Due to the incapacity of families in Sub-Saharan African nations to satisfy basic necessities for home maintenance, this study is required to enable policy shifts in the area of consumption tax. The study looks at the impact of consumption taxes on the purchasing power of families in Sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on Nigeria and Kenya. The datasets used for this inquiry range from 1994 to 2022. Among the factors are purchasing power parity (PPP), value added tax (VAT), and exchange rate. We obtained the statistics from the World Bank, the Central Banks of Nigeria and Kenya, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The study used the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model established by Pesaran et al. (2001). The findings reveal that the inclusion of VAT on the prices of products and services significantly harms households throughout Nigeria compared to those in Kenya. VAT has a significant negative impact on consumer purchasing power in Nigeria but has an immaterial negative impact on household spending capacity in Kenya. The influence of the currency rate is positive and beneficial in Nigeria, whereas it is negative but intangible in Kenya. Due to economic disparity, the report suggests policy reforms in favour of families. It is also suggested that the government develop additional work possibilities, diversify the economy, and give subsidies for basic housing necessities.

From the perspective of urban school symbiosis, examining the relationship between art universities and their respective cities has pointed out new social service paths for the development of art universities. This article summarizes the characteristics of art universities serving society in the context of urban school symbiosis, which helps to better understand the important role of art universities in serving society and provides theoretical reference for the specific practice of art universities serving society; Summarizing and summarizing the development path of art universities serving society under the background of urban school symbiosis can help better play the role of art universities in serving society and improve their effectiveness in serving society.

"One Village, One Product" is an effective measure to fully tap local resources, develop rural characteristic industries, innovate economic growth methods, and drive rapid regional economic development. Rural tourism is an important component of industrial revitalization in rural revitalization. Under the "one village, one product" model, the development of rural tourism needs to optimize the industrial structure, explore unique culture, vigorously promote the construction of "beautiful rural characteristic countryside", achieve the transformation and upgrading of traditional rural tourism, and promote the high-quality development of rural characteristic tourism.

Border cities face significant challenges due to political, environmental, and social issues. Strong urban governance can help resolve many of these problems, but it requires identifying practical factors specific to each city’s location. This study aimed to assess the state of urban governance in Paveh, a border city with a population of 25,771 people. The research used both primary data collection (through a questionnaire) and secondary data sources (local and national databases and documents). The study randomly selected 379 households from Paveh’s population and determined a reliability value of 0.913 using the Cochrane procedure. To assess Paveh’s urban governance, eight criteria were used: participatory, rule-of-law compliance, transparency, responsiveness, consensus-oriented, equitable and inclusive, effective and efficient, and accountability. The findings revealed that Paveh’s urban governance, particularly in the dimensions of transparency and participation, is in an unfavorable situation.

Herein, we report a facile preparation of super-hydrophilic sand by coating the sand particles with cross-linked polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogels for enhanced water absorption and controlled water release aimed at desert agriculture. To prepare the sample, 4 wt% of aqueous PAM solution is mixed with organic cross-linkers of hydroquinone (HQ) and hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) in a 1:1 weight ratio and aqueous potassium chloride (KCl) solution. A specific amount of the above solution is added to the sand, well mixed, and subsequently cured at 150 °C for 8 h. The prepared super-hydrophilic sands were characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) for chemical composition and X-ray diffraction (XRD) for successful polymer coating onto the sand. The water storage for the samples was studied by absorption kinetics at various temperature conditions, and extended water release was studied by water desorption kinetics. The water swelling ratio for the super-hydrophilic sand has reached a maximum of 900% (9 times its weight) at 80 °C within 1 h. The desorption kinetics of the samples showed that the water can be stored for up to a maximum of 3 days. Therefore, super-hydrophilic sand particles were successfully prepared by coating them with PAM hydrogels, which have great potential to be used in sustainable desert agriculture.

In the highly developed process of "Internet plus", foreign trade transformation and upgrading, cross-border new retail rapid development has become the trend of the times, cross-border e-commerce new retail digitalization, and improving operational efficiency brings new opportunities. Reshaping the structure of new retail formats, the integration of cross-border e-commerce and new retail formats is an inevitable trend. Smart upgrading and digital transformation are important measures to achieve leapfrog development. The format structure presents business models such as "smart retail, digital cross-border e-commerce, new cross-border e-commerce, new retail, and new retail logistics". The main research objective of this project is to explore and research the new retail scenarios of digital applications in cross-border e-commerce. Based on the current development trend of digital cross-border e-commerce and new retail upgrading, as well as the economic characteristics of the Wuyi area in Jiangmen City, this project aims to use the smart new retail scenario of digital cross-border e-commerce as the foothold, with a focus on upgrading and transforming the product flow chain with the "application scenario" as the central point, form a closed-loop loop of free circulation of products, new retail logistics, cross-border e-commerce, new retail, new sales experience scenarios, and consumers.