Search Results (1,383)

Developing positive energy districts (PEDs) is a key strategy in the global energy transition to reduce the high energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment. While the creation of new, energy-efficient urban areas as PEDs is essential, transforming existing districts is even more challenging, as they contain buildings of different types, ages, and energy performance levels. This study investigated energy efficiency improvements to facilitate the transition of an existing university campus toward PED operation. The NTNU Gløshaugen campus in Trondheim, Norway, was analyzed using a calibrated multi-building energy model (MBEM) developed using the URBANopt tool. Buildings were clustered into four age-based cohorts to assess the impact of targeted energy conservation measures (ECMs) on different construction periods. In addition, three energy efficiency scenarios were evaluated over the period 2025–2030 to capture the combined effects of new construction and renovation of existing buildings. Results showed that applying envelope improvement ECMs was more effective in older buildings, where lower baseline energy performance allowed for higher relative reductions in energy use. By the end of the simulation period, the specific energy use of the entire campus decreased from 252.2 kWh/m² in 2025 to 161.7 kWh/m² under moderate and 85.9 kWh/m² under deep retrofit conditions. These improvements create more favorable conditions for meeting the remaining energy demand through renewable sources, achieving an overall renewable coverage of 97%, and moving the campus closer to meeting PED targets. Full article

A low-carbon economy serves as a core pathway and pivotal engine for advancing the SDGs. Drawing on provincial panel data across 30 Chinese administrative regions spanning 2011–2023, the present study empirically examines how new infrastructure interacts with low-carbon economic development levels and their underlying transmission mechanisms by building an econometric model. Empirical results demonstrate that “new infrastructure” generates a notably positive facilitating impact on low-carbon economic development, with this influence being more pronounced in the central and western regions of China and policy pilot zones, while a rebound effect is identified in eastern China. Among various types of new infrastructure, information infrastructure and innovation infrastructure play particularly prominent roles, while integrated infrastructure shows a positive yet statistically insignificant impact. Mechanism analysis reveals that new infrastructure advances low-carbon economic progress primarily by curbing capital factor misallocation, while the elevation of the population urbanization level can amplify the facilitative impact of new infrastructure on the low-carbon economy. On this basis, it is imperative to raise investment in new infrastructure and enhance its systematic coordination with traditional infrastructure; implement differentiated layout strategies aligned with regional features; rationally steer the population urbanization process; and effectively facilitate the decoupling of carbon emissions from economic growth, thereby furnishing a robust underpinning for the full attainment of SDGs. Full article

The industrial heritage of the Third Front construction (hereafter referred to as Third Front industrial heritage) serves as a significant physical manifestation of China’s urban society, economy, and culture during a unique historical period. Its widespread abandonment not only constitutes a waste of social resources but also accelerates the erosion of collective memory surrounding the Third Front initiative. As one of Sichuan Province’s (including present-day Chongqing) key Third Front construction regions during that era, Guangyuan City possesses a substantial legacy of Third Front industrial heritage sites. These sites are predominantly idle and face ongoing risks of deterioration, necessitating comprehensive and systematic research into their classification, protection, and regeneration. This paper focuses on 39 Third Front industrial heritage sites in Guangyuan City, employing architectural typology to construct a ‘type-medium-value’ research framework integrating field research with strategic distribution analysis at the urban level, spatial form analysis at the settlement level, and spatial combination analysis at the building level to quantitatively identify and qualitatively deconstruct the spatial logic of these sites. This enables the analysis of the functional characteristics, structural logic, and spatial intent embodied by different types, thereby exploring the multidimensional value implications of Third Front industrial heritage through this value medium. Ultimately, this research proposes targeted adaptive mechanisms and revitalisation pathways for Third Front industrial heritage. It aims to promote the cultural legacy of this heritage and perpetuate the Third Front spirit within the context of strengthening the Chinese national community consciousness in the new era, while aligning with the Party and state’s development strategies. This approach aims to provide a reference for revitalising and utilising Third Front industrial heritage in other underdeveloped regions. Full article

Against the backdrop of rapid modernization and tightening agricultural resource constraints, coordinating urbanization and grain production is a key challenge for China. Using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2004 to 2023, this study applies the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model and a panel vector autoregression model to examine the spatiotemporal coupling characteristics and interaction mechanisms among new-type urbanization (NTU), cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE), and food security (FS). The results show that these three systems have gradually evolved toward coordinated development, with major grain-producing regions consistently leading and entering a moderate coordination stage earlier than other regions. Spatially, CCD exhibits significant positive spatial autocorrelation, characterized by stable “High–High” agglomeration in Northeast China and “Low–Low” agglomeration in southern provinces. Dynamic analysis indicates that system fluctuations are mainly driven by internal inertia, while inter-system interactions are also significant; NTU promotes CLUE, and CLUE and FS exhibit bidirectional causality with complex feedback effects. This study argues for promoting urban–rural factor mobility, advancing green and technology-enabled land use, implementing region-specific development strategies, and establishing a “human–land–grain” early-warning mechanism to safeguard food security during urban expansion. Full article

A new type of transportation vehicle, the maglev car, is gaining attention in the automotive and maglev industries due to its potential to meet personalized urban mobility and future travel needs. To optimize the chassis layout of maglev cars, this paper proposes a compact powertrain integrating electrodynamic suspension with in-wheel motor technology, in which a permanent magnet electrodynamic in-wheel motor (PMEIM) enables integrated propulsion and levitation. First, the PMEIM external magnetic field distribution is characterized by analytical and finite element (FEM) approaches, revealing the magnetic field distortion of the contactless powertrain. Subsequently, the steady-state electromagnetic force is modeled and the operating states of the PMEIM powertrain are calculated and determined. Next, the PMEIM electromagnetic design is conducted, and its electromagnetic structure rationality is verified through magnetic circuit and parametric analysis. Finally, an equivalent prototype is constructed, and the non-contact electromagnetic forces of the PMEIM are measured in bench testing. Results indicate that the PMEIM powertrain performs propulsion and levitation functions, demonstrating 14.2 N propulsion force and 45.8 N levitation force under the rated condition, with a levitation–weight ratio of 2.52, which hold promise as a compact and flexible drivetrain solution for maglev cars. Full article

High-rise building areas (HRBs), a key urban land-cover type defined by distinct morphological and functional characteristics, play a critical role in urban development. Their spatial distribution and temporal dynamics serve as essential indicators for quantifying urbanization and analyzing the evolution of urban spatial structure. This study addresses the dynamic monitoring needs of HRBs by developing a temporal change detection model, TCA-Unet (Temporal Change-Aware U-Net), based on a temporal change-aware attention module. The model adopts a dual-path design, combining a temporal attention encoder and a change-aware encoder. By explicitly modeling temporal difference features, it captures change information in temporal remote sensing images. It incorporates a multi-level weight generation mechanism that dynamically balances temporal features and change-aware features through an adaptive fusion strategy. This mechanism effectively integrates temporal context and enhances the model’s ability to capture long-term temporal dependencies. Using the Xiong’an New Area and its surrounding regions as the study area, experiments were conducted using Sentinel-2 time-series imagery from 2017 to 2024. The results demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms existing approaches, achieving an overall accuracy (OA) of 90.98%, an F1 score of 82.63%, and a mean intersection over union (mIoU) of 72.22%. Overall, this study provides an effective tool for extracting HRBs for dynamic monitoring and offers valuable guidance for urban development and regulation. Full article

Traditional automated monitoring systems adopted for Intersection Traffic Control still face challenges, including high costs, maintenance difficulties, insufficient coverage, poor multimodal data integration, and limited traffic information analysis. To address these issues, the study proposes a sovereign AI-driven Smart Transportation governance approach, developing a mobile AI solution equipped with multimodal perception, task decomposition, memory, reasoning, and multi-agent collaboration capabilities. The proposed system integrates computer vision, multi-object tracking, natural language processing, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and Large Language Models (LLMs) to construct a Pipeline-based Traffic Analysis System (PTAS). The PTAS can produce real-time statistics on pedestrian and vehicle flows at intersections, incorporating potential risk factors such as traffic accidents, construction activities, and weather conditions for multimodal data fusion analysis, thereby providing forward-looking traffic insights. Experimental results demonstrate that the enhanced DuCRG-YOLOv11n pre-trained model, equipped with our proposed new activation function $\beta silu$, can accurately identify various vehicle types in object detection, achieving a frame rate of 68.25 FPS and a precision of 91.4%. Combined with ByteTrack, it can track over 90% of vehicles in medium- to low-density traffic scenarios, obtaining a 0.719 in MOTA and a 0.08735 in MOTP. In traffic flow analysis, the RAG of Vertex AI, combined with Claude Sonnet 4 LLMs, provides a more comprehensive view, precisely interpreting the causes of peak-hour congestion and effectively compensating for missing data through contextual explanations. The proposed method can enhance the efficiency of urban traffic regulation and optimizes decision support in intelligent transportation systems. Full article

With the steady of new-type urbanization, the urban–rural income gap has become an increasingly prominent issue in China. Nevertheless, limited attention has been paid to the spatial relationships among new-type urbanization, industrial structure upgrading, and farmers’ income in Northeast China. Taking Northeast China as the research area, this study constructs a multidimensional evaluation index for new-type urbanization and employs data panels spanning 34 regional areas spanning the years from 2012 to 2023. The Statistical Durbin Model is used to examine both the direct and spatial spillover effects of new-type urbanization on farmers’ income, while the mediating role of industrial structure upgrading is further explored. The empirical findings indicate that: (1) cities with relatively higher farmers’ income levels and more advanced new-type urbanization are mainly concentrated in Liaoning Province; (2) new-type urbanization significantly contributes to the growth of farmers’ income; (3) new-type urbanization exerts positive spatial spillover effects on farmers’ income in surrounding regions; (4) industrial structure upgrading serves as an important transmission channel through which new-type urbanization enhances farmers’ income; and (5) among the control variables, fiscal support for agriculture and the degree of agricultural economic growth exerts large beneficial influence on farmers’ income. These results provide empirical and theoretical support for promoting new-type urbanization as an effective approach to narrowing the urban–rural income gap and increasing farmers’ earnings. Accordingly, policy efforts should focus on accelerating the advancement of new-type urbanization in Northeast China, strengthening infrastructure development and the provision of public services, optimising industrial structures to enhance employment absorption capacity, expanding farmers’ income sources, and fostering coordinated and sustainable urban–rural development across the region. Full article

In recent years, the rapid construction of government-subsidized rental housing (GRH) has partially alleviated housing pressures caused by the growing number of migrant workers and persistently high rental costs in Shanghai. However, its overriding emphasis on construction and allocation efficiency neglects the realization of spatial justice, particularly in underdeveloped urban areas. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach to examine all 25 GRHs completed and operational in Shanghai’s Five New Towns, employing morphological characteristics and inherent differences to analyze their impacts on spatial justice. First, this study integrates urban functions and spatial justice elements to establish a systematic classification framework and an evaluative system for GRH, and then assesses the achievement of spatial justice across existing projects. Subsequently, morphological analysis is employed to examine how GRHs shape the socio-spatial context of new towns, thereby assessing their role in reinforcing or undermining spatial justice. Finally, this study establishes data logic between typological factors and morphological characteristics and analyzes the inherent differences among various types of GRH by using Fisher’s exact test. The results reveal that although the existing GRHs are situated in different urban geospatial contexts, they exhibit a severe homogenization phenomenon in terms of construction modality, planning layout, and community boundary, with only the residential scale showing inherent differences. The research findings highlight a systematic neglect of spatial justice in the current GRH development paradigm and reveal the underlying causes. This study contributes to the discourse on spatial justice in GRH development by broadening its dimensions, and it provides valuable insights for promoting the realization of spatial justice through multi-tiered policy framework, place-making design strategy, and a joint operation model. Full article

This study advances the reconceptualization of Open municipal markets (OMMs) as networked ecosystems that connect food producers, vendors and citizenship across rural and urban contexts, sustaining short food supply chains and reinforcing territorial resilience through the interplay of mobility and embeddedness. Aimed at understanding OMMs as components of a broader, networked and adaptable food ecosystem, the research introduces a new methodology that builds on existing scholarship framing markets as relational and mobile spaces. It contributes to the literature by integrating these perspectives into an ecosystemic lens. By applying a mobility-based approach, the research shifts attention from static views of markets to their dynamic and circulatory nature, highlighting their role in fostering more sustainable and socially rooted food systems. Focusing on 105 OMMs in the Province of Girona (Spain), the research combines spatial analysis and data analysis of 300 surveys completed by 300 stallholders to examine how mobility practices shape market dynamics. The paper provides a new methodology of market stallholders and types of markets as well as four key indicators (recurrence, variety, closeness and rootedness) to assess stallholder activity and territorial embeddedness. These findings reveal that stallholders, particularly producers, connect rural production with urban consumption through flexible and multi-scalar circuits. The paper advocates for ecosystem-based urban food planning that harnesses stallholder mobility to strengthen territorial cohesion and food sovereignty, positioning OMMs as strategic public facilities for resilient and socially responsible food systems. Full article

Urban floods frequently destabilize most objects they encounter, including vehicles, which potentially worsens flood impacts, leading to significant casualties and material losses. Improving the prediction of vehicle instability under flood conditions is therefore essential for effective risk assessment and emergency management. This work introduces a new physics-based, hazard assessment model for vehicle instability in urban floodwaters. The core of the model is the construction of a comprehensive parameter that integrates the main hydraulic mechanisms responsible for vehicle destabilization within a single and integrative formulation. An extensive set of experimental data covering multiple vehicle types was used and integrated into the modelling framework. Through calibration, model parameters were determined for three representative vehicle categories, allowing the derivation of distinct critical stability curves as functions of flow depth and velocity. Vehicle stability is evaluated using a physics-based force balance approach that explicitly accounts for the interaction between flood hydrodynamics and vehicle physical characteristics, enhancing model adaptability across different vehicle types and flood scenarios. The proposed model is validated through comparison with existing experimental data and stability criteria, including widely used guidelines. The results show good agreement while demonstrating improved accuracy in predicting critical stability thresholds for modern vehicles. Overall, the model provides a generalizable parameter for flood hazard assessment, with direct applications in urban flood risk mapping and decision support for emergency management. Full article

Invasive insects pose significant ecological challenges due to their interactions with other species, which can have a considerable impact on pre-existent ecosystems. In the present study, we analysed the foraging behaviour of the invasive Polistes dominula, which was first detected in NW Patagonia in 2003, and the native wasp Hypodynerus labiatus. We evaluated their foraging behaviour in two types of environments: closed habitats with dense vegetation and open habitats without surrounding bushes and trees. Additionally, we recorded the wasps’ feeding choices at three different heights within each context. Our results showed that these sympatric wasps prefer to forage in different environments and in distinct microsite strata within each environment. Polistes dominula collected food from the ground level in both open and closed habitats, while H. labiatus was more frequently observed in closed areas, gathering resources from higher strata. The observed differences suggest that the collecting sites showed minimal overlap, which may facilitate their coexistence. These findings shed new light on the behavioural processes and interspecific interactions between a highly invasive wasp and a poorly studied native species that inhabit urban and semi urban environments in Patagonia. Full article

As cities continue to expand, the role of forests in mitigating carbon emissions during urban growth has become a critical concern for both researchers and policymakers. This study constructs a comprehensive framework to assess new-type urbanization and forest health, calculates relevant metrics, and applies the Environmental Kuznets Curve model to examine how contemporary urbanization affects carbon emissions while accounting for the moderating role of forest quality. The results indicate that the impact of urbanization on carbon emissions generally follows an inverted U-shaped pattern, although significant regional variations exist. Forest quality has not yet fully realized its potential in reducing carbon footprints, largely due to the need for overall improvement in the forestry sector. In terms of how urbanization affects forest quality, traditional factors such as population migration and industrial restructuring remain the primary drivers. There is a discernible tension between conventional urban expansion and sustainable forestry development. Although modern urbanization and forest quality show promising synergies, both are constrained by their current developmental stages, which limits their effectiveness in substantially curbing carbon emissions. Full article

With the acceleration of urbanization, municipal landscape roads play a crucial role in urban public spaces. This study focuses on the distress detection and aging characteristics of asphalt pavements in municipal landscape roads. Firstly, a novel method is proposed based on the SpA-Former shadow removal network, which effectively addresses the interference caused by tree shadows and significantly improves the accuracy of automated distress identification. Distress detection results indicate that transverse cracks are the most common type of distress, primarily influenced by environmental factors such as asphalt material aging, temperature fluctuations, and freeze-thaw cycles—these factors induce asphalt embrittlement and a substantial decline in crack resistance. Subsequently, accelerated aging experiments were conducted to simulate the aging process of asphalt materials. It was found that as aging time extends, asphalt stiffness increases significantly; while this enhances deformation resistance, it also makes the material more prone to cracking under low-temperature conditions. Low-temperature crack resistance tests reveal that asphalt aged for more than six years exhibits a sharp deterioration in low-temperature crack resistance, showing distinct brittle characteristics. Furthermore, freeze-thaw cycle experiments demonstrate that the coupling effect of asphalt aging and freeze-thaw action significantly impairs its freeze-thaw resistance—particularly for asphalt aged over six years, which nearly loses its freeze-thaw resistance. In summary, the coupling effect of asphalt aging and environmental factors is the primary cause of pavement damage in municipal landscape roads. This study divides 2542 images into three mutually exclusive subsets: a training set of 2123 images, a validation set of 209 images, and a test set of 210 images. The research provides new theoretical references and technical support for the maintenance and management of landscape roads, especially demonstrating practical significance in distress detection and the analysis of material aging mechanisms. Full article

This research aims to evaluate how socio-economic and environmental factors influence the development of electromobility. To this end, the research was applied to regions of the Czech Republic, divided into metropolitan, urban and rural types. Based on a panel multiple linear regression with fixed effects of regions and years, the influence of socio-economic and infrastructure variables, in particular average gross wages, the development of charging points by region type and other factors, is analysed. The results show that average wages are a consistently statistically significant factor in the growth of new electric vehicle registrations across the regions. In contrast, the current level of charging infrastructure has no direct effect; its influence is only felt after a delay. Interaction models further confirm that the influence of income is relevant in both urban and rural areas. The study provides new insights into the temporal dynamics of electromobility adoption and formulates recommendations for targeted regional transport policy with an emphasis on proactive infrastructure planning. Full article