Village administration in Indonesia has changed its scope and operation with the integration of digital technology into public services at various levels. These conditions prompt questions about the successful digital transformation of public administration services. Digital transformation encompasses not only technological aspects but also socio-cultural factors. This paper reports the study related to implementing ICT-based applications in village administration policy in Indonesia. The study involved 315 village officials from 167 villages in 16 sub-districts within Toba district, North Sumatera province. A village administration software prototype was developed and introduced to the villages’ officials during the study. This study aims to gain insights from the officials’ response regarding digital technology-supported village administration. The research revealed that many village officials must gain the necessary knowledge and skills to conduct administrative tasks digitally, as they still rely on traditional, non-digitized methods. Recommendations include increased support and assistance from the Regency Government to help villages understand and implement digital administration and capacity-building activities to familiarize village officials with ICT advancements. The study also found that digital transformation in village administration remains challenging, with digitization and digitalization processes often overlooked. Addressing these challenges requires additional training and improved infrastructure availability. Finally, we propose a conceptual model of digital transformation for public administration at village level as generic components for digital implementation of village administration.

Nowadays, urban ecosystems require major transformations aimed at addressing the current challenges of urbanization. In recent decades, policy makers have increasingly turned their attention to the smart city paradigm, recognizing its potential to promote positive changes. The smart city, through the conscious use of technologies and sustainability principles, allows for urban development. The scientific literature on smart cities as catalysts of public value continues to develop rapidly and there is a need to systematize its knowledge structure. Through a three-phase methodological approach, combining bibliometric, network and content analyses, this study provides a systematic review of the scientific literature in this field. The bibliometric results showed that public value is experiencing an evolutionary trend in smart cities, representing a challenging research topic for scholars. Network analysis of keyword co-occurrences identified five different clusters of related topics in the analyzed field. Content analysis revealed a strong focus on stakeholder engagement as a lever to co-create public value and a greater emphasis on social equity over technological innovation and environmental protection. Furthermore, it was observed that although environmental concerns were prioritized during the policy planning phase, their importance steadily decreased as the operational phases progressed.

A smart city focuses on enhancing and interconnecting facilities and services through digital technology to offer convenient services for both people and businesses. The basic infrastructure of smart cities consists of modern technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and artificial intelligence. These urban areas utilize different networks, such as the Internet and IoT, to share real-time information, improving convenience for the inhabitants. However, the reliance of smart cities on modern technologies exposes them to a range of organized, diverse, and sophisticated cyber threats. Therefore, prioritizing cybersecurity awareness and implementing appropriate measures and solutions are essential to protect the privacy and security of citizens. This study aims to identify cyber threats and their impact on smart cities, as well as the methods and measures required for key areas such as smart government, smart healthcare, smart mobility, smart environment, smart economy, smart living, and smart people. Furthermore, this study seeks to evaluate previous research in this field, establish necessary policies to mitigate these threats, and propose an appropriate model for the infrastructure associated with IT networks in smart cities.

This study investigated the students’ perceptions of a self-paced fitness program that is integrated with SitFit, a fitness tracker that measures body inclination during sit-up exercises, and their acceptance of digital innovation in physical education. The data was gathered from a survey of 1001 Thai undergraduates. Results revealed that attitudes toward using the technology and the perceived ease of use were important predictors of behavioral intention to use the sit-up fitness tracker. consistent with previous TAM studies. Subsequently, SitFit was developed based on exercise principles and expert advice to enable users to exercise more effectively while reducing injury risk.

This paper explores how compassion can be defined as a transformative moral technology through analysis of Martha Nussbaum’s idea. Nussbaum contends that compassion goes beyond just feeling pain for others’ suffering; it also involves acknowledging the severity of suffering, understanding that it is not solely the victim’s fault, and recognizing the suffering individual as one of our most important goals and projects. Through a literature review that considers reductive explanations, we establish that compassion encompasses cognitive, affective, and conative capacities that are crucial for moral reasoning, knowledge, and judgment, all stemming from the experience of human suffering. These capacities of cognition, affection, and conation are supported by the system of reasoning and moral perspective known as techne, episteme, and oikeiosis as systems of reasoning and morality perspective. We argue that compassion is more than just an emotion or feeling, it is catalyst for moral action, as its essence lies in “suffering with; suffering together.”

This article examines how financial technology determines bank performance in different EU countries. The answer to that question would allow banks to choose their development policy. The paper focuses  on the main and most popular bank services that are linked to financial technology. A SWOT analysis of FinTech is also presented to show the benefits and drawbacks of FinTech. FinTech-based services are very diverse and are provided by financial  firms and banks alike. This paper looks at the financial technology provided by banks: internet usage (internet banking), number of ATMs, credit transfers in a country, percentage of the population in a country holding a debit or credit card and whether that population has received or made a digital payment. Using the multi-criteria assessment methods of CRITIC and EDAS, the authors analysed and compared the countries of the European Union and the financial technology used in them. As a result of the application of these methods, the EU countries under consideration were ranked in terms of the use of financial technology. Subsequently, three banks from different countries with different levels of the use of financial technology were selected for the study. For these banks, financial ratios of profitability were calculated to characterise their performance. Correlation and pairwise regression analyses between the banks’ profitability ratios and financial technology were used to assess the relationship and influence between these ratios. The main conclusion of the study focuses on the extent to which financial technology influences the performance of banks in the selected countries. It is likely that further research will try to take into account the size of the country’s population when analysing all financial technologies. Researchers also needed to find out what influence financial technologies have on the such financial indicators as operational efficiency (costs), financial stability, and capital adequacy.