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Background Telephone-based cognitive screening (TBCS) is crucial to telehealth care of neurological patients, prevention campaigns, and epidemiological studies on cognitive impairment. The Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS) is one of the most widespread and psychometrically/diagnostically sound TBCS test, with several versions developed worldwide (e.g., with and without a delayed recall item). In Italy, only attempts of adaptation and preliminary evidence of its statistical features have been provided so far. This study thus aimed at (1) developing an Italian version of the TICS and assessing its (2) psychometric and (3) diagnostic properties. Methods A back-translated and culturally adapted version of the TICS was developed. Three-hundred and sixty-five healthy individuals from different regions of Italy (147 males, 216 females; age: 53.2 ± 16 years; education: 13 ± 4.5 years) were administered the TICS and the Italian telephone-based Mini-Mental State Examination (Itel-MMSE). Validity was tested by convergence and at the structure level, whereas reliability as internal consistency, test–retest, and inter-rater. Diagnostic accuracy, item difficulty, and discrimination were also examined. Results The TICS featured a single component and its score converged with that of the Itel-MMSE (rs = .37). Reliability was excellent as inter-rater (ICC = .94), good as test–retest (ICC = .78), and acceptable as internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .63). Accuracy was high as tested against the Itel-MMSE (AUC = .83) and did not improve when adding the delayed recall. Backward subtraction was the most difficult and discriminative task. Discussion The Italian TICS is a valid, reliable, and diagnostically accurate TBCS test. The original format of the TICS can be thus adopted in both clinical and research settings. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10072-021-05729-7.

Aim An expository note introduces health sciences researchers to randomized single-case intervention designs, an adaptation of interrupted time-series methodology, and the staple of a scientifically credible small-sample research paradigm. Methods Detailed examples illustrating two different randomized single-case procedures are presented to highlight the techniques’ advantages relative to small-sample nonparametric procedures that are commonly applied in the medical and health sciences fields. Results Numerous positive outcomes, based on both statistical simulation studies and actual intervention research investigations, support the applicability and value of these procedures. Conclusion Randomized single-case intervention designs are recommended for consideration by health sciences researchers.

Purpose of Review Climate change has direct impacts on human health, but those impacts vary widely by location. Local health impacts depend on a large number of factors including specific regional climate impacts, demographics and human vulnerabilities, and existing local adaptation capacity. There is a need to incorporate local data and concerns into climate adaptation plans and evaluate different approaches. Recent Findings The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided funding, technical assistance, and an adaptation framework to assist localities with climate planning and activities. The differing processes with which states, cities, and tribes develop and implement adaptation plans have been observed. We outline examples of the implementation of CDC’s framework and activities for local adaptation, with a focus on case studies at differing jurisdictional levels (a state, a city, and a sovereign tribe). Summary The use of local considerations and data are important to inform climate adaptation. The adaptable implementation of CDC’s framework is helping communities protect health.

The COVID-19 induced abrupt transition to online learning that occurred in the Spring of 2020 presented particular challenges to the adaptation of hands-on laboratory courses in biomedical engineering. This paper describes the transition of such a course in one undergraduate program, assessment of this transition, and how this assessment has led to the design of the Fall 2020 online delivery format. In the spring, instruction was delivered online via asynchronous lectures and recorded video demonstrations, while raw data was provided to students to simulate specific laboratory techniques. Additionally, synchronous and asynchronous forms of student support were offered, including office hours and discussions. Student feedback was assessed via an end-of-semester survey designed specifically to analyze the students’ perceptions of the Spring 2020 transition to remote learning, as well as a comparison of Spring 2020 and Spring 2019 (when the course was taught in-person) student performance deliverables. Student performance was comparable to (or even better than) that in 2019. Students responded very positively to the transition, with most students agreeing or strongly agreeing that they had the resources needed to succeed (4.43 on a Likert scale), although on average, the students also found that the shift made learning more challenging, with increased effort required to engage with the material. Students especially found the recorded demonstration of laboratory techniques, asynchronous lectures, the learning management system chat feature, and virtual office hours useful. Many students felt that even with these resources, they still lost some of the experience that comes with in-person hands-on application, and some students found working in teams to be more challenging. While the overall approach implemented in the abrupt transition was effective in terms of student learning outcomes, engagement and immersion in a more realistic experience is a concern moving forward in Fall 2020. Based on our outcomes and on data from the literature, we will add gamified virtual lab simulations, shown to enhance student experience and create a more engaging and effective learning environment in lieu of in-person instruction. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s43683-020-00015-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

With the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in social-distancing recommendations, many service providers find themselves altering the way they must provide medically necessary therapy. Even with the advent of more advanced telehealth technologies, the implementation of behavioral programming falls mainly on the caregivers of the clients that are served. This crisis brings to light ethical dilemmas and upends the current ways many programs may have been implemented across the world. As a result, a reevaluation of how these services are delivered is in order. This article reviews how a university-based, state-funded service delivery program (USSDP) provided essential and necessary services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the purpose of this article is to describe how the USSDP quickly adopted a telehealth care model in a program that previously had not delivered services in this modality. Ethical, contextual, and competency-based factors are reviewed in the context of this organization, followed by a dialogue on broader generalization suggestions utilizing an active support model of care within telehealth restrictions.

Climate change is an increasingly important public health issue, reflected in morbidity and mortality outcomes during extreme heat events. At the same time, the harms of social isolation with respect to a wide range of health outcomes are becoming better understood. Given that older adults are at higher risk during hot weather and at higher risk of social isolation, they are among those at highest risk for adverse impacts of extreme heat events. While specific strategies to reduce heat exposure have been described in the literature and promoted in public health practice, these may not be readily available to socially isolated older adults. As such, it is crucial to identify key approaches to address risk due to social isolation in the aging population, and to acknowledge their limitations and barriers. Interventions rooted in social connection, a concept widely applied in interventions for public health and social well-being, should be applied as a tool for adaptation to extreme heat events.RéSUMé: Le changement climatique est un problème de santé publique de plus en plus important, qui se reflète dans les résultats de la morbidité et de la mortalité lors des épisodes de chaleur extrême. Au même temps, les mals de l'isolement social en ce qui concerne un large éventail de résultats pour la santé sont de mieux en mieux compris. Étant donné que les personnes âgées sont plus à risque durant les temps chaud et à risque d'isolement social, elles font partie des personnes les plus exposées aux effets négatifs d'événements de chaleur extrême. Bien que des stratégies spécifiques pour réduire l'exposition à la chaleur aient été décrites dans la littérature et promues dans la pratique de la santé publique, elles peuvent ne pas être facilement accessibles aux personnes âgées socialement isolées. Comme tel, il est essentiel d'identifier les approches clés pour réduire les risques dus à l'isolement social de la population vieillissante et de reconnaître leurs limites et obstacles. Les interventions enracinées dans la connexion sociale, un concept largement appliqué dans les interventions pour la santé publique et le bien-être social, devraient être appliquées comme un outil d'adaptation aux événements de chaleur extreme.

International audience; While a growing number of cities have developed climate adaptation plans, little attention has been paid to connections between stakeholders’ involvement, interpretation of what “vulnerability” really means for them, and considerations of equity aspects in planning adaptation targets. Even less information is available on how considerations of equity are linked to planning approaches and guidelines in different countries and how adaptation planning could be improved through international collaboration and data sharing. This knowledge gap is especially challenging for smaller cities that have received significantly less attention in the scholarly literature. This study examines climate adaptation plans in 24 urban communities with population of less than 300,000 people in France and the United States to reveal how small cities perceive their vulnerability to climate change and what they plan to do to reduce it in a fair and equitable way. Lessons learned from these studies offer valuable insights on how cities interpret their vulnerability to climate change and how they use (or not) such assessments to benefit their most vulnerable groups.

Smart Cities is a new torrent and its concept is evolved to benefit people in different ways by providing solutions to many problems. We are racing to achieve the goal of Smart Cities and completely ignoring the perilous consequences. Out of many, one of the gigantic problems is E-waste. E-waste is growing day by day jeopardizing the environment and in turn Sustainable Development. E-waste contains many elements like mercury, lead which are toxic to humans, water, air and soil which lead to another set of serious problems. There is an urgent need to look into this matter and resolve it as expeditiously as possible. To achieve Sustainable Development, we need to get rid of E-waste in the most efficient way possible. In this chapter, we will discuss various problems caused by e-waste and approaches to manage E-waste by applying Smart Technologies. We have also proposed a model for handling e-waste.

Benefiting from the extensive use of depth sensors, human action recognition plays an important role in a great number of works, including human-computer interaction, security monitoring, motion-sensing games, medical care. In most recent works, depth cameras have been used to capture required action data for action identification. Especially, feature extraction based on skeleton information has made satisfactory achievements in action recognition and has been gradually extended to various algorithms. However, the research of view invariance is not deep enough. To improve the performance of skeleton recognition, the paper proposes an improved asymmetric convolution adaptive network, achieving desirable results on the public benchmark dataset of NTU RGB + D 60. The model combines an advanced adaptive module and asymmetric convolution blocks, which can effectively extract features from the original skeleton. Ablation studies and comparative experiments indicate that the performance of the model is better than many of the most state-of-the-art algorithms.

Modern workplace requires not just technological adaptation but also organizational and process changes in order to achieve functional and operational transformation of traditional workplace into digital future workplace. Different sociological and technological changes have influenced that traditional ways of communication, cooperation and collaboration are achieved with use of specific technological tools and organizational adaptation. Paper provides literature review on the subject of digital transformation correlation to technological, and organizational conditions. Search and review include search of key research databases including Web of Sciences, Scopus, Springer Link and Google scholar. Additional, paper provides short quality field research with 44 managers in small and medium companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and their perception of importance and correlation of above mentioned factors and digital workplace transformation. Based on their professional perception, experience and recommendation, the paper also provides a proposal of framework for successful digital workplace transformation which could be a base for further research and use by academics and digitalization professionals.

Regional resilience, understood as the regional ability to resist, adapt to, and create new regional paths from external shocks, is one of the most explored issues in the last years in the literature of evolutionary economic geography. However, most of the literature has focused on analysing the regional responses in terms of structural economic change, underplaying the role that institutions and agency play. This chapter will deepen into the role that policy and agency play in two different types of regional resilience, namely resilience to macroeconomic fluctuations and resilience to structural changes. Specifically, it focuses on the role of institutional entrepreneurs and collective agency as mechanisms of change. This means adopting a systemic understanding of regional resilience. The chapter contributes with an historical analysis of the Basque Country region, an old industrial region that has been able to resist, recover and renew after different shocks (economic and financial crisis and structural changes) in the last forty years. The case will shed light into the different institutional and agency factors that shape different types of resilience (adaptation and adaptability capacities), which are intrinsically linked to exploration and exploitation capabilities. Indeed, the chapter focuses on the different policy responses and on the role of agency in shaping resilience, both from an ex-ante and an ex-post perspective. Even though policy denotes a high degree of publicness, the chapter highlights the role of other actors (i.e. private actors, individuals and KIOs) in regional resilience.

Students in distance education are expected to self-regulate their learning process. In this paper, we present a semester planning tool that enables learners to plan, monitor, and reflect on learning tasks over a semester. In this way, Zimmerman’s model of self-regulated learning (SRL) could be mapped to an application that can be used in the established Moodle LMS. Furthermore, we introduce the Adaptation Rule Interface for implementing rule-based context-sensitive adaptations in Moodle. As a baseline for adaptive SRL support, we conducted two field studies (N = 157 and N = 93). In both studies, monitoring was used most frequently, while planning was mainly done at the beginning of the semester. Participants preferred to adjust provided milestones, instead of creating their own. Reflection played a minor role. The participants who used the tool extensively reported a strong affinity for time management and content elaboration in the LIST-K inventory. Using cluster analysis, participants with high learning activity and high SRL activity were grouped into one cluster, while the majority of participants combined into a second cluster. Through this empirical investigation of SRL processes, it is possible to design effective adaptive support for self-regulated learning.

The article presents an overview of modern studies of career orientations, personal values, and social adaptation, which showed the appropriateness of studying these phenomena in their interrelations and differences depending on the type of adaptation. The aim of the study is to determine the interrelations of career orientations and personal values with different types of socio-cultural adaptation of international students studying in the UK, London. 29 foreign students aged 18–20 were examined. The research techniques are “The Career Anchors” questionnaire by Schein, the personality adaptation questionnaire to the new socio-cultural environment by Yankovsky, and the diagnostic technique of the axiological orientation of the personality by Kaptsov. Statistical methods of processing empirical data include descriptive statistics by groups, Pearson correlation analysis. Software for processing the results of an empirical study was the SPSS 22.0, for data visualization—Excel 2007, Corel Draw 2018. In general, international students prefer such career orientations as “Lifestyle” and “Pure challenge”, and personal values “Values of profession” and “Values of education”. Career orientations are not associated with adaptive and interactive types of socio-cultural adaptation; there are no interrelations of career orientations and personal values with any type of socio-cultural adaptation. Polyvariability was found in the choice of types of socio-cultural adaptation to a new environment.

The article presents an analysis of the phenomenon of stress and stress resistance in the scientific psychological and pedagogical literature. The problem of stress tolerance in the professional activity of a teacher-psychologist is considered. It is noted that the stress resistance of students in educational activities is a complex property of the individual, which is characterized by the necessary adaptation of the student to the influence of external and internal factors in the course of educational activities. The factors influencing the development of stress tolerance and a positive attitude to learning activities are considered. The article presents the results of an empirical study of stress resistance in future teachers-psychologists at the stage of training in higher education. The features of the perceptual assessment of students’ stress resistance at the final stage of training are shown. It is established that graduates are able to clearly define the goals of their educational and professional activities and choose the best ways to achieve them. They are distinguished by the desire to cope with difficulties independently, the ability to analyze the difficulties encountered and overcome them, unlike first-year students. The study involved students of the 1st and 4th courses of the psychological and pedagogical direction, in the number of 128 people. The following methods were used: self-assessment of the stress resistance of S. Cowhen and G. Willianson, the questionnaire of the perceptual assessment of the type of stress resistance of N. P. Fetiskina, methods of mathematical and statistical processing of the obtained data: descriptive statistics, determination of the reliability of differences: the Fisher criterion. It is reliably established that graduates have a moderate type of stress resistance, and 1st-year students at the initial stage of training are characterized by moderate instability to stress.

This paper analyzes the role of the developed adaptation discipline “Psychology of personality and professional self-determination” in the formation of inclusive competence in the educational process of a graduate of the Medical Institute. The goal of the discipline Personality of psychology and professional self-determination: mastering of psychological knowledge about the main directions of development psychology, general, individual and age peculiarities of the human psyche, associated with the principles of the organization of processes of training, education, self-education, and personal development needed in future professional activity of the doctor. The results of the study of the discipline: forming an integrated understanding of the mechanisms of functioning human psyche, individual psychological characteristics of personality, social and pedagogical aspects of interpersonal interaction; developing students professionally significant abilities and personal qualities; forming a unit of knowledge students about the inner world and human behavior, teaching students to use this knowledge in professional practice “for the benefit of the patient”; teaching students the techniques and methods of perfecting their own personal and cognitive spheres, the motivation for personal and professional growth; developing skills to work with scientific literature; forming skills to apply the obtained knowledge in clinical practice of the doctor.

The phenomenon of professional wellbeing is included in the context of research on psychological wellbeing. The researchers point out the importance of the professional and labor sphere of human activity for ensuring the general state of subjective wellbeing. At the same time, the ability to maintain a state of subjective professional wellbeing is the main condition for the successful work of a teacher. The purpose of this study was to study the characteristics of the experience of professional wellbeing of teachers working in educational organizations of different levels. The study involved 65 teachers engaged in professional activities in preschool educational institutions and secondary schools (M = 31.3; SD = 1.2; 28% men). Methods were used: the psychological wellbeing of K. Riff in the adaptation of N. N. Lepeshinsky, the professional demand for the personality of E. V. Kharitonova, B. A. Yasko, as well as statistical methods (descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U test, Spearman rank correlation coefficient). The differences between the experience of psychological wellbeing and the professional demand for teachers engaged in professional activities in educational institutions of different levels were established. The interrelationships of psychological well-being and professional demand of the individual in the group of teachers were also found. The prospects for further development of this topic are the expansion of the level of educational institutions, the study of factors that affect the level of psychological wellbeing of teachers and determine the level of professional demand for an individual, the study of the factor structure of professional wellbeing of teachers.

In this paper the issue of the latency of the cognitive assistant system, which functions on the basis of the stylometry, is considered. The conducted research allows concluding that the system latency can be decreased by means of the text sample size adaptation. The first approach to this is to correlate the text samples with the data source types and the methods of the text feature vector forming. Besides, the users’ feedbacks on the cognitive assistant functioning quality can be involved into the text sample size determination. In this paper, the new method of text sample size adaptation is proposed and discussed. It includes two approaches: the first one is the ontologycal analysis based on the data source type attribute, and the second one is the cognitive analysis of the users’ feedbacks. The mixture of these approaches allows to decrease the text sample size and so to decrease the time needed for the text feature vector forming.

The integration of an aircraft engine and an aircraft is such a combination of their structural forms, aerodynamic and propulsive-economic characteristics and control systems (including thrust vector), which provides an improvement in certain flight performance characteristics of the aircraft. A program structural service of multi-mode aircraft aviation engine integration has been considered. It can be effectively applied for ensuring adaptation to changing flight modes by determining the shape of an aircraft and its aviation engine, from one side, for determining the purpose of aircraft, its parameters and aviation engine parameters, as well as flight modes by correct choice of control laws, from another side. The considered technique and service, based on mathematical modeling of the AIRCRAFT-AVIATION ENGINE-FUEL system, in combination with the use of multiparameter optimization methods, is an effective tool for choosing design parameters and forming the technical appearance of an aviation engine.

The chapter situates the area of defense mechanisms in the wider field of adaptation, coping, and stress. Also, it presents a 25-step Neo-Eriksonian lifespan developmental model that expands the classic Eriksonian eight-stage model. The 25 steps are referred to as themes in defensivity and offensivity. Defensivity and offensivity refer to the ongoing moment-to-moment dynamic flow in behavior. The chapter develops a 48-category matrix of defensivity and offensivity behaviors, expanding the classic fight-flight-freeze response by adding 45 categories, e.g., fend off, fend for, and fence off. The matrix is built on intersecting dimensions, with the major ones in the first part of the matrix including direction (e.g., to, away) and strategy (e.g., overt, covert), and with dominance/submission added. The second part of the matrix involves a dimension that is self-related and also the strategies one, with filtering added. Both parts of the matrix include defensivity and offensivity. Organisms filter incoming stimuli with constructed schemas that condition response output. Defense mechanisms are involved in the schemas and in the responses. The chapter concludes by situating defense mechanisms in the broader context of networks in behavior, and presents a hybrid network/systems approach.

This study outlines the adaptation planning journey undertaken by Derry City and Strabane District Council (DCSDC) in Northern Ireland and reflects how the prevailing policy context and level of organisational adaptive capacity create the conditions for mainstreaming climate adaptation into planning and development. This chapter explores the potential of local government in Northern Ireland to integrate local authority policy drivers such as disaster risk reduction (DRR), emergency planning, risk and assurance, and community resilience. The ability to communicate risks and solutions was identified as an important consideration when undertaking adaptation planning, particularly when discussing the adaptation planning process and securing input or support from colleagues. Moreover, a significant amount of engagement was required with local government agencies to increase understanding of the relevance of climate change and DRR. Embedding DRR and climate change adaptation (CCA) within local authority policy and planning can enable a greater understanding of specific risks to local governments and act as a catalyst for further action.

The second chapter on defense mechanisms consists of an extensive literature review and multiple definitional, conceptual, and applied contributions. The literature review covers the major themes of adaptation, coping, and stress and defense mechanisms. The section in adaptation, coping, and stress describes recent theorizing in the field; how stress affects the body, brain, and mind; and what happens in long-term stress. That said, stress is partly related to appraisals and varies from individual to individual, depending on context, age, personal factors, and so on. The brain is described in Bayesian terms, or in terms of predictive processing based on priors and current context. As for the area of defense mechanisms, the literature indicates an active field that is using psychometrically sound instruments to discover the workings of the unconscious. The area describes the development of defense mechanisms, but not in specific relation to their emergence in the stages of development. The discussion of the chapter presents the concepts of protectivity, defensivity, and offensivity. It presents a 15-point scale of coping involving stress/mitigation/magnification. It concludes by recommending that the terms of defense mentalism, defense modality, and defense function presenting a hierarchical model with these terms and that of defense mechanism.

Cultural defense as a court strategy was developed in the countries of common law, which are characterized by contradictions of criminal proceedings and a wide scope of a party’s impact on the course of a trial. However, its appearance is not limited to any particular legal system. The subject of this chapter is a case study of a court case in which arguments based on cultural defense were raised in particular conditions—within the Polish legal system, in a country that is relatively homogeneous and in which the main process initiative is within the judges’ competence. In accordance with the characteristics of an intensive case study, the research consisted of examination of court files, which included testimony of an expert in culture, critical analysis of the text of judicial opinions and analysis of relevant media publications. Application of such multi—method approach enabled detailed consideration of the issue of admissibility of invocation of cultural defense in particular institutional and formal settings. It also depicted necessity of adaptation of the framework of the case study in reference to court case as a particular subject of research.

Novice teachers face challenges in the process of adaptation to professional activity. These problems can be caused by a heavy workload, lack of confidence in the level of professional training, lack of creativity and teaching skills, and the need to cope with a large amount of information that is not directly related to the preparation and conduct of classes. All these difficulties entail an unfavourable balance between work and personal life. The aim of the study is to identify the challenges novice university teachers face in the beginning of their career and compare the frequency of the detected problems within the groups of respondents with and without pedagogical training. 93 novice educators of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University took part in the series of surveys. The researchers applied the quantitative method to collect data using a questionnaire. The study involved quantitative data analysis containing the descriptive statistical analysis and the correlation analysis. It was found out that novice teachers face problems in professional, psychological, and motivational spheres of adaptation. The difference between the values of novice teachers with and without a teaching degree is, in most cases, statistically significant. It makes it possible to conclude that university teachers without pedagogical education need support via additional educational programmes. The research is particularly relevant for improving the professional culture of specialists in the field of education and contributes to the solution of the professional adaptation problem faced by novice educators.

In the modern technological world, the concept of creativity is associated with a timeline and a focus on the future. The accelerating change of life under the influence of high-tech changes requires new approaches to the discourse about the future. Creativity as the most “lively” and unpredictable component of technological development is difficult to define, measure, and evaluate. The rapid development of technologies has brought the creation of ideas and their implementation much closer. The most popular issue is becoming the discourse about the future in the format of foresights, which represent the programming of the future. In this study, the authors propose a direction for generating ideas other than tasks for evaluating individual divergent thinking and the foresight format. The assumption of the absence of one of the basic foundations of the existence of modern humanity was used as an incentive to generate ideas about the fate of our civilization, its problems, and opportunities. Understanding the impact of technology development on society, the ability to assess the consequences of technological decisions is an important competence of a modern engineer. The article presents a general picture of the student's answers to the question about the consequences of the absence of gravity (N = 100) and electricity (N = 150). Along with disaster scenarios, students present the solutions for adaptation, positive consequences, and options for using new opportunities. The answers trace the influence of mass culture, popular media discourse, scientific facts related to the topic, and everyday experience, which in some cases are evaluated and revised in a new context.

Managing quality in an Agile software development based on microservice architecture allows project managers to propose rules for software processes to cope with stakeholders’ requirements and expectations. On the one hand, microservice architecture faster delivery, improved scalability, and greater autonomy have to ensure that the business logic meets the requirements of the stakeholder. On the other hand, Agile methods are development processes to drive the system life cycle in terms of incremental and iterative engineering techniques. Typically, such methods are well-suited for the inclusion and adaptation of quality management principles immediately into the development life cycle. To consolidate both perspectives, this paper proposes an agile quality management model using the organization modeling techniques allowing to illustrate all processes as well as the quality management discipline in FinTech software development.

Content Agnostic Game Engineering (CAGE) architecture utilizes content agnostic mechanics to create educational games that can teach multiple contents. However, the player engagement goes down when second content is played using the same game mechanics. A content agnostic stealth assessment can aid a CAGE game in sustaining the engagement level of its players. A potentially generalizable method for this was tested using Chem-o-crypt, a CAGE game that can teach chemistry and cryptography contents. The game automatically detects frustration, flow, and boredom using the Affdex SDK from Affectiva. A randomized controlled experiment incorporating real-time game adaptation revealed that using stealth assessment can help sustain engagement in a CAGE game when playing multiple contents.

HighlightsUnderstanding and responding to the unique context and challenges of places is fundamental to the success of place-based adaptation projects.

HighlightsThere is a reduction in adaptation action despite science continuing to produce actionable material. Climate change adaptation advice and support must be salient, credible and legitimate among other things.

The long evolution process that education has been through along centuries have always been affected by how society itself has evolved, which is, in turn, influenced by events like the Industrial Revolution, the appearance of Internet or a pandemic such as the COVID-19; the most significant events in the last decades were a succession of technological breakthroughs that transformed our world and our lives, the way we live, work, teach, and learn. In this study, building on existing research and review of literature to reflect on how those significant events transformed societies and economies causing subsequent adaptation in education, we have then questioned which and how lasting were the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Literature shows that technology advances have always triggered the need to acquire new skill sets and the pandemic has only accelerated a pathway of change that technology has started, prompting solidarity, collaboration, and new ways of working and learning. Survey results indicate the effects of the pandemic in education are long-lasting and that design education will most likely follow a blended learning model in the future.

Myoelectric control of an isometric reaching task in a virtual environment allows to investigate motor adaptation after simulating a perturbation of the muscle pulling directions (virtual surgeries). Such perturbations can be compatible or incompatible with the muscle synergies involved in the generation of multidirectional forces. A recombination of the synergies can generate forces in all directions after a compatible surgery but require new synergies after an incompatible surgery. Previous work demonstrated that, in a single experimental session, subjects adapted only to a compatible perturbation. In this study, we investigated whether extended practice leads to adaptation also after an incompatible perturbation. After three daily sessions, participants who practiced the incompatible surgery improved their performance, achieving a similar performance to that of those who practiced the compatible surgery. These results suggest that extended practice with incompatible virtual surgeries allows learning how to skillfully use novel muscle patterns.

Gamification is well-known for increasing users’ motivation. This is especially important for users of web and mobile applications. However, most of the current approaches do not consider the characteristics and needs of each user. In online small communities, where the number of users and interactions is quite limited, motivation is even more important to avoid any risk of standstill and personalization may be helpful. In this paper, we propose a general framework for adaptive gamification for small online communities. The framework considers specific characteristics of users and their interactions to provide which specific game mechanics may be the most suitable for each user. As a key component of this framework, different algorithms can be used for adaptive gamification. Therefore, we tested the performance of different algorithms under simulated conditions to assess the adequateness for small online communities.

Traditional businesses are transforming into cognitive business operations with convergence of technologies such as Cloud, Big Data, Artificial Neural Networks, and Machine Learning. As businesses all around the world become more dependable on technology and handle more data, the success of the business enterprises is greatly determined by the intelligent workflows that are automated, adaptable, and self-learning. Intelligent workflows play a vital role in cognitive enterprises, and almost every business now is cloud based. The business users are depending on multi-cloud environment to get the best in breed services for their business operations. This chapter focuses on adaptation of intelligent workflows in cognitive enterprises in a multi-cloud environment. The evolution of cognitive computing and cognitive enterprise is outlined. Current approaches in workflow automation and tools and processes for automated workflow management were detailed in the chapter. The design strategies and techniques for designing intelligent workflows for multi-cloud are discussed. The challenges in adapting intelligent workflows in multi-cloud environment and multi-cloud operations are explored.

The problem of the railway infrastructure predictive diagnostics is formulated and reviewed as semi-structured and weekly formalized problem. This paper presents an approach to build evolving fuzzy systems to solve such problems. Phase space granulation and fuzzy adaptation algorithm are suggested. Effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on adaptations to cascades of bifurcations and nonlinear behavior of the logistic mapping.

The fundamentally novel approach to predictive detection of key events in time processes representing complex technical objects is proposed. It is based on detection and analysis of the growth of “precursors” preceding these events. To decide this task new methodology is proposed. The methodology is based on evolutionary fuzzy systems and incremental methods of machine learning. The evolution of fuzzy system is performed on the basis of incremental learning and adaptation under control of input data, which is continuous stream incoming into observed system. To decide the task of predictive analytics the special mechanism of structure-parametric adaptation of evolutionary fuzzy system is developed. It provide the correspondence between structural changes of a model and specific changes in development of the controlled process, which are obtained preceding key events. Such specifics are fixed in the incremental mechanism of the adaptation evolutionary system.

The paper presents some theoretical basis of the approach to knowledge representation for calculation of retarding strategy on railway hump yards. The common approach based on strict algorithms is shown. The limitations of such algorithm are proved based on the real data collected from objects of Russian railways. It is also shown that periodically some “artifacts” are arisen. Such “artifacts” are caused by NE-factors, which cannot be formalized by the accurate calculations. To decide this problem, the linguistic variables describing retarding process are developed and fuzzy model based on these variables is proposed. As the future work, it is proposed to develop fuzzy-neural network, which will allow to generate new fuzzy rules unobserved by human-experts as initial.

Existing onboard systems for processing measurement information do not always provide the necessary accuracy in estimating the parameters of movement of unmanned aerial vehicles. These errors are due to the use of kinematic motion models based on filtering algorithms, which does not allow to take into account the action of external forces on the control object.

The pandemic, produced by covid-19, gave rise to a new normal, in which education is part of that change. In certain cases, the quality of education was affected, either by factors such as deficient online teaching material, teaching issues, attention, and adaptation problems on the part of students in their online courses. To help improve performance in online education, some educational institutions have chosen to use the virtual world of Second Life to implement it in their classes, offering features that benefit learning from home, making it more didactic and enjoyable for students. The objective of this article is to find and analyze the critical success factors for the implementation of Second Life in virtual classrooms, through the construction of fuzzy cognitive maps. The use of forms aimed at students is proposed, from which the results will be evaluated and the factors that influence a quality education will be determined, building a fuzzy cognitive map for their understanding.

Operators monitoring closed-circuit television systems face many error-prone situations given the cognitive challenges they experience. The Scantracker is a prototype tool developed to support surveillance, relying on live oculometric data to trigger notifications that mitigate camera negligence, attention tunneling and vigilance decrement. To be robust and flexible, this tool must however collect valid gaze measures at a sufficient sampling rate and allow the display of surveillance-supportive visual notifications. This paper documents the integration of the Scantracker with the Microsoft HoloLens 2 augmented reality (AR) system embarked with eye tracking and reports a validity study performed in a high-fidelity surveillance simulation. The AR solution led to superior gaze validity than previous mobile or fixed oculometer integration. Implications of the solution integration are discussed and compared with the other implementations.

Laser Additive Manufacturing (LAM) has revolutionized industrial manufacturing by enabling the fabrication of lighter, stronger, complex and customized metallic parts. LAM is attractive mainly due to the various freedoms offered by the technology, like—shape design freedom, material design freedom, logistic freedom and post-processing freedom. LAM technology is considered as a green technology due to two major attributes: minimum material wastage as compared to conventional manufacturing techniques and direct conversion of 3D models to 3D components eliminating intermediate development stages. In addition, LAM possess significant potential to build highly efficient functional components with minimal life cycle impact. Thus, the wider adaptation of LAM is dependent on the sustainability of the technology, which is primarily dependent on economic, environmental and societal effects of LAM. Although LAM paves a way towards sustainability in manufacturing, achieving complete sustainability is challenging due to the use of support structures, higher energy consumption, need for post-processing, etc. Thus, assessing the environmental impact and cost-effectiveness at each stages of the life cycle of LAM built components play a significant role in wider adoption of the technology. This chapter compiles an overview of LAM technology and the various associated processes. It discusses the need for sustainability in manufacturing, the factors governing and challenging the sustainability of LAM technology. A comprehensive comparative assessment of LAM with other conventional manufacturing techniques is compiled and the various theoretical models are discussed in detail. At the end, the suggestions and future directions to improve the sustainability of LAM is deliberated. This chapter is a quick-start for novices to understand this novel technology and a reference document for researchers in the field.

People affected by conflict are particularly vulnerable to climate shocks and climate change, yet little is known about climate change adaptation in fragile contexts. While climate events are one of the many contributing drivers of conflict, feedback from conflict increases vulnerability, thereby creating conditions for a vicious cycle of conflict. In this study, we carry out a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature, taking from the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI) dataset to documenting climate change adaptation occurring in 15 conflict-affected countries and compare the findings with records of climate adaptation finance flows and climate-related disasters in each country. Academic literature is sparse for most conflict-affected countries, and available studies tend to have a narrow focus, particularly on agriculture-related adaptation in rural contexts and adaptation by low-income actors. In contrast, multilateral and bilateral funding for climate change adaptation addresses a greater diversity of adaptation needs, including water systems, humanitarian programming, and urban areas. Even among the conflict-affected countries selected, we find disparity, with several countries being the focus of substantial research and funding, and others seeing little to none. Results indicate that people in conflict-affected contexts are adapting to climate change, but there is a pressing need for diverse scholarship across various sectors that documents a broader range of adaptation types and their results.

The genetic algorithm is a well-known method of evolutionary-based optimization. It mimics evolving processes of biological organisms. Yet, one of the aspects of nature-based processes is not followed, i.e., continuous changes of organisms that results in a population containing individuals of that belong to different generations at the same time. In this paper, we present a new approach to model operations of genetic algorithms based on the idea of stream processing. The new algorithm—called On-Line Generation-less Genetic Algorithm (olgga)—allows for: continuous evaluation of individuals (chromosomes); variability in a population of individuals that eliminates boundaries between generations; a fast adaptation to changes in objectives and optimization environment, and a dynamic operational structure that facilitates parallelization of the algorithm. We present a description of the proposed algorithm and its application to a knapsack optimization problem.

The crisis conditions of 2020 determined the vector of development of the service sector, activating the development of digital transformation. At the same time, the modern trend in the development of management systems is the use of the lean approach. The relevance of the research subject is due to the fact that now many companies are actively using and developing management systems based on the lean methodology and the simultaneous application of new digital technologies, while the issues of transformation of management systems in the healthcare sector are not sufficiently disclosed in modern research. Thus, the adaptation of medical institutions to the above conditions occurs with some difficulties. The aim of the study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the stages of synchronization of the digital transformation of health care organizations based on the application of the lean methodology in the context of goals and key systems with a description of specific implementation cases in various countries. Research methods: comparative analysis by the descriptive method; generalization of case studies of health care organizations in various countries. The analysis of foreign experience made it possible to identify the main directions of digital transformation of medical institutions based on the lean approach. The need for an integrated approach to digital transformation is stated. It has been established that digital transformation covers all components of the lean approach implementation and is a tool for achieving the goals of lean production in medical organizations.

The main objective of this work is to select the best parameters to be dynamically adjusted in the Cuckoo Search via Levy Flight (CS) Algorithm using interval type 2 fuzzy logic. The main objective is to dynamically change the parameters, our fuzzy will include a Mamdani type system that will include an input and output to dynamically adjust the algorithm and improve the performance of the optimized CS algorithm. In order to demonstrate the performance and results of the algorithm, the comparison is made between the original algorithm, type 1 fuzzy logic and type, tests were performed with benchmark mathematical functions. The results of the simulation shows that the proposed algorithm has good results with respect to using type-1 fuzzy logic in CS or using the original CS algorithm without parameter adaptation. Levy flights are used in the algorithm with the intention of exploring solutions and randomness solutions in space.