Search Results (5,720)

The Australian University Departments of Rural Health (UDRHs) promote the health and wellbeing of people in rural and remote Australia through health education, research, and advocacy. This narrative review evaluated the extent to which Indigenous health intervention research conducted by UDRHs over a 12-year period (2010–2021) aligned with the Principles and Priorities of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan 2021–2031. The purpose was to reflect on past UDRH research contributions to identify existing strengths and areas for improvement in line with current policy. Thirty-three relevant UDRH publications were identified from a broader database of UDRH research outputs. Each paper was independently coded by at least two authors as demonstrating “yes”, “partial”, or “not evident” alignment with the twelve priorities of the Health Plan. UDRH intervention research demonstrated strengths in genuine shared decision making and partnerships with Indigenous communities, workforce development, health promotion, and identifying and addressing racism. However, gaps were evident in research addressing social and emotional wellbeing, mental health and suicide prevention, promotion of healthy environments, sustainability and preparedness, and transparency regarding shared access to data and information. UDRHs play a key role in building research capacity among staff and communities in rural settings and often maintain long-standing, respectful relationships with local Indigenous communities. While UDRH research aligns with many domains of the national Health Plan, future efforts should prioritise social and emotional wellbeing and mental health. Improved reporting of shared data access represents an immediate opportunity for enhancement. Full article

To address the pressing dual challenge of meeting global protein demand while mitigating environmental impacts, the food sector must transition to a circular bioeconomy. In this context, this review comprehensively examines the valorization of plant and animal byproducts, emphasizing how the recovery and application of their inherent bioactive and functional compounds can transform waste into high-value resources. Plant processing residues, such as fruit peels and pomace, and animal residues, such as blood and bones, are increasingly recognized as untapped sources of functional ingredients. These by-products yield bioactive compounds with health benefits. Simultaneously, the same or different compounds serve as structural building blocks, offering valuable technological properties. They improve water-holding capacity, texture, and emulsion stability in both traditional meats and plant-based analogs. While upcycling these materials reduces disposal costs and formulation expenses, challenges remain regarding compositional variability, regulatory barriers, and consumer perception of “waste-derived” ingredients. Ultimately, integrating advanced processing technologies such as enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation is essential to building a resilient, sustainable, and circular global food system. Full article

This study reviews and summarizes existing research on how small and medium-sized construction enterprises adopt Building Information Modeling (BIM), while also highlighting potential areas for future investigation. The analyses aimed to address two research questions: RQ1: What research areas are explored in scientific publications on the use of BIM in small and medium-sized enterprises? RQ2: What future research directions should be pursued regarding the implementation and development of BIM in SMEs? A bibliometric analysis and science-mapping analysis was conducted on 162 Scopus-indexed publications (2007–2025) using Excel, VOSviewer and Biblioshiny, complemented by a state-of-the-art review of 69 recent studies (2022–2025). Keyword analyses revealed five thematic clusters: implementation and adaptation, collaboration and integration, construction industry digitalization, project management, and information systems. Within the identified areas, a state-of-the-art review was conducted to indicate the main research domains and directions for future research. Emerging topics include Industry 4.0-enabled digitalization, common data environments, interoperability, decision-making, human resource management, and safety and risk assessment. Future studies should examine managerial competencies, behavioral drivers of adoption and value creation in resource-constrained contexts. Policymakers and professional bodies should combine capacity building, incentives and lightweight interoperable tools to lower entry barriers for SMEs. Integrating bibliometric mapping with qualitative synthesis, this paper offers an evidence-based research agenda and guidance to support BIM diffusion in SMEs. Full article

Background: Healthcare inventory management is critical for ensuring timely access to supplies and reducing stockouts. As supply chains grow more complex, algorithms, AI, and analytics techniques have emerged as tools for forecasting, tracking, classification, and procurement. Yet empirical validation across diverse contexts remains inadequate, and existing reviews treat these approaches as separate streams rather than an integrated system. Methods: To evaluate these capabilities, a systematic review of 64 peer-reviewed articles published between 2011 and 2025 was conducted using a descriptive and content analysis approach on the use of Triple A (Analytics, AI, and Algorithms) techniques in inventory frameworks across various healthcare contexts, such as hospitals, pharmaceutical supply chains, and humanitarian supply chains. Results: Integrating multiple Triple A approaches consistently outperforms single-method strategies, particularly with RFID and IoT tools. Key findings often overlooked are: emergency procurement and classification, which remain neglected despite the highest patient safety stakes, and key procurement drivers—organizational conditions, supplier reliability, and team capacity. Data quality, interoperability, and cybersecurity further constrain generalizability. Conclusions: Bridging these gaps requires integrated Triple A approaches rather than single methods. Phased implementation, cloud-based platforms, and privacy-by-design offer practical pathways for building resilience under real-world constraints. Full article

Post-earthquake emergency response planning requires rapid and adaptive resource allocation under disrupted accessibility, uneven district-level demand, and hazardous field conditions. In large metropolitan areas, these challenges are intensified by spatial differences in social vulnerability, infrastructure disruption, operational feasibility, and responder exposure. Static allocation approaches are often insufficient in such environments because they cannot adequately reflect temporal change or the evolving relationship between urgency, accessibility, and operational risk. This study proposes a dynamic multi-objective model for district-level post-earthquake resource allocation that integrates social vulnerability, occupational safety, and Markov-based updating within a single analytical framework. First, district priority scores are derived through an Analytic Hierarchy Process based on building damage ratio, intervention time, social vulnerability, critical infrastructure damage, secondary hazard risk, team capacity, and occupational safety. Second, a Markov-based updating mechanism is used to represent time-dependent redistribution across response periods. Third, a constrained weighted-sum multi-objective optimization model is formulated to balance district priority, social vulnerability, and responder safety under capacity and accessibility limits. The model is applied to Istanbul using official district-level data from national and local institutional sources. Scenario-based analysis is conducted under balanced, priority-oriented, vulnerability-oriented, and safety-oriented settings, together with static and dynamic model comparisons. The results show that the dynamic structure produces a more adaptive allocation profile than the static structure, with the share of the Very High allocation class declining from 37.66% to 34.95% and the Low allocation class increasing from 12.89% to 16.00% over the response horizon. The findings also indicate that greater emphasis on social vulnerability shifts allocation toward more fragile districts, whereas stronger safety emphasis reduces cumulative operational exposure at the cost of moderate reductions in immediate coverage. Overall, the study contributes to the disaster response literature by linking multi-criteria district prioritization, dynamic redistribution, and safety-aware allocation within a unified district-level decision structure. Beyond the Istanbul application, the proposed framework offers a practical basis for more responsive, equitable, and operationally sustainable post-earthquake planning in complex urban environments. Full article

Community disaster resilience is increasingly guiding risk-reduction investments, but in many Southeast European settings, comparable subnational data remain scarce. This study assesses perceived community disaster resilience across Serbia by combining BRIC–DROP dimensions into a single index and analyzing differences across hazard types and sociodemographic factors. A cross-sectional household survey was conducted using multistage random sampling and the “next birthday” method for respondent selection. The final sample included 1200 adults from 22 local government units across four regions: Belgrade, Vojvodina, Šumadija & Western Serbia, and Southern & Eastern Serbia. Participants evaluated preventive measures and societal resilience for ten hazard types and considered five social dimensions: social structure, social capital, social mechanisms, social equity/diversity, and social beliefs. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses (including Pearson correlations, t-tests, and ANOVA), and multiple linear regression identified key predictors of preventive behavior and perceived resilience. Composite scores highlighted spatial resilience differences. Overall perceptions were generally low, mostly falling below the midpoint of the scale. Furthermore, the highest ratings for implemented preventive measures were recorded for pandemics/epidemics, storms/hail, and floods, whereas the lowest were observed for environmental pollution and droughts. Perceived resilience was highest for snowstorms, storms/hail, and pandemics/epidemics, and lowest for environmental pollution and droughts. Also, respondents reported relatively strong family ties and favorable perceptions of communication and access to basic supplies, but weak institutional capacity, particularly in budget allocation, early warning and public notification, rapid decision-making, and evacuation and shelter readiness. Regression results were statistically significant but explained only a small portion of the variance. Age and public-sector employment positively predicted perceived resilience; fear, income, and, to a lesser extent, education were negatively associated. These findings highlight the structural and psychosocial factors that shape perceptions of resilience. The BRIC–DROP composite indicates generally low perceived preparedness and resilience, especially in risk communication, evacuation and shelter readiness, and financing—the key bottlenecks in strengthening local resilience. The results recommend combining institutional reform with targeted risk communication to reduce fear and build trust, especially focusing on hazard areas with the lowest confidence, such as environmental pollution and drought. Full article

Automated long-essay scoring (ALES) is gradually considered as a means to enhance efficiency and consistency in large-scale assessment; however, concerns remain regarding its suitability, particularly as it relates to the reliability, validity, and fairness of ALES-assigned grades relative to human-grades in high-stakes professional contexts. This study examines these concerns using over 15,000 long essay examination scripts from a professional accounting certification examination. The study examines whether the ALES confidence index (CI) meaningfully predicts grading accuracy or points to systemic grading failures. Findings reveal fair overall agreement between human and ALES grades, with high within ±1 grade agreement, and rare yet task-concentrated ALES grading failures, while CI shows statistically significant but practically weak predictive value and limited discrimination. The results support the use of ALES as an assistive, human oversight tool rather than an independent grader, highlighting the importance of task-based validation, stronger calibration analysis, and continuous human supervision in high-stakes professional assessment contexts. The study advances innovative assessment practices, but calls for cautious deployment of ALES and recommends integration of a hybrid human-in-the-loop approach, multi-disciplinary validation, and capacity building to strengthen ethical and responsible AI usage in accounting education and professional practice, aligning with SDGs 4 and 9. Full article

Sub-Saharan African health systems face critical funding challenges due to declining foreign aid, mounting debt and increasing disease burdens. Traditional financing mechanisms have proven inadequate, necessitating the exploration of innovative domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) strategies. This paper contributes to the health economics literature by examining the use of innovative tax models as DRM strategies for sustainable health financing in Sub-Saharan Africa, using the fiscal space for health framework. This narrative review synthesizes peer-reviewed articles, policy documents, and grey literature published between 2010 and 2025. The review identifies four promising innovative models: health taxes (tobacco, alcohol, sugar-sweetened beverages), environmental levies (pollution, carbon, plastic), digital taxation (digital services taxes, mobile money taxes, Value Added Tax (VAT) on digital services) and resource extraction taxes. The evidence demonstrates significant revenue generation potential while achieving public health and environmental co-benefits. However, critical implementation challenges persist: weak administrative capacity, poor governance quality, equity concerns and extensive informality and economic diversity. The paper recommends strengthening tax administration through digital infrastructure investment and capacity building, implementing progressive tax design with targeted exemptions, enhancing transparency and linking tax revenue to health service delivery, and tailoring reforms to country-specific contexts while learning from regional experience. Full article

Cruise ship manufacturing is a high-tech, complex industry where development depends on coordination across stages and organizations. We advance the coordination literature by treating the supply chain, industry chain, and value chain as a complex system, and by linking cross-chain coordination to high-quality development in a way that is comparable to theoretical debates on capability building and productivity-oriented development. Empirically, we collect city-level panel data for ten Chinese cruise port cities from 2008 to 2023 and combine a coupling–coordination framework with a panel data qualitative comparative analysis (PD-QCA) to capture both coordination dynamics and configurational causality. Our results show substantial heterogeneity in coordination trajectories, which can be grouped into decline–recovery, high-level stability, and persistent decline/high-variability patterns. We also show that high coupling does not guarantee high-quality outcomes, which are jointly shaped by industrial foundations, high-end value creation, and innovation capacity. Moreover, we identify two main pathways: an anchoring pathway that depends on output capacity and resource inputs, and an optimizing pathway that mainly relies on investment intensity, demand-side output, and value efficiency, with cross-chain coordination acting as an enabling condition that helps improve cross-chain matching. Full article

Rainfed agriculture is the most common type of agriculture in South Africa among smallholder farmers, accounting for the majority of the arable land. In a country with so much potential, only about 8% of the arable land is under irrigation. In response, the South African post-apartheid government has invested in the establishment of irrigation schemes in rural provinces such as the Eastern Cape to promote the sustainability of smallholder farming systems. Despite these efforts, the participation of farmers in these schemes remains low. This study investigated socioeconomic and environmental factors that affect farming households’ level of participation in irrigation schemes and intensity. Cross sectional data was collected from 209 households using a multi-stage sampling procedure. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the socio-economic and environmental factors. A double hurdle model was used to analyse both participation in irrigation and the intensity of participation. The study results reveal that agriculture is largely practised by elderly farmers with an average age of 54 years and largely female-dominated (58%). On average, farmers have 7.5 years of schooling and 12 years of farming experience. Econometric findings demonstrate that participation is significantly influenced by market access, whereas participation intensity is driven by market access, market information and the level of education. The study recommends strengthening gender-targeted agricultural support systems, improved water access through expanded and well-maintained irrigation infrastructure and improving market access. In addition, enhanced extension training support and youth-focused agricultural programmes are required to build productive capacity and ensure the long-term sustainability of irrigation schemes. Full article

In anthropologist Joel Robbins’ pioneering work on divergences within cultural anthropology about the goals of anthropology and crucial differences between anthropology and theology on this matter, he diagnoses anthropology with a lack of criteria and training in rendering critical judgments on the ‘dark’ situations that anthropologists encounter. I suggest that the trouble anthropologists have with critically addressing the darkness of poverty, oppression and suffering is due to an inability to articulate standpoints on what counts as good. Following Robbins’ argument that anthropology can learn practices of rendering judgment from theology, I offer an ethnographic description and analysis of the way theology trains students in delineating their theological position and developing practices of judging in order to explore avenues toward anthropological ways of doing so. Building on the hermeneutical insight that judgment is an integral part of Verstehen, I argue that practicing judgment may not only further the critical capacity of anthropology but also enhance our ability to understand other ways of imagining the good. Full article

Amid escalating global crises, tourism sustainability is threatened by heightened industry vulnerability, yet the intrinsic coupling of tourism industry vulnerability (TIV) and resilience (TIR) remains underexplored via systemic theoretical frameworks. This study aimed to define TIV/TIR as industry-specific constructs and develop an integrated analytical model grounded in dissipative structure theory to characterize tourism systems’ crisis responses. We selected Southwest China’s ethnic minority regions (Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan) as cases, using 2015–2024 prefecture-level panel data to explores the spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics of TIV/TIR. Results revealed severe COVID-19-induced TIV surges in 2020–2021, followed by rapid TIR rebounds; TIV and TIR exhibited a significant negative correlation with regional heterogeneity. Most cities showed high TIV–low TIR, with Guizhou displaying negative TIV-TIR spatial autocorrelation and Guangxi–Yunnan showing TIR clustering; inter-city TIV disparities widened while TIR levels converged, leading to a low-vulnerability, balanced-resilience tourism system by 2024. This research introduces the novel sensitivity-adaptive capacity-recovery (SACR) framework, advancing understanding of TIV-TIR dynamics and providing targeted empirical insights for tourism resilience building and sustainable development in resource-dependent destinations. Full article

The emerging problem that microplastics pose to our society is reflected in the exponential growth in investigations devoted to uncovering their toxicological potential in humans. However, these studies present several limitations, one of the most significant being the use of microplastics that do not represent their environmental counterparts. In this study, we evaluated the impact of two types of polyethylene microplastics (27–32 µm)—non-fluorescent and fluorescent—on the liver and intestine, targeting mitochondria. FVB/n mice were subjected to a subacute exposure to two concentrations representative of human exposure (0.002% (w/w) and 0.006% (w/w)). Both types of microplastics impaired mitochondrial respiration through disruption of NADH-linked pathways, with more pronounced effects at the highest concentration of fluorescent MPs. Electron transport chain complexes, particularly CIII and CIV, were affected, partially explaining the observed alterations in mitochondrial respiratory capacity. An increased SOD and GPx activity supported the link between mitochondrial dysfunction and increased reactive oxygen species overproduction under MPs exposure. Hepatic mitochondrial lipid remodelling was detected following exposure to fluorescent microplastics, while intestinal epithelial cells displayed impaired mitochondrial activity together with compromised cellular integrity, indicative of stress response. In parallel, shifts in gut composition suggest that PE MPs may contribute to intestinal barrier dysfunction. Overall, fluorescent MPs induced more severe mitochondrial and biochemical disturbances in both the liver and the intestine than their non-fluorescent counterparts. Our findings highlight mitochondria as central targets for microplastic-induced toxicity and underscore the need for improved MPs models in toxicological research. Full article

This study examines the drivers and challenges/barriers faced by built-environment professionals in applying circular economy (CE) principles within Maiduguri, Nigeria’s housing delivery system, a city recovering from prolonged conflict. Using a mixed-method approach, including a literature review, an interview and a questionnaire administered to construction professionals (n = 188), the research assesses awareness and practical implementation. Key drivers for CE adoption include regulatory incentives, increased research funding, potential cost savings, and rising environmental awareness. Major barriers, however, consist of limited technical expertise, weak policy enforcement, and financial constraints. The analysis also reveals significant gaps in on-site waste management and resource recovery practices. To address these issues, this study recommends targeted capacity-building programmes, stronger policy frameworks, and enhanced multi-stakeholder collaboration. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) should be supported to venture into engineering waste recycling and management. These measures aim to promote core CE practices, such as waste minimisation, reuse, recycling, and remanufacturing within the construction industry, aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). The research concludes that integrating CE strategies can foster sustainable housing development in Maiduguri, supporting environmental protection, socio-economic growth, and increased resilience of the built environment in post-conflict contexts. Full article

This study applies a dynamic strategic foresight to examine how Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)-based Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), supported by Advanced Communication Systems (ACS), can be integrated into a coherent System of Systems (SoS) for sustainable and effective Disaster Management (DM). These three domains (AAM, ACS, and DM) form a strongly coupled Internet of Things (IoT) triad within an integrated SoS. Using lessons learned from previous or running research projects of the contributing authors, i.e., SUDEM, REGUAS, 5G!Drones, and ETHER, the foresight identifies key enablers—including resilient 5G/6G communication architectures, interoperable data fusion frameworks, and UAS-supported situational awareness. It highlights structural challenges such as fragmented standards, limited cross-agency data integration, and gaps in ACS redundancy for emergency operations. The resulting roadmap outlines development priorities for ACS-enabled AAM, from unified communication protocols and hybrid TN-NTN architectures to education and capacity-building for digital-centric DM. Practically, the findings suggest that policymakers should prioritise harmonised regulatory frameworks for AAM-ACS interoperability and invest in global data exchange standards, while system designers should incorporate redundant communication layers and modular SoS architectures to ensure operational continuity under extreme conditions. Full article