The world without Bandung,or for a polycentric system with no hegemony

The first wave of revival of States and nations of Asia and Africa which shaped major changes in the history of humankind organized itself in the Bandung spirit in the frame of countries Non-Aligned on colonialism and neo colonialism, the pattern of globalization at that time. Now, the same nations, as well as those of Latin America and the Caribbean, are challenged by neo-liberal globalization, which is no less imbalanced by nature. Therefore, they must unite to face the challenge successfully as they did in the past. In some countries “sovereign” projects are developed that associate active State policies aimed at systematically constructing a national integrated consistent modern industrial productive system, supported by an aggressive export capacity. Views with respect to the degree, format and eventual regulation of opening to foreign capital and financial flows of all kinds (foreign direct investments, portfolio investments, speculative financial investments) differ from country to country. Policies pursued with respect to the access to land and other natural resources also offer a wide spectrum of different choices and priorities.     

Factors contributing to university image: the postgraduate students’ points of view

Despite several studies having been conducted to examine organizational image from a business perspective, there has not been adequate research in the area of perceived image in nonprofit organizations such as universities. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the factors contributing to university image, from the postgraduate students’ point of view. In addition, the impact of the students’ perceived university image on their organizational trust was examined. The population of this study consisted of postgraduate students in 10 of the top Iranian universities. Questionnaires were used to collect the required data. The findings indicated the difference between current practices and ideal values of the factors contributing to the university image. Based on our findings, the factors contributing to university image range from internal and international reputation, university members, and academic planning, to university environment. Furthermore, we found that university image has a significant impact on students’ trust in their university.     

Hopf bifurcation and synchronization of a five-dimensional self-exciting homopolar disc dynamo using a new fuzzy disturbance-observer-based terminal sliding mode control

Having found hidden hyperchaos in a 5D self-exciting homopolar disc dynamo, we study the existence of a Hopf bifurcation, which leads to unstable limit cycles bifurcating from a stable equilibrium. Hidden chaos with only stable equilibria can be observed from the Hopf bifurcation: a typical way to enable hidden attractors to be located. We then provide a new fuzzy controller, and a fast fuzzy disturbance observer, based on terminal sliding mode control for synchronization of the hyperchaotic system. Fuzzy inference is considered to weaken the chattering phenomena. Using Lyapunov stability theory, the stability of the closed-loop system is proved. Finally, simulations of synchronization are illustrated to show the efficient performance of the designed control method via external disturbances and dynamic uncertainties.     

印度尼西亚开放和远程教育的发展与经验

特布卡大学是印度尼西亚唯一一所完全采用远程教育教学模式的国立大学,旨在为那些无法进入面授高校的印尼人提供教育机会.特布卡大学的宗旨是增进高等教育的入学率,为全国公民提供优质高等教育的平等机会.其扩展高等教育的策略包括:与其他机构合作和联合,建立全国的网络化教育系统,并通过这一系统提供多样化的课程.通过这一策略,证明了特布卡大学有能力服务于全国每个角落的学生.在教育质量方面,特布卡大学采用整合学习包的方法,包括印刷教材和音像/计算机辅助教材,并辅以丰富的音频和电视节目,同时还提供一种超市模式的学习支持服务,学生可选择函授辅导、广播辅导、网上辅导以及传真-因特网辅导等方式.为了达到国际标准和基准,特布卡大学采用了亚洲开放大学协会建立的质量保证框架,来增进教育服务的质量.其质量保证系统包括九个部分:政策和计划,人力资源提供和开发,管理和行政,学习者,专业设计和开发,课程设计和开发,学生学习支持,学生评估以及学习媒体.为了保证远程教育的产品和服务质量,大学进一步制定了质量保证手册、应用系统及过程.展望未来,为了确保学生获得他们需要的优质服务,并保证本校提供的远程教育能符合国际质量标准,特布卡大学拟寻求诸如世界远程教育理事会这样机构的评估和资格认证.     

Six Factors of Course and Teaching Evaluation in a Bilingual University in Central Africa

The purpose of this study was to identify the factors which students consider important in the evaluation of courses and teaching in a bilingual university setting, where teachers teach in either English or French and students receive lectures in the language of the teachers, independent of whether they (students) are anglophones or francophones. The sample consisted of 247 anglophones and 380 francophones registered in the first year in various courses at the Faculty of Arts Letters and Social Sciences (FALSS) of the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon. A principal component factor analytic technique was used, factors rotated to a simple structure and minimum eigen-value of 1.0 set as a criterion for cut-off. Six factors accounting for 75.3% of the common and specific variance were identified. Results of earlier studies reviewed showed that rapport with students, evaluation of assignments and feedback, availability of help, and course organisation are commonly found. The 'workload' and 'language or communications' factors found in this study are explained in terms of the bilingual context in which teaching and learning takes place in FALSS and the heterogeneous socio-cultural background of both the students and their teachers.     

Dargah libraries in India: a comparative study

This paper relates to the difficulty in retrieving precise information from big repositories of magazine articles in full text, and proposes an Extended Markup Language (XML) vocabulary for improving retrieval rates. The hypothesis tested was as follows: Magazine articles marked up with an XML vocabulary, indexed only by selected parts, give more precise search results than the same search using full text index.

The study was exploratory with the following characteristics: 29 magazine articles were tested for results, 8 scholars were interviewed for defining 23 search strategies and evaluating results. The data showed that precision improved from 40.72% with full text search to 62.84% using XML markup and searching only in specific labels.

Revision of the vocabulary and more testing has to be done by the library and information science community in order to obtain a valid vocabulary and provide more research results. Cultural characteristics and politics of librarians and information managers’ community are as important as technical issues in order to consider any technical proposal to be implemented successfully to achieve interoperability.