Global Transitions最新文献

A significant amount of research work carried out on traffic management systems, but intelligent traffic monitoring is still an active research topic due to the emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The integration of these technologies will facilitate the techniques for better decision making and achieve urban growth. However, the existing traffic prediction methods mostly dedicated to highway and urban traffic management, and limited studies focused on collector roads and closed campuses. Besides, reaching out to the public, and establishing active connections to assist them in decision-making is challenging when the users are not equipped with any smart devices. This research proposes an IoT based system model to collect, process, and store real-time traffic data for such a scenario. The objective is to provide real-time traffic updates on traffic congestion and unusual traffic incidents through roadside message units and thereby improve mobility. These early-warning messages will help citizens to save their time, especially during peak hours. Also, the system broadcasts the traffic updates from the administrative authorities. A prototype is implemented to evaluate the feasibility of the model, and the results of the experiments show good accuracy in vehicle detection and a low relative error in road occupancy estimation. The study is part of the Omani-funded research project, investigating Real-Time Feedback for Adaptive Traffic Signals.

Gender equality is a critical goal because its implementation can foster positive cascading effects on the achievement of all SDGs, and it is directly connected to the nexus of education-sustainability. This study discusses how the Mediterranean Engineering Schools Network achieved a learning potential, inspired informal and structural changes for gender equality to its members, through a tailored strategy by: a) unraveling the link between gender equality and sustainability, b) harvesting synergies of SDG5 from other SDGs and integrating gender equality in interventions for sustainable development of the region, c) mobilizing network’s human resources from professors and students to academic leaders, d) with the support of an EU project. A community of practice was created, the gender equality policy statement unanimously approved, grace due to the commitment of member-institutions leaders to SDGs. Finally, the study reflects on the network’s co-creation processes and interventions, challenges, barriers, and lessons learned, and suggests networking, collaborative learning, ethical commitment to SDGs and the synergetic effects arising from appropriately designed tailored policy mixes, as drivers for advancing gender equality in typical male-dominated engineering institutions, where females in leadership and senior positions are in low percentages. Cognitive, affective trust and joy shared among the members of the working group, and the feeling of belonging to the same family were the emotional drivers of paving the way for gender equality. The insights of the study may be useful to leaders, academic and administrative staff of other institutions in advancing gender equality and improving sustainability in their institution.

This paper demonstrates the use of a linear Input-Output (IO) model to estimate the economic losses in India due to COVID-19. The results show that depending on the duration of the lockdown, the Indian economy is likely to face a loss of about 10–31% of its GDP. This method can be applied to assess economic losses for other regions also. The paper also discusses the impacts of COVID-19 on the demand and supply of electricity and CO₂ emissions from the power sector. The results show that daily supply from coal-based power plants has reduced by 26% during the lockdown resulting in a possible emissions reduction of about 15–65 MtCO₂ depending on the lockdown duration. The cost of avoided carbon is approximately 186–264 $/tCO2, much higher than the $7–12/tCO2 currently being paid by consumers in India indicating the difficulty of achieving emissions reductions through restructuring economic activity as often advocated.

Nowadays, COVID-19 is spreading at a rapid rate in almost all the continents of the world. It has already affected many people who are further spreading it day by day. Hence, it is the most essential to alert nearby people to be aware of it due to its communicable behavior. Till May 2020, no vaccine is available for the treatment of this COVID-19, but the existing technologies can be used to minimize its effect. Cloud/fog computing could be used to monitor and control this rapidly spreading infection in a cost-effective and time-saving manner. To strengthen COVID-19 patient prediction, Artificial Intelligence(AI) can be integrated with cloud/fog computing for practical solutions. In this paper, fog assisted the internet of things based quality of service framework is presented to prevent and protect from COVID-19. It provides real-time processing of users’ health data to predict the COVID-19 infection by observing their symptoms and immediately generates an emergency alert, medical reports, and significant precautions to the user, their guardian as well as doctors/experts. It collects sensitive information from the hospitals/quarantine shelters through the patient IoT devices for taking necessary actions/decisions. Further, it generates an alert message to the government health agencies for controlling the outbreak of chronic illness and for tanking quick and timely actions.

Building ‘zero carbon’ homes will be essential for achieving the carbon reductions within industrialised countries required to meet their commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Such high performance buildings may need a combination or ‘cluster’ of micro-generators to be installed, such as a heat pump to provide heating and a solar photovoltaic (PV) array to produce electricity. When sized and installed appropriately, these technologies have lower emissions than the conventional systems they displace (centralised grid electricity and gas-fired boilers). However, if the ‘embodied’ energy and carbon is not recouped from that saved during the lifetime of the micro-generator, then there is no net saving overall. This study therefore assesses a range of clustered micro-generators using an ‘integrated approach’ that combines energy analysis, environmental life-cycle assessment, and an indicative financial appraisal. Eight clusters of micro-generators were designated to meet the heat and electricity requirements of five different dwelling types, each one specified to two different UK performance standards (2006 building regulations and a zero-carbon specification). For these 80 scenarios, various combinations of heat pumps with solar hot water and/or PV systems yield the most attractive performance metrics with all of the clusters having energy and carbon paybacks (4.5–5.5 and 5.0–7.0 years respectively) within their operational lifetimes, and would hence create net savings overall. But the clusters were generally found to have unattractive financial payback periods (50–80 years), although this result will be sensitive to the discount rate and prevailing energy prices and support mechanisms. The focus is on the use of clustered micro-generators in the context of UK transition pathways to a low-carbon economy out to 2050, but the lessons learned are applicable to many industrialised countries.

Air pollution has been a widespread and visible concern, that has increased significantly over the last decade across many parts of India with severe consequences for human health and well-being. The Indian government, as in many other countries, responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by enforcing a variety of restrictions on normal activity, including complete lockdowns that led to severe disruptions in economic activities. A beneficial short-term effect on the natural environment across cities was a significant reduction in air pollution. The pandemic and its management, have brought home the interconnectedness between nature and human existence with renewed understanding of the complex linkages between the economy and the environment. This presents a unique opportunity to integrate air pollution management into plans for economic recovery. This paper empirically examines the impact of imposing a 27-day lockdown on air pollution in India by comparing pollutant concentration data from 8 representative cities over matching periods of time during the lockdown with those of the previous year, and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). This provides an opportunity to understand the maximum extent to which air pollution could potentially be reduced in these cities. Thereafter, these findings are analysed in conjunction with city level socio-economic correlates and current air pollution management strategies, to gain policy insights on the scope for integrating improved air quality with economic recovery for a sustainable future. With city action plans having been recently prepared for improving air quality, this is indeed an appropriate time to conduct analyses to impact and bend the curve of air pollution substantially. Additionally, as winter approaches, there is a possibility of a double burden of mortality and morbidity from worsening of both COVID-19 and air quality. The current focus on public health provides an opportunity to concentrate on the management of air pollution as a critical component of public health management.

Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) is a leading cause of childhood disease and death. Existing SAM data are sparse and depend on point prevalence measures that underestimate its true burden. Given the significance of SAM as an indicator of humanitarian progress and a driver of human development, a forecast of its long-term burden is needed. We use UNICEF prevalence data of severe wasting for 150 countries to measure SAM prevalence and build a model that we embed in International Futures. We estimate that, in 2014, there were 28.8 million SAM cases globally among children under age five and that this will decline to 21.7 million cases by 2030, with India accounting for 52% of this reduction, and growth (from 8.1 to 9.0 million cases) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Forecasts are sensitive to uncertainty around the drivers of SAM, particularly conflict. A 0.5 s d. variation in conflict relative to the Base Case forecast yields a range of 19.5–29.3 million cases globally in 2030. We also find that the drivers of SAM are forecast to decline more slowly than traditional drivers of undernutrition. SAM will therefore account for a growing share of children under five who are undernourished in the future. This growing share of SAM cases will be heavily concentrated in societies burdened by poor governance and conflict. The future of SAM is most sensitive to uncertainty associated with the future of internal conflict.

Both the policy context and institutional architectures for community engagement have changed rapidly in Scotland over last decade. After 2003, the early engagement of communities with renewables was almost exclusively through development trusts, acting alone or collaboratively. More recently, cooperatives and benefit societies have become more common. Informed by ideas from social innovation, this paper explores the evolution of the support ecosystem for community renewables and examines the influence of institutional structures on social, economic and environmental outcomes. Recent changes in UK policy have made social innovation in community energy much more challenging, although shared ownership/shared revenue models remain an opportunity to be more deeply explored. Three main models of ownership are explored: the community development trust; the cooperative or community benefit society and the shared ownership model, where the community entity is normally a development trust. While the small number of cases examined limits the scope for generalisation, the community development trust appears to offer the greatest range and scale of local beneficial outcomes for sustainable rural development, but the level of impact on emissions reduction varies and the primary motive has most often been income generation for local development.

In order to redefine the influence of the energy and technological transitions upon the challenge of climate change this paper shows that buildings are key agents. This paper discusses the importance of addressing building energy efficiency in a holistic and transformational way, to avoid that incremental measures increase the lock-in effect. Moreover, policies should consider a demand-side energy transition, contrary to today’s discourse, where the supply side and energy production are prominent. Finally, the most important issues in this energy transition are intergenerational divide and justice.

Urban agriculture has increased rapidly in the Global North in recent decades. However, because most research has focused on developing countries, we still lack systematic information on the benefits, barriers, costs and risks of the practice of food production in cities of the Global North. Urban horticulture (UH) is the agriculture of plants for food consumption, materials production, or decoration, developed inside city boundaries. UH has recently been proposed as a tool to improve population health and urban biodiversity. This study takes a systems approach to reviewing the literature on the impacts of UH on public health, the environment and health behaviours, using the ecosystem services (ES) concept as lens. Using a scoping review methodology, 138 papers met the search criteria and these studies were used to develop a conceptual framework summarizing and synthesing the direct and indirect pathways in which urban horticulture and public health are interconnected. The resulting “eco”systems-based framework analyses and visualises the relationship between UH and public health and provides evidence for relationships (both positive and negative) between, and pathways linking, urban horticulture and benefits for mental health, physical activity, diet, and socialisation. This study demonstrates that UH can help to improve public health in cities of the Global North and makes the case for UH as a solution to tackling multiple health and societal challenges that arise in urban populations. We provide a framework to enable local authorities and urban stakeholders to maximise the benefits from, and reduce the risks related to, the practice of UH at a systems level.