This study aims to analyze the perceptions and driving factors behind villagers’ changing perceptions of landscape values in the context of drastic landscape changes in traditional Chinese villages. Empirical evidence emphasizes the interplay between local residents’ values and the local policy framework. This study establishes a method to capture the landscape values and preferences of rural community residents by combining participatory mapping with questionnaire interviews. We identified the evaluation of changing landscape values by rural residents and extracted four categories of rural development orientations, namely, economic benefits, emotional culture, public participation, and environmental protection. Furthermore, we delved into the significant heterogeneity in landscape value changes among different social groups. This study highlights the role of villagers’ value judgments in guiding the scientific formulation of traditional village conservation and development policies and promoting the socially sustainable development planning of traditional villages. The research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the rural community’s needs and preferences for the local landscape as well as the convergence and divergence between these needs and the government-led rural development trajectory.

Purpose: With the deep integration of information technologies into urban governance, smart communities have emerged as pivotal platforms for advancing sustainable urban development. However, existing research has not offered a systematic analysis or clear presentation of the field’s academic evolution and thematic structure. This study examines the literature on smart communities published between 2000 and 2024. Employing data analysis and visualization tools, it aims to trace the evolution and development trends of smart community research, map its core themes and their interrelationships, and provide actionable insights for policymaking and practical implementation. Design/methodology/approach: Based on 2,347 publications indexed in the Web of Science from 2000 to 2024, this study employed CiteSpace and VOSviewer to conduct co-citation analysis, keyword co-occurrence mapping, national collaboration network analysis, author and institutional contribution assessment, burst detection, and hotspot term analysis. The literature screening adhered to predefined publication-type criteria and citation-count thresholds to ensure that the results were representative and reliable. Findings: This study, through literature analysis and data visualization in the field of smart communities, yields the following principal conclusions. First, the application of digital twin technology in optimizing smart community resources has attracted growing attention, demonstrating considerable potential in urban management, infrastructure maintenance, and resident services. Second, as technology advances, digitaltwin applications are evolving towards greater precision and efficiency, particularly by deepening their support for resource allocation and decision-making processes. Finally, the future development of smart communities will increasingly depend on the deep integration of digital twins with other cutting-edge technologies, thereby driving intelligent management and optimization of community resources. Research limitations: This literature repository excludes grey literature and non-English publications, potentially underestimating the representativeness of grassroots innovation. Furthermore, the temporal analysis was constrained by the citation-lag effects of publications from 2000 to 2024. Practical implications: This study proposes a decision-support toolkit tailored for municipal planners and policymakers. The toolkit comprises three core intervention strategies: multiscale environmental sensing, participatory governance protocols, and regenerative technology pathways. These measures are designed to advance the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. Originality/value: By explicitly defining and applying the “thematic knowledge framework,” this paper offers a concise roadmap for the evolution of smart community research. It also provides precise guidance for designing and implementing community development strategies that align with Sustainable Development Goals.

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into residential architectural design faces challenges due to fragmented workflows and the lack of localized datasets. This study proposes the CorbuAI framework, hypothesizing that a multimodal AI system integrating Pix2pix-GAN and Stable Diffusion (SD) can streamline the transition from floor plan generation to elevation and interior design within a specific regional context. We developed a custom dataset featuring 2335 manually refined Chinese residential floor plans and 1570 elevation images. The methodology employs a specialized U-Net V2.0 generator for functional layout synthesis and an SD-based model for stylistic transfer and elevation rendering. Evaluation was conducted through both subjective professional scoring and objective metrics, including the Perceptual Hash Algorithm (pHash). Results demonstrate that CorbuAI achieves high accuracy in spatial allocation (scoring 0.88/1.0) and high structural consistency in elevation generation (mean pHash similarity of 0.82). The framework significantly reduces design iteration time while maintaining professional aesthetic standards. This research provides a scalable AI-driven methodology for automated residential design, bridging the gap between schematic layouts and visual representation in the Chinese architectural context.

Table tennis racquet blades (TTRBs) are specialized wood materials known for their excellent mechanical properties. As one of the widely used physical vapor deposition technologies, magnetron sputtering has become the most effective method for preparing various thin film materials. In this study, the surface of the TTRB is coated with a Ti film with different thicknesses by magnetron sputtering to improve the performance of the TTRB. The surface roughness, crystal structure, viscoelasticity of the TTRB were analyzed by means of non-contact surface profilometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). In order to effectively test TTRB properties, three types of testing devices were designed, including free-fall rebound, laser vibration measurement, and the dynamic rebound test. The results reveal that the deposition of a Ti film on the surface of the TTRB improves the rigidity and rebound efficiency of the TTRB. Under optimized conditions, the initial amplitude, vertical rebound distance, and rebound rate can reach 2.1 μm, 23.7 cm, 13.7%, respectively, when the deposition thickness is 5 μm. It is anticipated that the modification and the corresponding detection methods developed in this study can foster innovative product development, standardize the TTRB industry, and contribute to the advancement of table tennis.

As the cathedral serving Zuoyun and parts of Inner Mongolia, the Batayizi Church in Datong, Shanxi is the largest surviving Italian Gothic-style Catholic church in the region. The church features a rigorous layout and refined details, making it a significant case study for the dissemination and development of Western architecture in China. Previous studies have focused on local chronicles, aesthetic analyses, and the indigenization of Catholic churches in Shanxi. Due to the scarcity of archival materials, research on the architecture itself has not yet been conducted. The article first summarizes the construction rules of local form and order of Italian Gothic churches based on related church remains and literature. Next, it establishes the architectural form of the church by combining construction rules and field surveys. Finally, the reconstruction design of the church is completed. As the first reconstruction study of the Batayizi Church, this paper attempts to explore a Reconstruction path based on the construction of local form and order of the church and systematically restores the main facade, floor plan, and structural form of the church. The results not only provide insights for the reconstruction of modern Catholic churches in Shanxi but also offer new ideas and methods for the study of the localization of Western architecture in China.