Chinese municipalities have developed a large stock of capital assets during a period of rapid growth and urbanization, but have yet to modernize asset management practices. Cities face challenges such as premature decline of fixed assets and spiking liabilities related to operating and maintaining assets. This paper evaluates the asset management practices in three selected small cities and towns in China, using a benchmarking assessment tool followed by an in-depth field assessment. The paper finds that overall performance is below half the international benchmark for good practice in all three cities. Management practices are considerably more advanced for land than for buildings and infrastructure. Key deficiencies in data availability and reporting, governance, capacity, and financial management indicate increased risks for local government finance and the delivery of public services. For small cities and towns where public revenues are often uncertain and limited, urban public services will be at risk of deterioration unless good asset management practices are put in place. The paper recommends strategic actions for upper and lower levels of government, to advance local asset management practices and facilitate the reform agenda.

Control of key technological and benchmark flows of polymer fluids poses a number of challenges. Some of them are nowadays under active investigation and rather far from complete under­stan­ding. This review considers such phenomena as both practically important and governed by funda­mental laws of rheology and non-linear fluid mechanics. We observe, shear bands in polymeric and other complex structured fluids (like wormlike micellar solutions or soft glassy materials), birefrigerent strands, peculiarities of stress and pressure losses in fluids moving through com­plex shape domains. These and other processes involve in­ho­mo­geneity, in­stabilities and tran­sient modes creeping in flow fields. In practical aspect this is of interest in such industrial process as polymer flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), where a flow inhomogeneity affects a poly­mer solution injectivity and residual oil saturation. The value of viscoelasticity in the polymer flooding is estimated. The obser­va­tion is con­clu­ded by some new results on relation between polymer concentration in solutions and viscoelastic traits of benchmark flows.

As an essential principle in contract law, Indonesia has regulated good faith in the Indonesian Civil Code (the Dutch Civil Code that the Indonesian government uses based on the principle of concordance). However, the definition and benchmarks are not yet clear. There are no further provisions regarding the meaning and concept of this principle in the Indonesian Civil Code or other regulations. This absence of a single understanding of good faith principle in contract causes different opinions and legal certainty, whether from the business actor who signs the agreement or the judge as the third party who resolves contract disputes between parties. Therefore, future Indonesian contract law needs to regulate the definition and benchmarks for good faith principle. In order to find out the meaning and clear benchmarks for the good faith principle, the authors use a normative juridical method with a statute and conceptual approach. This research finds that the definition and benchmarks for the good faith principle is possible to be developed and regulated in Indonesian contract law. It shall set that good faith principle is based on honesty, decency, and fairness, which covers every agreement stage, from pre-agreement, agreement implementation, and after the agreement is completed.

Countries employ various strategies to strengthen their soft power through education, public campaigns, mandatory service, and community involvement, essential for building a well-informed, prepared, and resilient citizenry. In Indonesia, the Civic Awareness for State Defence (CASD) program is designed to instil state defence awareness among citizens. This study introduces the Indonesia State Defence Index (SDI), a novel metric grounded in theoretical constructs such as national identity, nationalism, patriotism, and national pride. Differentiating from previous indices, our SDI employs advanced methodologies including Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to enhance measurement accuracy. Unlike earlier approaches that used traditional aggregation methods, our use of PCA ensures the reduction of dimensions for each state defence indicator, thereby guaranteeing that only the intended dimensions are measured. Utilising data from the State Defence Survey conducted by the Indonesian Ministry of Defence from 1 March to 26 June 2024, we aim to measure and benchmark SDI values across Indonesian regions, thereby elucidating the civic awareness profile in the context of state defence. The refined SDI provides critical insights for policymakers, highlighting regions that require focused interventions to bolster state defence preparedness.

Choosing a university is a crucial decision for each field of study, as it significantly influences the quality of graduates. An important factor in this decision is the university’s annual benchmark scores. The benchmark score represents the minimum score required for admission. This study evaluates the benchmark scores in the logistics sector for several prominent universities in Vietnam during the period 2021–2023. The research process utilized data on the benchmark scores for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023. The weights of these benchmark scores were calculated using the Rank Order Centroid (ROC) method, and the Probability method was employed to compare the benchmark scores of the universities. The analysis identified C3 as the criterion with the highest importance, while U3 emerged as the top-ranked alternative. The two-stage comprehensive sensitivity analysis revealed that universities consistently ranked high or low regardless of the method used to calculate benchmark score weights or the method employed for ranking. Additionally, the smallest weight change that affected the overall Probability ranking was 4.61%. This study provides significant guidance for students in selecting a university for logistics studies and serves as a foundational reference for universities to assess their capabilities in logistics education, thereby fostering healthy competition among institutions.