Cities play a key role in achieving the climate-neutral supply of heating and cooling. This paper compares the policy frameworks as well as practical implementation of smart heating and cooling in six cities: Munich, Dresden and Bad Nauheim in Germany; and Jinan, Chengdu and Haiyan in China, to explore strategies to enhance policy support, financial mechanisms, and consumer engagement, ultimately aiming to facilitate the transition to climate-neutral heating and cooling systems. The study is divided into three parts: (i) an examination of smart heating and cooling policy frameworks in Germany and China over the past few years; (ii) an analysis of heating and cooling strategies in the six case study cities within the context of smart energy systems; and (iii) an exploration of the practical solutions adopted by these cities as part of their smart energy transition initiatives. The findings reveal differences between the two countries in the strategies and regulations adopted by municipal governments as well as variations within each country. The policy frameworks and priorities set by city governments can greatly influence the development and implementation of smart heating and cooling systems. The study found that all six cities are actively engaged in pioneering innovative heating and cooling projects which utilise diverse energy sources such as geothermal, biomass, solar, waste heat and nuclear energy. Even the smaller cities were seen to be making considerable progress in the adoption of smart solutions.

This study investigates the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) integration on preventing employee burnout through a human-centered, multimodal approach. Given the increasing prevalence of AI in workplace settings, this research seeks to understand how various dimensions of AI integration—such as the intensity of integration, employee training, personalization of AI tools, and the frequency of AI feedback—affect employee burnout. A quantitative approach was employed, involving a survey of 320 participants from high-stress sectors such as healthcare and IT. The findings reveal that the benefits of AI in reducing burnout are substantial yet highly dependent on the implementation strategy. Effective AI integration that includes comprehensive training, high personalization, and regular, constructive feedback correlates with lower levels of burnout. These results suggest that the mere introduction of AI technologies is insufficient for reducing burnout; instead, a holistic strategy that includes thorough employee training, tailored personalization, and continuous feedback is crucial for leveraging AI’s potential to alleviate workplace stress. This study provides valuable insights for organizational leaders and policymakers aiming to develop informed AI deployment strategies that prioritize employee well-being.

Accurate prediction of US Treasury bond yields is crucial for investment strategies and economic policymaking. This paper explores the application of advanced machine learning techniques, specifically Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models, in forecasting these yields. By integrating key economic indicators and policy changes, our approach seeks to enhance the precision of yield predictions. Our study demonstrates the superiority of LSTM models over traditional RNNs in capturing the temporal dependencies and complexities inherent in financial data. The inclusion of macroeconomic and policy variables significantly improves the models’ predictive accuracy. This research underscores a pioneering movement for the legacy banking industry to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) in financial market prediction. In addition to considering the conventional economic indicator that drives the fluctuation of the bond market, this paper also optimizes the LSTM to handle situations when rate hike expectations have already been priced-in by market sentiment.

The present study is designed to analyse how the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model is helping to create sustainable livelihood opportunities for women. It draws an inference from ‘Marudhara Rangsaaz’, a producer company operating in the textile sector in Rajasthan, India. It explains how this woman-based organisation operates in a PPP model to create economic value for women. It also tries to understand the specific role of the Rajasthan Grameen Aajeevika Vikas Parishad (RAJEEVIKA), The Rajasthan Government partner and ‘Rang Sutra’, the private partner, and the women members of ‘Marudhara Rangsaaz’ in the PPP model. The paper adopted a case study research design. The data was collected using in-depth interviews with all stakeholders and analysis of the documents. The findings indicate that in the said PPP model, Government took the role of mobilizer, financer, mentor, and private player, took the responsibility of building up capacity and arranging market links, and the women members worked together to help themselves sustain the project.

As a key factor in the macroeconomic process, the interaction between public confidence and the commodity market, especially its impact on commodity facilitation returns and macroeconomic linkages, is worth exploring in depth. This study adopts the TVP-SV-VAR model to analyze the causal linkages, dynamic characteristics, and mechanisms of the interaction, and reveals the following core findings: (1) The economic background and information shocks contribute to the variations in the effects and orientations of the economic variables, which highlight the time-varying nature of the economic interactions. (2) Consumer and investor confidence exert heterogeneous influence on the macroeconomy, and their different responses to the negative effect of interest rates and convenience gains are particularly significant in the post-crisis recovery period. (3) In the short-term perspective, the influence of public confidence on monetary policy and inflation exceeds that in the medium and long term, highlighting the immediate sensitivity of individual economic behavior. (4) Since 2015, accommodative monetary policy has accelerated market capital flows, delaying the interaction between confidence indices and inflation, revealing policy time lag effects. (5) Convenience gains exhibit complex time-varying interactions with key economic parameters (interest rates, commodity prices, and inflation), with 2011 and 2014 displaying particular patterns, mapping differences between short- and long-term mechanisms, respectively. The study highlights the central role of consumer and investor confidence in the precise tailoring of macroeconomic policies, providing a scientific basis for policy forecasting and economic regulation, and contributing to economic stability. Meanwhile, the dynamic evolution of consumer confidence deepens market trend foresight, enhances the precision of market participants’ decision-making, and reinforces the resilience and predictability of economic operations.

Finance is the core of the modern economy and the bloodline of the real economy; adherence to the people-centered value orientation and the financial services of the real economy as the fundamental purpose is an important connotation of the road of economic development with Chinese characteristics. Financial work is distinctly political and people-oriented, and must consciously practice the concept of the people, serve agricultural and rural development and farmers to increase their income and contribute to the common prosperity of farmers and rural areas. This study is based on the key factors affecting the multidimensional poverty of rural households—external rural financial resources availability and internal rural household entrepreneurship, rural household risk resilience, and rural household financial capability joint analysis. Based on financial exclusion theory, financial inclusion theory, poverty trap theory, and financial literacy theory, to build a logical framework between the rural financial resources availability, farmers’ financial capability, farmers’ entrepreneurship, farmers’ risk management capability, and farmers’ poverty, and then empirically explore the optimization mechanism of poverty reduction for farmers, and analyze the heterogeneity of the financial resources availability, to reduce the return to poverty caused by the lack of entrepreneurial motivation and the low level of risk resilience of rural households. The study aims to improve the farmers’ financial capability and promote sustainable and high-quality development of rural households. In this study, we modeled financial resource availability and rural household poverty using structural equations and surveyed rural households using a scale questionnaire. It was found that financial resource availability significantly affects rural household risk resilience, farmers’ entrepreneurship, and rural household poverty and that rural household risk resilience significance mediates the relationship between financial resource availability and rural household poverty, financial capability plays a significant moderating role. However, the mediating effect of farmers’ entrepreneurship on the availability of financial resources and farmers’ poverty is insignificant. Here, we put forward corresponding countermeasures and recommendations: guiding the allocation of financial resources to key areas and weak links; optimizing financial services; and building a long-term mechanism.