This paper aims to move the research field on sustainable careers forward by building conceptual clarity about what a sustainable career means and delineating what distinguishes sustainable from ...non-sustainable careers, thereby providing key indicators of a sustainable career. Moreover, we approach sustainable careers from a systemic and dynamic perspective and address influential factors associated with stakeholders situated in multiple contexts and evolving over time. We elaborate on core theoretical frameworks useful for enhancing our understanding of what makes careers sustainable and present three key dimensions that can help to analyze and study sustainable careers: person, context, and time. Finally, we propose a research agenda that we hope will spur scholars to examine the topic in more detail in future empirical work.
•Sustainable careers can be described in terms of happiness, health, and productivity.•Three key dimensions are useful to study sustainable careers: person, context and time.•Insights from core theoretical frameworks add to understanding sustainable careers.
In recent years many initiatives have been developed under the Smart City label in a bid to provide a response to challenges facing cities today. The concept has evolved from a sector-based approach ...to a more comprehensive view that places governance and stakeholders' involvement at the core of strategies. However, Smart City implementation requires lowering the scale from the strategy to the project level. Therefore, the ability of Smart City initiatives to provide an integrated and systematic answer to urban challenges is constantly being called into question. Stakeholder involvement in both the projects and the city strategy is key to developing a governance framework that allows an integrated and comprehensive understanding. This can only be done if Smart City strategies take the stakeholders' opinion into account and seek a compromise between their views and the implementation of the strategy.
Multiple attempts have been made to analyse Smart Cities, but tools are needed to understand their complexity and reflect the stakeholders' role in developing Smart City initiatives and their capacity to face urban challenges. This paper pursues two objectives: (A) to develop a conceptual model capable of displaying an overview of (a) the stakeholders taking part in the initiative in relation to (b) the projects developed and (c) the challenges they face; and (B) to use this model to synthesise the opinion of different stakeholders involved in Smart City initiatives and compare their attitudes to the key projects implemented in a corresponding SC strategy. The methodology combines project analysis with surveys and interviews with different groups of key stakeholders (governments, private companies, universities and research centres, and civil society) through text analysis. The conceptual model is developed through discussions with different European stakeholders and is applied to the case of the Vienna Smart City strategy.
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•An integrated conceptual model is proposed for Smart Cities.•The model highlights the importance of governance and stakeholders.•It provides an understanding of the complexity of Smart City projects and dimensions.•The proposal places the focus on urban challenges and global trends.•An application methodology is developed, comparing Smart City Strategy implementation with stakeholders’ discourses.•The model is applied to the case of the Vienna Smart City Strategy.•Guidelines are proposed to narrow the gap between the strategy and the stakeholders’ opinions.
Work plays a central role in health. A conceptual model can help frame research priorities and questions to explore determinants of workers' safety, health, and wellbeing. A previous conceptual model ...focused on the workplace setting to emphasize the role of conditions of work in shaping workers' safety, health and wellbeing. These conditions of work include physical, organizational, and psychosocial factors. This manuscript presents and discusses an updated and expanded conceptual model, placing the workplace and the conditions of work within the broader context of socio-political-economic environments and consequent trends in employment and labor force patterns. Social, political and economic trends, such as growing reliance on technology, climate change, and globalization, have significant implications for workers’ day-to-day experiences. These structural forces in turn shape employment and labor patterns, with implications for the availability and quality of jobs; the nature of relationships between employers and workers; and the benefits and protections available to workers. Understanding these patterns will be critical for anticipating the consequences of future changes in the conditions of work, and ultimately help inform decision-making around policies and practices intended to protect and promote worker safety, health, and wellbeing. This model provides a structure for anticipating research needs in response to the changing nature of work, including the formation of research priorities, the need for expanded research methods and measures, and attention to diverse populations of enterprises and workers. This approach anticipates changes in the way work is structured, managed, and experienced by workers and can effectively inform policies and practices needed to protect and promote worker safety, health and wellbeing.
•Working conditions are significant social determinants of health and wellbeing.•A conceptual model anticipates research needs responsive to changes in work.•Future changes in work and increased work insecurity need research to mitigate risk.•Social, political and economic forces and trends in employment shape work outcomes.•Systems framework sets priorities for research and workplace policies and practices.
•The empirical method combined fuzzy logic model and entropy weight method.•The study area is a famous region in China with no previous relative work on it.•This paper served both the temporal ...dynamic and spatial analysis on this issue.•Found that indicators related with economy weighted more to ecological security.•Found that cities closed to Beijing performed better than those near the edge.
Based on the pressure–state–response conceptual model, we constructed the urban ecological security evaluation index system for 13 cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei metropolitan region from 2003 to 2014, where integrated development has occurred up to the national strategic level. The entropy-weight method was used to calculate the index weights to eliminate subjectivity. After the perfection and detailing of the increased half-ladder membership function and the confirmation of the membership standard of urban ecological security evaluation, the fuzzy synthetic evaluation method was used to calculate, analyze and evaluate the ranks of urban ecological security from 2003 to 2012. The overall regional ecological security of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei metropolitan region increased during those 10 years. However, as expected for the obvious increase in the ecological state security level, neither the ecological pressure security nor the response security level significantly changed. In addition, urban social and economic indicators contributed more to the ecological security assessment than did the natural resource indicators and environmental indicators.
Among all causes of grapevine decline, Grapevine Trunk Diseases (GTDs) are major concerns for grape growers. This paper reviews knowledge and proposes hypotheses on two major GTDs, esca and ...Botryosphaeria dieback, and assembles a conceptual model. The objective was to collect information into a sequence, from grapevine nursery propagation processes, through foliar symptom expression, to plant death in mature vineyards. Pathogen infection and colonization steps in woody vine tissues, and the hypotheses that have been formulated to explain the outburst of foliar symptoms, are reported and discussed. Factors that could aggravate or repress GTD symptoms and incidence expansion are also addressed. Vine physiology and pathology together could expand understanding of these diseases. Knowledge and hypotheses that need validation are summarized, and a conceptual model is proposed to explain the occurrence of symptoms and the influencing factors. The model could be useful to cope with the complexity of GTDs, and as a starting point for research to unravel knowledge gaps and suggest new disease management strategies.
The arsenic (As) content of seaweed has been extensively studied due to its toxicological concerns. As a primary producer, seaweed plays a vital role in the biochemical cycling of As in marine ...environments. Several studies have focused on the growth and behavior of seaweed under a salinity gradient; however, information related to the impact of salinity on As uptake, biotransformation mechanism, and time-dependent speciation patterns of these plants is limited. This study aimed to investigate the temporal effects of salinity on these factors in seaweed. Three seaweed species, Sargassum fusiforme, Sargassum thunbergii, and Sargassum horneri, were maintained in a 1% Provasoli-enriched seawater medium for 14 d under 5‰, 15‰, 25‰, and 34‰ salinities. The results revealed that the high salinity media promoted a rapid uptake of As by all three species. Arsenic accumulation inside the cell approached 100% within seven days of culture for S. thunbergii, irrespective of the salinity content of the media. In addition, As(V) biotransformation and release by S. fusiforme and S. thunbergii were time-dependent, while S. horneri released dimethylarsinic acid (DMAA) from day 3 of the culture. All seaweed species showed methylation of As(V) to DMAA during the culture period. Furthermore, S. thunbergii released DMAA when As(V) was completely depleted from the culture media, whereas the release by S. fusiforme and S. horneri was relatively earlier than that of S. thunbergii. S. horneri showed minimal tolerance to low salinity, as the cells revealed significant damage. Based on the results of this study, a conceptual model was developed that demonstrated the effects of salinity on As uptake and the biotransformation mechanism of seaweed.
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•As(V) uptake by seaweed increased with greater salinity of the medium.•As(V) uptake was faster in Sargassum thunbergii than in S. fusiforme and S. horneri.•Speciation and release of two species depended on time and not As(V) and salinity.•Hyposalinity promoted DMAA(V) release over As(V) uptake.•Sargassum horneri was the least saline-tolerant of the three species.
Energy hub: From a model to a concept – A review Mohammadi, Mohammad; Noorollahi, Younes; Mohammadi-ivatloo, Behnam ...
Renewable & sustainable energy reviews,
12/2017, Letnik:
80
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In the past, different energy systems were planned and managed independently. But nowadays the development of technologies such as efficient multi-generation system, lead to realizing the benefits of ...integrated energy infrastructure such as electricity, natural gas, and district heating (DH) networks, and thus a rapid movement toward multi-energy systems (MES). In such systems, different energy carriers and systems interact together in a synergistic way. However, consideration of such a concept requires a suitable tool for integrated management of the system components. Energy hub (EH) that can be defined as the place where the production, conversion, storage and consumption of different energy carriers takes place, is a promising option for integrated management of MES. This paper reviews the different concepts and models used in the literature for EH. The dominant structures used for energy hub models are studied and weaknesses, strengths, and challenges identified and discussed. This article, by identifying these challenges and introducing new options for use in energy hub models, discusses the potentials of energy hub concept, as a comprehensive model of sustainable energy systems in the future.
Groundwater is a primary water source which supplies more than 2 billion people. The increasing population and urbanization of rural areas stresses and depletes the groundwater systems, reducing the ...groundwater quality. Among the emerging contaminants, microplastics (MPs) are becoming an important issue due to their persistency in the environment. Seepage through the pores and fractures as well as the interaction with colloidal aggregates can partially affect the MPs dynamics in the subsoil, making the detection of the MPs in the groundwater systems challenging. Based on literature, a critical analysis of MPs in groundwater is presented from a hydrogeological point of view. In addition, a review of the MPs data potentially affecting the groundwater systems are included. MPs in groundwater may have several sources, including the atmosphere, the interaction with surface water bodies, urban infrastructures, or agricultural soils. The characterization of both the groundwater dynamics and the heterogeneity of MPs is suggested, proposing a new framework named “Hydrogeoplastic Model”. MPs detection methods aimed at characterizing the smaller fragments are necessary to clarify the fate of these contaminants in the aquifers. This review also aims to support future research on MP contamination in groundwater, pointing out the current knowledge and the future risks which could affect groundwater resources worldwide.
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•Current studies on microplastics (MPs) in groundwater are scarce.•Structured and standardized approaches to MPs in groundwater are needed.•The Hydrogeoplastic conceptual Model for aquifers contaminated by MPs is proposed.•The proposed approach can be a reference for future hydrogeologist research.
Algal blooms represent a pivotal ecological phenomenon in marine ecosystems, exerting significant influence on energy transfer, material cycling, and ecological structure and function. The frequent ...occurrence of harmful algal blooms (HABs) directly jeopardizes ecosystem integrity, compromises food safety, and challenges the sustainability of food supply, thereby affecting socio-economic development and human well-being. In recent decades, technological advancements in in-situ monitoring and remote sensing have greatly improved our capacity to monitor the oceans, providing unparalleled opportunities for not only the detection of algal blooms but also their dynamic processes and mechanisms. However, monitoring programmes are not always capable of covering the temporal and spatial scale of algal blooms, especially in open water ecosystems. Therefore, it remains essential to utilize models for interpreting observational results. In this review, we evaluated recent studies on models of algal blooms, which can be categorized into three main types: conceptual models, empirical-statistical models (from simple machine learning models to state-of-the-art deep learning models), and mechanistic models (process-based models). We reviewed the development and refinement of representative cases for each model type and compared their applicability, strengths, and limitations. Subsequently, we summarized the applications of these models in exploring algal bloom dynamics, short-term forecasting (a few days to seasonal), and long-term predictions (interannual or longer). We also proposed several recommendations for how algal bloom modeling can move forward: 1) Integrate various automated monitoring platforms and remote sensing techniques to obtain more comprehensive data for model validation; 2) Develop more powerful deep learning models to fully exploit their immense potential in algal bloom prediction; and 3) Incorporate molecular ecology and omics technologies to enhance parameterization schemes for numerical models.
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•This review assesses the progress and application of conceptual, empirical, and mechanistic models in algal blooms.•Conceptual models serve as simplified frameworks for understanding the formation and dynamics of algal blooms.•Machine learning and deep learning models significantly improve the accuracy and timeliness of algal bloom prediction.•Mechanistic models reveal a wide range of physical and ecological dynamics of algal blooms.
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