On air travel and digital currencies
Grant and Award Announcement
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 30-May-2026 11:16 ET (30-May-2026 15:16 GMT/UTC)
Each year, Goethe University’s Faculty of Law recognizes exceptional academic achievement through a number of prestigious awards. The 2026 Baker McKenzie Award, presented by the renowned law firm of the same name, will go to Dr. Alexander Heger and Dr. Felix-Julius Konow for their outstanding doctoral dissertations in business law.
A research team from the Urban and Transportation Systems Laboratory, Department of Architecture and Urban Systems, Toyohashi University of Technology (lead researcher: Dr. Mustafa Mutahari), has developed a quantitative policy evaluation framework for assessing how cities can attract startups while maintaining high living standards. In this study, the team evaluated the startup ecosystem under an air-front smart city using a model that integrates Quality of Life (QOL), Quality of Business (QOB), and accessibility from both digital and physical dimensions, and revealed that policy, accessibility, and QOL are the key determinants. This research was conducted as part of the JST e-ASIA Joint Research Program, an international collaborative project involving Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines, and the findings have been published in Smart Cities, an international academic journal.
A large-scale analysis of wildfires in the Western United States shows that U.S. Forest Service fuel-reduction treatments not only curb fire spread and intensity, but also, for each dollar invested, generate more than three times the value in avoided damages. Wildfire activity has intensified dramatically over the last several decades, imposing widespread economic, environmental, and public health damages that amount to hundreds of billions of dollars annually in the United States alone. These risks are expected to grow as climate change and development in fire-prone areas continue. A central driver of worsening wildfire severity is the buildup of combustible vegetation, or “fuel loads,” which were kept in check historically by frequent, low-intensity fires, including those deliberately set through Indigenous land stewardship practices. Fuel-reduction strategies such as prescribed burns and forest thinning aim to restore more resilient conditions and mitigate wildfire-related damages. However, these measures remain underutilized, in part because their economic benefits are delayed and difficult to quantify, and because limited data and complex fire dynamics make it challenging to evaluate their overall effectiveness.
Focusing on the Western United States, where wildfire risk and data are abundant, Frederik Strabo and colleagues compiled a high-resolution dataset encompassing 285 wildfires that intersected with United States Forest Service (USFS) fuel treatment activities across 11 states between 2017 and 2023. By comparing observed fires with modeled scenarios in which no treatments occurred, Strabo et al. estimated the damage avoided due to fuel treatments and assigned the avoided damage an economic value. This allowed the authors to evaluate not only whether fuel treatments work, but also when and where they are most cost-effective. According to the findings, fuel treatments substantially reduced both the spread and intensity of wildfires, likely by reducing flame intensity and making conditions more manageable for suppression crews. In total, treatments reduced total burned area by 36% over the study period compared to scenarios in which no fuel treatments were applied. The authors’ estimates suggest that these interventions prevented roughly $2.7 to $2.8 billion in damages, including reduced property loss, carbon dioxide emissions, and harmful air pollution. Moreover, on average, each dollar invested in fuel reduction yields more than three dollars in avoided damages, with many projects performing even better, suggesting that targeted fuel treatment strategies could further amplify these returns. “But realizing [these strategies’] full potential will require more than scientific consensus – it will demand bold policy reform,” write Strabo et al.