bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
VISIONS OF ROBOTS, NETWORKS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: EUROPEANS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS DIGITISATION AND AUTOMATION IN DAILY LIFE
Authors: Rughinis Cosima , Neagoe Andrei , Rughinis Razvan , Zamfirescu Raisa
Published: February 2023

While digital technologies pervade and transform professional and personal worlds, their impact remains strongly differentiated across various social worlds. Generational, professional and national boundaries have been deeply transformed yet reproduced through the impact of digital technologies. In this study we examine recent results concerning the attitudes of Europeans towards digital technologies, in particular robots, social networks and artificial intelligence, relying on the Eurobarometer 87.1 survey conducted in March 2017. Several general tendencies signal high levels of concern framed within ambivalent evaluations and variable levels of information: more than 70% of respondents agree in part or totally that “robots and artificial intelligence steal people’s jobs”, still more than 80% agree in part or totally that “robots are necessary as they can do jobs that are too hard or too dangerous for people”. About 44% of employed respondents feel that robots threaten their current job, while about half consider that their work could not be accomplished by a robot. A majority of respondents would be uncomfortable in a driverless car in traffic, but more than half would be comfortable being assisted by a robot at work, or receiving goods with drones or robots. Still, less than half of the total respondents have received information about artificial intelligence in the last year, raising the issue of preparedness for a major social transformation. Despite increasing social and economic costs of cyberattacks, only about a quarter of respondents who use the Internet declare that they are willing to pay more for better security and privacy features in their IT products. These overall tendencies mask powerful differences across nations and generations. We present a profile of various social groups and we also discuss a cluster classification of respondents according to their technology awareness and attitudinal profiles.
WEB-SERVICE BASED THIN CLIENT FOR TELE-MEASUREMENT
Authors: Stelea Georgealex , Fernoaga Paul vlad , Gavrila Cristinel , Robu Dan
Published: February 2023

As online education services have grown in popularity over the last decade, the need to offer an alternative solution to hands-on measurement activities, especially in the engineering related fields, became one of the top priorities. Blended learning approach is, nowadays, a must for students, teachers and researchers. This paper presents a thin client implementation for a web-service browser based real and emulated tele-measurement of electronic devices and circuits. The thin client offers a web-service based visualization of tele-measurement results as well as multiple-choices in aspects of formats and representations. It displays a customized appearance adapted to the device screen size, to the available input methods (touch screen, mouse, keyboard) and to the available bandwidth, covering the demands in respect of quality of service and quality of experience. Another important feature, fully covered by the proposed implementation, is the ease of access, as the thin client can be accessed simply via common browsers. Furthermore, as enhanced security and reduced computing power needs are highly important, the thin client does not imply additional plugins or third party dependencies which increase the risks and often require additional resources. The paper also presents key aspects regarding the thin client structure and implementation, the communication with a LabVIEW based workbench server and also the user experience - on different terminals - in taking over experimental and simulated results retrieved from the server via the implemented thin client remotely triggered tele-measurement as well as the graphical representation of the obtained data for different screen resolutions.
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF DIGITALIZATION FOR INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC COOPERATION USING THE EXAMPLE OF THE GERMAN HIGHER EDUCATION
Authors: Lazarou Elisabeth , Trifan Elena laura
Published: February 2023

The worldwide development in recent years has shown that there is a huge interest in virtual forms on education whether it be in higher education, in trainings or in Lifelong Learning. MOOCs are the most popular version of such a development. The higher orientation of universities on competition and business is a reaction of the globalization and internationalization, related to the focus on the Bologna-process, it aims to fulfil the higher demand of students for ICT and the necessity of improving the University teaching and a significant cost reduction. New study models as an alternative to the presence-based courses are interesting approaches, which can be enforced by e-learning and virtualization. New aspects, like Apps, cloud computing and security of information get more and more important, but also a new distribution of knowledge is expected. Universities have to cope with Marketing and develop ways for Diversity Management, i.e. new roles come towards them. Based on a series of projects at German universities, the authors would like to consider the opportunities and challenges, which demonstrate digitalization of international academic cooperation in the field of higher education. The article would like to show and further elaborate with the help of three categories, how internationalization of curriculum can take place through digitalized lectures. The joint creation of individual courses can be taught either fully online or in blended learning form at respective Universities. The common development of the joint studies can be implemented in the Bachelor and Master Degree courses.
THE INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN A LANGUAGE COURSE
Authors: Trofin Roxana anca , Oprescu Maria ana
Published: February 2023

Concurrently with the advent of new technologies, the content and typology of language courses have changed. The borders between the courses we propose to our students have become more permeable in view of the society demands, educational needs and institutional constraints. In a francophone country such as Romania, where there are French streams receiving students who have French as their mother tongue, or as a second or foreign language, having relatively heterogeneous linguistic and cultural backgrounds, the French for Specific Purposes (FSP -FOS) modules also comprise components of French for Academic Purposes (FAP -FOU) and of French for Professional Communication (FPC -FLP). On the other hand, for future engineers who are very open to new technologies, the use of the digital technology in a mixed FOS-FOU (FSP-FAP) module can contribute to a better acquisition of specific knowledge as well as the development of know-how essential to successful communication and action of the future social actor. I will therefore aim to present digital technologies integration in the language for specific purposes course in the particular context of Bucharest POLITEHNICA University. Starting from a type of course that is not a classical FSP (FOS) one, in Mangiante et Papette’s signification, having one specific objective only, but a mixed type one, I will analyze the pedagogical efficiency of the text treatment software and smart phone use in class. The analysis will be carried out on the following types of activities: information search, language work with a stress on the terminological-lexical and/or intercultural components, as well as on the types of documents that allow digital means of exploitation. I will also approach the role of digital technologies integration from a cognitive perspective, as well as from a didactic and/or intercultural one.
MOBILE APPLICATION FOR CRISIS SITUATIONS IN A UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
Authors: Olteanu Adriana , Lacatusu Florin , Craciun Iulian , Lacatusu Marian , Ionita Anca daniela
Published: February 2023

As mobile applications benefit from an increasing interest, especially among younger generations, their use for reporting critical situations becomes relevant in a university environment, with the aim of reducing material damages and protecting people. Due to the multitude of mobile device owners, new apps may serve for informing about the potential risks and creating situation awareness, based on events and responses specific to students and academics. This fits the existing trend to take advantage of the mobile technologies for data acquisition, visualization, decision and warning in hazard and emergency management. For the scope of a campus, we analyzed documents and rules adopted within our institution, and public information provided by other universities worldwide. We selected a set of critical situations, like: fire, earthquake, bomb threat, power outage, campus violence, harassment etc. Generally, these situations are associated with a descriptive procedure to be followed. The contribution presented in this paper is twofold. On the one side, we transformed the text into graph-based, color-coded representations, for visualization support. On the other side, we added functionality to submit event reports from mobile devices and classify them according the predefined set of critical situations, characteristic for the university activities. The Android application communicates with a platform that manages the reports, stores images transmitted by users, and sends notifications. The reports are visible to other users, who can add comments and contribute for a better assessment of the situation. Currently, the reports are integrated and made available to a responsible person, with no recommendation being generated automatically. Future work will be focused on analysis of reports and clustering, to increase situation awareness and campus-specific decision support.
FACILITATING KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION BY USE OF A SCADA APPLICATION IN ACADEMIC TEACHING
Authors: Chenaru Oana , Niculescufaida Oanacarmen , Geampalia Giorgiana , Florea Gheorghe
Published: February 2023

There is a strong feedback from industrial companies that students in automation engineering are not prepared well enough for challenges in the field. At the same time, students are less interested in practical applications, as their courses are more focused on mathematical characterization of industrial processes. Universities must address these issues and provide appropriate resources, available for the students, ensuring a competitive education that responds to the market requests. This paper provides a new hands-on teaching method that uses a SCADA application connected to a complex process simulator of a real plant. The application will allow students to easily achieve knowledge on remote data acquisition and control concepts, industrial communication protocols, to face real process control, interoperability, and industrial networking problems. The main aim is for them to gain practical abilities and elementary knowledge for the development of real applications, buy having as a starting point not an empty SCADA project, but one that needs to be updated with new functions or debugged for problem solving. By connecting the SCADA application to a process simulator, they will see how they can combine the scientific characterization and analysis of a problem with a practical implementation. The proposed platform uses standardized protocols and approaches, so that the achieved knowledge can be applied on applications from different manufacturers. By combining practical courses with challenging problem solving we managed to rise the interest of students. The results can be used to improve current courses and laboratories of SCADA application development or to provide new optional courses in this field.
CONSIDERATIONS ON MODELING SERVICE ECOSYSTEMS
Authors: Dobrica Liliana
Published: February 2023

Nowadays there is a trend of movement of many enterprises from product-driven business models towards networked service-centered business models for increasing their revenues and creating sustainable service ecosystems. A service ecosystem is a socio-technical complex system that enables service-based cooperation between entities. It consists of a nesting of infrastructures, institutions, service systems, and contexts. This paper discusses about the definition of the main architectural elements of service ecosystems and existent modeling approaches to achieve a required quality based on specific properties. It begins with the identification of the main challenges in this domain and addresses solutions that facilitate analysis and design of service ecosystem models including ecosystem infrastructure and knowledge repositories. It compares several definitions of ecosystems and related concepts used to provide service innovation and co-creation of value. Decision making in co-creative ecosystems is distributed both horizontally and vertically. Furthermore, lines of authority and governance structure are less distinct than in traditional views of business organizations. Joining an ecosystem requires interoperability knowledge. Under this perspective the paper discusses about knowledge management in an open context addressing specific ontological relationships between concepts. The importance of interoperability models has been recognized in the context of ecosystems and several levels have been introduced and defined. Among these can be mentioned conceptual, behavioral, semantic, communication and connection. The last part of the paper pays attention and analyses existent methods and tools for service ecosystem engineering. It discusses about and ecosystem architecture framework and a modeling methodology for creation of agile services engineering platforms.
INTELLIGENT EDUCATION ASSISTANT POWERED BY CHATBOTS
Authors: Fernoaga Paul vlad , Gavrila Cristinel , Sandu Florin , Stelea Georgealex
Published: February 2023

Over the last decade, the technology advancements were quickly absorbed and integrated into education processes and eLearning which enabled the development of efficient and innovative solutions able to act as customer tailored learning resources. One of the most ground-breaking innovations in the eLearning field is the integration of Chatbots technology into teaching experience, which acts as an intelligent bridge between education and technology. Chatbots technology can be used in a wide spectrum of fields due to its flexibility and ability to adapt to the pace at which each individual feels comfortable, without causing overwhelming or exhaustion. This paper aims to blend e-Assisted learning and communication into classrooms, introducing Chatbots as real-time educational assistants for the teacher - they are designed to distribute interactivity with students and to manage it at individualized level. This approach adds a highly increased degree of interactivity and personalization to the learning experience, aspects which are critical from the student point of view as each individual has its own learning and understanding capabilities. The authors combined modern software technologies such as Cloud based development, micro-services, Java technologies and Chatbots to create an automated closed loop for the teaching pace and adaptive complexity in a classroom. The proposed solution avoids putting the teacher in a secondary position, shadowed by technology - it rather empowers him with e-Assistants that give him access to a real time and relevant statistic of individual students’ understanding level - a valuable feedback for personalized education which leads to an improved mentorship quality.
CURRICULA CUSTOMIZATION WITH THE READERBENCH FRAMEWORK
Authors: Guturobu Gabriel , Dascalu Mihai , Carabas Mihai , Elisei Alexandru , Trausanmatu Stefan , Nistor Nicolae , Choi Sunhea , Spoerl Rebecca , Koletzko Berthold
Published: February 2023

Providing customized curricula tailored to learner's needs became a stringent problem while relating to the increasing number of people attending Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and eLearning platforms because the same content is provided to all students. This study presents a Moodle plugin created on top of an eLearning course that enables curricula customization based on the learning needs of a high number of participants. With the help of the Mass Customization approach, two categories of attendees were identified in a previous research and imposed multiple filtering criteria, out of which the first one refers to participants’ profession. The second criterion, topics of interest, allows learners to select keywords of interest from a predefined two-level word list, but also to enumerate their own terms using natural language. With the support of ReaderBench, an advanced Natural Language Processing framework, the most relevant lessons are retrieved in descending order of semantic relatedness. Third, an additional specific parameter allows participants to establish what kind of learning materials they require - i.e., theoretical and background oriented, practice and counseling documents, or guidelines. Our collection of documents is composed of lessons with a short description and their title, together with lists of pre- and post-requisite lessons. Our tool provides a comprehensive list of recommended lessons that best match the input criteria, corroborated with the list of related pre- and post-requisite lessons. Moreover, we provide information in terms of the duration of each lesson, as well as potential Continuous Medical Education points gained after finishing all selected lessons.
NEW SEMANTIC TECHNOLOGY TRENDS: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR E-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Authors: Stanescu Georgiana , Nastase Floarea
Published: February 2023

E-learning is a massive industry in the world wide web from our days and helps people to easily distribute and access content, without any boundaries from websites or learning system. With this ability, the e-learning environment is also facing a lot of challenges: the different learning methods, technical requirements for online courses, the usability, security, multi-platforms, web standard, etc. The today semantic technology trends are influencing the e-learning traditional approach and it provides a lot of solutions to those challenges. Semantic technologies can keep up with the evolution of web environment, can provides the capability to understand human necessities and define awareness system in e-learning. The e-learning approaches needs to have a technology base, to sustain the needed learning methods for the user and to be easily adaptable and usable in any situation. As far as we know, the e-learning system is represented in the virtual environment by visual and textual information, each educational training or student lecture is heavily relying on the content offered. A short example of the benefits of semantic technologies is that they simplify the search mode. A student will always look for keywords instead of complex phrases, so the reasoning between the defined terms helps to make a more effective search. From this point of view, e-learning system has increased significantly based on the evolution of semantic technologies, is being used by a lot of teachers that want to share their knowledge to students and also is very popular with companies, which are looking forward in offering a learning program to employees. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that e-learning domain combined with semantic technologies, has a huge potential and is a successful combination of the teaching system.
BUSINESS ENGLISH IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY - A REAPPRAISAL OF THE TRADITIONAL FRAMEWORK
Authors: Dimitriu Anda , Mihaes Lorena clara
Published: February 2023

Based on the dual hallmarks of flexibility and adaptability, English for Specific Purposes, or ESP, proposes methods of teaching which are anchored in the immediate reality of the students who will be instructed and will, subsequently, benefit from the use of real-life linguistic scenarios. This means that, as the world keeps changing and technology keeps evolving, the instructors of ESP classes are relentlessly searching for new and better teaching methods, designed especially to strengthen the language skills of a small number of participants involved in the learning process. And without a doubt, the abovementioned methods now rely heavily on the introduction of technology, be it in the form of computers, tablets or smartphones, into the daily interaction between instructors and students, as well as among the latter. Designed as the first part of a two-article study, this paper will deal with the specific case of students who are enrolled in Business programmes (Administration or Management) by providing an overview of these students' weak and strong points, as well as specific examples of how integrating technology in the curriculum builds up the skills with which they commonly struggle. Dedicated entirely to a group of individuals who are most frequently competent speakers and only average writers, the methods and examples of tasks depicted in this article are exclusively tailored to bring a twofold advantage to the ESP class: on the one hand, they boost reading and writing skills and, on the other, they engage students by the use of computers or mobile devices.
FUTURE ORIENTED SPECIALIZATION FOR ENGINEERING STUDENTS BASED ON TECCOMFRAME
Authors: Ghenghea Voichita alexandra , Soare Ioanlaurian , Cleary Yvonne , Closs Sissi , Drazek Zygmunt , Minacori Patricia , Meex Birgitta
Published: February 2023

Today's career development requires specialized jobs and consequently special skills. More and more universities are offering new job perspectives nowadays, technical communicator being one of them that is much in demand. One fundamental task in the architecture of this job is use of terminology and terminology management. A specialization course containing terminology training provides students with those skills that will enable them to carry out writing, translating and editing work efficiently. After discussing the academic qualification and competence framework for technical communication entitled TecCOMFrame (Erasmus+ project, 2015), that offers teaching staff the best premise to select relevant subjects for a particular target group to be trained in Technical Communication (TC), the authors of the present article document the selection criteria and present the prototype curriculum for a specialization course in TC for engineering students. The present practice-oriented study introduces a case study with Romanian engineering Master’s-level students as an example of innovative language learning. Taking into account that engineering students are quite familiar with vocabulary training in a foreign language (FL), an interdisciplinary approach with emphasis on terminology training in English and German as a FL is appropriate. Because engineering students are taught about the tight links between terminology and the topics of different subject courses they are studying, they have an interest in terminology. Furthermore, students could and should be made aware of the significance of terminology knowledge for a possible job in the domain of TC or specialized translation. The aim of the present study is thus twofold: on the one hand, to highlight the benefits of a comprehensive academic competence framework such as TecCOMFrame which can be the starting point of curriculum development in TC for engineering students and, on the other hand, to prove the benefits of a future-oriented specialization course tailored according to the needs of this special target group of students. By the end of their master’s studies, these students will improve their proficiency of the FL and could opt for a career as technical communicator, which is in high demand, not only in Romania but also throughout Europe.
ROMANIAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN A BLENDED LEARNING APPROACH
Authors: Militaru Marina luminita , Dima Viorelavalentina , Lorentz Mariaantoaneta
Published: February 2023

The aim of the current paper is to present the experience of the academic staff of the Department of Modern Languages and Business Communication from The Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE) in teaching Romanian as a Foreign Language as part of the Preparatory Year of Romanian Language for Foreign Citizens. The latter program was initiated in 2014 and is the first such program accredited by the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS) in 2017. Since the launch of the program, it has been attended by more than 250 students from all over the world, who have benefited from a blended learning instructional approach. Teaching and learning activities have been based on a combination of classroom techniques and digital media resources that will be described in the article. A one-of-a kind digital support is provided through the Oportunidance platform, developed through an international project that was awarded the European Language Label 2016 for innovation and creativity in foreign language teaching and learning. The efficiency of the blended learning approach to teaching Romanian as a Foreign Language will be discussed by reference to the successful integration of graduates on the educational market in Romania, which will be briefly referred to in the article.
EDUCATIONAL VALENCES OF THE INTERNET IN DIDACTIC ACTIVITIES
Authors: Enache Roxana , Gorghiu Gabriel , Petrescu Anamaria aurelia
Published: February 2023

When correlating the observations and the results of the activities carried out during the teaching career, it is noticed that, at the social level, the Internet represents a real challenge for the educational use, implying teacher’s competences to transform the power of this massive resource into a learning power, developing modern and effective educational scenarios related to the needs and demands of the actual society. The educational potential of the Internet cannot be exploited without the identification of epistemological and praxiological fundamentals, that underlie on the basis of valorization of this resource. Thus, it appears as a first necessity, to address a series of research in the educational practice, concerning how the Internet can be used to produce real added values towards a qualitative education. As we have seen from the analysis of the curriculum documents, as well as from the analysis of several lessons proposed by the teachers, the educational potential of the Internet is not just about identifying and transferring information, but it can be extended to the formation of a diverse set of skills and to the development of attitudes, behaviors and values. A challenge to which the educational actors - teachers, students or even parents - need to reflect, is represented by the way in which new information and communication technologies are integrated and involved in education, considering the Internet an area with a huge potential, as resource. In this respect, in order to stimulate the use of new technology in education, there is a need for designing holistic, systematic, coherent and consistent approaches.
DROPOUT RATE IN UNIVERSITIES - A CRITICAL ISSUE OF TODAY EDUCATION
Authors: Litoiu Nicoleta , Oproiu Gabriela carmen
Published: February 2023

In the context of debates about ensuring quality in education, the problem of students’ transition from upper secondary into tertiary education and the increasing retention rate in the first year at the university, are key elements for educational strategies and policies. Innovative practices in education at international level also mention a new approach based on STEM fields, emphasizing the development of key competences, but also social-emotional skills for students learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The present paper analysis the main issues of a diagnosis study, carried out at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year, aiming to identify the specific factors and conditions which lead to poor academic results and to drop out for students in first year of faculty in University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest. The profile of the first year student's becomes an essential starting point of establishing this approach in order to develop an objective diagnosis on factors and conditions to influence the increasing drop-out rates among university’s students. As a result, the study investigates the student's opinions on some aspects considered by them important for the successful completion of the first year studies. Besides other aspects, the analysis includes specific references for curriculum, evaluation activities, but also for communication between teacher and students. Along with the feedback obtained from the teachers, student’s motivation is equally important in order to stimulate the continuation studying, which relies on the level of personal development and the use of its skills (communication, social, decision making, time management skills etc.). Last but not least, the paper proposes possible solutions for the identified students’ needs with the purpose of increasing the learning motivation of first year students in order to help them complete the degree studies. One of these solutions focuses on career counselling approach in terms of developing to students appropriate socio-emotional skills as support for useful and creative perspectives in their academic and social life.
STUDENTS' DIGITAL COMPETENCIES, RELATED ATTITUDES AND SELF DIRECTED LEARNING
Authors: Popa Daniela , Topala Ioana roxana
Published: February 2023

Digital native students are a challenge for some teachers. In Romanian educational context, not all teachers allow students to use the technology freely and independently in order to handle learning tasks. This study aims to investigate the correlations between students’ self-perceived digital competencies, relevant related attitudes and their level of self-direction in learning, alongside with their perception of how teachers relate to the use of technology for the educational process (teaching & learning). For this study, we used a cross-sectional design, with data collection in multiple sequences, from a non-randomized sample of 200 undergraduate students, distributed into 2 groups (technical and non-technical specializations), with no intended intervention. The methods used in collecting data were online survey (using questionnaires) and focus-group interviews. The results indicate that students’ level of self-directed learning correlates with the frequency of using digital tools for learning. Furthermore, students that are prone to a high frequency and more complex usage of technology due to their specialization, are more likely to report a more favorable attitude towards digitalized learning than students majoring in social sciences. Also, the more self-directed the students are in their learning, the higher they score on their self-efficiency level. The results show that the higher the level of self-efficiency is, the better their level of self-perceived digital competencies is. We also observed that their level of self-perceived digital competencies could be associated with their self-efficiency level. Moreover, seems like a higher level of learning satisfaction appears in students whose teachers allow them to decide independently about the frequency and modality of technology usage in their learning.
QUALITATIVE STUDY TO IDENTIFY KEY FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENT PERCEPTION TOWARD THE USE OF E-LEARNING IN A TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
Authors: Rusu Bogdan , Tudose Mihaela brindusa
Published: February 2023

Educational systems have to adapt to latest IT development and student's behavior regarding internet usage, as beyond traditional education the "virtual environment" provides excellent opportunities for both teaching and learning. Such opportunities cannot be ignored by universities as learning also enters the globalized market. Therefore, an ever-increasing number of students are ready to acquire competences and abilities for a globalized work market. The aim of this exploratory research is to investigate students' perceptions towards their readiness to access and use e-learning technologies in order to become experts in their profession. Empirical research consists of in depth interviews with students from a Technical University in Romania that engaged in an improvement of the learning process through the use of e-learning platform (such as Moodle). Based on e-learning operational definition an interview guide was developed. Formal in-depth interviews were performed by students that received special training to reduce bias and enable more sincere opinions from respondents as compared with an academic-lead interview. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed in order to identify the key factors that influence student's perception regarding the use of e-learning as well as the main advantages and disadvantages as perceived by the students. Data collections based on a convenient sample. In order to ensure sample representativeness students were recruited to belong to five distinct groups: Those that have high grades and receive bursary (merit), those with good grades but just below the bursary threshold (up to one point below), students with poor academic performance and no bursary, those that work (part-time or full time) and those that never worked. Analysis of interviews transcript revealed the key factors that influence student perceptions regarding the use of e-learning as well as the main advantages and disadvantages as perceived by the students. Such results are valuable and may be used by the University and Faculty management as a real support to design an adequate strategy to enhance the benefits of using virtual learning environments and represents the bases for a new quantitative study regarding students' perceptions of e-learning.
MULTIMEDIA TOOLS FOR STUDYING PROGRAMMING METHODS OF KNITTED FABRICS WITH CABLES DESIGN
Authors: Blaga Mirela , Dan Dorin , Penciuc Mihai
Published: February 2023

Weft knitting offers the highest potential concerning the patterning possibilities and 3D shaping. Among them, cables design are unique architectures of the weft knitted fabrics, formed by using the stitch transfer, one of the fundamental technique of modern knitting. In fact, nearly all the patterns presented in current samples range contain a certain number of transferred stitches. The basic concept of cables consists in producing a series of plain stitch columns on a purl-stitch base. After a number of rows, some of the stitches, corresponding to half the stitch columns in question, are transferred on other stitch columns, while the stitches of the latter are transferred to the previous stitch columns. The stitches are thus crossed over and produce the cable effect. The students enrolled at Faculty of Textiles, Leather and Industrial Management from Iasi, following the knitwear and apparel technology study program, are provided with the relevant skills for the development of various knitted patterns by using professional software, programming, setting the knitting parameters and manufacturing the fabrics. The classical learning method of cables involves the study based on graphic knitting schemes, accompanied by long explanatory texts. Within the knitting lab, specialized teachers have developed new multimedia based learning methods. Thus, videos have been produced to demonstrate the stages of achieving a cable design effect. Also, html interactive knitting schemes have been developed that show and explain sequentially the work phases to make automated knitting programs. Students are using specialized Computer Aided Design programs to develop and test new programs for knitting cable designs, on computerized flat knitting machines. The paper presents the applications of such type, which are available for the students from knitting specialization, in html format, on the Faculty Moodle platform: http://www.moodle.tex.tuiasi.ro.
SOFTWARE APPLICATION FOR THE SUBJECTIVE EVALUATION OF COLORS AND CHROMATIC PREFERENCES
Authors: Budeanu Ramona
Published: February 2023

The clothing, through color, enriches the appearance and can increase the mood or it can influence positively or negatively the wearer, and even the viewer. Because of the fact that a clothing product is firstly appreciated from a visual point of view, the color is especially important and plays a significant role in a viewer’s impression. Color is the most complex and stimulating element of art, with psycho-physical and physiological effects, exerting an important psychological role on the consumer and even on the viewer, through different impressions, feelings or states. Aesthetic requirements in the development of a clothing product or collection require the choice of color and design of the structure or color. These requirements are influenced by fashion, chromatic preferences, the tastes of the consumer segment for which the products are created, and last but not least, the level of culture in the design of clothing. For consumers, color is extremely important because it represents a key element in the decision of purchasing a clothing product. In this paper, the visual comfort is analyzed and studied by subjective color evaluation and chromatic preferences. The paper presents the results obtained on the basis of the questionnaire as a research tool, regarding the subjective evaluation of the visual comfort on a series of samples of different colors. The questionnaire was used for a case study on a group of 50 female subjects aged 20 to 30. The purpose of this paper is to test, analyze and evaluate subjectively color, chromatic preferences and, at the same time, a series of associations made by subjects between colors and emotions, the states created by them. At the same time, the importance of color, the role and color preferences in choosing a clothing product, as well as sensations, states and emotions produced by consumers' colors are emphasized. To reduce the volume of work and to be more efficient, the paper presents and offers a software solution in the form of an application that can be used as an e-learning tool.
MATHEMATICAL AND NEURAL APPROACHES IN DEPENDABILITY ENGINEERING: STUDY CASE FOR A TECHNICAL SYSTEM
Authors: Vilcu Adrian , Pislaru Marius , Verzea Ion
Published: February 2023

Predictive modeling with neural networks (NN) can be successfully applied in designing quantitative and qualitative parameters for the performance of technical systems. Neural network modeling enables design engineers in safety of operation to iteratively and interactively test the parameters and evaluate the corresponding changes in system performance before physical realization. For this reason, NN is an efficient tool in designing systems. NN can also be used during system testing as additional tools to determine the optimal operating values of the parameters and to determine their tolerance. The novelty of this paper is the combination into compact algorithm of mathematical and neural techniques in the realization of the correlations of the safety operation parameters and in the optimization of the dependability system in order to support the production-quality strategies. If mathematical modeling is the basis for the optimization operation, providing multivariable functions that connect parameters dependent on the independent parameters of a technical system, function that can give extreme points for variables, useful values in operational management, neural modeling creates the instrument for validating the mathematical model, and, through its structural flexibility and its ability to "learn" with new sets of models, can be used independently in the dependability decision process. The paper defines the problems in the field of operational safety, proposes relations of correlation between its parameters, defines the production-quality strategies, the mathematical model and the neural model and applies this complex technique to experimental data sets provided by a technical system. Validation of models is based on experimental patterns and conclusions have been drawn.
OPTIMISING THE STRUCTURING OF PHYSICAL EFFORT DURING PHYSICAL EDUCATION LESSONS ACCORDING TO BODY PARTICULARITIES, ASSESSED THROUGH BIOELECTRIC IMPEDANCE USING BODYVISION SOFTWARE
Authors: Florescu Oroles , Becea Liliana , Mezei Mariana
Published: February 2023

Lifestyle, lack of physical movement, sedentariness have all led to the growth of obesity among young people in our country. The major risk of obesity at a young age is that such persons would continue to have overweight issues later on in life, with all the negative consequences implied. The purpose of this research is: to measure and assess in a complex way, by using modern technology and an appropriate software program, the body composition of students at the Politehnica University of Bucharest, to create a database for the body composition of young people aged between 19 and 25 years, which is relevant by the number of subjects and the complexity of the assessed indicators, as well as to obtain real data allowing for the subsequent optimization of the means used in physical education and sports lessons. The sample investigated comprised 361 subjects, of which 207 males and 154 females, with ages between 19 and 25 years, all students at University Politehnica of Bucharest. The students participating in this research were informed about its objectives and agreed to the processing, analysis and storage of the data regarding their assessments. In this research we have used the Tanita FitScan BC-601 device with bodyvision software, considered by the specialists as being a powerful instrument in assessing not only the health condition in terms of body composition but also in the monitoring of efficiency of any fitness program. Using bioelectric impedance analysis technology (BIA) based on the data provided by 8 electrodes, the Tanita soft provided 19 assessments: 9 at a global level and 10 at a segmentar level (arms, legs and trunk). Of all these assessments, the most relevant for our research are the weight, BMI, total body fat, visceral fat, muscle mass, bone mass, metabolic age and total body water. The values provided by Tanita have been recorded in protocols, centralized in tables and statistically and mathematically processed. The comparison of the indicators obtained with the reference values according to the subjects' gender and age particulars has been presented graphically. The values resulting from this research have been capitalized in a database for the population with ages between 19 and 25 years according to the gender particulars for the following indicators: weight, BMI, total body fat, visceral fat, muscle mass, bone mass, metabolic age and total body water. The results will be used in elaborating lesson structures for the students at University Politehnica of Bucharest, together with an optimal component of the aerobe effort that will lead, in time, at the normalization of the body composition and, indirectly, at the improvement of the health condition.
THE EVALUATION OF THE COMPLEX REACTION TIME AT THE UPPER LIMBS LEVEL OF STUDENTS IN TECHNICAL HIGHER EDUCATION BY UTILIZING COMPUTERIZED TESTING
Authors: Grigoroiu Carmen , Teodora Wesselly , Pelin Raluca anca , Pricop Adriandaniel
Published: February 2023

Knowing the reaction time and the visual motor coordination is one of the acute and current requirements in the technical professions. In the field of engineering, the speed of adjusting the response to the stimulus is very important. The study aims at identifying the values of the complex reaction time, visual stimuli, for the upper limbs, in 18-20-year-old students from the U.P.B.. The testing took place in the U.P.B. Sports Complex between October and November 2017. A group of 124 students, consisting of 62 girls and 62 boys, was investigated. The evaluation of the subjects was performed by means of two computerized tests, which aimed at identifying the following upper limb parameters: the complex reaction time of the dominant hand and the complex reaction time of the non-dominant hand. The data obtained was processed by means of the TReactionCo software, which allowed recording and storing the reaction times for each execution, displaying the arithmetic mean, the maximum value, respectively the minimum one for a series of determinations. In the study we aimed to identify through the statistical and mathematical method, whether there are significant differences between the results obtained by the students (between male subjects and the female subjects) and between their dominant and non-dominant hand. The comparative analysis of the results for the complex reaction time test reveals a statistically significant difference between male and female subjects both for the dominant and non-dominant hand (P <0.001). The results obtained by the male subjects (M = 441.46 ms the dominant hand, M = 452.22 ms the non-dominant hand) were superior to those obtained by the female subjects (M = 497.46 ms the dominant hand, M = 511.70 ms the non-dominant hand).We believe that the results obtained from the study can contribute to the efficiency and modeling of the physical education and sports lessons in higher education in accordance with the requirements according to which the future technical specialist will work.
FLIPPED CLASSROOM IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION: PEDAGOGICAL MODELS AND POSSIBLE IMPLEMENTATION THROUGH WEB 2.0.
Authors: Isidori Emanuele , Chiva bartoll Oscar , Fazio Alessandra , Sandor Iosif
Published: February 2023

Flipped Classroom in Physical Education (PE) is a topic scarcely examined by scholars. It is an educational methodology that interchanges the general organization of the lessons and can be used to rethink from both an epistemological and didactical point of view the traditional way of conceiving of and teaching PE as a subject matter in the school. In Flipped Classroom, the instruction is developed out of the classroom while the homework is completed in the school. To do so, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and all e-tools provided by Web. 2.0 are an essential component of this methodology because they enable the students to access the content previously prepared by the PE teacher. The main aim of this paper is to briefly present the Flipped Classroom methodology and to identify and critically examine the main pedagogical models on which it is based. This will allow us to determine the methods and e-tools from ICT and Web. 2.0 as an online learning environment that may better support and implement the content of PE and motivate students in the classroom. This first part of our research will be conducted through the review of the scholarly literature dealing with the main issues of Flipped Classroom as both general topic and methodology of teaching PE in the school. After identifying and critically examining these methods and tools, we will sketch, using a hermeneutical research approach, a flexible model of “flipped learning” in PE classroom based on the use of the new e-tools provided by Web 2.0. In conclusion, we will offer a possible scheme for teaching PE using the Flipped Classroom as a practical methodology and means to motivate the pupils.