The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the need to move educational processes to virtual environments and increase the use of digital tools for different teaching uses. This led to a change in the habits of using information and communication technologies (ICT), especially in higher education. This work analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frequency of use of different ICT tools in a sample of 950 Latin American university professors while focusing on the area of knowledge of the participating professors. To this end, a validated questionnaire has been used, the responses of which have been statistically analyzed. As a result, it has been proven that participants give high ratings to ICT but show insufficient digital competences for its use. The use of ICT tools has increased in all areas after the pandemic but in a diverse way. Differences have been identified in the areas of knowledge regarding the use of ICT for different uses before the pandemic. In this sense, the results suggest that Humanities professors are the ones who least use ICT for didactic purposes. On the other hand, after the pandemic, the use of ICT for communication purposes has been homogenized among the different knowledge areas.

Brunei Darussalam is a small Sultanate country with diverse forest cover. One of them would be Mangrove Forest. As it has four main administrative districts, Temburong would be the chosen case study area. The methods of collecting data for this article are by collecting secondary data from official websites and the map in this article (Figure 1) are showing the forest cover in Brunei Darussalam as of 2020. The aim of this article is to explain the mangrove forest especially at the Temburong District. As for the objectives, it would to be able to show the different types of forests in Temburong, hoping in ability to explain the different subtypes of mangroves forest and to explain in general the green jewel of Brunei Darussalam. Temburong has become the second highest tree coverage in Brunei Darussalam of 124 kha as of 2010, while the mangrove forest covering about 66% of total mangrove forest of 12,164 km² out of 18,418 hectares. Mangrove forest has seven subtypes: Bakau species, Nyireh bunga, Linggadai, Nipah, Nipah-Dungun, Pedada and Nibong. Selirong Forest Reserve and Labu Forest Reserve are the two-mangrove forest reserves in Brunei Darussalam at Temburong District. Forest cover in Brunei Darussalam are 3800 hectares as of 2020 and has lost its tree coverage of 1.17 kha and one of the reasons would be forest fire and the tree cover loss due to fire is around 197 ha and the district that has lost its tree cover mostly was at Belait District of total 13.4 kha between the year 2001 until 2022.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest some ways and mechanisms for creating long-term peace based on sustainable development of the world and the purpose of the work is to develop recommendations aimed at counteracting the emergence of dictatorial regimes that were legitimately established. Five common features of such dictators have been identified, namely: coming to power in a legitimate way, using manipulative technologies, openly declaring their aggressive intentions, gradually implementing their aggressive intentions, creating a military potential with the active participation of developed countries, including those with established democracies. The reasons for the creation of dictatorial regimes are substantiated, namely: the imperfection of electoral legislation, excessive conservatism of legislation, insufficient determination and timeliness of countering the strengthening of dictatorships, “national egoism”, the unscrupulousness of dictators in their foreign and domestic policies. It was determined that in order to actively oppose dictatorial regimes, it is necessary to: improve the system of elections to the highest positions and to the legislative bodies of the state, put a strong barrier against manipulative technologies and fakes, through the improvement and effective application of international legislation with the involvement of artificial intelligence, determine the strategy of relations with dictators in all directions in advance: economic, diplomatic, sports, scientific and technical, etc., establish the scope of relations in direct proportion to the index of democracy in a country with an authoritarian regime and, in order to prevent negative consequences on the economy and social condition of the society of one’s country, determine and carefully regulate import and export activities. It is proposed to start an indicator of the effectiveness of the head of state and an internal truth index of the head of state, as well as measures for moral stimulation of heads of state. As a result of the study, two root causes of threats to the existence of humanity were additionally identified, which directly affect the formation of dictatorial regimes. 1) The emergence on the basis of modern information technologies of a powerful system of manipulative technologies, the use of which leads to the power of future dictators. 2) Belated opposition of the democratic world to the formation of dictatorships. This is expressed in condescension to the initial illegal actions of future dictators, uncontrolled cooperation in the economic, political and humanitarian spheres. Two key mechanisms for achieving sustainable development and long-term peace are proposed.

Plastic products are items that we use every day around us, and their replacement speed are very fast, so that to recycle waste plastic has become the focus of environmental problems. This study has proposed an optimized circular design for the recycle plant of waste plastic, therefore, and our proposed strategy is to build a new tertiary recycling plant to reduce the total generation amount of the derived solid plastic waste from ordinary and secondary recycling plants and the semi-finished products from secondary recycling plant. Results obtained from a real recycle plant has showed that to recycle the tertiary waste plastic in a tertiary recycling plant, the finished products produced from a secondary recycling plant accounts about 27% of ordinary waste plastic, and the semi-finished products that mainly is scrap hardware accounts about 1% of ordinary waste plastic. Other derived solid plastic waste accounts for 6% of ordinary plastic waste. Therefore, if the ordinary, secondary and tertiary recycle plant can be set all-in-one, it can reduce the total generation amount of derived solid plastic waste from 34% to 6%, without and with a tertiary recycling plant, respectively. It can also increase the operating income of the secondary recycle plant and the investment willingness of the new tertiary recycle plant.

To address gaps in practical skills among Public Health and Preventive Medicine graduates, an ‘open collaborative practice teaching model’ integrating medicine, teaching, and research was introduced. A cross-sectional study surveyed 312 Preventive Medicine undergraduates at a Yunnan medical university from 2020 to 2023, utilizing satisfaction scores and analyses (cluster, factor, SWOT) to assess the impact of the reform. Satisfaction scores from baseline, mid-term, and end-term assessments showed minor variations (4.30, 4.29, 4.36), with dissatisfaction primarily related to teaching content and methods. Key influences on satisfaction included teaching content, methods, and effectiveness. The SWOT analysis highlighted the importance of continuously updating teaching strategies to meet changing student expectations. This study suggests that the model has the potential for wider use in enhancing public health education, particularly in regions facing similar challenges.

The technological development and growth of the telecommunications industry have had a great positive impact on the education, health, and economic sectors, among others. However, they have also increased rivalry between companies in the market to keep and acquire new customers. A lower level of market concentration is related to a higher level of competitiveness among companies in the sector that drives a country’s socioeconomic development. To guarantee and improve the level of competition, it is necessary to monitor the concentration level in the telecommunications market to plan and develop appropriate strategies by governments. With this in mind, the present work aims to analyze the concentration prediction in the telecommunications market through recurrent neural networks and the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. The results show a slight gradual increase in competition in terms of traffic and access, while a more stable concentration level is observed in revenues.