Dental students have to master, along with the theoretical knowledge, a lot of visual, practical and technical skills, essential to the dentistry profession. They include visual assessment of the medical condition, where the three-dimensional (3D) view differs from the images from manuals, first-rate psychomotor skills and understanding of the technical issues arisen in dental practice (restorations, implants, etc...). In recent years, both internationally and nationally, the invasive treatments made by students on patients were limited and are increasingly replaced by various alternative training solutions. Simulator laboratories with teeth replicas, typodonts (models of the oral cavity) and phantom heads are used for preclinical skills development. The paper presents the introduction of virtual reality as an e-learning tool for the dentistry education and training in Romania. It will precede and attend the current methods, accelerating the learning process before and during the training with artificial models and phantom heads, reducing the expenditure of artificial teeth, student time and instructor effort. Virtual reality for education and training in dentistry implies the usage of a human-computer interface dedicated to this task. The working environment is a 3D representation of the dental tools and of the oral cavity with teeth and gums, accessible through stereoscopic devices. The input is capturing the hand/hands posture and movements using haptic devices or other hardware sensor devices that detects hand and finger motions. The feedback includes visual modifications, tactile feedback and sound effects when different operations are performed in the oral cavity. The use of these technologies will decrease the costs of the educational process and will increase its quality through individual training and self-assessment of the results.

Current advances in computer gaming, including in design and technology, simplify and stimulate the research in gamification of processes and activities from "serious" domains like complex physical, economic or social systemsdomains like complex physical, economic or social systems. Driving simulators have been used for a long time both for entertainment and as risk-free training for current or future drivers. In the last years, they have been used in the auto industry to monitor the driver behaviour and response to different stimuli to improve the human-car interfaces. We are describing in this paper the "City Transportation and Logistics" application that simulates the participation of a driver in the traffic of a large city. The application is focused on realistic car driving and on simulating a variety of road and traffic situations. Several roles from the application and the benefits the game offers to the player are presented. The car simulator makes possible the training of the basic driving skills, including manoeuvres like parking and tests the observance of road signs and traffic lane markings. The player learns how to drive on different types of roads, including signalled and unsupervised crossings. The driving can take place at different moments of day and various weather conditions. The player can choose a city to get familiar with and the simulator will render scenes from that city. Professional drivers such as delivery men can get accustomed with vehicles like vans or pickup trucks and will learn better the city and the release procedures for specific customers. Particular emphasis is laid on the extensibility of the application, allowing the users or developers to add new vehicles, scenarios or rules.

The project "Romania 100 - I choose Romania" developed by Radio Romania aims to cultivate the love of the country, the pride of being Romanian while promoting the highest human values recognized internationally. During the last years there were presented the most beautiful places in Romania (2014), the most valuable Romanians in science and culture (2015), the most famous athletes or sports teams from Romania (2016) and the most beautiful Romanian songs performed by great national artists (2017). The radio-documentary series were broadcast on-air an all the regional radio network stations and also posted online on the project's website, YouTube channel and Facebook page. In 2018, when 100 years from the Great Union are celebrated, the campaign will present 100 defining events in history that made the nowadays Romania possible. To celebrate this, the organizers intend to create 12 memorial parks in important Romanian cities. They will enclose "Union Forum" places, guarded by 20 symbols, 10 on each side of the alley or placed on the circumference for the round forums. For a multitude of reasons, including the appeal to a younger audience, there will be set a Virtual Reality (VR) commemoration themed park, where to present all these fascinating stories. All the moments will be accessible as interactive multimedia items/symbols in the digital realm, extending the existence of the physical ones. In this paper we debate the importance of adapting information exposition, specifically the one regarding the culture, to the new digital environments available today. There are fears that globalization and new media will wear down the national culture and cultural heritage. We will analyze these aspects and we will show that Internet and VR can be not just spaces of social manifestation, but also of cultural presence, adding new dimensions to the Romanian cultural landscape. A better integration within the national identity improves the sense of well-being and the quality of existence for the Romanian citizens. The information gathered will serve to better understand how the facts are best perceived and learned by users in the virtual environments and how to improve this technology-enhanced learning technique.

We describe in this paper the best practice used at the Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Languages from the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest for the introduction of digital logic to the students from the first year of study in the fields of Information Engineering and Applied Electronics, where the subjects are given in English and French. The particularities include the position of the subject in the first year and the wide-ranging backgrounds of the students, which come from a large number of countries. Many disciplines in the computer science curriculum, like as digital design, computer organization and architecture, embedded systems, etc... contain hardware components. The support of the course includes laboratory and homework assignments concluded sometimes with moderate projects and comprises computer simulation or/and practical prototyping. While the laboratory practical prototyping covers usually simple designs using breadboards, when one chooses the simulation as support for a given subject, several decisions should be taken regarding the simulation paradigm, environment and pedagogical methodology. The parameters that should be considered in the selection are on one side the cost and on the other side the learning curve, the insight and the satisfaction the student get in the laboratory. Taking these parameters into account, we chose a sequence of methodologies that help the students to learn digital logic and digital design in a gradual and enjoyable fashion. We start with circuits design and simulation in "Multimedia Logic", a free capture tool developed by Softronics. The next stage is the practice with "Java Breadboard", a free circuit simulator replicating the breadboard hardware development environment, created at the University of York. When the students are familiar with the breadboards and with the digital integrated circuits, they get to the hardware practice, making simple digital circuits on breadboard. Te next stage is to learn how to sold electronic components and how to make simple designs using perfboard.

The CONPROF project developed by the automation engineering company IPA SA, the University Politehnica of Bucharest and the Romanian-American University contributes to the sustainable development of the cooperation between higher education institutions and businesses by facilitating the training of students in higher education and the transition from being a student to being employed. It ensures in this way the increased employability of the graduates through counseling, vocational guidance, practical training and integrating three main components: curriculum, the student's initial skills and labor market needs. A central activity in the instruction is the complementarity of the practical training stage performed in the summer holyday after the third year of study by developing and implementing interactive learning methods using a simulated enterprise. The roles open in the application are: Admin, Professor and Student. In the simulated enterprise workflow, the activities start with the Admin creating the accounts for Professors and Students. The Student creates an enterprise and the Professor that is associated to the Student validates it. The Professor uploads the templates for the documents of the company and the Student completes them and uploads the files on the platform. The Professor grades the result. By connecting the simulated company to the simulated enterprise network ROCT (Romanian Coordination of Training Firms), the students come into direct contact with the functioning of public institutions relevant for companies. The role is to interconnect businesses simulated in a national network, giving at the same time services similar to those performed by state institutions such as the Trade Registry, Financial Administration, banks etc...