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The endpoint and hallmark of the success of intercultural teaching is often seen as the attainment of intercultural competence. Yet, there is a need for a detailed examination of some of the enduring personal and professional identity and culture aspects of cross-cultural teaching. In this chapter, I deliberate over the application of narrative inquiry tools for unpacking teachers' experiences of immersion in a foreign country and culture of schooling. I reflect on my own experiences as a teacher in Japan and draw on an inquiry into the experiences of novice Canadian teachers in Hong Kong or Japan to shed light on fluid conceptions of culture shock and reverse culture shock in terms of cultural identity transformations. I also raise to the forefront inquiry puzzles about the phenomenon of intercultural competence acquisition.

In the state of Hawaii, it has been shown that certain ethnic minority groups, such as Filipinos and Pacific Islanders, suffer disproportionally high rates of cardiovascular disease, evidence that local health-care systems and governing bodies fail to equally extend the human right to health to all. This study aims to examine whether these ethnic health disparities in cardiovascular disease persist even within an already globally disadvantaged group, the houseless population of Hawaii.

A retrospective chart review of records from Hawaii Houseless Outreach and Medical Education Project clinic sites from 2016 to 2020 was performed to gather patient demographics and reported histories of type II diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia, hypertension and other cardiovascular disease diagnoses. Reported disease prevalence rates were compared between larger ethnic categories as well as ethnic subgroups.

Unexpectedly, the data revealed lower reported prevalence rates of most cardiometabolic diseases among the houseless compared to the general population. However, multiple ethnic health disparities were identified, including higher rates of diabetes and obesity among Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders and higher rates of hypertension among Filipinos and Asians overall. The findings suggest that even within a generally disadvantaged houseless population, disparities in health outcomes persist between ethnic groups and that ethnocultural considerations are just as important in caring for this vulnerable population.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study focusing on ethnic health disparities in cardiovascular disease and the structural processes that contribute to them, among a houseless population in the ethnically diverse state of Hawaii.

This bibliometric study provides an overview of research related to digital transformation (DT) in the tourism industry from 2013 to 2022. The goals of the research are as follows: (1) to identify the development of academic papers related to DT in the tourism industry, (2) to analyze dominant research topics and the development of research interest and research impact over time and (3) to analyze the change in research topics during the pandemic.

In this study, the authors processed 3,683 papers retrieved from the Web of Science and Scopus. The authors performed different types of bibliometric analyses to identify the development of papers related to DT in the tourism industry. To reveal latent topics, the authors implemented topic modeling based on latent Dirichlet allocation with Gibbs sampling.

The authors identified eight topics related to DT in the tourism industry: City and urban planning, Social media, Data analytics, Sustainable and economic development, Technology-based experience and interaction, Cultural heritage, Digital destination marketing and Smart tourism management. The authors also identified seven topics related to DT in the tourism industry during the Covid-19 pandemic; the largest ones are smart analytics, marketing strategies and sustainability.

To identify research topics and their development over time, the authors applied a novel methodological approach – a smart literature review. This machine learning approach is able to analyze a huge amount of documents. At the same time, it can also identify topics that would remain unrevealed by a standard bibliometric analysis.

Educators need to engage in continuous learning to ensure that their knowledge and practice responds to the changing needs of society and students. Collaborative approaches, in which social capital resource is exchanged, can serve as an effective way of facilitating such learning. With this systematic review, the authors identify the opportunities and benefits inter-school social capital networks might bring by exploring: (1) what inter-school networks are available internationally for primary and secondary schools, (2) the features and activities present within inter-school networks and (3) evidence of impact of inter-school network activities.

For this study, the authors employed a systematic review methodology. The review comprised the five stages of the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: PRISMA, 2021) protocol. The study findings derived from 111 research outputs (from a total of 1,221 originally identified).

The review highlights a number of different inter-school networks and their diverse purposes as well as key network features, such as the actors present in networks and the activities network participants engage with. At the same time, however, the authors only identify limited reliable evidence of the impact of inter-school networks.

The study fills a knowledge gap by exploring, for the first time, the presence, features of inter-school social capital networks available to school leaders as well as investigating the impact of these networks.

The aim of this research is to assess the influence of the underlying service quality variable, usually related to university students' perception of the educational experience. Another aspect analysed in this work is the development of a procedure to determine which variables are more significant to assess students' satisfaction.

In order to achieve both goals, a twofold methodology was approached. In the first phase of research, an assessment of the service quality was performed with data gathered from 580 students in a process involving the adaptation of the SERVQUAL scale through a multi-objective optimization methodology. In the second phase of research, results obtained from students were compared with those obtained from the teaching staff at the university.

Results from the analysis revealed the most significant service quality dimensions from the students' viewpoint according to the scores that they provided. Comparison of the results with the teaching staff showed noticeable differences when assessing academic quality.

Significant conclusions can be drawn from the theoretical review of the empirical evidences obtained through this study helping with the practical design and implementation of quality strategies in higher education especially in regard to university education.