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Landscape ecology represents an area of theoretical and empirical support of spatial planning, providing parameters such as heterogeneity, connectivity and fragmentation. The aim of this study was to use these parameters to evaluate the choices of a real planning tool to protect the biodiversity, to evaluate the applicability limits of concepts and methods used.

This was achieved by analysing the selected spatial indices and their dependency scale, and by the comparison of these results with regard to spatial biotic parameters estimations (birds and mammals).

The study confirmed the scale's effect on the indices, unstable at the adopted resolution for extensions up to 6,000‐7,000 meters. The selected indices permitted appreciation of the low effectiveness of the real planning tool in improving conservation of biodiversity. The paper suggests that empirical studies and predictive knowledge at different scales are urgent in this field. To preserve biodiversity, the choices of planning scale should primarily comply with the spatial needs of the various species.

Evaluates a real planning tool to protect biodiversity.

In the last decade we realised several rural landscape amelioration plans (Italy) by means of diffuse reintroduction of agroforestry linear plantations. To this end a GIS decision support system was developed that has been progressively implemented after design problem solutions and field/simulation research. Given that hedgerow (re)introduction could be a means to ameliorate some rural landscape processes, up until today we have reached the conclusion that planning is a necessary way to optimise such a transformation for socio‐economic and intrinsic reasons. Therefore we need to be able to distinguish the effect of the agroforestry systems (mainly hedgerow) among different scales (single planting/landscape) and different patterns (isolated systems/networks) to optimise their positive effects on landscape processes at different scales; and it is not possible to optimise landscape transformations by means of agroforestry network implementation without an action plan able to evaluate them.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a methodological approach to analyse the strategic outliers and the multiple motivations in a contingent valuation used for a real policy case study.

The used approach rationalises the cross comparison of the overall different information levels obtained by the survey to outline a qualitative‐quantitative pattern of the relations between the rationale and other motivations of preference behaviours.

The paper found that no assumption or investigation tool used alone was sufficient to explain the respondents elicited preferences. The results confirm that those who are willing to pay also hold significant motives other than the rationale ones influencing their decisions.

The approach allows to reasonably rule the sharing‐out of true zero values from “protest zeros” avoiding the risk of arbitrarily excluding valid data from the CV analyses.

The approach may overpass the reasons behind the provision point mechanism; hence, the authors suggest to extend this procedure to divergent environmental contexts to verify the generality of the methodology.

The adopted procedure shows that the use of monetary estimates of ecological services to support sustainable decision processes can be acceptable if coupled with the multiple motivations that hold them.

Focusing on the conditional cash transfers (CCTs) first created and implemented in Brazil and Mexico, this article takes a new look at the factors facilitating the creation of these innovative policies. In order to shed light on the continuous struggles that are faced when pioneering, formulating and adopting these anti-poverty policies, the authors analyze three types of ambiguities: axiological, partisan and electoral.

Based on a gradual institutional change approach within the advocacy coalition framework, the authors conduct a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, official public administration archives and newspapers.

This article demonstrates that advocacy coalitions (for human capital, basic income and food security) and the quest for electoral gains are viable contexts for exploring the complex processes involved in setting up CCTs, of which Brazil's Bolsa-Família and Mexico's Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) provide emblematic examples.

The findings contribute to comparative social policy research and institutional change analysis. The coalitions and ambiguous consensuses studied here expand the perspectives with a more detailed understanding of the chaotic processes involved in developing social policies.

This study aims to address a systematic literature review (SLR) using bibliometrics on the relationship between academic integrity and artificial intelligence (AI), to bridge the scattering of literature on this topic, given the challenge and opportunity for the educational and academic community.

This review highlights the enormous social influence of COVID-19 by mapping the extensive yet distinct and fragmented literature in AI and academic integrity fields. Based on 163 publications from the Web of Science, this paper offers a framework summarising the balance between AI and academic integrity.

With the rapid advancement of technology, AI tools have exponentially developed that threaten to destroy students' academic integrity in higher education. Despite this significant interest, there is a dearth of academic literature on how AI can help in academic integrity. Therefore, this paper distinguishes two significant thematical patterns: academic integrity and negative predictors of academic integrity.

This study also presents several contributions by showing that tools associated with AI can act as detectors of students who plagiarise. That is, they can be useful in identifying students with fraudulent behaviour. Therefore, it will require a combined effort of public, private academic and educational institutions and the society with affordable policies.

This study proposes a new, innovative framework summarising the balance between AI and academic integrity.

The purpose of this study was to explore young Arab women's understandings of mentoring as part of a pre-service teacher training program both before and after an extended internship throughout which a collaborative approach to mentoring was practiced. It aimed to identify the opportunities and challenges such an approach would bring in the quest to support trainee teachers' professional development.

Data for this small-scale qualitative study were collected using a brainstorming class-based activity, semi-structured interviews and reflective journals. Data were analyzed using word clouds, and the identification of themes through the coding of transcripts.

The dominant findings in this study were that mentoring was perceived as emotional support, pedagogic and professional support, evaluation and relationship. While understandings of mentoring amongst participants did shift as a result of mentors adopting a collaborative approach, data indicated that the strength of cultural assumptions held by the participants hindered the rate of change, creating an obstacle to the desired outcome of increasing trainees' agency.

While perceptions of mentoring reported within this study indicate considerable overlap with those in other geographical and cultural contexts, closer examination of the data identified differences also. Without an understanding of the nature and influence of the social assumptions that underlie these differences, mentors who participate in culturally diverse mentor–trainee pairings can misinterpret an unwillingness of trainees to fully engage with the mentoring process and thus fail to provide the required scaffolding and support needed to maximize professional development.

In Canada today, Francophone minority communities (FMCs) outside Québec exist in every province and territory and cross all sectors of Canadian Francophonie (French-Canadians, Francophone immigrants, Francophone Métis as well as Francophile anglophones). Besides their linguistic immersion in primary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, these Francophones living outside Quebec counter linguistic assimilation and affirm their place in Canada's bilingual and multicultural society through their cultural productions (music, theatre, dance, cuisine, literature). In this study, we take up the case of L'Association, La Girandole d’Edmonton, a cultural association dedicated to the teaching and promotion of French-Canadian dance in Edmonton (Alberta) to examine the multiple challenges such organizations face despite the crucial role they play in ensuring the vitality of linguistic minority communities in Canada.

This chapter explores the foundations of soft skills (SS) within the realm of virtual academic entrepreneurship, heavily influenced by the ongoing process of virtual transformation. An extensive review of the existing literature highlights that owing to the adaptable, combinable, programmable and generative nature of virtual technology, a fundamental aspect of virtual transformation, the cultivation of SS among higher education students is paramount. Given the intrinsic difficulty in assessing SS, the central research question addressed in this chapter is: What are the core building blocks of virtual academic entrepreneurship, and how do they take shape? The findings suggest that these competencies can be nurtured within three primary domains: (1) knowledge sharing, (2) cultural attributes and (3) individual attributes. Implications of this research underscore the role of virtual tools in supporting SS development, acknowledging their inherent complexity. The primary objective is to foster an entrepreneurial mindset among students, promoting the growth of virtual academic entrepreneurship based on these foundational principles. This chapter introduces an innovative conceptual framework that elucidates the dynamics of virtual academic entrepreneurship, specifically focusing on the role of SS. The framework delves into the complex relationships among these skills, virtual transformation and the disruptive influence of virtual technology. Its overarching goal is to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset among students in higher education.

Research on employee mobility has proliferated in the past four decades across four research traditions: Economics, sociology, management, and organizational behavior/human resource management. Despite significant overlap in interest and focus, these four streams of research have evolved independent from each other, resulting in a structural divide. We provide a detailed account of the research on employee mobility and the structural divide across disciplines. We document that the payoff from this profusion of research and increasing interest has been disappointing, as reflected in the limited number of cross-disciplinary citations, even among common topics of interest. However, our analysis also provides some encouraging signs in the form of specific journals and individuals who provide a bridge for cross-disciplinary fertilization.