Structural performance of precast self-compacting concrete beam consisiting banana skin powder and coir fibre under flexural load

In present, environmental pollution is become serious problem. Agricultural products generate waste in huge amount, which creates the disposal and environmental problems such as leachate and odour smell. An initiative is needed to reduce these wastes and utilize the agricultural waste as a construction material like concrete. The agricultural waste widely used as supplementary cementing material, filler and fibre reinforcement. In this research Banana Skin Powder (BSP) and Coir Fibre (CF) utilized as partially cementing material and filler respectively, to reduce the agricultural waste and save the natural recourses which is used in manufacturing of cement and reduces the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) in atmosphere. This research investigated the physical and chemical properties of BSP. The fresh properties (filling ability, passing ability and segregation resistance) and hardened properties such as compressive, tensile, flexural strength, modulus of elasticity and Poisson’s ratio of self-compacting concrete (SCC) consisting BSP and CF were studied experimentally. The ultimate load, crack pattern and load deflection profile of Precast Self-Compacting Concrete containing BSP and CF Beam (PSCC-BSP-CF-B) were analysed under flexural load by experimental work. The results were validated by Finite Element Analysis (FEA) using software package Abaqus. The outcomes from XRF test proved that the BSP is the Class F pozzolan which contributes to enhance the strength of SCC. The fresh properties of SCC like filling ability, passing ability and segregation resistance were satisfied the EFNARC SCC specifications. The mechanical properties and ultimate bearing capacity were improved with the BSP and CF incorporation in SCC. The crack pattern predicts the PSCC-B were fail in flexural. The deflection became lower when CF and BSP were added in PSCC-B. The optimum percentage which was found through experimental tests are 0.4%BSP and 0.5% for CF. The crack pattern, ultimate load and deflection in PSCC-B using FEA through ABAQUS have 2% to 8% difference compare to experimental studies

The Act of Fictional Communication in a Hermeneutic Pragmatics

This paper is concerned with fictional communication, as the act of an author in relation to a reader. Fictional discourse exhibits certain complexities that are not observable in other forms of discourse. For example, the author’s act is mediated for the reader by that set of persons called characters. This fact generates a range of relations, firstly the triad of author-reader, author-character, and reader-character. But closer observation reveals that this mediation may be such that it gives way to another, deeper set of relations. At the deepest level one may postulate reader’s relation to author’s self-relating and author’s relation to reader’s self-relating. These questions are explored with view to deriving a revisionist notion of pragmatics that is open to agenc

Jiwar: from a right of neighbourliness to a right of neighbourhood for refugees

In this paper I make the case that a closer examination of the tradition of jiwār or neighbourliness can help unsettle the binary of citizen and migrant that forecloses the possibility of accessing rights for the latter. Here, insights from human geography and social anthropology pertaining to understandings and practices of conviviality are mobilised to ask what contemporary readings of jiwār can tell us given that the nation-state dominates modalities and practices of locality production. Mobilising interview and ethnographic research material produced in partnership with Palestinian, Syrian, Sudanese, and Iraqi forced migrants over the past 8 years across multiple sites, this paper draws attention to the significance of creating and maintaining neighbourly relations and spaces as an ethical position contrasted against exclusionary nation-state and sectarian discourses and practices. Here, I draw on the Turkish state response to on-going Syrian displacement and the Syrian state’s response to the earlier displacement of Iraqis (2005-11) to illustrate how the sedentarist logic of the nation-state impedes practices of conviviality that emerge from the lived realities of encounter between those already resident and those who newly arrive

Introducing Iqbal the Economist

The Iqbal Memorial Lecture was instituted in 1994 when the Pakistan Society of Development Economists (PSDE) celebrated the completion of a decade of steady progress. A brief announcement stated: “The Iqbal Memorial Lecture attributed to the national poet [Emphasis added], Allama Muhammad Iqbal has been included in the programme for the first time. Professor Ian M. D. Little is delivering that lecture” [Secretary’s Report (1994), p. 1472]. Iqbal, the poet and philosopher par excellence, has made incisive remarks or comments on economic and social issues in his poetry, philosophical writings, and in the course of his discourses as well as some famous letters, particularly those written to the Quaid-i-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. But these do not make Iqbal an economist. The Secretary of the PSDE was, therefore, careful in observing that the lecture commemorates our “national poet”. However, it will be of great interest to this largest national congregation of economists and other scholars concerned with development to know that the very first published book of Iqbal related neither to poetry nor philosophy, but economics. It was written in Urdu. He also taught the subject at undergraduate and Master’s level, even though he had not studied it as a student. At the Government College, Lahore, Iqbal studied English, Philosophy and Arabic for his B.A. and then completed the M.A. in Philosophy.

Prospects of Economic Integration among the ECO Countries

Promotion of Intra-regional trade is the most important economic justification for regional economic blocs. This paper examines such prospects in the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) region, a grouping of ex-RCD and Central Asian States. It is shown that the progress is extremely slow and the time table fixed for the implementation of the ECO Trade Agreement is ambitious, given the lukewarm will to cooperate, the unsettled state of affairs in Afghanistan, and the dirigistic legacy of central planning in the Central Asian States.regional Cooperation, Economic Integration

Riba, Share-tenancy and Agrarian Reforms

Land tenureship may take the form of self-cultivation, contractual workers, leasing and partnership. This paper focuses on the last one known as muzara`ah or share-tenancy. After clarifying what riba stands for, it reviews the misgiving about share-tenancy as a case of riba. It also argues at length in favour of share-tenancy as a legitimate mode of land tenure in Shari`ah. Finally, it also draws attention to some reforms to ameliorate the negative aspects of share-tenancy arrangements currently in vogue.

Multisectoral Initiatives, Sectoral Inertia: A Dilemma of Governance for Development Policy-makers

The opinion of development professionals at home and abroad has converged on the point that bad governance lies at the root of the loss of the momentum of economic growth, increasing poverty and failed investment in social sectors. Early concern of development economists with market failure brought in the arguments for the role of government. Government failure was the dominant issue of the eighties. The last decade of the twentieth century is witnessing a focus on governance failure, a broader concept in that the government is not viewed as the only governing entity. This paper addresses an issue which has been there during the reigns of all these “failure” paradigms. It arises from the inability of governments, organised traditionally into the vertically operating line departments, to deal effectively with multisectoral or cross-sectoral problems and cross-cutting issues. The paper traces the evolution of multisectoral issues and looks at the standard approach of treating multisectoral initiatives as a horizontally fathomed coordination problem to show that it has been an unmitigated disaster. It argues that the multisectoral issues can be better addressed by internalising the elements of coordination, particularly in social sectors, though there have been situations which raise questions about this approach as well. The large majority of the newly emergent nations of the postwar world adopted a planned course of development, some impressed by the high industrial growth achieved by the Soviet Union and others convinced by the analytical case for overcoming the market imperfections.

Development Priorities of the Founding Father of Pakistan

A close reading of the speeches and statements of the founding father of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, brings forth a striking consistency of understanding and approach towards priorities that the nation must determine to move steadily on the road to progress and development. These priorities were—in that order—education, industrial development and defence. Political historians generally present descriptive analyses of what appear to be radically different phases of the Quaid’s passage to lead the nation to its destiny—freedom. But at no point in any phase does one come across a weakening of resolve to advocate the priorities of Education, Industry and Defence—EID, for short. No better acronym of happiness would be possible for the Muslims of British India, EID being happiness and progress for them literally as well as religiously. After the adoption of the Pakistan Resolution in March 1940, the Quaid reiterated these priorities time and again. There is a noticeable accent in his speeches to specify the ramifications of these three pillars of progress. The most succinct statement of priorities came in March 1941. While addressing the Pakistan Session of Punjab Muslim Students Federation, the Quaid said “There are at least three main pillars which go to make a nation worthy of possessing a territory and running the government……..One is education. . . . Next, no nation and no people can ever do anything very much without making themselves economically powerful in commerce, trade and industry. And lastly, when you have got that light of knowledge by means of education and when you have made yourselves strong economically and industrially, then you have got to prepare yourselves for your defence against external aggression and to maintain internal security”.