Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) offer eco-friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers, promoting sustainable agriculture by enhancing soil fertility, reducing pathogens, and aiding in stress resistance. In agriculture, they play a crucial role in plant growth promotion through the production of agroactive compounds and extracellular enzymes to promote plant health and protection against phytopathogens. In the rhizosphere, diverse microbial interactions, including those with bacteria and fungi, influence plant health by production of antimicrobial compounds. The antagonism displayed by rhizobacteria plays a crucial role in shaping microbial communities and has potential applications in developing a natural and environmentally friendly approach to pest control. The rhizospheric microbes showcase their ecological importance and potential for biotechnological applications in the context of plant-microbe interactions. The extracellular enzymes produced by rhizospheric microbes like amylases, chitinases, glucanases, cellulases, proteases, and ACC deaminase contribute to plant processes and stress response emphasizing their importance in sustainable agriculture. Moreover, this review highlights the new paradigm including artificial intelligence (AI) in sustainable horticulture and agriculture as a harmonious interaction between ecological networks for promoting soil health and microbial diversity that leads to a more robust and self-regulating agricultural system for protecting the environment in the future. Overall, this review emphasizes microbial interactions and the role of rhizospheric microbial extracellular enzymes which is crucial for developing eco-friendly approaches to enhance crop production and soil health.

The coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the need for sustainable, smart tourism and local travel, with rural destinations gaining in their popularity and leading to increased potential of smart rural tourism. However, these processes need adjustments to the current trends, incorporating new transformative business concepts and marketing approaches. In this paper we provide real life examples of new marketing approaches, together with new business models within the context of the use of new digital technologies. Via hermeneutic research approach, consisting of the secondary analysis of the addressed subject of smart rural tourism in adversity of the COVID-19 and 6 semi-structured interviews, the importance of technology is underscored in transforming rural tourism to smart rural tourist destinations. The respondents in the interview section were chosen based on their direct involvement in the presented examples and geographical location, i.e. France, Slovenia and Spain, where presented research examples were developed, concretely within European programmes, i.e. Interreg, Horizon and Rural Development Programme (RDP). Interviews were taking place between 2022 and 2023 in person, email or via Zoom. This two-phased study demonstrates that technology is important in transforming rural tourism to smart tourist destinations and that it ushers new approaches that seem particularly useful in applying to rural areas, creating a rural digital innovation ecosystem, which acts as s heuristic rural tourist model that fosters new types of tourism, i.e. smart rural tourism.

This article analyzes library promotion in developing the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) towards a World Class University (WCU). Indonesia is experiencing educational obstacles in achieving the WCU title. Several factors influence the difficulty of achieving the WCU predicate, but the most dominant is the library’s role in accommodating student literacy skills. As one of the higher education institutions, USU understands the vital role of the library in increasing the intensity of literacy to achieve the WCU predicate. The urgency of this research is to review the promotion of the USU library in achieving the WCU predicate through the library as an instrument. This article uses qualitative research with a case study approach. The data collection techniques used in this article are in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation. Primary data sources in this article are research informants, while secondary data used are books, articles, and reportage. The data collected by the author will then be analyzed using content analysis techniques. The results show that the library has various vital roles in literacy reform so that USU can achieve the WCU title. In this case, the library pursues promotional strategies including 1) Product, 2) Price, 3) Promotion, and 4) Distribution. The whole promotion model contributes to improving campus literacy in achieving WCU goals.