understanding of the theory-to-practice application of policies in a country for their personal growth and their students. One of the participants and a lecturer in the faculty stated, “All lectures were refreshing and insightful. It has given the participants a great opportunity in broadening their perspective of governmental activities in another country.”

Thammasat EFMD commended as one of the 3 learning models

Posted on by Thammasat University

Thammasat University in collaboration with the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), an educational quality assessment institution of the European Union organized a webinar titled “Thammasat & EFMD Seminars on Partnerships for SDGs” to showcase exemplary practices in building partnerships that foster the development of collaborative learning between the education sector and society by having three models of sustainable development projects (SDGs) that received the Excellence in Practice Award from EFMD.

One of the three prototype projects which is the work of Thammasat University under the Thammasat Model: Sustainable Community Enterprise project has been granted Silver for the Excellence in Practices Awards 2019

Asst. Prof. Dr. Nopporn Ruengwanich, Director of the Integrated Bachelors and Master Degree Program in Business and Accounting (IBMP), the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, Thammasat University presented that the Thammasat Model is a project that allow the students of the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy to work closely with communities and adapt business knowledge gained from the classroom to support and enhance the communities’ products. In addition to helping more than 160 communities, students will also be able to experience real problem resolution and acquire knowledge about local wisdom as well.

Dr. Eric Cornuel, President of EFMD Global, said EFMD is committed to being a leader in promoting global management excellence and a bridge between the education and business sectors. EFMD, as the non-profit organization has members from all over the world including scholars from both business and government sectors, as well as various institutions. Therefore, EFMD members are encouraged to cooperate in all aspects from building a learning network, research network to career opportunities and accreditation assessments of educational institutions.

Assoc. Prof. Gasinee Witoonchart, Rector of Thammasat University, as the first and only Thai person in the ASEAN region who is a lifetime honorary member and a member of the Board of Trustees of EFMD, said the innovations that EFMD has generated over the years have played an important role and have had a profound effect on the change in management education. I am very proud and honored to be appointed to the EFMD Board of Trustees which is assigned to support the creation of social innovation to be used to solve emerging global challenges while maintaining ethical values, responsibility and sustainability.

In addition, the project that have received the Excellence in Practices Awards on sustainable development and another two projects were exhibited as prototypes: 1. The year 2020 Award, Developing Entrepreneurship in Russia project by Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO has been granted Gold for the Excellence in Practices Awards; 2. The year 2021 Award, “Entrepreneurship for good” project: unleashing the potential youth to impact and change the world by The European Center for Executive Development or CEDP, which received Gold Level for the Excellence in Practices Awards.

St Petersburg University presents a project on investment arbitration institute for BRICS countries

Posted on by Alina Perevizintsova

St Petersburg University has presented the BRICS international arbitration project that should simplify the resolution of disputes between a foreign investor and a host state. It shall respect the balance of interests of investors and states and increase the investment attractiveness of the BRICS countries.

The announcement was made during the 3rd International Municipal BRICS Forum by Sergei Belov, Dean of the Faculty of Law at St Petersburg University. The discussion of the initiative was also attended by: Ivan Liubin, a faculty member of St Petersburg University; Sergey Salikov, Head of the Legal Department of the Russian Direct Investment Fund; Evgenii Evseev, a lawyer at E&Y; and Dmitry Kaysin, a lawyer at Rybalkin Gortsunyan & Partners.

‘St Petersburg University constantly monitors the field of international commercial and investment arbitration. Today, international investment arbitration is undergoing a crisis. It has ceased to be an effective tool for resolving disputes between investors and investment recipient states, and it is crucial to restore its credibility,’ said Sergei Belov.

According to experts, one of the main problems with arbitration today is the inequality between the parties to a dispute. The balance of interests in current international arbitration institutions favours investors as the ‘weaker’ party. For example, investment arbitration does not necessarily require the exhaustion of national remedies.

Unfortunately, this often discourages states from participating in international agreements regulating investment arbitration, as arbitral decisions substantially limit the sovereignty of states.

Ivan Liubin, a faculty member of St Petersburg University

Sergey Salikov, Head of the Legal Department of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said that the fund, acting as a catalyst for attracting direct investment to Russia, has been raising questions about investors and states defending their rights. However, currently there is no adequate legal instrument, an independent arbitration institution that could resolve potential disputes impartially and without reservations between the BRICS countries.

The BRICS international arbitration project, developed by specialists from St Petersburg University, could serve as such an instrument. An important feature of the new arbitration institution will be its delocalisation. It will be independent of the country where the dispute is heard and its procedural laws. It will ensure the predictability of its rulings, and thus increase the credibility of the institution.

Other novel features of the new arbitration proposed by the experts from St Petersburg University include: a mandatory mediation procedure before each dispute is heard; internal appeal mechanisms; electronic document management; and an online format for proceedings. The latter is aimed at: reducing the cost of dispute resolution, which today averages about 10 million dollars per dispute; and speeding up the process, which in today’s practice may take several years. In-person dispute resolution should only be considered in exceptional cases.

The experts also suggest introducing a new mechanism for selecting and appointing arbitrators and considerably increasing their number. ‘It is necessary to ensure the independence of all arbitrators and to prevent this community from becoming a private club excluding outsiders,’ said Evgenii Evseev, a lawyer at E&Y.

The project of a new arbitration institution developed by lawyers from St Petersburg University was presented at the St Petersburg International Legal Forum and the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in the spring of 2021. The proposal was supported by: the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation; the Russian Direct Investment Fund; and representatives of higher education institutions.

The new arbitration institution is particularly relevant today when, despite globalisation, the idea of large associations more and more often proves unsuccessful. According to the lawyers, it is now more difficult than ever to regulate disputes on the basis of just one legal system because none of them is universal. The lawyers suggest reaching a consensus and implementing a revolutionary arbitration institution that would specialise in investment disputes on the basis of BRICS because the BRICS member countries already have close economic ties. At the same time, investors from other countries will be able to join international arbitration. To do so they will have to adopt two conventions: on the mutual protection of investments and on the establishment of an arbitration institution.

Work on the project shall continue. The experts believe that the new arbitration will be able to develop a positive practice of dispute resolution and thus increase the investment attractiveness of states.

LCCM hosts UK Music’s first stand-alone OMG Awards

Posted on by Global University Systems

London’s premier contemporary music college LCCM hosted the inaugural UK Music OMG awards at its Music Box venue London, SE1 last week, recognising Outstanding Music Graduates.

UK Music, the official trade body for the British Music Industry, and invited guests from affiliated higher education providers (UK Music’s MAP network) gathered at the Music Box to toast the achievements of recent graduates and their nascent careers within the music industry. The overall winner, judged by UK Music’s Skills Programme Board, was Rebecca Rees a 2021 graduate from University of Gloucestershire who now works at Polydor Records.

The MAP network is a collaboration between educational institutions and the music industry members of UK Music, focused on linking industry and academia more effectively. Outstanding music graduates from the network have been recognised annually since 2016 (except in 2020 due to covid) but this year’s event at the Music Box was the first time UK Music have announced the winners at a stand-alone ceremony. The winner, two runners-up and two commendations were announced on the night by UK Music’s Director of Education Oliver Morris and Nina Radojewski, head of Professional Development at indie record label trade body the Association of Independent Music (AIM).

Drinks and nibbles were enjoyed by music industry guests as well as the nominees and their academic mentors. LCCM had two nominees in Rosie Reeves, 2018 graduate and analyst at Warner Chappell Publishing and Gabriel Robles Saenz who graduated in 2020 and has enjoyed music success on Spotify with his band The Good Manners and works at LCCM as a technician.

“I loved my time at LCCM and I absolutely couldn’t do my job now without the analytics module I studied in my final year,” said Rosie. “I was thrilled to be nominated as an outstanding music graduate.”

Elsewhere, Gabriel said: “I was gutted to miss the awards ceremony as I’m back home visiting family in Guatemala. I feel like I’m really missing out.”

Other universities there on the night included LIPA (Liverpool Institute of Performing Art), Southampton Solent, University of Hertfordshire, Birmingham City University, Leeds Beckett and University of Liverpool.

In his welcome speech LCCM Principal Anthony Hamer-Hodges remarked: “Music educators are like good record label A&Rs or Artist Managers, driven by the same urge – to find, inspire and champion great talent in all its forms. Celebrations like this make it all worthwhile when that talent and, by extension, those that have inspired them, are recognised. Congratulations to you all.”

UK Music is the collective voice of the UK’s world-leading music industry, representing all sectors of the industry and bringing them together to collaborate, campaign, and champion music. Its mission focuses on a range of areas including guiding policy makers, publishing research and being an advocate for copyright and related rights which underpin music.

Last month, LCCM announced Kofi Otuo, a first year BMUS Commercial Music Technology Student, as the winner of its full scholarship competition for 2021.

Kofi auditioned for the scholarship at a multidisciplinary live event at the college’s state-of-the-art Music Box venue in front of an audience, and the judging panel – the singer-songwriter Carmody and LCCM academics Austin Milne and Pat Cotton.

Kyungpook professor developing adhesive microparticles

Posted on by Kyungpook National University ‏‏‎ ‎

Mussel protein increases esophageal drug delivery

Professor Yun Kee Jo, Kyungpook National University (Major in Biomedical Convergence Science & Technology), and Professor Hyung Joon Cha of POSTECH succeeded in developing new protein microparticles for drug delivery that can control movement in the direction of magnetic fields by giving magnetic field.

The findings, which secured original intellectual property rights through domestic patent registration, will be published on September 30 as a cover paper for Advanced Functional Materials (18.808), a world-renowned journal in the field of material science.

The esophagus is a passageway organ in a very fluid environment that rapidly flows water and food consumed through peristalsis. In the event of disease in the esophagus, it is difficult to treat drugs in the lesion area due to the fluid dynamics shear force (force parallel to the surface within the target object) and drag (resistance received by the fluid when objects move or stop in the flowing fluid).

Existing magnetic field-sensitive drug delivery systems were difficult to maintain drugs for a long time in the lesion area as removing the magnetic field after drug delivery to the target site could easily be detached and lost due to the fluid environment in the fluid environment in the body.

Adhesive microparticles developed by the research team are innovative drug delivery systems that combine “magnetic field sensitivity” and “mussel adhesion protein” to deliver drugs locally and in the long term even in passageways of the environment with very fast flow rates such as the esophagus.

Iron oxide was mounted on microparticles to be delivered locally to the lesion area by a magnetic field, and the microparticles were maintained in the lesion area for a long time even after the magnetic field was removed with strong underwater adhesion of the mussel-adhesive protein.

Studies have shown that local transmission efficiency is more than five times higher than when no magnetic field is applied, and subsequently confirmed that the drug is maintained at the transmission site for a week even if the magnetic field is removed.

Microparticles developed by the research team can also be observed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) due to the nature of iron oxide, making it easier to observe local transmission to the target lesion site as they can check the location of microparticles in real-time. In addition, the research team experimentally verified the high anticancer treatment efficacy by installing doxorubicin, a chemotherapy drug widely used to treat cancer, inside microparticles, to reduce the survival rate of cancer cells to 16.6%.

Professor Yun Kee Jo said, “The microparticles developed through this study are significant in that they can easily deliver drugs to the desired target site and maintain drug treatment effects for a long time even in a dynamic environment where fast fluid flows.” In addition to the esophagus, it is expected to expand the scope of application to various organs in the body where digestive fluid or body fluids flow, such as the small intestine and large intestine, he said.

The study was carried out as part of an excellent new research project supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT, a mid-sized research project, and a health and medical technology development project supported by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

CCU College of Law Pave

Posted on by Chinese Culture University

Chinese Culture University College of Law was established in 1962. It is a well-known law school with a long history in Taiwan and has cultivated countless numbers of outstanding legal talents. Currently, Chinese Culture University College of Law offers various degrees, including LL.B., LL.M., Professional LL.M., and PhD. It is a private university law school having the second largest number of students in Taiwan. Chinese Culture University College of Law has more than 30 full-time faculty and more than 60 adjunct professors who are judges, lawyers, and experts in the industry. Our faculty are not only dedicated to conducting academic research and instructing Master’s and PhD theses, but they also participate in the enactment of laws and provide industry, government, and academic institutions social services and other legal matters. In recent years, in order to cultivate corporate legal and financial talents, we held the “Financial Law and Corporate Innovation and Management Conference” annually, which has earned a fairly high academic reputation in the financial law sector.

Chinese Culture University College of Law has performed outstandingly amongst the nation’s competitive law schools in Taiwan and has won the following recent awards:

★Top 10 Colleges of Liberal Arts, Law, and Business in Taiwan－2020 Global View Monthly.

★Top 8 Colleges of Liberal Arts, Law, and Business in Taiwan－2018 Global View Monthly.

★Best College for its Law and Politics Departments － Recommended by Global View Monthly in 2016.

★Featured Department for the Best University Guide－2015 CommonWealth Magazine in 2015.

★Gold Medal in the “Law/Politics Field” with six well-known universities in Taiwan, including National Taiwan University and National Cheng Chi University by the “Survey on Corporate’s Favorite Graduate School ” －2014 Global View Monthly published.

UiTM and Universitas Subang’s International ASEAN Talk 2.0

Posted on by fspppeditorialteam

It has been almost two years since the outbreak of the deadly Covid-19 virus that affected people’s lives worldwide. The number of fatalities from this pandemic is overwhelming and leaves the future uncertain. Apart from economic activities, educational activities were also significantly affected, resulting in the adoption of online and distance learning as a solution. Students had to study from home and access their teaching and learning content electronically with no physical contact or social interactions with friends. In response to this issue, the Student Association of Southeast Asian Affairs (SASEA), on behalf of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), initiated a talk program between Malaysia and Indonesia on one of the Sustainable Development Goals’ objectives which is good health and well-being (SDG3).

This program, which was successfully held via YouTube Live on 19th June 2021, was titled “Covid-19 Pandemic Challenges: From the perspective of Malaysia and Indonesia”. The program began at 10 am with a welcoming speech from the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Study (FSPPP), Dr Mazlan Che Soh. The panel session was moderated by Miss Jeniwaty Mohd Jody, Corporate Coordinator for FSPPP, and the panellists consisted of 3 academics from both countries. Representing FSPPP and Malaysia was Dr Memiyanty Haji Abdul Rahim, the Deputy Dean of Industry, Community and Alumni Network (RICAEN), and the panellists from Indonesia were Puan Nur’aeni and Puan Ine Anggraini. The latter are lecturers from Universitas Subang. In line with the program’s theme on SDG 3, the panellists shared their experiences and knowledge on how the Covid-19 pandemic had affected all walks of life and how Indonesia is coping and surviving with Covid-19. The talk was followed up by a question and answer session.

This programme conducted by SASEA embraces as much as possible the information and knowledge related to SDG3 number 3 through the experience shared between the Asian neighbours in curbing the COVID-19 outbreak that began in 2020. The program has brought to light the coping mechanisms used by the two nations in dealing with the pandemic, and it is hoped that the shared experiences have also allowed the participants, particularly students and academics, to be more aware of their own strategies in coping with online and distance learning during this challenging time.

MoU between CICM, Thammasat, and Thai Herbs and Biologies

Posted on by Thammasat University

A signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Chulabhorn International College of Medicine (CICM), Thammasat University, and Thai Herbs and Biologies Co., Ltd. (THB) in research and development projects for cannabis, hemp, kratom, and medicinal plants for medicinal uses with the following objectives:

  1. Research on medicinal plants in animals and humans.
  2. Development, innovation, processing related to natural products for medical purposes; and products from economic crops.
  3. Audit to raise the standard of agricultural products and herbs (NON-LAB and LAB) and naturally processed products.
  4. Develop publishing and joint patents in research and development in analytical and Assessment in agriculture of cash crops and herbs, as well as their processing into medical products health and products.
  5. Treatment and research in humans with integrated medicine.

In this regard, Thai Herbs and Biologies Co., Ltd. have a plans to cooperate and support the organization of training programs for personnel and students for research and educational development in the field of natural products. Moreover, innovations to extend cannabis plants, hemp, kratom, and herbs as a product that can generate income for farmers, resulting in sustainability in the Thai economy and society.