Search Results (5,887)

This study examines social media communication in Kenya to assess how dryland pastoral concerns are represented in national climate policy dialogues. Approximately 80% of Kenya’s land area consists of drylands that support pastoral livelihoods, yet recurring droughts and increasingly variable rainfall threaten these social-ecological systems. Although Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action) emphasizes adaptation, progress is typically measured using national indicators that may overlook local priorities. We analyzed digital communications from pastoral nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, newspapers, and government agencies using an adaptation pathways framework to examine links among climate risks, governance, and decision-making. Five themes emerged: water security, rangeland degradation and mobility, climate communication, gender and social inclusion, and climate finance. Kenya has developed relatively strong national climate policies, but social media reveals a persistent implementation gap between national policy and local pastoral priorities. Pastoral communities consistently emphasize Indigenous and local knowledge, women’s leadership, community participation, and locally appropriate adaptation strategies. Social media provides a novel source of evidence for identifying these local priorities and informing more participatory, place-based climate adaptation. Full article

Artificial intelligence is converging with labor-market change, the proliferation of alternative credentials, and growing demands for public impact, placing the traditional university model under increasing pressure. This conceptual review argues that the central challenge is not whether universities will be replaced by AI, but whether they can move beyond a model organized around time-bound degree delivery. It proposes the Human-Agency Infrastructure Framework, which redefines the future university as a trusted system that helps people and societies build, verify, apply, and sustain human capabilities over time. The framework was developed abductively by integrating literature on human agency, the capability approach, higher education futures, AI in education, credentialing, innovation ecosystems, and public-purpose governance. It identifies four core institutional functions: building capabilities, verifying capabilities, applying capabilities, and sustaining belonging, enabled by governing trust as a foundation and boundary condition. The article then translates the framework into strategic shifts, governance questions, risks, and research propositions for universities seeking to remain relevant in an age of intelligence abundance. Full article

Background/Objectives: Population aging has emerged as a major global challenge, particularly in Asian countries experiencing rapid demographic transitions. Among them, South Korea represents one of the fastest aging societies in the world, having rapidly transitioned into a super-aged society. As aging populations expand worldwide, increasing attention has been directed toward well-dying as an important component of quality of life, end-of-life care, and social well-being in later life. This study aims to identify the major research trends and knowledge structures of well-dying studies by applying text net-work analysis and LDA-based topic modeling. Methods: A total of 91 Korean academic studies related to well-dying published between 2016 and March 2026 were collected from publicly accessible scholarly databases and analyzed via keyword frequency, degree centrality, and community detection analyses, as well as LDA-based topic modeling. Results: The results showed that keywords such as “death,” “awareness,” “education,” “older adults,” “medical care,” and “life-sustaining treatment” played central roles in the knowledge network. Community analysis revealed that well-dying research has evolved into interconnected domains involving psychological preparations for death, hospice and palliative care, legal and ethical decision-making, and community-based aging policies. Topic modeling further identified four major themes: (1) psychological well-being and death preparation in later life, (2) social and policy approaches to well-dying, (3) well-dying education and healthcare perceptions, and (4) legal and ethical issues surrounding life-sustaining treatment decisions. Conclusions: The findings suggest that well-dying research is expanding from individual psychological adaptation to broader social, medical, legal, and policy dimensions. As one of the world’s fastest-aging societies, the Korean case provides meaningful implications for other countries facing accelerated population aging and highlights the importance of integrated well-dying policies and community-based support systems in super-aged societies. Full article

Carbon balance capacity (CBC) and urban–rural integration (URI) represent two interconnected systems involving ecological sustainability and socioeconomic development. Understanding their interactions is essential for advancing low-carbon development, yet the spatial heterogeneity and directional relationships between these systems remain insufficiently explored. Using panel data for 30 Chinese provinces from 2005 to 2024, this study measures CBC by assessing the relative capacity of regional carbon absorption to balance carbon emissions and constructs URI as a composite index based on a five-dimensional indicator system covering population, economy, space, society, and ecology. Exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel Granger causality test are then applied to examine the spatiotemporal dynamics and directional relationships between CBC and URI. The results show that carbon emissions exhibit an increasingly pronounced “high East–low West” pattern, whereas carbon absorption maintains a relatively stable “high West–low East” distribution. Accordingly, CBC shows a contraction of high-value regions and increasing concentration of carbon balance advantages in ecologically endowed provinces. Meanwhile, URI has improved continuously, with spatial, ecological, and social dimensions becoming increasingly important, while economic integration remains relatively limited. Granger causality analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity in CBC–URI interactions, with decoupling as the dominant pattern, while some regions exhibit development-related pressures or ecological constraints during urban–rural transformation. Positive interaction pathways, where urban–rural integration contributes to improvements in carbon balance capacity, are identified only in a limited number of regions, indicating diverse evolutionary pathways between urban–rural transformation and carbon balance capacity. This study further develops a typological framework and identifies differentiated development pathways toward more coordinated CBC–URI interactions, providing empirical evidence and policy insights for place-based low-carbon urban–rural transformation. Full article

Sustainable development encompasses economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Assessing urban sustainability and regional disparities is essential for promoting high-quality development. This study evaluated 72 cities in the urban agglomerations of the Yellow River Basin, China, based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and analyzed the coordinated development level of the “economy-society-environment” (ESE) system from 2007 to 2022. The results show that: (1) Cities with higher SDGs scores are mainly located in the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration (SPUA), while lower scores are concentrated in the Ningxia Yellow River urban agglomeration (NXUA) and the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration (LXUA); (2) During the study period, the coupling coordination level among urban agglomerations in the Yellow River Basin continuously improved. By 2022, most cities in the SPUA had entered the “mild disorder” stage, while the majority of other urban agglomerations remained in the “moderate disorder” stage, indicating that although the overall coordination of the ESE system had improved, significant regional disparities persisted; (3) The Random Forest algorithm (RFA)-SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) model indicates that the urban sprawl index and the economic development level are the important influencing factors of economic sustainability, fiscal expenditure per unit area and urbanization level are associated with social sustainability, and water bodies and cropland are closely related to environmental sustainability. This study provides insights into the spatial disparities and key influencing factors associated with urban sustainable development in the Yellow River Basin, supporting regional sustainability planning. Full article

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a complex, life-threatening syndrome associated with substantial morbidity and mortality, reduced functional capacity, diminished quality of life, and considerable healthcare costs. Globally, HF affects more than 64 million individuals. Chronic heart failure (CHF) imposes a significant economic and personal burden on individuals, society, and the healthcare system, and places substantial demands on effective self-care. Objective: The purpose of this metasynthesis was to explore the self-care experiences of individuals with heart failure and the ways in which they manage their self-care. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted from January 2014 to July 2025 across four major databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science (Clarivate), Scopus, and ProQuest, and two gray-literature sources, OpenGrey and OAIster. A total of 320 records were exported to the Rayyan Systematic Review Management Platform, and after the screening process, only 19 were included for data extraction. The quality of included studies was assessed, and the data were synthesized using thematic synthesis. Results: Three overarching analytical themes were generated that capture multifaceted experiences of individuals living with heart failure and engaging in self-care. These included: adaptive and technology-supported self-management in daily life, emotional and psychological dimensions of self-care, and social, cultural, and environmental influences on self-care. Conclusion: Heart failure self-care is a dynamic and multifaceted process shaped by adaptive daily practices, emotional and psychological experiences, and social and cultural contexts. Individuals continuously adjust behaviors, manage symptoms through lived experience, and rely on supportive relationships and resources to sustain self-care. Recognizing this complexity is essential for developing individual-centered, culturally sensitive interventions that align with the lived realities of individuals with heart failure. Full article

Facing interlinked environmental, social, and economic crises, advancing sustainability requires more than institutional reforms; it demands transforming individual mindsets, behaviors, and competencies. This study positions the individual as a central change agent and proposes an integrative model beyond traditional scoping review boundaries. It maps sustainability competencies across three interconnected domains: civic, educational, and professional engagement. Based on a comprehensive scoping review, the study identifies how these competencies are conceptualized and applied within distinct institutional contexts. By bridging fragmented disciplinary perspectives, the model uncovers shared patterns and role-specific nuances, emphasizing contextual adaptability and systemic thinking. Theoretically, the article contributes to developing a unified understanding of individual agency for sustainability. Socially, it highlights the urgency of empowering individuals, as citizens, students, or professionals, to take informed, responsible action in pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The findings offer insights for educators, policymakers, and organizations seeking to cultivate sustainability-oriented competencies across society. Full article

This essay argues that the key to understanding Franz Rosenzweig’s complex oscillation between enclosed and dialogical models of identity lies in his sustained intellectual dialogue with Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. Through a close reading of their 1916 correspondence and the works each produced in its wake, the essay shows that Rosenzweig’s philosophy of identity in The Star of Redemption was decisively shaped by Rosenstock’s emerging dialogical and linguistic insights, just as Rosenstock’s postwar writings were deeply informed by Rosenzweig’s conception of inherited, generational identity. Their exchange reveals a mutually formative conversation in which each thinker both appropriated and resisted elements of the other’s position. Rosenzweig retained a tension between enclosed and communicative identity, while Rosenstock sought to universalize and open the inherited Jewish model he found in Rosenzweig, purging it of its non-dialogical edges. By tracing this reciprocal influence across anthropology, theology, and theories of truth, the essay demonstrates that Rosenzweig’s and Rosenstock’s interwar debate constitutes not a one-sided influence but a shared intellectual project. Their struggle to balance historical rootedness with openness to others offers a valuable conceptual resource for contemporary discussions of nationalism, multiculturalism, and the status of truth in polarized societies. Full article

Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is an independent and causal risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) and calcific aortic valve stenosis (CAVS), with plasma levels largely genetically determined and minimally influenced by lifestyle. Contemporary dyslipidemia guidelines now recommend at least one lifetime measurement and increasingly incorporate Lp(a) into personalized cardiovascular risk evaluation. Recent guideline updates integrate traditional risk estimation with risk-enhancing factors and coronary artery calcium (CAC) imaging. The 2026 U.S. multi-society guideline classifies Lp(a) ≥ 125 nmol/L as a risk-enhancing factor and ≥250 nmol/L as a major risk enhancer. The PREVENT equations provide baseline risk estimation, personalized by Lp(a) and refined through CAC-based reclassification when treatment decisions remain uncertain. Despite its established role in risk assessment, current management remains indirect and emphasizes aggressive control of modifiable risk factors, particularly low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). Emerging Lp(a)-targeted therapies, including antisense oligonucleotides, small interfering RNA agents, and oral small-molecule inhibitors, have shown substantial and sustained reductions in Lp(a) levels, although definitive evidence of cardiovascular benefit is still pending. This review provides a practical, evidence-based synthesis of Lp(a) biology, contemporary guideline recommendations, integrated risk stratification using PREVENT and CAC, current management, and emerging Lp(a)-targeted therapies for use across primary care and cardiology practice. Full article

In the context of the global implementation of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), urban green development serves as a core practical pathway to advance SDG8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG15 (Life on Land). This study constructed a three-dimensional evaluation framework encompassing the green economy, green ecology, and green society, and utilized panel data from 282 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2009 to 2021. By integrating the CRITIC weighting method, spatial autocorrelation, the Standard Deviational Ellipse (SDE) approach, and the Dagum Gini decomposition, we systematically quantified multi-scale spatiotemporal evolution and disparity patterns at the national scale, as well as across four major economic zones and five core urban agglomerations. Nationwide, the composite green development index rose from 0.422 to 0.522 (+23.70%), while the overall Dagum Gini coefficient declined from 0.072 to 0.053 (−26.39%), with the spatial center of gravity gradually shifting toward the southwest. Eastern China persistently maintained the highest development level; Western China achieved the fastest cumulative growth (26.43%), and Northeastern China lagged behind with the lowest growth rate (20.10%). Among five major urban agglomerations, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Pearl River Delta (PRD) shared an identical average score of 0.582, whereas the Chengdu–Chongqing (CC) agglomeration recorded the highest growth of 33.07%. This research contributes multi-scale empirical evidence for localized SDG implementation in China and provides differentiated policy insights for cross-regional green transition governance. Full article

Wind power is central to global decarbonization, but its expansion depends not only on technological capacity but also on social embedding. Co-creation is often promoted as a way to enhance public participation and legitimacy, yet existing research does not explain why it develops in some contexts but remains limited in others. This paper examines how governance contexts shape the emergence of co-creation in energy transitions. It develops a framework that links co-creation to feedback processes, focusing on how interactions among governments, firms, and communities generate shared interpretations and legitimacy over time. The analysis compares wind power development in China and Denmark, two global leaders with contrasting governance structures. Using a comparative process-tracing approach, the study focuses on early-stage project development, including initial interaction, participation, and feedback formation. The findings show that structural governance conditions, especially patterns of state–society relations, participation, and trust, shape whether feedback can be articulated, shared, and influence decision-making. In Denmark, more open governance enables cumulative feedback and sustained co-creation. In China, hierarchical structures constrain feedback, resulting in fragmented interactions and limited co-creation. The paper reconceptualizes co-creation as a dynamic outcome of feedback processes and shows that rapid technological expansion alone does not ensure socially embedded transitions. Full article

Against the dual strategic backdrop of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals and high-quality urbanization development, extant literature exhibits four prominent research gaps: oversimplified evaluation indicator systems, exclusive exploration of the unidirectional carbon impacts exerted by urbanization, a scarcity of long-time-series coupling analyses targeting the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YEB), and functional fragmentation between coupling coordination assessment and predictive simulation tools. Drawing on panel data covering 11 provinces and municipalities within the YEB spanning 2000 to 2021, this study constructs a comprehensive urbanization evaluation framework encompassing four dimensions: population, economy, society, and spatial layout. Meanwhile, an integrated carbon emission assessment system is established from the perspectives of population, economy, energy consumption, and carbon sinks. The entropy-weight method is adopted to assign indicator weights, and a combination of the coupling coordination degree model and system dynamics (SD) model is employed to analyze spatiotemporal evolutionary characteristics and simulate development trends from 2022 to 2032. By organically integrating the coupling coordination model and the SD model, this study establishes an integrated analytical framework that unifies static comprehensive evaluation and driving-mechanism decomposition, thereby compensating for the limitations of time-series forecasting models such as the grey prediction model and ARIMA, which only fit trends from historical data. Empirical results reveal that regional urbanization levels witnessed sustained growth across 2000–2021, with spatial urbanization acting as the core driving pillar. The overall coupling coordination degree maintained a steady upward trajectory, while the east–west regional disparity gradually narrowed. The simulation projections for 2022–2032 demonstrate continuous improvements in coordinated development across the entire basin: the coupling coordination degree ranges from 0.788 to 0.954 for the eastern region, 0.810 to 0.859 for the central region, and 0.752 to 0.865 for the western region. Such spatial differentiation corresponds to distinct practical development pathways: low-carbon stock optimization in the east, low-carbon industrial undertaking in the central zone, and clean energy transition acceleration in the west. All provincial-level administrative regions are projected to achieve an upgrade in their coupling coordination grades by 2032. This study acknowledges several limitations: missing raw data are supplemented via interpolation, only a single baseline scenario is simulated, predictive uncertainty is not quantitatively measured, and subjectivity persists in the weight assignment of coupling subsystems. Ultimately, differentiated low-carbon urbanization governance strategies are proposed for the three sub-regions, offering empirical references for the coordinated realization of dual carbon targets throughout the Yangtze River basin. Full article

Building resilient manufacturing industrial chains while advancing low-carbon transformation is an important issue for sustainable development. This study examines the relationships among configurations of command-and-control, market-incentive, voluntary, and implicit environmental regulation, green technological innovation, and manufacturing industrial chain resilience across 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China. We combine fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis with a complex mediation model. The former identifies environmental regulation configurations associated with high green technological innovation, while the latter examines their relationships with manufacturing industrial chain resilience and the mediating role of green technological innovation. Resilience is measured from the dimensions of entity resilience and structural resilience. The results show that no single type of environmental regulation is necessary for high green technological innovation. Three configurations are identified: the “government–enterprise-driven,” “enterprise–society synergistic,” and “policy–society co-promotion” configurations. Among them, the first two are significantly and positively associated with manufacturing industrial chain resilience, with green technological innovation partially mediating both relationships. When voluntary environmental regulation is a core present condition in both configurations, the mediating role of green technological innovation is more pronounced in the government–enterprise-driven configuration. The findings indicate that coordinating multiple forms of environmental regulation is important for promoting green technological innovation and strengthening manufacturing industrial chain resilience. Full article

A growing demand for resources that exceeds the capacity of the biophysical system to regenerate puts environmental resources under stress, and society faces uncertainties about their scarcity and climate change. In this context, understanding how interactions among environmental, social, and economic systems shape behavioural responses becomes essential for explaining the emergence of sustainable socio-ecological dynamics. Therefore, this research explores how interactions among environmental, social, and economic systems influence sustainability outcomes, where emergent behaviours, including cooperation, reveal the interaction mechanisms connecting environmental, social and economic subsystems. A simulation model is built using the agent-based model method for this goal. The simulations suggest that scarcity may reinforce non-cooperative behaviours and generate lock-in dynamics that hinder transitions toward more sustainable system states. Additionally, cooperative behaviours emerge from the interactions among heterogeneous agents embedded within environmental, social, and economic subsystems, highlighting cooperation as a key mechanism connecting these subsystems and supporting more sustainable socio-ecological dynamics. Full article

Cyanobacteria offer a sustainable and environmentally friendly method of light-driven biosynthesis of chemicals with minimal environmental impact, making them an extremely attractive proposition in alleviating society’s dependency on fossil fuels. To fully exploit cyanobacteria as a chassis to meet society’s demands for energy and chemical production, genetic modification is a crucial step in improving productivity through the expression of heterologous and novel biosynthetic pathways. Genome mining was carried out with the aim of identifying potential recE and recT homologues to improve the efficiency of genetic manipulation. Two promising candidate homologues of recT and cas4 (recE homologue) were identified from the cyanobacterium Aphanocapsa feldmanni. Expression of these candidates increased recombination efficiency 3-fold, generating mutants with the expected genotypes and phenotypes, which were comparable to mutants created with conventional knockout protocols using suicide vectors. These results indicate that cyanobacteria possess recombination homologues that can be re-purposed to improve the efficiency of genome engineering to accelerate cyanobacteria for strain development. Full article