Cognitive Sustainability

Rail transport has a crucial role to play not only in the EU’s strategy for a sustainable transport sector, but also in terms of economic and social cohesion. It contributes significantly to the mix of transport modes in the EU, while providing clean mobility and a high degree of efficiency. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the volume of passenger and freight rail transport has fallen sharply due to constraints and lower demand for transport. Several players in the rail market had to close down. Rail operators had to face a sharp decline in transport services. In 2020, the demand for passenger transport was significantly lower than in the previous year. Thus, railway undertakings were not able to pay the charges for access to the railway infrastructure during the emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Infrastructure managers had the opportunity to temporarily reduce, waive or defer these charges. The negative economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could reduce or significantly endanger their financial viability for market stakeholders. Reducing charges for access to railway infrastructure is just one of the few measures that will help railway undertakings to function better. The paper focuses on the analysis of the impact of the pandemic and the implemented measures on the passenger rail sector in the Slovak Republic and on the development of rail passenger and freight transport during the pandemic. It summarizes the proposed measures against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in rail transport in Slovakia.

Rail transport has a crucial role to play not only in the EU’s strategy for a sustainable transport sector, but also in terms of economic and social cohesion. It contributes significantly to the mix of transport modes in the EU, while providing clean mobility and a high degree of efficiency. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the volume of passenger and freight rail transport has fallen sharply due to constraints and lower demand for transport. Several players in the rail market had to close down. Rail operators had to face a sharp decline in transport services. In 2020, the demand for passenger transport was significantly lower than in the previous year. Thus, railway undertakings were not able to pay the charges for access to the railway infrastructure during the emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Infrastructure managers had the opportunity to temporarily reduce, waive or defer these charges. The negative economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could reduce or significantly endanger their financial viability for market stakeholders. Reducing charges for access to railway infrastructure is just one of the few measures that will help railway undertakings to function better. The paper focuses on the analysis of the impact of the pandemic and the implemented measures on the passenger rail sector in the Slovak Republic and on the development of rail passenger and freight transport during the pandemic. It summarizes the proposed measures against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in rail transport in Slovakia.

This paper highlights the effects of transport accidents on the environment, specifically those occurring in maritime transportation. International trading and shipping are important for several reasons. International trade and shipping facilitate the movement of goods and services between countries, contributing to economic growth and development. It allows countries to access resources, products, and markets they might not have domestically, thus expanding their economic potential. Not all countries possess the same resources or expertise. International trade enables countries to specialise in producing goods and services where they have a comparative advantage, leading to more efficient resource allocation and increased productivity. International trade provides consumers access to various goods and services at different prices. This enhances consumer choice and allows people to enjoy products that may not be available or affordable domestically. International trade fosters competition among businesses, driving them to innovate, improve quality, and reduce costs to stay competitive in the global marketplace. This benefits consumers through better products and lower prices. Export-oriented industries create jobs as they expand to meet global demand. These jobs often have higher wages due to the specialised skills required. International trade generates foreign exchange earnings for a country, which can be used to pay for imports, service foreign debt, and invest in other countries. A positive balance of payments is crucial for a stable economy. Trade exposes people to different cultures by exchanging goods, services, and ideas. This fosters greater understanding and co-operation among nations. Dependence on a single industry or market can be risky. International trade allows countries to diversify economies and reduce vulnerability to economic shocks. Shipping and transportation networks required for international trade often lead to improvements in infrastructure, including ports, roads, railways, and communication systems. These improvements benefit not only trade but also local communities. Trade can facilitate the transfer of technology, know-how, and best practices between countries. This helps less developed countries to catch up and develop more quickly. While shipping contributes to global carbon emissions, it also promotes energy-efficient practices through demand for cleaner and more sustainable transport options. In summary, international trading and shipping are essential drivers of economic growth, job creation, innovation, and cultural exchange, fostering co-operation and stability between nations while promoting efficient resource utilisation and diversification. The author performed a detailed statistical analysis based on the accident database. It explains the impacts on the environment and some remedies for it.

Sustainability is one of the most commonly used terms concerning renewable energy, environmental protection and energy management. Without a doubt, understanding its full meaning, it is clear that sustainability is paramount for the quality of life of future generations and for the Earth as a living space. The presented work aims to give an overview of the importance of on-board management in hybrid vehicles as an important tool to increase their contribution to sustainable mobility. Real-world condition measurements were carried out based on the available cognitive features of an average vehicle. Several main consumers were also tested to present their role within cognitive and sustainable mobility. Results show that there is a function between the battery load level and the hybrid vehicle electric power use likeliness. Among the primary but under-addressed concerns today are the uninhibited exploitation of non-renewable energy sources and the avoidance of pollution.

The global emphasis on sustainability has stimulated the demand for state-of-the-art solutions that drive the green and blue economy. However, the exponentially growing data analysis remains constrained, leading to a substantial disparity between data supply and demand. This discrepancy primarily arises from data being isolated, inaccessible, and infrequently shared due to concerns regarding data governance and privacy breaches. To tackle these challenges, we propose the integration of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) cross-ledgering within the Social Internet of Things (SIoT) framework as a promising approach to advance cognitive sustainability through improved information sharing and storage. The P2P network configured at the base facilitates a decentralized and secure exchange of information among diverse stakeholders involved in promoting sustainability. By leveraging the immutability and authorized accessibility of blockchain, consortia nodes evaluate and segregate data suitable for on-chain, off-chain, or one-to-one transactions. This ensures the safeguarding of sensitive data while enabling seamless collaboration and sharing. The integration of ledger systems enables interoperability across multiple platforms, fostering smooth information exchange between entities engaged in green and blue economy initiatives.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, digitalisation has gained widespread acceptance as a powerful tool for socioeconomic and environmental progress. Agricultural and Rural Digitalization (ARD) has been less researched than urban digitalisation, which received the most public interest. In this study, I addressed the advantages and significance of Agricultural and Rural Digitalization for regional sustainable development; and how our work can address the present implementation-related issues. The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) is an important indicator utilised to summarise digital performance in the European Union, and it is used in this research to assess the development of digitalisation. I made a comparison study to address the current issue and underline the relevance of agricultural and rural digitalisation by analysing official documents. Digitalisation proved to impact sustainable rural development positively, and a monitoring system can be used to produce policy-oriented recommendations. Our research aided people’s understanding of China’s program for smart and digital rural areas and provided policymakers with alternative strategies between China and the European Union when they needed a reference on the development of digital rural areas.

Sustainable monitoring of traffic has always been a significant problem for engineers, queue length being one of the most important metrics required for the performance assessment of signalized intersections. The authors of the present study propose a novel approach to estimating cycle-by-cycle queue lengths at a given signalized intersection. Focusing on the examination of shock wave phenomena and the traffic model, this study first elucidates the definitions and assumptions it employs. Subsequently, it delves into the creation of the queuing model, alongside the utilization of a machine-learning (ML) based Kalman Filter (KF) algorithm for estimation. The information contained within the output files is visualized on distinct graphs, along with the velocities at various time intervals derived from virtual simulations involving a queue of 12 vehicles. This graphical representation serves as a conclusive validation, demonstrating a strong correlation between the simulation and the estimation achieved through the KF approach. The method presented yielded dependable and resilient estimates for the simulated queue lengths, even in the presence of noisy measurements.

In the nearly 120 years of aviation history, the industry and technology have evolved with the world. In the early decades, the focus was on preparing aircraft for passenger transport, and gradually the industry developed different areas such as airports, navigation, in-flight services and air traffic control. The aviation industry has faced quite many challenges in different periods. At the beginning of the JET era, the first very controversial factor, noise pollution, was already apparent. The gas turbines of the time were much less efficient than today’, and although the technology worked, some factors were less considered by developers, such as the noise and environmental impact mentioned above. As we moved into more modern times, the focus shifted more and more to the pollutants emitted by aircraft, which has become one of the most studied factors to date. This research examines the sustainability of aviation, past, present and future, in the light of global warming. It presents technologies that already work in the present, but their possible spread only points to the near or even distant future.

Ethyl alcohol is an organic substance that contains a functional group, the hydroxyl, attached to the ethyl radical. It is a substance used for sterilization and as an alternative fuel to fossil fuels, especially gasoline. It is obtained by the alcoholic fermentation of biomass containing fermentable sugars, based on the use of yeasts; alternatively, microorganisms in the yeast convert the sugars into ethyl alcohol through aerobic metabolism. In this context, this research aims to produce ethyl alcohol by hydrolysis and alcoholic fermentation of corn starch and to purify the resulting products by distillation. For this, experimental tests were carried out using equipment on a laboratory scale. Alcoholic fermentation tests were carried out with strict control of ºBrix, specific mass and viscosity. After the fermentation, the resulting products with a reduced percentage of alcohol were purified by conventional and extractive distillation, ensuring increased purity and commercial value for the alcohol produced. The results obtained were satisfactory, and the phenomenological analysis of the operations ensured the understanding of the performance of each operation involved, with emphasis on hydrolysis, fermentation and fractional and extractive distillations, which involve strong interaction between the phases in each operation. With this methodology's implementation, it proved possible to produce alcohol with a high degree of purity, known as anhydrous alcohol.

Road transport is an important factor in carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions can be reduced by improving propulsion sources and traffic flow (avoiding traffic jams due to accidents). This article presents a system for monitoring and warning the driver to prevent a possible accident involving material damage, injury, or loss of life. The system performs video monitoring of the driver in order to determine his state (tired or attentive). By reducing traffic incidents and traffic jams, the energy consumed will not be wasted; thus, more sustainable transport energy use can be achieved.

An important part of the definition of sustainability is safety. This study is based on the basic concept of connected transport systems. After defining the basic model, the research aims to simplify the models of highly automated transport systems that are suitable for safety assessment of critical scenarios, including various safety aspects. Accordingly, the basic safety requirements of autonomous systems responsible for the management of traffic processes are summarized. Based on the derived requirements, some of the most relevant safety indicators and the constraints of the simplification process are listed.

In battery electric vehicles, permanent magnet synchronous IPM motors are gaining more and more ground due to their high power density and high-efficiency operation. Many research examine their specific characteristics. In order to reach a desired total torque, low torque ripple, high efficiency, many pre-plannings have to be executed. The modern age engineering industry can rely much on complex simulation software, such as MotorAnalysis – PM. In this paper, an initial IPM motor design with delta magnet arrangement was created for vehicle application. This study had a strong focus on finding correlation between rotor layout arrangement and crucial motor operationial attributes, such as: torque components, torque ripple, cogging torque and efficiency. Time stepping magnetostatics FE and time stepping transient FE simulations were used. Each arrangement changement held its own simulation file, thus the effect of each change could have been separately examined. Arrangements, where the distance between magnets is smaller, resulted in greater torque and efficiency. Usage of enlarged magnets had the same results. Size should be increased and distance should be decreased with care to avoid a growth in torque ripple.

As the number of people living in urban areas is firmly increasing, more innovative solutions are needed to tackle the accompanying effects of climate change there, such as heatwaves, stormwater concerns or pollution. As these projects are continually developed and their effects are yet to be fully tapped, there is a lack of a coherent monitoring system. This study presents a systematic and comprehensive overview of three of the most recent studies of Sari et al. (2021), Connop (2020) and Elagiry et al. (2019), which list key-performance indicators (KPIs) for nature-based solutions. These indicators are grouped into six major categories, which are further divided into sub-categories. The results of the paper highlight the importance of a general and widely implementable monitoring tool system which is scalable and localizable for different urban settings, making it possible for individual nature-based projects as well as complex urban ecological systems to be well-monitored.

This study aims to provide a complex overview of the sustainability aspect of green mortgage and corporate bonds issued in the Hungarian market. The assessment is based on the green bond frameworks, the business profile of each issuer, and the publicly available data of the issuances. The study analyses the seven sectors of the green bond market (real estate, construction, mortgage banks, holding companies, manufacturing, agriculture, wholesale and retail trade). It is proven that out of the sustainable development goals (SDG), SDG 7 is the most supported one. Most issuers plan to use metrics related to pollution prevention, energy efficiency, clean transportation, and water- and wastewater management. Moreover, in four of the seven sectors involved, corporate awareness of green issues could be considered high.

This study aims to provide an overview of the current impact assessment methodologies of green covered bonds using residential and commercial real estate collateral based on a few recent examples in Germany, Poland and Hungary. The study recalls the various impact recommendations and provides insight into what is currently included in impact assessments. It also reviews the methodology and some data sources used by impact assessment providers. Green-covered bonds are still a very young asset class but as it has grown, so has investor interest in impact reporting to inform decision-making processes, analysis and investor reporting. At the same time, impact reports still show significant variability and very different levels of transparency. In addition, this paper highlights some of the missing links and data in the environmental impact assessment of real estate-backed bonds in general.

This article presents a methodological framework for estimating the environmental impact of mortgage bond purchases. The model presented through the Mortgage bond purchase programme of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB), the Central Bank of Hungary builds on the changing composition of the Hungarian housing stock, and its main assumption is that, while maintaining the total floor area of the housing stock unchanged, financing residential property modernises the housing stock as a result of tightening building energy requirements, which reduces emissions. In our estimate, thanks to the MNB’s Mortgage bond purchase programme, the Hungarian building stock could reduce its CO2 emissions by 13-41 thousand tonnes per year. We have made several assumptions and simplifications in our calculations, and the results can only be evaluated in this context.

Business seeks a long-term competitive advantage to make money and stay afloat as the market grows more competitive. Human resource management is essential for gaining a competitive advantage. Companies that embrace sustainable Human Resource Management (HRM) practices have a distinct employer brand, but how an organisation’s culture plays its role indirectly in employer value proposition is scarcely studied. This paper discusses academic literature on employer branding factors by sustainable human resource management, and helps to take a holistic perspective of the present state of global acceptance of HRM.

Cities – the engines of the world economy – are on the front line of climate change. As a major city, Budapest is threatened by many of these risks, especially in connection with transport, the construction industry and improving the standard of living. The study investigates the possible challenges and policy solutions related to climate change in Budapest. By reviewing the experiences of the economic effects of climate change on big cities and their practices to mitigate, nevertheless, by mapping the climate-related status of the Hungarian Capitol, the analysis creates the opportunity for recommendations. The review resulted in a projection of global warming effects on the metropolitan economies. Besides, a collection of best practices was composed about the actions made by cities to mitigate these effects. The results created the opportunity to conclude the needful actions in Budapest to prepare its construction industry, transportation system, waste management and labour market for adaptation by financial, R&D and long-term planning solutions.

The sustainable development of public transport is inseparable from its key elements, transport. In recent years, reflections on green public transport have been steadily intensifying and setting new guidelines for its development focused on the environment. Gas-powered, more environmentally friendly diesel buses are used for this purpose. Part of such a transport fleet in Vilnius consists of such buses. Pollution from mobile sources is predominant in cities, so particulate matter from different gas buses (powered by CNG) was identified in this study. In this study, particle concentration measurements were performed, in which the dependence of the particle concentration on the mileage of the buses was determined.

In Europe, vehicle emissions are regulated by the Euro Standard legislation. Governments of different countries force automotive industries to adapt their vehicles to comply with these standards. The legislation is regularly updated to reduce vehicle emissions and control the issue of gas emissions. This study aims to examine previous regulations and adapt three different mathematical models to their market curves. The information collected proposes three possible predictions for the future Euro Standard. This will aid the anticipation of future regulations and enable adaptation to the demands of the future market of passenger cars.

Climate change has become the most urgent social and ecological problem in recent years. Now it has become a self-driving process that causes more and more problems, because it is constantly changing the climate of the different parts of the Earth. Consequently, the natural habitat of local species is diminishing, and this process rapidly decreases biodiversity. This is just one of the reasons why leaders worldwide have decided to stop this process and reverse it back to the initial stages. One of the means of achieving this is to regulate the number of harmful gases the countries can emit. The Emission Trading System was established in the EU to build a legal and supervised structure around this process.

As economic actors face increasing pressure to be socially responsible and environmentally conscious, investors look beyond traditional financial metrics and seek data to support their decision-making. Measuring and reporting sustainability and climate risks is a relatively new discipline with several interrelations to economic, financial, risk management, and other cognitive study areas such as climate sciences, and have come a long way in the last couple of years. We are in the middle of the evolutionary process, as data availability and coverage are much better than a decade ago. However, there is still a lot to do until the new metrics and indicators are fully embedded in risk management frameworks and decision-making processes, similar to traditional risk measures. In our essay, we will explore the role of third-party data vendors for sustainability, ESG, and climate risk-related information, their importance in the modern investing world, and review the major challenges. We give an insight into the evolution of the market of data vendors and also the regulatory landscape. Finally, we explore the unique roles of central banks and their challenges in implementing actions in sustainability.

Aging of societies is a major international trend, thus effective and long-term development of activities for the elderly is an important issue. Vehicles must improve the range of activities of older people and increase their life trajectory beyond their age limits. With human participation, autonomous vehicles need to improve driving capabilities to drive safely in traffic scenarios and implement sustainable solutions. The discussion focuses on the impact on driving behavior, the functionality of vehicle sensors, and the interaction with traffic road users. This paper illustrates that autonomous driving tasks can benefit aging drivers due to vehicle sensors and systems, and road users when dealing with new or unexpected traffic situations. Identifying cognitive changes and relationships is important better to understand the road environment’s cognitive processes and behaviors.

This study aims to provide an overview of the cognitive evolution of transport related to spatial theorems. The study recalls the various economic theories and criticizes them. It also reviews their methodology and their transport connection, with spatial focus. It can be stated that in the last two hundred years, spatiality appeared in transport related economics modelling, meanwhile sustainability or environmental protection are not in the scope of such models yet. Therefore, new area is to emerge, in which sustainability will be in focus.

Nowadays, the social pressure on the producers of passenger cars in the scope of their pro-environmental innovativeness is accelerating. However, on the other hand, the market does not accept the shift from traditional fuel technologies, and thus, a significant consumption schism has been created. One of the possible reasons for such a situation is a structured analysis of the principles of needs saturation and heading motivations of consumers in this aspect, where the phenomenon of car brand is also significant. However, stating the general functional mechanisms and patterns is enough in this aspect, but the structure of consumer characteristics relevant for these mechanisms and patterns would be useful. Thus, this article investigates the possibilities of reducing the emissions caused by individual road vehicle users and analyses the possible marketing tools from the marketing management side. The hypothesis is that the individual passenger car influences more levels of the Maslow pyramid. Therefore, changes are harder to be reached. Some preliminary car usage data has been collected in Slovakia to investigate the socio-economic dependence of car usage. These data have been evaluated via descriptive statistics. The results serve as a platform for further research. It has been found that socio-economic characteristics could significantly influence Maslow's theorem. Thus, contemporary knowledge about the influence of psychographic characteristics should be revised in favor of this new knowledge.