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Treatment adherence is one of the milestones in the care of hypertensive patients, with new information and communication technologies as potential educational tools. This study aimed to evaluate the add-on effect of a digital cartoon educative video on the therapeutic observance of patients followed up in the General Hospital Yaoundé compared to standard of care. We conducted a randomized simple blind clinical trial at the cardiology unit of the Yaoundé General Hospital over a 6-month period from 1st March to 30th August 2022. We enrolled 110 patients and randomized them in blocs of 4 creating two groups of 57 and 53, respectively, without (group 1) and with (group 2) intervention. Preintervention treatment adherence was assessed using the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS). In the standard group (G1), we provided standard paper-based clinical counselling, including oral advice, and in the intervention group (G2), we did the same and added a digital cartoon video containing exactly the same message as images and audio. The primary outcome was medication adherence after three months. The mean age was 56.65 ± 10.98 years in group 1 (paper) and 56.42 ± 10.46 years in group 2 (paper + video), without any significant difference. The two groups were similar regarding the proportion of females (36.8% in G1 and 49.3% in G2) and educational levels. According to the Morisky medication adherence scale, before the intervention, the proportions of patients with good, medium and low treatment adherence in groups 1 and 2 were 7%, 25.6%, 67.4%, and 5.1%, 43.6%, 51.3%, respectively, without any significant difference. After interventions, the proportion of patients presenting a good observance moved from 7 to 11% in group 1 (paper) and 5.1 to 20% in group 2 (paper + video). The intragroup variation in treatment adherence in the intervention group (before-after) tended to be significant, with a p-value = 0.0572, while this p-value was 0.712 in the standard group. Our results provide insight into how digital cartoon videos can help to have an add-on effect on the treatment adherence of hypertensive patients, with clinical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though being perceived as a novel approach, multiple authors claim that the digital transition of all sectors in society started when information and communication technologies (ICT) started to be an integral part of our daily lives. The education sector currently represents one of the contexts where the use of ICT is more promising and allows to reach greater benefits, mostly due to the wide range of tools, applications, and management and methodological approaches that are associated with e-learning. With the above in mind, a bibliometric analysis of the e-learning adoption topic has been performed, aiming on delivering a detailed analysis of the status of the topic. This analysis was carried out by analyzing the scientific literature indexed in the Scopus database that addressed the multiple stages of the e-learning adoption process (i.e., acceptance, adoption, and use). Our study analyzed 896 documents published between 1989 and 2021, of which 98.3% represented papers published in journals and conference proceedings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online reading requires a hybrid of reading and information and communication technology (ICT)-related skills. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of paper-based reading skills and ICT-related skills in online reading and to identify the effects of age on learning online reading. ICT-related skills that investigated in this study were defined as information searching which indicate abilities to locate online information. To verify these relationships, a path analysis model was proposed. The age effect for learning online reading was analyzed through multivariate analysis of variance. In total, 376 children from grades four to six were recruited as participants. A paper-and-pencil reading comprehension test, an online reading test, and a self-reported information searching skill questionnaire were administered. Results showed that paper-based reading and ICT-related skills together could predict almost 50% of online reading performance. However, with respect to online reading, the importance of ICT-related skills was much less than that of paper-based reading skills. Implications of the results are discussed. As for the age factor, it is recommended that an appropriate age for reading and making good use of online information might be around sixth grade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs) is steadily increasing. However, the implementation of ICT in SMEs is hindered by constraints, such as limited financial resources, lack of ICT knowledge, and reluctance to change. The objective of this study is to identify and analyze prevalent patterns, obstacles and influences that impact the adoption of ICT in SMEs in developing nations. In addition, this study aims to provide recommendations on the most effective methods to optimize the utilization of ICT in these contexts. This review is conducted using a sample of 25 publications that have been published and are available in the Scopus database. The selection process focuses on works that have received significant citations and have been published between 2014 and 2023. The PRISMA statement form was utilized to elucidate the comprehensive procedure of selecting and accepting pertinent publications. This research makes two distinct contributions. The writers begin by doing a thorough literature analysis to examine the progress of ICT in the past decade. They next emphasize noteworthy research discoveries in this field. Furthermore, the authors give a comprehensive analysis of the ICT literature by quantifying yearly publications and identifying SMEs that primarily utilize ICT, academic journals that publish pertinent articles, and ICT-related publications across various fields and areas in developing nations. The study also discloses the papers, journals, and authors that have received the highest number of citations. The author's final argument in the paper is that, despite the extensive research conducted in the field of ICT, there is a necessity to customize strategies and policies that can support SMEs in the ICT sector, particularly in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diversity and advance of information, communication, and analytical technologies and their increasing adoption to assist instruction and learning give rise to various technology-driven conferences (e.g., artificial intelligence in education) in educational technology. Previous reviews on educational technology commonly focused on journal articles while seldom including mainstream conference papers which also contribute to an important part of scientific output in computer science and emerging disciplines like educational technology and are equally and even more important than articles in knowledge transmission. Hence, conference papers should also be included in bibliometric studies to produce a complete and precise picture of scientific production concerning educational technology. This study, therefore, uses bibliometrics and topic modeling to analyze papers from mainstream conferences, including Artificial Intelligence in Education, Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Educational Data Mining, Intelligent Tutoring System, and Learning at Scale, focusing on contributors, collaborations, and particularly research topics and topic evolutions to inform relevant stakeholders about educational technology's development and its future. Results indicate promising areas like affective computing and behavior mining for adaptive instruction, recommender systems in personalized learning recommendations, eye-tracking for cognitive process diagnosis, videos for feedback provision, and natural language processing in discourse analysis and language education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

External audit is undergoing rapid changes where more and more routine tasks are automated with analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) instruments. The paper addresses a research problem of mapping data analytics to audit tasks and develops a framework aligning audit phases and AI and using data analytics in teaching audit with AI. The paper contributes to the literature on using data analytics with AI in knowledge specific areas and particularly critical for emerging audit analytics, which is data analytics in external financial audit application. The paper employs the process model methodology (Wynn and Clarkson, Research in Engineering Design 29:161–202, 2018) and the hybrid approach of curriculum development (Dzuranin et al., Journal of Accounting Education 43:24–39, 2018). The framework is extended further by inclusion of knowledge areas and skills recommendations for each identified stage. This inclusion is linked to the peak accounting body guidelines to ensure compliance with course certification and future job prospects. The developed framework is implemented using audit management platform MindBridge AI. The developed teaching and learning materials show implementation of the framework on the practical level. The developed framework was evaluated in a focus group with accounting academics and industry professionals. Its implementation was evaluated in a series of workshops and a survey with participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern power systems, referred to as cyber-physical energy systems (CPESs), are complex systems with strong interdependencies between power and information and communication technology (ICT) systems. CPESs also have dependencies between the essential grid services. For instance, coordinated voltage control depends on state estimation, which depends on measurement acquisition. Since the operation of CPESs is largely influenced by these grid services, assessing their performance is crucial for assessing the performance of a CPES. Most of these grid services are enabled by the ICT system, i.e., they rely to a high degree on ICT. Hence, properties such as availability, correctness and timeliness, which depend on the involved software, hardware and data of the ICT system, must be considered for assessing the performance of an ICT-enabled grid service. Disturbances and repairs in CPESs impact these properties, which can then propagate and affect the performance of a grid service as well as other dependent grid services. There is, therefore, a need to model the influence of the properties of software, hardware and data on ICT-enabled grid services for single services as well as across several services, resulting in a propagation of these parameters. Current literature lacks such a model, which can used not only to investigate but also to visualise the impact of these properties on the overall perfromance of a grid service as well as other dependent grid services. This paper proposes a meta model for assessing the performance of ICT-enabled grid services, which can be instantiated for different grid services considering their dependencies. A multi-dimensional operational state space, which serves as a visualisation of the performance of grid services in terms of their state trajectory, is also proposed in this paper. The contributions are then demonstrated by a case study with a state estimation service and the widely-used CIGRE medium voltage benchmark power grid augmented with an ICT system. Three scenarios with disturbances are presented to show the benefits of the contributions. Specifically, the performance of the state estimation service considering the disturbances is investigated using the meta model, and the change in performance is visualised as trajectories using the operational state space. These contributions enable new possibilities for planning and vulnerability analyses: property changes in parts of the ICT system can be simulated to investigate their consequences throughout the ICT-enabled grid services. A trajectory representing their performance can then be visualized in the state space based on which measures could be implemented to potentially improve the resilience of the service against the considered disturbances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Universal Design principles have been adopted in many areas to ensure that products and services are usable for the broadest possible diversity of users, there is still an open area when it comes to the emergency management domain. This article aims at providing a systematic overview of the current state of the emerging research field of Universal Design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Emergency Management, and to highlight high-impact research opportunities to ensure that the increasing introduction of ICT in Emergency Management can contribute to removing barriers instead of adding more barriers, in particular for the elderly and people with disabilities. A systematic review on relevant literature on Universal Design, ICT and Emergency Management between 2008 and 2020 was employed using predefined frameworks, to answer the following questions: (1) Who are the target audiences (stakeholders) in research on Universal Design of ICT in Emergency Management in the different categories of Emergency Management ICT tools, and to what degree is Human-Centred Design and Universal Design taken into account? (2) What are the most important challenges and gaps in research on Universal Design of ICT in Emergency Management? We identify a set of gaps in the literature, indicating that there are some challenges where Universal Design is still limitedly addressed in technology development. We also derive promising future research topics based on areas that are missing in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the key determinants of firm growth in three Southern African countries of Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia and assesses whether exporting activity and use of information communication technology play any role in growth of the firms. The paper uses data collected by the World Bank through enterprise surveys during the period 2014–2016. Employing the ordinary least squares, the results show that firm growth is determined by size of the firm, age, use of information communication technology, exporting activities, foreign ownership and the legal form of the firm. The result is robust even when controlling for industry and country differences. Overall, the results support industrial policy geared towards small firms through rolling out information communication technology infrastructure and promoting access to exporting markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation in innovation activities is a key building block in forming entrepreneurial innovation networks. However, the impact on innovation of different forms of cooperation among multiple stakeholders composing a firm's relational environment can be dramatically different, depending on whether the modalities of cooperation are tacit or explicit and the type of functional relations between the cooperating organizations. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) facilitate cooperation and innovation outcomes. The main aim of this paper is to disentangle the effects of explicit vs. tacit and complementarity vs. competitive modalities of cooperation in innovation activities on innovation outputs. Based on pooled UK Microdata from 2004 to 2010, this paper's main finding is that tacit cooperation, emerging from R&D and ICTs spillovers, increases firms' likelihood to introduce process, product, and organizational innovations. We also find that a firm's functional relation with its cooperating peers determines the sign of the association with innovation outcomes: explicit cooperation among competitors lowers the level of innovations. In contrast, cooperation along the value chain brings more innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess the integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in teaching and learning, a new construct for ICT competence was developed by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2022. The framework for ICT assessment involves four major dimensions; access to ICT, use of ICT, students' ICT competencies, and subject-related ICT use. In this paper, we analysed this ICT assessment in terms of validity construction of test scores with data from PISA 2018 and investigated ICT competence in relation to the variables of mathematics, science, and reading literacy. The analyses were based on public data from PISA 2018 for Turkey (N = 6890). After removal of univariate and multivariate outliers from the Turkish sample, factor analysis, correlation analysis, and structural equation modelling were performed on 5438 data items. In the study, we confirmed the four-dimensional structure of ICT competence for the Turkish sample. In this study, the construct validity of the PISA 2018 application ICT test was verified using the Turkish sample. The ESCS variable was included as a control variable in the analyses due to its significant impact on the relevant variables. The analysis showed that the mathematical literacy scores of the PISA 2018 Turkish students were positively low affected by the availability of ICT, negatively low affected by the entertainment of ICT, and positively low affected by the interest and perceived competence in ICT, use of ICT for educational purposes at school and outside school, and the use of ICT related to the subject. Considering the ICT variables that affected the PISA 2018 students' science literacy scores; the entertainment of ICT and the interest and perceived competence in ICT significantly low affected the students' use of ICT on the subject. On the other hand, the availability of ICT negative significantly low affect their science literacy scores. While the entertainment of ICT negatively low affected the science literacy scores, interest and perceived competence in ICT and use of ICT for educational purposes at school and outside school positively low affected the students' use of ICT on the subject. Finally, when we look at the ICT variables that low affected the students' reading literacy scores; and use of ICT for educational purposes at school and outside school and the interest and perceived competence in ICT significantly positive low affected the use of ICT on the subject. On the other hand, the availability of ICT negative significantly low affect reading literacy scores. While the entertainment of ICT negatively low affected reading literacy scores; interest and perceived competence in ICT positively low affected the use of ICT on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online learning has significantly expanded along with the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Personalization becomes an essential component of learning systems due to students' different learning styles and abilities. Recommending materials that meet the needs and are tailored to learners' styles and abilities is necessary to ensure a personalized learning system. The study conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of papers on recommendation systems for e-learning in the K12 setting published between 2017 and 2021 and aims to identify the most important component of a personalized recommender system for school students' e-learning. Recommendations for later studies were proposed based on the identified components, namely a personalized conceptual framework for providing materials to school students. The proposed framework comprised four stages: student profiling, material collection, material filtering, and validation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to present how eye-tracking is employed in special education. While presenting the use of eye-tracking technology, the research considered some eye-tracking-related aspects, such as its potential to facilitate the education of children with special needs, investigation of disabilities through eye-tracking technology, and the relationship between learning outcomes and eye-tracking measurements in studies including children with special needs. Within specified criteria, this systematic review was carried out using famous electronic databases, such as Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, Education Source, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and EBSCOhost. Accordingly, 48 papers reviewed demonstrated an increasing trend in the use of eye-tracking technology in special education research. The age range of the target group recruited in previous research was often between 6 and 11 years, and reading and word learning were the most studied learning outcomes. Moreover, dyslexia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were commonly investigated by children's eye movements, particularly fixation duration and fixation count. This study also revealed that eye-tracking technology is helpful in exploring reading, word learning, mathematics skills, social communication, language development, motor learning, eyesight improvement, and route learning in special education. Furthermore, it is pretty suitable and effective to utilize eye-tracking technology as assistive technology (AT) to improve the learning environments of children with special needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes the BP-CM teaching model to solve the problems of lagging classroom feedback, poor learning initiative of students and students rapidly forgetting what they have learned in Internet of Things (IoT) hardware technology courses. This BP-CM(BOPPPS, PAD, cyclic memory, memory system) teaching model is based on BOPPPS(Bridge in, Objective, Pre-assessment, Participatory learning, Post-assessment, and Summary), PAD(Presentation, Assimilation, and Discussion), and the memory system model. This paper compares the BP-CM teaching model with the traditional teaching model by having research participants teach and learn separately in each teaching model. Taking the Microcontroller Unit (MCU) course as an example, this paper introduces each link of the teaching design of this model. It also explains the design method and intention of each link. Finally, the practical results indicate that the BP-CM teaching model proposed in this article positively impacts students' learning initiative and memory. In addition, teachers can obtain timely feedback using the BP-CM model, and the model significantly improves students' knowledge and ability levels. It enhances the teaching quality of IoT hardware technology courses and is conducive to cultivating students' sustainable learning abilities. This research not only promotes education and teaching reform but also provides a reference case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technology plays an essential role in affecting CO2 emissions and promoting green and sustainable development. This paper empirically examines the effect of the level of urban ICT development on CO2 emissions using panel data for Chinese cities from 2010 to 2020. On this basis, a spatial Durbin model is used to analyze the spatial spillover effects of ICT development level affecting regional CO2 emissions, and its direct, indirect and overall effects are further analyzed. The conclusions of the study are as follows. (1) The CO2 emissions of Chinese cities are correlated by spatial distance and show high-high or low-low clustering characteristics. (2) ICT development can reduce CO2 emissions in the region and increase CO2 emissions in neighboring regions. This conclusion still holds after several robustness tests. And when the level of ICT development increases by 1 standard deviation, CO2 emissions are reduced by 64%. (3) The mechanism of action shows that ICT can influence regional CO2 emissions through its technological innovation effect and industrial upgrading effect. (4) The impact of ICT development on regional carbon emissions is characterized by significant heterogeneity depending on the city's geographical location and whether or not environmental information is publicly available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1950s saw the emergence of the science-driven model of engineering education. In the following decades, the model has been continuously challenged to incorporate aspects such as liberal arts, information & communication technology, design, entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, industry 4.0, and more recently, online-learning. This has triggered several initiatives at institutional and national levels, and manifested in approaches and practices for transforming engineering education. One approach that appears to be gaining attention is design-centric engineering, with its emphasis on learning-by-doing, product design and entrepreneurial orientation. While literature points to several variants of design-centric engineering and challenges in implementation, it also calls for more empirical studies and deeper theoretical inquiry into the contradictions and paradoxes that this approach might present to the students at the micro-level, and guidance on how they might make sense and find pathways of action jointly with internal and external stakeholders. This paper throws light on the contradictions and paradoxes experienced by undergraduate engineering students while implementing a design-centric engineering program at a young public-funded institute in India, involving approximately 1500+ students over a period of six years. The paper also discusses the theoretical and pragmatic aspects of the approach adopted to encourage students to make sense of the contradictions and paradoxes, namely: (a) leveraging the affordance offered by one of the courses in the program—"Sociology of Design—to synthesize engineering, design and sociological perspectives; (b) turning the contradictions and paradoxes into sources of learning and change, informed by the theory of complex responsive processes; and (c) application of multiple methods such as rich pictures, reflective writing, self-organized interactions and data analysis to enable sense-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data sets provided by Information and Communication Technologies have been extensively used to study the human mobility in the framework of complex systems. The possibility of detecting the behavior of individuals performing the urban mobility may offer the possibility of understanding how to realize a transition to a sustainable mobility in future smart cities. The Statistical Physics approach considers the statistical distributions of human mobility to discover universal features. Under this point of view the power laws distributions has been extensively studied to propose model of human mobility. In this paper we show that using a GPS data set containing the displacements of mobile devices in an area around the city Rimini (Italy), it is possible to reconstruct a sample of mobility paths and to study the statistical properties of urban mobility. Applying a fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm, we succeed to detect different mobility types that highlight the multilayer structure of the road network. The disaggregation into homogeneous mobility classes explains the power law distributions for the path lengths and the travel times as an overlapping of exponential distributions, that are consistent with a maximum entropy Principle. Under this point of view it is not possible to infer other dynamical properties on the individual mobility, except for the average values of the different classes. We also study the role of the mobility types, when one restricts the analysis to the an origin-destination framework, by analyzing the daily evolution of the mobility flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, huge technological changes have opened up possibilities and potentials for new socio-technological forms of violence, violation and abuse, themselves intersectionally gendered, that form part of and extend offline intimate partner violence (IPV). Digital IPV (DIPV)—the use of digital technologies in and for IPV—takes many forms, including: cyberstalking, internet-based abuse, non-consensual intimate imagery, and reputation abuse. IPV is thus now in part digital, and digital and non-digital violence may merge and reinforce each other. At the same time, technological and other developments have wrought significant changes in the nature of work, such as the blurring of work/life boundaries and routine use of digital technologies. Building on feminist theory and research on violence, and previous research on the ethics of digitalisation, this paper examines the ethical challenges raised for business, workplaces, employers and management by digital IPV. This includes the ethical challenges arising from the complexity and variability of DIPV across work contexts, its harmful impacts on employees, productivity, and security, and the prospects for proactive ethical responses in workplace policy and practice for victim/survivors, perpetrators, colleagues, managers, and stakeholders. The paper concludes with contributions made and key issues for the future research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is vital for the operation of modern power systems, giving rise to Cyber-Physical Energy Systems (CPESs). ICT enables the grid services (GSs) needed for monitoring and controlling the physical parameters of the power system, especially for remedying the impact of disturbances. But the ICT integration makes the overall system more complex, leading to new and unforeseen disturbances. This motivates the need for a resilient system design capable of absorbing and recovering from such disturbances. The current state of the art lacks a comprehensive resilience assessment of ICT-enabled GSs in CPESs. To address this, a novel method and metrics to assess the resilience of GSs in CPESs are presented in this paper. An operational state model of a GS, with three states, i.e., normal, limited and failed, is used to capture its performance, which is essential for quantifying its resilience. Sequential Monte Carlo simulations are performed with the model to capture the behaviour of ICT components to compute the operational state trajectory of the GSs. Metrics are then derived to quantify the resilience and its constituting phases. The method is demonstrated using two ICT system designs for the CIGRE MV benchmark grid, considering the state estimation as an exemplary GS. The simulation results show that the proposed method can capture the differences between ICT system designs with regard to resilience metrics. The contribution can, therefore, be used to analyse, compare and potentially improve the resilience of ICT system designs for CPES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technology (ICT) is an increasing part of modern power systems, which are, therefore, recognised as cyber-physical energy system (CPESs). The increase of ICT affects the situational awareness in CPESs, which is traditionally solely based on information about the power system but not about the ICT system. However, CPESs are facing various challenges regarding the integrity, correctness, and availability of process data due to the interconnection with ICT. Examples are stealthy false data injection attack (FDIAs). This paper pursues a holistic approach to describe the quality of process data, which brings together aspects like integrity, correctness, and availability in multivariate trust values. The arising research question this paper deals with is, how multivariate trust in physical measurements in a CPES can be modelled, estimated, and integrated into situational awareness. A proposed framework implements a context-sensitive and multivariate trust model as well as a trust sensitive state estimation. While these two artefacts are already published, the focus of this paper is on the implementation of the framework and the fulfilment of the requirements for timeliness, interoperability, flexibility, and scalability. It is evaluated in three different scenarios with CIGRE and IEEE benchmark grids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a broad consensus that information and communication technology (ICT) development contributes to economic growth, but its environmental benefits have not been thoroughly studied. This paper explores the impact and mechanisms of ICT development on manufacturing carbon emissions. We first conducted empirical tests based on panel data from 18 manufacturing sectors in 42 countries from 2000 to 2014. The results show that domestic ICT development reduces manufacturing carbon emissions, but the effect is only significant in sectors with high ICT embedded. Second, technological progress, industrial internal structure upgrading, energy consumption intensification, and low carbonization are the main channels for ICT development and embedding to reduce manufacturing carbon emissions. Third, the carbon emissions from manufacturing, which are deeply embedded by ICT, will decrease as the position of ICT forward GVCs improves, and increase as the position of backward GVCs increases. In addition, ICT development has a more significant impact on reducing carbon emissions in high-tech manufacturing. This paper has enriched research on the environmental benefits of ICT development and has been informative and insightful for countries in formulating industrial development policies and implementing the Paris Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With time, the use of Information and communication technology (ICT) tools has gained immense awareness in many sectors. ICT plays an imperative role in enhancing socio-economic development and sustainability in the fishery sector. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the two significant benefits of ICT in the fishing industry: (i) socio-economic development and (ii) sustainability. The paper intends to highlight the benefits of using ICT in fisheries for sustainability in the long-run and enhanced socio-economic conditions of fishers. The present research work has used the bibliometric visualization tool VOSviewer to identify yearly publications, most cited papers and journals, outstanding authors, and important countries and institutions. We have used the Scopus database to extract the data for bibliometric visualization utilizing an array of relevant keywords. Following are the research questions: (i) What are the prominent documents, authors, countries, sources, organizations, and keywords in the area of ICT for sustainability and socio-economic development in the fisheries?, (ii) What are the linkages based on co-authorship, co-occurrence and citation in the area of ICT for sustainability and socio-economic development in the fisheries? (iii) What is the existing classification of the literature on ICT for sustainability and socio-economic development in the fisheries, and what is the future research agenda based on it? The paper presents a comprehensive review of ICT usage for sustainability and socio-economic development in fisheries. It analyzes the existing research in terms of most cited publications, authors, journals, countries, and institutions. Four research streams are identified, and based on them, twelve future research propositions and a future research framework are proposed. The study can be used as a foundation work by the government, policy developers, and researchers to investigate the benefits of ICT in fisheries. The application of ICTs in fisheries will enhance their profitability and minimize resources wastage, strengthening fishermen's income, and standard of living. The paper comprehensively presents the use of ICT in fisheries for sustainability and socio-economic development. Along with it, the paper proposes future research agenda for upcoming researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative design approaches have been increasingly adopted in the design of learning technologies since they contribute to develop pedagogically inclusive and appropriate learning designs. Despite the positive reception of collaborative design strategies in technology-enhanced learning, little attention has been dedicated to analyzing the challenges faced in design processes using a collaborative approach. In this paper, we disclose the collaborative design of a chatbot for self-regulated learning in higher education using an action research approach. We analyze the design process of EDUguia chatbot, which includes diverse evidence from questionnaires and workshops with students and lecturers, as well as intermediary design objects. Based on the qualitative analysis, we identify several challenges that are transversal to the co-design work, as well as specific to the design phases. We critically reflect on the strategies deployed to overcome these challenges and how they relate to decision-making processes, highlighting the need to make stakeholders' tacit knowledge explicit, cultivate trust-building and support democratic decision-making in technology design processes. We believe that the recommendations we present in this paper contribute to developing best practices in the collaborative design of chatbots for the self-regulation of learning, as well as learning technology in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational data mining is an emerging interdisciplinary research area involving both education and informatics. It has become an imperative research area due to many advantages that educational institutions can achieve. Along these lines, various data mining techniques have been used to improve learning outcomes by exploring large-scale data that come from educational settings. One of the main problems is predicting the future achievements of students before taking final exams, so we can proactively help students achieve better performance and prevent dropouts. Therefore, many efforts have been made to solve the problem of student performance prediction in the context of educational data mining. In this paper, we provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of student performance prediction and compare approximately 260 studies in the last 20 years with respect to i) major factors highly affecting student performance prediction, ii) kinds of data mining techniques including prediction and feature selection algorithms, and iii) frequently used data mining tools. The findings of the comprehensive analysis show that ANN and Random Forest are mostly used data mining algorithms, while WEKA is found as a trending tool for students' performance prediction. Students' academic records and demographic factors are the best attributes to predict performance. The study proves that irrelevant features in the dataset reduce the prediction results and increase model processing time. Therefore, almost half of the studies used feature selection techniques before building prediction models. This study attempts to provide useful and valuable information to researchers interested in advancing educational data mining. The study directs future researchers to achieve highly accurate prediction results in different scenarios using different available inputs or techniques. The study also helps institutions apply data mining techniques to predict and improve student outcomes by providing additional assistance on time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Score interchangeability of Computerized Fixed-Length Linear Testing (henceforth CFLT) and Paper-and-Pencil-Based Testing (henceforth PPBT) has become a controversial issue over the last decade when technology has meaningfully restructured methods of the educational assessment. Given this controversy, various testing guidelines published on computerized testing may be used to investigate the interchangeability of CFLT and PPBT mean scores to corroborate if test takers' testing performance is influenced by the effects of testing administration mode; specifically, if validity and reliability of two versions of the same test are affected. This research was conducted to probe not only score interchangeability across testing modes but also to explore the role of age and gender stereotypes, item review, ICT literacy and attitudes towards computer use as moderator variables in test takers' reading achievement in CFLT. Fifty-eight EFL learners homogeneous in both general English and reading skills assigned into one testing group participated in this study. Three different versions of TOEFL reading comprehension test, Computer Attitude Scale (CAS), and ICT literacy Scale of TOEFL Examinees were used in this crossover quasi-controlled empirical study with a common-person and pretest–posttest design to collect data. The findings demonstrated that although the reading scores of test takers were interchangeable in both CFLT and PPBT versions regarding testing administration modes, they were different regarding item review. Furthermore, no significant interaction was found between age, gender, and ICT literacy and CFLT performance. However, attitudes towards the use of computer led to a significant change in testing achievement on CFLT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern democratic states are increasingly adopting new information and communication technologies to enhance the efficiency and quality of public administration, public policy and services. However, there is substantial variation in the extent to which countries are successful in pursuing such public digitalization. This paper zooms in on the role of social trust as a possible account for the observed empirical pattern in the range and scope of public digitalization across countries. Our argument is that high social trust makes it easier to digitalize the public sector to the benefit of overall society. We develop a simple game-theoretical model that specifies this positive externality from a high-trust culture and provide empirical evidence that a higher level of social trust is associated with a higher level of public digitalization. Of course, high-trust countries cannot do without the rule of law (formal rules of the game) and some institutionalized mechanisms of control and accountability. However, from our argument, it follows that one future challenge could be that control crowds out trust, so that the balance is no longer optimal. If such overcontrol occurs, public digitalization win–win situations between citizens and government can be undermined, even in high-trust countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pursuit of economic growth has implications for carbon emissions and climate change. Achieving low carbon development is important for attaining the targets of the sustainable development goals. Africa is often described as a largely import-dependent continent. The continent also requires significant investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) and renewable energy to achieve low-carbon economic growth. However, empirical evidence on the joint impacts of imports of goods and services, clean energy use, ICT, and economic growth on carbon emissions in Africa is scanty and mixed. This paper investigated the impacts of information and communication technologies, renewable energy consumption, import and economic growth on carbon emissions by using rich data on total per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, economic growth, import of goods and services, renewable energy consumption, fixed telephone subscriptions, mobile cellular subscriptions, and individuals using the internet in Africa (2001 ─ 2020) obtained from the World development indicators (WDI) database. Using the Panel autoregressive distributed lag model (PARDL), we found that mobile cellular subscriptions, and level of economic growth significantly increased per capita CO2 emissions in Africa in the long run while renewable energy consumption and technologies and import of goods and services significantly decreased per capita CO2 emissions in the long run. We conclude that information and communication technologies, level of economic growth, import of goods and services, and renewable energy consumption exert impacts on carbon emissions in Africa. Highlights: Achieving low-carbon development in Africa is possible. This research investigated the impacts of information and communication technologies, renewable energy consumption, import and economic growth on carbon emissions in Africa. This study utilized the Panel autoregressive distributed lag model and panel data from 31 African countries. The results shed new light on the emission reduction potential of renewable energy consumption and import of goods and services. The study also shows that ICTs increase carbon emissions in Africa. This article offers recommendations concerning carbon emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using recent information and communication technologies for monitoring and management initiates a revolution in the smart grid. These technologies generate massive data that can only be processed using big data tools. This paper emphasizes the role of big data in resolving load forecasting, renewable energy sources integration, and demand response as significant aspects of smart grids. Meters data from the Low Carbon London Project is investigated as a case study. Because of the immense stream of meters' readings and exogenous data added to load forecasting models, addressing the problem is in the context of big data. Descriptive analytics are developed using Spark SQL to get insights regarding household energy consumption. Spark MLlib is utilized for predictive analytics by building scalable machine learning models accommodating meters' data streams. Multivariate polynomial regression and decision tree models are preferred here based on the big data point of view and the literature that ensures they are accurate and interpretable. The results confirmed the descriptive analytics and data visualization capabilities to provide valuable insights, guide the feature selection process, and enhance load forecasting models' accuracy. Accordingly, proper evaluation of demand response programs and integration of renewable energy resources is accomplished using achieved load forecasting results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability has entered all aspects of life, calling for an active approach from the wireless and mobile communications community to help in solving fundamental challenges facing societies. Societal, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability have become increasingly important design criteria in developing future technologies, along with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) framework that sets specific goals and targets to be achieved by 2030. The role of mobile communications is important in supporting nations and organizations in meeting the UN SDGs in a timely manner, but the whole ICT sector itself, with its critical role as the backbone of society, can create a significant sustainability burden. Research on the next-generation mobile communication networks (6G) has started, aiming at first deployments in 2030, in a new era where sustainability defines its development. Therefore, sustainability, especially through the UN SDGs, and the future 6G wireless networks, cannot be treated in isolation, but a clear connection between them is urgently needed. This paper extends from traditional green communications and energy efficiency considerations in wireless communications to establishing a close connection between 6G and the triple bottom line of economic sustainability, societal sustainability, and environmental sustainability. The paper outlines open research challenges for sustainable 6G development and provides a set of research questions encouraging especially the researchers and engineers in the wireless and mobile communications community to address to realize a sustainable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different instructional strategies have been drawn to assist elementary school students in improving computational thinking (CT) skills and student engagement (SE) in unplugged programming activities. This paper aimed to explore how the interactive strategies of unplugged programming affect CT skills and SE. The study was conducted based on a quasi-experimental research method. The sample was composed of 104 sixth-grade students from northern China. The students in the experimental group learned with interactive unplugged programming, whereas those in the control group learned with non-interactive unplugged programming. Analysis of Covariance statistics and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling were adopted for data analysis. Results showed that the performance of the experimental group in CT skills and SE was considerably better than that of the control group. Moreover, the predictive relationships were more complex between CT skills and SE in the experimental group. In general, these findings confirmed the teaching value of interactive unplugged programming, and further emphasized the important role of students' CT skills in programming engagement. Therefore, through the application of interaction in instruction design, each student can be assigned a positive role to create a programming classroom that is more conducive to students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence and advancement of Information Communication Technologies have transformed facilitation and content delivery in higher education worldwide, the Pacific region being no exception. The extensive use of mobile phones in the Pacific, especially with the student-aged populace, is gradually creating a niche for mobile learning in the education landscape. However, there is a growing concern on the effectiveness of this innovative intervention keeping in mind the digital intelligence of Pacific students. This paper explores the readiness and perception of the Pacific students using mobile devices for learning. An online questionnaire was used to collect data for this exploratory research. While the results revealed the student's willingness and positive perception to leverage on mobile phones for learning in higher education, their readiness for the mobile-driven education is rather dependent on various factors which are explored in detail. The paper concludes with recommendations for the higher education institutes and education ministries in the Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Production scheduling is an important research topic widely studied during past few decades. However, many manufacturers still fail to successfully deploy scheduling algorithms and systems, even though information and communication technologies can be used to collect and process data associated with production scheduling under modern smart manufacturing environment. The primary problem is that many scheduling algorithms and systems did not consider diverse variety of scheduling requirements of real production systems. Especially, production schedulers in small make-to-order manufacturers have much trouble in utilizing such algorithms and systems. In order to address this issue, this paper aims to propose a functional architecture of production scheduling system for small make-to-order manufactures under smart manufacturing environment and develop a flexible scheduling algorithm for this system. For illustration, the proposed system and algorithm are applied to a two-machine flow shop scheduling problem, and it is expected that this paper will provide a meaningful insight into the user experiences of production scheduling systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the guest editors talk about the topics discussed in the special section of the issue including the need to balance computer science (CS) and information and communication technologies (ICT), overview of CS curriculum development, and use of ICT to support teaching and learning.

The assessment encompasses essential concepts and their related measures about the information gathered. The conceptualization within a study becomes imperative to ascertain the corresponding variables and establish appropriate methodologies for their measurement. The willingness to communicate (WTC) concept, an individual's engagement in communication when given the opportunity, has become a crucial point in second language (L2) learning due to language use and communication. While studies have rendered valuable insights into the differing presentations of L1 WTC and L2 WTC, the subject remains largely unexplored concerning the conceptualization and assessment of L2 WTC in the digital settings and English as a foreign language (EFL) context. The scoping review can aid in advancing our knowledge in this area of investigation by exploring the scope of available research literature on a topic by identifying key concepts and sources of evidence as well as identifying strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the research that inform practice in the field, deepen assessors' knowledge in the field, and highlight areas that require further inquiry. This study conducted a five-stage scoping review, including (1) establishing the scoping review questions, (2) identifying the related research, (3) determining the inclusion criteria of studies, (4) outlining the data, and (5) analyzing and reporting the results. Six databases, ERIC (ProQuest), APA PsycINFO, JSTORE, Elsevier (Scopus), Web of Science Core Collection, and Semantic Scholar, were used for scoping data. Forty-seven studies were included in the final analysis. The results discuss the WTC conceptualizations and their directions in L1, L2, and EFL contexts. Furthermore, the results discuss the conceptualization of classroom-centered and context-bounded WTC, operationalization of WTC in digital and EFL contexts, methodological approaches applied for evaluating WTC, the evaluation of teachers' status in WTC conceptualization, and future directions. The discussions would prove useful in expanding our understanding of how to act toward L2 WTC and the assessment knowledge. Moreover, they would have significant implications for teachers, researchers, assessors, and practitioners in this field. Further, we hope this paper sparks renewed interest in L2 WTC by generating new ideas for researchers to conduct further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technology (ICT) has become increasingly important worldwide in education. This study aims to recognize the factors that influence the intention to use information and communication technology (ITUICT) and its acceptance in the education sector in China. A literature review was conducted to ascertain the potential factors such as perceived awareness, information acquisition, trustworthiness, social influence, and regulatory support that could affect the acceptance and ITUICT. For results, a survey was conducted on a sample of 381 university employees in China using a convenience sampling approach. The collected data were analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show that individual factors such as perceived awareness, information acquisition, trustworthiness, social influence, and regulatory support significantly impact the ITUICT. Additionally, trustworthiness positively moderates the relationship among perceived awareness, information acquisition, social influence, regulatory support, and ITUICT. Policymakers and educators can use the findings of this study to enhance the adoption of ICT in China's education sector. The results of this study suggest that it is important to provide educational sector employees with training and support to increase their use of ICT technology. Furthermore, this paper offers theoretical progression to create a supportive organizational culture and provide the educational sector with the necessary technological resources to facilitate the use of ICT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technology has evolved dramatically, and now the majority of people are using internet and sharing their opinion more openly, which has led to the creation, collection and circulation of hate speech over multiple platforms. The anonymity and movability given by these social media platforms allow people to hide themselves behind a screen and spread the hate effortlessly. Online hate speech (OHS) recognition can play a vital role in stopping such activities and can thus restore the position of public platforms as the open marketplace of ideas. To study hate speech detection in social media, we surveyed the related available datasets on the web-based platform. We further analyzed approximately 200 research papers indexed in the different journals from 2010 to 2022. The papers were divided into various sections and approaches used in OHS detection, i.e., feature selection, traditional machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL). Based on the selected 111 papers, we found that 44 articles used traditional ML and 35 used DL-based approaches. We concluded that most authors used SVM, Naive Bayes, Decision Tree in ML and CNN, LSTM in the DL approach. This survey contributes by providing a systematic approach to help researchers identify a new research direction in online hate speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovations in precision agriculture continue to increase in both number and significance. Contemporaneously, given their expanding scope and application, the growing pool of technologies is increasingly complex. Although some recent attempts have been made, a knowledge gap remains in respect to the evolution of precision agricultural innovation. Synthesized, such knowledge should inform the untapped opportunities for innovation. This paper narrows this gap by conducting a network analysis of patent applications in areas concerning precision agriculture. Spanning the years from 1960 to 2021, the analysis shows an annual average growth in patent applications of 15.1%. During the last decade, this growth is almost entirely attributable to China and the USA. Priority innovation themes have been dynamic. Its phases can be characterized as 'motorized mechanization' (1960–1999), 'mechanical automation' (2000–2009), 'digital mechanization' (2010–2019), and 'digital automation' (2020–2021). The significance of information communication technology has grown in association with other innovation clusters, but a lag time has persisted in introducing innovations based on such technologies. Opportunities are ripe for speeding transference through economic and other incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many communities and territories in developing countries experience significant gaps in access to and use of information and communication technology (ICT), which is viewed as a major impediment to socioeconomic and health-related vulnerabilities. Geographic considerations, on the other hand, as well as variations in motivation for ICT usage and technology adoption within and across nations, as well as between cultures, have exacerbated the digital divide. This paper investigates disparities in access to and utilization of ICT in 31 Iranian provinces from 2011 to 2020. The research discovers evidence that family income and the number of R&D centers affected the formation of the digital divide, albeit the degree of the split has fluctuated through time and space. This study discovered that digital inequality is associated with social exclusion throughout Iranian regions, and it went on to try to better understand the underlying issues and potential solutions. In this regard, some policy avenues are suggested for government action, particularly for marginalized socioeconomic groups, such as the provision of infrastructure, training and skill augmentation, and the easing of digital services supplied by the government or private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental challenges are currently placed at the forefront in order to achieve sustainable development. Although existing studies have largely examined the underlying factors of the environmental sustainability, the institutional quality and the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) still insufficiently investigated. The aim of this paper is to clarify the role played by institutional quality and ICTs to mitigate environmental degradation at different scales of the ecological gap. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine whether the quality of institutions and ICTs consolidate the contribution of renewable energy to reduce the ecological gap and thereby, promote environmental sustainability. The results of panel quantile regression applied to fourteen selected Middle East (ME) and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries from 1984 to 2017 showed that the rule of law, control of corruption, Internet use, and mobile use exert no beneficial effects on environmental sustainability. The ICTs and the institutional development through the presence of an appropriate regulatory framework and the control of corruption have rather advantageous moderating effects on the environmental quality. Indeed, our findings revealed that the effects of renewable energy consumption on the environmental sustainability are positively moderated by the control of corruption, Internet use, and mobile use for countries with medium and high ecological gaps. The beneficial ecological effects of renewable energy are also moderated by the presence of a solid regulatory framework, but only for countries with high ecological gaps. In addition, our results showed that financial development promotes environmental sustainability in countries with low ecological gaps. Urbanization has perverse effects on the environment across all quantiles. The results found lead to important practical implications for preserving the environment as it suggests designing ICTs and improving the quality of institutions oriented to renewable energy sector in order to reduce the ecological gap. In addition, the findings from this paper can serve decision-makers in terms of environmental sustainability given the globalizing and conditional approach followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The replacement of existing technology or the introduction of novel technology into the day-to-day routines of higher education institutions is not a trivial task. Currently, many higher education institutions are faced with the challenge of replacing existing procedures for administering written exams with e-exams. To guide this process, this paper proposes the novel technology-based exams acceptance model (TEAM) and empirically evaluates its model structure and usefulness from the perspective of higher education teachers. The model can be used to guide the transition from paper-based exams to e-exams and the implementation of innovative (e.g., adaptive) e-exam formats. The model includes perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, computer anxiety, prior experience, facilitating conditions, and subjective norm as predictors of the behavioral intention to use e-exams. To test the model empirically, the responses of 992 teachers at 63 German universities to a standardized online questionnaire were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The model fit was acceptable. With 77% (conventional e-exams) and 82% (adaptive e-exams), a large proportion of the variance of the intention to use these types of exams was explained. With TEAM, a highly predictive model for explaining the behavioral intention to use e-exams is now available. It offers a theoretical basis that can be used for the successful implementation of e-exams in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning Design (LD) research accounts for several design support tools, or LD tools, employing representations for learning designs to facilitate the "teachers as designers" thinking while preparing learning experiences. In contrast to existing studies having followed mainly a specialist/researcher (as opposed to a teacher) perspective, our quest to develop an LD tool follows a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach involving practitioners. Specifically, in this paper, we attempt to give voice to teachers as designers and investigate how they prefer having their learning designs represented by LD tools. Aiming to create a principled account of how to represent learning designs in an LD tool, we first conducted an integrative literature review to formulate a representational framework that drove our research. Subsequently, we addressed the following LD representational dimensions: (i) format, (ii) organisation, (iii) guidance and support, and (iv) contextualisation. We are reporting on a case study conducted with 16 participants in a teacher education context. Although previous research typically reported findings based on a single LD tool's evaluation over a short period, we have opted for eliciting feedback based on a rich LD experience. To this end, we acquainted participants in LD projects with two LD tools (Learning Designer and WebCollage) during an academic semester. Furthermore, we followed a mixed-method explanatory sequential design applied through a survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to achieve a more profound consideration of the teachers' preferences for LD representations. Our findings indicate that the teachers strongly endorse an LD tool supporting a visual format and a global organisation in the form of a table that provides a global overview of a learning design while focusing on its specific elements. Teachers seem to prefer an LD tool that balances providing guidance and flexibility, as they opt for (i) a non-restrictive taxonomy for articulating learning objectives, (ii) some form of standardisation for formatting learning units, along with allowing free formation, (iii) a flexible pedagogical framework for modelling the learning activities' pedagogy so that it can be adjusted to particular designers' needs, and (iv) a typology of technologies that can be utilised or not. In addition, they seemed to favour an LD tool supporting high contextualisation, as they prefer to describe contextual details for a learning design's units and activities. These findings constitute design principles for our ongoing DBR and may stimulate momentum for researchers developing LD tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, TD2V, a generic pre-trained document embedding for English documents from more than one million tweets in Twitter is trained, then, domain adaptation process with adversarial training is applied to adapt TD2V to different domains. Experiments on datasets from different online sources show that by using TD2V only, the proposed method can classify documents with better accuracy than existing methods. B Introductory text: b Since 2010, the Symposium on Information and Communication Technology - SoICT has been organized annually. [Extracted from the article]

The importance of providing mechanisms and tools that effectively support the transition from implicit to explicit representations of Learning Design has been emphasised by previous research in the field of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL). In addition, the benefits of Game-based learning approaches have been long documented in the educational research literature. The paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a card game that aims to support the design process of TEL activities in higher education. The game was tested by a group of 36 students and tutors (n = 36) in higher education during an interactive workshop. Feedback was asked by the participants using an anonymous survey. The results reveal that the participants a) are satisfied with the game process, b) appreciate the groupwork and interaction taking place, and c) believe that they used their communication and collaboration skills. The paper includes the description of the outputs of a group (i.e., the cards selected for their TEL scenario and their actual TEL scenario) to exemplify that it is possible to use the game in order to elicit or diagnose existing LD knowledge from the game participants. The paper concludes on the usefulness of the approach suggested, limitations, and plans for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing carbon emissions is key to achieving the 13th UN sustainable development goals. With the acceleration of informatization and urbanization in the "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI) countries, it is necessary to explore the impact of ICT and urbanization on carbon emissions in the BRI countries. This paper uses the Driscoll-Kraay panel regression method, multi-chain mediation effect model, and panel moment quantile regression method to study the influence channel and heterogeneous impact of ICT, urbanization, and their interaction on carbon emissions in 42 selected BRI countries. The main empirical results reveal the inhibition of ICT and the promotion of urbanization on carbon emissions. Moreover, the integrated development of ICT and urbanization contributes to reducing carbon emissions. Industrial structure upgrading and energy intensity are found to be the channels through which ICT, urbanization, and their interactions affect carbon emissions. In addition, the impact of ICT, urbanization, and their interaction on carbon emissions varies with different measurement indicators and quantiles. Therefore, it is suggested that BRI countries should formulate appropriate ICT development policies according to their conditions, strengthen ICT application, and especially promote the integrated development of ICT and urbanization, to achieve sustainable urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of distributed energy resources (DERs) alongside the recent advances in information and communication technology has motivated electricity customers to play a more active role in network operations. The peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading is a promising answer to this need, in which players can trade directly with each other and the main network via a two-way exchange of power and information. Therefore, this paper presents a P2P energy platform that aims to implement computationally efficient pool-based, semi-decentralized and decentralized clearing mechanisms considering network constraints and privacy preservation. To solve the newly developed pool-based and semi-decentralized/decentralized clearing mechanisms, a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and an iterative-based heuristic technique are employed, respectively. Simulations are conducted on the IEEE 11-kV, 33-bus distribution network where both dispatchable generations and renewable resources are present. Four types of consumers including agricultural, commercial, domestic, and industrial (ACDI) loads are considered for simulation purposes. Based on the results, several conclusions can be drawn: (i) even though the decentralized mechanism preserves the privacy of customers by eliminating the role of third parties, it does not guarantee network constraints; (ii) the presence of a central entity in the pool-based mechanism keeps the technical envelopes within the standard range; (iii) the semi-decentralized mechanism is the best time-consuming one, and to some extent conserves information security; and, (iv) all these devised methods are superior in terms of computational efficiency compared to a well-known primal-dual gradient method that exists in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational technology is a discipline that has a lot of roles to play in the global education system yet, its services had been neglected over the years in Nigeria. The new global reality that was occasioned by the upsurge of COVID-19 has made educational technology a very consequential discipline with conspicuous roles to play in the face of such a global pandemic. COVID-19 has halted many human activities across the globe. Its effect in the education system has resulted to re-adjustment in the school calendar, prolonged graduation dates, and reduced research output. To combat this, many education systems now adopt the services of educational technology thereby changing the old norm. But for this new norm to be sustainable, this paper argues that the education system must show a pragmatic attitude towards the adoption of such innovation rather than a conservative attitude. Therefore, using the diffusion theory of innovation, this paper argues that necessity called for compulsory adoption of innovation in the Nigerian education system. This new opportunity, however, looks bleak as many educational practitioners lack the required skills and attitude to adopt the innovation. It, therefore, concludes that educational practitioners need in-service training to be part of these changes. The government is suggested to apply a systematic approach in procuring and installing ICT facilities that will enhance the diffusion of this innovation into the school system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems are developed based on interdisciplinary research and technological advances such as natural language processing, computer sciences, and latent semantic analysis. Despite a steady increase in research publications in this area, the results of AWE investigations are often mixed, and their validity may be questionable. To yield a deeper understanding of the validity of AWE systems, we conducted a systematic review of the empirical AWE research. Using Scopus, we identified 105 published papers on AWE scoring systems and coded them within an argument-based validation framework. The major findings are: (i) AWE scoring research had a rising trend, but was heterogeneous in terms of the language environments, ecological settings, and educational level; (ii) a disproportionate number of studies were carried out on each validity inference, with the evaluation inference receiving the most research attention, and the domain description inference being the neglected one, and (iii) most studies adopted quantitative methods and yielded positive results that backed each inference, while some studies also presented counterevidence. Lack of research on the domain description (i.e., the correspondence between the AWE systems and real-life writing tasks) combined with the heterogeneous contexts indicated that construct representation in the AWE scoring field needs extensive investigation. Implications and directions for future research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdisciplinary team communication in eHealth development is challenging because all disciplines have unique, intrinsic discursive practices, theories and artefacts. Due to these factors, members of interdisciplinary teams can experience problems in communication and collaboration. Through a centered focus, members can benefit individually, inspire one another, and ultimately reach a timely delivery of their common pedagogical goal(s). Using the lens of dialogism, this paper aims to identify the conceptual considerations that arose during the development of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for higher education in eHealth. Methods included auto-ethnography and interdisciplinary dialogue supported by literacy artefacts, including visual material. Results yielded a visual tool for meta-assessment of team communication, and an organizing principle for topics in the MOOC. A major implication is that especially for eHealth, scientific communicative competence of experts—while establishing a common understanding—can lead to a unique and meaningful delivery of high pedagogical quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart factory is a manufacturing facility equipped with modern information and communication technologies, and it is considered as an innovative manufacturing paradigm in the era of 4th industrial revolution. However, conventional technology-oriented smart factory education programs often focus on specific technologies, and many undergraduates and practitioners have trouble in understanding concepts, elements and features of entire smart factory system. In order to address this problem, this paper proposes a cyber learning factory for operations management-oriented smart factory education and training, developed by applying 3D factory simulation software, FlexSim. The cyber learning factory is implemented by incorporating three key components, information system, database and virtual manufacturing facility provided by 3D factory simulation software such as FlexSim. Since overall smart factory system can be virtually implemented in a single cyber space, the cyber learning factory can provide hands-on experiences for understanding, designing and optimizing smart factory. Consequently, the cyber learning factory can be used to train both operations managers of manufacturing companies and information systems architects of IT companies, and this paper will provide significant insights into the operations management-oriented smart factory education and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart cities are being enabled all around the world by Internet of Things (IoT) applications. A smart city idea necessitates the integration of information and communication technologies and devices throughout a network in order to provide improved services to consumers. Because of their increasing amount and mobility, they are increasingly appealing to attackers. Therefore, several solutions, including as encryptions, authentication, availability, and data integrity, have been combined to protect IoT. Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are a powerful security tool that may be improved by incorporating machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DP) techniques. This paper presents a novel intrusion detection framework for IoT-based smart environments with Ensemble Learning called IDS-SIoEL. Typically, the framework proposed an optimal anomaly detection model that uses AdaBoost, and combining different feature selection techniques Boruta, mutual information and correlation furthermore. The proposed model was evaluated on IoT-23, BoT-IoT, and Edge-IIoT datasets using the GPU. When compared to existing IDS, our approach provides good rating performance features of ACC, recall, and precision, with around 99.9% on record detection and calculation time of 33.68 s for learning and 0.02156 s for detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]