The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm is laying the groundwork for a world in which many of our everyday devices will be connected and will interact with their surroundings to gather data and automate some operations. Among other things, such a concept necessitates seamless authentication, data privacy, security, attack resilience, simplicity of deployment, and self-maintenance. Blockchain, a technology created with the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, can provide such advantages. To create blockchain-based IoT (BIoT) applications, a full discussion of how to modify blockchain to meet the unique requirements of IoT is offered in this paper. The most important BIoT applications are detailed after a brief introduction to blockchain, with the goal of highlighting how blockchain can affect conventional cloud-based IoT applications. Then, several factors that have an impact on the design, development, and deployment of a BIoT application are covered, along with present obstacles and potential improvements. Lastly, a list of recommendations is provided to help future BIoT researchers and developers understand some of the problems that need to be solved before deploying the upcoming generation of BIoT applications. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2023-04-01-010 Full Text: PDF

Clay paving blocks made of natural, environmentally friendly materials have their own originality and colorful authenticity, but due to the complex technological production process, they are also relatively expensive products; therefore, their environmental resistance properties are strictly defined and controlled by the standards. The physical and mechanical properties of clay paving blocks are the key factors aiming to ensure the longevity of products and their long-term success in the market. Therefore, ensuring high physical and mechanical properties of clay paving blocks have become a most crucial challenge for the manufactures. This article considers the parameters of the technological production process of clay paving blocks manufacturing and evaluates the influence of the chemical composition of three different types of clay on the physical and mechanical properties of the paving blocks. Water absorption, linear shrinkage, freeze/thaw, acid resistance, and transverse breaking load of clay paving blocks are investigated. This study reveals the importance of raw material selection in the production process of clay paving blocks and provides the concept of main quality factors of clay.

Climate change, urban sprawl, a global pandemic, and the general trend of digitizing economies are driving the need for digital transformation of utilities. Policymakers of industry digital transformation need some aggregated metric that captures the essence of this multidimensional concept, identifies the pros and cons of current policies, and guides future directions based on cross-country benchmarking. This study develops the Industry Digital Transformation Index for the utility industry (IDTIu) as a composite indicator. IDTIu provides an aggregate score for the digital transformation of the national utility industry based on 31 indicators grouped into 8 sub-indices. IDTIu scores were calculated for 34 European countries based on 2020 data. To avoid the methodological challenges of equal weighting and expert assessments, we applied the original Benefit-of-the-Doubt (BoD) model and its two extensions for the proportion and priority of sub- indices. Our results show that (i) the full flexibility of the original BoD model leads to the expected deficiencies in ranking leaders and assigning zeros to insignificant sub-indices; (ii) BoD model with ordinal sub-index share restrictions does not allow ranking of laggards when IoT, AI, and BDA are ranked as top 3 priorities. Therefore, at the current stage of the digital transformation of utilities, we recommend the BoD model with proportional sub-index share restrictions.

The higher educational institutions in the USA and some countries of Europe have already examined the careers of their alumni for more decades. This process has many positive signs: it makes the connections between the institutions and the alumni stronger, just like between the institutions and the labour market; in addition it attracts attention to the building and the possible changes. In Hungary the inauguration of the compulsory career-following-system was laid down in the Law of Higher Education in 2005 (2005/CXXXIX. act of the higher education). The career-following is very important for the Széchenyi István University, so is the utilization of its results. The inauguration of the career-following-system of the alumni (the Hungarian abbreviation, that will be used henceforth: DPR) in the higher education is voluntary. As far as the representativity is concerned, the universities and colleges have unfortunately problems in Hungary how to achieve their alumni and how to get them to cooperate. A successful institutional DPR needs live connections with the students over their study and after it as well.

Type of the article: Research ArticleAbstractAs economic systems become more complex and external environmental instability increases, managers’ characteristics play a more vital role in project management effectiveness. This study aims to evaluate the impact of the leadership potential of innovation-oriented managers on project management effectiveness in the regions of Ukraine. Leadership potential is operationalized as an integral psychometric construct comprising emotional intelligence, leadership behavior, and innovation orientation, enabling a comprehensive assessment of managerial competencies. The study draws on a survey of 210 managers from 68 commercial companies in the Poltava region of Ukraine, providing micro-level evidence on the relationship between leadership potential and project management effectiveness. Additionally, a meso-level comparative analysis of seven Ukrainian regions (Kharkiv, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Poltava, Odesa, and Vinnytsia) was conducted using aggregated statistical indicators reflecting investment, innovation, and project activity. The results demonstrate a statistically significant positive relationship between managers’ leadership potential and project management effectiveness (r = 0.68, p < 0.01). The findings indicate that leadership potential is statistically associated with higher project effectiveness under relatively stable conditions; however, this relationship weakens significantly under structural shocks and external constraints. This confirms that the managerial effect of leadership potential is context-dependent and mediated by regional economic and institutional conditions. After the full-scale russian aggression in 2022, a significant weakening of the relationship between leadership potential and project management effectiveness is observed, indicating the dominance of exogenous factors (e.g., security, infrastructure, and institutions) over managers’ managerial characteristics.AcknowledgmentsThe paper is prepared within the scientific research project “Drivers and barriers to human capital transformation for a circular and green economy” (No. 0126U001080).