PERFORMANCE OF LINK SLAB USING ECC AND UHPC

Conventional bridge design has been challenged by durability and reliability issues due to expansion joints. Chloride-contaminated infiltration and debris accumulation in traditional expansion joints affect the bridge performance negatively. Link slab has emerging as an effective alternative in bridge rehabilitation and design by eliminating expansion joints while the bridge structure remains simply supported. Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) and Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) are desired material in link slab application due to their high strength and tensile ductility. Presented in this thesis is a research project conducted by the BEST center at the University of Maryland to study link slab application with UHPC and ECC. Two bridge models were generated for finite element analysis. In addition, a field test was prepared. Experiments were carried out to study material properties of ECC and UHPC for a preliminary assessment of link slab performance using these materials. Results found that ECC and UHPC are adequate for link slab for their strength, high tensile ductility and fine cracks development

I care by...

The Care research group at the Royal College of Art (RCA) was conceived in the last week of June 2020, a month after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota, an act which catalysed global protests on systemic racism and police brutality. In the UK, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to show solidarity with demonstrators in the US. Coinciding with the easing of the lockdown restrictions imposed to manage the coronavirus, the marches shone a light on the government’s failure to protect Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people from the disproportionate risk posed by COVID- 19, and on the police’s increased use of stop and search in areas with large BAME populations. The pandemic has shone the harshest of lights on the question of care in the age of neoliberalism: who gets it; who needs it; who does it; who controls it. The Care research group, comprising staff and postgraduate researchers within the School of Arts and Humanities at the RCA, works in this light. Over the course of a year, as the inequalities of the virus were becoming all too clear, the group regularly came together via Zoom to reflect on: the question of how to care for the human body in the technical-patriarchal societies the virus has re-inscribed; the ‘un-doing’ of what Judith Butler describes as the binary of vulnerability and resistance; the politically-transformative potential of prioritising care (rooted in empathy, solidarity, kinship) over capitalist gain; the activation of creative research practices (including but by no means limited to writing, looking, painting, drawing, filming, performing, collecting, assembling, curating, making public) as means of caring/transforming. The group’s activities through the year of trying, failing, and trying again to care for its work and members are gathered in a co-authored Declaration of Care, published here, and expanded upon with attention to some of the methods group members developed in their research through practice. The Declaration was recited in a participatory performance with invited artist Jade Montserrat on 10 March 2021. Over the course of a two-hour webinar, participants including members of the public were invited to draw alongside Montserrat with whatever materials they had to hand as they listened to texts on the vulnerabilities of bodies, the structuring of care within institutions, and the tactile, sensory, healing qualities of creative practice. This book includes a selection of the participants’ drawings, a Reader comprising the texts that were shared, and Montserrat’s drawings created through the performance. Ahead of the performance, Montserrat delivered an address to the Care research group which looked back on a lifetime of calling for a kind of care that was never provided. Excerpts from Montserrat’s address are included here too, alongside a text and image which reflect on the group’s affective reactions to the experience of listening to it, titled Episode. The Declaration is a list of methods (approaches, processes, techniques), an enumeration of how Care research group members have worked, and would like to work: ‘I care by…’. This is a statement which has reverberated throughout the year, which bears repeating, which resounds still. Gemma Blackshaw, Care research group convenor, 2020–202

Impact of E-governance on Businesses: Model Development and Case Study

[[abstract]]The success of e-government policies and projects hinges on a robust assessment strategy that provides not only a valuable understanding of the impacts on stakeholders, but also an effective feedback mechanism for mid-course corrections. This study examines the antecedents of the impact assessment of e-governance in the context of an integrated model. The model incorporates a wide variety of important factors from previous research into a single theoretical framework provided by the e-government value chain model and the Information System success model. A government-to-business (G2B) case is utilized to operationalize the model into survey questions. The current chapter presents the results of the G2B survey and summarizes the key findings from the impact assessment of G2B. The knowledge gained from this study will help pave a path for future e-governance initiatives and improve our understanding of the key factors affecting the success of e-governance.[[booktype]]紙

Empirical Bayes Test for the Parameter of Exponential-Weibull Distribution under Negative Associated Samples

By using weighted kernel-type density estimator, the empirical Bayes test rules for parameter of Exponential-Weibull distribution are constructed and the asymptotically optimal property is obtained under negative associated samples. It is shown that the convergence rates of the proposed EB test rules can arbitrarily close to O(n^−1/2) under very mild conditions. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification: 62C12, 62F12

Effects of Spatial Distance and Paid Card on Price Promotions

Paid card is an important mean of companies to maintain the customers and increase gain. It is applied extensively in retailing, fitness center, and by other service delivers. However, there is lack of studies focused on promotion mechanisms of paid card in the literature. In this paper, the promotion mechanisms of paid card based on the theories of mental accounting, construal level, and customer’s perceived value. The study has the results that the intention to purchase of paid card holders is higher than that of the consumers without payment in advance in the same discount rate. When there is large spatial distance between paid card holder and the target store, the traffic mode will impact on the purchase intention of paid card holders. Finally, the study has provided the corresponding suggestions for companies’ promotion management

E-governance for the Civil Society – Readiness, Experience and Requirement of Nonprofit Organizations

[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20120302~2012030

Effects of Spatial Distance and Paid Card on Price Promotions

Paid card is an important mean of companies to maintain the customers and increase gain. It is applied extensively in retailing, fitness center, and by other service delivers. However, there is lack of studies focused on promotion mechanisms of paid card in the literature. In this paper, the promotion mechanisms of paid card based on the theories of mental accounting, construal level, and customer’s perceived value. The study has the results that the intention to purchase of paid card holders is higher than that of the consumers without payment in advance in the same discount rate. When there is large spatial distance between paid card holder and the target store, the traffic mode will impact on the purchase intention of paid card holders. Finally, the study has provided the corresponding suggestions for companies’ promotion management