Hybrid learning (HL) has become a significant part of the learning style for the higher education sector in the Sri Lankan context amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis. This research study aims to discover the effectiveness of hybrid learning (EHL) practices in enhancing undergraduates’ outcomes in Sri Lankan Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) management faculties. The data for the study were gathered through an online questionnaire survey, which received 379 responses. The questionnaire contained 38 questions under four sections covering independent variables, excluding demographic questions. The results indicate that hybrid learner attitude, interaction, and benefits of hybrid learning positively impact the effectiveness of hybrid learning. The results remain consistent even after controlling for socio-demographic factors and focusing only on students employed during their higher education. The study concluded that employed students have a higher preference for the effectiveness of hybrid learning concepts, and the benefits of hybrid learning play a crucial role in enhancing the effectiveness among undergraduates. The study analyzes COVID-19’s impact on higher education, proposing hybrid learning and regulatory frameworks based on pandemic experiences while stressing the benefits of remote teaching and research.

This study examines the relationship between Russian FDI carried out by large MNCs and investment development path (IDP). Although statistical analysis does not establish a significant relationship between outward FDI and GDP, the behavior of Russian outward FDI contradicts traditional models. Two primary factors contribute to this paradox. First, the complex business environment in Russia, characterized by a combination of both improvements and contradictions, has a significant impact on outward FDI behavior. Secondly, the duality of the Russian economy and society plays a decisive role. This segment resembles a high-income country with ample resources, while most face lower income levels, raising concerns about wealth distribution. Historical factors, including Russia’s transition from a state-controlled to a market-oriented economy, contribute to the internationalization of Russian MNCs. Both state-owned enterprises and privatized firms are influenced by the state, although to varying degrees. Government involvement in international business strategies increases the knowledge and experience of Russian MNCs, but also raises concerns about political influence.

This paper provides a disaster resilience-based approach. For the definition of the approach, a three-step method (definition of components, analysis of the resilience pillars and definitions of resilience-based actions) has been followed. To validate the approach, an application scenario for mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic is provided in the paper. The proposed approach contributes to stimulating the co-responsibility quadruple helix of actors in the implementation of actions for disaster management. Moreover, the approach is adaptable and flexible, as it can be used to manage different kinds of disasters, adjusting or changing itself to meet specific needs.

In view of the fact that the convolution neural network segmentation method lacks to capture the global dependency of infected areas in COVID-19 images, which is not conducive to the complete segmentation of scattered lesion areas, this paper proposes a COVID-19 lesion segmentation method UniUNet based on UniFormer with its strong ability to capture global dependency. Firstly, a U-shaped encoder-decoder structure based on UniFormer is designed, which can enhance the cooperation ability of local and global relations. Secondly, Swin spatial pyramid pooling module is introduced to compensate the influence of spatial resolution reduction in the encoder process and generate multi-scale representation. Multi-scale attention gate is introduced at the skip connection to suppress redundant features and enhance important features. Experiment results show that, compared with the other four methods, the proposed model achieves better results in Dice, loU and Recall on COVID-19-CT-Seg and CC-CCIII dataset, and achieves a more complete segmentation of the lesion area.

The coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the need for sustainable, smart tourism and local travel, with rural destinations gaining in their popularity and leading to increased potential of smart rural tourism. However, these processes need adjustments to the current trends, incorporating new transformative business concepts and marketing approaches. In this paper we provide real life examples of new marketing approaches, together with new business models within the context of the use of new digital technologies. Via hermeneutic research approach, consisting of the secondary analysis of the addressed subject of smart rural tourism in adversity of the COVID-19 and 6 semi-structured interviews, the importance of technology is underscored in transforming rural tourism to smart rural tourist destinations. The respondents in the interview section were chosen based on their direct involvement in the presented examples and geographical location, i.e. France, Slovenia and Spain, where presented research examples were developed, concretely within European programmes, i.e. Interreg, Horizon and Rural Development Programme (RDP). Interviews were taking place between 2022 and 2023 in person, email or via Zoom. This two-phased study demonstrates that technology is important in transforming rural tourism to smart tourist destinations and that it ushers new approaches that seem particularly useful in applying to rural areas, creating a rural digital innovation ecosystem, which acts as s heuristic rural tourist model that fosters new types of tourism, i.e. smart rural tourism.

This article presents an analysis of Russia’s outward foreign direct investment based on the balance of payments. The country has been affected by the “Dutch disease,” characterized by a heavy reliance on the mining industry and revenues from oil and gas exports. The financial account reveals a consistent outflow of capital from Russia, surpassing inflows. A significant portion of domestic investment goes abroad, often to offshore destinations. This capital outflow has not been fully offset by foreign capital inflows. These findings underscore the challenges faced by Russia in managing its financial position, including the need to address capital outflows, diversify the economy, and reduce dependence on raw material exports. Furthermore, this article aims to identify the presence of Russian capital in OECD countries by comparing data from the Central Bank of Russia and the OECD. The analysis reveals significant discrepancies between the two datasets, primarily due to unavailable or confidential information in the OECD dataset. These variations can also be attributed to differences in methodology and the specific nature of Russian outward direct investments, particularly those involving offshore jurisdictions. As a result, accurately determining the extent of Russian capital in OECD countries based on the available data becomes a challenging task (including for the tourism industry as well).