Low velocity impact response of rc beam with artificial polyethylene aggregate as concrete block infill

In structural design, an ideal situation for saving materials would be to reduce the weight of the structure without having to compromise on its strength and serviceability. A new lightweight composite reinforced concrete section was developed with a novel use of a lightweight concrete block as infill utilizing Artificial Polyethylene Aggregate (APEA and MAPEA). The concrete near the neutral axis acts as a stress transfer medium between the compression and tension zones. Partial replacement of the concrete near the neutral axis could create a reduction in weight and savings in the use of materials. In this experimental work, APEA and MAPEA were utilized as replacement for normal aggregates (NA) at percentages of 0%, 3%, 6%, and 9%, 12%, and 100% in the concrete mix. In this study, the concrete block infill uses the 100% MAPEA as a replacement for coarse aggregate. A total of sixteen beams were prepared measuring 170 mm × 250 mm × 1000 mm, in which four specimens were used as control samples (NRC) and twelve specimens were the reinforced concrete beam incorporated with different size of concrete block infill (RCAI) consisting of 100% MAPEA. All beams were tested with 100 kg steel weight dropped vertically from a height of 0.6 m and 1.54 m, which was equivalent to 3.5 m/s and 5.5 m/s respectively. Based on the experimental results, the impact force, displacement and crack patterns were affected by the impact load. For RCAI specimens, the impact force was larger but smaller displacement value was observed, compared to the NRC specimens. Furthermore, the width of the cracks generated in the RCAI specimens near the mid-span was less than that on the NRC specimen. All experiment results were validated against FEM. The transient impact force histories, displacement and crack patterns obtained from FEM matched reasonably well with the experiment results. The error reported a range of 1% to 15%. The results showed that the proposed use of concrete block infill produced desirable results under the impact loads. The main advantages of the concrete block infill that utilized MAPEA from waste plastic bags due to the weight reduction about 6% in the concrete beams

Managing ethnicity and constructing the 'Bangsa Malaysia' (A United Malaysian Nation)

The question of nation-building has always been a central issue in Malaysian politics. Whilst the country has been able to sustain stable politics since the 1969 racial tragedy, spawning two decades rapid socio-economic development until the 1997 Asian economic crisis, the project of nation-building remained a basic national agenda yet to be fully resolved. This short paper investigates the delicate process of nation-building in Malaysia in the post 1970s, especially in the context of the vision of constructing the Bangsa Malaysia or united Malaysian nation enshrined in Mahathir's Vision 2020 project which was introduced in 1991. The aim of the paper is firstly, to highlight the underlying socio-political parameters that shaped and influenced the politics of nation-building in the country, and secondly, to explore the viability of the project of Bangsa Malaysia in the context of the daunting challenges involved in the process of nation-building. The paper contends that, based on the Malaysian experience, the potent interplay between the forces of ethnicity and nationalism constitute the crux of the problem in the politics of nation-building in Malaysia. This dialectic it is argued, stems from the prevalence of the varying 'nationalisms' within and across ethnic groups. These phenomena have not only shaped the pattern of ethnic political mobilization in the countv, but above all, laid the most complex set of obstacles in the path of the project of nation-building. The paper argues that the project of constructing the Bangsa Malaysia therefore, can be seen as significant attempt by the state to reconcile the competing 'nationalism'. It can also be considered as an attempt to consolidate Malay nationalism and cultural pluralism, thus promoting the development of 'civic nationalism' or creation of a 'supra-ethnic' national identity. The 'nation', therefore, is depicted as a 'mosaic of cultures', but with a strong fervour of Malay nationalism. However, the viability of the envisaged project is yet to be tested. The concept itself is still vague to many people and the challenges ahead are enormous, involving political, economic, socio-cultural and religious issues. Indeed the project risks becoming the 'latest' in the series of competing notions of 'nation-of-intent' circulating in Malaysia. The paper contends that whilst, to some extent, the socio-political landscape of Malaysian society has been rapidly changing, especially in the past two decades of Mahathir's reign, ethnicity still pervades Malaysian political life. The paper probably difers from many previous studies on nation-building in Malaysia, which have mainly focused on either the historical dimensions or those which have examined the impact of key national policies. It is hoped that this brief paper would be able to contribute towards broadening the perspective in the analysis of ethnic relations and nation-building in Malaysia, thus, deepening the understanding of Malaysia politics and society

The sports, politics and economics of the hosting of mega sports events in Malaysia: exploring the Commonwealth Games of 1998 and the F1 Grand Prix

Today, bidding to host international sports events is no longer a privilege of certain developed countries. Hosting international sports events has attracted many developing countries, as they have begun to realize the multiple benefits that it can offer. Sports as a form of popular culture that cuts across class, caste and ethnicity has a lot to offer to many developing countries that are still grappling with many crucial national agendas, provided its benefits and potential effects are creatively exploited. The successful hosting of a high-profile international sports event would not only trigger and promote national pride and a sense of patriotism, but quite often, its socio-economic outcome may outweigh the political effects. Whilst the political focus of sports is usually related to aspects such as national pride, improving the image of a nation as well as national unity, the economic dimension of sports has always been linked to economic growth, tourism and creating new frontiers for the economy. Over the past decade Malaysia has seen growing interest and intensive government investment in sports. The success of the Kuala Lumpur 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Sepang Formula 1 Grand Prix has gained the country outstanding international reputation in the hosting of world sports events, despite its average achievements in sports. This paper attempts to examine the underlying factors that prompted Malaysia to actively become involved in promoting itself as a host country for several world sports events in which it has never before partaken nor had achieved international reputation. In addition it will also look into the country sports policy as well as the roles of government and sports bodies in making sports an important dimension to strengthen the country's domestic and international agendas. The paper argues that for many developing countries, the role of government is still far more crucial than any other factors in the development of sports. Sports have far-reaching implications in the development of a country and should not be viewed merely as a form of popular culture. Therefore, many more 'focus studies' should be carried out to further apprehend the contribution that sports could make in developing countries

Pretzel Knots and q-Series

The tail of the colored Jones polynomial of an alternating link is a $q$-series invariant whose first $n$ terms coincide with the first $n$ terms of the $n$-th colored Jones polynomial. Recently, it has been shown that the tail of the colored Jones polynomial of torus knots give rise to Ramanujan type identities. In this paper, we study $q$-series identities coming from the colored Jones polynomial of pretzel knots. We prove a false theta function identity that goes back to Ramanujan and we give a natural generalization of this identity using the tail of the colored Jones polynomial of Pretzel knots. Furthermore, we compute the tail for an infinite family of Pretzel knots and relate it to false theta function-type identities.Comment: 22 Pages, 14 Figure

Thermodynamic analysis of indirect injection diesel engine operation

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Nearest Neighbor and Contact Distance Distribution for Binomial Point Process on Spherical Surfaces

This letter characterizes the statistics of the contact distance and the nearest neighbor (NN) distance for binomial point processes (BPP) spatially-distributed on spherical surfaces. We consider a setup of $n$ concentric spheres, with each sphere $S_k$ has a radius $r_k$ and $N_k$ points that are uniformly distributed on its surface. For that setup, we obtain the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the distance to the nearest point from two types o observation points: (i) the observation point is not a part of the point process and located on a concentric sphere with a radius $r_e<r_k\forall k$, which corresponds to the contact distance distribution, and (ii) the observation point belongs to the point process, which corresponds to the nearest-neighbor (NN) distance distribution