Dear readers of Frontiers in Built Environment, As the Field Chief Editor for Frontiers in Built Environment, I am happy to present this curated selection of papers that have made a significant impact within our community. Among the large number of submissions that we received, these 14 papers represent some of the best published in 2023, the year when the journal attained its first impact factor. With many high-quality papers to consider, in selecting these 14 articles we faced the challenging task of how to include papers from across the 15 distinct sections of the journal whilst at the same time achieving a sense of cohesion to the ebook overall. However, amidst this diversity, we noticed a convergence in our highest-quality papers around three pivotal themes that are central to our journal’s mission: resilience, sustainability, and technology. In this way, despite the broad range of topics covered within both our journal and this selection, this ebook can truly be considered representative of our journal as a whole. These carefully chosen papers encompass high-quality original research and comprehensive reviews, which also embody the ethos of innovation and excellence that defines our journal. As the Field Chief Editor, I am thankful to all authors who have enriched our journal with their high-caliber work. I extend sincere appreciation to the dedicated efforts of our editors and reviewers, whose invaluable contributions have been instrumental in shaping Frontiers in Built Environment in 2023.

At present, less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women. As an estimate, this number is even lower in the field of Signal Processing, with some sources indicating it could be around 10%. Long-standing biases and gender stereotypes are discouraging girls and women away from science related fields, and STEM research in particular. Science and gender equality are, however, essential to ensure sustainable development as highlighted by UNESCO. In order to change traditional mindsets, gender equality must be promoted, stereotypes defeated, and girls and women should be encouraged to pursue STEM careers. Frontiers in Signal Processing is proud to offer this platform to promote the work of women researchers and engineers, across all areas of Signal Processing. The work presented here highlights the diversity of research performed across the entire breadth of the Signal Processing landscape, and presents advances in theory, experiment and methodology with applications to compelling problems. This article collection is open for submissions across all sections of the journal, and new articles will be added as they are published. Please note: to be considered for this collection, the corresponding author should be a female researcher.

For the second year in a row, we are very happy to offer our readership an ebook of 10 articles that have achieved widespread acceptance within our core audience and beyond. This time it concerns articles published in 2023, a landmark year for this journal, as it was officially awarded its first impact factor. These papers are among the large number that attained significant interest last year, but we selected just 10, which we consider to be the “best”. These articles have already made an impact in the form of original research or comprehensive reviews. As the Field Chief Editor, I would like to stand alongside our journal staff to honor all authors who contributed very high-level papers to the journal last year and are contributing to our success. We also thank the editors and reviewers of these papers, and of all papers this past year, for their invaluable contribution.

The medical domain is home to many critical challenges that stand to be overcome with the use of data-driven clinical decision support systems (CDSS), and there is a growing set of examples of automated diagnosis, prognosis, drug design, and testing. However, the current state of AI in medicine has been summarized as “high on promise and relatively low on data and proof.” If such problems can be addressed, a data-driven approach will be very important to the future of CDSSs as it simplifies the knowledge acquisition and maintenance process, a process that is time-consuming and requires considerable human effort. Diverse Perspectives and State-of-the-Art Approaches to the Utilization of Data-Driven Clinical Decision Support Systems critically reflects on the challenges that data-driven CDSSs must address to become mainstream healthcare systems rather than a small set of exemplars of what might be possible. It further identifies evidence-based, successful data-driven CDSSs. Covering topics such as automated planning, diagnostic systems, and explainable artificial intelligence, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for medical professionals, healthcare administrators, IT managers, pharmacists, students and faculty of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.