Use of technologies and online presence is now almost inevitable in language learning. The practice of virtual exchanges (VEs) has been receiving a lot of attention among educators at all levels over the past years. This research paper sheds light on 13 VEs carried out in pre-service teacher education in the last six years and proposes its own VE design based on recommendations from the literature with the future perspective of designing a specific VE for the research. The aim of the systematic review was at first to determine the exchange and interaction set-ups and the potential gains in the terms of pre-service teachers’ skills development. Afterwards, we identified areas for improvement and proposed our design of a VE between pre-service teachers of English in Slovakia and Turkey. Some of the expected contributions of the proposed VE design are development of a linguistic and intercultural communicative competence, digital literacy, and other competences relevant for development of VEs.

In Urban development, diversity respect is needed to prioritize and balance the urban development design for sustainable eco-city development. As a result, this research aimed to investigate the causal factor pathways of social network factors influencing sustainable eco-city development in the northeastern region of Thailand through a quantitative research approach. With the aim to survey insightful information, the analysis unit was conducted at the individual level with three hundred and eighty-three (383) samplings in Khon Kaen and Udon Thani provinces, including univariate analysis and multivariate analysis, using path analysis and multiple linear regression. The study results indicated that two pathways of social network factors influencing sustainable eco-city development were indirect influence factors. The indirect influence factor consists of information exchange, benefits exchange in the network, and members’ role in the social network. Additionally, the study revealed that the pathway has influences through social network types and the economic and social dimensions of sustainable cities (R² = 0.330). Therefore, this study concluded that sustainable eco-city development should be implemented through community networks and economic and social network development for environmental development through social network types.

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.

In this paper, we examine a possible application of ordered weighted average (OWA for short) aggregation operators in the insurance industry. Aggregation operators are essential tools in decision-making when a single value is needed instead of a couple of features. Information aggregation necessarily leads to information loss, at least to a specific extent. Whether we concentrate on extreme values or middle terms, there can be cases when the most important piece of the puzzle is missing. Although the simple or weighted mean considers all the values there is a drawback: the values get the same weight regardless of their magnitude. One possible solution to this issue is the application of the so-called Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) operators. This is a broad class of aggregation methods, including the previously mentioned average as a special case. Moreover, using a proper parameter (the so-called orness) one can express the risk awareness of the decision-maker. Using real-life statistical data, we provide a simple model of the decision-making process of insurance companies. The model offers a decision-supporting tool for companies.

The existence of residential well-being of the locals in the sense of equilibrium-state is a competitive advantage for tourism in a given destination. The rise of overtourism could jeopardize this equilibrium and ultimately the effectiveness of tourism in a vulnerable destination. The research question of the study aimed to answer: what are the spiral dynamics of the multifactorial characteristics of the sense of place that can be mapped under the influence of overtourism. Answering the question draws attention to the sense of place—which can be interpreted as a synonym for local character—of the issues of overtourism and residential well-being. Mapping the mechanism of action of the multifactorial characteristic of locality can help to identify non-supportive functions, to pinpoint the balance point for moving towards a supportive quality, and to answer the “how yes” questions at individual, local and collective levels. The answer to the research question is the result of concluding three district-specific sub-questions. The assessment of the results was based on the content analysis of 251 posts (2017–2021) in the local public Facebook group (supplemented by a questionnaire survey of local residents (2022), 30 in-depth interviews with experts and residents (2022) conducted as part of the cross-sectional research, and 10 additional in-depth interviews with residents (2024) conducted for the last sub-question. The flowchart showing the current state of the district along a negative spiral dynamic, the possibility to turn it in a positive direction, and the mind-map-like summary of local, individual and collective mitigation and solution alternatives supporting the change of direction can be considered as a novel scientific result.

The Science and Technology Innovation Center holds a pivotal position in the national science and technology innovation system, and a scientific evaluation of the “Sci-tech Innovation Center” will guide its construction direction. This study found the advantages and disadvantages of the four cities through comparison; Hence improvement suggestions were proposed for the weaknesses of the four cities. There are two main paths for the government to drive technology innovation: STI (Science and Technology Innovation) mode and DUI (Doing, Using, Interacting) mode. With the aid of the evaluation index system of the Sci-tech Innovation Center, this article uses fuzzy sets, rough sets and fuzzy dynamic clustering methods to comprehensively evaluate the effects of driving technology innovation in the four cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The results found that Shenzhen has a significant effect in DUI, and Beijing has a significant effect in STI. The choice of path is related to the abundance of innovation resources.

The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of multidimensional (fuzzy) inequalities and marginal changes on the Gini coefficients of various factors. This allows a range of social policies to be specifically targeted to reduce broader inequalities, but these policies are focused primarily on health, education, housing, sanitation, energy and drinking water. It is necessary to target policy areas that are unequally distributed, such as those with access to unevenly distributed drinking water policies. The data are from the Household and Consumption Survey of 6695 households in 2003 and 9259 households in 2011. This paper uses Lerman and Yitzhaki’s method. The results revealed that the main contributors to inequalities over the two periods were health and education. These sources have a potentially significant effect on total inequality. Health increases overall inequalities, but sources such as housing, sanitation and energy reduce them. This article provides resources to disadvantaged and vulnerable target groups. Multiple inequalities are analyzed for different subgroups of households, such as place of residence and the gender of the head of household. Analyzing fuzzy poverty inequalities makes it possible to develop targeted measures to combat poverty and inequality. This study is the first to investigate the sources of Gini’s fuzzy inequality in Chad via data analysis techniques, and in general, it is one of the few studies in Saharan Africa to be interested in this subject. Some development policies in sub-Saharan Africa should therefore focus on different sources (negative effect), sources (positive effect) and the equalization effect.