Search

Enriching cats' living environment in shelters is crucial in reducing their stress. Easier access to resources allows cats to display natural behavior. This study aimed to assess whether cats staying in an enriched environment would be less stressed than cats staying in a standard environment. The first group consisted of cats living in an environment with fewer resources (standard environment)-103 cats. The second group consisted of cats living in an enriched environment-76 cats. The research material consisted of hair collected to determine the cortisol level. The results indicate that cats from a more enriched environment have almost half the level of cortisol in hair than cats from an environment with fewer resources (0.059 ng/mg vs. 0.101 ng/mg; p = 0.000001).

Entrepreneurship is a crucial driver of economic growth, especially in rural areas. Understanding the unique components that contribute to the success of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems is essential. This study presents a cutting-edge approach to uncover the essential components of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems that support rural entrepreneurship. We employ bibliometric techniques that enable us to leverage the Scopus database's academic paper metadata related to entrepreneurial ecosystems. Through citation analysis, we identify a core network of studies related to entrepreneurial ecosystems. Co-occurrence analysis visualizes the clusters of the most prominent components in both general and rural entrepreneurial ecosystems. We interpret the results based on a literature review. Our study categorizes the essential components into two: actor (academics, business, government, and community) and non-actor (human capital, network, entrepreneurial culture, financial systems, governance systems, infrastructure, environmental resources, and market) components. Environmental resources are critical in distinguishing the conditions of an entrepreneurial ecosystem in rural areas. This component represents the uniqueness and local economic potential of smaller areas, whereas in general entrepreneurial ecosystem studies, this component might not be a concern. By uncovering the components of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems, our study provides insights that can help policymakers, practitioners, and academics better support rural entrepreneurship and promote economic growth in rural areas., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Strategic decision-making for sequential move games requires rationality and continuity of rationality to guarantee maximum payoffs at all nodes/stages/levels. Rationality and continuity of rationality in a player's behaviour are not often observed and/or maintained thus, leading to less optimal outcomes. More so, the belief in an opponent's rationality, on the other hand, co-determines the level of effort a player employs while making strategic decisions. Given irrationality and discontinuity of rationality in a sequential move game with mover advantages, there are strategic steps (algorithms) to convert and/or maintain the mover advantages of an irrational player. In this paper, the conversion strategy algorithms, as well as the optimal strategy algorithms, are developed using the Beta Limit Sum (BLS) strategy model and the game of strokes. The simulation exercises confirm that the BLS strategy model is an optimal solution for the finite sequential game of strokes. One of the key applications of these strategies is that of resource economics like environmental resources (clean water, air & land). These are public goods, as such, the optimal strategy entails that the community cooperates (as one entity) and takes the same actions or strategy to maintain a healthy and clean state of the communal environmental resources., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Background: The community environment plays a vital role in the health of older adults. During the COVID-19 epidemic, older adults, who were considered the most impacted and most vulnerable social group, were confined to their homes during the implementation of management and control measures for the epidemic. In such situations, older adults may have to contend with a lack of resources and experience anxiety. Therefore, identifying the environmental factors that are beneficial for their physical and mental health is critical., Objective: This study aimed to assess the association between community cohesion and the physical and mental health of older adults and to identify the related community services and environmental factors that may promote community cohesion., Methods: This community-based cross-sectional study was designed during the COVID-19 epidemic. A multistage sampling method was applied to this study. A total of 2036 participants aged ≥60 years were sampled from 27 locations in China. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews. The neighborhood cohesion instrument consisting of scales on 3 dimensions was used to assess community cohesion. Self-efficacy and life satisfaction, cognitive function and depression, and community services and environmental factors were also measured using standard instruments. Statistical analyses were restricted to 99.07% (2017/2036) of the participants. Separate logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess the association among community cohesion and physical and mental health factors, related community services, and environmental factors among older adults., Results: The results showed that high levels of community cohesion were associated with good self-perceived health status and life satisfaction (odds ratio [OR] 1.27, 95% CI 1.01-1.59 and OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.15-1.27, respectively) and high levels of self-efficacy and psychological resilience (OR 1.09, 95% CI 1.05-1.13 and OR 1.05, 95% CI 1.03-1.06, respectively). The length of stay in the community and the level of physical activity were positively associated with community cohesion scores, whereas the education level was negatively associated with community cohesion scores (P=.009). Community cohesion was also associated with low levels of depression and high levels of cognitive function. Community cohesion was significantly associated with community services and environmental factors on 4 dimensions. High levels of community cohesion were associated with transportation services and rehabilitation equipment rental services as well as high levels of satisfaction with community physicians' technical expertise and community waste disposal (OR 3.14, 95% CI 1.87-5.28; OR 3.62, 95% CI 2.38-5.52; OR 1.37, 95% CI 1.08-1.73; and OR 1.23, 95% CI 1.01-1.50, respectively)., Conclusions: Community cohesion was found to be associated with the physical and mental health of older adults. Our research suggests that enhancing community services and environmental resources may be an effective strategy to increase community cohesion during major infectious disease epidemics., (©Ying Li, XiWen Ding, Ayizuhere Aierken, YiYang Pan, Yuan Chen, DongBin Hu. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 14.04.2023.)

Homestead agroforestry is one of the recognized agroforestry practices in Bangladesh. While the monoculture cropping system is enormously intensified, homestead agroforestry has added dimension to rapid economic growth. But despite having significance, homestead agroforestry is not gaining concern in further development. The study was done to bring this topic into focus by compiling the prospects of homestead agroforestry in Bangladesh by highlighting the significance and necessity. A secondary analysis was done by reviewing the findings to do this research. To collect paper keywords, "Bangladesh homestead agroforestry", "Homestead agroforestry practices", "Homestead agroforestry status", "Homestead biodiversity'', "Homestead and SDGs," "Dominant species," and "Home garden agroforestry system" were entered. Following the PRISMA framework, 337 papers were collected, among which 113 met the inclusion or eligibility criteria. The interrelated publications of homestead agroforestry with SDGs were assessed from the 113 shortlisted articles. The interrelated publications assessment on homestead agroforestry in the context of Sustainable Development Goals figured out that major research output was oriented towards no poverty (44%), decent work and economic growth (27%), zero hunger (20%), indicating its link to achieve SDGs from Bangladesh perspectives. The shortlisted articles were reviewed in the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), food security, livelihood improvement, environmental resources conservation, and dominant species coverage. Consequently, the dominant species were tabulated along with their respective coverages according to their uses. The study identified that in all localities of Bangladesh, Mango, Areca, Coconut, and Mahogany are the highly preferred dominant species, while Jackfruit, Acacia, and Banana also prevailed. Hence, the study concluded that homestead agroforestry has significant prospects in food security, livelihood improvement, and environmental resources conservation, and its contribution to achieving Sustainable Development Goals cannot be ignored. But homestead agroforestry system is exposed to vulnerability due to constraints. The systematic elimination of prevailing constraints can help in successfully executing sustainable development goals, and fruitful consequences can be derived by imposing potential concerns on this sector., Competing Interests: There is no conflict of interest., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Background: The Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, which has an enormous effect on human lives and the global environment. This review aimed to assess the global scientific evidence on the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on natural resources using international databases and search engines. Thus, the unprecedented anthropause due to COVID-19 has positive and negative effects on natural resources., Main Body: This review showed that the unprecedented pandemic lockdown events brought a negative impact on the physical environment, including pollution associated with a drastic increase in person protective equipment, deforestation, illegal poaching and logging, overfishing, disruption of the conservation program and projects. It is noted that the spread of pandemic diseases could be aggravated by environmental pollution and a rapid increase in the global population. Despite these negative impacts of COVID-19, the anthropause appear to have also several positive effects on natural resources such as short term reduction of indoor and outdoor environmental pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO 2 , SO 2 , CO, and CO 2 ), reduction in noise pollutions from ships, boats, vehicles, and planes which have positive effects on aquatic ecosystems, water quality, birds behaviour, wildlife biodiversity, and ecosystem restoration., Conclusion: Therefore, governments and scientific communities across the globe have called for a green recovery to COVID-19 and implement multi-actor interventions and environmentally friendly technologies to improve and safeguard sustainable environmental and biodiversity management and halt the next pandemic., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s) 2022.)

The developmental triangle earlier comprises economic growth, income inequality, and poverty, while in this study, we extended it by incorporating environmental and resource factors, health and education factors, sectoral value added, and some other growth-specific factors for assessing pro-poor growth, by considering Bolivian economy as a case study. The elasticity estimates show that agriculture and industrial sector growth is not pro-poor due to account of high income inequality, while services sector played a vital role in country's economic development and supports poor livelihood in a country. Energy and environmental resources negatively impact on quality of life of the poor relative to non-poor, which create income differences among them. Health and education expenditures give favors to the poor and supported the notion of pro-poor growth, while country's per capita income and foreign direct investment inflows increase income inequality that lead towards pro-rich growth. The results conclude that, in general, Bolivian economy growth is fairly unstable, polluted, and unhealthy that biased to the poor relative to non-poor.

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of natural disasters on external migration, price level, poverty incidence, health expenditures, energy and environmental resources, water demand, financial development, and economic growth in a panel of selected Asian countries for a period of 2005-2017. The results confirm that natural disasters in the form of storm and flood largely increase migration, price level, and poverty incidence, which negatively influenced country's economic resources, including enlarge healthcare expenditures, high energy demand, and low economic growth. The study further presented the following results: i) natural resource depletion increases external migration, ii) FDI inflows increase price level, iii) increase healthcare spending and energy demand decreases poverty headcount, iv) poverty incidence and mortality rate negatively influenced healthcare expenditures, v) industrialization increases energy demand, and vi) agriculture value added, fertilizer, and cereal yields required more water supply to produce greater yield. The study emphasized the need to magnify the intensity of natural disasters and create natural disaster mitigation unit to access the human and infrastructure cost and attempt quick recovery for global prosperity.

As a consequence of the global increase in economic and societal prosperity, ecosystems and natural resources have been substantially exploited, degraded, or even destroyed in the last century. To prevent further deprivation of the quality of ecosystems, the ecosystem services concept has become a central issue in environmental studies. A growing number of environmental agencies and organizations worldwide are now embracing integrated approaches to plan and manage ecosystems, sharing a goal to maintain the long-term provision of ecosystem services for sustainability. A daunting challenge in this process is to move from general pronouncements about the tremendous benefits that ecosystems provide to society to defensible assessments of their services. In other words, we must move beyond the scientific evidences of the ecosystem services concept to its practical applications. In this work, we discuss the theoretical foundations and applications of ecosystem services with a focus on the assessment of ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies at various spatial and temporal scales. Here, we offer examples of the main factors related to land use management that may affect the provision of ecosystem services and provide direction for future research on ecosystem services and related nature-based solutions. We also provide a briefing on the major topics covered in this Special Issue, which focuses on the provision of ecosystem services in the context of global change., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)