Search Results (929)

Background/Objectives: Numerous natural compounds have been reported to exhibit anti-virulence properties against pathogenic bacteria. Particularly, plants constitute a rich source of anti-quorum-sensing (QS) and anti-biofilm compounds with highly diverse chemical structures. Notably, several studies reported that plant-derived pentacyclic triterpenoids exert anti-biofilm activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa without affecting bacterial viability, suggesting that this class of naturally occurring chemical compounds may represent a source of potent and clinically relevant anti-biofilm agents. Methods: To further investigate this hypothesis, we evaluated several commercially available pentacyclic triterpenoid acids of the oleanane, ursane and lupane types for their potential impact on QS mechanisms and biofilm formation in the P. aeruginosa PAO1 model strain. Results: Oleanane-type (oleanolic acid and maslinic acid), ursane-type (ursolic acid and corosolic acid) and lupane-type (betulinic acid) triterpenoids inhibited the expression of the QS-regulated lasB and rhlA genes as well as biofilm formation, without affecting bacterial growth. Among tested compounds, oleanolic and ursolic acids, at 400 µM, exhibited the strongest anti-biofilm activities, with 45% and 40% inhibition, respectively. Fluorescence microscopy revealed a marked disorganization of biofilm architectures, with bacterial communities failing to establish compact cell-to-cell attachment and confluent microcolonies. Further analyses indicated that these triterpenoid acids did not affect the expression of QS-regulator genes (lasR/I and rhlR/I), suggesting that their impact on lasB and rhlA expression and biofilm formation is independent of the las and rhl systems. Conclusions: These findings suggest that oleanane and ursane triterpenoid acids represent promising chemical backbones for the development of strategies aimed at inhibiting P. aeruginosa biofilm formation. Full article

Background/Objectives: Western Canadian and U.S. communities outside urban centres remain underserved by primary, specialist, emergency, mental health, and chronic-disease services. These access problems reflect distance, weather, workforce shortages, specialist maldistribution, primary care attachment gaps, broadband limitations, and the governance realities of Indigenous and Tribal communities. This scoping review with narrative synthesis examined how telehealth and virtual-care models affect rural access in western Canada and the western/frontier United States. Methods: Searches were completed on 21 May 2026 in PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, and PubMed Central. Supplementary searches included Google Scholar, publisher platforms, reference-list checking, and official Canadian and U.S. health-system sources. Peer-reviewed evidence published from 1 January 2016 to 21 May 2026 was eligible when it addressed rural, remote, frontier, Indigenous, underserved, western, or northern healthcare settings and reported access, implementation, safety, continuity, equity, or service-use outcomes. Results: The search identified 112 records; 27 duplicates were removed, 85 records were screened, 37 full texts were assessed, and 28 peer-reviewed records were included. Seven official sources were retained separately. Evidence was mainly observational, qualitative, mixed-methods, implementation-focused, or review-level. Moderate confidence supported telehealth for travel reduction and specialist input, especially through eConsultation, provider-to-provider consultation, telementoring, and real-time emergency support. Confidence was low to moderate for hybrid primary care and telemental health, and low for durable reductions in emergency department use. Conclusions: Telehealth may be most appropriately implemented as a hybrid, locally anchored, culturally safe access model, not as a stand-alone substitute for rural primary care, specialist capacity, or emergency services. Implementation should include broadband support, local physical assessment capacity, documentation, continuity, patient education, and clear escalation pathways. Full article

Background/Objectives: The family constitutes a primary ecological system shaping infant emotional and mental health. Parent responsiveness in particular shapes early regulatory capacities in the developing child. Added contextual stress such as that associated with natural disasters may strain caregiving relationships. Brief, universally accessible parenting interventions offer scalable support for strengthening early relational health and may be useful in contexts of natural disaster-related stress as well as in the general population. This qualitative study examined the perceived impact and contextual relevance of MERTIL (My Early Relational Trust-Informed Learning) for Parents, a brief digital psychoeducational parenting program targeting early relational health, among families raising young children in disaster-affected communities. Methods: Fourteen parents residing in the Hunter New England and Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, with young children aged 0–5 years, participated in semi-structured interviews conducted approximately 6 months after completing MERTIL for Parents. Interviews explored lived experiences of parenting in the context of natural disaster (analysed via applied phenomenological methods) and parents’ perceptions of program components that supported everyday caregiving (analysed via reflexive thematic analysis and content analysis). Results: Parents described interconnected personal, relational, and environmental stressors that influenced aspects of the parent–infant relationship. Key retained knowledge from the program included a normalisation of parenting challenges, a strengthened understanding of attachment, trust, safety and repair, and attuned, emotion-focused parenting practices. Conclusions: This pilot study illuminates the lived experience of parenting in disaster prone regions and highlights the potential for this brief, universal digital parenting program to provide support for early relational health in such contexts. Full article

The shift to circular agrosystems necessitates using new ideas like sustainable biochar, which provides many eco-beneficial attributes like enhancing soil fertility, storing atmospheric carbon dioxide, and retaining soil moisture. However, there is still a small number of farmers worldwide (particularly those located in low-income countries) adopting biochar. Accordingly, this research is focused primarily on determining how factors affecting behavior will influence the decision of wheat producers in Marvdasht County, in Iran’s Fars Province, to use biochar as a circular technology for farming. The study will focus on addressing issues related to environmental challenges (e.g., degradation of soil and drought) through the implementation of resource-efficient, sustainable agricultural technologies. The intent of this paper was to research the behavioral characteristics associated with wheat farmers who choose to use biochar in the city of Marvdasht, Fars Region, Iran, using a new Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The model is theoretically enriched through the inclusion of personal norms and connectedness to the land, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of pro-environmental decision-making. Data was collected from a total of 386 wheat farmers through the use of a structured survey. The data was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with the software Smart-PLS 3.0. The results reveal that attitude (β = 0.342, p < 0.001) and personal norms (β = 0.278, p < 0.001) are the strongest predictors of behavioral intention, while perceived behavioral control showed a weaker but significant effect (β = 0.178, p = 0.049). Subjective norms do not have a significant direct effect (β = 0.115, p = 0.199) but significantly influence intention indirectly through personal norms (β = 0.100, p < 0.001). Furthermore, connectedness to the land strongly affects personal norms (β = 0.420, p < 0.001) and exerts a significant indirect effect on intention (β = 0.117, p < 0.001), highlighting the importance of emotional attachment to land. The findings are significant because they demonstrated that farmers’ biochar adoption decisions are shaped not only by rational evaluations but also by moral obligations and emotional relationships with land. This study makes significant theoretical contributions by extending TPB with moral and relational constructs and empirically demonstrating their mediating roles in agricultural innovation adoption. The novelty of this study lies in integrating personal norms and connectedness to the land into the TPB framework to explain biochar adoption behavior within the context of circular agriculture in a developing country. Practically, the findings provide evidence-based insights for designing policies that integrate cognitive, ethical, and emotional drivers to promote biochar adoption and advance circular agriculture. Specifically, policymakers and extension agencies should prioritize behavioral-level strategies such as awareness campaigns, farmer training programs, and community-based initiatives that strengthen positive attitudes, environmental responsibility, and farmers’ emotional connection to land in order to enhance biochar adoption. Full article

Adolescents with LGBTQ+ parents and LGBTQ+ adolescents navigate unique social and identity-related challenges as compared to those without minoritized sexual and/or gender identities. Adolescents with LGBTQ+ parents (regardless of their own sexual or gender identity) and adolescents who personally identify as LGBTQ+ are distinct populations, though they sometimes overlap. Research on adolescents with LGBTQ+ parents has often focused on parent–adolescent relationships and family structures. How do friends help youth cope with identity-based minority stressors, like peer microaggressions, bullying, and exclusion, common for those with minoritized identities? Friendships are developmentally pivotal during adolescence, shaping social competence, identity exploration, and psychological adjustment. Grounded in ecological systems, social learning, and minority stress theories, we sought to understand how friendships relate to mental health and coping in adolescents with LGBTQ+ parents. This cross-sectional quantitative study included 98 adolescents (ages 12–19) with LGBTQ+ parents in the U.S., recruited via community sampling and Prolific. Higher-quality peer attachment, conceptualized by trust, communication, and alienation in close friendships, was associated with lower depression and greater social competence, but not associated with anxiety or adaptive coping (after accounting for avoidant coping). Avoidant coping was most strongly associated with poorer mental health. This study, with implications for practice, emphasizes the importance of peer relationships for adolescents with LGBTQ+ parents—particularly how high-quality friendships offer important possible protection via social competence and against depression—while also highlighting the complex interplay between friendships, coping, and adjustment. Full article

There is renewed interest in local sourcing, regional supply chains, and the rebuilding of fiber-to-fashion systems. However, limited attention has been paid to the upstream role of fiber farmers and the infrastructure that enables or constrains regional textile economies. This study investigates the opportunities and challenges of fiber farming in West Virginia and explores the motivations that drive participation in this sector. Using a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 fiber farmers across West Virginia. The findings revealed five interconnected themes: heterogeneous actants, the translation of wool, regional network breakdown, festivals and social media as network hubs, and institutional gaps and network fragility. The results indicate that fiber farming persists through strong community networks, adaptive entrepreneurial strategies, and deep attachments to place. However, its economic viability is constrained by declining processing infrastructure, labor shortages, weakened institutional support, and fragmented supply chains. These challenges also have important sustainability implications. Most notably, wool is often discarded because processing and transportation costs exceed its market value, resulting in the waste of a renewable and biodegradable fiber that could otherwise remain in productive use. This study contributes to the literature on local sourcing, rural entrepreneurship, and sustainable and circular economies by highlighting the relational infrastructures required to rebuild regionally embedded textile systems in Appalachia and beyond. Full article

Christian communities and Churches in non-Western contexts, such as Lebanon, face numerous challenges, including the distancing of youth from religious practice and reduced belonging. Simultaneously, they experience tensions between attachment to tradition and emerging forms of outreach capable of engaging younger generations. The visit of Padre Guilherme, a Latin Rite Catholic priest known for blending electronic music with religious expression, generated a nationwide debate during his visit in January 2026. While some viewed his outreach as an innovative initiative capable of bringing youth closer to the Church, others rejected it, with some describing it as sacrilegious. This study examines social media reactions to his outreach to explore how contemporary forms of religious engagement are perceived within a tradition-oriented society. Comments from multiple social media platforms were analyzed through thematic reflexive analysis, complemented by a brief sentiment analysis. Positive reactions framed Padre Guilherme’s initiative as a strategy for reconnecting younger generations with the Church. Critical views emphasized the importance of preserving traditional forms of religious expression, particularly within Eastern Christian traditions, with some participants portraying the initiative as heretical or evil. The controversy highlights how new forms of religious outreach can trigger tensions related to identity, tradition, globalization, and institutional adaptation. Full article

Euthanasia in companion animal practice represents one of the most emotionally and ethically challenging decisions in veterinary medicine, requiring clinical judgment, effective communication, and sensitivity toward both animal welfare and pet owner well-being. This mixed-methods exploratory study investigated decision-making in small animal euthanasia from both pet owner and veterinarian perspectives. An online questionnaire completed by 228 pet owners from 17 countries was supplemented by two semi-structured interviews involving small animal veterinarians with different professional backgrounds. The qualitative interview component was exploratory and was used to contextualize the survey findings. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, while qualitative responses were examined thematically. Illness (63.3%) and age-related decline (31.6%) were the most frequently reported reasons for euthanasia. Most pet owners assessed their animal’s condition through personal observation (53.5%) or veterinary advice (39.2%), whereas structured quality-of-life tools were rarely used (7.3%). Emotional attachment represented the most influential factor in decision-making (69.3%). Pet owners who explicitly reported receiving emotional support from their veterinarian experienced significantly lower emotional burden (Holm-adjusted p = 0.002) and greater satisfaction with communication (Holm-adjusted p = 0.006) than those who explicitly reported no emotional support. Interview findings emphasized medical justification, individualized communication, and ethical responsibility. These findings highlight the central role of communication, emotional support, and structured end-of-life guidance in improving companion animal euthanasia decision-making. Because the study relied on voluntary online recruitment and included a limited qualitative sample, the findings should be interpreted as exploratory. Full article

This study examines whether retail social media sentiment and community attention explain daily net capital flows into U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and whether issuer brand visibility conditions that relationship. We construct a balanced panel of $N=10$ ETFs over $T=514$ trading days (January 2024 to January 2026) and combine it with 162,819 cleaned Reddit posts to derive three AI-driven discourse variables: engagement-weighted sentiment, community attention, and a novel issuer-specific BrandScore. Entity fixed-effects regressions show that neither aggregate sentiment nor BrandScore level alone significantly predicts fund-level flows; however, the Sentiment $\times$ BrandScore interaction is significant ($\widehat{\beta }=2.930$, $p=0.038$), indicating that sentiment becomes economically meaningful only when attached to a visible issuer. This interaction survives two-way (entity + date) fixed effects ($p=0.012$) and winsorization ($p=0.004$). Panel quantile regressions reveal distributional heterogeneity in the brand-sentiment channel. Rolling 90-day window estimation confirms the mechanism is episodic, with the interaction achieving significance in 62.8% of subsample windows. These results provide suggestive evidence for a brand-filtered sentiment transmission mechanism in digital asset markets. Full article

Background/Objectives: South Korea became a super-aged society in 2024, and this demographic shift is unfolding alongside the depopulation of rural municipalities across the country. How spatial inequality and community social capital jointly relate to elderly health—and whether those relationships look different for younger versus older elderly—remains an open question. We investigated associations between two dimensions of community social capital (sense of belonging and neighbor communication), subjective perception of capital–provincial inequality, and self-rated health among Korean elderly, with separate analyses for the Young-Old (aged 60–69) and Old-Old (aged 70+). Methods: We used the 2024 Social Integration Survey from the Korea Institute of Public Administration (full sample N = 2588; elderly subsample N = 1020). Random intercept hierarchical linear models accounted for the nesting of individuals within 17 metropolitan cities and provinces. Stepwise models examined social capital antecedents, a healthcare satisfaction indirect association pathway, and the direct association of spatial inequality perception with health. The elderly subsample was stratified into Young-Old (N = 289) and Old-Old (N = 731). A mixed-effects ordered logistic regression with Liang–Zeger cluster-robust standard errors was estimated as a robustness check. Results: Sense of belonging was positively associated with subjective health among the elderly (B = 0.065, p < 0.05) as a net of rurality and socioeconomic controls. Perceived spatial inequality showed a negative association (B = −0.070, p < 0.05). The indirect association pathway through healthcare satisfaction was not supported (Sobel Z = −1.458, p = 0.144). Age-stratified models revealed a striking split: belonging was the dominant predictor for the Young-Old (B = 0.149, p < 0.01), while neighbor communication (B = 0.078, p < 0.05) and spatial inequality perception (B = −0.092, p < 0.01) were significant only among the Old-Old. The ordered logistic robustness check confirmed the negative association of perceived spatial inequality across all specifications. Conclusions: What predicts health in the younger elderly is not what predicts health in the older elderly. Korea’s Integrated Community Care Act, set for nationwide rollout in 2026, should account for this divergence—prioritizing psychological community attachment for the Young-Old and face-to-face social contact combined with regional equity for the Old-Old. Full article

In the power industry, how to efficiently and reliably query relevant documents has always posed a challenge for electrical professionals. Unreliable or inefficient query results can lead to significant inefficiencies and introduce unpredictable errors. Hence, a reliable and efficient knowledge querying system is critical. In practice, the effectiveness of Graph-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems lies in providing expressive representation of entities and graph structures and this makes it stand out as a widely-used approach for document retrieval. However, typical GraphRAG frameworks encounter challenges such as semantic dilution and topological drift caused by generic technical terminology and granular graph noise especially in professional documents like regulations, etc, which is one of the mostly used type of document in electric industry. Thus, we propose KG-Anchored RAG, a framework that shifts the retrieval paradigm from community-based summarization to precision-guided anchoring. During knowledge construction, our framework employs a topological skeleton refinement and constructs a Knowledge Attachment Matrix using latent topic modeling and one-hot feature injection. During inference, non-linear sharpening and PageRank-based structural resonance are utilized to locate high-density knowledge cells. Evaluation on professional documents in the power industry reveals that our method outperforms localized search baselines in terms of context precision, generative faithfulness, and ranking quality. The proposed framework demonstrates a superior ability to prioritize evidentiary clauses and reduce information redundancy without relying on computationally expensive external re-rankers. Experimental results indicate that KG-Anchored RAG effectively mitigates speculative hallucinations, establishes a reliable architectural paradigm for retrieval-augmented generation in high-stakes, safety-critical vertical industries. Full article

The present study examined the relationship between eco-emotions (i.e., eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger) and pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs), focusing on the moderating role of place attachment. A total of 250 participants (mean age = 33.69 years, SD = 14.67; 170 females) were enrolled. Results showed that only eco-anger was positively correlated with PEBs. Moreover, results indicated that place attachment moderated the association between eco-anger and PEBs, such that the positive relationship was weakened at higher levels of place attachment. No moderating effects of place attachment emerged for eco-anxiety and eco-depression. These findings suggest that place attachment may function as a subjective context-related factor associated with how eco-anger and PEBs co-vary at a single point in time. Overall, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the cross-sectional associations between eco-emotions, subjective place-related bonds, and PEBs. The study offers implications for residential environmental communication strategies grounded in locally feasible behavioural options. Full article

Background/Objectives: Building a donor base that reflects the diversity of Canada is essential to ensuring everyone has timely and reliable access to high-quality blood products. This qualitative research project aimed to both determine barriers to donation for diverse South Asian communities and seek feedback and guidance on proposed interventions to address those barriers. Methods: This study was guided by the principles of community-based participatory research and data was gathered and analyzed using constructivist grounded theory. We conducted eight in-person focus groups and four interviews. Results: Our findings indicate that barriers to donation are systemic. Barriers include inaccessibility, deferrals and negative donation experiences, lack of awareness and newcomer settlement challenges, social exclusion, navigating an unfamiliar donation system, and issues with access to appropriate care in health systems more generally. Participants proposed addressing these barriers through changes in the blood service, such as more convenient access to donation and improved cultural sensitivity and cultural comfort in donation centres, and also through changes in health systems more generally. Recommendations included sustained collaboration with communities to inform policies and practices based on cultural and social contexts. Conclusions: Our study of systemic barriers to blood donation for South Asian communities in Ontario indicates that barriers to donation are systemic. Participants proposed changes to blood services that would address some of these barriers. Where systemic barriers are attached to broader social structures, the strategies to address barriers will require longer-term considerations and resources. Full article

Slow-onset hazards are intensifying coastal land transformation, yet their socio-environmental implications remain insufficiently understood. The coastal area of Semarang-Demak, Indonesia, represents a critical case due to long-term land subsidence, recurrent tidal flooding, and extensive coastal development interventions. In response to this gap, this study integrates open-access Earth observation with place-attachment perspectives to investigate how urban coastal transformation is materially produced and socially experienced. Multi-temporal Landsat imagery from 1994 to 2024 was processed in Google Earth Engine using the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI), complemented by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI). The results show spatially uneven coastal land transformation, with 13.02 km² of the study area indicating increased MNDWI values (to-water transformation), while 11.75 km² experienced to-land transformation associated with declining MNDWI values. Further analysis using NDVI and NDBI suggests that part of the to-land transformation reflects anthropogenic built-area expansion, as indicated by areas where NDBI differences exceed NDVI differences. Empirical field observations and interview data contextualize these spatial findings by revealing contrasting yet persistent place attachment across reclamation-influenced areas and communities exposed to erosion and flooding. Building on these findings, the study proposes the notion of the (un)disrupted place to explain how disruption, efforts for resilience and continuity coexist unevenly across coastal space. This study advances a socio-environmental understanding of coastal land transformation and highlights the need for more equitable and multidisciplinary approaches to coastal governance and resilience planning. Full article

Peer-to-peer car-sharing (P2PCS) is a mobility solution in which vehicle owners make their cars available through digital platforms that mediate booking, access, and fleet management. Although P2PCS can offer theoretical advantages in terms of resource efficiency and reduction in private ownership, its market scaling is critically dependent on users’ perceived value. In this context, the present study investigates systemic determinants of scalability in the P2PCS market using a Mixed-Methods Research (MMR) approach, combining a literature review, expert survey, focus-group interviews, Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), and cross-impact matrix analysis (MICMAC). This combined approach allows for the identification of barriers and their position within a hierarchical structure of interrelationships, influence, and dependence. The most influential determinants are emotional attachment to private car ownership, legal and regulatory uncertainty, stakeholder misalignment, infrastructure constraints, and ambiguous insurance coverage. By analyzing the hierarchical interrelationships between these determinants and their respective driving and dependence powers, experts in a focus group suggested a set of targeted measures to address the P2PCS system of barriers. Proposed measures include regulatory sandboxes to safely test innovative business models, modular and usage-based insurance products, the promotion of public–private partnerships for shared mobility infrastructure, the advancement of digital interoperability across smart mobility services, and communication campaigns to foster sustainable travel behaviors. Collectively, the findings provide a decision-support framework for policymakers, P2P platform operators, and municipalities, illustrating how the Mixed-Methods Research approach can deepen understanding of the socio-technical interdependencies that shape the effectiveness and scalability of emerging mobility solutions such as peer-to-peer car-sharing. Full article