Search Results (4,233)

The implementation of circular solutions instead of single-use plastic requires a stronger alliance between science and the private sector, which could be achieved by means of knowledge and strategy co-creation. To investigate their benefits, this study applies common-pool resource theory in serious game design. While other serious games focused on the circular economy exist, none of them consider different modes of knowledge acquisition. To test the game’s potential, we used a convenience sample of 188 biology and geography students (researchers-to-be) from Jagiellonian University. Each of the 20 groups was divided into playing the roles of science and business actors. Two versions of the game were assessed—one with separation and one with personnel exchange. The results of the games were analyzed in relation to the structure of the shared social values as a differentiating co-factor. Science–business collaboration and environmental attitudes were evaluated using pre- and post-questionnaires. Results suggest that the successful resolution of the presented common-pool resource dilemma correlates with the introduced collaboration (p = 0.004, t value = 3.400, df = 1) and the Self-Transcendence values (p = 0.001, t value = 4.329, df = 1). We observed desirable changes in participants’ attitudes after the game (p = 0.000, χ² = 18.810, df = 1). Further investigation into gaming as a science communication tool and its long-term effects is recommended to facilitate the implementation of knowledge co-creation principles in practice. Full article

Global commodity chains reshape rural territories through interconnected environmental and socioeconomic processes; these dynamics are often examined through the lens of land-use change. Export-oriented agricultural frontiers illustrate how global market integration can generate landscape and societal transformations. In western Mexico, the expansion of the avocado industry exemplifies commodity-driven territorial change, linking land-use dynamics with transformations in rural economies and livelihoods. This study analyzes how export integration into the international avocado commodity chain was associated with transformations in land systems and socioeconomic dynamics across four municipalities in Michoacán, Mexico, between 2003 and 2023. Using high-resolution land-use maps alongside demographic and socioeconomic indicators, we apply a qualitative, comparative and inductive synthesis of spatial and census data to examine how commodity integration interacted with local conditions to shape landscape and territorial organization. Avocado expansion coincided with territorial transformation, including the conversion of pine-oak forest and traditional agricultural lands, as well as changes in labor arrangements, demographic dynamics, and rural livelihood systems. Land-use analysis shows continued orchard expansion and accelerated land conversion after 2015. Socioeconomic indicators reveal population growth, increased female employment, and persistent income inequality, highlighting the uneven incorporation of rural territories into global commodity chains. We identified four territorial pathways: agricultural specialization, agro-industrial urbanization, transitional diversification, and rural commodity integration. These findings contribute to debates on uneven geographical development and commodity frontier expansion by showing how global commodity integration intersects with ecological, economic, and social processes to generate distinct pathways. Full article

Sustainable agriculture is critical to sustainable development and climate resilience, yet evidence of its multidimensional environmental, social and economic benefits and trade-offs remains limited, especially in regions most vulnerable to climate change. This study addresses this gap in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta (MKD), where decades of intensive rice farming has bolstered rice yields at the expense of environmental quality and farmers’ health. This study presents a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) comparing organic rice (OR) and conventional rice (CR) farming systems in the MKD. We applied a weighted sum model to evaluate the environmental, social and economic performance of the two production systems. The assessment drew on quantitative and qualitative primary data collected through stakeholder engagements and field measurements from Vinh Long province between 2023 and 2025, as part of the OrganoRice project. Overall, OR farming performed cumulatively better (0.663 and 0.695) than CR farming (0.496 and 0.484). OR scores were higher across most sub-criteria, particularly “farmers’ income” and “biodiversity”. However, CR outperformed OR for “rice yield” and “farmers’ workload”. Comparable water and soil quality scores, due to the presence of pesticide residues in both systems, suggest that the environmental performance of OR farming was likely dampened due to cross-contamination from surrounding or upstream non-organic farms. The expansion of OR farming in the MKD has the potential to enhance environmental, social and economic performance of rice production in the region. However, in order to achieve the full scope of these benefits, short-term measures should aim to reduce the financial risks of conversion for farmers, ensure access to affordable organic inputs, increase farmer training, ensure reliable premium contracts for rice producers and support them in accessing organic markets. Longer-term measures must improve irrigation water management and infrastructure to minimise cross-contamination risks. Coordinated marketing campaigns are needed to develop a trusted regional brand for organic rice from the MKD to create new opportunities in international and domestic markets. Moreover, long-term monitoring of post-transition outcomes is important to capture the full impacts of conversion. As OR cultivation continues to expand across the MKD, evidence on its benefits and trade-offs is essential to guide this transition effectively. This study provides that evidence, offering a context-specific, multidimensional evaluation to inform OR policy and practice in the region. Full article

In recent years, the city of Naples has seen increasing attention focused on the mural dedicated to Diego Armando Maradona, located in the Spanish Quarter. Originally a spontaneous expression of street art and initially perceived by the local community as a simple artwork, the mural has gradually transformed into a powerful symbol of identity, becoming a true cultural icon of the city. This process has generated effects that transcend the artistic value of the artwork, contributing to the enhancement of the entire surrounding urban context and altering the social and economic dynamics of the quarter. By considering the Maradona Mural as the epicentre of a range of territorial and socio-economic effects, this paper aims to explore the issue of measuring the influence exerted by its presence on the market values of residential properties located in the Spanish Quarter of Naples. From this perspective, street art can be interpreted as a positive externality capable not only of fostering processes of urban regeneration and the redevelopment of formerly marginalised or degraded areas but also of influencing the dynamics of the local real estate market. Property values reflect not only the intrinsic characteristics of the properties but also the environmental and territorial attributes that contribute to the formation of market prices. From this perspective, properties can be considered as beneficiaries of externalities, whose economic value can be estimated through variations in house prices attributable to changes in environmental and territorial conditions. Full article

This study examines whether China’s Intelligent Manufacturing Pilot Demonstration Program is associated with changes in Huazheng-rated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance among listed manufacturing firms. Using a panel of 2581 firms from 2012 to 2022, we exploit the staggered admission of 91 pilot firms. The preferred doubly robust group-time difference-in-differences estimator yields an average treatment effect of 0.881 Huazheng points, positive at the 10% level. The conventional firm and year fixed-effects estimate is 1.801 points and significant at the 1% level; it is retained as a benchmark rather than the main policy estimate. The direction remains positive across alternative fixed effects, lagged controls, a pre-COVID-19 sample, reweighting, matching, stacked estimation, randomization inference, wild-cluster bootstrap inference, and leave-one-out tests. Under the benchmark specification, the environmental and governance ratings rise significantly, whereas the social estimate is imprecise. The organizational regressions are consistent with possible information verification, managerial incentive, and financing channels, and cross-fitted double machine learning provides a functional-form check. Overall, pilot designation is associated with higher Huazheng-rated ESG performance, with evidence consistent with a possible policy effect. Selective designation and the provider-specific outcome preclude stronger claims about independently verified corporate sustainability. Full article

Background: Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and epidemiological projections indicate that its incidence will continue to increase. Gastrointestinal cancers are among the most frequently diagnosed malignant neoplasms. Quality of life is a key component of oncology care and is significantly influenced by nutritional status and dietary habits. Methods: The study included 52 adult patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancer. Data were collected using an anonymous questionnaire based on the QEB (Questionnaire of Eating Behaviour) and WHOQOL-BREF (World Health Organization Quality of Life—BREF) instruments, supplemented with questions regarding changes in dietary habits and the use of dietary counseling following diagnosis. Nutritional knowledge, dietary habits, and quality of life across four domains (physical, psychological, social, and environmental) were assessed. Statistical analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and appropriate tests of statistical significance. Results: Cancers of the colon and rectum—reported either as unspecified colorectal cancer or as separately specified colon or rectal cancer—together accounted for the largest share of diagnoses (26 diagnoses, representing 44.8% of the 58 total reported diagnoses). Quality-of-life assessment revealed the lowest scores in the physical domain and the highest scores in the social domain. The youngest participants achieved the highest scores in the psychological domain, whereas the lowest scores across all domains were observed among individuals aged over 60 years. Following diagnosis, 63.5% of participants reported reviewing and modifying their dietary habits; however, the majority had not received dietary counseling. Women reported higher fruit and vegetable consumption than men, while higher educational attainment was associated with greater self-assessed nutritional knowledge. Conclusions: Among patients with gastrointestinal cancers surveyed in this study, the physical domain of quality of life had the lowest WHOQOL-BREF score. Most participants reported modifying their dietary habits after diagnosis, although most had not received formal dietary counseling. Higher educational attainment was associated with higher self-assessed nutritional knowledge. Given the small convenience sample and cross-sectional design, these findings should be considered exploratory. Full article

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interactions, communication deficits, and excessive repetitive behaviors. While ASD has a strong genetic basis, growing evidence suggests that epileptic seizures may serve as environmental risk factors for ASD development. The high comorbidity between epilepsy and ASD (20–30%) suggests potential shared neurobiological mechanisms, yet the causal relationship remains poorly understood. To investigate the causal role of seizures in the development of ASD-like pathology, we exposed adolescent mice (3 weeks old) to electroconvulsive seizures (ECS) for 10 consecutive days. This repeated ECS exposure led to the emergence of autistic-like behaviors including significantly decreased sociability, increased repetitive self-grooming, enhanced marble burying behavior, and anxiety-like behaviors, without affecting general locomotor activity. Additionally, repeated exposure to ECS induced significant changes in glutamatergic neurotransmission in the mice’s prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, brain regions critically involved in social cognition and behavioral regulation. Interestingly, these changes occurred without alterations in other excitatory/inhibitory neuronal markers, suggesting a specific impact on glutamate receptor expression rather than a general disruption of excitatory/inhibitory balance. These findings suggest that repeated seizures may contribute to ASD-like symptoms by specifically affecting key glutamatergic neurotransmitter systems, providing insights into the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the comorbidity between epilepsy and autism. In addition, repeated ECS differentially regulated histone deacetylase (HDAC) transcripts in a region-specific manner and produced seizure-intensity-dependent transcriptomic signatures. Full article

Amid accelerating climate change, natural resource depletion, and rising consumer demand for sustainable, health-promoting products, circular agriculture has emerged as a strategic pathway for reconciling agricultural productivity with environmental and social sustainability; however, empirical evidence on how circular production, health-product innovation, and experiential tourism can be jointly evaluated within a single model remains limited. This study aims to propose a multidimensional value assessment framework for circular agriculture through a case study of the Tam Dao Mushroom Cooperative (TDMC) in Phu Tho Province, Vietnam, centered on the cooperative’s Cordyceps militaris-based production system, nanotechnology-enabled health-product processing, most notably the Nano Cordy Milk functional beverage and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-oriented experiential tourism activities, comprising guided production tours, hands-on cultivation and processing demonstrations, and on-site product tastings offered to school and university groups, domestic and international tourists, and visiting farmers and cooperatives. The research integrates a case study approach with the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) to determine the priority weights of value dimensions based on the evaluations of seven experts. The findings identify five key dimensions of value generated by the circular agricultural model: economic value, environmental value, social value, educational value, and tourism value. The Fuzzy-AHP results indicate that economic value has the highest priority weight (Best Non-fuzzy Performance, BNP = 0.4050), followed by environmental value (0.2715), social value (0.1307), educational value (0.1313), and tourism value (0.0621). The study demonstrates that the circular agriculture model not only generates economic benefits but also simultaneously creates significant environmental, social, educational, and tourism values. These findings contribute to the theoretical foundation for assessing the multidimensional value of circular agriculture while providing practical references and policy implications for the sustainable development of circular agricultural models. Full article

Urban informality in amphibious territories represents a critical yet understudied dimension of contemporary urbanisation in the Global South. This article analyses the interrelations between spatial transformation, social equity, and environmental change in Las Flores, an informal settlement located between the Mallorquín Lagoon and the Magdalena River in Barranquilla, Colombia. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach combining GIS interpretation, participatory mapping, and in-depth interviews, the study examines how processes of informal territorialisation have reshaped both the physical landscape and the social fabric of this amphibious environment. Results indicate that the settlement has expanded progressively over the past two decades, occupying areas of the wetland previously covered by mangroves and natural vegetation. This expansion has been accompanied by environmental degradation, soil infilling, and declining water quality. Residents face persistent infrastructural deficits, limited access to education and healthcare, and increasing social fragmentation between the formal and informal sectors. Yet, the community also exhibits strong organisational capacity, adaptive livelihoods, and a deep sense of place that sustains local identity and resilience. These dynamics exemplify the paradox of amphibious life: coexistence with water as both a resource and a source of vulnerability. Building on these findings, the study develops an urban socio-ecological conceptualisation of Amphibious Justice, a framework for interpreting equity, recognition, and governance in hybrid territories where urbanisation and land–water dynamics intersect. The article proposes a framework of equitable amphibious urbanism that integrates environmental restoration, social inclusion, and participatory governance. The findings suggest that sustainability in such territories cannot be achieved through technocratic restoration or forced resettlement, but through co-produced strategies that recognise local knowledge, tenure security, and ecological stewardship. Ultimately, the case of Las Flores offers insights into how cities in the Global South can pursue just and adaptive coexistence with water amid growing climate and urban pressures. Full article

Climate adaptation depends not only on infrastructure and governance but also on the adaptive capacity of populations, whose psychological correlates are rarely quantified at a national scale. This study tests an integrative model in which environmental identity is associated with psychological adaptation to climate change directly and indirectly through perceived nature restorativeness, a perceptual indicator of a cultural ecosystem service, and negative eco-emotions. Data were obtained from a nationally representative cross-sectional sample of Greek adults (n = 552; stratified systematic random sampling) and analysed with covariance-based structural equation modelling. Environmental identity was positively associated with perceived restorativeness (β = 0.606, p < 0.001), psychological adaptation (β = 0.354, p < 0.001) and eco-emotions (β = 0.211, p = 0.001). Perceived restorativeness was positively related to negative eco-emotions (β = 0.128, p = 0.031), which were in turn associated with adaptation (β = 0.237, p < 0.001); no direct restorativeness–adaptation path was supported. The model explained 36.7%, 23.0% and 9.3% of the variance in restorativeness, adaptation and eco-emotions. These population-level estimates offer baseline social indicators for monitoring adaptive capacity, and identify access to restorative green and blue space and climate-aware mental health services as candidate priorities for the social dimension of sustainable development under SDG 3, 11 and 13. Full article

Background: Delirium management remains inconsistently implemented in intensive care units (ICUs), and existing studies provide limited insight into how assessment capability, organisational opportunity, and emotional motivation interact in Chinese tertiary care settings. Aim: To explore ICU nurses’ perceived barriers and facilitators to delirium assessment and management using the Capability, Opportunity and Motivation model of Behaviour (COM-B). Methods: A qualitative descriptive exploratory study was conducted with 14 registered ICU nurses from two tertiary hospitals in Chongqing, China, between December 2025 and February 2026. Purposive sampling captured variation in clinical experience, educational background, and ICU type. The first author conducted face-to-face interviews in Mandarin Chinese and completed the initial coding. COM-B informed both the interview guide and the deductive organisation of the analysis, while six themes and 33 lowest-level factors were developed within the three domains. During revision, the fixed analytic structure was audited against all 14 Mandarin transcripts, and the second author independently applied the fixed codebook to five complete transcripts selected for maximum variation; disagreements were resolved by returning to the original Mandarin context and predefined coding boundaries. Results: Eighteen barriers and fifteen facilitators were identified across six themes within the COM-B domains. Capability was strengthened by clinical experience, senior nurses’ intuitive pattern recognition, and conversational assessment, but constrained by difficulty recognising hypoactive delirium, uncertainty when assessing older adults, inconsistent use of CAM-ICU, and insufficient targeted training. Opportunity was enhanced by staffing, environmental control, peer support, family engagement, and physician collaboration, but restricted by fragmented visibility, sensory overstimulation, workload, restrictive visiting, and delayed medical responses. Motivation reflected the tension between professional duty and accountability for safety on one hand and emotional burden, verbal abuse, and violence on the other. Cross-domain accounts showed that opportunity constraints could amplify anxiety and safety-first motivation, narrowing feasible behaviour toward containment, whereas social support could sustain relational care. Conclusions: Delirium management was shaped by interacting behavioural, organisational, and emotional conditions. Strengthening assessment capability alone is unlikely to produce consistent practice without staffing, workflow, environmental, and interprofessional support. Mapping the findings to Behaviour Change Wheel intervention functions highlighted training, environmental restructuring, enablement, and modelling as priority candidate functions for prospective evaluation; education alone was unlikely to be sufficient. Reporting Method: This study was reported in accordance with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research checklist. Patient or Public Contribution: No patient or public contribution was involved in the design, conduct or reporting of this study. Participants were registered intensive care unit nurses. Full article

This paper sets out the purpose and direction of the Special Issue. It establishes the background to change through the industrial revolutions, and particularly the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is creating unprecedented pressures on cities and their downtowns. It notes that the complex challenges require interdisciplinary collaboration and integration, and this leads to five research questions about the future. The aims of the Special Issue are how to futureproof downtowns against a growing image of redundant buildings and unloved spaces, and re-create useful places with symbolic meaning for citizens. The structure is based on the sustainable city, in which the established environmental, social, and economic perspectives are extended to include political, cultural, and technological viewpoints. All these perspectives can be enacted through placemaking tools, which themselves require classification. Existing conceptual frameworks are explored but there is a lack of coherence in placemaking tools and their association with the sustainability perspectives. A reflection on the research questions demonstrates roles for both sustainability perspectives and placemaking types, and their inter-relationship in contributing towards a framework for the future of downtowns. Future directions are guided by papers and prospective papers from the Special Issue and related to a proposed coherent approach. Full article

This study examines whether national digital technological readiness moderates the relationship between national sustainability performance and supply chain logistics performance. Using a panel of 157 countries across six biennial waves from 2010 to 2023 (N = 850), with every predictor measured two years before the wave it explains, drawn from the World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI), the World Bank Sovereign ESG indicators, and the UNCTAD Frontier Technology Readiness Index (FTRI), we estimate a hybrid within-between panel model that separates durable cross-country differences from within-country change, with sustainability performance measured through three separately constructed environmental, social, and governance dimensions. Sustainability performance relates positively to logistics performance between countries, and the association strengthens with readiness. The association becomes statistically significant only above a readiness threshold on the FTRI scale, below which every low-income country in the sample falls. The moderating effect is driven by the social and governance dimensions rather than the environmental dimension. It operates on the sub-dimensions that domestic institutions govern, most notably customs and infrastructure, while disappearing for international shipping. The between-country interaction remains stable across alternative moderator definitions, alternative measure constructions, an expanded control set, and a permutation placebo test. This moderation follows the continuous level of readiness rather than income group boundaries. Grounded in Dynamic Capabilities Theory, the findings suggest that digital readiness functions as the capability through which sustainability investments translate into realized logistics performance, and they locate a readiness threshold with direct implications for the sequencing of development policy. Full article

Sustainable development has traditionally been understood as a framework balancing environmental, economic and social objectives. However, accelerating climate change, geopolitical instability, technological disruption and growing systemic risks challenge the conditions under which these objectives can be achieved. Despite expanding research on sustainability, resilience and security, their interrelationships remain fragmented across disciplinary perspectives. This article examines how the relationship between sustainable development and security has evolved and analyzes how existing discussions on sustainable security can be brought together into a more coherent analytical framework. The study applies qualitative document analysis, comparative analysis, thematic analysis and analytical synthesis of the academic literature, international policy documents and institutional reports. The analysis indicates that progress towards sustainable development depends to a substantial extent on the resilience of environmental, economic, societal and institutional systems. Rather than representing a separate policy field, sustainable security provides an integrative perspective that explains how these dimensions interact under conditions of systemic uncertainty. Building on existing research in sustainability, security, resilience and governance, the article develops an Integrated Sustainable Security Framework that brings these dimensions into a single analytical structure suitable for examining their mutual relationships. Its main contribution lies in integrating existing perspectives into an analytically consistent framework that may support future empirical and interdisciplinary research on the sustainability–security nexus. Full article

Brazil presents a distinctive convergence of continental-scale climatic diversity, extensive urbanization, large-scale biomass burning, rapid land-use change, persistent air-quality monitoring gaps, and deep social inequalities, producing highly heterogeneous and compound environmental health risks. In this context, treating air pollution and climate change as parallel environmental crises obscures their structural interconnections through shared emission sources, mutually reinforcing exposure pathways, and overlapping health and social consequences. In this narrative review, we critically synthesize scientific and institutional lines of evidence and argue that air pollution and climate risks can be more effectively addressed in Brazil through a single strategic agenda for science, public health, and governance. We first discuss why these challenges cannot be managed in isolation, emphasizing the effects of heat, drought, stagnation events, biomass burning, and extreme weather on pollutant formation, dispersion, and health burden. We then examine Brazil as a critical case where recent regulatory advances coexist with structural limitations in monitoring, data integration, and territorial coverage. Based on this diagnosis, we propose an integrated national agenda organized around five mutually reinforcing priorities: monitoring through hybrid networks; predictive science through climate-informed modeling and early warning; public health through the convergence of epidemiology, toxicology, and mechanistic research; equity-oriented research and action through the explicit incorporation of vulnerability, inequality, and climate justice; and policy appraisal through the assessment of disease burden, economic costs, mitigation co-benefits, and trade-offs. We further discuss the governance mechanisms needed to connect these priorities and translate evidence into coordinated action and adaptive public policies. We also argue that the Amazon should be approached not as an isolated ecological exception but as a central component of a broader Brazilian and Global South discussion on environmental health, land-use change, and climate justice. In this scenario, Brazil has the scientific capacity and regulatory momentum to become a reference in the integrated management of air pollution and climate risks, but this will depend on replacing fragmented approaches with a coordinated framework capable of linking exposure, mechanism, burden, inequality, and action. Full article