Virtual laboratories for teaching automation, robotics, and optomechatronics

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented crisis has been generated in all areas of life. In education, this emergency led to the massive closure of face-to-face activities in educational institutions of all levels to prevent the spread of the virus and mitigate its impact. In response to this situation, nine public research centers of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) of Mexico, CIDETEQ, CIATEJ, CIATEQ, CIESAS, CIMAV, CIO, CIQA, COMIMSA, and ECOSUR, proposed a project through which a set of virtual laboratories would be established, both for teaching and to improve their technological infrastructure for teaching. The project would take advantage of the tools of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) that allow remote access, which is the main challenge to develop educational tools that provide for distance education, and give continuity to graduate programs. © 2023 IEEE.

Digital Transformation in Vietnam: Policies, Results and Recommendations

This paper attempts to elucidate Vietnam's strategies and policies for fostering digital transformation. Vietnam has made some progress in the digital transformation of its economy but there are challenges to achieving further progress. Business enterprises struggle to adopt digital technologies due to technical, financial and regulatory constraints. These constraints include conversion costs, internal infrastructure resources, data leakages and ineffective regulations. The government has provided support for the digital transformation of enterprises through improvements in its å framework for the digital economy, promotion of science and technology, taxation regime and SME assistance. The government should undertake further legal reforms to support digital transformation, strengthen digital human resources and enhance e-government capabilities.

Support for COVID-19 mandatory vaccination in the United States: examining the role of cultural worldviews, risk-benefit perceptions, and trust in scientists

This study sets out to understand the role of cultural worldviews, risk perceptions, and trust in scientists in impacting U.S. participants' support for COVID-19 mandatory vaccination. Results from an online survey (N = 594) suggest that stronger individualistic and hierarchical worldviews are associated with more perceived COVID-19 vaccination risks, less perceived COVID-19 vaccination benefits, and lower support for COVID-19 mandatory vaccination. Perceived benefits mediate the impact of cultural worldviews on support for COVID-19 mandatory vaccination. Trust in scientists moderates the relationship between cultural worldviews and perceived benefits of COVID-19 vaccination. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Developing Young Science and Technology Parks: Recent Findings from Industrial Nations Using the Data-Driven Approach

Science and technology parks (STPs) are curated locations where new technology-based firms (NTBFs) and other SMEs and firms can conglomerate and promote a culture of innovation. Overall, the aim is to construct a sustainable high-value tech entrepreneurship ecosystem, and to this end we present here some recent and novel concepts derived from approaches using a data-driven statistical foundation. This paper considers studies on the organic growth of young start-up science and technology parks by authors who have used big data, econometric analyses, panel data and computer simulations. The results and concepts are derived from industrialized countries, notably Sweden and the UK, and may well be applicable to many regions and emerging economies. The findings are of interest to regional development, technology entrepreneurs considering choosing an STP to inhabit, as well as those in STP central teams, specializing in management and enterprise development, including the sustainable growth of new parks.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Teachers' Views on Integrating Digital Technologies As a 21-Century Teaching Strategy

Teachers in South Africa are faced with the colossal task of having to prepare learners for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (commonly referred to as 4IR). This undertaking entails aligning their teaching practices with the new demands and aspirations of 4IR goals and standards. Impelled by these new 4IR requirements, this paper asks two key questions: (i) How do selected Physical Science teachers understand the 4IR and their need to prepare learners adequately for 21-century learning? (ii) What are their views on integrating technological applications into their lessons to develop the 4IR skills the learners need in order to take advantage of the products of the 4IR? Theoretically, the paper draws on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. The UTAUT model were deployed to report and discuss the teachers' views about integrating technology into their lessons. Methodologically, the paper adopted a Husserlian phenomenological approach to explicate data elicited from 12 purposively selected experienced Physical Science teachers. One-on-one, face-to-face semi-structured interviews and field notes were the main sources of data. The findings show that the teachers' understanding of 4IR is very basic and counterfactual. However, their views about integrating technology into their science lessons were directly shaped by their perception of the usefulness (PU) and effort expectancy (EE) associated with the use of technology. These aspects (PU and EE) affected their behavioural intentions, which in turn influenced their attitude towards the shift to 4IR teaching. The findings have implications for the professional development of experienced in-service teachers to effectively integrate digital technologies into their lessons to equip learners with the 4IR skills to take advantage of the products of the 4IR.

Towards Marketing 4.0: Vision and Survey on the Role of IoT and Data Science

According to KPMG, Internet of Things (IoT) technology was among the top 10 technologies of 2019. It has been growing at a significant pace, influencing and disrupting several application domains. It is expected that by 2025, 75.44 billion devices will be connected to the Internet. These devices generate massive amounts of data which, when harnessed using the power of data science (DS) techniques and approaches such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), can provide significant benefits to economy, society, and people. Examples of areas that are being disrupted are digital marketing and retail commerce services in smart cities. This paper presents a vision for Marketing 4.0 that is underpinned by disruptive digital technologies such as IoT and DS. We present an analysis of the current state of the art in IoT and DS via the three pillars of marketing: namely, people, products, and places. We propose a blueprint architecture for developing a Marketing 4.0 solution that is underpinned by IoT and DS. We conclude the paper by highlighting the open challenges that need to be addressed in order to realise the Marketing 4.0 blueprint architecture, including supporting the integration of IoT data concerning people, products, and places and using DS to make efficient and effective recommendations.

[Epistemic communities and the challenges of training health technicians during the COVID-19 pandemicComunidades epistémicas y retos en cuanto a la educación de los técnicos en salud durante la pandemia de COVID-19]. / Comunidades epistêmicas e os desafios na formação de técnicos em saúde na pandemia de covid-19.

This article discusses the role of the epistemic community linked to the training of health technicians through analysis of the actions initiated by the Pan-American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Collaborating Center for the education of these technicians during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of comparing these actions with the main elements that define the constitution and functioning of epistemic communities according to the specialized literature. It is argued that, despite the differences in the historical configuration of national healthcare and training systems, the emergence of common challenges in the training of technicians allowed the articulation of demands, the sharing of diagnostic assessments, and the cooperation between the International Network of Health Technicians Education, the Ibero-American Network of Health Technicians Education, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries Network of Health Technician Schools, promoting the exchange of experiences, the search for strategic solutions, and the dissemination of recommendations across countries. By reaffirming the central role of health technicians in epidemiological surveillance, diagnosis and assistance, the COVID health emergency demanded immediate and consistent responses from governments and educational institutions, favoring the strengthening of the health technician epistemic community through the circulation of discourses and the hegemonization of meanings for the education of technicians. These actions, however, do not translate into stability or homogeneity for the epistemic community, since their articulation is always provisional and contingent, nor do they ensure the capacity to directly influence policies in each country.

En este artículo se examina el desempeño de la comunidad epistémica vinculada a la educación de técnicos en salud a partir del análisis de las medidas iniciadas por el centro colaborador de la Organización Panamericana de la Salud/Organización Mundial de la Salud (OPS/OMS) para la educación de técnicos en salud durante la pandemia de COVID-19, con el objetivo de comparar estas medidas con los principales elementos que definen la constitución y el funcionamiento de las comunidades epistémicas, de conformidad con la bibliografía especializada. Se argumenta que, a pesar de las diferencias en la configuración histórica de los sistemas nacionales de salud y de educación, el surgimiento de desafíos comunes para la educación de técnicos propició la articulación de demandas, el intercambio de evaluaciones con fines de diagnóstico y la cooperación entre la Red Internacional de Educación de Técnicos en Salud, la Red Iberoamericana de Educación de Técnicos en Salud y la Red de Escuelas Técnicas de Salud de la Comunidad de Países de Lengua Portuguesa, con el fin de promover el intercambio de experiencias, la búsqueda de soluciones estratégicas y la difusión de recomendaciones entre los países. Al reafirmar el papel central de los técnicos en las medidas de vigilancia epidemiológica, diagnóstico y atención, la emergencia de salud exigió respuestas inmediatas y coherentes de los gobiernos y de las instituciones educativas, lo cual favoreció el fortalecimiento de la comunidad epistémica vinculada a la educación de técnicos en salud al hacer circular discursos y ejercer hegemonía con respecto al sentido de la educación de esos profesionales. Sin embargo, esta actuación no confiere estabilidad ni homogeneidad a dicha comunidad epistémica, en vista de que sus afirmaciones son provisionales y contingentes, ni asegura su capacidad de influir directamente en las políticas de cada país.

GENDER CONFLICT AS A FACTOR OF GLOBAL TECHNOLOGICAL INEQUALITY: MODELLING AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT THROUGH THE ANALYSIS OF WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SCIENCE

Purpose: The paper aims to explore gender conflict as a factor of global technological inequality from a modelling and conflict management perspective through an analysis of women's participation in science. Design/methodology/approach: A review of the existing research literature has shown that there is an insufficient scientific basis for identifying the extent of gender conflict as a factor of global technological inequality through an analysis of women's participation in science. Statistical data analysis is used to fill the identified gap in the scientific knowledge system. The countries chosen for study are those with the largest gender gaps and technological inequalities in terms of women's participation in science and knowledge-intensive industries as well as in R&D. Findings: The chapter reviews the factors that make the case, from an academic perspective, for the technological inequalities and gender gaps in the world leading to global employment conflict. The field of education encom-passes numerous interrelated aspects, ranging from the level of demand and supply of educational opportunities to the access and delivery of education. These aspects also relate to the quality of teaching and the learning process, the effectiveness of the education system, individual learning outcomes, and the impact of education on the development and well-being of the individual, the community and the country as a whole. Scientific researchers make an important contribution to improving the quality of the education system: scientific research produces new knowledge further implemented through the education system. Such knowledge can improve people's lives. Research is often carried out in universities, but also in the commercial sector, particularly in high-tech companies (Research and Development). Originality/value: Education has been proven to be one of the resources that provide people with equal opportunities in life. Integrating a gender perspective into education includes assessing and promoting gender equality in learning opportunities available to men and women throughout their lives, especially during compulsory education. The gender approach also includes assessing the fairness of the delivery of educational services (such as training, management and course content). © 2022 by Irina M. Khil, Albina A. Chuprova, Gyulnaz E. Adygezalova and Arina S. Chueva.

African Indigenous knowledge versus Western science in the Mbeere Mission of Kenya

This article sets out to explore the way in which Western science and technology was received in the Mbeere Mission of central Kenya since August 1912 when a medical missionary, Dr T.W.W. Crawford, visited the area. In his dalliance with ecclesiastical matters, Crawford, a highly trained Canadian medical doctor, was sent by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) at Kigari-Embu, in 1910, to pioneer the Anglican mission in the vast area that included Mbeereland, where Mbeere Mission is situated. Contending with the African indigenous knowledge in medicine, environmental conservation, agriculture and other forms of indigenous science, the introduction of Western science and technology, 1912 to 1952, the article argues, did not erase the former;rather, it complimented it. Pockets of general resistance were evident, though Mbeereland, unlike its neighbouring Mutira Mission of 1912, did not offer elaborate opposition to the Western science and technology, partly because the locals could have learnt about it from their neighbours who had experienced it much earlier. Through a historico-narrative design, the research article endeavours to primarily review the coming of Western medicine in Mbeereland: Did it conflict with the African medicine? Methodologically, the data have been collected via archival sources, oral interviews and by reviewing applicable literature. Contribution: The input of this research article to the HTS Journal's vision and scope is seen by appreciating its focus on the interface between African indigenous knowledge and the European science and technology. Although the main focus is African versus western medicine, and how it was historically received in Mbeere Mission of Central Kenya, it largely speaks for the tropical Africa. The article is within the multidisciplinary areas in missiology and historiography.

Refused-knowledge during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Mobilising Experiential Expertise for Care and Well-being

Since the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic concerned groups of people have produced knowledge refused by institutional science of how to manage public health and individual well-being in everyday pandemic life. Research in science and technology studies seeks to understand the social and cultural conditions under which contestation over scientific knowledge claims occurs. In the Italian case, ‘refused' knowledge claims emerging outside institutionalised science play a performative role in questioning the current models for managing individual and public health. Such refused claims ascribe novel meanings to the COVID-19 pandemic and orient the ways in which people manage their own health and well-being during their everyday life. Two interrelated dimensions are at stake in the production and enactment of refused knowledge: (1) how experiential expertise is mobilised to reframe one's body in a process of self-care, thus validating a corpus of refused knowledge through personal experience, and (2) how narratives demarcate between a body of refused knowledge and the prevalent biomedical paradigms as a way of gaining experiential epistemic autonomy.

China's Arctic Policy and Engagement: Review and Prospects

The Arctic is experiencing greatly accelerated change under the influence of climate change, economic globalization, and world power shifts. After China became an official observer state of the Arctic Council in 2013, its involvement in Arctic affairs has grown increasingly and intensively. It has been particularly prominent in three areas: science, economics, and governance. When China became an observer state, few people could have predicted the extent to which the world would change over the next decade. At that time, China did not stand out so much from the other four new observer countries in Asia (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and India). Features such as Japan's close scientific cooperation with Arctic countries, South Korea's shipbuilding skills, and Singapore's important shipping position are why they have been granted observer status.A year later, however, a series of black swan events occurred, starting with the Crimean crisis in 2014. Like dominoes, the world landscape has since shifted dramatically. In 2016, Britain announced its departure from the European Union, while Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. After then U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo delivered an infamous speech at the ministerial meeting in 2019 warning China and Russia against "aggressive behavior," the Arctic Council closed for the first time without issuing a joint statement.1 In the speech, Pompeo used metaphorical and parallel questions to warn about China's presence in the Arctic, such as "Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?"2 However, this situation cannot happen because China has no legal right to claim any territorial sovereignty in the Arctic. Moreover, the only territorial dispute in the Arctic-over the small island Hans Island between Canada and Denmark (via Greenland)-was peacefully settled with an agreement.-3 When Covid-19 arrived, China was the first to respond with a strict epidemic prevention policy, but the country also entered a three-year self-imposed quarantine that slowed communication with the international community. At the same time, however, China has further deepened cooperation with Russia. In February 2022, after meeting at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement that announced their intention to develop a "polycentric world order."4 The world now is a very different place than it was in 2013.China released its official white paper on Arctic policy in 2018.5 The white paper marked the culmination of a five-year period of gradual outreach and initial involvement in the Arctic governance arena as an Arctic Council observer state. Therefore, its release announced the beginning of the first year of the country's full participation in Arctic affairs in a mature and steady manner, guided by defined objectives and principles. This essay reviews China's involvement in Arctic affairs, using the white paper as a blueprint. Following a discussion of China's Arctic identity, the subsequent two sections concentrate on Arctic science and technology development and international cooperation in polar science. The essay then concludes by commenting on the implications of the current Russia-Ukraine conflict for Arctic governance and China's position and prospects in the region.

Design of Collaborative Ubiquitous Learning in Promoting Digital Education: Integrating History, Science, Technology in Reflection Class

This paper attempted to present the Design of Collaborative Ubiquitous learning approach in promoting Digital Education in the integrated study called "Reflection Class”. The concept of this integrated History, Science, and Technology content used in this study was called "Story-based learning”. Besides, the learning activities were designed to support learner's collaborative ubiquitous learning. This process required learner's effort to work in group through the virtual online platform in order to inquire the Concept, Collaboration, and Content from class within 1 month. The learners received and responded to this CULD approach the high level of learning achievement in the context of 3C;Concept, Collaboration, and Content. Furthermore, the finding of this study could bring more digital education approach supporting the variety of learning approach during Covid-19 outbreak and Life-long learning. © ICCE 2022.All rights reserved.

MODELLING OF CONFLICT IN THE LABOUR MARKET UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF AUTOMATIZATION BASED ON ROBOTS, BIG DATA AND AI: THE SPECIFICS OF TECHNOLOGICAL INEQUALITY OF COUNTRIES AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Purpose: This chapter aims to study the modelling of conflict in the labour market in the conditions of automatization based on robots, Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) from the position of countries' inequality and conflict management. Design/Methodology/Approach: It is determined that scientific literature has not formed the sufficient scientific and practical basis for determining the level of technological inequality of countries in the labour market in the conditions of automatization based on robots, Big Data and AI. The research objects are countries with the highest level of technological inequality from the position of automatization based on robots, Big Data and AI. Findings: This chapter performs an overview of the factors of technological inequality of countries, which leads to the global conflict on the labour market in the conditions of automatization based on robots, Big Data and AI. It is supposed that using the technology and methods of the system of engineer-ing knowledge within conflict management it is possible to find a non-stand-ard solution, which ensures better optimization. A complex technical method proves its rationality and opens the perspectives for further development of the methodology and integration of the systems of knowledge on conflict manage-ment;still, from the position of conflict in the labour market in the conditions of automatization, there are not enough means of conflict management that could neutralize or partially solve such global conflict. Originality/Value: It is proved that full automatization is a price paid by humans for prospering, while it is expected that new technologies will increase productivity and income. This will lead to the dismissal of certain employees and bankruptcy of the existing companies and productions, which is not that important for many large employers. For most employees, this is a conflict against the background of automatization, which leads to worse consequences for them. © 2022 by Konstantin V. Vodenko, Irina S. Bagdasaryan, Daria O. Tyurina and Galina B. Vlasova.

Transactional Analysis Training for Improving Engineering Graduate Students' Abilities to Understand Different Personalities

Aspiring graduate students in science and technology generally lack formal training in understanding human behaviorandtraitsthatcanadverselyimpacttheir ability to perform and innovate at the highest level. Positive intelligence(PI)andTransactionalAnalysisaretwo practical methods in human psychology that millions of people have tested for self-growth. The author previously published the application of PI for enhancing engineering students (Tyagi, P., Positive Intelligence Education for Unleashing Student Potential.ASME2019InternationalMechanicalEngineering Congress and Exposition 2019, Volume 5: Engineering Education, V005T07A009). This paper focuses on training graduate students about the popular and practical transactional analysis science and assessing their competen ce inutilizingthisknowledgetodecipher their own and other people's. Transactional analysis was taught to students via Student presentation-based effective teaching (SPET) methodologydevelopedbytheauthor.Under this approach, graduate students enrolled in the MECH 500 Class were providedasetofquestionstoanswer by self-reading of the recommendedtextbook"IamOkayYouareOkay by Thomas Harris".Eachstudentindividuallyanswered the assignment questionsandthenworkedinthegroup to prepare a group presentation for the in-class discussion. Three group discussions were conducted to present different views aboutthe four types of transactions andunderlying human traits. Before transactionalanalysistraining, studentswerealso trained in Positiveintelligencepsychologytoolsforasimilar objective. Afterthediscussion, studentsweresurveyedaboutthedepth of theirunderstanding.Studentsalsoreflectedtheirviews on the utility of transactional analysis with respect to positive intelligence. Morethan 75% of students mention that they gain high competency in understanding, defining, and utilizing transactional analysis. This study presents insights for positively impacting graduatestudents' mindsets as they pursue anunpredictedcourseofresearchthatcansometimes become very challenging. © 2022 by ASME.

Cheating in Online Exams at Vietnamese Mid-Ranked Universities

The explosion of science and technology globally has changed the perspective of world education. Even in developing countries like Vietnam, education has begun to change to keep up with the trend in which information technology is being widely applied. Higher education is assigned to take the lead in transforming from traditional to modern teaching form. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnamese universities have been organizing online courses and exams. The universities have stated that organizing online exams or using information technology software in university exams is suitable for modern education, in accordance with the world trends. However, they have admitted that the implementation of online exam will face students' cheating which is challenging to deal with. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.

'Pandem-icons' - exploring the characteristics of highly visible scientists during the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic escalated demand for scientific explanations and guidance, creating opportunities for scientists to become publicly visible. In this study, we compared characteristics of visible scientists during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic (January to December 2020) across 16 countries. We find that the scientists who became visible largely matched socio-cultural criteria that have characterised visible scientists in the past (e.g., age, gender, credibility, public image, involvement in controversies). However, there were limited tendencies that scientists commented outside their areas of expertise. We conclude that the unusual circumstances created by Covid-19 did not change the phenomenon of visible scientists in significant ways.

Predicting students' academic performance using e-learning logs

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) drives most higher education systems in many countries to stop face-to-face learning. Accordingly, many universities, including Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), changed the teaching method from face-to-face education to electronic learning from a distance. This research paper investigated the impact of the e-learning experience on the students during the spring semester of 2020 at JUST. It also explored how to predict students' academic performances using e-learning data. Consequently, we collected students' datasets from two resources: the center for e-learning and open educational resources and the admission and registration unit at the university. Five courses in the spring semester of 2020 were targeted. In addition, four regression machine learning algorithms had been used in this study to generate the predictions: random forest (RF), Bayesian ridge (BR), adaptive boosting (AdaBoost), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost). The results showed that the ensemble model for RF and XGBoost yielded the best performance. Finally, it is worth mentioning that among all the e-learning components and events, quiz events had a significant impact on predicting the student's academic performance. Moreover, the paper shows that the activities between weeks 9 and 12 influenced students' performances during the semester.

Of Canals, Rivers and the Right to Exist: New (?) Methodological Tools for a Changed World

What can a dying river teach us about post/de-colonial science and technology? In a post-COVID world, absence and loss will be a constant presence in the lives of most. While thinking with erasures and absence in science and technology studies is not new, our current moment pushes us to burrow deeper into the histories of technologies that produce manufactured empty space, examine histories that pushed groups to the fringes of documented memory and encourage us to ponder how we must deal with these moments. This essay examines what the Yaqui River and the history of the Yaqui in Sonora can teach us about historical erasures and new meanings in landscapes and waterways lost to agro-business.

From Postcolonial to Post-COVID: Midnight Thoughts While Waiting for the Dawn

This essay reflects on the theories and methods of global science and technology studies (STS). It first examines postcolonial STS and points out certain problems and limitations of the approach. It then discusses a few alternative approaches that have benefited from postcolonial STS, and also tries to carve out new directions. Finally, this article uses China and the current pandemic as a case study to explore certain critical questions for a new global STS.