Modern Tools Research Articles

Bring’s curve: old and new

Bring’s curve, the unique Riemann surface of genus 4 with automorphism group S5\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$S_5$$\\end{document}, has many exceptional properties. We review, give new proofs of, and extend a number of these including giving the complete realisation of the automorphism group for a plane curve model, identifying a new elliptic quotient of the curve and the modular curve X0(50)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$X_0(50)$$\\end{document}, providing a complete description of the orbit decomposition of the theta characteristics, and identifying the unique invariant characteristic with the divisor of the Szegő kernel. In achieving this we have used modern computational tools in Sagemath, Macaulay2, and Maple, for which notebooks demonstrating calculations are provided.

РОЛЬ МОБІЛЬНИХ ДОДАТКІВ В УДОСКОНАЛЕННІ НАВЧАЛЬНОГО ПРОЦЕСУ З ФІЗИКИ

The article proves the relevance of the problem of using mobile technologies in the educational process of physics, in particular mobile applications, 3D models and AR (augmented reality, AR) technologies due to the need to implement a research teaching method that provides a significantly higher level of activation of cognitive activity physics students. Special attention is paid to the ArBook mobile application as a modern and effective educational tool. The advantages of using ArBook in the study of physics are considered; methods of its application during blended learning are proposed; the practical results of the application of augmented reality technology in the study of topics in physics are presented. Possibilities and features of the organization of student training using augmented reality technologies are described on the example of the experience of using them in the educational process, and the positive aspects of their application are determined. An assessment of the effectiveness and feasibility of using mobile technologies in the mixed education of students was carried out, thanks to which it was confirmed that the use of mobile technologies and technologies of augmented reality during the educational process in physics contributes to increasing the success of students.

Toxic effects of lead on plants: integrating multi-omics with bioinformatics to develop Pb-tolerant crops.

Lead disrupts plant metabolic homeostasis and key structural elements. Utilizing modern biotechnology tools, it's feasible to develop Pb-tolerant varieties by discovering biological players regulating plant metabolic pathways under stress. Lead (Pb) has been used for a variety of purposes since antiquity despite its toxic nature. After arsenic, lead is the most hazardous heavy metal without any known beneficial role in the biological system. It is a crucial inorganic pollutant that affects plant biochemical and morpho-physiological attributes. Lead toxicity harms plants throughout their life cycle and the extent of damage depends on the concentration and duration of exposure. Higher levels of lead exposure disrupt numerous key metabolic activities of plants including oxygen-evolving complex, organelles integrity, photosystem II connectivity, and electron transport chain. This review summarizes the detrimental effects of lead toxicity on seed germination, crop growth, and yield, oxidative and ultra-structural alterations, as well as nutrient absorption, transport, and assimilation. Further, it discusses the Pb-induced toxic modulation of stomatal conductance, photosynthesis, respiration, metabolic-enzymatic activity, osmolytes accumulation, and antioxidant activity. It is a comprehensive review that reports on omics-based studies along with morpho-physiological and biochemical modifications caused by lead stress. With advances in DNA sequencing technologies, genomics and transcriptomics are gradually becoming popular for studying Pb stress effects in plants. Proteomics and metabolomics are still underrated and there is a scarcity of published data, and this review highlights both their technical and research gaps. Besides, there is also a discussion on how the integration of omics with bioinformatics and the use of the latest biotechnological tools can aid in developing Pb-tolerant crops. The review concludes with core challenges and research directions that need to be addressed soon.

USE OF THE SITUATION APPROACH IN THE MANAGEMENT OF SUSTAINABILITY OF TERRITORIAL COMMUNITIES

In Ukraine, in today's difficult conditions, it is necessary to use a set of modern tools for managing territorial communities for their further development. The article examines the essence of mechanisms of adaptability, stability and sustainability, which the management system of territorial communities should use to achieve successful functioning results in war conditions. Areas of adaptation of territorial communities to wartime conditions were considered, including: changing the territorial community management system; change in approaches to management; improvement of management technologies; introduction of management innovations aimed at improving the efficiency of local self-government bodies; stabilization of the community's financial condition due to the attraction of investors. It was found that three main approaches can be used to assess changes in the external environment of the functioning of territorial communities: systemic, process, situational, but it is better to focus on the last one. It is substantiated that constant monitoring of the situation in the community can help managers to respond quickly to changes, adjust their strategies in time, which will ensure the stability of territorial communities, which can be considered as the ability to adapt to crises and resist external challenges. It was emphasized that the challenges faced by the territorial communities from the first days of the full-scale invasion were: preservation of the effectiveness of the management system and their ability to fully function; protection of critical infrastructure facilities; provision of various types of supply; ensuring defense and law and order; ensuring the functioning of the civil protection system in conditions of threat; the ability to evacuate the population and effectively regulate the mass movement of people into the community; preservation of financial and economic stability. It was concluded that the situational approach is an effective tool for managing the development of rural areas and ensuring the stability of territorial communities. Its use allows community leaders to solve problems depending on the specific situation, involve the public in the decision-making process, and constantly monitor the situation in their communities.

LTL-specification for development and verification of control programs

This work continues the series of articles on development and verification of control programs based on the LTL-specification. The essence of the approach is to describe the behavior of programs using formulas of linear temporal logic LTL of a special form. The developed LTL-specification can be directly verified by using a model checking tool. Next, according to the LTL-specification, the program code in the imperative programming language is unambiguously built. The translation of the specification into the program is carried out using a template. The novelty of the work consists in the proposal of two LTL-specifications of a new form — declarative and imperative, as well as in a more strict formal justification for this approach to program development and verification. A transition has been made to a more modern verification tool for finite and infinite systems — nuXmv. It is proposed to describe the behavior of control programs in a declarative style. For this purpose, a declarative LTL-specification is intended, which defines a labelled transition system as a formal model of program behavior. This method of describing behavior is quite expressive — the theorem on the Turing completeness of the declarative LTL-specification is proved. Next, to construct program code in an imperative language, the declarative LTL-specification is converted into an equivalent imperative LTL-specification. An equivalence theorem is proved, which guarantees that both specifications specify the same behavior. The imperative LTL-specification is translated into imperative program code according to the presented template. The declarative LTL-specification, which is subject to verification, and the control program built on it are guaranteed to specify the same behavior in the form of a corresponding transition system. Thus, during verification, a model is used that is adequate to the real behavior of the control program.

Modern tools in congenital heart disease imaging and procedure planning: a European survey.

Congenital heart diseases (CHDs) often show a complex 3D anatomy that must be well understood to assess the pathophysiological consequences and to guide therapy. Three-dimensional imaging technologies have the potential to enhance the physician's comprehension of such spatially complex anatomies. Unfortunately, due to the new introduction in clinical practice, there is no evidence on the current applications. We conducted a survey to examine how 3D technologies are currently used among CHD European centres. Data were collected using an online self-administered survey via SurveyMonkey. The questionnaire was sent via e-mail and the responses were collected between January and June 2022. Ninety-eight centres correctly completed the survey. Of these, 22 regularly perform 3D rotational angiography, 43 have the availability to print in-silico models, and 22 have the possibility to visualize holographic imaging/virtual reality. The costs were mostly covered by the hospital or the department of financial resources. From our survey, it emerges that these technologies are quite spread across Europe, despite not being part of a routine practice. In addition, there are still not enough data supporting the improvement of clinical management for CHD patients. For this reason, further studies are needed to develop clinical recommendations for the use of 3D imaging technologies in medical practice.

Software and Algorithmic Tools Development for Processing and Interpretation Electrotomography Monitoring Data

Year by year researchers use the method of electrotomography more extensively to solve a wide variety of tasks. For example, electrotomography can be applied in archaeological excavations, in the tasks of controlling mine tailings, in engineering surveys, to study fault structures, for monitoring studies in seismically active areas. It is necessary to perform sufficiently long-term observations to form approaches in solving the problem of predicting seismic events. This leads to the need to consider large arrays of initial data and interpret a significant amount of field data. In this regard, it is important to use and develop modern computer tools for processing and interpreting the results of regular observations. The purpose of this work is to modernize and develop the Direct-Inverse-Solver (DiInSo) software package for solving direct and inverse problems for processing, interpreting and analyzing electrotomography monitoring data.

Lightweight Materialization for Fast Dashboards Over Joins

Dashboards are vital in modern business intelligence tools, providing non-technical users with an interface to access comprehensive business data. With the rise of cloud technology, there is an increased number of data sources to provide enriched contexts for various analytical tasks, leading to a demand for interactive dashboards over a large number of joins. Nevertheless, joins are among the most expensive operations in DBMSes, making the support of interactive dashboards over joins challenging. In this paper, we present Treant, a dashboard accelerator for queries over large joins. Treant uses factorized query execution to handle aggregation queries over large joins, which alone is still insufficient for interactive speeds. To address this, we exploit the incremental nature of user interactions using Calibrated Junction Hypertree (CJT), a novel data structure that applies lightweight materialization of the intermediates during factorized execution. CJT ensures that the work needed to compute a query is proportional to how different it is from the previous query, rather than the overall complexity. Treant manages CJTs to share work between queries and performs materialization offline or during user "think-times." Implemented as a middleware that rewrites SQL, Treant is portable to any SQL-based DBMS. Our experiments on single node and cloud DBMSes show that Treant improves dashboard interactions by two orders of magnitude, and provides 10x improvement for ML augmentation compared to SOTA factorized ML system.

Parameter Estimation for Open Clusters using an Artificial Neural Network with a QuadTree-based Feature Extractor

With the unprecedented increase in the number of known star clusters, quick and modern tools are needed for their analysis. In this work, we develop an artificial neural network (ANN) trained on synthetic clusters to estimate the age, metallicity, extinction, and distance of Gaia open clusters. We implement a novel technique to extract features from the color–magnitude diagram of clusters by means of the QuadTree tool, and we adopt a multiband approach. We obtain reliable parameters for ∼5400 clusters. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our methodology in accurately determining crucial parameters of Gaia open clusters by performing a comprehensive scientific validation. In particular, with our analysis we have been able to reproduce the Galactic metallicity gradient as it is observed by high-resolution spectroscopic surveys. This demonstrates that our method reliably extracts information on metallicity from color–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of stellar clusters. For the sample of clusters studied, we find an intriguing systematic older age compared to previous analyses present in the literature. This work introduces a novel approach to feature extraction using a QuadTree algorithm, effectively tracing sequences in CMDs despite photometric errors and outliers. The adoption of ANNs, rather than convolutional neural networks, maintains the full positional information and improves performance, while also demonstrating the potential for deriving cluster parameters from simultaneous analysis of multiple photometric bands, beneficial for upcoming telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory. The implementation of ANN tools with robust isochrone fit techniques could provide further improvements in the quest for open cluster parameters.

MERN Stack Blood Bank Website

This paper is focused on Blood blank and donor management system using modern engineering which is a modern React application named Rudhiram. Rudhiram is a web-based application which creates a link between donor and patients who needs blood. Rudhiram is built on using modern java-script front-end framework React.js, with modern state management tools like Redux and uses Node (Express.js) for back-end with new-age database like MongoDB. Rudhiram provides donors a list of nearby blood camps from its database where a person can schedule a visit and donate blood easily with no paperwork. Rudhiram also provides a list of nearby hospitals and users from its database who can provide and donate blood respectively, when a patient needs the blood of a particular type with an advanced searching algorithm it also checks for compatible blood type in hospitals and registered user too. Rudhiram provides an easy registration process for hospitals, blood banks, and blood camps with self-created API. Users can register on Rudhiram using the sign-up form, google using OAuth and can update their profile and also check their schedules and history of donated blood if, donated to get help in future. Rudhiram also provides email, message, and location services using Google-API or third-party applications for all registered hospitals, blood camps, and users so that they can be contacted when needed. It also provides a search option for users in the same state and an article page where blood information is displayed. Rudhiram can also provide the data in a categorized and standard form for further data mining which can be useful for blood camps awareness etc. The goal of this paper and web application is to reduce the latency in the process of blood donation by reducing the complexity of the management system and making blood donation and finding blood donors a smooth process

КОМУНІКАЦІЙНІ ІНСТРУМЕНТИ РОБОТИ З ВНУТРІШНЬО ПЕРЕМІЩЕНИМИ ОСОБАМИ В УМОВАХ РОСІЙСЬКО-УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ВІЙНИ

<p><strong><em>The purpose of the study</em></strong><em> is to identify the problems that complicate the use of communication tools for interaction with internally displaced persons in the context of war.</em></p><p><strong><em>Research methodology.</em></strong><em> The study used general scientific methods of cognition. The current situation with internally displaced persons in different regions of Ukraine and the main problems they face during the war were determined using the method of critical analysis. A comparison method was used to identify the most effective communication tools for working with IDPs. Problems that complicate the use of such tools were identified in the process of synthesizing information. The ways to solve these problems were found by the methods of induction and deduction.</em></p><p><strong><em>Results.</em></strong><em> Modern communication tools are an important component of the integration of IDPs into the life of the territorial community. Their use helps to solve the problems faced by internally displaced persons during the war and ensures effective interaction between all parties involved in this process. At the same time, the use of communication tools is complicated by a number of problems, including: lack of access to the necessary infrastructure; language barriers; low information or digital literacy; financial constraints; social isolation and psychological stress. Solving these problems requires a comprehensive approach, including the implementation of educational programs to improve the information and digital literacy of IDPs, the development of secure Internet platforms for the exchange of useful information, the creation of accessible network infrastructures in remote regions, the development of communication strategies to overcome language barriers, the launch of psychological support programs, and the involvement of communication specialists.</em></p><p><strong><em>Novelty.</em></strong><em> The study for the first time reveals the complex problem of using communication tools to interact with internally displaced persons in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and provides specific recommendations for overcoming these problems, taking into account various aspects, from access to infrastructure to psychological support.</em></p><p><strong><em>Practical significance.</em></strong><em> The results of the study can be used by representatives of local authorities to improve communication with internally displaced persons in times of war, facilitating their integration into territorial communities and facilitating the solution of their problems.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key</em></strong><strong><em> </em></strong><strong><em>words:</em></strong><em> media, communication, territorial community, social issues, internally displaced persons.</em></p>

(Re)-discovering simulation as a critical element of OM/SCM research: call for research

Purpose This study focuses on (re-)introducing computer simulation as a part of the research paradigm. Simulation is a widely applied research method in supply chain and operations management. However, leading journals, such as the International Journal of Operations and Production Management, have often been reluctant to accept simulation studies. This study provides guidelines on how to conduct simulation research that advances theory, is relevant, and matters.Design/methodology/approach This study pooled the viewpoints of the editorial team of the International Journal of Operations and Production Management and authors of simulation studies. The authors debated their views and outlined why simulation is important and what a compelling simulation should look like.Findings There is an increasing importance of considering uncertainty, an increasing interest in dynamic phenomena, such as the transient response(s) to disruptions, and an increasing need to consider complementary outcomes, such as sustainability, which many researchers believe can be tackled by big data and modern analytical tools. But building, elaborating, and testing theory by purposeful experimentation is the strength of computer simulation. The authors therefore argue that simulation should play an important role in supply chain and operations management research, but for this, it also has to evolve away from simply generating and analyzing data. Four types of simulation research with much promise are outlined: empirical grounded simulation, simulation that establishes causality, simulation that supplements machine learning, artificial intelligence and analytics and simulation for sensitive environments.Originality/value This study identifies reasons why simulation is important for understanding and responding to today's business and societal challenges, it provides some guidance on how to design good simulation studies in this context and it links simulation to empirical research and theory going beyond multimethod studies.

Comprehensive Synthesis and Integrative Review of Agricultural Dynamics in Southwest Nigeria: Assessing Economic Viability, Technological Advances, and Rural Development Approaches

The study focuses on agricultural economic viability, technological advancements, and rural development strategies. The review draws upon a spectrum of scholarly research to provide an integrative analysis, aiming to better understand and address the challenges and opportunities within this vital sector. The economic viability of agriculture in Southwest Nigeria is critically examined, highlighting the significance of credit acquisition and repayment among watermelon farmers, underscoring the financial challenges and opportunities within the sector. This aspect is crucial for understanding the broader economic context that shapes agricultural practices and outcomes. Additionally, the profitability of broiler production is explored, further illustrating the economic dimensions of agricultural practices in the region. Technological advances represent another pivotal aspect of agricultural dynamics. The influence of portable water supply on rural households is explored, reflecting how technological improvements in basic infrastructure can significantly affect agricultural productivity and rural lifestyles. The relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and job performance in agro facilities is also examined, highlighting the intersection of human factors and technology in agriculture. The importance of modern communication tools, such as video, in agricultural extension services, is emphasized, demonstrating how digital media can bridge knowledge gaps and facilitate better farming practices. It reveals how traditional practices are interwoven with modern innovations and how factors like credit acquisition, technological infrastructure, and rural development strategies impact agricultural productivity and sustainability. Recommendations are made based on these findings. The paper suggests the need for enhanced support systems for credit acquisition among farmers, investment in technological infrastructure to boost productivity, and adoption of sustainable and diversified farming practices to ensure long-term viability. It also highlights the importance of integrating socio-economic and environmental considerations into agricultural policies to address broader challenges.

Modeling Cataract Surgery in Mice.

Cataract surgery (CS) is an effective treatment for cataracts, a major cause of visual disability worldwide. However, CS leads to ocular inflammation, and in the long term, it can result in posterior capsular opacification (PCO) and/or lens dislocation driven by the post-surgical overgrowth of lens epithelial cells (LECs) and their conversion to myofibroblasts and/or aberrant fiber cells. However, the molecular mechanisms by which CS results in inflammation and PCO are still obscure because most in vitro models do not recapitulate the wound healing response of LECs seen in vivo, while traditional animal models of cataract surgery, such as rabbits, do not allow the genetic manipulation of gene expression to test mechanisms. Recently, our laboratory and others have successfully used genetically modified mice to study the molecular mechanisms that drive the induction of proinflammatory signaling and LEC epithelial to mesenchymal transition, leading to new insight into PCO pathogenesis. Here, we report the established protocol for modeling cataract surgery in mice, which allows for robust transcriptional profiling of the response of LECs to lens fiber cell removal via RNAseq, the evaluation of protein expression by semi-quantitative immunofluorescence, and the use of modern mouse genetics tools to test the function of genes that are hypothesized to participate in the pathogenesis of acute sequelae like inflammation as well as the later conversion of LECs to myofibroblasts and/or aberrant lens fiber cells.

Preliminary study of knowledge transfer aspect in the creation of a framework for education and training of digital manufacturing technologies

Digitalization is changing the industry. As this change accelerates its speed, it also requires a transformation process where knowledge transfer between industry and research institutes play a significant role. There is a need to be more fluent, flexible, and efficient in order to get the latest research results into industrial implementation as quickly as possible. The challenge in knowledge transfer is that its speed in the current stage is too slow compared to the speed of development and changes required by digitalization of traditional manufacturing industries. The motivation for this study is the gap in knowledge transfer. One emerging digital transformation is the establishment of modern digital manufacturing technologies, e.g., additive manufacturing (AM). There are different approaches to supporting the industry in this transformation. Knowledge transfer can happen, for example, through education (e.g., master students) and industrial training, but also the fluent transfer of the latest research results from research institutes to companies is needed. University education needs to support the requirements of the manufacturing industry by providing future experts with skills to smooth the transformation process and bring novel technology applications, such as AM, to industrial-scale use. The article discusses how university education can support future competence-building in the industry. Similar needs are also present in industrial training, which universities often provide. Both education and training need to be improved from fundamental approaches to explain how this new knowledge should be created, i.e., how knowledge transfer happens most efficiently. The outcome of this article is the basis of the framework for education and training of digital manufacturing technologies by using modern learning methods and tools. More detailed pedagogical and knowledge transfer models can be developed and applied when this framework is created.

Preface

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE The 8th International Conference of Computational Methods in Engineering Science (CMES’2023), held on November 23rd-25th, 2023 in Puławy, Poland, is organized by the Polish Society for the Promotion of Knowledge, the Lublin University of Technology (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Faculty of Management, and Faculty of Environmental Engineering), and the Polish Air Force University (Faculty of Aviation).The conference is an excellent opportunity to present and learn how computational methods can be applied in scientific disciplines like mechanical, materials, and civil engineering, management, environmental engineering, mining and energy, computer engineering, and innovative products launched by companies. The interdisciplinary nature of the conference facilitates knowledge sharing among Polish and foreign research centers that represent different engineering and technical sciences disciplines. This edition creates opportunities for plenary sessions and presentations of companies that solve engineering problems with modern computational methods and tools. TOPICS • Analysis of engineering processes• Application of computer programs in technology• Artificial and computational intelligence• Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)• Computer simulations of processes and phenomena• Finite Element Method (FEM)• Material properties and structure research methods• Production engineering and quality control• Technology management in energy acquisition processesList of Organizing Committee, Scientific Committee are available in this Pdf.

Планування експортної діяльності в умовах виходу на нові ринки

Today, the concept of raising business efficiency to a higher level is a critically important direction of development of the modern Ukrainian economy. Building a sustainable and competitive economy contributes to the creation of healthy competition between various market participants, which has a significant impact on the relationship between producers and consumers. This forces manufacturers to focus their attention on the development and modernization of their products. In the long term, it plays a key role for the country as a whole. Companies all over the world develop a business plan taking into account all possible risks and force majeure circumstances. This has long since become the so-called trend of business transformation in Ukraine to determine and use their full potential. Since there is a war going on in Ukraine now, businesses have to reckon with and struggle with the new realities that it puts before us in order to develop and work to strengthen Ukraine, for the sake of defeating the common enemy. Strong government support and assistance is also critical to successful business development in wartime. The authorities should create favorable conditions for enterprises, including a simplified bureaucratic process, support in export initiatives, as well as ensuring security and stability in the regions of our country. It is important to emphasize that in wartime Ukrainian companies must be ready for a wide variety of challenges and crisis situations. They must actively develop risk management strategies to ensure the sustainability of their business and protect the interests of consumers. In addition, it is important to focus on the development and application of new technologies and innovations that can contribute to increasing the productivity and competitiveness of enterprises and business planning as a whole. This includes the use of Internet resources and various software, artificial intelligence, data analysis and other modern tools to optimize production and business management or create a business plan. That is why business planning is now a very important aspect in such a difficult period, but at the same time it is an opportunity when Ukrainian companies can become international and enter new markets.

A novel visual marker to distinguish haploids from doubled haploids in rice (Oryza sativa, L) at early growth stages

Doubled haploid technology, which enables the generation of homozygous lines in a single step, is one of the modern tools being employed for accelerating breeding processes in different crops. In rice, a globally important staple food crop, doubled haploid production through androgenesis is increasingly being employed in breeding programs. Amongst the androgenic rice lines, doubled haploids are formed spontaneously at about 50–60%, while the remaining 40–50% of plants remain as haploids. As haploids cannot be easily identified, it is routine to grow all the rice androgenic lines till maturity and harvest the seeds from the fertile doubled haploids. Therefore, the methods that facilitate easy identification of haploids at an early developmental stage in rice would enable treatment of such haploid lines with colchicine, to increase the efficiency of doubled haploid production. Further, it would also help in eliminating the operational cost involved in maintaining them till maturity. In the above context, a systematic study to identify easily observable physiological and morphological differences between haploid and doubled haploid rice lines was undertaken. Rice haploids were found to be noticeably different from doubled haploids in photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance, and morphology of lodicules, stigma and style, features which have not been reported before. Most importantly, rice haploids invariably have acute leaf apex which is easily distinguishable from the doubled haploids that have attenuated leaf apex shape. Very high per cent accuracy in the prediction of ploidy level was observed when haploids were identified at an early developmental stage based on leaf apex shape, and the results verified with flow cytometry perfectly matches with leaf apex shape. The study establishes ‘acute leaf apex’ shape as an accurate visual marker to rapidly identify haploid rice lines at an early developmental stage in a cost-effective manner.

Impact of Strategic Management Accounting Practices on Financial Performance of Nepalese Manufacturing Firms

This study was carried out to examine the relationship between financial performance and the application of management accounting practices in the Nepalese manufacturing firms. The study adopted the survey research design. The population of the study consists of all listed manufacturing companies under Nepal stock exchange. The study used simple random sampling. Four manufacturing firms were randomly selected for the study. Data for the study were obtained through the administration of a self-designed questionnaire to managers or accountants of the sampled firms through mail survey. Regression and t-test were used to test the hypotheses postulated for the study. The study showed that application of management accounting tools has a positive relationship with financial performance of companies’ survey. The study also found a significant difference in effectiveness of decision making between application of management accounting tools and traditional management accounting techniques and concludes that implementation of strategic management accounting practice is necessary to enhance organizational performance of the firm. The study therefore recommends that manufacturing companies, especially the ones listed and still tradable under NEPSE, put in place appropriate measures to apply modern management accounting tools called strategic management accounting practices to ensure efficient and realistic decision-making process that will enhance financial performance.

A Study Regarding Early Teacher'S Perception Toward the Introduction of Artificial Intelligence Applications and the Use of Educational Robots in the Teaching Process

Over the years Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionised not only industries but also education worldwide. With the 2020 pandemic, teachers around the world have had to reconfigure their teaching process, so AI products are becoming more and more prevalent in early childhood settings to enhance the learning and development of pre-schoolers. Although robotic toys (Bee-Bot, Robot Mouse, Robotbloq Qobo, Ozobot) have been used for several years as modern teaching tools, teachers in Romania face some difficulties in integrating them into the teaching process, either because of lack of adequate training in handling these tools or because of the infrastructure needed for this purpose. The use of robotic toys in kindergarten activities is a matter of teachers' perceptions, so they decide on the use of robotic toys in the teaching process and the types of activities that would allow their use for teaching purposes. In our study, we aimed to measure teachers' perceptions of children's use of robotic toys and their incidence of using them appropriately, in the teaching process, integrated into Experiential Domain Activities. In this way, we will be able to make correlations between the use of these tools and teachers' perceptions, highlighting the benefits they bring to the teaching process and consequently to the development of children in early education.