The Baseline Stiffness Method for Damage Detection in Buildings Without Baseline Modal Parameters

A new method called the Baseline Stiffness Method (BSM), used to locate and quantify damage in buildings without baseline modal parameters (undamaged state), is presented. In order to determine this reference state, the BSM uses modal parameters from the damaged state of the building and the lateral stiffness matrix of the first story without damage. Afterwards, by means of an iterative process using singular value decomposition, location and severity of damage are obtained by comparing information about the damaged and non damaged states. Numerical and experimental examples are presented and discussed showing the advantages of the application of the proposed BSM.     

Buzz,Archipelago Economies and the Future of Intermediate and Peripheral Areas in a Spiky World

In a world where large urban agglomerations are increasingly regarded by scholars and policy-makers alike as the engines of economic development, the options at the disposal of intermediate and peripheral areas are dwindling. Doing nothing is, according to the dominating theories, likely to result in a steady decline which may jeopardize their very economic viability. Adopting active measures is thus the way forward. In this paper, we argue that the main solution being proposed—interactive learning through the promotion of local agglomeration (buzz option)—may yield limited results, if at all, as it would stifle the circulation of new knowledge and lead to lock-in. By contrast, promoting interaction outside the comfort zone of geographical, cognitive, social and institutional proximity (pipeline option) is more likely to succeed in generating interactive learning and in facilitating the generation, diffusion and absorption of innovation. We illustrate this point by resorting to the case of firm innovation in Norwegian city regions.     

Overcoming ‘Simply Being’: Straight Sex,Masculinity and Physical Culture in Modern Egypt

This article considers the specific deployment of gender and sexuality in interwar Egypt against the general backdrop of a universalising colonial modernity, which since around the middle of the nineteenth century aimed at producing a repeatable subject everywhere. It examines the magazine Physical Culture as an artefact of that colonial modernity and as a watermark of an ineffable style of performing gender and sexuality – a culmination of nearly five decades of historicising Egypt and of exercising Egyptians. That the cultivation of healthy and desirable bodies was constrained by Egypt's asymmetrical location in a global economic and political order constituted by colonialism was a well‐established fact of social life by the end of the 1920s; consequently, the problem of the modern subject in Egypt was posed in terms that were not exclusively nationalist and examined in terms that were keenly attuned to circulations of global cultural forms and discursive practices. In the resulting process of subject formation, a gendered and sexualised other was also produced, as a de‐formation, wherein the terms of its prior being would no longer be intelligible.     

Consilience of genetics and archaeobotany in the entangled history of rice

Major leaps forward in understanding rice both in genetics and archaeology have taken place in the past decade or so—with the publication of full draft genomes for indica and japonica rice, on the one hand, and with the spread of systematic flotation and increased recovery of archaeological spikelet bases and other rice remains on early sites in China, India and Southeast Asia. This paper will sketch a framework that coherently integrates the evidence from these burgeoning fields. This framework implies a reticulate framework in the phylogeny of early cultivated rice, with multiple starts of cultivation (two is perhaps not enough) but with the key consolidations of adaptations that must have been spread through hybridisation and therefore long-distance cultural contacts. Archaeobotanical evidence allows us to document the gradual evolutionary process of domestication through rice spikelet bases and grain size change. Separate trends in grain size change can be identified in India and China. The earliest centre of rice domestication was in the Yangtze basin of China, but a largely separate trajectory into rice cultivation can be traced in the Ganges plains of India. Intriguingly, contact-induced hybridisation is indicated for the early development of indica in northern India, ca. 2000 BC. An updated synthesis of the interwoven patterns of the spread of various rice varieties throughout Asia and to Madagascar can be suggested in which rice reached most of its historical range of important cultivation by the Iron Age.     

“Committed as Near Neighbors”: The Halifax Explosion and Border-Crossing People and Ideas

Popular accounts of the Halifax Explosion of 1917 have placed it in a resolutely nationalist context. But starting from the international ownerships and destinations of the ships that sparked it, the explosion was a transnational event. This article explores how people, money, and ideas crossed and recrossed the border. First, in-kind and monetary relief flowed quickly from the United States, Britain, and Newfoundland. Second, Halifax became a destination for a growing international community of experts in disaster response, as relief experts from New York, Boston, Winnipeg, and elsewhere in North America converged on the city. Finally, survivors used their transnational community of friends and relatives to build political power over the relief process. Migrants living in “the Boston States” created a transnational polity that pressured relief authorities to give more money to their kin still in Halifax. These transnational communities—of international experts and migrant families—helped create a Canada–US relationship from the bottom.     

Dendrochronology reveals the construction history of an early 19th century farm settlement,southwestern Virginia,USA

The McDonald Farm (also called the Anderson-Doosing Farm) in Catawba Valley, Virginia dates to 1789 and is registered with the National Register of Historic Places maintained by the National Park Service. According to written accounts, oral histories, and architectural analyses, the construction of four structures (a collapsed cabin, a standing cabin, a barn, and a smokehouse) at the farm likely occurred in the early to mid-19th century. To verify and refine the construction dates of the four structures, we absolutely dated the tree rings in logs used in their construction by comparing their ring patterns with a composite reference tree-ring chronology created from four regional locations. We used established graphical and statistical techniques used in dendrochronology to ensure that all tree rings were dated absolutely with 99.99% certainty. We found cutting dates for the collapsed cabin ranged from 1809 to 1810, making the likely builder Samuel Myers and not Joseph Anderson, who is currently given credit for its construction. The logs in the barn had cutting dates ranging from 1830 to 1831, confirming the 1830 construction date estimated by the historical documents and confirming the builder was Joseph Anderson. The logs from the standing cabin and smokehouse had cutting dates ranging from 1838 to 1840, refining the “mid-19th century construction” listed in the register nomination. Furthermore, the nomination gave credit of the construction of these latter two structures also to Joseph Anderson, but the builder was actually John Gish who owned the farm from 1837 to 1845. Our study demonstrates the benefit and reliability of using dendrochronology to verify and refine construction dates and ownership histories of historic structures in the Southeastern U.S.     

Watery masculinities: fly-fishing and the angling male in the South West of England

This article examines the masculinities evident through fly fishing for salmon and trout in the South West of England. It identifies the way that many accounts of rural masculinities focus on particularly macho traits such as strength, resilience and domination and particular relationships with nature and the environment. Such macho traits are evident in the masculinities of angling – the angler regularly discusses issues of competition and duelling with nature. The trophies of such encounters become significant as they are used to summon life to stories and become crucial in narrating masculinity. However alongside these macho traits are numerous additional masculinities which are in tension with the more macho elements. These ‘additional masculinities’ become evident in the watery landscapes of angling; as such these waterscapes can be considered as liminal spaces as they enable masculinities to slip and reform. Therefore what emerges is a cadence to masculinity with different subject positions becoming significant in different spaces.