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Using a 22-year study of an elite university's faculty networks and their work activities, we extend network ecology to concern top-down processes of environmental selection and bottom-up processes of individual adaptation. We argue that faculty enact distinct types of collaborative work activity that are central to their role: research training (co-advising), publishing (co-authoring), and financing (co-granting). STEM (hard science) and HSS (humanities and social science) cultures train and expect their members to perform these activities in different ways reflective of distinct networking styles. STEM faculty anchor their work relations in grants and extend those relations liberally to advising and publishing collaborations, forming an egalitarian interdisciplinary network reflective of a guild system. HSS faculty anchor their work relations in advising and layer and extend their ties locally around star faculty to form a restrictive patronage system. However, individual faculty vary in their adherence to these styles, and those adopting the STEM style of networking are more likely to survive in the university and achieve tenure. New faculty increasingly learn and adapt to this, and the STEM model increasingly diffuses and transforms the university social structure, illustrating the salience of top-down and bottom-up processes of network ecology in explaining social structural change. • We advance network ecology in multiple ways. • Multiple types of ties and forms of tie refunctioning are key mechanisms of network formation. • Internal contextual variation within the university corresponds with the distinct networking practices of STEM and HSS faculty. • The university selects faculty for tenure that use a STEM networking strategy and faculty learn to adopt such a strategy. • This results in top-down and bottom-up structural change that dramatically alters the university collaboration network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate how protective effects of intergenerational closure correspond with conflict networks in school classes. Taking a multilevel ecological perspective, we also consider networks' socio-spatial conditions. In a first step, we use ERGMs to analyze the association between parental contact and students' friendship ties, i.e., intergenerational closure (IC). Then, we utilize spatial regressions to analyze direct and moderating effects of a school's neighborhood on conflicts in the 135 German class networks (N = 3143 student measurements). In accordance with Coleman's theoretical notions, we find consistent negative effects of IC on the (standardized) density of the conflict networks. Moreover, we show that IC's impact is particularly strong in neighborhoods with a relatively high concentration of minorities. The results are in line with our theoretical considerations on multilevel network ecologies and the selective pressure of IC against conflict ties. Practically, our results provide evidence that fostering connections among parents (e.g., by implementing opportunity structures for parents to meet) might help to prevent deviating behavior in schools, especially in neighborhoods with relatively large proportions of ethnic minorities. • We elaborate a multilevel model of the network ecology of intergenerational closure (IC). • We analyzed effects of IC and socio-spatial structures on conflict networks. • Results on 135 class networks (ERGMs; spatial regression) reveal a negative effect of IC on conflicts. • Interpersonal conflicts occur more often in neighborhoods with higher proportions of migrants. • However, we find a strong effect of IC on decreasing conflicts in these neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to build on previous work by the authors. It examines how socioecological level and gender influence high-performance sport system (HPSS) stakeholders' perspectives of the relative importance and feasibility to address athlete attrition factors within an Australian high-performance pathway system (HPPS). Mixed methods. Sub-analysis was conducted of rating data from 30 participants who had contributed to identifying 83 statements in 13 clusters in a previous Concept Mapping study. The 13 clusters were statistically analysed in 'R' using cumulative link mixed models (CLMMs) to determine differences in perceived importance and feasibility between 1) socioecological levels, and 2) genders. Mean ratings for 11 and three of the 13 clusters were statistically significantly different between at least two of the five socioecological levels, for importance and feasibility, respectively. Athletes had the largest variation in mean ratings from the most (athlete health 4.59), to least (performance potential 2.83) important cluster, when compared to the other four socioecological levels. There were statistically significant differences between the ratings between genders (Men/Women) for two clusters for each rating scale: Importance: 'athlete health' (M3.33:W3.84 [p 0.012]); 'performance potential' (M3.35:W2.57; [p 0.001]), Feasibility: 'abuse and mismanagement of health' (M2.97:W3.68; [p 0.000]) and 'athlete health' (M2.54:W3.33; [p 0.000]). This study highlights the need to implement more robust athlete attrition monitoring protocols. It also highlights the importance of listening to youth athletes' voices, and enabling equal gender representation to ensure holistically tailored environments are created to retain talented athletes in high-performance pathway programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban outdoor spaces, as significant venues for outdoor activities, are closely linked to urban residents' quality of life and physical health. However, evidence suggests that prolonged and cold winters in cold cities, characterised by low temperatures, ice and snow, and frigid winds, profoundly impact residents' engagement in outdoor activities. Understanding the patterns of residents' utilisation of outdoor spaces and the constraints they face in the cold urban environment is crucial. Despite this, there is currently a lack of systematic reviews synthesizing evidence. This study conducts a systematic literature review from the social ecology perspective, organizing relevant evidence on residents' usage patterns, constraints, and preferences for outdoor spaces in cold urban environments. The literature review spans studies published from 2000 to 2023, drawing data from six electronic databases, including Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus. Ultimately, 31 articles (N = 31) were included in the review. The findings indicate that outdoor spaces in cold urban areas are influenced by a range of factors, encompassing individual, social, physical, and perceptual environmental attributes. Consequently, a conceptual framework based on social ecology is developed to comprehend the usage and constraints of outdoor spaces in cold urban environments. This research provides valuable insights for urban planners and designers in designing and planning outdoor spaces in cold cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An agent-based model was developed to represent demographic, marital, and economic data from the period of Chinese history during which footbinding was practiced. This general model of the Chinese social ecology is used to understand the maintenance and cessation of footbinding in the context of contested explanations from the social sciences. The Labor Market Hypothesis states that parents initiated and maintained the practice to exploit the handicraft labor of their daughters, and that footbinding ceased when cheap machined thread and cloth entered rural China. The Evolutionary Sciences Hypothesis states that footbinding assisted in achieving hypergamous marriages for daughters by raising their value on the marriage market, was maintained due to fitness concerns facing parents who feared daughters would be unmarriageable if not bound, and ceased because of influences of foreign norms. Factors including length of generations, monetary value of handicraft labor, adult sex ratio, rate of polygyny, age at marriage, inheritance and more inform this model. Since the rate of population growth and peak rate of footbinding at cessation are known, the model evaluates the two hypotheses in terms of their relative consistency with these two outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Primary: To gain a system-wide perspective on factors leading to athlete attrition from a high-performance sport system (HPSS). Secondary: To identify what a sample of system-wide stakeholders and past athletes value as the most important and feasible attrition factors to address to retain talented athletes.Design: Mixed-methods.Methods: Concept mapping was used for qualitative data collection and quantitative data analysis. Sixty-one participants including: (i) past athletes from an Australian state sporting institute; (ii) their families; and (iii) internal and external stakeholders to a HPSS who supported past athletes.Results: Participants brainstormed 83 unique statements (i.e. attrition factors) that were mapped into 13 clusters of attrition factors following multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis performed on the participants sorting data: 'abuse and mismanagement of health'; 'athlete health'; 'limited support/resourcing'; 'coaching'; 'inconsistent processes'; 'financial and career support'; 'pathway structure'; 'organisational dynamics'; 'competitive stress'; 'performance potential'; 'challenges with selection and transition'; 'psychological state'; and 'competing non-sport priorities'. 'Abuse and mismanagement of health' had the highest mean importance (3.76 out of 5) and feasibility (3.31) rating. The 13 clusters were further grouped into four overarching domains: 'sport system policy, structure and processes'; 'pathway structure, transition and support'; 'individual athlete health and capability'; and 'whole-of-life demands and priorities'. The domain 'sport system policy, structure and processes' contained the most important and feasible clusters.Conclusions: Macro (system-level) and micro (intrapersonal and interpersonal) level athlete attrition factors should be considered together. Athlete health was considered the most important athlete retention issue to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To provide a conceptual framework to guide investigations into burdens of noncancerous genitourinary conditions (NCGUCs), which are extensive and poorly understood.Methods: The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases convened a workshop of diverse, interdisciplinary researchers and health professionals to identify known and hidden burdens of NCGUCs that must be measured to estimate the comprehensive burden. Following the meeting, a subgroup of attendees (authors of this article) continued to meet to conceptualize burden.Results: The Hidden Burden of Noncancerous Genitourinary Conditions Framework includes impacts across multiple levels of well-being and social ecology, including individual (ie, biologic factors, lived experience, behaviors), interpersonal (eg, romantic partners, family members), organizational/institutional (eg, schools, workplaces), community (eg, public restroom infrastructure), societal (eg, health care and insurance systems, national workforce/economic output), and ecosystem (eg, landfill waste) effects. The framework acknowledges that NCGUCs can be a manifestation of underlying biological dysfunction, while also leading to biological impacts (generation and exacerbation of health conditions, treatment side effects).Conclusion: NCGUCs confer a large, poorly understood burden to individuals and society. An evidence-base to describe the comprehensive burden is needed. Measurement of NCGUC burdens should incorporate multiple levels of well-being and social ecology, a life course perspective, and potential interactions between NCGUCs and genetics, sex, race, and gender. This approach would elucidate accumulated impacts and potential health inequities in experienced burdens. Uncovering the hidden burden of NCGUCs may draw attention and resources (eg, new research and improved treatments) to this important domain of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To propose a conceptual model to identify points along the condition course where actions or inaction affect downstream burdens of non-cancerous genitourinary conditions (NCGUC).Materials and Methods: The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) convened an interdisciplinary meeting to comprehensively consider the burdens of NCGUCs. Subsequently, the authors met monthly to conceptualize the model.Results: Inflection points (IP) describe time points during a condition course that are sensitive to change. Our proposed Inflection Point Model (IPM) helps conceptualize burden/benefit trade-offs in any related decision and provides a platform to identify the downstream aggregate burden of a NCGUC across multiple socio-ecological levels at a single time point, which may be summed across the condition course to measure cumulative burden. Two personae demonstrate the utility of this model to better understand impacts of 2 common NCGUCs.Conclusion: The IPM may be applied in multiple contexts: narrowly to explore burden of a single NCGUC at a single IP; or more broadly, to address multiple conditions, multiple IPs, or multiple domains/levels of social ecology. Applying the IPM may entail combining population data describing prevalence of NCGUCs, associated behaviors, and resulting outcome patterns that can be combined with suitable mathematical models to quantify aggregate and cumulative burden. The IPM challenges stakeholders to expand from the individual to include broader levels of social ecology. Application of the IPM will undoubtedly identify data gaps and research needs that must be fulfilled to delineate and address the burden of NCGUCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study outlines a conceptual framework linking a conceptualization of agency in urban metabolism studies with a systems-based perspective. To this aim, we engage with contributions to socio-metabolic studies, notably from social ecology, that are not directly concerned with the urban dimension but explicitly question how systems and actors shape each other and how social practices can influence the distribution of resource flows and stocks and their interdependencies. Based on those contributions, we identify three critical axes of investigation that help track implicit uses of the concept of "agency" in urban metabolism studies and constitute the pillars of our proposed framework: (1) characterizing structures comprising urban social-ecological systems – understood as patterns of connections among elements and subsystems – as actors, (2) identifying the chains of events that such actors influence by exerting their agentic capacities, and (3) associating those same actors with definite agentic dimensions, i.e., specific modalities of agency. By drawing on methods from computational linguistics, text mining, and semantic network analysis, we extract concepts cognate to "urban metabolism" from a relevant body of research literature. Through our framework, we show how such concepts define forms of agency that can be ascribed to structural components of urban social-ecological systems. • Urban metabolic processes are shaped by different forms of agency. • This diversity of agencies needs to be addressed by systems-based approaches. • We link urban social-ecological systems to various structural forms of agency. • We identify the structures and modalities characterizing such forms of agency. • Our understanding of agency can be integrated into the stock-flow-practice nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Red virtual water (VW) indicates hotspots of negative impacts of water use for export production. • Silver VW indicates relative more income for poor people by water use for export production. • Local organizations assess effects of water use of export in bottom-up VW analyses. • Red and silver VW can inform decisions by policy makers, retailers, and consumers. Virtual water trade and external water footprints could be regarded as a proxy for environmental damage and negative effects for local water users in water scarce areas of export production. A political ecological approach to virtual water trade looks at winners and losers of social metabolism in the Anthropocene and representation and recognition of local assessments of effects of the use of water for export production. Water scarcity weights have been added to virtual water analyses to better assess negative environmental and positive social effects of water use for export production. However, the commensuration of values and aggregation of data at country level result in indicators that miss out on a lot of local environmental and social effects of export agriculture and industry. This article proposes a contextualized bottom-up approach in which "red" virtual water indicates hotspots of water competition, water grabbing, and severe over-exploitation and contamination of water resources, negatively affecting ecosystems and the water security of local water users. "Silver" virtual water, or social water productivity, indicates local benefits of water use for export production in the form of income creation for smallholder farmers and workers. The concepts of red and silver virtual water can inform development studies as they bring to the fore the negative and positive effects of water use for export production. Red and silver virtual water analyses by local and national stakeholders can inform policy choices in directions of more sustainable and equitable supply chains. The bottom-up approach, with region and national organizations making the assessments of red and silver virtual water use, would empower groups affected and benefiting from water use for export production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ecological restoration is not just an environmental issue and it is a societal problem. This paper analyzes ecological restoration and its impact on society in coal resource-based areas, focusing on the Ruhr region in Germany and Liulin County in China. Through the analysis and comparison, the study not only reveals the unique ecology-social system and explain the reasons for dependence on coal, but the finding shows that industrial transformation is a key factor in determining ecological restoration of coal resource-based regions. • The industries abandoned by the Ruhr area were taken over by China. Shanxi Province is very similar to the Ruhr area in terms of ecological destruction and social development at that time. The Ruhr region has become one of the most polluted areas in the world due to its coal and steel industry. After nearly 40 years of arduous practice, ecological governance and economic transformation in the Ruhr area achieved initial success. • Shanxi Province in China is a hub for energy and heavy chemical industries, and it ranks first in coal production nationally.. The Liulin county is located in the west of Shanxi Province, it is a typical coal mining subsidence and is scattered with numerous villages affected by subsidence due to coal mining. Shanxi Province and the Liulin county is undergoing difficult industrial transformation. • The author of this work visited the Duisburg-Essen University for a year, located in the Ruhr area of Germany, and learned about the ER and transformation in the Ruhr. When the author returned to China, she conducted field research for a two-month survey in Liulin County. Therefore, the author collected a large amount of literature ,data sources and gained practical experiences in these two areas. The coal resource-based areas rely on coal resources and primary processing as their pillar industries, such as the old industrial areas in China and Germany. Long-term, large-scale coal mining has significantly damaged the ecological environment of mining areas. Environmental restoration refers to repairing, rehabilitating, or revitalizing ecosystems that have been degraded, damaged, or destroyed by human activities or natural disasters. In fact, ecological restoration is not just an environmental issue and it is a societal problem. Ecological restoration is closely linked to natural resources, the environment, the economy, society, and politics. These factors form a social ecological system and it is the basis for local stability and sustainable development in the coal resource-based areas. In this process, the relationship between government, enterprise, and local people is constantly being reshaped and defined, then it causes changes in the local social ecology and political ecology. The paper researches the Ruhr area in Germany and the Liulin County in China, the former is a world-famous old industrial and the latter is a typical coal mining subsidence district. By analyzing and comparing the ecological restoration and significant social changes in the Ruhr area and the Liulin County at different periods, the findings show the unique ecology— social system of the coal resource-based area, then enhances the effective measures for ecological restoration and sustainable development of the coal resource-based areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Social scientific research is catching up to technical work on global desalination. • Political Ecology points to ongoing inequities that a purely technical view of desalination does not address. • Historical, community based, and qualitative research will expand debates on desalting. • Work on financialization and the politics of desalting are especially needed in the future. The piece outlines the contributions of key works in the field of the political ecology of desalination over the past decade. We note that the field is diverse in terms of contributions from geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and public policy scholars. The research to date has been concerned with the ways in which the deployment of desalting techniques can reflect and reinforce social processes of inequality, political power and economic flows. In this way, desalination has been opened up for intellectual debate beyond technical considerations of the desalting industry and engineers. A critical perspective that complements the recent discussions of environmental harm caused by the desalination industry has emerged as well across a number of global and transboundary contexts. A number of themes emerged that will continue to be of interest to scholars and that need to be addressed in the years ahead. First, desalination intersects transboundary water governance and geopolitics between different water uses and emerges from complex assemblages of local and global actors, including financial actors, water companies, governments, technologies, and natural forces. Second, critical scholarship on desalination needs to continue to pay attention to the interests in and overarching patterns of, the Green New Deal and Blue Economy, each of which intersect with the worlds of academia and policymaking, and involve issues of climate adaptation and mitigation. Third, questions about equity remain with desalination as it is a solution deeply imbricated in the unequal distribution of resources, and questions about representation in decision-making remain. Fourth, research on finance and infrastructure have been at the core of critical desalting research and should remain so. Fifth, there is a growing heterogeneity in terms of research in types of desalting, from reverse osmosis to inland desalting to nuclear and more. This variety will make for rich research for the years ahead. Our hope is that the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological flexibility of this area of research will remain a strong point continuing its rigor, as well as the already robust collegiality among scholars in this interesting, and still nascent field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maloti-Drakensberg environments are highly localised, susceptible to changes in regional weather patterns and, through marked variations of topography, prone to imposing differing conditions even within relatively small areas. The resulting 'archipelago' of ecosystems, with often correspondingly specialised endemics, poses an observational challenge to research and governance institutions inclined to process these conditions in aggregate, for whom localised variances may be difficult to parse. Local indigenous, or 'contextual', communities, by contrast, live these conditions, having developed idiomatic frameworks for processing and communicating environmental complexity. For research, knowledge-making partnerships with such communities thus have great potential, offering observational and data-processing capacities that stem from an ontological emplacement in situ. One significant complication is that some regional idiomatic systems used to classify the world have an inherently social basis, recognising the human element as just one layer of a greater socioecological whole, contrasting common Western-materialist approaches. This study presents classifications made of 'river snakes' among a range of Maloti-Drakensberg communities, as examples of where idiomatic systems may differ from research perspectives. The instability and contingency of these classifications speaks to a contextual/behavioural taxonomic system; one that makes things what they are by virtue of where and who they are to the observer. Given the role of 'river snakes' and the specialists who classify them in the (re)production of local knowledge systems, these factors require attention from researchers seeking constructive engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding animal decision-making involves simultaneously dissecting and reconstructing processes across levels of biological organization, such as behavior, physiology, and brain function, as well as considering the environment in which decisions are made. Over the past few decades, foundational breakthroughs originating from a variety of model systems and disciplines have painted an increasingly comprehensive picture of how individuals sense information, process it, and subsequently modify behavior or states. Still, our understanding of decision-making in social contexts is far from complete and requires integrating novel approaches and perspectives. The fields of social neuroscience and cognitive ecology have approached social decision-making from orthogonal perspectives. The integration of these perspectives (and fields) is critical in developing comprehensive and testable theories of the brain. • Social neuroscientists and cognitive ecologists study animal decision-making. • We retrace the development and current state of integration of the two fields. • We propose several approaches toward further integration. • We highlight exemplary model systems that are flourishing at this junction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bullying behavior is understood as a complex social phenomenon that includes many, and sometimes overlapping, bullying participant behaviors. The current study utilized latent profile analysis (LPA) at two time points approximately one year apart and examined what bullying participant behavior groups emerged based on students' reported levels of bullying, assisting, victimization, defending, and outsider behavior. Additionally, longitudinal latent profile analyses (LLPA) were utilized to examine potential changes in groups over time. Results suggested four groups found at two timepoints: (a) Uninvolved-Occasional Defending , with defending at a monthly rate and infrequent engagement in other behaviors; (b) Frequent Defending-Occasional Victimization , with monthly victimization and weekly defending behaviors; (c) Frequent Victimization-Occasional Broad Involvement , with weekly levels of victimization and monthly bullying, defending, and outsider behaviors; and (d) Frequent Broad Involvement, with weekly engagement in all of the bully participant behaviors (i.e., bullying, assisting, victimization, defending, and outsider behavior). The largest proportion of students (more than half) were in the Uninvolved-Occasional Defending group, which was also the most stable group over time. The smallest group (7%) was Frequent Broad Involvement , which was the least stable group over time, with students in this group typically moving to groups with at least occasional broad involvement of bullying participant behaviors. More male students than female students were in both broad involvement groups (i.e., Frequent Victimization-Occasional Broad Involvement ; Frequent Broad Involvement) and more female students than male students, as well as more elementary students than secondary students, were in the Frequent Defending-Occasional Victimization group. The current study suggests that researchers should use caution when categorizing or conceptualizing simple bullying participant roles such as bully or victim, or even "bully-victim," especially if the other bullying participant behaviors are not assessed. Practitioners should develop interventions that capitalize on the high proportions of students engaging in some level of defending and account for the complex social ecology that suggests that students are engaging in complex overlapping patterns of bullying participant behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Integrating ESSD into the socio-ecological systems framework. • Building a Socio-ecological indicators framework to analyze the drivers of ESSD. • The surging demand for public-good contributed to a significant increase in ESV. • The maximum explanatory power of factor interaction for ESV was 99%. The balance between the supply and demand of ecosystem services (ESSD) is important for sustainable regional development. The hilly regions of south China have rich natural resources and are rapidly being urbanized, which significantly impacts sustainable development in the region. Therefore, how to analyze ESSD from the perspective of social ecology is imperative. Ganzhou region, which is a typical hilly region in southern China, as an example, this paper creatively integrated ESSD into the social-ecological system (SES) framework, analyzed the spatial and temporal changes of ESSD in 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020, and constructed a system of indicators from the SES, and analyzed the driving factors of ESSD, so as to provide a reference for balancing ESSD. Based on the classical SES framework proposed by Ostrom, this study first analyses the social-ecological system profile of the Ganzhou region at the macro-scale and constructs an SES indicator system. The innovation of combining the SES framework and ecosystem services lies in integrating the social and ecosystem perspectives and merging these two concepts to understand better and manage the relationship between humans and the natural environment. It provides a comprehensive analytical approach and decision support tool for achieving sustainable development. Our results demonstrate that: (1) From 2005 to 2020, ecosystem services in the study area were highly valued, lower areas had homogeneous distribution characteristics, total demand displayed spatial differentiation, there were high-value areas in the midwest, and low-value areas were concentrated in the region's boundary. (2) There are obvious supply and demand deficits in the southeast and east of the study area, while supply–demand is equal in the north and supply exceeds demand in other regions. From 2005 to 2020, the overall coupling coordination degree of ESSD in the study area was lower than 0.5, indicating a mild to moderate imbalance. (3) The supply of ecosystem services (ESS) was primarily driven by carbon storage, habitat quality, and water yield, while the demand was primarily driven by forest and grassland areas. Factors related to the ecosystem, resource unit, resource system, social system, governance system, and actor all have experienced two-factor interactions, which can explain up to 99% of ESSD. Based on the SES framework, this paper studies the relationship between ESSD in typical areas of the southern hills to provide a reference for research on ESSD in relevant areas and provide a scientific basis for the Chinese government to evaluate ecological protections and improve compensation policies, which is important for ensuring China's ecological security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The longevity and survival of the ancient heritage sites, especially those in isolated locations, have been gradually threatened over the past decades, due to the globalisation and subsequent socio-cultural changes. As a result (of these changes), the future of these ancient sites remains uncertain. Therefore, this study aims to develop a digitally integrated framework using Virtual Reality, VR, technology to digitally document and create a simulated environment of the endangered heritage sites and present how new urban and construction developments may impact their presence. Hence, this study applied a qualitative longitudinal method to present the steps required to collect the data, develop a narrative-based framework and interactively present it via the VR project. The developed framework was, then, validated through the field data collection, across five years, from a very unique case study; Kandan, Iran as the last cone-shaped community settlement in the world, and its result was effectively displayed and exhibited at QUT IMPACT exhibition in Australia over a one-week period. The outcomes of this research could successfully raise awareness, encourage engagement and action and question the status quo of this heritage settlement through an interactive and engaging exhibition with the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on how competitors assess (i.e., gather information on) fighting ability and contested resources, as well as how assessment impacts on contest processes and outcomes, has been fundamental to the field of dyadic (one-on-one) contests. Despite recent growth in studies of contests between social-living groups, there is limited understanding of assessment during these intergroup contests. We adapt current knowledge of dyadic contest assessment to the intergroup case, describing what traits of groups, group members, and resources are assessed, and how assessment is manifested in contest processes (e.g., behaviors) and outcomes. This synthesis helps to explain the role of individual heterogeneity in assessment and how groups are shaped by the selective pressure of contests. The dyadic assessment framework – studying the strategies animals use to gather information during one-on-one contests, and how this assessment drives contest behaviors and outcomes – can be fruitfully adapted to intergroup contests: those between stable social-living groups. Heterogeneity among group members and how groups cohere to make effective decisions are unique features of social living that add complexity to intergroup contest assessment. Understanding intergroup contest assessment can inform research in social evolution and ecology, for example, by revealing selective pressures on group size evolution and drivers of population dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agent-based models (ABMs) are increasingly utilized in ecology and related fields, yet concerns persist regarding the lack of consideration for lessons learned from previous models. This study explores the potential of systematically conducted ABM reviews to contribute to cumulative science and theory development by synthesizing individual ABM findings more effectively. We are conducting a meta-review of ABM reviews to assess current practices, compare them to systematic literature review (SLR) literature recommendations, and evaluate their engagement with theory and theory development. Our analysis of the ecology and social science sample reveals that many reviews are not conducted systematically and lack transparency. The analysis step of SLRs holds significant potential to advance theory development. Reviews primarily focus on model design, while other avenues of theory development receive less attention. Our findings suggest ways to improve current practices and may guide future ABM reviews via benchmarks for methodological decisions and dimensions for advancing theory development. • Reviews the current practice of conducting literature reviews of agent-based models (ABMs) in ecology and social sciences. • Documents that many ABM reviews are not conducted systematically and lack transparency. • Discusses dimensions of how systematic literature reviews (SLRs) can be used to develop theory. • Documents that ABM reviews focus on how models are designed while neglecting other ways of developing theory. • Guides on how to conduct an SLR of ABMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Holistic views are needed to understand identity formation after refugee experience. • Identity is shaped through the interaction with several socioecological factors. • Sense of agency and hope were prominent at personal level of identity. • Sociocultural and political factors had crucial impact on personal views of identity. Multiple risk factors associated with the forced migration journey may adversely affect the identity development of young people with refugee backgrounds.Relatively little is known however, regarding how young people perceive their identity following the refugee experience and how their interactions with the environment influence this perception. To address this gap, this scoping review, which included 28 peer-reviewed articles from 2000 to 2020, explored the empirical literature that focuses on ways in which young people with refugee backgrounds represent their sense of identity. Our findings demonstrate that young people perceive themselves as having multiple identity characteristics, influenced by their interactions with their sociocultural environments and the need to integrate their past, present, and future. The review highlights the importance of holistic and pluralistic perspectives which consider factors at different layers of social ecology to understand how young people from refugee backgrounds shape their identities within their unique sociocultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Explores the rural sustainable development paradigm under China's road to common prosperity. • Constructs 29 indicators and corresponding weights by using objective weighting method and subjective weighting method. • Finds the status and dilemma of rural resilience development. • The indicator system can promote the assessment of resilience development of industrial ecology and social governance in coastal rural areas. China's coastal village is a typical synthesis of material and intangible culture, such as natural landscape, marine pasture, and belief in the sea god. Simultaneously, it is also a valuable resource that can be universally utilized for the development of innovative industries such as the marine industry and leisure fisheries. However, with the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, the coastal village has not received much attention and the eco-environment has been damaged to some extent. Rural resilience development becomes the future trend of humanistic ecological wellbeing communities, while being able to circumvent rural vulnerability to varying degrees in a wave of global rural revitalization. Thus, establishing an evaluation system for resilience development of coastal rural eco-environment can provide a baseline for rural revitalization for sustainability. This article constructs an evaluation system for the rural resilience development based on the DPSER (driver, pressure, state, effect, and response) model. 29 indicators and corresponding weights of drivers, pressures, states, effects, and responses are evaluated using the objective and subjective weighting methods. Thereby, the study ascertained the conditions and dilemmas of resilience development of coastal rural eco-environment, and revealed that the response indicators have the greatest influence. This evaluation system can not only contribute to quantify the qualitative assessment or take the qualitative social assessment of resilience to a quantitative level, but it can also provide guidance and apply to the issues of well-being sharing and social equity in resilience development of rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy costs fall and eligibility criteria are relaxed, people who inject drugs (PWID) will increasingly become eligible for HCV treatment. Yet eligibility does not necessarily equate to access. Amidst efforts to expand treatment uptake in this population, we seek to synthesise and clarify the conceptual underpinnings of access to health care for PWID, with a view to informing research and practice. Integrating dominant frameworks of health service utilisation, care seeking processes, and ecological perspectives on health promotion, we present a comprehensive theoretical framework to understand, investigate and intervene upon barriers and facilitators to HCV care for PWID. Built upon the concept of Candidacy, the framework describes access to care as a continually negotiated product of the alignment between individuals, health professionals, and health systems. Individuals must identify themselves as candidates for services and then work to stake this claim; health professionals serve as gatekeepers, adjudicating asserted candidacies within the context of localised operating conditions; and repeated interactions build experiential knowledge and patient-practitioner relationships, influencing identification and assertion of candidacy over time. These processes occur within a complex social ecology of interdependent individual, service, system, and policy factors, on which other established theories provide guidance. There is a pressing need for a deliberate and nuanced theory of health care access to complement efforts to document the HCV 'cascade of care' among PWID. We offer this framework as an organising device for observational research, intervention, and implementation science to expand access to HCV care in this vulnerable population. Using practical examples from the HCV literature, we demonstrate its utility for specifying research questions and intervention targets across multiple levels of influence; describing and testing plausible effect mechanisms; and identifying potential threats to validity or barriers to research translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government officials and representatives of corporations and international organisations promoting oil palm argue this crop brings development by creating numerous jobs for the rural poor, even through large-scale plantations. This study critically assesses this narrative as deployed in Mesoamerica and analyses oil palm labour regimes in two study regions in Mexico and one in Guatemala where both smallholders and private sector plantations are producing oil palm. Following a political ecology framework, we analyse labour practices as embodied and political, taking into account larger processes of agrarian change. Based on interviews and surveys of producers and field labourers, we found oil palm production was characterised by low employment rates (one job or less for every 10 hectares of land) and flexible labour regimes under which field labourers face uncertain, poorly paid and risky circumstances at work. The palm oil industry defines development narrowly, as access to income without social change, while it profits from contemporary and historical inequalities that have turned young men, many of them indigenous Maya, rural women, and Guatemalan peasants into cheap labour. However, in oil palm production, profit oriented neoliberal arrangements by the private sector clash with a peasant moral economy that emphasise the value of physical labour and smallholder-worker solidarity. Despite being highly profitable, the palm oil industry offers limited livelihood opportunities for field labourers. • Oil palm provides one job or less per year for every 10 hectares planted with this crop. • Labour for oil palm cultivation is provided by landless peasants (often young indigenous men and sometimes women). • Workers in oil palm production are often hired as casual day labourers. • Neoliberal arrangements by the private sector clash with a peasant moral economy shared by workers and smallholders. • The palm oil industry offers limited opportunities for field labourers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Pro-vaccine Australians held hostile, stigmatising attitudes to vaccine refusal. • Participants 'othered' people who join the vaccine-refusal movement. • They believed refusal is caused by character deficits, like being naïve or malicious. • Hostility was heightened by beliefs that refusal undermines values and institutions. • Hostility towards refusal may harm refusing people and entrench their attitudes. Vaccine refusal is shaped by the social ecology in which it occurs. How people who refuse vaccines are communicated to and treated may affect the nature and strength of their negative vaccine beliefs, and their responsiveness to health promotion messages. Yet little is known about how people who refuse vaccines are perceived by the public. Our research examined perceptions among pro-vaccine Australians of the vaccine-refusal movement. Descriptions of the vaccine-refusal movement by 2666 pro-vaccine Australians were analysed using thematic discourse analysis. Descriptive themes were identified via inductive, iterative coding. Discourse analysis techniques were then used to interpret latent beliefs about the vaccine-refusal movement. Participants had negative and stigmatising perceptions of the vaccine-refusal movement. They believed the movement is dangerous, misinformed, and comprised of charlatans and fools who are unintelligent, selfish, overly emotional, conspiratorial and scientifically illiterate. Discursive analysis showed that these perceptions were underpinned by beliefs that people would have to be defective in some way to believe anti-vaccine rhetoric. Furthermore, perceptions were underpinned by beliefs that the movement spreads not only disease, but also dangerous ideas that were seen to attack the social order, institutions, values and reason. Participants′ intensely-negative views related to their inability to imagine why someone would refuse vaccines. This research provides a focused, qualitative account of public perceptions of the vaccine-refusal movement. The findings are concerning: stigma towards vaccine-refusing people may adversely affect their wellbeing and entrench their negative vaccine beliefs. The research suggests that more compassionate, nuanced discussion of vaccine refusal in the public sphere is needed. It also supports the need to systematically examine public attitudes towards vaccine refusal as a determinant of vaccine confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, a full appreciation of how problem gaming impacts the daily lives of gamers is lacking. This study aims to gain a more holistic understanding of the activities in the daily lives of problem gamers; particularly, what is important to them, what motivates gaming, and what supports/constraints engagement in other life activities. Semi-structured interviews and week-long activity logs were used to collect data from the 16 problem gamers in five countries. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically. Two main themes emerged. First, gaming was found to be a meaningful and purposeful activity. Participants in this study understood what activities offered them a sense of meaning and personal growth. Video gaming offered both positive and negative experiences in gamers' lives. The negative experiences mainly resulted from using video games as a coping strategy for other life stressors. Second, individual, interpersonal, and environmental influences acted simultaneously to push and pull on the amount of gaming. The push and pull influences on the amount of gaming can occur in real-life or virtually. Assistance for problem gamers could include minimizing/removing the pull forces and obtaining adequate push forces to enable their desired participation in daily activities. • Gaming is meaningful and purposeful activity for problem gamers. • Video gaming offered both positive and negative experiences in gamers' lives. • Negative experiences mainly resulted from using video games as a coping mechanism. • Individual and external influences push and pull on the amount of gaming. • The push and pull influences on gaming can occur in real-life or virtually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The approach innovates in design advice for experientially attractive neighbourhoods. • Resilience principles can act as guiding heuristics for urban planning. • Experientially attractive cities should avoid over-connected street networks. • Experientially attractive cities should avoid mono-functional high-density areas. • Restorative experiences are widespread and important. An unresolved issue in creating resilient cities is how to obtain sustainability benefits from densification while not eroding the capacity of social-ecological systems to generate wellbeing for urban dwellers. To understand how different relationships between urban form and wellbeing together play out, we analysed geocoded experiential data (1460 experiences from 780 respondents) together with variables of the physical environment. Through statistical and spatial analysis, we operationalised resilience principles to assess what urban environments provide "resilience at eye level" – a diversity of experiences and a level of connectivity between them that limit adverse outcomes. We found 8 typologies of experiential landscapes – distinct compositions of 11 categories of experiences. Our analysis shows that typologies with experiences supportive of wellbeing are diverse and exist in environments that balance residents and workplaces, avoid extreme spatial integration and/or density and have accessible nature. Typologies with many experiences hindering wellbeing fail in one or several of these respects. Our findings suggest that resilience principles can act as a guiding heuristic for urban densification that does not compromise human wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A conceptual framework for comparative research on greenways in different macro-political contexts. • The Pearl River Delta greenways with a special top-down institutional structure. • Greenways bring social and economic benefits through providing public resources. • Inadequate supporting resources and excessive dependency of administrative system. • Emerging transportation-led and public right-of-way greenways. The modern greenway movement in China originated in 2010 when Guangdong Provincial Government launched the Pearl River Delta greenway network. The PRD greenway planning has strategic objectives that respond to issues associated with urbanization in the region. This article presents a conceptual framework that explains the potential impact of several key factors in the planning context on the strategic uses of greenways. The framework is then applied to empirical research carried out in the PRD. The results show that greenway planning is a feasible strategy to promote rural economic development by attracting tourists and promoting the development of service sectors. In general, the PRD greenways function as a social strategy: they create new recreational spaces and provide public goods and facilities in both urban and rural areas. However, the results also show that many greenways lack landscape and ecological strategies and become primarily a transportation strategy that defines space for walking and cycling routes in urban areas. The emerging transportation-led greenways reflect the inconsistency of planning goals and outcomes, which is a compromise to both the centralized administrative system and the inadequacy of greenway resources. This article concludes that although strong leadership is necessary in greenway development, insufficient social participation can undermine the achievement of the goals and priorities of the greenway plan, particularly the ecological goals and functions. How to engage local agencies, interested groups, and affected stakeholders in the planning and decision-making process has become a big challenge for greenway planning in the PRD greenways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Disaster recovery in Futaba County, Fukushima, socially and ecologically complex. • Analysis of ecosystem services in municipal recovery plans of Futaba County. • Cultural ecosystem services significant in restoring sense of pride post-disaster. • Traditional ecosystem practices may balance participation with technical approaches. • Need technical competence post-disaster to realise nature-based solution benefits. This research evaluates the contribution of nature-based solutions to urban resilience in post-disaster situations. Post-disaster recovery planning is an opportunity to 'build back greener' by fostering ecosystem approaches towards social and ecological resilience. Yet understanding of specific post-disaster resilience benefits which nature-based solutions provide is still emerging. This paper contributes to this field through evaluation of how ecosystem approaches bring resilience benefits in Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. Content analysis is undertaken on disaster recovery plans produced by the 8 municipalities in Futaba County. The ecosystem services included in each plan are identified, as well as the extent to which municipalities are capable of assessing the services provided. This is supplemented with insights from field visits and wider documentation produced by the municipalities. The analysis shows that cultural ecosystem services feature especially strongly within the plans, and that these cultural services are critical to recovering sense of identity and pride post-disaster. However, the analysis also indicates that municipalities may lack the technical competence to assess ecosystem services, especially in a post-disaster setting where resources are stretched. One implication from the research is the need for further consideration in other empirical contexts of how cultural services – especially citizen participation – can be integrated with more technical approaches to post-disaster ecosystem management. A second implication is that whilst ecosystem approaches offer post-disaster resilience benefits, these should be an aid to recovery and not a substitute for long-term support from national governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Deforestation in the Amazon with its vast consequences for the ecosystem and climate is largely related to subsequent land use for cattle ranching. In addition to conservation policies, proposals to reduce deforestation include measures to intensify cattle ranching. However, the effects of land-use intensification on deforestation are debated in the literature. This paper introduces the abacra model, a stylized agent-based model to study the interplay of deforestation and the intensification of cattle ranching in the Brazilian Amazon. The model combines social learning and ecological processes with market dynamics. In the model, agents adopt either an extensive or semi-intensive strategy of cattle ranching based on the success of their neighbors. They earn their income by selling cattle on a stylized market. We present a comprehensive analysis of the model with statistical methods and find that it produces highly non-linear transient outcomes in dependence on key parameters like the rate of social interaction and elasticity of the cattle price. We show that under many environmental and economic conditions, intensification does not reduce deforestation rates and sometimes even has a detrimental effect on deforestation. Anti-deforestation policies incentivizing fast intensification can only lower deforestation rates under conditions in which the local cattle market saturates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the rapid development of urbanization, the urban heat island (UHI), becomes one of the major urbanization progress problems that affects the environmental, social and ecology profoundly. Analyzing the UHI can help understanding the UHI status and the physical characteristics of cities, and is significant to provide ecosystem management plans and mitigation strategies for the UHI. By utilizing the MODIS LST products, Landsat series data and the ecological regionalization data, and applying the corresponding methods to derive the NDVI, the fractional vegetation cover (F v) and the LST normalizations results, the study conducted the spatial-temporal evolution of the UHI in Xi'an from 2006 to 2016. The main work includes analyzing the spatial evolution characters, analyzing the temporal evolution characters and exploring the relationship between LST and vegetation cover. Spatial evolution results showed that the UHI to the north of the urban land control line in 2016 became intensified and enhanced in the form of increasing the LST and the UHI zone. As for the temporal evolution, the Low Temperature Zone and Sub-low Temperature Zone had little changes and corresponded with the urban land control line, and the Medium Temperature Zone decreased on large area while the Sub-high Temperature Zone increased on large area, when compared results of 2006 with that of 2016. The relationship between LST and vegetation cover indicated that increasing vegetation cover had a certain active role for reducing LST and mitigating the UHI. The positive intervention and guidance of the government on the ecological protection can reduce the UHI, effectively. • The UHI to the north of urban land control line became intensified and enhanced. • The UHI intensified and enhanced in the form of increasing the LST and the UHI zone. • Increasing vegetation cover is useful for reducing LST and mitigating the UHI. • Intervention and guidance of the government can reduce the UHI, effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nightlife scenes have been characterized as risk environments where social ecology and network ties facilitate substance use. In contrast to other substances, the prescription drug problem also has been shaped by the healthcare system. How network ties to professionals in these domains are associated with prescription drug misuse remains a key area of study.Methods: We analyzed a sample of 404 young adults who misuse prescription drugs, recruited from nightlife venues primarily via time-space sampling. We evaluated nine types of network ties via friends and family (5 nightlife professions and 4 healthcare professions) as well as total ties in each occupational domain and their relationship to three different outcomes - frequency of misuse, escalation to non-oral use, and substance-related problems. Negative binomial, logistic, and linear regression methods were employed. We then examined mechanisms by which these network associations may operate.Results: Ties to party promoters (p < .05) and bouncers (p < .01) were positively associated with all three outcomes. A single outcome each was associated with ties to DJs (problems, p < .01), musicians (frequency, p < .05), and bartenders (escalation, p < .05). The total number of network ties in the nightlife domain was positively associated with all three outcomes, with each additional tie increasing frequency (20.3%, p < .001), odds of escalation (OR = 42.9%, p < .01), and problems (12.5%, p < .01). The number of sources, peer norm context, and social bonding were explanatory mechanisms for all three outcomes for nightlife networks. Specific occupational ties and the total number of ties to healthcare professionals were not associated with any outcome.Conclusion: Embeddedness in nightlife networks is related to patterns of prescription drug misuse, and some of this association can be explained by multiple mechanisms of social networks. By contrast, ties to healthcare professionals are not associated with patterns of misuse among such young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background There is an urgent need to understand how best to prevent and respond to violence against children with disabilities as they are at a high risk for violence because they are marginalized, isolated, and targeted and have little power within their communities. Objective Guided by social-ecological theory, this study explores responses to violence against children with disabilities, including preventative measures and treatment of victims in the West African countries of Guinea, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Participants Participants were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling from the following three groups: disability stakeholders including representatives from local, national, and international organizations and governments; community members including parents, teachers, and leaders; and children with disabilities. Methods A qualitative study design guided data generation, that included document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups across the four countries. In total, 419 people participated. Of those participants, 191 took part in an interview and the rest participated in one of 55 focus groups. Findings Responses to disability-based violence are driven at the mesosystem and exosystem levels. Prevailing views indicated that national level policies and laws are not always considered part of solutions, communities are leading responses to violence, and children with disabilities are hidden at home or in institutions for both their own and their family's safety. Conclusions The findings can inform development of prevention and intervention programs that will protect children with disabilities from violence in contexts with high levels of disability stigma, social conflict, violence, and poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • A systemic-relational (SR) approach to environmental ethics is provided. • Eleven principles are set out for the realisation of the SR approach. • The SR approach enables the balancing of values in water resource management (WRM). • The SR approach is applied to WRM in South Africa. Abstract This paper argues for a systemic-relational (SR) approach to environmental ethics, in order to enable water resource management (WRM) to be effective and fair. This will require WRM to develop and internalise an ethically grounded approach. An SR approach holds that value with regard to the social-ecological system (SES) is to be primarily located, not at the level of its constituent components, but at the level of the SES as an integrated unit. The key principles informing the SR approach are spelled out, and its potential relevance to WRM is illustrated, using the key values operating within the WRM sector in South Africa as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Collaboration barriers are analysed as constraints to effective climate adaptation. • The paper presents a mixed-method approach based on Social Network Analysis. • The method is tested in a fragile coastal socio-ecosystem is Southern Mexico. • The method reveals the complex socio-institutional interplay driving adaptation outcomes. Abstract Collaboration barriers have been reported among the most frequent institutional constraints to adaptation. Yet, the growing literature on the topic has been largely descriptive and little attention has been placed on how to transform barriers into enablers for action. By taking a fragile socio-ecological lagoon system in Southern Mexico as a case study, the paper applies a social network analytical approach to: i) reveal the actual web of connections tying stakeholders through local governance arrangements; ii) identify shortcomings in multi-actor collaboration networks; and iii) propose ways to tackle them so that the full potential of adaptation can be exploited. The paper employs a mixed-method approach combining both a quantitative and qualitative Social Network Analysis (SNA). The quantitative SNA is used to assess the quality and strength of relationships among formal public organisations working on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction in the site. The qualitative SNA is employed to both assess linking ties between formal organizations and local coastal communities potentially targeted with adaptation interventions, and bonding ties connecting community members. The approach proves to be useful to map the relational architecture of the system of interest and to reveal network characteristics that are important for collective action including: network fragmentation in subgroups; density of relations; centralization around a few actors. The actual topology of the network, as revealed, can then be compared with what is required for achieving societally desired adaptation outcomes and for identifying agents that can promote change. The paper acknowledges that a social analytical approach might be limited in unveiling the interests and motives behind actors' participation in the network, and that the latter ultimately determine actors' contribution in defining and enacting a joint solution for a common problem. However, the mixed-methods approach presented in this paper allows for gaining first insights on the way a mismatch between formal and informal institutions might drive socio-ecological systems towards inadequate adaptation outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Social systems may be vulnerable to changes in ecosystem services provision. • An indicator of social vulnerability to environmental change is proposed. • Dependency on the ecosystem and adasssptation are dimensions of social vulnerability. • Vulnerability indicator is developed to be evaluated at local scale. • Participative techniques to obtain information at beneficiary level are proposed. Abstract Understanding the influence of social variables on a beneficiary´s vulnerability to environmental change might improves the design of policies of mitigation and adaptation to global, regional and local environmental change. In the context of socio-ecological systems, there is a wide variety of conceptual and methodological approaches for the assessment of social vulnerability in face of environmental change. However, there is a need for making these approaches more operational. Among the aspects that have been pointed out in previous literature as current research needs are (i) the identification of variables that are determinant for the construction of a vulnerability index, (ii) the analysis of the problems derived from the availability of information for the vulnerability evaluation, (iii) spatial representation of a vulnerability index and (iv) the design of strategies to identify the responses of different types of beneficiaries at local scale. This paper proposes an index of the social system´s vulnerability to changes in ecosystem services provision as well as a methodological proposal for its evaluation at local scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This overview of the psychology of personality dynamics locates contemporary trends within the field's long history. Investigators of the 19th and 20th centuries are recognized as having identified scientific challenges that must be addressed today if one is to attain a comprehensive understanding of personality architecture and dynamics. We outline four themes that were highlighted by investigators of the past. We then consider how theoretical and methodological challenges associated with these themes are addressed by two contemporary models of personality architecture, dynamics, and functioning: the Knowledge-and-Appraisal Personality Architecture (KAPA model) and the social ecological perspective of Personal Projects Analysis (PPA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Building on the most relevant literature on cultural regeneration and creative cities, this paper provides an integrated framework to investigate the factors exploited by private actors to stimulate the hybridization of urban cultural heritage with creativity and the strategies adopted to engage stakeholders in bottom-up cultural regeneration processes. Two recent Italian cases of cultural regeneration driven by private actors, which exemplify two sharply contrasting urban extremes, have been chosen to validate this integrated theoretical framework of cultural regeneration in the city. Both have been recognized nationally and internationally as examples of best practice: IlCartastorie Museum in Naples and the Farm Cultural Park, Favara. Our results show that private actors mainly draw upon the innovative thinking of the creative class and innovative approaches to stimulate cultural regeneration. The evolutionary processes, and the resulting models of cultural regeneration, are shaped by the visions of these private actors, which are, in turn, influenced by specific urban conditions. In Naples' highly touristic inner city, the managerial innovation of the IlCartastorie Museum is fostered by the Foundation's pro-tourism growth strategy aimed at increasing both social inclusion and the organizational value of the actual museum. In Sicily, Favara's socio-economic marginalization means that its transformation into a creative city has to be supported by a strategy conducive to social inclusion and sustainability, which conjoins the explicit strategy of the private actor with an implicit emerging community strategy. Preliminary managerial recommendations and suggestions for effective private engagement and community involvement in cultural regeneration and creative city building are given. Highlights • Private actors draw upon the creative class to stimulate cultural regeneration. • Cultural regeneration is shaped by the visions of private actors and specific urban conditions. • Managerial innovation is fostered by the investor's pro-tourism growth strategy. • Creative city building is supported by a strategy conducive to social sustainability. • A semi-explicit bottom-up strategy enables creativity to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring multi-goal sustainable development paths is a global concern. To date, little is known about the characteristics of and logic behind the evolution of China's land use policies (LUPs), especially when they are linked to China's governance philosophy of an ecological civilization (EC). An EC is a unique development concept in China that emphasizes human-nature coexistence alongside economic progress. Therefore, we examine the evolutionary process of China's LUPs in the context of an EC. We identify meaningful shifts that have occurred in those policies, as well as reveal the logic behind the changes. Based on staged text mining of 220 national LUPs initiated in China between 1986 and 2021, by disclosing the changes in the number, foci, goals, concepts, measures, and reform methods of LUPs, this paper provides an overview and four-dimensional deconstruction of the country's LUP evolution in the context of an EC. Three major findings emerge from text mining. First, China's LUP has evolved through three stages, with modifications in the number, dominant foci, and themes of the policies across each stage. Second, comprehensive and significant alterations have transpired in the orientation, goals, concepts, measures, and reform approaches of the policies. Third, the transformation in LUP has transpired centering on four dimensions: improving economic efficiency; balancing production, living, and ecology; promoting social equity; and conserving ecology. These four aspects accord with four governance concepts of an EC—efficient development, symbiosis of humans and nature, social harmony, and green development. We also discuss how China's LUP evolution offers a valuable case for exploring sustainable development at a global level. [Display omitted] • Ecological civilization (EC) and land use policies (LUPs) are interactive in China. • Key changes of China's LUP are tracked by text mining. • An overview and deconstruction of China's LUP evolution are provided under an EC. • Four concepts of an EC are matched with four evolutionary benchmarks of LUP. • China's LUP provides a case for exploring multigoal sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Urban-scale greenness and residents' mental health are postiviely associated. • The assocaitions are moderated by urban built and social environments. • Healthy city planning should consider multiple factors in the environments. • Urban-scale greenness creating non-use values serves as a local public good. The relationship between urban greenness and residents' mental health is a critical subject of academic research, but no conclusive findings have been identified yet. Based on a large-scale social survey dataset in China, this study explores the association between urban greenness and residents' mental health and the moderating effect of the built and social environments on the association. The research found that urban greenness is significantly and positively associated with residents' mental health, to varying degrees, in cities with different built and social environments. In cities with medium scale and population density, greenness is found to be more significantly associated with residents' mental health, as it is in cities with a higher level of social fairness. The findings not only lend support to the health promotion model of social ecology, which suggests that mental health is associated with the external built and social environments, but also provides evidence to understand the benefits of urban greenness as a public good. In healthy city-oriented planning practices, multiple factors in the built and social environments should be considered in order to give full play to the health benefits of urban greenness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social experiences are strongly associated with individuals' health, aging, and survival in many mammalian taxa, including humans. Despite their role as models of many other physiological and developmental bases of health and aging, biomedical model organisms (particularly lab mice) remain an underutilized tool in resolving outstanding questions regarding social determinants of health and aging, including causality, context-dependence, reversibility, and effective interventions. This status is largely due to the constraints of standard laboratory conditions on animals' social lives. Even when kept in social housing, lab animals rarely experience social and physical environments that approach the richness, variability, and complexity they have evolved to navigate and benefit from. Here we argue that studying biomedical model organisms outside under complex, semi-natural social environments ("re-wilding") allows researchers to capture the methodological benefits of both field studies of wild animals and laboratory studies of model organisms. We review recent efforts to re-wild mice and highlight discoveries that have only been made possible by researchers studying mice under complex, manipulable social environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between perceived discrimination and risky drinking among American Indian (AI) youth is understudied, and the potential protective factors that may buffer this association are unknown. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine protective factors across individual, family, school, peer, and cultural domains of the social ecology that might attenuate the relationship between perceived discrimination and risky drinking among AI adolescents. Data were from the Substance Use Among American Indian Youth Study (Swaim and Stanley, 2018, 2021). AI youth who have used alcohol in their lifetime (n = 2516 within 62 schools) had an average age of 15.16 years (SD = 1.75) and 55.5% were female. Five sets of linear regressions were conducted. Risky drinking was regressed on demographic variables, alcohol use frequency, perceived discrimination, one protective factor (religiosity, parental monitoring, peer disapproval of alcohol use, school engagement, and ethnic identity), and one two-way interaction between perceived discrimination and the protective factor. Prevalence of risky drinking among lifetime drinkers was 40.1%. There were positive associations between perceived discrimination and risky drinking in all models (B s range from.20 to.23; p <.001). Parental monitoring had a negative association with risky drinking (B = −0.255, p <.001). Religiosity was the only statistically significant moderator (B = −0.08, p = 0.01), indicating that religiosity weakened the relation between perceived discrimination and risky drinking. Religiosity may represent an important protective factor that could help guide efforts to prevent risky drinking in the face of discrimination among AI adolescents. • Discrimination is positively associated with risky drinking among AI youth. • Prevalence of risky drinking among lifetime drinkers was 40.1%. • Parental monitoring has a negative relationship with risky drinking. • Religiosity attenuated the relationship between discrimination and risky drinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study presents a literature review of environmental reports based on papers published in 20 accounting journals between 2006 and 2015. A majority of the papers were published in journals, such as Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Accounting Forum, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, and Accounting, Organizations and Society. For each article, the aims and results obtained, methodologies adopted, data sources, industrial sectors, and countries involved were identified. Most of the studies present a longitudinal approach and use content analysis as their methodology. The most extensively used theories are the legitimacy and stakeholders theories. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the reflection of the state of the art of research in social and environmental accounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the historical dynamics, interactions and driving factors of multiple ecosystem services (ES) is crucial to realize ES sustainability. The mountain-oasis-desert system (MODS) is a coupled socio-ecological system, and the Manas River Basin is a typical representative of the MODS and faces a sharp conflict between socioeconomic development and ecological conservation. Based on historical documents, meteorological data, hydrological data and remote sensing data, we identified long temporal variations (approximately 60 years) and relationships of eight ES in the study area. A gray relational analysis (GRA) was applied to quantify the influence of climate and anthropogenic factors on eight ES. The results showed, since the large-scale reclamation of the study area in 1949, that the provisioning services (i.e., grain, cotton and livestock) and most regulating services (i.e., sandstorm control and climate regulation) improved markedly, but the supporting services (i.e., soil conservation and habitats) had declined. The linear fit charts indicated the synergies between the provisioning services and most regulating services but tradeoffs between provisioning services and supporting services (especially the habitats service). The dramatic population growth and intensified human activities (e.g., large-scale reclamation and the deforestation) were the main drivers of most ES, while climate fluctuation (e.g., temperature and strong wind days) was the main factor affecting certain regulating services (e.g., hydrological regulation and sandstorm control). The declines in supporting services and ES tradeoffs caused by the intensified human activities threatened the sustainability of other ES and should attract close attention. Investigating the ES historical dynamic in the Manas River Basin can help us further understand the socio-ecological system development of the typical mountain-oasis-desert region and provide valuable information for ES management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional rural landscapes host a biocultural heritage acquired by rural societies, developed in a secular adaptation with nature. Hedgerows play a key role in preserving biocultural diversity and associated ecosystem services. Despite their benefits, in some European regions inappropriate hedge management has led to a drastic degradation of hedgerows, with significant effects on natural and biocultural diversity, landscape connectivity and sustainable flow of ecosystem services. In Central Spain, an ancient hedgerow landscape constitutes a valuable natural and cultural heritage recognized by the establishment of different protection categories. We quantify the main tendency of change of this landscape over time, detecting a process of rural social-ecological decoupling both inside and outside protected areas. The hedgerow network has progressively been degraded and destructured together with the decline and local extinction of woody species, all of them of traditional use and some recorded in red lists for species conservation. This reveals weaknesses in the design and management plans of protected areas that should be effective in conserving the heritage of cultural landscapes and their valuable biocultural diversity and provision of ecosystem services. There is a need to elaborate regulations for the protection of hedgerow landscapes in the Spanish legislation, based on social-ecological relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a combined theoretical and empirical assessment of energy democracy and degrowth in relation to the case study of a city's municipally-owned energy company in Sweden. Energy democracy is a fairly new concept and is a normative proposal that aims at articulating prospects for reduction of consumption, resource efficiency, use of renewable sources of energy and community empowerment. Though degrowth and energy democracy have similar goals and orientation, a combined analysis of both normative proposals remains underdeveloped. The focus on energy democracy serves us to articulate a deeper discussion on how technology, energy use and sustainability challenges interplay with definitions and meanings of degrowth vis-à-vis processes of capital accumulation. Empirically, we use the case of a municipality-based project of energy extraction and distribution in Sweden to discuss degrowth and energy democracy perspectives in this context. Theoretically, we develop insights from critical theories of technology. A main conclusion of the paper is that prospects for energy democracy and degrowth are limited in the energy project approached in the paper as it is based on the use of forest resources-a contested resource in the area - and also because this project assumes the development of economic processes oriented towards economic growth within the framework of capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consecutively to the global sea-level rise, coastal landscapes significantly changed during the Early Holocene. We explored how coastal mutations have affected ancient human systems in the western Mediterranean. The Pego-Oliva basin (Spain) provides a thick sediment sequence located in proximity to two well-studied Mesolithic and Neolithic archaeological sites. Based on 16 sediment cores, sedimentological analyses, 14 C dates, and integration of previous works, we reconstructed the architecture of the sedimentary facies and the chronology of deposition for the last 9500 years. From 9500 to 8200 cal. BP, the stepwise inland migration of the coastline is characterised by the deposition of peat layers at distinct depths indicating four phases of barrier-lagoon systems development. The marine transgression caused the disappearance of the lagoon at 8200 cal. BP, and reached a maximum inland position at 7300 cal. BP. Since 5800 cal. BP, sea-level stabilisation induced coastal progradation and barrier-lagoon system construction. Five marine flooding phases dated at 9500, 9100–9000, 8750–8650, 8450–8200, and 8100–7300 cal. BP match Atlantic meltwater pulses. Comparison to archaeology shows that the long-lasting Mesolithic occupation corresponds to the presence of coastal offering easily exploitable local intertidal resources. In contrast, during the Late Mesolithic, we observe a lagoon contraction and the reduction of lagoon bivalves size arguing for a decrease in resource productivity. This changes in the lagoon ecosystems negatively impacted to Late Mesolithic populations leading to a less intense occupation of this area. Therefore, the 700 years' temporal hiatus between the last hunter-gatherers and the first farmers occupying this area is explained by the disappearance of the formerly exploited biotopes because of sea-level rise, a situation that may have been aggravated by coincidence of the 8200 cal. BP climate event. The maximal sea transgression corresponded to a shift from intertidal to infralittoral species between the Impressa/Precardial and the Postcardial Neolithic, indicating a good adaptation to changing environments at that time. However, comparison between Late Mesolithic to Early Neolithic suggests that communities with different cultural baggage have had a different perception of the same environment. By the past perspective, it emphasises that perception of the ecosystem value as a benefit or constraint, and of the risks associated with sea-level rise, relies first on the local and regional scales adaptive capacity of society to global changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant paradigm guiding mental health professionals responding to major disasters is the field of 'disaster mental health', which historically focused more on psychological factors than social factors, privileging individual over collective interventions. However, resilience to complex events is a result of multiple drivers, such as social networks and local culture, that must be considered together in the assessment and planning process. This paper adopts a multi-disciplinary perspective for disaster response, applying a social-ecological approach to disaster risk reduction which has been developed through practice and a review of the literature. In particular, we investigated how psychosocial healing, collective efficacy and social justice as intertwined aspects of the recovery process may inhibit the escalation of cascading disasters. The article argues that psychosocial capacity building can be used in disaster preparation as well as to respond to cascading events, as the escalation of secondary emergencies caused by the loss of vital services can heavily influence collective behaviors, and hinder the response capacity of emergency services. Our research suggests that adopting a multi-systemic approach, drawing on local cultural practices, can deepen the capacity of local people to take control over their own process of healing and psychosocial restoration, enhancing a sustainable recovery process. The conclusions suggest some possible applications for responders, utilizing groups and activities, and raise questions for researchers in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Soviet Russia, an agricultural directive could pass 30 management levels on its way from the central government to the farm. Central planning impeded the adaptation of agricultural practices to the local social-ecological contexts and virtually eliminated self-accountability in agriculture. Focusing on contemporary Russia, the paper examines how the state currently influences farmers' land management and how this subtle mode of intervention aligns with the local context. Qualitative research in the Western Siberian Grain Belt reveals that the state-designed institutions guide land management in a politically desirable direction. They aim for virtually unlimited agricultural growth and largely misalign with the social-ecological conditions of grain farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]