Search Results (363)

Urban mobility plays a key role in territorial equity, access to services, and population well-being, as unfavorable mobility experiences are associated with stress and physical and mental deterioration. However, in Latin American and border cities, validated instruments for comprehensively assessing these experiences remain scarce. This study aimed to design and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Urban Mobility Experiences Scale [UMES]. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 423 adults from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, selected through convenience sampling. The initial UMES consisted of 24 items distributed across five conceptual dimensions. Content validity was assessed by nine experts using Aiken’s V coefficient, while construct validity was examined through exploratory factor analysis with principal axis factoring and PROMAX rotation. Data adequacy was verified using the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin index and Bartlett’s test of sphericity. Internal consistency was estimated using McDonald’s Omega. All items demonstrated adequate content validity (V ≥ 0.80). Five factors were identified, explaining 53.6% of the total variance, with factor loadings above 0.40. Reliability was acceptable across all dimensions (ω ≥ 0.70), and overall internal consistency was high (ω = 0.912). The UMES is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing urban mobility experiences in intermediate and border cities and may inform evidence-based policies promoting equity, sustainability, and urban well-being. Full article

This study establishes a municipal-level evaluation system for rural revitalization in China, grounded in the five-sphere integrated framework encompassing “prosperous industries, livable ecology, civilized rural customs, effective governance, and affluent life.” Employing methodologies including the entropy weight-coupling coordination model, LISA spatiotemporal analysis, and multi-scale geographically weighted regression (MGWR), it empirically investigates the evolution and driving mechanisms of rural revitalization development across 282 prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2023. The findings reveal: (1) Nationwide and regional rural revitalization levels demonstrate a consistent upward trajectory, progressing from a state of “Mild Disorder” to being “On the Verge of Disorder,” with a distinct gradient pattern of “Eastern Region > National Average > Central Region > Western Region.” (2) Significant global spatial correlation is observed, manifesting as polarization typified by “high–high” and “low–low” agglomeration, alongside notable volatility in Northeast and Southwest China. (3) Influencing factors display marked spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Agricultural production efficiency (North China) and technological innovation (nationwide, except the Yangtze River Delta) significantly foster rural revitalization. Conversely, economic development level (Northeast, Central, and Western China), government intervention (Northeast China), and industrial structure upgrading (Northwest China) exhibit constraining effects. The localized positive impacts of urbanization (border areas of Yunnan, Heilongjiang, Sichuan, Jilin, and Tibet) and opening up (border ports) are increasingly evident. Building on these insights, the study proposes recommendations—such as implementing differentiated regional policies, innovating spatial governance models, and activating multidimensional drivers—to overcome the “low-level lock-in” predicament and advance comprehensive rural revitalization. Furthermore, this paper reveals the patterns of multidimensional system coupling and the spatial heterogeneity of driving mechanisms. These findings provide a reference for deepening the understanding of geographical complexity within global sustainable development theory. Full article

We evaluated the effectiveness and long-term sustainability of China’s low-carbon policies using a comprehensive policy intensity index and satellite-based CO₂ emissions. We found that both command-and-control and market-based measures have significantly reduced emissions across China but mainly via scale effects (i.e., contraction of industrial activity) rather than technique effects (i.e., more green invention patents granted and an increase in carbon total factor productivity) or composition effects (i.e., industrial upgrading and clean energy transition). Furthermore, command-and-control policies are associated with less green innovation, while market-based policies lead to limited gains in industrial restructuring and, unexpectedly, also show a negative association with clean energy adoption. Using a unique dataset of millions of business registration records and county-level CO₂ emissions, we also uncovered substantial intra-national carbon leakage at the city level, with emissions relocating to provincial border areas where enforcement is weaker, thus exacerbating emission inequality among jurisdictions. Furthermore, our novel transfer learning projections indicate that current policies may lose their efficacy in nearly 47% of cities under foreseeable economic and structural changes, exposing the fragility of contraction-led carbon abatement. These results underscore the need to move beyond the short-term suppression of outputs toward a durable, innovation-driven pathway of decarbonization. Full article

Cross-border e-commerce, as a vital form of digital trade, is emerging as a new engine for corporate internationalization. This study employs China’s cross-border e-commerce pilot zones (established since 2015) as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate their causal effects on Chinese cities’ outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) and the underlying mechanisms. Distinct from previous trade-focused studies, this paper innovatively adopts a greenfield investment perspective. By integrating the Global Greenfield Investment Database (2010–2022) with the China City Statistical Yearbook, we constructed a greenfield OFDI dataset spanning the city–destination–target industry dimensions. Based on this dataset, this study employs a time-varying DID approach combined with PSM-DID, parallel trend tests, and placebo tests to empirically analyze how cross-border e-commerce development influences OFDI and its underlying mechanisms. The findings reveal that establishing cross-border e-commerce pilot zones boosts local outward investment by approximately 18.8%. A binary marginal decomposition analysis indicates that this effect primarily manifests through the extensive margin—significantly driving investment into new destination markets. Additionally, the mechanism operates by reducing information search costs and enhancing factor allocation efficiency. Furthermore, the outward investment promotion effect of cross-border e-commerce pilot zones is more pronounced in samples where the destination is a developed country, the target industry is high-tech, and the origin is eastern China. This study not only expands the dimensions for assessing the economic effects of cross-border e-commerce but also provides concrete empirical evidence for governments to optimize digital trade policy arrangements and for enterprises to leverage digital tools to overcome the “Liability of Foreignness” and achieve internationalization. Full article

Cross-border e-commerce, as an emerging trade format, offers new chances for optimizing industrial chains’ layout, enhancing economic resilience, and attaining high-quality development at the city level. In this context, treating the execution of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone (CBEC) as a quasi-natural experiment, this study subtly attests to how the CBEC affects urban entrepreneurship by using a difference-in-differences (DID) technique. The results exhibit that the CBEC greatly promotes urban entrepreneurship, which is supported by some robustness tests, including instrumental variable testing and placebo testing. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that in cities with more developed economies, stronger digitalization, richer cultures, sounder law rules, and better business environments, the benefit for the CBEC on entrepreneurship is more significant. Mechanism testing argues that the CBEC promotes urban entrepreneurship through talent aggregation and industrial upgrading. Precisely, the more concentrated high-quality talents are and the more advanced the industrial structure is, the higher the urban entrepreneurship. More importantly, the CBEC exhibits a spatial spillover effect on entrepreneurship, promoting local entrepreneurship while stimulating the motivation to imitate and learn in neighboring areas, thereby driving their entrepreneurship. The findings offer a viable decision-making guide for building a unified factor market and achieving regional coordinated development. Full article

The territorial development of the city of Brno during the 19th–21st centuries meant not only the growth of built-up areas (residential, industrial, commercial), but also the absorbing of segments of the ancient rural agricultural landscape. Within the current borders of the city of Brno, a number of green areas have been preserved, which have spontaneously developed from the original agricultural landscape, without being the result of urban planning. In half of the cases (17 out of a total of 34), they have still preserved the traditional small-scale division of land. Among the 10 medium-sized Moravian cities (between 30,000 and 400,000 inhabitants) in the historical region of Moravia in the east of the Czech Republic, the presence of 34 remnants of the ancient rural landscape in the city of Brno is quite exceptional (in Ostrava only 1; in other cities 0). The subject of the research is the inventory of such segments within the city borders and an attempt to explain their location in the city, state, focusing on the role of natural factors, land ownership and personal and recreational interests of residents. Segments of the ancient rural cultural landscape were identified by comparing the current landscape on aerial photographs with the landscape image on cadastral maps from the 1820s–1830s. Additional data on their natural and cultural properties were obtained through archival and field research. The segments were classified according to their degree of preservation and forms of threat. The results show that the remains of the ancient rural cultural landscape in the city of Brno have generally been preserved in locations that, due to the slope of the slopes, unsuitable building subsoil and poor soil, but locally on warm southern slopes, were not suitable for construction for the time being. Urban gardening contributes to their preservation and these areas are part of the city’s greenery. However, urban gardening also contributes to the destruction of these remnants. In 17 cases, the land was completely re-divided, built up with recreational facilities and overgrown with trees due to poor care. Another 17 locations are threatened by this process due to ignorance of their historical value, although this is essentially a positive development in terms of benefits for the city’s residents—land users. Although the Master Plan of the city of Brno foresees the existence of garden colonies in the future, it does not address the importance of the best-preserved segments as historical heritage. Community agriculture can play a positive role in maintaining segments of rural heritage within the city. Full article

Optimizing the “production–living–ecological” space (PLES) is critical for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in ecologically sensitive mountainous border regions. This study investigates the spatial patterns and dynamic evolution of PLES in Lincang City (2010–2020) to reveal the trade-offs between development and conservation. Methodologically, we proposed a coupling-coordination-based grid-level PLES identification framework. This framework integrates the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) directly into the functional classification process at a 600 m grid scale—a resolution selected to balance the capture of spatial heterogeneity with the maintenance of functional integrity in complex terrains. Spatiotemporal dynamics were further quantified using transition matrices and a dimension-based landscape metric system. The results reveal that (a) ecological space and production–living–ecological space represent the predominant categories in the study area. During the study period, ecological space continued to decrease, while production–living space increased steadily, and other PLES categories showed only marginal variations. (b) Mutual transitions among PLES types primarily occurred among ecological space, production–ecological space, and production–living–ecological space. These transitions intensified markedly between 2015 and 2020 compared to the 2010–2015 period. (c) From 2010 to 2020, the landscape in Lincang evolved towards lower ecological risk yet higher fragmentation. High fragmentation values, often associated with grassland, cropland, and forested areas, were evenly distributed across northeastern and northwestern regions. Likewise, high landscape dominance and isolation appeared in these regions as well as in the southeast. Conversely, landscape disturbance remained relatively uniform throughout the city, with lower values detected in forested land. Full article

Driven by the globalization tide, urbanization and cross-border economic cooperation have intensified challenges to ecological conservation, with border regions increasingly confronting irreversible habitat degradation risks. As a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot, Xishuangbanna acts as a strategic hub for cross-border ecological security between China and Southeast Asia, having long been confronted with dual pressures from economic development and ecological conservation. By analyzing the spatiotemporal evolution of the Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) during 2003–2023, this study simulates its multi-scenario dynamics, develops the “RSEI-ESP-PLUS” framework, presents a novel assessment mechanism for ecological security patterns (ESP), and provides a scientific basis for regional sustainable development. Results indicate that integrating RSEI improves the accuracy of ecological source identification. Over the past two decades, regional Ecological Environmental Quality has exhibited an overall improvement trend, yet persistent ecological pressures remain—including vegetation degradation and climate warming. Concurrently, high-quality ecological areas have contracted while moderate-quality ones have expanded. In the 2033 simulation, the ecological conservation scenario delivered the most favorable ecological network assessment outcomes, identifying 16 stable and 15 potential ecological sources. Accordingly, this study establishes an ecological security pattern centered on the core structure of the “One Axis, Two Corridors, and Three Zones”, which provides a spatial planning scheme for regional sustainable development. Full article

Megacity regions mark a transformative phase of urbanisation, in which interconnected cities undergo land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) that extends beyond administrative boundaries. However, the drivers of cross-boundary LUCC remain insufficiently examined, particularly before the top-down regional integration. The Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) provides a clear empirical case, having experienced cross-boundary LUCC prior to its formal designation as a megacity region in 2018. This study builds a Landsat-derived LUCC and driver dataset for the GBA. Global and local spatial autocorrelation (Moran’s I and LISA) are used to characterise spatial structure and clustering, and geographically weighted regression identifies the socio-economic and environmental determinants of built-up expansion over 1980–2018, spanning the pre-reform decade and the post-1990 land-transfer era. Findings reveal that: (1) LUCC in the GBA already exhibited a cross-border, spatially networked expansion pattern before formal regional integration policies at the national level, with built-up area growth extending beyond core cities into decentralised urban nodes. Two prominent cross-border cores and one cross-administrative core emerged, suggesting that regional integration was co-led by market forces and local governments before an institutional framework was established. (2) Although the GBA showed a clear trend towards integrated development, urban expansion was highly uneven. Such spatial disparities were mainly driven by varying socioeconomic and natural factors, including gross domestic product, population growth, real estate investment, water resource proximity, and infrastructure development. These findings enhance understanding of megacity-region dynamics and offer insights from the GBA for cross-border urbanisation and sustainable spatial governance. Full article

Since 2015, nearly 3 million Venezuelans have fled to Columbia, forced to leave their homeland by a multidimensional humanitarian crisis. Entering the Columbian labour market has become one of the key challenges facing these migrants. In the fragile socio-economic context of cities bordering Venezuela, finding employment is especially difficult. This study aimed to clarify the factors related to unemployment among Venezuelan immigrants in the border municipalities of Villa del Rosario, Los Patios and Cúcuta (Colombia). The target population included 122 Venezuelan migrants who reported being unemployed. The primary data was collected from July to October 2022. Using multiple correspondence analysis and positioning maps, we identified three different profiles that emerge among these unemployed immigrants. Profile 1 is characterised as young people with an education level ranging from primary school to high school and an occupational profile of mainly service workers and salespeople in commerce and markets. Profile 2, of greatest interest in this study, is characterised as mostly young women who received university education but have not managed to enter the labour market. Profile 3 is largely men aged 48 to 61 years and older, with medium technical and higher university-level education and an occupational profile of mostly technical and professional medium level. We conclude with several recommendations to promote formal labour integration among Venezuelan migrants. Full article

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are recognized as urban strategies to face environmental degradation and climate change vulnerability to address social challenges. However, NBS are context-dependent and must be based on evidence. Thus, this document details the NBS implementation in a global south city such as Tijuana, a semiarid city at the Mexico–USA border, which has rapidly grown under poor urban planning, widespread irregular settlements, increase in air and water pollution, and limited green spaces. In response, six hectares of a severely eroded slope have been transformed by El Colef into Ecoparque, an Urban Resilience Laboratory. This academic initiative aims to enhance residents’ quality of life by analyzing environmental problems, raising awareness, and engaging the community, in addition to identifying opportunities for implementing NBS. This paper presents the 32 years’ experience of implementing NBS at Ecoparque, such as a constructed wetland as part of a wastewater treatment, reforestation with native plants grown in an in situ nursery, soil restoration using its own-produced compost, and urban ecosystem rehabilitation. Moreover, main challenges and upscaling opportunities are identified to adopt NBS in a Global South city. Results showed that the most relevant problems have been insufficient human and financial resources, as well as the lack of a proper legal framework. This study provides an analytical significance that could be useful to apply under similar contexts. Full article

This study explores how social innovation and multi-level governance (MLG) can enhance regional resilience and help overcome the Middle-Income Trap (MIT) through cooperative, community-driven strategies. Focusing on Hungarian self-governments, it examines twinning partnerships—formal relationships between settlements—as potential catalysts of social innovation and regional cohesion. A nationwide questionnaire survey (Number of settlements surveyed: 409; representative by settlement type) conducted between 2024 and 2025 evaluated the motivations, intensity and impacts of these partnerships. The findings reveal that intraethnic twinning networks are more socially active and locally grounded, strengthening community identity and civic participation, even though they provide limited direct economic benefits. By fostering trust, collaboration, and cross-border interaction, these partnerships act as effective platforms for social innovation, supporting more inclusive and territorially integrated development across Central and Eastern Europe. Full article

Air pollution from ship operations can pose a significant challenge for coastal cities, particularly where ports are closely integrated into the urban fabric. This study examines the influence of ship docking on PM_2.5 concentrations in Chios, Greece, a medium size island city where the port directly borders densely populated neighbourhoods. Calibrated PurpleAir sensors were installed at urban and suburban sites to measure PM_2.5, with data analysed alongside ship call records and meteorological observations. An event-based concentration enhancement metric (%ΔC) was estimated to compare PM_2.5 during docking with the preceding 3 h background for 170 ship arrivals in February and August 2022. The results showed that under prevailing northerly winds in August, PM_2.5 at the downwind urban site increased on average by 5.0 µg m⁻³ (48%), whereas winter increments were smaller (6.1%) due to higher background variability. When both seasons and all wind directions were pooled, the urban site exhibited a mean enhancement of 1.7 µg m⁻³ (19%), while impacts at the suburban site remained minor (3%). Median-based uncertainty analysis confirmed robust enhancements under northerly winds only. Wind direction and wind speed were the primary controls on %ΔC, whereas ship engine power and time at berth had limited influence. The results suggest that ship-related PM_2.5 impacts are detectable but remain spatially and temporally limited in coastal urban environments, including medium-sized islands characterised by relatively low shipping activity. Full article

To meet the growing demand for higher storage capacities, bit-patterned magnetic recording (BPMR) has emerged as a leading solution for achieving ultra-high user densities (UDs). However, BPMR systems are significantly impacted by two-dimensional (2D) interferences, specifically inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-track interference (ITI), which can degrade the quality of the readback signal. This paper introduces a rate-4/5 constructive ITI (CITI) modulation scheme, combined with a Tabu search (TS)-based error correction algorithm, to address the limitations of conventional CITI modulation codes. In the original encoding scheme, some codewords still contain forbidden patterns within their borders. The TS algorithm enhances the performance of the outermost tracks by refining unreliable bits identified through a distance-based reliability metric, which differs from earlier TS-based detectors that were directly used for multi-track detection. A proposed soft-information adjuster is then used to correct the poor reliability of soft information, resulting in improved soft-information reliability and decoding performance. A modified TS detector is also proposed, where the single-bit criterion for selecting the number of input bits is adopted, to improve neighbor selection and better align with the signal characteristics of the inner tracks. Simulation results show that the proposed system can achieve up to 2.7 dB and 4.0 dB improvements in bit error rate (BER) at a user density (UD) of 2.4 Terabits per square inch, compared to conventional uncoded and coded systems, respectively, while also reducing computational complexity. Furthermore, the results also imply that when the recording systems must operate under fluctuations in the size and position of the bit-island, our proposed system can provide superior performance. Full article

The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) across critical sectors such as healthcare, energy, cybersecurity, smart cities, and finance has increased its exposure to cyberattacks. Conventional centralized machine learning-based Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) face limitations, including data privacy risks, legal restrictions on cross-border data transfers, and high communication overhead. To overcome these challenges, we propose Privacy-Preserving Hierarchical Fog Federated Learning (PP-HFFL) for IoT intrusion detection, where fog nodes serve as intermediaries between IoT devices and the cloud, collecting and preprocessing local data, thus training models on behalf of IoT clusters. The framework incorporates a Personalized Federated Learning (PFL) to handle heterogeneous, non-independent, and identically distributed (non-IID) data and leverages differential privacy (DP) to protect sensitive information. Experiments on RT-IoT 2022 and CIC-IoT 2023 datasets demonstrate that PP-HFFL achieves detection accuracy comparable to centralized systems, reduces communication overhead, preserves privacy, and adapts effectively across non-IID data. This hierarchical approach provides a practical and secure solution for next-generation IoT intrusion detection. Full article