Chronology as a structural element in the old testament

In a situation when consensus is hard to reach both concerning agreement between the historical parts of OT with the real history and the process of establishing the biblical books, there is need to seriously consider if new methods and views can contribute towards a growth of knowledge and understanding in these respects. As argued in the paper the OT chronology can serve as a main structural element, considering the solution presented by Stenring of a unified dating within twelve biblical books. Examples are further given of concealed meaning behind the dates. Some conclusions concerning the text history are drawn.     

John Lewyn of Durham: A North Country Master Mason of the 14th Century

Abstract

This paper examines the structural evidence for the claims made on the behalf of the 14th-century master mason, John Lewyn. It suggests that comparison of artistic detail, has limited usefulness when attempting to identify his work. Buildings which, on a superficial level, bear little resemblance to one another, can nevertheless be shown to have significant mutuality of concept when studied in depth. Thus, a close examination of John Lewyn's known works and contemporary buildings suggests that Lewyn was the dominant influence in the northern region during the later 14th century, and that he retained control of planning to a fine level, whilst allowing his deputies varying degrees of independence in the execution of detail.     

A Fully Graphical Approach for Limit State Analysis of Existing Structures: Application to Plane Elastic-Plastic Bended Structures and to Plane Masonry Arches

ABSTRACT

When classical elastic analysis fails to model correctly the structural behavior of historical masonry structures because of the brittle, rigid, anisotropic, and inhomogeneous characteristics of their building material, equilibrium-based limit state analysis constitutes an efficient alternative for their structural assessment. The lack of knowledge about the history of loading makes the actual state of stresses impossible to determine for these statically indeterminate structures. However, Plastic Theory provides a powerful theoretical framework that defines in a rather simple way the structural safety level. The lower-bound theorem of plasticity can be applied using graphic statics because it ensures that equilibrium and yield conditions are respected when applying specific constraints to the nodes of the reciprocal diagrams.

This article focuses on limit stat analysis of statically indeterminate structures by means of geometrical considerations using graphic statics reciprocal diagrams. For linear-bended structures, we show that: (1) the conditions of stability can be defined graphically by constructing safety domains; (2) collapse modes can be identified and related to specific reciprocal polygons; and (3) the exact value of the collapse load factor can be deduced graphically from the diagrams. Finally, we extend these results to plane masonry arches in relation with the classical thrust line approach.     

Assessing Seismic Behavior of a Masonry Historic Building considering Soil-Foundation-Structure Interaction (Case Study of Arge-Tabriz)

ABSTRACT

Historic heritage buildings are a part of historic basis of each society and an economic resource. Therefore, preserving and maintenance of these buildings are cultural, economic and social demand. This research investigates the seismic performance of a historical building named Arg of Tabriz (Arge Alishah) that dates back to 14th century and is located at the city center of Tabriz (NW of Iran). Static, modal, and finally nonlinear dynamic (time history) analysis were performed by both “Considering Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI)” and “fixed base (ignoring SSI)” Cases.

It is found from the results that, SSI extremely affects mode shapes and their frequencies and depending on the frequency content of the records, can has an incremental or decremental effect on structural responses. As expected, the building of Arg could carry gravity loads easily and despite its stability against earthquake loading in fixed base case, showed a weakness (especially in eastern and western walls direction) and overturned when it was analyzed in SSI case because of yielding of the surrounding soil.     

Seismic vulnerability assessment methodology for slender masonry structures

ABSTRACT

Slender masonry structures such as towers, minarets, chimneys, and Pagoda temples can be characterized by their distinguished architectural characteristics, age of construction, and original function, but their comparable geometric and structural ratios yield to the definition of an autonomous structural type. These structures constitute a part of the architectural and cultural heritage. Their protection against earthquakes is of great importance. This concern arises from the strong damage or complete loss suffered by these structures during past earthquakes. Seismic vulnerability assessment is an issue of most importance at present time and is a concept widely used in works related to the protection of buildings. However, there is few research works carried out on developing the seismic vulnerability assessment tools for such structures.

This article presents a new method for assessing the seismic vulnerability of slender masonry structures based on vulnerability index evaluation method. The calculated vulnerability index can then be used to estimate structural damage after a specified intensity of a seismic event. Here, 12 parameters are defined to evaluate the vulnerability index for slender masonry structures. Implementation of this methodology is carried out in different types of slender masonry structures to develop vulnerability curves for these structure types.     

Middle power strategic choices and horizontal security cooperation: the 2009 Australia-South Korea security cooperation agreement

ABSTRACT

This article examines why Asia-Pacific middle powers cooperate with each other on security issues. The article challenges the assumption that middle powers are primarily influenced by great-power structural factors in their security relations with each other. It argues that the dominant structural explanations of security cooperation between secondary states—balancing against the rise of China, responding to burden-sharing pressure from the United States, or hedging during a period of great power transition—have not been sufficiently tested. Using the 2009 Australia-South Korea security cooperation agreement as a representative example of middle power security cooperation, it finds that inter-personal leadership preferences played a key intervening role in filtering existing structural incentives into actual policy cooperation. It shows how congruence in leadership preferences shapes when and with whom middle powers are likely to cooperate on security issues. The article opens up the research agenda on middle powers by examining how they approach security relations in bilateral and horizontal contexts with each other.     

Structural Assessment of Ancient Masonries before and during a Rehabilitation Process

ABSTRACT

The rehabilitation of old buildings requires detailed knowledge of the mechanical characteristics and stress state of the structural elements, which play an important role in the intervention process. In this sense, non-slightly destructive tests can estimate structural characteristics with good precision at relatively low costs. Consequently, this article presents a device, based on the flat jack technique, applied to continuous stress monitoring over time. It also focuses on the onsite determination of service stresses and its continuous monitoring in several masonry buttresses of a historic building, as well as the assessment of the structural safety before, during, and after an intervention process. A brief analysis of the research is performed, and the motivation and the methodology adopted are described. Finally, the evolution of the measurements recorded and the analysis of the results achieved are detailed. The study enabled recommendations to be made to the intervening agents that guarantee structural safety.     

Recognizing and undisciplining feminist geography in the Caribbean

Abstract

The aim of this piece is to provide an overview of the state of feminist geography in the Anglo-Caribbean. In doing so via the metaphor of a gayap, we provide a précis of work that has been completed by feminist geographers across the region; offer an analysis of the historical, structural, and institutional obstacles of why it is not more robust; and propose that it can be seen across the region via an undisciplined and anti-orthodox standpoint. In addition, we review how Caribbean feminist scholarship and praxis contributes to feminist geographies through analyses of how people in the region, particularly women, are contesting, negotiating, disrupting, and responding to prevailing heteropatriarchal ideologies across differing social contexts and political arrangements within the Caribbean.     

‘You said “home” but we don’t have a house’ – children’s lived rights and politics in an asylum centre in Sweden

ABSTRACT

This study explores children’s lived rights and articulated politics in the context of housing underpinned by their lived experiences in an asylum centre in Sweden. The findings reveal a discrepancy between the children’s articulated standpoints, where well-being is connected to having a home, and their lived experiences of lacking conditions for both house and home at the asylum centre. This discrepancy enables demonstration of the children’s articulated politics, as they criticize conditions, practices and relational aspects they experience as constraining their well-being at the asylum centre. Thereby, the children themselves identify the structural denial of their right to conditions for well-being and adequate housing. They also express what conditions for well-being should be accessible to them, which is interpreted here as their making rights claims when their formal rights are not fulfilled.     

Seismic Reliability of Code-Conforming Italian Buildings

ABSTRACT

This paper presents and discusses some research results related to the seismic failure risk of standard, residential and industrial, buildings designed for damage, and life-safety according to the Italian seismic code, which is somewhat similar to Eurocode 8. The five considered structural typologies are as follows: masonry, cast-in-place reinforced concrete, precast reinforced concrete, steel, and base-isolated buildings. The archetype structures have been designed according to standard practice at three sites, representative of the seismic hazard across the country. Seismic risk is defined here as the annual rate of earthquakes able to cause structural failure in terms of usability-preventing damage and global collapse. For each structure, the failure rates have been evaluated in the framework of performance-based earthquake engineering, that is, via integration of site’s probabilistic hazard and structural fragility. The former has been computed consistently with the official hazard model for Italy that is also used to define design actions in the code. The latter has been addressed via nonlinear dynamic analysis of three-dimensional numerical structural models. Results indicate that, generally, design procedures are such that seismic structural reliability tends to decrease with increasing seismic hazard of the building site, despite the homogeneous return period of exceedance of the design seismic ground-motion.     

INFLUENCE OF CAPACITY DESIGN METHOD ON THE SEISMIC RESPONSE OF R/C COLUMNS

Abstract

This paper aims at assessing the influence of the design procedure followed in designing the columns of a reinforced concrete (R/C) building on the performance of the columns, aa well as of the structure as a whole, when subjected to seismic loading; to identify potential weaknesses in currently adopted procedures; and to present a new procedure which is based on currently-available, powerful analytical tools, and results in increased reliability with regard to seismic loading. Two case studies are presented, involving multistorey reinforced concrete buildings with frame and dual structural systems subjected to various appropriately-scaled input accelerograms. The results obtained indicate that capacity design of columns results in adequate safety margins against failure, even when the adopted overstrength factors are quite low, but hinging in columns is not avoided unless very high overstrength factors are used. The suggested novel technique of capacity design led to very satisfactory seismic performance, and offers the possibility of cost reduction by achieving an appropriate balance between provided flexural strength and corresponding confinement.     

Seventeenth-century Carpentry in Essex

Abstract

It is here argued that there was a decline in the standards of carpentry in the early 17th century. From the six buildings discussed, there is evidence of confusion over the main structural framework and in the minor details. The increasing use of iron bolts and brackets is another feature of this decline.     

Seismic Vulnerability Assessment and Retrofitting Strategies of Italian Masonry Churches of the Alife-Caiazzo Diocese in Caserta

ABSTRACT

Masonry churches represent the major part of the Italian architectural heritage. Recent earthquakes stressed the high vulnerability of these constructions, provoking heavy structural damage and valuable losses. Different approaches have been developed to assess seismic vulnerability of churches. In particular, the complexity related to more detailed models has induced to define simplified methods, which can be used at territorial scale for a preliminary assessment of structural capabilities of homogeneous assets aiming at providing possible post-earthquake damage scenarios and suggesting general interventions strategies. Therefore, the vulnerability assessment of churches is carried out by subdividing the buildings into separate macro-elements, accounting for different possible collapse mechanisms. In this article, a simplified procedure (M.I.T. 2011) has been applied with reference to churches located in Caserta District, particularly those of the Alife-Caiazzo Diocese, by using the MaChro form compilation, previously developed by the authors. The aim of the study is the application of the above procedure in order to verify the possibility to suggest suitable strategies of intervention for structural retrofitting and seismic risk reduction of the churches located in the area under investigation.     

The Preacher Facing a Reluctant Audience According to the Testimony of Exempla

Abstract

In spite of the fact that from a theological point of view disobedience can sometimes be positive, in the preachers’ sermons to the people (ad populum), disobedience is always a strongly condemned sin. We focus on the sermones vulgares of Jacques de Vitry and on collections of exempla. In order to analyse the forms of reluctance and contestation to the norms proclaimed by the sermons, we evaluate the steps of this resistance ranging from lack of attention and disrespect to criticism and even hostility. Nevertheless, sometimes one must recognize that it is the preacher’s incompetence that leads to the failure of his pastoral care, for example when the preacher prepares unclear sermons (like Jacques de Vitry when he was a beginner) or is unable to tell a story or to make himself heard. It is even worse when the preacher conveys bad opinions. However, the biggest trouble comes when inattentive and disrespectful listeners are able to interrupt the preacher to contest any inconsistencies in the sermon or mistakes in the doctrine. When the sermon has no effect on the audience, it has clearly failed to get its message across. The preacher can also face competition from singers, jugglers and dancers who can distract the audience from the sermon.     

Natural flood management: small-scale progress and larger-scale challenges

ABSTRACT

Management of fluvial flood risk in the UK is undergoing a paradigm shift, with a change in emphasis from solely working with structural defences to considering catchment-based measures which attenuate flood runoff. Natural Flood Management (NFM) is promoted as a method that can reduce flood risk through the alteration, restoration or use of landscape features. Here we highlight the potential to manage runoff locally in the rural landscape using NFM by targeting flow pathways and utilising floodplains and riparian zones. Using two case study examples from the UK, we show that by accumulating dispersed small-scale storage in small catchment areas (<10 km²) can assist in attenuating flood runoff. However, there is currently a lack of evidence of measure effectiveness at larger catchment scales and for managing extreme flood events. Nevertheless, there is a strong evidence base to suggest many of these measures deliver a range of different ecosystem services if installed in the correct location in the landscape.     

Slag as evidence for early iron production in arctic Norway

Physical, structural and chemical analyses were made on slag remains obtained from three sites in Iron Age arctic Norway. Scanning electron microscopy and x‐ray microanalysis were employed to confirm that the slag can only be a result of iron production. Although a distinction between slag produced by smithing and smelting proved difficult, consideration of the processes and the resources available support the assumption that both were practiced at the sites. The results provide firm evidence of iron production in the region of Norway north of the 69th parallel, by at least the sixth century AD.     

The Book of Job – The Cyclical Progression of the Aporia

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relation between aesthetics and theology in the Book of Job. The overall aim of the article is to explain the relationship between centre and periphery (poetry and prose) and its significance for the theology of the book. The article claims that Job's problem is not the attainment of wisdom but how to reconcile wisdom with suffering—how to relate to suffering. And this theological theme is propagated through aesthetics—including stylistic, narrative, compositional and structural features.

It is impossible to point out a preferential reading in the Book of Job because of the fundamental and structural dissonance of the text. This destabilized, ambiguous, paradoxical, ironical and dissonance-producing text is the hermeneutical starting point. Qua dissonance-producing text this feature is used as foundation for the interpretative task. And to get a comprehensive grip on the book two instruments are used: the literary and compositional means are analyzed, and the structural elements are evaluated in their relation between frame and centre. Following this line of interpretation reveals that the stylistic differences of the work manifest crucial theological distinctions. In the book of Job, shape and aesthetics are meaning and theology.     

Effects of Near-Fault Pulses on Nonlinear Soil-Structure Systems

ABSTRACT

This paper is focused on effects of near-fault pulse characteristics on seismic performance of soil-structure systems considering foundation uplifting and soil yielding. To this end, an extensive parametric study is conducted. Mid-to-high-rise buildings of different aspect ratios (SR) resting on shallow mat foundations are investigated. Different vertical load-bearing safety factors (F_S) of foundation as well as different soil types (i.e. soft to very dense) are considered in this study. Finite element method is used for numerical modeling. The underlying soil is simply modeled with a set of nonlinear springs and dashpots beneath the foundation. Mathematical near-fault pulse models of fling step and forward directivity are used as input ground motions. The results show that reduction in structural drift demands due to nonlinear soil-structure interaction (SSI) is more considerable in the case of short-period pulses compared to long-period ones. In more precise words, significant reduction occurs when pulse-to-fixed-base period ratio falls within 0.7–1.5 in the case of directivity pulses and 0.5–1.4 in the case of fling pulses. It is also demonstrated that the beneficial effects of nonlinear SSI reduce when the number of stories increases.     

Secessions,interventions, and the case of Kosovo

Abstract

This paper examines the question of secession – what causes it, when it is justified, whether force can be used, and what can be done to make secession unnecessary. It goes on to explore the question of intervention in terms of precedents and the UN charter. In the case of Kosovo it attempts an ethical evaluation of Operation Allied Force, making use of the ‘just war’ criteria as a framework. Conclusions are drawn, on the whole favourable to NATO.