Search Results (5)

The Green Oasis (GRO) Project is a targeted urban greening intervention designed to evaluate the environmental and health impacts of compact, high-density plantings in dense built environments. Initiated in downtown Louisville, the project transformed Founders Square, a 0.64-acre sparsely planted park, into a microforest (“Trager Microforest”), a multilayered planting of 119 trees and more than 200 shrubs. The impact of this intervention is being assessed through a randomized crossover study in which participants walk in the microforest and a nearby impervious parking lot. Physiological outcomes include heart rate, heart rate variability, arterial stiffness, and stress biomarkers measured in saliva, urine, and sweat. Environmental conditions are continuously monitored by fixed and mobile weather stations, air pollution sensors, and biodiversity surveys. Baseline assessments were conducted in 2023 and 2024, with post-planting evaluations now underway (2025–). Power calculations indicate adequate sensitivity (n ≈ 40–50) to detect changes in cardiovascular stress responses in participants. Complementary ecological measurements include soil microbiome composition, greenhouse gas fluxes, and avian diversity. This study addresses critical gaps in understanding how small-scale, high-density greening interventions affect cardiovascular resilience, stress physiology, and microclimatic regulation. By integrating environmental, biological, and human health data, GRO establishes a comprehensive framework for evaluating the efficacy of urban microforests as nature-based solutions. The results are expected to inform urban planning, public health strategies, and climate adaptation policies, demonstrating how compact greening interventions can simultaneously mitigate heat, reduce pollution, enhance biodiversity, and promote human wellbeing in dense urban cores. Full article

Urban areas often suffer from enduring environmental issues, including flooding, biodiversity loss, heat island effects, and air and soil pollution. The Miyawaki method of afforestation, characterized by dense planting of native species on remediated soil, has been proposed as a rapid, nature-based solution for restoring urban ecological function. This study aims to evaluate early-stage changes in soil health following Miyawaki-style microforest establishment in formerly redlined neighborhoods in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Specifically, it investigates whether this method improves soil permeability, carbon content, and microbial activity within the first three years of planting. Three microforests aged one, two, and three years were assessed using a chronosequence approach. At each site, soil samples from within the microforest and adjacent untreated urban soil (control) were compared. Analyses included physical (porosity, dry density, void ratio), chemical (total carbon), and biological (microbial respiration, biomass, metabolic rate, carbon use efficiency) assessments. Soil permeability was estimated via the Kozeny–Carman equation. Microforest soils showed significantly greater porosity (p = 0.015), higher void ratios (p = 0.009), and reduced compaction compared to controls. Soil permeability improved dramatically, with factors ranging from 5.99 to 52.27. Total carbon content increased with forest age, reaching 2.0 mg C/g in the oldest site (p < 0.001). Microbial metabolic rate rose by up to 287.5% (p = 0.009), while carbon use efficiency also improved, particularly in the older microforests. Within just one to three years, Miyawaki microforests significantly enhanced both the physical and biological properties of degraded urban soils, signaling rapid restoration of soil function and the early return of ecosystem services. Full article

Rapid urbanization and climate change demand innovative green solutions in city planning. Tiny forests—small artificial wooded areas in urban or peri-urban settings—are gaining attention. This paper explores the use of the Miyawaki method to establish such forests in Italy, highlighting their environmental and educational benefits. The study defines micro-forests (100–200 m²) and mini-forests (200–2000 m²) per legislative standards and describes the qualitative features needed for self-sustaining ecosystems. Mimicking natural succession, these forests support biodiversity, reduce urban heat, improve air quality, and act as carbon sinks. Beyond ecological functions, they offer strong pedagogical value, fostering naturalistic intelligence and reconnecting people with natural rhythms and ecosystems. Case studies from Vigevano and Rome show practical applications, demonstrating how tiny forests can enhance sustainability, community well-being, and environmental awareness in cities. Full article

As digital transformation in manufacturing accelerates, process bottleneck prediction has emerged as a central task in industrial automation. To streamline manufacturing processes, where diverse tasks interact in complex ways, it is essential to identify in advance both the location and timing of bottleneck occurrences. However, manufacturing environments often lack high-performance computing resources and must rely on cost-effective, resource-constrained embedded devices, making fast and accurate prediction challenging. We present MicroForest, a lightweight decision tree-based model designed to predict multiple process bottlenecks simultaneously under such resource-constrained environments. MicroForest reassembles the high-information-gain nodes from dozens of large random forests into compact forests. Evaluated on a simulation containing up to 150 production tasks, MicroForest achieves 34%p higher recall scores compared to original random forests while shrinking model size by two orders of magnitude and accelerating inference latency by up to $7.2\times$. Compared with other recent work, MicroForest outperforms them with the highest prediction accuracy (F1 = 0.74) and shows a much gentler increase in latency as process complexity grows. Full article

We have studied Juniperus oxycedrus L. subsp. badia (H.Gay) Debeaux in the central and southern Iberian Peninsula, where the macrobioclimate ranges from Mediterranean-pluviseasonal-oceanic to Mediterranean-pluviseasonal-continental, and the thermotype from the thermo- to the supramediterranean. The relevés were taken following the Braun-Blanquet phytosociological methodology. A statistical treatment was applied to establish a separation among Juniperus communities. To understand the presence of Juniperus communities in territories dominated by species in the Quercus genus, we applied Thornthwaite’s formula to calculate potential evapotranspiration. The general cluster analysis clearly distinguishes two groups of plant communities and separates the different associations in each group. All the plant communities growing on rocky crests and in extremely steep sloping areas are significantly influenced by the soil. The ombroclimatic index does not explain the presence of plant communities influenced by substrate, so we proposed a new ombroedaphoxeric index which explains the presence of Juniperus communities in territories with a thermotype between the thermo- and supramediterranean. The areas of distribution of Juniperus species are expanding due to the spread of rocky areas; this phenomenon causes an increase in edaphoxerophilous areas and a decrease in climatophilous ones. We propose four new plant associations, with updated structures and floristic compositions. Efficient conservation is possible in both the territories studied (Spain and Portugal) through the implementation of specific cross-border cooperation projects. Full article