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The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between credit risk, liquidity risks and bank profitability within the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. We selected data related to a sample of conventional banks observed during the period 2004–2015 and we performed the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) method in the empirical section. The overall results suggest that profitability of MENA banks is negatively and significantly sensitive to an increase in credit and/or liquidity risks. This negative effect was confirmed for either the separate or the interaction effects of these two risks. Furthermore, the findings indicate that bank profitability decreases significantly the level of credit and liquidity risks. We also found that the law and order as institutional quality increases the profitability of MENA banks and decreases both credit and liquidity risks.

This study developed and validated a multidimensional instrument to assess teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward the reuse of treated sewage effluent (TSE) in agriculture, a key sustainability strategy in water-scarce regions such as Qatar and the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Using factor-analytic validation procedures on data from 444 teachers, the study confirms a robust five-factor model comprising Perceived Knowledge and Awareness, Attitudes, Pedagogy, Perceived Limitations, and Sources of Knowledge, demonstrating strong psychometric properties. Beyond validation, the findings provide insight into how educators understand and engage with wastewater reuse as an educational and sustainability issue. While teachers generally demonstrate sound conceptual understanding and positive attitudes toward sustainability, persistent concerns related to health risks, food quality, and cultural acceptability reveal a notable cognitive–behavioral gap. Although respondents express strong support for student-centered pedagogical approaches, including experiential learning and technology-enhanced instruction, implementation is often constrained by limited curricular guidance, time pressures, and insufficient professional development. These findings have important implications for sustainability education policy and teacher preparation in arid contexts pursuing water resilience strategies. Recommendations include integrating TSE-related content across disciplines, expanding experiential professional development opportunities, and strengthening curricular frameworks that support applied sustainability education. The validated instrument offers a transferable model for comparable regions globally, enabling cross-cultural research and evidence-based interventions in sustainability education.

This paper investigates the effect of financial inclusion (FI) on bank performance (BF) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It uses data relatives to 74 banks from 10 different countries for the years 2010-2021. The empirical study employed a dynamic panel data estimate based on the Generalized Method of Moments in System (GMM in System). The overall empirical evidence suggests that financial inclusion has a positive impact on the performance of banks. We divided the sample into GCC banks and non-GCC banks to compare the output and ascertain whether there was a difference in results between the two groups of countries. Using both return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), the findings revealed that financial inclusion increased bank performance in the full sample and GCC countries. The results for non-GCC countries demonstrate that while financial inclusion has a favorable and substantial effect on ROA, it has no significant effect on ROE.

This study addresses a critical research gap by examining the pivotal yet under-supported role of Qatari science teachers in fostering public acceptance of treated wastewater (TWW) reuse for agriculture. Using a structured survey of 170 science teachers, this research investigates their knowledge, attitudes, and pedagogical readiness regarding this key national sustainability issue. The findings reveal a significant disconnect between policy objectives and classroom realities. While teachers show broad acceptance of TWW for applications such as landscape and fodder irrigation, they express strong reservations about its application for the irrigation of food crops, primarily driven by health and safety concerns. Teachers primarily rely on informal media for information rather than authoritative professional or institutional sources. They also report facing substantial barriers to teaching this topic, including insufficient training, a lack of instructional time, and an absence of formal curriculum support. The study concludes that empowering teachers requires systemic interventions, including the integration of TWW into science curricula, targeted professional development, and strategic communication efforts to build trust and enhance pedagogical confidence.

Salinity is one of the abiotic stresses that affect crop growth and productivity in arid and semi-arid regions. Unfortunately, there are few known methods to mitigate the deleterious impacts of salt stress on the development and yield of vegetable crops. Blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) are endowed with the potential to curb the negative impacts of salt stress as they are characterized by biostimulant properties. The present work aimed to investigate the effects of Roholtiella sp. as a foliar extract on the growth characteristics, physiological and biochemical responses of bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) plants under varying levels of salinity conditions. A soilless water experiment was carried out in a greenhouse where bell pepper seedlings were grown under five salt concentrations (0, 50, 200, 150, and 200 mM of NaCl). Growth characteristics, pigments content, relative water content, and antioxidant activity (CAT) were determined. Our results showed that growth parameters, relative water content (RWC), chlorophyll a & b concentrations under salinity conditions were negatively affected at the highest concentration (200 mM). Interestingly, the application of Roholtiella sp. foliar extract enhanced the plant growth characteristics as shoot length increased by 17.014%, fresh weight by 39.15%, dry and weight by 31.02%, at various salt treatments. Moreover, chlorophyll a and b increased significantly compared with seedlings sprayed with water. Similarly, RWC exhibited a significant increase (92.05%) compared with plants sprayed with water. In addition, antioxidants activities and accumulation of proline were improved in Roholtella sp. extract foliar sprayed seedlings compared to the plants foliar sprayed with water. Conclusively, at the expiration of our study, the Rohotiella sp. extract-treated plants were found to be more efficient in mitigating the deleterious effects caused by the salinity conditions which is an indication of an enhancement potential of tolerating salt-stressed plants when compared to the control group.

In the present work, six biochars were produced from the pyrolysis of poultry manure at 400 °C and 600 °C (PM-B-400 and PM-B-600), and their post-modification with, respectively, iron chloride (PM-B-400-Fe and PM-B-600-Fe) and potassium permanganate (PM-B-400-Mn and PM-B-600-Mn). First, these biochars were deeply characterized through the assessment of their particle size distribution, pH, electrical conductivity, pH at point-zero charge, mineral composition, morphological structure, and surface functionality and crystallinity, and then valorized as biofertilizer to grow spring barley at pot-scale for 40 days. Characterization results showed that Fe- and Mn-based nanoparticles were successfully loaded onto the surface of the post-modified biochars, which significantly enhanced their structural and surface chemical properties. Moreover, compared to the control treatment, both raw and post-modified biochars significantly improved the growth parameters of spring barley plants (shoot and root length, biomass weight, and nutrient content). The highest biomass production was obtained for the treatment with PM-B-400-Fe, owing to its enhanced physico-chemical properties and its higher ability in releasing nutrients and immobilizing heavy metals. These results highlight the potential use of Fe-modified poultry manure-derived biochar produced at low temperatures as a sustainable biofertilizer for soil enhancement and crop yield improvement, while addressing manure management issues.

Biochar has emerged as an environmentally sustainable material for addressing agri-environmental issues owing to its porous structure, versatile surface chemistry, and stability. While pristine biochars have demonstrated effectiveness in various applications, ranging from agricultural soil enhancement to contaminant immobilization, their performance is often constrained by insufficient reactivity and limited selectivity. This review begins by outlining the biochar production process, emphasizing how key factors influence its physicochemical properties and overall performance. A major barrier to practical deployment is the difficulty of recovering fine biochar particles from treated media, often requiring energy-intensive methods, which limits the scalability for agri-environmental applications. To overcome these constraints, the review explores various biochar modification methods, focusing on magnetization and mineral impregnation techniques. As such, magnetic biochars (MBCs) not only retain the adsorptive benefits of carbonaceous materials but also enable facile recovery via external magnetic fields, addressing a major obstacle in post-treatment separation. In addition, the mineral doping of MBCs further enhances surface functionality and reactivity, improving removal efficiencies for a wide spectrum of pollutants. This review critically explores the synthesis routes, structural characteristics, and functional performance of magnetized and mineral-enriched biochars, with an emphasis on their applications in environmental remediation and soil enrichment. Mechanistic insights into adsorption pathways including pore-filling, electrostatic binding, and surface complexation are detailed, along with emerging approaches involving light-assisted degradation pathways. By synthesizing laboratory findings and field-scale observations, this review identifies current improvements and limitations, and outlines key directions for future research toward the practical and scalable use of engineered biochars for more sustainable agri-environmental applications. Graphical Abstract

Antibiotics are among the most widely used pharmaceutically active compounds. Possessing the capability to adversely impact the ecological system, existence of antibiotics in the environment is an escalating concern. With the purpose of removing two widely used antibiotics efficiently from aqueous solutions, the competency of two biochar (BC)-based sorbents derived from spent coffee (SC) grounds was investigated. Both pristine (SCBC) and nickel (II) oxide-impregnated (Ni-SCBC) biochars were utilized as sustainable and cost-effective sorbents to remove daunorubicin (DAYN) and tigecycline (TIGY) from single synthetic aqueous solutions and binary combinations. Batch adsorption experiments were controlled implementing Box–Behnken design. The removal efficiency of Ni-SCBC was superior compared to SCBC (TIGY: 67.06%, DAYN: 94.30%). Results of characterizations showed that impregnation with NiO changed the degree of crystallization with a remarkable increase in the surface area from 49.23 m 2 /g in SCBC to 86.06 m 2 /g in Ni-SCBC. Adsorption of DAYN and TIGY (single solutions) conformed well to Freundlich, and Langmuir isotherms, respectively. A maximum adsorption capacity ( q max ) of 136.62 mg/g (DAYN) and 73.15 mg/g (TIGY) was reported in single solutions, compared to 23.50 mg/g (DAYN) and 58.42 mg/g (TIGY) in binary mixture. Adsorption kinetics onto Ni-SCBC fitted well with the pseudo-second-order (PSO) and Elovich models. Acquired results demonstrated that SCBC and Ni-SCBC are promising adsorbents for remedying antibiotics.

The crucial role of the financial sector in the process of economic development and growth is widely acknowledged by scholars and policymakers. Over the past two decades, several countries have liberalized their financial sector and have implemented various financial and structural reforms with the aim to promote the role of banks and financial institutions in the economy. Consequently, the financial sector has emerged spectacularly and financial innovations have been developed at a spectacular rate. In some advanced service economies, the liberalization process and the implementation of financial reforms have shown their effectiveness in bolstering economic growth and the financial sector has become the lifeblood of the economy.

This study was carried out to investigate the impacts of cyanobacteria (Roholtiella sp.) high-value product extract (HVPE) and water resuspended biomass WRB treatments on bell pepper production using the hydroponic system under greenhouse conditions. Six cyanobacteria treatments (6 ml L−1, 4 ml L−1, and 2 ml L−1 – HVPE, 6 ml L−1, 4 ml L−1, and 2 ml L−1 – WRB, and TR0 as control) were evaluated using the foliar application method. The results showed that foliar application of HVPE with treatments of 2 ml L−1, 4 ml L−1, and 6 ml L−1 produced significantly higher values of physical growth parameters of bell pepper (BP) plants (shoot length, the number of leaves, plant leaf length, plant leaf width, and the diameter of the shoot), SPAD index, yield components (the fruit length, fruit width, the number of fruit per plant, and fresh weight per fruit), biochemical composition [ascorbic acid, phenolic acid, and total soluble solids (TSS)], and the total yield compared to the control group TR0. Also, significant higher values of growth parameters (shoot length, the number of leaves, plant leaf length, plant leaf width, the diameter of the shoot), SPAD index, yield components (the fruit length, fruit width, the number of fruits per plant, and fresh weight per fruit), biochemical composition [ascorbic acid, phenolic acid, and total soluble solids (TSS)], and the total yield were obtained with foliar spraying WRB at 2 ml L−1, 4 ml L−1, and 6 ml L−1 compared to the control group TR0. Consequently, the treated bell pepper with Roholtiella sp. HVPE and WRB were more efficient in enhancing production and chemical constituents compared with the control group.