International Cooperation

Higher education institutions are confronted with a complexity of tasks and contexts or framework conditions which they must manage and classify. The internationalisation of higher educa tion institutions (HEI) provides the opportunity to work with new partners in teaching, research and transfer. At the same time, competition for German HEIs in the global science market is increasing. As internationalisation continues to increase, discourses on academic freedom and migration processes are also coming to the fore.
Furthermore, the current digital transformation of society as a whole is also affecting scientific organisations in all areas of performance.

Against the background of these profound global upheavals, the study explores the question of how future international higher education cooperation should be developed and what con tribution transnational education (TNE) in particular can make to this.

Este libro reúne artículos de docentes de diferentes universidades latinoamericanas y del sur europeo, quienes exploran las transformaciones del sistema de cooperación internacional y los múltiples interrogantes que de estas se derivan. Muchas de las cuestiones abordadas en este volumen no han sido suficientemente analizadas en la literatura especializada: la composición multidisciplinaria de las autoras y los autores ofrece distintos enfoques, abordajes y herramientas analíticas para leer la profunda complejidad del sistema de cooperación internacional.

La primera parte analiza el alcance de la transición hegemónica en curso y sus implicaciones para la cooperación internacional y los países del Sur Global. La segunda parte profundiza cuestiones de relevancia para el sistema de cooperación internacional contemporáneo, como son la migración, la cuestión agroalimentaria, las agendas de desarrollo y los desafíos para América Latina.

Doctors of the World France (Médecins du Monde, MdM) is an international humanitarian aid NGO working to support access to health care to vulnerable populations of the world excluded from these services. MdM has fixed two strategies to "cure and give witness," especially in light of the flagrant injustices lived by the populations they work with. Based on the need to improve the situation of these populations, and using the Anglo-Saxon model, the association wanted to take their strategy one step further by progressively developing advocacy actions in partnership with other organizations. This case study shows the different success obtained through advocacy actions in two campaigns: one against the World Bank's promotion of health systems' privatization in 1993 and another one for the increase in training of health care workers in the Southern hemisphere in 2006.

Despite PCR per se being a powerful and sensitive technique, regarding the detection of fungi in patients' blood, no consensus for a standardised PCR protocol yet exists. To complement other ongoing or accomplished studies which tackle this problem, the German Reference Center for Systemic Mycoses conducted an interlaboratory comparison starting with blood samples spiked with fungal cell elements. Altogether, six laboratories using in-house PCR-protocols from Germany and Austria participated in the trial. Blood samples were spiked with vital cells of Candida albicans or Aspergillus fumigatus. Candida was used in the yeast form, whereas Aspergillus cells were either spiked as conidia or as very young germlings, also known as smoo cells. Spiked blood samples contained between 10 and 10 000 cells ml(-1) . Depending on the techniques used for fungal cell disruption and DNA-amplification, detection quality was variable between laboratories, but also differed within single laboratori...

Central blood pressure and aortic stiffness have been consistently reported as strong cardiovascular risk factors. Twin studies by comparing identical with nonidentical twins produce information on the relative contribution of genes and environment. One hundred and fifty-four monozygotic (MZ) and 42 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs (age 43 ± 17 years) from Hungary and the United States underwent brachial and central augmentation index (AIx), brachial and central pressure, and aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) measurements with the invasively validated Arteriograph device. Bivariate Cholesky decomposition models were applied. Age-adjusted, sex-adjusted and country-adjusted heritability was 60.0% for central SBP [95% confidence interval (CI), 44.8-69.6%], 50.1% for aortic PWV (95%CI, 26.0-66.8%), 48.7% for aortic AIx (95%CI, 1.7-74.0%), 46.8% for brachial AIx (95%CI, 1.1-73.8%), 46.7% for central pulse pressure (PP) (95%CI, 12.4-61.4%), and 30.0% for brachial PP (95%CI, 0.0-53.4%). Central SBP and PP had strong bivariate correlations with brachial (r = 0.461 and 0.425) and central AIx (r = 0.457 and 0.419), as well as with aortic PWV (r = 0.341 and 0.292, all P < 0.001). Brachial PP had a weak correlation with brachial AIx (r = -0.118, P < 0.05), central AIx (r = -0.122, P…

To compare the demographic features, presenting manifestations, diagnostic investigations, disease course, and drug therapies of children with juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) followed in Europe and Latin America. Patients were inception cohorts seen between 1980 and 2004 in 27 paediatric rheumatology centres. The following information was collected through the review of patient charts: sex; age at disease onset; date of disease onset and diagnosis; onset type; presenting clinical features; diagnostic investigations; course type; and medications received during disease course. Four hundred and ninety patients (65.5% females, mean onset age 7.0 years, mean disease duration 7.7 years) were included. Disease presentation was acute or insidious in 57.1% and 42.9% of the patients, respectively. The course type was monophasic in 41.3% of patients and chronic polycyclic or continuous in 58.6% of patients. The more common presenting manifestations were muscle weakness (84.9%), Gottron's p...

To evaluate therapeutic approaches and response to therapy in juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with renal involvement in a large prospective international cohort from four geographic areas. New onset and flared patients with active renal disease (proteinuria ≥0.5 g/24 h) were enrolled in 2001-2004. Therapeutic approaches and disease activity parameters were analysed at baseline, 6, 12 and 24 months. Response was assessed by the PRINTO/ACR criteria. 218/557 (79.8% female subjects, 117 new onset and 101 flared) patients with active renal disease were identified; 66 patients were lost to follow-up and 11 died. Mean age at disease onset for new onset group was higher than for flared group (13.1 vs 10.2 years, p<0.0001). At baseline, both groups had similar renal activity with similar median doses of corticosteroids (1.0-0.76 mg/kg/day). Cyclophosphamide (43.1%) and azathioprine (22%) were the most common immunosuppressive drugs. At baseline, South American patients received higher doses of corticosteroids than in other areas in new onset (median 1.16 vs 0.8-1 mg/kg/day) while cyclophosphamide use was similar in all four regions in the new onset group. There were no differences regarding the use of azathioprine or mycophenolate mofetil worldwide. PRINTO 70 response was reached in a greater percentage of new onset versus flared patients (74.8% vs 53.3%; p=0.005) at 6 months while at 24 months ACR 90 was reached by 69.9% and 56.1%, respectively. New onset and flared juvenile SLE improved similarly over 24 months with minimal differences in therapeutic approaches worldwide.