Dissipation, processing factors and dietary risk assessment of the bioinsecticide abamectin in herbal plants belonging to Lamiaceae family from open field to herbal tea infusion

Abamectin, the mixture of avermectin B1a and B1b, is widely used as a bioinsecticide and is an alternative to chemical pest control from insects. To our knowledge, its behaviour is not fully recognized, especially in herbs. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the environmental fate of abamectin in herbal plants belonging to the Lamiaceae family, its dissipation in open field studies laboratory processing treatments and dietary risk assessment. Three medicinally and culinary important species of herbs: Melissa officinalis L., Mentha × piperita L. and Salvia L. were treated with single and double dose than recommended on the label during their cultivation (BBCH 11-29). Residues were monitored using the QuEChERS method followed by the LC-MS/MS. The dissipation pattern of the sum of avermectin B1a and B1b and their persistence were observed 14 d after spraying. Abamectin decline was very rapid in plants and followed the first-order kinetics model. The half-life (t1/2) was in the range of 0.96-1.08 d (single dose) and 0.93-1.02 d (double dose). The pre-harvest intervals (decrease to the level of 0.01 mg kg-1) were 7.29-7.92 d at single and 7.99-8.64 d at double dose application. Herbal infusion preparation in previously washed and dried mint, lemon balm and sage leaves was the key processing step in the removal of abamectin residues. The reduction of initial deposits after single dose treatment was noted up to 65% (PF = 0.35-0.67) and up to 79% after double dose application (PF = 0.21-0.72) in herbal tea. Acute risk assessment of children and adults for the highest residues in EFSA PRIMo model at single and double dose expressed as hazard quotients (HQ) were <1, indicating no risk to humans via consumption of the herbal products. The data provide a better understanding of abamectin behaviour in herbal plants and can help assure herbs' safety for consumers.

Transforming planning and policy making processes at the intersections of climate, equity, and decolonization challenges

Cities are facing increasing pressures to address complex challenges of climate change, equity, and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples as intersecting issues, and innovation into planning and policy-making processes is urgently needed to achieve this. It is no longer good enough to work on these challenges discreetly, or solely within the dominant, western colonial paradigm and practices of governance. There are ongoing harms being caused by climate work that does not embed justice, and there are missed opportunities for synergies across these domains as they have the same systemic root causes. Cities must adapt and transform the processes and practices of planning and policy-making in order to work at these problematic roots. Drawing on an empirical study, this article describes how social innovation, systemic design, and decolonizing practices can shape a different approach to planning and policy-making processes when working at the intersections of climate, equity, and decolonization.

What are the lessons from COVID-19 for creating healthy, sustainable, resilient future cities?

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives and the economy, reminding the global community of the devastating health and economic impacts of uncontrolled infectious disease. It has affected how and where people live, work, shop, and play, and exposed our cities' vulnerabilities, leading to calls for a health lens to be applied in designing, approving, and evaluating city plans. Socioeconomic, spatial and health inequities have been amplified, particularly for those living in inadequate or poorly designed housing, neighbourhoods, and cities. Hence, city mayors have committed to 'build back better' with all daily living amenities within a 15-min walking or cycling trip. Designed well, these cities have the potential to be healthier, more sustainable, equitable, and resilient. Yet their delivery requires a rethink of city planning. Drawing on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, we argue that to reduce the risk of future pandemics, we must mitigate climate change, limit urban expansion, and use nature-based solutions to protect natural habitats and biodiversity. We then explore how healthy, sustainable, and resilient 15-minute cities could be planned to reduce emissions and ensure our cities are more resilient in the event of future crises. Given that higher density housing underpins the success of 15-minute cities, we also examine how to create more resilient housing stock, through well-implemented health-supportive apartment design standards. Finally, we argue that to achieve all this, cross-sector leadership and investment will be vital.

Eco-tourism, climate change, and environmental policies: empirical evidence from developing economies

Developing ecotourism services is a suitable solution to help developing countries improve the status of sustainable development indicators and protect their environment. The primary purpose of this paper is to find out the effects of green governance variables and carbon dioxide emissions on ecotourism for 40 developing economies from 2010 to 2021. The results confirmed a uni-directional causal relationship between the green governance indicator and the inflation rate of the ecotourism indicator. In addition, with a 1% improvement in the green governance index of developing countries, the ecotourism of these countries will increase by 0.43%. In comparison, with a 1% increase in the globalization index of these countries, ecotourism will increase by 0.32%. Moreover, ecotourism in developing countries is more sensitive to macroeconomic variables changes than in developed economies. Geopolitical risk is an influential factor in the developing process of ecotourism. The practical policies recommended by this research are developing the green financing market, establishing virtual tourism, granting green loans to small and medium enterprises, and government incentives to motivate active businesses.

Correction: Assessing the significance of first place and online third places in supporting Malaysian seniors' well-being during the pandemic

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1057/s41599-023-01655-5.].

Sailing to save the planet? Media-produced narratives of Greta Thunberg's trip to the UN Climate Summit in German print newspapers

Narratives and stories are important communication tools and as such essential subjects of social geography. This paper analyses the retelling of Greta Thunberg's sailing trip across the Atlantic to the Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019 in leading German newspapers and magazines and how her intentions are transformed through this reporting into different narratives. The research mainly focuses on examining the influence of space and place, as geographical research has revealed that spatial determinants are crucial in risk communication and knowledge generation on climate change but have yet to be studied considering stories. The paper, therefore, extends the story-based approach from communication sciences by geographical research on the role of space and place in action-based stories. Therefore, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is used to decode the spatial environment in narratives as an active element that shapes the narrative, and the way characters can (inter)act within these settings. The paper further develops the NPF framework through a geographical lens by focusing particularly on the selection options of spaces for social interactions and affective bonds. Thus, it becomes evident how spatial contexts and environments shape the interactions between individuals and crucially influence the types of narratives that emerge.

Community well-being dimensions in Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo

The local communities living around national parks or areas like World Heritage Site (WHS) are crucial stakeholders to such settings. Their well-being needs to be unraveled so that the holistic management of the national park is in good condition to stabilize its status as WHS through the support and empowerment of the community. Numerous studies have been conducted on the biodiversity and geology of Gunung Mulu National Park (GMNP), but the community psychology aspect that is the foundation of conservation efforts has not been addressed. Therefore, this study aims to examine the community well-being dimensions in terms of environment, economics, social aspects as well as authority intervention based on the perspective of the local community and professionals with an emphasis on the current issues in GMNP. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were used in this study through a questionnaire to 99 local communities, and individual interviews that were conducted in GMNP and four nearby villages. Data were analyzed descriptively with four themes: environment; economics; social; and authority intervention. The findings showed that locals were satisfied in residing area in terms of environmental conditions. However, it does not reflect the actual situation, i.e., river water cloudiness, wildlife threat, degradation of wetlands, and solid waste issues are still happening. The constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic portrayed that they were very dissatisfied with their monthly income, which is very low compared to before. In terms of social, the services and facilities, especially treated water and electricity need improvement. It also noted that authority intervention especially related to road proposal, financial and skills assistance, and community conflicts could influence locals' support for the planning and policies implemented in the national parks or WHS areas. This study suggests that relevant stakeholders should emphasize bottom-up approaches by considering aspects of community well-being that stem from multiple dimensions in order to achieve holistic national park management.

Does commerce promote theft? A quantitative study from Beijing, China

Commerce, as both an environmental and a social factor, is essential to the study of the causes of urban crimes. This paper aims to comprehensively propose research hypotheses based on these two types of commercial factors and optimise statistical tools with which to analyse commerce's impact on the level of theft in Beijing. Combining criminal verdicts, census data, points of interest, and information on nighttime lighting, this paper first applies a hierarchical regression model to verify the effectiveness of using commercial environmental and social factors to explain theft statistics and then constructs a structural equation model to analyse the joint influence of multiple commercial factors on those statistics. This paper finds that Beijing's commerce does not significantly promote theft, verifies the effectiveness of two types of commercial variables and the corresponding Western theories in explaining commerce's impact on theft in Beijing, and provides empirical data for the study of the causes of theft in a non-Western context.

Global survey shows planners use widely varying sea-level rise projections for coastal adaptation

Including sea-level rise (SLR) projections in planning and implementing coastal adaptation is crucial. Here we analyze the first global survey on the use of SLR projections for 2050 and 2100. Two-hundred and fifty-three coastal practitioners engaged in adaptation/planning from 49 countries provided complete answers to the survey which was distributed in nine languages - Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. While recognition of the threat of SLR is almost universal, only 72% of respondents currently utilize SLR projections. Generally, developing countries have lower levels of utilization. There is no global standard in the use of SLR projections: for locations using a standard data structure, 53% are planning using a single projection, while the remainder are using multiple projections, with 13% considering a low-probability high-end scenario. Countries with histories of adaptation and consistent national support show greater assimilation of SLR projections into adaptation decisions. This research provides new insights about current planning practices and can inform important ongoing efforts on the application of the science that is essential to the promotion of effective adaptation.

War and pandemic do not jeopardize Germans' willingness to support climate measures

How do the impacts of acute crises influence citizens' willingness to support different types of climate measures? An acute crisis can be understood either as an impediment or as an opportunity for climate change mitigation. In the first perspective, crisis impacts would create negative spill-overs and dampen citizens' willingness to support climate action, while in the second perspective, the opposite would occur. Based on a survey experiment fielded in Germany in 2022 (n = 5438), we find that the economic implications of the Russo-Ukrainian War do not decrease behavioral willingness, while restrictions of civil liberties to combat the COVID-19 pandemic lead to higher climate support, underpinning the crisis-as-opportunity perspective. Willingness to support climate measures is strongest among (1) those most concerned about climate change, and (2) those who trust the government. We conclude that individuals do not wish climate change mitigation to be deprioritized on the back of other crises.

The impact of capitalist profit-seeking behavior by online food delivery platforms on food safety risks and government regulation strategies

Capital monopolized platforms that have emerged based on the new "Internet Plus" economic form will undoubtedly distort market competition. Taking the Meituan online food delivery platform in China as an example, this study (1) investigates the game of interests between the platform and restaurants and the resulting impact on food safety risks, and (2) explores the interactions among government regulations, platform profit strategy, and restaurant behavior. An evolutionary game model between the capital-monopolized online food delivery platform and the restaurants was developed with an optional promotion fee and government regulation level as variables. Analysis of four equilibrium situations derived from the evolutionary game model showed that the platform always pursued high overall profit in every equilibrium situation. This capitalist profit-seeking behavior will most likely reduce the profit margins and even the survival space of restaurants on the platform, forcing them to engage in opportunistic behavior and illegal production, thereby resulting in increased food safety risks in online food delivery and consequently increased government regulation costs. Although increased government regulation can change the production strategy of restaurants, it cannot change the platform's capitalist profit-seeking behavior. The platform's overall payoff is not reduced due to increased regulation, which once again proves the profit-seeking nature of capital. The strategy of low commissions but high promotion fees may require greater government regulation to restrain the opportunistic behavior of restaurants. Therefore, the Chinese government regulators can achieve a win-win situation of improved government regulation efficiency and reduced regulation costs by designing new regulatory strategies that do not reduce the platform's overall payoff.

Most industrialised countries have peaked carbon dioxide emissions during economic crises through strengthened structural change

As the climate targets tighten and countries are impacted by several crises, understanding how and under which conditions carbon dioxide emissions peak and start declining is gaining importance. We assess the timing of emissions peaks in all major emitters (1965-2019) and the extent to which past economic crises have impacted structural drivers of emissions contributing to emission peaks. We show that in 26 of 28 countries that have peaked emissions, the peak occurred just before or during a recession through the combined effect of lower economic growth (1.5 median percentage points per year) and decreasing energy and/or carbon intensity (0.7) during and after the crisis. In peak-and-decline countries, crises have typically magnified pre-existing improvements in structural change. In non-peaking countries, economic growth was less affected, and structural change effects were weaker or increased emissions. Crises do not automatically trigger peaks but may strengthen ongoing decarbonisation trends through several mechanisms.

Perspectives on socio-ecological studies in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres

Socio-ecology studies the relationships between human activities and natural systems and their importance in management and public policy. Our objective was to analyse how published papers in countries with a high Human Development Index (HDI) perform socio-ecological studies and compare them between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. To do this, we used the Scopus platform as a source for searching and obtaining scientific papers about socio-ecological studies conducted in countries from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. We calculated the number (n) of papers published per year and classified them using the main subject areas of the SCImago Journal & Country Rank database. Then, we analysed whether papers included specific recommendations for natural system management, nature conservation, policies or governance structures, or science in general. Besides, we studied whether the papers addressed socio-ecological studies related to flora and fauna and from what specific group of organisms or systems. Data were compared using the chi-square (χ ²) test (Pearson p < 0.005). A total of 467 papers were analysed, where 34% were from the Southern Hemisphere (mainly Argentina, Australia, Chile, and South Africa) and 66% from the Northern Hemisphere (mainly the USA, Canada, and Spain). The Northern Hemisphere (mainly North America and Europe) played a major role in the socio-ecological knowledge exchange than the Southern Hemisphere (South America and Africa). The results showed socio-ecological studies focused mainly on generating management recommendations in social and environmental science fields. The number of studies coming from the Northern Hemisphere was significantly higher than those from the Southern Hemisphere. Most of them were conducted at a local level (e.g., watersheds or human settlements) in three different systems (i) terrestrial (e.g., forests or grasslands), (ii) freshwater (e.g., rivers or streams) and (iii) marine (e.g., coastlines or seas). Most of the studies (70%) were conducted in production systems, where the majority included livestock (mainly bovine) and aquatic fisheries (e.g., salmon, artisanal coastal fishing, or trout). Most vegetation papers (65%) were on native forests. Papers on wildlife made up 30% of all animal-related studies, with mammals, birds, and marine invertebrates (such as collars) being the most extensively researched species. This work highlighted the socio-ecological approach that was used in the analysed countries with greater HDI to develop management options for natural systems.

Projected decrease in trail access in the Arctic

Transportation systems in northern Canada are highly sensitive to climate change. We project how access to semi-permanent trails on land, water, and sea ice might change this century in Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland in northern Canada), using CMIP6 projections coupled with trail access models developed with community members. Overall trail access is projected to diminish, with large declines in access for sea ice trails which play a central role for Inuit livelihoods and culture; limits to adaptation in southern regions of Inuit Nunangat within the next 40 years; a lengthening of the period when no trails are accessible; and an unequal distribution of impacts according to the knowledge, skills, equipment, and risk tolerance of trail users. There are opportunities for adaptation through efforts to develop skillsets and confidence in travelling in more marginal environmental conditions, which can considerably extend the envelope of days when trails are accessible and months when this is possible. Such actions could reduce impacts across emissions scenarios but their potential effectiveness declines at higher levels of global warming, and in southern regions only delays when sea ice trails become unusable.

Urban agriculture in walkable neighborhoods bore fruit for health and food system resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic

Urban agriculture is the key to creating healthy cities and developing resilient urban food systems in uncertain times. However, relevant empirical evidence is limited. This study quantitatively verified the association of access to local food through urban agriculture with subjective well-being, physical activity, and food security concerns of neighborhood communities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The target was Tokyo, Japan, where small-scale local food systems are widespread in walkable neighborhoods. We found that diversity in local food access, ranging from self-cultivation to direct-to-consumer sales, was significantly associated with health and food security variables. In particular, the use of allotment farms was more strongly associated with subjective well-being than the use of urban parks, and it was more strongly associated with the mitigation of food security concerns than the use of food retailers. These findings provide robust evidence for the effectiveness of integrating urban agriculture into walkable neighborhoods.

The fate of bitumen: an exploratory study of national newspaper coverage of Alberta's bitumen industry during the COVID-19 pandemic

This exploratory study examines how three major Canadian newspapers-the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and the Toronto Star-reported on Alberta's bitumen industry throughout 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic introduced significant market volatility. Through a combination of computational text analysis and qualitative interpretation, the study identified four recurring themes in 685 articles published by the target newspapers: (1) contention over bitumen infrastructure, (2) economic challenges for the bitumen industry, (3) political divide over the future of bitumen, (4) the bitumen industry's environmental impacts. A further qualitative assessment of these themes indicates that despite the pandemic's exposure of the structural weaknesses underlying Canada's resource-dependent economy, voices supporting the bitumen industry continue to dominate Canadian mainstream newspapers.

What are the core concerns of policy analysis? A multidisciplinary investigation based on in-depth bibliometric analysis

Policy analysis provides multiple methods and tools for generating and transforming policy-relevant information and supporting policy evolution to address emerging social problems. In this study, a bibliometric analysis of a large number of studies on historical policy analysis was performed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the distribution and evolution of policy problems in different fields among countries. The analysis indicates that policy analysis has been a great concern for scholars in recent two decades, and is involved in multiple disciplines, among which the dominant ones are medicine, environment, energy and economy. The major concerns of policy analysts and scholars are human health needs, environmental pressures, energy consumption caused by economic growth and urbanization, and the resulting demand for sustainable development. The multidisciplinary dialog implies the complicated real-world social problems that calls for more endeavors to develop a harmonious society. A global profiling for policy analysis demonstrates that the central policy problems and the corresponding options align with national development, for example, developing countries represented by China are faced with greater environmental pressures after experiencing extensive economic growth, while developed countries such as the USA and the UK pay more attention to the social issues of health and economic transformation. Exploring the differences in policy priorities among countries can provide a new inspiration for further dialog and cooperation on the development of the international community in the future.

Assessing the significance of first place and online third places in supporting Malaysian seniors' well-being during the pandemic

The enforced lockdowns and social distancing measures associated with COVID-19 may have influenced older adults' preferences towards their homes and neighborhoods as well as social spaces. One objective of this research is to determine whether home and neighborhood environments ("first place") affect how satisfied older adults are with their lives during the epidemic. This study also examined the extent to which social spaces that exist in the virtual world ("online third places") affect older adults' life satisfaction when they would have to practice risk-averse behaviors in times of pandemic. To collect data, this study analyzed the responses of 500 active older adults and conducted in-depth interviews with seven older adults who served as neighborhood leaders in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The study found that there is a direct relationship between older adults' satisfaction with their current housing and their overall life satisfaction during the pandemic. Similarly, having a quality neighborhood nearby increases the likelihood of living a satisfied life during the pandemic. Most online third parties, with the exception of instant messaging apps, do not appear to provide older adults with an adequate platform to interact with their friends, participate in social networking, and join communities for emotional support during the pandemic. The findings and recommendations of this study would be very useful in developing effective interventions to promote aging in place during the coronavirus outbreak.

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists' productivity in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and medicine fields

While studies suggested adverse impacts of COVID-19 on scientific outputs and work routines for scientists, more evidence is required to understand detailed obstacles challenging scientists' work and productivity during the pandemic, including how different people are affected (e.g., by gender). This online survey-based thematic analysis investigated how the pandemic affected scientists' perception of scientific and academic productivity in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and medicine fields. The analysis examined if inequitable changes in duties and responsibilities for caregiving for children, family, and/or households exist between scientists who are mothers compared to scientists who are fathers or non-parents. The survey collected data from 2548 survey responses in six languages across 132 countries. Results indicate that many scientists suffered from delays and restrictions on research activities and administrations due to the lockdown of institutions, as well as increased workloads from adapting to online teaching environment. Caregiving responsibility for children and family increased, which compromised time for academic efforts, especially due to the temporary shutdown of social supports. Higher percentages of female parent participants than male parent participants expressed such increased burdens indicating unequal divisions of caregiving between women and men. A range of physical and mental health issues was identified mainly due to overworking and isolation. Despite numerous obstacles, some participants reported advantages during the pandemic including the efficiency of online teaching, increased funding for COVID-related research, application of alternative research methodologies, and fluidity of the workday from not commuting. Findings imply the need for rapid institutional support to aid various academic activities and diminish gender inequity in career development among academicians, highlighting how crisis can exacerbate existing inequalities.

Building eco-surplus culture among urban residents as a novel strategy to improve finance for conservation in protected areas

The rapidly declining biosphere integrity, representing one of the core planetary boundaries, is alarming. In particular, the global numbers of mammals, birds, fishes, and plants declined by 68% from 1970 to 2016. One of the most widely accepted measures to halt the rate of biodiversity loss is to maintain and expand protected areas that are effectively managed. However, doing so requires substantial finance derived from nature-based tourism, specifically visitors from urban areas. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) for conducting analysis on 535 Vietnamese urban residents, the current study examined how their biodiversity loss perceptions can affect their willingness to pay for the entrance fee and conservation in protected areas. We found that perceived environmental degradation, loss of economic growth, loss of nature-based recreation opportunities, and loss of knowledge as consequences of biodiversity loss indirectly affect the willingness to pay through the mediation of the attitude towards conservation. Notably, perceived knowledge loss also has a direct positive influence on the willingness to pay for the entrance fee and conservation. In contrast, perceived loss of health is negatively associated with the attitude towards conservation. Based on these findings, we suggest that building an eco-surplus culture among urban residents by stimulating their subjective cost-benefit judgments towards biodiversity loss can be a promising way to generate more finance from nature-based tourism for conservation in protected areas and ease the domestic government's and international organizations' funding allocation problems. Eco-surplus culture is a set of pro-environmental attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by a group of people to reduce negative anthropogenic impacts on the environment and conserve and restore nature.

Topical and emotional expressions regarding extreme weather disasters on social media: a comparison of posts from official media and the public

Understanding media frames and the public resonance during disasters is essential for making inclusive climate change and adaptation policies in the context of increasingly extreme weather events. In this study, we use the extreme weather and flood event that occurred in July 2021 in Zhengzhou, China, as a case study to investigate how official media in China reported this event and how the public responded. Moreover, since one accountability investigation report regarding this disaster was released in January 2022, we also compared these posts between the emergency response period and the post-crisis learning period after the report's release. Topic modeling using the LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) method and emotion analysis were conducted to analyze the posts from Weibo, China's primary social media platform. The results demonstrated that the posts from official media and the public comments differed in both topics and emotions, with relatively little coherence. During the emergency response period, the media's posts focused more on the facts, such as the extreme weather event, the places where it occurred, the impacts, and the search and rescue efforts, while the public comments were more about help appeals from the neglected ones in the rural areas, and emotional expressions such as moral support, condolence or encouragement to the victims and their families. After the accountability investigation in January, the media's posts primarily covered the investigation process, the punishment, the attribution of disaster consequences, and the lessons learned, while the public's comments were relatively emotional, praised the good, condoled the victims, and condemned the villains. The dominant emotion from the media's posts was "like" in July 2021, but it became depression in January 2022. Anger was the prevalent emotion from the public during all the stages. This study provided valuable knowledge to the current understanding of the different patterns and dynamics of official media reports and the public's resonance in disaster management.

On the definition of noise

Urbanization has exposed people to extreme sound levels. Although researchers have investigated the ability of people to listen, analyze, and distinguish sound, the concept of noise has not been clearly articulated from a human perspective. The lack of knowledge on how people perceive noise limits our capacity to control it in a targeted manner. This study aimed to interpret the definition of noise from the public perspective based on a grounded theory approach. Seventy-eight participants were interviewed about noise, and four categories of perceived understanding of noise were identified: challenges, definitions of noise, opportunities, and action. As one of the challenges, urbanization is associated with increased noise levels around the human environment. In terms of definition, perceiving sound as noise is considered to be a result of the complex and dynamic process that includes sound, the environment, and humans. Sound and humans interact with the environment. In terms of opportunities, noise may have positive roles on certain occasions, dispelling the misconception that noise is exclusively negative. In addition, we found that noise perception has gradually shifted from noise control to noise utilization. In terms of action, noise can be controlled at the sound sources, susceptible target groups, susceptible behaviors and states, locations, and times where noise is perceived with high frequency. In this study, we investigated several aspects of noise, ranging from noise control, soundscape definition, and 'soundscape indices' (SSID) integration and application. Our findings provide an additional basis for developing better definitions, control, and utilization strategies of noise in the future, thereby improving the quality of the sound environment.

Characterizing COVID-19 waves in urban and rural districts of India

Understanding spatial determinants, i.e., social, infrastructural, and environmental features of a place, which shape infectious disease is critically important for public health. We present an exploration of the spatial determinants of reported COVID-19 incidence across India's 641 urban and rural districts, comparing two waves (2020-2021). Three key results emerge using three COVID-19 incidence metrics: cumulative incidence proportion (aggregate risk), cumulative temporal incidence rate, and severity ratio. First, in the same district, characteristics of COVID-19 incidences are similar across waves, with the second wave over four times more severe than the first. Second, after controlling for state-level effects, urbanization (urban population share), living standards, and population age emerge as positive determinants of both risk and rates across waves. Third, keeping all else constant, lower shares of workers working from home correlate with greater infection risk during the second wave. While much attention has focused on intra-urban disease spread, our findings suggest that understanding spatial determinants across human settlements is also important for managing current and future pandemics.

Two decades of rice research in Indonesia and the Philippines: A systematic review and research agenda for the social sciences

While rice studies are abundant, they usually focus on macro-level rice production and yield data, genetic diversity, cultivar varieties, and agrotechnological innovations. Moreover, many of these studies are either region-wide or concentrated on countries in the Global North. Collecting, synthesizing, and analyzing the different themes and topic areas in rice research since the beginning of the 21st century, especially in the Global South, remain unaddressed areas. This study contributes to filling these research lacunae by systematically reviewing 2243 rice-related articles cumulatively written by more than 6000 authors and published in over 900 scientific journals. Using the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, this study screened and retrieved articles published from 2001 to 2021 on the various topics and questions surrounding rice research in Indonesia and the Philippines-two rice-producing and -consuming, as well as emerging economies in Southeast Asia. Using a combination of bibliometrics and quantitative content analysis, this paper discusses the productive, relevant, and influential rice scholars; key institutions, including affiliations, countries, and funders; important articles and journals; and knowledge hotspots in these two countries. It also discusses the contributions of the social sciences, highlights key gaps, and provides a research agenda across six interdisciplinary areas for future studies. This paper mainly argues that an interdisciplinary and comparative inquiry of potentially novel topic areas and research questions could deepen and widen scholarly interests beyond conventional natural science-informed rice research in Indonesia and the Philippines. Finally, this paper serves other researchers in their review of other crops in broader global agriculture.

Wildfire imagery reduces risk information-seeking among homeowners as property wildfire risk increases

Negative imagery of destruction may induce or inhibit action to reduce risks from climate-exacerbated hazards, such as wildfires. This has generated conflicting assumptions among experts who communicate with homeowners: half of surveyed wildfire practitioners perceive a lack of expert agreement about the effect of negative imagery (a burning house) on homeowner behavior, yet most believe negative imagery is more engaging. We tested whether this expectation matched homeowner response in the United States. In an online experiment, homeowners who viewed negative imagery reported more negative emotions but the same behavioral intentions compared to those who viewed status-quo landscape photos. In a pre-registered field experiment, homeowners who received a postcard showing negative imagery were equally likely, overall, to visit a wildfire risk webpage as those whose postcard showed a status quo photo. However, the negative imagery decreased webpage visits as homeowners' wildfire risk increased. These results illustrate the importance of testing assumptions to encourage behavioral adaptation to climate change.

The politics and imaginary of 'autonomous vehicles': a participatory journey

The Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) pilot project set out to explore the alternative mobility imaginaries of participants. These imaginaries challenged the automated vision of the future presented by vehicle and technology companies. This paper takes a post-normal science and digital anthropology approach to the question of automated technology and the role that citizens have in shaping mobility future(s). Through narrative analysis, interviews with stakeholders, and Futures Making Ateliers, this citizen engagement journey deconstructs the technological promises of CAVs, as well as their plausibility and desirability from the point of view of the participants of the participatory journey. Our findings suggest that the technology is solving a different problem than the mobility problem as articulated in policy documents. By investigating the matters of concern of participants, the problem of mobility was redefined in their own terms, and alternative futures were explored. We use the concept of MacGuffin as means to explore the wider relevance of CAVs in mobility futures.

Attitudes to climate change risk: classification of and transitions in the UK population between 2012 and 2020

Strategies for achieving carbon emissions goals presuppose changes in individual behaviour, which can be indirectly nudged by interventions or tailored information but ultimately depend upon individual attitudes. Specifically, the perception that climate change is low risk has been identified as a barrier to participation in climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts. Therefore, understanding public attitudes towards climate change risk is an important element of reducing emissions. We applied k-means cluster analysis to explore attitudes to climate change risk in the UK population using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, a national survey running from 2009 to present. We identified three distinct attitude clusters: "Sceptical", "Concerned", and "Paradoxical" in both waves 4 (from 2012 to 2014) and 10 (from 2018 to 2020) of this survey. The Sceptical cluster tended to deny the seriousness of climate change and the urgency or even the necessity of dealing with it. The Concerned cluster displayed anxiety about climate change risks and supported action to reduce them. The Paradoxical cluster acknowledged the reality of climate change impacts but did not support actions to mitigate them. We further observed statistical associations between cluster membership and the social characteristics of the participants, including sex, age, income, education, and political affiliation. We also found a temporal stability of cluster structure between the two waves. However, the transition matrices indicated a general transition away from the Sceptical and Paradoxical clusters, and toward the Concerned cluster between wave 4 to wave 10. The findings suggest that more tailored public information campaigns regarding climate change risk may be necessary.

Proximity to small-scale inland and coastal fisheries is associated with improved income and food security

Poverty and food insecurity persist in sub-Saharan Africa. We conducted a secondary analysis of nationally representative data from three sub-Saharan Africa countries (Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda) to investigate how both proximity to and engagement with small-scale fisheries are associated with household poverty and food insecurity. Results from the analysis suggest that households engaged in small-scale fisheries were 9 percentage points less likely to be poor than households engaged only in agriculture. Households living in proximity to small-scale fisheries (average distance 2.7 km) were 12.6 percentage points more likely to achieve adequate food security and were 15 percentage points less likely to be income poor, compared to the most distant households. Households distant from fishing grounds (>5 km) were 1.5 times more likely to consume dried fish compared to households living close. Conserving the flow of benefits from small-scale fisheries is important for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in the region.

Two billion registered students affected by stereotyped educational environments: an analysis of gender-based color bias

According to the literature, educational technologies present several learning benefits to promote online education. However, there are several associated challenges, and some studies illustrate the limitations in elaborating educational technologies, called Design limitations. This aspect is responsible for unleashing various issues in the learning process, such as gender inequality, creating adverse effects on cognitive, motivational, and behavioral mediators, which opposes the fifth UN's Sustainable Development Goal. Therefore, many studies notice the harmful effects of stereotypes in educational technologies. These effects can be included in the design, like colors or other stereotyped elements, or how the activity is conducted. Based on this, the present study aimed to verify the predominance of color bias in educational technologies available on the WEB. This study developed a computational solution to calculate male and female color bias in the available educational technology web pages. The results suggest the prevalence of the development of educational technologies with a male color bias, with an imbalance among genders, without adequate customization for age groups. Furthermore, some environments, such as Computer Science, present a higher color bias for men when compared to women. Despite both scales being independent, results indicated interesting evidence of a substantial prevalence of colors associated with the male scale. According to the literature, this may be associated with dropout and lack of interest in female students, especially in sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains.

An agenda for future Social Sciences and Humanities research on energy efficiency: 100 priority research questions

Decades of techno-economic energy policymaking and research have meant evidence from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH)-including critical reflections on what changing a society's relation to energy (efficiency) even means-have been underutilised. In particular, (i) the SSH have too often been sidelined and/or narrowly pigeonholed by policymakers, funders, and other decision-makers when driving research agendas, and (ii) the setting of SSH-focused research agendas has not historically embedded inclusive and deliberative processes. The aim of this paper is to address these gaps through the production of a research agenda outlining future SSH research priorities for energy efficiency. A Horizon Scanning exercise was run, which sought to identify 100 priority SSH questions for energy efficiency research. This exercise included 152 researchers with prior SSH expertise on energy efficiency, who together spanned 62 (sub-)disciplines of SSH, 23 countries, and a full range of career stages. The resultant questions were inductively clustered into seven themes as follows: (1) Citizenship, engagement and knowledge exchange in relation to energy efficiency; (2) Energy efficiency in relation to equity, justice, poverty and vulnerability; (3) Energy efficiency in relation to everyday life and practices of energy consumption and production; (4) Framing, defining and measuring energy efficiency; (5) Governance, policy and political issues around energy efficiency; (6) Roles of economic systems, supply chains and financial mechanisms in improving energy efficiency; and (7) The interactions, unintended consequences and rebound effects of energy efficiency interventions. Given the consistent centrality of energy efficiency in policy programmes, this paper highlights that well-developed SSH approaches are ready to be mobilised to contribute to the development, and/or to understand the implications, of energy efficiency measures and governance solutions. Implicitly, it also emphasises the heterogeneity of SSH policy evidence that can be produced. The agenda will be of use for both (1) those new to the energy-SSH field (including policyworkers), for learnings on the capabilities and capacities of energy-SSH, and (2) established energy-SSH researchers, for insights on the collectively held futures of energy-SSH research.

Virtual tree, real impact: how simulated worlds associate with the perception of limited resources

Video games have long been considered an effective educational tool. Environmental education studies have found that games positively affect the feeling of nature connectedness, producing pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. With growing urbanization, video games also provide chances to interact with nature. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizon (ACNH) became a household name, with millions of copies sold worldwide. The article used the Bayesian multilevel model to analyze 640 survey responses of ACNH game players from various online communities. The correlations between the perception of limited resources and virtual planting and exploiting behaviors with the varying effect among ethnicities were explored. The findings suggested positive correlations between the perception and in-game actions among all ethnicities, regardless of whether the actions are planting or exploiting. While further evidence is needed, the findings suggest the restraints of game mechanics. To foster a pro-environmental culture, stakeholders can consider video games a novel technological aid to environmental education.

"Co-construction" in deliberative democracy: lessons from the French Citizens' Convention for Climate

Launched in 2019, the French Citizens' Convention for Climate (CCC) tasked 150 randomly chosen citizens with proposing fair and effective measures to fight climate change. This was to be fulfilled through an "innovative co-construction procedure", involving some unspecified external input alongside that from the citizens. Did inputs from the steering bodies undermine the citizens' accountability for the output? Did co-construction help the output resonate with the general public, as is expected from a citizens' assembly? To answer these questions, we build on our unique experience in observing the CCC proceedings and documenting them with qualitative and quantitative data. We find that the steering bodies' input, albeit significant, did not impair the citizens' agency, creativity, and freedom of choice. While succeeding in creating consensus among the citizens who were involved, this co-constructive approach, however, failed to generate significant support among the broader public. These results call for a strengthening of the commitment structure that determines how follow-up on the proposals from a citizens' assembly should be conducted.

A novel direct-immersion single-drop microextraction combined with digital colorimetry applied to the determination of vanadium in water

In this study, a method based on direct-immersion single-drop microextraction was developed for the determination of vanadium in water. The detection system uses digital images obtained directly from the solvent drop after the sorption of V(V). The extraction solvent used was the ionic liquid 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([C₆MIM][PF₆]). The images were obtained directly from the solvent drop, with the aid of a camera. The digital images were stored, and the RGB (red, green, and blue) data were obtained. The data collected by the red channel were used to construct the analytical curve since it showed higher sensitivity compared with green and blue channels. Under optimized conditions, the method presented an enrichment factor of 50 and a limit of detection of 0.6 μg L^-1 for 3.5 mL sample volume. The limit of quantification and the relative standard deviation (50.0 μg L^-1) obtained were 1.8 μg L^-1 and 4.8%, respectively. Certified reference material (Plankton) was used to assess the accuracy of the method. The simple, fast, efficient, and low-cost procedure was successfully applied to the determination of V(V) in water samples. The proposed method is also following the principles of green chemistry since it uses minimal volumes of samples, reagents, and solvents and yields a small amount of waste.

Analysis of the scientific production of the effect of COVID-19 on the environment: A bibliometric study

The fight against COVID-19 since January 2020 has become the top priority of more than 200 countries. In order to offer solutions to eradicate this global pandemic, the scientific community has published hundreds of articles covering a wide range of areas of knowledge. With the aim of synthesizing these publications, academics are resorting to bibliometric analyses from the perspectives of the disciplines such as biology, medicine, socioeconomics and tourism. Yet no bibliometric analysis has explored the diffuse and little-known growth of COVID-19 scientific publications in the field of environmental studies. The current study is the first of this type to fill this research gap. It has resorted to SciMAT software to evaluate the main topics, authors and journals of publications on the subject of COVID-19 combined with environmental studies spanning the period between 1 December 2019 and 6 September 2020. The search yielded a collection of 440 articles published in scientific journals indexed on by Web of Science and Scopus databases. These publications can be broken down into six main themes: (i) a sharp reduction in air pollution and an improvement of the level of water pollution; (ii) the relationship of wind speed (positive), ultraviolet radiation (positive) and humidity (negative) with the rate of infections; (iii) the effect of the pandemic on the food supply chain and waste habits; (iv) wastewater monitoring offers a great potential as an early warning sign of COVID-19 transmission; (v) artificial intelligence and smart devices can be of great use in monitoring citizen mobilization; and (vi) the lessons gleaned from the pandemic that help define actions to mitigate climate change. The results of the current study therefore offer an agenda for future research and constitute a starting point for academics in the field of environmental studies to evaluate the effects of COVID-19.

Survey on Using Ethical Principles in Environmental Field Research with Place-Based Communities

Researchers of the Northeast Ethics Education Partnership (NEEP) at Brown University sought to improve an understanding of the ethical challenges of field researchers with place-based communities in environmental studies/sciences and environmental health by disseminating a questionnaire which requested information about their ethical approaches to these researched communities. NEEP faculty sought to gain actual field guidance to improve research ethics and cultural competence training for graduate students and faculty in environmental sciences/studies. Some aspects of the ethical challenges in field studies are not well-covered in the literature. More training and information resources are needed on the bioethical challenges in environmental field research relating to maximizing benefits/reducing risks to local inhabitants and ecosystems from research; appropriate and effective group consent and individual consent processes for many diverse communities in the United States and abroad; and justice considerations of ensuring fair benefits and protections against exploitation through community-based approaches, and cultural appropriateness and competence in researcher relationships.