LABORATORY OF INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS AS SOURCE FOR OBTAINING OF PRACTICE KNOWLEDGES FROM CONTROLLING AND PROGRAMMING OF ROBOTS

The laboratory of industrial robotics aspires to deliver learning opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics to communities where exposure is limited. The laboratory provides students with the resources to explore the fields of robotics in conjunction with high quality instruction and guidance from industry mentors. This laboratory is characterized by the need of robotics knowledges into traditional secondary vocational schools, which should provide the basic as well as advanced experiences, to address the needs of students, teachers and employees at different education levels. In this paper, we present the development of main workplaces for support virtual Moodle courses, as well as the training and relevant research

Migration Decisions in the Face of Upheaval: an Experimental Approach

The analysis of migration under conditions of potential economic and political upheaval is challenging because these undermine the institutional framework which underpins existing migration trajectories. Therefore, this paper demonstrates how an innovative experimental approach can be used to analyse migration decision-making under disruptive scenarios of a deep economic crisis and the introduction of work permits. Such disruptions have particular resonance in Europe which has experienced deep economic crises, as well as discussions of potential regulatory shifts in the European migration framework following the UK’s Brexit referendum. Data were collected from a sample of 540 experimental participants, drawn from young adults (students and young working people) in nine EU member states, and used to analyse their propensity to migrate under principles of uncertainty, incomplete information, and information overload. The findings indicate that a sharp rise in unemployment rates is more disruptive than the introduction of work permits

Tourism and Trust: Theoretical Reflections

Tourism researchers have increasingly, but selectively and uncritically, engaged with the notion of trust. This study therefore aims to provide a stronger theoretical foundation for understanding tourism-related trust, starting from consideration of uncertainty and the nature of tacit knowledge. The relationship between displacement and uncertainty is at the core of the distinctiveness of trust in tourism, highlighting the importance of institutions, but also recognizing the diversity of tourism contexts. Three disciplinary perspectives on trust are considered: economics, psychology, and sociology. After outlining their general characteristics in relation to McKnight and Chervany’s typology of trust, we review their application in tourism, and conclude by identifying a future research agenda to address the distinctive characteristics of trust in tourism

Mobility, Risk Tolerance and Competence to Manage Risks

Abstract Migration is a risky behaviour because of uncertainty about future wages, living conditions, changing relationships with family and friends and cultural adjustment. Migration researchers recognize the importance of risk and uncertainty but mostly have approached this as a form of 'rational' decision making, rather than in terms of how behavioural economics analyses 'irrational' risky behaviours such as drinking, smoking or participating in dangerous sports. The rationalist approaches explain why some groups of individuals are more likely than others to migrate, but find it difficult to explain individual variations in behaviour within these groups. Individual migrants versus non migrants are self-selected in terms of tolerance of risk and uncertainty but, with very few exceptions, there has been no research on migration within the framework of risk tolerance/aversion and competence to manage risk. Moreover, existing research is based on, and constrained by the limitations of, incumbent data sets. Drawing on a specially commissioned large-scale survey of the UK population, this paper uses principal components and logistic regression to analyse the extent to which risk and risk-related measures can be used to predict four different types of mobility profiles. There is evidence of significant associations with general risk/uncertainty tolerance, and 2 competence-based tolerance. These are strongest in terms of the two most polarised mobility types: the least mobile, the Stayers, and the most mobile, the Roamers

Terrorism, Migrant Crisis and Attitudes towards non-EU Immigrants

This paper analyses how terrorist attacks and high inflows of immigrants’ impact public atti-tudes towards immigrants from outside the EU. It makes an original contribution by analys-ing both effects in tandem, using an extended longitudinal framework to assess both shorter and longer-term impacts, and considering the role of uncertainty. Ordered probit regression models are applied to data from nine consecutive Eurobarometer (EB) surveys to examine impacts of 25 terrorist attacks in Western Europe in 2014-2018. Attacks with higher number of deaths significantly increase negative attitudes to immigrants although the effect fades over time. However, the 2015 migration crisis had a significant, greater and more sustained impact on attitudes towards immigrants than terrorist attacks. The differences in attitudes to migrants in the EU15 countries and post-communist countries provide support for the as-sumptions of intergroup contact theory rather than group-threat theory

Risk, uncertainty and ambiguity amid COVID-19: A multi-national analysis of international travel intentions

This study analyses how Covid-19 shapes individuals’ international tourism intentions in context of bounded rationality. It provides a novel analysis of risk which is disaggregated into tolerance/aversion of and competence to manage risks across three different aspects: general, domain (tourism) and situational (Covid-19). The impacts of risk are also differentiated from uncertainty and ambiguity. The empirical study is based on large samples (total=8,962) collected from the world’s top five tourism source markets: China, USA, Germany, UK and France. Various risk factors show significant predictive powers of individual’s intentions to defer international tourism plans amid Covid-19. Uncertainty and ambiguity intolerance is shown to lead to intentions to take holidays relatively sooner rather than delaying the holiday plans.&nbsp;</p