Fermatean Fuzzy DEMATEL and MMDE Algorithm for Modelling the Barriers of Implementing Education 4.0: Insights from the Philippines

Technological transitions in the education sector of developing economies are faced with a range of barriers, involving resource scarcity, socio-cultural concerns, and issues related to management and policy. The popularity of Industry 4.0 has prompted Education 4.0 (EDUC4), an approach to learning that involves transformation using advanced technologies. While a recent work reported a comprehensive list of barriers to EDUC4 implementation, particularly in developing economies, further analysis to identify those priority barriers remains a gap. Thus, this work addresses this gap by introducing a novel methodological extension of the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method following the integration of Fermatean fuzzy sets (FFS). The FFS, compared to other fuzzy environments, could capture higher levels of uncertainties that are associated when eliciting judgments necessary for the DEMATEL. Such integration is aided by the maximum mean de-entropy (MMDE) algorithm, which analytically determines the threshold value crucial for constructing the prominence-relation map of the DEMATEL. Following its application in evaluating the implementation of EDUC4 in Philippine universities, the critical barriers are the lack of training resources, costs, insufficiency of available technologies, skills gap of human resources, knowledge gap, and the complexity of the learning platforms. Among this set, barriers related to cost and lack of training resources are deemed the most prominent ones. The statistical test on the impact of addressing the two prominent barriers shows that addressing the barrier related to costs yields statistically more favorable results regarding the mitigation of other EDUC4 implementation barriers. Although these insights may contain idiosyncrasies, they can serve as starting points of discussion in other relevant developing economies. These methodological and practical contributions advance the development of analytical tools under uncertainty that can handle pressing problems such as the EDUC4 implementation.

The Role of Resources in the Success or Failure of Diverse Teams: Resource Scarcity Activates Negative Performance-Detracting Resource Dynamics in Social Category Diverse Teams

Increasing the social category diversity of work teams is top of mind for many organizations. However, such efforts may not always be sufficiently resourced, given the numerous resource demands facing organizations. In this paper, we offer a novel take on the relationship between social category diversity and team performance, seeking to understand the role resources may play in both altering and explaining the performance dynamics of diverse teams. Specifically, our resource framework explains how the effects of social category diversity on team performance can be explained by intrateam resource cognitions and behaviors and are dependent on team resource availability. We propose that in the face of scarcity in a focal resource (i.e., budget), diverse (but not homogenous) teams generalize this scarcity perception to fear that all resources (i.e., staff, time, etc.) are scarce, prompting performance-detracting power struggles over resources within the team. We find support for our model in three multimethod team-level studies, including two laboratory studies of interacting teams and a field study of work teams in research and development firms. Our resource framework provides a new lens to study the success or failure of diverse teams by illuminating a previously overlooked danger in diverse teams (negative resource cognitions (scarcity spillover bias) and behaviors (intrateam power struggles)), which offers enhanced explanatory power over prior explanations. This resource framework for the study of team diversity also yields insight into how to remove the roadblocks that may occur in diverse teams, highlighting the necessity of resource sufficiency for the success of diverse teams.

Building Performance Simulations and Architects against Climate Change and Energy Resource Scarcity

In Europe, 40% of the total energy is consumed by buildings; in this sense, building performance simulation tools (BPSTs) play a key role; however, the use of these tools by architects is deficient. Therefore, this study aims to detect the architects’ perception on BPSTs. To this end, an online survey was conducted to determine the selection criteria of these BPSTs and non-users, to investigate the reasons for not using the tools. The outcomes showed that there was a wide gap between architects and the management of simulation programs in Spain, mainly due to the lack of training. BPSTs are described as a kind of intellect amplifiers, as they are perceived as powerful allies between professors and students of architecture and between architects and architectural design; therefore, through BPSTs, sustainability is taken very much into consideration to make buildings more energy efficient. Therefore, it is primarily concluded that further and higher education must undergo significant improvement to use simulations as part of the architectural design.

Architecture with childhood. Rethinking and reflecting on public spaces seen through the 8-80 lens

Bringing children closer to the issues of culture and civic education in architecture and critical thinking is essential because only by knowing and enhancing their respective heritages is it possible to appreciate the present and build the future of cities with them and for them, where a city is a place of construction of collective knowledge that encompasses the challenges of sustainability and the objectives of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations. From SUJ (Jesuit University System) we have a strong commitment to the protection and care of minors and vulnerable people. In recent years, a great effort has been made to move from a culture of protection and care to ensure access to culture to safe environments. The concept of Friendly Cities 8-80is taken up again, based on the premise: If we design the city for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old, we will have a city that allows coexistence and harmony in a way that fosters equity, stimulates healthy lifestyles, and promotes sustainability for more diverse users. Good public space design including beauty, sustainability, and accessibility are keywords of the new Bauhaus, capable of astonishing, reflecting culture and the values of a community, influencing, or “forcing” people to engage with their daily environment to address the new global challenges of climate change, pollution, and resource scarcity.

Features of Digitalization in the Construction Industry as an Important Factor of Its Sustainable Development

This article determines that in the context of global digitalization, the competitiveness and sustainable development of companies depend on the speed of mastering new technologies. Assessment of the current level of the construction industry indicates its lag behind other industries. The aim of the study is to analyze the current level of digitalization of construction companies and summarize the constraining factors. The importance of continuous digitization of production and logistics, networking of autonomous smart objects or the use of self-learning systems in order to increase flexibility and optimize processes is emphasized. The main benefit of implementing digital business models is reducing the time it takes to make decisions, implement a project, and bring products to market. The factors holding back digital processes at the construction site are highlighted: a high proportion of manual production, over-regulation, dependence on the public sector and cyclical changes, the scale of the company. New technologies resulting from the fourth industrial revolution promise more efficient processes, greater time and cost savings, greater productivity and quality. The construction industry must catch up with other industries, because it also has to face the challenges of globalization, urbanization, climate change, resource scarcity, demographic change and other events that disrupt its sustainable development. Construction Site 4.0 promises improvements, but the fourth industrial revolution on the construction site is just beginning.