ASSESSMENT OF NOMINAL SHEAR STRENGTH OF REINFORCED CONCRETE COLUMN

: SNI 2847-2019 and ACI 318-19 have regulated the use of materials in the design for shear strength. This study presents an evaluation of nominal shear strength in Reinforced Concrete (RC) column from SNI 2847-2019 and ACI 318-19 by variants of the RC columns experimental database. RC column variants consist of normal strength and high strength RC column with a total of 162 specimens. Furthermore, the database also provides a variety of shear span to depth ratio and axial-load ratio. In this study, the calculation was carried out the mean and the coefficient of variation of measured to calculated strength ratio  which is according to SNI, ACI, and other experimental models. Both SNI 2847-2019 and ACI 318-19 have 2 different  (concrete nominal shear strength) equations. The calculation results show that the  equation is more conservative in both SNI and ACI compared to other nominal shear strength equations. Overall, the combination of both normal strength and high strength RC columns, the calculation using ACI 318-19 with the first nominal shear strength equation  can be said to be more conservative than any other calculations models. This study also shows that by using the ACI 318-19 model in the second equation  which is used the size effect modification factor , the results do not have a significant effect because the value is close to 1

EPRDF's Revolutionary Democracy and Religious Plurality: Islam and Christianity in post-Derg Ethiopia

In 1991 the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) introduced policies aimed at recognizing the country’s long-standing religious diversity, providing a public arena for religious groups, and maintaining a sharp division between religion and the state. This further roded the traditionally dominant position of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, strengthened Protestant Christian and Muslim communities, and created a more flux and competitive configuration among the religious communities. Seeking to maintain its political power, the EPRDF has at the same time made efforts to monitor and control the different religious communities. Therefore, the last 20 years have been marked by uneven developments, in which the government’s accommodating attitudes have been interlaced with efforts to curtail the influence of the religious communities. This article surveys the intersection and reciprocal influences between EPRDF policies and religious communities over the last 20 years, and discusses how Muslims and Christians (Orthodox and Protestant) have negotiated their roles in relation to politics and public life. These developments have, the article argues, led to the emergence of divergent and competing narratives, reconfiguring self-understanding, political aspirations and views of the religious other. The EPRDF ideology of ‘‘revolutionary democracy’’ has, in this sense, enabled religion to surface as a force for social mobilization and as a point of reference for attempting to define nationhood in Ethiopia

Embodying the Spirit(s): Pentecostal Demonology and Deliverance Discourse in Ethiopia

The article explores Pentecostal embodiment practices and concepts with regard to Holy Spirit baptism and demon possession. The studied material is connected to a specific and highly controversial debate in Ethiopian Pentecostalism, which revolves around the possibility of demon possession in born-again and Spirit-filled Christians. This debate runs through much of Ethiopian Pentecostal history and ultimately is concerned with whether or how Christians can host conflicting spiritual forces, in light of the strong dualism between God and evil in Pentecostal cosmology. The article shows that the embodiment of spirits and/or the Holy Spirit is related to theological concepts of the self, because these concepts define what may or may not be discerned in certain bodily manifestations. Moreover, the article contends that this debate thrives on a certain ambiguity in spirit embodiment, which invites the discernment of spiritual experts and thereby becomes a resource of power

Networks of knowledge: how farmers and scientists understand soils and their fertility. a case study from Ethiopia

This paper explores knowledge about soils and their fertility from the perspective of different players, including both scientists and farmers. Different understandings of soils and their management are seen to be bound up with the contexts within which knowledges about soils are created—the networks of players engaged in building knowledge, the settings within which ideas about soils are tested and examined, and the wider assumptions and beliefs that different people carry with them. The contrasting, and sometimes overlapping, understanding of soils by farmers, scientists and development practitioners in Ethiopia is focused on. Drawing on a range of documentary material and detailed fieldwork carried out in Wolayta, southern Ethiopia, over a number of years, the paper argues that a focus on the contexts for the generation of different knowledges helps avoid the unhelpful distinctions often made between indigenous and scientific knowledges, and moves analytical attention towards an assessment of who is involved in knowledge creation and the power relations implied. The paper concludes with a discussion of how multiple knowledges about soils and their fertility might interact in the context of meeting agricultural development challenges and the potential for a productive engagement between different actors and networks.