Search

This research paper focuses on implementing two Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in the Sarantapotamos river basin upstream of Magoula settlement, evaluating their effectiveness through flood hydrograph calculations before and after NBS, and under future climate scenarios, encompassing lower, mean, and upper conditions representing ± 95%. The study area covers an area of 226 km2 in Attica, Greece, susceptible to extreme flood events. The research contributes to NBS knowledge, emphasizing flood resilience and protecting settlements downstream. Land cover change and retention ponds, applied individually and combined, serve as NBS approaches. Flood hydrographs are calculated using the time–area (TA) diagram method in a geographic information system (GIS) with the Hydrological Engineering Center's Hydrological Modeling System (HEC-HMS). Results demonstrate NBS effectiveness in current climate conditions, reducing peak discharge by 9.3% and 28% for land cover change and retention ponds, respectively. The combined NBS achieves a 40.5% peak discharge reduction and a significant 15.7% total flood volume decrease. Under climate change scenarios, impacts on design precipitation and flood hydrographs vary. The upper climate change scenario exhibits a 3348% increase in peak discharge and a 600% rise in total flood volume, while the lower scenario sees a 44.6% reduction in total flood volume. In the mean climate change scenario, land cover change and retention ponds reduce peak discharge by 9.73% and 23.11% and total flood volume by 9.25% and 2.17%, respectively. In conclusion, retention ponds show substantial peak discharge reduction, while land cover changes extend the time to peak, emphasizing their potential in flood risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wormholes are considered to be hypothetical tunnels connecting two distant regions of the universe or two different universes. In general relativity (GR), the formation of traversable WH requires the consideration of exotic matter that violates energy conditions (ECs). If the wormhole geometry can be described in modified gravitational theories without introducing exotic matter, it will be significant for studying these theories. In the paper, we analyze some physical properties of static traversable WH within the framework of f(R, T) modified gravitational theory. Firstly, we explore the validity of the null, weak, dominant and strong energy conditions for wormhole matter for the considered f (R , T) = R + α R 2 + λ T model. Research shows that it is possible to obtain traversable WH geometry without bring in exotic matter that violates the null energy condition (NEC) in the f(R, T) theory. The violation of the dominant energy condition (DEC) in this model may be related to quantum fluctuations or indicates the existence of special matter that violates this EC within the wormhole. Moreover, it is found that in the f (R , T) = R + α R 2 + λ T model, relative to the GR, the introduction of the geometric term α R 2 has no remarkable impact on the wormhole matter components and their properties, while the appearance of the matter-geometry coupling term λ T can resolve the question that WH matter violates the null, weak and strong energy condition in GR. Additionally, we investigate dependency of the valid NEC on model parameters and quantify the matter components within the wormhole using the "volume integral quantifier". Lastly, based on the modified Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkov equation, we find that the traversable WH in this theory is stable. On the other hand, we use the classical reconstruction technique to derive wormhole solution in f(R, T) theory and discuss the corresponding ECs of matter. It is found that all four ECs (NEC, WEC, SEC and DEC) of matter in the traversable wormholes are valid in this reconstructed f(R, T) model, i.e we provide a wormhole solution without introducing the exotic matter and special matter in f(R, T) theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk perception has been widely recognized as an essential factor in shaping attitudes and behaviors of individuals and communities proactively, during and after the experience of extreme catastrophic events. Its importance derives out mostly due to its intrinsic relationship with socioeconomic parameters and capacity building of communities affected by such events. The aim of this paper was to elaborate on the demographic and socioeconomic determinants of earthquake risk perception of populations living in an extremely earthquake-prone environment. For this purpose, a population sample of municipalities in the Corinthiakos Gulf in Central West Greece was examined. The sample (230 men and 276 women) was randomly selected from three coastal municipalities of the Gulf: Aigialeia, Nafpaktia and Corinthos. Multi-adjusted linear regression analysis was performed to reveal the determinants of the participants' perceptions regarding earthquake risk. Findings revealed that mean earthquake risk perception score was moderate in both men and women and notably lower for the participants living in the municipality of Nafpaktia, as compared to the participants of the other two study areas. Earthquake risk perception varied significantly according to age, sex, income and building construction period (of assets resided or used by the participants). Younger strata, especially young men, and households of lower-income status tend to correlate to lower earthquake risk perception. Moreover, individuals living in newly constructed buildings presented lower earthquake risk perception levels. Also, increased individuals' earthquake safety information provided by state agencies and local civil protection authorities was associated with increased risk perception. Issues like education, household structure, building earthquake insurance, savings and trust in civil protection authorities were not associated with risk perception. From a policy design point of view, such findings provide noteworthy insights for local communities and civil protection authorities allowing to identify vulnerable population groups and to provide noteworthy insights to design targeted measures and policies in the making of a safe and resilient environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire plays an important role in the complex physical interactions between the processes which define our planet's environments, and wildfires are considered to have a negative and unwanted effect, owing to the destruction of ecosystems and property that they often produce. In this paper, fractal and spectral methods are used to analyze the spatial characteristics of four wildfire scars of recent wildfires in the area of Greece. The fractal dimension, spatial noise and Hurst exponent of each of the chosen wildfire scar boundaries are calculated, and the results are discussed in connection to the real features of the wildfires. The results indicate that the fractal dimension can be used to adjust the fire line length by accounting for inherent roughness in the scar boundary, to define one of two types of propagation patterns that a wildfire exhibited, and to estimate the viability of plant recolonization in the wildfire area—furthermore, wildfire boundary spatial noise has been found to manifest similarities with pink noise, which is supported by the Hurst exponent analysis. The objective is to exemplify the effectiveness of such techniques for analyzing various characteristics of wildfire scars and active wildfires such as propagation patterns, fractality and spatial unpredictability, and for the qualitative determination of wildfire-related environmental factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming to illuminate the effects of enforced confinements on people's lives, this paper presents a novel dataset that measures human behaviour holistically and longitudinally during the COVID-19 outbreak. In particular, we conducted a study during the first wave of the lockdown, where 21 healthy subjects from the Netherlands and Greece participated, collecting multimodal raw and processed data from smartphone sensors, activity trackers, and users' responses to digital questionnaires. The study lasted more than two months, although the duration of the data collection varies per participant. The data are publicly available and can be used to model human behaviour in a broad sense as the dataset explores physical, social, emotional, and cognitive domains. The dataset offers an exemplary perspective on a given group of people that could be considered to build new models for investigating behaviour changes as a consequence of the lockdown. Importantly, to our knowledge, this is the first dataset combining passive sensing, experience sampling, and virtual assistants to study human behaviour dynamics in a prolonged lockdown situation. Measurement(s) 'human behaviour during the COVID-19 outbreak', 'human behaviour', 'physical behaviour', 'social behaviour', 'emotional behaviour', 'cognitive behaviour' Technology Type(s) 'smartphone device', 'activity tracker', 'digital questionnaires' Sample Characteristic - Organism 'human beings' Sample Characteristic - Location 'The Netherlands', 'Greece' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of mathematics in physics makes people take for granted the intimate connection between both disciplines. However, history shows that this is not always the case, because mathematics has played a minor role, not only in Aristotelian physics in ancient Greece, but also in Confucian and neo-Confucian science in ancient China. The objective of this study is to discuss the role of mathematics in physics and propose a structuralistic view as an epistemological stance to interpret this role. This paper opens with a brief historical overview on the relationship between mathematics and physics, followed by a report on Taiwanese college students' work on and responses to an activity simulating Galileo's inclined plane experiment, in order to investigate in what way they analyzed the data and to what extent this activity enriched the affective, knowledge-oriented, and historical aspects of their thinking. Additionally, an investigation of a mathematician's and a physicist's beliefs was conducted to search for an epistemological stance that reveals the relationship between mathematics and physics. The study suggests that a structuralist view may be appropriate for promoting students' learning and their epistemological interpretations of mathematics and physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon constructionism and neo-materialist approaches on the role of physical activity and the human body in teaching and learning mathematics, this paper investigates the meanings constructed by students while collaboratively carrying out tasks focusing on the dynamic aspects of the concept of angle in the educational context of a 6th grade class of a public primary school in Greece. Paying particular attention to the specific material configurations at play, we try to analyse the construction processes through which angle was used both as a measure represented by a number and as a directed turn in the simulated 3D space of a digital tool that combines 3D Turtle Geometry and dynamic manipulation. Following a design-based research method, mathematical meanings are analysed as contingent assemblages involving gestures, embodied metaphors, navigation in virtual spaces, viewpoints, figural representations of 2D and 3D geometrical objects and ways of verbal and symbolic expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates inequality persistence in a group of 21 OECD countries using linear and non-linear fractionally integrated methods. Using linear models, the results show that the series are strongly persistent which implies lack of average reversal and permanency of shocks. Mean reversion is only found in the case of Finland and partial evidence of mean reversion is detected for Belgium, Greece, Austria and the Netherlands. The results are similar using non-linear methods. Mean reversion is only found in the case of Finland, Belgium, Greece and Spain. Although, most countries show no evidence of non-linear structures except for four countries, namely, Finland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. The implications of the empirical findings are reported at the end of the manuscript. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In every emergency medical situation, access to emergency medical services is an inalienable right of any citizen. The average acceptable time to provide first aid assistance is 60 minutes. In this paper, the possibility of using helicopters for air travel in mountainous areas was examined for the first time for all of Greece and especially for a mountainous and isolated area such as the Municipality of Agrafa. Initially, the time distance — virtual distance, from the hospitals was calculated at the national level of Greece, with an acceptable first contact time of 60 minutes (golden hour), i.e., less than two hours from the nearest hospital to the incident and back to the hospital and the relevant conclusions are drawn. Then, the case study of Municipality of Agrafa, one of the most mountainous areas in Greece, was examined. The time distance of the settlements from the nearest primary health point, namely the Primary Health Centre (PHC) of West Fragkista, was calculated and the transportation by ground means was compared with the corresponding time by flying means, to investigate the contribution of air transportation or not, of the timely arrival of the patients in the appropriate health structure. Finally, possible helicopter landing locations were identified, using a geographic information system to facilitate the process of air medical transportation in the Municipality of Agrafa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubiquitous self-tracking technologies have penetrated various aspects of our lives, from physical and mental health monitoring to fitness and entertainment. Yet, limited data exist on the association between in the wild large-scale physical activity patterns, sleep, stress, and overall health, and behavioral and psychological patterns due to challenges in collecting and releasing such datasets, including waning user engagement or privacy considerations. In this paper, we present the LifeSnaps dataset, a multi-modal, longitudinal, and geographically-distributed dataset containing a plethora of anthropological data, collected unobtrusively for the total course of more than 4 months by n = 71 participants. LifeSnaps contains more than 35 different data types from second to daily granularity, totaling more than 71 M rows of data. The participants contributed their data through validated surveys, ecological momentary assessments, and a Fitbit Sense smartwatch and consented to make these data available to empower future research. We envision that releasing this large-scale dataset of multi-modal real-world data will open novel research opportunities and potential applications in multiple disciplines. Measurement(s) Step Unit of Distance • Nutrition, Calories • Physical Activity Measurement • Oxygen Saturation Measurement • maximal oxygen uptake measurement • Electrocardiography • Respiratory Rate • skin temperature sensor • Unit of Length • Very Light Exercise • heart rate variability measurement • resting heart rate • electrodermal activity measurement • State-Trait Anxiety Inventory • Positive and Negative Affect Schedule • Stages and Processes of Change • Behavioural Regulations in Exercise • 50-item International Personality Item Pool version of the Big Five Markers Technology Type(s) FitBit • Survey • Survey Sample Characteristic - Organism Homo sapiens Sample Characteristic - Environment anthropogenic habitat Sample Characteristic - Location Greece • Italy • Sweden • Cyprus [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aristino-Traianoupolis area hosts one of the most significant water-dominated low-temperature geothermal fields in Greece. It is located on the southwestern uplifted margin of the Tertiary Evros Delta molassic basin, 10 km east of the town of Alexandroupolis (Thrace, NE Greece). The upper hydrothermal system of the Aristino Geothermal Field (AGF), one of the most promising in continental Greece, contains fluids with temperatures ranging from 51 to 99 °C, within a series of overlapping aquifers at very low depths (100–430 m). The main geothermal anomaly for temperatures higher than 90 °C covers an area of 6 km2, to a maximum prospected depth of 500 m below ground surface. The scattered regional anomaly exceeds 50 km2 and is characterized by excessively high and abruptly changing thermal gradient (42 to 450 °C/km) and heat flow (80–800 mW/m2), that are both typical of a fault-controlled hydrothermal system. Since 1993, the AGF has undergone non-systematic geothermal investigation, with emphasis on low-depth (100–500 m) drilling. This paper provides, for the first time, a synthetic and detailed evaluation of all available temperature data gathered in the last 25 years. The steady-state temperature logs reveal the dominant role of conduction for the upper geothermal system, accompanied, in most cases, by rapidly changing and abnormally high thermal gradients (100–450 °C/km), triggered, most probably, by a deeper system of higher temperature. This hypothesis is also supported by the applied chemical geothermometers, which suggest initial fluid temperatures at 140–150 °C, the hydrochemical characteristics of the fluids hosted in the deeper and most promising investigated reservoir (ignimbrite) of the upper system, and the extrapolated temperatures from the conductive temperature–depth profiles. The lower widespread medium enthalpy hydrothermal system should extend at depths 500–1000 m within volcanics and the expected Eocene limestones and basal clastic series of the Tertiary sequence that have filled the basin. Nevertheless, these assumptions need to be verified by appropriate investigations and new drillings at depths greater than 600–700 m, which would confirm the presence of a productive medium enthalpy reservoir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency Departments (EDs) are the most overcrowded places in public hospitals. Machine learning can support decisions on effective ED resource management by accurately forecasting the number of ED visits. In addition, Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques can help explain decisions from forecasting models and address challenges like lack of trust in machine learning results. The objective of this paper is to use machine learning and XAI to forecast and explain the ED visits on the next on duty day. Towards this end, a case study is presented that uses the XGBoost algorithm to create a model that forecasts the number of patient visits to the ED of the University Hospital of Ioannina in Greece, based on historical data from patient visits, time-based data, dates of holidays and special events, and weather data. The SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) framework is used to explain the model. The evaluation of the forecasting model resulted in an MAE value of 18.37, revealing a more accurate model than the baseline, with an MAE of 29.38. The number of patient visits is mostly affected by the day of the week of the on duty day, the mean number of visits in the previous four on duty days, and the maximum daily temperature. The results of this work can help policy makers in healthcare make more accurate and transparent decisions that increase the trust of people affected by them (e.g., medical staff). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate the role of debt as an additional determinant of growth complementing the relevant empirical growth literature using insights gained during the recent economic crisis. Our focus is the case of Greece, the country more severely affected by the crisis, thus having to resort to tripartite external assistance. More specifically, we are exploring whether the pillars of the Troika Adjustment Programme for Greece could actually be the key to overcome the current deadlock the Greek economy, as the required fiscal consolidation resulted in deep and prolonged recession which in turn jeopardizes the sustainability of the improvement in general government accounts. The Troika Programme for Greece featured specific structural reforms as a prerequisite to improve the business environment and enhance the outward orientation of the Greek economy, thus identifying investment (domestic and foreign) and international competiveness as the new growth drivers of the Greek economy. Using panel data for EU countries we are investigating the validity of the proposed economic policy mix, placing special emphasis on the role that indebtedness (both private and public) has played in the past and could also play in the future (as public debt is ruled out for financing investment but credit expansion to the private sector through increased liquidity is a sine qua non condition for the recovery of investment). The innovation of this study is that it takes stock of both structural reforms (through PMI) and indebtedness and estimates their relevant impact on growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role of external pressures, internal motivations and their interplay, with the intention of identifying whether they drive substantive or instead symbolic implementation of ISO 14001. The context is one of economic crisis. We focus on Greece, where the economic crisis has weakened the country’s institutional environment, and analyse qualitatively new interview data from 45 ISO 14001 certified firms. Our findings show that (a) weak external pressures can lead to a symbolic implementation of ISO 14001, as firms can defend their legitimacy without incurring the costs of internalization in the local market; (b) weak external pressures can lead to substantive implementation of ISO 14001 when firms have strong internal motivations seeking to strategically differentiate from competitors in international markets. Firms internalize ISO 14001 so as to restore their legitimacy and reputation in foreign markets and stimulate their competitiveness; and (c) strong internal motivations pave the way for companies to stimulate their competitiveness by enhancing their efficiency, as some companies might strengthen their position in the local market by implementing ISO 14001 substantively. The contribution of this paper to the literature on ISO 14001 internalization lies in refining existing theory on the importance of internal motivations for the substantive implementation of ISO 14001 in the context of economic crisis. In addition, this paper extends current theory by challenging studies that dismiss the importance of external pressures. We argue that the intensity of external pressures influences the internalization of ISO 14001, but propose that this relationship might not be linear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an attempt to determine potential tsunamigenic morphostructural nodes in Greece using pattern recognition algorithms. The earthquakes that have produced local tsunamis in the region were confined to morphostructural nodes whose locations were found by morphostructural zoning. The recognition problem consisted in separating all nodes in the region into the tsunamigenic class and the non-tsunamigenic class based mainly on the geomorphologic parameters of the nodes. The data on tsunamigenic earthquakes in Greece for training the Cora-3 algorithm were taken from the GHTD global historical catalog of tsunamigenic events (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu%5fdb.shtml). The recognition procedure resulted in determining 27 tsunamigenic nodes, with most of these being situated in the southern tip of the Peloponnese Peninsula, as well as in the gulfs of Corinth and Patras. Three tsunamigenic nodes were identified in the area of the Malian Gulf on the Aegean coast of Greece. According to the relevant literature, most local tsunamis in Greece were initiated by submarine slides and slumps due to earthquakes. According to the characteristic geomorphologic features derived in this study, the tsunamigenic nodes are situated in settings of contrasting relief characterized by steep slopes. This favors submarine landslides when subjected to earthquake excitation. The results reported in this paper form a basis for developing a methodology to be used in long-term tsunami hazard assessment, supplying information on local potential tsunamigenic sources required for tsunami regionalization of coastal areas in Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Greece, there are many audiovisual resources available on the Internet that interest scientists and the general public. Although freely available, finding such resources often becomes a challenging task, because they are hosted on scattered websites and in different types/formats. These websites usually offer limited search options; at the same time, there is no aggregation service for audiovisual resources, nor a national registry for such content. To meet this need, the Open AudioVisual Archives project was launched and the first step in its development is to create a dataset with open access audiovisual material. The current research creates such a dataset by applying specific selection criteria in terms of copyright and content, form/use and process/technical characteristics. The results reported in this paper show that libraries, archives, museums, universities, mass media organizations, governmental and non-governmental organizations are the main types of providers, but the vast majority of resources are open courses offered by universities under the "Creative Commons" license. Providers have significant differences in terms of their collection management capabilities. Most of them do not own any kind of publishing infrastructure and use commercial streaming services, such as YouTube. In terms of metadata policy, most of the providers use application profiles instead of international metadata schemas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two strong earthquakes hit Thessaly region on March 3rd, 2021 (Mw = 6.3) and on March 4th, 2021 (Mw = 6.1). The epicentres of the earthquakes were located at approximately 23 and 29 km respectively NW of Larissa, one of the most populous cities in Greece. Several aftershocks followed thereafter. Although no injuries were recorded, several structures suffered significant damage close to the epicentre, while some others collapsed. Approximately 300 residents of the village of Damasi were transferred to temporary settlements and tents. The event occurred during the COVID19 lockdown and created significant stress and disruption to residents. This paper focuses on the earthquake swarm itself as well as the damages observed in residential buildings, schools, and churches in the earthquake-stricken region. The earthquakes mainly impacted low-rise domestic masonry buildings, while the more modern reinforced concrete structures built following the recent seismic regulations were almost unaffected. The typology of buildings in the region, together with photographs demonstrating the extent of damage are presented herein. Despite the rather satisfactory performance of modern buildings in recent earthquakes in Greece, the preliminary investigations from the Thessaly Earthquakes showed that there is still a significant level of vulnerability in existing masonry building stock constructed using traditional methods and materials. This issue could re-emerge in future earthquakes striking other rural areas of Greece, something that needs to be addressed systematically in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We prospectively evaluated the association between quality of plant-based diets and 10-year first fatal/non-fatal cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidence. Methods: ATTICA study was conducted in the greater metropolitan Athens area, Greece, during 2001–2002 studying men and women (aged > 18 years old) free of CVD at baseline. Follow-up CVD assessment (2011–2012) was achieved in n = 2,020 participants (n = 317 cases). Dietary assessment was based on a validated semi-quantitative paper-based food frequency questionnaire. Overall, healthful, and unhealthful plant-based dietary indices (PDI, hPDI and uPDI) were calculated through a standard published procedure. The association between plant-based indices and CVD outcome has been evaluated via Cox regression analysis. Results: The CVD event rate was 15.7% (n = 317) with a median follow-up time of 8.41 years. The highest (3rd PDI tertile) vs. lowest (1st tertile) adherence to plant-based pattern—irrespective to healthfulness of food products consumed—was inversely associated with CVD (hazard ratio (HR) 0.56; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.14, 2.25) yet the CI was wide. Ranking from 1st to 2nd and 3rd hPDI tertile the CVD event rate was 6.4%, 10.5% and 16.2%, respectively (p = 0.003). Multi-variable adjusted analysis revealed that participants assigned in 2nd and 3rd hPDI tertile had 47% (HR 0.53; 95% CI 0.25–1.08) and 68% (HR 0.32; 95% CI 0.16–0.63) lower risk to develop CVD compared with their 1st tertile counterparts. Conversely, a positive association between uPDI and CVD risk was revealed in dose–response analysis (HR(per5unitsincreaseinuPDI) 1.34; 95% CI 0.95–2.37)). Conclusions: Quality of plant-based diets is important and needs to be considered, as not all plant-source foods have beneficial cardiovascular effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of the 1st International Symposium and 10th Balkan Conference on Operational Research (BALCOR 2011) held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in September 2011. The event was attended by researchers and practitioners across the fields of statistics, mathematics, economics, engineering, computer science and information technology. They presented papers on a variety of topics including the effect of contextual variables on technical efficiency.

The present paper deals with landscape management issues, not only of terrestrial landscape but also of coastal and marine landscape. This paper also proposes a methodology to introduce the landscape dimension in marine zoning and underline the need to include marine landscape as a discrete unit in Greek marine spatial planning. More specifically, this work presents key issues and basic axes related to marine zoning implementation by identifying marine landscape typologies that have emerged based on the visibility of the marine space in structures with negative visual impact that are placed in the terrestrial space. For the empirical part of the study, Crete island is chosen where the coastal and marine exploitation is significant and continues to increase. The methodological approach for the quantitative rendering of visibility is based on viewshed analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the difference in life expectancy at birth between females and males in the Greek population between the years 1994–2017. After constructing life tables per gender, we used the method of Arriaga in order to decompose life expectancy's differences by age and sex. We found that the gender gap increased until 2009 and decreased afterwards. Moreover, we estimated the differential contribution of the broad age groups of the population to the regulation of gender inequalities in longevity and studied the different effect of the causes of death. Besides age, the most important regulators are the neoplasms and the diseases of the circulatory system, followed by the external causes of morbidity and mortality, as well as the diseases of the respiratory system. All other causes of death play a marginal role. The results of the analysis indicate the need for the development and expansion of several public interventions and programs in order, not only to reduce the gender inequalities in longevity, but also to reduce the prevalence of several preventable diseases in the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specific features and requirements of island regions and rural areas make Mobility as a Service (MaaS) an attractive and evolving concept in the realm of Intercity/Rural/Island transportation. The primary goal of this research is to provide qualitative insights relative to the added value and development of MaaS for the previously mentioned transport services through a case study from Greece, a country with approximately 250 inhabited islands. In island settings, the primary societal motivation for MaaS is to enhance the accessibility of islands and improve individuals' access to multiple transport services. MaaS is found to have a strong potential to act as an enabler for more efficient transport and better accessibility to remote/island locations, acting in a complementary manner with currently applied "external" measures such as the Greek "Transport Equivalent". To further assess the potential, development and impact of MaaS a focus group comprised by key-representatives from industry and academia stakeholders is created. The MaaS Ecosystem, as described by the experts, is comprised of the MaaS Provider, all the intercity/rural/island transport providers currently operating in the Greek market, MaaS Enabling entities (associations, regulators, investors, research institutions), the Integration Drivers and the customers. The issue of transport providers' liability in case of disruptions and existing market regulations constitute, according to the results, an important challenge towards development of an Intercity MaaS, which needs to be addressed by legislative studies in a pan-European level. Most likely user groups for Intercity/Rural/Island MaaS are young people and digitally educated people, whilst less likely patronage groups are the elderly and "vulnerable" population groups. Relative to the external environment, high degree of fragmentation of the intercity transport industry combined by "autonomous" behavior of actors ("silo effect") appears to be the greatest threat towards MaaS whilst anticipated capital investments in infrastructure and vehicles, which are foreseen in the proxime future, are the greatest opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers' digital competence (DC) is an important condition for the effective application of technology in education. Although several DC tools have been designed, adjustments to digital education and pedagogical or professional components are still scarce. Therefore, this study aims at developing a new instrument for assessing teachers' DC regarding their pedagogical and professional activities in the context of digital school and digital education. The study also examines the teachers' total DC scores and explores the differences between teacher profiles on a sample of 845 teachers in primary and secondary education in Greece. The final instrument comprises 20 items allocated in six components: 1) Teaching preparation; 2) Teaching delivery & students' support; 3) Teaching evaluation & revision; 4) Professional development; 5) School's development; and 6) Innovating education. The PLS-SEM analysis indicated the validity and reliability of the model in respect to its factorial structure, internal consistency, convergence validity, and model fitness. The results revealed DC inefficiency among teachers in Greece. Primary school teachers reported significantly lower scores in Professional development and Teaching delivery & students support. Female teachers reported significantly lower scores in Innovating education and School's development, but they reported higher scores in Professional development. The contribution and practical implications are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age-at-death estimation of adult skeletal remains is a key part of biological profile estimation, yet it remains problematic for several reasons. One of them may be the subjective nature of the evaluation of age-related changes, or the fact that the human eye is unable to detect all the relevant surface changes. We have several aims: (1) to validate already existing computer models for age estimation; (2) to propose our own expert system based on computational approaches to eliminate the factor of subjectivity and to use the full potential of surface changes on an articulation area; and (3) to determine what age range the pubic symphysis is useful for age estimation. A sample of 483 3D representations of the pubic symphyseal surfaces from the ossa coxae of adult individuals coming from four European (two from Portugal, one from Switzerland and Greece) and one Asian (Thailand) identified skeletal collections was used. A validation of published algorithms showed very high error in our dataset—the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) ranged from 16.2 and 25.1 years. Two completely new approaches were proposed in this paper: SASS (Simple Automated Symphyseal Surface-based) and AANNESS (Advanced Automated Neural Network-grounded Extended Symphyseal Surface-based), whose MAE values are 11.7 and 10.6 years, respectively. Lastly, it was demonstrated that our models could estimate the age-at-death using the pubic symphysis over the entire adult age range. The proposed models offer objective age estimates with low estimation error (compared to traditional visual methods) and are able to estimate age using the pubic symphysis across the entire adult age range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sailing holiday activities represent a significant portion of the Blue Economy growth in Europe and across the world. Due to the global financial crisis, yacht ownership has declined, but demand for such holiday products remained steady, therefore shifting the yachters profile towards younger and less experienced consumers who prefer to charter boats, rather than own one. Boat chartering offers more flexibility to explore different regions from year to year, but this means that significantly more time must be spent planning the route, since local experience is absent. The tourists' experience during the initial contemplation and planning phase, taking place weeks or months before an actual trip, and where a broad range of route options needs to be explored, could thus significantly benefit from support given by automated IT tools. Current literature demonstrates a complete lack of research in the development of itinerary recommendation systems in the context of sailing holidays. In this paper, we describe a methodology for the automatic generation of route recommendations, based on the semantic modelling of spatial data, and the determination of realistic sea route options, based on vessel density maps produced from raw AIS data. We demonstrate the implementation and results from this methodology using one of the most popular sailing regions of Greece, namely the Ionian Sea, as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a growing consensus in recent years that development is a multidimensional concept that embodies the enhancement of several aspects of human life and, as a result, it is too complex to be captured by single indices. Composite Indicators have increasingly been recognised as useful tools in the measurement of this concept. In the absence of rigorous and comprehensive empirical studies in Greece on this topic, the paper assesses and reveals the developmental transformations of the regional economies at NUTS 2 and 3 levels in the period 1991–2011. In this way, this study provides a more comprehensive and integrative perspective of regional development in Greece presenting empirical evidence not only from a country with large and persistent regional inequalities but also from a cohesion country of the European Union for which regional policy has been of critical importance in the last decades. Moreover, the study adds to the literature shedding light on an under-researched topic; the importance of spatial heterogeneity in the construction of Composite Indicators. The results reveal a heterogeneous regional pattern of development for the Greek case. The findings can be used by policymakers as a way to better understand and improve the regional development process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An earthquake with a magnitude ranging from Mw = 6.9 (KOERI) to Mw = 7.0 (USGS) struck Samos Island in the Aegean Sea on October 30, 2020, with an epicentre 70 kms from the İzmir city centre in Turkey. The earthquake took place at 14:51 local time (11:51 UTC). The peak ground acceleration (PGA) of this earthquake was recorded to be 0.179 g at the epicentre of the earthquake. This earthquake occurred at a depth of 17.26 km (AFAD (2020) İzmir Earthquake Report, (In Turkish)) and lasted 16 s. The main shock from the earthquake triggered a tsunami that hit the building stocks built near the coast. During the gradual deregulation of COVID-19 pandemic regulations, various events caused considerable damage to the building stock, particularly in the Izmir Seferihisar and Bayraklı regions and resulted in a massive disruption of daily habits. The main shock caused 117 deaths in both Turkey and Greece, and 1632 people were also injured in Turkey. Moreover, several injuries occurred in Greece. A total of 103 buildings collapsed, 700 were severely damaged, 814 buildings were moderately damaged, and 7889 were slightly damaged. The basic aim of this paper is to briefly present the past and present seismotectonic characteristics of the region, present building stock, and former structural conditions before the earthquake, assess structural performance and classify distinguished earthquake-induced failures and damage due to the basin effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World financial markets have been in turmoil as investors grapple with the possibility that Greece and perhaps Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain will default on their debts. The 2011 downgrade of the S&P outlook for US debt to 'negative' suggests that there may eventually be concerns that the US will go the way of Europe. The paper studies possible transmission effects of a crisis for reserve-currency debt which may occur via central bank holdings of reserve-currency debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the impact of the current fiscal crisis in the euro area on the Greek banking system and the institutional, regulatory and supervisory measures adopted to preserve its stability. It is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the differentiated impact of the recent (2007-2009) international financial crisis and the current fiscal crisis in the euro area on the Greek banking system, and the measures adopted to safeguard its stability from 2008 (amidst the recent international financial crisis) until the establishment of the European Banking Union in 2014 (amidst the current fiscal crisis in the euro area). The second part overviews the main elements of the current institutional, regulatory and supervisory framework governing banking stability in Greece in the era of the European Banking Union and its implementation during the last 2 years after the establishment of the Single Supervisory Mechanism, the Single Resolution Mechanism and the Single Resolution Fund. The paper concludes with some remarks on the current challenges of the Greek banking system, the functioning of the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the need for a 'regulatory pause'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land disputes are among the primary issues that Land Administration Systems attempt to accommodate. They derive from a variety of purposes including law, history, culture, traditions, administration and local geographical characteristics. There is no uniform approach in addressing land disputes and each country implements different resolution techniques. Ecclesiastical and monastic institutions throughout the world are owners of immense real estate property to such an extent that can indeed affect land administration policies. Greece is in the limelight of international attention due to its economical crisis and actually under pressure to modernise its dysfunctional land policy framework and create a stable investment environment. Within this framework, this paper investigates issues hindering proper land administration in Greece through the examination of a the resolving process regarding a case study in the island of Crete; a complex legal land dispute between the Greek State, two ecclesiastical institutions, a monastery and a church, and squatters took place, lasting for nearly 40 years. In order to evaluate this procedure and its impact on the development of the disputed area, a variety of data sources were accumulated and processed through time-based analysis. In this direction, cadastral survey's contribution was examined along with land use change analysis, indicating how uncertainties in securing property rights on land, result in illegalities and trespassing posing significant barriers in land administration and management in the course of time. Although old and ambiguous in describing land boundaries the monasterial documentation might be, it proved sufficient to prevail over other litigants claims; the monastery was even adjudicated more than twice the size of the area that was claiming. By this investigation process, the distinct role of ecclesiastical institutions in Greece regarding land acquisition and the defects and malfunctions within Greek Land Administration System are presented. The paper concludes with the authors' suggestions for addressing similar real estate property situations concerning land disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greece implemented an extensive privatization program in the past decade, which included the concession of 14 regional airports for a period of 40 years. The main goal of this paper is to assess the effects of the concession in terms of passenger traffic. For that purpose, we apply a "difference-in-differences" econometric analysis of passenger traffic before and after the concession, using traffic data from the reports of the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority. As a control group, we use 24 regional airports that remained under state control. The econometric estimation indicates that the change in the management model of these airports has contributed significantly to the increase of passenger traffic. In particular, the coefficient of the variable used to interpret the effect of privatization on passenger traffic indicates that, controlling for heterogeneous trends and effects, passenger volume in the privatized airports was higher by 30% than what it would have been under state control. The results demonstrate that strengthening the private sector involvement in the development and operation of public infrastructure may have positive economic impact, particularly when it involves the entry of an experienced international strategic investor in asset development in a country undergoing a prolonged and deep economic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a crack detection mechanism for concrete tunnel surfaces is presented. The proposed methodology leverages deep Convolutional Neural Networks and domain-specific heuristic post-processing techniques to address a variety of challenges, including high accuracy requirements, low operational times and limited hardware resources, poor and variable lighting conditions, low textured lining surfaces, scarcity of training data, and abundance of noise. The proposed framework leverages the representational power of the convolutional layers of CNNs, which inherently selects effective features, thus obviating the need for the tedious task of handcrafted feature extraction. Additionally, the good performance rates attained by the proposed framework are acquired at a significantly lower execution time compared to other techniques. The presented mechanism was designed and developed as a core component of an autonomous robotic inspector deployed and validated in the tunnels of Egnatia Motorway in Metsovo, Greece. The obtained results denote the proposed approach's superiority over a variety of methods and suggest a promising potential as a driver of autonomous concrete-lining tunnel-inspection robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a set of empirical regularities that characterize the activity of Greek exporters. Using a unique data set of Greek manufacturing firms with firm-level exports, credit scores and other financial variables for the 2003–2015 period, we find that export value increases with the firm's size, labour productivity, the skill premium of wages and the employment ratio in research and development activities. Moreover, the results indicate that less credit-constrained Greek exporters with higher credit scores export more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the market structure of the Greek manufacturing industry over the period 1984-2007 at the two-digit SIC level. Three models are used to investigate the competitive conditions of the manufacturing industry. The paper investigates factors affecting the markup of the Greek manufacturing industry by estimating two additional models, i.e., the markup cross-sectional model and the markup time-series model, for identifying both sectoral and intertemporal factors. The empirical results indicate that the whole Greek manufacturing industry, as well as each sector of the industry, operates in non-competitive conditions for each year during the period 1984-2007. The findings also support that labor intensity, the sector size, and the number of establishments influence the markup at the sectoral level, while labor intensity, and the growth and the number of establishments affect the markup over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health expenditure data are known to be afflicted by restricted range, zero values, skewness and kurtosis. Several methods for modelling such data have been suggested in the literature to cope with these problems. This paper compares the performance of several alternative estimators, including two-part models and generalised linear models. The dependent variable is household expenditure on health care in Greece, a country where out-of-pocket health expenditure is higher than anywhere else in the European Union, whether as a proportion of GDP, as a share of all health spending, or in per capita terms. To facilitate comparison of model performance, household health expenditure is examined in two different specifications: expenditure on all health care (where zero values are rare) and expenditure on hospital services alone (where zero values are common). In the case of expenditure on all health care, three of the estimators performed almost equally well in terms of three alternative model performance indicators: a modified two-part model with non-linear least squares in the second part, a constant-variance generalised linear model and a variance-proportional-to-mean generalised linear model. In the case of expenditure on hospital services, the constant-variance generalised linear model out-performed the rest. The findings suggest that no estimator is best under all circumstances, while most alternative estimators are likely to produce relatively similar results. The paper concludes by discussing implications for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the post-fire regeneration of Pinus halepensis Mill. ecosystems in the Sithonia peninsula in northern Greece. The pre-burning stands consisted of two storeys; the overstorey of the dominant tree species P. halepensis and the understorey of evergreen sclerophyllous shrubs. The wildfire took place in June 1994. Three months after the fire two experimental plots of 0.75 ha each were established on a northeastern and a southwestern facing slope. In each experimental plot different restoration treatments were applied by using P. halepensis reproductive material. The treatments were the following: (i) planting of paper- pot seedlings, (ii) planting of bare-root seedlings, (iii) seeding in patches, (iv) seeding in strips, (v) seeding in strips and lines. The results of these treatments were compared to the control (no treatment applied). The results showed that all applied restoration works accelerated the rate of regeneration, while the best results were obtained by the method of planting paper-pot seedlings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel combination of deep learning recurrent neural network and Lyapunov time is proposed to forecast the consumption of electricity load, in Greece, in normal/abrupt change value areas. Our method verifies the chaotic behavior of load time series through chaos time series analysis and with the application of deep learning recurrent neural networks produces predictions for 10 and 20 days ahead. Specifically, four different neural network models constructed (a) feed forward neural network, (b) gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural network, (c) long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent and (d) bidirectional LSTM neural network to implement the prediction in a prediction horizon, produced through the extraction of maximum Lyapunov exponent. We constructed sequences of algorithms to feed the neural networks, creating three scenarios (a) 1-step, (b) 10-step and (c) 20-step sequences. For each neural network model, we used its predictions as inputs to predict steps forward, iteratively, to examine the accuracy of the proposed models, for horizons that are both inside and outside to that defined by Lyapunov time. The results show that the deep learning GRU neural network produces iterative predictions of high accuracy and stability, following the trend evolution of actual values, even outside the safe horizon for 1-step and 10-step cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the link between increased trade and regional GDP growth across the regional income distribution in Greece during the post-EMU period (2000–2013). By means of quantile regression techniques, panel fixed effects and system generalized method of moments (GMM), we disentangle the effects of EU trade—trading with generally richer countries—versus global trade—in the case of Greece, mostly trading with poorer countries—at several points of the regional income distribution to identify differences in trade elasticities. The analysis finds that the impact of EU trade is highly heterogeneous and mainly affects negatively the economy of the richer regions in Greece. In contrast, the effects of EU trade display insignificant results for the lower-income regions, attributed to the absence of direct substitution effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coordination on the management of transboundary waters is crucial for the development of riparian regions; nevertheless, lack of common legislation frameworks and communication channels jeopardize any cooperation among transboundary parties. The paper investigates the progress that has been conducted before and after the implementation of European Union's common water policies in the management of transboundary surface waters and groundwaters shared between Bulgaria and Greece. To do so, the latest derivatives of the Water Framework and Flood Directives' implementation process in both countries are analysed and processed to identify the quality and quantity (floods) of the surface waters' status on the three transboundary river basins' which are shared between the two countries, as well as the quality status of the groundwater bodies located in the boundary area. The outputs are compared with identified problems and pressures that were reported in the transboundary area before the operational implementation of the Directives. In terms of surface waters, the research demonstrates a remarkable amelioration of the inflows' quality status to the downstream river basins. The most significant problem is induced floods due to transboundary waters, however the recent activation of a cooperation mechanism is a very promising engagement. Finally, it has been established that the transboundary groundwater bodies are of good status, but additional groundwater formations are proposed to be designated as transboundary ones. Concluding, legislative and technical aspects of the EU water Directives have significantly fostered shared waters management in the case study area, with the proposed methodological framework to be applicable in all EU's shared waters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dive tourism has been growing constantly in recent years, contributing to socio-economic development of coastal zones and islands. In Greece new users are attracted, while coastal communities seek to create marine infrastructure, such as diving parks. Within this context, this paper deals with issues of diving park location. More specifically, it attempts to propose a methodology by identifying marine typologies and classify them according to specific criteria favourable or not to the location of diving parks. Rhodes island is chosen for the empirical part of the study, since the island's local economy is based on sea tourism. Marine typologies are identified based on selected criteria, and the marine space is classified according to favourable characteristics of the location of the diving park. The results indicate that, due to the significant human-induced activities in the marine environment, the potential dive locations are significantly reduced, underlining the risk of sea use conflicts and emerging the need of MSP implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the Hall-Roeger methodology in order to investigate the market structure and to measure the degree of market power in the Greek manufacturing sector over the period 1984-2007 as a whole and by subsector at the two-digit SIC level. The present paper also estimates the net and the total welfare losses in these market power scenarios. The bootstrap method is applied to assign measures of accuracy to the statistical estimates. The empirical results indicate some degree of market power and thus associated welfare losses for each subsector in the Greek manufacturing sector over the period 1984-2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All effects were small" has been revised to "Greater age was associated with lower scores on Machiavellianism ( = -0.11, -0.11, I p i < 0.001) and narcissism ( = -0.15, -0.07, I p i < 0.001) in the UK and China; but not in Greece ( = -0.00, -0.03, I p i > 0.05). The original article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03302-9 B Correction to: Current Psychology b https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03302-9 The original version of this paper has been published with error. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the highlights of Special Scientific Program held at the ISS Congress 2010 on September 28, 2010 in Athens, Greece. Papers that received awards from the Arabic Musculosketal Society (AMS), Society of Skeletal Radiology (SSR), and the European Society of Musculoskletal Radiology (ESSR) were presented. Researchers from the New York University presented the results of their study using 7T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in cartilage and trabecular bone in knee and ankle. S. Yanny, J. G. Cahir, and T. Baker won the best poster.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) becomes popular as big international firms gain more power than states and global issues engender concerns to people from all over the world. The pandemic of novel coronavirus is a current issue of global concern that threats humanity and global economy since the end of 2019. A lot of firms have announced urgent actions to support their employees and the local communities. The present study aims to examine whether the CSR activities of firms due to the pandemic could be categorized either as strategical or tactical CSR. The researcher recognizes the formation of a new kind of CSR called critical CSR as a hybrid between tactical and strategical CSR sharing characteristics from both. The examination of the case of Greece during the pandemic has provided a variety of examples of CSR activities from big Greek international firms that have been processed to support the validity of the reasoning. Finally, the paper delineates this new universal form of CSR born under the critical circumstances of the pandemic and the ensuing economic recession. That fact proves that this crisis could be transformed into a chance for corporations to realize their social role and improve their CSR footprint with the learnings of this pandemic by underlining possible advantages of these urgent CSR actions that could be incorporated into the usual CSR policy of the firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances in remote sensing techniques and computer algorithms allow accurate, abundant, and high-resolution geometric information retrieval for rock mass characterization from 3D point clouds. The automatic application of the extracted information for local scale rockfall susceptibility assessment, where discontinuities characteristics play a major role in rocky slope stability, requires step by step logical procedures. This paper presents a novel methodology to use the extracted discontinuity set characteristics for a local scale rockfall susceptibility assessment, tailored for Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data acquisition. The method consists of 4 steps: (i) 3D slope model reconstruction using UAV digital photogrammetry, (ii) automatic characterization of discontinuity sets, (iii) slope stability analysis, and (iv) susceptibility assessment using a new Rockfall Susceptibility Index. The proposed method was applied to a road cut rocky slope in a mountainous area of the Samaria National Park, in Crete Island, Greece. Visual validation indicates that the areas of higher and moderate rockfall susceptibility on the 3D model of the rocky slope are adjacent to rockfall source areas marked by the presence of fallen blocks on the foot of the slope. The proposed methodological workflow presents novelties related to the use of point clouds for the estimation of the Rock Quality Designation (RQD) index, the visualization of discontinuity set spacing, the evaluation of the persistence and the Slope Mass Rating (SMR) index, as well as the incorporation of the persistence of overhangs into the rockfall susceptibility assessment and visualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a hybrid process based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), risk matrix, and Monte Carlo Simulation for prioritizing delay risks in construction projects and estimating the probability of timely project completion. The main contribution of this study is the development of a novel framework for risk assessment that quantifies the impact of more critical risks to each activity according to its nature and benefits from the advantages of the AHP for constructing an enhanced risk matrix. In addition to the above, the proposed framework exploits the computational potential of Monte Carlo Simulation to obtain more accurate predictions of a project's completion time. The proposed approach was used for analyzing the duration, expected delay, and the probability of completion within the deadline, of a vital seawater desalination plant construction project, on the island of Alonissos, Greece. The proposed framework predicted the project duration more accurately than the classic PERT method did, and the results of the analysis documented that it could be a simple tool providing risk managers with helpful information while making decisions under uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal and external deficits in five European Union countries (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) using quarterly data for the period 1980:1–2020:1. Literature on the relationship between these series used linear techniques, but generally reported inconclusive results. Nonlinearity has been overlooked even though fiscal policy is likely to exhibit nonlinearity due to its sensitivity to political decisions. To capture this nonlinearity behaviour, nonlinear causality techniques are applied here in addition to the usual linear techniques used in the extant literature. The results show that there is evidence of unidirectional nonlinear causality from trade balances to government deficits in Greece and Italy, and a nonlinear unidirectional causality from government deficits to trade balance in Portugal. The results also indicate evidence of a nonlinear bi-directional causality between the trade and government balances in Ireland and Spain. The policy implication of these results is that governments of these countries need to address fiscal deficits to manage their trade balances. Policies that will improve the countries' revenue base, such as tax and labour market reforms as well as capital market reforms to engender productivity and increase competitiveness, would be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and assesses various machine learning methods that aim at predicting path loss in rural environment. For this purpose, models such as artificial neural network (ANN), support vector regression (SVR), random forest (RF), and bagging with k-nearest neighbor (B-kNN) learners, are exploited and evaluated. They are trained and tested with path loss data collected from an extensive measurement campaign that have been carried out in diverse rural areas in Greece. The results demonstrate that all the proposed machine learning models outperform the empirical ones, exhibiting, in any case, root-mean-square-error (RMSE) values between 4.0 and 6.5 dB. The poorest prediction of the measured data is encountered for SVR with Polynomial kernel. Furthermore, B-kNN and RF algorithms preserve comparable path loss approximations with remarkably low RMSE on the order of 4.2–4.3 dB. The error metrics also reveal that increasing the number of hidden layers in ANNs, their performance is gradually enhanced. However, deeper layouts with more than three hidden layers do not markedly improve any further the prediction accuracy. Finally, the best prediction is achieved when employing a three-hidden layered ANN with 51 neurons evenly distributed among the layers. The specific layout exhibits the lowest RMSE value (4.0 dB), thus being highly recommended for accurate path loss predictions in rural locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In deltaic areas, riverine and coastal waters interact; hence, these highly dynamic environments are particularly sensitive to climate change. This adds to existing anthropogenic pressures from irrigated agriculture, industrial infrastructure, urbanization, and touristic activities. The paper investigates the estimated future variations in the dynamics of surface and coastal water resources at a Mediterranean deltaic environment for the twenty-first century. Therefore, an Integrated Deltaic Risk Index (IDRI) is proposed as a vulnerability assessment tool to identify climate change impact (CCI) on the study area. For this purpose, three regional climate models (RCM) are used with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5 for short-term (2021–2050) and long-term (2071–2100) future periods. Extensive numerical modeling of river hydrology, storm surges, coastal inundation, water scarcity, and heat stress on irrigated agriculture is combined with available atmospheric data to estimate CCI on the Nestos river delta (Greece). The IDRI integrates modeling results about (i) freshwater availability covering agricultural demands for three water consumption scenarios, i.e., a reference (REF), a climate change (CC), and an extended irrigation (EXT) scenario, combining river discharges and hydropower dam operation; (ii) inundated coastal areas due to storm surges; and (iii) heat stress on cultivated crops. Sustainable practices on irrigated agriculture and established river basin management plans are also considered for the water demands under combinatory scenarios. The differentiations of model outputs driven by various RCM/RCP combinations are investigated. Increased deltaic vulnerability is found under the RCP8.5 scenario especially for the long-term future period. The projected IDRI demonstrates the need for integrated water resources management when compared with risk indexing of individual water processes in the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable access to raw materials has been growing concern for the EU policy from 2008. Germany, Finland, United Kingdom, Portugal and Greece were the first European countries to introduce and develop own minerals policy (2010–2012). Each of Member State prioritized own targets, but sustainability, waste management and climate were also underlined. In 2015 the 17 Sustainable Development Goals were established and adopted in the EU policy framework to monitor and measure the social, economic and environmental aspects. Next Paris Agreement targets and climate neutral has been introduced. They have significant impact also on mining industry. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationship between mineral policy in chosen countries and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and EU climate policy target. Due to limited data for mining sector the impact of mineral policy on sustainable mineral supply and CO2 emissions have been analyzed to identify the specific challenges, trends and successful factors of transition. It was shown that well developed mineral policy - in case of Finland - allow increase over 20% of production with over 20% decrease of CO2 emission. Moreover productivity in the sector in almost all analyzed country has been increased, what can show some correlation between mineral policy and SDG 12. However more detailed indicators for monitoring and assess the mineral policy on EU level and in individual country is needed, especially in contest of impact on sustainable development. It can help to provide acceptance of local society for new investment. It is a long term process which required not only significant financial capital, new technological solutions, but also trust and transparency in monitoring in implementing environmental and social aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]