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Trauma scientists have raised the alarm about the devastating consequences of the Ukraine war on mental health. We examined how higher education students-as indirect victims-coped with this conflict and how they emotionally reacted during 2022. We involved 2314 students from 16 countries through an online survey. A structural equation model indicated significant relations between war-related worry about military and macroeconomics domains and two coping strategies (opposition, support giving), in turn significantly linked with six emotions. The model was strongly invariant across gender, study field, and geographic area. The most frequent emotions were anger and anxiety, followed by two future-centred emotions (hopelessness and hope). Emotions were more frequent for females and students of the countries geographically close to the war region. Our findings call for evidence-based policy recommendations to be implemented by institutions to combat the negative short and long-term psychological sequelae of being witnesses of armed conflicts., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a wide range of negative consequences for higher education students. We explored the generalizability of the control-value theory of achievement emotions for e-learning, focusing on their antecedents. We involved 17019 higher education students from 13 countries, who completed an online survey during the first wave of the pandemic. A structural equation model revealed that proximal antecedents (e-learning self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy) mediated the relation between environmental antecedents (cognitive and motivational quality of the task) and positive and negative achievement emotions, with some exceptions. The model was invariant across country, area of study, and gender. The rates of achievement emotions varied according to these same factors. Beyond their theoretical relevance, these findings could be the basis for policy recommendations to support stakeholders in coping with the challenges of e-learning and the current and future sequelae of the pandemic., Competing Interests: None., (© 2022 The Authors.)

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shaped higher education and seen the distinct rise of e-learning as a compulsory element of the modern educational landscape. Accordingly, this study highlights the factors which have influenced how students perceive their academic performance during this emergency changeover to e-learning. The empirical analysis is performed on a sample of 10,092 higher education students from 10 countries across 4 continents during the pandemic's first wave through an online survey. A structural equation model revealed the quality of e-learning was mainly derived from service quality, the teacher's active role in the process of online education, and the overall system quality, while the students' digital competencies and online interactions with their colleagues and teachers were considered to be slightly less important factors. The impact of e-learning quality on the students' performance was strongly mediated by their satisfaction with e-learning. In general, the model gave quite consistent results across countries, gender, study fields, and levels of study. The findings provide a basis for policy recommendations to support decision-makers incorporate e-learning issues in the current and any new similar circumstances., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a test that records electrical activity of the brain using electrodes attached to the scalp, and it has recently been used in conjunction with BMI (Brain-Machine Interface). Currently, the analysis of the EEG is visual, using graphic tools such as topographic maps. However, this analysis can be very difficult, so in this work, we apply a methodology of EEG analysis through data mining to analyze two different band frequencies of the brain signals (full band and Beta band) during an experiment where visually impaired and sighted individuals recognize spatial objects through the sense of touch. In this paper, we present details of the proposed methodology and a case study using decision trees to analyze EEG signals from visually impaired and sighted individuals during the execution of a spatial ability activity. In our experiment, the hypothesis was that sighted individuals, even if they are blindfolded, use vision to identify objects and that visually impaired people use the sense of touch to identify the same objects., Competing Interests: All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Narusci S. Bastos et al.)