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The paper aims to analyze the relevance of networking and social capital in promoting the adoption of sustainable innovation, then reinforcing trajectories of multifunctional agriculture. It puts forwards a systemic perspective by focusing on agricultural knowledge and innovation systems. More precisely, we share the idea of “micro agricultural knowledge and innovation systems”, by addressing ambidexterity as engine for boosting sustainable innovation.

Empirical analysis is focused on sustainable innovation adopted by young farmers in Italy and on the mediation effect of ambidextrous relations in performing innovation adoption. Ambidextrous relations are analyzed within at the micro-AKIS level, through the lens of social capital. Relationships between social capital and innovation adoption are statistically measured.

The analysis shows how ambidexterity develops a mediation effect, with a strong impact on the farm's innovative capacity. Actually, our results confirm that ambidextrous relations reveal good performance and stimulate innovation and, consequently, farms' competitiveness, alongside the path of multifunctional agriculture. As a consequence, the relevance of networking activity in adoption of sustainable innovation may address possible policy action with the aim to strengthen ambidexterity and farm's innovativeness.

The paper tries to fill a gap in literature, by focusing on micro-AKIS which are explored through the lens of social capital.

This study investigates the views of Italian aquaculture production science students, in their role of future operators, on the application of circular economy strategies.

A key step in the development of professional knowledge is to solicit the opinions of the future operators in the aquaculture sector. The authors used the Q methodology to assess the perceptions of the students on four different knowledge dimensions of the CE: operations, culture and organization, products and services, and ecosystem.

Four discourses emerge from the results, representing the respondents' views on the CE. The first discourse considers CE as business strategy applicable to products and services, the second a corporate mission and the fourth an operational efficiency strategy. Finally, the third discourse views CE as a multidimensional concept.

This study contributes to the scientific and institutional debate on how to accelerate the aquaculture's circular transition. First and foremost, it offers insights to guide policy makers in the development of appropriate knowledge and information systems. Second, it offers the opportunity to improve training programmes to enable current students to be prepared for the future challenges.

The results reflect a different perceived knowledge of CE among future operators, whose opinions are little explored in the literature.

The purpose of this article is to determine safety culture indicators that can improve the health and safety performance of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) contractors in Ghana.

A three-round Delphi method was used. The first round consisted of 31 experts out of which 18 of them rated their agreements with a set of 87 potential safety culture indicators using a 10-point Likert scale of importance (1 = important and 10 = very important) and the 16 experts who completed the final round were given the opportunity to suggest other indicators. The 87 indicators were categorised into 14 core health and safety elements. Indicators that attained a group median value of 5–10 for 50% or more expert ratings were accepted.

At the end of the third round, a consensus was reached on the indicators when they attracted median scores of 5–10 for at least 50% or more of the health and safety experts rated the indicators between 5 and 10. Out of a total of 87 indicators at the start of the Delphi process, the consensus was reached on 70 that were retained.

The health and safety experts were not given the opportunity to add new indicators to the structured questionnaire until the third round.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to have a consensus by health and safety experts on leading indicator metrics of positive culture of construction safety in Ghana for improved SME construction company’s health and safety performance in Ghana. If these indicators are adopted and used effectively in Ghana, they would ensure positive culture of construction safety and subsequently help to protect construction workers.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of prebiotic, probiotic and synbiotic supplementation on liver histopathology and TLR-4, NFκB and TNF-α gene expression involved in the inflammatory cascade and pathogenesis of experimental nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Wistar male adult rats (n = 40) were submitted to hypercholesterolemic conditions (60 days). On Day 30 of hypercholesterolemic conditions, rats were subdivided in five groups: negative control (NC), positive control (PC), prebiotic (PRE), probiotic (PRO) and synbiotic (SYN). All rats were sacrificed on Day 60. Liver tissue was used to verify histopathological changes and gene expression. Gene expression of TLR-4, TNF-α and NFκB was evaluated in liver tissue using RT-qPCR.

Histopathological analysis: PC showed more changes than NC, and PRE and SYN showed fewer alterations than PC. Gene expression analysis: PRE showed higher TLR-4, and NFκB and TNF-α compared to PC. Also, PRE showed higher TLR-4 when compared to PRO and SYN. SYN group revealed higher TLR-4 and NFκB expressions compared to PC. PRO group also showed higher NFκB expression compared to PC.

NAFLD is a significant health concern, and it found that prebiotic, probiotic and synbiotic supplementation could have positive effects as a nonpharmacological approach to control this disease.