Southeastern Louisiana University is a medium sized university located in Hammond, Louisiana with approximately 14,000 students and ranks 59th best affordable Information Technology Program in the United States. Over the course of many years, what is now known as the “Industry Connect Initiative” (ICI) has been developed. The ICI is a four-pronged approach to connect students to real-world-ready skills and relevant topics. The four prongs of the ICI are the industry advisory board (IAB), internship program, distinguished lecturer series (DLS), and real-world curriculum opportunities (a.k.a. “Project classes”). In addition to the ICI, support from the university’s Career Services Department and Workforce Talent Initiative completes the suite of resources resulting in graduates being highly sought after for employment.

While numerous implementations of real-world ready courses and project courses are widely available, the focus is only on the “capstone” or “major project”. Even if the capstone course is multi-semester, this approach is limited as the real-world application occurs only at the end of the degree program. This paper details the ICI curriculum opportunity, a unique approach that incorporates these real-world experiences throughout a student’s educational experience at a variety of difficulty levels, beginning in the third semester and culminating in the final semester in the Capstone course.

This study compares students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of four different class settings: face-to-face, synchronous online, asynchronous online, and hybrid. The results directly show us how students compare the four types of teaching and learning formats. Overall, students like the traditional face-to-face class the most and the asynchronous online class the least. Furthermore, students feel the hybrid class is most flexible while the face-to-face class has the least flexibility.

Design thinking mindset is integrated within various fields. It became essential for any organization to develop individuals’ design thinking mindset due to the positive impact on the whole organization. Design thinking should be an essential component of pre-service teachers’ programs where teachers are facilitators to learning and designers of the learning environment. This study aims to pilot the use of interactive technology in developing preservice teachers’ design thinking mindsets. The participants are pre-service teachers in a university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A quantitative study using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was used. An online survey was adopted to collect the quantitative data after the semester was ended. The study results showed a positive impact of interactive technology in developing pre-service teachers’ mindsets.

Information technology has transformed the economy and social life by influencing the creation of a global order controlled by algorithms. It is the individuals who endanger their privacy precisely by becoming part of the exchanges of personal data for various purposes. Rapid advances in technology and globalization have posed new challenges to personal data protection. But how prepared is the justice system to guarantee the individual for the privacy of the data? GDPAR, and recent developments in the field of personal data security and protection of the individual will be addressed in this article. Among other things, this paper will reflect on a world where the regulatory system of justice is increasingly at stake due to a new order of control, that of digital technology.

The connectedness of the social network gives rise to a new challenge of how to efficiently sample the network and keep the graph properties and topology properties as well. Inspired by R-MAT and Kronecker graph generators, based on the observation of different graph topology types, we proposed to use Kronecker graph as the prime graph to conduct Kronecker graph double cover through periphery subgraphs. First of all, the connectedness of the graph remains during graph merging. Secondly, only redundant vertices and edges are merged so that the characteristics of the graphs are kept. Also, graph merging only works on periphery subgraphs from low degrees to higher up so those topology properties are kept. Finally, although some edges are merged, since the similarity groups generated based on Kronecker graph similarity is independent of the degree distribution, Kronecker double cover operation does not affect the graph degree centrality measure. We theoretically prove the feasibility of the Kronecker double-cover operation and also compare the quality of the sample set with Snowball sampling and Es-i sampling sets. Experimental results show us that, when the separation of the core and periphery subgraphs is between mean (the average of the degrees) and mean+std (standard deviation of the degrees), the topology types and graph properties can be preserved. This conclusion confirms the existence of the topology types, and also proves the topology types of the real-world graphs are not random.

The effect of wall shear stress gradient on the deformation and rotation of each cell was investigated in vitro. To make a Couette-type of shear flow, the culture medium fluid was sandwiched with a constant gap between parallel walls: a lower stationary culture disk, and an upper rotating disk. Mouse fat precursor cells (3T3-L1) were used in this experiment. After cultivation without flow for 24 hours for adhesion of cells on the lower plate, a shear stress of less than 2 Pa was continuously applied to cells for 24 hours in the incubator. The behavior (deformation and major axis angle) of each single cell was tracked using time-lapse images observed by an inverted phase contrast microscope placed in the incubator. For wall shear stresses of less than 1.9 Pa, each cell exhibited active behavior: migration, deformation, and rotation. Whereas, the cells transformed into spheres when wall shear stress was higher than 1.9 Pa. In addition, the cells were observed to tilt against for a wall shear stress gradient approaching 50 Pa/m.

Data analytics are usually the purview of large organizations with significant human and computational resources. The purpose of the article is to identify how organizations with limited resources, including limited computing power and bandwidth, can carry out meaningful data analytics at a granularity that fits their specific needs. This paper presents a case study in creating and maintaining a COVID dashboard for a 5-county area in the Panhandle of Florida, using only free software and publication platforms. Results of this study are informative for any local or regional entity needing focused data analytics.

Design, as research process, management strategy or problem-solving methodology, is nowadays embedded on organizational structures, social demands and in human interaction and experiences. Involves digital & analogue technologies, requires immersion in complex problems and systems, since the stage of identifying problems, constraints and consequently needs and opportunities, with constant feedback that prompts multidisciplinary team’s cooperation looping, from gathering data, to ideation, model and prototype, analysis, and synthesis, evaluate and test, experiment, thus presenting solutions. This cybernetic loop research process stimulates and feeds itself of feedbacks gained also from Inter and Transdisciplinary Communication, that stimulates new knowledge [7], in Research & Development + Innovation (R&D+I).

This exploratory research approaches a Project-Based Methodology known as Design Thinking (DT), considering four models: Stanford d. School - 5 Step Design Thinking; Design Council - Double Diamond; IDEO Human-Centered Design, 3I’s model (Inspiration, Ideation, Implementation); and Katja Tschimmel - Evolution 6*, and the Creative Techniques used in these methodologies.

The present deductive research tries to explain correlations between its use in academia/business/social environments, as a transdisciplinary communication approach, to complex problem resolution, embedding Design Thinking methodologies in applied research.

* “R&D is increasingly viewed as an input to innovation in the context of the overall efforts made in a knowledge-based global economy.” pp.3 [9] “2.9. The term R&D covers three types of activity: basic research, applied research and experimental development. … Applied research is original investigation undertaken to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific, practical aim or objective.” pp.45 [9]

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) describes a computing model where ubiquitous networks of heterogenous devices equipped with embedded sensors and actuators support innovative data-centric business models. Emergent IIoT use cases include Cyber Physical Production Systems (CPPS) to support asset optimization through self-organization of modular machines within production systems. In CPPS, raw materials, machines, and operations are interconnected to form a tightly integrated network.

To ensure manufacturing continuity as CPPS networks evolve, asset managers will need to evaluate risk across multi-disciplinary domains. The domains have different architectures, lexicons, and priorities. To contribute to the eventual codification of data risk in CPPS, this research builds on previous literature to consider how data may traverse the CPPS model. The resulting models put forward in this research are informed by a transdisciplinary panel of experts drawn from disciplines including information and operational technology to bring greater specificity to the definition of business-critical data in supporting IIoT. Based on these expert views, a conceptual hierarchical automation architecture that may characterize many future state production processes is presented.

The aim of the article is to answer the question whether digital competences can support Erasmus+ project leaders in sustaining their transnational cooperation, and if yes: to what extent? The COVID-19 pandemic poses a great threat to the implementation and sustainability of transnational cooperation projects, especially the ones based on international mobility of its participants. This is especially the case of Erasmus+ which is the flagship European program enhancing cooperation between leaders of educational, academic, vocational, industrial and business sectors. Consequently, there is an urgent need to determine what factors can contribute to sustaining this type of cooperation. For this purpose, this research concentrates on Erasmus+ project leaders from Poland who implement their transnational cooperation projects, and investigates how their digital competences and other contextual factors connected with these competences may influence their performance in the realization of projects during COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion on digital competences as remedial tools for international cooperation during COVID-19 pandemic is placed here in the broader context of competences 4.0, industry 4.0, and relational and network approach to management of modern organizations.

The objective of the inquiry is on innovative communication in the light of identifying trans-disciplinary aspects of phylogeny, sociogenesis, and technogenesis of educational communities, which determines the identification of this communicative sphere as an integrative structure determined by the internal unity of its micro- and macro-structures, which in the plane of the sign substrate synthesizes the features of existential, cognitive, anthropological and technological substance.

Applied trans-disciplinary lens of the phenomenological approach to the study contributes to the solution of holistic modeling of processes and results of updating models and mechanisms of the highly dynamic communication system of education in the digital environment as a whole and its individual formats at the beginning of the XXI century in particular. The object of research is innovative educational communication in the global digital environment. The study focus is on innovative language and technology models, digital tools, and mechanisms of educational communication in the digital realm. The empirical basis of the research is the practices of innovative communication related to different substrates, formats, objects, and phenomena of acquiring new knowledge and education in the digital realm. The study results allow to provide a transdisciplinary synthesis (across communicative theory, information theory, philosophy, education and e-learning studies, semiotics, digital humanities).

This paper compiles and organizes indexes of (1) what makes a city smart, (2) Sustainability, and (3) Quality of Life and examines the application of these indexes in 67 smart city initiatives around the world. There is no consensus on what it means to be a Smart City, yet many cities are adopting Smart City initiatives. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are the common denominator. But smart cities should evolve not only in technology but also in sustainable development (measured by UN goals and by indexes such as ISO 37.120:2014) that supports good quality of life (measured by an Urban Quality of Life (UQoL) index, such as the Human Development Index (HDI)). Measuring the smartness of a city requires a complex index. To determine the sub-indexes/themes and the indicators such an index should include, we analyzed seven indexes: two for sustainability, two for the quality of life, and three for smart cities and compared the sub-indexes/themes they include. Then we surveyed the websites of 67 smart city initiatives to see for each sub-index/theme how many smart city initiatives considered it. The themes that appeared in the highest number of indexes were also most frequent in smart city initiatives; cities tackle the same problems of society.