Purpose: Today’s challenges underscore the importance of energy across all segments of life. This scientific paper investigates the multifaceted relationship between energy efficiency, energy import reliance, population heating access, renewable energy integration, electricity production capacities, internet utilization, structural EU funds, and education/training within the framework of economic development. Methodology: Using data from selected European countries and employing self-organizing neural networks (SOM) and linear regression, this research explores how these interconnected factors influence the journey toward a sustainable and prosperous economic future. Results: The analysis revealed a strong connection between energy efficiency and numerous socioeconomic factors of modern times, with most of these connections being non-linear in nature. Conclusion: As countries work toward sustainable development goals, prioritizing energy efficiency can contribute to improved quality of life, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.

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.

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.

The purpose of the article is to present the current situation in the rail freight transport in Thailand and the direction of changes in this area. Firstly, Thailand statistics in volume of freight transport by rail and modal share of freight transport have been presented. Afterwards, problems and obstacles in railway operational practices and in using rail transport services have been identified to improve railway system in Thailand and the outcome was assessed in terms of railway capacity and utilization. The findings were used to outline the direction of changes in rail freight transport. The results show that the rail transport capacity in double-track would increase by 48% (at present by 15.5% and as plan by 30%) and the ratio by rail transport to total freight transport would increase from at present by 1.87% to 10% in 2037.

The need for forest products, agricultural expansion, and dependency on biomass for the household energy source has largely influenced Ethiopia’s forest resources. Consequently, the country lost its forest resources to less than 6% until the millennium. In this study, quantitative and qualitative historical data analysis was employed to understand the socioeconomic benefits of large dam construction to Ethiopia and downstream countries. Moreover, remotely sensed data was also used to analyze the trends of vegetation cover change in the Nile catchment since the commencement of the dam; focusing on areas where there are high settlement and urban areas. It was identified that Ethiopia has one of the lowest electricity consumption per capita in Africa; about 91% of the source of household energy supply depends on fuelwood today and more than 55.7% of the population does not have access to electricity. The normalized difference vegetation index result shows an increment of vegetation area in the Nile catchment and a reduction of no vegetation area from 2011–2021 by 37.1%; which is directly related to the protection of the dam catchment for its sustainability in the last decade. The hydroelectric dam construction has prospects of multi-benefit to Ethiopia and downstream countries either through the direct benefit of hydropower energy production, related socioeconomic values, and reducing risks of destructive flood from Ethiopian highlands. Generally, it explains the reason why to not say ‘No’ to the reservoir as it is an ever more vital tool for fulfilling growing energy demand and supporting ecological stability.