THE EFFECTIVE DURATION OF EARTHQUAKE STRONG MOTION

The duration of strong ground shaking during earthquakes can play an important role in the response of foundation materials and structures, particularly when strength or stiffness degradation is encountered. A thorough seismic hazard assessment should therefore include an estimation of the expected duration of strong motion, which first requires criteria to define the part of an accelerogram considered to represent the duration of strong ground motion. Some 30 different definitions of strong motion duration are reviewed and classified into generic groups. Problems that arise with the use of these definitions for duration are highlighted. A new definition of duration is presented using a previously unexplored option which identifies the part of the record where the main energy is contained and constrains this strong shaking phase by absolute criteria. This new definition is shown to give consistently meaningful durations for strong earthquake accelerograms from an engineering viewpoint. The correlations between the new definition of duration and magnitude, soil conditions and distance are explored as a first step towards the development of predictive equations.     

路过柏林电影节

2月,第58届柏林电影节再次吸引全球目光。此时的柏林到底够不够性感？万众瞩目、活色生香,那是红地毯上的明星。现实中的柏林肯定够勇敢,不追星,只怕错过智慧。在这个城市,并不是只有明星到场的电影才会有人去看,更多的柏林人关注的是来自非洲、亚洲、北美洲的电影,人们把柏林电影节作为瞭望未知文化的好望角,去发现人生更多的可能性。而因电影节的吸引力而拜访柏林的外来客们,也因此而发现一个更为真实的柏林。     

晃悠在斯德哥尔摩的思考

<正>2009年我有机会去瑞典斯德哥尔摩大学访问,行前我看了不少有关瑞典的资料,然而,那里的一些实际见闻仍使我感到新奇,引起我的思考。物价昂贵房价便宜与国内物价相比,瑞典一般要贵5倍到10倍。买一瓶600毫升的水要18～19克朗(1元人民币大约换1.1克朗),在学校里买一个汉堡包要60克朗     

STRATEGIC THINKING OVER THE LONG CYCLE

The changing international environment for U.S. strategic policy formation is causing progressive uncertainty about the adequacy of threat assessment concepts and procedures. The concept of “strategic value,” which plays a central role in decisions to use and control military force, is defined and elaborated in terms of three key elements–territory, worth and access. This classification allows for a more coherent analysis of the nature of “strategic threat” in the changing international environment. It also provides a more realistic approach for making choices among available policy options and available means of implementing security policy.     

发现被遗忘的秘境

沿着一条艰险的公路,穿越怒江去往拉萨,超越这些奇特的经历和神奇的探险所造就的炫耀资本,一切就如同一个人去探索自己最隐秘的内心、去发现内心最狂野的渴望。最终,留下的是,有关勇气、意志、力量和智慧的一生启示。     

GUEST ESSAY: THINKING LIKE A GEOGRAPHER

Compared to the geographic wasteland south of your border, geography appears to have fared well in Canada, both as a formal discipline extending our understanding by illuminating the human and physical worlds, and as a subject taught at all levels to create informed and aware citizens. I known you think much remains to be done, and perhaps things always look a bit greener on the other side of the hill, but I hope you will not mind my somewhat envious gaze. In fact, when I received the five volumes of the 'curriculum guideline' for geography, issued by the Ontario Ministry of Education for the intermediate and senior divisions of your high schools (ome 1988), my feelings were not so much envy as panic, a panic that rapidly induced something close to intellectual paralysis. Because in a moment I can only describe now as utterly weak and foolish, I started to read them, only to learn that your senior students 'analyze, interpret … explain … design and develop networks, systems and simulations that involve six or more variables' (ome 1988, A12).
In retrospect, I still think my panic was justified. After 30 years of hard post-doctoral work I have reached the point where I can think about the interactions of maybe three variables, but hardly the combinatorial possibilities of six. Such ineptness would mean that I might just squeeze into your tenth grade and from there slowly work my way over the next two years towards those Olympian heights of analytical thought where dwell Ontario's high school graduates.     

4. NEOLIBERALISM THROUGH FOUCAULT'S EYES

Michael Foucault's 1979 lectures at the Collège de France on the birth of biopolitics are increasingly read as the most lucid introduction to neoliberal policies. This article invites us to be cautious about such claims by exploring one rather obvious point: these lectures also—and perhaps most important—reflect Foucault's very distinctive and contemporary preoccupations. In 1978, Foucault wrote and thought about three topics that were, in his view, crucial: the idea of “critique” and the influence of Kant; Foucault's project for an “analytical philosophy of politics”; and the crisis of disciplinary society, notably as it related to sexuality. This paper shows that these preoccupations had a profound impact on Foucault's interest in neoliberalism. As a result, the interpretation of the neoliberal revolution proposed in these brilliant lectures is, if not idiosyncratic, at the very least highly partial.     

HISTORICAL JUSTICE THROUGH REDRESS SCHEMES?

The Swedish redress scheme intended for victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care compensated only 46% of claimants who sought economic compensation for past harms. This article explores the reasons behind this comparatively low validation rate by investigating a) how the eligibility criteria of the Redress Act were evaluated by the Redress Board; and b) the justifications and underlying values used when applications were rejected with reference to the fact that reported abuse was not deemed to be sufficiently severe according to past standards. Victim capital, which determines how vulnerable or credible a victim is perceived to be by others, as well as competence and narration, are essential aspects for this type of legal proceeding. The article demonstrates that the claimants had to traverse a complicated web of criteria to be awarded compensation. The outcomes for claimants were affected by how the past was conceptualized in this legal setting, what competences the victims themselves possessed, what competence and resources the administrative system offered, and the extent to which the decision-making process fragmented victims’ narratives.     

穿越开罗千年老城

作为“世界之母”的开罗吸引着大批的外国人。19世纪和20世纪初,欧美各国的人把这里当作气候温和的冬季运动场。现在海湾地区的阿拉伯人为了远离沙特阿拉伯和科威特的炎热,每年夏天都到这里避暑。对于他们来说,开罗是阿拉伯的好莱坞和“大苹果城” (美国纽约市的绰号)。     

RESTRUCTURING LOCAL ECONOMIES THROUGH NEGOTIATED INVESTMENT STRATEGIES

This article examines an experimental process called the Negotiated Investment Strategy (NIS). The NIS, a method for coordinating federal, state, and local (public and private) expenditures at the community level, has been tested in three midwestern communities: St. Paul, Minnesota; Columbus, Ohio; and Gary, Indiana. The article describes the assumptions which underlie the concept, results of the three-city experiments, and speculates on the potential of the NIS for restructuring local economies. Particular attention is given to evaluating the SIS as a process intervention which could assist communities undergoing traumatic economic change.     

THE GEOGRAPHICAL THINKING OF N.I. VAVILOV

Much has been published recently about Academician N.I. Vavilov, a seminal scientist with broad horizons. This article is limited to his geographical contributions and interests. His early study of agriculture in Afghanistan revealed his keen powers of field observation and his deep geographic orientation. This work won him the Przheval'skiy Gold Medal of the Geographical Society. He organized a network of experimental stations across the broad and diverse expanses of the Soviet Union to test the geographical limits of crops. He carried out numerous studies of mountain agriculture in many parts of the globe, noting that the isolation and the patchwork of critical environmental conditions in mountains favored the divergence of species, forms, and types of the wild ancestors of cultivated plants. This led to his trail-blazing identification and field investigation of hearths (centers) of origin of cultivated plants, of their diffusion, of areas of ancient agriculture, and to formulation of principles of geographical variability. This work has been continued in recent years by others. Vavilov had close connections with geography, with several geographers, and with the Geographical Society of the USSR (translated by Andrew R. Bond).     

1. THE DEFINING CHARACTER OF CHINESE HISTORICAL THINKING1

Imbued with profound historical consciousness, the Chinese people are Homo historiens in every sense of the term. To be human in China, to a very large extent, is to be historical, which means to live up to the paradigmatic past. Therefore, historical thinking in traditional China is moral thinking. The Chinese historico‐moral thinking centers around the notion of Dao, a notion that connotes both Heavenly principle and human norm. In view of its practical orientation, Chinese historical thinking is, on the one hand, concrete thinking and, on the other, analogical thinking. Thinking concretely and analogically, the Chinese people are able to communicate with the past and to extrapolate meanings from history. In this way, historical experience in China becomes a library in which modern readers may engage in creative dialogues with the past.     

ALLEVIATING POVERTY THROUGH GARLIC PLANTATION IN TROCHU COUNTY

正Trochu (also known as Heishui)is a county situated in the middle of Sichuan Province's Ngapa Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, a place around 2,350meters above sea level. Three ethnicities have made their homes there, with 92 percent Tibetan and the rest being Qiang and Han. Dagu Glacier, the largest, youngest, and lowest glacier in the world, is a major     

ESTIMATING THE DURATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL ACTIVITY USING 14C DETERMINATIONS

Summary. One of the questions that archaeologists have always hoped to be able to answer using radiocarbon dating is: ‘How long did this activity last?'. It has for some time been accepted that this question cannot adequately be addressed by simply calibrating single radiocarbon determinations. Rather, it is necessary to find means for coherently relating such determinations to one another and to the archaeology from which they came. In addition, most archaeologists are aware that estimation of duration is likely to be greatly affected by the presence of any aberrant determinations (‘outliers') and that they should, therefore, be allowed for in the estimation procedure. In this paper we look at the issues which relate to solving problems of this type and highlight some difficulties associated with one currently available method for approaching them. By adopting a Bayesian approach to estimating duration, it is possible to provide an explicit and coherent framework within which such investigations can take place and whereby each specific problem can be considered in its own right. In archaeological terms, this paper has, we hope, clarified the problems involved in estimating the duration of a period of time represented by a series of unordered radiocarbon determinations, and in providing estimates of the calendar dates for its beginning and end. These estimates take in any archaeological evidence available, for example, termini ante/post quos (here the arrival of the Spanish in Peru forms a terminus ante quern), and may be repeated when new evidence becomes available. For the first time, we provide an objective method for identifying outliers in the data and documenting the effect of their removal. We have given an example for the Peruvian Chancay culture to demonstrate the potential of this approach.