Search

The 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The success or failure in their implementation largely depends on the national implementation effort, measured within wide and compound indicator frameworks. Due to such complexity, providing a simple but comprehensive view on the progress to achieve the SDGs is a priority. Moreover, the measure of the progress allows the consistency among the different dimensions of sustainable development to be assessed. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the results accomplished by European Union Countries in achieving SDGs. In particular, the paper proposed the SDGs achievement index (SDG-AI), a multicriteria-based index, including six different dimensions and applied to EU countries. The SDG-AI allows the differences across the EU countries to be highlighted, and also assesses the contribution of the different dimensions to the final result. The use of such an index will also be useful to understand the effect of the pandemic on the development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The Virtual Immersive Learning (VIL) test bench implements a virtual collaborative immersive environment, capable of integrating natural contexts and typical gestures, which may occur during traditional lectures, enhanced with advanced experimental sessions. The system architecture is described, along with the motivations, and the most significant choices, both hardware and software, adopted for its implementation. The novelty of the approach essentially relies on its capability of embedding functionalities that stem from various research results (mainly carried out within the VICOM national project), and "putting the pieces together" in a well-integrated framework. These features, along with its high portability, good flexibility, and, above all, low cost, make this approach appropriate for educational and training purposes, mainly concerning measurements on telecommunication systems, at universities and research centers, as well as enterprises. Moreover, the methodology can be employed for remote access to and sharing of costly measurement equipment in many different activities. The immersive characteristics of the framework are illustrated, along with performance measurements related to a specific application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...