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Globalization has affected science inevitably with a motto of ‘Knowledge conquers the mind’. However, global efforts and harmonization are needed and are established through international rules, laws, norms and standards. The potentially positive and negative results of globalization have altered the production relations and complicated the demographic scale.

More than 2,000 samples, representing 73 different kinds of Turkish foodstuffs and agricultural products, were analysed for total mould flora. The samples were collected from nine different agricultural regions and from 34 different cities of Turkey. A total of 1,977 isolates, representing 1,317 species and 40 different genera, were scanned for mycotoxin‐producing activities, using 31 different mycotoxin standards. Qualitative screening indicated 32.5 per cent of the cultures were able to produce mycotoxin, with 19 different types of mycotoxins identified. Dominant mould isolates varied by region. The dominant mycotoxins, respectively, were “roquefortin C” and “sterigmatocystin”. The extent of contamination was also determined and a mycotoxin risk profile was constructed for each agricultural region of Turkey.

In 1972 Ursula Le Guin published her award winning novella, The Word for World is Forest. This describes the world of the Athsheans, a small, green, furry, and peaceful people. Their planet consists of basically two things: water, and forest. Here they live, hunt, love and dream. They slip gently from dreamtime to realtime; their reality is not always as ours. Then the Terrans arrive. They don't particularly care about the natives, but they want the forest. With huge machines, they level the forest for mile wide strips, using the natives as slave labour. But then one of the Athsheans learn something from the conquerors: how to hate — and how to use this hate to fight for freedom. This is a story of how the search for profit, coupled with narrow — mindedness, blend into a mix with horrible consequences. Like all science fiction Le Guin provides not so much a vision of the future but rather a lens with which to view and make sense of the present. And the human exploitation of the world of the Athsheans is very similar to the current corporate exploitation of large parts of the world and its human inhabitants — anything is permissible (including enslavement) if there is a profit to be made. For Le Guin corporate exploitation is not sustainable but in Newtonian fashion will result violent retribution from the oppressed. Many would support this prognosis of the consequences of corporate misbehaviour and would, like Le Guin, be firmly on the side of the oppressed. It is the purpose of this paper however to use the metaphor provided by the work of Le Guin, together with a consideration of current corporate activity, to show that a sustainable future is neither exploitative (and so the corporate leaders have got it wrong) nor confrontational (and so the anti‐globalisation movement is equally wrong). A sustainable future actually requires what could have been described as a third way if the Blairite masters of spin had not arrived previously and made such a term ridiculed into oblivion.

Blockchain technology is an extension of distributed ledger technology and it is used in cryptocurrencies. Many studies describe blockchain technology and cryptocurrency is an application of it in a very broad sense. Blockchain technology has several applications. Some of these applications could have direct or indirect relevance to either or both pillars of sustainability advocated by Crowther, Seifi, and Wond (2019). Extending to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, one possible connection to sustainability may be the reduction of the use of paper for printing currency notes, which can save forests. Furthermore, the growing cryptocurrency market attracted the investors to focus on the price fluctuations but making them forget about the terrifying carbon problem associated with cryptocurrencies. However, this possibility has not been demonstrated anywhere so far. The issue examined here is how blockchain technology can be used for solving sustainability problems. We initiate a qualitative study of the blockchain technology/cryptocurrency and sustainability using the twin pillars of sustainability: (1) responsibility, (2) governance. An exploratory review linking blockchain technology/cryptocurrency and sustainability and its two pillars revealed many actual and trial applications by corporates as CSR initiatives and other novel programs by various agencies in various countries. In governance, corporates use the CSR route to address sustainability issues. However, no definition is an available linking cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and sustainability and we developed a definition to fill the gap. This paper stresses that the sustainability perspective has not been used to develop the cryptocurrency definition, but rather technological and legal perspectives have employed.

IUCN ‐ The World Conservation Union defines a protected area as an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means. The Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) describes a protected area as a geographically defined area, which is designated or regulated and managed to achieve specific conservation objective. Protected areas‐national parks, wildlife reserves, wilderness areas, etc. ‐ are the cornerstones of national and international conservation strategies. They act as refuges for species and help maintain critical ecological processes and ecosystem services that intensely managed landscapes and seascapes cannot provide. These places provide space for natural evolution and future ecological restoration. In recent years there has been growing recognition of the benefits that protected areas provide for people: genetic resources for pharmaceuticals and agriculture, traditional medicines; recreational opportunities and ecotourism revenues; sustainable sources of goods such as non‐timber forest products; and refuge for traditional and vulnerable human societies (Dudley et al. 2005). A wide range of management objectives, approaches and types of governance are used within protected areas in different countries. In terms of management objectives, these range from strict protection and exclusion of humans to broad‐scale approaches that include cultural landscapes such as farms and managed forests. IUCN‐The World Conservation Union subdivides protected areas into six categories based on management objectives: Ia: strict nature reserve/wilderness protection area; Ib: wilderness area; II:national park; III:natural monument; IV:habitat/species management area; V:protected landscape/seascape; and VI:managed resource protected area. In terms of governance types, protected areas may be managed directly by a government, co‐managed with other actors such as nongovernmental organizations, or even declared and managed collectively by indigenous peoples and local communities or by the relevant individual or corporate landowner. Today, there are more than 100,000 designated protected areas in the World Database on Protected Areas covering around 11.4 per cent of Earth’s land surface, along with more than 1,300 marine protected areas covering less than 0.5 per cent of the oceans (Dudley et all. 2005).

Corporate entities of whatever shape or form (profit motive or not-for-profit) aspire to be successful in whatever they do. Success can come about through many means. In recent times, corporate entities around the world have come to realise that success can be achieved when they are perceived by their stakeholders as being socially responsible; these stakeholders tend to warm to what the entities do or stand for, which consequently makes a big difference in terms of achieving or not achieving their strategic objectives (Aras & Crowther, 2009). This has become even more apparent during the recent economic and financial crisis where the socially responsible organisation has prospered while others faltered and CSR has been adopted as a survival strategy (Crowther & Seifi, 2011). A socially responsible corporate entity takes cognisance of the impact of its actions on its communities, its stakeholders and the environment when formulating its corporate objectives and in its decision making process. It strives at all times to either minimise or totally remove the adverse effects of its activities on the environment, employees, business contacts group, suppliers of funds and credits, governments and other affected members of society. Corporate entities around the world now consider that being socially responsible is not just very ‘trendy’ but also good for business and so an essential part of their strategy, quite a dramatic change over the last decade.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and capacity building for sustainable livelihoods. It respects cultural differences and aims to identify the business opportunities in building the skills of employees, the community and the government. In talking about social responsibility, major attention has been drawn to CSR, yet little has been mentioned on how university stakeholders such as students can contribute to developing social responsibility. It can be said that the society of tomorrow begins today, and to make up this society, universities need to have drive, patience, and persistence to help them achieve the related goals. It is crucial for learning institutions to develop ways in which to cope with the present context demands, not only in terms of returns to the community in the form of community engagement involvement through student projects, but also in the sense of replenishing their own actions and enlarging their sources or references, so as to become institutions that help with and are partially involved in shaping a new society that is more ethical and is engaged with its community and surroundings.

This paper examines the university social responsibility (USR) initiative of 14 public and private higher learning institutions in Malaysia. Data were collected from 150 respondents using the quantitative method through survey questionnaires. Samples were selected based on the purposive sampling method, where the respondents were majoring in communication or had taken media studies. Questions took the form of open and closed‐ended questions. The data gathered were then analyzed quantitatively by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 15).

The results show that, overall, respondents are aware of the need to preserve the environment and the function and role that CSR plays in developing a more responsive public. However, the discovered lack of exposure to activities that the respondents can participate in on their own needs to be addressed. Knowledge on environmental conservation or CSR contribution may not be indicative of high levels of practice. There are many other factors that can contribute to better practices or to a lifestyle that better favors environmental conservation.

Because of the chosen research approach and limitations in terms of time, this study does not analyze and verify the links that exist between CSR and the environment with relation to government policy.

Most existing research in CSR fails to take into account how universities cope with the development of CSR. Therefore, efforts to understand CSR within the university setting are significant for the development of CSR practices and conduct.

Value from this paper is derived in three ways: first, it outlines why universities in Malaysia should move forward in determining the most relevant paths for social responsibility engagement and initiatives; second, it provides an understanding of the setting of CSR, making it easier for graduates to implement CSR at the organization they work for in the future; and finally, the data and implications drawn from Malaysia add a necessary international insight into the benefits of CSR at university level.

Predicting future outbreaks and understanding how they are spreading from location to location can improve patient care provided. Recently, mining social media big data provided the ability to track patterns and trends across the world. This study aims to analyze social media micro-blogs and geographical locations to understand how disease outbreaks spread over geographies and to enhance forecasting of future disease outbreaks.

In this paper, the authors use Twitter data as the social media data source, influenza-like illnesses (ILI) as disease epidemic and states in the USA as geographical locations. They present a novel network-based model to make predictions about the spread of diseases a week in advance utilizing social media big data.

The authors showed that flu-related tweets align well with ILI data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (p < 0.049). The authors compared this model to earlier approaches that utilized airline traffic, and showed that ILI activity estimates of their model were more accurate. They also found that their disease diffusion model yielded accurate predictions for upcoming ILI activity (p < 0.04), and they predicted the diffusion of flu across states based on geographical surroundings at 76 per cent accuracy. The equations and procedures can be translated to apply to any social media data, other contagious diseases and geographies to mine large data sets.

First, while extensive work has been presented utilizing time-series analysis on single geographies, or post-analysis of highly contagious diseases, no previous work has provided a generalized solution to identify how contagious diseases diffuse across geographies, such as states in the USA. Secondly, due to nature of the social media data, various statistical models have been extensively used to address these problems.

The purpose of this study is to have semiempirical correlations for carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) and nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions that are collected and calibrated by using experimental data of a tubular-type combustor.

Combustor uses a coflow radial-type air-blast atomizer and is especially designed for the empirical correlation issues. Air mass flow rate, air inlet temperature and air-to-fuel ratio parameters have been changed and different inlet conditions have been created for combustor tests. Six different inlet temperatures from 475 to 350 K have been set for each air mass flow rate. Air mass flow rate values from 0.035 to 0.050 kg/s have been used to create varied combustor aerodynamic loadings.

Increasing combustor inlet temperature decreases the CO and UHC emissions. However, it has an adverse effect in NO_x emissions. Moreover, CO and UHC emissions have an increasing trend by the mass flow rate rise that results an extra aerodynamic loading.

It is difficult to obtain real operating parameters for the combustor. Therefore, as a different approach in respect of the literature, rig test parameters have been used for thermodynamic calculations. Additionally, emission calculations of the combustor design point have been performed based on a conditioned test environment. Moreover, combustor outlet temperature and emission values have been scanned and mean values used for the analysis.

To perform preliminary calculations for these pollutants, designers need experimentally calibrated correlations for the similar combustors.

If the application area of the designed engine is a civil aircraft, emissions are one of the most important issues because of the strict regulations of International Civil Aviation Organization. Therefore, aviation companies are continuously working on reducing of emissions.

A comprehensive study for the preliminary emission calculation of newly designed gas turbine combustors was performed to investigate semiempirical correlations in the atmospheric test rig.