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2024 | Buch

Smart Mobile Communication & Artificial Intelligence

Proceedings of the 15th IMCL Conference – Volume 2

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Über dieses Buch

Interactive mobile technologies are today the core of many—if not all—fields of society. Not only the younger generation of students expects a mobile working and learning environment. And nearly daily new ideas, technologies, and solutions boost this trend.

To discuss and assess the trends in the interactive mobile field are the aims connected with the 15th International Conference on Interactive Mobile Communication, Technologies, and Learning (IMCL2023), which was held 9–10 November 2023.

Since its beginning in 2006, this conference is devoted to new approaches in interactive mobile technologies with a focus on learning. Nowadays, the IMCL conferences are a forum of the exchange of new research results and relevant trends as well as the exchange of experiences and examples of good practice.

Interested readership includes policy makers, academics, educators, researchers in pedagogy and learning theory, schoolteachers, learning Industry, further education lecturers, etc.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Women in ICT

Frontmatter
Empowering Tech Talents Among Young Women: Key Takeaways from a Panel Discussion

Promoting equality, equity, and inclusion – as reflections of societal diversity – aims to strengthen potential in IT&C through both education and research. New initiatives that encourage women to pursue prospective career paths in technology should be promoted as examples of good practices. These could further develop into pilot initiatives, raising awareness and revealing the importance of women’s representation within the DNA of innovation. Adopting an ecosystem-based perspective for piloting a “Manifesto for Women in Tech” could highlight the role of women as key contributors to the field of digital technology. This reflection represents the qualities of good practice through its core principles, objectives, audience, supporting stakeholders, approach, and its potential for up-scaling. Insights obtained from a ‘Women in Tech’ panel discussion underpin this strategy, offering unique perspectives from influential tech leaders with the goal of inspiring the next generation of Female tech innovators.

Aurelia Ciupe, Daniela Popescu
Pivoting Towards European University Alliances Supporting Technology Entrepreneurship for Women….. Insights from a Feminist Perspective

Interesting career possibilities for women emerge from technology entrepreneurship. Although the trend is improving, women entrepreneurs starting technology-based firms lag far behind men. The traditionally masculine identity of the ‘entrepreneur’ represents a major challenge for women interested to start a technology business. In the university ecosystem there is a ‘triple gendered’ situation – technology, technology studies and the gendered environment of academic incubation hubs that support start-up. This paper draws on a structured literature review (SLR) to frame the gender issues of women technology entrepreneurs within the university ecosystem. The aim of the paper is to develop insights for the emerging European University Alliances such as the European University of Technology (EUt +) to help fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems for women in technology fields.

Deirdre McQuillan
Women in Higher Education in Bulgaria: Achievements and Possibilities

The development of higher education is an ongoing process that responds to the needs and the stage of development of a given society. The modern development of Bulgarian education began after the liberation of the country from the Ottoman Empire. Initially, women’s access to higher education was obstructed by laws and regulations reflecting patriarchal perceptions of the roles of women and men in society. Thanks to the active work of the Bulgarian Women’s Union, Bulgarian women gained the right to study at university, and in the following years, efforts were directed toward expanding women’s career opportunities in higher education and science.The accession of our country as a Member State of the European Union has created further prerequisites for emphasizing gender equality in the academic sphere, as universities have developed their own Gender Equality Plans.The article analyses some of these plans and an available database on the academic staff of some of the country’s universities. The aim is to trace the changes that have taken place and to highlight the areas where more efforts need to be concentrated to achieve gender equality in higher education and science.

Yoana Pavlova
Empowering Students in Technical Higher Education Through Teamwork and Alternative Assessment Methods. A Case Study

Given the continuous development of the socio-economic environment, as well as the dynamics of students’ population, it has become of outmost importance to engage and empower students in technical higher education from the very early stages of their learning paths. Therefore, the present paper aims to evaluate how teamwork, combined with self-assessment and colleagues evaluation contributes to the development of students professional and transversal skills, which are indispensable for their professional life and personal development. The study was carried out considering three technical disciplines from the field of Automotive Engineering, taught for bachelor’s and master’s students. Also, the engagement of female students was analysed to explore the possible barriers in their participation to technical higher education.

Irina Duma, Andreia Molea, Nicolae Vlad Burnete, Dan Moldovanu

Real World Experiences

Frontmatter
Parameterization and Modeling of Structural Designs for the Transformation of a Smart City

As societies are rapidly transforming and technology is evolving and bringing constant change, contemporary trends such as digital technologies and process automation are emerging and evolving. These new trends are changing how we live as well as the wider economy. The scientific questions of this paper focus on the design and modeling of the role of smart cities, in combination with the functions of the active citizen-user in creating online cultural applications. The digital environment engineer and digital transformation designers, in combination with the functions of the active citizen-user in the creation of online cultural applications, are also analyzed.

Anastasia Gasidou, Dimitrios Kotsifakos, Christos Douligeris
Smart m-Observation and Study of Orthodox Art

This paper presents a progressive web application for Bulgarian iconographical art that provides specific and complex features for knowledge discovery, dynamic categorization, filtering, content analysis, shared content usage, etc. The main goal of the application is to make the learning process of students interactive and full-fledged through m-observation and to provide an easier and more effective way of researching and comparing iconographic objects.

Desislava Paneva-Marinova, Detelin Luchev, Maxim Goynov, Emanuela Mitreva, Radoslav Pavlov, Dušan Tatić
Interactive Chatbot for Improving the Text Classification Data Quality

The pandemic is affecting the global community in many ways. In most developing countries, there is a limitation in the detection facilities, which affect many suspected cases. This paper proposes a chatbot framework to assist and provide guide for the suspected/infected patients with COVID-19. Conversational software agents activated by natural language processing is known as chatbot, are an excellent example of such machine. Our COVID Bot is based on an integrated model between the rule-based model and the class classification model, having the rule-based model integrated with the MongoDB NoSQL database. Chatbot, using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and data mining techniques to assist patients by providing immediate answers for their questions. It also acts as a novel communication mean for impaired people for sharing knowledge and information, through conversing with them. Based on the literature review, this paper compared our methods with three classical classification algorithms: random forest, gradient boosting, and multi-layer perceptron (MLP). Experimental results show that our proposed chatbot greatly improves the classification performance, with IE-Net as 94.80%, 92.79% as recall, 92.97% as precision and 94.93% as AUC for distinguishing COVID-19 cases from non-COVID-19 cases (with only common clinical diagnose data).

Doaa S. Elzanfaly, Nada Amr Mohamed, Nermin Abdelhakim Othman
Cultivating Computational Thinking in Early Years Through Board Games. The Cthink.it Approach

Computational Thinking (CT) was brought up originally in the 1950s as the notion of using structured or algorithmic thinking. It refers to a specific set of mental skills used to formulate solutions to problems by converting given inputs to produce appropriate outputs while following detailed algorithms to perform this process. CT is broadly defined as a combination of thinking processes which include abstraction, algorithm design, decomposition, sequencing, pattern recognition and data representation. The prominence of CT in education has been steadily increasing. Lately, the corresponding research is focusing also on early years (starting from the age of 4). Towards this direction and in combination with the blooming of Game-based and gamified learning approaches, this paper discusses the design of a board game addressed to children 4–8 years old, for cultivating CT skills. A detailed roadmap on the design of the game, including a systematic literature review is presented in this paper.

Tharrenos Bratitsis, Maria Tsapara, Kiriaki Melliou, Leonard Busuttil, Diane Vassallo, James Callus, Gonçalo Meireles, Iro Koliakou, Nabil Tarraf Kojok, Sofia Sousa
Board Game Design by Children as an Assessment Mechanism in Kindergarten. A Case Study About Disability and Vulnerability

This paper presents the idea of a technology-enhanced board game, designed by students of a Greek kindergarten. The board game implementation emerged as an idea by the students, after their participation in a Skills Lab Project related to awareness about disability and vulnerability. Through this project students were able to understand that each of them brings unique experiences and ideas in the classroom and cultivate their empathy towards individuals with disabilities. The students had prior knowledge on board game design. In the classroom, board games are prepared as a part of a project, in which the children participate as game designers on their own initiative, depending on their interests. The goal of the study was to research whether the process of designing a board game by kindergarten students, based on the engineering design process, could also function as a tool for assessing and valuing the knowledge acquired by them during their participation in the Skills Lab project.

Maria Tsapara, Tharrenos Bratitsis
Progressive Healthcare Pedagogy: An Application Merging ChatGPT and AI-Video Technologies for Gamified and Cost-Effective Scenario-Based Learning

Healthcare education faces numerous challenges in meeting the expanding needs of students while providing personalized learning experiences. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), have emerged as promising solutions to address these challenges. However, the gap between technological advancements and practical implementation remains a significant bottleneck in AI integration. This paper presents an exploration of the practical implementation of AI in healthcare education, focusing on user-friendly, controllable, and transparent AI tools. The study reviews existing literature on AI in healthcare education, emphasizing the potential of LLMs but also addressing challenges, such as bias and fairness. A methodology section describes a serious game-based workshop that leveraged AI tools including ChatGPT-4 to simulate dynamic healthcare scenarios and foster user engagement. Results demonstrate the efficacy and adaptability of AI-driven applications in healthcare education, highlighting their potential as cost-effective learning resources. The paper discusses the implications of AI implementation, including its capacity to transform traditional educational methods, promote curiosity, and foster trust. Ultimately, this paper aims to inspire foster innovation and inform best practices for the practical integration of AI in healthcare education, bridging the gap between theoretical complexity and real-world application.

Matthew Pears, Cherry Poussa, Stathis Th. Konstantinidis
A Project Overview: The Implementation of a Native Android App for Mobile Signal Detection and a PHP Laravel Web-Based Platform for Real-Time Monitoring and Analysis of Wireless Communication Networks for Educational Purposes

This paper presents an in-depth examination of the creation and deployment of an Android application and a companion PHP Laravel web-based platform, both engineered to extract, process, and scrutinize real-time mobile signal parameters. Capitalizing on the ubiquity and open-source features of the Android system, the application acquires nuanced mobile data and interacts seamlessly with the web platform for comprehensive analysis. The platform, designed to be an accessible educational resource, serves a broad demographic, ranging from inquisitive children to professional researchers, fostering a more profound comprehension of wireless communication networks. Despite initial success, the study acknowledges the need for ongoing enhancements to adapt to the continually evolving Android ecosystem. The article systematically articulates the methodology encompassing project planning, design, development, testing, and data collection. It underscores pivotal research inquiries, the selection of software tools, and the type of data handled. The project spotlights the relentless pursuits in technological research, signifying its considerable potential to contribute to the domain of wireless network analysis.

Georgios Roussos, Petros Nicopolitidis
Identifying the Most Mobile Content Sections Within a Course of Biosensors from the Last Decades

Biosensors have experienced a fulminant development in the last decades. Therefore, the content of a Biosensors and Electronic Bio-devices course held at the Master of a technical faculty in Romania had to keep up with the state of the art. The chapters with the most mobile content will be highlighted in this study. Motivation of this study starts from the accelerated mobile content in the last two decades, on all directions: receptors, analytes, transducer, technology, co-integration techniques. The revealed goals have to be connected to the actual research fields of the biosensors, transistor-based. Collaboration among institutions seem to be the next solution for overdosed courses, due to the co-existence of high development and poor financing of these interdisciplinary fields, like biosensors and electronic devices.

Cristian Ravariu, Gabriel Dima, Musala Sarada, Avireni Srinivasulu, Bhargav Appasani
Work-in-Progress: SYNERGIA, Towards an Online Communication and Collaboration Interactivity

During the period of pandemic, teleconference platforms and various online tools became critical options for working or educational environments to continue their activities. Nowadays, in many cases there is a mixed environment (online and onsite) taking advantage of the development of various online platforms. This situation revealed the need of the development of dynamic and immersive online communication tools. Thus, the field of teleconference tools is a very fast-growing area. The most known teleconference tools provide basic collaboration features such as voice and video communication screen sharing and text chat. The proposed application tries to provide advanced technological support to various distant collaboration activities, especially in the area of e-learning. It focusses on interactive communication features that can significantly reduce the distance between the persons participating in a web conference. There is a considerable gap between web conference and web collaboration. This article is proposing a web conference tool which is focused to support online collaboration and interactivity trying to contribute to an attempt to bridge this gap.

Hippokratis Apostolidis, Spyridon Armatas, George Tsantikis, Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos
The Development of Interdisciplinary Digital Learning Platform to Advance Digital Learning Strategic Framework

The field of biotechnology and biomanufacturing is experiencing rapid advancements, necessitating the provision of quality learning materials for students to keep pace with the evolving industry. Digital learning platforms have emerged as indispensable tools, offering convenience and flexibility for learners. However, the abundance of unverified digital resources presents a significant challenge, contributing to the dissemination of inaccurate information and exacerbating the current misinformation pandemic. Moreover, the integration of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, adds complexity as students often lack a comprehensive understanding of these tools’ functioning and limitations. To address these issues, this research paper proposes the development of a verified digital learning platform catering specifically to biotechnology and biomanufacturing education. The platform ensures the reliability and accuracy of learning materials by curating and validating content from reputable sources, creating a reliable resource hub for self-learning and skill development. In addition, the paper aims to cultivate critical thinking skills among students, enabling them to effectively evaluate and utilize AI tools like ChatGPT in their learning journey. Equipping students with the ability to discern the reliability of information from AI tools is crucial to fostering a discerning approach towards digital resources.

Fei Geng, Daniel D’Souza
Artificial Intelligence in Power Distribution Systems

The artificial intelligence (AI) is part of the modern Power Systems. It is used in protection and control of electrical lines and transformers with good results, in the future will be widely used for implementing the smart grid. Any research is getting closer to an autonomous system which can learn how to adapt in different situations during a normal or fault regime.Optimal functioning of electrical distribution networks is to maintain the voltage into acceptable limits in order not to affect the insulation of the electric lines. During nominal regime the voltage variation is not so big due to the several voltage regulation methods, but during a fault regime, usually during earth-faults can occur over-voltages that can affect the lines’ insulation. That is why earth-faults must be identified and eliminated as quick as possible.The article is researching the possibility to detect the earth-faults with fuzzy logic. The fuzzy logic is using artificial intelligence and allows the earth-faults detection even the input data is not so accurate because of the errors given by the instrument transformers. So, using several logic rules, the phase and the circuit with earth-fault can be successfully identified even the input data is not so precise.The expert fuzzy systems can be successfully used in earth-fault detection and also in detecting any kind of fault with superior results to classical method because using the data with errors it can obtain good results using the logic small, normal, big for the currents and voltages in the system can take decisions similar to human operator.The system using AI can cover wide areas of electrical networks, it can be used for disconnecting the other side of the line by communication between the protection relays.

Razvan Alexandru Moise, Aurel Fratu
Adaptation of Internet of Things Technology to the Management of Educational Institutions

This paper offers a concise overview of doctoral research that explores the integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology into the world of education and the management of educational institutions. The main objective of this study is to leverage IoT to enhance the quality of teaching and learning experiences. Traditional education systems often struggle to captivate the attention of both teachers and students, which creates a dull teaching environment. The implementation of IoT technology promises to address these challenges by facilitating the rapid and engaging delivery of information. One of the key outcomes of this research is the creation of an entirely new educational environment that seamlessly integrates technology, making the classroom experience more relatable and enjoyable for students, and eliminating the sense of being transported to a bygone era during lectures. by taking education to the next level into a new era where technology seamlessly augments the teaching and learning processes, in doing so, it paves the way for a future where education seamlessly integrates with the technology that permeates our daily lives, transforming the classroom into a space where learning is not only effective but also enjoyable and aligned with the digital age.

Abdelghani Ait Ben Braim, Mustapha Raoufi, Mohammed Skouri
Motivation to Learn in Immersive Web Environments: Pilot Study

The article describes a pilot study conducted with elementary school students (8th grade) of a public school. The study was conducted in the classroom for three weeks (one time, fifty minutes, per week). The students conceptualized an online classroom, to learn a programmatic content, chosen by them. During the sessions, the students imagined, thought and designed the room, which they would later model and in which they had classes. However, due to some problems (which are addressed in the article), the students did not model the room, so in the use phase, it was necessary to use one, that was already created. Two surveys were applied per questionnaire. The results demonstrated the need to reformulate the schedule for the fieldwork that is intended to be developed in the future, as well as to readjust some of the instruments and data collection techniques built. The familiarity of students with the concept of Immersive Web Environments (IWE) is limited, although they recognize the educational potential of these environments. Most students have a consumer attitude, which is reflected in the difficulty in imagining school and the classroom in these contexts. Despite this and inspired by the examples that the teacher presented, the students drew creative scenarios of unconventional classrooms. The results demonstrate a positive impact on students’ motivation and indicate that if students had an active participation in creating the environment, motivation to learn could increase.

Bárbara Cleto, Carlos Santos, Mário Vairinhos
Music Recommendation Based on Face Emotion Recognition

The paper presents a mobile application, EmoTunes, that detects the face emotions of people and thereafter plays a suitable music. The emotion detection system works for any skin tone as the dataset introduced contains a mix of ethnicities. The dataset was collected by asking friends, family members and acquaintances selfies of themselves expressing the Ekman’s basic emotions. EmoTunes then used an ensemble learning with MobileNetV2 and ResNet50 to detect the 7 Ekman’s emotions: Angry, Disgust, Fear, Happy, Neutral, Sad and Surprise. The system can detect single user as well as multi-user emotions. It has 2 types of recommendation: Recommendation from server, where it fetches songs from the database, and Recommendation via YouTube, where it takes only a single emotion and fetches a YouTube song that best relates to the user’s preferences and liking. EmoTunes uses 2 methods of discretizing multi-user emotions: either by finding the most common emotion among them, or by finding the emotion of the face nearest to the camera. During real-time emotion detection, the system detects the user’s emotion for 15 s and finds the most common emotion expressed within those 15 s to play a music directly from the server. A total validation accuracy of 99.64% was deduced from the final model, making it one of the promising models when compared to recent research work. The system can be deployed to any part of the world as it adapts to each user’s liking using the YouTube feature. While humans are social creatures, they do not like to wait for services. EmoTunes can hence be deployed in waiting rooms such as for healthcare facilities and at the metro/bus stations, or even in buses and trains in Mauritius, or other parts of the world, to provide the users with some recomforting music based on their current emotions. Future considerations might include further working on the dataset to achieve a much bigger variation.

Pallavi Ramsaran, Leckraj Nagowah
Utilizing New Technologies for Children with Communication and Swallowing Disorders: A Systematic Review

Communication and swallowing abilities have proven to be essential components of our daily lives. People with communication and swallowing disabilities find it challenging to maintain relationships with family, friends, and social acquaintances, as well as to achieve social and academic goals. Innovative technology application in Speech and Language Pathology (SLP) is gaining attention. Digital and mobile technologies in health are continuously evolving, staging new opportunities from telepractice to monitoring, assessment and intervention procedures. This study focuses on reporting on the technical approaches and advances intended to support the clinical procedures and management of communication and swallowing disorders, with the potential to alleviate accessibility issues and improve the quality of SLT services for the pediatric population. The results of the systematic review demonstrated mostly utilization of telepractice procedures, use of smart systems, social robots, machine learning, speech processing, virtual reality and AAC. Future research is necessary to gain deeper knowledge on the use of new clinical digital approaches in the health care of children with communication and swallowing disorders to (i) support the children’s and families’, and (ii) suggest a positive economic impact according to current digital trends.

Eugenia I. Toki, Soultana Papadopoulou, Jenny Pange
Fostering a Co-creation Process for the Development of an Extended Reality Healthcare Education Resource

The aim of this research is to create an immersive healthcare education resource using an extended reality (XR) platform. This platform leverages an existing software product, incorporating virtual patients with conversational capabilities driven by artificial intelligence (AI). The initial stage produced an early prototype focused on assessing an elderly virtual patient experiencing frailty. This scenario encompasses the hospital admission to post-discharge care at home, involving various healthcare professionals such as paramedics, emergency clinicians, diagnostic radiographers, geriatricians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, operating department practitioners, dietitians, and social workers. The plan moving forward is to refine and expand this prototype through a co-creation with diverse stakeholders. The refinement process will include the introduction of updated scripts into the standard AI model. Furthermore, these scripts will be tested against a new hybrid model that combines generative AI. Ultimately, this resource will be co-designed to create a learning activity tailored for occupational therapy and physiotherapy students. This activity will undergo testing with a cohort of students, and the outcomes of this research are expected to inform the future development of interprofessional virtual simulated placements (VSPs). These placements will complement traditional clinical learning experiences, offering students an immersive environment to enhance their skills and knowledge in the healthcare field.

Juliana Samson, Petros Lameras, Natasha Taylor, Rosie Kneafsey

Mobile Health Care, Healthy Lifestyle and Training

Frontmatter
Enhanced Web Platform for Optimizing Medical Fundraising for a Charitable Fund

This study focuses on the development of an innovative digital charity platform, concentrating primarily on accumulating funds for children requiring medical treatments. Medical crowdfunding has emerged in recent years as a noteworthy form of online fundraising, offering a pivotal alternative financial avenue for high-cost projects, especially medical treatments for critically ill patients devoid of sufficient funds. The study investigates the expansive reach and potential of crowdfunding initiatives, exploring its historical significance and global impact, and highlighting its pertinence across various sectors. In essence, medical crowdfunding serves as an essential monetary conduit for individuals facing severe health predicaments, facilitating the procurement of financial aid from diverse sources, encompassing charitable funds, governmental aid, and private donors. Advances in mobile communication technologies have significantly expanded the reach of crowdfunding, employing online and mobile channels to captivate a more extensive audience. This research scrutinizes the driving factors behind contributors’ participation in medical crowdfunding, revealing the altruistic impulses stimulated by compelling, emotion-evoking narratives. It then integrates these factors in the design, implementation, and assessment of a dedicated medical crowdfunding platform. A real-world campaign, launched in collaboration with a charitable entity in Kazakhstan, serves as a testbed, to assess the platform’s effectiveness. The proposed platform underscores the vital role of technological innovation in eliciting emotional responses and altruistic contributions.

Nurkhan Issin, Azamat Salamat, Assanali Aidarkhan, Mariza Tsakalerou
A Brain-Computer Interface Application Based on P300 Evoked EEG Potentials for Enabling the Communication Between Users and Chat GPT

The brain-computer interface or the BCI is a high-technology provided by the breakthroughs from the biomedical engineering research field. The BCI is aimed at supporting people with neuromotor disabilities by enabling the achievement of movement and communication tasks using only the mental decoded intentions. This paper presents the development and the experimentation of BCI application integrated with the Chat GPT assistant. Considering that this AI modern instrument is really engaging triggering the feeling of communicating with a real human being, then it will prove its usefulness even for the disabled users who need to be treated as normal persons still having unaffected emotions and cognitive abilities. The EEG signals are acquired from the GTEC Unicorn headset embedding eight sensors placed to the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital cerebral lobes. The current work also focuses on the implementation of a LabVIEW instrument providing the solution of calling specific Python functions able to achieve the data transfer between computer and the Chat GPT API. Therefore, the originality is determined by solving the challenge underlying the software development of a functional brain-computer interface by combining LabVIEW graphical programming environment, Python language and P300 Speller Unicorn platform. This way, the users firstly need to focus their attention and eyesight to the alphanumeric symbols displayed by the Speller board. The target is to obtain simultaneous real-time data transfer starting with the questions addressed by the P300 Speller board and ending with the answers provided by the Chat GPT.

Oana Andreea Rusanu
Self-management of Type-2 Diabetes Using a Mobile Application: A Pilot Study

There is a steady rise in the number of patients living with diabetes worldwide and the threat of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) on public health is urging policy makers, researchers and clinicians to investigate novel methods that can help to reduce the burden of diabetes and related complications. The use of mobile applications is emerging as the latest technology in the follow-up and management of patients with diabetes through registries, recall systems and monitoring. The primary objective of this research was to develop a mobile application entitled DiaMon, and to assess its acceptability to support patients of T2DM in self-managing their health conditions, specifically adapted to the Mauritian eating habits. Patients with T2DM or pre-diabetes were invited to participate in a study, over a period of 12 weeks, to evaluate the application. The glycaemic control (HbA1c, Fasting Blood Glucose (FBG)) was conducted at baseline and at the end of the study for each participant. A positive behavioural change was noted among the participants. There were statistically significant improvements in glycaemic control: the HbA1c showed an improvement of 1.2% over the 3-month period, with a mean of 6.53 (SD 1.66) %. Upon concluding the study, HbA1c was found to be within the recommended range for mitigating the risk of complications associated with T2DM. There was also a significant reduction in the mean FBG when the pre-intervention blood glucose values were compared to post-intervention. This research has demonstrated the positive impact of the use of a digital tool for the self-management of T2DM.

Soulakshmee D. Nagowah, Abha Jodheea-Jutton, Kavi Kumar Khedo, Shakuntala Baichoo, Sudha Cheerkoot-Jalim, Leckraj Nagowah, Zahra Mungloo-Dilmohamud
Plant Disease Prediction Using Deep Learning Techniques

With the rising importance of agriculture in ensuring food security, early disease detection is crucial to mitigate yield losses and economic impacts caused by crop diseases. In this paper, a lightweight mobile application, BotaniCare, is presented which aims at revolutionizing agricultural practices by using deep learning techniques to accurately detect and diagnose diseases in plants. The system has been trained on a dataset of images of both healthy plants and those affected by various diseases. Through the implementation of the model, the system could recognize patterns and anomalies in plant health, enabling precise identification of plant diseases with minimal human intervention. The mobile application also included remedial actions to health the plants from the identified disease. The development of the plant disease prediction system involved data collection, pre-processing, model selection, testing and evaluation. The model was trained on labeled data and evaluated using appropriate metrics to ensure the reliability of the model. Different CNN architectures were compared and evaluated to be able to choose the most suitable one. By using transfer learning, MobileNetV2 was used in BotaniCare and a training accuracy of 98.7% and a validation accuracy of 96.4% was achieved during the model development and evaluation process. BotaniCare was thoroughly assessed using real-life images and validated against expert diagnosis, demonstrating its high accuracy and reliability in disease prediction. It is anticipated that the mobile application will be widely used by farmers in Mauritius to identify the frequent diseases of the common plants and apply appropriate remedial actions.

Widaad Fayid Hulkury, Leckraj Nagowah

From Headsets to Mindsets – Human-Centred Extended Reality

Frontmatter
3D Transformation of 2D Captured Museum Objects at Risk

This paper presents a methodology for 2D to 3D object transformation, based on 2D captured museum assets (such as old photos, scans, or other 2D digitized content) for items with limited access due to their age, value or fragile nature. The technology simplifies 3D object generation in order to reduce cost of hardware or personnel for 3D production. It is applicable for improved display of valuable artefacts in 3D web-based virtual museums, galleries, educational games, etc.

Maxim Goynov, Dušan Tatić, Desislava Paneva-Marinova, Radomir S. Stanković, Detelin Luchev, Emanuela Mitreva, Lilia Pavlova
From Data Abundance to Informed Citizenship: The Empowering Potential of the Dali Life Game for Data Literacy

In a modern society characterised by an exponential proliferation of data, the concept of data literacy has risen as an essential construct for becoming an active citizen. This development has been catalysed by the concerted efforts of scholars, policymakers, and technological visionaries aimed at equipping individuals with the essential skills to navigate the complexities and opportunities embedded within the data overflow. This paper presents and evaluates the Dali Life game as a multimodal digital tool designed to empower citizens in comprehending, mitigating, and evaluating the spectrum of risks and challenges accompanying their daily data interactions. Employing a mixed methods approach involving a cohort of adult citizens (n = 37), this study aims to understand how the game is used and what data literacy aspects are important to be nurtured for becoming a data literate citizen. Two overarching categories were prevalent: (1) understanding data literacy and (2) engaging through data. Both dimensions reinvigorate the procedural rhetoric of data literacy via encouraging players to create their own cognitive structures and skills as means to foster critical practice for tackling real world problems. The research findings offer insights to technology experts and data literacy advocates guiding the formulation of data literacy interventions with targeted focus on connecting data literacy to concepts such as games and play, citizenship, empowerment, and social innovation thus accentuating its role as a pragmatic tool for effectively resolving everyday challenges.

Petros Lameras, Sylvester Arnab, Mark Lewis
Rollick Games: A Formal Language Based Platform for Location-Based Pervasive Games

In this paper, we present the Rollick Games platform and its Pervasive Game Modeling Language that enables the description of location-based pervasive games using a GUI provided by the Game Studio web app. The runtime environment (Pervasive Game Execution Environment) is responsible for generating the Pervasive Game Execution Language from a game model and loading it to an instance of the game's Execution Engine. The Execution Environment includes a set of agents responsible for monitoring the players’ context and interaction with other game elements and among each other. The Engine follows an event-driven paradigm and uses an event loop waiting for events to be dispatched from the agents to carry out its computations based on its current state, context, and event data. The proposed approach allows for both sharing and reusing game models, significantly reducing time to market and development costs.

George Anestis, Nektarios Gioldasis, Stefanos Karasavvidis, Tzanis Palioudakis, Nektarios Moumoutzis, Stavros Christodoulakis
Perceptions and Challenges of Implementing XR Technologies in Education: A Survey-Based Study

This paper presents a user-centered design approach employed in the development of initial user requirements for the XR4ED EU project. The process involves the utilization of questionnaires to gather valuable insights regarding the user requirements for experts XR in education. Understanding the perspectives of experts and identifying barriers to implementation are crucial for fostering its effective utilization. Results highlight the positive outlook among experts regarding the potential of XR as a transformative tool in education as well as the importance of addressing financial, technical, and infrastructural challenges to facilitate successful implementation.

Filip Škola, Alexandra Karanasiou, Mike Triantafillou, Haris Zacharatos, Fotis Liarokapis
Adventure in AI Project (2AI): Promoting AI Knowledge for Kids Aged 7–12 Using Gaming

Artificial Intelligence is becoming popular across various sections of the industry varying from education to military and health, however the public understanding of those technologies is often limited. In the education domain there is a need to increase AI literacy of the students and the educators. However, the education systems are unprepared for addressing those complex issues and therefore there is a need to raise the awareness of about the potential, benefits, limitations, breadth of technologies used in AI (machine learning, deep learning), to make available resources that educator can use, and equipping them with all the necessary tools needed to engage with the students. This paper is focused on addressing those issues, and it proposes the use of a toolkit that includes games, educational materials and learning resources. The paper introduces the evaluation of a game by 68 participants, aged between 7–12 and several primary school educators. From the preliminary analysis we have identified that the game was perceived positively from participants and educators as an educational tool.

Panagiotis Petridis, Vladlena Benson, Mariam Garibyan, Gonçalo Meireles, Alex Carpov, Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou, Marisa Teles

Remote and Online Laboratories

Frontmatter
Work-in-Progress: “Smart Print Automation” Remote Lab and Cloud Connector

The paper discusses a project to develop a “Smart Print Automation” system that allows remote access to the lab and is an integral part of Automation 4.0 education. This system consists of a print head, a gantry, a controller unit and an edge device designed and built by a group of students. A programmable logic controller (PLC), specifically the SIMATIC S7-1200, coordinates the system, primarily the three stepper motor drivers and motors. It uses OPC UA to communicate real-time production data with the Raspberry Pi edge device, providing remote monitoring and control via a web interface built with Node-RED. The print head and mechanical design of the T-Bot Gantry ensure fast and accurate operation. The PLC program was created using TIA Portal V17 and Function Block Diagram (FBD) for precise motor control. Docker facilitated the installation of programs on the edge device, including Node-RED, influxDB, Portainer and Grafana. While the system is currently standalone, the next phase is to enable it as a remote lab and develop a cloud connector to make the edge device data easily accessible online for machine learning applications.

C. Madritsch, P. Hohenberger, B. Heindl, V. Smoly
Mobile Application Facilitating Agricultural Monitoring

Mobile technology is rapidly advancing and has already applications in various sectors, including agriculture. The use of such technology brings numerous benefits to this specific sector, ranging from increased productivity to better decision-making concerning agricultural activities. In Europe, activities of this kind are monitored by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which concerns, in particular, the aspects of farming, environmental protection, and food security. According to CAP, farmers are obliged to comply with certain requirements when carrying out their agriculture activities in order to increase operational efficiency and to prevent any irregularities that may occur. However, compliance with CAP is quite challenging and requires a lot of time due to the high numbers of farmers and, at the same time, the small numbers of inspectors. The mobile application presented in this paper aims to increase the operational efficiency of CAP monitoring by making it a less time- and resource- consuming procedure.

D. Delioglani, A. Karakostas
Open-Source Based Remote Control of Thermo-Optical Plant uDAQ28/LT

With the emergence of hardware reusability and the popularity of open source tools, this paper proposes a method of building an online laboratory utilizing tools that are completely built using open source software to teach control theory. This approach is then verified by implementing a real educational device (uDAQ28/LT) into this online laboratory setup.

Ján Šefčík, Katarína Žáková
Development of Teaching Methods Using Artificial Intelligence Techniques

Traditional education is based on three main themes: teacher, learner, and information. We do not believe that it is irreplaceable because of its positives, for which there is no other alternative. However, in our present era, it faces many problems. Therefore, we need to use very sophisticated educational methods that help to mitigate their effects on the educational process. In this paper, we will try to advance how to develop teaching methods for remote practical works and their courses using artificial intelligence techniques. We will briefly review the stages of setting up an e-learning platform (e-labs platform) and some of the electronic materials as training assistance in remote practical works. Then we will mention some of the AI programs that we have relied on to develop our appropriate models for e-labs platform that collects, organizes, processes, and evaluates students’ and teachers’ data. After downloading the platform for work, the results showed some good features that are reflected in, the rapid updating of courses for practical works, supporting students’ self-learning, and the development of the feature for electronic exams.

Abdelali El Gourari, Abdelghani Ait Ben Braim, Mustapha Raoufi, Mohammed Skouri
Work-in-Progress: Realization of IoT Lab Benches Controlled by a Raspberry Pi Accessible via the Web

Nowadays, STEM-oriented higher education institutions are increasingly equipping themselves with Internet of Things (IoT) hands-on hardware for practical experiments applied in industries such as e-education, e-health, e-agriculture and monitoring, traceability, production line automation and in many areas where technological innovation is very promising. IoT technologies allow physical devices to be connected to the Internet, enabling real-time data collection and remote interaction with these devices. If we consider the education environment, learners often prototype in the form of computer science or physics-electronics assignments based on IoT hardware. The IoT equipment for the realization of these prototypes is often purchased and often requires the presence of the learner to perform practical work. This paper proposes to set up a remote on-demand lab environment on IoT (Internet of Things) hardware controlled by a raspberry pi remotely accessible via the web. The lab benches will be connected to the GPIOs of the raspberry pi. In addition, the idea is to use connected devices to allow students to perform experiments and simulations remotely, rather than being limited to the physical facilities available in a lab or training center. This can provide many benefits such as increased flexibility for students and teachers, reduced costs associated with physical facilities, and increased interactivity and collaboration in learning. Students will be able to use these devices to conduct hands-on experiments and projects, while being able to view and manipulate data in real time from a distance.

Amadou Dahirou Gueye, Lamine Yade
Correction to: Development of Teaching Methods Using Artificial Intelligence Techniques
Abdelali El Gourari, Abdelghani Ait Ben Braim, Mustapha Raoufi, Mohammed Skouri
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Smart Mobile Communication & Artificial Intelligence
herausgegeben von
Michael E. Auer
Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos
Copyright-Jahr
2024
Electronic ISBN
978-3-031-56075-0
Print ISBN
978-3-031-56074-3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56075-0