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.

The maize commodity is of strategic significance to the South African economy as it is a stable commodity and therefore a key factor for food security. In recent times climate change has impacted on the productivity of this commodity and this has impacted trade negatively. This paper explores the intricate relationship between climatic factors and trade performance for the South African maize. Secondary annual time series data spanning 2001 to 2023, was sourced from an abstract from Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) and World Bank’s Climate Change Knowledge Portal. Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration technique was used as an empirical model to assess the long-term and short-term relationships between explanatory variables and the dependent variable. Results of the ARDL model show that, average annual rainfall (β = 2.184, p = 0.056), fertilizer consumption (β = 1.919, p = 0.036), gross value of production (β = 1.279 , p = 0.006) and average annual surface temperature (β = −0.650, p = 0.991) and change in temperature for previous years, (β = −0.650, p = 0.991) and the effects towards coefficient change for export volumes, (β = 0.669, p = 0.0007). In overall, as a recommendation, South African policymakers should consider these findings when developing strategies to mitigate the impacts of some of these climatic factors and implementing adaptive strategies for maize producers.

The study looks into how governance qualities of decentralized governments mediate the impacts of decentralization on development. Based on a set-oriented approach, the study analyzed data from a nation-wide survey conducted with business managers from all provinces in Indonesia, and found evidence that, despite the country’s uniform decentralization reform, individual provinces exhibited great variation in the qualities of their various physical and institutional infrastructures. Notably, these qualities assumed nested relations, with order and security as well as accountability and rule of law seemingly being the preconditions of basic infrastructure provision as well as local governments’ coordination. Moreover, business investment decisions (measured as staff expansion and product innovation) were found to vary with some specific combinations of these infrastructural conditions. The result provides evidence supporting the argument that both physical and institutional infrastructures are instrumental to realize the supposed benefits of decentralization and supports the recent call of the literature to look into the political-institutional complex in the process of decentralization reform.

First principles simulation studies using the density functional theory have been performed on (9, 0) Zigzag Singlewalled Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) to investigate its electronic, optical and thermodynamic properties using CASTEP (Cambridge Sequential Total Energy Package) and DFTB (Density Functional based Tight Binding) modules of the Material Studio Software version 7.0. Various functionals and sub-functionals available in the CASTEP Module (using Pulay Density Mixing treatment of electrons) and various eigen-solvers and smearing schemes available in the DFTB module (using smart algorithm) have been tried out to chalk out the electronic structure. The analytically deduced values of the band gap obtained were compared with the experimentally determined value reported in the literature. By comparison, combination of Anderson smearing scheme and standard diaogonalizer produced best results in DFTB module while in the CASTEP module, GGA (General Gradient approximation) functional with RPBE (Revised-perdew-Burke-Ernzerh) as Sub-functional was found to be the most consistent. These optimized parameters were then used to determine various electronic, optical and thermodynamic properties of (9, 0) Singlewalled Nanotube. (9, 0) Singlewalled Nanotube, which is extensively being used for sensing NH₃, CH₄ & NO₂, has been picked up in particular as it is reported to exhibit a finite energy band gap in contrast to its expected metallic nature. The study is of utmost significance as it not only probes and validates the simulation route for predicting suitable properties of nanomaterials but also throws light on the comparative efficacy of the different approximation and rationalization quantum mechanical techniques used in simulation studies.

Management education in health service industry is essential to enhance systems performance and should offer a broad curriculum that contain the context of practice, research awareness and skills of critical appraisal, a grounding in a range of disciplines and a reflective approach towards general management skill. With the improvement of living standard and significant growth of aging population, there is an obvious gap between health service coverage and the demand in China, especially the shortage of workforce with professional health service management knowledge. The objective of this essay is to compare the element of health service management education in China and British.

This article examines migration as a complex social phenomenon using innovative pedagogical tools such as Story Maps and virtual ethnography. the study focuses on how these tools enhance the learning process by integrating Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy. Original empirical data was collected from student feedback and reflective exercises, demonstrating enhanced critical thinking and engagement. The study also highlights the challenges posed by technological access inequalities, emphasizing the need for equitable solutions.