Search Results (11,967)

Background/Objectives: Patient- and family-initiated abuse of nurses is widely recognized as workplace violence, but it also raises a distinct professional-regulatory question: when may a nurse end or restrict an established therapeutic relationship without creating an allegation of abandonment or discriminatory denial of care? This perspective focuses on Alberta and examines whether the province’s nursing regulator provides a comprehensive, nurse-specific, all-registrant standard comparable in clarity to Alberta’s physician standard. The concern is not the absence of every form of protection but the absence of a clearly defined regulatory pathway for all Alberta RNs and NPs. Methods: Publicly available legal, occupational health and safety, regulatory, legal-risk and scholarly materials were purposively selected where they addressed relationship termination, discontinuing or declining care, workplace violence, immediate safety risk, abandonment, documentation, continuity of care or patient safeguards. Results: The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta standard provides a clearly defined regulatory pathway, including immediate discharge where a patient poses a safety risk, is abusive or fails to respect professional boundaries. Alberta nursing materials contain important elements but do not yet constitute a dedicated Alberta RN/NP standard applicable across office-based, community, virtual, home care and independent nursing practice. Interprovincial nursing standards demonstrate feasibility, operational detail, emerging professional consensus and potential templates for policy transfer; however, they do not bind the CRNA or create an Alberta regulatory benchmark for complaint review. Conclusions: Alberta should adopt a nurse-specific standard for ending or restricting abusive patient- and family-initiated relationships. Such a standard should include ordinary and urgent safety pathways, prohibited grounds, documentation requirements, continuity safeguards, employer integration and practical templates. Nurse protection and patient protection are mutually reinforcing regulatory objectives. Full article

Extreme heat poses health risks during pregnancy, but little is known about how pregnant individuals seek weather information to engage in heat-health protective actions. This study examined associations between routine and event-driven weather information seeking and both routine physiological heat-health protective actions (i.e., limiting sun exposure, staying hydrated, and spending time in air conditioning) and higher-threshold adaptive behaviors (i.e., changing plans due to heat). A cross-sectional survey of 195 pregnant individuals in Bexar County, TX, USA, was conducted during the summer and fall of 2024. Descriptive and nonparametric analyses explored relationships across trimesters. Participants demonstrated high routine weather information seeking and greater weather information needs since becoming pregnant. Over half (51.3%) reported increased weather information seeking during excessive heat, with lower increases during the first trimester. During extreme heat, most respondents increased heat-health protective actions. Increased information needs during pregnancy were significantly related to heat-health protective actions. Routine weather checking showed weak or inverse relationships with changing plans, suggesting that routine weather awareness alone may not prompt changing plans. Trimester patterns indicated heightened information seeking and protective actions later in pregnancy. Findings highlight the importance of pregnancy-specific heat risk communication with trimester-specific guidance provided in clinical counseling, public health messaging, and meteorological communication. Full article

Perovskite manganites (AMnO₃) and perovskite-like manganites (A’_1−xA_xMnO₃) are complex oxide materials that have attracted significant attention from the scientific community in recent years due to their structural flexibility, mixed-valence state, tunable electronic configuration, and multifunctional properties. This review systematically analyzes the synthesis methods, structural classification, and physicochemical characterization of perovskite manganites, as well as their magnetic, optical, electrical, dielectric, and catalytic properties. The influence of solid-state reactions, sol–gel, Pechini, hydrothermal, co-precipitation, microwave, and other mild chemical approaches on phase purity, morphology, particle size, and oxygen stoichiometry was examined. The structural diversity of perovskite and perovskite-like manganites, including simple ABO₃, double perovskites, multilayer, and low-dimensional systems, was characterized in relation to their functional properties. The review discussed the capabilities of methods for synthesizing and analyzing morphological properties, demonstrating the role of doping, cation substitution, oxygen vacancies, and Jahn–Teller distortions in controlling material properties. Prospects for the application of perovskite manganites in spintronics, magnetocaloric cooling, photocatalysis, gas-sensing devices, and energy conversion and storage systems were analyzed. This review highlights the structure–property–application relationship in perovskite manganites. Full article

This study investigates the pedagogical landscape of state language instruction in Hungarian-medium schools in Slovakia. Situated within the wider context of European minority language policies, this study explores the institutional ecosystems, didactic approaches and teaching strategies, and the relationship between teacher- and student-centered methodologies in state language instruction. A questionnaire survey based on a self-developed Multi-Level Diagnostic Model was administered to a representative sample of teachers, accounting for 23% of the total Slovak teacher population working in this distinctive sociolinguistic setting (N = 112). Although the results indicate that the educational process is shaped by various factors and there is an endeavor to promote communicative practice, the competence–use gap persists due to the reliance on conventional teacher-centered teaching approaches. This trend is driven by a methodological vacuum, the absence of specialized L2 teaching materials and the lack of modern digital resources; it also suggests that teachers are forced to prioritize instructional security rather than being resistant to innovation. The findings suggest that the current educational system is ready for change, but it requires systemic investment in resources to promote the balanced development of intercultural communicative competence. Addressing the linguistic distance between Hungarian L1 and Slovak L2 through specialized materials may promote a model of additive bilingualism that ensures professional credibility and the protection of minority cultural identity. Full article

Introduction/Objectives: Patient-centered communication is essential in oncology care, where healthcare professionals often manage emotionally demanding conversations, uncertainty, complex decisions, and patient involvement in care. However, the relationship between communication knowledge, empathic listening, and practical communication skills remains insufficiently examined. This study aimed to examine the associations between communication knowledge, empathic listening, and interpersonal communication skills among healthcare professionals involved in oncology care. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Croatia from May to November 2025 on a convenience sample of 138 healthcare professionals involved in oncology care. Communication knowledge was assessed using a study-specific questionnaire, empathic listening using an adapted Active Empathic Listening Scale, and interpersonal communication skills using an adapted Interpersonal Communication Skills Inventory. Because the instruments were adapted to the oncology care context, their dimensions were examined using exploratory factor analysis and interpreted as sample-specific exploratory constructs. Descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, and multiple linear regression analyses were performed. Results: Clear message delivery and assertiveness had the highest self-reported score, whereas emotional interaction management had the lowest. Communication knowledge was not an independent predictor of communication skills dimensions. Processing and responding positively predicted clear message delivery and assertiveness (β = 0.361; p = 0.001; R² = 13.4%), while noticing emotional and nonverbal cues negatively predicted emotional interaction management (β = −0.234; p = 0.032; R² = 7.6%). The explained variance of the models was low. Conclusions: The findings suggest limited but potentially relevant associations between selected dimensions of empathic listening and self-reported communication skills in oncology care. Communication knowledge, measured using a study-specific exploratory instrument, was not independently associated with communication skills. Because of the exploratory design, self-report measures, adapted instruments, and convenience sampling, the results should be interpreted with caution. Full article

Despite growing evidence linking cultural participation to subjective well-being, existing research has largely focused on individual-level participation, local communities, or single-event case studies, leaving the role of festival density insufficiently explored at the national level. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between festival density, operationalized as the number of festivals per population (NFP), and national well-being through a cross-country comparative framework. The analysis integrates data from 121 countries and 7859 festivals obtained from the Vibrate platform with national well-being indicators from the World Happiness Report (2025). Using Pearson correlation analysis and supplementary regression-based robustness checks, the study identifies a moderate positive association between festival density and national well-being. However, the strength of this relationship varies across geographical and contextual settings, and weakens when broader socioeconomic factors are taken into account. The findings further indicate that cultural attributes, particularly festival genre, are more strongly associated with well-being outcomes than structural characteristics such as festival size. Religious festivals exhibit the strongest observed correlation, although this result should be interpreted cautiously due to the limited number of observations within this category. The study contributes to the literature by conceptualizing festival density as a macro-level indicator of cultural opportunity structures and by providing one of the first systematic cross-country analyses of its relationship with national well-being. The findings advance current knowledge by suggesting that the cultural characteristics of festival ecosystems may be more relevant to well-being than their scale alone, while also highlighting the importance of broader socioeconomic conditions in shaping national well-being outcomes. The findings also contribute to the sustainability literature by highlighting the role of cultural ecosystems as components of social sustainability. By fostering opportunities for social interaction, collective identity, and cultural participation, festival environments may support sustainable well-being and strengthen the social and cultural dimensions of sustainable development. Full article

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are particularly vulnerable when crisis support systems are delayed, unreliable, or difficult to access. This study examines how South African SMEs maintained strategic continuity during COVID-19 by developing the concept of relational substitution, defined as a process in which owner-managers compensate for weak formal support by internalizing continuity work within the employment relationship. The study is based on a secondary qualitative analysis of 16 semi-structured interviews with SME owners in the Western Cape, South Africa, complemented by a targeted evidence review to inform boundary-condition assessment. The findings show that owner-managers assembled relational continuity bundles that combined labor flexibility, retention intent, transparent communication, and visible well-being support. Owners presented these bundles as efforts to sustain cooperation, trust, and operational functioning when enacted through fairness logics such as voice, transparency, equal sacrifice, and relational care. The study contributes to SME resilience and management and organization studies by distinguishing relational substitution from sustainable human resource management, organizational justice, relational leadership, and institutional fragility, and by specifying the firm-level and institutional conditions under which this mechanism is more likely to support strategic continuity. Full article

Cultural habitats are the relationships between traditional peoples and the plants, animals, and geological features of their ancestral landscapes. These relationships form the human dimension of geoheritage. However, research on cultural habitats and research on geoheritage have typically developed separately. This review brings these two frameworks together by drawing on four decades of ethnobotanical and ethnoecological studies, involving 24 research projects with Native American tribes and traditional communities in North America and the Caribbean. Using ethnographic methods, habitat mapping, and indices to measure cultural significance, the research documented how traditional communities use plants and define the extent of their cultural habitats. Analysis of six case studies shows that each cultural habitat is closely tied to a unique geological or landform feature. In all cases, the official heritage boundaries set by nomination processes are smaller than the areas traditional peoples recognize as their cultural habitats. This gap comes from differences between Western approaches to defining heritage and the ways indigenous and traditional communities understand their responsibilities to the land. The review calls for wider standards of evidence, collaborative approaches to setting boundaries, and co-stewardship to be included in geoheritage management policies. Full article

The present contribution provides a systematic review of the international scientific literature on the relationship between contaminated sites and real estate market dynamics. The objective is to investigate whether and to what extent the presence of environmental risk sources—both active or decommissioned—affects the value of surrounding residential properties. In particular, the review is focused on an examination of the methods commonly used in relevant studies to measure, interpret, and represent this impact across different geographical contexts, identifying the main magnitude ranges found in the selected contributions. Several studies consistently confirm a statistically significant negative relationship between proximity to polluting sites and real estate values, although the relevance of this effect varies considerably across case studies. Other records highlight non-notable impacts or even positive effects following remediation and redevelopment interventions. The evidence suggests that this relationship is complex and influenced by factors such as site type, contamination severity, specificities of the local urban context and community perception. Moreover, the findings underscore regional variations in the extent and nature of price impacts, reflecting diverse regulatory frameworks and remediation efforts. The outcomes of the literature review provide a robust foundation for developing more effective evaluation tools able to support decision-making processes, enabling policymakers, planners, and investors to promote sustainable urban regeneration, improve environmental justice, and reduce spatial inequalities. Ultimately, this study highlights the critical need for integrating environmental, social, and economic dimensions to fully capture the multifaceted effects of contaminated sites on property markets, thereby orienting more informed and equitable urban development strategies worldwide. Full article

Current construction safety research has paid limited attention to the relationship between stable individual differences and hazard-related visual attention. This study combined personality assessment and eye-tracking technology to investigate visual attention allocation and hazard recognition among construction workers in static work-at-height scenarios. Personality traits were assessed using the Chinese Big Five Personality Inventory Brief Version, and 30 participants with extreme trait profiles were selected for eye-tracking experiments in two representative work-at-height scenarios. Eight eye-tracking indicators were analyzed across four dimensions: attentional span, attentional stability, attentional allocation, and attentional shifting. An AHP-based evaluation framework was further developed to assess visual attention efficacy. The results showed descriptive differences in hazard-related visual attention patterns across personality-trait groups. Individuals high in agreeableness and conscientiousness exhibited more hazard-oriented visual allocation and higher visual attention efficacy, whereas those high in openness and extraversion showed stronger exploratory tendencies and lower efficiency in allocating attention to high-risk areas. Individuals high in neuroticism showed intermediate overall performance but relatively weaker attentional organization. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the ranking results remained stable under moderate weight perturbations. These findings provide a quantitative framework for comparing visual attention efficacy across personality-trait groups and offer preliminary support for differentiated safety training, risk communication, and attentional guidance in construction safety management. Full article

Elucidating the interactions among microbial communities in the Sichuan paocai fermentation system is of great significance for ensuring the safety and quality of paocai. In this study, the interaction between Bacillus subtilis Y61 and Weissella paramesenteroides (CWP) was preliminarily verified through the culture of CWP using the cell-free supernatant derived from Y61. Building on this, a transwell chamber was employed to spatially isolate the two bacteria. Combined with transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling, the underlying interaction mechanism was revealed. Weissella paramesenteroides (CWP) exhibited enhanced growth in the cell-free supernatant of Bacillus subtilis Y61, confirming a cross-feeding relationship between the two strains. In the transwell chamber, the promoting effect was most significant when Weissella paramesenteroides (CWP) was in the upper compartment and Bacillus subtilis Y61 in the lower compartment. Transcriptomic analysis showed that Weissella paramesenteroides (CWP) significantly upregulated genes involved in fatty acid synthesis and metabolism while downregulating those related to amino acid anabolism (p < 0.05). Metabolomic analysis further revealed that metabolites secreted by Bacillus subtilis Y61, including the key metabolites arginine and isovaleric acid, were markedly depleted during co-culture. Exogenous supplementation assays revealed that the combination of 0.1 g arginine and 2 mg isovaleric acid exhibited the strongest growth-promoting effect on Weissella paramesenteroides (CWP). Collectively, these results demonstrated that Bacillus subtilis Y61 promoted the growth of Weissella paramesenteroides (CWP) through cross-feeding via the extracellular secretion of the key metabolites arginine and isovaleric acid. Full article

The aim of this study was to investigate the dynamic changes in physicochemical properties, microbial community, metabolite profiles, and volatile compounds in watermelon soybean paste (WSP) during natural fermentation. Results showed that total acids, amino nitrogen, reducing sugar content, and umami-taste amino acids were significantly increased in WSP samples during the fermentation process. Various bacterial communities, including Enterobacter, Bacillus, Staphylococcus, Enterococcus, Weissella, and Lactobacillus, were detected as dominant genera. A total of 804 metabolites, mainly including lipids (18.78%) and amino acids and their derivatives (13.56%), were detected across the different fermentation stages. The correlation analysis between volatile compounds and bacterial community at the genus level revealed that 2-methylisoborneol, 1-octen-3-ol, benzene acetaldehyde, tetramethylpyrazine, and phenylethyl alcohol strongly correlated with Enterococcus, Bacillus, Weissella, and Pseudomonas. This study revealed the dynamics of the bacterial community and volatile compounds in the fermentation process and demonstrated their inter-relationship during WSP fermentation. Full article

Academic setbacks are common in college, yet instructor responses to poor performance vary widely and may shape students’ motivation, emotional reactions, and perceptions of faculty support. Prior work suggests that supportive communication matters, but less is known about which types of messages students prefer after academic failure or whether faculty accurately anticipate these preferences. The present research examined how college students and instructors evaluate different instructor responses to a disappointing exam grade and assessed alignment between student preferences and faculty perceptions. Using a mixed-methods design, college instructors and undergraduate students responded to parallel vignette scenarios involving a poor exam outcome and rated brief instructor comments representing three response types: solution-focused, emotional validation, and interpersonal affirmation. Participants also provided open-ended responses describing what they would say to a student or want to hear from an instructor. Across two studies, students rated affirmation as most effective, validation as moderately helpful, and solution-focused responses as least effective, despite perceiving solution-focused comments as most common in actual classrooms. Faculty in our sample rated validation and affirmation as more effective than solution-focused responses but primarily generated strategy-focused advice in their own responses. Faculty correctly anticipated students’ preference for encouragement but rarely offered such messages. These findings point to a gap between what faculty believe students value and what they typically communicate following academic setbacks, suggesting that incorporating brief affirming and emotionally responsive messages may strengthen student–teacher relationships by signaling care, understanding, and support in moments of academic difficulty. Full article

Purpose: This study investigates the mediating role of internal marketing (IM) in the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) applications and quality of work life (QWL). Methodology: A quantitative cross-sectional research design was employed. Data were collected via self-administered questionnaires from a sample of 418 employees across service ministries in Saudi Arabia and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) as the analytical instrument. Findings: The results reveal that the direct association between AI applications and QWL was not statistically significant. However, a significant indirect relationship was established, indicating that the effect operates entirely through IM. Specifically, AI applications are positively associated with IM practices, which in turn strongly predict higher QWL in the tested model. Originality/Contributions: The study advances current literature by empirically validating IM as the critical organizational mechanism required to translate AI deployment into employee well-being within public-sector institutions. Practical Implications: Decision-makers must couple AI adoption with targeted IM strategies—such as continuous training, job empowerment, and effective internal communication—to ensure a sustainable, human-centered digital transformation. Full article

Renewable energy sources are fast becoming the most cost-effective option for adding new power generation capacity globally. In South Africa (SA), the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy has steadily gained momentum over the years. However, this transition is beset by complex and multidimensional barriers. This research study analyses and prioritises renewable energy barriers and mitigation strategies in South Africa. The DEMATEL multi-criteria decision-making technique was employed to rank the barriers and assess their cause-and-effect relationships. The findings reveal the top three barrier categories as Agreement, Market, and Knowledge. The study further employed an integrated hybrid CRITIC-TOPSIS technique to prioritise the proposed mitigation strategies for each barrier in a defined category. The results indicate that strengthening local community engagement is the most suitable solution to the adoption of renewable energy in SA. A sensitivity analysis model was conducted to validate the robustness of the results. The findings validate the consistency of the methods, with the ranking of the barriers and mitigation strategies remaining stable under various scenarios. This study presents a context-specific causal analysis of barriers and an objective prioritisation of mitigation strategies in South Africa using an integrated hybrid DEMATEL and CRITIC–TOPSIS approach, providing policymakers and decision-makers with valuable insights to develop strategic plans and policies that address the identified barriers. Full article