Search Results (7,282)

China and Italy both possess rich operatic traditions, yet both encounter challenges in sustaining engagement among younger generations. This study investigates how infrastructural conditions influencing young audiences’ willingness to experience with traditional opera through a comparative study of two cultural contexts. Drawing on focus group interviews with participants across both countries, the research examines three interrelated theoretical dimensions: accessibility, experience, and mediation. Through systematic qualitative content analysis, the results indicate that while both Chinese and Italian participants recognized opera as a culturally significant art form, their participation modes differed. In China, attendance was often perceived as a planned and formal activity tied to modern cultural districts, with a strong reliance on media support to reduce entry barriers. In Italy, opera was described as embedded in historical urban environments and social routines, prioritizing the preservation of live performance integrity, maintained through continuity and familiarity. Such findings define opera engagement as a process shaped by interwoven access, experiential, and mediating infrastructures. Overall, this research identifies the needs of young opera audiences in both countries and offers cross-national perspectives for theatrical institutions, aiming to enhance operations and global communication of traditional opera. Full article

This paper examines the costs and benefits of decarbonisation policy in the Polish energy generation sector. Accordingly, the analysis focuses on the costs of transforming the national energy mix up to 2050, as well as the environmental benefits associated with reducing emissions from electricity and district heating generation. The study addresses the question of which energy production structures are optimal at different levels of global warming costs, given the uncertainty surrounding the magnitude of human impact on the climate. The results indicate that relatively low SCC justify only a limited optimal reduction in CO₂ emissions. Full decarbonisation of the Polish energy sector, corresponding to a 100% reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2050, becomes socially optimal only at an SCC of around €165/tCO₂. Simulations conducted for different EUA price levels allow for the construction of a MAC curve, which can be used to identify the economically optimal scope of decarbonisation policy. Due to its heavy reliance on coal and the high-emission starting point of its energy transition, Poland faces particularly high investment requirements. Achieving climate neutrality in the energy sector by 2050 is estimated to require approximately €228 billion in investment, including substantial expenditures on RES, the construction of nuclear power plants, and the development of energy storage infrastructure. Full article

The analysis of publicly expressed opinions on social media is crucial for designing effective behavioral public policies. By considering both social-media-based public opinion (operationalized as individual, non-representative expressions) and official governmental positions (formal policy statements), this paper employs a systemic case study to understand the political and social factors that influence decision-making in major international events such as Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic clustering and correlation analysis, this study examines public opinion from five language groups (Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, and Indonesian, each mapped to a primary country or region: China, the US/UK as representative English-speaking countries, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia respectively) regarding Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge, compares governmental attitudes across these five national contexts, and identifies the factors behind their divergence. Public opinion was clustered into six themes; combined with domain expert analysis, they vary significantly across countries that speak different languages in our translated Twitter corpus, though translation artifacts may affect fine-grained comparisons. Public opinion as expressed on Twitter/X is closely associated with a country’s level of international engagement, maritime industry development, and geographic distance from Japan. Furthermore, exploratory analysis of a small set of six countries suggests that governmental positions are influenced more by strategic and economic ties with Japan than by domestic public opinion. Given the small sample size, this finding is preliminary and requires validation in larger-N studies. Public and government opinions on Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge are sharply divided in the English- and Japanese-language corpora (representing the US/UK and Japan), polarized in the Korean-language corpus (South Korea), and relatively aligned in the Chinese- and Indonesian-language corpora (China and Indonesia). These findings regarding the entire international event system suggest that governments should take public opinion into greater account when addressing international public crises and encourage broader public participation through digital platforms to better respond to global challenges. However, due to the inherent limitations of cross-lingual translation, our cross-country comparisons should be interpreted as indicative rather than definitive. Full article

Youth well-being interventions in digital contexts overwhelmingly target individual emotional mechanisms, yet whether these actually outperform social–structural pathways when directly compared has remained untested. Using nationally representative Chinese youth data (N = 1967; 91.4% of young adults; China Family Panel Studies 2022) and a competing-models structural equation framework with 5000-iteration bootstrap resampling, we simultaneously tested three rival pathways linking screen time to well-being. Results decisively favored the social–structural model: the social trust pathway yielded the strongest indirect association (β = −0.030, p < 0.001), despite the small size, nearly twice the magnitude of family-based mechanisms (β = −0.011, p < 0.001), while the direct emotional pathway was non-significant (β = −0.004, p > 0.05). Critically, negative emotions did not function as an independent parallel pathway; they emerged sequentially downstream of trust erosion. If emotional distress is downstream of trust erosion rather than a parallel input, interventions targeting emotion regulation address a symptom while the structural mechanism goes unaddressed. These findings suggest youth well-being interventions in digital contexts may benefit from rebalancing attention from individual behavioral modification toward social–structural conditions. Full article

Critical infrastructure restoration (CIR) is a disaster-management and sustainability challenge because prolonged disruption of energy, water, transport, communications, healthcare, and public-administration services can amplify social, economic, and environmental losses. This PRISMA 2020-reported systematic review synthesizes post-2016 scientific literature and official policy, legal, standards, and technical documents on CIR and AI decision support. The review identified 55 records, removed 1 duplicate, excluded 1 ineligible record, and retained 53 core sources for qualitative synthesis, including 31 scholarly publications and 22 official documents. Manual screening was used; no automated screening or AI-assisted exclusion tools were applied. The results are organized around four research questions covering regulatory frameworks, recovery practices, supporting systems, and AI model families. The synthesis shows that CIR is shaped by layered governance through NIS2, the CER Directive, the AI Act, and national measures; by operational recovery practices such as continuity planning, cyber crisis coordination, interdependency mapping, and model-supported restoration; by digital platforms including SCADA/ICS, IoT sensing, GIS/common operating pictures, decision-support systems, simulation environments, and digital twins; and by AI methods ranging from classical machine learning and computer vision to reinforcement learning and generative assistants. However, evidence maturity remains uneven, with many AI applications still simulation-based, sector-specific, or weakly validated in real restoration settings. The review contributes an integrated CIR-oriented framework showing that AI creates practical value when embedded in interoperable, human-supervised, regulation-aware, and empirically validated restoration architectures that support sustainable service continuity rather than isolated automation. Full article

Background: Diabetes is a growing public health crisis across the Arab region, where rapid urbanization, dietary transitions, and physical inactivity have contributed to some of the highest diabetes rates globally. Despite a growing recognition of the problem, most diabetes prevention efforts in the region remain small-scale or insufficiently adapted to the sociocultural realities of adults living in the UAE. Evidence-based diabetes prevention strategies, such as the United States’ Centers for Disease Control Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), reduce the risk of developing diabetes but remain underutilized. Methods: The objectives of this study were to (1) describe the systematic cultural adaptation of the Evidence-based Intervention for Diabetes Prevention (EID) using the Framework for Reporting Adaptations and Modifications–Expanded (FRAME), and (2) assess the preliminary acceptability of the adapted materials through formative focus groups. Results: Materials were culturally tailored to address both deep and surface structures. Deep structure adaptations incorporated Arab cultural values, social norms, and religious practices, including Ramadan-specific content. The original 26-session curriculum was condensed to 12 weekly sessions based on prior research and stakeholder input. Surface-level adaptations included translation into Arabic and development of culturally relevant educational videos. Three formative focus groups (n = 7 total participants) provided preliminary findings of strong acceptability of simplified, culturally relevant, and digitally supported materials. Conclusions: This work will inform the adaptation of an evidence-based lifestyle change program aimed at preventing type 2 diabetes in high-risk individuals to better meet the needs of adults living in the UAE. While some countries have created their own national diabetes prevention efforts, like the United Kingdom, there is notably no similar program in the Arab world. Full article

Background/Objectives: In Italy, the ongoing reform of primary healthcare (Ministerial Decree 77/2022) requires Health Districts to shift towards proactive, need-based resource allocation. Despite evidence of their role in shaping citizens’ health, socioeconomic deprivation indices remain rarely integrated into territorial planning frameworks. This study develops and validates a population-weighted analytical model linking area-level socioeconomic deprivation, territorial accessibility, and all-cause mortality across the entire Italian territory, with the aim of supporting evidence-based planning. Methods: All 7899 Italian municipalities were aggregated into 1175 territorial units defined by Health District boundaries and SNAI (National Strategy for Inner Areas) classification. A population-weighted multivariable OLS regression model was used to examine the association between socioeconomic indicators (educational deprivation, employment, household isolation) and the Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR) for 2023–2024. Results: The model explained 72.5% of the variance in SMR across territorial units (adjusted R² = 0.719; F = 116.5; p < 0.0001). Region of residence emerged as the dominant predictor. Educational deprivation showed the strongest positive association with mortality. While employment-related deprivation was inversely associated with SMR, household isolation showed a positive independent association with mortality. Residual mapping identified spatial clusters of excess mortality unexplained by socioeconomic factors, pointing to unmeasured determinants including environmental exposures and healthcare quality differentials Conclusions: Our model provides a replicable, evidence-based framework for identifying territorial vulnerability and prioritising healthcare resources at the Health District level. By benchmarking observed mortality against socioeconomic predictions, it enables planners to distinguish structurally driven excess mortality from potentially amenable mortality, supporting proactive, equity-oriented planning consistent with the objectives of Ministerial Decree 77/2022. Full article

This article examines remittances not only as financial transfers but also as datafied political objects shaped by measurement, modelling and presentation infrastructures. Using the UK–Romania corridor, we compare observed personal remittance receipts published by the National Bank of Romania (NBR) with model-based bilateral estimates associated with World Bank/KNOMAD data. The article develops an analytical framework that links quantification, metric power, algorithmic governmentality, hybrid media circulation and emerging bottom-up social policies. It then shows how nominal values, real values at constant 2021 prices, year-by-year changes, moving-average smoothing, employment-scaled scenarios and transfer-balance indicators generate different representations of diaspora contribution, welfare substitution and national economic performance. Rather than assigning final authority to one dataset, the article demonstrates how calculation and presentation choices become communicative interventions. The conclusion emphasises methodological transparency and the need to connect remittance statistics to both political communication and community-level welfare practices. Full article

As global education steps into a new era marked by core literacy and sustainable development, teacher literacy has become a critical pillar for fulfilling United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) and advancing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Guided by the Educator Spirit and based on the logical framework of dual professional roles and four professional relationships, this study constructs a teacher literacy model for Chinese teachers in the new era, which consists of seven dimensions: disciplinary literacy, general literacy, learning support literacy, holistic education literacy, communication and collaboration literacy, development and improvement literacy, and teacher ethics literacy. Adopting systematic literature review and international comparative research methods, this study integrates mainstream international teacher literacy frameworks issued by the European Union, OECD, UNESCO, the United States and Australia with China’s educational policies and practical experience to establish the proposed model. It further elaborates how the model directs sustainability-oriented teacher education, facilitates transformative teaching approaches, boosts interdisciplinary teaching practice, highlights social justice and global citizenship awareness, and embeds sustainable development principles into curriculum design and teaching practice. This model can effectively tackle prevailing practical dilemmas including teachers’ weakened professional identity, vague professional development paths, unitary evaluation systems, inadequate digital teaching competence, insufficient interdisciplinary integration capacity, deficient ESD literacy and inefficient collaborative education mechanisms. It can systematically support teachers in carrying out sustainability-oriented teaching, innovating curriculum design, conducting transformative teaching and promoting students’ sustainable learning while practicing social justice and educational equity and cultivating global citizenship awareness in educational scenarios. It also provides a theoretical basis and practical guidance for promoting the transition of Chinese teachers toward high-quality, professional and sustainable development, and also offers localized solutions with distinctive Chinese characteristics and universal international implications for the implementation of global ESD initiatives and the achievement of SDG 4. Full article

Building cost-effective homes that comply with stringent environmental regulations remains a significant challenge for the UK housebuilding sector, particularly for social housing providers. In the context of net zero targets and reducing embodied carbon, this study examines opportunities to minimise material waste and associated impacts. Using an inductive mixed-methods approach, the research began with a literature review to establish baseline waste rates across key material streams. It then analysed material usage data from three completed housing developments, comparing estimated quantities with actual orders and spend to identify discrepancies between assumptions and real-world outcomes. To validate these findings, a controlled case study tracked the construction of a single four-bedroom home, enabling direct measurement of waste rates and assessment of cost and carbon implications at unit level. Results highlight a series of marginal gains achievable through improved estimating and procurement practices, which collectively offer potential for significant financial savings and reductions in embodied carbon when scaled nationally. For social housing providers, these efficiencies could lower build costs, support sustainability goals, and create opportunities to reinvest in additional housing delivery. Full article

Rapid urbanization has intensified inequalities in the distribution of urban green resources, making green equity a critical concern within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This study examines Zhangdian District in Zibo City, China, a representative “Whole-Area Park City” pilot area. This study integrates 1 km population density grid data with GIS network analysis, space syntax, population-weighted service pressure assessment, and a location–allocation model. Using these methods, it evaluates four categories of urban parks from the perspectives of spatial distribution, road connectivity, and social equity. The results reveal that vehicle and cycling modes achieved nearly complete 15 min coverage, whereas pedestrian accessibility remained insufficient. Walking accessibility for comprehensive parks reached 77.69%, whereas that of community parks and petty street gardens was below 33%. Population-weighted analysis further suggests that more than 78% of residents, concentrated in dense central–western neighborhoods, are served by only 21% of total park area. The Gini coefficient of per capita park area reached 0.4765, indicating substantial inequality in park green space allocation. After optimization through the addition of 76 new parks, improvements in road connectivity, and construction of a slow-traffic system, the Gini coefficient decreased to 0.4053, representing a 14.9% reduction. Meanwhile, the population below the national standard declined from 78.09% to 40.64%. These findings reflect spatial accessibility and area-based equity, while actual park service value also depends on park quality, facilities, and user behavior. This study provides quantitative evidence for equity-oriented park planning and a replicable framework for sustainable urban green space planning. Full article

The third United Nations Sustainable Development Goal promotes health and well-being. Despite the existence of academic literature examining the relationship between health and income inequality, evidence on the role of healthcare systems in this inequality remains limited. This article aims to analyse the extent to which healthcare systems are associated with differences in economic inequality. To this end, a balanced panel of 27 European Union countries for the period 2005–2022 is used, applying t-tests for differences in means and linear regression models using S80/S20, Gini and Palma inequality measures. The main results show that countries with a Social Health Insurance System (SHIS) exhibit, on average, lower levels of income inequality, despite not being the highest spenders on healthcare. On the other hand, healthcare expenditure has a negative and statistically significant relationship with inequality, whereas in countries with a Mixed Healthcare System (MHS), this association is not statistically significant. A disaggregated analysis of public and private spending indicates that public expenditure is particularly relevant in SHIS countries being negatively associated with income inequality, whereas this relationship differs in countries with a National Health System (NHS). Thus, it is concluded that healthcare systems display significant differences in the relationship under study. Full article

Industrial transformation in resource-based regions (RBRs) is a global challenge. Shanxi is a typical resource-based province in China. The long-term exploitation of coal resources has posed huge challenges to its ecological protection and high-quality development. Breaking away from the single-city perspective, this study focuses on the regional scale and comparative analysis and attempts to construct a novel three-dimensional analytical framework, namely, “industrial characteristics, industrial layout, and industrial policies”, to explore the industrial transformation path of typical RBRs. The results indicate the following: (1) Shanxi does not have obvious advantages in terms of resource endowment, with a severely heavy industrial structure and strategic emerging industries still in the initial stage of development. At the national strategic level, it is still necessary to strengthen the application of the “pioneer and pilot” policies and mechanisms for innovation. (2) In the context of high-quality development, Shanxi needs to clarify the industrial transformation orientation. For agriculture, the focus should be placed on characteristic and efficient development. For industrial development, priority should be given to upgrading advantageous industries and cultivating emerging industries. For the tertiary industry, it is necessary to form a development pattern of “new producer services + characteristic tourism”. In terms of regional development layout, Shanxi should establish a macro-pattern to promote inter-regional coordinated development. (3) In the new period, Shanxi should accelerate the construction of transportation systems to improve the convenience of inter-regional cooperation. It is essential to increase investment in education and scientific research so as to enhance the overall social innovation capacity. Meanwhile, differentiated regional development policies should be adequately supplied to drive the high-quality evolution of local industries. Focusing on the regional scale, the new logical analysis paradigm can provide theoretical references for RBRs to clarify the direction of industrial transformation and formulate transformation policies. Full article

Despite extensive global progress monitoring under the 2030 Agenda, existing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) assessment frameworks remain structurally blind to within-country distributional disparities. This study addresses this gap by developing a methodologically transparent composite SDG index for multi-level governance assessment, applying it to 218 Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS 2) regions across the European Union over the period 2015–2022 (1744 region-year observations). In this context, the term “region-year observations” refers strictly to the balanced panel data structure, which is calculated by observing 218 distinct sub-national regions continuously over an 8-year period (218 regions × 8 years The index aggregates four dimensions—social, economic, educational, and institutional—using min-max normalization. The analysis yields three main results: (1) Spatial econometric analysis reveals strong, persistent positive spatial autocorrelation, with high-performing clusters concentrated in Northern and Western Europe and lagging clusters in Eastern and Southern peripheries. (2) A spatial error model identifies institutional governance quality as a consistent statistical predictor of sub-national SDG performance. The significance of the spatial error parameter (λ = 0.497) suggests that unobservable institutional and geographical common shocks systematically link neighboring regions. (3) Cluster analysis further distinguishes four regional archetypes: Disadvantaged, Leaders, Educated, and Transitional. These findings underscore the need for spatially aware SDG monitoring infrastructure and investment in institutional capacity as prerequisites for equitable governance, as integrating spatial dependencies is crucial to prevent national averages from masking severe regional developmental traps. Full article

This study examines how individual political predispositions and national mobilisation contexts jointly structure protest participation in contemporary Europe across the pre-pandemic, pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Using data from Rounds 9, 10 and 11 of the European Social Survey (2018–2023), the analytical sample includes 106,106 respondents from 33 countries. Descriptively, protest participation remains a minority behaviour, yet displays pronounced cross-national heterogeneity, with participation rates ranging from below 3% in several Central and Eastern European countries to nearly 20% in the most mobilised contexts and remains remarkably stable across rounds at approximately 8.5%. Building on resource mobilisation theory, political process approaches and New Social Movements perspectives, the analysis conceptualises protest participation not as an isolated behavioural act but as the outcome of interactions between individual resources, evaluative orientations toward democratic institutions and broader mobilisation environments. Logistic regression models, country fixed-effects specifications and multilevel models with random intercepts are used to assess these relationships. At the individual level, political engagement emerges as the strongest predictor of participation: higher political interest is associated with substantially higher protest propensity, while ideological self-placement indicates lower participation among respondents positioned further to the right. Younger age and higher education also increase participation. Lower satisfaction with democracy and stronger perceptions of inequality are consistently associated with protest behaviour, supporting grievance-based interpretations linked to democratic evaluations rather than material deprivation alone. Country fixed-effects and multilevel models confirm that these individual-level associations are robust within countries, while significant between-country variation persists (random-intercept SD = 0.554), indicating that national mobilisation environments shape baseline levels of protest participation. Multilevel results further reveal that protest participation was significantly lower during the pandemic period (Round 10) relative to the pre-pandemic baseline, with only partial recovery in the post-pandemic period. A cross-round comparison demonstrates that the core individual-level associations are stable across all three periods, indicating that these relationships reflect durable structural patterns rather than dynamics specific to any particular mobilisation cycle. Beyond this overall stability, the analysis identifies two theoretically informative exceptions: subjective financial difficulty is significant only in the pre-pandemic period and gender differences in protest participation attenuate over time—patterns consistent with broader shifts in protest repertoires during and after the pandemic. These findings make three contributions to the comparative literature on contentious politics. First, by extending the analysis across three ESS rounds, the study demonstrates the temporal robustness of individual-level determinants of protest—an empirical question rarely addressed in the existing literature. Second, the multilevel design with round fixed effects allows for direct estimation of pandemic-related suppression and post-pandemic recovery in protest activity at the aggregate level. Third, the cross-national scope and temporally structured comparison provide new evidence on how individual political predispositions interact with shifting mobilisation environments across a period of exceptional socio-political strain in Europe. Full article