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The study aimed to investigate the feasibility of a remote mindfulness based self-management intervention for individuals with type 2 diabetes. It is important to further our understanding of how to improve self-management to improve health outcomes and low levels of uptake to self-management courses. 29 participants with type 2 diabetes were recruited from the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS trust. Three groups of participants engaged with a remote mindfulness based self-management intervention, which were delivered sequentially. After each intervention was complete, patient feedback was retrieved and implemented into the following intervention. The quantitative analysis comprised of descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, paired sample t-test and multiple regression analysis. A qualitative analysis was also conducted through reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) to understand participant’s perspective on the intervention. There was a total of 17 who attended the course (59 %) and a total drop out of 12 participants over the three courses (41 %). The qualitative findings reported three main themes: (1) Eating to manage my emotions rather than my diabetes (2) Implementing mindfulness has helped me manage my emotions (3) Medication rather than self-management behaviours control my diabetes. The focus group feedback included participants’ appreciation of the community aspect of the intervention and their perception that the current course was more interactive compared to previous interventions. In addition, participants highlighted the importance of offering the course at an earlier stage of diagnosis to provide further support at the beginning of their diabetes journey. No significant findings were reported for the independent sample t-test, paired sample t-test and multiple regression analysis. The qualitative findings suggested that the course was beneficial, especially in demonstrating how mindfulness could aid self-management for individuals living with type 2 diabetes. Further funding and trials are warranted to improve the quality of technology used and to assess impact on diabetes control and mental health. •Mindfulness courses provide important skills for self-management of type 2 diabetes; but remote delivery has not been tested.•There is a minimal qualitative data in understanding patient’s perspective on how mindfulness influences self-efficacy.•This mixed-methods study provides insights into the feasibility of a remote mindfulness self-management course for type 2 diabetes.•The qualitative findings demonstrate how mindfulness supported self-management through improved stress management.

At some point most Black and Latino/a college students — even long-term high achievers — question their own abilities because of multiple forms of racial bias. The 38 high-achieving Black and Latino/a STEM study participants, who attended institutions with racially hostile academic spaces, deployed an arsenal of strategies (e.g., stereotype management) to deflect stereotyping and other racial assaults (e.g., racial microaggressions), which are particularly prevalent in STEM fields. These students rely heavily on coping strategies that alter their authentic racial identities but create internal turmoil. Institutions of higher education, including minority-serving schools, need to examine institutional racism and other structural barriers that damage the racial identities of Black and Latino/a students in STEM and cause lasting psychological strain.

The sustainability of agroecosystems is at risk owing to continuous anthropogenic disturbance. As such, there is a need to evaluate indicator taxa that may be used to monitor the health of agricultural management systems. Carabid beetles are ubiquitous and functionally crucial in agroecosystems while at the same time are sensitive to the changes caused by management practices. Their quick response to anthropogenic disturbances has been proposed as a practical and realistic tool for monitoring the sustainability of agricultural practices. However, there is still disagreement about carabids as possible indicators of agroecosystem sustainability. We conducted a systematic review of the responses of carabid beetles to agricultural systems in different biogeographical areas. We examined whether these beetles could serve as potential indicators of agroecosystem sustainability. The ISI Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Scopus were used to search for papers published from 2000–2019. In total, we included 69 studies indicating the use of carabids to monitor the impact of management practices in agroecosystems. Most studies were conducted in European countries (n = 37), while Southern Africa and East Asia countries were significantly under-represented (n = 10). Carabid beetle response to agroecosystems varied between management practices, with biodiversity indices (n = 41: positive 60%, negative 19%, and neutral 19%) being the most measured response variable, followed by functional diversity (n = 28: positive 67%, negative 25%, and neutral 7%). Overall, our findings highlight the need for more research in underdeveloped countries, to investigate the potential of overlooked carabids and include response variables measuring functional diversity in assessing the sustainability of agricultural management. This will assist policy makers and land managers in making active and informed decisions about agroecological disturbances and management.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the development of a deeper understanding of the conceptual and empirical boundaries of talent management (TM) so that scholars and practitioners may enhance their knowledge of what TM actually is and how it is carried out. Design/methodology/approach A comparative study was conducted of the TM practices of 30 organizations based in Sweden. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 56 organizational representatives. The transcribed interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Findings The findings comprise a typology consisting of four distinct TM types that exist in practice: a humanistic type, a competitive type, an elitist type and an entrepreneurial type. Descriptions are provided that probe into how specific practices are differently shaped in the different types. Research limitations/implications The study design enabled the generation of an empirically rich understanding of different TM types; however, it limited the authors’ ability to draw systematic conclusions on the realized outcomes of different types of TM. Practical implications The descriptions of different TM types give practitioners insight into how TM may be practiced in different ways and point to important decisions to be made when designing TM. Originality/value The paper addresses two main shortcomings identified in the academic literature on TM: conceptual ambiguity and the paucity of in-depth empirical research on how TM is carried out in actual organizational settings. The empirically derived typology constitutes an important step for further theory development in TM.

Rising global demand for palm oil has created environmental pressures related to deforestation, burning, and peat exploitation, which in turn drives increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. GHG emissions in oil palm (OP) production are known to vary spatially. However, temporal changes across contrasting management and soil types, are less well studied. This paper quantifies spatiotemporal GHG emissions across contrasting regions, management types, and soil types for the period 1990–2019 to assess the potential for reducing emission. The study focusses on Indonesia, as the biggest producer of OP, and in particular on the North Sumatra and Riau provinces, where OP is intensively produced. GHG inventories in 5 year time steps were constructed to investigate the change in drivers of emissions using spatial data, resampled to a 500 m grid. Total GHG emissions were found to have increased in both regions due to expanding OP production. However, results show a reduction in emissions flux from 1.98 to 1.15 Ton C eq . ha −1 yr −1 in North Sumatra and 9.63–2.67 Ton C eq . ha −1 yr −1 in Riau over the study period. This reduced flux was linked to the decreased deforestation and burning activities, together with increased biomass increment from lower carbon stock area conversion to OP. In both provinces, smallholder plantations emitted fewer emissions than industrial ones, and production on organic soils resulted in consistently higher emissions than on mineral soils. In North Sumatra, emissions under all management and soil types were found to decrease. In Riau, however, GHG emissions on organic soils regardless of management types, remained high. Our findings emphasise that potential for low-emissions OP production is attainable by reducing emissions per unit area through an improved understanding of GHG emissions spatiotemporal variability and their drivers. These contribute to reinforcing ongoing government regulations and guiding the industry towards low-emission OP productions.

Comprehending the determinants of change in forest understory biomass (UB) offers a theoretical foundation for sustainable forest management. Our objective was to explore how different forest management practices (forest tending (FT), closing mountains for reforestation (CMRF), and clear-cutting (CC)) affect UB. We surveyed forest stand structure and understory vegetation and measured soil properties. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to explore how forest management, soil properties, stand structure, and understory species diversity influence UB. Our results indicated significant differences in UB under various management conditions, with FT resulting in the highest UB. Stand density, soil organic matter, total nitrogen, and total carbon were negatively correlated with UB, while species diversity was positively correlated with it. The explanatory degree of PLS-SEM results on UB was 61%, and forest management mainly affected UB by influencing stand structure (0.27, insignificant) and understory species diversity (-0.46, significant). Understory species diversity exerts a positive effect on UB, whereas stand structure has a negative effect. Our results highlights the importance of considering both understory species diversity and stand structure in future forest management strategies.

Disturbance and competition are two strong drivers of plant community formation. Disturbances like mowing in semi‐natural grasslands enhance taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity by preventing the establishment of expansive species, which act as a biotic filter. However, how mowing and expansive species influence alpha and beta diversity, and how mowing may modulate the effects of expansive species on plant communities, remains largely overlooked. We sampled 61 (0.5 × 0.5 m) vegetation plots in abandoned and mown semi‐natural grassland in Central Italy characterised by varying degrees of cover of expansive species. We used Rao's Quadratic Entropy to quantify alpha and beta taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity and we performed multiple regression models to evaluate the effect of management types (mowing and abandonment), expansive species cover, and their interaction. Overall, mown grasslands hosted higher alpha and beta taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity than abandoned grasslands. Alpha taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity decreased with increasing expansive species cover, whereas for beta diversity, only the taxonomic facet is negatively affected. For all diversities except beta‐phylogenetic diversity, we detected a significant interaction between the effect of management types and expansive species cover, with their effects being stronger in mown than abandoned grasslands. Mowing represents a management type capable of counteracting homogenisation due to land abandonment at multiple spatial scales, by allowing a higher number of species with distinct lineages to persist locally. Expansive species acts as a biotic filter in reducing the plant diversity within the community, but its effect on homogenising plant communities was weaker. However, the intensity of this biotic filter was more intense in mown grasslands than in abandoned ones, probably due to higher species richness. Our findings highlight how complex these drivers are and that management can modulate the filterering effect of expansive species. Management type and expansive species influence plant community diversity in complex ways. Overall increase of expansive species cover acts as biotic filter in reducing the alpha and beta taxonomic and phylogenetical diversity. However, the filtering effect is modulated by management type, being more intense under mown grasslands. Mowing helps counteract vegetation homogenization from land abandonment, but its positive effect diminishes at higher cover of expansive species.

Europe is currently experiencing a huge decline in biodiversity, with the greatest reduction observed in plant species associated with grassland areas. There is therefore a need for more appropriate land management practices that do not endanger native populations. The focus of our research was to assess the modification of the species composition of the phytocenoses found in sloping meadows in the mountain–forest belt using organic and mineral fertilization and by reseeding cultural swards (with a mixture of Poaceae or Trifolium repens L.), while applying various meadow usage methods: multipurpose use (cut four times) and hay production (cut two times). The highest botanic richness (41 species from 16 families and 90% of perennial plants) was observed from the multipurpose usage of the meadow, which resulted in 28.1% more species than the haymaking usage. With regard to species stability, the most appropriate fertilization of the meadows was P30K60, regardless of the usage method. Fertilization with nitrogen fertilizers improved the yield of meadows but reduced the number of species. When meadows were reseeded with P. pratense and F. Pratensis and fertilized for haymaking, the number of families and species reduced, with a 25% decline in the number of T. repens families. This study concludes that to maintain the richness of plant species in these grasslands, farmers must receive financial subsidies to limit fertilization and plant cultivated species.

Recent evidence suggests that prosocial behaviors like conditional cooperation and costly norm enforcement can stabilize large-scale cooperation for commons management. However, field evidence on the extent to which variation in these behaviors among actual commons users accounts for natural commons outcomes is altogether missing. Here, we combine experimental measures of conditional cooperation and survey measures on costly monitoring among 49 forest user groups in Ethiopia with measures of natural forest commons outcomes to show that (i) groups vary in conditional cooperator share, (ii) groups with larger conditional cooperator share are more successful in forest commons management, and (iii) costly monitoring is a key instrument with which conditional cooperators enforce cooperation. Our findings are consistent with models of gene-culture coevolution on human cooperation and provide external validity to laboratory experiments on social dilemmas.

Background A factory‐calibrated sensor for intermittently scanned continuous glucose monitoring (isCGM) is accurate and safe in children with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Data on isCGM effectiveness as a replacement for self‐monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) in this population is scarce. Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the non‐adjunctive use of isCGM in children with T1D during 2 weeks in a challenging summer‐camp setting. Methods In this two‐arm, parallel, randomized, outpatient clinical trial we enrolled 46 children (25 females, mean ± SD: age 11.1 ± 2.6 years, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) 7.4% ± 0.7%): 26 in the isCGM group were blinded for the SMBG and insulin dosing was isCGM‐based, whereas 20 in the control group were blinded for isCGM and performed SMBG‐based insulin dosing. The primary outcome of intention‐to‐treat analysis was between‐group difference in the proportion of time within range 3.9 to 10 mmol/L (TIR). Results There was no significant difference in TIR (3.9‐10 mmol/L) between the two groups. In participants with suboptimal metabolic control (HbA1c > 7%) we observed a significant reduction in time spent above 10 mmol/L (P < 0.05) and an improvement in TIR (P = 0.05) in the isCGM group. No severe hypoglycemic events or serious adverse events occurred. Overall mean absolute relative difference (MARD) between isCGM and SMBG was 18.3%, with median absolute relative difference (ARD) of 8%. Consensus error grid analysis demonstrated 82.2% and 95.2% of results in zone A, and zone A + B, respectively. Conclusion The non‐adjunctive use of isCGM was as safe and effective as SMBG, and reduced time spent in hyperglycemia in a sub‐population of children with T1D with suboptimal glycemic control. Trial registration: NCT03182842.