USC Upstate could help with overhaul of Russian higher education system

The University of South Carolina Upstate is poised to play a significant role in the overhaul of the Russian higher education system and the strengthening of ties between the United States and Russia.

USC Upstate Chancellor John Stockwell and Regis Robe, director of the university’s Center for International Studies, returned to campus last week after spending two weeks in Russia for a high-level education summit.

Led by the Institute of International Education and U.S. State Department, Stockwell and Robe met with leaders from several Russian universities along with officials from six other American universities to explore possibilities for research collaboration, faculty exchanges and curriculum development.

The exchange summit was a product of the agreement President Barack Obama and Russian President Dimitri Medvedev signed in 2009 in an effort to build collaboration between the countries.

The resulting bilateral presidential commission created 17 working groups, and the higher education summit held earlier this month was the work a study group created to focus on scientific and educational issues.

Russian higher education officials used the conference to confer with their American colleagues about a dramatic shift in the Russian higher education system that the Russian government hopes to complete in just one year.

“One of the purposes there was not only to look at possibilities for exchanges between Russian universities and U.S. universities, but to have conversations with them about how universities in the U.S. are structured — how they operate. How research and teaching are integrated,” Stockwell said.

“They have very limited experience in developing general education programs. Most Russian universities tend to be focused on specialized disciplines without broad general education of the kind we require in the U.S.”

Russia plans to create eight federal universities by taking large, prestigious universities in each of eight federal districts and joining them with smaller universities to create larger universities essentially modeled after American universities.

Historically, teaching and research have remained completely separate in the Russian higher education structure, with each realm handled by wholly separate institutions.

At the new federal universities, Russia plans to unite research and teaching, along with creating another two dozen research-focused universities.

Russia also wants to restructure how the sequence degrees are awarded in to more closely match the degree-granting procedure used in the European Union and the U.S.

“I think they are very committed to it and I had the impression that they (Russian universities) had some funding support to make it work,” Robe said.

The trip to Russia appears likely to help USC Upstate build another set of partnerships with international universities, adding to the 15 USC has with universities in counties including Italy, China and the Ukraine.

Stockwell said USC Upstate is talking collaboration with officials from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Kazan Federal University, Kazan Technological University and Far East Federal University in Vladivostok.

The partnerships, which would include faculty and student exchanges along with possible 2+2 transfer programs, would be USC Upstate’s first in Russia.

Stockwell said discussions between the institutions will continue for the next several weeks.

Robe said if partnerships are reached, more Russian faculty are likely to come to USC Upstate than the other way around, at least initially.

“Right now there’s limited (USC Upstate) student interest in studying in Russia,” he said.

“But that could change because that’s what it was like when we started a program with China five-to-six years ago.”

Stockwell said it will take a “pretty daring student” to choose to live for a semester or year in Kazan, where the record cold this year was more than 50 degrees below zero.

But Stockwell said Russia offers an exciting opportunity for American students because most students at Russian universities speak some English and the areas surrounding the universities offer great amenities.

The breadth of USC Upstate’s international studies program wasn’t the only reason Stockwell, who will step down as chancellor this summer, was chosen for the summit.

In 1989, before the breakup of the Soviet Union and while working for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Stockwell helped develop a partnership between the Wisconsin campus and Georgian Technical University in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

The recent summit was Stockwell’s fourth trip to Russia, a nation he said has a history of great scientific contributions.

He said the country has the potential to “once again be a great nation” and a counterbalance to emerging China and the Middle East.

“It’s hard to imagine the type of evolution that country has experienced in the last 20 years,” he said.

“It’s unparalleled on the planet I think. In 1989 it was a gray, hopeless conglomeration of ambitions. Now, the city of Moscow alone has more billionaires than any city in the world. That’s neither good nor bad, but the change has been phenomenal.”

source:http://news.uscupstate.edu/2011/03/usc-upstate-could-help-with-overhaul-of-russian-higher-education-system/

Profitable, yet risky trade

THE CRISIS THIS TIME - Socialist Register 2011: Leo Panitch, Greg Albo, Vivek Chibber; LeftWord Books, 12, Rajendra Prasad Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 350.

During the past four decades and more, a group of committed analysts, admittedly with Left leanings, have been bringing out an annual publication, Socialist Register, to make available their interpretation of pressing contemporary problems. The latest in the series deals with the global economic crisis that surfaced in 2008-09 and is still running its course in the United States, Europe, and many other parts of the world.

Even general readers now know that the crisis has been associated with sub-prime lending and the rapid growth of derivatives. What this volume attempts to convey is that the crisis has some systemic features and that it may indeed presage a new phase in the development of capitalism.

Derivatives

Take derivatives, for instance. Thanks to the widespread use of the term, it is common knowledge that derivatives derive their value from other debt-related instruments. But, as financial instruments, what is their special feature, and how do they impact the economic system as a whole and the lives of ordinary people? Are they indeed “financial weapons of mass destruction,” as a writer claimed?

One thing is clear: though derivatives appeared on the financial scene only in the 1980s, now they are the most traded among financial instruments and the latest means of acquiring and holding wealth. The amount of derivatives outstanding currently is multiple times the capitalisation of the world stock markets. Indeed, derivatives are redefining what wealth is. Insofar as they are bought and sold, they are commodities or traded goods. If they are traded, they must have value of some sort, on the one hand, and the right of ownership, on the other.

In an earlier era these two attributes coincided: only goods that had some value of their own — grain, cattle, precious metal, land, etc. — would be considered as wealth or assets. The second phase was when claims to wealth such as paper money, deposit certificates or shares would also be treated as wealth and would become standard forms of holding assets. Derivatives announce the beginning of yet another phase of accumulating and holding wealth. Derivatives are contingent claims on the changes in the future price of an asset without any claim to the asset itself.

Financial instruments

A concrete example will make this clearer. Since the end of World War II, a major issue was to ensure the stability of national currencies to facilitate international trade. Till the early 1970s, what ensured stability was the fact that the US dollar, which remained pegged to gold, was freely convertible into any other currency. Once this dollar-gold link was snapped in 1971, the values of currencies began to fluctuate, opening up an opportunity to make profits by trading in currencies. Then it became possible to trade in the anticipated variations in the prices of currencies — a sort of derived trade — and derivatives emerged as the financial instruments for such transactions. Since these transactions were on anticipated variations that might or might not happen, they were subject to big risks. In fact, they made risk a commodity to be traded and extended such trade to equities, debts, metals, oil, real estate, etc., and even to such things as the weather, movements of wages and so on.

In all these instances, the ownership (that which one sells) is exposure to the performance of items, including assets, without ownership of the item itself (some of which, like weather cannot even be owned). Evidently, it is easier, and can be more profitable, to trade ownership of an oil derivative than a barrel of oil.

Derivatives, therefore, constitute a new form of trade, a new form of ownership, and a new means to make profit. One of the writers in the volume puts it more technically: derivatives are ‘meta-commodities' and ‘meta-capital'. The commodification of risk permits diversification of risk portfolios and the proliferation of transactions.

Profit-making

Profit-making via risk-trading is the essence of derivatives. They, thus, create new sites for accumulation mainly for those who already have the advantage of large scale ownership — the big corporations (banks, investment firms. etc.) and their top operatives, hedge funds, and the top wealth-owners. But the ‘small man' gets drawn in too — through his growing dependence on debt — voluntarily, thanks to the convenience the credit cards offer, for instance, but more so involuntarily because only by borrowing can he ever hope to have a house of his own, or educate his children. And often, without his knowledge, his pension fund becomes a big player in derivatives-chasing. Thus, those at the top become wealthier; those at the other end go into debt.

What is more alarming is that while individuals may find it possible to pass on the risk, the cumulative burden of risk may turn out to be too big to avoid a collapse as it happened in 2008-09. This is particularly so because the big players know that the public authorities will bail them out. Once it is done, the train will again be back on the rails till another derailment comes sooner or later. Details may differ, but the basic issues will be the same, perhaps become more intense.

If you find this terse summary of the basic argument interesting and helpful, get to the volume itself which deals with how the crisis this time found expression in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, and South Africa, and wait for Socialist Register 2012, which promises to deal with Asia, West Asia, and Latin America.

source:http://www.hindu.com/br/2011/03/15/stories/2011031551181800.htm

Outstanding response to Cambridge IGCSE Enterprise writing competition

We've received more than 650 entries for the Cambridge IGCSE Enterprise student writing competition from all corners of the globe.

The competition is being run to celebrate the launch of Cambridge IGCSE Enterprise. Learners in Cambridge schools were asked to write a short essay on their favourite entrepreneur, how that entrepreneur inspires them, and what question they would put to their chosen entrepreneur if they had the chance to meet them.

Entries have come in from South America, the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan African, and Asia Pacific.

Favourite entrepreneurs include shoe designer, Jimmy Choo and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Sir Richard Branson and Michael Dell among many others. Some students named their entrepreneurial parents as their favourite, while many successful entrepreneurs in students' home towns have been used as the subject of the essay.

The deadline for the competition was 11 February and the entries are now being considered by a panel of judges.

Nick Mazur, Marketing Manager for Cambridge IGCSE Enterprise, said he had been delighted with the response.

'The competition has captured the imagination of Cambridge learners around the world,' he said. 'Cambridge IGCSE Enterprise teaches students about the real world of business and is a dynamic course that students are enjoying. The subject is currently being piloted in schools around the world and students will take their first exams this June. It's obvious from the entries that the entrepreneurial spirit is something young people can connect with. The quality of entries has been excellent. The judges will have a hard task choosing the winner.'

The winner will be announced during March and will receive an Amazon voucher to the value of £100 for their school as well as a box set of the BBC TV series Dragons' Den.

Source: http://www.cie.org.uk/news/announcements/detail?announcement_id=37199

Symposium on trends in biochemistry inaugurated at AMU

Aligarh: Inaugurating a National Symposium on 'Current Trends in Biochemical, Biomedical andEnvironmental Sciences' organized by the Department of Biochemistry, Vice Chancellor P.K. Abdul Azis of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) said that it is quite appropriate in the present day scenario where interdisciplinary research is the norm and boundaries between various disciplines are getting blurred.

Prof. Azis said that the Department of Biochemistry has produced distinguished scientists and entrepreneurs and these alumni are working in theUnited States. He pointed out that AMU had decided to establish central instrumentation facilities with modern equipment to boost more research activities. 

Prof. Azis emphasized that the university needed biomedical, bio-engineering and environmental sciences departments and urged the faculty members to submit proposals for the same to theUniversity Grants Commission (UGC). 

He hoped that the symposium will promote scientific exchange and also encourage more collaborative and inter-disciplinary research at AMU. 

Organizing Secretary of the symposium Qayyum Husain, in his welcome addresses said that the first batch of M.Sc. Bio Chemistry passed out in 1959. "Since, then 56 students have obtained M.Sc. and more than 200 candidates awarded have gone to developed countries on post-doctoral assignment," he said.

He further added that the research activities of the department have been founded by national and international funding agencies. 

Faculty of Life Sciences Dean Masood Ahmed said that teaching of biochemistry had regained and affirmed the status of a foundation course on medical sciences. Health and disease of living organisms including human beings as well as of ecosystems are empirically assessed by biochemical parameters. 

He said that the product of the department has proved its worth in the developed world including USA, Canada, England, France and Germany and this department is considered as flagship department of this university. 

Prof. Rajiv Bhatt of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) said that AMU is a vibrant campus. He said that Bio Sciences will be leading the future.

Prof. Bilqees Bano, Chairperson of the Department of Biochemistry proposed a vote of thanks and Ms. Maria Salman conducted the inaugural session. A large number of delegates from all parts of the country participated in the deliberations.

source:http://indiaedunews.net/Uttar_Pradesh/Symposium_on_trends_in_biochemistry_inaugurated_at_AMU_13577/