Evaluation of rare-earth sesquioxides nanoparticles as a bottom-up strategy toward the formation of functional structures

Background: The strategy to form functional structures based on powder technology relies on the concept of nanoparticles characteristics. Rare-earth sesquioxides (RE2O3; RE as Y, Tm, Eu) exhibit remarkable properties, and their fields of application cover energy, astronomy, environmental, medical, information technology, industry, and materials science. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the RE2O3 nanoparticles characteristics as a bottom-up strategy to form functional materials for radiation dosimetry. Methods: The RE2O3 nanoparticles were characterized by the following techniques: XRD, SEM, PCS, FTIR, ICP, EPR, and zeta potential. Results: All RE2O3 samples exhibited cubic C-type structure in accordance with the sesquioxide diagram, chemical composition over 99.9%, monomodal mean particle size distribution, in which (d50) was inferior than 130nm. Among all samples, only yttrium oxide exhibited EPR signal, in which the most intense peak was recorded at 358mT and g 1.9701. Conclusion: The evaluation of nanoparticle characteristics is extremely important taking into account a bottom-up strategy to form functional materials. The RE2O3 nanoparticles exhibited promising characteristics for application in radiation dosimetry.

Analysis of CSR effort affect on company results and employee awareness

Introduction. The article explores several factors of corporate social responsibility (CSR) influencing various aspects of a company, including profitability, efficiency and employee attitude and wellbeing, further focusing on employee CSR awareness. Approximately Aim and tasks. The aim of the article is to determine how companies CSR efforts are affecting the company results and employee awareness, with discussion of latest available researches from 2020 and to date, including an analysis of employee awareness in a selected company in Latvia during 2020. A quantitative method is used in this study, using a questionnaire for analysis of Atea Global Services Ltd employee CSR awareness, conducted by the companies CSR Ambassadors team. Data was collected from the internal survey conducted among employees of the Atea Group company in Latvia, with the total of 108 company employed participants out of 465 existing employees. The main tasks of the article are 1) to indicate and discuss possible outcomes of companies CSR efforts and employee awareness based on existing recent researches; 2) to understand whether employees were aware of the existing “CSR Ambassadors” initiative in Atea Global Services Ltd. (AGS) based on the conducted survey; 3) to determine the employee level of knowledge of the general CSR concept and company’s CSR initiatives based on their self-evaluation. Results. The article provides several theoretical aspects of CSR effort outcomes, including increased profitability, customer satisfaction, employee retention and an overall positive company image. Findings show that the employees of Atea Global Services are largely aware of the CSR Ambassadors initiative, but show a lack of understanding of the performed activities due to moderate level of internal communication on the subject. Conclusions. The theoretical research indicate several positive aspects for companies to support their CSR efforts as well as some possible implications. Theoretical research results may be applied to understand CSR efforts in various industries, however, the practical example of employee awareness research is limited to a single company in the information technology industry and requires further research for wider application.

Response of Information Technology Companies in Europe to the World Health Organization's Announcement of the COVID-19 Pandemic

From the beginning of 2020, the whole world has been shaken by a contagious disease called Covid-19, its actual name being SARS-CoV-2. It first appeared in China, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in December 2019, and the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed about it on the 31st of December 2019. On the 11th of March, 2020, WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic, and no country has been able to contain this coronavirus. This medical or health crisis evolved into a pandemic and led to a global economic crisis. This study investigates the wealth effect of the coronavirus pandemic announcement on the Information Technology Industry companies in Europe. We apply the classical event study methodology. Our sample contained 87 companies. The results show a strong negative reaction of information technology companies upon this announcement. The European investors perceived this announcement as a negative signal that will disturb the lives of everyone and will create economic instabilities and havoc in all sectors of an economy. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Computational Thinking for an Inclusive World: A Resource for Educators to Learn and Lead

Technology is becoming more integral across professional fields and within our daily lives, especially since the onset of the pandemic. As such, opportunities to learn computational thinking are important to all students—not only the ones who will eventually study computer science or enter the information technology industry. However, large inequalities continue to exist in access to equipment and learning opportunities needed to build computational thinking skills for students that experience marginalization. We call all educators to integrate computational thinking into disciplinary learning across PreK-12 education, while centering inclusivity, to equip students with the skills they need to participate in our increasingly technological world and promote justice for students and society at large. This report issues two calls to action for educators to design inclusive computing learning opportunities for students: (1) integrate computational thinking into disciplinary learning, and (2) build capacity for computational thinking with shared leadership and professional learning. Inspired by the frameworks, strategies, and examples of inclusive computational thinking integration, readers can take away practical implications to reach learners in their contexts.

Improving business model disclosure in the annual report: Insights from an interventionist research project

Responding to the calls for empirical research on the extent and nature of business model reporting, this paper has the purpose to assess the quality of busi-ness model disclosure. To accomplish this purpose, the study takes advantage of an interventionist research project that was conducted in an Italian listed compa-ny operating in the information technology industry to investigate how the busi-ness model was disclosed in the annual report and provide feedback to support possible changes. The study uses a framework of analysis that helped to assess the quality of business model disclosure in terms of three attributes: amount, spread and connectivity. The annual report of two consecutive fiscal years was analyzed. The study mainly shows that the measurement and assessment of BM disclo-sure quality can facilitate its improvement. The analysis enabled meaningful in-sights on BM's quality to emerge, delivering evidence on the relative importance, coverage and interconnections of BM's disclosed components. Further, the inter-ventionist approach helped to shape managers' view on how to tackle disclosure issues and offer more effective communication of the BM according to the com-pany purposes.

Tacit knowledge sharing and creative performance: a transformative learning perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between tacit knowledge-sharing and creative performance of employees from a transformative learning perspective. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses Structural Equation Modeling to analyze data collected from 440 employees working in Information Technology industry, using a survey-based questionnaire. Findings The dimensions of tacit knowledge-sharing - tacit knowledge-seeking and tacit knowledge-contribution, positively affect employees' creative performance. Further, an individual’s bisociative cognitive style reinforces the positive association between tacit knowledge-sharing and employee creativity. Originality/value The study contributes to the field of knowledge management by using a new theoretical lens, Transformative Learning Theory, to examine how tacit knowledge-sharing adds value to knowledge workers in terms of enhancing their creativity.

Spatial shifts in migration governance: Public-private alliances in Swedish immigration administration

Non-state actors are increasingly involved in enforcing immigration policies. Of late, there has been growing recognition that greater involvement of non-state actors has contributed to reconfiguring migration governance in a spatial sense. Scalar literature conceptualises the involvement of non-state actors as a move by immigration authorities to use actors beyond the state to enforce immigration policies. Network-inspired analysis, on the other hand, draws attention to attempts by non-state actors to form alliances in order to influence immigration policy. In this paper, we set out to show that other spatial shifts are at play in contemporary migration governance. In order to make sense of these spatial shifts, we advance a reading of migration governance which aims to show how efforts to manage migration are the result of, and result in, strategic attempts by state and non-state actors to enrol others, establish a sense of presence and build relationships of proximity and reach. We provide one example of this, involving an administrative alliance between a Swedish government agency and two intermediary actors in labour migration: employers in the information-technology industry and immigration service providers. By drawing attention to spatial shifts in migration governance such as this, new light can be shed on the ways in which the governance of migration recasts relationships between state and non-state actors.

A Study for Advanced Visualization of Sensing Data & Meta Data based WSN

As the 5G environment is established due to the development of network and information and network technologies, wireless sensor network is drawing attention as a technology that will lead the information technology industry in the future. The sensor-based service must collect and process data recognized from various sensors and deliver information to users to understand. However, there is no research to visually express information about sensor resources to make it easier for users to understand. Therefore, this research proposes an efficient visualization model that is both realistic and economical. Then, we designed a scenario applied to real life and built a webpage.