The Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning (ASAIHL) was founded in 1956 as a non-governmental organization at a meeting in Bangkok of the heads of eight state unversities in Southeast Asia. ASAIHL's purpose is to assist member institutions to strengthen themselves through mutual self help and to achieve international distinction in teaching, research and public service. In so doing, the institutions contribute strength to their respective nations and to the entire region. Specifically, the Association exists to foster the development of the institutions themselves, the cultivation of a sense of regional identity and interdependence and liaison with other regional and international organizations concerned with research and teaching. The link address is: http://www.seameo.org/asaihl/

 Columbus es una asociación sin fines de lucro, fundada por la Asociación Europea de Universidades (EUA) y la Asociación de Universidades Latinoamericanas (AULA). Hoy, reúne a 51 universidades miembros: 35 universidades latinoamericanas y 16 universidades europeas. Desde 1987, Columbus promueve la cooperación entre universidades de Europa y América Latina. Su consolidada red de instituciones de educación superior y de responsables de la gestión universitaria es un espacio donde los directivos pueden identificar e implementar estrategias institucionales para responder a nuevos desafíos. The link address is: http://www.columbus-web.com/

 The Association of Carpathian Region Universities (ACRU) is an international association of higher education institutions. It was established in 1994 by sixteen universities and colleges from five coutries of the Carpathian region to encourage links among its member institutions and throughout the world. The main objective of the Association is the advancement of academic, scientific and cultural cooperation, taking advantage of the particular dynamics of the long established historic and cultural links developed in the Carpathian Region. The link address is: http://acru.tuke.sk/

Staff at Melbourne’s Centre for Adult Education (CAE) are taking on-going industrial action from today (Thursday 29 August), for the first time since the centre’s establishment in 1947.
From today, members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) will be striking for at least one minute a day and up to one hour a day over stalled collective bargaining negotiations.
NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Dr Colin Long, said CAE staff have not received an across-the-board pay rise since 4 May 2010.
“We started negotiating for a new collective agreement in February 2011, with an in-principle agreement struck in December 2011. However, last year the Victorian Government refused to approve it. The union struck an in-principle agreement again in December 2012 but then six months later the CAE reneged on that agreement. Not only did it renege but it put 36 new changes on the table, mostly cuts to current entitlements,” Dr Long said.
“The CAE is attempting to reduce union representation, cut personal leave and remove paid long service leave for casual and sessional staff. It also wants to introduce unspecified changes to the entitlements of employees facing redundancy, reduce consultation rights and remove the compulsory monitoring of employee workloads. Read more...

 The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) is the voice of Canada's universities. They represent 95 Canadian public and private not-for-profit universities and university-degree level colleges. They have provided strong and effective representation for members, in Canada and abroad. Its mandate is to facilitate the development of public policy on higher education and to encourage cooperation among universities and governments, industry, communities, and institutions in other countries. The link address is: http://www.aucc.ca/

 The Association of Arab and European Universities (AEUA) was established to respond to the growing need for an effective vehicle to provide Arab and European universities with improved access to the MEDA II Programme. The prime objective of AEUA is to facilitate and to stimulate collaboration between universities in European and Arab countries at an institutional, departmental and faculty level. This type of partnership - to develop human resources and promote understanding between cultures and exchanges between the civil societies involved - is key. The link address is: http://www.aeua.net/

Legend has it that Apple’s rainbow-coloured logo showing the apple with a bite out of it is in homage to Alan Turing “the father of modern computing”. Turing died of cyanide poisoning on 7 June 1954, two years after being convicted of homosexuality and accepting chemical castration instead of prison. A half-eaten apple was found next to him, and one theory is that he’d laced it with cyanide, his own homage to the wicked queen in Snow White, his favourite Disney cartoon. Another theory is that he died accidentally after inhaling cyanide fumes from apparatus he had in his bedroom for electroplating spoons. A third explanation is that he really did commit suicide, but set up the apparatus so his mother would think it was an accident. The coroner didn’t test the apple for cyanide, so we’ll never know for sure.
If there are doubts about Turing’s death, his life is fairly well-known, or at least some aspects of it. His most noteworthy exploit for the general public was helping to break the code of the Enigma machines the Germans used to communicate with their submarines during the Second World War. If you’d like to get some idea of how he did it, take a look at the excerpts from the “Enigma Paper” in Alan Turing, His Work and Impact, just published by Elsevier. Cryptography is the second of four parts of this thousand-page overview presenting Turing’s most significant works from the four-volume Collected Works along with comment, analysis and anecdote from leading scholars. The other three parts are on Turing’s contributions to computability, artificial intelligence, and biology. Read more...