Instruments of authority: Tycho Brahe’s technological illustrations

ABSTRACT

The astronomical instruments of Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, were crucial to his intended reform of astronomy in the sixteenth century. Tycho represented these devices in a series of images that were circulated in range of contexts, thereby disseminating information about his technology to a wider audience. Through an analysis of the iconographical content of these images and a consideration of the ways in which they were circulated, this article argues that images of technology were in fact crucial to Tycho’s attempts to establish his authority as an astronomer. Embodying his claims to accuracy and recruiting trust in his innovative instruments, the images reinforced the validity of his astronomy and thereby played a central role in sustaining his reputation as an astronomer.     

The Poetics of Pastiche in Eco's Postmodern Detective Novel

While the traditional boulevard novel of Eugène Sue wants to entertain and sell, Umberto Eco's boulevard novel wants to entertain and educate the contemporary reader in Italian history and in a form of modern semiotic theory. However, Eco's educational mission does not transform the low genre of the boulevard novel but remains bound by its limitations of “rhetoric and ideology.” Eco's reader is left with a representation of history as pastiche and a populist misconception about the potential of semiotics to relativise the perception of reality. Both history and semiotics are ultimately used by Eco not as heuristic devices but as instruments of seduction directed at a modern middle-class reading public with intellectual aspirations.     

Elefanten im Mond,Der prekäre Status des wissenschaftlichen Instruments

The article focuses on a 17th century satire by Samuel Butler, which depicts scientists investigating the moon with a telescope and making fraudulent reports of the phenomena seen. This text is part of the Restauration discussion about the right uses of instruments and the right habits of knowledge production. I show that Butler and other critics of experimental science relied on a concept of evidence that was opposed to the practice already being followed by the Royal Society. Contrary to the belief of their denouncers, artificial devices like the telescope, the microscope and the barometer allowed scientists to constitute phenomena which could not be falsified by an appeal to everyday experience.     

Dendrochronological analysis of bowed and plucked instruments from the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory,Naples

The Museo Storico Musicale of the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory of Music in Naples owns a collection of over 200 musical instruments of considerable historical importance. Within the collection, 30 bowed and plucked instruments representative of the Neapolitan violin-making tradition were analysed dendrochronologically to date them, estimate the provenance of the wood and investigate the instruments’ construction characteristics. The values of the statistical cross-dating tests were generally high and allowed 26 instruments to be dated. In all but one case, the dates were consistent with those of the catalogue. From the perspective of wood selection, we noted an unusual use of very old spruce wood, well beyond simple seasoning. The construction technique of the soundboard and other characteristics show good similarities with instruments analysed in other Italian collections. Thus, even in Neapolitan instruments, the growth rings are smaller in small instruments and larger in cellos or double basses. In conclusion, the Neapolitan violin-making school has shown great care in the choice of wood, most coming from regions as far away as Germany or Switzerland, thus confirming the existence of an active large-scale trade in wood for the production of musical instruments.     

汉画中的纯器乐演奏图

本文针对汉画像石中罕见的纯器乐演奏形象,利用图像学的方法,并借鉴相关学科的研究方法与成果,对图中有关乐器的属性、放置与演奏方法、特殊乐器的来历等,进行了较为细致地综合考证,提出了一些新的看法。     

The European Policy on Water Use at the Urban Level in the Context of the Water Framework Directive. Effectiveness,Appropriateness and Efficiency

The current European policy on water resources use in cities is undergoing radical reform in an attempt to confront the water quality problems and the dramatically intensified water scarcity. Among the most elaborate documents concerning current water policy is the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which spells out the targets of water policy at the European level. The confrontation of water scarcity, deterioration in quality, and the reduction in costs of the water supply industry emerge as decisive principles of the new European policy on water use in cities. These targets are currently assimilated in the agendas of national water policies in almost all European countries. To achieve these objectives several policy instruments have been applied in Europe. The more prevailing instruments are: demand management, privatization of water companies and efficient/full cost pricing of water use. The present article aims at systematically evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the current water policy for urban systems, by examining the coherence of its instruments as well as their appropriateness for achieving the policy's targets. To start with, the paper presents an elementary economic analysis of the current water policy. The effects of the most common policy instruments are systematically traced in the framework of economic analysis. Next, three indicative case cities are presented and examined. As it turns out, however, the results of the implementation of the main instruments are contradictory. This drastically reduces the effectiveness of the water policy. We indicate that these contradictory effects are inherent in the water policy and originate in the lack of appropriate social processes and institutions for the management of natural resources.     

Strengths and weaknesses of accessibility instruments in planning practice: technological rules based on experiential workshops

Accessibility instruments can play a valuable role in urban planning practice by providing a practical framework for exploring and testing relationships between land use and transport infrastructure. Despite many available accessibility instruments, they are still not widely used in planning practice. This paper explores the background of this problem by examining the findings of a EU-funded study on the usability and usefulness of existing accessibility instruments. The study applied 16 instruments in local planning contexts according to a standardized process protocol. The outcomes of these so-called experiential workshops were analysed through a standardized measurement protocol, which included participant observation along with pre- and post-workshop practitioner questionnaires. This broad investigation presents a rich analytical tool for understanding how different types of accessibility measures, spatial resolutions of output and levels of comprehensiveness affect usability and usefulness. Based on this we propose 10 technological rules that (a) can be used directly in practice to improve usability of accessibility instruments and (b) can provide hypotheses to be examined in further academic studies. Our results suggest that instead of striving for the ultimate accessibility measure, it would be more effective to identify which measures could successfully serve different user needs in accessibility planning.     

A dendrochronological investigation of stringed instruments from the collection of the Cherubini Conservatory in Florence,Italy

A total of forty-nine stringed instruments of the Conservatory Cherubini collection, at the Musical Instruments Department of the Accademia Gallery in Florence, were submitted to a dendrochronological investigation in order to date them, check the validity of their attribution and to find out more about their construction characteristics. Thirty-seven instruments were successfully dated, thereby determining the terminus post quem date of manufacture. The correlation values of the statistical cross-dating tests were generally very high. The dendrochronological analyses determined which instruments had been made from wood of the same provenance and, in some cases, from the same tree trunk. The mean chronology built from the musical instrument series, named “Accademia Master Chronology”, is 558 years long and dates from 1396 to 1953AD. The interval between the youngest ring dated dendrochronologically and the given date of manufacture increased constantly in the course of the centuries, from a mean value of just over eleven years for instruments built in the eighteenth century, to nearly 74 years in the twentieth century, when the use of old wood from other artefacts became more frequent. Furthermore, in the Cherubini Collection, the average tree rings on violins are smaller than those of other stringed instruments; in fact, they increase in proportion to instrument size and are widest in cello and double bass.     

Environmental policy instruments and their effects on innovation

The influence of environmental policy on innovative behaviour of companies has so far received little attention in scientific discourse. Based on recent literature, the paper analyzes the impact of requirements, levies, permits, liability laws, and the EC‐eco‐audit regulation with respect to the generation of environmentally benign innovations. Most theoretical studies come to the conclusion that direct requirements provide little incentives for dynamic effects and that emission taxes and permits are better instruments to promote innovations. However, the empirical studies show that the dynamic effects of environmental policy instruments in practice partly differ from the ideal instruments analyzed in theoretical studies.     

千手观音造像修复试验区法器的造型研究

法器作为千手观音形象的重要组成部分,有着相对固定的题材和形象,法器的造型研究对千手观音造像的修复有着重要的意义.本文概述了千手观音造像的基本形式,以及千手、千眼与法器之间的配置关系,并着重梳理了千手观音造像中法器的造型特征和形象渊源,以2013年修复试验区中的4件法器为案例,对其进行造型特点、着色工艺等方面的分析与研究.     

Toward a Comparative Measure of Climate Policy Output

Comparative policy studies face a number of methodological challenges where conceptualization of the object of comparison—policy output—is the most fundamental. On the basis of three common approaches of the study of policy output, we reconsider this widely applied concept and propose a refined measure as a function of both density (number of policy instruments) and intensity (content of policy instruments). We theoretically derive six policy‐intensity measures (objectives, scope, integration, budget, implementation, and monitoring), which are used for weighting national policy instruments on an Index of Climate Policy Activity. The article presents an empirical application of this measurement approach. Focusing on national climate policy instruments in the energy production sector in Austria, Germany, and the United Kingdom, we investigate changes in the countries' policy portfolios from 1998 to 2010. The article demonstrates that our Index of Climate Policy Activity provides a reliable and valid measurement for national policy output that can be applied for comparative analyses of policy output.     

An empirical examination of shift-share instruments

Bartik's (1991, 1993) approach to identifying shocks in demand to regional economies has been used extensively for nearly 30 years. We chronicle the development of Bartik-type shift-share instruments and examine the empirical performance of alternative versions that use different combinations of national shift and local share variables in their construction. We offer three main findings. First, instruments constructed from shares that omit employment in nontraded sectors empirically dominate versions that include total employment. Second, industrial sectors with high average shares and low variation across areas are more likely to be nontraded and endogenous. This suggests placing large weights on nontraded sector shares worsens both relevance and potential endogeneity. Finally, we demonstrate national shifters other than employment, such as prices and wages, can be used to construct instruments with unique and relevant explanatory power.     

Relative Income and Female Autonomy

This study attempts to explore how relative income contributes to the autonomy of women at both personal and household levels. The potential problem of endogeneity, or reverse causality, in examining the link between female autonomy and relative income is addressed using the Instrumental Variable (IV) estimation approach. The years of education of a woman and her husband are used as instruments for the woman's relative income. Along with the use of exogenous variables as instruments, the heteroskedasticity present in the data is also exploited to form instruments for the relative income of women. The results of this study suggest that relative income unambiguously improves autonomy of women in household decision making but its beneficial effect on autonomy in personal decision making was not found to hold true in all the model specifications (with alternative identification schemes) as employed in this study.     

The technological versus methodological revolution of portable XRF in archaeology

Portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) instruments have gained considerable attention within the archaeological community. Few other recent instrumental developments have generated such debate. Much of this debate, which is dominated by scepticism over analytical performance, has occurred in informal settings. Rather than judge the use of pXRF based on unpublished work and conference banter, we conducted an extensive literature review of peer-reviewed research that used this technology. Our focus is developing an understanding of how, where, and why pXRF is being used in archaeology. What interests us most are research designs into which only pXRF could be integrated and the new research approaches these instruments may facilitate. Trends that emerged from the literature are surprising. For example, only 43% of the archaeological “pXRF” papers actually involve handheld instruments. In addition, more than four-fifths of handheld pXRF in archaeology is apparently conducted in laboratory contexts. Only 3% has been conducted in a fieldhouse or on-site laboratory, and 15% at an excavation, on a survey, or inside a historic structure. Here we argue that, while the technical capability to analyse archaeological materials using portable instruments may exist, it is not necessarily true the methodological and theoretical frameworks are in place to allow such activities to be archaeologically successful and significant. Because handheld pXRF is uniquely suited to in situ analysis, we expect the first changes in methodological and theoretical approaches will involve space, context, and related frameworks.     

Un classement multicritère des villes du québec pour favoriser la prise en compte de leurs différences

When it comes to making planning and development decisions, the concepts of small, medium-sized, or large cities are sometimes used to adapt public policies and instruments, or even to highlight challenges that are specific to certain categories of city. In this article, we take a look at the various dimensions that can be used to characterize cities, so as to empirically test a multi-criteria approach and build a typology of Quebec cities. Using an ascending hierarchical classification, we derive 11 classes of cities, whose conceptualization and graphic representation enable us to highlight their role and, in part, to localize their polarized area. This article complements and adds to works undertaken by other researchers over the last 20 years. Although it does not aim to propose specific changes to public policies and instruments, this article may serve to inform public decision makers in the development of such policies and instruments, and to enrich academic debates on the nature of small and medium-sized towns in particular.     

Upper Paleolithic “Sounding Artifacts” from Mesin,Ukraine: Modification Marks

Upper Paleolithic musical instruments and the criteria whereby they may be distinguished have not received enough attention in Russian archaeology. A considerable number of presumed musical instruments have been found in Eurasia. The examination of such artifacts from Mesin has revealed modifications by humans that clearly indicate musical function. In terms of modern classification, they might be untuned percussion instruments of both resonator and nonresonator types.     

Innovative strategies of political regionalization: the case of North Rhine‐Westphalia

This article deals with two innovative public policy instruments instituted in North Rhine‐Westphalia (Germany) over the last two decades: the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park and the regionalization of structural policies. Both instruments are characterized by the introduction of a greater flexibility, decentralization and new forms of organization as well as the integration of sectoral policies within the public sector. Paradoxically, these regionalized public policies have not been bottom‐up but rather top‐down. Their institution reflects the state's determination to show its ability to effect change despite the fact that overall structural changes in the economic and the political subsystems have severely curtailed public sector powers. The state demonstrates that aptitude by initiating diverse and case‐specific forms of restructuring the political apparatus. The article looks into the specific features of both policy instruments and tries to position the empirical evidence within the current debate on the shift in importance between various planning levels in Europe.     

中国古代青铜器淬火的初步研究

本文对我国古代青铜器淬火的情况进行了整理和研究,发现青铜淬火主要应用于锋刃器、容器、响器,且均为高锡青铜;各器采用的淬火等制作工艺和其合金配比及所需性能相关。淬火最主要的作用是改善高锡青铜的机械性能,即增加塑性和强度,降低硬度和脆性,一方面有利于后序的加工处理,另一方面使器物更富使用性能。另外,高锡的配比结合热锻、淬火和冷加工处理,使容器和响器具有明亮的类黄金的色彩和独特的音乐性质。     

Disciplining technology: Electronic reliability,Cold‐War military culture and the topside ionogram

Abstract

This essay explores the relationship between cold‐war military electronics and the material culture of space science. Focusing on the world's first ionospheric research satellite, designed and built by the Canadian Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment at the height of the Cold War, it seeks to situate the practices and beliefs that underwrote the reliability of this instrument within more profound changes in electronics and electrical engineering during the 1950s. Rather than invoke a monolithic culture of reliability to explain the work of satellite technicians and engineers, this investigation identifies instead two principle approaches to the question of reliability in cold‐war electronics, their origin in the shortcomings of industrial electronics after the Second World War, as well as the place of the satellite project within them. By concentrating our attention on the conceptual and technical dimensions of electronic reliability, radier than on more traditional aspects of solid‐state research and industrial innovation, we can understand how technicians and engineers, developing weapons systems and scientific instruments alike, struggled to understand and use operationally and cognitively unstable electronic devices, and what these struggles suggest about the complex material and social legacy of the Cold War.     

pXRF: a study of inter-instrument performance

Integrating portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) instrumentation into archaeological investigations has generated as much interest as skepticism because several characteristics of the technique limit analytical accuracy and precision. This paper seeks to explore inter-instrument performance in order to assess the potential pXRF instrumentation has in examining the elemental composition of lithic raw materials. Two pXRF instruments, Delta and Omega models both manufactured by Olympus Innov-X Systems, were utilized to obtain the trace element signatures of five fine-grained volcanic sources and four obsidian sources in the Great Basin. We compared the two portable instruments to a wavelength-dispersive instrument extensively calibrated with geologic standards and to a commercial benchtop energy-dispersive system. Our results suggest that the relationships between the data produced by these different instruments are complex, and as we look to the future of pXRF use in archaeological analysis we argue that that the same strict protocols applied in laboratory-based XRF analyses, involving instrument calibration, evaluation of inter-instrument performance, and comparison to accepted geologic standards, need to be applied in pXRF analysis.