Challenges, opportunities, and prospects of adopting and using smart digital technologies in learning environments: An iterative review.

The adoption of smart digital technologies in the education system has grown exponentially over the years, creating new possibilities to improve teaching and enhance learning. Against this backdrop, the 'brick-and-mortar' education approach survives on life support, with digital technologies promoting ubiquitous teaching and learning. Through complexity theory, this study uses an iterative review research approach comprising of nine steps to frame the study of smart digital education.

Optimal guaranteed cost intermittent control to the efficient movement of freight trains.

Freight train system is under constant pressure to optimize operational efficiency, a factor that has led the sector to spearhead many new technologies. To address this, the optimal guaranteed cost intermittent cruise control of freight train system with time-varying uncertain parameters is investigated. In particular, the guaranteed cost intermittent control approach is proposed, which can achieve both advantages of guaranteed cost control and intermittent control methods.

Review of life cycle models for enhancing machine tools sustainability: lessons, trends and future directions.

The life cycle models are critical in the assessment of the performance of a product from the design phase to its end of life (EoL). With the quest for manufacturing sustainability with respect to energy, process, material, and environment friendliness as well as the clamour for circular economy which emphasizes zero tolerance for waste, there is a need for a critical review of the life cycle of machine tool employed for machining operations and product development. The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficient way of managing the machine tools throughout its lifecycle.

A bio-inspired approach for the design of a multifunctional robotic end-effector customized for automated maintenance of a reconfigurable vibrating screen.

The development of a robotic-driven maintenance solution capable of automatically maintaining reconfigurable vibrating screen (RVS) machine when utilized in dangerous and hazardous underground mining environment has called for the design of a multifunctional robotic end-effector capable of carrying out all the maintenance tasks on the RVS machine. In view of this, the paper presents a bio-inspired approach which unfolds the design of a novel multifunctional robotic end-effector embedded with mechanical and control mechanisms capable of automatically maintaining the RVS machine. To achieve this, therblig and morphological methodologies (which classifies the motions as well as the actions required by the robotic end-effector in carrying out RVS machine maintenance tasks), obtained from a detailed analogy of how human being (i.