ALBERT

Description: The growth effects of mixtures are generally assumed to be a result of canopy structure and crown plasticity. Thus, the distribution of leaf area at tree and stand level helps to explain these mixing effects. Therefore, we investigated the leaf area distribution in 12 stands with a continuum of proportions of European larch (Larix decidua Mill.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.). The stands were between 40 and 170 years old and located in the northern part of the Eastern Intermediate Alps in Austria at elevations between 900 and 1300 m asl A total of 200 sample trees were felled and the leaf area distribution within their crowns was evaluated. Fitting beta distributions to the individual empirical leaf area distributions, the parameters of the beta distributions were shown to depend on the leaf area of the individual trees and, for spruce, on the proportion of spruce in the stands. With the equations determined, the leaf area distribution of all trees in the stand, and thus its distribution in the stands, was calculated by species and in 2 m height classes. For the individual trees, we found that the leaf area distribution of larch is more symmetric, and its peak is located higher in the crown than it is the case for spruce. Furthermore, the leaf area distribution of both species becomes more peaked and skewed when the leaf area of the trees increases. The mixture only influences the leaf area distribution of spruce in such a way that the higher the spruce proportion of the stand, the higher the leaf area is located within the crown. At the stand level, a strong relationship was found between the proportion of spruce and the distance between the peaks of the leaf area distributions of larch and spruce.

Description: Consumers’ clothing consumption is the cause of many social and environmental consequences, especially in emerging economies where consumption continues to escalate. It is therefore vital that consumers adopt more voluntary simplistic lifestyles with sustainable clothing practices. This study relies on the self-determination theory to explore the influence of basic psychological needs (i.e., competence, autonomy, and connectedness) and self-determined motivation (i.e., identified- and integrated regulation as well as intrinsic motivation) on female consumers’ voluntary simplistic clothing practices. Data were derived from 469 online questionnaires and structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypotheses. Competence was identified as the most influential basic psychological need, followed by the need for connectedness and autonomy. Moreover, intrinsic motivation is the strongest predictor of voluntary simplistic clothing practices, while integrated regulation is deemed insignificant and identified regulation has a negative association with the practices in question. In summary, it would seem that female consumers are keen on adopting voluntary simplistic clothing behaviors. This may be due to their intrinsic motivation and competence rather than their exposure to extrinsic influences. This study provides valuable insight into the motivational determinants of voluntary simplistic clothing consumption in South Africa and may thus serve as a platform for further investigation into other emerging markets.

Description: The aged properties of Reclaimed Asphalt (RA) binders are one of the main factors working against their utilisation in high-RA content (〉30%) mixes for surface courses. Fatigue cracking is the main distress of surface courses that are manufactured with a high percentage of RA. This investigation presents results of the rheological and fatigue results of different asphalt mixtures and their recovered binders. The binders were recovered from asphalt mixtures that had been manufactured in asphalt plants using different amounts of RA with contents up to 60% with and without rejuvenators. Two different sources of RA were used, representing a moderately aged RA and an extremely aged RA. The Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR) was used to assess the fatigue-characteristics of the binders using time sweep tests while the fatigue characteristics of their mixtures were assessed using the Indirect Tensile Fatigue Test (ITFT). The fatigue data was analysed based on the cumulative dissipated energy approach in addition to traditional fatigue analysis. Results have shown that the ageing condition of RA significantly affects the fatigue properties of recovered binders. Binder and asphalt mixture fatigue results showed that RA contents up to 60% can produce comparable fatigue performance compared to lower percentages of RA in road surface course if the aged RA binder is sufficiently rejuvenated.

Description: Currently, ultrasonic measurement is a widely used nondestructive approach to determine wood elastic properties, including the dynamic modulus of elasticity (DMOE). DMOE is determined based on wood density and ultrasonic wave velocity measurement. The use of wood average density to estimate DMOE introduces significant imprecision: Density varies due to intra-tree and intra-ring differences and differing silvicultural treatments. To ensure accurate DMOE assessment, we developed a prototype device to measure ultrasonic wave velocity with the same resolution as that provided by the X-ray densitometer for measuring wood density. A nondestructive method based on X-ray densitometry and the developed prototype was applied to determine radial and intra-ring wood DMOE profiles. This method provides accurate information on wood mechanical properties and their sources of variation. High-order polynomials were used to model intra-ring wood density and DMOE profiles in black spruce and jack pine wood. The transition from earlywood to latewood was defined as the inflection point. High and highly significant correlations were obtained between predicted and measured wood density and DMOE. An examination of the correlations between wood radial growth, density, and DMOE revealed close correlations between density and DMOE in rings, earlywood, and latewood

Description: The framework of product life cycle (PLC) cost analysis is one of the most important evaluation tools for a contemporary high-tech company in an increasingly competitive market environment. The PLC-purchasing strategy provides the framework for a procurement plan and examines the sourcing strategy of a firm. The marketing literature emphasizes that ongoing technological change and shortened life cycles are important elements in commercial organizations. From a strategic viewpoint, the vendor has an important position between supplier, buyer and manufacturer. The buyer seeks to procure the products from a set of vendors to take advantage of economies of scale and to exploit opportunities for strategic relationships. However, previous studies have seldom considered vendor selection (VS) based on PLC cost (VSPLCC) analysis. The purpose of this paper is to solve the VSPLCC problems considering the situation of a single buyer–multiple supplier. For this issue, a new VSPLCC procurement model and solution procedure are derived in this paper to minimize net cost, rejection rate, late delivery and PLC cost subject to vendor capacities and budget constraints. Moreover, a real case in Taiwan is provided to show how to solve the VSPLCC procurement problem.

Description: South American rivers have become intensely affected by the construction of hydroelectric dams that block the river’s connectivity for migratory fish species. In order to mitigate the problems caused by dams and to reestablish connections between habitats, fishways are implemented. Fishways are structures that aid fish in overcoming obstacles and help preserve migratory, reproductive, and feeding routes. This study performed an inventory of all hydropower plants—present and future—in the Upper Paraná River, with the objective of identifying fishways unknown to scientific literature, as well as the task of mapping them. By doing so, the current situation of structural connectivity via fishways in the Upper Paraná River Basin was described. Overall, 389 dams along 209 rivers were identified; of these, only 9% (35 dams) have fishways. In addition, an alarming explosion of future medium-sized hydropower plants was observed, with an expectation of an almost 500% increase in relation to those existing. This data reveals a trend of reduction of free-flowing river stretches, which are crucial habitats for Neotropical potamodromous species, and point to a deficiency in the structural connectivity of existing hydropower dams. Furthermore, if the implementations of these expected constructions are associated with limited connectivity as a result of the absence of fishways, the management of fisheries and their resources in the Upper Paraná River may become unsustainable.

Description: Sustainability is a topic that is at the center of current discussions in the political, economic, social, and environmental fields. For its analysis, an integral and multidisciplinary vision is needed. This work aims to assess the sustainability of agricultural systems in Paraguay through a comparison applying SAFA (Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems) indicators. The research focuses on 15 case studies on the territory of the Eastern Region of Paraguay divided into five classes of agricultural systems: agribusiness, conventional peasant family farming, agroecological peasant family farming, neo-rural farming, and indigenous agriculture. Data were collected through interviews with producers and key informants, direct observation, and scientific literature research in order to assess, through the SAFA Tool Software, the level of sustainability of each agricultural system as a whole and for each sustainability dimension (political, environmental, economic, and social dimension) in a comparative way. It has emerged that producers belonging to conventional peasant family farming, agroecological peasant family farming, neo-rural farming, and indigenous agriculture have achieved levels of sustainability that are similar to each other and very good in all four dimensions of sustainability. Meanwhile, agribusiness achieved moderate scores in the dimensions of governance and environmental integrity, and was good in the economic and social dimension.

Description: Integrated reporting is becoming increasingly popular. The focus of this study was to assess the overall integrated reporting quality of global companies and find determinants of high-level integrated reporting. Qualitative text analysis was performed on the 2017 integrated reports of 110 global organizations to determine in what way companies report on specific topics related to the six capitals: social and relationship, human, intellectual, manufacturing, natural, and financial. Using a novel assessment technique, scores were then assigned according to the details provided in the integrated reports on the various topics. This was done for each form of capital, and the total integrated score was subsequently calculated as the average between all the capital scores. Finally, a regression analysis was performed to determine the characteristics of high-quality integrated reporters. The results of univariate analysis and two-stage least squares instrumental variable (2SLS) regression indicate that companies of a larger size with a higher female board ratio and listing in the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) examples database are more likely to publish a higher quality integrated report. The results imply that these variables are the main disclosure drivers. However, a significant negative correlation was found between integrated report quality and the variables related to female executive ratio, external board member ratio, profitability, leverage, and previous report experience, as well as report length. No significant association was found between the location and industry group and report quality. The empirical evidence of this study shows that even though integrated reporting has become more common overall, the comparability and quality of the reports still remain low.

Description: This study investigates the trends in economic damages caused by three types of inland floods (flash flood, flood, and heavy rain) in the United States and the variations in related hazard and vulnerability indicators between 1996 and 2016. We explore the underlying mechanisms based on a survey-based dataset maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service. An annual average of 6518 flood occurrences was reported, which caused economic damages of 3351 million USD per year. Flash flood and flood contributed to 53% and 32% of total occurrences and was associated with a larger share of damaging events (SDE). Results show that the higher impacts by flood and flash flood on property and crop are partly attributed to the greater intensity of rainfall. In addition, flood has the highest unit cost of damages. Notably, despite an upward tendency in economic damages by flash floods, no evident change trend is observed for inland floods as a whole. Further analysis shows changes in economic damages by heavy rain and flash flood are mainly governed by the increased annual frequency and hazard intensity, but the change of trend in their vulnerability indicators (i.e., SDE and Damage Per Event (DPE)) is not obvious. Regarding floods, it was not possible to attribute the variations in economic losses to hazard and vulnerability, as no significant tendency is found except for an increasing SDE. Despite limitations of length of records, data collection, and methodology, the difference in economic impacts and the related hazard and vulnerability revealed in this study can help better target future adaptation and mitigation measures.

Description: Liriodendron chinense (Hemsl.), a Tertiary relic tree, is mainly distributed in subtropical China. The causes of the geographical distribution pattern of this species are poorly understood. In this study, we inferred historical dispersal routes and glacial refugia of this species by combining genetic data (chloroplast DNA (cpDNA), nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA), and nuclear DNA (nDNA)) and geospatial data (climate and geology) with the methods of landscape genetics. Additionally, based on sequence variation at multiple loci, we employed GenGIS and Barrier software to analyze L. chinense population genetic structure. Dispersal corridors and historical gene flow between the eastern and western populations were detected, and they were located in mountainous regions. Based on species distribution model (SDMs), the distribution patterns in paleoclimatic periods were consistent with the current pattern, suggesting the presence of multiple refuges in multiple mountainous regions in China. The genetic structure analysis clustered most eastern populations into a clade separated from the western populations. Additionally, a genetic barrier was detected between the eastern and western populations. The dispersal corridors and historical gene flow detected here suggested that the mountains acted as a bridge, facilitating gene flow between the eastern and western populations. Due to Quaternary climatic fluctuations, the habitats and dispersal corridors were frequently inhabited by warm-temperate evergreen forests, which may have fragmented L. chinense habitats and exacerbated the differentiation of eastern and western populations. Ultimately, populations retreated to multiple isolated mountainous refugia, shaping the current geographical distribution pattern. These dispersal corridors and montane refugia suggested that the mountains in subtropical China play a crucial role in the conservation of genetic resources and migration of subspecies or related species in this region.

Description: Urban green spaces (UGS) are essential components of sustainable cities that provide many benefits to urban residents, such as recreation or aesthetics. Urban residents may be willing to pay for some of these ecosystem services. Indeed, studies investigating the formation of housing prices through hedonic pricing analysis have shown that UGS can influence housing prices. Hedonic pricing analysis puts housing units at the center of analysis. In this study, we investigate whether an alternative perspective provides additional insights into the effects of UGS on pricing. The proposed approach puts UGS into the center of analysis by applying an analysis of buffer zones to housing prices, thus, linking approaches from urban economics and landscape ecology. Such an analysis could deepen our understanding of the effects of UGS on housing prices by analyzing price–distance slopes around UGS-thus supporting more informed decisions on efficient UGS management and urban planning. Our results using a case study on Leipzig, Germany, demonstrate that the size of UGS affects price–distance slopes around them. We conclude that further investigations should be fathomed to unleash the potential of applying the analysis of buffer zones around UGS as a method to inform sustainable UGS design in cities.

Description: On 23 August, 2017, Typhoon Hato rapidly intensified by 10 kt within 3 h just prior to landfall in the city of Macau along the South China coast. Hato’s surface winds in excess of 50 m s−1 devastated the city, causing unprecedented damage and social impact. This study reveals that anomalously warm ocean conditions in the nearshore shallow water (depth 〈 30 m) likely played a key role in Hato’s fast intensification. In particular, cooling of the sea surface temperature (SST) generated by Hato at the critical landfall point was estimated to be only 0.1–0.5 °C. The results from both a simple ocean mixing scheme and full dynamical ocean model indicate that SST cooling was minimized in the shallow coastal waters due to a lack of cool water at depth. Given the nearly invariant SST in the coastal waters, we estimate a large amount of heat flux, i.e., 1.9k W m−2, during the landfall period. Experiments indicate that in the absence of shallow bathymetry, and thus, if nominal cool water had been available for vertical mixing, the SST cooling would have been enhanced from 0.1 °C to 1.4 °C, and sea to air heat flux reduced by about a quarter. Numerical simulations with an atmospheric model suggest that the intensity of Hato was very sensitive to air-sea heat flux in the coastal region, indicating the critical importance of coastal ocean hydrography.

Description: Sardinia was affected by an intense igneous activity which generated calc-alkaline products during the Oligo-Miocene period. The volcanic substance shows large variations, ranging from pyroclastic flow deposits, lava flows and domes. By composition, the deposits are all primarily dacites and rhyolites, with subordinate andesites and very scarce basalts. The rhyolite lavas show porphyritic and ash-flow tuffs. Ignimbrite structures are found in the dacitic domes and rhyolitic lavas. These rocks—commercially known as “Trachytes of Sardinia”—used to be quarried in all historical provinces, mainly in the central part of the island to be used as ornamental and building stone. They continue to be commonly used nowadays, but their use dates back to the prehistoric age. They are easily found in many nuraghi, “domus de janas”, holy wells, Roman works (mosaics, paving, roads, bridges), many churches built in Sardinia and practically in all kinds of structural elements in public and private buildings, such as walls, houses, and bridges. Contrary to the granitoid rocks, whose appearance is largely influenced by the mineralogical composition, the aesthetic feature of volcanic rocks is rather affected by the widest range of colors, structure and texture, i.e., shape, size and distribution of mineral components, porphyric index, etc. “Trachyte” is quarried opencast with the “single low step” method, with descending development, with prevalent use of double-disc sawing machines. Whenever the stone deposit allows higher steps, the chain cutting machine, in combination with diamond wire, becomes the preferred extraction solution. This study aims to at look Sardinian “trachytes” from a geoheritage perspective. After a geological-petrographic framework, the paper discusses the historical uses of “trachyte” in Sardinia. The current state of the art of “trachyte” quarrying, processing and usage in the Island is also described. An analysis of the “trachyte” production has been carried out. Finally, a consideration about how to enhance geotourism in the area is suggested.

Description: Natural gas (NG) not only emits fewer greenhouse gases and air pollutants than coal but also plays the role of a peak power source that can respond immediately to the variability of increasing renewables. Although the share of NG generation worldwide is increasing, it is difficult for South Korea to increase its NG generation significantly in terms of fuel supply security, since it depends on imports for all of the NG used for power generation. Therefore, the optimal share of NG generation in electric power generation is a serious concern. This note attempts to estimate the optimal share by modelling the plausible relationship between NG generation and national output in the Cobb–Douglas production function setting and then deriving the output-maximizing share of NG generation. The production function is statistically significantly estimated using annual data from 1990 to 2016, allowing for the first-order serial correlation. The optimal share is computed to be 20.3%. Therefore, it is recommended that South Korea increases the share of NG generation slightly and makes efforts to secure a stable NG supply, given that, according to the national plan, the share will be 18.8% in 2030.

Description: Manufactures have been pressed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by environmental regulations and policies. Towards to reduction of GHG emissions, a carbon tax has been already introduced in 40 countries. Owing to different carbon prices among countries, there are potential risks of carbon leakage, where manufacturers transfer production operations to the countries with lower taxes to pursue lower costs. Moreover, procurement costs and GHG emissions vary by country because of economic conditions and electric energy mixes. Therefore, total GHG emissions could be globally reduced if manufactures relocate their production bases or switch suppliers in the country with lower GHG emission levels. This study proposes a green procurement decision for the supplier selection and the order quantity for minimizing GHG emission and costs considering the different carbon taxes in different countries. First, a bill of materials for each part is constructed through the life cycle inventory database with the Asian international input/output tables for a case study. Second, a green procurement decision considering the different carbon prices is formulated using integer programming. Finally, the results, including carbon leakage, are analyzed from the viewpoint of manufacturers, governments, and global perspectives.

Description: It is well recognized that tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior is a prominent contributor to the sustainable development of tourist destinations. Based on the original Value-Identity-Personal norm (VIP) model and self-efficacy theory, this study proposes an extended VIP model for exploring the generalized determinants of tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior and investigating the impact mechanism of this behavior in China. A total number of 435 self-reported questionnaires were collected on a professional online survey platform. Our research results indicated that the extended VIP model could significantly and validly explain tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior. Specifically, biospheric values have an indirect but rooted effect on tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior. Furthermore, two indirect paths play the same mediational role between biospheric values and tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior. The findings expand the application field of the VIP model, contribute to a better understanding for academic researchers of tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior and shed light on managerial implications for practitioners in the sustainable development of tourist destinations.

Description: An understanding of the environmental value-action gap between public servants at the central and local governments is essential for the effective implementation of environmental policies, which is limited in the extant literature. This study has adopted the norm activation model to explore the pro-environmental behaviors of public servants at the central and local governments in Taiwan. A total of 7567 valid questionnaires were collected, and significant differences were evident between public servants at the central (n = 3400) and local (n = 4167) governments in personal norms, awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, and pro-environmental behaviors. Findings revealed that personal norms were the key factors predicting pro-environmental behaviors of public servants at both the central and local governments. Results also indicated that the awareness of consequences by public servants at the central government had a direct effect on their pro-environmental behaviors, which in turn had a significant effect on their ascription of responsibility. In contrast, awareness of consequences by public servants at the local government had no significant direct effect on their pro-environmental behaviors and had only a weak positive effect on their ascription of responsibility.

Description: Vegetation indices derived from remote sensing measurements are commonly used to describe and monitor vegetation. However, the same plant community can have a different NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) depending on weather conditions, and this complicates classification of plant communities. The present study develops methods of classifying the types of plant communities based on long-term NDVI data (MODIS/Aqua). The number of variables is reduced by introducing two integrated parameters of the NDVI seasonal series, facilitating classification of the meadow, steppe, and forest plant communities in Siberia using linear discriminant analysis. The quality of classification conducted by using the markers characterizing NDVI dynamics during 2003–2017 varies between 94% (forest and steppe) and 68% (meadow and forest). In addition to determining phenological markers, canonical correlations have been calculated between the time series of the proposed markers and the time series of monthly average air temperatures. Based on this, each pixel with a definite plant composition can be characterized by only four values of canonical correlation coefficients over the entire period analyzed. By using canonical correlations between NDVI and weather parameters and employing linear discriminant analysis, one can obtain a highly accurate classification of the study plant communities.

Description: A low-carbon behaviour performance evaluation index system is designed by using a Delphi method in this study. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to systematically measure the low-carbon behaviour performance of 32 scenic spots in Zhangjiajie, a world heritage site. The key driving factors that can significantly influence the low-carbon behaviour performance of the scenic spot are extracted by combining redundancy analysis (RDA). The results show that the scenic spots of Zhangjiajie performance well regarding low-carbon behaviour, however, there are still a great deal of room for improvement and promotion. Pressure from investors, the administration committees, tourists and local governments is the main driving factor for the low-carbon behaviour of scenic spot.

Description: Nutrient budget is one of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) agri-environmental indicators. A model was developed for regional nutrient management in Korea. In this study, a sensitivity analysis of parameters of a nutrient budget model was performed for two regions with intensive livestock farming in Korea. In the nitrogen budget, gross nitrogen surplus (GNS) and hydrospheric nitrogen surplus (hNS) were analyzed separately. For GNS, the most influential parameters were excreta production per swine in Hongseong and excreta production per beef cattle in Anseong. For hNS, N content of solid manure in swine and beef cattle were the most influential. For GNS and phosphorus surplus (PS), excreta production per livestock and the N(P) in the excreta of livestock were the predominant parameters. Livestock excreta showed a high sensitivity in both areas because the livestock headcount was high; thus, the excreta accounted for a large share of the input parameters for the model. Therefore, calculating reliable regional nutrient budgets would require further research on excreta production per livestock and the N(P) excretion in livestock. The nutrient budget model could be implemented for agri-environmental policy e.g., environment friendly regional livestock farming and sustainable integrated crop livestock systems.

Description: A precise multi-scenario prediction of future population, based on micro-scale census data and localized interpretation of global scenarios, is significant for understanding long-term demographic changes. However, the data used in previous research need to be further refined. Few studies have focused on predicting the sex ratio at birth, which is vitally important for estimating the future size and structure of the population. It is also important to interpret and set parameters for China’s future population development in line with the framework for global shared socioeconomic pathways. This paper, therefore, used the structural population data for provinces, prefectures, and counties from the Sixth National Population Census of China. It comprehensively considered the impact of China’s economic development level, specific population policies, and loss of an only child on key parameters, and localized the population change parameters for different scenarios. A population–development–environment model was used to explain the population change parameters. The population of 340 districts was refined, forecast, and aggregated to the national scale. The results show that the Chinese population is expected to first increase then decrease under the five paths from 2010 to 2050. The aging demographic structure is not reversed under any paths, and the increase or decrease in the urban and rural populations between adjacent node years is closely related to the fertility rate and urbanization speed. We suggest that measures should be taken to encourage childbearing, manage the aging population problem, and reduce the pressure on young and middle-aged people.

Description: Favourability classification for forest species represents a fundamental activity for deriving technological solutions in forestry, as specialists need detailed information about the ecological requirements of forest species from environmental factors: climate, pedological characteristics and morphometric characteristics of the study area. The purpose of the present study was the use of the qualitative data extracted from the ecological records of the Pinus mugo species and the generation of a complex geospatial database for the entire territory of Romania. The results were represented by a collection of thematic maps generated on favourability classes for the Romanian Carpathians, as well as for the major landform subunits which had been the basis for the statistical analysis of the results. The validation of the results was performed by comparing the results obtained through the application of the model which used the frequency points reported in the European Atlas of the Forest Tree Species from Europe, 2016. In order to identify the spatio-temporal dynamics, LANDSAT satellite images from 30 years were used, which enabled the identification of the expansion and the reduction in size of the Pinus mugo area at a zonal level, a process which is dependent on natural factors, like climatic variations, or anthropic factors (overgrazing or works of cleaning the montain pastures).

Description: The purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics of SNS (Social Network Service) users as potential donors for the sustainability of online donation campaigns. For this purpose, we examined the relationship between SNS users’ characteristics, social interaction and donation intention. Based on self-construal level theory, we assume that SNS users’ characteristics (independent-self and interdependent-self) affect their social interaction and in turn their online donation behaviors. Specifically, we suggest that people with an interdependent disposition tend to have more social interaction, which in turn has a positive effect on participation in donation through the mediation of empathy for the beneficiaries of the donation described in the advertisement. In order to verify the hypotheses, we use structural equation modeling to analyze data collected from 116 participants through online surveys. The findings of this study are as follows. First, individuals with an interdependent disposition have more online social interaction, whereas an independent disposition does not have a significant effect on social interaction online. Second, SNS users’ social interaction has a positive effect on empathy for the beneficiaries of donation. Third, empathy for beneficiaries has a positive effect on participation in online donations. These findings confirm the psychological mechanism between online social interaction and donation behavior and contribute useful guidance for non-profit organizations that design and implement online donation campaigns.

Description: Since the long dwell time and chaotic crowds make metro trips inefficient and dissatisfying, the importance of optimizing alighting and boarding processes has become more prominent. This paper focuses on the adjustment of passenger organizing modes. Using field data from the metro station in Nanjing, China, a micro-simulation model of alighting and boarding processes based on an improved social force paradigm was built to simulate the movement of passengers under different passenger organizing modes. Unit flow rate, delay, and social force work (SFW) jointly reflect the efficiency and, especially, the physical energy consumption of passengers under each mode. It was found that when passengers alighted and boarded by different doors, efficiency reached its optimal level which was 76.92% higher than the status quo of Nanjing, and the physical energy consumption was reduced by 16.30%. Both the findings and the model can provide support for passenger organizing in metro stations, and the concept of SFW can be applied to other scenes simulated by the social force model, such as evacuations of large-scale activities, to evaluate the physical energy consumption of people.

Description: Urban public space is indispensable in a metropolitan environment. In recent years, green space, as an important part of that public space, has been studied in terms of its pattern and equity of accessibility. However, the pattern of urban public space, including streets, has not yet been studied, nor has it been studied among different countries. To resolve this gap in information, this study conducted a quantitative comparison on the general pattern, type pattern, and scale pattern of urban public space between Zurich in Switzerland and the old city of Nanjing in China. This study also explored using the location quotient method to quantify the pattern of urban public space and its physical structure characteristics. The results show the difference between urban public space in China and Europe exists not only in quantity, scale or type, but also in the pattern of the urban public space system, including the choice of location, distribution status, and service level of that public space. The maximum location quotient of Zurich’s public space is 9.5 for the areas located in the urban core area. Meanwhile, it is 8.5 for Nanjing for areas located in the periphery of the old city. Areas with a location quotient of greater than one cover 63.3% of the urban construction land in Zurich, while only 30.8% of the corresponding urban construction land is covered in Nanjing. The area and quantity of streets are quite different as well. The street areas of Zurich account for 51.5% of the total area of public space and the number of streets account for 51.2% of the total number of public space sites, while those numbers are only 22.6% and 17.5% for Nanjing, respectively. In addition, the scale gradient of public space is polarized. Both the area ratio and quantity ratio of medium, medium-large, and large public space in Zurich exceed 92%, while the area ratio and quantity ratio of Nanjing are less than 77% and 68%, respectively. This study provides important insights for revealing urban public space patterns to facilitate the sustainability development of urban public space.

Description: There is a general need to facilitate citizens’ understanding of the global sustainability problem with the dual purpose of raising their awareness of the seriousness of the problem and helping them get closer to understanding the complexity of the solutions. Here, the design and application of the participatory simulation game Global Sustainability Crossroads is described, based on a global state-of-the-art energy–economy–environment model, which creates a virtual scenario where the participants are confronted with the design of climate mitigation strategies as well as the social, economic, and environmental consequences of decisions. The novelty of the game rests on the global scope and the representation of the drivers of anthropogenic emissions within the MEDEAS-World model, combined with a participatory simulation group dynamic flexible enough to be adapted to a diversity of contexts and participants. The performance of 13 game workshops with ~420 players has shown it has a significant pedagogical potential: the game is able to generate discussions on crucial topics which are usually outside the public realm such as the relationship between economic growth and sustainability, the role of technology, how human desires are limited by biophysical constraints or the possibility of climate tipping points.

Description: Foliar water uptake (FWU) has been investigated in an increasing number of species from a variety of areas but has remained largely understudied in deciduous, temperate tree species from non-foggy regions. As leaf wetting events frequently occur in temperate regions, FWU might be more important than previously thought and should be investigated. As climate change progresses, the number of drought events is expected to increase, basically resulting in a decreasing number of leaf wetting events, which might make FWU a seemingly less important mechanism. However, the impact of drought on FWU might not be that unidirectional because drought will also cause a more negative tree water potential, which is expected to result in more FWU. It yet remains unclear whether drought results in a general increase or decrease in the amount of water absorbed by leaves. The main objectives of this study are, therefore: (i) to assess FWU-capacity in nine widely distributed key tree species from temperate regions, and (ii) to investigate the effect of drought on FWU in these species. Based on measurements of leaf and soil water potential and FWU-capacity, the effect of drought on FWU in temperate tree species was assessed. Eight out of nine temperate tree species were able to absorb water via their leaves. The amount of water absorbed by leaves and the response of this plant trait to drought were species-dependent, with a general increase in the amount of water absorbed as leaf water potential decreased. This relationship was less pronounced when using soil water potential as an independent variable. We were able to classify species according to their response in FWU to drought at the leaf level, but this classification changed when using drought at the soil level, and was driven by iso- and anisohydric behavior. FWU hence occurred in several key tree species from temperate regions, be it with some variability, which potentially allows these species to partly reduce the effects of drought stress. We recommend including this mechanism in future research regarding plant–water relations and to investigate the impact of different pathways used for FWU.

Description: Population growth has brought an increase in energy demand and cost that has a meaningful impact on personal and government expenses. In this respect, governments attach importance to investments in renewable energy resources (RER), which are a sustainable and clean energy source. However, the unpredictable characteristics of RER are a major problem for these clean sources and RER need auxiliary assets. Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are one of the promising solutions for these issues. Due to the high investment cost of BESS, governments act cautiously about accepting and implementing BESS in their power network. Recently, with the improvement of technology, the cost of BESS has been reduced, and therefore battery technologies have begun to be applied to conventional systems. In this study, first, we will review and discuss the current globally state-of-the-art BESS and their applications. Later, attention will be turned to a country-specific study for Turkey.

Description: The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has established the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) as the most important policy measure to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shipping. A vessel’s EEDI is based on sea trials at delivery, and vessels cannot exceed a threshold for emitted CO2 per ton-mile, depending on vessel type and size. From other industries such as cars we have learnt that testing methods must reflect realistic operating conditions to deliver the desired emission reductions. Present sea-trial procedures for EEDI adjust to ‘calm water conditions’ only, as a comparative basis, despite calm sea being the exception at sea. We find that this adjustment procedure excessively rewards full bodied ‘bulky’ hulls which perform well in calm water conditions. In contrast, hull forms optimized with respect to performance in realistic sea-conditions are not rewarded with the current EEDI procedures. Our results indicate that without adjusting the testing cycle requirements to also include a threshold for performance in waves (real sea), the desired reductions will be short on targets and GHG emissions could potentially increase.

Description: Time restriction and logistics sprawl (e.g., relocating logistics facilities), as two popular urban policies, usually affect the urban freight and environmental burden, but their combination might lead to unexpected results. This paper analyzes the impact of time restriction and logistics sprawl on urban freight and local environments based on a Beijing agricultural freight case through traffic simulation. The data is derived through a freight demand forecasting method. Based on the data, this paper constructs four groups of scenarios to represent different policies (or combined policies) and then conducts macro-simulation to obtain the economic and environmental indicators. Results show that (1) time restriction can increase the freight costs and slightly decrease local emissions, while logistics sprawl can increase both costs and emissions; (2) the joint implementation of the two policies are proved to be positive in economic and environmental aspects because it helps freight carriers adopt a new strategy to improve delivery efficiency; (3) urban freight policies are closely related to the freight carriers because different responses from carriers can lead to different policy effects.

Description: Study of changes in agrochemical residues on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau is necessary for the agricultural green development of the fragile plateau and its downstream regions. The total agrochemical residue (TR) caused by main agrochemical inputs was estimated in the study area of Qinghai province and the Tibet Autonomous Region over 1995–2017 by using the emergy synthesis method. The total agrochemical residue was decomposed into the intensity factor, the structure factor, the productivity factor, and the labour factor by using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition method. The change in TR could be divided into four time periods, i.e., a rapidly increasing period during 1995–1998, a stable period during 1999–2004, a slowly increasing period during 2005–2011, and a fluctuant period during 2012–2017. The study area had a mean TR intensity in area (TRA) of 3.31 × 1014 sej/ha, which was only 38.21% of that in China; however, the annual growth rate of TRA in the study area was 2.93%, higher than the rate of 1.91% in China over 1995–2017. The study area had a mean TR intensity in production (TRP) of 4.06 × 1010 sej/CNY (Chinese Yuan), which was 71.05% of that in China; however, the annual decreasing rate of TRP in the study area was 0.95%, lower than the rate of 1.98% in China over 1995–2017. All the LMDI decomposed factors contributed to the TR increase during 1995–1998; the intensity factor, the structure factor, and the labour factor contributed to the TR decrease during 1999–2004; the structure factor and the productivity factor contributed to the TR increase during 2005–2011; and only the productivity factor contributed to the TR increase during 2012–2017. Compared with the whole country, the study area has more potential to reduce TR by improving agrochemical use efficiency, strengthening the recovery of plastic film residue, increasing organic agricultural materials, raising the efficiency of agricultural production, and accelerating the transfer of rural labours to secondary and tertiary industries.

Description: The Icelandic economy has transitioned from being dependent on fishing and agriculture to having tourism and refined aluminum as its main exports. Nevertheless, the new main industries still rely on the country’s natural resources, as the power intensive industry uses energy from rivers and geothermal areas whereas tourism uses the natural landscape, where geysers, waterfalls and thermal pools are part of the attraction to visitors. Although both industries claim to contribute to sustainability they utilize the same resources, and land-use conflicts can be expected, illustrating the contestation that can occur between different visions and understandings of sustainability. This paper focuses on the attitudes of Icelandic tourism operators towards power production and proposed power plants using data from questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. Results show that the majority of Icelandic tourism operators assume further power utilization would be in conflict with nature-based tourism, and they are generally negative towards all types of renewable energy development and power plant infrastructure. Respondents are most negative towards transmission lines, reservoirs and hydro power plants in the country’s interior Highlands. About 40% of the respondents perceive that existing power plants have negatively affected tourism, while a similar proportion think they had no impact. According to the respondents, the two industries could co-exist with improved spatial planning, management and inter-sectoral cooperation.

Description: Research Highlights: Warming alters the chemical composition of Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook, resulting in increased production of macromolecular compounds that protect against heat stress. Background and Objectives: Low latitude forests are experiencing obvious climatic warming; however, the plant physiological responses to warming are not well understood. As warming induces moisture stress, we hypothesized that warming activates metabolites (i.e., lipids, phenolic compounds, amino acids) and causes damage to the leaves, exemplified by the increased concentrations of reactive oxygen species. Materials and Methods: We conducted a warming experiment in a C. lanceolata plantation. Plant physiological traits associated with nutrient status, reactive oxygen species, antioxidant enzymes species, and metabolites were measured. Results: Warming altered the chemical composition of C. lanceolata as it increased C:N ratios of leaves and roots. In particular, the concentrations of N and P in leaves and roots were significantly decreased under the warming condition, which might be related to the biomass production, namely, a dilution effect. Under the warming condition, most of the phospholipid compounds and proteins significantly increased. Leaf C, carbohydrates, amino acids, organic acids, flavonoids, and phenolic compounds were identified to have significantly lower concentrations under the warming treatment than those under the control treatment. These results suggested that moisture stress under the warming treatment may drive C deficiency and metabolic restriction in plants. Conclusions: Under the warming condition, C. lanceolata changed its energy utilization strategy and invested more resources to produce macromolecular compounds for protecting against heat stress. Warming in sub-tropical forests alters plant chemical properties, and thus may have an important consequence for nutrient cycling and soil C sequestration.

Description: The current level of tropospheric ozone (O3) is expected to reduce the net primary production of forest trees. Here, we evaluated the negative effects of O3 on the photosynthetic CO2 uptake of Japanese forest trees species based on their cumulative stomatal O3 uptake, defined as the phytotoxic O3 dose (POD). Seedlings of four representative Japanese deciduous broad-leaved forest tree species (Fagus crenata, Quercus serrata, Quercus mongolica var. crispula and Betula platyphylla var. japonica) were exposed to different O3 concentrations in open-top chambers for two growing seasons. The photosynthesis–light response curves (A-light curves) and stomatal conductance were measured to estimate the leaf-level cumulative photosynthetic CO2 uptake (ΣPn_est) and POD, respectively. The whole-plant-level ΣPn_est were highly correlated with the whole-plant dry mass increments over the two growing seasons. Because whole-plant growth is largely determined by the amount of leaf area per plant and net photosynthetic rate per leaf area, this result suggests that leaf-level ΣPn_est, which was estimated from the monthly A-light curves and hourly PPFD, could reflect the cumulative photosynthetic CO2 uptake of the seedlings per unit leaf area. Although the O3-induced reductions in the leaf-level ΣPn_est were well explained by POD in all four tree species, species-specific responses of leaf-level ΣPn_est to POD were observed. In addition, the flux threshold appropriate for the linear regression of the responses of relative leaf-level ΣPn_est to POD was also species-specific. Therefore, species-specific responses of cumulative photosynthetic CO2 uptake to POD could be used to accurately evaluate O3 impact on the net primary production of deciduous broad-leaved trees.

Description: There are currently several systems for home automation and energy management available on the market. These systems are intended to reduce the use of energy, while ensuring optimal and customizable comfort conditions. The advances in technology (Internet of Things, sensors, cloud computing, data processing and thermal modelling) and in the design of interfaces should facilitate the adoption of convenient behaviours by final users, thereby producing more sustainable use of energy at home. Conversely, the effectiveness and efficiency of smart home systems for thermo-regulation is a complex activity, requiring the collaboration of multiple stakeholders and experts. In this paper, the authors report a case study about the design of a system for thermal regulation at home developed in a multidisciplinary research team for research and industrial purposes. The paper reports results including: a discussion on a number of issues involved in the design of smart home solutions for sustainability and on the importance of developing an integrated approach to their design; the needs analysis of users and of their functional requirements based on investigation with residents and profiling; final remarks about the role of User Experience Design methods and tools in the development of smart home solutions, understood as socio-technical systems.

Description: Affordable housing remains a serious problem in many countries. Even as the housing affordability crisis deepens, most cities continue to exhibit robust real estate markets with high property prices. The low-income and poor households are unable to access affordable housing and remain excluded. This paper draws from empirical research conducted in the city of San Francisco and focuses on the application of Land Value Capture (LVC) through increased Inclusionary Housing (IH) requirements after plan changes that increased density potential in San Francisco’s Eastern Neighbourhoods to evaluate its effects on the goals of increasing both affordable housing and social inclusion. Findings reveal that the increased inclusionary requirements used as LVC mechanism enabled 76.2% of all the affordable housing units produced in the Eastern Neighbourhoods to be produced by market-rate developers in 2011–2015 as compared to the rest of San Francisco, where 35.5% of the affordable units were produced from the market through inclusionary policy during the same period. The study demonstrates that upzoning underutilised land coupled with a well-planned LVC mechanism can help harness the strength of the real estate market and increase both affordable housing production and social inclusion.

Description: A constant value of air density based on its annual average value at a given location is commonly used for the computation of the annual energy production in wind industry. Thus, the correction required in the estimation of daily, monthly or seasonal wind energy production, due to the use of air density, is ordinarily omitted in existing literature. The general method, based on the implementation of the wind speed’s Weibull distribution over the power curve of the turbine, omits it if the power curve is not corrected according to the air density of the site. In this study, the seasonal variation of air density was shown to be highly relevant for the computation of offshore wind energy potential around the Iberian Peninsula. If the temperature, pressure, and moisture are taken into account, the wind power density and turbine capacity factor corrections derived from these variations are also significant. In order to demonstrate this, the advanced Weather Research and Forecasting mesoscale Model (WRF) using data assimilation was executed in the study area to obtain a spatial representation of these corrections. According to the results, the wind power density, estimated by taking into account the air density correction, exhibits a difference of 8% between summer and winter, compared with that estimated without the density correction. This implies that seasonal capacity factor estimation corrections of up to 1% in percentage points are necessary for wind turbines mainly for summer and winter, due to air density changes.

Description: Because of its high phosphorus (P) demands, it is likely that the abundance, distribution, and N-fixing capacity of Alnus in boreal forests are tightly coupled with P availability and the mobilization and uptake of soil P via ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF). We examined whether Alnus shifts EMF communities in coordination with increasingly more complex organic P forms across a 200-year-old successional sequence along the Tanana River in interior Alaska. Root-tip activities of acid phosphatase, phosphodiesterase, and phytase of A. tenuifolia-associated EMF were positively intercorrelated but did not change in a predictable manner across the shrub, to hardwood to coniferous forest successional sequence. Approximately half of all Alnus roots were colonized by Alnicola and Tomentella taxa, and ordination analysis indicated that the EMF community on Alnus is a relatively distinct, host-specific group. Despite differences in the activities of the two Alnus dominants to mobilize acid phosphatase and phosphodiesterase, the root-tip activities of P-mobilizing enzymes of the Alnus-EMF community were not dramatically different from other co-occurring boreal plant hosts. This suggests that if Alnus has a greater influence on P cycling than other plant functional types, additional factors influencing P mobilization and uptake at the root and/or whole-plant level must be involved.

Description: In globalized times the integration of information and communication technologies in companies and their supply chains is required, but there is uncertainty regarding the true impact that these have on efficiency indices or benefits gained in the productive system. This article reports a structural equation model that contains ten hypotheses with five latent variables associated with the integration of information and communication technology in production systems such as information exchange, operations management, production control, distribution activities, and operational benefits obtained. The paper aims to quantify the relationships among those variables, facilitating managers to make decisions in information and communication technologies (ICT) implementation. The model is validated with information from 80 responses to a questionnaire applied to manufacturing companies, and partial least-squares technique is used to statistically validate the hypotheses; the results indicate that the implementation of information technologies facilitates the exchange of information, operations management and production control. This means that ICT integration can create visibility for a supply chain in a material’s flow among partners, facilitate operations management in production lines and distribution activities, and these benefits are ultimately transformed into operational benefits that managers measure as flexibility, low cost and short cycles times with customers.

Description: This article investigates the role of institutional quality in the oil wealth–economic growth nexus for 35 oil-exporting developing countries between 1984 and 2016. To achieve this objective, an empirical model was employed with linear interaction between oil wealth and institutional quality, and estimated by means of panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) with a dynamic fixed effect estimator. From the results, a contingent effect of oil wealth on economic growth, both in the long run and in the short run, was established. Specifically, institutional quality was found to mitigate the negative effect of oil wealth on economic growth in the long run, while in the short run, institutional quality was found to enhance the positive effect of oil wealth on economic growth. Furthermore, the results provide the threshold levels of institutional quality, beyond which oil wealth enhances economic growth, both in the long run and in the short run, for the sampled countries. These results suggest that in order for oil-exporting developing countries to benefit from an increase in oil wealth, they must adopt appropriate policy measures to improve their levels of institutional quality and embed their entire oil wealth-generating mechanism in a sound institutional framework. Also of importance is that governments must ensure sustainable development through the benefits of wealth from oil.

Description: Recently, the World Economic Forum (WEF) highlighted mission-critical Internet of Things (MC-IoT) applications as one of the six enablers of sustainable development of smart cities. MC-IoT refers to systems which exacerbate properties like availability, reliability, safety, and security in an application environment of heterogeneously connected physical things and virtual things whose failure could lead to severe consequences such as life loss. The sole characteristic of the mission-critical system is its compliance with real-time behavior. As a result of the critical nature of these systems, it is essential to design the system with sufficient clarity so that none of the requirements is misinterpreted. For this, the involvement of non-technical stakeholders and policymakers is crucial. Previous studies on mission-critical structures mainly focus on the communication overheads, and overlook the design and planning of them. Therefore, in this paper, we present an architecture which enables mission planning on a do-it-yourself plane. We present a task–object mapping and deployment model where different tasks are mapped onto virtual objects and deployed on physical hardware in a task–object pair. The system uses semantic knowledge for autonomous task mapping and suggestions to further aid the orchestration of the process. The tasks are autonomously mapped onto the devices based on the correlation index; this is computed based on the attribute similarities, thus making the system flexible. The performance of the proposed architecture is evaluated with different key performance indicators under different load conditions and the response time is found to be under a few seconds even at peak load conditions.

Description: Most populations of Scots pine in Spain are locally adapted to drought, with only a few populations at the southernmost part of the distribution range showing maladaptations to the current climate. Increasing tree heights are predicted for most of the studied populations by the year 2070, under the RCP 8.5 scenario. These results are probably linked to the capacity of this species to acclimatize to new climates. The impact of climate change on tree growth depends on many processes, including the capacity of individuals to respond to changes in the environment. Pines are often locally adapted to their environments, leading to differences among populations. Generally, populations at the margins of the species’ ranges show lower performances in fitness-related traits than core populations. Therefore, under expected changes in climate, populations at the southern part of the species’ ranges could be at a higher risk of maladaptation. Here, we hypothesize that southern Scots pine populations are locally adapted to current climate, and that expected changes in climate may lead to a decrease in tree performance. We used Scots pine tree height growth data from 15-year-old individuals, measured in six common gardens in Spain, where plants from 16 Spanish provenances had been planted. We analyzed tree height growth, accounting for the climate of the planting sites, and the climate of the original population to assess local adaptation, using linear mixed-effect models. We found that: (1) drought drove differences among populations in tree height growth; (2) most populations were locally adapted to drought; (3) tree height was predicted to increase for most of the studied populations by the year 2070 (a concentration of RCP 8.5). Most populations of Scots pine in Spain were locally adapted to drought. This result suggests that marginal populations, despite inhabiting limiting environments, can be adapted to the local current conditions. In addition, the local adaptation and acclimation capacity of populations can help margin populations to keep pace with climate change. Our results highlight the importance of analyzing, case-by-case, populations’ capacities to cope with climate change.

Description: Introduction: Energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of fossil fuels has been declining sharply, while modern renewable energy sources generally have even lower EROEI than fossil fuels. It has been repeatedly proven that economic growth expressed in the form of growth of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is closely related to intensified energy consumption and escalated usage of natural resources in general. This problem remains scarcely explored in pure economic modelling. Objectives: This study presents a novel model titled Energy Extended Neoclassical Growth Model (EENGM), which focuses on the consequences of declining quantity and quality of extractable fossil fuels and lower quality of the succeeding renewable energy technology for economic growth. Method: The Neoclassical growth model is translated into a system dynamics format and is extended by important feedback mechanisms, which are identified as important from the literature and mostly missing from the analyzed system dynamics models with a similar scope. Two scenarios assess the EENGM performance: business as usual (BAU) and the sustainability strategy (SUS). Results: Sensitivity analysis is performed for the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) parameter and results in the investment share in GDP varying between 27 and 40%, while the energy sector investment largely displaces investment in other economic sectors. The EENGM is associated with new behavior whereby the underperforming energy sector limits GDP growth and seizes most of the available investment. The adoption of the SUS strategy causes 28% lower cumulative fossil fuel aggregate consumption which still corresponds to higher than 1.5 °C global warming compared to the preindustrial levels. Conclusion: The share of consumption in the GDP of an economy undergoing energy transition can approach levels previously seen only in totally war-oriented economies. Even omitting other negative environmental feedback, the feasibility of the successful energy transition of the system in its contemporary form, with the currently available renewable energy technology, seems to be highly uncertain.

Description: The paper presents the possibility of applying different press constructions for juice extraction in small farms. The research was carried out with three different varieties of apples, namely, Rubin, Mutsu, and Jonaprince. Two types of presses were tested: a basket press and a screw press. Generally, application of the screw press makes it possible to obtain a higher yield of extraction compared to the basket press. In our study, the differences in the pressing yield among press machines also depended on the apple variety used. The juices obtained on the screw press were found to be of a higher quality characterized by a higher content of soluble solids, higher viscosity, higher total content of polyphenols, higher antioxidant activity, and lower acidity. Thus, the selection of an appropriate press is the key to producing high-quality apple juice with health-promoting properties for manufacturers of apple juice at the local marketplace.

Description: Robust literature on sustainable tourism development has emerged globally both in economically developed and emerging economies. Over the past several decades, policymakers and business practitioners increasingly acknowledge that the long-term development and sustainability of tourism destinations require clear guidelines and direction. The impetus for sustainable tourism development has become ever more urgent as a result of dual trends of climate change and massification of the global tourism industry. The current research review used science mapping techniques to examine 1596 Scopus-indexed documents published on sustainable tourism development. The objectives of the review were to document the size, growth, and global distribution of this literature, identify its key journals, authors, and documents, highlight emerging topics, and illuminate the underlying intellectual structure of this literature. The review also provides guidelines for scholars to develop research that can aid in future sustainable tourism development.

Description: Food sharing and food commons have both been raised as possible solutions to unsustainable and unjust urban food systems. This paper draws upon ethnographic research conducted in Berlin and New York to examine self-organizing in community food initiatives that are to varying degrees creating urban food commons by opening up urban space and its fruits to community use, sharing, and governance. In New York, the organization 596 Acres has developed an interactive map of vacant land to help community members self-organize to gain access to, steward, and protect the “lots in their life” for urban growing. In Berlin, the organization foodsharing.de has developed an interactive web platform to decentralize and democratize the logistics of food rescue and redistribution through peer-to-peer gifting and community fridges. The paper examines the possibilities and limitations of socio-technical innovations as “tools for commoning,” for self-organizing imagination, access, care, and governance in urban food commons. The paper contributes to debates on the role of socio-technical innovation in urban food sharing and practices of self-organizing in urban food commons.

Description: This research is a pioneering study into the adoption of mobile-based money services for financial inclusion and sustainability in developing countries like Togo. Owing to their differences from more usual mobile-based banking and payment services, such technology is being aggressively promoted by providers of network telecommunication companies. However, the factors influencing its sustainable acceptance remain largely unknown. This paper extends the original Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), by integrating self-efficacy (SEMM), technology anxiety (TAMM), and personal innovativeness (PIMM). The research model is assessed with survey data of 539 actual and prospective mobile money users employing structural equation modeling–artificial neural networks (SEM–ANN) approach. A feed-forward-back-propagation (FFBP) multi-layer perceptron (MLP) ANN with significant predictors obtained from SEM as the input units and the root mean square of errors (RMSE) indicated that the ANN method achieves high prediction accuracy. The results present conclusive evidence that perceived ease-of-use (PEMM) is the most significant factor affecting consumers’ attitudes to mobile-based money. While perceived usefulness (PUMM) and PIMM affect adoption decisions, their impact is much lower. Consumer attitudes and intentions were found to have a significant relationship with TAM. SEMM and TAMM; however, they showed mixed results. These findings will be useful to retain prevailing users and attract new ones.

Description: Land use/land cover changes (LULCC) have been affected by ecological processes as well as socioeconomic and human activities, resulting in several environmental problems. The study of the human–environment system combined with land use/land cover dynamics has received considerable attention in recent decades. We aimed to provide an integrated model that couples land use, socioeconomic influences, and ecosystem processes to explore the future dynamics of land use under two scenarios in China. Under Scenario A, the yield of grain continues to increase, and under Scenario B, the yield of grain remains constant. This study created a LULCC model by integrating a simple global socioeconomic model, a Terrestrial ecosystem simulator (TESim), and a land use allocation model. The results were analyzed by comparing spatiotemporal differences under predicted land use conditions in the two alternative scenarios. The simulation results showed patterns that varied between the two scenarios. In Scenario A, grassland will expand in the future and a large reduction in cropland will be observed. In Scenario B, the augmented expansion of cropland and a drastic shrinkage of forest area will be the main land use conversion features. Scenario A is more promising because more land is preserved for ecological restoration and urbanization, which is in line with China’s Grain for Green Program. Economic development should be based on ecological protection. The results are expected to add insight to sustainable land use development and regional natural resource management in China.

Description: Since its origins, the idea of sustainability has always been linked to forest management. However, nowadays, sustainable forest management has usually been approached by defining a set of criteria and indicators. This paper aims to address sustainability in forest management including a set of criteria encompassing the most common decisions: whether the stands are even or uneven-aged, and the optimal silviculture that should be applied in each stand. For this purpose, a lexicographic goal programming model with two priority levels has been defined, into which six different criteria are integrated. Each criterion corresponds to a particular pillar (economic, technical, or environmental). Furthermore, also incorporated into the model are the preferences of diverse stakeholders, both for the criteria considered in the analysis and for the most suitable silvicultural alternatives to be applied in each stand. This methodology has been applied to a case study in Spain, and the results show much more attractive solutions than the current forest management planning, allowing the obtainment of multi-aged systems that could be favourable for other ecosystem services.

Description: The multi-objective minimum weighted vertex cover problem aims to minimize the sum of different single type weights simultaneously. In this paper, we focus on the bi-objective minimum weighted vertex cover and propose a multi-objective algorithm integrating iterated neighborhood search with decomposition technique to solve this problem. Initially, we adopt the decomposition method to divide the multi-objective problem into several scalar optimization sub-problems. Meanwhile, to find more possible optimal solutions, we design a mixed score function according to the problem feature, which is applied in initializing procedure and neighborhood search. During the neighborhood search, three operators ( A d d , D e l e t e , S w a p ) explore the search space effectively. We performed numerical experiments on many instances, and the results show the effectiveness of our new algorithm (combining decomposition and neighborhood search with mixed score) on several experimental metrics. We compared our experimental results with the classical multi-objective algorithm non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II. It was obviously shown that our algorithm can provide much better results than the comparative algorithm considering the different metrics.

Description: The construction industry is often ranked top in producing the largest amount of waste during a project, be it the waste of material resources or the waste of manpower. This has elevated the need for an improved and more structured management technique. This study will look into the principles and practices of lean management pertinent to highway construction projects to analyze whether lean management practices can improve the management efficiency for complex projects. This study adopted a quantitative approach, and a linear regression model has been used to investigate correlations between the lean test factors and the efficiency-dependent variables. It was found that lean management tools that are used repeatedly and the ones that require a high level of detailing are positively associated with efficiency improvement in highway construction projects. In particular, LPS, JIT, and VM were found to be more commonly used in highway construction projects. The research results will aid in the initial decision-making process of the project managers, as they will be able to map different lean tools with their benefits and limitations and then select the one that best suits the project needs and deliverables. Future studies can adopt the interpretivism paradigm to explore new theories and concepts related to highway construction management.

Description: Erwinia billingiae S31R1 and Bacillus simplex S11R41, isolated from the rhizosphere of a healthy tree located in a Pinus radiata D. Don plantation with high presence of fungal pathogens, are antagonists of pine root rot fungi Heterobasidion annosum and Armillaria mellea in vitro and in young trees. For effective biocontrol of these pathogens, the bacteria must stably colonize P. radiata roots following their application. To determine root colonization patterns, the bacteria were transformed with stable plasmids encoding green fluorescent protein (GFP). Transformed E. billingiae was visualized on roots 24 days after soil inoculation by confocal and epifluorescence microscopy, and GFP was detected by ELISA 31 days after inoculation. The presence of E. billingiae microcolonies, in some cases in root intercellular spaces, suggests that bacterial growth was active and localized. Fluorescence of B. simplex S11R41 was visualized on P. radiata roots 31 days after inoculation and its colonization pattern changed from scattered cells to localized microcolonies. Although the populations decreased over time, microcolony formation and localization in specific regions of roots indicated that E. billingiae, normally considered to be an epiphyte, and B. simplex can stably colonize roots of P. radiata.

Description: The dryland vegetation and particularly the Acacia-Commiphora woodlands support the livelihoods of approximately 52 million rural households in the Horn of Africa. Aromatic resins are valuable non-wood forest products (NWFPs) derived from Boswellia and Commiphora species in the drylands of this region. The study seeks to answer the following main questions: “What are the ecological and livelihood roles of resin producing species, and the role that people have in either degrading or restoring these ecosystems?” “Who are the participants in frankincense and myrrh production, processing, and trade, and how do these people interact?” “What is the current and potential future economic impact of frankincense and myrrh production and trade at the household level?” “What are the barriers to enhanced economic outcomes?” The study involves the use of PRISMA method—a systematic methodology to identify, select and analyze the recent literature on aromatic resins in relation to such factors as socio-economic situation, livelihood security, value chain, climate change adaptation, ecology and sustainable development in the Horn of Africa. Systematic identification of publications was conducted using several sources, including but not limited to electronic databases for literature search. Web of Science, Social Science Citation Index and Google Scholar and various scientific journals were investigated using search terms and restrictions. A total of 991 references were retrieved, but literature only published between 2003 to 2017 was selected, which led to the use of 51 works for full-text assessment. The results indicate that of the 51 selected studies, 45% focused on ecology and sustainable management, 31% on economic contribution and livelihood security, 20% on production and value chain development, and 4% on climate change adaptation and mitigation. It could be concluded that farmers’ adoption of Boswellia and Commiphora species as economic tree crops in the Horn of Africa has a distinct role in biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation by contributing to the sustainability of ecosystem functioning as well as improving household incomes and the rural livelihood security in general, and thereby facilitating poverty alleviation.

Description: In Spain, hiking is an activity that involves following paths, which may or may not be signposted, on foot, for sporting and cultural purposes. In the country as a whole, although with important regional variations, hiking has traditionally been linked to mountaineering and rambling clubs. However, at the beginning of the 1990s this activity became much more widely popular, reaching beyond the more limited sphere within which the pioneers of hiking in Spain had acted. Hiking stopped being just a sporting and cultural activity and also became a form of tourism and leisure, coinciding with the emergence and consolidation of what have become known as alternative forms of tourism. In this context of change, hiking tourism has gradually evolved over the years into a strategic option for development in many territories. This article presents the most important aspects of this transformation: the changes in the territorial model for the management of the paths on which the creation of hiking tourism products is based; the fact that in the design of routes more consideration is being given to the differential characteristics of tourist demand for hiking; the adaptation of the accommodation, restaurant facilities and the main specific services associated with it; and the emergence and engagement of new stakeholders in the processes of planning, distribution and communication of this activity.

Description: The authors did not notice during the proofreading phase that we have accidentally deleted a related reference of Figure 1 [...]

Description: This study investigated the complementary effect of three orientations of knowledge management (KM) strategy on firm performance: external and internal, explicit and tacit, and exploratory and exploitive. We propose a theoretical framework for examining the synergistic effects of KM strategy on firm performance, and the moderating effect of organizational structure. The complementary effect among these orientations of KM strategy was studied. To test our framework, we conducted a survey with a sample of 345 Chinese firms that had applied a KM strategy. The empirical results show that: (1) different KM strategy orientations complement each other, and this complementarity is an essential link in the relationship between KM strategy and firm performance; (2) the direct effect of each orientation of KM strategy on firm performance is not significant; (3) a centralized organizational structure moderates the relationship between KM strategy and firm performance, thus the more centralized is the organizational structure, the stronger is the positive impact of the complementary effect of KM strategy on firm performance; and (4) the moderating effect of formalized organizational structure in the relationship between KM strategy and firm performance is not significant.

Description: International and inter-regional trade in China has been promoted, the economic and environmental impacts of which are significant in regional development. In this paper, we analyzed the evolution of inter-regional spillover of carbon emissions and employment in China from 2007 to 2012 with structural decomposition method and multi-regional input-output tables. The index of carbon emission per employee (ICE) is designed and compared to indicate positive or negative spillover effects. We find that carbon emissions grow much more rapidly in interior regions than in coastal regions, due to spillover effects and own influences. Spillover effects rarely reduce the ICE of destination regions, but the own influences can decrease it in most regions. Although spillover may contribute to economic development in most regions, it is hardly a driver of efficiency improvement in destination regions. Based on these empirical findings, we put forward specific suggestions to improve the positive spillover effects on different kinds of regions.

Description: Culturally associated brands that reflect the cultural backgrounds of other countries have been extensively studied, but research on the conformity consumption of culturally associated brands in specific countries has rarely been conducted. This study focuses on the fear of missing out (FoMO) phenomenon as a tool for explaining consumers’ conformity consumption and examines what causes it. Although the FoMO concept is primarily used in the online field, it is considered to be a very suitable tool for explaining offline consumption behavior as well. This study will be useful for establishing long-term and sustainable strategies by firms through matured discussions on conformity consumption.

Description: This study developed a sustainability education program that incorporated the concept of city sustainability, delivered it to local university students in the Jakarta Metropolitan Area (Jabodetabek), Indonesia, and then evaluated its effectiveness using questionnaire surveys. The educational materials consisted of a case story and scenario analysis report relating to city sustainability. The case story was a fictional narrative describing sustainability issues in Jabodetabek, in which the protagonist is the head of the local urban planning bureau. The scenario analysis provided three hypothetical scenarios regarding land-use patterns with predicted values of sustainability indicators in 2050. In January 2016, 46 students from Bogor Agricultural University participated in three workshops. Participants completed questionnaire surveys before and after the workshops. The results from the ordered probit models that were based on participants’ responses to 68 items of sustainability-related attitudes and perspectives showed that their participation in the workshops enhanced participants’ environmental concerns and their intention to take pro-sustainability actions. In addition, the participants tended to have a more balanced view on sustainability issues across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. This suggested that the sustainability education program focusing on city sustainability successfully enhanced the motivation of learners to contribute toward a more sustainable future.

Description: As the prevalence of diabetes is predicted to rise globally in the coming decades, the demand for sugar substitutes is expected to increase significantly. In this context, natural sweeteners have been receiving particular attention, as artificial sweeteners have been associated with obesity and cardiovascular disease. One natural sweetener is yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) ((Poepp. and Endl.) H. Robinson), which could play a prominent role due to its high fructooligosaccharides yield. Yacon is currently only a minor crop in Europe and there is little information available on the environmental and economic impacts of its various cultivation systems. These are especially affected by nitrogen fertilization levels and genotype selection. Thus, before the crop is introduced on a larger scale, it is expedient to identify the most sustainable cultivation system. The life-cycle assessment (LCA) and life-cycle costing (LCC) analysis of yacon cultivation systems conducted in this study revealed significant differences between yacon genotypes and found that a nitrogen fertilization level of 80 kg N ha−1 significantly decreased production costs and simultaneously led to a comparatively good environmental performance. The results indicated that, for the holistic evaluation of agricultural systems, it is crucial to assess both the economic and environmental performance of new crops.

Description: This study focuses on perceived value, which is not mentioned in previous internet-only bank studies, to analyze the popularity of internet-only banks. It does this by exploring the relationships between the perceived value and usage intention of customers. The purpose of this study is to help us understand customers’ decision making to accept innovative services by finding factors that affect consumer acceptance of internet-only banks. Using multiple regression, this study analyzes data gathered from college students in their 20s who are familiar with IT services and are interested in internet-only banks. The results show that all three components of perceived value (economical value, convenience value, and emotional value) increase usage intention. Convenience value is the most important factor in the acceptance of internet-only banking services. The findings indicate that perceived value is an attractive factor in using internet-only banks and suggest that managing and developing perceived value is an important marketing strategy.

Description: The labor market situation in the postal and logistics sector has led to sustainable human resource management becoming increasingly important at the strategic level of each postal operator. This study proposes a new perspective of employee satisfaction assessment that not only quantifies total satisfaction but identifies job attributes and socio-demographic characteristics affecting employee satisfaction and loyalty as a key concern for sustainable human resource management. Findings of 1775 survey questionnaires of employees in Slovak Postal enterprise revealed that employee satisfaction is on average. The greatest dissatisfaction was related to the financial reward of employees and the employer’s lack of interest in the views and attitudes of employees. The use of regression and correlation analysis pointed to the fact that not only their satisfaction, but also the situation on the labor market in the region, the age of the employee, the job position and the length of employment have a strong influence on employee loyalty.

Description: Environmental inequality in animal husbandry is an important issue that matters in sustainable livestock production and environmental sustainability. In this context, the objective of this study is to measure and analyze the chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharge inequality from animal husbandry in the Liaoning province in China, as a case study in environmental inequality. Using the pollutant discharge coefficient method and environmental inequality indices, the study looks specifically at the impacts on unequal distribution and unequal economic efficiency in Liaoning in the period 2000 to 2016. The study explores the determinants of COD discharge inequality by constructing panel threshold regression models. The major findings are as follows. First, there is COD discharge inequality in distribution and in economic efficiency in Liaoning, and these were not reduced over time, despite a decline in the absolute quantity of COD discharge after 2013. Second, the impact of COD discharge inequality in economic efficiency lasted longer and was more serious across Liaoning compared with COD discharge inequality in distribution. Third, the quantitative upgrading of the agricultural industrial structure did not significantly reduce COD discharge inequality, and even led to a rise in inequality, especially in terms of economic efficiency. Ultimately, regional economic development turned out to be the key factor in inequality reduction. In addition, improvement in public fiscal support for science and technology also led to greater reduction in inequality.

Description: Aboriginal tourism entrepreneurs operating in remote regions of Australia draw on their 60,000 years of heritage to offer unique and distinct cultural experiences to domestic and international tourists. Living and operating in remote climates presents challenges to achieving successful and sustainable enterprises, including extreme weather, substandard infrastructure, distance from policy makers, distance from markets and the commercialisation of culture, which is customarily owned by and for use by traditional custodians, to produce and deliver a market-ready tourism product. However, many remote Aboriginal tourism entrepreneurs nevertheless achieve success and sustainability. This paper builds on the work of Foley to identify the characteristics of successful remote Aboriginal tourism enterprises and Aboriginal entrepreneurs in remote areas and the resourceful and creative business practices used by remote Aboriginal entrepreneurs to overcome barriers to success and finds that ongoing connections to community and culture are a key factor in that success. It also draws on the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals to identify how the characteristics of remote tourism entrepreneurs and enterprises promote or inhibit the achievement of sustainability and suggests that they offer a framework for effective support of remote Aboriginal entrepreneurs. It concludes by noting that the industry would benefit from further investigation of the contributions made to sustainability by remote Aboriginal tourism enterprises and their stakeholders.

Description: With the development of the Chinese transportation industry, the number of bridges has increased significantly, but this results in high pressure of structural maintenance and management. Bridge management system (BMS) is critical for efficient maintenance and ensured safety of bridge structures during long-term operation. Building information modeling (BIM) is an emerging technology with powerful visualization and informatization capability, making it an ideal tool for developing modern management systems. This paper introduces the development of a bridge management system based on the BIM technology. Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and International Framework for Dictionaries (IFD) standards are studied and extended, and coding rules are proposed for the Chinese bridge industry. Also, a standard structural modeling method is proposed to fast build the bridge BIM model. Web-BIM oriented bridge management is proposed, and portable devices are introduced into the system. Collaborative management is realized for different users. The BIM-based maintenance management system is designed. Finally, a practical BIM-based BMS is established for a long-span cable-stayed bridge in China. This system integrates the BIM with the geographic information system (GIS) and contains information management, inspection management, technical condition evaluation, and enables users to cooperate with each other. Such a BMS could help to improve the management efficiency and ensure its normal operation, providing a useful platform for the maintenance of massive bridges in China.

Description: Culinary tourism represents an emerging component of the tourism industry and encompasses all the traditional values associated with the new trends in tourism: respect for culture and tradition, authenticity and sustainability. Italy is known worldwide for the richness and variety of its gastronomy, and agri-tourism represents one of the most important places where culinary tourists can experience local food and beverages. By using a modified version of Kim and Eves’ motivational scale, the present study aims to investigate which motivational factors affect the frequency of culinary tourists to experience local food and beverages in agri-tourism destinations. The findings of the present study reveal that the social and environmental sustainability, among the other motivations, has shown to play a crucial role in influencing Italian tourists’ frequency to experience local food and beverage in agri-tourism destinations.

Description: The green facades and living walls of vertical greenery systems (VGS) are gaining increasing importance as sustainable building design elements because they can improve the environmental impact of a building. The field could benefit from a comprehensive mapping out of VGS types, an improved classification and nomenclature system, and from linking the benefits to a specific construction type. Therefore, this research reviews existing VGS construction types and links associated benefits to them, clearly differentiating empirical from descriptive supporting data. The study adopted a scoping research review used for mapping a specific research field. A systematic literature review based on keywords identified 13 VGS construction types—four types of green facades, nine types of living walls, and ten benefits. Thermal performance, as a benefit of VGS, is the most broadly empirically explored benefit. Yet, further qualitative studies, including human perception of thermal comfort are needed. Improvements in air quality, reduction of noise, positive effects on hydrology, and visual benefits need much further empirical testing, as the current supporting data is mostly descriptive and based on the similarities with green roofs. The educational benefits of VGS has no supporting empirical evidence, while the social benefits have only been empirically evaluated through one identified study. Future progress of the field depends on the adoption of a clear VGS nomenclature system and further qualitative and quantitative empirical testing of VGS benefits, which should be clearly linked to a specific VGS construction type so that cross-comparison of studies is enabled.

Description: An increasing number of people are conscious of the environmental awareness in various industries, particularly in city areas. It is now a popular trend for the urban catering service industry to outsource its labor-intensive activities, such as dishwashing, to a central dishwashing facility, in which labor force management and optimization are essential. Moreover, the increasing labor cost and fluctuating labor supply drive the increasing need for labor force optimization. This research develops an in-plant logistics simulation model for a central dishwashing facility with the purpose of improving its labor force utilization rate. A discrete event simulation model is established to simulate the tableware washing process, and this model is employed in a one-stop environmentally hygienic dishwashing service provider for trial implementation. The simulation result has been compared with actual situations, identifies the main bottlenecks of the tableware washing process, optimizes the utilization rate of the labor force, and further helps to improve the productivity.

Description: The tourism industry has received increasing attention as it has become one of the fastest developing business sectors around the world. Service quality in tourism has come to be regarded as an important impetus for economic growth; however, the focus on tourism service quality has not yet been satisfactorily or comprehensively reviewed. Therefore, we conducted a systematic literature review combining bibliometric, citation network and keyword network analysis. We selected the top five tourism journals from the SCOPUS database and then collected papers according to their keywords. Our results revealed the critical issues, topics, and changes over time regarding research on tourism service quality. The critical issues included the important impact of service quality on tourist behavior and service quality evaluation, and topics comprised (1) tourist satisfaction, (2) sustainable issues in tourism, (3) value of service quality for customers, (4) restaurant service quality, (5) customers’ perceptions of tourism, (6) service quality evaluation in tourism, and (7) service quality’s influence on customer behavior. Furthermore, the keyword network analysis results revealed the most influential keywords.

Description: While it is well-known knowledge management is crucial for an organization’s competitive advantage, relatively little research has explored the process whereby knowledge management affects firm performance in a collectivistic culture such as China. This study is to explore the mechanism through which knowledge management helps improve firm performance and then to examine the mediating role of decision quality in the Chinese context. Using a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from Chinese entrepreneurs and with structural equation modeling, this study shows that knowledge accumulation, internal sharing, and external knowledge sharing all have a positive impact on firm performance, and decision quality partially mediates the impact of knowledge management on firm performance. This study adds value to the knowledge management literature by introducing decision quality as a mediating variable to examine the impact of knowledge sharing on firm performance in China. The findings of this study can help enrich the literature on knowledge management and firm performance and highlight the important impact of decision quality on knowledge management and firm performance. Management practitioners can also benefit from the findings.

Description: ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters comprise a transport system superfamily which is ubiquitous in eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. In plants, ABC transporters play important roles in hormone transport and stress tolerance. In this study, 15 BhABC transporters encoded by genes identified from the transcriptome of Betula halophila were categorized into four subfamilies (ABCB, ABCF, ABCG, and ABCI) using structural domain and phylogenetic analyses. Upon B. halophila exposure to exogenous phytohormones and abiotic stressors, gene expression patterns and transcriptional responses for each subfamily of genes were obtained using semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis. The results demonstrated that expression of most genes belonging to ABCB and ABCG subfamilies changed in response to exogenous phytohormone exposures and abiotic stress. These results suggest that BhABC genes may participate in hormone transport and that their expression may be influenced by ABA-dependent signaling pathways involved in abiotic stress responses to various stressors.

Description: Fusarium circinatum Nirenberg & O’Donnel is listed among the species recommended for regulation as quarantine pests in Europe. Over 60 Pinus species are susceptible to the pathogen and it also causes disease on Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) and species in genera such as Picea and Larix. The European Food Safety Authority considers the probability of new introductions—via contaminated seeds, wood material, soil and growing substrates, natural means and human activities—into the EU very likely. Due to early detection, constant surveillance and control measures, F. circinatum outbreaks have officially been eradicated in Italy and France. However, the global spread of F. circinatum suggests that the pathogen will continue to be encountered in new environments in the future. Therefore, continuous surveillance of reproductive material, nurseries and plantations, prompt control measures and realistic contingency plans will be important in Europe and elsewhere to limit disease spread and the “bridgehead effect”, where new introductions of a tree pathogen become increasingly likely as new environments are invaded, must be considered. Therefore, survey programs already implemented to limit the spread in Europe and that could be helpful for other EU countries are summarized in this review. These surveys include not only countries where pitch canker is present, such as Portugal and Spain, but also several other EU countries where F. circinatum is not present. Sampling protocols for seeds, seedlings, twigs, branches, shoots, soil samples, spore traps and insects from different studies are collated and compiled in this review. Likewise, methodology for morphological and molecular identification is herein presented. These include conventional PCR with a target-specific region located in the intergenic spacer region, as well as several real-time PCR protocols, with different levels of specificity and sensitivity. Finally, the global situation and future perspectives are addressed.

Description: The French West Indies (F.W.I.), in the Eastern Caribbean, are part of a biodiversity hotspot and an archipelago of very rich geology. In this specific natural environment, the abundance or the lack of various natural resources has influenced society since the pre-Columbian era. The limited size of the islands and the growth of their economy demand a clear assessment of both the natural geoheritage and the historical heritage. This paper presents a brief review of the variety of the natural stone architectural heritage of the F.W.I. and of the available geomaterials. Some conservation issues and threats are evidenced, with particular emphasis on Guadeloupe. Some social practices are also evoked, with the long-term goal of studying the reciprocal influence of local geology and society on conservation aspects. Finally, this paper argues that unawareness is one of the main obstacles for the conservation of the geoheritage and the natural stone architectural heritage in the F.W.I.

Description: Today, one of the greatest challenges faced by the agriculture industry is the development of sustainable and environmentally-friendly systems to meet nutritional demands of the continuously growing global population. A number of research studies have recently been undertaken with the aim to indicate types of parameters used in plant production that would be able to improve plant growth as well as the effectiveness and quality of yield, and to help plants cope with environmental stress. The aim of this study was to verify a hypothesis that the implementation of a sustainable agricultural technology, based on the use of synthetic biostimulants, will allow not only increasing crop yield and quality but also improving the cost-effectiveness of common bean cultivation. The field experiment was conducted in three growing seasons (2016–2018). In the growing season, the plants were treated with Atonik and Tytanit biostimulants in the form of single or double spraying. We determinated biometric traits, seed yield, seed number, and 1000-seed weight. Further analyses included contents of nutraceutical potential. The economic effect of using biostimulants was also calculated. The results of our experiment allowed verifying a hypothesis that the implementation of a sustainable agricultural technology based on the use of synthetic preparations was an effective method to increase plant productivity and, consequently, economic profits to farmers.

Description: Earthquakes are one type of natural disaster that causes serious economic loss, deaths, and homelessness, and providing shelters is vital to evacuees who have been affected by an earthquake. Constructing shelters with reasonable capacity in the right locations and allocating evacuees to them in a reasonable time period is one disaster management method. This study proposes a multi-objective hierarchical model with three stages, i.e., an immediate shelter (IS) stage, a short-term shelter (STS) stage, and a long-term shelter (LTS) stage. According to the requirements of evacuees of IS, STS, and LTS, the objective of both the IS and STS stages is to minimize total evacuation time and the objectives of the LTS are to minimize total evacuation time and to minimize total shelter area. A modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) algorithm is used to solve the IS and STS stages and an interleaved modified particle swarm optimization algorithm and genetic algorithm (MPSO-GA) is applied to solve the LTS stage. Taking Chaoyang District, Beijing, China as a case study, the results generated using the model present the government with a set of options. Thus, according to the preferences of the government, the determination can be made regarding where to construct ISs, STSs, and LTSs, and how to allocate the evacuees to them.

Description: China’s water shortage problem is becoming increasingly severe. Improving water use efficiency is crucial to alleviating China’s water crisis. This paper evaluates the water use efficiency of 31 provinces and municipalities in China by using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. When the usual DEA model has too many indexes selected, it will cause the majority of the decision making units (DMUs) efficiency values be one, which leads to invalid evaluation results. Therefore, by using the entropy weight method, a new synthetic set of indexes is constructed based on the original indexes. The new synthetic set of indexes retains the full information of the original indexes, and the goal of simplifying the number of indexes is achieved. Simultaneously, by empowering the original indexes, the evaluation using synthetic indexes can also avoid the impact of industrial structure and labor division on water use efficiency. The results show that in China’s northeastern grain producing areas, water use efficiency is higher due to the high level of agricultural modernization. The provinces in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River have the lowest water use efficiency due to water pollution and water waste. In general, China’s overall water use efficiency is low, and there is still much room for improvement.

Description: The rational distribution of parks within an urban park system should ensure reasonable travel distance for citizens, as well as good recreation quality, which seems to be more important than the former in megacities with high population density. However, studies on the accessibility of parks ignored the competitiveness and exclusiveness of urban green space, and the method can be improved to get a more scientific result as the basis for spatial optimization of urban park systems. Therefore, in this study, we consider the park’s quasi-public goods attribute when building an accessibility measurement method, and both the park’s service supply capacity and demand of citizens were included, as well as the influence of spatial travel cost. This method, based on the empirical research results obtained from a case study of Shaoxing in East China, provides a more suitable accessibility estimate compared with the previous methods, which can reflect the park’s spatial distribution characteristics. Recommendations for improving the accessibility of parks include increasing the number of parks, reducing the cost of travel, enhancing park service capacity, and reducing the population density within the park’s service area.

Description: The building sector has gradually become a major contributor of carbon emissions in recent years. Its carbon emissions, which result from the long heating period and considerable consumption of coal in residential buildings during operation, must be reduced. To this end, the long-range energy alternatives planning system was adopted for the forecasting of carbon emissions in baseline scenarios, energy-saving, energy-saving–low-carbon, and low-carbon. On the basis of these predictions, the contributions of heating, cooling, cooking, illumination, washing, and other activities to carbon emissions were analyzed. The influencing factors in the reduction of carbon emissions from residential buildings in a cold region were identified. The results showed that energy-saving–low-carbon was the optimal scenario to reduce carbon emissions. Meanwhile, carbon emissions will peak in 2030, with a value of 42.06 Mt under the same scenario. As the top three influencing factors, heating, cooling, and cooking contribute 55.74%, 18.86%, and 17.29% of carbon emissions, respectively. Sensitivity results showed the differential effects of 32 factors on the reduction of carbon emissions in residential buildings. Carbon emissions could be reduced by 17.41%, 35.51%, 31.10%, and 14.10% by controlling the building scale, heating, cooling, and cooking, respectively. To this end, seven factors, including the rationing of central heating, were identified. Then, pathways to reducing carbon emissions were proposed under different scenarios. The present research fills the gap between reality and the predicted pathway, considering the heterogeneity of the climate.

Description: Nowadays, the focus on sustainable materials with high specifications has become a necessity in certain important construction projects. These materials play an essential role and constitute the foundation stone in the sustainability of these projects in addition to their impact on the execution time. Many studies have discussed the challenges faced by these materials and their negative impact on the execution period of construction projects. However, these studies are still scarce in the reconstruction projects, especially the historical ones, which are based mainly on the sustainability of the materials used, which are represented by the historical elements that maintain the ancient shape of the building. The aim of this research is to highlight the materials-related challenges of historical reconstruction projects which negatively affect the planned duration of implementation. This study was conducted on the Old Riwaq project, which is the historical part of the Mataf Expansion project in the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is considered one of the most important reconstruction historical projects that have been recently carried out in the Middle East. In order to achieve this goal, 15 interviews were held with the engineers working in this project and specialists in these types of historical projects. The results show a group of different challenges that follow the reconstruction stages of the historical building. These challenges are: challenges related to the first stage which is the documentation and dismantling stage (two challenges), challenges related to the second stage which is the workshops stage (three challenges), and challenges related to the third stage which is the new designs and mockup stage (three challenges). Finally, the identification of sustainable materials challenges should be considered an urgent necessity, in order to overcome or reduce their negative effects in future projects, especially in relation to project durations.

Description: This paper had two main purposes. One was to estimate annual total aviation CO2 emissions from/among all key urban agglomerations (UAs) in China and its changes patterns from 2007 to 2014. The second one was to visualize the aviation carbon footprints among the UAs by using a chord diagram plot. This study also used Kaya identity to decompose the contribution of potential driving forces behind the aviation CO2 emissions using Kaya identity. Especially, it decomposed factor CO2/gross domestic product (GDP), which is wildly used in Kaya identity analysis, into factor CO2/value-added (VA) and factor VA/GDP. Here, VA represents the tourism value added of the corresponding flights. The main results were: (1) The UAs developed a much bigger and stronger carbon network among themselves. (2) There was also an expanding of the flows to less densely populated or less developed UAs. However, the regional disparity increased significantly. (3) Compared with the driving factor of population, the GDP per capita impacted the emission amount more significantly. Our contribution had two folds. First, it advances current knowledge by fulfilling the research gap between transport emissions and UA relationship. Second, it provides a new approach to visualizing the aviation carbon footprints as well as the relationships among UAs.

Description: Employees’ spontaneous environmental citizenship behavior (ECB) is a key factor in facilitating the low-carbon transition of enterprises. However, little research has focused on the impact of interpersonal interactions on ECB. To explore how ECB is affected by special interpersonal circles in Chinese organizations, we propose a new concept: perceived interpersonal circle power (PICP). From the two dimensions of PICP, leader-oriented perceived interpersonal circle power (PICP-L) and colleague-oriented perceived interpersonal circle power (PICP-C), we establish a mechanism model to explore the effect of PICP on ECB. A structural equation model was used to test our hypotheses through 332 questionnaires, and the results show that PICP-L and PICP-C differ significantly in the directions and strengths of their effects on ECB. PICP-C has a direct positive driving effect on environmental engagement behavior (EEB) and environmental helping behavior (EHB). High PICP-C can also encourage EEB via affective organizational commitment (AOC). Conversely, PICP-L has no significant effect on EEB. More unexpectedly, PICP-L has a significant negative influence on EHB. This study provides a new direction for future theoretical research on ECB, as well as a new opportunity for policy-making and enterprise management practices to promote employees’ ECB.

Description: A decline in natural resource management by rural communities has significantly contributed to human–wildlife conflicts, especially crop-raiding, in Japan. Collaborative wildlife management between existing rural stakeholders and new urban stakeholders is essential to address this problem. However, differences in the perception regarding wildlife exist between rural populations, which have ample direct experience with wildlife, and urban populations, which lack direct experience with wildlife. Consequently, this gap in perception can potentially lead to conflicts between stakeholders during collaborative wildlife management. In this study, content analysis, which has been extensively employed to analyze qualitative data, was performed to elucidate the differences in perception of wildlife between urban and rural stakeholders. An online survey was conducted in December 2016 to understand the perception of wildlife by stakeholders, in which 1401 responses were received. The results indicate that the urban individuals did not have a comprehensive understanding of wildlife and any positive views were primarily abstract. Conversely, rural individuals had diverse perceptions, both positive and negative. Therefore, a novel perceptual gap-narrowing approach based on staged interactions with the rural environment, is suggested. Introduction to rural issues through field-based experiences to urban stakeholders is likely to the narrow gaps in perception between urban and rural stakeholders, in order to allow for efficient and collaborative wildlife management.

Description: Forests fulfill important ecological functions by sustaining nutrient cycles and providing habitats for a multitude of organisms. They further deliver ecosystem services such as carbon storage, protection from erosion, and wood as an important commodity. Trees have to cope in their environment with a multitude of natural and anthropogenic forms of stress. Resilience and resistance mechanisms to biotic and abiotic stresses are of special importance for long-lived tree species. Since trees exist for many decades or even centuries on the same spot, they have to acclimate their growth and reproduction to constantly changing atmospheric and pedospheric conditions. In this special issue, we invited contributions addressing the physiological responses of forest trees to a wide array of different stress factors. Among the eighteen papers published, seventeen covered drought or salt stress as major environmental cues, highlighting the relevance of this topic in times of climate change. Only one paper studied cold stress [1]. The dominance of drought and salt stress studies underpins the need to understand tree responses to these environmental threats from the molecular to the ecophysiological level. The papers contributing to this Special Issue cover these scientific aspects in different areas of the globe and encompass conifers as well as broadleaf tree species. In addition, two studies deal with bamboo (Phyllostachys sp., [1,2]). Bamboo, although botanically belonging to grasses, was included because its ecological functions and applications are similar to those of trees.

Description: Tree growth strongly responds to climate change, especially in semiarid mountainous areas. In recent decades, China has experienced dramatic climate warming; however, after 2000 the warming trend substantially slowed (indicative of a warming hiatus) in the semiarid areas of China. The responses of tree growth in respect to elevation during this warming hiatus are poorly understood. Here, we present the responses of Qinghai spruce (Picea crassifolia Kom.) growth to warming using a stand-total sampling strategy along an elevational gradient spanning seven plots in the Qilian Mountains. The results indicate that tree growth experienced a decreasing trend from 1980 to 2000 at all elevations, and the decreasing trend slowed with increasing elevation (i.e., a downward trend from −10.73 mm2 year−1 of the basal area increment (BAI) at 2800 m to −3.48 mm2 year−1 of BAI at 3300 m), with an overall standard deviation (STD) of 2.48 mm2 year−1. However, this trend reversed to an increasing trend after 2000, and the increasing trends at the low (2550–2900 m, 0.27–5.07 mm2 year−1 of BAI, p 〉 0.23) and middle (3000–3180 m, 2.08–2.46 mm2 year−1 of BAI, p 〉 0.2) elevations were much weaker than at high elevations (3300 m, 23.56 mm2 year−1 of BAI, p 〈 0.01). From 2000–2013, the difference in tree growth with elevation was much greater than in other sub-periods, with an overall STD of 7.69 mm2 year−1. The stronger drought conditions caused by dramatic climate warming dominated the decreased tree growth during 1980–2000, and the water deficit in the 2550–3180 m range was stronger than at 3300 m, which explained the serious negative trend in tree growth at low and middle elevations. After 2000, the warming hiatus was accompanied by increases in precipitation, which formed a wetting–warming climate. Although moisture availability was still a dominant limiting factor of tree growth, the relieved drought pressure might be the main reason for the recent recovery in the tree growth at middle and low elevations. Moreover, the increasing temperature significantly promoted tree growth at 3300 m, with a correlation coefficient between the temperature and BAI of 0.77 (p 〈 0.01). Our results implied that climate change drove different growth patterns at different elevations, which sheds light into forest management under the estimated future climate warming: those trees in low and middle elevations should be paid more attention with respect to maintaining tree growth, while high elevations could be a more suitable habitat for this species.

Description: In order to explore the emission characteristics of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and different VOC components in airtight environments, polyvinyl chloride laminated plywood (PVC-P), melamine-impregnated paper laminated plywood (MI-P), water-based paint laminated plywood (WP-P) and unfinished plywood (UF-P) were tested as materials in 15 L small environment cabins. VOCs were collected after being sealed for 2 h, 4 h, 6 h, 8 h, 12 h, 18 h, 24 h and 30 h under different loading ratios (1 m2/m3, 1.5 m2/m3, 2 m2/m3, 2.5 m2/m3) and analyzed using a gas chromatography–mass spectrometer. The results show that VOCs gradually increased and tended to be saturated with the increase of time in an airtight environment. The saturation of veneered plywood was faster than unfinished plywood and the pollution degree of three kinds of veneered plywood from lowest to highest was in order of PVC-P, MI-P, WP-P. Aromatic hydrocarbons account for more than half of VOC concentration, and was most obviously affected by the loading ratios. Surfaced laminated plywood can reduce the emission of aromatic hydrocarbons, but also increases the amount of other compounds released. The concentration of VOC-components shows different characteristic curves at different loading ratios due to the influence of decorative materials.

Description: The amount to be invested and the timing of clearcutting are central concerns in timber production. To assess the impact of the initial planting density on optimal economic rotation, we explicitly included the distribution of stand diameter classes and price differences representing the quality of stumpage in a model of forest land expected value (LEV). We selected five initial planting densities of 35-year old China fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook) plantations to fit the distribution of diameter classes along with stand age using a three-parameter Weibull theoretical growth model and then the Faustmann formula was used to calculate LEVs under different conditions. We found that the difference in the values of the growth rate of the stand volume and the discount rate affected the direction of the impact of initial planting density on the optimal economic rotation. If the value of the growth rate of the stand volume exceeded that of the discount rate, then the initial planting density had a negative impact on optimal economic rotation and vice versa. In addition, the quality effect, which means the shift in diameter class to a higher value attributed to the initial planting density, determined the extent of the impact of the initial planting density on the optimal economic rotation. The proportion of large-sized timber increased at a faster pace in accordance with the age of the stand in stands where the planting density was low compared with the proportion of such timber in stands with a higher initial planting density. The corresponding net stumpage price difference resulted in significant differences in LEVs. We concluded that a low-density stand of China fir was a preferred planting option for obtaining the highest LEV.

Description: With the rapid development of urbanization worldwide, there is a large volume of neighborhoods that need to be renewed with various problems such as poor building performance, few public facilities, congested road traffic, unequal living standards, disappearing community culture, and deprived environments. Performance evaluations are considered to be useful tools for ensuring the outcomes of sustainable renewal. Although many research works have assessed the performances of urban renewal projects, evaluations, especially for neighborhood renewal projects, are often overlooked. Besides, it is also hard to find a general standard that is suitable for evaluating the performance of any neighborhood renewal project with a lack of related regulations or codes. Thus, this paper intends to build a framework to assess the relative performances of multiple neighborhood renewal projects through a hybrid AHP-TOPSIS method. A case study in Nanjing, China, is used to show how this framework could be applied to decision-making in order to pursue sustainable neighborhood renewal. The results are expected to provide references for sustainable renewal in each neighborhood. Suggestions related to the findings are proposed to further improve the performances of neighborhood renewal projects, such as establishing a multiple principle–agent framework, providing a sustainable funding system from both the public and private sector, and implementing multiprogram management measures.

Description: Land-use change, particularly urban expansion, can greatly affect the carbon balance, both from the aspects of terrestrial ecosystems and anthropogenic carbon emissions. Coastal China is a typical region of rapid urban expansion, and obvious spatial heterogeneity exists from the north to south. However, the different urban change characteristics and the effect on carbon balance remain undetermined. By unifying the spatial-temporal resolution of carbon source and sink data, we effectively compared the carbon budgets of three coastal urban agglomerations in China. The results show that all of the three urban agglomerations have undergone an obvious urban expansion process, with the built-up area increasing from 1.03 × 104 km2 in 2000 to 3.06 × 104 km2 in 2013. For Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH), the built-up area gradually expanded. The built-up area in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) gradually changed before 2007 but rapidly grew thereafter. The built-up expansion of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) passed through three growing stages and showed the largest mean patch size. Carbon emission spatial patterns in the three urban agglomerations are consistent with their economic development, from which the net ecosystem production (NEP) spatial patterns are very different. Compared to carbon emissions, NEP has a carbon sink effect and can absorb some carbon emissions, but the amounts were all much lower than the carbon emissions in the three urban agglomerations. The carbon sink effect in the Yangtze River Delta is the most obvious, with the Pearl River Delta following, and the lowest effect is in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei. Finally, a scientific basis for policy-making is provided for viable CO2 emission mitigation policies.

Description: Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM) is one of the important matters in citizen-centric e-government. In fact, the most important purpose of e-government is to satisfy citizens. The ‘137 system’ is one of the most important ones based on the citizen-centric that is a municipality phone based request/response system. The aim of this research is a data-mining of a ‘137 system’ (citizens’ complaint system) of the first district of Bojnourd municipality in Iran, to prioritize the urban needs and to estimate citizens’ satisfaction. To reach this, the K-means and Bees Algorithms (BA) were used. Each of these two algorithms was executed using two different methods. In the first method, prioritization and estimation of satisfaction were done separately, whereas in the second method, prioritization and estimation of satisfaction were done simultaneously. To compare the clustering results in the two methods, an index was presented quantitatively. The results showed the superiority of the second method. The index of the second method for the first needs in K-means was 0.299 more than the first method and it was the same in two methods in BA. Also, the results of the BA clustering were better at it because of the S (silhouette) and CH (Calinski-Harabasz) indexes. Considering the final prioritization done by the two algorithms in two methods, the primary needs included asphalt, so specific schemes should be considered.

Description: Competence-oriented teaching that leads to the sustainable transformation of both the individual and society requires a holistic learning process that addresses the cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural domains of learning in a balanced way. This article questions whether a personal dimension of competences (addressing the individual’s values, attitudes, and lived experiences) is relevant for higher education in addition to the systemic dimension (learning objectives emphasizing cognitive processes). A theoretical concept for analysing competence frameworks from this point of view was developed in a multi-step qualitative research process: two existing competence frameworks underpinning international ESD policies were compared and, based on the findings, an analytical tool to analyse competence dimensions was drafted as a two-dimensional matrix. This tool was tested on competence frameworks reported in the literature and on examples from practice in confrontation with related academic discussion. The analysis of sustainability competences with this tool illustrates the transformative dimension on a scale from holistic thinking through future orientation to achieving transformation, and the normative dimension that indicates the complementarity of the personal and systemic character of competences. The analysed competence frameworks include competences more or less evenly distributed in both dimensions; the competences in the socio-emotional learning domain were often associated with envisioning change and achieving sustainable transformation. As anticipating the future in an active way is relevant for sustainability-oriented HE programs, not only should this dimension of competences be afforded greater consideration, but pedagogies addressing the personal level should also be further investigated and implemented in HE.

Description: In 2003, a new gall-inducing wasp of the genus Ophelimus was detected in the Valparaíso Region (Chile), affecting tree plantations of Eucalyptus globulus Labill and Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh. Since then Ophelimus has been frequently detected in different plantations in Chile, covering a widespread area. A preliminary collaborative study suggests that the micro-wasp detected should be classified as a new Ophelimus species. In this paper, using an integrative approach (including genetic, morphological, and behavioral data), we addressed the delimitation and description of this new species. This study involved the use of brood adult specimens, raised at the laboratory of MIPlagas Ltda., from infested twigs of E. globulus collected in several localities between of Valparaíso and Los Lagos Regions (Chile). Morphological structures were described according to current Eulophidae taxonomic keys, as well as additional traits, such as gall morphology and behavior. Genetic characterization was implemented using a phylogenetic approach, based on a 648 bp specific fragment of the mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase I gene (COI 5 region) obtained from collected specimens and available databases (Genbank, NCBI, and BOLDSystem). Specifically, distinctive patterns of variation were detected in traits like gall and antennae morphology, growth habit trends, and a notorious polyphenism in the setae from the sub marginal vein. Overall evidence suggests that this new entity should be considered a new species in Ophelimus, which is henceforth named Ophelimus migdanorum Molina-Mercader.

Description: Traditional timber harvests on steep slopes have been conducted through labor-intensive and sometimes environmentally impactful methods, such as manual felling with chainsaws and extraction using bladed skid trails, winching, or cable yarding. Ground-based mechanized harvesting and primary transportation methods such as cut-to-length harvesters and forwarders have emerged in some parts of the world as low-impact, safe, and efficient alternatives to the aforementioned systems. However, when mechanized operations are used on steep terrain, problems such as poor stability, loss of traction, and increased soil disturbance can occur. Tethered or winch-assisted logging practices are being tested and applied in several countries to adapt to challenges associated with operating equipment on steep slopes while minimizing environmental impact. To better understand the feasibility of these systems, we conducted a designed experiment to quantify changes in soil properties and predicted erosion resulting from varying numbers of passes and payload levels by a forwarder operating on slopes ranging from 27 to 38 degrees. The machine was equipped with two different track configurations, tethered by either a machine-mounted or self-contained winch, in eucalyptus plantations in Brazil. On low slopes, bulk density significantly increased, but it did not increase on steeper slopes; this demonstrates traction winches’ effectiveness at reducing concentrated ground pressures. Rut depths were minimal and decreased with increasing slope classes due to reduced track slippage. Predicted erosion rates were high, primarily due to the extremely steep, long slopes and lack of adequate cover in some portions of the trail, illustrating the importance of proper erosion management practices on steep slopes.

Description: This paper presents a comprehensive review of National Single Window concept and its impact on sustainability in maritime transport and seaports. The theoretical frameworks of sustainability, maritime transport, seaports, the National Single Window and the Maritime National Single Window is provided. The importance of stakeholder connectivity in maritime transport and seaports in improving sustainability is demonstrated, as well as the advantages of smoother data exchange through global analysis of National Single Window examples, the majority of which present national and regional best practices and initiatives. Empirical data has been provided in order to demonstrate the impact of National Single Windows and Maritime National Single Windows on seaport sustainability (economic, environmental, and social).

Description: This study focuses on the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and sustainability in a developing host country, i.e., Vietnam, using the transaction cost approach. Secondary panel data were obtained from 62 provinces in Vietnam for the period between the years of 2010 and 2016. The analysis of the data was performed using the fixed effects regression model, which yielded interesting and controversial findings. Essentially, it was demonstrated that the FDI made by enterprises and the subsequent employment that it generated had several positive and significant influences on the long-term sustainability of provinces in Vietnam. However, the downside was that the value of fixed assets and long-term investment of FDI projects in conjunction with the size of the provinces negatively influenced their long-term sustainability. The findings of this study have important academic and practical implications. We propose some policy changes that would considerably improve the efficacy and effectiveness of FDI. This, in turn, will certainly enhance the long-term sustainability of host countries, especially developing ones.

Description: Making quantitative evaluations of the environmental functions of the soil in a quantitative way is an urgent necessity for transitioning towards the sustainable use of soils. The objective of this work was to use and improve the Soil and Environment software for soils of volcanic areas, for which the software was not designed to work on. The study was conducted in the volcanic area of Michoacan, Mexico. Nine soil profiles were described; samples were taken from each horizon and the physical and chemical properties of each sample were analyzed. The Soil and Environment software was used to conduct pedoecological evaluations of the soil samples and, subsequently, an evaluation of the environmental functions of the soils and the modeling of scenarios was carried out. The soil profiles studied showed variable properties of hydraulic conductivity, field capacity, air capacity, effective cation exchange capacity, and soil organic carbon. The soils showed very high nutrient retention, high naturalness and sorption of heavy metals, and low cultural and natural archive properties. The Soil and Environment software generally works well with soils of volcanic areas; however, we suggest improvements in the evaluation method of the following functions: naturalness and agricultural quality. Additionally, the estimating method of aeration capacity and hydraulic conductivity should be calibrated for the properties of the volcanic soils. The modeling of scenarios allowed us to identify the soil profiles that are most vulnerable to degradation. The modeling of scenarios provided a clear idea of the negative and positive effects that a change in soil use would have.

Description: To achieve both a large number of platform users and the sustainability of service intermediation platform ecosystems, this study attempts to clarify appropriate platform fee settings and promising market types. It focuses on hotel-booking platforms and platform-based markets. We conduct agent-based simulation experiments with the conditions of (a) platform fee setting, (b) supply and demand balance, and (c) the consumer type categorized as “mandatorily” purchasing consumers (e.g., business travelers whose purchase of a hotel service is mandatory) and “optionally” purchasing consumers (who can refuse services if their requirements are not satisfied). Our simulation results reveal that when the platforms focus on mandatorily purchasing consumers, they could acquire larger platform users through fee settings, depending on the balance of supply and demand; however, they could not maintain ecosystem sustainability in any of the cases. When the platform focuses on optionally purchasing consumers, it can achieve both a large number of platform users and ecosystem sustainability with platform fee settings of consumer incentives, especially in excessive supply markets.

Description: The mandate of doing good with earnings management has been a subject of inconclusive findings from the past literature and leave issues on the benefits of socially responsible activities and financial reporting of the company. This study investigates the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on accrual-based (AEM) and real-activities earnings management (REM). This study hypothesized that the trade-off exists between these two earnings management strategies, in light of increasing attention of CSR among Asian firms. In addition, this study examines whether the performance of firms in socially responsible activities exhibit different patterns of effect across the two measures of earnings management under the market economy, country, and business sector contexts. This study contemplates on 3906 firm-year observations from 2011 to 2017 of eleven countries in Asia. Our findings show that CSR conceals AEM while it constrains REM. These effects vary according to the market economy classifications, country, and business sector types. Each market, country and business sector has different standpoints in implementing CSR activities and earnings management relevant to the culture, macroeconomic considerations and demands from the stakeholders. Lastly, the discernment on the relevance of building corporate citizenship on financial reporting transparency is elaborated.

Description: Soil salinity is a common problem of the developing world as well as the developed world. However, the pace to reduce salinity is much slower in the developing world. The application of short-term approaches with an unsustainable supply of funds are the major reasons of low success. In contrast, the developed world has focused on long-term and sustainable techniques, and considerable funds per unit area have been allocated to reduce soil salinity. Here, we review the existing approaches in both worlds. Approaches like engineering and nutrient use were proven to be unsustainable, while limited breeding and biosaline approaches had little success in the developing countries. In contrast, advanced breeding and genetics tools were implemented in the developed countries to improve the salinity tolerance of different crops with more success. Resultantly, developed countries not only reduced the area for soil salinity at a higher rate, but more sustainable and cheaper ways to resolve the issue were implemented at the farmers’ field. Similarly, plant microbial approaches and the application of fertigation through drip irrigation have great potential for both worlds, and farmer participatory approaches are required to obtain fruitful outcomes. In this regard, a challenging issue is the transition of sustainable approaches from developed countries to developing ones, and possible methods for this are discussed.

Description: Exponential fertilization is well-known for improving the growth and nutritional status of seedlings during nursery culture. However, less is known about how genetic variability among seedling species influences the effects of fertilization regimes on the growth of seedlings and their nutritional status under varying fertilization levels. Here, we conducted a greenhouse experiment to compare the growth, as well as the nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) nutrient concentration responses, of 2- and 3-generation Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lambert) Hooker) seedlings to the impacts of varying exponential and conventional constant-rate fertilization levels (50, 100, and 200 mg P seedling−1). Seedling size and shoot:root ratios were lower in exponential fertilization than in conventional fertilization. Exponentially fertilized seedlings had higher concentrations of N and P nutrients compared to conventionally fertilized seedlings during low-level fertilization. Conversely, an elevated P concentration was observed in seedlings subjected to conventional fertilization compared to those exposed to exponential fertilization during high-level fertilization. However, there were no significant differences in seedling N and P concentrations between the two fertilization regimes during medium-level fertilization. Furthermore, 2- and 3-generation Chinese fir seedlings differed greatly in their growth and nutritional status. Additionally, there were significant fertilization regime × seedling generation interaction effects on the seedling shoot:root ratio and N concentration. Our findings suggest that exponential fertilization can improve the nutritional status, survival, and growth of Chinese fir seedlings, especially on competitive sites, and that information on both intra-species genetic variability and appropriate fertilizer levels is necessary for the successful fertilization of Chinese fir seedlings, regardless of fertilization regimes.

Description: Hurricanes shape ecosystems. A broad range of forested ecosystems is particularly affected by hurricanes, thus creating the need for studies addressing the effects of these disturbances. There is a long history of hurricane and forest research on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. In this study, we present results from a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed articles regarding ecological research conducted in Puerto Rico on the topic of hurricanes and forests published from 1900 through 2017. We present a summary of cyclonic activity on the island during the study period and the results from the systematic literature review within this cyclonic context. We discuss findings in terms of aspects of forests studied, geographical distribution of study areas, and time scales at which research was conducted. These findings allow us to determine what was studied about hurricanes and forests, identify gaps in the information, and suggest possible areas of research and production of new knowledge that recent and future storms can bring. We conclude with recommendations identifying research needs and propose additional approaches to complement existing information. Our goal is to generate future knowledge from hurricane and forest research with the broadest applications possible.