Sociodemographic and Economic Factors Associated with Urinary Bilharzia in the Municipalities of Sô-Ava, Aguegues and N’Dali in Benin

Introduction: This research, conducted in the municipalities of Aguégués, Sô-Ava, and N’dali in Benin, focused on identifying socio-demographic and economic factors associated with urinary bilharzia in 415 school-aged children from 8 to 14 years. Using urine test strips and filtration techniques, the study found prevalences ranging from 11.88% to 34.53% across the municipalities. Method: Epidemiological data (urine) were collected and examined with test strips to assess the presence of terminal haematuria: the prevalence of infestation and parasite density was quantified using the filtration technique. Socio-demographic and economic factors were recorded using a questionnaire to assess the correlation with disease. Results: Prevalences of 34.53% (N = 48 out of 139), 13.53% (N = 18 out of 133) and 11.88% (N = 17 out of 143) respectively for the municipalities of Aguégués, N’dali and Sô Ava were calculated. The study showed that the variables “age”, “sex”, “religion” and “socio-professional” activity were not significantly correlated with bilharziasis (p > 0.05) and it appears that these factors are not related to bilharziasis in the surveyed households. While age, sex, religion, and socio-professional activity showed no significant correlation with bilharziasis, factors like agriculture, fishing, and place of residence were statistically significant in relation to the disease. Conclusion: The findings suggest that these socio-demographic and economic factors impede the elimination of schistosomiasis in the examined areas.

Low-carbon city communication:Integrated strategies for urban and rural municipalities in Thailand

As an important sustainable development goal,the creation of low-carbon cities(LCCs)has become crucial to creating livable cities and environmental sustainability.Thus,we aimed to understand the factors that support the transition of traditional cities to LCCs,by analyzing and synthesizing how to promote practical LCC across 15 pilot municipalities in four regions of Thailand,covering four strategies:City of Trees,City of Waste Minimization,City of Energy Efficiency,and City of Sustainable Consumption.Literature research,in-depth interviews,and observations were employed for data collection,while the 5​W(who,says what,in which channel,to whom,and with what effect)and SMCR(sender,message,channel,and receiver)models were used to create a communication analysis framework.Results revealed that the effective activities of municipalities should increase tree planting and implement more serious regulations for the conservation of existing trees.Making compost and establishing waste recycling banks are recommended for rural municipalities,while optimization of garbage and wastewater management systems and facilities should be highlighted in urban municipalities.Moreover,recycling,low-carbon agriculture,second-hand shops/markets,green markets,and homegrown vegetables should be encouraged for sustainable consumption.Working with local municipalities,credible leaders and representatives were the key senders.Additionally,message design should compare the pros and cons of behaviors,connect with local health and tourism,and promote dialogue in easy-to-understand and thought-provoking language.Receivers that drive LCC should have an excellent understanding of LCC practice and its benefits,be public-minded,and have a desire to live in a good environment.

Measuring Financial Strength in the Public Sector:The Case of Greek Municipalities

An important research field in public and private sectors,accounting is the identification of the factors of financial strength that affect the control and decision-making process.The paper examines the financial strength of the municipalities in Greece and their possible bankruptcy.In literature,important examples of forecasting and estimating financial strength for public sector have been presented,such as the Brown’s 10-point test which measures the financial condition in the case of municipalities.The present survey focuses on the liquidity of the Greek municipalities using data for the financial year 2014 from all over the Greek territory.By implementing Brown’s 10-point test for Greek municipalities and using quantitative methods,each point is becoming a separate independent variable which affects,with different estimator,the total score of financial condition.The model that has been developed appears to be effective in the case of Greek municipalities by providing a rating for their financial strength.The use of the proposed methodology can be used by both funding institutions(banks,grant providers,relevant ministry)on a programmatic basis to address liquidity problems.

Water Resource Utilization in Taiwan’s Municipalities: A Comparative Perspective

Taiwan’s administrative divisions have been changed several times throughout history.At the end of 2010,Taiwan Region(including Taiwan Island and its off-shore islands)is divided administratively into five municipalities(直轄市),three cities(市),and 14 counties(縣).And in 2014,Taoyuan County was designated a municipality because its population is over 200 million persons.With this administration division,this paper is attempted to discuss the issue of water resource utilization with a comparative perspective in the six municipalities from north to south:Taipei City(台北市),New Taipei City(新北市),Taoyuan City(桃園市),Taichung City(台中市),Tainan City(台南市),and Kaohsiung City(高雄市).Statistics of population and fresh water provision will be utilized to analyze the related issues.It is hoped that through this comparative study,the strength and limitation of each municipality in terms of water resource utilization can be illustrated and evaluated.

Social and Environmental Management in the Municipalities of Minas Gerais,Brazil

The objective of this study is to analyze the ability of the public management of environmental problems faced by the municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The theoretical elements that underlie this article are related to environmental management and municipal public administration. We used the results of the natural vulnerability and the social potential of the indicator of municipal environmental management, as well as data on sanitation and waste disposal. The weaknesses of public administration are located in the counties of low population group. These municipalities do not have suitable structure, formal organization and power of decisiveness in dealing with environmental problems.

Promoting Energy Efficiency in the Palestinian Municipalities: A Case Study of Al-Dahriya Municipality

Energy demand overall the world increases rapidly in various sectors, one of the highest energy consumption sector is the building sector. Installation of PV systems is one of the solutions to cover this demand and will serve in promoting energy efficiency in the Palestinian municipalities in decreasing the electricity bill, and using the saved money in constructing new projects and improving the level of services provided to citizens. In this work, Al-Dahriya municipality has been taken as a case study. The municipality installed 20 KW of photovoltaic panels on the roof of the main building in 2015. The cumulative values for one year after installation the PV system represent a total consumed electricity by the main building was 71,506 kw, while the total generated power by the PV system that transferred to building was 32,664 kw, and 5323 kw exported to the grid with total generated power by PV system was 37,987 kw. The participation of energy that produced by the photovoltaic system is 53.12% of the total power demand of the building. The value of generated power varies between the summer months and winter months through the difference of the solar radiation intensity and the number of shinning hours, the largest reading of solar radiation intensity is in the summer months. The study ensures the importance of applying selected thermal insulation materials in order to decrease the heat transfer through the boundary wall of the building. Furthermore, this study covers the other buildings and utilities of municipality and recommended with certain issues in order to promote energy efficiency.

Capacitating local governments for the digital earth vision:lessons learnt from the role of municipalities in the South African spatial data infrastructure

The Digital Earth vision foresees the availability and accessibility of geospatial information to achieve the goals of sustainable development,economic growth and social well-being.In the case of urban areas,upto-date geospatial information is essential for managing a city towards achieving these goals.The rapid shift from rural to urban areas globally puts pressure on local governments and they often struggle to find and organise the resources required to collect and maintain geospatial information that can help to address urban growth challenges.A spatial data infrastructure(SDI)can facilitate the availability and accessibility of geospatial information towards addressing national objectives,however,the involvement of local governments in an SDI can be a challenge.In this paper,we critique the role of municipalities against the backdrop of the developments of the South African SDI(SASDI)to date.The critique identifies five high-level shortcomings of the SASDI that have led to the limited participation of municipalities.Based on the shortcomings,we provide recommendations for capacitating municipalities through SASDI so that the Digital Earth vision can also be achieved for municipalities.These recommendations are aimed at involving the local sphere of government in a national SDI and are equally applicable to other countries.

Global Research Progress on Municipal Waste and Future Prospect Based on the Cross-national Comparisons

Due to the acceleration of urbanization,the municipal waste(MW)problem has transformed into a global challenge for urb-an sustainability.To elucidate historical trends,current focal points,and future directions in MW research,we conducted a bibliometric analysis and employed knowledge graph visualization to scrutinize a total of 34212 articles,which were published between 1991 and 2021 in the Web of Science(WoS)core database.The results indicated that current major research themes encompass waste classifica-tion and recycling,waste management and public behavior,waste disposal methods and technologies,as well as environmental impact and evaluation.There has been a shift in the research focus from the environmental impacts of waste incineration to sustainable manage-ment related issues.A comparison of research from six typical countries revealed the differences in research priorities and techniques advantages.Scholars from the USA and Britain initiated MW research earlier than other countries and investigated management issues in depth,such as public behavior and willingness to pay.Meanwhile,Japanese,German,and Swedish scholars conducted extensive studies on advanced waste treatment technologies,such as disposal and recycling,risk assessment,and waste-to-energy techniques.Chinese scholars placed particular emphasis on end-of-pipe treatments and their associated environmental impacts.Hotspots and poten-tial future frontiers were identified by burst detection analysis.Keywords with high value of burst index(BI)worldwide are food waste and circular economy.Chinese scholars have put great efforts on waste environmental impact and its recycling technologies,while we’re expecting to further investigating vulnerable population.Furthermore,this study contributes to bridging the regional gap of scientific research among different countries and fostering international collaboration.

Development of a Web-Based GIS of Flood Zones in the Municipality of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso

This document describes the creation of an informative Web GIS aimed at mitigating the impacts of flooding in the municipality of Ouagadougou, in Burkina Faso, a region that is highly sensitive to climate change. Burkina Faso, which is undergoing rapid urbanization, faces major natural threats, particularly flooding, as demonstrated by the severe floods of 2009 that caused loss of life, injury, structural damage and economic losses in Ouagadougou. The aim of this research is to develop a web map highlighting the municipality’s flood-prone areas, with a view to informing and raising awareness of flood risk reduction. Using the Leaflet JavaScript mapping library, the study uses HTML, CSS and JavaScript to implement web mapping technology. Data on Ouagadougou’s flood zones is generated by a multi-criteria analysis combining Saaty’s AHP method and GIS in QGIS, integrating seven (7) parameters including hydrography, altitude, slope, rainfall, soil types, land use and soil moisture index. QGIS processes and maps the themes, PostgreSQL with PostGIS serves as the DBMS and GeoServer functions as the map server. The Web GIS platform allows users to visualize the different flood risks, from very low to very high, or the high-risk areas specific to Ouagadougou. The AHP calculations classify the municipality into five flood vulnerability zones: very low (24.48%), low (27.93%), medium (23.01%), high (17.11%) and very high (7.47%). Effective risk management requires communication and awareness-raising. This online mapping application serves as a tool for communication, management and flood prevention in Ouagadougou, helping to mitigate flood-related natural disasters.

Current Situation Analysis and Suggestions for Solid Waste Management Practices among Households in Freetown

Freetown which is the capital city of Sierra Leone is facing challenges with population growth, urbanization, and industrialization, leading to an increase in municipal solid waste (MSW) generation. The study aims to evaluate MSW generation, composition, and disposal methods, as well as the impact of collection fees, policy implementation, and women’s participation in municipal solid waste management (MSWM). The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection and analysis. The study administered 393 structured questionnaires in three selected sections to collect data on variables such as family size, education, level of knowledge, etc. The study used door-to-door data collection to determine the rate of solid waste generation, composition, and disposal in 66 households from two of the selected sections and 34 households from the other section to evaluate the current situation of MSWM practices among households in Freetown. The study used a descriptive statistic to analyze the data collected using Origin-Pro9 and MS Excel software. The findings showed that with a 4.2% urban growth rate, Freetown had a population of 1,467,543 in 2023, generating 851 tons of MSW per day, with organic waste accounting for 78% of the total MSW generated. Plastic waste generation also increased from 7.6% in 2020 to 13% in 2023. The study emphasizes the need to sustain the MSWM system by prioritizing solid waste collection fees, policy enforcement, and women’s participation in the MSWM sector. It further suggests and provides recommendations for developing an efficient and sustainable MSWM system in Sierra Leone, including knowledge transfer from countries like China and the US.

Scenario-Based Assessment of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Kuwait: Insights for Effective Resource Management

The interdependency among water, food, and energy (WEF) in the GCC countries is strongly and closely interlinked, and is intensifying as demand for resources increases with population growth and changing consumption patterns, and are expected to be further compounded by the impacts of climate change. Therefore, integrated management of the three sectors is crucial to reduce trade-offs and build synergies among them. This paper presents a comprehensive framework to assess the WEF nexus in Kuwait as a representative case for the GCC countries. The framework consists of three main steps: 1) evaluating the influence of socio-economic development and climate change on water, energy, and food resources;2) generating scenario-based projections;and 3) conducting an extensive quantitative nexus analysis. The WEF interlinkages in Kuwait are modelled quantitatively using the Q-Nexus model, and current critical interdependencies are evaluated. Then, various WEF-Nexus scenarios were conducted for the year 2035 to explore the effects of management interventions in one sector on the other two sectors. The main findings are that per capita municipal water consumption is a major influencer on the WEF-nexus due to the heavy reliance on thermal desalination in municipal water supply in Kuwait, which is attributed to its energy intensity, financial cost, GHGs emissions, and environmental impacts on the marine and air environments. To reduce WEF trade-offs, mitigate risks, and build synergies among the three sectors, it is important to shift the current policy focus on supply-side management approach to the demand-side management and efficiency approaches.

Selection of Water Transmission Method and Analysis of Pipe Network Zoning in Municipal Water Supply and Drainage Design

With the acceleration of urbanization,the demand for water supply and drainage pipe networks has increased significantly.In the planning of urban construction,it is necessary to optimize the design of the water supply and drainage system pipe network to effectively save energy while providing residents with more accessible water resources.Therefore,the municipal water supply and drainage system and the water transmission methods should be designed according to the geographical conditions of the city.In this paper,we mainly analyze the design of municipal water supply and drainage systems and the selection of water transmission methods.Besides,the optimization of the water supply and drainage network zoning process and pipe network maintenance is also discussed,so as to provide a reference for municipal water supply and drainage work.

Forecasting the Municipal Solid Waste Using GSO-XGBoost Model

Waste production rises in tandem with population growth and increased utilization.The indecorous disposal of waste paves the way for huge disaster named as climate change.The National Environment Agency(NEA)of Singapore oversees the sustainable management of waste across the country.The three main contributors to the solid waste of Singapore are paper and cardboard(P&C),plastic,and food scraps.Besides,they have a negligible rate of recycling.In this study,Machine Learning techniques were utilized to forecast the amount of garbage also known as waste audits.The waste audit would aid the authorities to plan their waste infrastructure.The applied models were k-nearest neighbors,Support Vector Regressor,ExtraTrees,CatBoost,and XGBoost.The XGBoost model with its default parameters performed better with a lower Mean Absolute Percentage Error(MAPE)of 8.3093(P&C waste),8.3217(plastic waste),and 6.9495(food waste).However,Grid Search Optimization(GSO)was used to enhance the parameters of the XGBoost model,increasing its effectiveness.Therefore,the optimized XGBoost algorithm performs the best for P&C,plastics,and food waste with MAPE of 4.9349,6.7967,and 5.9626,respectively.The proposed GSO-XGBoost model yields better results than the other employed models in predicting municipal solid waste.

Nano-CaO_(2)Promotes the Release of Carbon Sources from Municipal Sludge and the Preparation of Double-Network Hydrogels with High Swelling Ratios

In this study,hydrogels were prepared from municipal sludge to recycle and realize the value-added utilization of the carbon components in this abundant waste material.The carbon sources were extracted from the municipal sludge using synthesised nano CaO_(2)as an oxidant,and the carbon sources were graft copolymerised with acrylic acid monomer using N,N′-methylenebisacrylamide as a crosslinking agent and ammonium persulfate as an initiator.The factors influencing the hydrogel preparation were investigated by single-factor experiments.Based on the results of the single-factor experiments,a hydrogel with a swelling ratio of up to 19768.4%at 12 h was prepared with an oxidant dosage of 0.20 g,a monomer dosage of 5.8 g,a neutralisation degree of the monomer of 70%,an initiator dosage of 0.15 g,and a crosslinking agent dosage of 0.15 g.The hydrogel preparation conditions were optimized using the response surface method,and the interactions between the different reaction conditions were analysed to obtain the best preparation conditions.X-ray diffraction results showed that hydrogels were amorphous in structure.Scanning electron microscopy images showed that the SiO_(2)particles from the sludge acted as crosslinking points between different layers of hydrogel chains.The crosslinking polymerisation and crosslinking agent worked together to form hydrogels with an inorganic-organic double network structure,and this structure was highly stretchable,resulting in hydrogels with good swelling properties.

Groundwater quality in the vicinity of a dumpsite in Lagos metropolis,Nigeria

Inappropriate management of municipal solid waste dumpsites is a major cause of groundwater contamination in developing countries,but the extent of the problem is not known.This study investigated groundwater quality in the vicinity of Olusosun dumpsite in Lagos,Nigeria,the most populous city in sub-Saharan Africa.During 2020,monthly groundwater samples were collected in 17 wells and boreholes used as drinking water sources,and analysed for 20 physico-chemical parameters.Differences between sites and seasons were statistically assessed,together with changes in water quality index(WQI).The results indicated that heavy metals(Pb^(2+),Ni^(+),Mn^(2+),Fe^(2+),Cr^(6+)),cations(Ca^(2+),Mg^(2+),K^(+)),total hardness and pH were the main parameters impairing water quality.Drinking water quality standards from both the World Health Organization and Nigeria government were exceeded more often in the wet season than in the dry season.Some groundwater properties were negatively correlated with distance to dumpsite(e.g.,Fe^(2+),Pb^(2+),NO_(3)^(−)).Significant differences between sites were identified,but with no clear spatial trend.WQI varied from excellent(6%-24%of the sites over the study period)to unsuitable for drinking water purposes(12%-18%),with good quality prevailing at most sites(35%-47%).Although groundwater quality declined at 24%of the sites over 2020,the results indicated improvements compared with previous decades.Remediation strategies must be implemented to safeguard public health and the sustainability of water resources.

Prediction of NO_(x)concentration using modular long short-term memory neural network for municipal solid waste incineration

Air pollution control poses a major problem in the implementation of municipal solid waste incineration(MSWI).Accurate prediction of nitrogen oxides(NO_(x))concentration plays an important role in efficient NO_(x)emission controlling.In this study,a modular long short-term memory(M-LSTM)network is developed to design an efficient prediction model for NO_(x)concentration.First,the fuzzy C means(FCM)algorithm is utilized to divide the task into several sub-tasks,aiming to realize the divide-and-conquer ability for complex task.Second,long short-term memory(LSTM)neural networks are applied to tackle corresponding sub-tasks,which can improve the prediction accuracy of the sub-networks.Third,a cooperative decision strategy is designed to guarantee the generalization performance during the testing or application stage.Finally,after being evaluated by a benchmark simulation,the proposed method is applied to a real MSWI process.And the experimental results demonstrate the considerable prediction ability of the M-LSTM network.

Analysis of the Relationship between Mechanical Properties and Pore Structure of MSW Incineration Bottom Ash Fine Aggregate Concrete after Freeze-Thaw Cycles Based on the Gray Theory

The destruction of concrete building materials in severely cold regions of the north is more severely affected by freeze-thaw cycles,and the relationship between the mechanical properties and pore structure of concrete with fine aggregate from municipal solid waste(MSW)incineration bottom ash after freeze-thaw cycles is analyzed under the degree of freeze-thaw hazard variation.In this paper,the gray correlation method is used to calculate the correlation between the relative dynamic elastic modulus,compressive strength,and microscopic porosity parameters to speculate on the most important factors affecting their changes.The GM(1,1)model was established based on the compressive strength of the waste incineration ash aggregate concrete,the relative error between the simulated and actual values in the model was less than 5%,and the accuracy of the model was level 1,indicating that the GM(1,1)model can well reflect the change in the compressive strength of the MSW incineration bottom ash aggregate concrete during freeze-thaw cycles.Using the gray correlation method,the correlation between the relative dynamic elastic modulus,compressive strength,air content,specific surface area,pore spacing coefficient,and pore average chord length was calculated,and the pore spacing coefficient and pore average chord length were determined to be highly correlated with each other.This determination can help analyze and infer the deterioration mechanism of concrete subject to freeze-thaw cycles.These results can provide a theoretical basis for guiding the engineering practice of concrete with fine aggregates of household bottom ash in the northern cold region.

Experimental Study on Ratio and Performance of Coal Gangue/Bottom Ash Geopolymer Double-Liquid Grouting Material

Mine grouting reinforcement and water plugging projects often require large amounts of grouting materials.To reduce the carbon emission of grouting material production,improve the utilization of solid waste from mining enterprises,and meet the needs of mine reinforcement and seepage control,a double-liquid grouting material containing a high admixture of coal gangue powder/bottom ash geopolymer was studied.The setting time,fluidity,bleeding rate,and mechanical properties of grouting materials were studied through laboratory tests,and SEM analyzed the microstructure of the materials.The results show that the total mixture of calcined gangue does not exceed 60%.And the proportion of bottom ash replacing cement should be within 30%.At the same time,the volume mixture of sodium silicate is 20%.And the water-solid ratio does not exceed 0.6.The stability of the slurry prepared under this ratio is good.The microstructure of the stone body is dense,and its strength can meet the requirements of rock reinforcement and seepage control.Its economic and environmental benefits are more significant than the traditional cement-silicate double-liquid grouting material.

Estimation of Higher Heating Value for MSW Using DSVM and BSOA

In recent decades,the generation of Municipal Solid Waste(MSW)is steadily increasing due to urbanization and technological advancement.The col-lection and disposal of municipal solid waste cause considerable environmental degradation,making MSW management a global priority.Waste-to-energy(WTE)using thermochemical process has been identified as the key solution in this area.After evaluating many automated Higher Heating Value(HHV)predic-tion approaches,an Optimal Deep Learning-based HHV Prediction(ODL-HHVP)model for MSW management has been developed.The objective of the ODL-HHVP model is to forecast the HHV of municipal solid waste,based on its oxy-gen,water,hydrogen,carbon,nitrogen,sulphur and ash constituents.In addition,the ODL-HHVP model contains a Deep Support Vector Machine(DSVM)regres-sion component that can accurately predict the HHV.In addition,the Beetle Swarm Optimization(BSO)method is utilised as a hyperparameter optimizer in conjunction with the DSVM model,resulting in the highest HHV prediction accu-racy.A comprehensive simulation study is conducted to validate the performance of the ODL-HHVP method.The Multiple Linear Regression(MLR),Genetic Pro-gramming(GP),Resilient backpropagation(RP),Levenberg Marquardt(LM)and DSVM approaches have attained an ineffective result with RMSEs of 4.360,2.870,3.590,3.100 and 3.050,respectively.The experimentalfindings demon-strate that the ODL-HHVP technique outperforms existing state-of-art technolo-gies in a variety of respects.