Search Results (6,728)

In order to promote the coordinated development of land use and energy equity, this study empirically examines the impact of land use on energy equity and its underlying mechanisms, using panel data from prefecture-level cities in China. The main findings are as follows: (1) An increase in land use intensity significantly hinders the development of energy equity. After a series of robustness checks and endogeneity treatments, this conclusion is still reliable. (2) Population agglomeration, energy consumption intensity, green innovation, and government intervention are the main pathways through which land use affects energy equity. (3) Small and medium-sized cities, resource-based cities, eastern China, and areas north of the Hu Line are where this negative effect is primarily concentrated. These results offer important policy recommendations for the coordinated governance of land use and energy equity. Full article

This research investigates how green entrepreneurship, green innovation, and domestic credit to the private sector, contribute to environmental sustainability in Turkey from 1990 to 2022. Environmental sustainability is proxied by ecological footprint. The methods used include Wavelet Quantile Regression (WQR) and Wavelet Quantile Correlation (WQC). This research also ascertained if interacting domestic credit and green entrepreneurship and domestic credit and green innovation could contribute to environmental sustainability using the Multivariate Wavelet Quantile Regression (MWQR) approach. The WQR and WQC outcomes confirm the following: (1) green entrepreneurship reduces ecological footprint across all quantiles and periods; (2) green innovation reduces ecological footprint in the short and medium term, while in the long term, it increases ecological footprint; (3) domestic credit increases ecological footprint across all quantiles and periods. The MWQR results confirm that domestic credit and green entrepreneurship interaction reduces ecological footprint, while domestic credit and green innovation interaction reduces ecological footprint in the short term. Policies are recommended for implementation. Full article

Hookah smoking has become a persistent social phenomenon among young adults in the United States, despite decades of tobacco control efforts. Moreover, hookah smoking presents unique public health challenges due to its strong social appeal, cultural relevance, and widespread use in urban centers and college communities. This paper provides a broad review of recent trends, health implications, regulatory responses, and sociocultural factors influencing hookah smoking. A narrative literature review was conducted using peer-reviewed articles and grey literature sources published between 2019–2025. Electronic databases included PubMed, CINAHL, and Google Scholar, along with reports from professional organizations and government agencies including CDC, FDA, WHO, and health department agencies, to review current public health recommendations and practice guidelines. Review materials were selected that focus on prevalence, health implications, and regulations of hookah smoking. Findings were synthesized to identify key applications, challenges and concerns, and future directions. This review provided a rapid and broad review of the current trends, health implications, regulatory responses, and sociocultural factors of hookah smoking among young adults in the United States. Interdisciplinary research and policy innovation are necessary to address the ongoing public health burden of hookah smoking among young adults in the United States. Full article

Background/Objectives: Foods and beverages consumed during school lunch periods contribute substantially to children’s dietary intake; however, Canadian evidence of their nutritional contribution and quality remains limited. This study assessed nutrient content, nutrient density, and contributions to dietary recommendations among Saskatchewan elementary students. Methods: A descriptive quantitative study was conducted among 379 students aged 5–13. Dietary intake during school lunch periods was assessed using a photography-assisted plate waste method. Nutrient content was estimated using standard nutrient databases, nutrient density was evaluated using the Nutrient-Rich Food (NRF) 9.3 Index, and contributions to dietary recommendations were examined. Results: Median lunch energy was 411.4 kcal (IQR: 296.7), and the mean NRF 9.3 score was 292.6 (SD: 130.7). Compared with home-packed and mixed lunches, school-provided lunches contained less energy, carbohydrate, fat, and sugar, while protein was similar across lunch types. Overall, lunches contributed <25% of daily requirements for key nutrients, including fibre, vitamin D, calcium, and potassium. Older students had lower proportional nutrient contributions relative to their higher nutritional requirements. Nutrient density differed by lunch provenance, but not by age or reported gender, with school-provided lunches achieving the highest NRF 9.3 scores. Conclusions: Lunches contributed modestly to daily nutrient requirements, particularly among older students. In this sample, school-provided lunches were associated with higher nutrient density than home-packed lunches, although their absolute contributions to several nutrients remained limited. These findings provide baseline evidence on lunches consumed during school lunch periods among Saskatchewan elementary students and may inform future evaluations of school food systems and policies. Full article

Rapid population ageing in China urgently demands improved attention to elderly friendly community green space design. Despite national efforts toward community renovation and urban regeneration, existing projects often overlook the systematic optimisation of green spaces explicitly tailored to elderly residents, leading to environments that inadequately support their physical, psychological, and social needs. Given that home-based care remains the predominant preference for elderly populations in China, creating optimised community green spaces is essential to facilitate healthy ageing-in-place effectively. This study systematically investigates the discrepancies between elders’ observed usage patterns and their stated landscape design preferences in two residential communities in Suzhou, China. By integrating year-round observational data with subjective interviews, the research identifies critical mismatches between elderly individuals’ actual behaviours and expressed preferences, highlighting significant deficiencies in current landscape designs. Comparative analyses reveal that prioritising microclimate comfort, accessible pathways, and targeted seating arrangements significantly enhances elderly usage frequency and satisfaction. Ultimately, this study provides practical, policy-aligned recommendations for designing climate-adaptive, elderly centric community green spaces, effectively contributing to sustainable urban renewal and the Healthy China 2030 initiative. Full article

In the context of an increasingly complex and dynamic digital ecosystem, accurately assessing the value of Specialized, Refined, Differentiated, and Innovative (SRDI) enterprises is crucial for making effective decisions. Traditional valuation methods struggle to effectively address issues such as the high R&D expenditures and significant operational risks associated with these enterprises. This study proposes an interpretable intelligent decision-support framework for valuing SRDI enterprises listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange (BSE), constructing a multidimensional indicator system that encompasses solvency, profitability, and R&D capabilities. Feature importance screening using the XGBoost algorithm was conducted to identify key indicators as input variables for a backpropagation (BP) neural network. Concurrently, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm was applied to the neural network to optimize initial weights and thresholds, thereby modeling nonlinear valuation relationships. Empirical analysis of 770 SRDI firms listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange from 2020 to 2024 indicates that the XGBoost-PSO-BPNN model achieved a coefficient of determination of 0.8083 on the test set, outperforming traditional linear models and benchmark models such as single-tree models. SHAP explainability analysis further reveals that current asset turnover, return on assets, and equity concentration are the primary value drivers. This study employs various clustering methods to further classify enterprises into three categories and proposes recommendations for differentiated regulatory policies, providing intelligent decision support for enterprises operating within complex digital ecosystems. Full article

The development of rural e-commerce has significant value for regional economic development in developing countries. Its sustainable development depends on whether e-commerce can promote endogenous capital accumulation at the county level. This study uses panel data from 649 Chinese counties from 2013 to 2022, together with nighttime light remote-sensing data, to examine how variation in e-commerce development intensity affects county-level economic vitality from the perspective of capital formation. The results show that e-commerce development intensity is associated with stronger county-level economic vitality. The mediation analysis provides differentiated evidence for the capital formation mechanism: fixed asset investment mainly exhibits a delayed indirect effect, whereas loan balances and firm stock operate mainly through contemporaneous channels. However, the county-level economic effect of e-commerce shows regional heterogeneity. Based on the above findings, this paper proposes policy recommendations for the further development of e-commerce, as the economic benefits of e-commerce are significant in relatively developed counties in eastern China but insignificant in non-eastern regions. Full article

This study investigates place-based barriers to initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment in rural-coastal regions of England, focusing on Cornwall as a case study. Utilizing semi-structured interviews with nine ITT provider leaders and nine trainee teachers, the research applies the concept of educational isolation to ITT providers in areas that are geographically remote, socioeconomic disadvantaged, and culturally isolated. The analysis is framed by the critical pedagogy of place and social capital theory, moving beyond deficit-based interpretations of rurality to critically examine how place-based inequities are produced through urban-normative policy and resource allocation. Primary data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Four substantive themes emerged: transport dependency and accessibility constraints that structurally exclude lower-income and disabled trainees; housing displacement driven by the tourist economy, which compounds financial insecurity; an “employment precarity problem” where localized primary school oversaturation coexists with secondary teacher shortages; and cultural and professional isolation that disproportionately impacts ethnically diverse trainees in demographically homogeneous communities. The research further identifies that community resilience, while enabling individuals to navigate structural barriers, can obscure infrastructural inadequacy and diminish impetus for systemic policy reform. This paper contributes to international scholarship on spatial justice and rural teacher education by presenting an integrated conceptual framework with transferable relevance to similar rural-coastal and peripheral contexts globally and by offering policy recommendations for place-weighted ITT funding, infrastructure investment in educationally isolated areas, and the development of collaborative provider models. Full article

Conservation tillage plays an important role in improving sustainable land use and maintaining food production. Using survey data from 261 agricultural producers in Heilongjiang Province, China, this study examines how conservation tillage policy mixes affect agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP). The slack-based measure (SBM) model incorporating undesirable outputs is employed to estimate AGTFP. A Tobit model with interaction terms is applied to analyze the independent and combined effects of three policy instruments: subsidies, regulations, and supporting services, and a mediating effect model is used to verify how these instruments work. The results indicate that: (1) the mean AGTFP value stands at 0.37, reflecting a generally low level of performance, with the largest improvement requirements observed in seed inputs (66.25%), machinery inputs (65.53%), and nitrogen emissions (61.55%); (2) subsidies, regulations, and supporting services all improve AGTFP, while the combinations of subsidies and services, regulations and services, and the full three-policy mix generate significant positive synergistic effects; (3) policy mixes facilitate AGTFP enhancement by increasing agricultural producers’ perceived value of conservation tillage technologies and reducing perceived risks. In particular, the interaction between regulations and supporting services significantly increased perceived value (β = 1.129, p < 0.01) and reduced perceived risk (β = −0.810, p < 0.01); (4) the effects of policy mixes are stronger for producers pursuing green production goals and for small-scale farmers. Based on these findings, the following recommendations are proposed: policy efforts should strengthen the coordination of subsidies, regulations, and services, linking training and inspection results to subsidy eligibility; address efficiency bottlenecks in seeds, machinery, labor, and nitrogen emissions; design differentiated policy packages for various farm types; and build a training system that includes at least two mandatory sessions per season and ties training outcomes to subsequent subsidies. This study contributes a policy mix perspective to the evaluation of AGTFP and provides empirical evidence for coordinated conservation tillage policy design. Full article

This study investigates the relationship between energy consumption and ecological sustainability in South Africa over the period 1990–2023, with a particular focus on the roles of renewable energy consumption, non-renewable energy consumption, and economic growth. Ecological sustainability is proxied by the Load Capacity Factor (LCF), a comprehensive measure that captures the balance between biocapacity and environmental pressure. The study employs the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model to capture both short-run and long-run asymmetric effects, decomposing renewable energy consumption into positive and negative shocks to identify nonlinear dynamics. Descriptive statistics reveal moderate stability in the LCF, increasing adoption of renewable energy, sustained economic growth, and persistent dependence on fossil fuels. Unit root tests confirm mixed integration orders, justifying the use of the NARDL framework. Empirical results indicate that positive shocks in renewable energy consumption significantly enhance ecological sustainability, while negative shocks reduce the LCF, highlighting the asymmetric impact of renewable energy. Non-renewable energy consumption exhibits a statistically significant long-run association with ecological sustainability, reflecting South Africa’s continued structural dependence on fossil-fuel-based energy systems during the study period. Granger causality tests show that renewable energy and non-renewable energy consumption are key drivers of ecological sustainability, whereas economic growth and environmental conditions exhibit bidirectional feedback. The findings provide evidence for the strategic importance of promoting renewable energy adoption, reducing fossil fuel reliance, and integrating sustainability considerations into economic planning. Policy recommendations emphasize investment in renewable energy infrastructure, incentives for green energy adoption, and the integration of environmental objectives into economic development strategies to enhance South Africa’s ecological resilience. Full article

While land development opportunities stemming from planning regulations demonstrably influence rural household income, quantitative evidence quantifying these effects remains limited. Measuring and decomposing these effects can empirically support territorial spatial planning policies aimed at alleviating associated regional development imbalances and advancing sustainable rural development. This study selects Wuhan’s Sino-French Eco-City (urban development zone) and Xiaosi Township (wetland conservation zone) as typical zones. Based on 573 randomly sampled rural households, we explore the effects of land development opportunities on rural household incomes and find that: (1) Land development opportunities for non-agricultural conversion in the urban development zone significantly increase rural households’ total income, wage income, though their corresponding contribution rates are limited. Endogenously accumulated endowments such as human capital and economic status dominate the formation of such income gaps. (2) Planning-induced land development opportunities yield coefficients of 1.0442 for local employment income and −0.4567 for agricultural business income, with both statistically significant at the 1% significance level. Decomposition results show their respective contribution rates of 70.68% and 86.77%, demonstrating that such opportunities primarily account for cross-regional rural household income gaps. (3) Whereas non-agricultural land development opportunities narrow disparities in households’ local employment income, they raise inequality in rural households’ migrant employment, business, property and transfer income. These growth and equality-enhancing effects on local wage income are particularly pronounced for households possessing high-quantity but low-quality human capital. This study recommends supporting protected zones via farmer vocational training, expanded rural public service expenditure, and a benefit-sharing mechanism that channels land development gains to ecological and agricultural regions to strengthen households’ endogenous development capacity. Full article

Amid intensifying extreme climate events, geopolitical conflicts, and sudden trade policy disruptions, the resilience and vulnerability of global staple food trade systems have emerged as pressing governance concerns. This study constructs directed weighted trade networks for wheat, maize, and rice from 2015 to 2024 and evaluates their vulnerability and resilience evolution using a three-dimensional structural resilience framework and underload cascading failure models. The results reveal that all three networks display scale-free and disassortative properties. The wheat network gradually recovered following the Russia–Ukraine conflict, whereas structural imbalance continues to deepen in the maize network, and the rice network faces persistent resilience pressure arising from excessive dependence on core exporters. Cascading failure simulations indicate that targeted attacks on key exporting countries can trigger large-scale network collapse. Introducing cross-crop substitution effects markedly enhances the resilience of individual food trade networks through cross-layer substitution and supplementation; yet under simultaneous attacks, crop substitution effects instead serve as a conduit for cross-layer cascading failure propagation, and even a minimal willingness to substitute can weaken network resilience. Accordingly, this study proposes policy recommendations to strengthen the resilience of the global staple food trade network. Full article

This study explores the challenges and opportunities for embedding the Natural Capital Approach (NCA) in policy processes, especially in the framing of the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), which is England’s strategic framework for improving the natural environment, including cleaner air and water, healthy soil, thriving wildlife and climate-adapted landscapes. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with policymakers working in Defra (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and its Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs) organisations to investigate their views on the barriers and enablers to the adoption of the NCA. It has been widely recognised that the NCA provides unifying concepts that are able to connect economists and ecologists, and it can help to embed nature across government departments and supports to make the business case for nature improvement. On the other hand, there are perceived challenges in mainstreaming the NCA in environmental policy processes. There is some lack of agreement on the usefulness of the approach, problems with the oversuse of monetary valuation in policy appraisal, isolation of work, policy processes and government departments and difficulties in the communication of the benefits of the NCA. Recommendations to overcome the barriers include cross-departmental work placements of natural capital scientists, establishing cross-agency natural capital working goups to work on the use of the NCA to frame environment improvement policies, and prioritising the adoption of deliberative approaches to better understand local values on nature that are difficult or even impossible to monetise. Full article

Background: Large language models and other generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly being embedded in digital healthcare services, including mobile health applications, telerehabilitation, remote monitoring, and hybrid care pathways. In this review, digital healthcare refers to technology-mediated healthcare services in which digital platforms, mobile applications, wearables, remote communication, and AI-enabled interfaces support health assessment, self-management, rehabilitation, clinical decision support, or service delivery. When AI-generated exercise guidance moves from general education to individualized recommendations about dose, progression, contraindications, or rehabilitation, it may become directly actionable and safety-relevant. Objectives: This review aimed to clarify when AI-generated exercise guidance in digital healthcare may warrant safety-relevant governance attention and to outline implementation considerations for explainability, human oversight, and service-level governance. It addresses a gap in the literature: general AI-governance and exercise-prescription discussions rarely specify how point-of-use explanations, review thresholds, and escalation safeguards can be organized for directly actionable AI exercise guidance. Methods: We conducted a governance-oriented narrative review of peer-reviewed literature and representative regulatory or guidance documents. This review was not designed as a systematic review, scoping review, or exhaustive evidence map; transparent source mapping was used to support conceptual synthesis. Searches and source mapping focused on generative AI, large language models, explainable AI, clinical decision support, digital health, mobile health, exercise prescription, rehabilitation, trust, automation bias, and human oversight. Sources were included when they informed the safety, explainability, governance, or real-world implementation of patient-facing AI-generated exercise guidance. Extracted material was grouped by evidentiary role and synthesized through framework synthesis and governance mapping to distinguish literature-supported observations, author interpretation, and proposed implementation tools. Results: The included sources were first organized into five thematic groups: digital exercise delivery and exercise-prescription evidence; explainability, trust, and automation bias literature; professional responsibility, ethics, and patient disclosure literature; regulatory and policy documents; and digital literacy, patient/clinician attitudes, and equity literature. The synthesis then proceeded from safety relevance to explanation needs, human oversight and escalation needs, and selected regulatory and policy signals before translating these strands into conceptual and implementation-oriented outputs rather than empirically validated instruments. AI-generated exercise guidance was most safety-relevant in scenarios involving individualized dose, progression, contraindication-sensitive action, or rehabilitation strategy. Across the included sources, generic transparency alone was not sufficient to support reviewable use; relevant explanation elements included evidence sources, risk warnings, reasoning paths, and reasonable alternatives. Oversight considerations varied with embodied risk, clinical ambiguity, user vulnerability, and likelihood of direct enactment. Implementation considerations linked interface design, clinical review, escalation, auditability, and post-deployment monitoring. Conclusions: AI-generated exercise guidance in digital healthcare may warrant governance attention as a patient-safety and accountability issue when it influences actionable exercise decisions. The proposed framework offers a conceptual basis for designing more reviewable and accountable mobile and remote exercise-support services. Future work can validate these outputs in patient-facing services, clinician review workflows, usability studies, implementation pilots, and safety evaluations. Full article

Background/Objectives: Tire (or tyre) wear particles (TWPs), originating from road traffic, have been recognized as a significant emerging contaminant for terrestrial ecosystems. The aim of this study is to attempt a critical review of the existing articles, to identify trends and directions in research, highlight any knowledge gaps, limitations and drawbacks, and develop respective proposals and recommendations. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted in the PubMed and Web of Science databases for the period 2020–2025 according to PRISMA-based protocols. Results: The final studies were methodically grouped into specific representative themes. Conclusions: This study focuses on the factors affecting the emissions of TWPs, their size distribution, processes that affect their environmental fate and methodological approaches for characterization/determination of TWPs. This article also explores the occurrence and toxicity of TWPs in the terrestrial environment, as well as the management approaches and policies in order to minimize their impact. Full article