Abstract South Africa joined BRICS with the aim of benefiting from enhanced trade with the grouping, which encompasses four of the largest economies in the world. This article undertook an empirical review to determine an answer to the following research question (RQ): whether South Africa’s exports to the original four BRIC/BRICs member countries had grown and diversified following its membership over the first fourteen-year timeframe (2010–2024)? Across these, decline was identified in the findings, demonstrating that South Africa’s participation in the group has performed below its potential and stated rationale. The article notes a growing trade deficit and lack of industrialised imports from South Africa, especially when compared with the EU and the US. This is shown to be mainly due to South Africa’s asymmetrical openness towards the BRICs, including having the single-lowest tariff rates towards the other four members at 4.9 to 5.3%, while the next lowest BRICs’ general tariff is at 10.3%. Against these findings, the article makes the case for a BRICS Plus treaty in order to eliminate any tariff and non-tariff barriers, as well as formulate realistic expectations and obligations for internal cohesion and external engagement based on credible commitment.
Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only), Economic growth, development, planning
Mateusz Zajac, Tomislav Rožić, Justyna Swieboda-Kutera
et al.
<i>Background</i>: The increasing complexity of global supply chains and environmental expectations has highlighted the strategic importance of digital transformation in the transport, forwarding, and logistics (TFL) sector. Despite a growing portfolio of available tools, adoption rates—particularly among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Central and Eastern Europe—remain low. This study investigates the barriers and motivations related to the implementation of digital planning tools supporting intermodal transport planning. <i>Methods</i>: A structured online survey was conducted among 80 Polish TFL enterprises, targeting decision-makers responsible for operational and digital strategies. The questionnaire included 17 closed and semi-open questions grouped into three thematic sections: tool usage, implementation barriers, and digital readiness. <i>Results</i>: The findings indicate that only 20% of respondents use dedicated route planning tools, and merely 10% report satisfaction with their performance. Key barriers include lack of awareness, organizational inertia, and the prioritization of other initiatives, with financial cost cited less frequently. While environmental sustainability is declared as a priority by most enterprises, digital support for emission tracking is limited. The results highlight the need for targeted education, integration support, and differentiated platform functionalities for SMEs and larger firms. <i>Conclusions</i>: This study offers evidence-based recommendations for developers, policymakers, and logistics managers aiming to accelerate digital adoption in the intermodal logistics landscape.
Transportation and communication, Management. Industrial management
Iacob Postavaru, Emilia Bunea, Crina Pungulescu
et al.
This paper explores the potential of large language models to enhance economics education through computational humor. We employ OpenAI’s GPT-4 model to infuse humor into summaries of three Nobel laureates’ contributions to economics and conduct a small empirical exercise with undergraduate students to test the pedagogical efficacy of computational humor. The results suggest that computer-generated humor may be an effective learning aid: the results of the students who rate the humorous versions of the instructional texts as genuinely funny are significantly better than the results of their peers who are not amused. Encouragingly for teachers who try to be funny but fail, we do not find evidence that ineffectual humor is detrimental to learning.
Abstract To gain a deeper understanding of the carbon emission mechanism from transportation facilities, all system elements affecting carbon emissions from regional transportation facilities are identified and analyzed according to panel data from 30 regions in China. A spatial econometric model for carbon emissions from transportation facilities is constructed using the Spatial Dolbin model from 2004 to 2022 as the research period. From the results, the carbon dioxide emissions from transportation facilities added from 318 million tons in 2004 to 752 million tons in 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 4.9%. The global spatial auto-correlation coefficient was significant at the 5%, with an obvious spatial correlation between carbon dioxide emissions within a geographical range. In addition, through stability testing, the model showed high stability in both spatial lag testing and spatial error testing, demonstrating strong ability to interpret data. The research shows that the carbon emission is affected by independent variables, including population, economy, technology, and transportation, and exhibit significant spatial distribution characteristics in different regions and years, providing a basis for policy formulation and carbon emission management.
Abstract Urban growth boundaries (UGBs) have been adopted worldwide as a policy tool to control urban sprawl. However, the delineation of recently piloted UGBs in rapidly urbanizing areas of China has methodologically relied mainly on local officials’ personal willingness and urban planners’ work, thus lacking sufficient scientific evidence and reliable quantitative analysis. To fill this gap, this study simulates the spatial pattern of land use based on the CLUE-S model and land development suitability assessment. The principal advantage of this method lies in the innovative combination and effective balance of the central government’s dual requirements of arable land protection and intensive urban development in a rapidly urbanizing country. Moreover, we argue that the village collective—China’s rural land owners—should be treated in its entirety in land development policy-making, and we accordingly adjust the simulation results with village administrative boundaries in the UGB delineation to guarantee its effective implementation. Shenyang metropolis in Northeast China is taken as a case study. The results show that urban expansion and farmland shrinkage are two major features of future land use change in Shenyang; the most striking growth of urban land takes place mainly in the central city, especially in the northeast and southwest sectors. Despite slight variations in the growth rate, predominating directions, main sources, and ecological effects, urban development in Shenyang shows quite similar patterns under different development scenarios. Therefore, UGBs delineated on the basis of these scenarios are almost identical in the basic outline, with changes only in marginal areas. This novel method is proven to be effective in delineating UGBs in urbanizing China and has referential significance for urban growth management in other developing countries.
Mathavan Vickneswaran, James C. Carolan, Matthew Saunders
et al.
To establish meaningful and sustainable policy directives for sustainable pesticide use in agriculture, baseline knowledge of pesticide levels in soils is required. To address this, five pesticides and one metabolite widely used in Irish agriculture and five neonicotinoid compounds pesticides were screened from soils from 25 fields. These sites represented a diversity of soil and land use types. Prothioconazole was detected in 16 of the 18 sites where it had been recently applied, with the highest maximum concentration quantified of 46 μg/kg. However, a week after application only four fields had prothioconazole concentrations above the limit of quantification (LOQ). Fluroxypyr was applied in 11 sites but was not detected above LOQ. Glyphosate and AMPA were not detected. Interestingly, neonicotinoids were detected in 96% of all sampling sites, even though they were not reported as recently applied. Excluding neonicotinoids, 60% of sites were found to contain pesticide residues of compounds that were not previously applied, with boscalid and azoxystrobin detected in 15 of the 25 sites sampled. The total number of pesticides detected in Irish soils were significantly negatively correlated with clay fraction, while average pesticide concentrations were significantly positively correlated with log Kow values. 17 fields were found to have total pesticide concentrations in excess of 0.5 μg/kg, even when recently applied pesticides were removed from calculations. Theoretical consideration of quantified pesticides determined that azoxystrobin has high leaching risk, while boscalid, which was detected but not applied, has an accumulation risk. This information provides insight into the current level of pesticide contamination in Irish agricultural soil and contributes to the European-level effort to understand potential impacts of pesticide contamination in soil.
<p>Organic aerosol (OA) still remains one of the most difficult components of the atmospheric aerosols to simulate, given the multitude of its precursors, the uncertainty in its formation pathways, and the lack of measurements of its detailed composition. The LANDEX (LANDes Experiment) project, during its intensive field campaign in summer 2017, gives us the opportunity to compare biogenic secondary OA (BSOA) and its precursors and oxidants obtained within and above the Landes forest canopy to simulations performed with CHIMERE, a state-of-the-art regional chemistry transport model. The Landes forest is situated in the southwestern part of France and is one of the largest anthropized forests in Europe (<span class="inline-formula">1×10<sup>6</sup></span> ha). The majority of the forest is comprised of maritime pine trees, which are strong terpenoid emitters, providing a large potential for BSOA formation. In order to simulate OA buildup in this area, a specific model configuration setup adapted to the local peculiarities was necessary. As the forest is nonhomogeneous, with interstitial agricultural fields, high-resolution 1 km simulations over the forest area were performed. Biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions were predicted by MEGAN, but specific land cover information needed to be used and was thus chosen from the comparison of several high-resolution land cover databases. Moreover, the tree species distribution needed to be updated for the specific conditions of the Landes forest. In order to understand the canopy effect in the forest, canopy effects on vertical diffusivity, winds, and radiation were implemented in the model in a simplified way. The refined simulations show a redistribution of BVOCs with a decrease in isoprene and an increase in terpenoid emissions with respect to the standard case, both of which are in line with observations. Corresponding changes to simulated BSOA sources are tracked. Very low nighttime ozone, sometimes near zero, remains overestimated in all simulations. This has implications for the nighttime oxidant budget, including <span class="inline-formula">NO<sub>3</sub></span>. Despite careful treatment of physical conditions, simulated BSOA is overestimated in the most refined simulation. Simulations are also compared to air quality sites surrounding the Landes forest, reporting a more realistic simulation in these stations in the most refined test case. Finally, the importance of the sea breeze system, which also impacts species concentrations inside the forest, is made evident.</p>
In the last decades, the intensification of agricultural practices has deeply altered nitrogen (N) and water cycles. Climate change and drought events are expected to further increase the human impacts on the hydrological and biogeochemical cycles, and these impacts are gaining the attention of the scientific community. Here we show how the Chiese River watershed (Lombardy Region, Italy) represents an interesting opportunity to analyse the effects of traditional irrigation practices on N contamination in the context of water scarcity. During summer, flood irrigation is mostly sustained by groundwater withdrawal. Additional water withdrawals from the river contribute to the dry out of the Chiese River. The use of wells for irrigation over permeable and fertilized soils and the percolation of nitrate (NO3-) from the vadose zone to groundwater result in the accumulation of NO3- in groundwater and limited N losses via denitrification due to dominant oxic conditions. These practices contrast other measures targeting the reduction of N excess over arable land. In the Chiese River watershed, the N surplus from Soil System Budget calculations decreased by 43% since the early 2000 s but NO3- concentration in groundwater remained high and stable (up to 98.0 mg NO3- L−1). The dried-out Chiese River gains groundwater and NO3- concentration at the river mouth approaches 32.2 mg NO3- L−1. Our results suggest how the mismanagement of the watershed (overabundant fertilization and flood irrigation using groundwater) increases the N concentration both in the river and groundwater, leading to the violation of both Nitrate and Water Framework directives. We anticipate our assay to be a starting point for the conversion of the northern Po Plain to more efficient irrigation and fertilization practices to contrast severe droughts driven by climate change like the one who struck the Po Plain in summer 2022.
Sumalee Ngeoywijit, Tawamin Kruasom, KiengKwan Ugsornwongand
et al.
ABSTRACT: One of the industries with the fastest growth rates worldwide, and notably in Thailand, is medical tourism. With connections to Cambodia and Laos, Ubon Ratchathani is located in lower northeastern Thailand, close to Vietnam and Myanmar. Therefore, there is a significant chance that this region will welcome medical travelers. High-quality medical facilities are available in Ubon Ratchathani to fulfill the needs of medical tourists. A visitor’s decision to travel to Ubon Ratchathani for medical treatment is influenced by factors other than the high-level medical facilities, such as lodging, accessibility to public transportation, and tourist attractions. The public transportation services in Ubon Ratchathani, especially the public bus system, are poorly designed and may let down visitors. The purpose of this study is to develop a smart public bus route design that will meet tourists’ demands. The concept of open innovation will be utilized to develop the model. We surveyed 400 visitors to Ubon Ratchathani. The tourists’ opinions and views of public transportation will be made public and used as an input parameter when designing bus routes. The bus route can then be constructed using the differential evolution algorithm (DE). A web-based smart public transportation system was built. In order to construct an efficient smart public bus system (SPBS), open innovation was used in the development phase. According to the computational results, the new routes using DE lead to a 5.97% reduction in travel distance when compared to the output of the more well-known genetic method. More than 98.5% of visitors are satisfied with the new routes, and once they start running, 99.5% of all respondents plan to use public transit.