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This open access book reflects aims of the Blue Circular Economy (BCE) project, which focused on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) aiming to create value using circular economy concepts related to products and services within fishing gear recycling in the Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) area. Cluster establishment and operation were carried out in collaboration with academia, industry and government agencies following a triple-helix approach. Discarded fishing gear constitutes a large part of marine plastics. Preventing future discharge of fishing gear into the ocean is a vital step in combating plastic pollution. Circular economy is one of the tools in the European Green deal, targeting waste minimisation. Closing the loop for waste fishing nets by transferring them to a resource could be a solution for preventing discharge at sea: exploring this opportunity is at the core of this book.

Summary: Old age is increasingly becoming the focus of research and development in Europe. Concerning orthopaedics and sports medicine, the elderly especially are considered as frail patients who need support to maintain the health of their musculoskeletal systems. For this reason, several interventions regarding physical activity have been investigated in recent years in order to understand whether some programs of physical activity are better than others as conservative treatments for degenerative musculoskeletal pathologies (i.e., osteoarthritis, rotator cuff arthropathy, and lower back pain). Furthermore, several investigations have been carried out to understand the best preoperative and postoperative protocols of physical activity to improve the results of orthopaedic surgery. The aim of this Special Issue was to collect the updated evidence concerning these topics in the form of a collection of systematic reviews of the literature.