Search results for "Gee"

The Refugee Crisis and the Ecumenical Response

2016

Digital Approaches to Integrating Refugees into Higher Education—Frontiers and Advances

2021

This SpringerBriefs volume illustrates the potentials of digital learning opportunities in higher education for refugees with different educational, social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds from various perspectives and based on research conducted in several countries. Global challenges for academic success that refugees face when seeking to enter higher education are outlined. One possibility to reduce the obstacles for refugees entering higher education is to offer digital learning platforms. A selection of international digital education platforms for refugees are presented, which are based on a variety of approaches to accommodate the needs of prospective refugee students. Based on …

European Union at a Crossroads: What Could the Next 60 Years Bring About?

2018

This paper aims to synthetize some of the challenges that the European Union faces during these troubled times and also to suggest some of the possible scenarios that might actually unfold in order to address them. Symbolically, this year should have highlighted the biggest achievements of the EU and its Member States, as it celebrates 60 years of joint commitment for a better Europe. Yet, the uncertainty regarding Europe’s future is at an all-time high, due to internal and external factors. On the one hand, internal challenges, such as the Brexit process and the refugee crises, led to the reevaluation of the EU’s current organization and structure, which, in turn, might lead to a Europe of…

Introduction: Border Memories

2019

This chapter introduces the context of the book. It first argues that the public debate about refugees and border crossing in Europe tends to be ahistorical, treating the situation as a sudden emergency appearing from nowhere. Thinking in terms of bordering, as a verb, underlines that borders require continuous symbolic and material construction and that borders have consequences. The perspective of bordering calls for attention to temporality. This volume adds the analytical lenses of memory and temporality to the critical and political project to think beyond the oppressive bordering taking place in Europe. By doing so, the book broadens the scope of border studies, which tend to focus on…

Refugee Crisis in the European Union

2021

This chapter outlines the myriad push and pull factors that led to the refugee crisis, describes the scale of the migration, and discusses how the European Union (EU) nations and the EU as a whole responded to the crisis. Four push factors are described: the change in migration policy in Macedonia that opened up the Balkan route to the EU, the war in Syria, political and economic instability in sub-Saharan Africa, and climate change. The primary pull factors are economic opportunities and political and religious freedoms. The discussion of the scale of the migration and how each nation responded provides in-depth discussion of how individual EU nations responded to the refugee crisis.

Recombinant mussel protein Pvfp5β enhances cell adhesion of poly(vinyl alcohol)/k-carrageenan hydrogel scaffolds

2022

Polymeric hydrogels are increasingly being considered as a scaffold for tissue engineering because they show similarity to the extracellular matrix (ECM) of many tissues. To control various cellular processes, hydrogels are often functionalized or loaded with various bioactive molecules such as: specific ligands for adhesion receptors, growth factors, hormones, enzymes, and other natural or synthetic regulators of cellular behavior [1]. Cell adhesion is essential for cell communication and regulation of the cell cycle and is therefore of vital importance in tissue engineering. Biomimetic approaches have been investigated to facilitate cell-scaffold adhesion interactions. In particular, the …

Protection of active aroma compound against moisture and oxygen by encapsulation in biopolymeric emulsion-based edible films.

2008

International audience; Edible films made of ι-carrageenans display interesting advantages: good mechanical properties, stabilization of emulsions, and reduction of oxygen transfers. Moreover, the addition of lipids to ι-carrageenan-based films to form emulsified films decreases the transfer of water vapor and can be considered to encapsulate active molecules as flavors. The aim of this study was to better understand the influence of the composition and the structure of the carrageenan-based film matrices on its barrier properties and thus on its capacity to encapsulate and to protect active substances encapsulated. Granulometry, differential scanning calorimetry, and Fourier transform infr…

Encapsulation of aroma compounds in biopolymeric emulsion based edible films to control flavour release

2010

Abstract Flavour loss strongly affects food quality. In order to decrease flavour changes during food conservation, different strategies could be used. Aroma compound encapsulation allows the protection of food flavour from loss and degradative reactions, like oxidation. Edible films could be an encapsulation matrix: in the case of emulsified film, lipid globules incorporated can act as carriers of active molecules, such as aroma compounds. Edible films prepared from ι-carrageenans are interesting for good mechanical and gas barrier properties. The aim of this study was to encapsulate different aroma compounds in an ι-carrageenan emulsion based edible film. Release of ten aroma compounds wa…

Caffeine as a Gelator

2016

Caffeine (a stimulant) and ethanol (a depressant) may have opposite effects in our body, but under in vitro conditions they can “gel” together. Caffeine, being one of the widely used stimulants, continued to surprise the scientific community with its unprecedented biological, medicinal and physicochemical properties. Here, we disclose the supramolecular self-assembly of anhydrous caffeine in a series of alcoholic and aromatic solvents, rendering a highly entangled microcrystalline network facilitating the encapsulation of the solvents as illustrated using direct imaging, microscopy analysis and NMR studies. Peer reviewed

Reactive Self-Assembly and Specific Cellular Delivery of NCO-sP(EO-stat-PO)-Derived Nanogels

2018

This study presents the reactive self-assembly of isocyanate functional and amphiphilic six-arm, star-shaped polyether prepolymers in water into nanogels. Intrinsic molecular amphiphilicity, mainly driven by the isophorone moiety at the distal endings of the star-shaped molecules, allows for the preparation of spherical particles with an adjustable size of 100-200 nm by self-assembly and subsequent covalent cross-linking without the need for organic solvents or surfactants. Covalent attachment of a fluorescence dye and either the cell-penetrating TAT peptide or a random control peptide sequence shows that only TAT-labeled nanogels are internalized by HeLa cells. The nanogels thus specifical…