• Energy Research

Incorporating security into software development in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is an increasingly relevant challenge and a crucial necessity, especially in an uncertain and fast-paced environment like that of an agile setting. Given the growing threat of cyberattacks, it is imperative to address this issue. This article examines and subsequently analyzes existing strategies in the literature regarding secure software development in the context of SMEs employing agile methodologies. The study initiates a systematic literature review to identify strategies employed in this context. The findings reveal that 57.9% of the studies present strategies to tackle security in agile software development, with 20.2% specifically focusing on SMEs. Subsequently, practices demonstrating success in integrating security measures into the software development lifecycle (SDLC) are analyzed and categorized. The results underscore the necessity of addressing security in the agile environment, as it remains a significant challenge in software development. Effective approaches are also required for small businesses to ensure application protection and long-term sustainability.

Today, sustainable engineering faces challenges, highlighting the need to develop sustainable technologies and systems to support these new engineering projects and services. These sustainable engineering challenges aim to achieve a balance between people and the planet. To this end, 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets have been formulated, constituting the internationally accepted global sustainability aspirations for 2030. To address this issue, it is necessary to characterize its product life cycle; if there are models for the integration of sustainable engineering in policies, strategies, and programs of public and private institutions, what would be its impact at economic and social levels and its sustainable social engineering, and how would the gender approach impact these areas since it is an inclusive part of the SDG 2030 and plays a relevant role? This research analyzes models of social inclusiveness, engineering products and services for sustainability, and integration into sustainable development goals of engineering products and technology, reviewing whether gender equality or equity is present in their application and development. This study highlights relevant initiatives and the most used technological tools. The PRISMA protocol directed this study, which identified 252 pertinent articles for analysis and suggested effective practices for employing products, services, and technologies to advance sustainable engineering in the near term.

In the last decade, great strides have been made to increase access to education and enrollment rates at all levels (primary, secondary, and higher education). Actions such as promoting equal access to education, preventing school dropout, and establishing free education, among other actions proposed by organizations such as UNESCO, seek to guarantee the universality of education. This is undoubtedly a great challenge, and to address it, it is necessary to characterize how students face the learning process, considering factors such as autonomy, competencies, and their own basic psychological needs, looking for effective learning models based on students’ needs in a changing world, where ICTs play a relevant role. This research analyzes learning models, motivation, self-determination, and technologies used for learning achievement in higher engineering education. The study will highlight relevant initiatives and the most commonly used technological tools. It will also identify learning models that seek to link emotional intelligence, self-determination, cognitive skills, and ICT. The PRISMA protocol guided the study, finding 132 relevant articles to be analyzed and proposing best practices in using learning models, strategies, and ICT to foster students’ intrinsic motivation.

The use and management of Big Data in the political sphere has posed unprecedented challenges concerning democratic governance, equity, and the rule of law. As Big Data establishes itself as a resource of growing value, it is imperative to address one of the most critical challenges: data sustainability. Data sustainability involves social and ethical considerations relating to the correct use of personal data. Lack of informed consent and transparency in collecting and using personal data raises serious concerns regarding privacy and individual rights. It is necessary to define regulations and public policies that guarantee citizens’ digital rights based on ethical and democratic standards associated with data management. This article aims to review the literature in the context of data sustainability to identify how Big Data is used, particularly emphasizing its application in the policy domain and the challenges it poses for democratic governance, equity, and law. We have used systematic mapping methodology to collect relevant papers, finding 28 papers associated with democratic governance and Big Data in the context of data sustainability. From the review of these papers, there appears to be a lack of proposals focusing on applying or implementing democratic governance and Big Data. Furthermore, there seem to be no measures to assess the application of Big Data in democratic governance. From these, the need to move towards the definition of formal models that integrate Big Data practices in democratic governance is identified.

The transparency of electronic procedures has become an important strategy to reduce corruption within state organizations and thus promote the sustainable and efficient management of fiscal resources, vital elements in the development of a country. E-government processes have become an important line of development, in which substantial investments have been made to have processes that allow for transparency in a large part of the country’s activities, specifically in the contracting and purchasing of public properties and services. The objective of the study is to present an overview of the work on initiatives that have been used around transparency and electronic procedures of electronic governments to identify which of these initiatives are associated with transparency and which effectively apply to electronic procedures for transparency to learn how these procedures allow for sustainable development of governments. The methodology used in this work was a systematic mapping of the literature, and the main findings suggest that this is a little-explored area.