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Emerging Digital Skills in Vocational Education: The Impact of AI on Laboratory-based Learning
No full textInitial Vocational Education and Training (IVET) plays a key role in equipping students with digital skills, ensuring they meet the evolving demands of today’s job market. The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping vocational education, particularly in laboratory-based learning, where AI tools are increasingly integrated into coursework and assignments. This study examines the digital competencies of IVET students in Greece, focusing on their engagement with AI in practical learning environments. Using a structured questionnaire, the research explores four core dimensions: general digital skills, use of online educational platforms, cybersecurity awareness, and AI integration. The collected data were analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to identify patterns in skill development. Findings indicate that AI adoption significantly enhances students' ability to analyze and visualize data, automate processes, and critically assess AI-generated content, ultimately improving their efficiency in hands-on training. Additionally, students who regularly interact with AI tools demonstrate greater adaptability and problem-solving skills, highlighting AI’s potential to foster cognitive flexibility. Despite the benefits, the study also reveals a significant gap in cybersecurity knowledge, with many students lacking awareness of data protection, secure online practices, and the ethical implications of AI use. These findings emphasize the need for targeted educational strategies that integrate AI literacy and digital security training into IVET curricula. By addressing these gaps, vocational training programs can better prepare students with the technical proficiency and responsible AI usage skills needed to succeed in an increasingly digital workplace.127722782EDULEARN25 Proceeding
Deep Learning Missing Value Imputation on Traffic Data Using Self-Attention and GAN-based Methods
No full textOpen traffic data are sensor generated data with real-time information about the movement of vehicles on roads and other transportation networks and are valuable for decisionmaking such as better traffic management. One of the major challenge with these datasets is the imputation of missing values, which can be addressed using methods that range from statistical methods to machine learning and deep learning. This work investigates the effectiveness of three deep learning imputation methods namely, the self-attention SAITS, the GAN-based USGAN, and Transformer. Using open traffic data collected using an Application Programming Interface from the Swiss Open Data Portal, with introduced 20% artificial missing values added with the Missing Completely at Random mechanism, the deep learning methods were compared against one machine learning model (K-NN) and two traditional statistical methods (Median and LOCF). Results reveal that deep learning-based imputation methods outperform the other counterparts.142024 Panhellenic Conference on Electronics & Telecommunications (PACET) Proceeding
Accounting for technology heterogeneity in the measurement of persistent and transient inefficiency
No full textThis article tackles the problem of ignoring firm technology heterogeneity when measuring persistent and transient inefficiencies, which can lead to distorted estimates. Given that firms’ technologies exert a greater influence on long-run rather than short-run management, accounting for technology heterogeneity should prevent distortions in persistent inefficiencies and, to a lesser extent, in transient inefficiencies, which has been overlooked in the literature. Employing data from Dutch dairy farms spanning the years 2009 to 2016, I estimate random and fixed coefficients generalized true random effects models in a Bayesian framework, subsequently comparing the derived inefficiency scores. The findings indicate that average persistent inefficiency and its dispersion are inflated when technology heterogeneity is ignored, whilst transient inefficiency remains virtually unaffected. This finding is crucial to prevent firms and policy-makers from receiving misleading information about long-run performance metrics, whilst highlighting the need for future studies to account for technology heterogeneity when analyzing firms’ decisions.13710677
Higher education teaching and exploitation of student evaluations through the use of control charts: revisited and expanded
No full textStudent evaluations on the teaching efficiency of faculty members are significant in Higher Education because they allow decisions makers to identify potential inefficient faculty members and by making appropriate decisions, to improve the quality of the teaching process of their Institution. In this paper, we revisit the methodology framework of the previous paper of Sivena and Nikolaidis in order to expand it in various ways. More specifically, we examine in detail and evaluate through simulation, several popular types of (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) control charts, identifying the most suitable among them, using various statistical properties of control charts as optimization criteria. Additionally, we present two more tools that will allow Higher Education Institutions if exploited in real life, to find differences in the teaching performance between evaluated faculty members, either the latter are compared in one or more pairs. All in all, we provide Higher Education decision-makers with easy-to-use and reliable tools for monitoring the teaching process of their Institutions.5352291231
Affective Computing in Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Immersive Learning Environments
No full textAs students’ affective states can differ between learning that occurs in traditional classrooms when compared with learning that takes place in extended reality and immersive learning environments, it is important to examine the role of affective computing. Therefore, this study aims to provide an overview regarding the use of affective computing in the context of augmented reality, virtual reality, and immersive learning environments and the metaverse. Hence, it examines and presents the state of the art through a review and bibliometric analysis of 188 documents of the existing literature from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) from 2005 to 2023. The study follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement to identify and select relevant to the topic documents. In addition to the analysis of the existing literature, emerging topics and themes are identified and future research directions are presented. The significant role of affective computing within augmented reality and virtual reality environments arose. Their ability to offer engaging and interactive learning experiences while also being able to recognize, monitor, and respond to students’ affective states and to consider their emotions, personalities, characteristics, knowledge, and preferences to provide adaptive and personalized learning was evident. Additionally, their potential to enrich educational activities, increase learning outcomes, and support special education emerged. When augmented reality, virtual reality, and immersive learning environments capitalize on affective computing, meaningful learning can occur and self-regulated learning can be promoted.1315291
Examining the Role of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Safety Training
No full textThis study aims to provide a review of the existing literature regarding the use of extended reality technologies and the metaverse focusing on virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) in safety training. Based on the outcomes, VR was predominantly used in the context of safety training with immersive VR yielding the best outcomes. In comparison, only recently has AR been introduced in safety training but with positive outcomes. Both AR and VR can be effectively adopted and integrated in safety training and render the learning experiences and environments more realistic, secure, intense, interactive, and personalized, which are crucial aspects to ensure high-quality safety training. Their ability to provide safe virtual learning environments in which individuals can practice and develop their skills and knowledge in real-life simulated working settings that do not involve any risks emerged as one of the main benefits. Their ability to support social and collaborative learning and offer experiential learning significantly contributed to the learning outcomes. Therefore, it was concluded that VR and AR emerged as effective tools that can support and enrich safety training and, in turn, increase occupational health and safety.1319395
Progress, Challenges, and Sustainable Perspectives in Nuclear Energy Strategies
No full textThis bibliometric review of global nuclear energy strategies reveals a renewed interest in this technology as a fundamental part of the energy transition and the fight against climate change. The findings highlight an emerging leadership of China and other Asian countries in scientific production, although the United States and European countries maintain a greater impact in their research. There is an evolution from a purely technical focus to a greater focus on security, energy policy, climate change, and sustainability, reflecting a more holistic understanding of the role of nuclear energy. The 21st century has seen a resurgence of interest in nuclear energy, driven by concerns about climate change, although these topics are still relatively underrepresented in specialized literature. New areas of research are identified, such as integration with renewable energy and advanced applications. Research on public perception and social acceptance has gained sophistication. Surprisingly, an apparent lack of scientific interest in international collaboration is detected, despite its recognized importance in addressing global challenges and promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy. This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the current status and future trends in nuclear energy research and strategies.14241186
Influential academic factors in the integration of ICT in higher education after the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textThe emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the need to move educational processes to virtual environments and increase the use of digital tools for different teaching uses. This led to a change in the habits of using information and communication technologies (ICT), especially in higher education. This work analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frequency of use of different ICT tools in a sample of 950 Latin American university professors while focusing on the area of knowledge of the participating professors. To this end, a validated questionnaire has been used, the responses of which have been statistically analyzed. As a result, it has been proven that participants give high ratings to ICT but show insufficient digital competences for its use. The use of ICT tools has increased in all areas after the pandemic but in a diverse way. Differences have been identified in the areas of knowledge regarding the use of ICT for different uses before the pandemic. In this sense, the results suggest that Humanities professors are the ones who least use ICT for didactic purposes. On the other hand, after the pandemic, the use of ICT for communication purposes has been homogenized among the different knowledge areas.812508
Business Agility in Technology Companies
No full textAgile approaches have been used in the software business for many years. However, the agile approaches can bring a lot of velocity to many other business areas. Many authors have reported that using agile business approaches instead of conventional business approaches has addressed the needs of productivity in the current era. For successful implementation of the agile business concept in a company, the maturity for using this approach should be evaluated. This paper presents the results of a survey which was carried out regarding agile business issues in the light of maturity. Specifically, the ability of companies to adopt agile approaches was assessed based on the five-level maturity model of which level 5 shows the highest maturity. The results show that most companies are mainly at level three regarding open innovation and business agility. It is recommended that companies should also focus on the actions required at levels four and five. Because of the content of levels four and five, we suggest that company strategies should be aligned with agile strategies based on the agile business concept. We also argue that corporate change management skills are needed to realize levels four and/or five.19441449Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, ECIE 202
Studying the Evolution of Library Utilization in Maven Projects: A Metric-Based Approach
No full textIn modern software development, usually, reuse takes place by invoking in the codebase, methods that are deployed and imported into projects as 3rd party libraries. The ease with which one can take benefit of reuse of libraries has been simplified lately, by platforms such as Maven, Gradle, etc. However, this convenient choice in many cases leads to an overwhelming number of libraries being packed in the final executable, even when not needed (e.g., the code that uses originally invoked a library is removed, or it is dead). In this paper, we propose five novel metrics that capture the extent to which each library is utilized in the codebase, providing information to the software engineers on the actual utility of the library in the final product. To automate the calculation of these metrics we have developed a corresponding tool that can be used for quality monitoring purposes. Finally, we have used the tools and metrics to study the evolution of library utilization in several Maven open-source software projects.14590 LNCS359374Software Architecture. ECSA 2023 Tracks, Workshops, and Doctoral Symposiu