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This year's volume of the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (CSCTFL) Report centering on the conference theme of MultiTasks, MultiSkills, and MultiConnections focused on the importance or world language use within the classroom and beyond with articles extending the conversation on target language use in instruction, on 21st century skills and accompanying Web 2.0 technologies that faculty and students can access and use to connect to the larger world, and applications of standards based instruction at K-16 levels of instruction. The profession's K-16 "Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century" are well represented in this year's volume as all articles connect in some manner with one or more of the 5Cs in meaningful ways, demonstrating how the profession has embraced the national conversation on what "students should know and be able to do in a second or multiple language". The collection of articles in the MultiTasks section, share the theme of instructor target language (TL) use with recent attention placed on the role of the target language in instructed situations. In the MultiSkills section of this publication, readers will find a focus on the Partnership for 21st Century skills and technology integration in three articles. Articles in MultiConnections integrate various aspects of language learning usage for various purposes including connections to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), to service learning for collegiate intermediate Spanish students not necessarily pursuing a major or minor in the language, and to innovations for providing more literature exposure into language learning. "Innovative Approaches to teaching Literature in the World language classroom," examines the need to provide and support literary texts in language instruction by bridging the gap between developing language proficiency for interpersonal communication and developing literary understanding of authentic literary texts.

This year's conference theme, "Be Seen, Be Heard," reflected not only our goal of celebrating our achievements but also represented our intent of making sure everyone's voices are heard, especially during 2017's difficult political climate. The conference opened with a motivating address from Dean Laura E. Lyons, followed by an inspirational keynote by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, a PhD candidate in English at UH Manoa, widely published poet and professional performer. A special addition to this year's program were talks delivered by five featured speakers: Dr. Christina Bacchilega, Dr. Mary Shin Kim, PhD candidate Victoria Chen, PhD candidate Gavin Lamb and PhD candidate Michael Pak. Throughout the day, there were 36 graduate student presentations. Contents of these proceedings include: (1) What Can We Say about the Languages of Ancient Europe? (A. Douglas Callender); (2) An Evolving Mainstream: A Linguistic Landscapes Analysis of Migration in Cary, NC (Lucas John Edmond); (3) Reduplication in Oroha: The Multifaceted Process and its Effects within the Language's Grammar (Darren Flavelle); (4) Novel Morphophonological Derivational Patterns in Korean Onomatopoeic and Mimetic Neologisms (Bonnie Fox); (5) 'Give' in Sasak: Voice and Alignment in Ditransitive Constructions (Ryan E. Henke); (6) The Possibilities of Detaching '-E Hata' from Korean Psych Adjectives (Dianne Juhn); (7) Conversation Between Sasak Speakers in Cultural Context (Khairunnisa); (8) "Good Job!" Language Focus and Instruction in a Research Interview (Yu-Han Lin); (9) An Exploration Of Tonogenesis In Oceania (Leah Pappas); (10) From TBLT to PBLL: An Ecological Perspective (Huy V. Phùng); (11) Examining Effects of Revitalization on Pronunciation of Southern Tutchone Ejectives (Ashleigh Smith); (12) Intransitive Sentences with Floating Quantifiers in Child Japanese (Maho Takahashi); (13) Stance And Engagement Features in Academic Writing in Korean: A Corpus-Based Comparison (Lee Seunghye Yu); and (14) An Ecological Approach to an Online Second Language Writing Course (Lin Zhou). Individual papers contain references. [For the 2016 proceedings, see ED586378.]

Eight papers for the Collections and Services Division of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions that were given at the 1992 annual meeting are presented. These papers deal with the acquisition and exchange of library materials, interlending, and serial publications. The following papers are included: (1) "Why Won't You Accept My Order? Global Acquisitions Solutions" (T. Leisner); (2) "South Asian Literature: Acquisition and Processing in West European Libraries" (G. F. Baumann); (3) "The Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Protocol: Progress and Projects" (L. Swain and P. Tallim); (4) "Sci-Tech Libraries: New Approach to Interlibrary Loans" (E. Eronina); (5) "Improving Interlending through Goal Setting and Performance Measurement" (J. Willemse); (6) "OSIRIS, a Microcomputer Based Online Serials Information, Registration and Inquiry System" (S. Santiago); (7) "Serial Publications in India" (P. K. Gupta); and (8) "Basic Serials Management Handbook" (J. Szilvassy). Most papers are followed by references.

Place value is a foundational competency for primary school mathematics and for this reason we have sought to investigate what the recent and current academic conversations are around this important concept. In this paper we present a survey of literature presented in the Australasian, European and Southern African contexts through a review of purposively selected conference proceedings and journals to establish what the conversations have been about the teaching and learning of place value in these research communities from 2013 to 2022.

Higher education is increasingly recognised as being critical to social and economic prosperity. It is also a policy area where the Commonwealth could significantly increase its impact. This could be achieved without major cost, by working through activities already in place, and persuading member governments to make stronger use of these brands and mechanisms. This paper focuses on four key areas selected by the the 19th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (19CCEM) Steering Committee: (1) Costs and access; (2) Links with employment; (3) Securing the next generation of academics; and (4) Student and staff mobility. These were chosen because of their importance, relevance to conference themes, and synergy with existing Commonwealth-related initiatives. In each case, the brief summary of issues is intended to stimulate debate on whether, and how, the Commonwealth could play a greater role. [This paper was prepared for the Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (19CCEM) (19th, Bahamas, Jun 22-26, 2015).]

The proceedings of the congress include the following workshop summaries: "Continuing Education and Training (CET) and Society" (Sellin); "The Social Dialogue" (Smith); "The Role of the Social Partners in Vocational and Further Training in Denmark" (Jensen); "Problems of Vocational Training in the Period of Transition to the Market Economy" (Csako); "Potential for Institutionalising and Formalising Cooperation between the Social Partners on Vocational Training" (Meghnagi); "CET and Society" (Kuda); "CET of Management Staff" (Standke); "CET for Managers in Europe" (Hummel); "Perspectives and Forms of Effective CET of Polish Management Staff" (Dworzecki); "Establishment of the Timisoara Institute of Management (Romania)" (Wisson); "Improved Qualification of Managerial Staff in Bulgaria" (Evgeniev); "Training Instead of Dismissal" (Makedonska, Soos); "Problems of Continuing Training in the Activity of the Employment Service" (Novikova); "Work-oriented Learning" (Stotzel, Schmidt); "Qualification Strategies for Women at Work and the Re-integration of Women into Working Life" (Prosel); "Integrated CET Programmes at Municipal Level" (Oels, Vogel); "Project-Pedagogics Approach in Training Schemes for Youth and Adults" (Vassileff); "Integrated Projects in CET" (Delatour); "Work, Ecological Crisis, Continuing Vocational Education and Training" (Knapp, Rieseberg); "Environmental Destruction" (Mackwitz); "Environmental Protection and the Workplace" (Bresso); "The Biosphere, the Technosphere and Society" (Balogh); "Psychological Problems Arising from Radical Structural Changes in the Former German Democratic Republic" (Maaz); "Learning Process as Part of the Joint Ventures in Poland" (Dyrschka); "Course in Entrepreneurship and Market Economy for Estonian Decision-Makers" (Hedlund); "Challenges to the Qualification of thw Workforce in the Transition from the Planned to the Market Economy" (Buttler); "IFG Projects in Central and Eastern Europe" (de Zitter); "Open and Flexible Distance Education and Training in Europe" (d'Azevedo); "New Methods, Old Practices" (Curran); "New Media in European CET" (Nickolmann); "Access as a Key Concept for Policies to Develop Open and Distance Learning throughout Europe" (Dondi); and "The Programme, Finish Your Schooling, Now Is the Time" (Anglarill). (KC)

The world of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is dominated by English, and to a lesser extent, French, Spanish, and German. While these languages are the main focus of EUROCALL conferences, there has always been a presence of Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs) at these conferences. Most of the official languages of the EU and European languages more generally have been discussed by CALL researchers at EUROCALL conferences, but some languages have yet to make an appearance. There have also been presentations on other LCLTs outside of Europe, including Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, and less widely spoken languages such as Thai and Nahuatl. This paper looks at the presence of LCTLs at EUROCALL conferences since 1993 and reflects on what has changed over the years. It notes the importance of the conference location on the languages discussed at the conference and the role of EU projects in supporting LCTLs. [For the complete volume, "CALL and Professionalisation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2021 (29th, Online, August 26-27, 2021)," see ED616972.]

These papers on reading research in the socialist countries were delivered at a conference held in Budapest, Hungary, in October of 1974. Included are the text of the introductory address and papers on the following topics: (1) the library and society; (2) the library as it relates to students, teachers, and engineers; (3) the role and effectiveness of the library; (4) the reading of non-fiction; and (5) the reading and reception of literature. (EMH)

The first of two volumes, this book contains complete texts of 61 papers presented at a 1988 symposium on geographical education. The papers cover many aspects of geographical education in several countries in Western Europe, Africa, and Asia, and are divided into eight sections: (1) "Developing Skills for Living through Geographical Education"; (2) "Developing Learners' Skills and Abilities in Geography"; (3) "Curriculum Developments in Geography for the 1990s"; and (4) "Research in Geographical Education"; (5) "Developing Skills through Continuing Education"; (6) "Curriculum Developments in Geography for the 1990s"; (7) "Teaching Styles in Geographical Educations"; and (8) "Developing Learners' Skills and Abilities in Geography." Many of the papers include figures and additional references. (AS)

These papers from an International Committee on Family Research (CFR) seminar explore seven themes, four of which are presented in Part 1. The first set of papers approach the question of whether the family is worth supporting and the related issue of pressures, conflicts, and expectations of family life (Theme 1). Randall Collins discusses "Social Conflict and the Place of the Family: Toward a Theory of Moral Politics." Robert A. Lewis describes "Some Changes in Men's Values, Meanings, Roles, and Attitudes Toward Marriage and Family in the USA." Helen Glezer identifies "Antecedents and Correlates of Marriage and Family Attitudes in Young Australian Men and Women." Major demographic trends affecting family policy (Theme 2) are identified by Arland Thornton and Peter McDonald, respectively, in papers on "Modernization and Family Change" and "Implications for Families of Third World Fertility Trends." Three additional papers discuss families with children and social policy approaches to family support and education (Theme 3): "Family Policy as Latter-Day Children's Policy" by Gilbert Steiner; "Divorcees, Children, and the Public" by Jan Trost; and "The Child's Use of Family Resources" by Gay Ochiltree and Paul Amato. The topic of youth policies and the family/work/education relationship (Theme 4) is particularized in Roland Eckert and Helmut Willems'"Youth Conflicts and Public Policy Challenges in Western Europe" and in Don Edgar and Frank Maas'"Adolescent Competence, Leaving Home and Changing Family Patterns." (RH)

Although paper-based transmission of medical information might seem outdated, it has proven efficient, and remains structurally safe from massive data leaks. As part of the ICIPEMIR project for improving medical imaging report, we explored the idea of structured data storage within a medical report, by embedding the data themselves in a QR-Code (and no URL-to-the-data). Three different datasets from ICIPEMIR were serialized, then encoded in a QR-Code. We compared 4 compression algorithms to reduce file size before QR-Encoding. YAML was the most concise format (character sparing), and allowed for embedding of a 2633-character serialized file within a QR-Code. The best compression rate was obtained with gzip, with a compression ratio of 2.32 in 15.7ms. Data were easily extracted and decompressed from a digital QR-Code using a simple command line. YAML file was also successfully recovered from the printed QR-Code with both Android and iOS smartphone. Minimal detected size was 3*3cm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These free papers presented at an International Committee on Family Research (CFR) seminar include (1) Frances E. Baum's "There's No Room in the Nuclear Family: Sharing As an Alternative Housing Option"; (2) Paula W. Dail's "Parental Role Perceptions among Young, Dual Parent Families in America: Family Policy Implications for the Future"; (3) Daniel B. Hunter and Edna J. Hunter's "Mandated Visitation for Grandparents in Custody Disputes: Will Little Red Ridinghood Visit Grandma?"; (4) Fumie Kumagai's "Aging and Social Policies in Japan"; (5) Renata Siemienska's "Patterns of Polish Families and Their Determinants: Continuity and Change"; (6) Oded Stark's "Migration, Remittances and the Family: A Theory"; (7) Helmut Willems and Roland Eckert's "Youth Protest in Western Europe: Four Case Studies"; (8) Peggy G. Koopman-Boyden's "Mothers, Fathers, and 'Big Brother' in New Zealand: Change in New Zealand Families and the Policy Response"; and (9) Graeme Russell's "Changing Patterns of Divisions of Labour for Paid Work and Child Care." (RH)

This paper presents the Gender Equality Network in the European Research Area (GENERA) Network/Community of Practice, and its work on mental health issues in academia. GENERA's vision is to support, coordinate and improve gender equality in physics through various working groups on gender, diversity and inclusivity topics. Mental health issues can be especially distressing in academia, owing to the constant expectations of high performance for both faculty and students. Along with depression and anxiety, GENERA also addresses other issues such as sexual assault and suicide. This paper outlines the need for creating awareness and lifting the stigma of mental health problems in academia by using the available resources at institutional levels, such as improving training and reconsidering the reward system to include successful mentoring and support for student well-being. Finally, GENERA proposes specific methodologies for improving the mental health of students and faculty. These approaches will be presented during an upcoming workshop series on the topic, which will welcome participants from Europe and around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the need for English as a foreign language (EFL) education in schools has become a priority worldwide. The aim of our paper is to investigate which countries currently focus on researching motivation to learn EFL and what potential reasons are behind the focus. We performed a topic search of the keywords "EFL" and "motivation" in the Web of Science database for 2020. In total, we found 61 Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) articles. Asia prevails, especially Eastern Asian Chinese speaking regions (Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong). Policies in Asian regions such as China and Taiwan highly support EFL. There is the aim to develop Taiwan into a "bilingual nation". Likewise, the European Union promotes the establishment of the so-called European Education Area within which studying and training should be accessible and profitable for people living in the EU. Spain remains the European country with the highest number of EFL motivation publications. There were only a few papers from the Americas. In South America, we see evidence of the beginnings of a CLIL push, which has the potential to lead to expanded EFL motivation research in these previously under researched areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic literature review aimed at identifying the pedagogical approaches, aligned with Education 4.0, used to support teaching computer science courses with undergraduate and graduate students in Europe. A three-step coding process was conducted to identify and analyse 20 papers. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the selected papers revealed a three-cluster solution with common characteristics that could be used to describe those pedagogical approaches. The review also showed that the term Education 4.0 is still relatively new and has not been conceptualised in terms of computer science courses, although the characteristics of Education 4.0 are visible throughout the pedagogical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on operations management topics which include differences in operations management research agendas of North America and Europe, structural ambidexterity in high technology organizations, and the effects of asset specificity and trust on inter-company knowledge sharing.

Capital markets are a very important intermediary between companies that need capital for their business ventures and creditors who participate in the capital market in order to increase the value of their stake in the long term. The most important capital markets are the bond market, the stock market and the foreign exchange market. One of the key stock market performance indicators are the stock market indices that measure the value of the stock or a segment of the stock market that can be classified according to economic activity. They are used to observe the behavior of a group of stocks, and by reviewing the average behavior of a group of stock over the years investors can gain an insight into the performance of a group of shares. The region of Southeast Europe is still in a period of transition, and the current macroeconomic situation deters investors from trading on the relevant capital markets they consider it a risky investment. The main focus of this paper is the structure of stock market indices that use the freefloat market capitalization methodology and the interpretation of the reason of their movements in the last six months. The relevant stock market indices are BELEXline (Serbia), SBITOP (Slovenia), BUX (Hungary), BIFX (Bosnia and Herzegovina), MONEX (Montenegro) MBI10 (North Macedonia) and finally CROBEX (Croatia). The aim of this paper is to interpret the influence of external factors on the stock market indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical pollution with hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) isomers of soil and groundwater unfortunately is an unsolved problem, especially in some countries where Lindane is still produced, as also in Europe in the surrounding areas of former production sites or landfilling sites usually due to inadequate long-term storage, treatment or recovery of these wastes. HCH removal technologies are usually dedicated to soil remediation, leachate treatment, water and wastewater treatment. This paper presents the research efforts to develop a treatment technology for gamma HCH removal from water matrices by advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) based on ultrasonication, Fenton and photo Fenton oxidation. Five treatment systems were assessed comparatively: direct ultrasonication, oxidation with hydrogen peroxide, ultrasonication with hydrogen peroxide, Fenton ultrasonication and Fenton ultrasonication followed by photo Fenton oxidation. The energy (25-800 kJ) and amplitude of ultrasonic field, initial concentration of HCH (10 - 89 g/L), hydrogen peroxide (1 - 4000 x stoichiometric dose), iron (Fe II) doses (1-15 mg/L) and UV irradiation time (30-60 min.) were the main experimental parameters evaluated. The ultrasonic frequency was constant - 20 kHz in all experiments. Best treatment performance of 99.9% HCH removal efficiency was achieved after application of a treatment train combining Fenton ultrasonication followed by Fenton UV photolysis at the main experimental parameters of: 200 kJ ultrasonic energy, 1000 x s peroxide dose, 5 mg Fe(II)/L and 30 minutes of UV irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides exploratory empirical evidence on the innovation characteristics of the European countries using a spatiotemporal approach. Using Bayesian Additive Models for Location, Scale, and Shape (BAMLSS) a heteroscedastic Gaussian geoadditive model is specified. It incorporates different explanatory model terms for innovative activity, spatial autocorrelation, and a time effect and allows a flexible model fit close to the data observed. The timeframe of the dataset used in this paper covers the period from 2000 to 2012 and contains 224 regions. The main results show that spatial proximity and temporal considerations add to the explanatory content and provide insights about the innovative activity in Europe, supporting the importance of regionally differentiated considerations. The findings suggest that action schemes should focus on promoting cooperation among actors, facilitate R&D transfer, and consider spatial spillover effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green roof is an example of increasing the water retention in the urban areas and reduction of urban heat islands. The impact of green roofs and its influence on the thermal resistance or its change during the winter is often not taken into account in the contrary to the summer benefits. The surface of a highly insulated flat roof is overcooled during the night by the long wave sky radiation. This radiative cooling increases the thermal losses. This is reduced by the existence of additional green roof layers. Also, these green roof composition layers have their thermal resistance, which is usually not included within the calculation of thermal resistance using the EN ISO 6946. The thermal conductance of these layers is influenced by the water content, which is mostly higher than design values and hard to obtain. Also, the presence of snow in various forms on the roof can increase the resistance. In this paper, temperature courses during the winter season of the green roof, flat roof with gravel and the regular flat roof, based on the experimental measurement are analyzed. In this case, the use of green roof kept the temperature of the membrane almost constant near 0 °C during winter without correlation to the outdoor air temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the current policy context that encourages the use of renewable energy sources given unstable electricity prices in Europe. The evolution of the technologies used to manufacture photovoltaic panels has made their performance increase in recent years and their price affordable. The instability of electricity prices and attractive prices are the main reasons why many domestic electricity consumers are installing photovoltaic panels on the roofs of their houses or on the ground, thus becoming electricity producers. These panels will support the electricity needs of the home and the excess production can be stored in batteries or fed into the grid for neighbours. The paper also presents a scenario that could lead to grid instability in the event of an overproduction of electricity produced by photovoltaic systems feeding electricity into the grid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An academic spin-off (ASO) is an enterprise that is founded by researchers or students associated with a university or research institution. ASOs typically commercialize new technologies, products, or services that are based on results of academic research. However, ASOs often face barriers to long-term success. These barriers severely limit the economic and social impact of the research and innovation from ASOs, as well as discourage future researchers from starting their own ASOs. Furthermore, barriers can vary depending on the region and the industry and increase the complexity of this issue. So far very little research has been done to examine the barriers to ASOs in general or in specific industries and regions. Thus, the research question emerges as to what the general barriers to long-term success for ASOs in Europe are. To increase the understanding of the spin-off creation process, we conduct a systematic literature review of existing literature about ASOs and their barriers in general. Previous approaches already classify barriers into micro, meso, and macro levels. Other models exist that examine the spinning-off process with respect to a temporal level. In order to combine both dimensions, the frameworks mentioned above were merged in the first step and expanded with current research in the second step with a particular focus on barriers to long term success. Barriers for ASOs need to be addressed more in depth in order to fully realize their potential and to expand upon the existing literature of the general barriers of ASOs in Europe. Exploring these barriers yielded first results which include a limited access to funding and resources, lack of understanding of the creation of a business model, furthermore a lack of infrastructure and difficulty in establishing and sustaining a network with industry partners. Addressing these barriers will require targeted policies, funding, and training programs that enhance entrepreneurial skills and promote collaboration between ASOs and industry partners. Our findings provide insights that can help to improve the success rate of ASOs in Europe and encourage the development of innovative solutions to address societal challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union with ten new member states we need to reconsider what we know about the Brussels press corps. Brussels journalists play a pivotal role in the European integration process. They act as agents of Europeanization, wedged between complex European issues and national public spheres, privileged in terms of information supply, geographical proximity and social networking. This study is one of the first to examine correspondents from new member states vis-à-vis the rest of the Brussels press corps, EU institutions, home offices and audiences. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with 14 journalists from different new member states show that the current status of the new member states' correspondents in Brussels could impede the emergence of a Europe-wide public discourse. The growing heterogeneity of the Brussels press corps reduces the relative importance of journalists from smaller member states and leaves them at disadvantage in the news-gathering process. Moreover, volatile and also tense media markets in the new member states, paired with little interest for EU affairs in these countries constrain the journalists' news performance, leading them to stress national angles over European ones. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloudscheduler is a system to manage resources of local and remote compute clouds and makes those resources available to HTCondor pools. It examines the resource needs of idle jobs, then starts virtual machines (VMs), sized accordingly, on allowed clouds with available resources. Using yaml files, cloudscheduler then provisions the VMs during the boot process with all necessary tools needed to register with HTCondor and run the experiment's jobs. Although we have run cloudscheduler in its first version for ATLAS and Belle-II workloads successfully for more than 10 years, we developed cloudscheduler version 2 (CSV2), a complete overhaul and modernization of cloudscheduler. The new system is used successfully in production for Belle-II, ATLAS, DUNE, and BABAR. In addition to using cloudscheduler version 2 as a WLCG site, we also run it as a service for other WLCG sites, and the Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research (CANFAR) group uses its own instance of CSV2 for their astronomy workloads. In this paper, we report on our experience in operating CSV2 for different experiment's jobs, running on up to 10,000 cores across all experiments and clouds in North America, Australia, and Europe. We will also report on how to correctly account for the resource usage in the WLCG APEL system, how the monitoring works, as well as on the integration of different clouds and how to use resources opportunistically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once Female students in Informatics and Technology (IT) and Computer Science degrees at European higher education institutions, in the 21st century, represent a smaller percentage compared with male students, this paper investigates the main reasons that may explain this fact, as well as presents new pedagogical strategies for female students in IT courses. These strategies derive from understanding stereotypes, perceptions, cultural implications, and propositions for inclusive IT education; and are relevant for supporting IT students' equality and success. Further, good lecturing in general together with positive reinforcement with students lays a crucial foundation for supporting all students in IT. The present research was developed in five European universities: Croatia, Italy, Slovakia, Poland, and Portugal. Starting from a literature review on the topic was developed a questionnaire that was applied to a sample of IT students in these five universities. The results were analyzed to define some new pedagogical strategies. These allowed us to conclude about the main reasons for the decision of female students to choose to study IT programs and higher education institutions develop pedagogical strategies more adequate and more attractive to female students, as well as to contribute to increased employability and successful integration in the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the structure of the European network of newsflows. According to recent literature, the horizontal integration of national public spheres is a constitutive element of a European public sphere. Based on a sample of newsitems in 25 countries, we present a comprehensive depiction of the mutual coverage of member states in the EU. The results show that the network of newsflows is shaped by the economical and political power of the involved countries as well as by their cultural and historic proximity. Moreover, we identify two structural gaps: Smaller countries are generally marginalized and there is a clear division into an Eastern and a Western European public sphere. The duration of the membership of a country in the EU, however, has a positive effect on its integration in the network. Opposing recent studies in the field we find little evidence of the existence of an European public sphere. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protecting the environment is a top priority today. The aim of the paper is to present the possible environmental risks arising from the rail transport of hazardous substances. During transport, new risks of leakage of hazardous substances and environmental contamination from railway tanks arise during their decommissioning at railway stations. These risks can be a significant source of environmental contaminants and there is no methodology to prevent possible impacts. The current situation in Europe has seen some changes in the incidence and composition of risks. There is a new risk of terrorist attacks that are aimed at easily achievable targets. In the area of risk management, it is necessary to revise the current approach and create a methodology for the prevention of risks of major accidents and subsequent environmental contamination. Part of the paper is an explanation of the risk of decommissioned trains with hazardous substances, a search of this issue in selected European countries, a comparison of conditions of mobile and stationary sources of risk and a proposal for a set of measures to prevent major accidents from this source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agribusiness is one of the most diverse and fragmented industries in the world and includes firms operating in production, wholesale, and processing levels of the food supply chain. This paper addresses recent trends in the industry, in particular: the increased involvement of large multinational firms and cooperatives in Europe, the growing trend of vertical integration within the industry, the reduction of fragmentation in production and processing, and the trend toward fewer but larger farms. In order to facilitate success among small European agribusinesses, this paper develops and introduces to that sector a new strategic planning methodology. The new approach includes the development of an EFE (external factor evaluation), IFE (internal factor evaluation), and SWOT (strength-weakness-opportunity-threat) matrices that include AQCD (actionable, quantitative, comparative, divisional) factors. The new methodology presented in this paper can serve as a guide for small agribusiness firms doing strategic planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Proceedings of the International Conference on Renewable Electrical Power Sources - ICREPS is the property of Union of Mechanical & Electrotechnical Engineers & Technicians of Serbia (SMEITS) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In most countries in Europe, regulatory noise limits apply for service equipment in housing. During the last few decades, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) has become increasingly prevalent in new and retrofitted housing in Europe. The MVHR systems supply fresh air to obtain good indoor air quality, with minimal heat losses. However, the systems may operate continuously 24 hours/day and transmit noise into and between rooms by many possible paths. In practice, many people get annoyed or disturbed by the noise, especially during nighttime or when having quiet activities. Some countries have stricter service equipment noise limits for continuous sources, and stricter limits also apply for upper quality classes in acoustic classification schemes. Thus, both design and measurements become challenging. The aim of this paper is to investigate the noise limit values and descriptors applied to ventilation systems in housing in selected countries in Europe and to compare and discuss the field test procedures typically applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consent to many things in life, but sometimes we do not know what we consent to. When discussing data protection in Europe, consent has been associated with permission under the GDPR, and health data are highly sensitive. Patients cannot make an informed decision without being provided with the information they need upfront: no informed decision, no informed consent. This paper presents a consent management system for patient-generated health data stored with HL7 FHIR specification, tested on Type 1 diabetes synthetic data. This architecture, based on using FHIR as an unequivocal data exchange format, can lead to individuals (patients) taking control of their data, enabling potential data exchange and reuse of health data across countries and organisations, in line with the European Commission proposal of a European Health Data Space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taxation can be used as a tool to promote sustainable waste management and recycling of industrial plastic, paper and glass; therefore, this article aims to assess the effectiveness of existing waste taxes by considering their effects on waste generation and disposal in Europe. In this context, a comparative study has been carried out to understand taxpayers' behaviours towards waste taxation, tax rates and methods preferred to calculate the amount of tax to be paid. Sustainable waste management is of particular importance for countries and requires effective investment and financing mechanisms. It can be argued that today's tax systems are asked to contribute to sustainable development by eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities and using tax incentives to limit the amount of waste produced. This also means that tax systems, from time to time, may require to take more proactive Pigouvian roles. Collection of waste tax is mostly under the responsibility of local authorities, and these authorities may opt different methods, such as: Unit-Based Pricing (UBP) and pay-asyou-throw (PAYT) schemes, while calculating the amount of tax to be collected. Pigouvian taxes intend to discourage consumption of products that affect society and/or environment hazardously; therefore, it is argued that the waste taxes that are not inconformity with the Pigouvian approach should be updated because waste taxes should not only finance the service taken by the users(taxpayers), but also promote recycling and protect the environment and human health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with a problem of digital competence acquisition and certification. In order to overcome the problem of still inadequate number of digitally competent students and the tools that merely focus on skills acquisition, this paper proposes the CRISS platform which is a unique cloud-based digital learning solution, based on the most advanced pedagogical methodologies and technological solutions Its purpose is to allow guided acquisition, evaluation and certification of digital competence in primary and secondary schools in Europe. The platform is based on the CRISS Digital Competence (DC) Framework created as an adaptation of a well-established European digital competence framework, DigComp. The platform's architecture includes seven different modules that support the CRISS DC Framework and employ advanced techniques such as learning analytics, intelligent tutoring and certification. The platform will enable teachers to track the work of their students acquiring the digital competence with a detail insight into their learning paths. CRISS platform is piloted in around 90 schools, with 600 teachers and 3400 students during the school year 2018/2019. [For the full proceedings, see ED621557.]

Interactive simulations allow students to discover the underlying principles of a scientific phenomenon through their own exploration. Unfortunately, students often struggle to learn effectively in these environments. Classifying students' interaction data in the simulations based on their expected performance has the potential to enable adaptive guidance and consequently improve students' learning. Previous research in this field has mainly focused on a-posteriori analyses or investigations limited to one specific predictive model and simulation. In this paper, we investigate the quality and generalisability of models for an early prediction of conceptual understanding based on clickstream data of students across interactive simulations. We first measure the students' conceptual understanding through their in-task performance. Then, we suggest a novel type of features that, starting from clickstream data, encodes both the state of the simulation and the action performed by the student. We finally propose to feed these features into GRU-based models, with and without attention, for prediction. Experiments on two different simulations and with two different populations show that our proposed models outperform shallow learning baselines and better generalise to different learning environments and populations. The inclusion of attention into the model increases interpretability in terms of effective inquiry. The source code is available on Github. [For the full proceedings, see ED623995.]

Generally, project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are mandatory actions throughout the project planning, implementation and conclusion phases. Although the terms "monitoring" and "evaluation" go together, evaluation is usually conducted after the project is completed and is typically included as part of the project report, while monitoring is a continuous process of ongoing data collection and feedback. This aspect is often neglected. Although M&E guidelines for practitioners are in abundance, and advocacy for the use of specific models of M&E are aplenty, there is a deficit of scholarly publications on M&E of capacity development projects in higher education in particular. Furthermore, research guiding future M&E endeavours based on lessons learnt before and during the pandemic, is found wanting. The three authors, in different roles, are part of an Erasmus+ co-funded project that aims to build capacity for curriculum transformation through internationalisation and development of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). COIL is an inclusive approach to provide all students with virtual internationalised learning experiences without having to travel. Taking an insiders' perspective and sharing our experiences in this project, this paper should inform future M&E of capacity building projects. [For the complete Volume 20 proceedings, see ED622631.]

Industry 4.0 and digitization are nowadays important trends in the textile industry. The need for well-prepared professionals in software for the design and modelling of textile products requires the creation of up-to-date educational resources. Virtual learning supported by e-learning offers the instruments to continue education during pandemic restrictions. As such, six research and education providers on the European level have joined forces to create educational resources in e-learning format for students and professionals in textiles: the content is related to software for design and modelling of weaving, knitting, virtual prototyping of clothing, embroidery of e-textiles and experimental design, as well as technology transfer. The educational resources were implemented on the Moodle e-learning platform of the Erasmus+ project (www.advan2tex.eu/portal/) and will be further used to support classroom/virtual courses with students and professionals in textiles. The paper introduces the course and its foreseen impact within the current context. [For the complete proceedings, see ED639262.]

The paper presents ideas and initiatives from two ongoing Erasmus+ projects funded by the European Commission. Both projects use e-Learning as an enabler for communicating interesting and important learning contents that are believed to increase and improve employability prospects for the targeted groups of learners. The WINnovators project targets young women with reduced opportunities for quality education in different areas of STEM/STEAM and intends to demonstrate how their entrepreneurial skills can gradually grow by providing them with e-Learning incentives in such areas. The YNSPEED project intends to offer free MOOC courses addressing hot topics of modern society -- artificial intelligence, sustainable development, and fake news. In the YNSPEED project, the target group of learners are young people (aged 16-29). It is believed that their interest in such important topics can be boosted by communicating the corresponding relevant learning content in a carefully designed way. The "Shine a light" metaphor is a common point and a common approach in both projects -- e-Learning technology is used to facilitate informal education for the targeted learners and to indicate directions that often get either omitted or misunderstood in traditional schools. [For the full proceedings, see ED639633.]

This paper focuses how can we measure build up the management control system of a social enterprises in Central-Europe. This paper focuses the applicability of the traditional Balanced Scorecard system to the special needs of a Social Enterprises. The paper argues that the former adaptations are not considering the Central-European specialities, so it suggests extending the BSC system with new segment - how the social enterprises fit to the requirements of the grantor and regulator public institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term “syncretism” has a complicated history in religious studies, especially it concerns European scientific environment. In Russian science it has appeared with more or less determined meaning. Comparative analysis helped us to reveal the main array of issues that concerns the meaning of the term “syncretism”. In the 70s European academics decided to revive this notion, but since it was ignored it has acquired different synonyms. So academics in the most recent papers debate if the revival of the term is really necessary, and does it make any sense to explore the phenomena at all if there is no religion that seems to be totally monolithic. Comparative analysis of the different scientific papers revealed that Russian academics usually do not focus their attention on the problematic origin of the notion and on variety of its connotation. The major explorations include new classifications of the phenomena or its case stories: different nations in Russia have syncretic religious culture. Sometimes researchers identify it as syncretism, in other cases as vernacular or folk religion. It happens that they do not distinguish these phenomena and use both in the same paper. In this research we tried to reflect the difference of the approaches that have been proposed by the representatives from academia from Europe and Russia and through analysis them to elicit its meaning against other terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines current research into the impact of climate change on wine production and wine tourism, as well as reporting on a set of interviews with wine professionals in the Douro valley of Portugal and the Finger Lakes region of the United States. The literature review and interviews are used to assess the likely impact of climate change on wine production in each region and the expected ability of wine makers to maintain traditional wine styles and grape choices in the face of changing climate. It also explores the possible relationship between traditional wine styles and wine tourism in new and old-world regions. This paper's conclusions suggest the possibility that changes in a traditional wine style would affect wine tourism in a given region. They also conclude that climate change is already affecting traditional wine styles, particularly in Oldworld regions of Europe and that wine makers may eventually be unable to sustain a wone style in any region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current transport infrastructure in Europe depends on numerous steel and concrete-steel bridges, often from high-strength steel. One of the main engineering challenges related to such bridges is to ensure their reliability during their whole lifespan. It is not easy as load by automotive or rail transport typically induces fatigue effects, especially on steel parts. It is usually necessary to execute periodic inspections which should make possible timely detection of issues (cracks) which would make effective repairs possible. Thus, it is important to be able to plan these inspections in right times and to inspect the critical details with focusing on their fatigue damage. The paper discusses some challenges related to this approach. The Direct Optimized Probabilistic Computation method (DOProC) is combined with linear fracture mechanics analytical solution to find the time of the first inspection. Then it is assumed that modified solution can be used to find times of further inspections. In the paper there are discussed issues related to the speed of the DOProC in such application and the approaches to limit the computational time without a loss of precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, to decrease greenhouse gas emissions as a part of climate change mitigation strategies, adoption of passive house approach, which is amongst the most prominent due to high energy efficiency potential, has gained momentum especially in Europe. On the other hand, global warming of 1.5 °C and 2 °C is expected to be exceeded during the 21st century and this opens a debate on the summer thermal performance of passive houses. Architects, as main actors of the design process, play a significant role for the early assessment of potentials and risks regarding the building performance. Nevertheless, the use of performance assessments in design workflows is not main stream among architects yet. At this point, for architects to be able to include performance evaluations in their workflows, simplified performance assessment methods and building performance simulation tools integrated with design tools become more significant. In this regard, this study presents a simplified thermal performance evaluation method through a systematic performance simulation in early design phase. To meet the indoor thermal comfort expectations, temperature is one of the key parameters in building design and intensively correlated with the carbon footprint in the use phase. Therefore, thermal comfort is selected as the main performance topic, and a simplified method, namely annual neutral hours, which refers to the capacity of a building to run without active heating and cooling, is presented. In this scope, the paper discusses summer thermal comfort and climate change over a residential building case study by using a Building Performance Simulation tool integrated into a 3D CAD design tool. The results indicate that the proposed methods are applicable to early design workflows and have a potential to give insight to architects by enabling quick and iterative evaluations for the detection of key parameters; thus, solution alternatives. As an additional result of the study, among other parameters, transparent envelope properties and shading elements appear to be significant to meet the expectations for future summer thermal comfort; also, it is seen that the winter performance might slightly benefit from the climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proper indoor air quality and thermal comfort are part of the healthy indoor environment. The tests performed in the public utility, intelligent building „Energies" of Kielce University of Technology (Poland) with a group of students are the focus of the paper. The anonymous questionnaire survey was used to determine their thermal sensations, preferences and acceptability before the lecture and after it. In the meantime CO2 level, air and globe temperatures, relative humidity and air velocity were measured with the Testo 400 microclimate meter. The comparison of the changing air parameters throughout the time of 1.2h with the questionnaire survey provides information on the possibility of providing high thermal comfort and indoor air quality in the intelligent buildings, which are still quite rare in Central Europe. Consequently, obtaining experimental data there is valuable and important. It turned out that the building did not provide good quality parameters during the study, because the people felt too warm or hot in the room and wanted to change the temperature to a much cooler environment. What is more, the assessment of air quality according to the students at the beginning of classes at relatively low CO2 contents turns out to be an interesting phenomenon, where 36% of students subjectively assessed it in their questionnaires as being unacceptable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deal. While larger corporations have initiated a transition towards more sustainable and data-driven business, only a limited part of SMEs in Europe are actively investing in Twin innovation. Most SMEs presume elevated costs of Twin innovation and are unaware of the potential impact on their business performance. The study describes a usable generic framework to analyse the Twin innovation options, the impact on business performance and a roadmap for implementation by SMEs in the construction sector. The paper offers practical tools for SME owners and directors seeking to engage in Twin innovation. The findings are also relevant for other researchers in this field interested to gain a better understanding of twin innovation, as well as policy makers who seek to steer support programs towards innovation in SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historic masonry characterizes large part of the building heritage in Europe and worldwide but may suffer for structural weaknesses related to material deterioration, long-term fatigue, over-time modifications, accidental actions, seismic vulnerability... For the structural refurbishment of these building assets, the use of fiber-based composites has widely spread within the last twenty years as strengthening strategy. In particular, the coupling of fiber-based meshes or textiles with mortar plasters (the so-called Textile Reinforced Mortar technique) gained great relevance due to effectiveness, easiness of installation, compatibility of materials, durability and reversibility. The development of design methods for this new technique requires, beside a robust experimental database, also reliable and optimized numerical strategies for the performance estimations. In this context, the paper introduces a simplified finite-element modelling approach, based on multi-layered 3D elements, for the assessment of the structural performances of masonry assemblages strengthened with Textile Reinforced Mortar (TRM). In particular, the free, open source, finite element code OOFEM is adopted to perform non-linear static analyses of masonry samples subjected to in-plane or out-of-plane actions. Brick elements with laminated material composition are adopted for the simulations, with layers stacked along the sample thickness: the inner layer for the masonry and a couple of outer layers for the plaster and for the fiber-based reinforcement. The Gauss integration rule is used for setting up integration points in each layer, which number can be specified independently for each layer. The materials mechanical parameters for each layer are set in accordance to the results of experimental characterization tests available in the literature. The reliability of the simulations is assessed through comparison with previous experimental outcomes concerning tests on TRM strengthened masonry elements, namely diagonal compression tests, in-plane three-point bending tests and out-of-plane four-point bending tests. The model is feasible to reproduce the typical failure modes of masonry elements for both in-plane actions (diagonal cracking and in-plane bending failure) and out-of-plane actions (out-of-plane bending failure) also at advanced damage levels and thus can represent a useful and optimized tool to investigate on wider samples, such as entire walls with openings, even under combined in-and out-of-plane loading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this working paper is to delineate the correlation between decarbonization and security of supply, and to assess the sequential effect of these notions on the EU's external gas relations. It first discusses the contribution of the gas sector to the EU's decarbonization efforts. It then goes on to determine: a) The role of the Union's external suppliers in today's liberalized internal market, as well as in the changing reality for natural gas amidst decarbonization developments (independent variables), b) Whether this twofold role prompts the emergence of a new paradigm for the EU's relations with its key gas suppliers (dependent variable). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several European cities have committed to a long-term mobility transition to achieve a target of zero carbon emissions. In order to reduce the use of private vehicles, it is argued that digital shared mobility services are sustainable solutions for citizens. This paper proposes early citizen engagement as an approach to designing digital mobility services in inclusive and accessible ways. We present the findings from a mobile probing study involving 10 citizens from Espoo in order to gain first-hand experience of citizens' mobility needs and behaviours. Our preliminary findings show that giving up private vehicles and distrust of shared mobility solutions is still a challenge. We explore citizens' attitudes towards shared digital mobility services and propose design guidelines to resolve challenges of accessibility and inclusion in those services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fusion of arts into STEM has promoted STE(A)M modules for future learning and pedagogy at various levels of academia across Europe. However, the competent skills required for future jobs and education are not explored enough yet. The education institutions in different European countries have varied performances in terms of innovation pedagogy. This variation often reflects on entrepreneurship opportunities in the region as well. Understanding the student's outlook can help better understand the gap in various areas across Europe. The paper investigates the competence building possible in innovation, entrepreneurship and STE(A)M through the student's perspective on arts and science. The academic survey revealed insights on students perception in transition of STEM to STE(A)M models in pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current green and digital transitions as well as demands arising from the global competitiveness targets set European industry in a challenging position. Simultaneously, the pandemic has limited our possibilities for traditional face-to-face collaboration, and many new ways of working are here to stay. The services and platforms offered by university-based research and innovation infrastructures are often lacking the point of view of other stakeholders' interests. Nor do they emphasise new initiatives towards more effective and collaborative innovation management actions targeting for example business opportunities and commercialization. In this paper we present a Digital Playbook approach facilitating the process to plan and pre-segment the standard service pathways for the benefit of more effective valorisation of research and innovation infrastructures. Embedding the digital tools into the process enables a larger number of innovators to be engaged and thus cultivates a prospective and creative innovation environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]