Towards Sustainable and Smart Cities: Replicable and KPI-Driven Evaluation Framework

Sustainability is pivotal in the urban transformation strategy in order to reach more resource-efficient, resilient and smarter cities. The goal of being a sustainable city should drive the decisions for city interventions. Nonetheless, impacts need to be quantified, lacking of standard and/or common methodologies that could be replicable across multiple cities. There exist many initiatives aiming at defining indicators and assessment procedures, but without convergence in the definition of terms and application methodologies, making complex its real implementation. Within mySMARTLife project (GA#731297), a KPI-driven evaluation framework is defined with the aim of covering the multiple pillars of a city (i.e. energy, mobility, citizens, economy) in a holistic way. This methodology also defines the concepts and terms to guide urban planners and/or experts at time of implementing the framework in a specific city. The evaluation framework has been deployed in the three cities of Nantes, Hamburg and Helsinki and some lessons learnt have been extracted, such as the necessity of providing a definition of measurement boundary to avoid interpretations. Thanks to a co-creation strategy, the main difficulties and issues from the cities have been taken into consideration for increasing the replicability.

What Did We Learn?

Assessment is critical to effectively implementing interdisciplinary pedagogy in higher education. We developed an interdisciplinary project for an Introduction to Psychology and Introduction to Criminal Justice learning community at an urban community college. The semester-long project involved completing a series of lessons and assignments in both courses. The study objective was to evaluate the extent to which the interdisciplinary project supported students’ learning, with attention to their academic skill development, progress on course learning outcomes, and academic progress in the psychology course. Data procedures included summative assessment of final paper submissions and collection of final paper grades and final grades in the psychology course across two cohorts of learning community students. Findings suggest the interdisciplinary project positively supported students’ academic skill development, progress on course learning outcomes, and overall success in the psychology course. These findings demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary teaching and assessment. We offer the interdisciplinary project and assessment procedures presented here as models for higher education faculty interested in interdisciplinary pedagogical approaches.

Computerized Dynamic Assessment as a Potential Inclusive Assessment Tool for Reading Comprehension

The dynamic assessment concept dates back to the sociocultural understating of Vygotsky. Dynamic assessment is a new perspective that combines instruction and assessment procedures while assessing students. In a more recent perspective, computerized dynamic assessment provides electronic mediations to the students when the wrong answer emerges. In this regard, C-DA offers an inclusive way of assessment. This study aims to investigate the effect of C-DA on the reading comprehension performances of the students. To achieve this goal, the C-DA application was implemented for 92 participants, and their performances were recorded. After the implementation, the actual, mediated, and learner potential scores of participants were calculated and then tabulated to the SPSS program. Wilcoxon signed-rank and descriptive analysis were used to analyze the results. The findings of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the actual and mediated scores of students.

Technical – organizational measures for classifying pyrotechnic articles

Pyrotechnic articles shall be classified by manufacturers according to their type of use, their purpose and their level of risk, including their noise level, and the notified bodies shall confirm the classification as part of the conformity assessment procedures. In accordance with the relevant national legislation, the national authority must take all appropriate measures to ensure that pyrotechnic articles do not endanger the health and safety of persons. If the national market surveillance authority has sufficient reasons to consider that a pyrotechnic article poses a risk to the health, safety of persons or other aspects of the protection of the public interest, it shall carry out an assessment of the pyrotechnic article concerned. INCD INSEMEX Petrosani is an accredited institution, to carry out such technical expertise according to the legislation in force harmonized with the European regulations, having also adequate modern facilities for fulfilling the requirements of the standards in the field. The paper also highlights the results of the modernization of the methodological and practical infrastructure as well as the technical facilities that underlie the substantiation of the new approach in terms of optimizing and increasing the quality of the process.

Examining Ease and Challenges in Tele-Assessment of Children Using Slosson Intelligence Test

As the world came to terms with the longevity of the COVID-19 crisis, there came a mass migration towards tele-health services which included tele-assessments. Practitioners argued that delaying assessments would mean a delay in provision of services. Therefore wherever possible, assessment procedures were modified to cater to an online setting including assessment of cognitive abilities. With its many advantages tele-assessment brings many unpredictable challenges. In this study we tried to explore those by administering the Slosson Intelligence Test-third edition (Slosson, 2006) on a sample of 29 school going children ranging in age from 6 to 16 years old, via Zoom. Observations were divided into two categories, that is, logistical and practical. Results showed that technology improves accessibility of services and solves many logistical problems such as availability of testing venues, and makes communication easier. However, practicality was hindered as the testing environment was less controlled and factors such as internet disruptions, limitations in observations, and presence of other people and things in the household may adversely affect the scores. Moreover, virtual fatigue could be a factor that practitioners need to consider.

Authentic Project-Based Learning in Times of Crisis

The shift to an online learning environment during the Covid-19 outbreak has not been conducive enough for either active learning or fair assessment procedures that yield valid results. Accordingly, this research paper aims to investigate the extent to which Authentic Project-Based Learning engages students and hence provides a valid assessment of students’ genuine performance and proficiency during online learning in EFL communication and Intensive English courses. Using a mixed-methods design, the researchers employed the self-completion questionnaires and focus group interviews to collect their data from their 100-purposively –selected participants. The findings showed promising results in terms of engaging students in the learning process, curbing online cheating, and ensuring reliable and valid assessments of students’ performance. These results are significant in providing a pedagogical approach to be adopted by EFL educators during and after the pandemic.

Learning, translating, and applying the perceive, recall, plan, perform system of task analysis assessment to practice: Occupational therapists’ experiences

Introduction This study explored occupational therapists’ experiences of embedding the Perceive, Recall, Plan, Perform System of Task Analysis (PRPP) assessment in practice and gained understandings of the clinical utility. Methods Qualitative interpretive description research using data from semi-structured interviews with 11 New Zealand registered occupational therapists and a focus group with two Māori occupational therapists. Thematic data analysis was used to develop themes. Results Five themes emerged: Resonating with practice as it should be, Translating to practice, Communicating assessment findings using an occupational performance focus on cognition, Validating the practice fit and Cultural application. Participants described the PRPP assessment as a flexible tool, which was applied in different ways in varied practice settings, with clients performing a range of culturally specific occupations. Embedding the assessment in practice was an involved process that challenged many participants’ existing assessment procedures and included managing team expectations to perform cognitive-based assessments. Conclusions The PRPP assessment added value to occupational therapists’ practice. Effective implementation of the assessment required a secure occupation-focused perspective and client-centred culturally responsive communication skills. Commitment was needed to both adopt a new assessment process and to communicate occupation-based assessment results. Participants connected as social learners to address practice challenges post-training.

Defining different types of assessment systems and assessment procedures in the context of historical development

Introduction. The authors investigate a wide range of assessment systems in modern education. They analyze and compare changes in educational assessment procedures, taking into account the periodization of their development and modern requirements and standards. The purpose of the article is to identify and clarify various types of assessment systems and assessment procedures in the context of historical development. Materials and Methods. This theoretical research includes analysis, comparison, and generalization of Russian and international studies on the development of assessment systems based on the concept of the historical and socio-cultural determination of education. The study follows systemic, learner-centered and activity-based approaches in order to present the dynamics of the development of educational assessment as a system comprising interconnected parts and socio-psychological factors. Results. The authors clarified the essence of the dual nature of educational assessment as a didactic and socio-psychological phenomenon. They described the relationship between assessment procedures and the quality of modern education. The study identified the main periods in the development of educational assessment based on the criteria for changing the requirements for the content of education, as well as changes in the assessment system regarding tasks, methods, forms of assessment, point scales and methods of motivation. The authors have developed and justified the historical periodization of educational assessment, which includes eight main stages. The main types of assessment including partial assessment, effective assessment, systemic assessment, standardized assessment, formative assessment, summative assessment, evaluation for management, and rating assessment have been identified and described. Conclusions. The article concludes that modern education implements eight main types of assessment, which have been developed in a historical context. At the same time, standardization of education is considered as the main trend in the formation of assessment systems.

Quality of the working environment

For the individual and for society, human life and health are great values, which are often particularly difficult or impossible to measure, though they are irreplaceable values. Even in the oldest historical stages of the development and life of society, many important doctors and scientists were interested in the social aspects of health care, e.g. Hippocrates, Aristotle, Avicenna. Paracelsus († 1541, Swiss philosopher and physician) and Georgius Agricola († 1555, German chemist and mineralogist). Based on their own experience gained from daily contact with workers and their working environment, they examined disorders caused by the harmful factors of the working environment and working processes. The ever-changing world of work increasingly brings new risks into working processes, which are directly related to the work performed by employees. As part of the EU-OSHA (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work) strategy to increase health and safety at work, the European Risk Observatory called on EU Member States to improve the detection of these risks in the working environment. Considering the above, the authors of this article have set themselves the goal of mapping the current situation in the area of the creation, protection and quality management of the working environment. They describe general requirements for protecting occupational health and safety, mainly in Slovakia. They are convinced that current developments present the need to know as much as possible about the living and working environments, to have a thorough knowledge of working conditions and all the factors that affect the health of employees, to know and choose assessment procedures to reduce the negative effects of these factors to a minimum. It is important that we keep in mind that healthy working conditions are among the most valuable assets of individuals, communities and nations.

Assessing the Believability of Computer Players in Video Games: A New Protocol and Computer Tool

In this paper, we address the challenge of believability in multiplayer video games. Our contribution is a system for assessing the believability of computer players. The state of the art examines existing methods and identifies seven distinguishing features that differ considerably from one assessment to the next. Our investigation reveals that assessment procedures typically alter gameplay, posing a considerable danger of bias. This is a major flaw since computer players are evaluated in a specific context rather than in the context of the game as it should be played, potentially skewing the findings of the evaluation. As a result, we begin on a trial-and-error process, with each new proposal building on the achievements of the previous one while removing the flaws. New proposals are tested with new assessments, a total of three experiments are then presented. We created a computer program that partially automates the execution of the assessment procedure, making these trials easier to implement. At the end, thanks to our proposal, gamers can assess the believability of computer players indirectly by employing reporting forms that alert users to the presence of bots. We assume that the more a bot is reported, the less credible it becomes. We ran a final experiment to test our proposal, which yielded extremely encouraging results.