Land Sparing and Land Sharing: Rural and Urban Drivers of Ecosystems Services Delivery in the Netherlands and UK

This chapter builds on notions of land sharing and land sparing, to cover contemporary ecosystem services (ESS) governance challenges. Attention is paid to how such challenges affect rural-urban dynamics. Empirically grounded in the UK and the Netherlands, land sparing/sharing possibilities are explored from distinct rural and urban perspectives. Dutch policies to introduce circular farming could radically reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture, while also reshaping landscapes around the city of Ede. In Gloucestershire, peri-urban growth offers possibilities for integrated urban green infrastructure and/or enhancement of dispersed and protected rural landscapes and habitats. These binary notions of land sparing/sharing can distinguish and characterise different ESS delivery orientations, in terms of regional rural-urban interdependencies. Studying both urban and rural dimensions of ESS indicates the need for innovative governance of ESS. The chapter calls for more comprehensive insights into rural-urban land use features, interactions and outcomes, to unravel and plan sustainable ESS governance

Theoretical Conceptualization of ESS in Rural-Urban Synergies

In this chapter, we will discuss Ecosystem Services (ESS) and how its conceptual framework has evolved during the ROBUST project to shed light on its usefulness in understanding and strengthening rural-urban synergies. Methodologically, this reflection builds on a combined review of relevant literature and cases explored within the project’s Living Labs. The primary aim is to report on the process of advancing towards a theoretical conceptualization of ESS with respect to rural-urban synergies, as illustrated in the ESS multi-loop framework. This framework aims to display multiple levels of conceptualization of rural-urban synergies beyond the ROBUST project, emphasising the pivotal role of planning and governing ESS

Characteristics of global datasets used to support biodiversity conservation action and policy

Access to global datasets that describe the ‘state’ of biodiversity across all nation states, are essential to provide the means by which national and international conservation agencies and organisations can: (1) identify priorities, (2) focus limited financial resources, (3) develop and enhance legislative frameworks, (4) identify capacity needs, (5) evaluate progress and compliance in relation to commitments, and (6) support biodiversity-related research. This paper reports on an evaluation of the characteristics of 336 open source global datasets in relation to whether a dataset: (1) includes ‘contemporary’ information less than five years old, (2) provides longitudinal, repeat-measure information, (3) contains missing data for one or more nation states, (4) has the ability to support trend analysis, (5) contains information on projected likely future conditions or state, and (6) requires operator extraction or manipulation prior to use. Searches were conducted for global open source datasets via the internet and grey literature. A total of 336 datasets were identified and allocated into one of three broad thematic areas (biodiversity, the abiotic environment, and socio-economics), and further into 17 sub-areas. Of the 336 datasets evaluated 37% provided information that was more than five years out of date. Nearly a fifth of all datasets (18%) provided only a ‘snap-shot’ information i.e. data that were not longitudinal, and trend analysis was not possible for 22% of datasets. Only 5% of the collated datasets provided information about future potential ‘state’, and 29% had missing data (i.e. with one or more countries not providing information). In terms of the readiness for immediate use of the data, 11% of the datasets required some form of post-access management. Characterising available datasets is an essential element of supporting improvements to the information and evidence available for conservation practitioners. Our evaluation suggests that despite a range of important initiatives and national structural changes in the way data are collected, there is still some way to go before truly high utility data are available to the global conservation community

Cultural Ecosystem Services and Rural-Urban Relations: Towards a Territorial Wellbeing Approach

Human interactions with ecosystems create numerous benefits. Until recently, the cultural benefits of ecosystem services had received less attention than environmental goods and economic opportunities, even though cultural ecosystem services (CES) are recognised as having important roles to play in supporting human well-being. In this chapter, we explore CES through the spatial lens of rural-urban relations, with the aim to move beyond traditional approaches looking at well-being benefits that urban dwellers might derive from rural “containers” of ecosystem services. Rather, we are interested in rural-urban relations as a locus for cultural ecosystem services that reveals complexity and multiplicity, interdependency and inequity. By drawing on three descriptive case studies—Garfagnana (Italy), the Cambrian Mountains (Wales) and Snowdonia (Wales)—we offer different views into the ways that CES emerge at the interface between environmental spaces and cultural practices. In particular, we highlight the potential for trade-offs, inequity and contestation. By reflecting on the complexities that arise from the rural-urban perspective on CES, we contribute to an emerging research agenda on territorial well-being

Role of Ecosystem Services in Enabling Rural-Urban Synergies: A European Perspective

This open access book elaborates on the role Ecosystem Services play in relation to establishing, and enhancing, rural-urban synergies. It draws on the concept of Ecosystem Services (ESS) as the ecological characteristics, functions, or processes that directly or indirectly contribute to human wellbeing, that is, the benefits that people derive from functioning ecosystems. The empirical and theoretical research that supports the various contributions in this book was developed in the context of the project H2020 ROBUST - Rural-Urban Outlooks: Unlocking Synergies (GA: 727988). The project was structured in five Communities of Practice (CoP), as groups of researchers sharing a common thematic interest. One of these CoP was dedicated to ESS and aimed to investigate its role in unlocking synergies across rural and urban territories. Strategic approaches to integrate ESS in spatial planning were developed associating ESS use and delivery to planning instruments and governance models at multiple scales. The approach assumes the engagement of multiple actors both as users of ESS but also in their position as planners, regulators, land owners or other type of decision-making role, to explore the role of ESS in enhancing rural-urban synergies. The purpose has been to ensure the balance between supply and demand of ESS, seeking instruments, and the governance models for public policy, market and science and technology, that will encourage alternative practices and policy integrated goals, thus enabling resilience and social well-being. Ultimately the purpose has been to generate transition processes towards the recognition of socio-ecological systems inclusive of new ESS based societal values leading rural-urban synergies. In other words, such inclusive of socio-ecological systems are seen as a condition for human well-being. Theoretical investigation in five core themes and its implementation in six different living laboratories form the more substantive content of this book. In addition, ESS is analysed in the context of its integration with other relevant themes in a cross-sectoral perspective. Overall the purpose of the book is to communicate the multiple and constructive roles played by ESS in rural-urban synergies, using multiple lenses, looking particularly into challenges and merits, and into different imaginative forms of making such as abstract concept more concrete, operational and recognized by stakeholders in the field

SHAX: Evaluation of SVM hardware accelerator for detecting and preventing ROP on Xtensa

Return-oriented programming (ROP) chains together sequences of instructions residing in executable pages of the memory to compromise a program’s control flow. On embedded systems, ROP detection is intricate as such devices lack the resources to directly run sophisticated software-based detection techniques, as these are memory and CPU-intensive. However, a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) can enhance the capabilities of an embedded device to handle resource-intensive tasks. Hence, this paper presents the first performance evaluation of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) hardware accelerator for automatic ROP classification on Xtensa-embedded devices using hardware performance counters (HPCs). In addition to meeting security requirements, modern cyber–physical systems must exhibit high reliability against hardware failures to ensure correct functionality. To assess the reliability level of our proposed SVM architecture, we perform simulation-based fault injection at the RT-level. To improve the efficiency of this evaluation, we utilize a hybrid virtual prototype that integrates the RT-level model of the SVM accelerator with the Tensilica LX7 Instruction Set Simulator. This setup enables early-stage reliability assessment, helping to identify vulnerabilities and reduce the need for extensive fault injection campaigns during later stages of the design process. Our evaluation results show that an SVM accelerator targeting an FPGA device can detect and prevent ROP attacks on an embedded processor with high accuracy in real time. In addition, we explore the most vulnerable locations of our SVM design to permanent faults, enabling the exploration of safety mechanisms that increase fault coverage in future works

Beyond Innovation: Centring Ethics and Social Responsibility in Educational Computing

This editorial considers the ethical, social, and global consequences of educational computing technologies, emphasizing the need to move beyond just a focus of innovation to critically engage with these issues. It highlights the Journal’ s expanded aims, which now include scholarship that examines the ethical foundations of educational computing technologies, their social impact, and their role in addressing global educational inequities. The editorial calls for research that explores justice, representation, and access, particularly for marginalized communities. Additionally, it introduces new article types, including Review Articles and Systems and Tools, encouraging a greater diversity of contributions that critically evaluate the implications of educational computing technologies in multiple educational contexts

Urban image change over two decades: Comparing the images of six British urban areas 20 years apart

This paper addresses a significant lacuna in the literature of urban image by examining urban image change for multiple towns and cities over a period of two decades. It revisits and repeats a survey of UK conference and events organisers from 2000 that explored the images they hold of six British towns and cities that had all positioned themselves as key venues for business and leisure tourism meetings, events and conferences. It found both continuities and changes in the images of the towns and cities examined across this time period. Whilst the images of some towns and cities had changed significantly, others had changed very little. Further, the ways in which this audience collectively talked about these urban areas had changed little over this time. The results show that, across an extended time period, significant change in the images of urban areas can occur but that it is not inevitable. The results point to the significance of individual circumstances rather than general processes of urban image change. Our results also reveal the significance of ongoing personal experiences of cities to the processes of urban image formation and change amongst this audience

FraudGNN-RL: A Graph Neural Network With Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Financial Fraud Detection

As financial systems become increasingly complex and interconnected, traditional fraud detection methods struggle to keep pace with sophisticated fraudulent activities. This article introduces FraudGNN-RL, an innovative framework that combines Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) with Reinforcement Learning (RL) for adaptive and context-aware financial fraud detection. Our approach models financial transactions as a dynamic graph, where entities (e.g., users, merchants) are nodes and transactions form edges. We propose a novel GNN architecture, Temporal-Spatial-Semantic Graph Convolution (TSSGC), which simultaneously captures temporal patterns, spatial relationships, and semantic information in transaction data. The RL component, implemented as a Deep Q-Network (DQN), dynamically adjusts the fraud detection threshold and feature importance, allowing the model to adapt to evolving fraud patterns and minimize detection costs. We further introduce a Federated Learning scheme to enable collaborative model training across multiple financial institutions while preserving data privacy. Extensive experiments on a large-scale, real-world financial dataset demonstrate that FraudGNN-RL outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, achieving a 97.3% F1-score and reducing false positives by 31% compared to the best-performing baseline. Our framework also shows remarkable resilience to concept drift and adversarial attacks, maintaining high performance over extended periods. These results suggest that FraudGNN-RL offers a robust, adaptive, and privacy-preserving solution for financial fraud detection in the era of Big Data and interconnected financial ecosystems

Disaster preparedness behaviour of tourist village managers in Mount Merapi, Indonesia

Disaster preparedness behaviour in Indonesia is still considered low. The purpose of this study is to understand the factors that influence the disaster preparedness behaviour of tourist village managers around Mount Merapi. This study is a qualitative study with a phenomenological approach. Data were collected through a focus group discussion (FGD), with 32 participants in 3 sessions with 10–11 participants per session. The data were analysed using Collaizi’s approach by reading the transcripts to obtain an overview and insight, extracting important statements, formulating meaning using codes and grouping into themes. We examined factors influencing disaster preparedness of tourist village managers in Mount Merapi using the PRECEDE component guide from the PRECEDE-PROCEED model. The results of this study indicated that seven themes were found related to the disaster preparedness factors of tourist village managers: four themes related to predisposing factors, namely, belief, knowledge, risk perception and experience; two themes related to enabling factors, namely, availability of infrastructure and training; and one theme related to reinforcing factors, namely, support from various parties. Contribution: By knowing all three factors that drive behaviour – predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors – interventions can be more comprehensive, targeting not only the initial motivation for behaviour change but also the necessary resources and ongoing support for sustainability. This holistic approach is critical to achieving behavioural change in disaster preparedness behaviour among tourism village managers