Anxhela Ferhataj, Fatmir Memaj, Roland Sahatcija, Ariel Ora and Enkelejda Koka
The rapid advancement and integration of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming various sectors, presenting profound ethical, economic, legal and societal…
Abstract
Purpose
The rapid advancement and integration of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming various sectors, presenting profound ethical, economic, legal and societal challenges. This study aims to examine ethical concerns in AI development, with a specific focus on robotics, from the perspectives of university students in Albania.
Design/methodology/approach
A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 233 university students, focusing on their experiences with AI and robotics, ethical perceptions, preferences and recommendations for advancing these technologies. Hypotheses were tested at a 95% confidence interval, with data analyzed using JASP software version 0.18.3.0.
Findings
The results reveal a high level of ethical awareness among students, particularly regarding transparency, liability and privacy in AI and robotics. Practical experience with robotics and understanding of AI’s ethical implications significantly shape students’ attitudes, fostering support for ethical governance. Students also advocate for robust regulatory measures to safeguard individual rights, ensure data security, promote transparency in AI decision-making and uphold privacy.
Research limitations/implications
This study focuses on university students in Albania, which may limit the generalizability of its findings. Future research should explore diverse populations and cross-cultural contexts to validate and extend the proposed framework.
Practical implications
Insights from this study can guide policymakers and technology developers in designing laws, regulations and practices that balance innovation with public interest, fostering trust and acceptance of AI systems.
Social implications
The findings underscore the importance of Albania adopting and harmonizing its policies with the EU Civil Law Rules on Robotics, the EU AI Act and AI Strategy, supporting ethical AI integration aligned with the country’s EU accession objectives.
Originality/value
This study introduces the Ethical Awareness-Trust Framework, a novel theoretical model integrating ethical literacy, experiential trust and regulatory advocacy to foster responsible AI adoption and governance. The findings address critical gaps in the literature by offering actionable recommendations for aligning national policies with European regulations and embedding ethics into AI research and education.
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Through life stories and the unique lens of military combat service, this study analyzes how Israeli Jewish women construct their relationship to the Jewish nation-state.
Abstract
Purpose
Through life stories and the unique lens of military combat service, this study analyzes how Israeli Jewish women construct their relationship to the Jewish nation-state.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study establishes a theoretical relationship between gender and the nation, including concepts such as the nation-state, the public/private divide, Jewish womanhood, and militarization in Israel. It utilizes in-depth semi-structured life story interviews with 17 Israeli Jewish women, who served in combat roles in the Israeli military.
Findings
These women demonstrate ambivalent and gendered narratives of sacrifice and success and of loyalty and resistance as they transgress and comply with the idea of the national Jewish home. They reveal a strong desire for national belonging that can be seen as an attempt to challenge the gendered public/private divide and secure their status as qualified citizens.
Social implications
Women’s integration in the military is a political issue in Israel where liberal and radical feminists, religious, bureaucratic, and other civil groups are pushing for contrasting demands. I engage in this debate by emphasizing the voices of women soldiers.
Originality/value
Instead of focusing on subjugation and marginalization owing to the unsolvable conundrum of partial military inclusion leading to (partial) political and societal exclusion, I offer an analysis of military combat service as a meaning-making practice providing a new understanding of Israeli women’s relationship to the Jewish nation-state.
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Jorge Andrés Vivares-Vergara, William Ariel Sarache-Castro and Julia Clemencia Naranjo-Valencia
Human resource management (HRM) is considered an important issue in operations strategy (OS). Furthermore, OS effectiveness depends on performance in competitive priorities (CP)…
Abstract
Purpose
Human resource management (HRM) is considered an important issue in operations strategy (OS). Furthermore, OS effectiveness depends on performance in competitive priorities (CP). However, little empirical evidence exists about the relationship between them. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of HRM on performance in CP.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was conducted by surveying a sample of medium and large manufacturing companies in the Colombian coffee region. Three groups of variables were studied: performance in CP, HRM practices and factors related to employees. A regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses.
Findings
No significant relationship was found between HRM practices and performance in CP. Regarding the factors related to employees, two findings were relevant: first, when the companies involve features about the individuals in OS decision making (motivations, personal goals, abilities, etc.) better performance can be observed in CP; second, when employees reach a higher level of satisfaction and job performance, the performance in CP improves as well.
Practical implications
Considering the importance of HRM practices, appropriate adjustment and application should be sought to improve company performance. Furthermore, factors related to employees (features about the individuals, job satisfaction and employee performance), must be properly aligned with the OS.
Originality/value
The paper addresses an issue supported by little empirical evidence. Because few studies have considered the total set of CP identified in the literature review, the authors applied an indicator to establish the global performance of the production system according to the market requirements. Traditionally, HRM has been studied from the perspective of management practices, giving little attention to employees. In this research, the authors consider not only this perspective but also the effects of factors related to employees on performance in CP when they are aligned with the OS.
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You can buy and use a personal computer without understanding the language—but it's a little hard to read these articles, and a lot harder to understand the Held thoroughly. The…
Abstract
You can buy and use a personal computer without understanding the language—but it's a little hard to read these articles, and a lot harder to understand the Held thoroughly. The author starts a new sequence of Trailing Edge articles by denning some of the terms used in the articles and in the field and mentioning some of the other terms you'll see used but rarely defined. The author also provides notes from PC literature for July‐September 1992. For a year in which prices were supposed to stabilize, it's been a remarkable summer: the new general‐purpose machine is supposed to be a 50MHz 486DX2, a well‐equipped 486SX now goes for less than $2,000 complete, and even the hottest new machines are coming out at reasonable prices.
Michael Brandreth and Clare MacKeigan
Reduced funding, global competition and technological change are forcinglibraries and information centres to turn to new methods of providingservices. Publishers of scientific and…
Abstract
Reduced funding, global competition and technological change are forcing libraries and information centres to turn to new methods of providing services. Publishers of scientific and technical information expect printed journals to remain their primary product for several more years, despite the advent of electronic journals. Library collections will continue to be largely paper‐based, but clients will demand much faster document delivery services from them. Many libraries must also maximize the investment in their collections by expanding their clientele. Electronic scanning of documents coupled with transmission over high‐speed, high‐capacity networks offers a potential solution to these problems. For more than a year, CISTI has been using proprietary imaging workstations to supply documents to one of its branches. Much more flexibility is needed to reach the disparate receiving equipment used by a varied Canadian and international clientele. Describes experience with the Ariel Workstation, developed by the Research Libraries Group, and CISTI′s own work towards a generic imaging workstation, able to transmit to a variety of receivers including identical scanning workstations, other workstations, facsimile machines and microcomputers with facsimile boards. Ability to rationalize library collections is seen as an important consequence.
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Vered Elishar-Malka, Yaron Ariel and Ruth Avidar
Usage patterns of mobile phones in Israel position them as instruments of great importance and as everyday, multipurpose, and interpersonal devices. This study utilizes a critical…
Abstract
Usage patterns of mobile phones in Israel position them as instruments of great importance and as everyday, multipurpose, and interpersonal devices. This study utilizes a critical perspective of the “uses and gratifications” approach to explore the usage of and gratification sought from smartphone usage of millennials. Sixty personal in-depth interviews were conducted during 2013 with millennials (undergraduate students) with the primary goal of exploring millennials’ perceptions of smartphone usages, as well as their personal experiences with smartphones and the role of smartphones in their lives. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze students’ reflections on the roles of smartphones in their lives. Participants have expressed a great bonding with their smartphone and relationships that can be described in term of "love and hate.” The thematic analysis highlighted the addictive elements of using their smartphone, that is, using it more frequently and under undesired circumstances than one would like to, and even becoming anxious about losing the device or even getting too far away from it. Other leading themes included the influence of external pressures to use smartphones, the varied usefulness that smartphones serve in participants’ lives, and a strong sense of "Fear of missing out" as an explanation for their extensive use of their smartphones. The findings of this chapter indicate that smartphones have become an indispensable medium among young adults, used due to practical, as well as to emotional reasons; inner, as well as external impulses.
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Recent Trailing Edge articles have discussed typefaces and graphics. This column discusses putting it all together: economical desktop publishing. There has never been a better…
Abstract
Recent Trailing Edge articles have discussed typefaces and graphics. This column discusses putting it all together: economical desktop publishing. There has never been a better time for libraries to become desktop publishers, and some will find that doing so requires no new software or hardware. The author discusses changes that have made desktop publishing such an appealing and reasonably‐priced proposition in 1994 and some of your options for getting started and moving on. He brings the typeface discussion up to date with a startling recent development and defines the difference between true desktop publishing and the spare‐no‐expense field that the “desktop publishing” magazines cover. A sidebar notes a series of desktop publishing workshops that the author is offering as part of LITA's regional institutes program. Finally, the author adds notes on the personal computing literature for January to March 1994, now including some Macintosh magazines and, soon, CD‐ROM/multimedia publications.
This research analyzes how ad formats are incorporated into the structure of radio programming and provides a scheme for classifying advertisements in light of the overall…
Abstract
This research analyzes how ad formats are incorporated into the structure of radio programming and provides a scheme for classifying advertisements in light of the overall organization of the radio programming schedule.
This chapter consists of three parts. The first part presents the main ad formats aired on the radio. The second discusses the challenges for classifying ad formats based on the characteristics usually employed in most studies. Finally, the third part of the chapter proposes a new taxonomic basis for the classification of radio advertising. Scholars from Spain and the United States provide the theoretical framework that serves as a main foundation for this work. However, Brazilian data forms the empirical basis for the classification of the ad formats in this research.
The approach moves the description of ad formats from an individual definition of each type of announcement – the ad formats – toward a broad analysis of radio advertisements, which groups the set of compositions in ad meta formats. The meta formats are distinguishable by the distribution mode or insertion mode of the ads in the radio programming.
The chapter presents an original taxonomy, which allows the development of a general framework regarding the advertising typology aired on the radio.
Future research could use this taxonomy to attend to the new landscape created by the changing electronic media and its influence on the analog radio programming.
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Identifies key activities that network users can perform in orderto use the network effectively. Offers recommended reading, frombeginner to expert user status. Explains some…
Abstract
Identifies key activities that network users can perform in order to use the network effectively. Offers recommended reading, from beginner to expert user status. Explains some commonly used terms (e.g. Turbo Gopher with Veronica!). Lists useful Internet resources.
Luis Enrique Aguilar and Ana Elisa Spaolonzi Queiroz Assis
This chapter aims to reconstruct the trajectory of comparative education in Brazil using the timeline concept to identify structural elements in the emergence and reconfiguration…
Abstract
This chapter aims to reconstruct the trajectory of comparative education in Brazil using the timeline concept to identify structural elements in the emergence and reconfiguration of this field of study. The timeline historical perspective allows us to use two additional features: (a) the reconstruction of the scenario in which emerge the intellectual productions; and simultaneously (b) identify how themes, issues, and research objects appears, whether in a homogeneous association or not. These elements allow us to associate comparative and historical methods to recognize the supranational and supraregional influence, determining the configuration of what is meant by comparative education in Brazil. The text distinguishes seven different moments for the Brazilian comparative educational area, which are: (1) the study of the structure and functioning of European and North American systems education; (2) the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) pioneering influence on the production of annuals; (3) the prioritization of educational practices; (4) the influence of supranational relations; (5) the focus on educational public policies; (6) new cycle of supranational influence; and (7) (re)definition of the theoretical, methodological, and epistemological anchorage of comparative education. In the last quarter century, it can be said that there is a resurgence of Comparative Education in Brazil and the region, which may be associated with strong historical influences, here reconstructed by periodization.