Search Results (296)

Moving beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the sole measure of economic performance is increasingly critical for addressing the complex challenges of sustainable development. The Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) offers a more comprehensive framework for assessing long-term sustainability by accounting for changes in produced, human, and natural capital. This paper contributes to this debate by examining the comparative dynamics of these three forms of capital in Greece in relation to European Union averages. Specifically, we employ a repeated-measures design and the mixed ANOVA method to analyse their interactions over time (1990–2020) and across regional contexts. The novelty is to cover the research gap on how the different capitals interact, with Greece serving as a critical case given its environmental vulnerabilities, economic challenges, and position within the European sustainability agenda. The empirical results demonstrate a consistent hierarchy (human > produced > natural), significant growth over time, and pronounced regional disparities, with Western and Northern Europe outperforming Eastern and Southern Europe in overall capital stocks. Moreover, human, produced, and natural capital differed significantly (${\eta }_p^2=0.967)$, with the EU-27 dominated by human and produced capital, while Greece lagged substantially (${\eta }_p^2=0.71$). A robust interaction effect indicated structural divergence (${\eta }_p^2=0.811$). The pairwise comparisons confirmed these results with very large effect sizes (Cohen’s d = 2.3–11.2 in the 95% CI). These findings underscore the importance of moving beyond GDP and highlight the policy relevance of inclusive wealth accounting for ensuring resilience and intergenerational equity. Full article

The rapid urban growth in Saudi Arabia has intensified challenges in sustainable solid waste management, particularly in selecting suitable landfill sites that minimize environmental risks and protect public health. Tabuk Province, located in the northwest of the Kingdom, represents a region where arid climatic conditions, fragile ecosystems, and increasing urbanization make landfill sitting highly complex. Traditional decision-making approaches often struggle to capture uncertainties in expert opinions and spatial data, leading to less reliable outcomes. While Geographic Information Systems and Multicriteria Decision-Making have been applied to this field, the explicit integration of fuzzy logic remains limited, especially in arid regions. This study addresses this gap by combining the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process with Geographic Information Systems to establish a more robust framework for landfill site selection in Tabuk. Seven critical criteria were considered, including distance from major roads, airports, urban centers, coastlines, wetlands, and protected areas, with expert assessments analyzed through fuzzy reasoning to improve decision reliability. The results generated a spatial suitability map highlighting priority zones for landfill development, particularly in the western and southwestern areas of the province, where environmental sensitivity is lower and accessibility to infrastructure is greater. The findings emphasize that proximity to urban areas and road networks are dominant factors influencing suitability. The novelty of this study lies in its methodological integration, which enhances transparency, adaptability, and objectivity in landfill sitting. By promoting environmentally responsible waste management, the framework directly supports the Sustainable Development Goal of Good Health and Well-Being and the Sustainable Development Goal of Sustainable Cities and Communities, ensuring safer urban development and healthier living conditions. Moreover, the approach is transferable to other arid and semi-arid regions, offering valuable insights for countries facing similar challenges in sustainable urban planning. Full article

In recent decades, Chinese literary studies has shifted away from center–periphery models, favoring frameworks that emphasize multiplicity and decentralization. While this turn has opened space for new perspectives, it risks overlooking persistent hierarchies that continue to shape literary careers, where certain publishers remain more central to an author’s advancement than others. This essay reconsiders the center–periphery framework through an analysis of Huizu wenxue, a literary journal published in Changji, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Despite its geographic distance from China’s dominant literary hubs, Huizu wenxue has long served as a key platform for Hui literature. Drawing on interviews, as well as textual and paratextual analysis, I demonstrate how the journal functions both as a launchpad for emerging Hui authors and as an institutional anchor for a nationwide Hui literary community. Through dedicated columns that showcase new Hui talent and events that foster professional networks, Huizu wenxue has, since its inception, continually played a central role in shaping Hui literary production and supporting authors’ careers. Because it operates from the margins of the People’s Republic of China’s yet wields significant influence within Hui literary circles, I argue that Huizu wenxue is best understood as a “peripheral center.” Full article

This study assesses urban flood resilience at the subdistrict scale in Shenzhen, China, addressing the lack of fine-grained spatial analysis in existing city-level models. A multidimensional framework integrating natural geography, infrastructure, socioeconomics, emergency management, and risk exposure was constructed, with indicator weights derived from a hybrid Analytic Hierarchy Process–Entropy Weight Method. Spatial autocorrelation analysis (Moran’s I = 0.475, p < 0.001) revealed distinct “resilience fault lines,” with high-resilience clusters in central districts and low-resilience clusters in peripheral industrial belts. Geodetector identified economic intensity (q = 0.46), elevation (q = 0.39), and emergency shelter density (q = 0.37) as dominant drivers, with strong interaction effects. These findings highlight significant resilience inequality, emphasizing the need for targeted, multidimensional interventions to enhance adaptive capacity and inform climate adaptation strategies in rapidly urbanizing coastal megacities. Full article

This study examines the transformation of literary translation practices in Georgia from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet and neoliberal periods, using postcolonial translation theory as the main analytical lens. Translation is treated not merely as a linguistic transfer but as a process shaped by ideological control, cultural representation, and global power hierarchies. In the Soviet era, censorship policies rooted in socialist realism imposed direct ideological interventions; children’s literature such as Maya the Bee and Bambi exemplified how religious or individualist themes were replaced with collectivist narratives. In the post-Soviet period, overt censorship has largely disappeared; however, structural factors—including the absence of a coherent national translation policy, economic precarity, and dependence on Western funding—have become decisive in shaping translation choices. The shift from Russian to English as the dominant source language has introduced new symbolic hierarchies, privileging Anglophone literature while marginalizing regional and non-Western voices. Drawing on the Georgian Book Market Research 2013–2015 alongside archival materials, paratextual analysis, and contemporary case studies, including the Georgian translation of André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name, the study shows how translators negotiate between market expectations, cultural taboos, and ethical responsibility. It argues that translation in Georgia remains a contested site of cultural negotiation and epistemic justice. Full article

This study addresses this gap by proposing a multilevel fuzzy evaluation model combined with an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to quantify the greenness of furniture products across their entire lifecycle. Focusing on an office desk as a case study, we developed an indicator system encompassing environmental attributes, resource efficiency, energy consumption, economic costs, and quality performance. Weighting results revealed that environmental attributes (27.2%) and resource efficiency (27.2%) dominated the greenness evaluation, with material recycling rate (33.5%) and solid waste pollution (24.3%) as critical sub-indicators. The prototype achieved a moderate greenness score of 70.38/100, highlighting optimization potential in renewable material adoption (10% current rate) and modular design for disassembly. Mechanically recycled materials could reduce lifecycle emissions by 18–25% in key categories. The model demonstrates scalability for diverse furniture types and informs policy-making by prioritizing high-impact areas such as toxic material reduction and energy-efficient manufacturing, thus amplifying its global and interdisciplinary multiplier effects. Full article

Although the sediment–water interface of deep and large reservoirs is recognized as a dominant source of internal phosphorus (P) loading, the quantitative hierarchy of environmental drivers and their interaction thresholds remains poorly resolved. Here, we integrate 512 studies to provide the first process-based synthesis that partitions P release fluxes among temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, salinity, sediment properties, and microbial activity across canyon, valley, and plain-type reservoirs. By deriving standardized effect sizes from 61 data-rich papers, we show that (i) a 1 °C rise in bottom-water temperature increases soluble reactive P (SRP) flux by 12.4% (95% CI: 10.8–14.0%), with sensitivity 28% lower in Alpine oligotrophic systems and 20% higher in warm monomictic basins; (ii) a single-unit pH shift—whether acid or alkaline—stimulates P release through distinct desorption pathways,; and (iii) each 1 mg L⁻¹ drop in dissolved oxygen amplifies release by 31% (25–37%). Critically, we demonstrate that these drivers rarely act independently: multi-factor laboratory and in situ analyses reveal that simultaneous hypoxia and warming can triple the release rate predicted from single-factor models. We further identify that >75% of measurements originate from dam-proximal zones, creating spatial blind spots that currently limit global P-load forecasts to ±50% uncertainty. To close this gap, we advocate coupled metagenomic–geochemical observatories that link gene expression (phoD, ppk, pqqC) to real-time SRP fluxes. The review advances beyond the existing literature by (1) establishing the first quantitative, globally transferable framework for temperature-, DO-, and pH-based management levers; (2) exposing the overlooked role of regional climate in modulating temperature sensitivity; and (3) providing a research agenda that reduces forecasting uncertainty to <20% within two years. Full article

As an interspecies hybrid inheriting genetic material from horse and donkey lineages, mules provide a unique model for studying allele-specific regulatory dynamics. Here, we isolated adult fibroblasts (AFs) and placental fibroblasts (PFs) from mule tissues and reprogrammed them into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Intriguingly, placental fibroblast-derived iPSCs (mpiPSCs) exhibited reduced reprogramming efficiency compared to adult fibroblast-derived iPSCs (maiPSCs). Through allele-specific expression (ASE) analysis, we systematically dissected transcriptional biases in parental cell types and their reprogrammed counterparts, revealing conserved preferential expression of asinine alleles in core pluripotency regulators (e.g., POU5F1/OCT4, SOX2, NANOG) across both cell lineages. Strikingly, mpiPSCs displayed stronger asinine allele dominance than maiPSCs, suggesting tissue-specific parental genomic imprinting. Mechanistic exploration implicated PI3K-AKT signaling as a potential pathway mediating the reprogramming inefficiency in placental fibroblasts. By integrating transcriptomic profiling with ASE technology, this study uncovers allele selection hierarchies during somatic cell reprogramming in hybrids and establishes a framework for understanding how parental genomic conflicts shape pluripotency establishment. These findings advance interspecies iPSC research by delineating allele-specific regulatory networks and providing insights into the molecular constraints of hybrid cellular reprogramming. Full article

Pale lager dominates global beer markets. However, rising living standards and changing consumer expectations have reshaped sensory preferences, highlighting the importance of understanding consumers’ true sensory priorities. In this study, a twenty-eight-item questionnaire, refined through multiple rounds of optimization, was distributed across China and yielded 1837 valid responses. Spearman correlation analysis and partial least-squares regressions showed that educational background and spending willingness exerted the strongest independent effects on sensory priorities. A hybrid analytic hierarchy process–entropy weight method–Delphi procedure was then applied to quantify sensory attribute importance. Results indicated that drinking sensation (30.92%) emerged as the leading driver of pale lager choice, followed by taste (26.60%), aroma (24.77%), and appearance (17.71%), confirming a flavor-led and experience-oriented preference structure. Weighting patterns differed across drinking-frequency cohorts: consumers moved from reliance on overall mouthfeel, through heightened sensitivity to negative attributes, to an eventual focus on subtle hedonic details. Based on these findings, a new sensory evaluation scale was developed and validated against consumer preference rankings, showing significantly stronger alignment with consumer preferences (ρ = 0.800; τ = 0.667) than the traditional scale. The findings supply actionable metrics and decision tools for breweries, supporting applications in product development, quality monitoring, and targeted marketing. Full article

Most astrophysical systems (except for very compact objects such as, e.g., black holes and neutron stars) in our Universe are characterized by shallow gravitational potentials, with dimensionless compactness $|\Phi |\equiv r_s/R\ll 1$, where $r_s$ and R are their Schwarzschild radius and typical size, respectively. While the existence and characteristic scales of such virialized systems depend on gravity, we demonstrate that the value of $|\Phi |$—and thus the non-relativistic nature of most astrophysical objects—arises from microphysical parameters, specifically the fine structure constant and the electron-to-proton mass ratio, and is fundamentally independent of the gravitational constant, G. In fact, the (generally extensive) gravitational potential becomes ‘locally’ intensive at the system boundary; the compactness parameter corresponds to the binding energy (or degeneracy energy, in the case of quantum degeneracy pressure-supported systems) per proton, representing the amount of work that needs to be done in order to allow proton extraction from the system. More generally, extensive properties of gravitating systems depend on G, whereas intensive properties do not. It then follows that peak rms values of large-scale astrophysical velocities and escape velocities associated with naturally formed astrophysical systems are determined by electromagnetic and atomic physics, not by gravitation, and that the compactness, $|\Phi |$, is always set by microphysical scales—even for the most compact objects, such as neutron stars, where $|\Phi |$ is determined by quantities like the pion-to-proton mass ratio. This observation, largely overlooked in the literature, explains why the Universe is not dominated by relativistic, compact objects and connects the relatively low entropy of the observable Universe to underlying basic microphysics. Our results emphasize the central but underappreciated role played by dimensionless microphysical constants in shaping the macroscopic gravitational landscape of the Universe. In particular, we clarify that this independence of the compactness, $|\Phi |$, from G applies specifically to entire, virialized, or degeneracy pressure-supported systems, naturally formed astrophysical systems—such as stars, galaxies, and planets—that have reached equilibrium between self-gravity and microphysical processes. In contrast, arbitrary subsystems (e.g., a piece cut from a planet) do not exhibit this property; well within/outside the gravitating object, the rms velocity is suppressed and G reappears. Finally, we point out that a clear distinction between intensive and extensive astrophysical/cosmological properties could potentially shed new light on the mass hierarchy and the cosmological constant problems; both may be related to the large complexity of our Universe. Full article

Eurocentric portrayals of Africa remain entrenched in European educational systems, perpetuating stereotypes of poverty, primitiveness, and exoticism. This study investigates how such representations are mirrored in German students’ mental conceptions and how they are interpreted by future educators. Using an interpretivist qualitative design, the study analyzes open-ended responses from 41 Grade 5 and 7 pupils at a lower secondary school in Münster, Germany, and written reflections from 17 teacher trainees enrolled in a master’s course in geography education. Thematic analysis reveals five dominant pupil schemas: poverty and deprivation, environmental determinism, racialization and othering, infrastructural deficit, and the wildlife-tourism gaze, rooted in media, textbooks, teachers, and social networks. Teacher trainees’ reflections ranged from emotional discomfort to critical awareness, with many advocating pedagogical pluralism, the normalization of African modernity, and the cultivation of critical consciousness. However, most proposals remained reformist, lacking a deep epistemological critique. The findings highlight the urgency of integrating decolonial theory, postcolonial critique, and epistemic justice into teacher education. Without such structural reorientation, schools will risk reproducing the very global hierarchies they purport to challenge. Full article

Coseismic landslides are geological events in which slopes, either on the verge of instability or already in a fragile state, experience premature failure due to seismic shaking. On 5 September 2022, an Ms 6.8 earthquake struck Luding County, Sichuan Province, China, triggering numerous landslides that caused severe casualties and property damage. This study systematically interprets 13,717 coseismic landslides in the Luding earthquake’s epicentral area, analyzing their spatial distribution concerning various factors, including elevation, slope gradient, slope aspect, plan curvature, profile curvature, surface cutting degree, topographic relief, elevation coefficient variation, lithology, distance to faults, epicentral distance, peak ground acceleration (PGA), distance to rivers, fractional vegetation cover (FVC), and distance to roads. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was improved by incorporating frequency ratio (FR) to address the subjectivity inherent in expert scoring for factor weighting. The improved AHP, combined with the Pearson correlation analysis, was used to identify the dominant controlling factor and assess the landslide susceptibility. The accuracy of the model was verified using the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC). The results reveal that 34% of the study area falls into very-high- and high-susceptibility zones, primarily along the Moxi segment of the Xianshuihe fault and both sides of the Dadu river valley. Tianwan, Caoke, Detuo, and Moxi are at particularly high risk of coseismic landslides. The elevation coefficient variation, slope aspect, and slope gradient are identified as the dominant controlling factors for landslide development. The reliability of the proposed model was evaluated by calculating the AUC, yielding a value of 0.8445, demonstrating high reliability. This study advances coseismic landslide susceptibility assessment and provides scientific support for post-earthquake reconstruction in Luding. Beyond academic insight, the findings offer practical guidance for delineating priority zones for risk mitigation, planning targeted engineering interventions, and establishing early warning and monitoring strategies to reduce the potential impacts of future seismic events. Full article

The rapid desiccation of the Aral Sea has transformed the region into one of the world’s most severe soil wind-erosion hotspots. Despite growing concern, long-term, high-resolution assessments and driver attribution remain insufficient. This study integrates the Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ) with multi-source remote sensing data on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform to simulate wind erosion dynamics from 1990 to 2020. The residual trend method was used to disentangle the contributions of climate change and human activities, while erosion risk was assessed using the Information Quantity model and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). This study reveals five key findings: (1) wind erosion increased significantly after 2011, peaking in 2015 with an annual growth rate of 2.418 kg/m². (2) The Aral Sea Basin’s relative contribution to regional erosion declined sharply, indicating a shift in dominant erosion zones to peripheral deserts. (3) Climate change emerged as the primary driver, contributing 70.19% overall, and up to 92.13% in recent years, while human activities showed a peak influence (55.53%) in 2005. (4) Spatial attribution showed climate dominance in desert areas and localized human impact in exposed lakebeds. (5) High-risk erosion zones expanded rapidly into the Kyzylkum Desert after 2010, due to rising wind speeds and vegetation loss. This study provides a robust remote sensing–based framework for wind erosion monitoring and attribution, offering critical insights for erosion mitigation and ecological restoration in arid, climate-sensitive regions. Full article

The Pinus yunnanensis forest of southwestern China represents a unique and ecologically critical vegetation type, historically shaped by fire disturbances. To mitigate catastrophic wildfire risks, prescribed burning has been widely implemented as a management tool in these ecosystems. However, its effects on plant community structure and biodiversity remain insufficiently quantified. To investigate the specific changes in plant community characteristics caused by prescribed burning, this study was conducted in the Pinus yunnanensis forest in Zhaobi Hill, Xinping county. Our results revealed that prescribed burning induced differential effects on understory communities while exerting negligible effects on canopy tree composition. In the shrub layer, the number of shrub species decreased from 26 to 20, accompanied by a complete extirpation of arboreal saplings. Dominance hierarchies shifted markedly, transitioning from Lithocarpus mairei and Pinus yunnanensis regeneration cohorts in unburned plots to fire-adapted species Duhaldea cappa and Craibiodendron stellatum. Concomitantly, the average height of shrubs had a significant reduction in burning plots. Contrastingly, the number of herb species increased from 30 to 37 in burning plots, with non-significant alterations in abundance, height, and importance values. Prescribed burning significantly decreases the α species diversity of shrubs, but only has minimal effects on the α species diversity indices of herbs. Overall, prescribed burning appears to be the primary factor affecting the species diversity index of shrubs, while altitude, forest structure, and soil nutrient content exert greater influences on the species diversity index of the herbaceous layer. Prescribed burning was the dominant factor shaping the community structure and species diversity of the shrub layer, and the missing saplings of trees in the shrub layer might influence future forest succession in the long term. Full article

Resource-exhausted cities have long played a key role in national energy development. Urban renewal projects, such as the renovation of old underground commercial spaces, can improve urban vitality and promote sustainable development. However, in resource-based cities, traditional industries dominate, while new industries such as modern commerce develop slowly. This results in low economic dynamism and weak motivation for urban development. To address this issue, we propose a systematic method for analyzing construction risks during the decision-making stage of renovation projects. The method includes three steps: risk value assessment, risk factor identification, and risk weight calculation. First, unlike previous studies that only used SWOT for risk factor analysis, we also applied it for project value assessment. Then, using the Work Breakdown Structure–Risk Breakdown Structure framework method (WBS-RBS), we identified specific risk sources by analyzing key construction technologies throughout the entire lifecycle of the renovation project. Finally, to enhance expert consensus, we proposed an improved Delphi–Analytic Hierarchy Process method (Delphi–AHP) to calculate risk indicator weights for different construction phases. The risk analysis covered all lifecycle stages of the renovation and upgrading project. The results show that in the Fushun city renovation case study, the established framework—consisting of five first-level indicators and twenty s-level indicators—enables analysis of renovation projects. Among these, management factors and human factors were identified as the most critical, with weights of 0.3608 and 0.2017, respectively. The proposed method provides a structured approach to evaluating renovation risks, taking into account the specific characteristics of construction work. This can serve as a useful reference for ensuring safe and efficient implementation of underground commercial space renovation projects in resource-exhausted cities. Full article