Search Results (2,675)

Against the backdrop of global agricultural sustainability transition, this study examines the mechanism through which peer effects influence the intention–behaviour paradox in farmers’ adoption of organic fertilisers as a substitute for chemical fertilisers, from the perspective of ecological rationality. Using survey data from 505 rice farmers in Hunan Province, this research integrates peer effects and ecological rationality into a unified analytical framework and employs a Probit model to test the mediating role of ecological rationality in the relationship between peer effects and the intention–behaviour gap in chemical fertiliser reduction for sustainable farmland management. The results show that support from family members and people in one’s immediate social environment can effectively alleviate the intention–behaviour paradox among farmers in the process of substituting chemical fertilisers with organic fertilisers, whereas support from friends is positively correlated with this degree of discrepancy. Ecological rationality serves as a mediating variable that strengthens the positive effect of peer influence on the consistency between farmers’ behavioural intentions and actual practices in sustainable agricultural production. These findings provide a new theoretical perspective for understanding farmers’ pro-environmental behaviour, and offer actionable policy implications for advancing agricultural sustainability by enhancing family and community support and improving farmers’ ecological rationality. Full article

Children living in agricultural communities are particularly vulnerable to pesticide exposure through multiple environmental pathways, yet community-level public policies specifically designed to protect children remain limited in many low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to develop a community-based public policy for preventing pesticide exposure among young children in rural Thailand through a participatory action research (PAR) approach. Guided by the Kemmis and McTaggart PAR framework, one complete PAR cycle was conducted between February 2022 and January 2023 in Ban Nangoi Village, Sakon Nakhon Province, Thailand. Purposive sampling recruited 62 stakeholders representing parents, farmers, healthcare personnel, local government representatives, academics, and community members. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, participant observations, and community meetings and analyzed using thematic analysis. The PAR process enabled stakeholders to jointly identify local priorities and co-develop a context-specific public policy summarized as the “3 Cs for Farmers, 2 Ps for People, and 1 S for Community” framework. Participants reported greater awareness of pesticide-related health risks, stronger multisectoral collaboration, improved stakeholder communication, and wider adoption of preventive practices. These findings suggest that PAR is a feasible approach for co-creating context-specific public policies while strengthening local environmental health governance. Rather than demonstrating the effectiveness of the policy in reducing pesticide exposure, this study highlights the value of stakeholder participation and policy co-creation in supporting sustainable community action. Future research should incorporate objective pesticide exposure measures, quantitative outcome indicators, and longer-term follow-up to evaluate policy effectiveness across diverse agricultural settings. Full article

Background: Australia has experienced high rates of antibiotic shortages, yet little is known about how Australian pharmacists experience and manage them. This study aimed to explore Australian community and hospital pharmacists’ experiences of antibiotic shortages, including their perceived clinical impact and approaches to managing shortages. Methods: An exploratory qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted with Australian community and hospital pharmacists between May and August 2024. Participants were recruited via convenience sampling through professional networks and social media. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed thematically using an inductive–deductive approach, with coding performed independently by two researchers. Results: Fifteen interviews were conducted before data saturation was reached. Sixty percent of participants were female, 67% worked in hospital settings, and pharmacists were located across five Australian states. Four overarching themes were identified: factors driving shortages, communication and collaboration, impact of shortages, and mitigation and prevention. Pharmacists described antibiotic shortages as frequent and unpredictable, attributing them to supply-chain vulnerabilities, limited manufacturing, and market competition. Shortages were reported to affect treatment choice, contribute to antimicrobial resistance concerns, increase pharmacist workload and stress, and negatively affect patients. Pharmacists used strategies such as stock management, collaboration, and importing alternatives, but felt that lasting solutions required coordinated national action. Conclusions: Australian pharmacists perceive antibiotic shortages as a complex challenge affecting patient care, antimicrobial stewardship, workload, and healthcare efficiency. While pharmacists have developed reactive strategies to manage shortages, stronger communication, collaboration, and national policy coordination, alongside improved supply-chain resilience, are needed to reduce the impact of future shortages. Full article

This study aimed to evaluate and quantify the environmental impacts generated by anthropogenic actions on coastal dunes globally using bibliometric data, while concurrently identifying human impacts in a local context on the Brazilian semi-arid coast. A systematic review identified 897 relevant publications from a final sample of 1838 works, revealing an increasing trend in global research, peaking in 2018. Geographically, the United States (141), Italy (95), and Spain (79) lead the field, with Brazil contributing 46 publications. The global overview highlights urbanization (217 studies) and tourism (193 studies) as the most frequent impact factors, contrasting with common mitigation measures like dune stabilization with vegetation (112 studies) and beach nourishment (74 studies). Critically, 11 studies reported that management actions, particularly stabilization without considering native flora, led to problems with invasive plants. A significant research gap was identified due to the absence of literature on wind farms, typically located in transgressive dune systems. The local case study in Ceará state confirms dynamics consistent with global trends, where intense exploitation results in management failures; quantitative temporal analysis (2015–2023) demonstrated a dramatic 86.76% loss of dune area in Fortim and a 4.24 km² loss in Jijoca de Jericoacoara. Findings suggest that, in the Ceará case study, restricting access, promoting community participation, and relocating infrastructure to more appropriate areas may help mitigate human impacts. In addition to identifying potential research gaps, this integration of global and local analysis approaches can contribute to evidence-based coastal dune management adapted to local conditions. Full article

Approximately 70% of organisational development (OD) initiatives based on methodologies such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Lean, and Six Sigma are reported to fail. Critical Systems Thinking (CST) attributes many of these failures to poor implementation and inadequate attention to organisational context, emphasising the need for critical awareness, political agency, and multimethodology. However, when OD work itself becomes a “bullshit job”, even CST’s principles may struggle to take hold. This paper develops Scientific Self-Management (SCSM), inspired by Community Operational Research (COR) and informed by Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), as a bottom-up systems approach to such situations. A 42-month first-person action research study of a public-sector OD programme examines the practical feasibility of SCSM in a complex organisational setting. The study shows how bottom-up learning and self-directed engagement can restore meaning and generate local organisational improvements where conventional approaches struggle to gain traction, while also highlighting the political challenges of sustaining such initiatives over time. It contributes to the CST and COR literatures by extending systems practice to situations in which management is incompetent or hostile and organisational culture has become paralysed by pretence. The findings suggest that successful organisational development depends less on the choice of methodology than on creating organisational conditions that enable meaningful participation, learning, and continuous improvement. Full article

The expansion of wireless infrastructure has made anthropogenic non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMFs)—commonly described in public discourse as “electrosmog” or electromagnetic pollution—a pervasive feature of digitalized environments. This study examines how 81 pre-service science teachers in Türkiye conceptualized EMF-related sources, perceived risks, mitigation measures, and responsibility. A multi-source qualitative design combined inductive content analysis of nine open-ended questionnaire items with a document-informed deductive mapping based on authoritative EMF-exposure and risk-governance documents. The integrated framework distinguished diagnostic and risk-appraisal capacity, receiver–pathway–source intervention levels, governance and collective capacity, and responsibility attribution. Within a questionnaire primarily oriented toward awareness and daily-life action, responses concentrated strongly on receiver-level behavioral adaptation and attributed responsibility mainly to individuals and households. Source-level controls, monitoring, compliance, institutional responsibility, and evidence-based risk communication were not spontaneously articulated. Because these dimensions were not directly prompted, the findings do not establish a governance-literacy deficit; they define the boundaries of the mitigation repertoire elicited and generate a hypothesis for future research using explicit institutional and governance-oriented prompts. The study’s contribution lies in applying an integrated exposure-management and responsibility-attribution framework to an understudied teacher-education population and identifying curriculum needs concerning evidence appraisal, multilevel responsibility, and uncertainty-sensitive risk communication. Full article

Natural and man-made disasters at the urban level represent a major challenge to increasing resilience. According to the UN Agenda 2030, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is a priority at the global level. Different actions can be planned and implemented before and after a disastrous event. The focus of this research is on actions to take before the event to increase preparedness. This paper focuses on exercises and training activities designed to reduce the gaps between actions performed before and after disastrous events. These actions include discussion-based and operation-based actions, classified by increasing levels of complexity and capability. Serious Games (SGs) represent a discussion-based action with the greatest level of complexity and capability. The objective of this paper is to investigate the potential contribution of SG to increasing preparedness for implementing evacuation procedures and thereby enhancing urban resilience. This implies the knowledge of urban mobility in evacuation conditions. This class of SGs combines Transport Risk Analysis (TRA), Transport System Models (TSMs), and emerging Information and Communication Technology (e-ICT) to reproduce, in a virtual environment, a transport system under evacuation conditions. In this way, it is possible to experiment with evacuation planning procedures in a virtual environment. The principal results of a pilot experiment are presented. The SG framework and its pilot implementation show a contribution to reducing orientation time, which may lead to increasing awareness and reducing exposure at the urban level. The paper is of interest to urban scientists and public and private decision-makers involved in disaster risk planning processes. Full article

Given the growing pressures on Switzerland’s healthcare system, developing innovative approaches that put humanism at the heart of care practices seems essential to respond to patients’ complex needs and to support healthcare professionals’ well-being. Although several frameworks address humanistic care or interprofessional collaboration, few have been co-developed with healthcare professionals to guide the implementation of both dimensions at the organisational level. This article explores the development of an interprofessional healthcare model aimed at integrating humanistic values into a public hospital network in a French-speaking region of Switzerland. This community-based participatory action research involved healthcare professionals representing different hospital departments and a patient feedback unit. The study focused on the co-development of an organisational model through three iterative phases: initiation (identification of needs), diagnosis (analysis of current practices) and design (development of strategies and solutions). The model was based on the three overarching themes: Care for Others and Oneself, Constructive Interactions, and Professional Excellence. The resulting model provides an organisational framework for integrating humanistic values into interprofessional practice in a hospital setting. Its implementation and evaluation will be required to assess its effects on patient experience, professional well-being, and organisational practices. Full article

As population aging accelerates, providing psychosocial support for adults in the retirement transition has become increasingly important. For this population, a central challenge is adapting to changes in social roles, daily routines, and social relationships, yet existing social robot research has paid insufficient attention to these companionship-related needs. From an embodied cognition perspective, this study developed a needs-driven design pathway for a social companion robot for this population in urban China. Sixteen key needs were identified through user interviews and prioritized through a Kano survey with 184 valid responses from urban community-dwelling adults in the retirement transition. Based on the classification and prioritization results, these needs were synthesized into four design strategies: emotional responsiveness and trust building, social connectedness and sustained engagement, low-burden interaction and daily life support, and safety, health, and privacy protection. Privacy and safety were treated as foundational conditions for product design and practical deployment. The strategies were subsequently mapped to technical features and hardware elements through quality function deployment (QFD), using an expert-panel evaluation procedure and sensitivity analysis to determine module-level configuration priorities. A single-session, laboratory-based concept evaluation was conducted with 50 participants using concept renderings and interaction-flow videos. Concept 3, whose overall configuration emphasized coordinated voice, screen-based visual, and expression/action feedback, received a significantly higher mean participant-level Behavioral Intention (BI) score than Concept 2, which placed greater emphasis on spatial mobility assistance through a mobile wheel module (8.94 ± 0.97 vs. 8.51 ± 1.21; adjusted p = 0.003). These evaluation findings informed the final concept configuration and provided preliminary support for its companionship-oriented multimodal interaction approach. Full article

Climate change education has expanded in curricular, institutional and media arenas, yet it still faces a central challenge: turning scientific knowledge into educational practices that transform perceptions, decisions and participation. This article argues that the challenge cannot be addressed by merely adding content about the climate system, because the climate crisis is experienced in specific territories, affects communities unequally and activates emotions that can either enable or inhibit action. Through a critical integrative review and research-reflection approach, the article connects three bodies of scholarship that are commonly developed in parallel: territorial and place-based learning, climate justice, and emotional literacy. Its conceptual novelty lies not in claiming that these components are individually new, but in specifying territorial memory as the mediating mechanism through which scientific evidence, unequal vulnerability, affective experience and collective action are combined in teacher education. On this basis, it presents the TEJA Model—territorialization, experience, justice and action—as a heuristic framework for designing, analyzing and evaluating teacher-education sequences. Its practical contribution is a five-phase process and an operational matrix that translate nearby risks such as floods, droughts and wildfires into inquiry, deliberation, emotional care and feasible collective action. The model is presented as a testable conceptual proposal rather than a validated intervention. The article concludes that relevant climate education must be scientific, human, territorial and political: it should recognize vulnerability, begin from lived places and address unequal responsibilities and collective capacities for action. Full article

For decades, industrial trans fatty acids (iTFAs) have remained a critical focus of the scientific community, the food industry, and regulatory authorities because of their well-established role in the development of cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, and chronic systemic inflammation. Rather than providing a descriptive overview, this review critically synthesizes current evidence on the elimination of industrial TFAs by integrating health, technological, regulatory, and sustainability perspectives into a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis. The review outlines the biochemical characteristics and dietary sources of trans fatty acid isomers, highlighting the continuing scientific debate regarding the differential health effects of industrially produced and naturally occurring ruminant-derived TFAs. It also examines the evolution of scientific evidence that led to major regulatory actions by international organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission, resulting in legally binding restrictions that have substantially reduced industrial TFA intake and improved public health. Particular emphasis is placed on the critical assessment of current fat reformulation strategies, considering not only their technological functionality but also their nutritional quality, long-term metabolic implications, and contribution to sustainable food systems. Full hydrogenation, fractionation, chemical and enzymatic interesterification, and oleogelation are comparatively evaluated with respect to their advantages, limitations, and potential technological, nutritional, and environmental trade-offs. In addition, lipid microencapsulation is discussed as an emerging strategy for protecting oxidation-sensitive polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), thereby facilitating their incorporation into functional foods while maintaining nutritional quality. Unlike previous reviews that primarily focus on health outcomes or individual processing technologies, this review systematically integrates the sustainability dimensions of alternative fat modification approaches, including resource efficiency, energy consumption, clean label product development, and circular economy principles. Furthermore, it identifies current knowledge gaps related to the long-term metabolic safety, industrial scalability, and environmental performance of emerging lipid technologies. By combining these complementary perspectives, the review provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary synthesis that supports evidence-based fat reformulation and offers practical guidance for researchers, food manufacturers, and policy makers seeking to develop safer, nutritionally improved, technologically functional, and environmentally sustainable lipid systems. Full article

Point-of-care and near-patient diagnostics can shorten the time between testing and clinical or public-health action, but a technically effective test does not by itself create a sustainable diagnostic service. Evidence from diagnostic-access research, digitally connected point-of-care testing, human-centered design, and implementation science indicates that diagnostic technologies must be developed as components of wider service systems encompassing workflows, quality assurance, data governance, maintenance, supply chains, user trust, and linkage to care. Drawing on these bodies of literature, this Perspective introduces the I2Med digital infrastructure framework for point-of-care diagnostics in low-resource and infrastructure-constrained settings. These settings are defined functionally as clinical or public-health environments in which resource or infrastructure constraints can disrupt one or more stages between testing and appropriate action. The I2Med framework integrates six domains: (1) access and context of use; (2) the result-to-action diagnostic workflow; (3) digital interfaces and data governance; (4) quality, risk, usability, and design-control alignment; (5) sustainability, maintenance, and supply continuity; and (6) equity, trust, and community accountability. Operational tools—including a setting typology, a domain-to-artifact matrix, an evidence-to-scale maturity ladder, and a hypothetical application vignette—illustrate how the framework can guide development and implementation planning. The I2Med framework’s central contribution is to reposition the diagnostic device as one component of an interconnected service system and to provide academic, translational, and early-stage development teams with a common structure for identifying implementation dependencies, evidence gaps, and responsibilities. As a conceptual framework, it requires prospective application and evaluation across diverse settings before its utility and transferability can be established. Full article

Large language models (LLMs) are expanding the capabilities of socially assistive robots (SARs) through natural dialogue, personalisation, multimodal reasoning, retained interaction context, and adaptive behaviour in healthcare. Integrating generative language models into robots, however, complicates evaluation because fluent output may exaggerate perceived competence and increase the risks of hallucination, overtrust, privacy exposure, relationship dependency, and unsafe reliance on advice or actions. This PRISMA-informed review synthesises healthcare robotics, human–robot interaction, LLM-enabled systems, ethics, implementation, and care delivery. Database searches returned 128 records, of which 110 were unique after deduplication. Supplementary retrieval and assessment yielded 85 substantive sources spanning background mapping, primary analysis, and governance. Studies focused mainly on feasibility, usability, acceptability, dialogue quality, and short-term engagement, whereas longitudinal safety, governance of retained interaction context, comparative effectiveness, workflow integration, and sustained healthcare value received limited attention. These gaps indicate that evaluation of LLM-enabled SARs must account for physical presence, social role, interaction memory, and potential actions rather than focus on conversational performance alone. The review therefore proposes HEART, a healthcare-specific evaluative architecture comprising Human-Centred Communication, Ethical and Trustworthy Deployment, Adaptive and Embodied Intelligence, Relationship Continuity, and Translational Healthcare Value. HEART uses boundary rules, operational indicators, qualitative labels, and non-additive deployment gates to separate evaluative domains, define assessable outcomes, summarise reported support, and prevent strengths in one area from masking critical safety or governance failures. Future research should validate HEART through longitudinal and comparative assessment of hallucination severity, language-to-action safety, long-term effects, equity, and post-deployment monitoring. Full article

Women’s empowerment through social entrepreneurship has become an important strategy for promoting social inclusion and sustainable rural development, particularly in culturally distinctive communities. However, limited evidence explains how individual and environmental factors encourage women to transform social entrepreneurial intentions into concrete actions. This study aims to investigate the determinants of social entrepreneurial behaviour among entrepreneurs committed to empowering Madurese women. It examines the moderating role of environmental munificence in the relationship between social entrepreneurial intention and behaviour. A quantitative approach was employed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse survey data collected from 143 entrepreneurs on Madura Island, Indonesia. The findings indicate that empathy and self-efficacy positively influence social entrepreneurial intention, whereas moral obligation has no significant effect. Social entrepreneurial intention significantly predicts social entrepreneurial behaviour, and environmental munificence strengthens this relationship by providing supportive conditions for entrepreneurial action. These findings highlight the importance of combining individual capabilities with enabling social environments to foster women’s empowerment. The study contributes to research on gender, rural development, and social entrepreneurship by providing evidence from an underexplored cultural context and offering practical implications for policymakers and community development initiatives. Full article

Indigenous youth are increasingly recognized as important agents of sustainability; however, how environmental learning shapes pro-environmental intentions and behaviors remains insufficiently understood. This exploratory mixed-methods study integrates Experiential Learning Theory (ELT), the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine behavioral transformation among indigenous youth participating in community-based environmental learning activities in northern Thailand. Twenty-five indigenous student participants engaged in a structured environmental learning program developed through Citizen Science, Critical Participatory Action Research, and Living Lab approaches. Quantitative data from 250 activity-level questionnaire responses and qualitative data from 200 reflective responses collected from 25 participants through eight reflection prompts were analyzed using PLS-SEM, mediation analysis, permutation-based MGA, and the Gioia methodology. The model explained 50.0% of the variance in pro-environmental behavioral intention. Communication quality significantly enhanced attention (β = 0.452, p < 0.001), and participation strongly predicted practical experience (β = 0.660, p < 0.001). Practical experience contributed to perceived value of information, which enhanced perceived behavioral control (β = 0.691, p < 0.001), a key mechanism influencing behavioral intention. Peripheral information processing showed a stronger effect than central processing, and MGA revealed differentiated learning pathways across activity categories. Qualitative findings indicated a progression from environmental practices to advocacy and environmental identity, supported by indigenous ecological knowledge and intergenerational learning. This study provides an exploratory framework for understanding culturally grounded environmental learning and offers implications for designing sustainability education programs with indigenous communities. Full article