A Minimum-Impact Method for Measuring Corrosion Rate of Steel-Hulled Shipwrecks in Seawater

Current research on USS Arizona is focused on a minimum-impact technique for calculating corrosion rate of the battleship's steel hull by analysing physical and chemical properties of marine encrustation covering the exposed hull. An equation is derived that allows concretion thickness, density, and total iron content to be used to calculate corrosion rate of steel hull plate.
© 2006 The Authors     

Entitlement through numbers: nationality and language categories in the first post‐Soviet census of Kazakhstan*

Abstract. The post‐independence censuses in virtually all post‐Soviet states have become contested tools of nation‐building and ethnic entitlements. No state was politically more determined and psychologically more anxious to conduct its population census than Kazakhstan, in which the eponymous Kazakhs did not constitute a majority. The article points at political and identity pressures that made it inevitable that the first post‐Soviet census produce the ‘right’ numbers and officialise the anticipated majority status of Kazakhs in the multiethnic state. By analysing the census data on language, it shows how the state has constructed a politically desirable form of linguistic reality by altering the established category ‘native language’ in the census. This not only offers a compelling rationale for ethnic and linguistic entitlements, but also seeks to demonstrate the ‘success’ of the state's language policy.     

The US Government’s Role in Deepwater Archaeology: The Deep Gulf Wrecks Project

The deepwater part of the Gulf of Mexico has shown a remarkable increase in oil and gas exploration, development, and production. In part, this is because of the development of new technologies reducing operational costs and risks, as well as the finding of reservoirs with high-production wells. With expanding development in deep water come increasing challenges in managing our nation’s Submerged Cultural Heritage on the Outer Continental Shelf and Slope. To fulfill obligations under Section 106 of the Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (36 CFR 800), managers need a clearer understanding of the size of debris fields expected around deepwater shipwrecks, as well as their state of preservation and future research potential—both cultural and biological. With this in mind, the Minerals Management Service, in partnership with the National Oceanographic Partnership Program and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Explorations, launched the Deep Gulf Wrecks Project.     

Historical Consensual Norms in the High Court

There is a substantial political-science literature that discusses the notion of consensual norms in the US Supreme Court. Most of this literature assumes that consensual norms exist, rather than proving their existence. Caldeira and Zorn ( American Journal of Political Science 42: 874-902, 1998) use the method of cointegration developed in econometric time-series analysis to prove the existence of a single consensual norm in the US Supreme Court. This study applies cointegration analysis to historical time-series data on dissenting and single judgments to examine whether there is a single consensual norm in the High Court of Australia. The study finds that a single consensual norm does not underlie decision making in the High Court. This result is explained on the basis that the institutions underpinning decision making and the approach to decision making are different between the Australian High Court and the US Supreme Court.     

Investigating archaeological site formation processes on the battleship USS Arizona using finite element analysis

Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) worked in a collaborative partnership with archaeologists from the National Park Service's (NPS) Submerged Resources Center (SRC) to develop a finite element model (FEM) of the battleship USS Arizona. An FEM is a computer-based engineering model that calculates theoretical stresses, propagation of force, and shape changes to a structure under loads using thousands or even millions of individual elements whose individual responses are well understood. NIST researchers created an FEM of an 80 ft. (25 m) midships section of the Arizona site to analyze archaeological site formation processes on the sunken battleship, in particular to determine the current condition of the wreck and predict its future strength and structural integrity as it continues to corrode. The NIST's FEM study is one aspect of a larger project under the direction of the NPS, the USS Arizona Preservation Project, whose goal is to determine the nature and rate of corrosion affecting USS Arizona, and to model its long-term structural deterioration. The FEM incorporates findings from other key components of the USS Arizona Preservation Project, such as steel hull corrosion rates, structural surveys of the vessel, sediment compaction studies, and analysis of the concretion that covers the ship's hull, into a single tool that is being used to predict how the wreck will degrade in the future.     

THE SOVIET METROPOLITAN HIERARCHY: REGIONALIZATION AND COMPARISON WITH THE UNITED STATES

The rapid growth of Soviet cities is converging toward a hierarchy similar to that of the United States. The numbers of aggregate populations of metropolitan centers by five size categories in the two countries are compared for growth and change from 1939 to 1976. Also, nine Soviet urban regions are identified, mapped, and correlated with comparable American groupings. Growth rates of Soviet metropolises are normalizing with less recent variation as compared to the 1939–59 period, a trend that parallels the one in the United States. Also, it appears that certain functions, such as administration and transportation, are stabilizing factors in urban growth. Governmental policies of investment in underdeveloped regions, balanced growth and diversification may be partially thwarted by five-year planning goals that have stimulated supragrowth in large cities of the South and East. However, it seems likely that increasing mobility, amenities and the expansion of consumer goods and services will produce a reversal of trends toward higher growth rates in the metropolitan centers of the West. Projections to the year 2000 suggest that Soviet metropolises will have a larger share of the national population and a more uniform growth pattern than those in the United States.     

Proceedings of the royal Scottish geographical society

Itinerant merchants have been an integral part of world trade since at least the time of the earliest Silk Route from China to the West. Today a group of traders from Nepal maintain this tradition. Today their travel is by economy jet and inexpensive train. The countries involved are primarily thos6 with historic ties to the mercenary Ghurka forces under the British. The traders are well organized and limited to a few‐families, primarily from the Pokhara Valley in Nepal. Their goods begin with products from Nepal and Tibet, but they also move goods gathered along their route. They represent a charming anomaly in the modern world, a touch of the old Asia.