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The integration of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in urban infrastructure has increased significantly, and one of the most notable examples is the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs). AVs have become a solution to various driving problems, such as performing complete overtaking maneuvers (OM). These maneuvers are considered one of the most difficult to carry out. Although there are many papers on OM maneuvers with AVs, not all of these studies focus on the performance of complete OM. Therefore, a comprehensive and scientific exploration of the analysis of complete OM with AVs is lacking. This study aims to address this gap through a systematic review following the PRISMA protocol as methodology, examining 51 articles published between 2008 and 2024 in the Science Direct, Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS) databases. The results showed that methodologies such as Model Predictive Control (MPC), Fuzzy Control (FC), and sigmoidal functions are used most to perform complete OM with AVs. MPC is the most relevant methodology due to its capability to be combined with other control systems and its predictive ability. FC and sigmoidal functions are also appropriate for dealing with inaccuracies and non-linear features associated with overtaking maneuvers. However, there are still complications related to computational complexity and sensor limitations. Future studies should consider and integrate the development of comprehensive systems that combine multiple real-time control methodologies and offer a robust combination of sensors. This review contributes to teaching studies that reveal promising opportunities for complete OM with AVs research and provide access to methodologies that could be optimized based on technological advances and emerging needs of the ITS sector. Addressing these knowledge gaps is essential to achieving safer and more efficient overtaking maneuvers by AVs.

Abstract We show how the dire state of the Earth's rivers entangles intimately with ‘thingifying’ processes at the heart of colonial modernity. Known in many precolonial and Indigenous contexts as person‐like kin, we describe how rivers the world over have been re‐done primarily as thing—amoral, controllable, a potential commodity like anything else. We develop and work with a provisory concept of kin as those constituents of environments that reciprocally nurture, and contribute to the substance of, one another's life and wellbeing. We show how kinship with rivers figures centrally in primarily Indigenous‐led struggles in various regions of the globe for the recognition and enforcement of river personhood and rights. This is partly because people are motivated to fight passionately for their kin. With some careful caveats, we argue that associating river kinship exclusively with Indigenous worlds undermines its potential for global impact. Thus, as an apposite case study, the latter part of the paper focuses on some of the social–ecological trends which we suggest are opening up the possibility for the re‐establishment of ‘riverkinship’ in the United Kingdom. We reflect on the potential for riverkinship to help cultivate political constellations fitting to the challenges of the Anthropocene. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

A third of the world’s ecosystems are considered degraded, and there is an urgent need for protection and restoration to make the planet healthier. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target 15.3 aims at protecting and restoring the terrestrial ecosystem to achieve a land degradation-neutral world by 2030. Land restoration through inclusive and productive growth is indispensable to promote sustainable development by fostering climate change-resistant, poverty-alleviating, and environmentally protective economic growth. The SDG Indicator 15.3.1 is used to measure progress towards a land degradation-neutral world. Earth observation datasets are the primary data sources for deriving the three sub-indicators of indicator 15.3.1. It requires selecting, querying, and processing a substantial historical archive of data. To reduce the complexities, make the calculation user-friendly, and adapt it to in-country applications, a module on the FAO’s SEPAL platform has been developed in compliance with the UNCCD Good Practice Guidance (GPG v2) to derive the necessary statistics and maps for monitoring and reporting land degradation. The module uses satellite data from Landsat, Sentinel 2, and MODIS sensors for primary productivity assessment, along with other datasets enabling high-resolution to large-scale assessment of land degradation. The use of an in-country land cover transition matrix along with in-country land cover data enables a more accurate assessment of land cover changes over time. Four different case studies from Bangladesh, Nigeria, Uruguay, and Angola are presented to highlight the prospect and challenges of monitoring land degradation using various datasets, including LCML-based national land cover legend and land cover data.

Global health equity is at a historically tenuous nexus complicated by economic inequality, climate change, mass migration, racialized violence, and global pandemics. Social medicine, collective health, and structural competency are interdisciplinary fields with their own histories and fragmentary implementation in health equity movements situated both locally and globally. In this paper, we review these three fields’ historical backgrounds, theoretical underpinnings, and contemporary contributions to global health equity. We believe that intentional dialogue between these fields could promote a generative discourse rooted in a shared understanding of their historical antecedents and theoretical frameworks. We also propose pedagogical tools grounded within our own critical and transformative pedagogies that offer the prospect of bringing these traditions into greater dialogue for the purpose of actualizing the human right to health.

Planning a Park-and-Ride (P&R) system in an urban area of a city depends on a group of transportation planning professionals with different areas of expertise in mobility, agreeing on which criteria or set of criteria are the most important. In addition to analysing the criteria established as mobility policies in the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP), when establishing a set of facilities belonging to the P&R system. To find out which criterion is the most important one when combining the mobility criteria established in the SUMP with the criteria of transportation planners with different expertise, this paper applies the multi-criteria method known as the Grey Analytic Hierarchy Process (G-AHP). In this method, at first the main and secondary criteria are determined at two levels that allow building a hierarchical structure, then transportation professionals are surveyed, and finally, the formulation of the multi-criteria method is designed. The result of the study illustrates the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed multi-criteria method to determine the hierarchy of criteria from most to least important to solve the problem of locating a P&R system. Also, the results are compared with two different multicriteria methods (FAHP and BWM) to see how they are alike and how they are different. The finding suggests that the planning of a P&R system and the criterion for the accessibility of public transport go hand in hand, regardless of the multi-criteria method employed.

Abstract Nature degradation, poverty and social discrimination are some of the consequences of unfair decision‐making over environmental resources within rural communities in the Global South. Barriers to achieving fair environmental decisions are entrenched power differences and the lack of representation of the diversity of local values in environmental decision‐making. Using intersectionality and value pluralism as a conceptual base, this is the first paper to examine the potential of Forum Theatre, a performance arts‐based method, to discuss ‘solutions’ regarding power differences and values towards nature in environmental decision‐making. We implemented Forum Theatre in two rural villages in Chiapas, Mexico, framed around conflicts and power differences in eco‐tourism development. Participants felt empathy with the Forum Theatre characters and dissatisfaction over the conflicts, and this motivated them to engage and participate in collective reflections on their own personal experiences with power differences in environmental decision‐making. From these reflections, participants performed diverse ‘solutions’ to the conflicts, bringing to the fore plural interconnected and dynamic values towards nature in these narratives. Despite this, Forum Theatre does not look to ‘solve’ conflicts; it is a safe space to explore how power differences and values towards nature play out in environmental decision‐making. Results offer a promising picture of the potential of Forum Theatre as an opening where participants could discuss power differences and values towards nature. However, establishing its potential as a tool in environmental decision‐making would require engaging those involved in implementing environmental decisions that affect the communities but who operate from other levels of the governance structure, such as policy‐makers and large NGOs. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

River networks are among Earth’s most threatened hot-spots of biodiversity and provide key ecosystem services (e.g., supply drinking water and food, climate regulation) essential to sustaining human well-being. Climate change and increased human water use are causing more rivers and streams to dry, with devastating impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Currently, more than a half of the global river networks consist of drying channels, and these are expanding dramatically. However, drying river networks (DRNs) have received little attention from scientists and policy makers, and the public is unaware of their importance. Consequently, there is no effective integrated biodiversity conservation or ecosystem management strategy of DRNs.A multidisciplinary team of 25 experts from 11 countries in Europe, South America, China and the USA will build on EU efforts to assess the cascading effects of climate change on biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services of DRNs through changes in flow regimes and water use. DRYvER (DRYing riVER networks) will gather and upscale empirical and modelling data from nine focal DRNs (case studies) in Europe (EU) and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to develop a meta-system framework applicable to Europe and worldwide. It will also generate crucial knowledge-based strategies, tools and guidelines for economically-efficient adaptive management of DRNs. Working closely with stakeholders and end-users, DRYvER will co-develop strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change impacts in DRNs, integrating hydrological, ecological (including nature-based solutions), socio-economic and policy perspectives. The end results of DRYvER will contribute to reaching the objectives of the Paris Agreement and placing Europe at the forefront of research on climate change.

A third of the world's ecosystems are considered degraded, and there is an urgent need for protection and restoration to make the planet healthier. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target 15.3 aims at protecting and restoring the terrestrial ecosystem to achieve a land degradation-neutral world by 2030. Land restoration through inclusive and productive growth is indispensable to promote sustainable development by fostering climate change-resistant, poverty-alleviating, and environmentally protective economic growth. The SDG Indicator 15.3.1 is used to measure progress towards a land degradation-neutral world. Earth observation datasets are the primary data sources for deriving the three sub-indicators of indicator 15.3.1. It requires selecting, querying, and processing a substantial historical archive of data. To reduce the complexities, make the calculation user-friendly, and adapt it to in-country applications, a module on the FAO's SEPAL platform has been developed in compliance with the UNCCD Good Practice Guidance (GPG v2) to derive the necessary statistics and maps for monitoring and reporting land degradation. The module uses satellite data from Landsat, Sentinel 2, and MODIS sensors for primary productivity assessment, along with other datasets enabling high-resolution to large-scale assessment of land degradation. The use of an in-country land cover transition matrix along with in-country land cover data enables a more accurate assessment of land cover changes over time. Four different case studies from Bangladesh, Nigeria, Uruguay, and Angola are presented to highlight the prospect and challenges of monitoring land degradation using various datasets, including LCML-based national land cover legend and land cover data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Radiation and Dust Sensor is one of six sensors of the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer onboard the Perseverance rover from the Mars 2020 NASA mission. Its primary goal is to characterize the airbone dust in the Mars atmosphere, inferring its concentration, shape and optical properties. Thanks to its geometry, the sensor will be capable of studying dust-lifting processes with a high temporal resolution and high spatial coverage. Thanks to its multiwavelength design, it will characterize the solar spectrum from Mars’ surface. The present work describes the sensor design from the scientific and technical requirements, the qualification processes to demonstrate its endurance on Mars’ surface, the calibration activities to demonstrate its performance, and its validation campaign in a representative Mars analog. As a result of this process, we obtained a very compact sensor, fully digital, with a mass below 1 kg and exceptional power consumption and data budget features.

Over the past decade, pastoralists in Kunene Region, Namibia, have endured recurrent drought and flood events that have culminated in the loss of their primary form of livelihood–pastoralism. Most pastoralists are finding it difficult to sustain their livelihoods, and their communities have fallen into extreme poverty. Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) approaches are increasingly acknowledged as having the potential to enhance the adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities. The first step is to develop an understanding of how affected communities live, their perceptions of and how they respond to climate change and the biophysical impacts of climate change in their communities. This study aims to collect this information in order to explore the use of EbA to help pastoralists adapt to climate change. We examined an isolated pastoral Himba community, to understand their perceptions, experiences and understanding of climate change and its related impacts on their livelihoods. A nested mixed-methods approach using structured interviews was employed to address the study objectives. Interview results revealed that pastoralists lack scientific knowledge of climate change, and they have no access to climate change information. Though pastoralists have coping and adaptation approaches at the community level (such as making gardens, fishing, etc.), these have become ineffective as climatic uncertainty and change persist. Furthermore, pastoralists no longer get benefits from the environment, such as food and fodder. Despite this, there are currently no biodiversity interventions at the community level to address the impacts of climate change. Pastoralists have indicated their adaptation needs, particularly the provision of water supply to grow food. This is an open avenue to explore EbA approaches, specifically ecological restoration, while still addressing the need of the pastoralists. There is an urgent need to develop new practical adaptation strategies, including restoration options that will strengthen their adaptive capacity.

Abstract Background Quality metrics, pay for performance (P4P), and value-based payments are prominent aspects of the current and future American healthcare system. However, linking clinic payment to clinic quality measures may financially disadvantage safety-net clinics and their patient population because safety-net clinics often have worse quality metric scores than non-safety net clinics. The Minnesota Safety Net Coalition’s Quality Measurement Enhancement Project sought to collect data from primary care providers’ (PCPs) experiences, which could assist Minnesota policymakers and state agencies as they create a new P4P system. Our research study aims are to identify PCPs’ perspectives about 1) quality metrics at safety net clinics and non-safety net clinics, 2) how clinic quality measures affect patients and patient care, and 3) how payment for quality measures may influence healthcare. Methods Qualitative interviews with 14 PCPs (4 individual interviews and 3 focus groups) who had worked at both safety net and non-safety net primary care clinics in Minneapolis-St Paul Minnesota USA metropolitan area. Qualitative analyses identified major themes. Results Three themes with sub-themes emerged. Theme #1: Minnesota’s current clinic quality scores are influenced more by patients and clinic systems than by clinicians. Theme #2: Collecting data for a set of specific quality measures is not the same as measuring quality healthcare. Subtheme #2.1: Current quality measures are not aligned with how patients and clinicians define quality healthcare. Theme #3: Current quality measures are a product of and embedded in social and structural inequities in the American health care system. Subtheme #3.1: The current inequitable healthcare system should not be reinforced with financial payments. Subtheme #3.2: Health equity requires new metrics and a new healthcare system. Overall, PCPs felt that the current inequitable quality metrics should be replaced by different metrics along with major changes to the healthcare system that could produce greater health equity. Conclusion Aligning payment with the current quality metrics could perpetuate and exacerbate social inequities and health disparities. Policymakers should consider PCPs’ perspectives and create a quality-payment framework that does not disadvantage patients who are affected by social and structural inequities as well as the clinics and providers who serve them.

Governments are mega-consumers of many manufactured products and services. As such they should in principle be able to influence workers’ rights abroad via the terms of purchase contracts. Yet to date little attention has been paid to the potential of public procurement to promote respect for labour rights globally besides the international trade law framework. Building on a limited emerging scholarship and policy developments, this article addresses this gap. Section 2 considers legal definitions of public procurement and distinguishes primary and secondary aims of procurement under key international and regional procurement regimes. This highlights that, although historically used to advance labour rights domestically, these regimes have restricted public buyers’ scope to advance labour rights beyond national borders. Section 3 explores new international policy frameworks on responsible global value chains and supply chains which by contrast appear to augur the greater use of public procurement to promote labour rights globally in future. Section 4 argues, supported by analysis of the limited examples available, that public buying has the potential to positively influence enjoyment of labour rights in practice. Concluding, Section 5 reflects on what the more specific impacts of public procurement in this context may be, and how public buying should complement other mechanisms for improving labour conditions across supply chains, such as social clauses in trade agreements. Finally, we outline issues for further research and the future policy agenda.

Forests and trees are key to solving water availability problems in the face of climate change and to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. A recent global assessment of forest and water science posed the question: How do forests matter for water? Here we synthesize science from that assessment, which shows that forests and water are an integrated system. We assert that forests, from the tops of their canopies to the base of the soils in which trees are rooted, must be considered a key component in the complex temporal and spatial dimensions of the hydrologic cycle. While it is clear that forests influence both downstream and downwind water availability, their actual impact depends on where they are located and their processes affected by natural and anthropogenic conditions. A holistic approach is needed to manage the connections between forests, water and people in the face of current governance systems that often ignore these connections. We need policy interventions that will lead to forestation strategies that decrease the dangerous rate of loss in forest cover and that—where appropriate—increase the gain in forest cover. We need collective interventions that will integrate transboundary forest and water management to ensure sustainability of water supplies at local, national and continental scales. The United Nations should continue to show leadership by providing forums in which interventions can be discussed, negotiated and monitored, and national governments must collaborate to sustainably manage forests to ensure secure water supplies and equitable and sustainable outcomes.

We show how the dire state of the Earth's rivers entangles intimately with 'thingifying' processes at the heart of colonial modernity. Known in many precolonial and Indigenous contexts as person‐like kin, we describe how rivers the world over have been re‐done primarily as thing—amoral, controllable, a potential commodity like anything else.We develop and work with a provisory concept of kin as those constituents of environments that reciprocally nurture, and contribute to the substance of, one another's life and wellbeing.We show how kinship with rivers figures centrally in primarily Indigenous‐led struggles in various regions of the globe for the recognition and enforcement of river personhood and rights. This is partly because people are motivated to fight passionately for their kin.With some careful caveats, we argue that associating river kinship exclusively with Indigenous worlds undermines its potential for global impact. Thus, as an apposite case study, the latter part of the paper focuses on some of the social–ecological trends which we suggest are opening up the possibility for the re‐establishment of 'riverkinship' in the United Kingdom.We reflect on the potential for riverkinship to help cultivate political constellations fitting to the challenges of the Anthropocene. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]