Study on reinforced concrete beams strengthened externally using mengkuang leaves-epoxy composite plate

Synthetic fiber usage in reinforcing composite plate for variety of applications is a common practice on advance engineering structures such as automobiles and infrastructure in bridges and buildings. Study on using natural fiber as replacement to synthetic fiber was carried out for recent decades to investigate the potential use of natural fiber composite plate in strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) structures as an alternative to synthetic fiber reinforced composite plate. A study has been carried out to investigate the potential use of mengkuang leaves-epoxy composite for the strengthening of reinforced concrete beams. Mengkuang leaves were treated sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in concentration of 2 %, 5 % and 8%, examined by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and single fiber test, while composite plates were tested for flexural strength and used as external strengthening material on RC beams and tested under four-point bending test. Fiber volume fraction of 10 % - 40 % reinforced with epoxy were considered in this study. SEM micrographs showed that alkali treatment gives no significant effect on the leaves surfaces, the inner layer which consists of fiber was undefined. Experimental results showed that the tensile strength for untreated samples were found higher than treated samples and lower tensile strength was obtained as NaOH increases. Flexural strength of composites increases as fiber volume fraction increases from 10 % to 30 %. Fiber volume fraction of 30 % gives the most optimum results which improve the flexural strength about 96 % higher than the unreinforced epoxy plate. In terms of four-point bending test, the results showed that RC beams strengthened using mengkuang leaves-epoxy reinforced composite plate can sustained higher load capacity than the control beam and reduced the beam deflection. The increased in ultimate load varied from the range of 7 % to 13 % while the beam deflection reduced from 17 % to 38 %. In terms of crack pattern, vertical flexural cracks were found along the tension zone in the mid-span of the control beam. The control beams failed in bending. On the other hand, mengkuang leaves-epoxy reinforced composite plate has diverted the cracks that initially formed in the midspan of the beams to the edge of the plate causing the formation of diagonal shear cracks that propagated towards the point load of the beams. The mode of failure for mengkuang leaves-epoxy reinforced composite plate in strengthening RC beams were in bending with the peeling of composite plate. This signifies that mengkuang leaves-epoxy composite plate has potential to be used as an alternative external strengthening material to synthetic composite plate

The importance of conflict characteristics for the diffusion of international mediation

This article argues that similar conflict characteristics form links between crises, which signal the relevant actors – that is, the belligerents and the potential mediator(s) – that a comparable approach in terms of third-party mediation could be suitable across these disputes – even if the relevant parties are not the same. Specifically, demand (antagonists) and supply-side actors (mediators) are likely to employ the heuristic of learning from and emulating the mediation behavior in similar crises. The empirical analysis, using data from the International Crisis Behavior project, shows that comparable patterns in violence, arguably the most visible and salient conflict characteristic, are associated with mediation traveling across crises; other dispute characteristics incorporated into spatial lags are not, however. Hence, particularly as domestic/unit-level (monadic) influences are controlled for, the effect of common exposure is taken into account, and different estimation strategies are used, the results emphasize that there is a genuine diffusion process via common levels of violence in the context of international mediation. </jats:p

Precedents, parliaments, and foreign policy:Historical analogy in the House of Commons vote on Syria

This analysis investigates the role of historical analogies in the influence that parliaments have in foreign policy. Our empirical focus is the UK Parliament’s unusual opposition to the Prime Minister on UK involvement in Syria in 2013. The vote challenges many conventional expectations about the role of parliament in security affairs. Important in this vote were lessons learned and strategically used from UK participation in the intervention of Iraq in 2003. This argument is developed theoretically based on research on historical analogies: parliaments, ‘learn’ (primarily negative) lessons about past foreign policy events which guide parliamentary preferences and procedures and can enhance parliaments’ role in subsequent foreign policy. The article contributes to research on analogies by extending the logic to lessons on process. This use of precedents can offer more structurally oriented perspectives that translate critical junctures into reforms in procedures and policy-making practices.</p

Relativistic Brownian Motion

Stimulated by experimental progress in high energy physics and astrophysics, the unification of relativistic and stochastic concepts has re-attracted considerable interest during the past decade. Focusing on the framework of special relativity, we review, here, recent progress in the phenomenological description of relativistic diffusion processes. After a brief historical overview, we will summarize basic concepts from the Langevin theory of nonrelativistic Brownian motions and discuss relevant aspects of relativistic equilibrium thermostatistics. The introductory parts are followed by a detailed discussion of relativistic Langevin equations in phase space. We address the choice of time parameters, discretization rules, relativistic fluctuation-dissipation theorems, and Lorentz transformations of stochastic differential equations. The general theory is illustrated through analytical and numerical results for the diffusion of free relativistic Brownian particles. Subsequently, we discuss how Langevin-type equations can be obtained as approximations to microscopic models. The final part of the article is dedicated to relativistic diffusion processes in Minkowski spacetime. Due to the finiteness of velocities in relativity, nontrivial relativistic Markov processes in spacetime do not exist; i.e., relativistic generalizations of the nonrelativistic diffusion equation and its Gaussian solutions must necessarily be non-Markovian. We compare different proposals that were made in the literature and discuss their respective benefits and drawbacks. The review concludes with a summary of open questions, which may serve as a starting point for future investigations and extensions of the theory.Comment: review article, 159 pages, references updated, misprints corrected, App. A.4. correcte

Children’s and adolescents’ rising animal-source food intakes in 1990–2018 were impacted by age, region, parental education and urbanicity

Animal-source foods (ASF) provide nutrition for children and adolescents’ physical and cognitive development. Here, we use data from the Global Dietary Database and Bayesian hierarchical models to quantify global, regional and national ASF intakes between 1990 and 2018 by age group across 185 countries, representing 93% of the world’s child population. Mean ASF intake was 1.9 servings per day, representing 16% of children consuming at least three daily servings. Intake was similar between boys and girls, but higher among urban children with educated parents. Consumption varied by age from 0.6 at <1 year to 2.5 servings per day at 15–19 years. Between 1990 and 2018, mean ASF intake increased by 0.5 servings per week, with increases in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa. In 2018, total ASF consumption was highest in Russia, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey, and lowest in Uganda, India, Kenya and Bangladesh. These findings can inform policy to address malnutrition through targeted ASF consumption programmes.publishedVersio

Incident type 2 diabetes attributable to suboptimal diet in 184 countries

The global burden of diet-attributable type 2 diabetes (T2D) is not well established. This risk assessment model estimated T2D incidence among adults attributable to direct and body weight-mediated effects of 11 dietary factors in 184 countries in 1990 and 2018. In 2018, suboptimal intake of these dietary factors was estimated to be attributable to 14.1 million (95% uncertainty interval (UI), 13.8–14.4 million) incident T2D cases, representing 70.3% (68.8–71.8%) of new cases globally. Largest T2D burdens were attributable to insufficient whole-grain intake (26.1% (25.0–27.1%)), excess refined rice and wheat intake (24.6% (22.3–27.2%)) and excess processed meat intake (20.3% (18.3–23.5%)). Across regions, highest proportional burdens were in central and eastern Europe and central Asia (85.6% (83.4–87.7%)) and Latin America and the Caribbean (81.8% (80.1–83.4%)); and lowest proportional burdens were in South Asia (55.4% (52.1–60.7%)). Proportions of diet-attributable T2D were generally larger in men than in women and were inversely correlated with age. Diet-attributable T2D was generally larger among urban versus rural residents and higher versus lower educated individuals, except in high-income countries, central and eastern Europe and central Asia, where burdens were larger in rural residents and in lower educated individuals. Compared with 1990, global diet-attributable T2D increased by 2.6 absolute percentage points (8.6 million more cases) in 2018, with variation in these trends by world region and dietary factor. These findings inform nutritional priorities and clinical and public health planning to improve dietary quality and reduce T2D globally.publishedVersio

Perkembangan dan krisis-krisis MCA / Law Foong Yuen

Tesis ini terdiri dariapda 5 bab yang merangkumi pengenalan, sejarah, perkembangan serta krisis-krisis MCA yang pernah berlaku dan diakhiri dengan kesimpulan serta dilema MCA dengan pendapat pemimpin MCA serta penulis sendiri. Bab I penulis memperkenalkan dari pendahuluan, tujuan dan bidang kajian, metodologi serta masalah kajian. Bab II membincangkan sejarah dan perkembangan MCA di samping mengkaji keahlian serta organisasinya. Dalam bab ini juga, penulis telah menjelaskan pencapaian MCA dalam setiap pilihanraya dan tempatan sejak tahun 1952 bersama dengan sebab dan akibatnya. Bab III pula mengkaji segala krisis yang kecil dan besar yang pernah berlaku sejak tertubuhnya parti ini yang juga merupakan tumpuan utama tesis ini. Seterusnya, penulis membincangkan krisis intra-parti MCA dan UMNO dengan mengambil contoh pada tahun 1959 di mana berlakunya pertentangan antara Lim Chong Eu dengan Tunku Abdul Rahman di dalam bab IV. Bab V merupakan kesimpulan keseluruhan tesis dan diakhiri dengan perbincangan tentang dilema dan harapan MCA dengan pendapat pemimpinpemimpin MCA serta pandangan penulis sendiri

Power as Prestige in World Politics

10.1093/ia/iiy245International Affairs951119–14

Foreign policy analysis and the international relations of Asia

For too long, scholars of foreign policy analysis (FPA) have ceded ground to structural international relations theories’ mantra that it is impossible to explain international comes by using unit level factors. This paper argues that structural IR theories such as neorealism and neoliberalism throw up more puzzles than answers when it comes to explaining post-Cold War Asia’s peace and economic dynamism; I contend that FPA variables such as political ideology, threat perceptions, and leadership, bring us closer to understanding those outcomes. This approach brings back the role of agency and choice in a way that suggest that they trump structure, not only in explaining the foreign policies of individual states, but also in explaining international outcomes such as peace and economic dynamism.</p