Search Results (4,810)

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the integration of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Digital Twin (DT) technologies for intelligent traffic management. It examines the role of key enabling technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), reinforcement learning (RL), Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, and edge computing. These technologies support real-time traffic monitoring, traffic prediction, and adaptive control in ITS. The review synthesizes recent research on conventional traffic control methods, optimization-based approaches, learning-based techniques, and DT-enabled traffic management solutions. Particular attention is given to the integration of DTs with intelligent traffic signal control, real-time synchronization, multi-intersection coordination, communication latency, sensing uncertainty, and scalability. The reviewed literature demonstrates the potential of DT-enabled ITS to improve traffic efficiency, reduce congestion, enhance transportation safety, and support sustainable mobility through data-driven decision-making. However, significant challenges remain regarding communication delays, sensor and data uncertainty, computational complexity, scalability, and validation under realistic urban conditions. Based on the reviewed literature, this paper identifies key research gaps and outlines future research directions toward scalable, reliable, adaptive, and real-time DT-enabled ITS architectures for next-generation smart cities. Full article

This study investigates how integrated smart urban systems enhance resource efficiency in Saudi Arabia’s rapidly urbanising cities. Despite growing global interest in smart cities, there remains a critical gap in empirical research that simultaneously examines smart energy, water, and waste systems within a unified analytical framework, particularly in emerging urban contexts, while the mediating role of governance efficiency remains underexplored. Adopting a quantitative survey design, this study employs Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to analyse 384 valid data from 384 stakeholders across selected urban areas. A stratified sampling approach ensures representation of policymakers, urban planners, and infrastructure managers, and measurement constructs are adapted from validated scales to ensure reliability and validity. The study examines relationships between smart energy systems, smart water management, smart waste monitoring, governance efficiency, and resource efficiency outcomes, with governance efficiency conceptualised as a mediating variable enhancing the effectiveness of smart urban systems. The study hypothesises that integrated smart technologies significantly improve resource efficiency, with smart infrastructure as a key predictor; structural model robustness is assessed using standard SEM fit indices, with CFI (0.93), TLI (0.91), and RMSEA (0.052). This research contributes to theory by integrating smart urban systems and governance into a unified framework, extending smart city and circular economy literature, while offering practical insights aligned with Saudi Vision 2030 to support sustainable urban development. It is recommended that policymakers prioritise integrated smart infrastructure, strengthen institutional frameworks, and promote public awareness to maximise resource optimisation. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs, expand across multiple cities, and incorporate behavioural and policy variables to enhance generalizability and deepen insights into smart urban resource efficiency. Full article

Climate-related production variability and increasing market uncertainty pose significant challenges for Mediterranean olive systems. This study examines the long-term production dynamics, market vulnerability, and ecological functions of Mediterranean olive systems under climate change through an integrated assessment combining statistical production analysis, descriptive economic analysis, and a structured ecological literature synthesis. Olive and olive oil production trends were analyzed for Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal using FAOSTAT data (1960–2020), together with European Commission statistics (2010/11–2021/22) on production, prices, and trade. The results reveal significant long-term production trends, with greater year-to-year fluctuations observed in several countries, particularly after 2010. These fluctuations may reflect the combined influence of climatic variability and structural changes affecting Mediterranean agricultural systems, although their relative contribution was beyond the scope of the present study. Despite maintaining a leading position in global olive oil production and trade, the European Union recorded a 52% increase in export volume and a 125% increase in export value, highlighting both market expansion and increasing exposure to international market dynamics. The ecological synthesis indicates that traditional and low-input olive groves provide important ecosystem functions, including biodiversity conservation, soil protection, water regulation, and soil-carbon maintenance, supporting the long-term sustainability of Mediterranean olive systems. Overall, the findings highlight the need for integrated adaptation strategies combining environmentally sound land management, value-chain coordination, and policy support to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Mediterranean olive systems. Full article

Vernacular architecture is studied as climate-responsive construction, cultural expression, material practice, and heritage, yet the literature does not always explain how fabric, skills, institutions, and environmental relations change together. This critical interpretive review asks what changes when vernacular architecture is conceptualised as living socio-material heritage rather than only as a building type, material culture, or environmental knowledge. An auditable search and citation-chaining procedure yielded 110 scholarly publications and seven official heritage documents and guidance sources, which were analysed through comparative conceptual coding. The review distinguishes three historically grounded traditions—environmental adaptation, cultural-interpretive approaches, and architectural anthropology—from three cross-cutting extensions: material engagement, sustainability and local/traditional or Indigenous knowledge, and biocultural niche construction. Their comparison supports a polycentric framework linking ecological and material conditions; making, dwelling and repair; learning and transmission; institutions, tenure, and community authority; and selection or adaptation decisions. Critical heritage scholarship treats designation as heritage-making that reallocates authority, expertise, regulation, revenue, and property effects. Living socio-material heritage does not present relational or process-oriented heritage as new; it reorganises those approaches around architecture-specific maintenance, transmission, governance, and adaptation mechanisms. A secondary-literature application to documented earthen-building change in northern Ghana illustrates, rather than validates, the framework. Five provisional propositions provide testable directions for research and heritage management. Full article

Agriculture is pivotal to China’s dual-carbon goals, yet the nonlinear and spatiotemporally heterogeneous relationships between agricultural carbon emissions (ACE) and their associated socioeconomic, agricultural-production, public-investment, and climatic factors remain poorly understood. Here, we compile a multi-source provincial ACE inventory covering cropland use, rice cultivation, and livestock production for 2000–2023 and combine spatial trend and autocorrelation diagnostics with explainable machine learning using XGBoost–SHAP and geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR). We find that national ACE increased from 254.48 to 270.25 Mt, while emission intensity fell by 59.6%, indicating that the carbon efficiency of agricultural production improved substantially, although total emissions did not achieve an absolute decline. ACE exhibited persistent spatial imbalance, significant spatial clustering, and gradual diffusion of high-emission areas. Model benchmarking showed that XGBoost achieved the best overall performance, with a mean cross-validated R² of 0.9131 and an independent temporal-test R² of 0.7056. SHAP importance aggregated across repeated cross-validation identified agricultural public investment (21.3%) and urbanization rate (17.9%) as the two leading factors, followed by precipitation, temperature, agricultural industrial structure, and industrial agglomeration level, with the same six factors consistently identified by the three tree-based models. SHAP dependence plots further revealed nonlinear relationship patterns and approximate transition locations around an agricultural public investment level of CNY 11.84 billion, an urbanization rate of 54.69%, annual precipitation of 698.4 mm, and annual temperature between 13.01 and 22.17 °C. GTWR provided stronger statistical evidence of spatiotemporal nonstationarity for urbanization rate, temperature, and industrial agglomeration level, whereas the coefficient patterns of agricultural public investment, agricultural industrial structure, and, particularly, precipitation received more limited local statistical support. These findings provide support for region-specific agricultural carbon mitigation by improving agricultural input-use efficiency, optimizing the allocation of public investment, facilitating the transition toward low-emission crop and livestock management, and integrating climate adaptation with sustainable agricultural production and food security. Full article

Whether agricultural cultural heritage (ACH) tourism supports sustainable heritage development depends partly on whether visits sustain the communication and internalization of heritage knowledge rather than merely produce favorable consumption evaluations. Drawing on experience economy theory, social identity theory, and tourism learning theory, this study constructs a mechanism model linking ACH experiences to tourists’ cultural learning. To reduce conceptual overlap, experience quality is defined as visitors’ perceived distinctiveness, novelty, and memorability of the visit, whereas perceived value is defined as a utilitarian assessment of gains relative to the money, time, and effort invested. ACH experience is therefore divided into three analytically distinct dimensions: experience quality, perceived value, and knowledge transfer. Cultural identity is introduced as a mediating variable and is understood as a layered psychological construct including cognitive recognition, affective attachment, and evaluative commitment. Income level is introduced as a moderating variable and is interpreted as a within-sample socioeconomic boundary condition after controlling for education and other demographic characteristics. In this study, sustainability is defined narrowly as the sociocultural continuity of ACH from the visitor side and is operationalized through perceived knowledge transfer, cultural identity, and self-reported cultural learning; income is used to examine whether this pathway differs across socioeconomic groups. Based on 430 valid questionnaires collected from visitors to ACH sites in Fujian Province, this cross-sectional study conducts empirical tests using structural equation modeling (SEM), Bootstrap mediation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. The results show that experience quality and knowledge transfer are positively associated with tourists’ cultural learning, with knowledge transfer showing the stronger association. Perceived value has no significant relationship with cultural learning, indicating that a consumption-level perception of value for money does not necessarily correspond to deeper cultural learning. Cultural identity fully mediates the statistical relationship between knowledge transfer and tourists’ cultural learning, revealing a dominant pathway linking knowledge transfer, cultural identity, and cultural learning. Income level positively moderates the relationship between cultural identity and tourists’ cultural learning. Because the data are cross-sectional and self-reported, these findings indicate theoretically consistent associations rather than definitive causal effects. The study contributes to sustainability research by offering a quantifiable visitor-side framework for monitoring knowledge communication, cultural connection, and learning-related outcomes. Repeated measurement of these indicators may support adaptive heritage management and inclusive cultural participation, but they should be combined with ecological, economic, and community-based indicators rather than treated as a complete sustainability index. Full article

Sustainable refurbishment of historic healthcare complexes requires more than the preservation of isolated material fragments. It must reconcile cultural significance, continuity of care, inherited environmental qualities, contemporary technical requirements, material compatibility, and future adaptability. Taking the application of prosthetic memory as its central analytical and operative framework, this article examines the refurbishment and extension of psychiatric units U1.1 and U1.2 at the San Francisco Javier Psychogeriatric Centre in Pamplona, located within the former Manicomio Vasco Navarro. Through a qualitative case study, this research combines historical and project documentation, typological and construction analysis, and a diachronic comparison of the original complex, its pre-intervention condition, and the completed refurbishment. Five indicators (typological, environmental, tectonic, material compatibility, and temporal continuity) operationalise prosthetic memory as a strategy for sustainable heritage management. The results show that selective dismantling, functional extensions, reorganised circulation, reactivated courtyards and gardens, and pigmented architectural concrete restored the complex’s operational capacity while preserving the legibility of its inherited structure. This study proposes a transferable, value-based framework connecting cultural significance, functional viability, and sustainable refurbishment. It contributes to the protection of cultural heritage and to waste reduction through prevention, reuse, and recycling, while requiring adaptation to each cultural, climatic, regulatory, and healthcare context. Full article

The Portuguese agricultural sector has suffered a profound transformation over recent decades, evolving from traditional to increasingly technology-driven systems. Throughout this transition, climate and meteorological conditions have remained key drivers of agricultural productivity. Today, Portuguese agriculture faces growing challenges associated with climate change, including more frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts, and floods. Consequently, reliable climate information and decision-support tools are essential for strengthening resilience and promoting sustainable management. To address these needs, the Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) developed two complementary climate service platforms for mainland Portugal: AgroClima and DataClima. The first provides observations from IPMA’s meteorological network, ECMWF forecasts, and agroclimatic indicators such as temperature, precipitation, soil water, and so-called agroclimatic warnings. The second offers historical climate information including WRFv4.2 simulations dynamically downscaled from ERA5 (1981–present), in situ observations (1941–present), and climate normals. Evaluation of the WRFv4.2 regionalization against IPMA observations shows a systematic underestimation of precipitation and air temperature, while mean wind speed is generally overestimated. Despite these biases, the downscaled WRFv4.2 dataset demonstrates sufficient accuracy to support operational climate services, providing valuable help for environmental monitoring, climate adaptation, and decision-making in agriculture and water resource management across Portugal. Full article

Crop production is continually exposed to a wide range of abiotic stresses that negatively affect growth and yield, posing a severe threat to global food security. Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) promote nutrient assimilation, activate antioxidant enzymes, and stimulate phytohormone production to mitigate abiotic stress. However, the effective application of PGPB in the field depends on host colonization, soil specificity, and susceptibility to competitive microbial communities. Recently, non-thermal plasma (NTP) has emerged as a revolutionary tool for sustainable agriculture, making it a priority to develop efficient, low-cost, and eco-friendly strategies to enhance seed vitality and manage abiotic stress. Plasma-generated reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) have been shown to mediate intracellular redox homeostasis and the antioxidant defense signaling network. Furthermore, plasma stimulates MAPK cascades and stress-responsive genes such as LEA1, SnRK2, P5C, and the SOS pathway, ionic balance, and membrane stability, ultimately supporting plant stress adaptation to drought, salinity, and heavy metals. Plasma-induced RONS signaling activates PGPB functional traits such as root colonization, biofilm formation, nutrient mobilization, and plant growth-promoting activities. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying NTP-PGPB microbial multiple stress adaptation and the long-term ecological stability and biosafety of microbial communities remain inadequately resolved. Consequently, future integration of multi-omics approaches, synthetic microbial communities, and field-scale validation is required to explore the mechanistic advances of plasma-modulated microbiome interactions to enable agricultural applications. Full article

The sustainable restoration of tropical dry forest (TDF)—one of the planet’s most threatened ecosystems—is constrained by low community integration and limited cultural relevance, particularly in Afro-descendant territories, where the erosion of oral tradition and forest degradation reinforce one another. This study proposes a quantitative framework to systematize the biocultural memory embedded in oral tradition as an input for socially grounded, sustainable TDF restoration. A corpus of 401 works from the Afro-descendant community of the Patía Valley (Cauca, Colombia) was coded in a multidimensional database of 10 categories, and three indices were computed: the Biocultural Density Index (IDBC), the Biocultural Vulnerability Index (IVB), and an adaptation of Winter’s flora framework (IVBw), in a total version and a version restricted to wild/native species. The framework identifies the works of greatest biocultural density (IDBC max. = 84) and separates cultivated/introduced species of high cultural value (Limón, Yuca, Caña de azúcar), ones relevant to food sovereignty, and from wild/native species (e.g., Caña brava, Cañafístula, Guayacán, Ceiba) that constitute the restorable core. Cultural practices are the hubs of the system, traditional medicine is the most at risk of loss, and food security concentrates 43% of the flora records. These replicable tools link Afro-descendant knowledge to measurable, monitorable restoration priorities, advancing sustainable land management, biodiversity conservation and cultural sustainability. Full article

Afforestation can contribute to climate-change mitigation when tree establishment is matched to ecological context and sustained by long-term management, but its net climatic effect is not uniformly cooling. Existing syntheses often emphasize carbon sequestration while treating biophysical, hydrological, disturbance, and socioeconomic evidence separately. Here, we provide a structured integrative review. We distinguish afforestation from reforestation, natural regeneration, forest restoration, and improved management. We explicitly assess evidence from global modeling, remote sensing, meta-analyses, long-term observations, and regional case studies. Global forests cover about 4.14 billion ha in 2025, while annual net forest loss remained about 4.12 million ha yr⁻¹ during 2015–2025. Global forests were a sink of about 3.5 ± 0.4 Pg C yr⁻¹ in the 2010s, but this existing-forest sink should not be interpreted as an afforestation-specific removal rate. Humid tropical and subtropical regions generally have the greatest potential for net climatic cooling. In contrast, afforestation at snow-covered high latitudes may cause substantial albedo-driven warming, while water-limited regions require careful species selection and conservative planting densities. Soil carbon gains are most consistent on former croplands and other low-carbon degraded lands, but responses on carbon-rich grasslands are highly variable. Long-term benefits further depend on disturbance resilience, permanence, land competition, financing, and credible monitoring. Additionally, we identify five priorities for the future: climate-smart adaptive silviculture, digital forestry with field-calibrated uncertainty, permanence and disturbance-risk accounting, sustainable forest bioeconomy, and integrated international governance and finance. Full article

The rapid integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, distributed energy resources, and advanced communication infrastructures is transforming conventional power systems into highly interconnected cyber–physical smart grids. Although this transition improves sustainability and operational flexibility, it also increases grid-management complexity and introduces cyber–physical vulnerabilities, including false data injection attacks, communication failures, equipment degradation, and renewable-induced operational instabilities. This paper presents the Digital-Twin-Enabled Resilience Framework (DTERF), a conceptual reference architecture for anomaly detection in high-PV cyber–physical smart grids. DTERF integrates heterogeneous cyber–physical data acquisition, Digital Twin-based contextual representation, machine-learning analytics, explainable decision support, adaptive operational response, continuous learning, and self-healing capabilities within a unified resilience cycle. The framework is grounded in a structured review and comparative assessment of contemporary machine-learning approaches and recent integrated smart-grid research. Its architecture is conceptually evaluated through requirements-to-architecture traceability, examining functional coverage and internal consistency across the complete operational cycle. The analysis shows that DTERF provides explicit architectural mechanisms addressing the principal requirements identified in the literature, including contextual anomaly analysis, interpretability, cybersecurity robustness, resilience support, and operational integration. Rather than proposing a new anomaly detection algorithm or claiming empirical performance superiority, DTERF provides a technology-agnostic architectural foundation for coordinating complementary capabilities required for resilient anomaly management. Future work should empirically validate the framework using Digital Twin simulation environments, representative high-PV distribution systems, cyber–physical anomaly scenarios, and real or utility-derived operational data. Full article

Distributed generation (DG) is reshaping distribution networks through bidirectional power flows, operational variability, and dependence on coordinated regulation, pricing, and control. This paper examines how regulatory architecture, grid-code requirements, tariff design, and Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems (DERMS) influence DG integration, emphasizing Honduras. A structured mixed-source review is applied, combining Scopus-based bibliometric analysis of 2438 records (2000–2026) with targeted synthesis of technical, regulatory, tariff-related, and institutional sources. The bibliometric results show sustained growth and a thematic shift from conventional voltage-control studies toward active distribution networks, DER coordination, storage, demand response, tariff reform, and digital energy management. The analytical synthesis shows that effective DG integration requires more than interconnection compliance: it depends on grid-support functions, cost-reflective and equitable tariffs, and operational tools capable of managing voltage deviations, reverse power flow, congestion, protection coordination, and limited visibility. DERMS is an enabling layer for voltage control, active and reactive power management, congestion mitigation, adaptive protection, and predictive operation. For Honduras, current regulatory progress should be complemented by phased modernization focused on observability, smart metering, data infrastructure, local flexibility, and progressive DERMS deployment. The study provides an integrated framework for aligning regulatory, economic, and operational dimensions of DG integration in emerging distribution systems. Full article

Climate change has intensified heat stress in poultry production systems, raising concerns about productivity, animal welfare, and system sustainability. This study aimed to analyze the evolution, structure, and emerging trends of scientific research on climate change and heat stress in industrial poultry production using a bibliometric approach. Records were retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection databases. After deduplication and eligibility screening, 342 documents published between 1974 and 2025 were retained. Bibliometric analyses were performed using Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny in RStudio, including publication dynamics, international collaboration, author co-citation, conceptual structure, thematic evolution, trend topics, and keyword co-occurrence. Scientific production increased markedly in recent years, with an annual growth rate of 8.36% and international co-authorship in 22.51% of the publications. China and the United States were the leading contributors. At the same time, the international research structure showed interconnected collaboration networks and complementary intellectual communities focused on physiological and neuroimmune responses, cellular and oxidative mechanisms, and nutritional and management-based mitigation. Heat stress was the main conceptual hub, connecting thermoregulation, oxidative stress, immunity, welfare, productive performance, and product quality. Heat tolerance, thermotolerance, chronic heat stress, and genetic adaptation showed recent or developing bibliometric visibility, although their structural and temporal patterns differed across analyses. However, heat waves, long-term resilience, validation under commercial conditions, climate-vulnerable regions, environmental engineering, and digital monitoring exhibited lower bibliometric representation and network centrality within the analyzed corpus. Future research should combine nutritional, physiological, genetic, environmental, and precision-monitoring approaches to support economically viable and climate-resilient poultry production. Full article

As automated technology advances rapidly, human employees’ fear of being replaced (i.e., technology-induced job insecurity) has become a widespread stress in today’s workplace. It is crucial for organizations to recognize this new technological challenge and address its impact appropriately. Therefore, to systematically understand its impacts and explore potential buffering factors, the present research conducts a systematic review and meta-analysis of 96 studies (N = 43,104 individuals). Drawing on the tripartite response model, we classify their outcome variables into three broad categories encompassing nine subgroups. Furthermore, integrating stress appraisal theory and threat-rigidity theory, we examine two critical moderators reflecting specific coping capability against technological threats. Our findings indicate that technology-induced job insecurity is systematically associated with employees’ cognition, affection, and behavior. Notably, the moderation analysis highlights distinct boundary conditions under which these associations vary across different outcomes, emphasizing the complexity of these effects. Specifically, low threat proximity—providing a crucial time buffer before the actual threat happens—is associated with weaker negative attitudes toward the organization, and lower withdrawal and resistance behaviors. Individuals’ high learning ability—reflecting strong adaptive flexibility—is associated with weaker negative appraisals of the job itself and more sustained proactive behaviors. In summary, the present research contributes to a systematic understanding of how technology-induced job insecurity is related to human psychology and behaviors at work, thereby offering valuable insights to inspire future research and management practice. Full article