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This paper discusses two opposing narratives of digitalization. Both these narratives are found in existing literature, and the paper understands them as the utopic and dystopic narratives of digitalization. The former expresses unbridled enthusiasm about the bright side of digitalization, while the latter is predominantly pessimistic, and primarily focuses on the undesirable aspects of digitalization. Observing that scholars tend to subscribe to either one or the other narrative, this paper proposes a more middle ground where these competing narratives can be balanced to usher in a better digital future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Introducing "forks" and "links" as framework. • The desire for individual mobility was decisive. • Battery technology was a reverse salient. • Ethanol could have been the fuel for the internal combustion engine car. How can we explain the formidable success of the car all over the world? It is suggested here that the historical origin is key to the root of this enthusiasm. From a climate change mitigation perspective car culture is a difficult problem, but why is that so? This paper presents a framework of interpretation based on the literature of the birth of the American car culture about one hundred years ago. Agency, not the least on the part of the user, technological choice, and industrial links are emphasized and put together in a framework called "forks and links". This framework is tested as a narrative in the second part of the paper. It is argued that the car belongs to a product category with which active users can change their lives, while fuel and propulsion is just an input. A desired capacity for touring was decisive in the choice between gasoline and electric cars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper explores a contemporary trend of developing regional spaces in higher education, transcending national boundaries and promoting cross-border integration. • Using original data from the survey of 87 university international officers and interviews with seven policy-makers, this study charts the regional spaces in higher education in the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan). • The findings unveil a complex landscape of spatial identities marked by diversity and tensions. Various spaces, such as the European space, Eurasian Space, and commonwealth of independent States' Space, play significant roles, albeit to varying degrees across countries. • The European space is recognised as the most important space in higher education, highlighting its influence and relevance. • The study also observes the nascent development of immediate geographic spaces in central Asia and the Caucasus, where respondents express enthusiasm for collaborative efforts with neighbouring countries to advance common interests in higher education and research. One of the contemporary trends in global higher education is the emergence of regional spaces that transcend national boundaries, fostering cross-border integration and cooperation. This paper presents original data from surveys of university international officers and interviews with national policy-makers to explore regional spaces in higher education across the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan). The findings unveil a complex landscape of spatial identities marked by diversity and tensions. The European space is recognised as by far the most important space in higher education. At the same time, the Eurasian/the Commonwealth of Independent States' space(s) remain to be prominent in higher education, albeit to a varying degree in different countries. The study also observes the nascent development of immediate geographic spaces in Central Asia and the Caucasus, where participants express enthusiasm for collaborative efforts with neighbouring countries to advance common interests in higher education and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Assessing quality of collaboration strengthens the TDR process and outcomes. • Methods used in TDR should enhance the enthusiasm of societal stakeholders to actively engage in the collaboration. • Satisfying societal stakeholders' needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness is critical. • Active engagement increases the ability of societal stakeholders to address sustainability challenges and to enact change. • Fostering intrinsic motivation for engagement broadens societal impacts. Transdisciplinary sustainability research (TDR) is characterised by methodologies that support a rich and direct interaction between academics and other societal stakeholders. However, it is not to be taken for granted that societal stakeholders are interested in collaboration, or that researchers have the skills to put participative methods into action. While there are several frameworks available to evaluate transdisciplinary research, the quality of participants' engagement is often neglected during evaluations. The aim of this paper is to empirically assess the intrinsic motivation of participating societal stakeholders to engage in TDR by pairing Self-Determination Theory with Poggi's conceptual analysis of enthusiasm. We argue that the quality of collaboration between academic and other societal stakeholders is reflected by the latter's enthusiasm to participate, and that this supports the co-creation of outputs that societal stakeholders can put into practice. Two smallholder dairy farmer groups in Nakuru County, Kenya, reflected on their engagement in a collaborative learning process (CLP) that started in 2013. The goal of the collaboration was to co-develop contextualized innovations. We found that giving more voice and increasing representation and power of farmers in the research process sparked their enthusiasm, while a sense of progress and success sustained it. The strengthened sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness associated with intrinsic motivation helped participants invest in co-creating research outputs that have direct effects on their production systems. Especially for agricultural research for development spanning between Global North and Global South contexts, sensitivity to encouraging participants' intrinsic motivation can contribute towards decolonizing research methodologies and shifting more power towards the societal stakeholders that these projects are meant to serve. We conclude that assessing participants' intrinsic motivation and enthusiasm helps to determine the quality of collaboration. A possible implication could also be the differentiation between methodological approaches employed in TDR that deeply engage societal stakeholders for knowledge integration and co-production, and those that do so only at a superficial level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, growing numbers of parents in the industrialized world are choosing not to have their children vaccinated. Trying to explain why this is occurring, public health commentators refer to the activities of an anti-vaccination movement. The aim of this paper is to review the literature about the anti-vaccination movements and to highlight the knowledge and the skills needed for HCWs to fight against their ideas. The main theoretical structures of anti-vaccination ideology in the 19th and 20th centuries are: vaccines cause idiopathic illness; opponents against vaccines accused vaccine partisans to be afraid of the “search after truth,” they fear unveiling errors; the vaccination law not only insults every subject of the realm, but also it insults every human being; vaccine immunity is temporary; an alternative healthy lifestyle, personal hygiene and diet stop diseases. Proponents against vaccination now have additional means to communicate their positions to the general public, the Internet in particular. Doctors and HCWs constantly have to face parents and patients who search information about vaccination. A lot of these people have previously found data about vaccinations from a lot of sources, such as papers, media or in websites and in these sources most contents come from anti-vaccine movements. For these reasons doctors and HCWs need to have updated knowledge about the vaccinations and to know the contents proposed by vaccine sceptics. Educating the general public cannot be fully effective unless there is a corresponding provision, enthusiasm and commitment by trained HCWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factors promoting satisfaction and engagement with waste sorting were investigated. An extended theoretical model was established by integrating the theories of consumer satisfaction and customer engagement, rather than customer loyalty. Full replies to 672 valid questionnaires were obtained from respondents in 31 Chinese provinces. This paper explored how the perceived value of waste sorting, sorting facilities, income, age, and education affect waste sorting satisfaction. This paper also analyzed the effect of satisfaction on engagement in terms of enthusiasm, social interaction, and active participation by region and gender using multiple-group structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed perceived value of sorting and good sorting facilities can enhance satisfaction. Satisfaction can enhance enthusiasm, social interaction, and active participation. Education level, income and age would influence satisfaction and three dimensions of engagement: enthusiasm, social interaction and active participation. Waste sorting satisfaction affected enthusiasm, social interaction, active participation to a greater extent in eastern versus middle and western regions of China. It is important to provide market-incentives, such as green points reward, deposit refund, to promote household waste sorting. Image 1 • Education has the highest effect on enthusiasm (coefficient of 0.132) for males. • Facility has the highest positive impact on satisfaction for both genders. • Satisfaction positively impacts enthusiasm, social interaction and participation. • Income can enhance engagement of waste sorting for both genders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two trends in the United States—growth in bicycling and enthusiasm for complete streets—suggest a need to understand how various roadway users view roadway designs meant to accommodate multiple modes. While many studies have examined bicyclists’ roadway design preferences, there has been little investigation into the opinions of non-bicyclists who might bicycle in the future. Additionally, little research has explored the preferences of the motorists who share roads with cyclists—despite the fact that motorists compose the vast majority of roadway users in the United States and similarly developed countries. This paper presents results from an internet survey examining perceived comfort while driving and bicycling on various roadways among 265 non-bicycling drivers, bicycling drivers, and non-driving bicyclists in the San Francisco Bay Area. Analysis of variance tests revealed that both drivers and bicyclists are more comfortable on roadways with separated bicycling facilities than those with shared space. In particular, roadways with barrier-separated bicycle lanes were the most popular among all groups, regardless of bicycling frequency. Striped bicycle lanes, a common treatment in the United States, received mixed reviews: a majority of the sample believed that they benefit cyclists and drivers through predictability and legitimacy on the roadway, but the lanes were rated significantly less comfortable than barrier-separated treatments—particularly among potential bicyclists. These findings corroborate research on bicyclists’ preferences for roadway design and contribute a new understanding of motorists’ preferences. They also support the U.S. Federal Highway Administration’s efforts to encourage greater accommodation of bicyclists on urban streets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wine trails have been studied insufficiently within the tourism literature despite of their recent rapid development worldwide. In response, this study examines residents' perceptions of wine tourism development in terms of personal benefits and community impacts. It also explores whether residents' socio-demographics and levels of wine enthusiasm, and wine trails' tourism characterization influence residents' perceptions. Following a stratified random sampling procedure, residents living along two wine trails in the Piedmont region of North Carolina (U.S.) were surveyed. Results indicate that residents are neutral in their perceptions of the Piedmont wineries in terms of both personal benefits and community impacts. Residents' socio-demographics and level of wine enthusiasm, as well as the comprehensiveness of wine trails' tourism amenities were significantly associated with residents' perceptions. Results also indicate that personal benefits mediate residents' perceptions of community impacts. In addition to the oretical and methodological contributions, this paper outlines management implications for wine trails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]