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.

The chemical reinforcement of sandy soils is usually carried out to improve their properties and meet specific engineering requirements. Nevertheless, conventional reinforcement agents are often expensive; the process is energy-intensive and causes serious environmental issues. Therefore, developing a cost-effective, room-temperature-based method that uses recyclable chemicals is necessary. In the current study, poly (styrene-co-methyl methacrylate) (PS-PMMA) is used as a stabilizer to reinforce sandy soil. The copolymer-reinforced sand samples were prepared using the one-step bulk polymerization method at room temperature. The mechanical strength of the copolymer-reinforced sand samples depends on the ratio of the PS-PMMA copolymer to the sand. The higher the copolymer-to-sand ratio, the higher the sample’s compressive strength. The sand (70 wt.%)-PS-PMMA (30 wt.%) sample exhibited the highest compressive strength of 1900 psi. The copolymer matrix enwraps the sand particles to form a stable structure with high compressive strengths.

The detection of urban expansion through digital processing of satellite images provides valuable information for understanding the dynamics of land use change and its spatial relationship with environmental factors. In order to apply or generate effective land-use planning policies, it is essential to have a historical record of the regional distribution of human settlements, an element that is practically non-existent in our country. For this reason, this text aims to determine the urban growth rate during the period 2000–2014 in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, and to identify potential expansion zones from Landsat images. Six Landsat scenes were used for the spatial analysis of the state urban coverage and their relationship with the road influence area was evaluated. Two maps were obtained as cartographic products: one of urban coverage distribution and another of the municipalities with the greatest expansion, whose areas are located in the Valle del Mezquital region. However, Mineral de la Reforma, Tetepango, Tizayuca and Pachuca de Soto stand out for their growth rates during the study period: 183.44%, 102%, 94% and 68.5%, respectively. In total, the state urban area in-creased 72.3 km² from 2000 to 2014 with an average growth rate of 1.8% per year. Such growth was associated with the areas of influence of important road infrastructure, such as the Libramiento Arco Norte in Hidalgo. Therefore, the Mezquital Valley and the Mexico Basin are considered as potential regions for urban expansion in the state.

This article aims to describe and analyze pattern of management learning communities in frontier area Indoensia-Philippines. The relationship between Indonesia-Phlippines in frontier area represents a unique intersection culture and dynamic interplay onf interaction. The people in frontier area were relating by the historical events in the past. This article using historical methods; heuristic, critics/verification, interpretation and historiography were to emphasize the utilization of primary sources. The primary source collected from the oral tradition between Indonesia-Philippines people in frontier area. This article employs a social scientific approach to elucidate the cultural relationships within border communities. Cultural relationships are indicative of an extensive process that exerts influence on communal living practices in the management of their existence as a unique identity. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the cultural relations in the frontier area between Indonesia and the Philippines. The findings offer insights into the intricate interplay of factors shaping cultural dynamics in border regions, contributing to a deeper understanding of cross-border interactions and the construction of cultural identities.

Disease epidemics may spread quickly and easily throughout nations and continents in our current global environment, having a devastating effect on public health and the world economy. There are over 513 million people worldwide who have been infected, and more than 6.2 million have died due to SARS-CoV-2. There are treatments but no cures for most viruses. Nevertheless, the spread of viruses can be limited by introducing antiviral coatings on public area surfaces and personal protective equipment (e.g., face masks). This work aims to fabricate a polymer-based coating with acrylic resin as a binder that possesses great antiviral activity against the Feline coronavirus (FCov). The chosen polymer, polyethylene glycol (PEG), is used as an antiviral agent because it contains “green” chemistry benefits such as non-toxicity, being inexpensive, readily recyclable, safe, natural, non-flammable, biocompatible, and biodegradable. The PEG/acrylic coating systems of different weight percentages were coated on the glass substrates by the spray-coating method and cured at room temperature for 24 hours. The developed PEG/acrylic coating system that contains 20 wt% of PEG exhibits the highest anti-viral activities (99.9% against FCov) compared to the other weight percentages. From this study, it has been observed that the hydrophilicity of the coating plays an important role in its antiviral activity. The developed coating has a hydrophilic property, in which the contact angle was measured at 83.28 ± 0.5°. The FTIR reveals that there are no existing toxic components or new components contained in the coating samples.

Alfalfa is considered the most used forage crop in the world, its main use is for cattle feeding, due to its high nutritional value, specifically in protein and digestible fiber. Currently, the trend in agriculture is to reduce the application of chemicals and among them are fertilizers that pollute soil and water, so the adoption of new technologies and other not so new is becoming a good habit among farmers. Nanotechnology in the plant system allows the development of new fertilizers to improve agricultural productivity and the release of mineral nutrients in nanoforms, which has a wide variety of benefits, including the timing and direct release of nutrients, as well as synchronizing or specifying the environmental response. Biofertilizers are important components of integrated nutrient management and play a key role in soil productivity and sustainability. While protecting the environment, they are a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and renewable source of plant nutrients to supplement chemical fertilizers in the sustainable agricultural system. Nanotechnology and biofertilization allow in a practical way the reduction in the application of chemicals, contributing to the sustainability of agriculture, so this work aims to review the relevant results on biofertilization, the use of nanotechnology and the evaluation of the nutritional composition of alfalfa when grown with the application of biofertilizers.