Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) play a vital role in advancing sustainable development within the framework of Society 5.0. This chapter explores the vision that integrates cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and assistive robots with human-centered values. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, HSS contributes critical social, cultural, and ethical insights that ensure technological innovations are inclusive, equitable and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The chapter examines the use of assistive technologies to promote inclusivity in education and healthcare, focusing on how AI and VR empower marginalized communities to achieve greater autonomy and social participation. Key theories such as socio-technical systems theory and agency theory are discussed to illustrate how technology can be designed with human needs and values. The chapter also addresses ethical concerns surrounding the deployment of these technologies and highlights the barriers to effective interdisciplinary collaboration.

Glycoproteins are central to numerous cellular processes and are among the most structurally complex biomolecules in nature. This unique complexity stems from variability in complex oligosaccharides that are located throughout the protein, a feature that is profoundly important for regulating biomolecular interactions but also makes glycoproteins difficult to study. As such, glycoprotein analysis entails a range of techniques to bridge the knowledge gap between glycoprotein structure and biological function. This book serves as an authoritative guide to glycoprotein analysis, written by internationally recognised experts in the field and discussed in the context of real-world applications across the life sciences. It provides a wide-ranging assessment of the modern methods, from those used to characterise glycoprotein structure, to approaches proficient in uncovering the molecular mechanisms by which they function as well as those capable of measuring structural dynamics and macromolecular assembly. These methods differ to a large extent and include mass spectrometry, glycan/lectin arrays, nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared spectroscopy, scanning probe microscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography. Equally important are computational techniques, including molecular dynamics and bioinformatics, which are also covered and discussed in the wider context of glycoprotein analysis. Glycobiology is indeed a rapidly growing field and the development of advanced tools for glycoproteins analysis has been enabled by researchers from different backgrounds working to overcome long-standing analytical challenges and biological questions involving glycosylation. This book is intended to aid academic and professional researchers at various levels of their career to gain a deeper appreciation of cutting-edge methods in glycoprotein analysis and their applications in biomolecular research, biotherapeutic development, structural biology and biophysical chemistry.

Metalloproteins widely exist in biology, playing pivotal roles in diverse life processes. Meanwhile, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations based on classical force fields has emerged as an important tool in scientific research. Partial charges are critical parameters within classical force fields and usually derived from quantum mechanical (QM) calculations. However, QM calculations are often time-consuming and prone to basis set dependence. Alternatively, fluctuating charge (FQ) models offer another avenue for partial charge derivation, which has significant speed advantages and can be used for large-scale screening. Building upon our previous work, which introduced an FQ model for zinc-containing complexes, herein we extend this model to include additional 3d transition metals which are important to the life sciences, namely chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, and nickel. Employing CM5 charges as target for parametrization, our FQ model accurately reproduces partial charges for 3d metal complexes featuring biologically relevant ligands. Furthermore, by using atomic charges derived by our FQ model, MD simulations have been performed. These charges showed excellent performance in simulating proteomic metal sites housing multiple metal ions, specifically, a metalloprotein containing an iron-sulfur cluster and another containing a dimanganese metal site, showcasing comparable performance to those of RESP charges. We anticipate that our study can accelerate the parametrization of atomic charges for metalloproteins featuring 3d transition metals, thereby facilitating simulations of relevant systems.

The ocean serves as a vital ecosystem for sustaining life on earth and ensuring human well-being. Presently, there is a significant surge in global demand for various ocean-based economic activities, including fishing, shipping, offshore wind energy production, maritime tourism, and so on. However, this growth has also resulted in an increase in emissions from marine sectors, which have not been thoroughly evaluated or analyzed. It is therefore necessary to conduct comprehensive evaluations of the current emissions, covering marine sectors. To address this need, through this Perspective, we have globally analyzed and discussed carbon emissions linked to maritime transportation, marine capture fisheries, marine aquaculture, offshore wind, ocean renewables, and crude oil production. Additionally, we explored country-specific scales for these emissions and discussed points for future research to address the existing gaps. By gaining a better understanding of emissions over the oceans, policymakers could prioritize policy measures for achieving emission reduction goals and promote sustainable ocean development.

The continued low numbers of Blacks in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine) represent an American crisis that threatens growing awareness and efforts to effectively address health disparities that affect the Black population. Regenerative engineering is an emerging STEMM field that seeks to combine principles from engineering, life sciences, physics, and medicine to develop new technologies for repairing and regenerating damaged tissues and organs. We believe that regenerative engineering has the potential to address some of the root causes of health disparities by developing new approaches that are more accessible and affordable, particularly for low-income communities and people living in rural areas. We have developed a new education program targeting to K-12 groups "A Scientific Program in Regenerative Engineering (ASPIRE)" that supports the mentoring and education of Black K-12 students to enter successfully and thrive as professionals in STEMM particularly in the area of regenerative engineering. We have been collaborating with several public-school systems in Connecticut, especially among the regions with health disparities to implement the program. We believe our new educational K-12 program would serve as a vehicle to reduce health disparities in the region.

In recent years, the need to protect and conserve biodiversity has become more critical than ever before, as a prerequisite for both sustainable development and the very survival of the human species. This has made it a priority for the scientific community to develop technological solutions that provide data and information for monitoring, directly or indirectly, biodiversity and the drivers of change. A new era of satellite earth observation upgrades the potential of Remote Sensing (RS) to support, at relatively low cost, but with high accuracy the extraction of information over large areas, at regular intervals, and over extended periods of time. Also, the recent development of the Earth Observation Data Cubes (EODC) framework facilitates EO data management and information extraction, enabling the mapping and monitoring of temporal and spatial patterns on the Earth’s surface. This submission presents the ELBIOS EODC, specifically developed to support the biodiversity management and conservation over Greece. Based on the Open Data Cube (ODC) framework, it exploits multi-spectral optical Copernicus Sentinel-2 data and provides a series of Satellite Earth Observation (SEO) biodiversity products and spectral indices nationwide.

The young researchers from the „Let‘s get into science with games” club and students from the fifth grades in 199th Secondary School „St. Apostol Yoan Bogoslov“ took part in a workshop on the occasion of World Kidney Day. For this purpose, internet resources suitable for their age, worksheets for developing their health literacy and foreign language skills, as well as a set of didactic materials with a practical focus were prepared. We are proud to say that the children have taken new steps in favor of sustainable development. Discover our thematic activities related to our participation in a global community that can achieve much more through the personal efforts of each of us. Being part of a global campaign for two years in a row, we contributed to achieving a common goal – a healthy lifestyle through better awareness and quality education. The practice was tested in 2023 and 2024 with students from 199th Secondary School „St. Apostol Yoan Bogoslov“. It is intended for students in junior high school. It was held in the form of a workshop with the thematic direction “Health and quality of life” within the global campaign World kidney day 2023 and 2024.

In recent years, most countries have seen an increased focus on the concept of sustainable development in decisions regarding transportation infrastructure where environmental and social criteria are considered on par with economic criteria. This is particularly important in decisions to build new airports or expand their capacity with long-term implications for economic growth, welfare and regional development processes.The fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution) method is distinguished from the other methods of the multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) in that it arranges the available alternatives according to their proximity to the optimal solution. In real life, alternatives are observed in relation to the criteria and the weights of the criteria with fuzzy numbers. In such a case, the crisp traditional methods that solve the problems of multi-criteria decision-making are considered to be of weak effectiveness. The aim of this paper is to solve the problem of choosing a new hub airport for a hypothetical European Union airline, by applying the fuzzy TOPSIS method based on alpha level sets as it was applied to a selected data set from the available alternatives (candidate airports). The criteria for expressing the performance of these airports are defined and evaluated by the decision maker. The objective of the practical application of the studied problem is to show the usefulness of the method used as a tool that helps the decision maker to determine which of the alternatives represents the best solution in an environment with fuzzy data.

Abstract Data science skills (e.g., analyzing, modeling, and visualizing large data sets) are increasingly needed by undergraduates in the life sciences. However, a lack of both student and instructor confidence in data science skills presents a barrier to their inclusion in undergraduate curricula. To reduce this barrier, we developed four teaching modules in the Macrosystems EDDIE (for environmental data-driven inquiry and exploration) program to introduce undergraduate students and instructors to ecological forecasting, an emerging subdiscipline that integrates multiple data science skills. Ecological forecasting aims to improve natural resource management by providing future predictions of ecosystems with uncertainty. We assessed module efficacy with 596 students and 26 instructors over 3 years and found that module completion increased students’ confidence in their understanding of ecological forecasting and instructors’ likelihood to work with long-term, high-frequency sensor network data. Our modules constitute one of the first formalized data science curricula on ecological forecasting for undergraduates.