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This paper first sketches the most important properties of cybernetics and general system theory and their connections. In order to determine their relationship we then describe the main stages in the development of cybernetics as well as its connection with the general system theory. Cybernetics and GST remain autonomous, maintaining their own internal logics and methods. Nevertheless, whenever they have to unite their forces for solving certain problems, like those of constructing complex systems with some kind of intelligence, they may cooperate in such a way that the complementary results they achieve may yield a complete picture.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) is a booming sector that has profoundly influenced every walk of life, and the education sector is no exception. In education, AI has helped to develop novel teaching and learning solutions that are currently being tested in various contexts. Businesses and governments across the globe have been pouring money into a wide array of implementations, and dozens of EdTech start-ups are being funded to capitalise on this technological force. The penetration of AI in classroom teaching is also a profound matter of discussion. These have garnered massive amounts of student big data and have a significant impact on the life of both students and educators alike.

Purpose: The prime focus of this chapter is to extensively review and analyse the vast literature available on the utilities of AI in health care, learning, and development. The specific objective of thematic exploration of the literature is to explicate the principal facets and recent advances in the development and employment of AI in the latter. This chapter also aims to explore how the EdTech and healthcare–education sectors would witness a paradigm shift with the advent and incorporation of AI.

Design/Methodology/Approach: To provide context and evidence, relevant publications were identified on ScienceDirect, PubMed, and Google Scholar using keywords like AI, education, learning, health care, and development. In addition, the latest articles were also thoroughly reviewed to underscore recent advances in the same field.

Results: The implementation of AI in the learning, development, and healthcare sector is rising steeply, with a projected expansion of about 50% by 2022. These algorithms and user interfaces economically facilitate efficient delivery of the latter.

Conclusions: The EdTech and healthcare sector has great potential for a spectrum of AI-based interventions, providing access to learning opportunities and personalised experiences. These interventions are often economic in the long run compared to conventional modalities. However, several ethical and regulatory concerns should be addressed before the complete adoption of AI in these sectors.

Originality/Value: The value in exploring this topic is to present a view on the potential of employing AI in health care, medical education, and learning and development. It also intends to open a discussion of its potential benefits and a remedy to its shortcomings.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to consider the use of the Internet as a potential facilitator of positive health-related perceptions. Specifically, we propose that online health information seeking fosters positive perceptions of health. Using path modeling, we theorized several mechanisms through which information seeking could be conducive to positive health perceptions, which we conceptualized into the following four dimensions: (1) sense of empowerment in managing health, (2) self-reported ability to take better care of health, (3) sense of improved health-related quality of life, and (4) self-reported improvement of health.

Methodology: Our sample consisted of respondents who have used the Internet as a resource for health information (n = 710), drawn from the largest national probability-based online research panel. Our comparison subsample consisted of older respondents (age ≥ 60; n = 194). We used Internet-specific measures and employed structural equation models (SEM) to estimate the direct, indirect, and total effects of health-related use of the Internet on subjective health perceptions. Based on our review of the literature, competent health communication with healthcare providers and sense of empowerment in managing personal health were modeled as mediator variables. We assessed whether the proposed mediational relationships, if significant, differed across our indicators of positive health perceptions and whether any differential associations were observed among older adults. We run parallel models for each indicator of positive health perception.

Findings: Provider-patient communication informed by the Internet resources were perceived to impart a greater sense of empowerment to manage health among our respondents, which in turn, was associated with perceived contributions to better self-reported ability to provide self-care, increased health-related quality of life, and improvement in self-reported health. The SEM results revealed a good fit with our full sample and subsample.

Research Implications: Conceptualization of the multidimensional aspects of online health information seeking with separate multi-indicator analyses of the outcome variable is important to further our understanding of how technology may impact the pathways involved in influencing health perceptions and as a result health outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to monitor in-class activities and the performance of the students.

A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the proposed system using a questionnaire with 132 participants (teachers and non-teachers) in a presentation style to record the participant’s perception about performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), facilitating conditions (FC), usability expectancy (UE) and user’s satisfaction (S) based on unified theory of acceptance use of technology (UTAUT) model.

The results show that PE, EE, FC had positive and significant influence on the UE of the proposed system. The effect of EE and FC on UE was seen to be more in female compared to male participants. The teacher category considered the PE and EE as important factors in determining their decision to use the proposed system.

A real-time student(s) visualization system based on the concept of real-time student locating system using radio frequency identification technology is proposed. Concepts can be categorized within the Internet of Things in the education domain.

A transformer model is used as a benchmark for testing various methods to solve 3D nonlinear periodic eddy current problems. This paper aims to set up a nonlinear magnetic circuit problem to assess the solving procedure of the nonlinear equation system for determining the influence of various special techniques on the convergence of nonlinear iterations and hence the computational time.

Using the T,ϕ-ϕ formulation and the harmonic balance fixed-point approach, two techniques are investigated: the so-called “separate method” and the “combined method” for solving the equation system. When using the finite element method (FEM), the elapsed time for solving a problem is dominated by the conjugate gradient (CG) iteration process. The motivation for treating the equations of the voltage excitations separately from the rest of the equation system is to achieve a better-conditioned matrix system to determine the field quantities and hence a faster convergence of the CG process.

In fact, both methods are suitable for nonlinear computation, and for comparing the final results, the methods are equally good. Applying the combined method, the number of iterations to be executed to achieve a meaningful result is considerably less than using the separated method.

To facilitate a quick analysis, a simplified magnetic circuit model of the 3D problem was generated to assess how the different ways of solutions will affect the full 3D solving process. This investigation of a simple magnetic circuit problem to evaluate the benefits of computational methods provides the basis for considering this formulation in a 3D-FEM code for further investigation.

Reuse of construction and demolition (C&D) waste as aggregates is becoming increasingly popular for a number of environmental and economic reasons. The purpose of this paper is to explore this topic.

In this study, structural‐ and pavement‐grade portland cement concrete (PCC) mixtures were developed using crushed recycled brick masonry from a demolition site as a replacement for conventional coarse aggregate. Prior to developing concrete mixtures, testing was performed to determine properties of whole clay brick and tile, as well as the crushed recycled brick masonry aggregate (RBMA), and a database of material properties was developed.

Concrete mixtures exhibiting acceptable workability and other fresh concrete properties were obtained, and tests were performed to assess mechanical properties and durability performance of the hardened concrete. Results indicated that recycled brick masonry aggregate concrete (RBMAC) mixtures can exhibit mechanical properties comparable to that of structural‐ and pavement‐grade PCC containing conventional coarse aggregates.

Results for durability performance were mixed, but additional testing to evaluate durability performance is recommended.

Although RBMAC has been untested in field applications, results of laboratory studies performed to date indicate that this material shows promise for use in pavement and structural applications. Future testing of RBMAC in both laboratory and field settings will allow stakeholders to gain a comfort level with its properties, identify specific potential uses, and establish guidelines that will assist in ensuring acceptable service life performance.

From the standpoint of sustainability, use of recycled materials as aggregates provides several advantages. Landfill space used for disposal is decreased, and existing natural aggregate sources are not as quickly depleted. Use of recycled aggregates in lieu of virgin quarried aggregates can potentially result in a lower embodied energy of the concrete, although this is often dependent on hauling costs. This particularly holds true if the methodology used to compute the embodied energy of a structure accounts for the “recovery” of energy at the end of its service life.

This study aims to examine the impact of the beginning of the Russia–Ukraine war and the Wagner Group’s attempted military coup against Putin’s regime on the European defense sector, consisting of weapons manufacturers.

The authors use the event study methodology to quantify the impact. That is, the authors assume that markets are efficient, and abnormal stock returns around the event dates capture the magnitudes of the impacts of the two events studied on European defense sector companies. The authors use the capital asset pricing model and two different multifactor models to estimate expected stock returns, which serve as the benchmark necessary to obtain abnormal returns.

The start of the war on February 24, 2022, when the Russian forces invaded Ukraine, was followed by high positive abnormal returns of up to 12% in the next few days. The results are particularly strong if multiple factors are used to control for the risk of the defense stocks. Conversely, the authors find a negative impact of the rebellion initiated by the mercenary Wagner Group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on June 23, 2023, on the abnormal returns of defense industry stocks on the first trading day after the event.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on the defense sector. Furthermore, this is the first study to measure the financial implications of the military coup initiated by the Wagner Group. The findings contribute to a rapidly growing literature on the financial implications of military conflicts around the world.

The simplified modeling of many physical processes results in a second-order ordinary differential equation (ODE) system. Often the damping of these resonating systems cannot be defined in the same simplified way as the other parameters due to the complexity of the physical effects. The purpose of this paper is to develop a mathematically stable approach for damping resonances in nonlinear ODE systems.

Modifying the original ODE using the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a linearized state leads to satisfying results.

An iterative approach is presented, how to modify the original ODE, to achieve a well-damped solution.

The method can be applied for every physical resonating system, where the model complexity prevents the determination of the damping.

The iterative algorithm to modify the original ODE is novel. It can be used on different fields of the physics, where a second-order ODE is describing the problem, which has only measured or empirical damping.

The purpose of the paper is to show the application of the fixed‐point method with the T, Φ‐Φ formulation to get the steady‐state solution of the quasi‐static Maxwell's equations with non‐linear material properties and periodic excitations.

The fixed‐point method is used to solve the problem arising from the non‐linear material properties. The harmonic balance principle and a time periodic technique give the periodic solution in all non‐linear iterations. The optimal parameter of the fixed‐point method is investigated to accelerate its convergence speed.

The Galerkin equations of the DC part are found to be different from those of the higher harmonics. The optimal parameter of the fixed‐point method is determined.

The establishment of the Galerkin equations of the DC part is a new result. The method is first used to solve three‐dimensional problems with the T, Φ‐Φ formulation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of overtourism with specific reference to the night-time economy (NTE) in Budapest, Hungary.

The research took place between September and December 2017 in the so-called “party quarter” of Budapest – District VII. The chosen methods included mapping, observation, interviews and questionnaires with local residents, visitors and tourists.

Partying opportunities are valued highly by tourists and the majority of customers in the bars are tourists. Many people feel that there are too many tourists in the area, although few had a bad experience with tourists. The most common complaints were the dirt and litter, public urination, street crime and noise. Most respondents would welcome a better cleaning service, more bins, more police, more public toilets and better street lighting.

The research was not undertaken in the high season, older residents were slightly under-represented and wider research across the whole city would give a more balanced perspective.

Recommendations are made for managing the NTE better in order to improve the experience of tourists and visitors and to improve the local resident quality of life.

It is hoped that this research may prompt local authorities to take local resident perceptions and experiences into account by creating better management measures and regulations.

This is the first paper to provide data from the perspective of three main stakeholder groups in the context of the NTE in Budapest.