Inelastic Displacement Demand of Strength-Degraded Structures

This article presents findings from parametric studies involving nonlinear time-history analyses of inelastic systems with and without strength degradation. Results showed that estimates based on the equal-displacement and equal-energy propositions can be exceeded significantly by the inelastic displacement demands in the acceleration and velocity-sensitive regions of the response spectrum. The displacement demand behaviour is sensitive to the strength degradation and the frequency properties of the ground shaking. With a modest strength reduction factor of 2, the inelastic displacement demand would typically be constrained by the Peak Displacement Demand as indicated on the elastic displacement response spectrum for 5% damping.     

The Response of Isolated Bridges Accounting for Spatial Variability of Ground Motion

The effects of the spatial variability of ground motion (loss of coherence, wave passage, and local site conditions) on the response of isolated bridges are investigated.

Therefore, a statistical approach is adopted to represent uncertainties in both the bridge configuration and the ground motion variability. The response of isolated bridges, designed for a standard input motion, under a spatially varying ground motion, is evaluated by nonlinear time-history analyses; the system performance is measured by the displacement demand on isolators.

Results show that the phenomenon affects the structural response considerably; the demand increases for the majority of isolators, irrespective of bridge configuration.     

SEISMIC TORSIONAL EFFECTS ON DUCTILE STRUCTURAL WALL SYSTEMS

With a distinct design rather than analysis-oriented approach, some torsional phenomena, arising during the elasto-plastic seismic response of building structures, are addressed. It is postulated that existing code recommendations, expressed only in terms of the properties of elastic structures, are largely irrelevant when the design needs to be based on ductile system behaviour. Torsional restraint provided by elastic elements of a system, is claimed to be the desirable property controlling the amplification of inelastic translatory deformations of critical elements by storey twist. With the identification of the sources of inelastic element deformations, a simple behaviour-based design strategy is proposed. This should ensure that the displacement ductility demand, expected to be imposed on the system, does not result in deformations that, as a consequence of storey twist, may exceed the displacement ductility capacity of critical elements.     

Outsourcing local democracy? Evidence for and implications of the commercialisation of community engagement in Australian local government

ABSTRACT

Participatory governance practices are enjoying popularity, not least in local government. This is driven by legislation that requires councils to undertake some of these processes; also by communities and practitioners – parties that derive income from participatory governance. An industry is emerging: one characterised by demand and supply, with frameworks, strategies and processes, training and conferences. This industry warrants investigation so that its impacts upon local democracy can be understood. Following a theorisation of local democracy and community engagement, the paper describes the community engagement industry, presenting evidence about council activities, providers and professional associations to establish that the commercialisation of engagement is a significant phenomenon in Australian local government. Possible risks to local governance and local democracy are explored.     

Choices and Criteria for Seismic Strengthening

Risk assessment is affected by large uncertainties, depending on hazard, structure, damage, and loss analysis. Crucial problems and choices may refer to: (a) hazard parameters, including the definition of appropriate ground motion levels and of their probability to occur; (b) level of knowledge about materials, geometry, detailing; (c) assessed damage and failure modes; and (d) resulting potential for step changes in performances.

The cost of attaining a high level of knowledge may significantly reduce the remaining resources, it is therefore important to favor resilient solutions with a creative adoption of appropriate strengthening strategies.

In this framework, this article discusses the possible criteria for the mitigation of seismic risk and some of the alternative choices that may be adopted for strengthening, with reference to:

(a)?the modification of damage and collapse modes strengthening individual elements or locallyincreasing the deformation capacity;

(b)?the insertion of additional systems resisting to horizontal actions;

(c)?the introduction of base isolation, with the objective of capacity-protecting the existingstructure;

(d)?the reduction of displacement demand by added damping or introducing tuned masssystems.

Alternative strengthening choices lead to different protection levels and imply different performances that are, in general, represented by non linear or step functions of a cost parameter of the intervention. From these considerations, conceptual “structure driven” strengthening criteria, based on a logical use of resources, are discussed.     

From crisis to creative critique: the early twenty-first century Mediterranean crossing on stage and screen in works by Teatro delle Albe and Andrea Segre

The article analyses the 2010 play Rumore di Acque [Noise in the Waters] by the Teatro delle Albe and Andrea Segre’s 2014 docufilm Come il peso dell’acqua [Like the Weight of Water] as creative responses to the Mediterranean migrant crisis. In challenging the frozen representation and rhetoric of public reporting and discourse, characterized by recurring images of boats accompanied by the number of arriving or dead migrants, both works propose a critical reading of the migration phenomenon through a focus on individual stories. As the play and the docufilm themselves cross a sea of genres and expressive tools, they also place the migrant at the centre of an interrogation of national paradigms and Western societies. They ultimately call into question the exclusionary politics and policies of the contemporary world and identify in the empathy towards the human quest for freedom and recognition a lively engine of the early twenty-first-century global community, so profoundly marked by movement and displacement.     

New‐Build Gentrification and the Everyday Displacement of Polish Immigrant Tenants in Greenpoint,Brooklyn

In response to research that has downplayed or denied the reality of gentrification‐induced displacement, critical urban geographers have called for rethinking the concept of displacement. This article takes up that call by examining the impact of new‐build gentrification on the everyday place‐making abilities of Polish immigrant tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Based on nearly four years of work as a tenant organizer, this article looks at the forms of “everyday displacement”—the ongoing loss of the agency, freedom, and security to “make place”—experienced by immigrant tenants who struggle to remain in the neighborhood. Drawing upon Lefebvre's spatial triad and Blomley's work on the social relations of property, this article argues that everyday displacement is experienced through the production of new spaces of prohibition, appropriation, and insecurity that constitute a form of neighborhood erasure.     

OBTAINING PROBABILISTIC ESTIMATES OF DISPLACEMENT ON A LANDSLIDE DURING FUTURE EARTHQUAKES

The assessment of earthquake triggered landslide hazard may be undertaken using both deterministic and probabilistic techniques. Probabilistic methods have been developed because much of the data can be considered as random variables where parameters such as the angle of internal friction and moisture content do not have a single fixed value but may assume any number of values across a range. This random variability can be modelled by a probability density function (PDF) which describes the relative likeli-hood that a random variable will assume a particular value. Instead of using just the average or expected value of an input parameter, the complete range of possible values can be used to estimate a range of possible outcomes. Thus the probability of a slope being unstable can be obtained rather than a single indicator of stability. Such proba-bilistic analyses allow for the incorporation of the likely variability of each parameter and therefore allow a more intimate assessment of slope stability to be derived. Utilising empirical relationships for calculating earthquake ground motions and associated slope displacement, an investigation was undertaken to identify the contribution that modern simulation techniques could make to the assessment of earthquake-triggered landslides. To achieve this, geotechnical and earthquake data obtained from a deep-seated landslide triggered during the M _w 7.0 Loma Prieta earthquake was used. By incorporating the variability of the geotechnical parameters and the uncertainty in earthquake location the model derived the probabilities associated with increasing amounts of slope displacement during future probable earthquakes. Analysis was undertaken for four of the principal fault segments in the San Francisco Bay area. These estimates were then combined with the occurrence probabilities of the earthquakes to provide temporal estimates of dis-placement for a 30 year period. Results indicated that a M _w 7.0 earthquake located on the Peninsula Segment of the San Andreas fault was most hazardous with a 11% chance of minor slope displacement (≥0.10 m) and a 6% chance of moderate slope displacement (≥0.30 m) within the next 30 years.     

The doubling of the self in the private diaries of Ion Dragoumis,George Seferis and George Theotokas

Abstract

The 'doubling of the self' is a phenomenon that appears in entries of private diaries and consists in the division of the diarist's self into two: the self that acts and the self that observes and writes. This phenomenon can be found in Dragoumis' ?υλλα ημ?ρολογιου, Seferis' M?ρ?ζ and Theotokas' T?τραδια ημ?ρολογιου. There are entries where the doubling of the self occurs in practice and entries where it is described, discussed or analysed. All these reveal the three Greek diarists' contradictory feelings about the doubling of the self, but also the latter's significance for the private diary.     

Crowds,Fenianism and the Victorian Stage

This article examines two Irish rebellion-themed plays in context of the growth of Fenianism in the months preceding the Clerkenwell explosion in order to reveal the ways that popular theatre participated in a wider public discussion about what was seen as the modern phenomenon of the crowd. The melodramatic dramas Oonagh; or the Lovers of Lisnamona (Her Majesty's, 1866) and Achora Machree; or Gems of Ould Ireland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1867) were produced on the eve of one of the greatest Irish–English political crises of the nineteenth century when fears of Irish crowds, and the chaos, violence and contagion they were believed to bring, reached their peak. Both plays feature dangerously ambiguous crowds that alternately form portraits of bucolic sentimentality and forcefully express Irish dissent. This powerful ambiguity mirrors conflicting visions of crowds in this period. While dominant Victorian crowd theory characterized the crowd as a source of chaos that needed to be controlled, political movements such as Irish Republicanism used the organizational form of the crowd to create political and social change.     

Religious Cultural Hybridity in Chudosik (Ancestor Memorial Service/Ceremony) in Korean Protestantism

This article attempts to examine Chudosik in Korean Protestantism. The distinctive characteristics of Chudosik can be understood in terms of regarding religion as cultural practices. If so, Chudosik can be seen as a religious practice in everyday life of Korean Protestants. By conducting an ethnographic fieldwork in Seokkyo Korean Methodist church, I conceptualise five practical characteristics of Chudosik: indigenous, transformational, spiritual, pragmatic, and compounded. These characteristics show how the religious practices of Seokkyo congregation members keep both traditional socio‐cultural values and the features of Christian service in order to satisfy their demand, and how they transform their religious practices. In this sense, Chudosik represents the cultural hybridity of Korean Protestantism. It is also a spontaneous output of the Korean Protestants’ cultural habitus and the Korean context. Furthermore, in regard to Chudosik, it is also possible to say that Protestantism is re‐embodied onto Korean culture.     

Women's Work in Urban Bangladesh: Is there an Economic Rationale?

The general phenomenon that women in Bangladesh engage less frequently in market work than men is commonly explained as the lack of response of female labour to economic imperatives due to the overarching influence of purdah. However, this emphasis on a cultural rationale for gender-differentiated work behaviour diverts attention away from the deep-rooted economic inequalities at the societal level. This article examines women's work in urban Bangladesh from a female labour supply and demand perspective that is rooted in the socio-economic institutional context. The study finds that, despite the strong gender segregation of economic roles, women's roles are more flexible and lend themselves to changing household strategies more easily compared to men's. The evidence indicates that female labour market participation is largely the outcome of the supply effect shaped by the pattern of gender roles and gender-specific access to human capital. Consequently, women are relegated to low-skill market activities and have lower earnings than men, even without any overt discrimination in labour demand. The covert discrimination that leads women to pursue a different pattern of labour use than men is the fundamental gender bias of socio-economic institutions that govern household allocational decisions and dictate gender-specific behaviour.     

Anti-ism thinkers: The post-May Fourth schism in political thought

Abstract

This article is a continuation of “Advent of the Age of Isms,” which primarily discusses a period teeming with various “isms” (主義 zhuyi). During this time, there were in fact a number of figures who held overtly or covertly opposing attitudes, in both cases giving rise to a phenomenon of fragmentation and asystematicness. Whether consisting of negative responses to the new political theory of “isms,” this “remedy for all ills,” or of piecemeal, asystematic criticism, the phenomenon itself served as a foil to the colossal intellectual forces of the Age of “Ismization.” This article offers a preliminary discussion of this phenomenon.     

LÖSCHIAN COMPETITION VERSUS SPATIAL COLLUSION: PRICE AND WELFARE COMPARISONS*

ABSTRACT. Löschian duopoly under heterogeneous cost conditions is examined to show that it is not equivalent, contra past findings, to spatial collusion. Moreover, within the confines of the assumed demand and cost conditions spatial collusion is shown to be superior to Loschian competition in terms of both (aggregate) consumer surplus and producer surplus, which implies a possible welfare gain from collusion. A general, if not the general, prices-and-welfare comparison of alternative pricing schema including collusive, Löschian, and optimal pricing is summarily presented in a table.     

Variation in surface morphology of a Miocene hemicytherid ostracode

The development of the shell and patterns of reticulation in the middle Miocene ostracodes Hermanites glyphica and Quasibradleya are explored in relation to the development of macro-reticulation (primary) and micro-reticulation (secondary), and the effects of aggradation and degradation on surface morphology. Microreticulation is shown to be genetically controlled, not polymorphic or environmentally controlled, whereas aggradation and degradation are shown to vary continuously. Some relationships between ostracode morphology and intraspecific variation, environmentally-cued polymorphism and the phenomena of aggradation and degradation are discussed.     

Is Francesco Patrizi’s L’Amorosa Filosofia a heterodox reading of the Symposium?

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on L’Amorosa Filosofia, perhaps the most compelling response to Ficino’s De Amore produced in the sixteenth century, as it is centered on the notion of love as philautia, based upon a naturalistic and psychological interpretation. The learned lady Tarquinia Molza, the most important interlocutor of Francesco Patrizi, affirms that love, from its beginnings in the inner self to its end, when reaching the divine, cannot but be a phenomenon that engages the sense of touch, showing a naturalistic attitude toward the body and an interest in the mediation between matter and spirit. Contrary to popular notions of self-love as selfish and callous, an honest man must necessarily love himself first in order to love others. In The Praise of Folly, Erasmus also tackles the concept, making Folly praise Philautia as a fundamental means for happiness. More relevant to Patrizi’s work, in Mario Equicola’s De Natura de Amore, there is a long digression on the virtues of self-love.     

Reinterpreting Adire Cloth in Northern Nigeria

In the 1930s, the demand for adire cloth led to its subsequent production in northern Nigeria. Yoruba adire cloths were reinterpreted by Hausa adire makers who developed their own attractive, named patterns. When the Nigerian economy improved and industrially-printed cotton textiles became more accessible in the 1970s, Hausa women largely abandoned adire cloths for manufactured cotton prints. However, tourist demand for adire cloths and changing fashion tastes for newer adire styles have supported their continued creation, particularly in Kano. While political and economic circumstances have reduced adire production, these textiles continue to have sociocultural significance in twenty-first-century northern Nigeria.     

Simulation of Shake Table Tests on Out-of-Plane Masonry Buildings. Part (I): Displacement-based Approach Using Simple Failure Mechanisms

ABSTRACT

A displacement-based (DB) assessment procedure was used to predict the results of shake table testing of two unreinforced masonry buildings, one made of clay bricks and the other of stone masonry. The simple buildings were subject to an acceleration history, with the maximum acceleration incrementally increased until a collapse mechanism formed. Using the test data, the accuracy and limitations of a displacement-based procedure to predict the maximum building displacements are studied. In particular, the displacement demand was calculated using the displacement response spectrum corresponding to the actual shake table earthquake motion that caused wall collapse (or near collapse). This approach was found to give displacements in reasonable agreement with the wall’s displacement capacity.     

Theory and Akrasia in Aristotle's Ethics

Abstract

In book 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that vice, lack of self-restraint (akrasia), and brutishness are to be avoided. While the opposite of vice is virtue, the opposite of akrasia is self-restraint, and of brutishness a form of divinity. This article explores Aristotle's analysis of self-restraint and its lack, akrasia, focusing on the phenomenon of akrasia and its causes. Self-restraint is the experience of excessive and idiosyncratic desires that are nevertheless resisted. Like self-restraint, akrasia, or lack of self-restraint, involves the experience of excessive and idiosyncratic desires. However, those lacking in self-restraint give in to these desires; the unrestrained person knows the good but does the opposite nonetheless. Possible causes of akrasia are the overpowering of reason by desire among the young and the effeminacy of some women and womanly men. This article argues, however, that the most interesting cause of akrasia in Aristotle's account is theoretical thinking.     

Location Equilibrium for Cournot Oligopoly in Spatially Separated Markets

Consider a two-stage non-cooperative Cournot game with location choice involving n≥ 2 firms each with several facilities. There are m≥ 2 spatially separated markets constituting the vertices of a network. Each firm first selects the locations of their facilities and then selects the quantities to supply to the markets to maximize its profit. There exists a Nash equilibrium in the quantities offered by each firm at the markets. Furthermore, when the demand in each market is sufficiently large, each firm chooses to locate its facilities only at vertices. With linear demand in each market, there exists a Nash location equilibrium.