Digitally Mediated Iconoclasm: the Islamic State and the war on cultural heritage

This paper puts forward the new analytical framework of ‘Digitally Mediated Iconoclasm’ (DMI) to analyse and interpret iconoclastic acts that are experienced through the propaganda (videos, social media, photographs, and other media) that the actor perpetrating the destruction makes available in global information networks for its consumption, duplication, and distribution. DMI captures three stages of the destruction (before, during and after the event) as both evidence of that destruction and as a perdurable digital archive. To demonstrate the relevance of DMI, we focus on an analysis of the videos and photographs depicting heritage destruction at pre-monotheistic sites targeted by the Islamic State (IS), such as Palmyra in Syria, the Mosul Cultural Museum, Nineveh and Nimrud in Iraq. The analysis focuses on the three stages that DMI comprises, showing the different photographic and audio-visual production techniques that the IS uses to enhance the tension that is built up leading to the destruction of cultural heritage while allocating material and human resources to produce digital propaganda. This analysis demonstrates how the analytical framework of DMI can be used to advance important work in heritage and media studies.     

Effect of stereotomy on the lower bound value of minimum thickness of semi-circular masonry arches

Constructing structural systems with the minimal required cross section of its members was a strong motivation for progress whole along the history of building. This article investigates the effect of stereotomy on the minimum thickness value of a semi-circular arch made of masonry: a material with negligible tensile strength. The arch is modeled with its center line to which the loading is assigned according to arch length. Here, instead of some scalar parameters such as the rupture angle and the location of the middle hinge on the intrados, the geometry of the stereotomy is associated with a continuous function. Stereotomy-related constraints are introduced to keep the results feasible from an engineering point of view, and it is also demonstrated that they are essential for a well-posed constrained optimization problem. The necessary condition for a non-vanishing lower bound of minimum thickness values is derived analytically considering the assumptions of limit state analysis, infinite friction, and a no-tension material model. The lower bound thickness to radius ratio (t/R) is found to be t/R = 0.0819. A numerical method is introduced to demonstrate the existence of a valid stereotomy at the lower bound. Multiple admissible stereotomy patterns are presented at various minimum thickness values (higher than the lower bound) to demonstrate that suitable stereotomy for a fixed (t/R) ratio is far not unique—in general even the location of the middle hinge and the rupture angle might vary.     

Palestine,Israel, Gaza,and the West Bank: the muddled mental maps of French and Israeli students

ABSTRACT

The Palestinian–Israeli Conflict is perceived by many – observers and parties to the conflict alike – as a struggle of two peoples over the same land. Yet, through this century-long conflict (and more so as Israel has expanded and deepened its occupation), what was once, perhaps, imagined as a single land has become an assortment of territories. These territories bear multiple names and different legal statuses, and their boundaries are often blurred. In light of the jumbled patchwork that Palestine–Israel has become, we examine the ways that the conflict’s territorial dimensions are imagined and represented. We study the mental maps of the region held by higher education students from Israel, both Jewish and Arab-Palestinian, as well as with university students from Montpellier, France. The representations indicate that while the French students were almost completely at a loss regarding the conflict’s spatial dimensions, the students from Israel were also confused, especially regarding the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We argue that these findings stem from a wider process of deterritorialization, linked to the conflicting relations between state and nation and intensified by a policy of chaotic spatial arrangements.     

Higher education institutions,economic growth and GDP per capita in European Union countries

This paper presents an estimation of the contribution of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to economic growth and the Gross Domestic Product per capita of the European (EU) countries over the period 2000–2015. For this purpose, we analyse the universities’ effects on the supply side of their national economies, especially the contribution of the R&D of HEIs to technological capital of the European (EU) countries. We proposed a methodology of counterfactual scenarios, which assume a hypothetical situation in which HEIs do not exist, to estimating the effects of HEIs, applying techniques of growth accounting. The results obtained indicate that these effects are a significant source of growth in European (EU) countries, contributing to mitigating the adverse effects of the periods of crisis. The estimates show that GDP per capita would currently be more than 11% higher than that corresponding to a scenario without HEIs. The results obtained also show significate differences in GDP per capita between European (EU) countries associated with the activity of HEIs.     

The spatial dimension of agency: the everyday urban practices of Filipina domestic workers in Amman,Jordan

This article examines the strategies that Filipina migrant domestic workers in Jordan have developed to create new opportunities within the restrictive Kafala migration system. Based on short-term live-in contracts, the Kafala system tends to confine migrant women to employers’ homes, thus restricting their access to urban amenities and limiting their interactions with co-ethnics. However, Filipina migrant domestic workers transform temporary migration into a longer-term experience by increasing their knowledge of the city and going from live-in workers to live-out or freelance workers. This article contributes to understandings of migrant women’s agency by considering the spatial construction of agency in urban spaces. I argue that space and agency are entwined. In order to highlight the spatial dimension of agency, I use the concept of ‘regime of visibility’ to show how migrant women make their agency visible to others by accessing public spaces. Connecting agency with regimes of visibility allows me to question the place and role of migrant women in urban public spaces. Especially, I analyze that tensions in public spaces are not merely a reaction to the presence of women, but are also intended to prevent the visibility of individual agency.     

A Critical Review of European and American Provisions for the Seismic Assessment of Existing Steel Moment-Resisting Frame Buildings

The publication of Part 3 of Eurocode 8 (EC8-3), dedicated to the seismic assessment of existing buildings, took place a decade ago. However, its application in engineering practice has been limited. Moreover, no studies have been conducted regarding the application of EC8-3 to steel structures. In this paper, a critical review and practical application of EC8-3 and ASCE41-13 are carried out. Issues related to the definition of the performance requirements, compliance criteria, and the consistency of the analysis procedures proposed by both standards are identified. Conceptual differences between both documents are highlighted, and several inconsistencies in EC8-3 are discussed.     

Book Reviews

James Valender, ed. Homenaje a María Zambrano: Estudios y correspondencia. México: El Colegio de México, 1998. 313 pp.

Linda M. Willem. Galdós's Segunda Manera: Rhetorical Strategies and Affective Response. Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 1998. 200 pp.

Patricia Francis Cholakian. Women and the Politics of Self-Representation in Seventeenth-Century France. University of Delaware Press, 2000. 219 pp.

Richard E. Goodkin. Birth Marks. The Tragedy of Primogeniture in Pierre Corneille, Thomas Corneille, and Jean Racine. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. xi + 281 pp. $57.50.     

A new Middle Jurassic Chinese fossil clarifies the systematic composition of the Heterophlebioptera (Odonata: Trigonoptera)

Juraheterophlebia sinica, a new species of damsel-dragonfly, is described from the Middle Jurassic of China. Its fore- and hind wings in connection to the body allows comparison of the type genera of the families Erichschmidtiidae and Juraheterophlebiidae, respectively based on a forewing and a hind wing. Juraheterophlebiidae is a junior synonym of the Erichschmidtiidae. The new fossil confirms the previous attributions of Erichschmidtia and Juraheterophlebia to the clade Heterophlebioptera.     

Pyramid building as an integrated process

In the first stage of pyramid building the core grows in proportion to the distance from fiducial marks in the court around the pyramid. The upward flow of stones is effectuated by rockers on cribs standing on large step‐structures on the terraces. In the second stage packing‐ and outer casing blocks are mounted sequentially by the same methods along steep gradients on symmetrical faces of the pyramid, starting and ending at opposite corners. Alignment is by sighting from the vertex over the edges and over the corners to the fiducial marks. The two stages, the method of raising the blocks, the geometry of alignment, the special ramps, the proposed sequence of mounting the casing blocks are based on archaeological evidence, and all can be incorporated in a coherent building sequence.