This study examines how the convergence of design thinking, innovation, and sustainability enhances competitive sustainability in the global ceramic industry. Grounded in the Resource-Based View, Dynamic Capabilities, and Triple Bottom Line frameworks, the study conceptualizes design thinking as a strategic capability that transforms innovation and sustainability resources into sustained competitive advantage. Using quantitative data from 90 ceramic brands across seven countries, the analysis employs descriptive statistics, regression, fixed-effects, and mediation tests. Based on the quantitative panel data on 90 ceramic art brands and 7 countries over the time span 2019–2021, the quantitative analysis will use the descriptive statistics, ordinary least squares, fixed-effects, mediation, and structural equation modeling. Results show that design thinking has a strong and stable positive effect on competitive sustainability (b = 1.29, p < 0.05), alongside market share and brand awareness, explaining about 51% of the variance. However, design thinking does not mediate the relationship between innovation and competitive sustainability, indicating that design thinking and innovation function as parallel strategic capabilities. The findings integrate RBV and Dynamic Capabilities with TBL logic, demonstrating how creativity-based intangible capabilities support both economic and sustainability goals in traditional manufacturing sectors.

Utopias and dystopias have always represented the hopes and fears of humanity throughout history. These concepts not only reflect humanity’s aspirations for an ideal future but also embody concerns about the trajectory of civilization’s evolution. With the advent of the digital age and the X.0 society, this traditional binary has been challenged, giving rise to a new concept known as “Mixtopia,” where the boundaries between utopia and nightmare, truth and illusion, coexist. This paper, utilizing the X.0 Wave Theory framework and the 7PS (Seven Pillars of Sustainability) model, examines the cultural, social, technological, environmental, political, educational, and economic transformations that have reshaped these concepts. By analyzing these concepts across various cultures, from Plato’s utopias and Islamic ideal cities to Orwellian dystopias and twenty-first-century surveillance systems, the paper illustrates how the transformation of societies shows that these concepts can no longer be viewed in a binary way. In a world influenced by big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and algorithmic decisionmaking, the boundaries between truth and illusion, freedom and control, progress and decay increasingly blur. Are we moving toward the realization of dreams, or are we trapped in a technological illusion? This research, through a multidimensional analysis based on the 7PS model, presents a vision of the future of human societies where “Mixtopia” replaces the 
traditional views of utopia and dystopia, highlighting the complex and reciprocal interactions between technology, society, and theenvironment. 

The paper presents a quantitative study analyzing how Classical Chinese Gardens (CCGs) have the capacity to regulate the microclimate and the potential effects on the productivity of staff through the Humble Administrator Garden at Suzhou. The study uses a combination of field measurements and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis to determine the effect of important landscape features, such as vegetation, water bodies, architecture, pathways, and corridors, on vital microclimate attributes, such as the air temperature, surface temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity. The study results show that vegetation has a strong cooling effect (β =0.875), humidity control effect (β = 0.250) and all water bodies have a strong cooling effect (β = 0.875) but a weak warming effect (β = 0.125) and Buildings and hard surfaces have a strong cooling effect (β = 0.875) and a weak effect (β = −0.008) of reducing the wind speeds and surface temperatures in corridors, respectively. Among them, trees would offer the best cooling (score 5), grasslands would do the best at controlling the humidity and wind speed (score 5), and water bodies would also contribute to the humidity regulation (score 4) significantly. Combining these results with an existing scheme of thermal sensation and work efficiency, the paper demonstrates the capacity of the microclimate changes to be applied to cognitive functioning and productivity. The study reveals practical recommendations in implementing the traditional Chinese garden design framework to the modern urban space and workspace setting, and presents approaches to enhancing the environmental sustainability, the thermal comfort and finally, the well-being of the staff and their productivity.

The effective engagement with arts should also be maintained, and educational strategies must be developed not only on the short-term basis aimed at the skills acquisition but also on the long-term basis oriented on the personal, cultural, and social benefits. The paper will look at the opportunities of the modern music-education practice to attain not only the long-term engagement of the arts but also the preferable social outcomes taking special consideration to the diverse Asia-Pacific settings. The study presents the propositions that lead to continuity, inclusion, and adaptability through the lifespan on the basis of qualitative integrative review and studies based on exemplary cases on school, community, and informal learning environments. The results show that learner-centered, culturally responsive and community-based pedagogies are definitive determinants to the emergence and development of ongoing engagements and social connectedness. In addition to that, the findings indicate that purposeful incorporation of collaborative learning, reflective practice, and ethical application of digital technologies may help learners to gain transferable skills i.e. resilience, intercultural awareness, and civic accountability. Such effects are supported in those instances whereby the teachers focus on access, equity and exchange across generations as a result of facilitating participation irrespective of the disparity in socioeconomic status and capabilities. This study employs a qualitative integrative review design, synthesizing evidence from 68 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2020 and 2024. Data were drawn from international academic databases and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify pedagogical patterns, social outcomes, and sustainability-oriented practices across formal, non-formal, and informal music education contexts. The findings demonstrate that systemic support and professional development have an acute role to play so as to establish music education as an active contributor to individual and social development in the long run.

Climate change, a major challenge of the 21st century, is increasing the frequency and intensity of urban flooding, particularly in Sahelian cities. In Bol, in the Lac province of Chad, this dynamic has increased the frequency and intensity of flooding, making this risk a recurring threat to the city in recent years. This study aims to map the physical vulnerability (susceptibility) to flooding in the city of Bol using an integrated approach combining remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Eight key physical factors (precipitation, altitude, slope, land use, distance to watercourses, soil type, drainage density and flow accumulation) were analyzed and weighted using the AHP. The results show that 16.19% of Bol’s surface area is highly susceptible to flooding, and 28.08% is highly susceptible, concentrated mainly in low-lying areas and near watercourses. Surveys of 385 households confirm the recurrence of flooding and its significant impact on housing. The map produced is an essential decision-making tool for communities, decision-makers and urban stakeholders in planning actions to reduce current and future flood risks in the city of Bol. However, the lack of quantitative validation of the model is a methodological limitation, opening the door to future research incorporating uncertainty and exposure analyses.