In recent years, using novel nanomaterials to improve the antifouling and antibacterial performance of reverse osmosis membranes has received much attention. In this study, hydrophilic Ag@ZnO-hyperbranched polyglycerols nanoparticles were fabricated by ring-opening multibranched polymerization of glycidyl acid with the core-shell Ag@ZnO nanoparticles. The cellulose triacetate composite membranes were prepared by grafting Ag@ZnO-HPGs nanoparticles on the surface of cellulose triacetate membranes. The surface of the nanoparticles with active functional group –OH was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Surface morphology, charge, and hydrophilicity of the composite membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscope, zeta potential, and contact angle analysis. The results showed that grafting the Ag@ZnO-HPGs nanoparticles onto the cellulose triacetate membrane surface improved the physical and chemical properties of the cellulose triacetate composite membranes. The water flux of cellulose triacetate composite membranes increased while the salt rejection rate to NaCl slightly decreased. Meanwhile, the cellulose triacetate composite membranes showed excellent antifouling properties of having a high flux recovery. The antibacterial performance of the cellulose triacetate composite membrane against E. coli and S. aureus was prominent that the antibacterial rates were 99.50% and 92.38%, and bacterial adhesion rates were as low as 19.12% and 21.35%, respectively.

Apple farming is a new production venture across the North Shewa Zone. Its production, harvest, postharvest handling, and marketing status are not well known. This study was conducted to assess the above-lined situations across the district. Four representative locations, Asabahir, Tsigereda, Tengego, and Godnamamas were selected based on their apple production status. Then, a total of 88 respondents were randomly selected and interviewed by a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics of percentage, standard deviation, and chi-square tests. A larger percentage of farmers are male (82.9%), in their active production age (41.7%), and produce apples in their backyard (85.25%). The agronomic management of fertilization, pruning, training, and plant spacing deviate from the recommended practices of apple farming. Whereas varietal distribution, irrigation, and post-harvest treatments are better practiced. Loss of fruits by fruit drops and discrimination on the market due to small fruit size are serious problems across the locations. Regarding apple farming, the farmers think of it as a productive venture and got a better price per kg and single fruit sale. They sell mainly in local collectors (60.2%) and nearby cities. As for institutional support, the farmers got apple seedlings, training, and capacity buildings by Agriculture Offices and NGOs, even if the farmers are still in higher need of better support. Therefore, it can be concluded that if not outwaited by poor tree management, destructive product transportation, and higher loss of fruits from trees and in the market, the attitude of the farmers can be capitalized in better production of apples.

A failsafe network design recovering from the stressed condition against a massive supply disruption is generally useful for various applications. Water flow in plants under a tension is inherently vulnerable to an embolism, a water supply cut off, causing a death. However, the function of the network structures of leaf veins and xylem stems effectively reduces the embolism-induced failure. In this study, water transport in plants under the pressurized conditions compared to the normal physiological conditions is observed by X-ray imaing. By examining embolism-induced water supply limits in the architecturally diverse leaf and stem networks, a progressive hydraulic rule has been found: the limited flows in the selected parts of the network structures against a total fail. For a scientific explanation on nanoscale water flow dynamics occurring in plants, temporal meniscus development in the nanomembrane model system is investigated. The pressure-driven hydrodynamic transport phenomena can be explained to follow network dynamics of the modified imbibition typically occuring in nanostrutcures. This study contributes to a variety of design technologies of networked materials against the spread of flow damages under the stressed conditions.

This paper aims to explain the administrative and the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) of the Indonesian Spaceport Project in Biak, Papua, Indonesia, under the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) scheme, particularly from the protest to fear of environmental damage and traditional rights. This paper analyzes the factors that cause the local society’s reluctance to accept the development of Indonesia’s very first commercial spaceport. This paper uses a doctrinal methodology, which examines changes in the trend of ESG in implementing PPP projects. The method used is a qualitative systematic review of national and international studies. This paper finds that the lack of legal certainty for administrative and ESG as the main factor contributing to the pitfall of the PPP project in Biak Papua. No clear Government Contracting Agency (GCA), plus the fact that the Indonesian government puts too much weight on business consideration in PPP while Papuan people need more ESG, especially considering the historical conflict in the region, has been the epicenter of the problem. Given the ESG-PPP regulatory failure of spaceport development in Biak, more focused studies using comparative study methodology are needed to propose a more robust and customized ESG in PPP regulations in a politically and historically sensitive area. The authors forward a regulatory reform to balance administration, ESG, and business considerations in PPP projects for a spaceport.

Monitoring marine biodiversity is a challenge in some vulnerable and difficult-to-access habitats, such as underwater caves. Underwater caves are a great focus of biodiversity, concentrating a large number of species in their environment. However, most of the sessile species that live on the rocky walls are very vulnerable, and they are often threatened by different pressures. The use of these spaces as a destination for recreational divers can cause different impacts on the benthic habitat. In this work, we propose a methodology based on video recordings of cave walls and image analysis with deep learning algorithms to estimate the spatial density of structuring species in a study area. We propose a combination of automatic frame overlap detection, estimation of the actual extent of surface cover, and semantic segmentation of the main 10 species of corals and sponges to obtain species density maps. These maps can be the data source for monitoring biodiversity over time. In this paper, we analyzed the performance of three different semantic segmentation algorithms and backbones for this task and found that the Mask R-CNN model with the Xception101 backbone achieves the best accuracy, with an average segmentation accuracy of 82%.