Search Results (1,429)

Maritime communication systems are among the most important infrastructure of global maritime safety and security. They consist of very high frequency (VHF) radio, the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS), contemporary satellite nets, Automatic Identification System (AIS) networks, and the emerging VHF Data Exchange System (VDES). These systems are essential for distress signaling, navigational coordination, and vessel traffic management. As maritime operations are experiencing accelerated digitalisation, the safety and security dimensions of maritime communication systems have attracted substantial and growing scientific attention. This study presents a comprehensive literature review and bibliometric analysis of the safety and security of maritime communication systems. Guided by the PRISMA 2020 guidelines and Systematic Literature Review (SLR) methodology, a structured search was conducted across three major scientific databases: Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), and IEEE Xplore. Starting from a raw pool of 6648 records retrieved between 2000 and 2026, the dataset was reduced through successive filtering to a final body of 68 high-relevance publications. Bibliometric analysis reveals a significant upward publication trend from 2015 onwards, with a marked acceleration after 2019. Thematic analysis identifies seven principal research clusters: GMDSS modernisation, AIS safety and security, VDES and VHF next-generation systems, maritime cybersecurity, satellite communications, risk assessment frameworks, and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and autonomous vessel communications. The review identifies significant research gaps, including the absence of integrated cross-system risk frameworks, insufficient attention to human factors in cybersecurity, limited studies addressing emerging regulatory, legal governance components and a brief analysis of the maritime communications market. This study provides a structured foundation for future research and policy development in maritime communication security. Full article

Lithium has become one of the key raw materials for the energy transition due to the central role of lithium-ion batteries in electromobility, energy storage, and the integration of renewable energy sources. However, the rapid increase in demand reveals growing environmental, social, geopolitical, and market tensions. The aim of the paper is a critical synthesis of global lithium utilization from the perspective of challenges, technological innovations, and integrative strategies supporting a more sustainable material–energy system. A broad, systematic literature review covering the entire value chain was applied: resources, extraction, processing, end-use applications, second life of batteries, recycling, and governance. The analysis shows that the strategic importance of lithium arises from the increasing demand pressure from electric vehicles and stationary storage, while the sustainability of the current model is constrained by supply concentration, uneven control over downstream stages, the water–carbon footprint of extraction and processing, social conflicts, and incomplete integration of secondary loops. At the same time, innovations such as direct lithium extraction (DLE), recovery from geothermal brines, design for recycling, second life, and battery passports can partially alleviate these tensions, but they do not eliminate the need for primary supply in the short term. The conclusion of the work is that sustainable global lithium utilization requires simultaneous diversification of sources, development of circular value chains, and multi-level governance integrating resource security, environmental efficiency, and social legitimacy. Full article

Commercially mature products obtained by fractionation or extraction of phototrophic microalgal biomass remain concentrated in four categories: whole-cell Spirulina/Chlorella, C-phycocyanin, astaxanthin, and DHA-rich oils. Little diversification of these fractionated, mid-tier products has followed the decline in upstream costs. Whole-cell feed and live-culture markets, agricultural biostimulants, and fermentation-derived ingredients are commercially active but lie outside this phototrophic downstream-processing scope. Reported open-pond biomass production costs have fallen from ~US$10 kg⁻¹ in the 1990s to sub-US$1 kg⁻¹ nth-plant projections, yet no substantial product diversification has occurred. This review brings together three complementary lines of evidence: a bibliometric analysis of 1995–2025 publications showing that downstream fractionation, biorefinery, and integrated process design account for only 9.3% of food-core microalgal research; institutional surveys documenting the same four dominant categories across Europe, China, and global markets; and a meta-analysis of 53 whole-biomass cost rows from 16 techno-economic assessments. These sources indicate consistently that downstream processing is a necessary, though not sole, constraint on commercial diversification. A four-tier unit-operation roadmap is proposed-cell disruption at commodity energy cost, fractionation with functional ingredient preservation, decolorization and desalting at food-ingredient unit cost, and standardized transferable workflows-each linked to a quantitative threshold and to the product categories it would unlock. Closing the microalgal processing technology gap now depends less on demonstrating feasibility than on meeting these thresholds. Full article

With the global rise in sustainable investment concepts, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors have increasingly become important criteria influencing investment decisions. Although institutional investors are paying greater attention to corporate ESG performance, limited evidence exists regarding its impact within the Chinese A-share market. Using panel data from Chinese listed firms during the period 2010–2023, this study employs fixed-effects models with clustered standard errors as the baseline estimation method. To improve the robustness of the findings, Tobit regression, Logit regression, lagged-variable models, heterogeneity analysis, and Hausman tests are further conducted. The empirical findings indicate that the overall ESG score and the individual environmental (E), social (S), and governance (G) dimensions do not exhibit statistically significant effects on institutional ownership in the baseline fixed-effects regressions. The results suggest that ESG performance has not yet become a dominant determinant of institutional investment decisions in China’s capital market. However, the robustness tests based on Tobit and Logit models provide limited evidence that ESG performance may still influence institutional investor behavior under alternative empirical specifications. Furthermore, the heterogeneity analysis reveals that the relationship between ESG dimensions and institutional ownership differs across environmentally related and non-environmentally related firms, although the effects are generally weak and statistically limited. The study contributes to the ESG and institutional investment literature in three important ways. First, it provides updated evidence from the Chinese A-share market over the 2010–2023 period, reflecting the evolving stage of ESG development in emerging economies. Second, it comparatively examines the differentiated roles of environmental, social, and governance dimensions rather than relying solely on aggregated ESG indicators. Third, it highlights the limited and transitional nature of ESG integration among institutional investors in China, where traditional financial indicators continue to play a more important role in investment decisions. The findings provide important implications for policymakers, listed firms, and institutional investors seeking to promote sustainable finance development and improve the effectiveness of ESG disclosure practices in emerging markets. Full article

Renewable energy sources are fast becoming the most cost-effective option for adding new power generation capacity globally. In South Africa (SA), the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy has steadily gained momentum over the years. However, this transition is beset by complex and multidimensional barriers. This research study analyses and prioritises renewable energy barriers and mitigation strategies in South Africa. The DEMATEL multi-criteria decision-making technique was employed to rank the barriers and assess their cause-and-effect relationships. The findings reveal the top three barrier categories as Agreement, Market, and Knowledge. The study further employed an integrated hybrid CRITIC-TOPSIS technique to prioritise the proposed mitigation strategies for each barrier in a defined category. The results indicate that strengthening local community engagement is the most suitable solution to the adoption of renewable energy in SA. A sensitivity analysis model was conducted to validate the robustness of the results. The findings validate the consistency of the methods, with the ranking of the barriers and mitigation strategies remaining stable under various scenarios. This study presents a context-specific causal analysis of barriers and an objective prioritisation of mitigation strategies in South Africa using an integrated hybrid DEMATEL and CRITIC–TOPSIS approach, providing policymakers and decision-makers with valuable insights to develop strategic plans and policies that address the identified barriers. Full article

This article aims to examine how the natural gas market evolved following the price shocks observed between 2020 and 2024, paying particular attention to market integration and the persistence of these shocks. The proposed analysis uses daily price data for the Title Transfer Facility (TTF), the main European benchmark traded on the Intercontinental Exchange and quoted in EUR/MWh, as well as Henry Hub (HH), the United States benchmark. These series are combined with a country panel on natural gas production, consumption, and gross domestic product for 59 economies, subject to data availability. The cointegration results show that TTF and HH prices moved together in 2019, but this relationship broke down in 2020 and did not return to its previous pattern in the following years. Granger causality tests point to a one-directional transmission from Henry Hub to Europe. Moreover, GARCH estimates indicate that TTF reacts almost twice as strongly to daily shocks as HH, while volatility remains persistent in both markets. Fixed-effects estimates place the TTF price elasticity of import spending close to 0.5, providing evidence consistent with a causal link between higher natural gas prices and higher domestic energy expenditure. Finally, the clustering analysis complements the econometric modeling by identifying four groups of countries defined by gas import dependency and gas intensity. This classification also offers implications for the global natural gas market since it points to the need for cluster-specific policy approaches rather than a single solution applied to every country. Full article

This paper examines global equity market integration, commodity-price exposure, and volatility spillovers in Ghana’s frontier equity market. Using daily data from January 2011 to December 2025, we estimate a multi-factor asset pricing model nested within a GARCH framework for the Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index (GSECI) and the Financial Sector Index (GSEFSI). The model jointly estimates first-moment return exposures and second-moment volatility spillovers from a global equity market and three key global commodity markets: gold, crude oil, and cocoa, while controlling for asymmetric volatility, return serial dependence, and domestic macro-financial shifts associated with banking sector recapitalization and the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP). The Ghanaian equity market is exposed to the global equity market, indicating measurable but economically modest global integration, with stronger exposure in the financial sector. Commodity-price exposures are selective, with gold and crude oil exposures concentrated in the financial sector, whereas the cocoa factor is negatively associated with returns on both indices. The variance results show persistent volatility, inverse asymmetric volatility responses, and differentiated volatility spillovers from global equity and commodity markets. The DDEP period is associated with significant equity market repricing, particularly in the financial sector. These findings indicate that Ghana’s equity market dynamics are shaped jointly by global equity and commodity market information, frontier market frictions, and sovereign–bank conditions. Full article

In the current context, where sustainability has become a global imperative, emerging markets have increasingly incorporated green finance as a strategic pillar to foster long-term growth and stability. This study examines the evolution, trends, and key challenges of sustainable investment in emerging economies, with a particular focus on the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. A systematic literature review was conducted using Scopus and Web of Science, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol, based on a sample of 399 articles published over the past decade. The findings reveal a significant expansion in academic output on ESG investments in emerging markets, with an average annual growth rate of 14.06% and an international co-authorship rate of 37.34%. China, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and the United States emerge as leading contributors, particularly since 2020. However, critical gaps persist, including inconsistencies in ESG ratings and the limited adaptation of ESG frameworks to local socioeconomic and institutional conditions. Future research should focus on strengthening public policy frameworks, designing effective fiscal incentives, assessing the distributive implications of green finance, and leveraging technologies such as fintech, blockchain, and artificial intelligence to enhance ESG rating consistency, transparency, risk measurement, and the overall efficiency of sustainable investments. Full article

As the global automotive industry is transitioning toward sustainable development, new energy vehicles (NEVs) have experienced rapid global growth due to their environmental friendliness and high efficiency. Global sales of NEVs are projected to reach 50 million units by 2030. Nevertheless, safety incidents caused by impacts on traction batteries remain a major factor restricting the development of NEVs. Prismatic batteries, which account for over 90% of the traction battery market owing to their high energy density and structural robustness, nevertheless continue to face significant safety challenges under mechanical loading conditions. Typical failure modes involve structural damage induced by external compressive forces during severe vehicular collisions, which can subsequently result in the tearing of internal electrode layers and rupture of the separator, thereby initiating internal short circuits and leading to severe incidents. Accordingly, this research focuses on the mechanism of structural damage transmission for prismatic lithium-ion batteries under compression conditions. By integrating a refined mechanical model, it further elucidates the structural failure mechanisms and conducts a microscopic analysis of the damaged battery structure to investigate the effects of varying damage levels on battery safety performance, providing significant guidance for the safety and reliability of new energy vehicles. Full article

Rising global temperatures and recurrent heat waves increasingly threaten vegetable production, as vegetable crops are more thermosensitive than most field crops. Vegetable crops frequently experience severe reductions in pollen viability, fruit set, marketable yield, and quality under heat waves. Numerous reviews have substantially advanced our understanding of heat stress perception, signal transduction networks, transcriptional regulation, and thermotolerance mechanisms, primarily in model species and major field crops. However, comprehensive review articles of field-applied mitigation strategies specifically tailored to vegetable production remain limited. This review provides a critical analysis of the use of genetic resources (cultivars and grafting), field management approaches (optimized planting dates, crop rotation, canopy management, and intercropping), irrigation, nutrient optimization, biostimulants, microbial inoculants, and physical microclimate modification strategies. The research consolidates current applied and mechanistic evidence on heat-stress mitigation in vegetable crops and identifies targeted, actionable priorities for field adoption. Emphasis is placed on the integration of complementary mitigation strategies at the field scale where combined approaches may generate synergistic effects. Key research gaps include limited studies on combined heat–drought/salinity stress, lack of standardized field protocols for biostimulants, and insufficient farm-scale economic evaluations of mitigation strategies. Advancing interdisciplinary, field-validated, and climate-smart management frameworks will be essential to ensure sustainable vegetable productivity and quality stability in accelerating global warming. Full article

Using data from the 41 companies listed on the Borsa Istanbul Sustainability Index between 2020 and 2024, this study examines the relationship between board characteristics, concentrated ownership structure, shareholder activism and sustainability transparency. Reports published on a voluntary basis were subjected to content analysis based on criteria selected from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, and a sustainability disclosure score was calculated. The relationship between board characteristics, concentrated ownership structure, shareholder activism, financial metrics identified as control variables, and sustainability scores was evaluated via robust random effects (static) and System Generalized Method of Moments (System GMM) (dynamic) panel data estimators. According to the static estimation results, board meeting frequency and the ratio of female members serve as positive drivers for sustainability transparency. In the dynamic model estimates, these governance mechanisms lose their explanatory power and show no statistically observable effect. However, across both methodological approaches, firm size, which was integrated as a control factor, consistently demonstrates a robust positive correlation with levels of disclosure. These findings reveal that governance mechanisms such as the percentage of female members and meeting frequency have a short-term and marginal effect, but structural factors such as company size are the main determinants for a long-term and sustainable level of transparency in Türkiye. Consequently, market regulators should deploy policy frameworks that incentivize disclosure trajectories aligned with international frameworks while fostering voluntary reporting. Concurrently, corporate managers should look beyond mere statutory compliance and continuously embrace extensive global reporting standards. Full article

Digital financial services have expanded rapidly across emerging economies and are often presented as tools for advancing women’s economic inclusion. However, the extent to which digital finance is associated with lower gender inequality depends on the broader structural conditions in which women live and work. This study examines the relationship between digital financial participation, labor market integration, and gender inequality in Brazil using nationally representative microdata from the 2025 Global Findex survey. Three outcomes are examined: digital account ownership, use of any digital payment, and engagement in merchant digital payments. Multivariate logit models show moderate gender gaps at early stages of digital financial participation. However, these gaps are not uniform across the population. The interaction results show that gender differences are concentrated mainly among individuals outside employment and among those without internet access. Among employed and digitally connected individuals, the gender gap becomes small and statistically insignificant across the three outcomes. A nonlinear decomposition shows that observable socioeconomic characteristics explain only a small share of the aggregate gender gap, especially for account ownership and any digital payment use. Additional robustness checks using probit and complementary log-log models support the main pattern of results. This suggests that the gender gap cannot be explained only by differences in education, income, employment, or internet access, and may also reflect unobserved household, institutional, or social constraints. The findings suggest that digital finance alone does not equalize participation. Rather, women’s digital financial participation is closely associated with their position in the labor market and their access to digital infrastructure. Because the analysis is based on cross-sectional data, the results should be interpreted as conditional associations rather than causal effects. Digital financial expansion is therefore more likely to support gender inclusion when it is linked to broader policies that strengthen women’s labor force attachment, digital connectivity, and economic autonomy. Full article

The advent of digital technologies, increasing competition, market globalization, and the fourth industrial revolution compel organizations to rethink their operating models to sustain competitive advantage. At the same time, increasingly informed consumers expect higher levels of personalization, responsiveness, and cost efficiency. In this context, mass customization has emerged as a strategic response enabling firms to deliver tailored products while maintaining acceptable levels of cost, lead time, and operational efficiency. However, operationalizing mass customization remains particularly challenging for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially within normative environments characterized by regulatory and compliance requirements affecting product architectures and manufacturing processes. Although the literature highlights modular product design and product configuration as key enablers, it lacks a structured strategy for their implementation in such contexts. This article aims to develop and validate an operational strategy for mass customization based on these two levers. The methodology adopts an action research approach structured through a hybrid Agile–Stage-Gate framework and validated through its application to a representative portion of the product architecture within a case study. The results highlight the structured integration of variability analysis, modular product design, and configuration logic into an operational process, supporting the management of complexity and the implementation of mass customization in manufacturing SMEs. Full article

As plant-based diets catalyze a global shift toward sustainable consumption, Chinese plant-based food firms are experiencing rapid growth and seeking to expand their international footprint. This study investigates the mechanisms underlying the internationalization performance of these firms by integrating the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework with a configurational perspective. We operationalize nine antecedents across three dimensions: the technological dimension (technological maturity, supply chain resilience, and digital transformation), the organizational dimension (food safety certification intensity, strategic partnership intensity, and talent acquisition intensity), and the environmental dimension (market adaptability, compliance and risk management, and product line breadth). Utilizing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of N = 29 publicly listed Chinese plant-based firms, this research identifies three distinct equifinal pathways to superior internationalization performance. The first is the Collaboration-Compliance configuration (Organization–Environment-driven), which is primarily characterized by the synergy between strategic partnerships and regulatory risk management. The second is the Supply Chain-Compliance-Product Diversification configuration (Technology-Environment-driven), where international success is predicated on the interplay among supply chain resilience, institutional compliance, and product variety. The third is the Full-Factor Synergy configuration (Technology-Organization-Environment jointly driven), which emphasizes a holistic coupling of technological innovation, organizational coordination, and external institutional adaptation. By uncovering these complex causal mechanisms, this study moves beyond traditional linear analysis to reveal how diverse capability configurations can lead to equivalent internationalization outcomes. The findings provide actionable strategic guidance for firms navigating the global plant-based market and offer theoretical insights for policy frameworks supporting sustainable dietary transitions. Full article

Person Re-identification (Person Re-ID) is essential in surveillance and security. Traditional image processing methods often struggle to identify individuals accurately due to the sensitivity to occlusions and limited discriminative capability of the global feature representation. To address these challenges, this study proposes a deep-learning architecture for Person Re-ID, termed Dynamic Part-Based Fusion (DPBF), which integrates the Salient Part Discrimination (SPD) and the Adaptive Feature Integration and Contextual Fusion (AFICF) frameworks within a unified pipeline. The SPD module enhances representation learning by emphasizing discriminative body regions through an attention-guided part-based mechanism guided by human parsing information. The AFICF component performs the correlation-aware integration of localized part-specific features and global contextual features, reducing redundancy and improving discriminative feature representation. The proposed framework coordinates part-level feature extraction and correlation-aware integration within a unified pipeline to improve robustness under occlusion and appearance variations. Additional analyses demonstrate a stable performance across independent training runs, competitive computational complexity, and robustness under severe occlusion conditions through adaptive local–global feature integration. The method was evaluated on several Person Re-ID datasets, including Occluded-ReID, Market-1501, DukeMTMC-ReID, Occluded-Duke, P-DukeMTMC-ReID, and CUHK03-Labeled. The experimental results demonstrate a competitive performance compared with existing methods, while additional reproducibility, computational-complexity, and occlusion-stability analyses further validate the robustness and practical applicability of the proposed framework. Specifically, DPBF achieves a 10.6% increase in Rank-1 accuracy and a 16% improvement in mAP over the closest competitor on the Occluded-ReID dataset. Full article