Organized crime (OC) can influence firms through coercion, collusion, financial ties, and supply-chain relationships, yet these interactions remain underexamined in stakeholder theory. This article conceptualizes organized crime as an analytically relevant but non-normatively legitimate stakeholder and develops a risk-based framework combining stakeholder salience, interface channel, interest level, and influence strategy. The framework specifies when OC is likely to command managerial attention and which configurations are expected to pose the greatest risks of value destruction and escalation. Three illustrative Italian cases involving preventive anti-mafia measures show variation from latent relational exposure, through indirect supply-chain contamination, to embedded ownership and financial control. By linking these configurations to graduated governance responses, the framework helps managers and regulators calibrate proportionate, revisable, and auditable interventions. It extends stakeholder theory to adversarial actors while clarifying institutional conditions that shape the credibility of prevention and remediation.

This special issue demonstrates that regulatory studies and criminology both have virtue. Regulatory criminology has neglected virtues that exceed the sum of its parts. The editors did a splendid job of pointing out in their introduction that criminology created a number of theoretical traditions that have had moments of passing value and relevance to regulatory studies. In both fields, and at their intersections, one of these traditions, an economism of rational choice, even enjoyed periods of domination. At times, this narrowed scholarly imagination has won Nobel Prizes in economics. Today economists are less present at criminology, law and society, and regulation and governance conferences. Economists must be attracted back so that intellectual renewal on offer from regulatory studies and criminology might broaden their imaginations, and they ours. Regulation and governance can benefit greatly from noting how criminologists integrate insights from micro and macro levels by fine-grained studies of the modus operandi of lawbreakers that are connected to a historical imagination for the longue durée and a sociological imagination of macrostructures.

Against a backdrop of increasing political, economic, and ecological volatility, participatory governance could provide a valuable mechanism to counteract democratic backsliding caused by unchecked power and regulatory capture. Food systems in particular are a site where many interests and sectors converge—including health, agriculture, land use, labor, environment, and climate change—and where there has been increasing interest and experimentation in forms of participatory governance. This research uses the example of the organic standards governance process to understand how governance structures can enable transitions to more sustainable and just systems (including but not limited to food systems), and what we can learn from existing participatory governance approaches about how to govern complex systems in a collaborative and inclusive way. We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with individuals who have participated in recent organic standards review processes and analyzed key documents to characterize the sources and arenas of power at play. We found that formal authority and discursive legitimacy are enabling some participants to maintain influence at a time when increasing professionalization and resource-based power would otherwise dominate the process. In particular, the processes in place to ensure opportunities for public comment, diverse sector representation, and limited political influence all contribute to a collaborative, participatory process. At the same time, the organic sector is facing significant challenges due to the high costs of administering such a labor-intensive process, a lack of consistent funding, and the imminent closure of the Canadian General Standards Board as an institutional structure to support the organic standards review process. Despite these challenges, the governance of the Canadian organic standards has been a robust and unique instance of participatory governance that merits continued support.

The study assessed the physicochemical and microbiological profiles of wastewater effluents discharged from three academic laboratories: Environmental Science (EL), Chemistry (CL), and Soil Science (SS) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana. Using a baseline cross-sectional grab approach during peak operational hours, effluent quality was evaluated against Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (Ghana EPA) limits. The findings revealed severe regulatory non-compliance across all laboratories. Effluents exhibited hyper-acidic operational phases dropping to pH 1.75–1.82, which act to increase toxic metal mobility. The SS facility generated an extraordinary mean Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) load of 69,167 ± 28,669 mg/L, exceeding the 1000 mg/L national ceiling by nearly 70-fold and forming prominent mineral crusts along the discharge channel. Applying a mathematically standardized Heavy Metal Pollution Index (HPI) classified all discharges as critically polluted, with recalibrated scores ranging from 12,548.09 to 19,166.72 (critical threshold = 100), driven heavily by the strict regulatory weights of Mercury and Cadmium. Structural sewer cross-connections and sample-handling pathways introduced severe biological hazards, yielding Escherichia coli densities (4.72 to 5.62 log₁₀ CFU/100 mL) comparable to untreated municipal sewage. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) distinguished laboratories pollution fingerprints, separating the macro-mineral Soil Science vector from the hyper-acidic, trace-metal signatures of the CL and EL. The study concludes that raw direct-disposal practices are environmentally unsustainable, and highlights an urgent need for institutional waste governance to mandate decentralized, point-of-source neutralization, chemical precipitation, and disinfection pretreatment units.

This study examines the fundamental knowledge structure of research on the impact of single-use plastics (SUPs) on marine life. Although publications on plastic pollution have increased substantially over the years, the literature remains fragmented across multiple disciplines and research domains. Limited understanding of key themes, gaps, and future direction highlights the need for a systematic review to consolidate existing knowledge and guide both research and policy. Applying a bibliometric analysis via science mapping, this study explores the emerging and future trajectory of plastic pollution and its consequences within the aquatic environment. A total of 341 journal publications from 2017 to 2026 were retrieved and analyzed from the Web of Science (WoS) to form the basis of this analysis. Using the software VOSviewer, the emerging and current themes were analyzed using bibliographic coupling, producing four distinct clusters centered on the impact and solutions of global plastic pollution. The co-word analysis also produced four clusters related to marine plastic pollution as a global environmental issue. By synthesizing the temporal and topological structure of the literature, a comprehensive overview of research developments and gaps is provided, outlining emerging and future directions for understanding and addressing the ecological impacts of single-use plastic on marine ecosystems. The findings suggest that a dominant emphasis on environmental impact assessment, but limited attention to behavioral change mechanisms, the governance framework, and socio-economic dimensions. Future research should prioritize multidisciplinary approaches, including embedding the circular economy model with grounded policy interventions to address the complexity of marine plastic pollution. This research serves as a strategic roadmap for stakeholders to align policy interventions with the evolving scientific landscape of marine conservation.

With demands for criminal justice reform in the state of New York, the Raise the Age Legislation was passed in 2017, which changed the age that an individual can be found guilty of a felony and incarcerated in a corrections facility from 16 to 18. While this was a step in the right direction, far too many children and teens are being detained in secure facilities and are not receiving treatment that they need, and are being further subjected to trauma at the hands of the criminal justice system.

ABSTRACT

The main motivation and rationale of this study was to interpret the wastewater treatability results in terms of their implications for environmental sustainability as such an evaluation did not take place so far. Ozonation and combined peroxide (peroxydisulfate/percarbonate)/ozone treatments were applied to simulated reactive dyebath effluent bearing Reactive Red 21 -commercially known as Remazol Brilliant Red BB (RR21; 100 mg/L reactive dye; 25 mg/L TOC)- 50 g/L NaCl and 15 g/L Na₂CO₃ under previously optimized reaction conditions (1.5 mM peroxide, 72 mg/min ozone feed rate) at its natural, alkaline pH (= 11.0–11.5). The treatment systems were examined based on color (peak visual absorbance value of RR21) and total organic carbon (TOC) removal rates. The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was adopted to determine the environmental impacts of the proposed chemical oxidation systems with a functional unit of 1 m³ treated effluent to choose the most sustainable treatment alternative. The GaBi software was used for modeling and the CML 2001 method to evaluate the environmental impact categories: Abiotic depletion-elements (ADP-elements), abiotic depletion-fossil (ADP-Fossil), acidification (AP), eutrophication (EP), freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity (FAETP), global warming (GWP), human toxicity (HTP), marine aquatic ecotoxicity (MAETP), ozone depletion (ODP), photochemical ozone creation (POCP) and terrestrial ecotoxicity (TETP) potentials. The results designated that ozonation in the absence of peroxides required an electricity input of 1.390 kWh/m³ as the alternative with the least unwanted environmental impacts. Furthermore, it was possible to lower the environmental impacts by using renewable energy sources instead of grid electricity.

Assigning the preparation of decisions to specialized committees composed of member state representatives is a widespread response to the ‘governor's dilemma’, that is, the tension between competence and control, in international organizations (IOs). We theorize a causal mechanism referring to self-selection and agenda-setting effects and show how the resulting division of labor among IO bodies produces organizational influence beyond current accounts of committee governance. We demonstrate why specialized committees develop a distinct rationale of accommodating expertise with member state preferences, even if composed of member state representatives, and why agreed committee proposals are difficult to overcome by final decision-making bodies. We argue that the organization of IO decision processes constitutes an important source of IO autonomy beyond the activities of IO administrations and independent from socialization or predispositions of individual committee members. Empirically, we show that IO committees meet the theoretically derived prerequisites for activating the causal mechanism and trace how committee influence according to the mechanism has shaped an important IO decision.

We perform bibliometric analysis on documents for 255 Regulatory Impact Analyzes (RIAs) prepared by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 1980 through 2024. Using a series of automated information extraction methods, we extract references from these documents and match them to bibliographic records. We then build a database of relevant articles (whether cited in an RIA or not) and fit a two-stage regression model that predicts whether, and how many times, a reference is used in RIAs as a function of journal prestige, professional popularity, article accessibility, EPA funding, and involvement of EPA employees as co-authors. By considering cited and uncited articles related to similar scientific concepts, we can observe systematic differences in what types of research products get used in policy analysis. Academic popularity, open access status, and EPA authorship and sponsorship all predict more likely and more frequent article use. Articles in prestigious journals are no more likely to be referenced, but once referenced in the corpus are then referenced more frequently.

How should the law regulate the use and management of a resource in market activity? The resource can be perceived as an entitlement, granting market participants veto power over its use and management. Alternatively, market participants can be protected as consumers with rules focusing on disclosure, repair, and safety. The two alternative protections reflect different ways of regulating the economic power of large corporate actors in the market. Property law grants individual control over the resource, while consumer law protects consumers from exploitation but leaves them dependent on corporations for the continued use and management of the resource. This article examines the nature and scope of these protections by engaging with cases where there is a shift from a property protection to a consumer protection. In all these cases, market participants who manage resources are no longer perceived as owners; they are consumers. This article points to the normative and political economy implications of this shift.

Regulatory review—assessing the legality, use of evidence, and correct calculation of costs and benefits in regulations before they are enacted—is a core function of regulatory oversight bodies. In principle, reviewing aims to improve the effectiveness of regulations through economic rationality, tools, and methods. In practice, the work of oversight bodies occurs amid the politics of the rulemaking process and can be a way for the executive to control the regulatory agenda. Based on a 13-month ethnography of Mexico's regulatory oversight body, I examine how analysts enact the technical and legal requirements of regulatory improvement while facing political tensions and interference. Using negotiated order theory, I show how analysts respond to political attention, conflict, or interference by expanding, shielding, or bending their mandate and conducting their work accordingly. Reviewing to improve regulations takes on different meanings and forms, allowing analysts to protect their work, organization, and techno-legal mandate in the long term. The article contributes to a better understanding of regulatory review and oversight bodies. More importantly, it draws attention to how workers make ambitious statecraft projects like regulatory improvement possible by continuously reconciling the legal, technical, and political dimensions of their work.

The European Commission's decision to expand its 2014 Regulation on electronic identification and trust services toward wallet-based digital identities marked a significant shift in the governance of users' digital identities. The intersection between private digital services, public prerogatives, and individual self-determination raises questions of data governance, notably power conflicts over control and usage. This study investigates the governance of the European Digital Identity Framework using institutional isomorphism to understand how EU policy-making evolves and gains legitimacy by mimicking successful regulatory models like the GDPR. Our analysis shows that the narrowly defined scope of power for supervisory bodies allows greater discretion for Member States, which could make the system vulnerable to abuse. Additionally, the lack of organizational independence among these bodies further complicates governance arrangements.

Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, many countries worldwide have resorted to social distancing to maintain a certain physical distance to avoid direct contact between people. Despite the abundant literature on social distancing, how this mode of direct state intervention, which inevitably requires a lot of regulatory resources, was implemented has been a rare source of scientific inquiry. This paper attempts to fill this gap by presenting a case study that explores how regulatory resource deficits faced by regulators implementing social distancing were addressed in the regulator-intermediary-target (RIT) network. This paper highlights the role of local facilities as regulatory intermediaries in implementing social distancing in South Korea. Although social distancing was purported to keep physical distance among individuals, authorities' enforcement activities were primarily, though not entirely, targeted at local facilities. Analyzing in-depth interviews with 30 local frontline inspectors conducted in September 2021, this paper finds that local facilities played a key intermediary role in deterring the spread of COVID-19 as a private regulator. We argue that this role, constructed in the RIT network, was one reason South Korea could successfully deter the spread of the virus without a lockdown in the early stage of the Pandemic.

Citizen trust in regulatory agencies is crucial for the effective functioning of financial markets and broader public governance. This paper investigates the validity of the Citizens' Trust in Government Organizations (CTGO) scale in a transitioning society with historically low institutional trust. Using the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (PFSA) as the focal organization, our study examines how trustworthiness dimensions—ability, integrity, and benevolence—apply in this context. The research combines a quantitative study, which validates the CTGO-scale in a new cultural and institutional setting, with qualitative focus groups that explore citizens' perceptions of PFSA's trustworthiness. Our findings confirm the CTGO-scale's reliability and extend its applicability to low-trust contexts and specific regulatory agencies. However, focus group data suggest that the label for the “benevolence” dimension is best changed to reflect the impartial, commitment to the public good aspects typical of public organizations. We propose replacing benevolence with impartiality in trust measurement tools to better capture the structured, duty-driven nature of public governance. This study advances the conceptualization of trust in regulatory agencies and provides a foundation for future comparative research across diverse governance settings.

This article investigates the formation of stakeholders' trust in regulatory agencies, as the extent to which contact frequency and sentiment of media coverage are related to different types of stakeholders' trust. Based upon original survey data from diverse stakeholders, and media coverage from 2015 to 2020 of agencies in the food safety, financial regulation, and data protection sectors across seven countries, the analysis suggests that media coverage rather than contact frequency is important for stakeholders' formation of trust. Negative media coverage is detrimental to stakeholders' trust; positive or neutral coverage is conducive to stakeholders' trust. Finally, the results indicate that contact frequency does not seem to strengthen or weaken the importance of media coverage for stakeholders' trust in regulatory agencies significantly. This suggests the relative importance of media coverage compared to direct contact and experience with regulatory agencies when understanding determinants of stakeholders' trust formation. Beyond contributing to the research on regulatory governance, this study offers valuable insights for regulatory agencies in terms of navigating and leveraging the media.

Skills formation is a pressing issue for middle-income countries given the pace of technological change. In Latin America, scholars point to the hierarchical type of capitalism and its segmentalist skills formation system as the main roadblocks to exiting the middle-income trap. Yet we contend that focusing on national models of capitalism is limited because they do not explain within-country variations in highly unequal contexts. That is the case of the emergence of state-business cooperation for skills formation in the Mexican state of Nuevo León, which seems to contradict the national hierarchical pattern. Hence, subnational analysis might uncover alternative pathways. This paper presents a framework for understanding subnational dynamics in middle-income countries, where concerted skills formation systems may emerge. We claim that a combination of external competitive threats and state-led initiatives, like the creation of organizational clusters, can harness business collective action toward coordination in skills formation. To illustrate and further develop our model, we first identify Nuevo León's superior skills availability as well as its state and business associative capacities against the rest of the Mexican states. Next, we conduct a qualitative case study of Nuevo León as a pathway case to process-trace the operation of the hypothesized mechanisms. Our analysis underscores the joint relevance of local state and business associative capacities for skills formation in adverse institutional contexts.

COVID-19 amplified the issue of public resistance to government vaccination programs. Little attention has focused on people's moral reasons for noncompliance, which differ from—but often build upon—the epistemic claims they make about vaccine safety and efficacy, disease severity, and the trustworthiness of government. This study explores the drivers of noncompliance with the COVID-19 vaccination program in Western Australia, using in-depth interviews with refusers. Distrust in the government and concerns about safety, efficacy, and necessity (rationality) drive noncompliance when vaccination is voluntary. When governments mandate vaccines, rationales expand to include cost–benefit analyses of consequences, consideration of available alternatives, and moral justifications, with policytakers expressing “morality policy reactance” toward mandates as morality (rather than regulatory) policies. Our theoretical framework of vaccine noncompliance drivers shows distrust, rationality, and morality as interrelated and supported by social motivation. We consider policy implications and suggest holistic measures.

New governance models increasingly employ self-regulation tools like pledges and nudges to achieve regulatory compliance. These approaches premise that voluntary compliance emerges from intrinsic motivation to cooperate rather than coercive measures. Central to their success is trust—both in government institutions and among citizens. However, rising societal polarization raises critical questions about the continued effectiveness of self-regulatory approaches. This paper examines how ideological extremity, a key dimension of polarization, affects cooperation in self-regulatory contexts. We theorize that ideological extremity erodes trust in government and interpersonal trust, thereby diminishing cooperative behavior and threatening self-regulation's viability. Furthermore, we propose that extremity transforms authority dynamics, with ideological orientation and partisan alignment increasingly determining cooperation levels. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and World Value Survey (WVS), we find robust evidence that ideological extremity undermines cooperation through distinct mechanisms across the ideological spectrum. While our data has limitations, our findings have important implications for policymakers implementing self-regulation tools in polarized societies. The results suggest the need to carefully consider how ideological dynamics shape the effectiveness of voluntary compliance mechanisms.

This paper assesses what type of comments are most useful to what type of stakeholder in gaining influence during public consultations. Theoretically, the paper approaches stakeholders' consultation comments as reputational threats from key audiences that the agency needs to respond to. Different types of threats are expected to carry different weights depending on the type of stakeholders. The analysis is based on a dataset of 73,283 consultation comments left by stakeholders in EASA rulemaking consultations. The findings indicate that it matters what interests pose what kind of threat in regulatory rulemaking. Certain group types become more influential while others lose out when making specific kinds of threats. This extends our understanding of how stakeholders gain influence and what reputational threats are seen as credible by regulatory agencies.

In various regulatory settings, firms receive feedback (i.e., firm-specific private advice) from authorities on how to improve compliance. Although the literature sheds light on the authorities' decision of when to provide feedback, less is known about firms' decisions on how to respond. Building on research on compliance and regulation, we expect a higher level of responsiveness to feedback when the financial capacity to cover short-term costs is higher (as this allows firms to allocate resources for compliance in the current period) and when firms expect higher revenues for the upcoming period (as current non-compliance represents the risk of a larger future loss). We also expect a conditional association: having a limited financial capacity may truncate the effect of positive expectations (inability to respond), and negative expectations may truncate the effect of having a sufficient financial capacity (lack of incentive to respond). To test these hypotheses, we examine anonymized financial and regulation-related data of over 5500 financial intermediaries operating in the Netherlands during 2009 and 2010. The results of a series of tests indicate that the effects of financial capacity and revenue expectations are indeed distinct yet independent. Interestingly, responding to feedback depends on positive expectations, even when firms have a limited current financial capacity to respond.

This study investigates the impact of selective good corporate governance practices on the development of mandatory whistleblower protection policies in corporations. Using a coding instrument aligned with legislative requirements, we analyzed 66 whistleblower policies to assess their comprehensiveness and alignment with best practices. The findings reveal that, except for executive gender diversity, most good governance practices do not significantly contribute to the development of comprehensive whistleblower policies. The results suggest that many corporations adopt a minimum compliance approach, treating mandatory whistleblower policies as a legal requirement rather than a genuine commitment to fostering whistleblower protection. Drawing on Compliance Theory, this study highlights the need for a deeper understanding of how corporate governance practices impact the integrity and organizational commitment to whistleblower protection.

Public procurement has been adopted by many countries as a tool to innovate public services. However, public service innovation also exposes civil servants to the risk of being criticized for perceived failures in outcome. Empirically studying the relations between regulations and civil servants' trust in contractors will deepen our understanding of the critical role trust plays in collaborative public service innovation. Investigating civil servants' trust in NGO contractors delivering public service innovations in China enables us to explore this issue in a non-Western and transitional context. The study posits that trustors' preferences serve as a better measure of their trust behavior than self-reported trust. Based on two conjoint experiments conducted among 234 civil servants in China, we categorized civil servants' trust in NGO contractors into nine types. The findings suggest that when regulations on service quality and scope are in place, civil servants attach more importance to the types of trust based on professional competence, responsive competence and partisan loyalty of the NGO bidders. When the regulatory context is uncertain, trust based on integrity is considered to be more important than competence- and benevolence-based trust. Under this scenario, small NGOs with a lower level of competence and partisan loyalty have more opportunities to secure government contracts. Nevertheless, they could be subject to government control and risk losing autonomy in serving the community. There could also be increased risks of failure in public service co-production which requires responsive competence as well as benevolent intention of the NGOs to achieve positive policy and societal outcome. More experiments using larger and more heterogeneous samples in alternative service sectors can be conducted in future to test the generalizability of these findings.

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) introduces significant uncertainty regarding its future applications and potential risks. What is the preferred regulatory approach when confronted with such uncertainty? To cope with uncertainty, people often screen information in a biased way, consistent with their own prior beliefs and predispositions. Heuristics such as trust and affect are likely to influence how new (scientific) information is judged, in turn influencing the preferred regulatory approach. This article explores the complex interplay between trust, affect, and regulatory preferences in the context of AI governance. Drawing on an exploratory survey and interviews with AI regulators and professionals in the Netherlands, the study finds relatively low trust in AI providers and users, alongside a preference for flexible, adaptive regulation that is strictly enforced by the public authorities. By shedding light on the role of trust and affect in the emerging regulation of AI, this article contributes to understanding how such heuristics influence the preferred regulatory approach.

When pandemics threaten, governments are expected to protect citizens. Trustworthiness and trust are central to meeting public expectations. Motivational posturing theory differentiates resistant and dismissive defiance during the COVID-19 pandemic. While trust is central to responding to resistant defiance, it is less relevant for dismissive defiance. Dismissive defiance is associated with distrust, conceptualized as losing hope that trust norms will restore trust. Using multiple linear regression and path analysis of Australian survey data, pathways are identified to resistant defiance and dismissive defiance. Hypotheses are confirmed, but with some unexpected insights. Trust in government and medical experts dampens both resistant and dismissive defiance. Intervening variables on the resistant defiance pathway include disagreement with government COVID decisions and vaccine hesitancy. On the dismissive defiance pathway, intervening variables include poor information seeking on COVID and poor adherence to COVID-safe behaviors. Resistant and dismissive defiance, while related, require different approaches to trust building.

Governments in many of the advanced economies expanded childcare, an exemplary social investment policy, in recent years. Yet, considerable regional variation exists in expansion efforts, and often the supply of childcare still does not match demand. We explore the politics of this regional variation by studying Germany, a country that recently introduced a legal entitlement to childcare. Despite this legal entitlement, we argue that local political and economic factors (continue to) matter for childcare expansion and regional variation in coverage. We expect left-wing local political majorities to be associated with higher expansion and coverage rates. At the same time, tight local fiscal constraints should limit partisan room for maneuver and should slow down expansion. Analyzing local-level data on childcare coverage rates, socioeconomic context factors, and government partisanship, we find evidence of conditional effects between fiscal and partisan variables. We furthermore examine how local governments reconcile gaps in childcare provision with the legal entitlement and what distributive consequences this has.

Though often framed as a technocratic tool, impact assessment is a core element of the political agenda-setting process. In this article, we show that decisions about what is subject to legislative debate are made during impact assessment; specifically, during the drafting of the assessment report. Using a social process tracing methodology, we analyze the removal from the agenda of provisions for stronger alcohol advertising rules during the revision of the EU's Audiovisual Media Services Directive. We identify and test three possible explanations for this non-decision, drawing on material not previously in the public domain, and exploring how procedural politicking in the context of the EU's Better Regulation agenda shapes the drafting process. Concluding that the non-decision on alcohol advertising regulation was most likely prompted by combined political pressure from within and outwith the Commission, we argue for greater attention to impact assessment as a tool for mobilizing bias and agenda-setting.

Companies increasingly adopt internal norms to enhance compliance with legal rules. However, the rapid growth in volume and complexity of such internal rules may obstruct employee knowledge and understanding of such internal rules, and therefore also their compliance. The present study seeks to understand whether shorter and more accessible formats of internal company norms will yield better knowledge and understanding of such norms. The study consists of an extensive online field experiment randomly assigning 1235 employees of an international technology company to four treatments. In the long policy condition, employees received a 19-page traditional policy written in standard legalese language. The short policy condition entailed a shortened two-page version of this classic policy, and in the infographic condition, employees received an illustrated overview of the essential rules on a single page. A fourth group received no policy and served as a control condition. After reading the policy, employees completed several measures assessing their rule knowledge, perceived social norms, and played an incentivized bribery game. We find that (a) none of the types of policies presented improves rule knowledge or reduces corrupt behavior compared to the control treatment, and (b) no differences exist between the policies in influencing rules knowledge or reducing corrupt behavior. Instead, we find robust evidence indicating that people form their beliefs about corporate norms and decide how to behave in situations presenting high-corruption risk based on what they consider to be the norm. The paper discusses its implications for existing literature on codes of conduct and internal norms, on ethics training, as well as on legal knowledge development.

Even if member states formally comply with EU law, the ‘ideal type’ of literal compliance, where EU rules are compliantly transposed without customizing their density or restrictiveness, is both rare and improbable. Why do EU member states engage in literal compliance in the ‘least likely’ case of the EU's Fiscal Compact, where customized transposition is crucial for member states to ‘regain control’ over a core state power? Why do external pressures for uniformity trump or reinforce internal pressures for diversity, or vice versa? We analyze the transposition of six fiscal treaty rules in France, Germany, and Italy (N = 18) using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Literal compliance results from high policy fit and the need to signal responsiveness to external pressures from the EU and financial markets. Even though it may appear unlikely, literal compliance with EU fiscal policy does occur when uniformity is both easier and more important than diversity for member states.

For the law to function effectively in society, it must not only be enforced but also promote compliance, particularly in emotionally charged, polarized, or uncertain situations. This study explores the impact of legal sanction stringency and perceived sanction risk on the perceived legitimacy of and willingness to comply with mandatory vaccination laws in Czechia post-COVID-19. Using a 4 × 2 experimental design, we examined the effects of four sanction stringency levels and two levels of perceived sanction risk, alongside variables like trust in institutions, fear of disease, vaccination attitudes, and conspiracy beliefs, on a representative general sample. The findings provided no support for deterrence; neither sanction stringency nor perceived risk affected perceived legitimacy or compliance willingness, except for a small negative effect of the most stringent sanction. Perceived legitimacy, however, had a strong link to compliance willingness, and vaccine attitudes influenced both. Trust in institutions, fear of disease, and conspiracy beliefs were associated with perceived legitimacy but not compliance. These results challenge traditional views on legal creation and enforcement.

In established democracies, the threat of regulatory capture—often implicated in major crises—is usually less about financial mechanisms like bribery and more about the subtle social processes of cultural capture. But how exactly is cultural capture defined, theorized, and assessed, and what are its underlying mechanisms, manifestations, and impact? This article presents a systematic review (n = 39) of cultural capture, identifying 7 descriptions and 10 mechanisms. We consolidate these into five underlying concepts (CHAIN): Closeness; Homogeneity; Avoidance; Identities; and Networks. We introduce a parsimonious definition of cultural capture: social and psychological processes that bias regulators' beliefs and behaviors, aligning them with those of the regulatees and marginalizing alternative viewpoints. A key contribution of this article is developing a set of 33 novel behavioral indicators to examine these five concepts empirically and clarify their relationship to regulatory capture. Finally, the review highlights theoretical and methodological issues to address for the field to advance.

Trustable environments are highly appreciated for regulatory performance, but difficult to emerge. A condition for making trust work is to accept vulnerability, and this holds both for stakeholders and agencies in public governance. Trust-related vulnerability can be understood as a dynamic perception of potential harm derived from entering into a desired interaction. While stakeholders increased vulnerability due to voluntary exchanges with public bodies has been widely documented, the conditions under which agencies voluntarily increase their vulnerability remain less explored. Focusing on independent regulatory agencies (IRAs), this paper introduces a conceptual framework where agency vulnerability serves as a strategic tool to enhance IRAs' accountability, ultimately supporting these goals. We argue that IRAs intentionally incorporate vulnerability to make accountability efforts more credible, fostering stakeholder trust and facilitating operations. To achieve this, IRAs disclose sensitive information through accountability mechanisms, including transparency and participation initiatives. While this exposes them to criticism, penalization, or termination, it also strengthens stakeholder support and regulatory effectiveness. However, to manage risks, vulnerability is often selectively applied, prioritizing preferred stakeholders. We empirically apply this framework on Spanish data protection, finance, and food safety regulators. Our findings suggest that while vulnerability increases risks by enabling potential harm to IRAs, it ultimately mitigates accountability challenges and enhances trust among selected stakeholders, making accountability relationships more credible.

Photothermal distillation process is a water purification method that uses solar energy to evaporate and condense water to remove impurities. In this study, MXene photothermal fabric etched with lithium fluoride (LiF) was used for solar distillation process of groundwater treatment. The LiF-assisted etching provides a safer and milder alternative to concentrated hydrofluoric acid, thereby improving the sustainability of MXene production. MXene powder was synthesized and coated onto a PDA-fabric to create the photothermal fabric. SEM analysis revealed a fibrous surface with TiC nanoparticles, while EDX showed the presence of 66.6% carbon, 30.6% titanium, and 2.2% oxygen, confirming the Ti₃C₂T_x composition of MXene. FTIR analysis identified functional groups of hydroxyl, carbonyl, Ti–C, and Ti–O–C bonds. The distillation experiment was performed using a solar distillation panel system exposed to direct sunlight. The results showed high purification efficiency with 100% removal of total suspended solids, 95% turbidity removal, and 70% chemical oxygen demand reduction. The process also removed 88% of total dissolved solids and 46% of total hardness from groundwater. These findings highlight the MXene etched with lithium fluoride photothermal fabric's strong potential as a sustainable and effective solution for groundwater treatment.

Heavy metals from industrial activities accumulate as hazardous wastes, creating serious environmental and health concerns. Chromium (Cr), frequently utilized across industries, is among the most dangerous for its mutagenic, carcinogenic, and teratogenic nature. Despite widespread chromium contamination in tannery environments, limited knowledge exists regarding the diversity and functional potential of chromium-resistant microorganisms. Their combined role in chromium detoxification and plant growth promotion remains insufficiently explored. Therefore, the present study aims to isolate and characterize chromium-resistant bacteria from tannery effluents and contaminated soils, and to evaluate their bioremediation and plant growth–promoting potential. Nine samples were collected from tannery industries located in Jhaowchar, Hemayetpur, Savar, Dhaka. From the collected samples, twenty bacterial strains were successfully isolated. Of these, three strains exhibiting the highest chromium tolerance were selected for further investigation. Based on the biochemical test and PCR analysis these isolates were identified as Pseudomonas sp., Enterobacter sp., and P. aeruginosa. Significantly, all isolates exhibited distinct Maximum Tolerable Concentrations (MTC) for heavy metals on LB medium, where Pseudomonas sp. showed the maximum chromium tolerance (6500 mg/L), followed by P. aeruginosa and Enterobacter sp. (6000 mg/L each). Incubation for 48 h resulted in nearly complete (∼100%) reduction of 50 mg/L chromium by Pseudomonas sp. and Enterobacter sp., as confirmed by UV–Vis spectrophotometry at 540 nm using the diphenylcarbazide method. The isolates further showed resistance to other heavy metals, notably manganese sulfate monohydrate and zinc sulfate heptahydrate at 500 mg/L concentration. Subsequently, the disc diffusion method was employed to assess antibiotic susceptibility against nine antibiotics. Pseudomonas sp. exhibited multidrug resistance, showing high resistance to erythromycin, ampicillin, and tetracycline, while P. aeruginosa was highly resistant to norfloxacin and streptomycin. These findings indicate the presence of multidrug-resistant strains, suggesting possible co-selection of antibiotic resistance in polluted environments. Furthermore, plant growth–promoting traits (PGP) were also evaluated, with most isolates producing indole-3-acetic acid and some exhibiting ammonia production, supporting plant growth and stress reduction under contaminated conditions. Therefore, these isolates demonstrate promising potential for eco-friendly remediation of chromium-impacted sites under in vitro conditions.

Environmental degradation caused by carbon emissions poses a significant obstacle to sustainable development in many economies, particularly as they grow rapidly. In Malaysia, the transportation sector contributes significantly to total CO₂ emissions, with an increase in air passengers and a decline in rail passengers from 1995 to 2024, underscoring the need to develop sustainable transport strategies in the industry. This study investigates the asymmetric effects of air and rail passenger transport on CO₂ emissions using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) modeling approach. NARDL allows for both short-run and long-run nonlinear dynamic modeling, providing a more detailed account of how transport, economic growth, and urbanization influence environmental outcomes than traditional linear modeling procedures. The findings show that in both the short and long run, economic growth is a major contributor to CO₂ emissions, confirming that Malaysia's current development pattern is unsustainable. Linear models suggest that both air and rail passenger transport are negatively related to emissions (i.e. reflecting temporary improvements in fuel consumption/efficiency). Using NARDL, the results show an asymmetry in long-run effects on air passenger transport: increasing the number of air passengers leads to higher emissions, whereas decreasing it leads to greater reductions in emissions. Conversely, there is only weak evidence of asymmetry in rail passenger transport: reductions lead to greater emissions than similar increases, but only in the short term. The study highlights that promoting railway transport and enhancing air travel efficiency can effectively reduce CO₂ emissions, providing evidence-based guidance for sustainable transport policies in Malaysia.

Despite of many uses of silver nanoparticles (AgNP) as antibacterial agents, anti-inflammatory agents, anticancer drugs, etc. their potential application in the removal of BPA was gaining attention. In the current study, as a novel approach, silver nanoparticles derived from X-ray waste were doped with Fe particles and its usage was evaluated in the removal of BPA under optimized conditions using response surface methodology (RSM). However, during the process of synthesis of silver nanoparticles from X-ray waste, RSM was used for the optimum recovery of silver using the optimized bromelain enzyme extracted from Carica papaya. Characterizations like XRD, SEM, TGA and FTIR for extracted bromelain enzyme, silver nanoparticles, Fe doped AgNP were performed. An optimum contact time of 40 min for AgNP and 30 min for Fe-AgNP was observed, at a pH of 5, adsorbent dosage of 160 mg/l, maintained at 35°C with an initial concentration of 10 ppm gives optimal removal of Bisphenol-A for both AgNP and Fe-AgNP adsorbents. % BPA removal using AgNP 81% and 83% by Fe-AgNP with maximum adsorption capacities of 443.75 mg/g and 487.5 mg/g respectively. Pseudo second order kinetics represents the adsorption kinetic data for both the adsorbents. Negative ΔG values observed for BPA adsorption onto both AgNP, Fe–AgNP confirms the process as spontaneous and thermodynamically favorable under the studied conditions.

This paper deals with the coupled model predictions on performance of upflow anaerobic filters separated in two and three stages (UAF-2SS and UAF-3SS) for removing organic matter from sanitary landfill leachates (SLLs) generated from Guayabal sanitary landfill (GSL) and La Cortada -SL (LCSL), Colombia. Five coupled models (CMs) were analyzed through their kinetic parameters. CM1 to CM5 exhibited adequate trends for the UAF-2SS and UAF-3SS reactors when the substrate utilization rate (k) was evaluated using medium and lower limit of the calibration interval for these models. All of the proposed CMs gave suitable results of S_e /S_i in the calibration VOL interval expressed as chemical oxygen demand (COD) (2 to 5 kg COD/m³/d) for UAF-2SS and UAF-3SS design. The best option for the UAF-2SS and UAF-3SS design is the CM2, followed by CM4 and CM5 due to the appropriate results of the remaining substrate ratio (S_e /S_i ) in the suitable interval for feeding VOLs to UAFs (2 to 5 kg COD/m³/d), taking into account a comprehensive information for the transport and transformation processes in removing COD contained in SLLs from UAF-2SS and UAF-3SS.

Sustainable Development Goal 11 promotes inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities by 2030. This study examined the drivers of environmental degradation in Ogbomoso City, Nigeria, focusing on Ogbomoso North and Ogbomoso South Local Government Areas. A total of 600 questionnaires were administered across 20 wards, with 30 households randomly selected from each ward. In all, 531 valid responses were analyzed, comprising 272 from Ogbomoso North and 259 from Ogbomoso South. Principal Component Analysis was used to identify the dominant environmental degradation patterns. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin values were 0.890 for Ogbomoso North and 0.709 for Ogbomoso South, while Bartlett's test was significant at p < 0.001, confirming the suitability of the datasets for component extraction. In Ogbomoso North, major variables included filling stations (0.870), urban gardening (0.857), cassava processing mills (0.852), government establishments (0.836), food/drink cafeterias (0.862), educational institutions (0.848), motor parks (0.738), panel/painters’ workshops (0.907), mechanic workshops (0.898), and poor housing pattern (0.614). These reflect a formal urban area shaped by institutional concentration, mobility-related activities, light industrial operations, and housing pressure. In Ogbomoso South, seven variables were retained from 21 variables, explaining 66.04% of the total variance. These included in-urban piggery (0.667), fruit selling points (0.736), slaughter slabs (0.747), unplanned refuse dumps (0.854), religious centers (0.625), poor urban planning (0.810), and cattle herding (0.595). The findings show that Ogbomoso North is more formal but increasingly pressured, while Ogbomoso South is more peri-urban, informal, and environmentally vulnerable. The study recommends improved waste management, stricter land-use control, infrastructure upgrading, and livelihood-sensitive environmental planning.

In Central Java, salt is made on the north coast using conventional methods, such as compacted soil and geomembrane coating on crystallization plots, with low sodium chloride (NaCl) content. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the impurity content in salt crystals produced by farmers on the north coast of Central Java using compacted soil and geomembrane coating methods. The samples were raw water evaporated from the storage plot, and salt crystals produced after evaporating for 6 days. Samples were analyzed using Ion Chromatography (IC) TOSOH, IC-2010 to determine the concentration of sodium (Na), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), and potassium (K) cations. NaCl content was titrated using silver nitrate, and the shape of salt crystals was photographed using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)-EDX JEOL JSM-6510LA with 5000x and 10.000x magnification. Data were analyzed descriptively to explain the defects that occurred in different salt qualities. The results showed that the content of impurity ions Mg, Ca, and K, in the conventional method of raw water was 137.33 mg/L while in salt crystals produced 36.50 mg/L. This showed a decrease in impurity levels by 100.83 mg/L (73.42%). Furthermore, impurities ion content in raw water of geomembrane method amounted to 139.01 mg/L and 13.86 mg/L in salt crystal, showing a decrease of 125.15 mg/L (90.03%). The content of impurities in raw water was higher compared to salt crystals formed, both using geomembrane and conventional methods. NaCl content of salt crystal produced using the geomembrane method was 93.99% higher than conventional at 85.12%.

Although beef cattle farming is a major source of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, life cycle-based assessments of smallholder-dominated cattle production systems in Southeast Asia remain limited, particularly with respect to mitigation and offset potentials. This study conducts a cradle-to-farm-gate life cycle carbon footprint assessment of beef cattle farming in Chai Nat Province, Thailand, and evaluates scenario-driven mitigation pathways using a carbon neutrality model (CNM). Primary data were collected from 34 beef cattle farms, categorized into traditional operations and commercial feedlot systems. Emissions were quantified as kg CO₂-eq yr^{− 1} head^{− 1} across off-farm, on-farm, and post-farm stages. Results indicate that on-farm activities accounted for 58% of total emissions, followed by upstream feed-related inputs (42%), while post-farm contributions were negligible. Enteric fermentation, concentrate feed production, and manure management emerged as the principal emission hotspots. Despite lower emissions from animal production, commercial feedlot systems exhibited significantly higher life cycle carbon footprints per head than traditional systems, due to greater input intensity associated with concentrate feed use, energy consumption, and manure handling. CNM-based scenario analysis shows that, under a uniform adoption rate of 60%, mitigation and offset measures collectively reduced emissions by 42.1% in traditional operations and 39.5% in commercial systems, with direct mitigation measures accounting for most reductions. Nevertheless, substantial residual emissions remained, particularly in high-input systems, underscoring a persistent carbon neutrality gap. Overall, this study provides region-specific empirical evidence and highlights the importance of system-differentiated mitigation strategies for advancing low-carbon beef cattle production in smallholder and semi-intensive contexts.

Metal oxide nanomaterials (MONMs) have emerged as highly efficient, sustainable, and versatile materials for water treatment due to their unique physicochemical properties, large surface area, and strong catalytic activity. In recent years, metal-ion doping has gained significant attention as an effective strategy to enhance and tailor the structural, optical, magnetic, and catalytic characteristics of metal oxides, thereby improving their performance in removing a wide range of water pollutants. This review provides a comprehensive overview of metal ion–doped metal oxides, including TiO₂, ZnO, Fe₂O₃/Fe₃O₄, SnO₂, CeO₂, WO₃, and BiVO₄ highlighting doping mechanisms and the resulting modifications in band structure, charge-carrier dynamics, and surface reactivity. The enhanced capabilities of doped nanomaterials in photocatalysis, heavy metal removal, and antimicrobial activity are critically discussed. Additionally, the review addresses key challenges, including particle aggregation, stability, dopant leaching, and environmental safety, as well as recent advances in immobilization techniques and nanocomposite integration to improve applicability. Future perspectives emphasize the need for scalable synthesis, toxicity assessment, and the development of multifunctional, selective, and reusable nanomaterials. Overall, metal ion–doped MONMs represent a promising class of next-generation materials for efficient and sustainable water purification technologies.

Direct H₂ generation from raw biogas via steam reforming presents a renewable alternative to traditional upgradation technologies. In this work, response surface methodology was applied to optimize three key parameters: pressure, CO₂ content, and biogas-to-steam (B/S) flowrate. Optimal results were recorded at 49.9 bar, 1.5 B/S flowrate, and 20% CO₂, achieving a syngas containing 53.5% H₂. Within the broader optimal window (45–50 bar, 18%–22% CO₂), the process consistently maximized H₂ concentration (50%–54%) while reducing residual H₂O in the product gas. Furthermore, the parametric evaluation showed that biogas with moderate CO₂ content, which is typical of co-digested substrates, improves chemical energy retention in the H₂ product, while higher CO₂ levels reduce the overall quality of the syngas. The work captures strong interactions between operating pressure and feed composition, demonstrating a practical framework for scaling waste-to-H₂ energy systems.

Assessing ecological environmental quality is essential for understanding how landscapes respond to vegetation dynamics, moisture conditions, surface dryness, and thermal stress. This study evaluated changes in ecological quality in the Pınarhisar-Vize districts between 2005 and 2025 using a PCA-based Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) derived from greenness (NDVI), wetness (WET), dryness (NDBSI), and heat (LST). District-scale, directional, class-based, and mining/non-mining comparisons were conducted to identify spatial heterogeneity and key drivers of ecological change. The mean RSEI decreased from 0.56 in 2005 to 0.54 in 2025, indicating a slight but spatially uneven decline. Vize and the eastern area maintained higher ecological quality, whereas Pınarhisar and the western and southern areas showed stronger deterioration. Although NDVI and WET improved, these positive trends were insufficient to offset the substantial increase in LST, whose mean rose by 5.17°C. Correlation analysis showed that RSEI was positively associated with NDVI and WET and negatively associated with NDBSI and LST, with thermal stress emerging as a key limiting factor by 2025. A mining/non-mining comparison showed that mean RSEI declined more strongly in mapped mining areas than in non-mining areas (−0.204 vs. −0.051), while poor- and fair-rated areas accounted for 98.34% of mining areas by 2025. Across the whole study area, the poor class expanded from 1.71% to 10.20%, and the excellent class contracted from 28.02% to 20.12%, indicating increasing ecological polarization. The findings demonstrate the value of RSEI for targeted ecological monitoring, reclamation planning, and landscape management.

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) waste was recycled into polymeric micro/ultrafiltration membranes for water purification applications. EPS-based membranes containing 19.2, 20, and 24 wt.% polymer were fabricated via the non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) method, while polyethylene glycol (PEG) was incorporated at 3.84 and 8 wt.% to improve membrane characteristics. The membranes were characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), contact angle measurements, and mechanical testing. FTIR confirmed the characteristic polystyrene functional groups, while SEM revealed that membrane M2 (24 wt.% PS and 3.84 wt.% PEG) possessed the most favorable pore structure. M2 exhibited improved mechanical properties with elongation and tensile stress values of 72.6% and 69.2 MPa, respectively. The membrane achieved a pure water flux of 179 LMH and demonstrated average rejection efficiencies of 97% for humic acid and 92% for bovine serum albumin. In addition, the fabricated M2 has the best antifouling behavior with flux recovery ratio more than 90%. The fabricated M2 membrane exhibited the best overall filtration performance for 6 h and the highest cleaning efficiency for eight cycles. This study demonstrates that upcycling EPS waste into MF/UF membranes represents a sustainable way for water purification.

The need to develop environmentally friendly materials for packaging products, as a consequence of problems related to the impact of traditional plastics on the environment, has triggered significant progress in developing new materials with a positive effect on the environment. The current review emphasizes the progress that has been made regarding the development of biodegradable film polymers as a result of the use of hydrogels extracted from plants, nanocomposites, and other nano-enabled polymers. Some of the most widespread plastic materials comprise PE, PP, and PET. They have been used extensively due to their physical and chemical properties, which make them very durable and remain in the environment for decades. Biodegradable biopolymers include polylactic acid, polyhydroxyalkanoates, starch-based polymers and various natural polysaccharides. Polymer hydrogels and natural and synthetic polymers with high water content, biocompatibility, adjustability of mechanical properties and ability to deliver controlled release have become active packaging components. In addition, various nanomaterials, including metallic, polymeric and lipid nanoparticles (NPs), can enhance mechanical resistance, barrier properties and antimicrobial effects in the packaging system, while nanoemulsions can serve as a means of delivering bioactive compounds in sustainable packaging.

Across 124 jurisdictions, formal legal architecture for AI-related rights protection—including data protection legislation, independent oversight authorities, and sanctioning powers—is substantially more developed than the institutional conditions that make those rights operationally enforceable in practice. This paper introduces the concept of the capacity–justiciability gap to capture this structural disconnect: the distance between the formal existence of rights-relevant legal infrastructure and the operational conditions necessary to activate it against algorithmic decisions and impacts. Drawing on an original dataset of 124 countries combining indicators of formal legal architecture with measures of operational institutional effectiveness, we document that this gap is widespread and cannot be explained by legal origin, political North–South classifications, or general measures of institutional quality. We further argue that two structural mechanisms—technological dependency and cost externalization—operate specifically on the operational side of the gap, eroding the effectiveness of oversight, enforcement, and redress mechanisms that formal frameworks establish but cannot guarantee in practice. These mechanisms resist quantitative operationalization with available comparative data and are examined qualitatively through the cases of Bangladesh, Brazil, and Kenya, selected as paradigmatic instances where substantial formal capacity coexists with limited operational justiciability. The findings suggest that AI governance must be evaluated not by the density of its formal frameworks but by the strength of the foundational institutional conditions that enable enforceable rights, with direct implications for how regulatory effectiveness is conceptualized in contexts of structural technological dependency. More broadly, the capacity–justiciability gap may characterize any regulatory domain in which formal authority is systematically decoupled from the material conditions necessary to exercise it—making AI an extreme but analytically generative instance of a wider structural condition in regulatory governance.

Over the past two decades, political parties have undertaken a series of intra-party reforms aimed at reinforcing ethical standards and restoring public confidence. These regulatory developments have been insufficiently studied and remain a blind spot in the literature. The purpose of this article is to explain, drawing on existing theories of regulation, not only why political parties engage in ethics self-regulation, but also why the robustness of party ethics self-regulation (PESR) varies across 241 parliamentary parties in 34 countries. For that, we will make use of an updated version of a recently developed dataset which congregates public information on self-regulatory efforts developed by political parties to address ethical issues within their organizations. Our results suggest that intra-party ethics reforms are primarily driven by legal tradition, strategic incentives, and risk exposure.

The use of 10 natural coagulants prepared from five types of common local plants, including lychee, jamun, debdaru, mahua, and maha neem, for the removal of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) from water was studied. The effects of coagulant dosage (0.5–5.0 g/L) and pH (2–10) on SDS and turbidity removal were tested using a standard jar test flocculator with fast mixing at 140 rpm for 3 min and slow mixing at 40 rpm for 25 min, followed by a 60-min settling time. Later, the effect of settling time (15–60 min) was also studied. The best removal efficiency was obtained with a coagulant dose of 3 g/L. The maximum SDS removal efficiencies of 71.50%, 66.75%, 68.25%, and 65.5% were obtained using jamun seed (JS), lychee seed (LS), jamun pulp (JP), and jamun leaf (JL), respectively. Characterization of these best natural coagulants was carried out using FTIR, XRD, SEM-EDX, zeta potential, and water contact angle (WCA) analyses. FTIR analysis revealed the presence of various functional groups, including hydroxyl, carboxyl, and carboxylate groups in the natural coagulants. SEM analysis revealed heterogeneous surface morphology with irregular shapes and cavities, while EDX analysis confirmed the predominance of carbon and oxygen. Zeta potential and WCA analyses demonstrated favorable charge interactions and hydrophilic characteristics of the coagulants. The total carbohydrate and protein contents of JS, LS, JP, and JL were quantified. These natural coagulants demonstrated promising potential as low-cost, biodegradable, and environmentally friendly alternatives for treating surfactant-contaminated water.

Costa Rica, a global biodiversity hotspot, faces escalating water pollution challenges in its rivers and coastal zones. This study aims to evaluate research trends, spatial gaps, and major pollution sources in Costa Rica's aquatic ecosystems. This bibliometric analysis synthesizes insights from 67 scientific studies, 17 on the Caribbean basins and 60 on the Pacific Basins, to assess research trends, geographic disparities, and pollution sources. Relevant articles were obtained from the most recent academic databases, employing a bilingual keyword strategy to ensure comprehensive coverage. The findings identify critical hotspots, such as the Tárcoles and Reventazón catchments, which experience severe contamination from agricultural runoff, domestic wastewater and solid waste. Coastal studies reveal significant pollution in popular tourist destinations, such as Jacó and Tamarindo, due to the presence of fecal coliforms, Eschericha coli and solid waste in the marine environment, while less-studied areas like Golfito and Manzanillo face emerging localized threats. Beach-related research increased post-2010, reflecting growing tourism and environmental awareness, while river studies peaked in 2020 amid increased attention to urban water quality. Pesticides, toxic metals, solid waste, and inadequate wastewater management emerged as dominant pollution sources, highlighting the need for sustainable practices and policy interventions. National and international journals have been instrumental in disseminating research, with a notable contribution from Costa Rican institutions. This review emphasizes the importance of addressing under-researched regions, improving waste management systems, and fostering sustainable tourism practices. By identifying key trends and disparities, this study provides a critical framework to guide future research and inform policies for safeguarding Costa Rica's aquatic ecosystems.

Citrus decline poses a significant threat to mandarin orange production in the Wakro region of Arunachal Pradesh, North-Eastern India. Although multiple biotic and abiotic factors have been proposed, the contribution of soil physicochemical constraints to orchard decline remains insufficiently characterized. This study investigated soil texture, physicochemical properties, nutrient status, and trace element concentrations across seven representative citrus-growing sites in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and Meghalaya, encompassing both severely declining and relatively healthy orchards. Rhizosphere soil samples were collected from representative citrus orchards and analyzed for texture, pH, electrical conductivity (EC), soil organic carbon (SOC), macro- and micronutrients, and selected trace elements using standard laboratory procedures. Differences among sites were evaluated using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Pearson correlation analysis was performed to examine relationships among soil properties, nutrient availability, and trace element concentrations. Substantial spatial variability in soil characteristics was observed among sites. Declining orchards, particularly in Wakro and Medo, were characterized by strongly acidic soils, low available phosphorus (P), nutrient imbalance, and elevated concentrations of trace elements such as nickel (Ni) and aluminum (Al). Correlation analysis further indicated that soil acidity was closely associated with increased metal availability and altered nutrient dynamics. In contrast, comparatively healthier orchards, such as East Khasi Hills, exhibited more balanced nutrient availability and lower trace metal concentrations. Despite moderate to high levels of certain nutrients in some declining sites, orchard performance remained poor, suggesting that unfavorable soil chemical conditions may limit effective nutrient uptake. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of soil acidity, nutrient imbalance, and trace element dynamics in influencing citrus orchard health. The study underscores the need for site-specific soil health assessment and targeted soil management strategies to improve orchard resilience and productivity in citrus-growing regions of North-Eastern India.

This study investigates the technical and economic feasibility of reusing Class A Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) in urban retrofit projects in Recife, Pernambuco. The research focuses on the production of recycled aggregates for soil stabilization in foundations, a geotechnical application seldom explored in retrofit contexts. The primary objectives are to mitigate the extraction of natural resources and minimize logistical costs within urban environments. The adopted methodology involved processing local demolition material from reinforced concrete structures, yielding over 10,000 tons of recycled material. The results indicate estimated cost savings of R$447,892.09, representing more than a 10% reduction in total project costs related to acquisition and disposal of CDW. From a technical standpoint, the use of recycled aggregates complies with NBR 15116 (2022) and CONAMA Resolution 307. The study concludes that the repurposing of CDW constitutes a viable alternative for the circular economy, aligning geotechnical performance with environmental impact reduction and financial optimization in structural requalification processes.