Bonding Performance of Textile Reinforced Concrete

Non-woven Polypropylene Textile Reinforced Concrete (PP TRC) can be used as thin coverage layer in concrete structures to decrease significantly the water and sulphate penetration to a structure and eliminate build-up. Despite this fact, the use of PP TRC coverage as mechanical protective surface has never been clearly understood and tested. In this thesis, a double layer of Non-Woven PP TRC has been used and tested on concrete samples, which were subjected to the compressive and tensile tests. Using the experimental data, further mathematical calculation has been provided to support the main task of this report, which was mechanical protection of a load-bearing structure. The result of this investigation revealed that textile reinforced concrete increases the stiffness of composite structure in both tension and compression, although the main problem occurs in the bond between the TRC protective cover and the already existing concrete structure. This bond was described in details based on laboratory data with the help of stress-strain diagrams. It was found out that the bond should be modified in order to increase the performance of the composite actionNon-woven Polypropylene Textile Reinforced Concrete (PP TRC) can be used as thin coverage layer in concrete structures to decrease significantly the water and sulphate penetration to a structure and eliminate build-up. Despite this fact, the use of PP TRC coverage as mechanical protective surface has never been clearly understood and tested. In this thesis, a double layer of Non-Woven PP TRC has been used and tested on concrete samples, which were subjected to the compressive and tensile tests. Using the experimental data, further mathematical calculation has been provided to support the main task of this report, which was mechanical protection of a load-bearing structure. The result of this investigation revealed that textile reinforced concrete increases the stiffness of composite structure in both tension and compression, although the main problem occurs in the bond between the TRC protective cover and the already existing concrete structure. This bond was described in details based on laboratory data with the help of stress-strain diagrams. It was found out that the bond should be modified in order to increase the performance of the composite actio

The Symbols of Eternal Return and the Eternal Return of Symbols in Freidrich Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra

This work argues that Nietzsche employs the circle image to communicate his idea of eternal recurrence in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The recurrences of circular and diurnal symbols (cycles) represent the eternal return on both contextual and narrative levels, thereby creating within the narrative the ring of rings, the ring of recurrence, i.e., affirmation of affirmation, as implicit in the circular image of the will willing itself. Importantly, it demonstrates that diurnal symbols represent the eternal recurrence by returning to themselves in the text, while Zarathustra’s identity changes throughout the diurnal cycle: morning symbolises his rebirth; noon, his maturity; evening, his decline; and midnight, his death – thereby manifesting the literary hero’s affirmative, creative response to meaningless existence in accordance with the doctrine of life affirmation. Nietzsche’s work is revealed to harbour a hidden symbolic diurnal structure comprised of twelve chronological diurnal cycles representing his most abysmal thought. The underlying structure revealed by this reading demonstrates the eternal recurrence to be the unifying idea of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Conflicts in existing interpretations of the eternal return reflect their commentators’ failure to solve the problem of its communication in Nietzsche’s work due to their underestimation of the symbolic form of the doctrine. Employing the methods of analogy and association, this project undertakes to solve this problem by examining the relation between the circular and diurnal symbols and the eternal recurrence. Careful analysis reveals the three-dimensional character of the doctrine as the return of the moment inaugurating the moment and sequence of time: the return of same meaninglessness, meaningful differences, and same meaningfulness – through the roundness (moment, or same meaningfulness) and continuity (sequence, or meaningful differences) of circular symbols and the moment (moment, or same meaningfulness) and temporality (sequence, or meaningful differences) of diurnal symbols, employed to counter the same meaninglessness of daily existence. Thus, while the circular and diurnal symbols incorporate the idea of eternal recurrence, thereby emphasising its life-affirmative aspect, the eternal return calls for the creative recurrence of circular and diurnal symbols, with the symbols and the eternal return merged into one creative, affirmative whole

Elliptically polarized high-harmonic radiation for production of isolated attosecond pulses

Circularly polarized attosecond pulses are powerful tool to study chiral light-matter interaction via chiral electron dynamics. However, access to isolated circularly polarized attosecond pulses enabling straightforward interpretation of measurements, still remains a challenge. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the generation of highly elliptically polarized high-harmonics in a two-color, bi-circular, collinear laser field. The intensity and shape of the combined few-cycle driving radiation is optimized to produce a broadband continuum with enhanced spectral chirality in the range of 15-55 eV supporting the generation of isolated attosecond pulses with duration down to 150 as. We apply spectrally resolved polarimetry to determine the full Stokes vector of different spectral components of the continuum, yielding a homogenous helicity distribution with ellipticity in the range of 0.8-0.95 and a negligible unpolarized content

Russia: Political and Institutional Determinants of Economic Reforms

The purpose of this study is to analyze the course, determinants and political economy of economic reforms in Russia conducted in the period 1985-2003. The year 1985 can be considered an important turning point in Soviet/Russian history, marked as it was by the election of Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU) and (de facto) leader of the USSR. This nomination brought an end to two decades of political consolidation of the communist regime connected with the name of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and his short living successors (Yurii Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko), often referred to ex post as 'the stagnation period' (vremya zastoya). Gorbachev initiated a series of important political and (to a lesser extent) economic reforms, which led eventually to the collapse of the communist regime and the disintegration of the Soviet empire in 1991. Thus, 1991 must be seen as another dramatic turning point in Russia's contemporary history. From the end of 1991 onwards political and economic reforms have been carried out by the new Russian state that emerged after the disintegration of the USSR. This paper aims to explain the political and institutional determinants of economic reforms in the Russian Federation. It has been carried out under the Global Research Project on 'Understanding Reforms' organized and financed by the Global Development Network (GDN)1 as one of 30 country studies covering a broad set of developing and transition economies. It presents the project's intermediate results and will be the subject of further discussion as well as analytical and editorial work in the near future. The case of Russia is very important and interesting from the point of view of GRP 'Understanding Reforms' goals and agenda, for many reasons. First, all transitions from communist regimes and centrally-planned economies to democratic capitalism represent a much more complex, complicated and difficult reform experience than policy reforms observed in developing countries, especially when they relate to just one or a few specific policy areas. Thus, learning the transition experience, particularly in its early phase, can provide an extremely valuable empirical input to 'understanding reform' and provide answers to the project's key questions: 'why reform?', 'what reform?', and 'how well did the reform perform?'economic reforms, transition, Russia, reform sequencing, political reforms, institutional reforms, political economy.

Die soziologische Rezeption von Kants Anthropologie im 20. Jahrhundert: Probleme und Beispiele

The paper examines the mostly neglected social aspects of Kant’s anthropology, as a foreword to the discussion concerning the influence and the actuality of Kant’s anthropology from the modern perspective of social sciences, and sociology in par ticular. Its first part, containing a brief description of the structure of Kant’s pragmatic anthropology, analyzes its social elements, with an emphasis on the anthropological role of the concept of ‘unsocial sociability’. In the second part, I shed light on the main factors which so far have been a major impediment to a wider sociological reception of Kant’s ideas. In the third part, I address the question of Kant’s influence on the European and American sociology – on the examples of George H. Mead’s pragmatism, Hans Albert’ critical rationalism and philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner.The paper examines the mostly neglected social aspects of Kant’s anthropology, as a foreword to the discussion concerning the influence and the actuality of Kant’s anthropology from the modern perspective of social sciences, and sociology in par ticular. Its first part, containing a brief description of the structure of Kant’s pragmatic anthropology, analyzes its social elements, with an emphasis on the anthropological role of the concept of ‘unsocial sociability’. In the second part, I shed light on the main factors which so far have been a major impediment to a wider sociological reception of Kant’s ideas. In the third part, I address the question of Kant’s influence on the European and American sociology – on the examples of George H. Mead’s pragmatism, Hans Albert’ critical rationalism and philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner

Nietzsche: translation as perspectivism

The goal of this paper is to unfold Nietzsche’s conception of Übersetzung within the larger context of his notion of truth.Статья рассматривает концепцию Ницше Übersetzung в большем контексте его представления об истине. Ницше основывает свою теорию на метафорическом языке, и эстетический элемент перспективизма неотделим от его критики перевода