Search Results (882)

Recirculating organic byproducts like food waste, wastewater and manure efficiently and at scale in a circular bioeconomy will be critical to ensuring future food security, energy security, climate resilience, water security and environmental health. Ultimately, we will not be able to live within the safe operating space of our planetary boundaries if we do not stop our wasteful and inefficient habits. Our food, waste, energy and water sectors are starting to transform towards circularity, driven by a diverse range of drivers, from net zero emissions targets, to food waste policies, and to rising fertiliser prices and geopolitical risks. However, these sectors are often not transforming in a coordinated manner, risking unintended consequences like competition between end-uses, technology lock-in, the prevention of scalability, or failure to achieve key sustainability targets, causing rebound effects. For example, society’s organic waste is being earmarked for the production of bioenergy, sustainable aviation fuels, biomaterials, and biofertilisers; however, it is not clear if there will be a sufficient supply of organic waste to meet these diverse demands. Phosphorus flow analyses indicate that we will need to secure almost all of the nutrients in organic waste as fertiliser raw material to produce food. There are some existing pockets of innovation within sectors related to food waste, water and wastewater, fertilisers and agriculture, and bioenergy. However, many initiatives are being driven by short-term challenges, are not operating at scale, or are not sufficiently integrated across sectors. In this paper, we provide examples of innovations and challenges from around the world, including Italy, Australia, Sri Lanka, the UK, Japan, and Malawi. This paper identifies a pathway to navigate tensions to achieve co-existing sustainability goals, including key enablers and barriers, ranging from overcoming regulatory fragmentation to a lack of capital investments. Creating a truly viable circular economy for organic byproducts requires the integration of policies, markets, technologies and people. This means engaging diverse stakeholders, from local councils and private waste contractors, farmers, and fertiliser companies to energy retailers and wastewater utilities, NGOs, informal collectors, and environmental regulators and policy-makers. Full article

Background: Open defecation (OD) has remained a threat to the attainment of SDG 6 (sanitation and hygiene). This study measured the level of exposure to the “Clean Nigeria, Use the Toilet” campaign against open defecation, determined the level of public knowledge about open defecation-related harms and diseases, ascertained the public attitude towards open defecation, and established the prevailing defecation practices and the perceived barriers to toilet usage in Ebonyi state, the most prevalent OD state in Nigeria. Methods: The study employed a survey design, using a structured questionnaire for data collection. The multi-stage sampling technique was employed in selecting the respondents from two randomly selected Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state. Analysis was conducted using 384 valid responses. Results: The results were presented in simple percentage frequency tables and interpreted through the descriptive method, while the Chi-Square test was used to analyse the formulated hypotheses, using the decision rule of p < 0.05. The findings show a high level of awareness of the campaign against open defecation, through the radio and community engagements by environmental activists/NGOs, even though regular access to such information was limited. The results also showed inadequate knowledge of the public health implications of open defecation, whereas good knowledge of environmental consequences was reported. The study found favourable attitudes toward OD practice and persistent open defecation, and major barriers to toilet usage include the high cost of toilet construction, lack of access to toilet facilities, poor sanitation and management of available toilets, and perceived risks of contracting infection from public toilets. However, the Chi-Square values showed that the SBCC campaign was significantly associated with knowledge, attitude, and practice (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The study concluded that localised, culturally relevant and socio-demographically targeted communication interventions, grassroot advocacy, community watch, and neighbourhood taskforce on open defecation, in addition to the provision of aids for the construction of modern toilets with water facilities, are required to combat open defecation in Ebonyi and related contexts in Nigeria. Full article

Accurately obtaining aircraft aerodynamic parameters is essential for improving flight performance, optimizing design and control strategies, and ensuring flight safety. In this study, the improved Northern Goshawk Optimization (SPNGO) algorithm is used to optimize the kernel parameters and regularization coefficients of the Kernel Extreme Learning Machine (KELM). To address the defects of the original NGO algorithm, such as insufficient global optimization ability and being prone to falling into local optimums, two improvement strategies are proposed. The enhanced SPNGO algorithm is verified by 14 benchmark test functions, and the proposed SPNGO-KELM model is evaluated using open-source F-16 nonlinear simulation data for longitudinal aerodynamic parameter identification. The results demonstrate its effectiveness under the considered simulation conditions, while further validation with real flight-test data is required before application to actual flight environments. Comparative analysis with KELM, NGO-KELM, SSA-KELM, and WOA-KELM models shows that a single KELM is difficult to achieve high-precision aerodynamic parameter identification, and other comparison models have obvious fitting deviations in non-steady-state and strong nonlinear regions. Notably, the SPNGO-KELM model achieves the best identification performance, with a determination coefficient (R²) of 0.96537 and a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) as low as 3.1574%. Its comprehensive identification accuracy is 1.81% to 37.98% higher than that of the comparison models, and it can effectively suppress error oscillations in nonlinear regions. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has excellent identification accuracy, generalization ability, and anti-interference performance. Full article

This article develops a conceptual framework to explain how theological convictions of sanctity within the Catholic Church can become institutional risk factors for unethical behavior. Existing analyses of clerical sexual abuse emphasize governance failures, clerical culture, or individual misconduct, but pay limited attention to how sacred identity shapes institutional reasoning. Integrating organizational ethics, social identity theory, and moral psychology, the article adapts the NGO halo effect to propose a three-stage model distinguishing between intrinsic sanctity, institutional sacralization (the Church halo), and the activation of moral mechanisms (the halo effect). The analysis shows how mission, moral teaching, and ordained ministry—while theologically coherent—can become amplified within institutional life in ways that alter how ethical dilemmas are weighted. It further identifies moral justification, moral superiority, and moral naivety as mechanisms through which such amplification may contribute to safeguarding failures. By analytically separating theological meaning from institutional amplification, the article advances scholarship on religious organizations and reframes clerical abuse as partly linked to the dynamics of sacralized identity. The model offers a transferable framework for examining how moral purpose and moral failure can coexist in faith-based institutions. Full article

Sustainable agricultural development in rural sub-Saharan Africa increasingly depends on coordinated governance of energy and water resources. Despite the growing deployment of solar photovoltaic water pumping systems (SPVWPS), little is known about how the institutional framework shapes SPVWPS effectiveness for productive agricultural use in rural Tanzania. Drawing on systems thinking concepts, specifically hierarchy, interaction, and interconnectedness, this study analyses the institutional frameworks governing energy and water provision for irrigation and livestock keeping across three rural Tanzanian communities. A mixed-methods design was employed, with qualitative inquiry as the primary mode; 65 household surveys, nine semi-structured interviews with community leaders, SPV developers, and local officials, and seven focus group discussions with farmers and livestock keepers were conducted across the three study areas. National energy and water policy documents, reports, and strategic plans were also reviewed to contextualise the institutional frameworks governing energy and water delivery in rural areas. Findings reveal limited coordination among stakeholders, particularly between NGOs, government agencies (REA, RUWASA, and NIRC), and local communities in the planning and implementation of SPVWP projects. Top-down delivery mechanisms marginalised community feedback, undermining local ownership and limiting the productive use potential of installed systems. This study proposes an integrated institutional framework that combines systems thinking with bottom-up and top-down approaches, explicitly embedding structured feedback mechanisms and aligning stakeholder roles across all governance levels. The framework was validated through interviews with experts in the rural energy and governance field, confirming its practical relevance and applicability to rural energy–water governance. The framework offers actionable guidance for policymakers and development practitioners seeking to strengthen institutional coordination in rural energy–water–agriculture governance, contributing to progress towards SDG 7 and SDG 2 across sub-Saharan Africa. Full article

This article examines collaboratively produced poems by displaced Lebanese and Syrian women created within a Participatory Arts-Based Research (PABR) project in Akkar, North Lebanon. The study asks how creative writing pedagogy and participatory research methods can reduce forms of ‘othering’ that may arise in top-down research on conflict and displacement. The project combined creative writing workshop practice with participatory research methods, including joint analysis workshops with NGO partners and participants. Writing prompts, group workshops, and subsequent collaborative translation resulted in reflective and creative texts drawn from lived experience. The work documents war, migration, economic hardship, and fractured social relations. Close readings show how metaphor, dialogue, and narrative fragments function as acts of self-narration rather than passive testimony. Participants describe writing as a way of thinking and coping, and several texts foreground storytelling as a relational process. The study argues that Creative Writing practice, based on the participatory tenets of the ‘workshop’ can support shared knowledge production and ethical engagement. The writings suggest that a counter-archive can emerge in which storytelling can resist victimising narratives and can instead, within a social literary practice participatory paradigm, model new forms of collaborative reflection. Full article

Environmental co-governance depends not only on the local stability of collaboration but also on whether ENGO-based collaborative participation is attainable from a broad range of initial conditions. This study develops a tripartite evolutionary game model involving local governments, environmental NGOs (ENGOs), and the public, and uses basin-of-attraction analysis to examine the global attainability of high-participation environmental co-governance. The model combines replicator dynamics, Jacobian-based local stability analysis, threshold conditions, numerical simulation, and basin-of-attraction estimation. The results show that collaborative stability is conditional: high-participation co-governance emerges only when institutional support, ENGO participation incentives, and public cooperation conditions jointly exceed critical thresholds. Institutional support is more effective when it improves coordination capacity and reduces implementation friction, whereas unconditional subsidies have ambiguous effects because they increase ENGO incentives while also reducing the government’s relative payoff from strong support. Public cooperation is especially sensitive to participation burden and targeted incentives, while higher passive payoffs for ENGOs enlarge low-participation traps. The analysis is theoretical and simulation-based, informed by China’s institutionally bounded ENGO context, and is not intended as an empirically calibrated prediction for a specific locality. The findings suggest that durable environmental co-governance requires coordinated institutional arrangements that jointly strengthen governmental support, ENGO participation incentives, and public cooperation conditions. Full article

Coverage optimization of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) faces challenges such as uneven node distribution and vulnerability to coverage blind spots. This paper introduces and improves the Northern Goshawk Optimization (NGO) algorithm: the Logistic chaotic map is adopted to initialize the population for enhanced ergodicity, a nonlinear dynamic weight is introduced to balance global exploration and local exploitation, and a Gaussian–Lévy hybrid mutation mechanism is integrated to strengthen the ability to escape from local optima. Experiments on standard test functions show that the improved algorithm (INGO) can stably approach the theoretical optimal values for both unimodal and multimodal functions. The convergence speed and solution accuracy are significantly superior to those of the original NGO, with a smaller standard deviation and stronger robustness. INGO is applied to the coverage optimization of 2D and 3D WSNs, with coverage rate as the fitness function, and the optimal node deployment coordinates are output through iterative optimization. Simulation results show that INGO achieves a best coverage rate of 98.32% in the 2D scenario, which is 7.72 percentage points higher than the 90.6% of NGO. In the 3D scenario, the best coverage rate reaches 72.32%, 6.78 percentage points higher than the 65.54% of NGO. Meanwhile, INGO yields more uniform node deployment and effectively reduces coverage blind spots. Its convergence curve is smooth and oscillation-free in the late iteration stage, and the stability is significantly better than that of NGO. With proper settings of population size and iteration times, INGO can achieve better coverage performance, providing a reliable technical solution for the efficient deployment of wireless sensor networks in complex environments. Full article

Public awareness and perception of human biomonitoring (HBM) and pesticide exposure are essential for informed decision-making and policy, yet understanding remains limited and often shaped by media and advocacy. This study combined three focus group discussions with Latvian citizens and an online content analysis of pesticide-related posts. Discussions explored understanding of HBM, attitudes toward chemical exposures, and support for related research, while content analysis identified commonly discussed pesticides and the role of non-governmental organisations (NGO) in shaping public opinion. Findings indicate low awareness and frequent misconceptions about HBM, often confused with wearable health technologies rather than a tool for assessing internal chemical exposure. Concerns were mainly linked to food additives and household chemicals, with less attention to pesticides. Glyphosate emerged as the most debated pesticide, largely driven by NGO activity and media coverage. Trust in government initiatives was mixed, with concerns about political influence, industry interests, and data privacy. Nevertheless, participants expressed strong support for further national research. Overall, the results highlight gaps in public understanding and the significant influence of media and advocacy. Strengthening risk communication, transparency, and public engagement is essential to build trust and support the development of Latvia’s HBM framework. Full article

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) routinely invest in servant leadership, a follower-centered and ethically grounded approach to leading, as a driver of project performance. Yet whether servant leadership is necessary for success, or whether strong team dynamics can compensate for its absence, remains unclear. Using cross-national data from 451 NGO project participants and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we examine how servant leadership, team identification, and team climate combine to produce sustainable project success. Three distinct routes emerge. Two involve servant leadership: one in which leadership strengthens team cohesion (Relational Alignment), and one in which leadership reinforces the team’s evaluative climate (Structured Empowerment). A third route achieves success through strong team identification and team climate alone, without servant leadership (leadership substitution). This pathway carries the highest consistency score, making it the most reliable route to success. Project failure follows a different logic, requiring the simultaneous weakening of at least two conditions rather than any single deficit alone. Career stage also matters: servant leadership alone is sufficient for junior staff, whose team-level resources are still developing, while senior staff exhibit a more heterogeneous success landscape with no dominant pathway. These findings reposition servant leadership as one of several sufficient configurations and offer managers guidance for differentiating leadership investment across organizational levels. Full article

Systems that farm non-typical (wild) species for human consumption are on the rise globally, in contrast to more typical livestock production. In some instances, wildlife farming may arguably help alleviate poverty, provide sustainable animal protein, and be a useful strategy for conservation through reducing wildlife poaching or breeding some animals on farms for reintroduction. However, it is unclear whether farming non-typical species within variable and often unregulated systems truly offers these benefits or outweighs the costs including animal welfare implications, public health concerns, and normalising or intensifying the consumption of wild animals. A previous study proposed a sentiocentric ethical decision-making framework for the farming of wild species. In the present study we invited academic ‘key informants’ with specialised knowledge about farming non-typical species to pilot the framework via an online survey using a species of their choice and requested their feedback on its strengths and weaknesses. Thirteen respondents applied ten different mammalian, reptilian, insect, and avian species to the framework, spanning all continents. Ultimately, the framework outcome for 11 appraisals was that the chosen species may be suitable for farming. However, erroneous responses were likely in places, and there was some uncertainty over definitions of framework terminology. We publish resultant amendments to the ethical framework to clarify meaning and suggest that it can be applied proactively or reactively by different stakeholders (e.g., governments, businesses, and NGOs). We reflect our informants’ views, acknowledging the need to solicit expertise from additional stakeholders (e.g., farmers) and the role of cultural significance and rural communities when considering farming non-typical species. Full article

Servant leadership is widely conceptualized as an effective model for nonprofit and project-based organizations, yet systematic evidence on whether its relationships with team processes and project success remain similar across regional NGO contexts is limited. This paper examines that question in two NGO groupings, Latin America and Africa, by combining moderated regression, measurement invariance testing, and multi-group structural equation modeling. The results show that servant leadership positively predicts team identification and team climate in both regional samples, with positive bootstrapped indirect effects in both groups. At the same time, the cross-group structural comparison is not statistically significant ($p=0.072$), the total effects are similar across groups ($0.755$ in Latin America and $0.757$ in Africa), and the free structural SEM shows only adequate fit ($RMSEA=0.095$). Accordingly, the findings are more consistent with a broadly similar cross-regional pattern than with strong evidence of major regional divergence, but they should be interpreted cautiously in light of partial scalar invariance and sample limitations. Full article

The Earth’s ecosystems are rapidly deteriorating due to human activities. Habitats are being lost or degraded, and associated wildlife species are declining or becoming extinct at unprecedented rates. The study area, the prefectures of Rodopi and Evros, is a Greek biodiversity hotspot containing degraded habitats, such as forests and wetlands, that are critical for many threatened wildlife species. This situation calls for conserving threatened wildlife habitats, which requires considerable funds. A structured questionnaire was used to evaluate willingness to pay (WTP) for wildlife habitat conservation. We conducted personal interviews with residents of the study area, using a sample of 849 citizens from the two regions determined through stratified random sampling design, with equal allocation to the strata. The mean annual WTP per household was estimated at EUR 21.3, yielding a total of EUR 790,000 from households in the study area. Pro-environmental behavior was positively associated with WTP. Females and those with higher household income reported higher WTP than males and those with lower household income. Government agencies were preferred over hunting clubs and environmental NGOs for implementing programs to conserve local wildlife habitats. Findings will be most useful if incorporated into policies to (a) secure the funds necessary to implement wildlife habitat conservation programs in the area and (b) increase transparency and trust between conservation entities and the local community. Full article

Background/Objectives: Cancer patterns in low-resource and crisis-affected settings are poorly characterized, particularly among socioeconomically vulnerable populations. This study aimed to describe cancer distribution, age at diagnosis, and barriers to care among patients presenting to a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Tripoli, Lebanon. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of patients with histopathologically confirmed cancers presenting to a single NGO. Sociodemographic, clinical, and behavioral data were extracted from medical records. Socioeconomic status (SES) was assessed using a validated composite scale. Age-standardized proportions (ASPs) were calculated using GLOBOCAN and WHO standard weights. Barriers to care were categorized into financial, geographic, system-level, and sociocultural domains. Associations were assessed using chi-square tests and regression models. Results: Breast cancer was the most common malignancy (32.0%), followed by colorectal (CRC: 9.8%). A total of 440 patients were included. Colorectal cancer (CRC) was the second-most common malignancy, with 37% of cases occurring before age 50. Breast cancer accounted for nearly half of female cancers. Smoking-related malignancies, particularly bladder and lung cancers, were prominent. Sex differences were cancer-specific, with male sex associated with bladder cancer but not overall cancer distribution. Barriers to care were highly prevalent: 97.3% reported at least one financial barrier, 95.4% system-level barriers, and 72.4% geographic barriers. Low SES was significantly associated with geographic barriers (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Cancer patterns in this vulnerable population are characterized by early-onset disease, a high burden of smoking-related cancers, and pervasive barriers to care. These findings highlight the importance of integrating SES and access-related variables into cancer surveillance systems and support the development of targeted, equity-focused interventions. Full article

Coffee tourism has emerged as a significant niche within community-based tourism development across the Global South, promising economic diversification and cultural preservation. Yet the human resource foundations of this sector remain under-theorized relative to those of marketing and the supply chain. This study examines the human resource challenges confronting coffee tourism development in Bajawa, Flores, Indonesia—an emerging destination strategically positioned within national tourism priorities. Drawing on qualitative research including in-depth interviews with 42 informants (coffee farmers, tourism workers, village officials, private sector facilitators, and NGO representatives), document analysis, and field observations, the study suggests that workforce sustainability in coffee tourism is undermined by three intersecting dynamics: precarious labor regimes characterized by casualization and income instability; significant skill gaps across the coffee–tourism nexus; and institutional fragmentation wherein state programs, private sector initiatives, and customary labor systems operate without coherent coordination. The findings highlight that human resource challenges are not merely technical capacity deficits but are produced through informal labor arrangements, unequal power relations, and governance fragmentation. The study contributes theoretically by extending precarity scholarship to emerging destination contexts and proposing an integrative framework linking labor regimes, competency development, and workforce sustainability. Full article