This study examines conditions that impact PPP delivery success or failure in the roadways sector in India using Qualitative Comparative Analysis. QCA is well-suited for problems where multiple factors combine to create pathways leading to an outcome. Past investigations have compared PPP and non-PPP project delivery performance, but this study examines performance within PPPs by uncovering a set of conditions that combine to influence the success or failure road PPP project delivery in India. Based on data from 21 cases, pathways explaining project delivery success or failure were identified. Specifically, PPPs with high concessionaire equity investment and low regional industrial activity led to project delivery success. Projects with lower concessionaire equity investment and low reliance on toll revenue and with either: (a) high project technical complexity or (b) high regional industrial activity, led to project delivery failure. The pathways identified did not have coverage values that they were extremely strong. Coverage strength was hindered by lack of access to information on additional conditions that could be configurationally important. Further, certain characteristics of the Indian market limit generalization. Identification of combinations of conditions leading to PPP project delivery success or failure improves knowledge of the impacts of structure and characteristics of these complex arrangements. This study is one of the first to use fuzzy QCA to understand project delivery success/failure in road PPP projects. Moreover, this study takes into account factors specific to a sector and delivery mode to explain project delivery performance.

Ancient Minipe Anicut, Sri Lanka is world-famous for its engineering excellence. Due to its importance, conserving the ancient anicut, another anicut was constructed downstream in the 20th century. Nevertheless, the water diverted from the ancient anicut to the Minipe Left Bank (LB) Canal was kept as it was due to inherited agricultural importance. This research focuses on studying the contributions made by the adjacent catchment along the Minipe LB Canal. There are several level crossings along the Minipe Left Bank Canal from which the runoff of the local catchment flow into the Minipe LB Canal. Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS) is used to obtain the yield from each catchment into the Canal, which was compared with the annual diversions from Minipe anicut. The total yield from each stream has been compared with the annual diversion of the Minipe LB Canal from 2014 to 2020. The results obtained from this study reveal that there is sufficient water available for water augmentation in the basin, with an estimated annual average cumulative yield from the catchment of 453.6 MCM. This cumulative yield is 1.7 times the annual average diversion from the Mahaweli River, which is 271.9 MCM. With the findings, it is concluded that there is a potential to augment water from the catchment to address pertaining water shortages conveyance in the command area.

Zinc oxide (ZnO) hollow spheres are gaining attention due to their exceptional properties and potential applications in various fields. This study investigates the impact of different zinc precursors Zinc Chloride (ZnCl₂), Zinc Nitrate [Zn(NO₃)₂], and Zinc Acetate [Zn(CH₃COO)₂] on the hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO hollow spheres. A comprehensive set of characterization techniques, including Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis, was utilized to assess the structural and morphological features of the synthesized materials. Our findings demonstrate that all samples exhibit a high degree of crystallinity with a wurtzite structure, and crystallite sizes range between 34 to 91 nm. Among the different precursors, ZnO derived from Zinc Nitrate showed markedly higher porosity and a well-defined mesoporous structure than those obtained from Zinc Acetate and Zinc Chloride. This research underscores the significance of precursor selection in optimizing the properties of ZnO hollow spheres, ultimately contributing to advancements in the design and application of ZnO-based nanomaterials.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, educational activities have faced significant disruptions, leading to a widespread adoption of online teaching and a transformation in the evaluation of teaching quality. Using CiteSpace visualization software, the study examines 1485 papers from the Chinese database of China Knowledge Network and 1656 papers from the English database of Web of Science (WoS) spanning the period from January 2013 to June 2023 as research samples. The findings reveal heightened activity in China and other countries research on teaching quality evaluation, moreover, research in both contexts predominantly comprises independent studies, supplemented by collaborative efforts. Notably, there is an increased focus on the exploration of online teaching quality evaluation, specifically delving into methodologies and systems. The emphasis has shifted towards students’ learning initiatives and a comprehensive evaluation of teachers’ work before, during and after class. While research in other countries has also identified new hotspots related to online teaching, the number of studies is comparatively limited. The study proposes the imperative need to update the evaluation criteria for online teaching and enhance the infrastructure of online teaching platforms. Additionally, it advocates for reforms in the evaluation systems of educational institutions and innovations of teachers’ instructional methods.

The cultivation of vegetables serves as a vital pillar in horticulture, offering an alternative avenue towards achieving economic sustainability. Unfortunately, farmers often lack adequate knowledge on optimizing resource utilization, which subsequently results in low productivity. Furthermore, there has been insufficient research conducted on the comparative profitability and efficient use of resources for pea cultivation. So, the present study was conducted to examine the profitability and resource use efficiency of conventional and organic pea production in Northwestern Himalayan state. Using the technique of purposive sampling, the districts and villages were selected based on the highest area. By using simple random sampling, a sample of 100 farmers was selected, out of which 50 were organic growers and 50 were inorganic growers, who were further categorized as marginal and small. The cost incurred was higher for the cultivation of inorganic vegetable crops, whereas returns and output-input ratio was higher in organic cultivation. The cultivation of peas revealed that the majority of inputs were being underutilized, and there was a need for proper reallocation of the resources, which would result in enhanced production. Further, major problems in the cultivation of vegetable crops were a high wage rate, a lack of organic certification, a shortage of skilled labour and a lack of technical knowledge.

Although dykes are a predominant and widely distributed phenomenon in S-Algeria, N-Mali and N-Niger, a systematic, standardized inventory of dykes covering these areas has not been published so far. Remote sensing and geo information system (GIS) tools offer an opportunity for such an inventory. This inventory is not only of interest for the mining industry as many dykes are related to mineral occurrence of economic value, but also for hydrogeologic investigations (dykes can form barriers for groundwater flow). Surface-near dykes, major fault zones, volcanic and structural features were digitized based on Landsat 8 and 9, Sentinel 2, Sentinel 1 and ALOS PALSAR data. High resolution images of World Imagery files/ESRI and Bing Maps Aerial/Microsoft were included into the evaluations. More than 14,000 dykes were digitized and analyzed. The evaluations of satellite images allow a geomorphologic differentiation of types of dykes and the description of their characteristics such as dyke swarms or ring dykes. Dykes are tracing zones of weakness like faults and zones with higher geomechanically strain. Dyke density calculations were carried out in ArcGIS to support the detection of dyke concentrations as stress indicator. Thus, when occurring concentrated, they might indicate stressed areas where further magmatic and earthquake activity might potentially happen in future.