Blending Academic Writing: The Use of Technology to teach amid Covid-19 Pandemic

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers have to hesitantly switch to the virtual world of teaching, known as enriched virtual blended learning in which technology, surely plays a significant role in material delivery and discussion. Studies related to blended learning in English language classes, especially in academic writing classes, have been done in many countries, but they are still lacking in the Indonesian setting. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of technology utilization in enriched blended learning to teach academic writing and the students' perspectives towards the use of technology in blended learning. This study involving forty-five students in a university in Jakarta applied both quantitative and qualitative methods. A pre-test and a post-test were assigned before and after the blended learning period to study the effectiveness of blended learning. In addition, surveys and interviews were conducted to investigate the students' perspectives. The results indicated that the use of technology in blended learning effectively helped students develop their academic writing skills despite being a new experience. Furthermore, despite some limitations, this strategy of using technology in teaching-learning was accepted with optimism as they started to get accustomed to it. Hence, the use of technology is promising for the future of learning. © 2023 IEEE.

Interactive Communication Robot Handling Crowd Management and Content Delivery in Museums Employing Crowd Counting

Through the last decade, and particularly after the Covid period (2020 - 2022), crowd counting and localization have attracted much attention of AI researchers due to its potential applicability in crowd monitoring and control, public safety, space design, interactive content delivery etc. Once delivery objectives for a system are envisaged and the premises are fixed, we can always construct manifold technology architecture that delivers the set goals. However, in the Indian context a solution of choice needs to be optimized on frugality and ease of adaptability. In this paper we report an economic and replicable application of crowd counting and interactive content delivery in museums through unbiased knowledge systems embedded in robotic museum assistants. We intend to demonstrate a robotic system that can deliver any gallery content to groups of visitors keeping special focus on the exhibits that are popular choices. Crowd counting is used here to enable the content presentation to a group of choice in an interactive way. There are some market-ready solutions available for interactive gallery demonstration by moveable robots but they require not only huge capital investment but are also of limited use within controlled environments. Our proposed design is to multiplex an existing infrastructure of surveillance system as a smart crowd counting and gallery demonstration system along with crowd management with minimum additional hardware infusion. © 2023 IEEE.

Residents' acceptance for night deliveries policy in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece

As humanity straggles to absorb the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, city logistics is one of the transport sectors that has been affected. The restriction measures applied, and the regional lockdowns had put significant pressure on the supply chain but also on the last mile delivery. City logistics stand before a crossroad with important challenges lying ahead and difficult decisions to be made. The transformation of the city logistics sector is inevitable as more and more countries join an alliance against climate change. In this framework, the present paper presents an enquiry concerning the residents' acceptance at the city of Thessaloniki, Greece on the possible implementation of night deliveries. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted and the analysis of the collected data is presented revealing that the residents are aware of night deliveries' occurring problems as well as their willingness to accept the implementation of such policy if all necessary precautions and measures are applied. © 2023 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.

Sustainable Urban Freight for Energy-Efficient Smart Cities—Systematic Literature Review

Smart cities need energy-efficient and low-emission transportation for people and goods. Most studies focus on sustainable urban-transportation systems for passengers. Freight transportation in cities has increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to greenhouse gases emissions and negative externalities, such as traffic congestion. The purpose of this paper is to identify through a systematic literature review which innovations (hardware and software) applied by logistics service providers (LSPs) in sustainable urban freight (SUF) are suitable to support the transition to energy-efficient smart cities. We propose to classify the existing innovations in last-mile delivery for SUF into categories: (1) urban freight consolidation and/or trans-shipment;(2) the Consumer as a Service Provider (CaaSP);(3) choice of transportation modes. We introduce the concept of CaaSP as an innovative solution in last-mile delivery (LMD), where customers take over some transport operations with the use of smart technologies, and thus reduce the energy demand. We consider the modes of transportation, such as: drones, autonomous delivery robots, autonomous vehicles, cargo bikes (including e-cargo bikes, e-tricycles), electric vehicles (mainly vans), and combined passenger-and-cargo transportation rapid-transit systems. From the analyzed dataset, we find that energy-efficiency in smart cities can be improved by the consolidation of parcels in micro-depots, parcel lockers, and mobile depots. We analyze smart technologies (the Internet of things, big data, artificial intelligence, and digital twins), which enable energy efficiency by reducing the energy demand (fuel) of SUF, due to better operational planning and infrastructure sharing by logistics service providers. We propose a new IEE matrix as an actionable tool for the classification of innovations applied by LSPs in SUF, according to the level of their interconnectivity and energy efficiency. Additionally, this paper contributes to the theory by exploring possible future research directions for SUF in energy-efficient smart cities. © 2023 by the authors.

Research on Anti-epidemic Material Delivery Robot

After the occurrence of the COVID-19, preventing cross infection has become a top priority. Therefore, it is proposed to use robots to replace people to distribute anti epidemic materials, so as to reduce human contact. By planning the trajectory of the robot in advance, and using mechanical arms and claws to achieve accurate grasp and delivery of anti epidemic materials, it can carry out material distribution in the isolated inpatient department, and can independently locate and deliver products, goods, etc. in a complex environment. It has strong cargo carrying capacity, and has the dual functions of traditional delivery robots and indoor delivery services. Its use can greatly reduce the infection rate in the epidemic and deliver materials in time. © 2022 IEEE.

Digitizing Material Delivery and Documentation in Highway Construction Using e-Ticketing Technology: Study Based on Qualitative Semistructured Interviews

Electronic Construction (e-Construction) is being increasingly used to minimize the amount of paperwork and simplify the daily operations inherent in the construction of highway infrastructures. Electronic ticketing (e-Ticketing) is a part of e-Construction that aids in the transfer of material tickets in a digital manner, accounting for more than half of construction costs;however, the technology has been pilot tested by several states since the beginning of 2013 and has been disbanded for various reasons. The purpose of this research is to pinpoint the challenges in the deployment of an e-Ticketing platform, as well as to determine the adoption rate of state departments of transportations (DOT) and to assess the benefits. The research method includes a combination of literature review and semistructured interviews to achieve the study's objectives. An inductive thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the interview transcripts. The study's findings are related to the reasons for delays and misconceptions about the implementation of the e-Ticketing platform. Internet connectivity at construction sites and high investment costs were found to be the major challenges that have delayed the implementation of the e-Ticketing platform. The study's results will aid decision makers in DOTs and engineers build a standard e-Ticketing platform, implement rules and guidelines, reduce investment costs, execute pilot testing, improve inspector safety, and complete projects in a timely and efficient manner. © 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Design of the Intelligent Tracing Medicine Delivery Car Based on the Single-Chip Microcomputer

With the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic and the normalization of epidemic prevention, various epidemic prevention equipment has been used in all walks of life. In terms of delivering medicines to patients, the intelligent tracing medicine delivery car plays an important role. The car takes the STC89C52 microcontroller as the core of the intelligent car, adopts the L298N as the chip of the electric drive, and selects the DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor as the temperature and humidity detection. The car includes a line patrol module, an obstacle avoidance module, a temperature-humidity monitoring module, a display module, an infrared module, an alarm module, a drive module and a key module, etc. Finally, intelligent car realizes these functions, such as tracing the black line, avoiding obstacles by infrared, alarm, monitoring temperature and humidity, and displaying temperature and humidity. © 2022 ACM.

Lessons Learned from COVID That Have Been Transferred to Post-COVID Teaching and Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic required a rapid shift in course content delivery. Educators were faced with the challenge of providing some sort of continuity to student learning. Several content delivery modalities were used, including asynchronous, synchronous, and hybrid. The term HyFlex gained popularity, representing simultaneous offering of courses in-person, asynchronously online, and synchronously online, with students given the flexibility to engage through any of the modalities. New and innovative approaches to interactive learning were developed and implemented. Additionally, a transition to the online performance of laboratory experiments was required. Some of these new methods have carried over as we have moved back into more traditional education operations. In this paper, faculty from multiple institutions share success stories from techniques developed during the transition to online learning that have been transferred to or refined for the post-COVID in-person learning environment. © 2022 First-Year Engineering Experience, FYEE 2022. All rights reserved.

Fulfilment of last-mile urban logistics for sustainable and inclusive smart cities: a case study conducted in Portugal

While industry tends towards mass personalisation and instant deliveries, the last mile of urban logistics is being challenged to decrease the number of vehicles in circulation and the distances they travel in city centres. The COVID-19 pandemic helped expose the inefficiency of cities in fulfilling citizens' real-time needs. Moreover, the first aim of this paper is to understand the barriers which policymakers face in providing a personalised response to citizens' needs and the second to ascertain how they can proactively serve their communities. In line with these concerns, empirical evidence was collected through a questionnaire to Portuguese policymakers, and the results were discussed in a focus group with experts. The results suggest a lack of tools to enable real-time visualisation and study of scenarios for implementing and organising means of delivery and storage. Moreover, although policymakers feel confident in their capacity to manage the last mile, they would struggle to operate autonomously. Therefore, this paper conceptualises an initial algorithm based on the dynamic collaboration of stakeholders and sharing of resources to guarantee fulfilment of citizens' necessities. Furthermore, future discussions shall emerge about the relationships and technical standards between stakeholders to provide the necessary logistical means for city management and operations.

LESSONS FROM PANDEMIC RE-IMAGINING SUPPLY CHAIN

During the initial spread of the Covid pandemic in India, I was posted in a Corona hospital and faced problems of arrangement and supply of corona essentials to the hospital so that precious human lives can be saved. Based on my experience I have suggested a concept of reimagining of supply chain of essentials in the country during any such crisis in future. My concept is at very naive stage at this point of time but may be developed further.

Academic Scholars Perception of Online Education Initiatives in Somalia

This paper examines the Perception of the academic community in Somalia on implementation of online teaching and learning methods during the covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic created a significant challenge for the universities in Somalia. The paper implements a modified version of the open, online, flexible and technology enhanced (OOFAT) methodology with three main categories: content delivery, flexibility impact and platform adaptation. The data has been collected through online questionnaires and interviews involving 70 university educators in Somalia. The study found that instructors who had low degree of content delivery online with flexibility applications weakened the process of teaching and learning. In addition, the study suggested that the instructors lacked adequate knowledge on basic ICT literacy and showed a higher level of barrier of adaptation on online learning and teaching tools. The author argues that the higher education intuitions responsibility to build the capacity of academic staff regarding ICT literacy and provide a scholarly communication platform to enhance their knowledge and technology awareness and exposure. Copyright © 2021 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved.

Urban logistics and COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has translated in different countries into a variable mix of measures that all had impacts on urban economies and logistics activities. Goods managed to maintain a high level of mobility, thus guaranteeing the supply of cities and limiting the possible effects of shortages. Urban supply chains adapted well to rapidly changing consumption behaviors (one in three consumers who made online food purchases during the first lockdowns in Europe were new to this channel) and changes in supplies to industrial sectors. In the public eye (governments, media, the general public), logistics has become an essential activity and while it has always been strategic for cities, it has become much more visible. To report on these changes, this chapter presents a review of the already quite substantial scientific literature on COVID-19 and freight, develops the case study of Paris, France, and discusses policy issues and future directions related to urban logistics and COVID-19.

Learning to Engage Citizens to Make Smarter Cities

The effectiveness of government policies seems to be a function of increasing citizen participation through the active shaping of public policy and public service delivery (Singh & Kaushik, Platform for citizen engagement for good governance in India (pp. 48–66), 2020). Recognizing the importance of civic engagement, as part of participatory urbanism (Rahmat, Open cities ;Open data: Collaborative cities in the information era (pp. 107–128). Palgrave, 2019) and collaborative governance (Bartoletti & Faccioli, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 13(2), 1132–1151, 2020), this article attempts to highlight and quantify its role in trying to develop the intelligence of a city. This article is based on two pillars. Initially, it decrypts and analyzes the concept of civic engagement and its potential by mapping the dominant bibliographic trends. It then considers the utilization of civic engagement and its integration in the process of developing the intelligence of a city, via a pilot study, the case of the Thessaloniki metropolitan area. Through its two pillars, this article highlights and quantifies the role of civic engagement in the effort to achieve the intelligence of a city and concludes by proposing actions to strengthen and redefine this role. Finally, it is important to emphasize that this article underlines civic engagement in the decision-making process of the respective municipal council or the phase of consultations and proposals and not at the phase of evaluating implemented smart projects. In other words, this article recognizes the importance of preliminary actions and chooses to focus on their benefits. At the same time, it is based on the fact that nowadays, due to the challenges of COVID-19, residents have recognized more keenly than ever the importance of urban space and the benefits of its proper design, so that they may desire to participate more in its urban processes. In addition, residents have become more familiar with the use of technology and are able to use smart applications to evaluate, propose, or vote on municipal project proposals for their cities. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Feeding the Nation-Dynamic Customer Contacting for E-Fulfillment in Times of Crisis

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led demand for online grocery orders for both click & collect (C&C) and attended home delivery (AHD) to outstrip delivery capacity by a wide margin. In the United Kingdom, the booking systems of some e-retailers could not handle the flood of incoming requests, forcing the retailers to proactively reach out to certain priority customer segments with the aim of serving as many high-priority customers as possible. To determine when to contact each customer segment in this extraordinary demand environment, we investigate the new demand management concept of proactively contacting customers. We first develop a decision policy for the C&C fulfillment method to address the problem of when to contact customers. We then extend this approach to the AHD setting. To cope with increased problem complexity, we propose a three-step procedure to solve this problem. First, we subdivide the delivery area into smaller subareas;second, we select the most promising subareas;and third, we determine which customers to contact within the chosen subareas. To gain managerial insights and to show the practical benefits of our approaches, we apply both approaches to realistic data from the London area. Our results show that proactive customer contacting allows for a tailored allocation of scarce capacity in e-groceries. We conclude with a discussion on how these contacting techniques can be valuable in postcrisis times.

Selecting a Rational Scheme of Delivery by Road Transport: A Case Study of Goods Deliveries from China to Russia through Kazakhstan

Road transport is in most cases the only available transport option in rural regions with undeveloped railway infrastructure. The problem of choosing the structure of the logistics chain is one of the most important ones that forwarding companies must solve when planning freight transportation. Due to political peculiarities, transportation of goods by road through the territory of Kazakhstan must be carried out by national forwarders, which results in centralizing the decision-making process and shifting the tasks of designing the structure of supply chains to the Kazakh forwarding companies. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model to solve the problem of choosing the right structure for a logistics chain. The proposed model considers the existing legal constraints in the region. Based on a simulated demand for cargo deliveries from China to Russia, we use a numerical example to show how to justify the structure of the logistics chain characterized by minimal total costs of the companies involved in the delivery process.

Web Application to Track Student Attentiveness during Online Class using CNN and Eye Aspect Ratio

During this COVID-19 pandemic online class platforms are the only solution to transfer the knowledge in the field of education. Even though the physical classes are being practiced slowly in some countries, still academicians are in the need of online classes. In addition to content delivery, teachers are in the need to concern about throughout the class time whether the students are listening and be active in online classes. Due to more bandwidth consumption of the audio and video streaming, students can't be compelled to unmute the audio and video when the teacher delivers the content. So, there is no option for the teachers to observe the student's activity. With the advancement of technology and enhanced image analysis capacity of deep learning techniques, a system is proposed to compute the student's activity and can report it to the teachers during the class time itself. Drowsiness detection is tested using CNN based segmentation on our own set of 5000 images collected from 1000 students. The observed result shows 90% accuracy in predicting the drowsiness of the student by observing the face pattern of the student without streaming the video to the teacher's device. © 2022 IEEE.

Lessons from the First Wave of COVID-19 for Improved Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) Treatment: Benefits of Easier Access, Extended Take Homes, and New Delivery Modalities.

Background Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) are associated with important public health benefits. Program changes implemented in response to COVID-19 hold promise as ongoing strategies to improve MOUD treatment. Methods: MOUD patients on buprenorphine or methadone, providers, government regulators, and persons who use drugs not in MOUD were recruited in the Northeast region of the United States between June and October of 2020 via advertisements, fliers, and word of mouth. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted. Interviews were professionally transcribed and thematically coded by two independent coders. Results: We conducted interviews with 13 people currently on buprenorphine, 11 currently on methadone, 3 previously on buprenorphine, 4 previously on methadone, and 6 who used drugs but had never been on MOUD. In addition, we interviewed MOUD providers, clinic staff, and government officials at agencies that regulate MOUD. Most participants found increased take-home doses, home medication delivery, and telehealth implemented during COVID-19 to be favorable, reporting that these program changes reduced travel time to clinics, facilitated retention in care, and reduced stigma associated with clinic attendance. However, some participants reported negative consequences of COVID-19, most notably, decreased access to basic resources, such as food, clothing, and harm reduction materials that had previously been distributed at some MOUD clinics. Conclusion: Access to and retention in MOUD can be lifesaving for persons using drugs. COVID-19-impelled program changes, including increased take-home doses, home medication delivery, and telehealth generally improved participants' experiences with MOUD. Making these permanent could improve retention in care.

Acceptance Evaluation of a COVID-19 Home Health Service Delivery Relational Agent

Relational Agents (RAs) may be helpful in supporting the social distancing mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing essential health services to patients at home and eliminating the need for in-person hospital visits. We conceptualized and developed a prototypical RA to visualize how this can be done in four major COVID-19 related health scenarios. In this paper, we present acceptance evaluation of the proposed RA using a survey based approach. A total of 105 participants were asked to interact with and analyze the prototype. Participants then indicated perceived usefulness and willingness to accept and use the proposed RA on Likert scales. The findings show that overall 80.77% of participants found the suggested RA useful. 59.67% of participants accepted it as an alternative to healthcare professionals as long as the scenario is not life-threatening. Furthermore, 78.29% of the participants indicated that they would be willing to use the proposed RA, if needed. Further research is needed to understand what factors can improve the uptake of the proposed RA among individuals ≤ 30 years and with no COVID-19 infection history. © 2022, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.

Digitization of the service provision process - Requirements and readiness of the small and medium-sized enterprise sector

Revolution 4.0, which all enterprises have to face, may affect entire industries, changing the way of design, production, delivery and payment for goods or service provision process. One of the major changes, that is required, is full automation and digitization of processes and the use of electronics and information technology. A large increase in interest in e-services can be observed, which is related not only to the digitization of society, but in the last year to the Covid-19 pandemic and the related restrictions. The service sector is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), for which the digitization process is often more difficult, mainly due to small financial resources. The aim of the paper was to assess the readiness of enterprises from the SME sector to digitization of service provision process. The survey allowed to indicate what is the knowledge about digitization of service provision process among respondents, what types of solutions related to digitization are implemented in their enterprises and what is the status of their implementation. Additionally, the respondents indicated the advantages of the digitization of service provision process. The research allowed to indicate the level of advancement of digitization in service enterprises of the SME sector. © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Best Practices for Managing Subsea Well Plug and Abandonment Operation in Offshore Malaysia During COVID-19 Pandemic

In 2020, PCSB implemented the first permanent Plug & Abandonment (P&A) campaign for three Subsea wells in a gas field offshore Malaysia. The main objective of the campaign was to establish two (2) barriers for every movable hydrocarbon or overpressure bearing sand by placing laterally extended cement plug across impermeable formation with enough formation strength to handle the pressure of the formation to be isolated. The unique case of this operation was the challenges to execute PCSB's first subsea P&A operation in gas field Malaysia during pandemic situation. In March 2020, the Malaysian government imposed Movement Control Order (MCO) to curb the spread of the COVID-19. A semi-submersible rig was on-hired a week after government initiated the MCO, resulted in the rig preparation being badly hampered due to manpower management and material fabrication and delivery. PCSB was exposed to expensive rig daily rate that had to be managed. Four (4) main challenges were encountered during operation: safe protection for workers, expensive standby cost, manpower management and material fabrication and delivery. This paper, from the 'project management' point of view, describes the journey of managing rig operation during PCSB's first subsea wells P&A in Malaysia efficiently amidst the pandemic by reducing the impact of COVID-19 on project cost. With the experience of managing rig for subsea well operation, a complex operation in Malaysia, amidst pandemic, PCSB sharing on the experience is beneficial to provide context setting and benchmark on maintaining the efficiency of operation. Wells successfully met the objective of operation with no incident occurred, negotiated reduction on standby cost and managed to bring critical manpower on time during operation. Copyright © 2021, Society of Petroleum Engineers