Search Results (11,179)

High-altitude Andean páramo ecosystems are critical socio-ecological assets that provide key regulating and supporting services, yet they remain highly vulnerable to climate change and anthropogenic pressures. Understanding these services requires frameworks that integrate biophysical capacity with social valuation and demographic accessibility. In this study, we mapped and assessed belowground and aboveground carbon storage and species habitat provision across the altitudinal gradient (3160–4400 m.a.s.l.) of Cajas National Park (PNC), Ecuador, using a spatially explicit socio-ecological approach. Carbon stocks were modeled following The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2019 Refined Guidelines, combining reference soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks with aboveground biomass coefficients. Habitat provision was modeled through a multi-factor suitability index integrating Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), elevation, water bodies, and interpolated climate surfaces. Biophysical supplies were weighted via a Delphi-based expert consultation and integrated with demographic census data (173,672 inhabitants in four adjacent parishes) to estimate actual service capture and effective benefits. Total carbon stocks in PNC were estimated at 1.49 million Mg C, with volcanic Andisols acting as the primary reservoir (97.5% of the total stock). Habitat suitability was highly heterogeneous, with critical refuge patches clustered around the park’s lacustric network and stable microclimatic zones. Socio-ecological mapping revealed that the eastern boundary of the park represents the highest hotspot of effective benefit capture, directly supplying vital water regulation and cultural services to the peri-urban populations of Sayausí and Baños. These results demonstrate the utility of integrating standard IPCC guidelines with the ECOSER protocol, offering a repeatable and transparent framework to guide spatial conservation planning and sustainable land-use zoning in vulnerable high-altitude protected areas. Full article

Al-Wehdat open market, originating in a mid-20th-century Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan, has evolved into a vital urban common and a paradigmatic case of Everyday Architecture of Compromise. It demonstrates significant economic, social, political, and cultural dynamism, leveraging the relational and solidary capacities of a disenfranchised migrant community to build resilience and assert their Right to the (negated) City. This paper examines how the market’s mode of production responds to intersecting geopolitical, economic, and democratic crises. Employing a constructivist, conjunctural urbanism approach and scene-based analysis, we situate Al-Wehdat market within discourses on urban commons and relationality. Our theoretical framework draws on Hannah Arendt, Gilbert Simondon, and Ash Amin to reconceptualise the Right to the City as the Right to the Open Urban Market. We foreground customary territorial communing as a counterforce to corporative commodification, as essential in the struggle for urban justice, differential individuation, and immanent re-enchantment. Findings, presented through vivid market scenes, show how everyday interactions, creative material arrangements, and rich collaborative imagination sustain these commons. Thematic analysis identifies patterns in community relations, materiality, infrastructure, and acts of repair that sustain the regenerative capacity of key everyday relational, political, techno-material and convivial practices. We conclude by advocating for community empowerment policies that recognise the centrality of everyday relational individuation in shaping inclusive cities amidst polycrisis in the Global South. Full article

Contemporary society grapples with diverse values and socio-economic structural differences. These differences extend beyond subtle contextual nuances and strategic considerations, intruding into one’s first-person account and preferences. From its first-order mooring, these divergences ascend to higher-order manifestations, expressing themselves in distinct political perspectives, cultural practices, and religious beliefs. While such differences inevitably give rise to conflicts, a deeper analysis reveals that the core of rising conflict often lies in sectarian differences. Although various conflict resolution mechanisms have been employed to settle disputes, they often fail to yield enduring results. In this regard, the paper proposes interfaith dialogue as a promising approach for conflict resolution and reconciliation. The paper argues that interfaith dialogue is neither a debate nor a negotiation, but a sustained endeavour to break down the walls of difference. Furthermore, to ensure substantive outcomes, the dialogue must be firmly grounded in philosophical foundations that are value-laden and universally acknowledged. Against this backdrop, the paper introduces the Jaina philosophical tradition, specifically the principle of ‘non-absolutism’ (anekāntavāda) and the doctrine of ‘qualified assertion’ (syādvāda), as a coherent framework for dialogical engagements. Focusing on epistemic decentring, conditional articulation, and non-violent involvement, the Jaina framework pushes interfaith dialogue beyond conflict resolution towards conflict transformation. Full article

This article examines the conceptual and practical relationships between UNESCO’s 2011 Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) Recommendation and the European Commission’s 2020 Circular Economy (CE) Action Plan, bringing together cultural heritage conservation and sustainable resource management. A comparative analysis was conducted using directed qualitative content analysis across four analytical themes: value systems, resource management, governance models, and sustainability perspectives. Building upon these results, this article proposes the circular cultural landscape (CCL) model, which positions cultural heritage as an active component of circular systems through four interconnected layers. To illustrate its potential applicability, the model is translated into a preliminary assessment framework through the proposed CCL index and conceptually demonstrated using a hypothetical scenario in the Balat neighborhood of Istanbul. Rather than providing empirical validation, the scenario illustrates how the framework may support the integrated assessment of cultural, environmental, social, and economic sustainability in historic urban landscapes. The proposed CCL model offers a conceptual and methodological foundation for future research and decision support in sustainable heritage management. Full article

Based on three years of sustained personal observations and extensive on-site interviews, this study is the first to investigate the bird totem worship customs of the Dong ethnic minority in southeast Guizhou, China. The Dong-inhabited regions of southeast Guizhou possess a long-standing tradition of bird totem worship, which has permeated every aspect of local people’s daily life, serving as a living museum where ancient bird totem worship continues to thrive in the present day. Through investigation and research, we can clearly perceive that bird totem worship here is no longer merely evidence of primitive thinking as previously discussed in academic circles, nor is it an endangered intangible cultural heritage. Instead, it represents emotional resonance with a more modern spirit and open-ended identity construction. Faced with the era of the internet and new media, they have broken free from the constraints of totem concepts and taboos, instead embracing creative totem will, totem activities, totem behaviors, and intelligent totems, thereby endowing totems with new belief content and forms of expression. They have transcended the preconceived concepts and fixed thinking about totems in academic discourse, making it an important vehicle for maintaining community relations, strengthening ethnic solidarity, inheriting ethnic culture, and continuing local civilization. Through the contemporary reconstruction of collective behavior, the traffic empowerment of internet short videos, and complex functional transformations, they have constructed a brand-new totem value system in the context of the internet and new media era, organizing a multi-dimensional, comprehensive social ecological view and civilizational value system. It is precisely through this continuous evolution, expansion, and activation in response to changing times that totems have acquired sustained vitality and creativity, providing a vivid case study for the contemporary transformation and creative development of ancient totemic beliefs. This is also the significant importance of field investigation—it enables us to gain entirely new value cognition and different theoretical perspectives from the living site of totem practices. Full article

Cruise tourism is one of the fastest-growing segments of the global tourism industry, generating significant economic benefits while also creating challenges related to overtourism, congestion, environmental pressure, and residents’ quality of life. Understanding residents’ attitudes towards tourism is therefore essential for sustainable destination management. Although previous studies have examined the roles of place attachment and quality of life in shaping tourism attitudes, evidence from cruise destinations remains limited. This study investigates the influence of place attachment and quality of life on residents’ attitudes towards tourism in two contrasting European cruise destinations: Kotor (Montenegro) and Athens/Piraeus (Greece). Additionally, it aims to explore the link between place attachment and quality of life, which remains understudied in this context. The study also investigates whether destination moderates the effect between explored variables. To address this objective, Kotor and Athens/Piraeus were purposively selected as a maximum-variation pair. A quantitative survey was conducted among 319 local residents (157 from Kotor and 162 from Athens/Piraeus). The findings indicate that both place attachment and quality of life significantly influence residents’ attitudes towards tourism. Stronger place attachment was associated with more positive perceptions of social interaction with tourists and beneficial cultural impacts, but it also influenced residents’ attitudes indirectly through perceived quality of life. Moreover, place attachment was identified as a significant determinant across all five dimensions of residents’ quality of life. Furthermore, quality-of-life dimensions, particularly heritage and commercial development, socialisation and economic opportunities, and environmental conditions, emerged as significant predictors of tourism attitudes. Destination comparisons revealed overall consistency between both cruise tourism destinations, except for the link between place attachment and health and safety benefits, which was stronger among residents of Athens. The findings provide practical implications for sustainable tourism planning by highlighting the importance of incorporating residents’ perceptions into destination management. Full article

Education for sustainability should connect planetary environmental change with local place, cultural meaning, and feasible collective action. Yet inclusive arts-based ocean-literacy education remains underexamined, especially for children from migrant backgrounds. This study examines Gyeongju Sea Rescue Team: Protecting the Sea through Minhwa, a five-session programme for elementary-school children from Koryoin and other migrant-background families in South Korea. A provenance-separated dual-strand design combined hybrid thematic analysis of programme documents and non-identifying artwork images with a fully synthetic 100-case corpus used only to audit a future artwork-elicitation protocol and codebook. The documentary strand identified four provisional mechanisms: the ecological reinterpretation of auspicious symbols, localisation through Gyeongju’s maritime heritage, multimodal participation across linguistic differences, and collective stewardship. The synthetic audit did not validate these mechanisms or programme outcomes. Instead, participant-correction and self-action prompts generated more clearly codable material on agency, cultural identity, multilingual meaning-making, and intercultural integration. Two designed perturbation passes yielded a quadratic-weighted kappa of 0.726 as a within-corpus stability diagnostic rather than human intercoder reliability. Diagnostic cases exposed adult projection, assimilationist interpretation, pressure to disclose private meanings, and advice without self-agency. The article proposes a provisional MIOL framework and four safeguards: child-led interpretation, reciprocal cultural exchange, appropriate consent and permissions, and continuity from symbolic expression to sustained action. Synthetic outputs concern method development only and do not represent children’s experiences or programme effectiveness. Full article

Tourism has become a critical pathway for town construction, everyday-life improvement, and cultural revitalization. Yet, the mechanisms through which destination image is associated with town attraction remain insufficiently understood, particularly at the fine-grained town scale. Drawing on social media photographs and check-in records from 26 characteristic towns in Tianjin, China, this study deconstructs tourist destination image into image genes and examines their associations with town gravity. A VGG19-based image-recognition model was used to identify and aggregate 68 scene types into nine image-gene categories, while check-in data from Weibo and Little Red Book were used to measure destination gravity. The results show that uniqueness image, cultural custom genes, public space genes, sidewalk density, and POI mix are significantly and positively associated with town gravity, whereas animal genes exhibit a significant negative association. These findings provide an empirical basis for policymakers and planners to strengthen distinctive cultural representation, optimize public-space systems and service diversity, and promote the sustainable attractiveness of town destinations. Full article

Industrial heritage-based cultural and creative parks (IHCCPs) have become an important approach to adaptive reuse and sustainable urban regeneration in post-industrial cities. As the primary interface between the city and the park, entrance spaces play a critical role in shaping visitors’ first impressions, place identity, and cultural perception. Drawing on Cultural Perception Theory, this study investigates the entrance spaces of four representative IHCCPs in China using field surveys, questionnaire surveys, and a modified Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) framework, in which the conventional importance–performance dimensions are reconceptualized as perception and satisfaction. The results indicate that the case study parks perform well in barrier-free accessibility, entrance image, and material application. Based on the perception–satisfaction analysis, the entrance-space attributes were systematically classified according to their relative strengths and improvement priorities, providing the basis for identifying key optimization directions. Accordingly, a perceptual experience-oriented optimization framework is proposed, comprising four complementary strategies: functional coordination, environmental layering, landmark organization, and cultural translation. By integrating Cultural Perception Theory into an adapted IPA framework for entrance-space evaluation, this study extends existing research and provides a practical framework for the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage and the regeneration of public spaces in comparable post-industrial contexts. Its broader applicability to different geographical and cultural settings warrants further validation through future research. Full article

Olive oil production is an economically and culturally important agro-industrial activity, particularly in Mediterranean regions, but conventional extraction processes generate significant quantities of by-products and may lead to the loss of valuable bioactive compounds. In this context, improving extraction efficiency while preserving oil quality and promoting sustainable processing has become a major research focus. This review examines the composition of virgin olive oil with particular attention to minor bioactive compounds and discusses how conventional processing technologies influence their distribution and retention. The environmental implications of traditional extraction systems, especially the generation of olive mill wastewater and solid residues, are also addressed. Furthermore, emerging and alternative extraction technologies are analyzed, including screw press (expeller) and supercritical CO₂ extraction, highlighting their potential to enhance the recovery of bioactive compounds and reduce environmental impacts. Particular emphasis is placed on water-free or reduced-water extraction approaches and on the valorization of olive mill by-products as part of a circular economy strategy. Overall, innovative extraction technologies can reconcile efficiency, sustainability and quality by minimizing polyphenol losses and wastewater generation, requiring further industrial optimization. Full article

Chengde, China, is famous for its Qing Dynasty imperial gardens, which are a World Heritage Site. In recent years, it has received increasing attention from heritage research scholars. From a tourism perspective, tourists’ visits are important for supporting economic benefits, heritage conservation, and sustainable development. This study integrated the four dimensions of the 4E heritage communication framework—experience, exchange, everyplace, and evangelism—with heritage interpretation quality to develop a model to uncover cultural heritage visiting behavior. Based on the survey data of 887 Chinese tourists who have visited Chengde’s cultural heritage sites, structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed. The results showed that experience, exchange, everyplace, and evangelism, together with heritage interpretation quality, were all positively associated with cultural heritage visiting behavior. Perceived destination image and perceived conservation both significantly predicted cultural heritage visiting behavior and served as significant mediators in most of the proposed indirect relationships; however, the indirect path of evangelism through perceived destination image was not supported. Source credibility strengthened the relationships between the five antecedents and cultural heritage visiting behavior. Therefore, this article encourages the development of high-quality, comprehensive marketing strategies to attract more people to learn about World Cultural Heritage, while simultaneously improving guided tour services and their quality. It also emphasizes building a more positive cultural tourism image and conducting precise public relations to ensure that World Cultural Heritage receives support and attention from governments, educational institutions, and travel agencies. Full article

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risk management is an ongoing challenge in resource-scarce chemical industries, especially in developing nations like Tunisia. The current research recommends a hybrid socio-techno-environmental model based on Fuzzy Logic and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for occupational health and safety risk assessment and prioritization of occupational health and safety (OHS) risks. The model, based on a backup of expert judgment from pre-specified questionnaires and real data of Tunisian chemical industries, quantifies the risk factors based on criticality and probability of occurrence. Fuzzy–AHP not only evaluates qualitative estimates but also provides a systematic framework for evaluating and prioritizing occupational health and safety risks. Findings are consistent with the fact that socio-organizational factors such as occupational safety culture and compliance among workers play a pivotal role in determining total levels of risk, and in certain cases dominate over technical considerations alone. In offering a scalable and context-sensitive solution, this research has an additional contribution with a decision-support framework that assists organizations in evaluating and prioritizing occupational health and safety risks under uncertain conditions. Its use for policy makers and business interests that seek to maximise OHS performance in given constraints, and its use in actual implementation and compatibility with sustainability and worker health goals, speaks to its utility. Full article

Background/Objectives: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents one of the greatest challenges to modern medicine, particularly in chronic infections sustained by multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens and biofilm formation. SIOOT^® Oxygen–ozone major autohemotherapy (SIOOT^®-O₂-O₃-MAHT) has been proposed as an adjunctive treatment capable of exerting direct antimicrobial, antibiofilm, and immunomodulatory effects. This pilot study evaluated the clinical, microbiological, inflammatory, and mechanistic effects of standardized SIOOT^®-O₂-O₃-MAHT administered alongside conventional antibiotic therapy in patients with chronic MDR bacterial infections. Methods: A prospective longitudinal pilot study was conducted in 257 patients with chronic infectious and inflammatory disorders refractory to prolonged antibiotic treatment. Patients received standardized SIOOT^®-O₂-O₃-MAHT according to protocols from the Italian Scientific Society of Oxygen-Ozone Therapy (SIOOT) in addition to guideline-directed antibiotics. Longitudinal bacterial burden (CFU/mL), culture positivity, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and C-reactive protein (CRP) were all assessed over a 12-month follow-up. In parallel, macrophage phagocytosis, intracellular bacterial killing, phago-lysosomal maturation, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) biofilm disruption were investigated using confocal laser scanning microscopy, gentamicin protection assays, and scanning electron microscopy. Results: SIOOT^®-O₂-O₃-MAHT was associated with a progressive reduction in bacterial burden from a geometric mean of 6.43 × 10⁶ CFU/mL before treatment to complete microbiological clearance after one year. Mean bacterial reduction reached 98.53% after one week and 99.95% after one month, while culture positivity decreased from 100% to 0% by one year (all p < 0.0001). ESR normalization increased from 28.2% at one week to 98.1% at one year, and CRP normalization increased from 32.4% to 98.7%. Mechanistic analyses demonstrated significantly enhanced macrophage phagocytosis, phago-lysosomal maturation, intracellular MRSA killing, and marked disruption of mature MRSA biofilms following ozone treatment. Conclusions: Adjunctive SIOOT^®-O₂-O₃-MAHT was associated with reductions in bacterial burden, progressive improvement of systemic inflammatory markers, enhanced macrophage antimicrobial activity, and disruption of bacterial biofilms in patients with chronic multidrug-resistant infections. Given the prospective, non-randomized pilot design, these findings should be considered exploratory and hypothesis-generating, providing biological and clinical rationale for further investigation. Adequately powered randomized controlled trials are required to determine the efficacy, safety, and long-term clinical benefits of adjunctive oxygen–ozone therapy. Full article

Bereavement in Southern Africa is not a private event. It is rather a shared and communal experience, shaped by rituals, faith, and relationships. In Botswana, mourning is influenced by Botho, a way of life that says, “I am because we are,” where a whole community carries the pain of loss together and takes responsibility for the bereaved. These communal rituals bring comfort, meaning and a sense of belonging, helping families accept death and move towards healing. Yet research also shows a harder side: many mourning practices are gendered and favors male gender. Widows often face long, strict rituals, social isolation and suspicion, rooted in patriarchy and ideas about impurity or danger, which can harm their emotional, social, and economic well-being. This article uses conceptual/theological analysis within pastoral theology and African relational ethics to examine these practices and to explore how churches and caregivers can honor culture while resisting injustice. Drawing on work of Botho African pastoral care and gender, it shows that the same communal systems that care can also exclude and marginalize widows. The article proposes a Gendered Botho Pastoral Care Model that calls Christian communities to sustain communal solidarity and shared mourning, challenge patriarchal and violent widowhood rites, reinterpret rituals in life-giving ways, and build resilience, dignity and agency for widows, so that mourning spaces become places of healing, justice and restored humanity Pastors for widows in Botswana and across Southern Africa. Full article

Background: In September 2024, South Korea launched a nationwide Tertiary Hospital Restructuring Project to refocus tertiary hospitals on severe, emergency, and rare disease care, amid a tertiary care system long burdened by patient concentration and acutely strained by the mass resignation of trainee doctors. In the early phase of implementation, understanding how the decision-makers who translate policy into institutional change perceive the project is essential. Methods: We employed a qualitative design using reflexive thematic analysis. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with directors from five tertiary hospitals—four in the capital area and one in a non-capital area—selected through purposive sampling. Interviews were conducted between 30 October and 7 November 2025, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed following the six-phase approach of Braun and Clarke. Results: Four themes were constructed. First, directors described the project as catalyzing a cultural shift toward a high-severity-centered model, though contested at the departmental level. Second, a severity paradox emerged, in which treating sicker patients worsened profitability while large restructuring costs strained sustainability. Third, referral networks expanded but were constrained by the absence of an integrated information technology (IT) system across the referral network. Fourth, a specialist- and physician assistant (PA)-centered workforce model stabilized care yet remained institutionally unsettled. Participants recommended refined severity criteria, complexity-based reimbursement, a legal framework for PAs, an integrated IT referral system, and network-based training. Conclusions: As perceived by the participating directors, the project reshaped organizational culture and clinical case-mix, but its long-term viability depends on financial, infrastructural, and workforce supports that have not kept pace with structural change. Sustaining the reform will likely require a shift from competition toward a collaborative, region-centered network. Full article