In recent years, policymakers, international energy, and environmental organizations have posited that advancements in information and communication technology, digitalization, renewable energy, and ...financial development can facilitate a smoother and quicker transition toward a greener and smarter global economy. This study employs the Panel Vector Auto-Regression model to evaluate this assertion across the top ten most polluted countries from 1995 to 2018. The empirical findings indicate that while individual indicators of information and communication technology have mixed impacts, the utilization of a digitalization-based principal component analysis index provides strong evidence of digitalization's positive effect on environmental quality. Additionally, the results suggest that renewable energy and the economic complexity index also contribute to environmental improvement. Therefore, the empirical evidence underscores the significant role of digitalization, information and communication technology, and renewable energy in enhancing environmental sustainability in the most polluted countries. Moreover, the findings indicate that although a financial development shock initially worsens environmental quality in the first year, it leads to improvements from the second year onwards. These empirical insights offer various policy recommendations regarding information and communication technology, digitalization, renewable energy, and financial development, which could support the achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.
Display omitted
•Impact of ICT/digitization, renewable energy and financial development on environmental quality.•We measure environmental degradation by ecological footprint and load capacity factor.•We use impulse response functions, variance decomposition and Granger causality via PVAR model.•Digitization, renewable energy, and financial development enhance the environment.•Urbanization and real GDP deteriorate the quality of the environment.
This paper examines the linkage between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, total factor productivity (TFP) as a measure of income, and information and communication technologies (ICT) in Tunisia from ...1975 to 2014. To empirically investigate this relationship, the autoregressive distributed delay (ARDL) with the break point method is specified and estimated. The results demonstrate the rejection of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis by obtaining a higher value of the long-term total factor productivity (TFP) coefficient compared the short term one. Moreover, the result indicates an insignificant impact of ICT on CO2 emissions as a measure of pollution. As a result, Tunisian policy makers should not only enhance their total factor productivity but also expand their information and communication technology.
•We investigate the linkage between carbon dioxide emissions, total factor productivity and ICT in Tunisia.•Total factor productivity is considered as a measure of technical change and economic growth.•We use the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) with break point approach.•We reject of the Kuznets Environmental Curve (EKC) hypothesis.•We observe an insignificant effect of ICT on carbon dioxide emissions.
Recently, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) present a promising advanced technology that can enhance people life quality and smartness of cities dramatically and increase overall economic efficiency. ...UAVs have attained a significant interest in supporting many applications such as surveillance, agriculture, communication, transportation, pollution monitoring, disaster management, public safety, healthcare, and environmental preservation. Industry 4.0 applications are conceived of intelligent things that can automatically and collaboratively improve beyond 5G (B5G). Therefore, the Internet of Things (IoT) is required to ensure collaboration between the vast multitude of things efficiently anywhere in real-world applications that are monitored in real-time. However, many IoT devices consume a significant amount of energy when transmitting the collected data from surrounding environments. Due to a drone's capability to fly closer to IoT, UAV technology plays a vital role in greening IoT by transmitting collected data to achieve a sustainable, reliable, eco-friendly Industry 4.0. This survey presents an overview of the techniques and strategies proposed recently to achieve green IoT using UAVs infrastructure for a reliable and sustainable smart world. This survey is different from other attempts in terms of concept, focus, and discussion. Finally, various use cases, challenges, and opportunities regarding green IoT using UAVs are presented.
The study investigates key drivers of renewable energy transition in China using the quarterly data from Q1-2000 to Q4-2020. We employed the Bootstrap Autoregressive Distributed Lag method for ...long-run and short-run parameters. The results exhibit that financial development and research and development expenditures are the most prominent factors that encourage energy transition. In addition, human resources and information and communication technology (ICT) also contribute to stimulating the renewable energy transition in China. The overall long-run estimates have pronounced impact than the short-run results, except for the ICT, which has an insignificant effect in the short run. Moreover, the significant negative value of the error correction term converges the model by a 32.9% adjustment rate in case of any deviation. The empirical outcome recommends that the government of China should promote financial development resources and R&D spending to spur the energy transition.
•Bootstrap ARDL applies to China's quarterly data.•Drivers of Renewable Energy Transition (RET) are explored.•Financial development and R&D expenditures are the most prominent drivers of RET.•Human development and ICT stimulate RET.
In the above-named work Sahil and S. K. Sood, to be published, doi: 10.1109/TEM.2020.2972288., the first author was erroneously attributed as Sahil Neelam. The correct attribution is Sahil.
The objective of this study is to critically review the smart city research paradigm and to find possible pitfalls, conflicting results and topics for further study and improvement. A qualitative ...comparison of the smart city initiatives in selected target countries and cities were done. The research strategy in this study approximates the grounded theory, utilising inductive reasoning to generate arguments and conclusions about the form, validity and future of the smart city. Various actors responsible to convert a traditional city to a smart city are defined and analysed within the context of this study. The main conclusion of this study was that the current research on smart city does not fully address the complex nature, conflicts and interdependencies of the smart city objectives. Moreover, the study found that the smart city initiatives form complex and multidisciplinary platforms that require holistic evaluation as the current evaluation methods and rankings of the smart cities vary considerably, making the evaluation of the success of the smart cities difficult.
•This study critically reviews the smart city research and to find possible strategies for improvement.•A comparison of the smart city initiatives in selected target countries were done.•This study approximates the grounded theory, utilising inductive reasoning to generate the smart city.•Various actors responsible to convert a traditional city to a smart city are defined and analysed.•The main conclusion of this study was that the current research on smart city does not fully address the complex nature, conflicts and interdependencies.
•We identify and examine the critical barriers to big data analytics.•We apply Delphi-based analytic hierarchy process.•We collect data from five Bangladeshi manufacturing companies.•We perform ...sensitivity analysis to justify the robustness of the barrier rankings.
Recently, big data (BD) has attracted researchers and practitioners due to its potential usefulness in decision-making processes. Big data analytics (BDA) is becoming increasingly popular among manufacturing companies as it helps gain insights and make decisions based on BD. However, there many barriers to the adoption of BDA in manufacturing supply chains. It is therefore necessary for manufacturing companies to identify and examine the nature of each barrier. Previous studies have mostly built conceptual frameworks for BDA in a given situation and have ignored examining the nature of the barriers to BDA. Due to the significance of both BD and BDA, this research aims to identify and examine the critical barriers to the adoption of BDA in manufacturing supply chains in the context of Bangladesh. This research explores the existing body of knowledge by examining these barriers using a Delphi-based analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Data were obtained from five Bangladeshi manufacturing companies. The findings of this research are as follows: (i) data-related barriers are most important, (ii) technology-related barriers are second, and (iii) the five most important components of these barriers are (a) lack of infrastructure, (b) complexity of data integration, (c) data privacy, (d) lack of availability of BDA tools and (e) high cost of investment. The findings can assist industrial managers to understand the actual nature of the barriers and potential benefits of using BDA and to make policy regarding BDA adoption in manufacturing supply chains. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to justify the robustness of the barrier rankings.
Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic is having a major impact on the lives of everyone, but in particular on the health and well-being of older people. It has also disrupted the way that individuals ...access services and interact with one another, and physical distancing and “Stay at Home” orders have seen digital interaction become a necessity. While these restrictions have highlighted the importance of technology in everyday life, little is known about how older adults have responded to this change. Methods: Two surveys, one in 2019 and another in 2020 collected data on a combined total of 1923 older adults aged 65 years and older in Canada. These looked at how older adults think about and use technology, with the 2020 survey additionally questioning how COVID-19 has impacted their use and attitudes towards technology. Results: While older adults feel more isolated in 2020, many feel positive about the benefits of technology and have increased technology use during the pandemic to support their health, wellness, and communication needs. Discussion: The results highlight the potential of technology for supporting older adults in various aspects of healthy aging. While these results point to the opportunities afforded by technology, challenges remain, such as how social and economic factors influence technology uptake.
A new industrial revolution is undergoing, based on a number of technological paradigms. The will to foster and guide this phenomenon has been summarized in the expression "Industry 4.0" (I4.0). ...Initiatives under this term share the vision that many key technologies underlying Cyber-Physical Systems and Big Data Analytics are converging to a new distributed, highly automated, and highly dynamic production network, and that this process needs regulatory and cultural advancements to effectively and timely develop. In this work, we focus on the technological aspect only, highlighting the unprecedented complexity of I4.0 emerging from the scientific literature. While previous works have focused on one or up to four related enablers, we consider ten technological enablers, including besides the most cited Big Data, Internet of Things, and Cloud Computing, also others more rarely considered as Fog and Mobile Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, Robotics, down to the often overlooked, very recent, or taken for granted Open-Source Software, Blockchain, and the Internet. For each we explore the main characteristics in relation to I4.0 and its interdependencies with other enablers. Finally we provide a detailed analysis of challenges in leveraging each of the enablers in I4.0, evidencing possible roadblocks to be overcome and pointing at possible future directions of research. Our goal is to provide a reference for the experts in some of the technological fields involved, for a reconnaissance of integration and hybridization possibilities with other fields in the endeavor of I4.0, as well as for the laymen, for a high-level grasp of the variety (and often deep history) of the scientific research backing I4.0.
Previous literature on consumer decision-making and innovations (e.g. Airbnb) largely concentrates on positive consumer responses and is prone to pro-innovation bias, while consumer discontinuance ...has yet to be considered. This research aims to investigate factors leading to consumer discontinuance in Airbnb usage by analysing online reviews. Data were analysed using an inductive qualitative content analysis approach. The findings distinguish between online and offline service issues as key determinants of discontinuance, and a graphic representation of discontinuance drivers is provided to better understand this phenomenon. This research highlights the importance of discontinuance as a new research stream and provides a grounded understanding of its antecedents.
•Discontinue comments on Facebook and Twitter were inductively analysed.•Nine online and six offline issues were identified that lead to discontinuance.•Drivers for discontinuance could be different from those for continuance.•The triadic nature of the Airbnb service could be a factor for discontinuance.•Platform policy, regulation and control are important in the sharing economy.
PDF
