Search Results (894)

To address the limitation that existing Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (VSLAM) methods fail under complex and variable illumination conditions due to the inability to extract sufficient feature points, this paper proposes a robust V SLAM localization method based on multi-level adaptive image enhancement. First, the method employs dynamic brightness compensation to preprocess the original image, initially improving the global brightness distribution. Second, through RGB-to-HSV color space conversion, the brightness V-channel is separated to eliminate the interference of color information in the enhancement process. On this basis, to overcome the limitation of the existing CLAHE algorithm that relies on a fixed clipping threshold and cannot adapt to the local brightness distribution and texture complexity of different image regions, we propose an improved adaptive-threshold CLAHE algorithm based on local statistical characteristics, providing a stable image foundation for feature extraction. Meanwhile, to handle the interference of moving objects in dynamic environments, we incorporate a YOLOv5 object detection thread into the ORB-SLAM3 framework to remove feature points on dynamic objects. This detection module works in synergy with the multi-level image enhancement module, further improving localization robustness in dynamic scenarios. Extensive experiments on the public EuRoC and TUM datasets demonstrate that our method reduces the root mean square error of absolute trajectory error by 29.60% compared to ORB-SLAM3, with a reduction of up to 97.85% on high-dynamic sequences. Our method achieves better localization accuracy and robustness under complex illumination conditions, offering a new solution for visual localization in challenging illumination scenarios. Full article

Background/Objectives: School feeding is a fundamental component of public policies aimed at promoting health, improving educational outcomes, reducing inequalities, and guaranteeing the human right to adequate food. This study aimed to evaluate the nutritional quality of school meals offered to public school students in a federal unit of Brazil, quantify the environmental impacts using carbon and water footprints, and simulate potential reductions through a strict vegetarian menu. Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive study analyzed 130 daily menus (390 meals) from full-time public schools in the Federal District of Brazil in 2024. Nutritional quality was assessed based on energy, nutrients, food groups, degree of processing, and food origin. Carbon and water footprints were estimated using literature-based indicators. A nutritionally adequate strict vegetarian menu was then developed and compared with the observed menus. Results: The current menus presented good overall nutritional quality, with high food diversity and predominance of fresh or minimally processed foods. Most nutritional parameters met the recommended levels; however, protein and saturated fat exceeded the recommended limits. Animal-based foods accounted for most of the carbon and water footprints. The simulated strict vegetarian menu demonstrated significantly lower environmental impacts while maintaining nutritional adequacy. Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of integrating nutritional and environmental strategies, such as a weekly “Meatless Monday” initiative alongside food and nutrition education, to improve student health outcomes and reduce the environmental burden of public school meals. Incorporating environmental sustainability criteria into school meal planning and public food procurement may advance nutritional quality, resource efficiency, and climate goals, positioning school feeding programs as strategic instruments for sustainable development. Full article

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in public governance, raising new challenges for anticipating its societal implications while safeguarding democratic accountability within expanding computational infrastructures. This article examines how anticipatory AI governance can be operationalised in the age of supercomputing through a mixed-methods, multistakeholder study conducted in the Basque Country (Spain). The empirical focus is Gipuzkoa, a devolved historical territory with fiscal autonomy and a rapidly developing advanced-computing ecosystem centred in Donostia–San Sebastián, where regional initiatives are positioning the territory within Europe’s emerging high-performance and quantum computing landscape. The study combines participatory action research involving six civil society organisations, seven provincial directorates, and eleven municipalities with an online citizen survey (N = 911). The findings indicate that anticipatory AI governance is supported through four interrelated governance mechanisms: institutional coordination across administrative levels, multistakeholder participation, territorial public capability, and the strategic embedding of advanced computational infrastructures. Rather than evaluating the governance of supercomputing technologies themselves, the analysis examines governance perceptions, institutional practices, and democratic arrangements associated with these infrastructures. The article’s contribution lies in integrating anticipatory AI governance, territorial governance, and advanced computational infrastructures within a devolved city-regional setting, offering evidence-informed insights for regions seeking to strengthen democratic capacity alongside technological innovation. Full article

Rural coastal communities are grappling with climate change impacts, including the increased frequency of extreme storm events. Achieving sustainability goals requires addressing environmental, social, and economic dimensions of these events. Social vulnerability indices provide a means of addressing social vulnerability to advance sustainability goals. While such indices offer a metric for assessing relative social vulnerability at a community scale, they often fail to capture more nuanced dimensions of vulnerability. Our exploratory qualitative case study employed two community-driven exercises to examine the impacts due to loss of power, heat, and access to emergency services stemming from a storm event. Participants representing public, conservation, social service, emergency management, and business sectors received a customized social vulnerability index prior to the community exercise, which examined social vulnerabilities associated with an extreme storm event. Participants completed pre- and post-exercise surveys. Transcripts and notes from discussions were analyzed qualitatively. The results provide a refined understanding of who is vulnerable to climate change impacts, the limitations of vulnerability indices in capturing these vulnerabilities, and the potential for community-centered approaches for developing customized vulnerability indices. Such approaches can inform more comprehensive preparation and recovery initiatives in response to increasing extreme storm events. Full article

Inflation has become a major global economic issue, affecting household welfare and poverty reduction efforts, especially in developing countries. Despite growing scholarly attention, understanding of its conceptual foundations, emerging themes, and future research directions remains limited. This review analyzes international studies on inflation and household poverty from 2015 to 2025. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, 147 peer-reviewed English-language articles were selected from an initial pool of 659 records in the Scopus database and analyzed using the Biblioshiny package in R for performance metrics and science mapping. The findings reveal a rapidly growing and diverse research area, with an average annual growth rate of 20.77%, involving 362 authors across 147 journals. Most research focuses on high-income nations such as the United States, China, and the UK, while regions heavily affected by inflation-driven poverty, such as Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, are less represented. Thematic analysis identifies five key areas: macroeconomic instability and inequality; household well-being and food security; energy poverty and commodity prices; COVID-19 and external economic threats; and multidimensional poverty combined with social policies. Around 30% of the publications feature international collaboration, reflecting increased global cooperation. Life-cycle analysis indicates the field is in a growth phase and may reach maturity around 2036. Overall, this review provides a detailed overview of the development and structure of research on inflation and household poverty, highlights notable geographic and thematic gaps, and offers valuable insights for future studies and policies aimed at reducing inflation’s adverse effects on vulnerable economies. Full article

This study examines the challenges of conserving and enhancing geological and historical cultural heritage in urban areas of the southern Apennines, focusing on the Basilicata region in Southern Italy. The area’s complex geological evolution has produced diverse landscapes shaped by outcropping lithologies with different characteristics. Many urban centers are surrounded by rugged terrain where geological and geomorphological features remain visible and accessible. The research analyzes several urban geosites through four case studies: Pietragalla, Laurenzana, Brienza, and Lagonegro, located in northeastern and central Basilicata. These sites display significant geological features closely connected with historical structures and urban development, offering strong potential for geoheritage interpretation. By combining a bibliographic review of geological and socio-cultural contexts with detailed field surveys, site-specific features and potential threats can be identified. The main objectives are to document and analyze geological characteristics, assess conservation conditions, and propose geoconservation measures for protection and sustainable use. The study also supports valorization strategies, promoting sustainable geotourism and increasing public awareness. The results emphasize the importance of integrating restoration actions with educational initiatives to ensure sustainable management, provide guidelines for site enhancement, encourage community involvement, and show how valorization of urban geological heritage can strengthen identity and support heritage conservation. Full article

Digital Pakistan is a pivotal move towards bridging the gap between old bureaucratic methods and new ones, offering a technologically advanced, modernized form of administration for the masses. This paper will critically analyze the initiative’s effects on the delivery of social services to the population through a methodical SWOT analysis, highlighting existing shortcomings, such as insufficient infrastructure and the digital divide, that limit access for all. Based on a qualitative study using secondary data (2018–2024), it was found that although the adoption of more than 40 e-governance solutions and the Digital Pakistan Hub has led to an increase in transparency and responsiveness of the administration, there still remain great threats, such as security breaches in the cyber-sphere and a 67 percent gender gap in access to the Internet. The findings emphasize that although digital tools have helped ease bureaucracy, they are not very effective because of unequal digital literacy. This means that the paper advocates inclusive policymaking that focuses on boosting digital equity and infrastructural resilience to achieve sustainable public-sector reforms. The findings offer a practical roadmap for policymakers to bridge the technological vision with citizen-centric service delivery. Full article

Population ageing is reshaping the use and evaluation of everyday urban green spaces, especially in old urban districts where nearby public spaces support walking, resting, exercise, and social contact. Conventional age-friendly assessments often emphasise whether formal infrastructure is provided, but facility provision alone does not ensure experiential fit with older adults’ functional capacities, daily routines, and social practices. This exploratory multiple-case study examines user-initiated informal adaptations in three neighbourhood-scale green spaces in Gulou District, Nanjing, China. Facility audits, approximately 30 h of non-participant observation, semi-structured interviews with 36 older users, and 220 valid questionnaires were combined through cross-case coding and qualitative triangulation. Three adaptation types were identified: supplementary, modifying, and appropriative adaptations. These practices were interpreted as context-dependent behavioural signals potentially associated with safety and convenience, ergonomic support and material-thermal comfort, social accessibility and spatial accommodation, and social support. Adaptation patterns varied descriptively across sites and age groups in relation to facility conditions, spatial organisation, activity intensity, and user characteristics. The findings suggest that, when interpreted alongside facility audits, interviews, and site context, older adults’ everyday adaptations may help identify possible mismatches between formal provision and actual use, offering a low-cost interpretative perspective for inclusive, incremental, and socially sustainable green-space renewal. Full article

What does it mean to bring climate adaptation and sustainability “on the ground” into a Thuringian small town that is both urban and rural? From 2021 to 2024, we conducted a cooperative research project with the municipality to investigate this. For three years, the research partners explored ways to integrate the “big” topics of climate adaptation, sustainability, public services, and demographic change into the everyday urban development processes of a small town in rural Thuringia, an area experiencing long-term population decline. The result of the project is three volumes in the ISDN series that provide initial answers, which are often derived from the combination of research and teaching. One volume focuses on energy, housing, and mobility, presenting stakeholders, projects, and research results that can be used to address these issues locally in rural-urban municipalities more broadly. Another collects findings on socio-infrastructural planning, offering a dedicated perspective on gender and youth “in the countryside”. Ultimately, all socio-infrastructural planning activities aim to support an “Urban Social Cultural Care”. This article aims to contextualize transfer-oriented research within theoretical debates on sustainability transitions, paying special attention to the opportunities available to municipalities with limited administrative resources to enhance their own scope of action. Full article

With the development of the pet industry, public attention to pet food safety and nutritional health has been continuously increasing. Postbiotics were initially defined as inactivated microorganisms or microbial cellular components that confer health benefits to the host. Compared with probiotics, postbiotics possess superior safety and stability. They can effectively eliminate the potential risk of horizontal transfer of drug-resistant genes carried by live bacteria, and also feature better manufacturability and storage performance. At present, most research on postbiotics has focused on humans and large domestic animals, with relatively few applications in dogs and cats. This indicates that further research on postbiotics in canines and felines is still needed to better promote their practical application in promoting pet food health. This article provides a comprehensive review of the current research status of postbiotics, focusing on their potential benefits and mechanisms for pet health. It proposes that future studies should concentrate on in vivo experimental validation to clarify the safety, optimal dosage, and specific functions of postbiotics in companion animals. Such research will offer a scientific basis for the application of postbiotics in pet food formulations, ultimately promoting the health and welfare of pets. Full article

With the rapid development in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies, their application in STEAM education offers new possibilities for promoting interdisciplinary integration of technology and the arts. This study employs a systematic literature review method. Six databases—Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed, Taylor & Francis, Springer Link, and Scopus—were searched for publications from January 2021 to January 2026. After independent screening and review by two reviewers, 21 empirical studies out of 424 initial records were included. A comprehensive analysis was conducted using a combination of open and axial coding. The findings indicate that GenAI’s support for artistic creativity in STEAM education is primarily manifested in four dimensions: lowering the threshold for creation to enhance the accessibility of artistic creativity, stimulating interdisciplinary associations to strengthen subject integration, supporting critical artistic recreation to deepen cultural engagement, and building a human–GenAI collaborative creation ecosystem to foster reflexivity. Based on this, the study constructs a GCD (Guiding questioning–Co-refining–Deepening reflection) cyclic instructional framework, providing teachers with an actionable pedagogical pathway for using GenAI to cultivate students’ interdisciplinary artistic creativity across different educational stages. Furthermore, the study systematically analyzes ethical challenges such as technological dependency, cultural homogenization, educational equity, and originality, and proposes corresponding pedagogical strategies to address them. It should be noted that the current body of relevant empirical research is limited in quantity and exhibits substantial heterogeneity, and the GCD framework still requires further classroom-based practical validation. Future research could strengthen empirical longitudinal tracking of longterm effects, deepen the construction of support systems for teachers’ digital literacy, and continue to advance the exploration of ethical, equity, and cultural diversity issues in GenAI-based artistic creativity education. Full article

The construction industry is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Different strategies have been implemented to reduce the environmental impact of construction sites and create better city environments for construction workers and citizens. Electrification of construction machinery is one such measure and is rapidly evolving. However, existing literature has largely concentrated on either electrification of road vehicles or emission reduction via the electrification of a building’s operational energy use. This paper presents a systematic literature review on available publications focusing on the electrification of construction sites, identifying and analyzing the key drivers and barriers influencing this. In addition, it provides recommendations for better and effective electrification of construction sites. A total of 55 publications were analyzed to extract insights and organize findings into eight key themes: requirements, technology and market, economic, process and operations, infrastructure, knowledge and experience, environmental, and attitude. The findings indicate strong interconnections between the barriers and drivers to electrification of construction sites. Clear policy frameworks, strategic public procurement, knowledge sharing initiatives, and robust data systems emerged as critical enablers for scaling emission-free construction sites. The lessons learnt are largely drawn from Norwegian experiences but are highly transferable to other cities and regions and offer practical insights into policy design, procurement strategies, and collaborative models for actors interested in reducing GHG emissions and transition into electrification of construction sites. Full article

The transition towards sustainable, resilient and digitally integrated port ecosystems has increased the need for collaborative innovation approaches capable of supporting broader sustainability transitions. In this context, open and sustainable innovation (OSI) offers a strategic mechanism for integrating economic, environmental and social objectives within complex maritime ecosystems. Although previous studies have explored technological innovation and isolated sustainability initiatives in ports, limited empirical attention has been given to how stakeholders perceive OSI and how its implementation is operationalised across a national port system. This study addresses this gap by investigating the central research question: how do key stakeholders perceive and implement OSI practices within the Portuguese port system? Specifically, it analyses organisational culture, governance structures, stakeholder engagement mechanisms, institutional barriers and sustainability-oriented innovation practices. The research adopts a qualitative approach based on ten semi-structured interviews with representatives of five Portuguese port authorities occupying senior management and strategic positions. The findings show that OSI is widely recognised as important for competitiveness, sustainability performance and alignment with transition agendas, but its implementation remains uneven across ports. Organisational resistance, fragmented governance, regulatory complexity and limited monitoring mechanisms constrain the institutionalisation of OSI practices. Nevertheless, collaborative initiatives involving universities, innovation networks, public–private partnerships and digital platforms indicate a gradual shift towards more integrated and participatory governance models. The study concludes that OSI can support sustainability transitions in port ecosystems when enabled by coordinated governance, stakeholder collaboration and organisational capabilities. Full article

This study provides a systematic examination of global research trends and developments in the field of family and marriage over a twenty-five-year period (2000–2025). Employing a hybrid review design, the research integrates bibliometric analysis with PRISMA guidelines to ensure methodological rigor and transparency. Data were retrieved from the Web of Science, where an initial pool of 97,171 records was refined to 2974 eligible publications through a structured screening and inclusion process. The reduction to 2974 publications was the result of structure bibliometrics using CiteSpace, which employs algorithmic thresholds to identify the most structurally significant publications within a large corpus. Utilizing CiteSpace (version 6.4.R1), this analysis maps the intellectual structure and evolution of the field. By synthesizing co-citation, co-authorship, institutional, and keyword co-occurrence data, this study identifies critical collaboration networks, influential contributors, and dominant thematic domains. The findings reveal prominent research clusters, including premarital cohabitation, partner effects, family structure transitions, marital discord, systemic family functioning, and marriage education. Key contributors identified include influential scholars such as Catherine Walker O’Neal, Birditt, Kira S, Higginbotham Brian J, Beach Steven R. H., and Matthew D. Johnson. Leading institutions are the University System of Ohio, the University of California System, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE), Pennsylvania State University, and Pennsylvania State University–University Park. At the country level, the United States, Canada, England, Australia, the Netherlands, and Belgium emerge as the most significant contributors. The findings offer a comprehensive synthesis of authorship trends, institutional influence, and shifting research trajectories within the field of family and marriage studies. Full article

There is growing recognition of the health benefits that forests and green spaces provide to people. Forest bathing is a practice that promotes relaxation and human well-being through immersive, mindful experiences in forest environments. How forest bathing affects distinct dimensions of well-being is still not fully understood. In this study, we assessed changes in well-being before and after two and four forest bathing sessions and examined whether a brief introductory session on forest ecosystem services enhanced participants’ overall perception of well-being. Forty adults from a rural community in southern Chile completed the Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale to assess perceived well-being. Participants showed improvements in overall well-being after two sessions, with the most significant gains in relaxation, optimism, clarity of thought, and social connection. Scores remained stable between the second and fourth sessions, suggesting that initial exposure offers the most substantial benefits, while continued practice helps maintain them. Although the introductory session did not significantly affect overall well-being scores, it showed positive effects on optimism and social connection. These findings highlight forest bathing as an effective nature-based intervention to promote emotional and social well-being, with implications for policies advancing public health and sustainability goals. Full article