The Student Aerospace Challenge: a european multidisciplinary contest and tertiary educational programme

An educational initiative was taken in 2000 by the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium, to promote awareness of science and technology studies and careers amongst students of secondary schools of the Brussels Region. This initiative, called 'Operation Ishango', is a multifold approach of which two are presented here. The first one consists in a series of conference in secondary schools given by one of the authors. These conferences address the science and technology aspects of space research in general and of microgravity research on board the International Space Station (ISS) in particular, emphasizing the passion and interest to work in the science and technology fields. The second one, launched in November 2002, is a contest open to school students of the last two years of the secondary cycle. Following the approach of the Education Office of the European Space agency (ESA) organizing yearly an international contest at European level for microgravity experiments proposed by university students, students of secondary schools of the Brussels Region were invited to submit experiment proposals to be performed during the 6th ESA Student parabolic flight campaign of July 2003 on board the ESA-CNES Airbus A300 'Zero-G'. The five selected student teams accompanied by their Science teacher performed themselves their Copyright © 2003 by the International Astronautical Federation. All rights reserved. experiments in microgravity during two flights of 30 parabolas each. This paper presents the secondary school conference cycle, the 'Zero-G' parabolic flight contest, the selected experiments, with preliminary results, and some student reactions.

The Education Office of the European Space Agency (ESA) offers university students, from ESA Member and Cooperating States, the opportunity to perform investigations in physical sciences, life sciences, and technology, under different gravity conditions through three educational programmes. The “Fly Your Thesis!” (FYT) programme makes use of parabolic flights and the “Drop Your Thesis!” (DYT) programme utilizes a drop tower as microgravity carriers, while the “Spin Your Thesis!” (SYT) programme uses a large centrifuge to create hypergravity. To date, more than hundred university students had the chance to participate in the design, development, and performance of one or more experiments during dedicated campaigns. In the following paper, we examine demographics of past participants of the ESA Education Office gravity-related opportunities over the past seven years and evaluate the benefits of these educational programmes for the participants’ studies and careers. Student teams that participated in one of the programmes between 2009 and 2013 were contacted to fill in a questionnaire. The feedback from the students demonstrate significant benefits extending far beyond the primary educational objectives of these programmes.

The Moon has long been a part of our consciousness. Although 30 years have passed since our first human journey, we have returned only through the use of observation satellites. Spurred, in part, by the prospect of at least 3 billion metric tonnes of water ice at each pole of the Moon as indicated by both Clementine and Lunar Prospector, a renewed interest in utilizing the resources and venue of the Moon as an aid to human exploration and development of space has once again encouraged long-time advocates of lunar utilization. International organizations, such as the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), have continuously championed the return of humans to the Moon. Meetings such as the Commercial Lunar Base Symposium in July 1999 and International Astronautical Federation (IAF)/IAA-sponsored International Astronautical Congress in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in October 1999 have generated a new impetus. Briefings at these meetings by industrial companies, the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, and the National Space Agency of Japan (NASD A) plus private individuals and representatives of several universities have all indicated a renewed interest in future lunar use. Many prospective approaches were taken to the technical, political, legal, andpotential commercial development of the Moon. Work reported included Lunar Prospector results; the use of propellant mined and manufactured on the Moon; legal aspects; new enabling technologies; long-range, lunar-base architecture; logistics; and the role of lunar materials in base construction and solar power systems. Several papers dealt with various aspects of commercialization, and plans for lunar programs by NASDA, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and ESA were promulgated. Teams are forming to begin the first steps toward humankind's return to our Moon as a site to develop, as a testbed and resource supply source for future exploration system development, and eventually as a factory for products needed on the Moon, in space, and on Earth.

Evaluating research for disruptive innovation in the space sector

ESA Academy is the European Space Agency’s overarching educational programme for university students. It takes them through a learning path that complements their academic education by offering a tailored transfer of space knowledge and interaction with space professionals. As a result, students can enhance their skills, boost their motivation and ambitions, and become acquainted with the standard professional practices in the space sector. This happens through the two pillars of ESA Academy, the Training and Learning Programme and the Hands-on Programmes. The latter enables university students to gain first-hand, end-to-end experience of space-related projects. One of the latest additions to the portfolio of opportunities for university students is “Orbit Your Thesis!”. It offers bachelor, master, and PhD students the opportunity to design, build, test, and operate their experiment onboard the International Space Station. The experiment operates within the ICE Cubes Facility in ESA’s Columbus module, where it can operate for up to four months in microgravity. Throughout the programme students develop essential scientific, academic, and professional skills that will help them build their future careers. These skills include project management, risk identification and mitigation, problem-solving, and working within a diverse workplace. Participating teams will experience first-hand the project management process for space missions and participate in multiple reviews of their experiment and design throughout the programme. Participating students are supported and guided through the process by engineers and scientists from ESA, Space Applications Services, and members of the European Low Gravity Research Association. The programme schedule follows a similar path to many space-faring projects. The design, development, testing, launch preparation and operations are structured in a series of project phases and technical reviews. Participating teams are guided towards the subsequent milestones to pass the necessary safety reviews and achieve launch readiness. The first team that successfully sent up their ICE Cube is OSCAR-QUBE, a multidisciplinary team from the University of Hasselt in Belgium. Their experiment is the first diamond-based quantum magnetometer that ever operated in space. Thanks to the unique characteristics of their sensor, they have been mapping the Earth’s magnetic field from inside the Columbus module aboard the ISS without the need to be housed on the exterior. This paper will describe the various phases and technical aspects of the programme in more detail

This chapter addresses European space policy perspectives on the establishment of Space Traffic Management from a discourse theory perspective. This includes the study of space and security/defence policies in Europe, taking into consideration the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Union (EU) and national strategies, programmes and governance. The space sector is undergoing transformation. A number of the ESA and EU Member States have developed a dedicated space and security/defence strategy. The chapter presents ESA, the EU and the selected European Member States’ activities with the largest space and security defence budget: France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. Space actors in Europe recognise that a Space Traffic Management regime is essential for the security and sustainability of European space activities. Accordingly, they have gradually developed several activities, strategies and policies, which among others set the basis for STM development and reflect the important role of STM in space and security.

Prevalence and predictors of food insecurity among university students – Results from the Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany

Sleep quality and its association with substance abuse among university students

We are excited to welcome you to the Twelfth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2017). The HRI Conference is a highly selective, single track, international meeting showcasing the best research in human-robot interaction, with roots in and broad participation from various communities of scholars, including but not limited to robotics, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, and design. The theme of this year's conference is "Smart Interaction," following our host city Vienna's ongoing "Smart City" initiative. Designed with increasingly intelligent capabilities, robots must utilize such intelligence also in their interactions with people to improve the effectiveness, naturalness, and intuitiveness of these interactions as well as their moral and ethical consequences. Achieving intelligence in interaction requires the multidisciplinary convergence of technical, social, and design perspectives. To represent this multidisciplinarity, we solicited and reviewed papers under four submission themes: "Human-Robot Interaction User Studies," "Technical Advances in Human-Robot Interaction," "Human-Robot Interaction Design," and "Theory and Methods in Human-Robot Interaction." Each submission theme was overseen by a dedicated theme chair and reviewed by a dedicated group of program committee members, who worked together with the program chairs to define and apply review criteria appropriate to each of the four contribution types. The conference attracted 211 submissions from 38 unique countries from Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Each full paper was aligned with a theme-appropriate subcommittee, and subsequently reviewed through a double-blind process, which was followed by a rebuttal phase, and shepherding where found appropriate by the program committee. As a result of the review process, the program committee selected 51 (24.2%) of the submissions for presentation as full papers at the conference. As the conference is jointly sponsored by IEEE and ACM, papers are archived in both the ACM Digital Library and the IEEE Xplore. Along with the full papers, the conference program and proceedings include the Late Breaking Reports, Videos, Demos, and an alt.HRI section. Out of 144 total submissions, 142 (98.6%) Late Breaking Reports (LBRs) were accepted and will be presented as posters at the conference. A new peer-review process ensured that authors of LBR submissions received detailed feedback on their work. Sixteen (80.0%) short videos were accepted for presentation during a dedicated video session from 20 submissions. The program also includes 12 demos of robot systems that participants will have an opportunity to interact with during the conference. We continue to include an alt.HRI session in this year's program, consisting of 4 papers (selected out of 19 submissions) that push the boundaries of thought and practice in the field. This year, we have reintroduced the Student Design Competition event to encourage student participation in the conference and enrich the program with novel ideas and insights developed by student teams. Finally, we have the pleasure of presenting three inspiring keynote speakers who will discuss topics relevant to HRI: Dr. Cynthia Breazeal from the MIT Media Lab and Jibo Inc. in the USA, Dr. Lucia Jacobs from the University of California, Berkeley in the USA, and Dr. Danica Kragic from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden. HRI 2017 was made possible through the significant volunteer efforts of the organizing committee, program committee, reviewers, and the steering committee. We thank the keynote speakers, financial supporters, and international reviewers for their support and participation. The conference is sponsored by ACM SIGCHI, ACM SIGAI, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and is in cooperation with AAAI and HFES.

Comparison of Anxiety and Depression in Pakistani, British-Pakistani, and European University Students and its Relationship to Childhood Trauma

Taiwan has gained popularity among European university students as an ideal destination in exchange programs. This study aims to compare European students’ perceived Chinese cultural values with those of Taiwanese students and to provide a deeper understanding of the cultural and social interactions of European students in Taiwan. A personal survey and in-depth interviews were administered in five major universities in northern, central, and southern part of Taiwan to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data. European students consider few Chinese cultural values like knowledge, kindness, tolerance of others, and harmony with others higher than those of local Taiwanese students. In few traditional Chinese cultural values like gift giving, courtesy, prudence, Taiwanese students value them with higher scores than European students do. With reference to the Chinese culture in particular, European students have to deal with different teaching styles and different norms while communicating with instructors and local students in Taiwan. Five themes were formalized to describe European students’ experiences in Taiwan focusing on lifestyles, acculturative stress, learning, language issues, and social interactions with local people. The learning adaptation, individually distinctive, converges to positive experiences through socio-cultural interactions, which makes the experiences valuable and precious. European students do not overlook European ways of engaging with instructors, but they perceived, internalized and demonstrated their learning process in Taiwanese higher education. Cultural interactions enrich teaching and learning environment which benefits European students and Taiwanese students to a great extent.

Evaluating digital competencies has become a topic of growing interest in recent years. Although several reviews and studies have summarized the main elements of progress and shortcomings in this area, some issues are yet to be explored. Very little information is available about the ways of ensuring the validity and reliability of the instrument used. This study addresses this issue through systematic mapping covering the period from January 2015 to July 2020. Based on 88 primary studies, we conclude that a growing number of studies have emerged over the years; most of them are based on European university students in social science programs; the quality of the journals where they were published is low; and the instruments used are mostly questionnaires and ad-hoc surveys that measure the various dimensions of digital competence based on participants’ perceptions. Out of the eight possible types of quality assessment, studies commonly report only four (one in the case of reliability and three in the case of validity). More than 50% of the studies do not provide evidence of having assessed the reliability and validity at the same time. Although participant discipline resulted in a significantly association with the practice of reporting reliability and validity assessments, no specific dimension explained such association. A non-parametric multivariate analysis reveals, among other interesting patterns, that the practice of not reporting quality assessments is more present in studies where participants belong to the fields of Engineering and Technology, Health Sciences, and Humanities.

The EUniTA project: working with international partners to develop language, intercultural, and professional competencies in European university students

Europe without fractures: a Spanish view of the European Space Strategy

ESA was established on 30 October 1980. It currently has twenty-three Member States, and its mission is to shape the development of the European space capability and to ensure that investment in space is continued in the direction of bringing benefts to European citizens and the world. Artifcial intelligence (AI) can be seen as intelligence exhibited by machines that can observe, perceive and act upon their environment to maximise their chance of success at a given goal. AI can be an important and enabling technology for space missions, bringing added value for scientifc return and for the efciency of the mission itself. Te most successful AI implementations are still rarely used in the space in[1]dustry today, as the models developed within the neural network are not human-readable. Despite the challenges, there are examples where AI is successfully being demonstrated in the space sector through ESA’s own activities. Te fast-evolving feld of space research and technology, AI, and the related applications are raising numerous doubts and debates while challenging the adequacy of traditional space law. Tere is a looming concern as to whether the legal framework is up to date to meet the challenges that may arise within the AI and space sector, and what can be done to meet those challenges accordingly and on time. Others also argue that, in addition to liability concerns, ensuring confdentiality and data protection are some of the more acute issues in the context of AI.