Sustainable design at transition rigid piled embankment with surcharged vertical drain over soft ground

the repair of undulating road involves enormous time and high cost for repetitive remedial works over the time. intolerable differential settlement is the main cause of the undulating roads. differential settlement frequently occurs at the intersection of different ground pressure, ground condition, ground treatment and foundation system such as surcharged prefabricated vertical drain (spvd) and rigid piled embankment which shall be arrested to overcome the undulating road problem. in this research, the intersection of spvd at transition of rigid piled embankment is introduced to regulate post construction differential settlement between the two conventional ground treatments. this dissertation presents analytical, numerical and field studies of a sustainable design for high and long filled embankment over soft clay at structure approach. generally, soil settlement is computed based on equivalent raft method and settlement equation proposed by terzaghi and boussinesq. prefabricated vertical drain is designed based on method proposed by janbu. whilst, numerical design was modelled in plaxis 2012 using soft soil creep (ssc) model with embedded pile row and improved vertical hydraulic permeability, kve. instrumented full scale field study was also performed to validate the performance of the proposed system where settlement gauges and settlement markers were installed to monitor the ground surface settlement. sustainability of the proposed ground treatment approach is quantified in terms of differential settlement, cost and time of construction in comparison to malaysia industry’s conventional ground treatments. the proposed intersection ground treatment reduces post construction total settlement by about 80% to 95% of the total settlement as compared to conventional transition piled embankment. meanwhile differential settlement is controlled within the limit of 1:500 throughout the filled embankment. the cost of construction and maintenance works is about 20% lower than conventional piled embankment. the construction time of the proposed system is about 20% to 30% faster than the conventional piled embankment systems. hence, the proposed system is a sustainable system in term of performance, cost and time of construction

DOES DARK COMPLEXION MATTER? A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SELECTED ONLINE ADVERTISEMENTS FROM WATSONS AND GUARDIAN IN 2017

Purpose of the study: This study attempt to analyze the frame of online advertisements from Watsons and Guardian. Both companies utilized a similar storyline in advertising its products during the Hari Raya period, however, an advertisement from Watsons had given rise to controversy and the racial issue has been raised. Methodology: This study employed quantitative content analysis and qualitative textual analysis to ensure a more reliable finding in research. Main Findings: The finding reveals that advertisement from Watsons often framed women in a negative light by 1) Defining beauty as being fair-skinned, 2) Interpreting women’s quality of relationship correlates with the fairness of their skin, 3) Framing and judging dark-skinned women as negative and unable to pursue their dream love life, and 4) providing skin whitening remedies to solve their problems. This contrasts with Guardian’s advertisement which was framed more neutral. Applications of this study: This study stressed the significance of business ethics and corporate responsibility. It is not uncommon when an advertiser exaggerates some characteristics of the advertisements in order to attract people’s attention. However, exaggerated advertisements might contain some misleading information that may influence the credibility and truthfulness of the then and future advertisements and hence could further affect the company negatively as consumers had lost confidence in the company. Novelty/Originality of this study: Most framing studies focused on types of frames, information/news sources, and slants of the frame, this study provides an in-depth analysis of the four framing functions suggested by Entman, which is less explored in the field.&nbsp

Field performance of transition rigid piled embankment with surcharged vertical drain over soft ground

Commonly, thick filling works over soft clay is aided with piled embankment at bridge approach to reduce differential settlement between the piled abutment and embankment over soft ground. However, long stretched thick filling works over soft ground requires substantial resources and time to construct rigid piled embankment. Generally for such long stretched and thick filling development over soft ground, other ground treatment such as prefabricated vertical drain (PVD) with surcharge is introduce to reduce the cost of construction. However, excessive total and differential settlement at the surcharged prefabricated vertical drain (SPVD) and rigid piled embankment intersection during post construction period may leads to rectification works over the time. This paper presents the field performance of an alternative design approach for long stretched thick filled embankment over soft clay at structure approach to control the differential settlement between the two conventional ground treatment approaches. With the introduction of the alternative ground treatment approach at the intersection of the two conventional ground treatment, post construction total settlement and differential settlement is reduced significantly