Breaking Barriers in Emerging Biomedical Applications.

The recent global COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that the current healthcare system in modern society can hardly cope with the increased number of patients. Part of the load can be alleviated by incorporating smart healthcare infrastructure in the current system to enable patient's remote monitoring and personalized treatment. Technological advances in communications and sensing devices have enabled the development of new, portable, and more power-efficient biomedical sensors, as well as innovative healthcare applications. Nevertheless, such applications require reliable, resilient, and secure networks. This paper aims to identify the communication requirements for mass deployment of such smart healthcare sensors by providing the overview of underlying Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Moreover, it highlights the importance of information theory in understanding the limits and barriers in this emerging field. With this motivation, the paper indicates how data compression and entropy used in security algorithms may pave the way towards mass deployment of such IoT healthcare devices. Future medical practices and paradigms are also discussed.

Let Students Talk about Emergency Remote Teaching Experience: Secondary Students’ Perceptions on Their Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This research aimed to comprehend the impact of the first school closure on secondary education in Cyprus from students’ perspectives. Through the administration of an online survey with both closed and open questions, the study investigated the main issues and challenges that students experienced during their abrupt transition from face-to-face to emergency remote education and their main worries and concerns during this period, as well as their perceptions regarding the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process followed during the distance education period. The study also elicited students’ suggestions, based on their experiences from the lockdown period, on improving instruction in case of further lockdown(s) and in the post-COVID-19 era. Three hundred twenty-two (322) students of both upper and lower secondary education participated in the study. The data from closed questions were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, and for the data from the open questions, a qualitative thematic analysis approach was followed. The valuable insights gained from this study illustrate how important it is for educators and educational policymakers to give voice to students, closely listen to what learners felt worked and what did not during the period of remote learning, and develop plans and policies that incorporate their feedback.