Search Results (346)

Ports combine clusters of operational buildings, shared energy infrastructure, and structurally critical assets requiring coordinated management to ensure safety and efficiency. Nevertheless, existing Digital Twin (DT) frameworks for building energy management rarely integrate Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) with energy performance assessment, while port-specific implementations remain scarce. This paper presents a pre-operational energy-aware DT architecture for port building clusters, structured in a unified five-layer framework integrating three capabilities: (i) EGMS/InSAR-based SHM screening with planned in situ sensing and computer-vision inspection workflows; (ii) smart metering and measurement and verification (M&V) protocols aligned with ISO 50001/50015 and IPMVP standards; and (iii) weighted multi-criteria prioritization considering structural condition, energy saving potential, service continuity, and cost. The framework is applied to the Port of Formia (Italy), a brownfield district comprising nine buildings (3371 m²), 16 high-mast lighting towers, shore power infrastructure, and 90 kWp of planned photovoltaics. In the absence of operational metering, energy and carbon values are reported as bounded ex-ante scenario estimates, not as verified performance outcomes. The analysis estimates photovoltaic generation of 116–137 MWh/year and lighting retrofit savings of 31.5–36.8 MWh/year; the related carbon values are treated as gross grid-displacement upper bounds pending measured self-consumption and export data. A four-phase validation roadmap with quantitative acceptance criteria supports the transition from feasibility assessment to verified performance. Full article

DoS and DDoS attacks remain a major threat to service availability in modern IP and IoT networks, yet many learning-based detectors depend on dataset-specific flow exports, feature tables, or preprocessing conventions. This article presents a unified sequence-level detection pipeline designed to process heterogeneous public datasets through the same representation. Raw PCAP/PCAPNG traces from CIC-IDS-2017, CIC-DDoS-2019, and CICIoT2023 are converted into one-second aggregates per destination host using header-only features derived from IP, TCP, UDP, and ICMP metadata, source diversity, and packet timing. Dataset-specific annotations are used only to assign binary DoS/DDoS labels to this common representation. The resulting time-ordered aggregates are grouped into fixed-length temporal windows and classified by a compact transformer encoder, TemporalDosTransformer, which produces a window-level attack probability. The study focuses on whether a clean PCAP-based aggregation and labelling flow can support consistent DoS/DDoS detection across multiple datasets without payload inspection, flow-exporter dependence, or dataset-specific feature engineering. Full article

In the context of intensifying global climate change, high-altitude mountain ecosystems play a critical role in climate regulation, biodiversity conservation, and the advancement of sustainable human development. Plateau regions, such as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, are particularly sensitive and responsive to global climatic fluctuations and function as essential ecological barriers supporting development across Asia. These areas occupy a strategic position within Asia’s ecological security framework and the broader international community, influencing not only regional ecological stability and social cohesion but also sustainable development pathways. However, owing to their fragile ecosystem structures, limited regenerative capacity, and the ongoing expansion of urbanisation and human activities, these regions frequently suffer from habitat fragmentation and degradation of ecological functions. This issue is especially acute in natural protected areas adjacent to plateau cities. Consequently, there is an urgent need for quantitative assessments of ecological restoration effectiveness within natural protected areas, alongside investigations into development approaches that underpin long-term regional stability and sustainability. Focusing on Chokpori Mountain—the “urban green heart” of Lhasa, a principal city on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau—this study develops a three-dimensional assessment framework encompassing ecological, economic, and social dimensions. By integrating the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model, remote sensing inversion techniques, field monitoring, and questionnaire surveys, the research systematically evaluates the effectiveness of ecological restoration and proposes insights for sustainable governance. The findings indicate that ecological restoration elicited positive ecological responses, evidenced by a 69.2% increase in soil retention post-renovation, an increase in vegetation coverage, and modeled total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) export loads demonstrating enhanced nutrient retention potential and improved water purification potential; (2) economic stimulation was evident, as demonstrated by an increase in average weekend daily visitor numbers from 876 to 1567 and a 24.2% rise in average monthly revenue of shops within a 1 km radius; and (3) social well-being improved, with ecological satisfaction reaching 89.2% and recognition of cultural communication attaining 67.3%. An integrated analysis indicates a synergistic enhancement of ecological environmental quality, regional vitality, and public perception. Accordingly, the outcomes of this study provide both theoretical insights and practical guidance for the ecological restoration and sustainable management of urban protected areas in high-altitude plateau regions worldwide. Full article

This study investigates the impact of logistics performance on international trade by comparing Lithuania and Turkey within a gravity model framework. Using a bilateral panel dataset of 984 observations covering trade with 26 European Union member states over the period 2007–2025, the study incorporates the six sub-indicators of the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) as explanatory variables. The results confirm that logistics performance significantly influences bilateral trade, but through markedly different channels for the two economies. For Lithuania, the quality and competence of logistics services emerges as the dominant trade-enhancing factor (4.726, p < 0.01), reflecting its position as a small open EU economy. For Turkey, infrastructure quality is the primary driver of trade (2.782, p < 0.01), consistent with its status as a large emerging economy. The Turkey dummy variable becomes statistically insignificant when LPI variables are included, indicating that logistics performance substantially explains the trade differential between the two countries. Export–import disaggregation reveals that imports are more sensitive to logistics dimensions such as timeliness and service quality than exports. Robustness checks using pooled OLS, random effects, and fixed effects estimations, along with the Hausman test, broadly support the baseline findings. The study provides differentiated policy recommendations: Lithuania should prioritize logistics service quality, while Turkey should focus on infrastructure development and customs reform. Full article

Unsustainable land-use transitions in peri-urban watersheds threaten both food security and ecological integrity. While Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (PLUS) and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) models for ecosystem service (ES) assessment are commonly integrated, limited studies have simultaneously (i) accounted for multiple real-world spatial policies (e.g., ecological redlines) as hard constraints, (ii) targeted a comprehensive suite of ESs, and (iii) explicitly pursued synergies without relying on large-scale land conversion. To address these gaps, we developed a spatially explicit framework that integrates the PLUS and InVEST models to simulate four land-use scenarios and assess six ESs—grain yield, water yield, nitrogen export, phosphorus export, soil conservation, and carbon sequestration—in the Yuqiao Reservoir watershed, China, during 1990–2030. Against a backdrop of historical declines in cropland/grassland and key ESs due to construction expansion (1990–2020), the novel Comprehensive Development scenario—implementing slope-adaptive management and riparian buffers—synergistically increases grain yield (+0.55%) and carbon sequestration (+1.10%) while drastically reducing phosphorus export (−10.86%). It demonstrates that synergistic gains can arise from strategic spatial reconfiguration within a stable land-use area, advancing a paradigm from area-centric to configuration-centric optimization. This provides a quantifiable methodological basis and actionable policy reference for land spatial optimization in similar water-source watersheds. Full article

This paper examines changes in the macroeconomic indicators of the member countries of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) following their accession to the agreement. This study aims to identify shifts in the structural comparability of national economies and to assess the processes of macroeconomic convergence in the context of sustainable development. To achieve this objective, reference pools of CPTPP member countries are constructed, and their digital profiles are developed based on key macroeconomic indicators and grouped into three blocks: (1) indicators of economic growth and the state of the real sector, including GDP (constant 2015 US$), GDP growth, annual %, gross capital formation, % of GDP, unemployment, total % of total labor force, and national estimate; (2) indicators of foreign economic activity and trade openness, including exports of goods and services, % of GDP, imports of goods and services, % of GDP, external balance on goods and services (% of GDP), foreign direct investment, net inflows, % of GDP, and trade, and % of GDP; (3) indicators of financial and macroeconomic stability including inflation, consumer prices, annual %, central government debt, % of GDP, and gross savings, and % of GDP. Based on the digital profiles, similarities/differences in the economies were examined by applying linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The empirical framework covers two periods: (1) 2013–2017 (pre-accession) years and (2) 2019–2023 (post-accession) years. The results indicate that the economies of member countries in 2013–2017 exhibited a high degree of heterogeneity. In contrast, the 2019–2023 period demonstrates a tendency toward partial convergence of macroeconomic parameters, as evidenced by a reduction in distances between country profiles in the discriminant space. While interpreting the results, it is acknowledged that the 2019–2023 period coincided with the effects of the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly impacted international trade dynamics. For most countries, this period was characterized by a decline in several macroeconomic indicators and investment activity, an increase in debt burdens, and enhanced heterogeneity in economic dynamics, which was taken into account when interpreting macroeconomic convergence processes within the CPTPP. The scientific novelty of the study lies in its application of an approach based on the analysis of the structural similarity of the macroeconomic profiles of CPTPP countries, which complements traditional assessments of the effects of economic and trade integration. The practical significance of the findings is associated with their potential use in evaluating the prospects for CPTPP expansion and in modeling alternative scenarios of participation and sustainable development within international trade agreements under conditions of global economic transformation. Full article

A blockade or severe disruption in the Strait of Hormuz would test energy supply resilience by reducing crude oil and LNG availability and by raising routing, freight, insurance, port-handling, warehousing, and transport-support costs. This paper develops a short-run multi-regional input–output stress test to assess where such an energy-route shock enters the production system, how reserves and inventories reduce pass-through, which cross-border links carry residual costs, and where final demand absorbs them. Using the OECD ICIO 2025 edition for 2022, we map the shock to oil and gas extraction, refining, utilities, transport, and transport-support sectors, with an additional premium for major Gulf energy exporters. We propagate the shock for seven input–output rounds under inventory damping. First-round exposure and later-round burden do not coincide, as energy-intensive materials, aviation services, chemicals, minerals, metals, electronics, and machinery face higher downstream costs through material and logistics purchases. With 30% inventory absorption, the upstream energy shock needed for downstream manufacturing to reach a 10% added-cost threshold rises from 73.6% to 85.3%. The results support targeted reserve release, coordinated rerouting, port-logistics priority, inventory management around high-value links, and continuity protection for vulnerable sectors. Full article

Environmental degradation has become a critical structural challenge for sustainable development, particularly in regions where economic growth remains closely linked to natural resource exploitation. In Latin America, and specifically within ALADI countries, limited empirical evidence exists on the dynamic interactions among economic growth, trade integration, energy efficiency, and digital transformation in shaping environmental pressures. This study addresses this gap by employing a dynamic panel data approach based on System GMM for the period 2000–2021. The results reveal that economic growth and trade openness have a positive, statistically significant effect on the ecological footprint, confirming the persistence of scale effects and the absence of structural decoupling between economic expansion and environmental degradation. In contrast, energy intensity and ICT service exports, although positively associated with environmental pressure, did not show statistically significant effects, suggesting that their role in driving sustainability transitions remains limited under current structural conditions. These findings highlight that structural economic factors predominantly drive environmental dynamics in the ALADI region, while the estimated effects associated with technological and efficiency-related variables remain comparatively weak and statistically inconclusive under current structural conditions. From a policy perspective, the study underscores the need for deeper structural transformations, including cleaner energy transitions, stronger environmental regulation in trade, and a more effective integration of digitalization into sustainability strategies. The study contributes to the literature by providing robust dynamic evidence on socio-environmental interactions in developing economies and advancing the understanding of sustainability transitions in Latin America. Full article

Using a global panel of bilateral digitally delivered services exports for 192 economies from 2006 to 2022, together with large-scale international news data, this study examines the impact of international media sentiment on digital service exports, with particular attention to the institutional-barrier channel. To address the temporal aggregation mismatch between high-frequency media sentiment and annual trade flows, as well as potential endogeneity concerns, we employ a Mixed Two-Stage Least Squares (M2SLS) approach. The results show that more favorable international media sentiment has a positive and statistically significant effect on digital service exports. This finding remains robust across a range of measurement checks, placebo tests, alternative instrument constructions, subsample analyses, and Bayesian estimation. Further analysis supports an institutional-barrier interpretation by showing that favorable media sentiment is associated with lower bilateral digital service trade policy heterogeneity. The impact is stronger in trust- and reputation-intensive service sectors and in cultural contexts where reputational signals are more salient, while it weakens or reverses in technical service sectors and in highly secular-rational and institutionally asymmetric trading relationships. Full article

The Yellow River Basin (YRB) faces escalating pressures from climate variability and intensive land-use change; however, how these drivers jointly shape the water ecosystem services (WES) remains insufficiently quantified. This study assessed water yield, soil conservation, and water purification capacity across the YRB from 2000 to 2020 using the InVEST model. The effects of driving forces, including climate and land-use changes, on WES were examined using scenario simulation and the geographical detector method. During 2000–2020, water yield and soil conservation displayed fluctuating upward trends, increasing by 26.24% and 30.19%, respectively, whereas nitrogen and phosphorus exports declined slightly by 4.82% and 3.08%, indicating a modest improvement in water purification. All indicators exhibited elevated values in the southeast and lower values in the northwest, with clear distinctions among the three topographic zones. The contribution rates of climate change to variations in water yield, soil conservation, nitrogen export, and phosphorus export were 97.4–99.3, 94.5–98.3, 87.2–96.0, and 85.7–95.2%, respectively, indicating the central regulatory role of climatic factors in watershed-scale water-related ecological processes. However, the contribution of land-use factors increased over time and had a significantly greater impact on water purification capacity. Distinct spatial heterogeneity was observed among the WES. Interactions among climatic, topographic, and other factors significantly enhanced the spatial variability of water yield and soil conservation services, while land-use interactions with other drivers had greater impacts on the spatial variability of water purification capacity. Thus, regionally differentiated policy strategies are essential. Our findings provide a quantitative basis for differentiating climate versus land-use interventions in water resource management and designing spatially targeted ecological restoration policies in the YRB and similar regions worldwide. Full article

The U.S. strategies of “friend-shoring” and “near-shoring,” aimed at enhancing supply chain autonomy, are profoundly restructuring global production networks. This study empirically evaluates the impact of these strategies on China’s factor-intensive industries. Utilizing the Asian Development Bank Multi-Regional Input-Output database, we constructed a Global Industrial Value Chain Backbone Network and applied the X-index Filtering Algorithm to identify core trade relationships. Policy impacts were quantified by comparing degree, betweenness, and closeness centralities between null and counterfactual models. The results indicate that “friend-shoring” exerts a significant “squeeze effect” on China, with resource-intensive industries facing severe decoupling risks that cascade into supporting services. Conversely, the impact of “near-shoring” remains limited, as Chinese firms mitigate trade diversion through strategic overseas investment. Scenario analysis further reveals that while new trade remedies targeting re-exports may bolster emerging hubs like Vietnam and Mexico in the short term, they increase the topological distance of global production networks, leading to a systemic decline in efficiency. These findings provide critical quantitative evidence regarding the evolution and systemic risks of global value chains under geopolitical intervention. Full article

Spain is the world’s leading producer and exporter of olive oil, with Andalusia being the autonomous community with the largest cultivated area. In recent decades, agricultural practices have followed a trend toward maximizing production without adequately considering ecosystem contamination. Olive groves are, in fact, complex agroecosystems in which thousands of plant species and numerous plant communities have been documented, supporting a rich diversity of vertebrate and invertebrate fauna. Intensive and unsustainable practices have led to a decline in floral diversity and, consequently, in faunal diversity. The aim of this research is to demonstrate the loss of floristic diversity associated with herbicide use. To this end, a comparative analysis of floristic diversity was conducted across 117 plots, contrasting data collected in 2007 with that from the same plots in 2021. From a methodological perspective, an inquiry-based approach was implemented involving students from the Master’s program in Olive Growing, Olive Oil, and Health. Abundance–dominance indices were compared, and the Importance Value Index (IVI) was calculated to assess changes in plant community composition. For instance, Hordeum leporinum exhibited an IVI > 70 in 2007, decreasing in 2021 to values ranging between 11 and 31.58. Similarly, Sinapis alba subsp. mairei showed a decline in IVI from 81.06 to 26.35. A notable result is the greater floristic change observed in plots located on basic substrates where herbicides were applied, compared to plots on siliceous substrates designated for grazing. This issue clearly highlights a lack of knowledge regarding appropriate cultivation techniques that promote sustainable development and social awareness. It underscores the need for educational interventions that foster learning at all levels about agricultural practices, sustainability, and ecosystem services. Full article

With the gradual implementation of the RCEP agreement, China’s service sector market has opened up further. According to statistics from the OECD database, in 2023, China’s service imports from other RCEP member states accounted for approximately 33% of its total service imports. The growing volume of service trade underscores the importance of trade with other RCEP member states in helping China achieve its goals of enhancing the quality of its service sector and establishing a sustainable and healthy development model. Based on the virtual water trade theory and using input–output tables for each year provided by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, this paper calculates the virtual water imports and exports associated with China’s service trade with other RCEP member states from 2007 to 2020. Based on these results, the paper analyzes the spatiotemporal patterns of service trade between China and other RCEP member states. By constructing a water resource carrying capacity evaluation system, this study analyzes whether China’s service trade with other RCEP member states aligns with virtual water theory. The results indicate that China has consistently been a net importer of virtual water in its service trade with other RCEP member states. Net imports rose from approximately 56 million cubic meters in 2007 to approximately 380 million cubic meters in 2020. From a spatiotemporal perspective, China’s virtual water trade in services with other RCEP member states has been evolving toward a diversified and balanced import pattern. In terms of the water carrying capacity index, although China ranks in the middle range, an index of water resource carrying capacity based on the entropy weighting method indicates that China is in a state of mild overload. It still imports virtual water from regions with lower water carrying capacity. This paper provides a reference for analyzing China’s virtual water trade in services under the RCEP framework. Full article

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and SCADA-connected networks are increasingly vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, which can disrupt time-sensitive industrial processes and compromise operational continuity. Effective mitigation requires accurate and low-latency attack detection at the network edge, where industrial gateways operate under strict constraints in computation, memory, and energy. This study investigates Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) for real-time binary DDoS detection and proposes a detector based on Proximal Policy Optimisation (PPO) for deployment in resource-constrained IIoT environments. Four DRL agents, namely Deep Q-Network (DQN), Double DQN, Dueling DQN, and PPO, are trained and evaluated within a unified experimental pipeline incorporating automatic label mapping, numerical feature selection, robust scaling, and class balancing. Experiments are conducted on three representative benchmark datasets: CIC-DDoS2019, Edge-IIoTset, and CICIoT23. Performance is assessed using accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, false positive rate, false negative rate, and CPU inference latency. The reward function is asymmetric: +1 for correct classification, −1 for false positive, and −2 for false negative, penalising missed attacks more heavily for IIoT safety. The results show that PPO provides a competitive accuracy–latency tradeoff across all three datasets, achieving the highest mean accuracy of 97.65% and ranking first on CIC-DDoS2019 with a score of 95.92%, while remaining competitive on Edge-IIoTset (99.11%) and CICIoT23 (97.92%). PPO also converges faster than the value-based baselines. Inference latency is below 0.8 ms per sample on a standard CPU (Intel i7-11800H), confirming real-time feasibility. To support practical deployment, the trained PPO policies are exported to ONNX format (≈9 KB per model), enabling lightweight and PyTorch-independent inference on industrial edge gateways. Full article

This study examines how the allocation of export expansion across sectors affects economy-wide outcomes in Bangladesh. Using a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) framework, we combine linkage analysis with simulation to evaluate how sectoral export growth propagates through the production network. The results show that the impact of export diversification depends critically on sectoral allocation rather than export intensity alone. While aggregate differences between scenarios are modest, reallocating export growth toward sectors with stronger intersectoral linkages generates larger economy-wide gains in GDP and labor income. In particular, sectors with low initial export shares but high network connectivity—such as agriculture, hunting, forestry, and fishing; retail trade; other community, social and personal services; and inland transport—produce stronger multiplier effects than most export-intensive sectors. These findings highlight a key distinction between export intensity and network centrality, demonstrating that sectors with limited direct export participation can play a central role in transmitting economic gains. The results provide a network-based perspective on export diversification and offer policy-relevant insights for designing strategies that promote more inclusive and efficient economic growth. Full article