Special Issue on Digitization, Information Technology and Social Development

We live in a digital society filled with cutting-edge ICT solutions. Mobile devices, apps, e-services, etc., are available at any time and everywhere. Currently, an increasing number of sectors in both business and governance are migrating to the digital domain. Digitization itself is present in the broadcasting industry, such as radio and television, as well as various multimedia-based services. With the aid of mobile devices, applications, and related technologies, we desire to stay healthy or monitor the parameters of our relatives, including young people and the elderly, as well as ourselves. However, some technologies still appear to be accessible only to their developers.

From an educational perspective, telecommunications profoundly impacts all major aspects of our everyday lives. As a consequence, student instruction typically includes a series of specialized courses, each addressing a distinct telecommunication area, separating wireless from fixed (optical) communications. This creates the problem of knowledge fragmentation, hindering the student’s perception of the topic since, at the service level, the applications and services offered to the users seem “virtually” independent from the underlying infrastructure. To address this problem, the authors of the first contribution of this Special Issue designed, analyzed, and implemented a 6 h course module on the five generations of wireless and fixed networks, which was presented as an integral part of the undergraduate course “Broadband Communications”, which was offered at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (ASPETE), Athens, Greece.

The growing global demand for secure, transparent, and efficient electoral systems has highlighted the limitations of traditional voting methods, which remain susceptible to voter impersonation, ballot tampering, long queues, logistical challenges, and delayed result processing. To address these issues, the second contribution of this Special Issue presents the design and implementation of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based electronic voting framework that integrates robust voter authentication, encrypted vote processing, and decentralized real-time monitoring. This work offers a hybrid RFID-based voting framework that bridges the gap between technical feasibility and real-world deployment, contributing a secure, transparent, and credible model for modernizing democratic processes in diverse political and technological landscapes.

The third contribution of this Special Issue explores the most recent pandemic with attention to the limiting factors at all levels of emergent global crisis response. COVID-19 supply-chain disruptions clearly illustrated deficiencies in central coordination. Meaningful improvement in the central coordination of supply chains will require transparency into resource stocks and flows. The latest technologies, like 5G, blockchain, and IoT, are primed to provide this transparency for collaboration during crises. This will improve agility and service, reduce inventory, and enable reverse logistics benefits. Furthermore, transparent global networks can allow a more inclusive and equitable distribution of critical supplies, yielding quicker resolution during crises. However, many challenges exist that suggest further delay in the adoption of a holistic and transparent digitalized supply chain.

The authors of the fourth contribution of this Special Issue examined the significant growth of e-commerce in Romania, which has surpassed the rates of expansion observed in other more developed countries of the European Union. This rapid growth trajectory is expected to continue, driven by various factors, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the natural evolution of the market. The main purpose of this study was to assess the expansion of the e-commerce market in Romania, identify the key factors behind this growth, and project future market values.

Retail sales forecasting has great significance in e-commerce companies. The precise retail sales forecasting enhances the business decision-making, storage management, and product sales. Inaccurate retail sales forecasting can decrease customer satisfaction and lead to inventory shortages, product backlog, and unsatisfied customer demands. In order to obtain better retail sales forecasting, deep learning models are preferred. In the fifth contribution of this Special Issue, an effective Bi-GRU is proposed for accurate sales forecasting related to E-commerce companies. The proposed method supports retail sales forecasting by achieving superior results over other conventional models.

In the context of industrial applications, safety management is a priority to guarantee human-centered manufacturing processes in the context of Industry 5.0, which aims to realize a safe human–machine environment based on knowledge-driven approaches. The traditional approaches for safety management in the industrial environment include staff training, regular inspections, warning signs, etc. Despite the fact that proactive measures and procedures have exceptional importance in the prevention of safety hazards, human–machine–environment coupling requires more sophisticated approaches able to provide automated, reliable, real-time, cost-effective, and adaptive hazard identification in complex manufacturing processes. In this context, the use of virtual reality (VR) can be exploited not only as a means of human training but also as part of the methodology to generate synthetic datasets for training AI models. The sixth contribution of this Special Issue proposes a flexible and adjustable detection system that aims to enhance safety management in Industry 5.0 manufacturing through real-time monitoring and identification of hazards.

The complexity and number of data streams generated by internal processes exceed the capabilities of most current simulation environments. Consequently, there is a need for the development of more advanced solutions that can handle any number of simultaneous simulations. One of the most promising ideas to address these and other challenges is the concept of a Digital Twin (DT), which refers to a digital representation or a virtual model designed to accurately reflect an intended or actual physical product, system, or process (i.e., a physical twin). As a Digital Twin spans the life-cycle of its physical twin, its development and application can bring considerable benefits to organizations seeking to improve existing processes as well as implement new ones. However, few studies have comprehensively examined the value and benefits of DTs. To fill this gap, the seventh contribution of this Special Issue aims to provide a better understanding of this technology by reviewing the contemporary literature, with a particular focus on the documented case studies, as well as reported business and industrial deployments. In addition, when considering the human factor, DTs can facilitate education and training, team collaboration, and decision making. Undeniably, Digital Twins are a game-changer for safer, faster, and more sustainable development.

Focusing on emerging technologies, developments within the maritime sector are resulting in rapid progress that will see the commercial use of autonomous vessels, known as Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASSs). Such ships are equipped with a range of advanced technologies, such as IoT devices, artificial intelligence (AI) systems, machine learning (ML) based algorithms, and augmented reality (AR) tools. Through such technologies, the autonomous vessels can be remotely controlled from Shore Control Centers (SCCs) by using real-time data to optimize their operations, enhance safety, and reduce the possibility of human error. Apart from the regulatory aspects, which are under definition by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), cybersecurity vulnerabilities must be considered and properly addressed to prevent such complex systems from being tampered with. The eighth contribution of this Special Issue proposes an approach that operates on two different levels to address cybersecurity. Still, the topic of digitalization, information technology, and social development is an important and practical subject area. Future studies will surely require a broader analysis of numerous scientific and industrial aspects.