Institutional Repository of Academic Research University of Macedonia
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Timing of environmental technological choice and trade unions' climate solidarity
No full textWe consider a Cournot duopoly consisting of two geographically separated firms, each associated with a local environmental-friendly trade union that exhibits climate solidarity. In the basic model, firms choose abatement technologies prior to bargaining over wages and employment with the unions. We show that wage demanded is decreasing as the union's degree of climate solidarity increases, providing additional incentives for firms to adopt greener technology, hence improving the social welfare. In the alternative model, where trade unions decide the wages prior to the firms' abatement and employment decisions, the firms choose the dirtiest available technology implying that the union's climate solidarity has no effect on the firm's abatement decisions. These results suggest that establishing climate solidarity as a norm across trade unions can, depending on the timing of the environmental technological choice, become a powerful instrument in battling climate change, critically supplementing the as yet ineffective international policy framework.18212180
Towards an Evaluation Plan for Integrated Public Service (IPS) Provision
No full textPublic Authorities increasingly provide Integrated Public Services (IPS) using co-creation approaches and new technologies. To further support public authorities, the European Union is funding, within the Horizon 2020 (H2020) Programme, the inGov project aiming to advance work on IPS and public service co-creation by employing new technologies, particularly mobile and chatbots. The project results will be deployed and evaluated by public authorities in four EU Member States and these results need to be properly evaluated. The aim of this paper is to present the evaluation strategy and methods to be used for evaluating the results of inGov project. More specifically, three iterations of pilot implementations are planned with each one following a cycle of Plan – Implement – Analyse actions. Overall, three types of evaluators will be involved in inGov evaluations: pilot partners; pilot stakeholders, i.e. public employees, citizens, businesses, NGOs; and domain experts. Six evaluation dimensions will be pursued to cover all project's results, which are technical, organizational and policy-related.56656915th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governanc
Using the problem based learning method and educational technologies to teach open data: A design-based research approach
No full textWith Open Data becoming more popular and more public bodies publishing their datasets, the need for educating prospective graduates on how they can use them has become prominent. This study examines the use of the Problem Based Learning (PBL) method and educational technologies to support the development of Open Data skills in university students. The study follows a Design Based Research approach and consists of three phases: a) examination of stakeholders’ needs, b) design of an Open Data module, and c) re-design of the module based on the outcomes of its first run. The data collected throughout the three phases come from various sources, namely interviews with practitioners, focus groups with students, and tutors’ reflection. The findings suggest that while the PBL method is suitable for Open Data education, special care should be taken to ensure that the potential of educational technologies is fully realised. The study concludes with design principles that aim to guide instructors on how they can incorporate the PBL method and digital tools into Open Data education effectively
Business simulation games: impact on SOLO taxonomy learning outcomes, learning performance and teamwork competency
No full textDespite the increasing use of simulation games in business education,only few studies have explored the cognitive processes that learners employwhile playing the game, with quite controversial results about the students’learning outcomes. The current study analyses the impact of a BusinessSimulation Game (BSG) on the cognitive processes related to the "Structure ofthe Observed Learning Outcome" (SOLO) taxonomy. Moreover, overalllearning performance and perceived teamwork competency have beeninvestigated. A quasi-experimental pre and post-test design was applied. Eighty(80) university students played a marketing simulation game to practise abusiness marketing plan. The results showed a significant improvement in theunistructural and extended abstract levels of the taxonomy after playing thegame. There was no significant difference in the multi-structural level while theeffect on the relational level was negative. Also, a strong, positive correlationbetween perceived teamwork competency and learning performance was found.Implications for instructional designers and educators are discussed.5316117
Contextualizing Educational Robotics Programming with Augmented Reality
No full textThe development of technology in recent years has led to the research of innovative tools in education. Technologies, such as Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality can be utilized in immersive environments for educational purposes. Educational Robotics has also been prevalent in K-12 and STEM education. In this paper, we describe a mobile augmented reality learning environment to support robotics programming. An augmented reality application was developed and evaluated by two experts. Two experiments were conducted, including the non-AR and the AR condition. The participants were primary school students. Both observation and interviews were conducted. Our results showed that augmented reality attracts students’ interest in robotics programming, prompts them to participate in the learning process and is easy to use. Limitations and advantages of the AR approach in educational robotics were pointed out. The results indicate that contextualizing robotics with augmented reality is promising and should be further studied.152022 8th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN
Development and Validation of a Measurement Instrument for Sustainability in Food Supply Chains
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to develop a measurement instrument for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) critical factors, practices and performance and validate it in the food industry. A literature review was conducted in order to identify pertinent variables and propose relevant measuring items. An email survey was carried out in 423 Greek companies in the food and beverage sector. The questionnaire was sent by e-mail in the Google Forms format and it was requested to be answered by a representative of the company. The collected data was processed using exploratory factor analysis in order to extract the latent constructs of the SSCM critical factors, practices and performance measures. The validity of the proposed instrument was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis. The extracted SSCM critical factors are "firm-level sustainability critical factors" and "supply chain sustainability critical factors". The extracted SSCM practices are "supply chain collaboration" and "supply chain strategic orientation". The extracted SSCM performance factors are "economic performance", "social performance" and "environmental performance". The three developed constructs constitute a measurement instrument that can be used both by practitioners who desire to implement SSCM and by researchers who can apply the proposed scales in other research projects or use them as assessment tools.149520
Exploitation of Emerging Technologies and Advanced Networks for a Smart Healthcare System
No full textCurrent medical methods still confront numerous limitations and barriers to detect and fightagainst illnesses and disorders. The introduction of emerging technologies in the healthcare industryis anticipated to enable novel medical techniques for an efficient and effective smart healthcaresystem. Internet of Things (IoT),Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), Big Data Analytics (BDA), andCloud Computing (CC) can play a vital role in the instant detection of illnesses, diseases, viruses,or disorders. Complicated techniques such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML),and Deep Learning (DL) could provide acceleration in drug and antibiotics discovery. Moreover, theintegration of visualization techniques such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), andMixed Reality (MR) with Tactile Internet (TI), can be applied from the medical staff to provide themost accurate diagnosis and treatment for the patients. A novel system architecture, which combinesseveral future technologies, is proposed in this paper. The objective is to describe the integrationof a mixture of emerging technologies in assistance with advanced networks to provide a smarthealthcare system that may be established in hospitals or medical centers. Such a system will be ableto deliver immediate and accurate data to the medical stuff in order to aim them in order to provideprecise patient diagnosis and treatment.12125859Application of Data Analytics in Smart Healthcar
In memory of Professor Nenad Mladenović (1951–2022)
No full textThis article is dedicated to the memory of Professor Nenad Mladenović. It provides a short biography, a description of his main scientific achievements, and also testimonials from scholars all over the world who were collaborators for several years. This peer recognition highlights not only his exceptional academic career but also the integrity of his character.4
Institutional quality convergence in the Euro area countries: a note and further evidence
No full textIn a recent paper in this journal, Pérez-Moreno et al. (2020) examine the presence of convergence or divergence in terms of institutional quality among the Eurozone countries over the period 2008-17. Convergence is a long-term process. Furthermore, it may not follow a smooth and stable course since it can be affected by major episodes such as the recent crisis and the recession that afflicted Eurozone countries. Better insights can be drawn with the use of timeseries spanning over a longer period and by allowing for structural shifts in the process caused by important episodes and major events.30465666
Is the Fisher effect asymmetric? Cointegration analysis and expectations measurement
No full textUsing U.S. post-war data, we investigate whether the interest rate response to inflation known as the Fisher effect could be asymmetric. The asymmetry considered is that the long-run change in the interest rate is larger when inflation rises than when it falls. The possibility follows from behavioural hypotheses about the relationship of inflation expectations to actual inflation. Using an asymmetric cointegration approach, we find asymmetric cointegration in the Fisher effect for the post-war period through 1979, but not subsequently. We then find that starting in 1980, a breakdown developed in the relationship between inflation expectations from surveys and actual recent inflation rates, a breakdown not accounted for by asymmetry. If the survey results approximate true expectations, then econometric testing using actual recent inflation to compute expected inflation will suffer from mismeasurement, which could explain the finding of no cointegrating Fisher effect post-1979. The paper accounts for breakpoints and uses bootstrapping to conservatively estimate statistical significance