Search Results (269)

Background: The Slovenian Nutrition Guidelines 2025 (SNG2025) provide a quantified, plant-forward framework aligned with the EAT–Lancet diet, whereas previous Slovenian FBDGs were qualitative. Objectives: (i) To compare SNG2025 with the EAT–Lancet diet and previous Slovenian FBDGs and (ii) to assess the alignment of food intake among Slovenian adults with the SNG2025. Methods: The SNG2025 food group targets were mapped to the EAT–Lancet diet and previous Slovenian FBDGs and evaluated against a nationally representative intake (Si. Menu 2017/18; 18–64 years; sex-specific). Sodium intake was corroborated by 24-h urinary sodium levels (2022). Results: The SNG2025 introduces numeric targets across more than 16 food groups, with national adaptations (e.g., potatoes, oils and fats from foods, and dairy being optional via milk-calcium equivalents and beverage specifications). The alignment reveals very low consumption of legumes; limited consumption of vegetables, whole grains, and nuts/seeds (and fruit in men); and excess consumption of total and red/processed meat, ultra-processed foods (UPFs), free sugars/sugar-sweetened beverages, sodium, and alcohol. Biomarkers indicate a mean salt intake approximately two times the <5 g/day limit. Trans fatty acid (TFA) levels ≥ 0.5% persist in a substantial percentage of adults, predominantly from ruminant-derived TFAs. Sex-specific patterns are more adverse for men (e.g., meat, SSBs, alcohol, and sodium), whereas women have a higher intake of sweet UPFs. Conclusions: Slovenian diets are misaligned with the SNG2025. Priorities include increasing the intake of legumes, whole grains, vegetables, and nuts/seeds, while shifting protein sources away from red and processed meat. Additional priorities include reducing the intake of alcohol, sodium, free sugars, and UPFs through reformulation, procurement, and pricing/marketing measures, alongside routine biomarker and UPF surveillance. The SNG2025 enable monitoring and targeted implementation. Considering the limitations of the Si. Menu 2017/18 dataset, which includes food-group aggregation and limited information on food preparation, the results should be interpreted with caution with respect to the magnitude of deviations from SNG2025 targets, while the overall direction of misalignment remains robust. Full article

Financial time series often show periods during which market index values or asset prices increase or decrease monotonically. These events are known as price runs, uninterrupted trends, or simply runs. By identifying such runs in the daily DJIA and IPC indices from 2 January 1990 to 17 October 2025, we construct their associated returns to obtain a non-arbitrary sample of multi-scale returns, which we call trend returns (TReturns). The timescale of each multi-scale return is determined by the exponentially distributed duration of its corresponding run. We empirically show that the distribution of these coarse-grained returns exhibits distinctive statistical properties: the central region displays an exponential decay, likely resulting from the exponential distribution of trend durations, while the tails follow a power-law decay. This combination of exponential central behavior and asymptotic power-law decay has also been observed in other complex systems, and our findings provide additional evidence of its natural emergence. We also explore the informational properties of multi-scale returns using three measures: Shannon entropy, permutation entropy, and compression-based complexity. We find that Shannon entropy increases with coarse-graining, indicating a wider range of values; permutation entropy drops sharply, revealing underlying temporal patterns; and compression ratios improve, reflecting suppressed randomness. Overall, these findings suggest that constructing TReturns filters out microscopic noise, reveals structured temporal patterns, and provides a complementary and clear view of market behavior. Full article

This study investigates the weak-form efficiency of South Africa’s summer grain spot markets, focusing on white maize, yellow maize, sunflower, and soybean. Using daily log return data from 2007 to 2025, we apply autocorrelation, Portmanteau (Q), and heteroskedasticity-robust Lo–MacKinlay variance ratio tests, along with Bai–Perron structural break analysis, Pesaran–Timmermann directional accuracy tests, and mean return per trade calculations. Results reveal significant short-term serial dependence and mean-reverting behaviour across all commodities, indicating partial predictability and deviations from weak-form efficiency. Structural break analysis identifies multiple regimes within the price series, showing that market dynamics are not constant over time. Directional accuracy and MRP results indicate that while some predictability exists, the economic gains from exploiting past prices are small and likely insufficient to overcome trading frictions. These findings suggest that price adjustments are gradual rather than instantaneous, reflecting structural and operational market frictions such as limited liquidity, low adoption of electronic trading, and constrained transparency. Enhancing digital trading platforms, improving real-time price reporting, and investing in storage and logistics could strengthen price discovery and reduce transaction costs. The study provides insights into emerging agricultural markets and highlights the importance of considering market structure when evaluating efficiency. Full article

A well-designed layout for urban parks plays a crucial role in constructing livable cities and enhancing residents’ well-being. The provision of age-friendly park access is fundamental to building an elderly-friendly city. However, previous studies have lacked comprehensive analyses that integrate the distribution of the elderly population, park accessibility, park quality, environmental characteristics, and social equity within a unified framework. Specifically, the supply–demand imbalance mechanism underlying the spatial variations in accessibility has not been adequately addressed. This study employs an improved two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method, combined with Lorenz curves and urban park-adapted Gini coefficients, to examine the supply–demand relationship and allocation differences between the elderly population and parks at the neighborhood and community levels. The analysis highlights issues related to equity and accessibility and explores their spatial disparity and influencing factors. The key findings are as follows: (1) The classic 2SFCA model exhibits significant biases in evaluating park supply–demand relationships, accessibility, and equity at a fine-grained scale, indicating the necessity of high-precision modeling. (2) Park accessibility in the Old City of Nanjing follows a dual-ring pattern of high accessibility, contrasted with clustered areas of low accessibility, while accessibility equity shows a central–peripheral gradient. Overall equity is relatively low, with good walking accessibility within only about one-third of communities. (3) Park supply levels, neighborhood construction year, and plot ratios are the primary factors influencing park accessibility for elderly residents. The comprehensive aging index is positively correlated with the equity in park layout, whereas housing prices and neighborhood size do not exhibit a simple linear relationship with park accessibility or equity for elderly residents. These findings provide a comprehensive and realistic perspective for understanding elderly park accessibility and equity, offering decision-making references for enhancing urban livability, managing an aging society, and formulating spatial equity policies in the future. Full article

Due to global increases in poultry meat and egg production, consumers request sustainable agricultural practices, requiring alternative solutions for future feeding. Global egg production increased by over 41% between 2000 and 2020, from 51 to 87 million tonnes, at an average increasing rate of 3%. Similarly, the production of poultry meat reached 145 million tonnes in 2023 and continues to increase, which amplifies the pressure on sustainable alternative feed solutions. Commercial poultry diets are typically based on a cereal (corn or wheat) as an energy source and a quality protein source, especially soybean meal (SBM), to provide essential amino acids. Soybean production is associated with deforesting and land use in several countries, sensitiveness to supply chains and price volatility. As a response to these challenges over the last decade, research and commercial innovation have intensively focused on alternative and novel feed resources that can be integrated into both broiler and layer diets. Some future candidate ingredients are insect meal, algae, agro-industrial by-products such as distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS), brewery spent grains (BSG) and fermented feedstuffs (oilseed cakes/meals). Literature data showed that moderate inclusion of these alternative ingredients can be partly integrated in poultry diets, without compromising egg or meat quality. In some cases, studies showed improvements of productive performances and specific quality traits (yolk color, fatty acids and antioxidant compounds), offering potential to valorize waste streams, improve local circularity and provide functional ingredients for animals and humans. However, challenges still remain, especially in terms of nutrient variability, digestibility limitations, higher processing costs and still-evolving regulations which constrain mainstream adoption of some of these potential future alternatives. Full article

This study explores the impact of shelterbelt forest plantations on agricultural productivity in Ukraine. The purpose of this article is to investigate how forest belts and land use patterns affect crop yields and agricultural land use in Ukraine, and to compare these patterns with factors contributing to forest cover loss in EU countries in order to develop practical management recommendations. Using geoinformation modeling and correlation analysis, we examined the relationship between shelterbelt coverage and agricultural indicators, including land leasing, crop yields and the planted area under annual and biennial crops. The total area of agricultural land protected by these plantations amounted to 51.66 thousand hectares, generating an additional 206.64 thousand centners of grain annually. Given the average price of 12.23 euros per centner for cereals and legumes, the total economic effect was estimated at approximately 2.53 million euros per year. The study also presents theoretical and methodological approaches for mathematically modeling economic indicators of forestry land use, drawing on successful practices from the European Union regarding sustainable development under significant anthropogenic, economic, and climatic pressures. The results highlight that shelterbelt plantations, once established, are among the most cost-effective agronomic practices, offering long-term environmental and economic benefits for sustainable agricultural development. Full article

Conventional agriculture, focusing on productivity rather than sustainability, have long abandoned hulled wheats. With them not only striking genetic diversity but valuable, health-promoting food sources became lost. Although einkorn and emmer—two of the most ancient wheat species—are generally considered good candidates of sustainable agriculture especially for pesticide-free cropping, they have remained largely unrecognized. To assess their agronomic potential in comparison with modern wheats grown under the same conditions, comprehensive research was conducted, combining multi-location participatory on-farm and small-plot trials. Our findings confirmed that most landraces of emmer and einkorn exhibited strong weed suppression ability, making them suitable for organic cultivation, and effective resistance against diseases—including Fusarium spp. and associated deoxynivalenol (DON) mycotoxin accumulation. Both species were entirely avoided by cereal leaf beetles (Oulema spp.) and had, on average, 2.6% more grain protein content than common wheat. Although they command significantly higher market prices, their (hulled) yields were comparable to modern wheat only in extreme years or at sites typically producing 3–5 t/ha of wheat. Nevertheless, the cultivation of emmer and einkorn presents a more sustainable "sow-and-harvest" alternative, free from pesticide and mycotoxin residue risks, while also enhances biodiversity from the field to the table. Full article

Street greening is widely recognized as influencing resident well-being and housing prices, and street-view imagery provides a fine-grained data source for quantifying urban microenvironments. However, existing research predominantly relies on single indicators such as the Green View Index (GVI) and overall green coverage/volume lacking a systematic analysis of how the hierarchical structure of trees, shrubs, and grass relates to housing prices. This study examines the high-density block context of Tianjin’s six urban districts. Using the Street Greening Space Structure (SGSS) dataset to construct greening structure configurations, we integrate housing-price data, neighborhood attributes, and 13,280 street-view images from the study area. We quantify how “visibility and hierarchical ratios” are capitalized on in the housing market and identify auditable threshold ranges and contextual gating. We propose an urban–forest structural system centered on visibility and hierarchical ratios that links street-level observability to ecosystem services. Employing an integrated framework combining Geographical-XGBoost (G-XGBoost) and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), we move beyond average effects to reveal structural detail and contextual heterogeneity in capitalization. Our findings indicate that tree visibility G_TVI is the most robust and readily capitalized price signal: when G_TVI increases from approximately 0.06 to 0.12–0.16, housing prices rise by about 8%–10%. Hierarchical structure is crucial: balanced tree–shrub ratios and moderate shrub–grass ratios translate “visible green” into functional green. Capitalization effects are environmentally conditioned—more pronounced along corridors with high centrality and accessibility—and are likewise common in dense East Asian metropolises (e.g., Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, and Tokyo) and rapidly motorizing cities (e.g., Bangkok and Jakarta). These patterns suggest parametric prescriptions that prioritize canopy-corridor continuity and keep ratios within actionable threshold bands. We translate these findings into urban greening strategies that prioritize canopy continuity, under-canopy permeability, and maintainability, providing sustainability-oriented, parameterized guidance for converting urban greening structure into ecological capital for sustainable cities. Full article

This study analyzed the economic feasibility of utilizing Undaria pinnatifida sporophylls (UPSs), a major by-product of seaweed aquaculture, as feed for Hanwoo cattle. It employed a partial equilibrium framework to quantify processing costs, avoided disposal costs, substitution savings from reduced grain imports, and monetized methane abatement benefits, calibrated with national statistics on Hanwoo production and feed use for 2022–2024. The analysis revealed that, in the absence of environmental valuation, additional collection, transport, and drying costs (KRW 25,714–102,857 per head at 0.25–1.0% inclusion) outweighed savings from disposal avoidance and import substitution. When methane abatement was priced under Korea’s Emissions Trading Scheme, however, net benefits emerged, ranging from KRW 22,757 to 40,859 per head, with welfare gains of KRW 19,108 million at 1.0%. Sensitivity analysis confirmed a strong dependence on carbon prices: benefits were substantial at KRW 40,000 per ton of CO₂, remained positive yet relatively limited at KRW 20,000, and shifted into negative territory at KRW 10,000. These findings demonstrate that UPS feed utilization can advance climate mitigation and feed security, provided it is supported by effective carbon pricing and producer-oriented policies. Full article

Using panel data from 182 county-level cotton-growing regions in the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River (2000–2022), this study investigates the drivers of cotton planting area contraction, focusing on the synergistic impacts of non-farm employment, agricultural policies, and their synergies, while verifying mechanisms via rural labor outflow and cotton economic returns. From a sustainability perspective, cotton planting area and output were relatively stable with fluctuations in 2000–2010, but plummeted by 80.6% and 82.8%, respectively, by 2022 (a “cliff-like” decline). Empirical results from the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) show: (1) Non-farm employment significantly reduces local cotton cultivation and exhibits spatial spillover effects—counties neighboring or economically similar to regions with higher non-farm employment experience greater pressure for contraction; (2) This contraction is more pronounced in counties with smaller rural populations and lower cotton returns, confirming that labor scarcity and low profitability are key channels; (3) Agricultural policies exacerbate the decline: the 2005 Reward Policy for Major Grain-Producing Counties triggers cotton-to-grain substitution, while the 2014 shift from cotton temporary stockpiling to target price subsidies further accelerated the contraction of cotton cultivation in inland regions. This study contributes to understanding agricultural system transitions in the Yangtze River Basin, offering insights for optimizing sustainable planting structure adjustment and balancing food security with cash crop development under rural economic transformation. Full article

Modern agricultural production faces challenges, caused by soil degradation, declining natural fertility, and a lack of organic matter and productive moisture in the arable layer, which is especially relevant in the context of global climate change and rising prices for fuel and lubricants, mineral fertilizers, and plant protection products. Five tillage systems (moldboard, flat-cut, adaptive, shallow and surface) and three fertilization options (no fertilization, by-product, by product + N₆₅P₆₀K₇₀) were tested. The combination of adaptive cultivation and organic-mineral fertilization resulted in the highest input of crop by-products (up to 1.26 g cm⁻³), elevated humus reserves (69.2 t ha⁻¹ in the 0–40 cm layer), reduced bulk density in the root zone (down to 1.26 g cm⁻³), improved soil moisture conditions, and, consequently, the highest grain yield—4.34 t ha⁻¹, which is 7.4–21.4% higher than in other treatments. The use of adaptive cultivation with differentiation of the depth and type of loosening allowed the humus reserve to be increased to 66.4 t ha⁻¹, the productive moisture in the 0–40 cm layer to reach 86 mm, and ensured an increase in the yield of the grain units to 4.34 t ha⁻¹. The obtained results prove the validity of the efficient integration of the plant biomass on light-textured soils with low physicochemical parameters and humus content as a renewable resource in sustainable agriculture technologies, especially in conditions of climate instability and the rising costs of the resources. Full article

Understanding visitor sentiment is essential for developing effective tourism strategies, particularly as Google Maps reviews have become a key channel for public feedback on tourist attractions. Yet, the unstructured format and dialectal diversity of Arabic reviews pose significant challenges for extracting actionable insights at scale. This study evaluates the performance of traditional machine learning and transformer-based models for aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) on Arabic Google Maps reviews of tourist sites across Saudi Arabia. A manually annotated dataset of more than 3500 reviews was constructed to assess model effectiveness across six tourism-related aspects: price, cleanliness, facilities, service, environment, and overall experience. Experimental results demonstrate that multi-head BERT architectures, particularly AraBERT, consistently outperform traditional classifiers in identifying aspect-level sentiment. Ara-BERT achieved an F1-score of 0.97 for the cleanliness aspect, compared with 0.91 for the best-performing classical model (LinearSVC), indicating a substantial improvement. The proposed ABSA framework facilitates automated, fine-grained analysis of visitor perceptions, enabling data-driven decision-making for tourism authorities and contributing to the strategic objectives of Saudi Vision 20300. Full article

Accurate spatiotemporal forecasting of electric vehicle (EV) charging load is essential for smart grid management and efficient charging service operation. This paper introduced a novel spatiotemporal graph convolutional network with cross-attention (STGCN-Attention) for multi-factor charging load prediction. The model demonstrated a strong capability to capture cross-scale spatiotemporal correlations by adaptively integrating historical charging load, charging pile occupancy, dynamic electricity prices, and meteorological data. Evaluations in real-world charging scenarios showed that the proposed model achieved superior performance in hour forecasting, reducing Mean Absolute Error (MAE) by 9% and 16% compared to traditional STGCN and LSTM models, respectively. It also attained approximately 30% higher accuracy than 24 h prediction. Furthermore, the study identified an optimal 1-2-1 multi-scale temporal window strategy (hour–day–week) and revealed key driver factors. The combined input of load, occupancy, and electricity price yielded the best results (RMSE = 37.21, MAE = 27.34), while introducing temperature and precipitation raised errors by 2–8%, highlighting challenges in fine-grained weather integration. These findings provided actionable insights for real-time and intraday charging scheduling. Full article

Housing markets worldwide have undergone major disruptions during the COVID-19 period, raising questions about how systemic shocks reshape housing preferences and spatial structures. This study develops an integrated spatial framework to examine multi-dimensional housing market restructuring, combining global and local modelling with network-based submarket delineation. Using Shanghai as a case study, we compare pre- and post-pandemic conditions (2019 and 2023) to explore fluctuations in housing prices, shifts in attribute effects, and reconfiguration of submarkets. The results reveal highly differentiated market responses across space. A dual restructuring is observed: decentralisation within the urban core and reinforced integration of outer-peripheral areas into the metropolitan centre, suggesting a gradual transition from a monocentric system towards a more polycentric and context-dependent housing landscape. Methodologically, the study proposes a transferable framework for analysing spatial restructuring under systemic shocks. Empirically, it provides fine-grained evidence of housing market reconfiguration across spatial scales, offering practical insights for spatially informed urban planning and housing market management. Full article

Crude oil and grain, as two pivotal global commodities, exhibit significant price co-movement that profoundly affects national economic stability and food security. From the perspective of systems theory, the energy and grain markets do not exist in isolation but rather form a highly coupled complex system, characterized by nonlinear feedback, cross-market risk contagion, and cascading effects. This study systematically investigates the transmission mechanisms from international crude oil prices to the domestic prices of Chinese four major grains, employing the DY spillover index, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), and a mediation effect framework. The empirical findings reveal three key insights. First, rising international crude oil prices significantly strengthen the pass-through of global grain prices to domestic markets, while simultaneously weakening the effectiveness of domestic price stabilization policies. Second, higher crude oil prices amplify international-to-domestic price spillovers by increasing maritime freight costs, a key channel in global grain trade logistics. Third, elevated oil prices stimulate demand for renewable biofuels, including biodiesel and ethanol, thereby boosting international demand for corn and soybeans and intensifying the transmission of price fluctuations in these commodities to the domestic market. These findings reveal the key pathways through which shocks in the energy market affect food security and highlight the necessity of studying the “energy–food” coupling mechanism within a systems framework, enabling a more comprehensive understanding of cross-market risk transmission. Full article