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Faioli, R.A. and de Oliveira Neto, G.C., 2026. Analysis of the economic, environmental, and social benefits of the adoption of ant colony optimization in maritime transport: Bibliometric and systematic literature review. Journal of Coastal Research, 42(3), 492–504. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. Maritime transportation generates environmental pollution because it consumes fossil fuels for transportation, generating CO2 emissions, which is a very aggressive gas for the environment, further exacerbating the climate problems present in terrestrial life and society in general. Maritime transport is also a costly operation, which requires means of economic optimization. Therefore, it is important that companies adopt ant colony optimization (ACO) to optimize distance in maritime transport. The aim of this study was to carry out a bibliometric and systematic review of scientific research on the adoption of ACO in maritime transport, (1) to evaluate the number of publications, journals, sectors, and research methodologies that relate to the use of ACO in maritime transport and (2) to identify the mathematical and computational modeling techniques associated with ACO that can optimize routes in maritime transport, allowing economic, environmental, and social gains to be generated. Articles on the subject were analyzed, revealing a significant trend in the growth of publications related to ACO from 2013 to 2023, particularly in maritime transport. The findings indicate that ACO has been effectively used to increase operational efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize environmental impacts. Most studies highlight economic gains, while few address environmental and social benefits, suggesting the need for further exploration of these aspects. The study concludes that while ACO offers promising avenues for optimizing maritime transport, further research is essential to comprehensively assess environmental and social impacts, aligning the sector with global sustainability goals and addressing the urgent need for decarbonization in maritime transport, contributing to the United Nations 2030 Agenda's sustainable development goals (SDGs) of reducing CO2 emissions, contributing to sustainable cities and communities (SDG11), taking climate action (13), and protecting terrestrial life (SDG15).

This paper is motivated by Bitcoin’s rapid ascension into mainstream finance and recent evidence of a strong relationship between Bitcoin and US stock markets. It is also motivated by a lack of empirical studies on whether Bitcoin prices contain useful information for the volatility of US stock returns, particularly at the sectoral level of data. We specifically assess Bitcoin prices’ ability to predict the volatility of US composite and sectoral stock indices using both in-sample and out-of-sample analyses over multiple forecast horizons, based on daily data from November 22, 2017, to December, 30, 2021. The findings show that Bitcoin prices have significant predictive power for US stock volatility, with an inverse relationship between Bitcoin prices and stock sector volatility. Regardless of the stock sectors or number of forecast horizons, the model that includes Bitcoin prices consistently outperforms the benchmark historical average model. These findings are independent of the volatility measure used. Using Bitcoin prices as a predictor yields higher economic gains. These findings emphasize the importance and utility of tracking Bitcoin prices when forecasting the volatility of US stock sectors, which is important for practitioners and policymakers.

This paper investigates the impact of e-commerce participation on household development resilience using a sample of 1229 households in the Shandong and Shaanxi provinces of China in 2022. It constructs the developmental resilience index of farm households from three dimensions of economy, society and culture using the entropy method, and establishes a counterfactual framework using the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method. The results suggest that participation in e-commerce has a significant and positive impact on farming household development resilience. The PSM method estimates that participation in e-commerce increases the developmental resilience of farming households by 9.63% compared to non-participation, with economic, social, and cultural resilience increasing by 9.29%, 9.84%, and 9.92%, respectively. The robustness test results confirm the findings. Further analysis reveals that participation in e-commerce enhances farm household development resilience through three mechanisms: improving economic efficiency, network relationship linkage, and risk appetite. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of e-commerce participation on household development resilience varies among farmers with different endowment constraints. In particular, farmers with more years of education and cooperative members benefit more from e-commerce participation, especially live and platform e-commerce.

OBJECTIVES: There is increasing interest in the economic effects of improving working conditions, however, evidence is sparse. This study aims to estimate the economic effects of hypothetical improvements in the psychosocial work environment (PSWE) experienced by Danish workers. METHODS: We included 71 207 workers, reporting information on their psychosocial working conditions in the “Work Environment and Health in Denmark” survey and linked these workers to population-based register data. We used the parametric g-formula method to estimate the economic effects of hypothetical improvements of the general PSWE, in terms of costs related to sickness absence and healthcare use. We further examined which PSWE factors contributed most to the economic effects. RESULTS: A hypothetical improvement of the PSWE – from the least to the most desirable situation – resulted in an annual gain of €1685 [95% confidence interval (CI) €1234–2135] per worker. When analyzing an improvement from the observed to the most desirable situation, the gain became weaker (€305, 95% CI €134–476). Gains were largely driven by reductions in sickness absence and were larger for women than men and for public sector workers than private sector workers. The PSWE factors with the largest contribution were eliminations of threats of violence and improvements in quality of leadership and social support from colleagues (least to most desirable) and improvements in social support from colleagues, influence at work and quality of leadership (observed to most desirable), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Hypothetical improvements in the PSWE resulted in substantial economic gains, mostly driven by savings related to sickness absence.

Background Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are approved in Europe as preventive treatment of migraine in patients with at least four monthly migraine days. Migraine gives rise to direct healthcare expenditures, but most of the economic burden of migraine is socioeconomic. Evidence on the socioeconomic implications of CGRP-mAbs is, however, limited. There is an increasing interest in supplementing evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) with real-world evidence (RWE) to aid clinical decision making and inform decision making for migraine management. The objective of this study was to generate RWE on the health economic and socioeconomic implications of administering CGRP-mAbs to patients with chronic migraine (CM) and episodic migraine (high-frequency episodic migraine (HFEM), and low-frequency episodic migraine (LFEM)). Methods Real-world data (RWD) on Danish patients with CM, HFEM, and LFEM were collected via two Danish patient organisations and two informal patient networks and used in a tailored economic model. Treatment effects of CGRP-mAbs on health economic and socioeconomic outcomes were estimated using a sub-sample of patients with CM who receive CGRP-mAb treatment. Results A total of 362 patients (CM: 199 [55.0%], HFEM: 80 [22.1%], LFEM: 83 [22.9%]) were included in the health economic model (mean age 44.1 ± 11.5, 97.5% female, 16.3% received treatment with CGRP-mAbs), and 303 patients were included in the socioeconomic model (15.2% received treatment with CGRP-mAbs). Health economic savings from initiating CGRP-mAb treatment totalled €1,179 per patient with CM per year on average (HFEM: €264, LFEM: €175). Socioeconomic gains from initiating CGRP-mAb treatment totalled an average gross domestic product (GDP) gain of €13,329 per patient with CM per year (HFEM: €10,449, LFEM: €9,947). Conclusion Our results indicate that CGRP-mAbs have the potential to reduce both health economic expenditures and the socioeconomic burden of migraine. Health economic savings are used as a basis for health technology assessments (HTAs) of the cost-effectiveness of new treatments, which implies that important socioeconomic gains may not be given enough importance in decision making for migraine management.

Research Summary: “Value creation” is central to strategy. Even so, confusion arises because it can be defined in different ways, e.g., as the sum of producer and consumer surplus in a given time period, or as the change in surplus over time. To formalize the latter notion, we introduce the concept of economic gain, defined as the increase in total surplus. Economic gain can arise through innovation or when a superior firm displaces competitors. We provide a firm‐level measurement framework to quantify economic gain and its distribution among stakeholders, including the firm's shareholders, employees, suppliers, and customers. As an empirical illustration, we compare the creation and distribution of economic gain by Southwest Airlines and American Airlines between 1980 and 2010. Managerial Summary: Most managers and the business press regard “value creation” as the increase in shareholder wealth represented by a rise in corporate profit or stock price. A broader conception of value creation goes beyond shareholders to include the value that is distributed to additional stakeholders of the firm, including employees, suppliers, and customers. We develop a mathematical framework that allows this broader notion of value creation and distribution to be assessed and quantified in many cases. We illustrate the framework using historical data on Southwest Airlines and American Airlines over 3 decades.

What motivated national governments to join the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), a climate club founded in 2010? And to what extent have the club members participated in policy initiatives developed by the CEM? Our analysis shows that combinations of (a) the expected benefits of club membership and (b) the leadership of the USA induced the governments of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to join the CEM. The importance of these two factors varied across countries. Participation levels in the CEM’s policy initiatives varied over time. While this variation happened in a ‘proportionate’ manner for Australia, Canada and China, we observed singular instances of ‘disproportionate’ changes in levels of policy effort for the UAE and Brazil. Overall, our findings suggest that climate clubs constrain the behaviour of its members by discouraging them from engaging in sustained policy under-reactions.

PurposeThe place of festivals in national economic development has received increased attention from researchers globally. However, there appears to be a relatively small and disparate literature on the subject especially within the Ghanaian context. The study seeks to contribute to the global recognition of festivals as developmental tools and thus presents the effects of festival tourism on socio-economic capital of the people of Kwahu traditional area (Ghana) and how festival tourism in the region engenders economic benefits to businesses and the community.Design/methodology/approachThis study is guided by the social development theory. A quantitative cross-sectional survey utilizing convenience technique was used to gather data from a sample of 398 residents of the selected towns and the regression model was used to analyse the data.FindingsThe findings revealed festival tourism to have a positive effect on community cohesiveness but not statistically significant. Further, the festival brought economic gains but had negative social effects on development of the selected towns.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is destination-specific. The application of the findings to other festivals would demand a bigger sample size for generalisation to be made.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that for growth of festival tourism in Ghana to be actualised, the Ghana Tourism Authority needs to ensure festivals do not erode entrenched traditional values and negate efforts at developing social structures and systems by putting measures to reduce the negative effect of commoditisation of festivals on the communities' cultural authenticity. Law enforcement agents should also be massively beefed up to curtail crime and social vices.Originality/valueThe study's findings extend earlier studies to extend the scope in festival tourism literature. This study found that festival tourism has effect on both community cohesion and economic development of the people of Kwahu traditional area.

Introduction: Adapting fertilizer use is crucial if smallholder agroecosystems are to attain the sustainable development goals of zero hunger and agroecosystem resilience. Poor soil health and nutrient variability characterize the smallholder farming systems. However, the current research at the field scale does not account for nutrient variability across landscape positions, posing significant challenges for targeted nutrient management interventions. The purpose of this research was to create a demand-driven and co-development approach for diagnosing farmer nutrient management practices and determining landscape-specific (hillslope, mid-slope, and foot slope) fertilizer applications for teff and wheat. Method: A landscape segmentation approach was aimed to address gaps in farm-scale nutrient management research as well as the limitations of blanket recommendations to meet local nutrient requirements. This approach incorporates the concept of interconnected socio-technical systems as well as the concepts and procedures of co-development. A smart mobile app was used by extension agents to generate crop-specific decision rules at the landscape scale and forward the specific fertilizer applications to target farmers through SMS messages or print formats. Results and discussion: The findings reveal that farmers apply more fertilizer to hillslopes and less to mid- and foot slopes. However, landscape-specific fertilizer application guided by crop-specific decision rules via mobile applications resulted in much higher yield improvements, 23% and 56% at foot slopes and 21% and 6.5% at mid slopes for wheat and teff, respectively. The optimized net benefit per hectare increase over the current extension recommendation was $176 and $333 at foot slopes and $159 and $64 at mid slopes for wheat and teff (average of $90 and $107 for wheat and teff), respectively. The results of the net benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) demonstrated that applying landscape-targeted fertilizer resulted in an optimum return on investment ($10.0 net profit per $1.0 investment) while also enhancing nutrient use efficiency across the three landscape positions. Farmers are now cognizant of the need to reduce fertilizer rates on hillslopes while increasing them on parcels at mid- and foot-slope landscapes, which have higher responses and profits. As a result, applying digital advisory to optimize landscape-targeted fertilizer management gives agronomic, economic, and environmental benefits. The outcomes results of the innovation also contribute to overcoming site-specific yield gaps and low nutrient use efficiency, they have the potential to be scaled if complementing innovations and scaling factors are integrated.

Intensive forest management practices for production forestry can potentially impact the sustainability of ecological functions and associated forest ecosystem services. Understanding the trade-offs between economic gains and ecological losses is critical for the sustainable management of forest resources. However, economic and ecological trade-offs are typically uncertain, vary at temporal and spatial scales, and are difficult to measure. Moreover, the methods used to quantify economic and ecological trade-offs might have conflicting priorities. We reviewed the most current published literature related to trade-off analysis between economic gains and sustainability of forest ecosystem functions and associated services, and found that most economic and ecological trade-offs studies were conducted in tropical and temperate forests, with few having their focus on boreal forests. Analytical methods of these published studies included monetary valuation, biophysical models, optimization programming, production possibility frontier and multi-objective optimization. This review has identified the knowledge gaps in the understanding and measurement of the economic and ecological trade-offs for the sustainable management of boreal forests. While it remains uncertain how economic activities might best maintain and support multiple ecological functions and associated services in the boreal forests, which are susceptible to climate change and disturbances, we propose the use of optimization methods employing multiple objectives. For any tool to provide sustainable and optimal forest management solutions, we propose that appropriate and robust data must be collected and analyzed.