Search Results (11)

Microbiological bioproducts constitute a rapidly growing group of preparations used in modern agriculture and play a significant role in achieving the goals of sustainable crop production. Because they contain live microorganisms or their metabolites, they promote plant growth and development, increase nutrient availability, improve soil properties, and suppress pathogen development, thereby representing a promising alternative to conventional fertilizers and chemical plant protection products. The aim of this study was to analyze the current state of knowledge on the application of microorganisms in agriculture, with a particular focus on their mechanisms of action, bioproduct formulation principles, and the legal requirements for their registration and marketing in Poland and the European Union. The paper presents a classification of microbiological bioproducts and compares their properties with those of chemical products. The stages of product formulation, including strain selection and identification, mass production, the choice of appropriate carriers, and stabilization methods, are discussed. Furthermore, the primary mechanisms of microbial action on plants are characterized, including biological nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilization, the production of phytohormones and siderophores, and pathogen biocontrol mechanisms. In addition, the current legal regulations governing the classification, registration, and quality and safety requirements of agricultural microbiological products are outlined. The analysis indicates that microbiological bioproducts have significant potential to support sustainable crop production and mitigate the negative environmental impacts of agriculture. However, their widespread adoption requires further advancements in formulation technologies, quality standardization, and the improvement and harmonization of existing legal frameworks. Full article

The governance of traditional medical knowledge faces persistent challenges from biopiracy and the inadequacy of conventional intellectual property regimes. This article examines the transformative potential and limitations of blockchain technology in governing traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) knowledge, adopting a framework that integrates legal validity, procedural justice, and governance implications. Drawing on normative legal analysis of Chinese statutes, empirical case studies of recent blockchain initiatives in China, and comparative analysis of the Nagoya Protocol and WIPO frameworks, the article advances three arguments. First, blockchain-enabled registration can generate legally cognizable evidence of prior existence, though its validity as a property right requires statutory recognition. Second, blockchain can enhance procedural justice by mitigating evidentiary asymmetry, expanding participation, and increasing benefit-sharing transparency. Third, the governance implications demand hybrid institutional designs that combine technological infrastructure with legal frameworks. The article identifies critical limitations—the oracle problem, accessibility barriers, and jurisdictional fragmentation—and proposes targeted optimizations, including statutory presumptions for blockchain records and enhanced international coordination. China’s experience offers actionable insights for equitable, legally embedded, and technologically sophisticated traditional medical knowledge governance globally. Full article

Climate change is the greatest health threat of the 21st century, with healthcare contributing approximately 4–5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Decarbonising healthcare, the deliberate reduction of emissions across all healthcare activities, is essential to reduce the health sector’s environmental impact while maintaining equitable, high-quality care. Preparing future health professionals for sustainable, low-carbon practice is increasingly recognised as critical; however, education on healthcare decarbonisation remains inconsistent and weakly embedded in curricula. This scoping review mapped existing educational resources for pre-registration health profession students. Following the JBI methodology, six databases (Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and GreenFILE) were searched in April 2025 (updated in October 2025). Data were thematically analysed. In total, 32 studies met inclusion criteria, comprising 17 mixed-methods, 11 quantitative, and 4 qualitative designs. Most interventions were multimodal, addressing sustainability or climate change through simulation, digital, formal, or didactic methods. Knowledge and attitudes were the most frequently evaluated outcomes. Thematic analysis identified knowledge and awareness, attitudes and emotional responses, behavioural intent and action, identity formation through collaborative learning, and barriers to decarbonisation. Findings suggest that blended, interactive, and technology-enhanced education improves knowledge, attitudes, and identity, but sustained impact requires longitudinal, skills-based, and policy-aligned interventions to drive meaningful healthcare decarbonisation action. Full article

Background/Objective: Nurses play a critical role in addressing climate change. They are instrumental in both mitigation and adaptation to its effects. Through care provision, education, management, policy development, and research, nurses can undertake a variety of specific actions in response to climate change. However, their perceptions of this challenge remain under-researched. This study aims to investigate Spanish nurses’ knowledge of climate change and its impact on health. Methods: This is a qualitative descriptive study based on the constructivist paradigm. Purposive and snowball sampling strategies were used to recruit nurses from emergency services, geriatrics, cardiology, respiratory medicine and primary care in nine different regions of Spain. Semi-structured online interviews were conducted. Data analysis was carried out by three researchers via a three-stage inductive thematic analysis approach. Results: The sample consisted of 31 nurses, predominantly women (77.42%), with a mean age of 41 years. Seventy percent of the participants had less than 15 years of experience in the service. Four categories were identified: (i) general knowledge of climate change; (ii) knowledge of climate change and health; (iii) knowledge of actions to address climate change; and (iv) knowledge development. Overall, the nurses demonstrated awareness of the risks posed by climate change as well as actions to respond. However, barriers such as a lack of formal training and eco-anxiety affect their knowledge acquisition. Conclusions: Nurses play an important role in the response to climate change. However, more comprehensive and higher-quality educational programmes, provided by academic institutions, workplaces, and professional associations, are needed. This study was prospectively registered with the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Cuenca Health Area on 25 January 2022 (registration number 2021/PI3721). Full article

The integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) into the current airspace poses significant challenges in terms of safety, security, and operability. As an example, in 2019, the European Union defined a set of rules to support the digitalization of UAS traffic management (UTM) systems and services, namely the U-Space regulations. Current propositions opted for a centralized and private model, concentrated around governmental authorities (e.g., AlphaTango provides the Registration service and depends on the French government). In this paper, we advocate in favor of a more decentralized and transparent model in order to improve safety, security, operability among UTM stakeholders, and legal compliance. As such, we propose DFly, a publicly auditable and privacy-preserving UAS traffic management system on Blockchain, with two initial services: Registration and Flight Authorization. We demonstrate that the use of a blockchain guarantees the public auditability of the two services and corresponding service providers’ actions. In addition, it facilitates the comprehensive and distributed monitoring of airspace occupation and the integration of additional functionalities (e.g., the creation of a live UAS tracker). The combination with zero-knowledge proofs enables the deployment of an automated, distributed, transparent, and privacy-preserving Flight Authorization service, performed on-chain thanks to the blockchain logic. In addition to its construction, this paper details the instantiation of the proposed UTM system with the Ethereum Sepolia’s testnet and the Groth16 ZK-SNARK protocol. On-chain (gas cost) and off-chain (execution time) performance analyses confirm that the proposed solution is a viable and efficient alternative in the spirit of digitalization and offers additional security guarantees. Full article

Blockchain technology is increasingly being recognized for its pivotal role in enhancing security, immutability, and transparency across government sectors, notably in land registration (LR) processes. This research emphasizes the need for contextually adapted blockchain technology solutions, particularly in resource-constrained and culturally diverse settings. Utilizing the elaborated action design research method, this study presents a Hyperledger-based blockchain technology system tailored for Sudan’s LR, addressing technical challenges, evaluation frameworks, privacy measures, and deployment strategies. This system not only facilitates secure and transparent land transactions from planning to certificate issuance, but also integrates the management of land sales, significantly reducing the need for intermediaries. By providing a detailed exploration of the system’s goals, technical hurdles, and practical deployment insights, this research contributes valuable knowledge to the implementation of blockchain technology in LR, with findings that are applicable to similar contexts globally. This study underscores the importance of customizing blockchain solutions to meet the unique requirements of different environments, thereby advancing digital government in resource-constrained settings. Full article

The inclusion of Indigenous cultures, known as the cultural determinants of health, in healthcare policy and health professional education accreditation and registration requirements, is increasingly being recognised as imperative for improving the appalling health and well-being of Indigenous Australians. These inclusions are a strengths-based response to tackling the inequities in Indigenous Australians’ health relative to the general population. However, conceptualising the cultural determinants of health in healthcare practice has its contextual challenges, and gaps in implementation evidence are apparent. In this paper, we provide a case example, namely the Katherine Hospital, of how healthcare services can implement the cultural determinants of health into clinical practice. However, to be effective, health professionals must concede that Australia’s Indigenous peoples’ knowledges involving cultural ways of being, knowing and doing must co-exist with western and biomedical knowledges of health practice. We use the Katherine Hospital ABC Radio National Background Briefing interview, which was mentioned by two research participants in a 2020 study, as an example of good practice that we can learn from. Additionally, the six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health actions contained in the 2nd Edition of the Australian National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards provide governance and accountability examples of how to enable Indigenous people’s cultures and their knowledges in the provision of services. The role of non-Indigenous clinical allies and accomplices is imperative when embedding and enacting Indigenous Australians’ cultures in service systems of health. When Indigenous Peoples access mainstream hospitals, deep self-reflection by allies and accomplices is necessary to enable safe, quality care, and treatment that is culturally safe and free from racism. Doing so can increase cultural responsiveness free of racism, thereby reducing the inherent power imbalances embedded within mainstream health services. Full article

The management of expectations in doctoral education relates to the negotiation and agreement of a learning contract denoting actions and initiatives between a student and a supervisor. A learning contract is a set of understandings of what things, actions and initiatives might reasonably be expected from whom, in the course of learning, where there is a natural power imbalance. This is important so that both scholarly and material progress can be made along all points of the doctoral learning experience, i.e., that learning is personalised, professional and productive towards an original contribution of knowledge. It is the evidencing of this continual learning process through research that is deemed to be doctoral at the final examination stage. A doctoral student is a learner on the highest degree pathway that is available at all UK universities. This typically results in a thesis, marking the end point of being supervised whereupon an assessment or examination takes place, which, in UK universities, is called a viva voce (Latin: the living voice). This is a verbal account or defence of the thesis document by the student, made to two or three examiners who comprise the examination team. In the UK, the viva examination is a private event, while elsewhere, for example, across Europe and North America, the examination can be a public event. A student on a doctoral programme usually has a period of registration that is 3 years full-time or 6 years part-time. Other terms that can be used interchangeably around doctoral supervision are candidate (for the student) and candidature, which is their period of registration. Supervisors also have roles denoted as the Director of Studies (DoS) or Principal Investigator (PI). The supervision team is led by a Director of Studies (or PI) who is often the most experienced scholar who teaches, guides and mentors their student’s learning through the research they conduct. There are usually at least two supervisors in a supervision team in the UK, but there can be more as required depending upon the specialisms and topics being researched. Expectations formed by either the student or the supervisor(s) can be about physical resources to embark upon a passage of learning through a doctoral programme, or more typically, the discussion of expectations relates to managing the behaviours of students and supervisors in their respective roles. Managed expectations help to achieve a balance between the intellectual sharing of expertise by the supervisor with the self-directed initiatives for learning, which are taken by the student. The aim of managing expectations is to help a student move from dependence in their learning at the start of their programme to becoming an independent doctoral-level scholar who, once graduated as doctor, can act autonomously to conduct their own research, or even embark upon supervising others’ research in the future. Full article

Currently, quality air and renewable energy are main concerns in protecting the environment. Comparing willingness to pay for quality air and renewable energy is rare in the existing literature. However, the public faces these issues simultaneously. In addition, population mobility under China’s household registration system, i.e., urban living experience, may affect the willingness to pay for environmental protection. Consequently, the difference between people’s willingness to pay for quality air and renewable energy in China is discussed. Binary logistic regression is adopted to analyze the correlation factors based on data from the China General Social Survey. The results show that willingness to pay is influenced by environmental attitudes, awareness of energy use, government responsibilities, age, household income level, and trust. The effects of urban living experience on willingness to pay weakens as age decreases. Thus, improving environmental awareness and specialized knowledge remain important means of promoting willingness to pay. Our findings can help marketers and policy designers develop balanced or targeted measures when taking joint actions. Full article

The use of synthetic fungicides to control fungal diseases has growing limitations due to eco-toxicological risks. Therefore, it is necessary to replace or integrate high risk chemicals with safer tools for human health and environment. Consequently, research on the selection, evaluation, characterization, and use of biocontrol agents (BCAs) has consistently increased in the last decades. BCA formulates, particularly in some countries, are still scarce in coping with the growing demand for their use in sustainable agricultural management. To foster development and utilization of new effective bioformulates, there is a need to optimize BCA activity, to share knowledge on their formulation processes and to simplify the registration procedures. Studies based on new molecular tools can significantly contribute to achieve such objectives. The present review provides the state of the art on biocontrol of fungal plant diseases with special emphasis on (i) features of the most studied BCAs; (ii) key strategies to optimize selection and use of BCAs (iii); mechanisms of action of the main BCAs; (iv) molecular tools and metagenomic studies in the selection and use of BCAs; (v) main issues and constraints in the registration and commercialization of BCAs, and (vi) perspectives in the biocontrol of fungal plant diseases. Full article

Enterprise resilience is a key capacity to guarantee enterprises’ long-term continuity. This paper proposes the enterprise resilience Conceptual Reference Framework to characterize enterprise resilience capacity. The framework is composed of 71 disruptive events that enterprises consider as endangerments to their continuity. The framework also comprises constituent capabilities of enterprise resilience in terms of preparedness and recovery capabilities and elements that support the transition from the AS IS situation to the TO BE one, which are preventive actions (for preparedness capability) and knowledge registration actions (for recovery capability). From the preparedness perspective, 403 preventive actions are currently defined. Each preventive action is specific for every disruptive event. However, it is worth noting that a preventive action can also be applied to different disruptive events. From the recovery perspective, the proposed framework indicates knowledge registration related to (i) the occurrence of disruptive events; (ii) the recovery actions performed to re-establish the normal enterprise operation level. Further research lines are addressed to develop quantitative methods and tools to assess the extent of enterprises’ resilience following the foundations of the proposed conceptual framework. Full article