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Despite the growing interest in perceived social support as a means of achieving sustainable psychological development and well-being in the various contexts of the adolescent, its definition and composition remain unclear. The aim of this study is to test both the hierarchical order and the types and sources of a theoretical model of the social support perceived by adolescents. The model is based on the theories of Tardy and Lin, as well as on the findings of recent studies on the construct. Three theoretical models are compared using the structural equations method. The participants were 1081 randomly selected secondary school students (aged 12–18 years) from the north of Spain, who completed the APIK Perceived Social Support Questionnaire. The model positing that perceived social support comprises a hierarchical first level formed by sources of support (family, friends and teachers) and a lower second level derived from the first one, formed by types of support (emotional, material and informational), proved to be the first-choice solution. The results establish a solid theoretical base for both future studies on perceived social support during adolescence and possible educational interventions designed to improve social support for teenagers.

The growing population and increasing urbanization have led to a surge in domestic wastewater generation, posing significant challenges for effective and sustainable treatment. The present study demonstrates a novel and sustainable approach for the onsite treatment of domestic wastewater using an integrated settler-based biofilm reactor (ISBR) with efficient biogas generation. The ISBR provides an optimized environment for the growth of biofilm, facilitating the removal of organic pollutants and pathogens. Moreover, the ISBR enables the recovery of a valuable resource in the form of biogas, thus enhancing the overall utility of the treatment process. The performance of the ISBR was comprehensively evaluated at laboratory scale through treating the actual domestic wastewater generated from the hostel of Manipal University Jaipur. The ISBR system was operated under an ambient environment at a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 24 h. The results demonstrated remarkable efficiency in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), and coliforms removal, with average removal efficiency being more than 90%. According to the COD mass balance analysis, 48.2% of the influent COD was recovered as bioenergy. The chromatogram revealed a high percentage of methane gas in the collected biogas sample. The field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) analysis of the accumulated sludge in the ISBR system depicted the morphology of methanogenic bacteria. Both the experimental and theoretical results confirmed the feasibility and sustainability of the ISBR system at the onsite level.

It is estimated that at least one quarter of the world’s population will be affected by water shortages in the coming years and by 2030 there will be a global water deficit of 40% if urgent action is not taken. Currently, the main consumer of water globally is agriculture. In addition, it has been estimated that to meet the demand for food by 2050, the water available for agricultural irrigation would have to increase by 70%. In this context, wastewater could become a relevant water resource to meet this growing demand. This article aims to show the state of the global research on sustainable use of wastewater in agriculture. To this end, a systematic qualitative analysis and a quantitative bibliometric analysis were conducted. The search was carried out for the period 2000–2019, and the analyzed sample comprised 1986 articles. The results show that this line of research is one of the most outstanding within agriculture and has gained special relevance during the last five years. Research has improved significantly at a technical level, but problems such as energy consumption, and the elimination of heavy metals and elements of chemical and pharmacological products, still need to be refined. There is a particular lack of contributions covering social aspects. This article can serve as a reference for both researchers and stakeholders interested in this topic.

The assessment of the ‘quality’ of built heritage is a complex transdisciplinary issue, which both public administrations and real estate developers need to carefully consider when making any interventions. Recent international climate regulations underline that currently around 75% of buildings in the EU are not energy efficient. In Italy, those inefficient buildings are more than 50 years old and, if subjected to retrofit interventions, risk being totally transformed and losing their historical value in favor of a more contemporary use. This work aimed to study the residential heritage of the second half of the 20th century in the real estate market and to understand if, how, and in what measure the building and architectonical qualities are recognized and monetized by buyers. The city of Turin was chosen as a study area, and residential building qualities were analyzed using two quality indicators to perform a GWR on market POIs. The results highlighted that housing historical qualities are not homogeneously recognized by the real estate market, in favor of green ones. This work can help both public and private bodies to identify which ‘invisible’ quality residential buildings are immediately exploitable for enhancement strategies, with more respectful retrofitting interventions and a modern protection policy.

The joint impact of human activities and climate change on natural resources lead to biodiversity loss. Therefore, it is important to select protected areas through systematic conservation planning. The present study assessed how representative natural habitats are protected under the nature conservation network, and to identify new—but so far insufficiently—protected areas containing these habitats for sustainable management. We used the Marxan model to select the most valuable insufficiently protected natural habitats in the Czech Republic as a representative example for a conservation strategy for Central–Eastern European environments. We set three conservation targets (25%, 50%, and 75%), defining how much percent area of valuable representative natural habitats should be added to the area of the habitats already included in the Nature Protection Network. To implement these conservation targets it is necessary to preserve 22,932 ha, 72,429, ha and 124,363 ha respectively of the conservation targets occurring in the insufficiently protected areas, and 17,255 ha, 51,620 ha, and 84,993 ha respectively of the conservation features in the areas without protection status. Marxan was revealed to be an appropriate tool to select the most valuable and insufficiently protected natural habitats for sustainable management.

By using the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data, this study explores the status quo of ownership and usage of conventional vehicles (CVs) and alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), i.e., Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) and Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), in the United States. The young ages of HEVs (6.0 years), PHEVs (3.2 years) and BEVs (3.1 years) demonstrate the significance of the 2017 NHTS data. The results show that after two decades of development, AFVs only occupy about 5% of annual vehicle sales, and their share does not show big increases in recent years. Meanwhile, although HEVs still dominate the AFV market, the share of PHEVs & BEVs has risen to nearly 50% in 2017. In terms of ownership, income still seems to be a major factor influencing AFV adoption, with the median annual household incomes of CVs, HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs being $75,000, $100,000, $150,000 and $200,000, respectively. Besides, AFV households are more likely to live in urban areas, especially large metropolitan areas. Additionally, for AFVs, the proportions of old drivers are much smaller than CVs, indicating this age group might still have concerns regarding adopting AFVs. In terms of travel patterns, the mean and 85th percentile daily trip distances of PHEVs and HEVs are significantly larger than CVs, followed by BEVs. BEVs might still be able to replace CVs for meeting most travel demands after a single charge, considering most observed daily trip distances are fewer than 93.5 km for CVs. However, the observed max daily trip distances of AFVs are still much smaller than CVs, implying increasing the endurance to meet extremely long-distance travel demands is pivotal for encouraging consumers to adopt AFVs instead of CVs in the future.

For a sustainable building industry, reusable construction with a low demand for primary resources is needed. Moreover, if we want to reduce the amount of construction and demolition waste, construction with recycled aggregate should be considered. To investigate the environmental impacts of such concrete construction, life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to compare the following types of concrete construction: Reusable blocks with recycled brick aggregate, reusable blocks with recycled concrete, reusable blocks with natural aggregate, and regular concrete wall. Firstly, the properties of new concrete with recycled aggregate were measured, such as physical, mechanical, and thermal properties. Then, different constructions were designed and assessed using the method of Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML2001) and the method of National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (ReCiPe 2016) as characterization methods. Unsurprisingly, the regular concrete wall had a higher impact on most of the impact categories, e.g., 113 kg CO2 eq. (in the first scenario, using CML2001). In accordance with the circular principles, the reusability of blocks and recycling of aggregate are the main factors that affect the environmental impact of the constructions. Thus, the global warming potential (GWP) of construction with reusable recycled concrete blocks was only 53 kg CO2 eq. (in the second scenario). Moreover, we show differences in the results of CML2001 and ReCiPe 2016, e.g., in the Photochemical Oxidant Creation category.