Search Results (65)

This study ground in the Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), explores the value of digital twin technology in cross-border logistics risk management. Using structural equation modeling, it examines how five innovation characteristics of digital twins—relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability—influence risk management capabilities, specifically robustness and resilience, within cross-border logistics systems. The findings reveal that relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, and observability significantly enhance both robustness and resilience, while complexity does not show a significant negative impact. Furthermore, the study confirms that improvements in risk management capabilities contribute positively to competitive performance. This research not only enriches the theoretical understanding of digital twin applications in cross-border logistics but also offers valuable insights for practical implementation by enterprises. Full article

The port logistics service innovation (PLSI) is closely associated with cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) enterprise performance, given that the port, as the spatial carrier and the joint point of goods, information, customs house affairs, etc., is essentially a key node of the CBEC logistics chain. However, the influence mechanism of PLSI on CBEC enterprise performance has still not yet been elaborated by consensus. To fill this gap, this study aims to figure out the effect mechanism integrating the probe into two variables (i.e., information interaction and environmental upgrade) in a moderated mediation model. Specifically, this study collects questionnaire survey data of logistics enterprises and CBEC enterprises in the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port of China by the Bootstrap method in the software SPSS 26.0. The results show the following: (1) PLSI can positively affect the CBEC enterprise performance; (2) information interaction plays an intermediary role between PLSI and CBEC enterprise performance; and (3) environmental upgrade can not only positively regulate the relationship between information interaction and CBEC enterprise performance, but also enhance the mediating role of information interaction with a moderated intermediary effect. Full article

This study synthesizes the rapidly expanding evidence on how digital technologies reshape international trade, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Guided by two research questions—(RQ1) How do digital tools influence the volume and composition of cross-border trade? and (RQ2) How do these effects vary by countries’ development level and firm size?—we conducted a PRISMA-compliant systematic literature review covering 2010–2024. Searches across eight major databases yielded 1857 records; after duplicate removal, title/abstract screening, full-text assessment, and Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT 2018) quality checks, 86 peer-reviewed English-language studies were retained. Findings reveal three dominant technology clusters: (1) e-commerce platforms and cloud services, (2) IoT-enabled supply chain solutions, and (3) emerging AI analytics. E-commerce and cloud adoption consistently raise export intensity—doubling it for digitally mature SMEs—while AI applications are the fastest-growing research strand, particularly in East Asia and Northern Europe. However, benefits are uneven: firms in low-infrastructure settings face higher fixed digital costs, and cybersecurity and regulatory fragmentation remain pervasive obstacles. By integrating trade economics with development and SME internationalization studies, this review offers the first holistic framework that links national digital infrastructure and policy support to firm-level export performance. It shows that the trade-enhancing effects of digitalization are contingent on robust broadband penetration, affordable cloud access, and harmonized data-governance regimes. Policymakers should, therefore, prioritize inclusive digital-readiness programs, while business leaders should invest in complementary capabilities—data analytics, cyber-risk management, and cross-border e-logistics—to fully capture digital trade gains. This balanced perspective advances theory and practice on building resilient, equitable digital trade ecosystems. Full article

Background/Objectives: Gallstone formation (cholelithiasis) is a common and important consequence following bariatric surgery, though regional data from the Northern Border Region are limited. This study aimed to investigate the incidence and risk factors of gallstones in this population, with the goal of optimizing postoperative treatment and reducing morbidity. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study using a non-probability convenience sampling technique to recruit 509 participants with varying degrees of obesity. Four hundred and ten study participants underwent bariatric surgery, of whom 73 were excluded for preoperative cholelithiasis and/or cholecystectomy. Data were collected through a self-administered, pre-validated questionnaire distributed via various social media platforms. These data included demographics, type/timing of surgery, pre/postoperative BMI, medical history, use of gallstone prophylaxis, and gallstone outcomes. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify independent predictors of gallstone formation. Results: Postoperative cholelithiasis developed in 60.8% of patients, most commonly within the first postoperative year, with risk peaking between 7 and 12 months after surgery. Rapid and substantial postoperative weight loss, as reflected in a lower current BMI and a transition to normal or overweight status within one year, was significantly associated with an increased incidence of gallstones. Female sex (OR: 2.62, 95% CI: 1.38–4.98, p = 0.003) and non-use of gallstone prevention medication (OR: 4.12, 95% CI: 1.34–12.64, p = 0.013) were independent predictors of gallstone formation. A longer time since surgery (OR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.63–0.91, p = 0.004) and a lower current BMI (OR: 0.48, 95% CI: 0.28–0.83, p = 0.008) were associated with a reduced risk. Smoking status and comorbidities were not significantly related to the risk of gallstones. Conclusions: Gallstone formation after bariatric surgery in this population is influenced by female sex, rapid postoperative weight loss, and lack of prophylactic medication, while the type of surgical procedure does not significantly affect risk. Focused monitoring and preventive strategies, particularly in high-risk groups, are recommended to reduce gallstone-related complications following bariatric surgery. Full article

Digital Shipping Corridors (DSCs) are gaining traction as integrated models for increasing transparency, efficiency, and sustainability in maritime logistics. Yet, the enabling conditions for their effective implementation remain insufficiently explored. This study employs a qualitative thematic review approach, analyzing the academic literature, global policy documents, and selected case studies to identify and synthesize the critical success factors for DSC development. The analysis reveals seven interdependent factors: technological infrastructure, economic feasibility, regulatory frameworks, logistical efficiency, logistical security, stakeholder collaboration, and environmental sustainability. These factors are not independent but interact dynamically, requiring coordinated development across technical, institutional, and environmental domains. This study proposes a dynamic interaction framework that illustrates how progress in one area (e.g., digital infrastructure) depends on readiness in others (e.g., governance and cross-sector collaboration). The outcomes contribute both conceptually and practically. The framework offers a system-level understanding of DSC implementation and identifies key leverage points for intervention. The findings provide strategic guidance for policymakers, port authorities, and supply chain stakeholders pursuing digitally enabled sustainable maritime corridors. This study also highlights areas for future empirical validation, particularly in relation to governance integration and cross-border alignment. Full article

Enhancing digital connectivity, advancing cross-border e-commerce (CE), and optimizing logistics performance (LP) are fundamental pillars for boosting trade flows between trading partners. However, the multifaceted impacts of digitalization, CE, and LP on China–Africa (C-A) trade remain underexplored. Therefore, employing the gravity model, this study examines the impacts of digitalization, CE, and LP on C-A trade using data on Chinese trade flow to 53 African countries from 2007 to 2023. Further analysis is conducted by accounting for African countries’ income, population, resources, and institutional heterogeneity. We also control for the impact of digitalization and logistics performance distance between China and African countries on C-A trade. The findings provide evidence that the digitalization of African countries and China significantly enhances C-A trade. Moreover, CE and LP improvements in China positively affect C-A trade, revealing that promoting the sustainable development of CE and LP can lead to increased trade integration between China and African countries. Furthermore, the effects of digitalization, CE, and LP on C-A trade are influenced by heterogeneity in the income level, population size, and institutional performance of African countries, revealing more beneficial effects in middle-income countries, more populated countries, and countries with better institutional quality. Policy suggestions are forwarded based on the findings. Full article

In the Americas, the number of confirmed malaria cases decreased by 65.4% between 2000 and 2023, and malaria elimination is now in sight for many countries. Argentina is currently free of autochthonous malaria transmission. Until 2011, cases of malaria were concentrated in Northwestern Argentina, near the border with Bolivia, a country that continues to have malaria transmission. The Orán department (Salta province, Northwestern Argentina) had particularly high transmission near a main road that is a pathway for migration from Bolivia. The purpose of this study was to identify which factors best explain the extent and timing of changes in the proportion of malaria cases in this area that were locally transmitted versus acquired in another country. Combining information from routinely collected case investigations, epidemiological surveillance data, and satellite imagery, we used a logistic model and a multi-level model of change to identify how demographic and place-level variables influence the proportion of malaria cases that were imported over time. The findings showed that the proportion of cases that were imported varied significantly over time, with a clear trend from predominantly autochthonous cases at the beginning of the study in 1977 (94.52%) to a majority of imported cases in 1992 (53.33%), a pattern that continued and intensified, reaching 76% imported cases by the end of the series in 2009. Nationality and place of work were key demographic factors influencing this shift. In particular, there was a change in transmission patterns after a cross-border intervention was launched in 1996. As Argentina has obtained certification of malaria elimination, these results may inform focal strategies for preventing re-introduction. Full article

Blockchain technology (BT) is increasingly recognized as a transformative digital infrastructure for advancing environmental, economic, and social sustainability. However, academic research on its sustainability potential remains fragmented, with limited integration of theoretical models, sector-specific applications, and system-level impacts. This study addresses these gaps by conducting a systematic literature review of 131 peer-reviewed articles published between 2015 and early 2025, guided by the PRISMA 2020 framework. The analysis is structured around the three pillars of sustainability, exploring the mechanisms through which blockchain enables transparent governance, ethical consumption, resilient infrastructure, and inclusive development. Anchored in Institutional and Stakeholder theories, the review develops an integrative dual-framework that overlays four technical components of BT (data, network, consensus, and application) onto institutional pressures and stakeholder-engagement dynamics. The framework shows how BT enhances resource efficiency, supply-chain traceability, and social inclusion across sectors such as renewable energy, agriculture, healthcare, education, and logistics. The study makes two principal contributions. First, it unifies previously dispersed findings into a holistic model that links BT’s technical capabilities with organizational and societal conditions. Second, it provides actionable guidance: policymakers should harmonize cross-border standards and incentivize energy-efficient consensus protocols, while managers should co-design stakeholder-inclusive pilots to scale sustainable BT solutions. Collectively, these insights map a research and practice agenda for leveraging blockchain to accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Full article

Amid the dual imperatives of global trade expansion and low-carbon transition, intelligent maritime shipping has emerged as a central driver for the innovation of international logistics systems, now entering a critical window period for the deep integration of Internet technologies and automated port infrastructure. While existing research predominantly focuses on isolated applications of intelligent technologies, systematic evaluations of the synergistic effects of technological integration on maritime ecosystems, policy compatibility, and contributions to global carbon emission governance remain under-explored. Leveraging bibliometric analysis, this study systematically examines 488 publications from the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection (2000–2024), yielding three pivotal findings: firstly, China dominates the research landscape, with a 38.5% contribution share, where Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and port automation constitute the technological pillars. However, critical gaps persist in cross-system protocol standardization and climate-adaptive modeling, accounting for only 2.7% and 4.2% of the literature, respectively. Secondly, international collaboration networks exhibit pronounced “Islamization”, characterized by an inter-team collaboration rate of 17.3%, while the misalignment between rapid technological iteration and existing maritime regulations exacerbates industry risks. Thirdly, a dual-track pathway integrating Cyber–Physical System (CPS)-based digital twin ports and open-source vertical domain-specific large language models is proposed. Empirical evidence demonstrates its efficacy in reducing cargo-handling energy consumption by 15% and decision-making latency by 40%. This research proposes a novel tripartite framework, encompassing technological, institutional, and data sovereignty dimensions, to resolve critical challenges in integrating multi-source maritime data and managing cross-border governance. The model provides academically validated and industry-compatible strategies for advancing sustainable maritime intelligence. Subsequent investigations should expand data sources to include regional repositories and integrate interdisciplinary approaches, ensuring the adaptability of both technical systems and international policy coordination mechanisms across diverse maritime ecosystems. Full article

Digitalisation in logistics has evolved in the search for continuous improvement and optimised processes. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of digitalisation implemented by companies to improve the automated logistics of cross-border trade in the agricultural sector. The research methodology was generated through a bibliometric analysis, exploring the evolution of the state of the art through the Scopus, WOS and Dimensions databases, in order to select relevant empirical studies on digitalisation and automated logistics, using quality criteria and applying the PRISMA flow chart. The results highlighted that since 2017, there have been signs of increased interest from researchers, with authors such as Zoubek, Kumar and Ghobakhloo standing out. This review revealed how digitalisation contributes to the optimisation of costs and time in the logistics chain. Designing public policies allows for a better integration of technologies such as IoT and AI. Three important blocks were identified that have contributed to the effectiveness of digitalisation in automated logistics: the impact of digitalisation on logistics efficiency and the supply chain, technological integration and automation in cross-border logistics, and governance, policies and social considerations in logistics digitalisation. The conclusions reached were that digitalisation has been a fundamental element in improving logistics and making it autonomous within cross-border trade, allowing technology to become integrated and reducing obstacles in the supply chain through digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Full article

The rapid expansion of economic globalization and trade has led to a sharp increase in the shipping investment risks currently faced by cities around the world. This study aims to explore the risk warning mechanism of shipping input under public health events to establish an effective risk warning method. This would enable the rapid identification of potential risk inputs and the implementation of targeted prevention and control measures to ensure public health and safety. This study investigates the mechanisms of both intra-regional and cross-border risk transmission within shipping networks. It establishes a transmission dynamics model (termed the SEIR-SEI model) incorporating climatic, economic, and health factors to analyze the potential inherent risks of regional shipping nodes. It uses the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) model, modified by the entropy weight method, to calculate the importance of nodes in the shipping network. This comprehensive approach considers the network’s clustering coefficient, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, degree centrality, and eigenvector centrality. To validate the practicality of the model, this study selects shipping data with Shanghai, China, as the destination node to conduct simulation computations of different risk propagation chains. The findings demonstrate that overall risk transmission is determined by the joint influence of a node’s inherent risks and propagation probabilities. This study not only clarifies the process of cross-border transmission of public health events through the shipping network between cities of different countries, but also provides insights for the application of shipping input risk assessment systems, enriching the academic research on logistics network propagation. Full article

As environmental concerns become increasingly central to global trade, the adoption of green packaging has emerged as a critical issue for cross-border e-commerce platforms and manufacturers. This paper investigates the strategic decisions of overseas manufacturers and domestic cross-border e-commerce platforms regarding logistics and green packaging, considering the impact of commission rates, consumer preferences, and logistics costs. Employing a game-theoretic model, our study constructs a formal analytical framework to examine four distinct logistics and green packaging combination strategies, and optimal decisions for platforms and manufacturers were derived through equilibrium analysis. Our findings reveal that the platform’s commission rate is the main incentive for the manufacturer’s green production initiatives, while the platform’s logistics costs drive their green efforts. A “Decision-making Win–Win Effect” is identified, where both platform and manufacturer benefit from strategic shifts, particularly when the platform manages its logistics costs and reduces commission rates. Additionally, the extensions of the model demonstrates that the wholesale contract weakens the win–win outcome, while the third-party green logistics strengthens it. This study provides valuable insights for both academics and practitioners on how to optimize green packaging strategies and logistics decisions in the evolving landscape of global e-commerce. Full article

Against the backdrop of global climate change, extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall, typhoons, tsunamis, and rising sea levels, have become frequent, posing unprecedented challenges to human society. As an important strategy for coastal cities to respond to climate change, climate-induced evacuation is influenced by complex and diverse factors. This study delves into the driving mechanisms of population migration willingness, revealing the dynamic balance of push, pull, and resistance factors and their interaction with individual value orientations affecting migration decisions. By constructing a Logistic Regression Model, this research quantitatively analyzes the significant impacts of personal circumstances, family characteristics, living conditions, risk perception, compensation relocation, and supportive policies on climate-induced migration willingness, using Shanghai as a case study. The findings indicate that age, education level, household size, housing type, risk perception, and compensation policies are key factors. Building upon the multidimensional capital interaction mechanisms and dynamic threshold response patterns identified in the research, this study proposes a three-phase progressive policy framework: initially, establishing an integrated human–material–social capital framework to implement tiered relocation incentive programs, which address decision window constraints through cognitive empowerment and asset replacement strategies; subsequently, creating a dynamic compensation adjustment mechanism by developing policy toolkits aligned with inverted U-shaped utility curves while enhancing synergistic effects between cultural cognition transformation and vocational training; and ultimately, innovating an institutional–cultural co-governance paradigm that rebalances public service dependency and place attachment through spatial equity redistribution. Specific recommendations encompass designing modular risk education curricula, establishing social network transplantation mechanisms, piloting climate citizenship regimes, and constructing cross-border governance knowledge platforms. These multidimensional interventions encompassing capital restructuring, threshold responsiveness, and cultural adaptation offer valuable policy insights for resolving the “development resilience–migration inertia” paradox in coastal cities. Full article

As a new business model, cross-border e-commerce has become an important way for countries to meet new foreign trade requirements in the Internet economy. The cross-border logistics industry plays a crucial role in supporting cross-border e-commerce. Compared with domestic e-commerce, cross-border logistics faces more challenges. To address the problems in cross-border logistics, this study takes China as an example and constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model to facilitate information collaboration among cross-border e-commerce platforms, domestic logistics enterprises, and foreign logistics enterprises. The collaboration strategies in this tripartite information system are simulated using MATLAB. The study highlights key factors affecting information cooperation, such as standardization levels, risk and payoff distributions, and their implications on collaboration decisions. Specifically, the results show that higher levels of information collaboration standardization promote cooperative strategies among players; the risk associated with information collaboration is the most sensitive factor influencing decision-making within cross-border logistics alliances; and when the payoff distribution coefficient is too high, other members may resist cooperation. Full article

Recently, cross-border logistics has experienced rapid development. Cross-border logistics courier orders come in various formats, featuring diverse layouts. Additionally, there is no standardized format for the writing of address and other information on these courier orders. It is challenging for current automated recognition models to handle such images. In this paper, we presented an end-to-end trainable neural network model based on feature enhancement, SwFB, capable of achieving end-to-end conversion from raw images to structured text information. We constructed our feature enhancement module, Co-G-Ma, based on a convolutional neural network (CNN), gated recurrent unit (GRU), and multi-head attention. We collected real cross-border logistics courier order images from a postal company in Zhejiang province, China, to build our dataset, COFIE, and conducted a series of experiments to explore the impact of hyperparameters on the extraction of key field text. Comparative experiments were also performed with other models on publicly available datasets CORD and SROIE. The experimental results demonstrate that our model achieves advanced performance in extracting visual text information and exhibits strong generalization. Full article