3D Scanning/Printing: A Technological Stride in Sculpture

The creation of innovative tools, objects and artifacts that introduce abstract ideas in the real world is a necessary step for the evolution process and characterize the creative capacity of civilization. Sculpture is based on the available technology for its creation process and is strongly related to the level of technological sophistication of each era. This paper analyzes the evolution of basic sculpture techniques (carving, lost-wax casting and 3D scanning/printing), and their importance as a culture footprint. It also presents and evaluates the added creative capacities of each technological step and the different methods of 3D scanning/printing concerning sculpture. It is also an attempt to define the term “material poetics”, which is connected to sculpture artifacts. We conclude that 3D scanning/printing is an important sign of civilization, although artifacts lose a part of material poetics with additive manufacturing. Subsequently, there are various causes of the destruction of sculptures, leaving a hole in the history of art. Finally, this paper showcases the importance of 3D scanning/printing in salvaging cultural heritage, as it has radically altered the way we “backup” objects.

Ecuadorian and Uruguayan teachers' perceptions and experiences of teaching online during COVID

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic is a unique event that forced K-12 schools to rethink the delivery of instruction to protect the well-being of school system stakeholders. Teachers, school administrators and parents had to adapt to and embrace new ways of teaching and learning by utilizing available technology. The purpose of this study is to examine the challenges encountered by in-service teachers when moving from face-to-face to online teaching.Design/methodology/approachThis study utilized a qualitative phenomenological research methodology to examine Ecuadorian and Uruguayan teachers' perceptions and experiences transitioning from face-to-face to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. This comparative study used convenience sampling to include 12 K-12 teachers from Ecuador and Uruguay.FindingsThe results of this study produced two themes that evidenced the demands placed on educators. The first theme was job demands, relating to teachers' perceptions about workload, preparation time and curriculum issues. The second theme related to available support provided by the school administrators and technology issues faced by teachers and students. Even though the teachers demonstrated adaptability for educating students during the pandemic, the experiences from both countries should be considered by teacher training programs and in post-graduate professional development.Originality/valueThis article examined how COVID-19 affected teachers in Uruguay and Ecuador. Data analysis documented the challenges encountered by teachers transitioning to online learning during the pandemic. The findings inform a larger audience about the needs of teachers working online.

Leveraging Financial Inclusion Through Technology-Enabled Services Innovation

The majority of the Indian population is not getting the advantages of inclusive growth and development in India, referred to as financial inclusion and has become a challenge for the Indian economy. The paper aims to investigate the use of available technology-enabled financial services and their role for financial inclusion in the current COVID 19 situation and the reaching rural and semi-urban India. The research is based on the in-depth analysis of the government policies and Fintech in the light of India's situation during COVID 19. The study reveals that the government showed the intent by opening a vast amount of banking accounts (411 million accounts) for financial inclusion in around six years. With radical changes in mobile subscribers and 4G, Internet, and Smartphone growth, India is close to achieving financial inclusion with full potential. However, significant change and development can be attained only if the government provides and motivates citizens to adopt the innovation services for financial inclusion.

Towards an Effective Imaging-Based Decision Support System for Skin Cancer

The usage of expert systems to aid in medical decisions has been employed since 1980s in distinct applications. With the high demands of medical care and limited human resources, these technologies are required more than ever. Skin cancer has been one of the pathologies with higher growth, which suffers from lack of dermatology experts in most of the affected geographical areas. A permanent record of examination that can be further analyzed are medical imaging modalities. Most of these modalities were also assessed along with machine learning classification methods. It is the aim of this research to provide background information about skin cancer types, medical imaging modalities, data mining and machine learning methods, and their application on skin cancer imaging, as well as the disclosure of a proposal of a multi-imaging modality decision support system for skin cancer diagnosis and treatment assessment based in the most recent available technology. This is expected to be a reference for further implementation of imaging-based clinical support systems.

Informal Communication in a Formal Context

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in integrating mobile technologies into the formal system in the field of formal education and, in particular, higher education. Furthermore, due to the circumstances caused by the pandemic panorama that extended to most countries in the world in 2020, various sectors, in which education is included, were forced to reinvent and transform themselves in order to adapt to emergency remote education. What the authors propose with this chapter is to make an analysis of the state of the art on the theme of informal communication in the educational context, and particularly in higher education, with the use of the available technology, namely mobile media. Through a literature review already initiated in previous studies, it is intended to know the national and international panorama about the use of mobile applications in the context of higher education and in what way the devices traditionally conceived for informal communication are being used and adapted to a formal context.

Evaluation of Fixational Behavior throughout Life

Background: To quantify development of gaze stability throughout life during short and long fixational tasks using eye tracking technology. Methods: Two hundred and fifty-nine participants aged between 5 months and 77 years were recruited along the study. All participants underwent a complete ophthalmological assessment. Fixational behavior during long and short fixational tasks was analyzed using a DIVE (Device for an Integral Visual Examination), a digital test assisted with eye tracking technology. The participants were divided into ten groups according to their age. Group 1, 0–2 years; group 2, 2–5 years; group 3, 5–10 years; group 4, 10–20 years; group 5, 20–30 years; group 6, 30–40 years; group 7, 40–50 years; group 8, 50–60 years; group 9, 60–70 years; and group 10, over 70 years. Results: Gaze stability, assessed by logBCEA (log-transformed bivariate contour ellipse area), improved with age from 5 months to 30 years (1.27 vs. 0.57 deg2 for long fixational task, 0.73 vs. −0.04 deg2 for short fixational task), while fixations tend to be longer (1.95 vs. 2.80 msec for long fixational tasks and 0.80 vs. 1.71 msec for short fixational tasks). All fixational outcomes worsened progressively from the fifth decade of life. Log-transformed bivariate contour ellipse area (0.79, 0.83, 0.91, 1.42 deg2 for long fixational task and 0.01, 0.18, 0.28, 0.44 deg2 for short fixational task, for group 7, 8, 9, and 10 respectively). Stimuli features may influence oculomotor performance, with smaller stimuli providing prolonged fixations. Conclusions: Fixational behavior can be accurately assessed from 5 months of age using a DIVE. We report normative data of gaze stability and duration of fixations for every age group. Currently available technology may increase the accuracy of our visual assessments at any age.

Dynamic spectrum management using frequency selection at licensed and unlicensed bands for efficient vehicle-to-vehicle communication

Background: The exponential increase in pattern of vehicles on the roads demands a need to develop a vehicular infrastructure that may not only ease congestions and provide a better experience but also pivot the levels of safety among users. The development of wireless technology has made it convenient for machines, devices and vehicles to interact with one another. The efficacy of this wireless communications relies on utilising current and available technology to enable information to be shared efficiently. In the wake of the available advancement in wireless technology, a new dynamic spectrum management (DSM) in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication that coexists with the existing Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network to increase the throughput in V2V communication is proposed. This will provide some solutions to enable a more efficient vehicular infrastructure. Methods: This paper focuses on the utilization of DSM in V2V communications by selecting an appropriate frequency band through the selection of available licensed and unlicensed frequency bands for vehicles. Further investigations are done to identify the effect of interference in the dynamic spectrum by observing the path loss, SINR, and the throughput with various interfering users. Results: The results show that the performance of the proposed DSM augments a significant improvement in the overall throughput and the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) value is reduced by up to 60% when compared to the fixed spectrum allocation. Conclusions: Although the dynamic spectrum is still affected by the interference from the existing cellular users, the throughput of the dynamic spectrum remains sufficient to transmit the information to other vehicles.

Crop Agnostic Monitoring Driven by Deep Learning

Farmers require diverse and complex information to make agronomical decisions about crop management including intervention tasks. Generally, this information is gathered by farmers traversing their fields or glasshouses which is often a time consuming and potentially expensive process. In recent years, robotic platforms have gained significant traction due to advances in artificial intelligence. However, these platforms are usually tied to one setting (such as arable farmland), or algorithms are designed for a single platform. This creates a significant gap between available technology and farmer requirements. We propose a novel field agnostic monitoring technique that is able to operate on two different robots, in arable farmland or a glasshouse (horticultural setting). Instance segmentation forms the backbone of this approach from which object location and class, object area, and yield information can be obtained. In arable farmland, our segmentation network is able to estimate crop and weed at a species level and in a glasshouse we are able to estimate the sweet pepper and their ripeness. For yield information, we introduce a novel matching criterion that removes the pixel-wise constraints of previous versions. This approach is able to accurately estimate the number of fruit (sweet pepper) in a glasshouse with a normalized absolute error of 4.7% and an R2 of 0.901 with the visual ground truth. When applied to cluttered arable farmland scenes it improves on the prior approach by 50%. Finally, a qualitative analysis shows the validity of this agnostic monitoring algorithm by supplying decision enabling information to the farmer such as the impact of a low level weeding intervention scheme.

Best Available Technology for P-Recycling from Sewage Sludge—An Overview of Sewage Sludge Composting in Austria

In order to close the phosphorus cycle in the long term, efficient recycling processes are necessary to ensure that this critical nutrient can be returned to arable land. Sewage sludge recycling is of particular importance due to the relatively high phosphorus content of sewage sludge. In this article, the current recycling paths of Austrian sewage sludge are highlighted, focusing on the advantages and limitations of sewage sludge composting. In addition to nutrient contents, pollutant loads were also analyzed in order to also discuss the limitations of this recycling pathway. Therefore, data from Austrian composting plants with focus on sewage sludge are used. The results show that the currently relevant pollutants (heavy metals) are predominantly below the limits prescribed for recycling and spreading on arable land. However, in order to decide on a recycling path at an early stage, a pollutant monitoring system must be in place. Due to pollution, mono-incineration with subsequent phosphorus recovery is also currently being discussed in Austria. Mono-incineration can represent an important component of sewage sludge disposal, because some sewage sludges are not suitable for composting due to potential environmental hazards. Therefore, it is important that evidence-based limit values and measures for the reduction in pollutants for input sources are determined.

Digitalization of state environmental management: Legal aspects

This article discusses the features of the digital transformation of the following state functions: information support in the field of environmental protection, state accounting in the field of environmental protection, regulation in the field of environmental protection (in terms of the use of the best available technologies), state environmental supervision, and administration of fees for negative environmental impact (NVOS). It is proved that the data of the state register of objects of negative impact, formed as a result of the state accounting of objects that have a negative impact on the environment, the implementation of state environmental supervision, and the administration of fees for NWOS should become the basis for making environmentally significant decisions. To expand the scope of use of this information, it is proposed to ensure the interoperability of the state register data. In addition, the authors come to the conclusion that digitalization of technological rationing based on the best available technologies (hereinafter also BAT) is associated with the use of such technologies as data turnover regulation, experimental legal regimes (regulatory sandboxes) and assessment of the compliance of the applied technology with the best available technology. Moreover, when implementing state environmental supervision, inspections should be planned based on the hazard category of objects of negative impact and when conducting inspections, remote control methods should be used. It is also essential to introduce electronic test sheets for self-checking enterprises. Finally, the digitalization of calculating and collecting fees for NVOS should ensure the smooth functioning of calculating fees by the payer in digital format and control over the correctness of calculation and collection by the supervisory authority.