伊拉克哈希姆王朝的民主实践

目前国外学术界流行着一种观点,即伊拉克存在着威权主义的政治文化,历史上没有民主实践.伊拉克历史被叙述为威权主义的延续,其政治动员依赖中央权威的巩固与加强,国家机构是鼓动民众支持政府的工具.实际上持此观点的学者只是关注了1958年以来的伊拉克历史,忽视了1921-1958年伊拉克哈希姆王朝的历史事实.本文[1]认为,伊拉克哈希姆王朝的民主实践表现为政党政治的发展与议会生活的变迁.民主实践虽然随着哈希姆王朝的终结而失败,但在伊拉克历史上占有重要的地位.     

The Kirkuk Problem and Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution

This article will discuss the issue of Kirkuk and its development, going back to its historical roots and development. The Kurdish and non‐Kurdish arguments will be presented. Also, the issue will be analyzed in the light of the current situation in Iraq. Some solutions to the problem will be proposed, to help keep Iraq intact as a federal state.     

Raman analysis of ninth-century Iraqi stuccoes from Samarra

Six ninth-century stucco fragments from Samarra, Iraq, and now part of the Victoria and Albert Museum collections, were analysed non-destructively and in situ in the Museum by Raman microscopy in order to determine the identities of the pigments thereon. Carbon black, haematite, gypsum, indigo, lazurite, lead white, orpiment, pararealgar, red lead, vermilion and the As₄S₄ χ-phase were detected. The detection of several arsenic-containing pigments (orpiment, pararealgar and the As₄S₄ χ-phase), known to be poisonous and carcinogenic, has prompted strict health and safety protocols to be used when the objects are handled by museum staff or displayed in the galleries. This scientific study is the first to be carried out on any of the Samarra finds.     

Iraqi Kurdistan: challenges of autonomy in the wake of US withdrawal

In August 2010, the United States officially ended the combat mission of its military forces in Iraq and withdrew all but 50,000 of its troops from the country. Iraqi Kurds now contemplate the implications of the looming withdrawal of the remaining 50,000, scheduled for the end of 2011. While Arab–Kurdish relations in Iraq face the risk of serious deterioration, the US military withdrawal will probably not greatly affect the internal politics of Kurdistan. Given the de facto autonomy the region has enjoyed since 1991 and the Kurds’ resulting experience with self‐rule, Iraqi Kurdistan never suffered from the post‐2003 security and political vacuums plaguing the rest of the country. As a result, no more than a few hundred coalition troops were stationed in Iraqi Kurdistan (and no coalition casualties have occurred there since 2003), with governance and security remaining completely in the hands of the Kurdish authorities. While important centrifugal tendencies do exist in Iraqi Kurdistan and are discussed here, the region will most likely continue to deal with Baghdad and the rest of the outside world with the united voice it cultivated after 2003. US civilian personnel and advisers will also remain in Iraq after the military withdraws, which offers the possibility of assisting Iraqi Kurdistan to overcome obstacles in order to achieve better, more transparent governance. A continuing American diplomatic engagement in Iraq also offers the possibility of helping Kurdistan further institutionalize its autonomy vis‐à‐vis Baghdad and neighbouring states.     

The Use of Electric Models in Geography

The use of electrical models, such as conducting sheet analogues, in geography is based on the fact that a wide variety of problems, say, the flow of groundwater and an electrical current, are founded on the same set of differential equations. The technique of electrical analogues is found to be useful in the solution of a number of geographical problems that cannot always be handled effectively by electronic computers. For example, conducting sheet analogues can be used to obtain map transformations in which area is proportional to the magnitude of a particular mapped feature, for example, equidemic projections in which countries or continents are mapped on the scale of their population density. Other problems that may be suitable for analogue simulation include those involving population potential as well as those in which optimization calls for least cost or least effort.     

The After School Routines of Literature-Devoted Urban Children

This paper discusses the out of school routines of a group of ‘literature-devoted’ children of the city of Madrid (Spain). The children and families were recruited for the study at a library, a children's bookstore and a puppet show in a park. Participants provided information on their weekly routines through several procedures: surveys, photographs of their daily lives, interviews based on the photographs and interviews with parents. We develop a spatially based model that allows us to identify four styles of activity in children's out of school lives: homebound children, non-scheduled children, outdoor and scheduled children, and fully scheduled children. Our results suggest that there is significant diversity in the ways in which children's after-school time is organized, even within a middle-class and socially homogeneous sample as the one in this study. Also, the range of activities our participants engage in seems to contradict current portraits of Western urban children's lives as constrained.     

The Use of Poison In Tibet

ＴｈｅＵｓｅｏｆＰｏｉｓｏｎＩｎＴｉｂｅｔｂｙＷａｎｇＹｉｎｇａｎｄＬｉＢａｏｌｏｎｇＷｈｉｌｅａｃｔｓｏｆｐｏｉｓｏｎｉｎｇｈａｖｅｌｏｎｇｂｅｅｎａｐｒｏｂｌｅｍｗｏｒｌｄｗｉｄｅ,ｉｎｔｈｅｐｅｓｔ,ｔｈｅｃｒｉｍｉｎａｌａｃｔｗａｓｅｓｐｅｃ...     

The Use of Adobe in the Mormon Cultural Region

The distinctiveness of the Mormon culture region has been described by several authors. One of the items which contributes to this distinctiveness was the widespread use of adobe (sun-dried brick) in relic buildings in the region. The process of adobe making was diffused from Spanish settlements in the American Southwest, and highly modifed by the Mormon builders in the Great Basin. Adobe was initially used in almost all forms of construction because of limited timber for construction and fuel to kiln-dry bricks. Advent of the railroad prompted construction of lines to open coal mines providing a cheap fuel for brickmaking. With low-cost kiln-dried brick, adobe was rapidly replaced as a building material. Thousands of the original adobe structures still remain, however, and constitute an important element in the landscape of the region. Existing adobe structures are normally plastered over, but the distinctive architectural styles associated with the period when most were constructed make them easily recognizable.