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This study aims to present a twofold machine learning (ML) model, namely, EDU-AI, and its implementation in educational buildings. The specific focus is on classroom layout design, which is investigated regarding implementation of ML in the early phases of design.

This study introduces the framework of the EDU-AI, which adopts generative adversarial networks (GAN) architecture and Pix2Pix method. The processes of data collection, data set preparation, training, validation and evaluation for the proposed model are presented. The ML model is trained over two coupled data sets of classroom layouts extracted from a typical school project database of the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Turkey and validated with foreign classroom boundaries. The generated classroom layouts are objectively evaluated through the structural similarity method (SSIM).

The implementation of EDU-AI generates classroom layouts despite the use of a small data set. Objective evaluations show that EDU-AI can provide satisfactory outputs for given classroom boundaries regardless of shape complexity (reserved for validation and newly synthesized).

EDU-AI specifically contributes to the automation of classroom layout generation using ML-based algorithms. EDU-AI’s two-step framework enables the generation of zoning for any given classroom boundary and furnishing for the previously generated zone. EDU-AI can also be used in the early design phase of school projects in other countries. It can be adapted to the architectural typologies involving footprint, zoning and furnishing relations.

This paper aims at contributing to our understanding of how self-settled Syrian refugees (registered and non-registered) use informal practices to forge their non-political agency and how this agency could be considered as political acts.

This paper was conducted per the qualitative data analysis (in-depth interviews and participant observation), attributed to the critical ethnographic approach, through which refugees’ everyday struggle is explored, additionally, that was incorporated with the analysis of Syrians’ Facebook groups and formal sources.

The research paper concluded that everyday struggle strategies are considered as political acts by acquiring rights that many self-settled Syrian refugees are stripped of by international humanitarian agencies and host government. Hence, registered and unregistered refugees equally forge what is called “informal citizenship” through their presence via a blend of agency forms ranging from hidden agency to explicit one and via their incorporating into the informal contexts, leading them to carve a position of semi-legality that help them to circumvent the formal structural hardship.

This paper endeavors to study how urban refugees as change agents can convert their illegal presence to “probably refugeeness” to unsettle the prominent recognition of them as illegal non-citizens in southern cities.

The article aims to present the results of adapting the team boosting behaviors (TBB) scale to Polish cultural conditions and validating it.

The research methodology consisted of three steps. In the first step, I translated the TBB scale into Polish using a rigorous back-translation method. Next, to assess content validity, nine domain experts reviewed the initial version of the instrument for clarity and relevance. Finally, I applied the scale to a sample of 532 team members and underwent thorough psychometric testing to assess construct validity. I employed structural equation modeling (SEM) with the partial least squares (PLS) factor-based algorithm technique for confirmatory factor analysis to assess the scale’s reliability and validity.

After development, the Polish version of the TBB scale kept its three sub-scale structures. However, the validation process led to a slight reduction in the number of test items compared to the original scale.

The findings imply that the Polish version of the scale is a valid and reliable tool for assessing TBB. However, I recommend additional studies to confirm this instrument’s structure.

The results confirmed the reliability and relevance of the tool for measuring TBBs in Polish cultural conditions. The tool provides the basis for implementing further research with the TBB construct in Poland and internationally.

This study aims to explore Twitter posts of Turkish government agencies and the public under a specific hashtag, #NotHolidayButDistanceEducation, specifically related to online distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study used a thematic analysis on 22,547 original tweets posted by 6,970 users during the first month of online distance education in Turkish K-12 schools. Based on like and retweet counts, the study further explored the extent of stakeholders’ engagement with the observed themes.

The findings showed that government agencies and citizens used Twitter to provide technical and psychological support, appreciate and motivate stakeholders, demonstrate sample distance education activities, share information and offer suggestions about the ongoing online distance education. It was also observed that the hashtag has been used for expressing negative views about online distance education and for political purposes. A positive relationship was found between social media engagement and providing technical support or sharing information for online distance education.

This study highlights the role of social media in providing practical and emotional support to education stakeholders in times of crisis. Thus, governments can use social media to provide evidence-based psychological and physical health support to their citizens during a pandemic. Social media can serve to improve education practices in schools through the interactions between the public and policymakers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study can be considered unique because it demonstrates the civic use of social media for educational crisis management. This study highlights the influence of social media in educational policy and practice development in the contemporary era.

Years after the 2011 uprising Egypt, it seems that the country’s non-Islamist parties are still included in the political game. After significant alterations in their political sphere by mid-2013 at the advent of the Muslim Brother exclusion and the subsequent discrediting of Salafi al-Nour party, non-Islamist parties took clear part in the mobilization for presidential elections (2014, 2018) and competed for legislative seats in 2015. Nonetheless, it is difficult to expect them to turn into long-term key political players with clear-cut ideological postures, unique platforms and strong grass root mobilization. With the exception of the electoral gains scored by numbered parties like Free Egyptians’ party and Nation’s Future in 2015 legislative elections, these parties seem to be lagging behind esp. in terms of their popular base; who became winners at the advent of the radical exclusion of the MB from July 2013 onwards.

This paper is based on archival research and guided by basic assumptions of rational choice institutionalism, mainly game-theoretic versions of the approach. It is divided into four sections, three of them are chronological and the last one is thematic.

Egypt’s non-Islamists engaged in the post-2011 political sphere, with strong Islamist rivals crippling their political chances in the first two years following the 2011 uprising. They surely capitalized on the exclusion and discrediting of the latter, but they suffered lack of ideological clarity and fragmentation from 2011 onwards with no enough evidence these weaknesses were surpassed after Islamists were “out of their way”. The only strand of non-Islamist parties which came out as “game winners” were those possessing the resources and enjoying overt “friendly” relations with al-Sisi regime. Nonetheless, internal conflicts inside key secularist parties shed light on their capacity to turn into long-term players in Egypt’s political sphere.

Very few papers were published on Egypt’s secularists parties after the 2011 uprising from the perspective of the alteration that occurred in their political environment affecting their political weight and gains. More generally, literature on non-ruling parties in authoritarian contexts mostly reduce these parties to secondary roles allocated by ruling regimes. The paper seeks to overcome both shortages.

This study aims to provide an overview of the current socio-political geopark situation in Australia and set this into a global context. In addition, the authors consider this information to be useful for all stakeholders involved in geopark research and development. An analysis of constraints is set alongside stakeholder views collected from remote rural Western Australia. The authors also place Australia in a global context in regard to the future of geoparks.

Vital contextual information regarding the tourism significance of geoparks is sourced from key literature. The authors analyse and report on the situation surrounding the current lack of enthusiasm for the geopark concept by the federal government and states in Australia. The authors also report positive rural community stakeholder views on geopark development from regional Western Australia.

While Australian federal, as well as state governments have yet to accept geoparks, stakeholder research in Western Australia supports the idea of geopark development. Learnings articulated in this viewpoint are relevant to any country pursuing and initiating the geopark concept. The authors posit that global geopark development can become a vital strategy in post-COVID-19 tourism recovery planning.

Australia currently does not have a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)-recognised geopark. Accordingly, the authors present a case for geopark development, while at the same time exploring the socio-political reasons behind the lack of geopark implementation in Australia. The authors consider the future of geoparks in the global context and reiterate the point that geoparks are important for COVID-19 recovery of tourism and in regard to UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.