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Tropical alluvial soil has distinctive physical characteristics when compared to common sedimentary soils. Ignoring such distinctive characteristics might lead to geotechnical problems that require a thorough re-investigation. Foundation failures have been identified along some river banks of tropical alluvial soil deposits in Sarawak, Malaysia, which were speculated to be due to cyclic loading effects. This paper presents preliminary results on tropical alluvial soil engineering behaviors from simple shear cyclic loading tests. Specimens measuring 50 mm in diameter and 16 mm in height were obtained from three undisturbed samples. They were sheared using an Electro-Mechanical Dynamic Cyclic Simple Shear (EMDCSS) for thirty cycles at three different target displacements. The results showed hysteresis loops, where the shear stress decreases as the cycle increases. Excess pore water pressures develop during shearing, which correspond to the target displacement levels. The damping ratio increases as the shear strain increases but decreases as the cycle increases. The normalized shear modulus decreases as both the shear strain and loading cycle increase. A comparison with previous literature on cohesive soils shows that the tropical alluvial soil has a lower damping ratio and normalized shear modulus, which range from 3.3% to 9% and 0.0004 to 0.01, respectively. The findings indicate that the tropical alluvial soil has a potential reduction in strength when subjected to continuous cyclic loading. The paper provides a better understanding for academics and engineering professionals before conducting design or remedial work in the tropical alluvial soil environment. • Cyclic simple shear tests on tropical alluvial soil showed strength reduction. • Tropical alluvial soil has low normalized shear modulus and damping ratios. • Tropical alluvial soil has distinctive behavior than common sedimentary soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sarawak aspires to become a developed state in Malaysia by 2030. The Sarawak Digital Economy blueprint calls for the public sector to steer and facilitate a digital transformation to the industry, communities, and other stakeholders. Considering the infrastructures and technology that assent, it signifies the crucial need for the public sector to be equipped with the fitting skills and people strategies to effectively embark on this 2030 vision. Such skills condition needs to be addressed by relevant policy actors. Challenges to the condition pose in many layers (i.e., Litany, Systemic, Worldview, Metaphor). This paper seeks to explore the viewpoints of seven policy enablers on the barriers and pathways pertaining to the skills condition in the public sector for Sarawak 2030. Using Inayatullah's Causal Layered Analysis, the paper reveals the short-term vs long-term challenges and solutions to those conditions. Results suggest the urgent need for planning and a reconnection among public sector to improve the current skills condition. Findings are further discussed with a transformed future as a guiding description for Sarawak 2030. This paper contributes to understanding a condition within a context, towards conscious policymaking via futures study method. The study's scope and future directions are also discussed. • The current Sarawak skills condition in the public sector faces challenges that are interrelated with the public sector, private sector and industries, education and higher learning institutions, and communities in Sarawak. • The solutions to those barriers should start with diagnosing and including all groups by providing clarity to their functions in the Sarawak 2030 ecosystem. • Policy enablers envision the skills condition for Sarawak 2030 to reach beyond readiness and willingness of the public sector to reskill, upskill, retool, and include themselves with an appreciation for the journey. • This paper touches on opportunities vs outcomes in digital inequality, the delimitation of the State (of Sarawak) vs the centralised authority (of Malaysia), and the metaphorical shift from the survival of the fittest to the survival of the most malleable in enduring the 4IR era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport is a main concern for people living in rural and remote communities around the world, where the absence of affordable and reliable transport often prevents access to education, health services and employment opportunities. In Sarawak, a state of Malaysia on the island of Borneo, many rural villages experience acute transport poverty. For their basic transport needs, people here rely on informal transport systems based on local social and cultural networks, which provide essential mobility. We apply Polanyi's concept of social embeddedness to explore mobility in this region, people's efforts to develop regional models of entrepreneurship but also the relative marginalisation of remote communities in terms of development and infrastructure provision and the resulting friction between local people, the companies involved in regional resource extraction activities and local government. Based on data collected between 2015 and 2017, we frame informal transport in this region as a form of Indigenous entrepreneurship that can help local communities achieve wider social and economic inclusion. Our research points to a more social type of entrepreneurship and economic practice, in which social relationships and community responsibilities play an important role. Our qualitative approach, including ethnographic methods such as semi-structured interviews and participant observation, underpins the groundedness of our data in the every-day experiences of the people who took part in the research. • The paper investigates the role of informal transport in alleviating transport poverty. • Informal transport is framed as a form of socially embedded Indigenous entrepreneurship. • Social embeddedness of transport supports mobility and encourages grassroots development. • Persisting structural problems limit the effectiveness of grassroots transport strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews quantitative biostratigraphic data from 101 petroleum exploration wells from the Malay, Sarawak and Sabah basins, and places the stratigraphy of each area into a precise chronostratigraphic framework comprising 41 transgressive-regressive depositional packages which are fully defined here. Each package is 'fingerprinted' by foraminiferal, nannofossil and palynological index fossils, and then tied to the global pattern of glacio-eustatic sea level and climate changes based on the global δ18O and δ13C datasets used to calibrate the geological timescale. The result is a tightly constrained chronostratigraphic framework that is applicable from deep to shallow water and is of high accuracy. It is concluded that there is a sedimentation 'pulsebeat' across Southeast Asia, independent of local and regional tectonics, driven by patterns of global climate change. For the Oligocene and Miocene, Antarctic glaciation is the key driver, whereas the Pliocene cycles are mainly driven by the expansion and contraction of Northern Hemisphere glaciers. The new chronostratigraphic framework allows unconformities across Malaysia to be better characterised, and the different classification schemes of seismic "Groups" in Malay and Penyu basins, "Cycles" in offshore Sarawak and "Stages" in offshore western Sabah to be correlated. Also, with a clear understanding of the effect of fluctuating sea levels on the stratigraphy of the region, it is easier to make firm judgments regarding the effect of tectonics. The study also characterises systems tracts from shelf to basin floor using biostatigraphic assemblages, which should help in ground-truthing the architecture of depositional sequences in the region based on seismic. The new framework is proposed as an alternative to the outdated TB scheme of Haq et al. (1988) , widely used to interpret depositional cycles across Sarawak and Sabah. Image 1 • 101 Malaysian exploration wells were studied for Sequence Biostratigraphy. • 41 depositional cycles have been defined from the mid-Oligocene to Pliocene. • Ages are 'fingerprinted' using age-restricted foraminifera, nannofossils and pollen. • Cycles were driven by Antarctic, followed by Arctic ice volume changes. • The study identifies major issues with the 'Haq' and other sea level curves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need for empirical data that can be used to confirm or disconfirm literature that makes a case for functional linkages between cultural activity, inbound tourism and wider economic activity. This motivates a case-based investigation using Sarawak, a culturally rich state of Malaysia and which is currently trying to diversify and uplift its economy. Using interviews of tourism operators, artists and cultural brokers, visits to art venues and examination of documentary material, the paper identifies Sarawak's cultural and tourism policies, the ways they have been operationalized, and some of the concrete outcomes. The findings are interpreted by parsing Adorno's concepts of significance and function into their normative, representational and material dimensions. Tourism planners, it is found, have exoticized and marginalized local communities at the cost of developing a diversified economy. The policy dilemma extends to policy objects. How can artists relocated to urban areas be enabled to be productive on their own terms, and how can faraway communities lend support to their artists? Solutions might be sought, it is argued, using a participatory approach to cultural tourism planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]