To the barracks: the President,the military and democratic consolidation in Portugal (1976–1980)

After two turbulent years in which different pathways for the future of the political and institutional framework of Portugal clashed, the country began a process of consolidation of the democratic institutions delineated between 1975/6. However, the role played by the military in the fall of the previous dictatorial regime and the fragility of the new democratic institutions did not allow their immediate withdrawal from political life. The President of the Republic was a military man and the political parties had agreed to maintain an unelected sovereign body, the Council of the Revolution, which only dissolved in 1982. Based on primary sources that only recently became available, this article presents some elements that help to understand the success of democratic consolidation in Portugal. This long process should not be interpreted as a confrontation between civilians, desirous to put an end to military tutelage, and the military, who at all costs sought to keep their privileges. The dividing line should be placed between those who defended the maintenance of the status quo, and the supporters of military subordination to the civil power.     

Vidas secas or Canine Melancholia: Reflections on Living Capital

The article examines Vidas secas (1938) by Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos as bridging biopolitical reflections on animality and new materialist reflections on animal studies. By tracing the bond between canine and human in Vidas secas as a canine melancholia, from Lacanian extimité into Donna Haraway’s species companionship, I expose the implicit theory of animality of the novel as an interspecies politics of survival. In doing this, I present a new frame of interpretation for the novel that places its particular kind of melancholia as untimely contemporary.     

Simulation of Shake Table Tests on Out-of-Plane Masonry Buildings. Part (VI): Discrete Element Approach

ABSTRACT

Although many experimental tests and numerical models are available in the literature, the numerical simulation of the seismic response of existing masonry buildings is still a challenging problem. While the nonlinear behavior of masonry structures is reasonably predictable when the out-of-plane behavior can be considered inhibited, when the in-plane and out-of-plane responses coexist and interact, simplified models seem unable to provide reliable numerical predictions. In this article, taking advantage of the experimental tests carried out in a shaking table on two masonry prototypes at LNEC, a macro-element approach is applied for the numerical simulations of their nonlinear response. The adopted approach allows simulating the nonlinear behavior of masonry structures considering the in-plane and out-of-plane responses. Since it is based on a simple mechanical scheme, explicitly oriented to representing the main failure mechanisms of masonry, its computational cost is greatly reduced with respect to rigorous solutions, namely nonlinear FEM approaches. Two modeling strategies are adopted, namely a regular mesh independent from the real texture of the prototypes and a detailed one coherent with the units disposal. The numerical results are discussed and the correlation between the nonlinear static analyses and the dynamic response is provided.     

Methods and Approaches for Blind Test Predictions of Out-of-Plane Behavior of Masonry Walls: A Numerical Comparative Study

ABSTRACT

Earthquakes cause severe damage to masonry structures due to inertial forces acting in the normal direction to the plane of the walls. The out-of-plane behavior of masonry walls is complex and depends on several parameters, such as material and geometric properties of walls, connections between structural elements, the characteristics of the input motions, among others. Different analytical methods and advanced numerical modeling are usually used for evaluating the out-of-plane behavior of masonry structures. Furthermore, different types of structural analysis can be adopted for this complex behavior, such as limit analysis, pushover, or nonlinear dynamic analysis.

Aiming to evaluate the capabilities of different approaches to similar problems, blind predictions were made using different approaches. For this purpose, two idealized structures were tested on a shaking table and several experts on masonry structures were invited to present blind predictions on the response of the structures, aiming at evaluating the available tools for the out-of-plane assessment of masonry structures. This article presents the results of the blind test predictions and the comparison with the experimental results, namely in terms of formed collapsed mechanisms and control outputs (PGA or maximum displacements), taking into account the selected tools to perform the analysis.     

Spurious weather effects

Rainfall is exogenous to human actions and hence popular as an exogenous source of variation. But it is also spatially correlated. This can generate spurious relationships between rainfall and other spatially correlated outcomes. As an illustration, rainfall on almost any day of the year has seemingly high predictive power of electoral turnout in Norwegian municipalities. In Monte Carlo analyses, I find that standard tests reject true null hypotheses in as much as 99% of cases. Standard approaches to estimating consistent standard errors do not solve the problem. Instead, I suggest controlling for spatial and spatiotemporal trends using multidimensional polynomials.     

Corruption at the Border: Intersections between US Labour Demands,Border Control,and Human Smuggling Economies

Based on a qualitative methodology that includes in‐depth interviews conducted between 2008 and 2017 with 180 migrant smugglers from Mexico, the objective of this paper is to analyse the way US employers' interest in having access to cheap labour feeds migrant smuggling, and is connected to corruption in US border enforcement. We conclude that corruption on the US side of the border could be systematic and not a matter of a few bad apples. Corruption is manifested in selective enforcement, which is a pragmatic practice that justifies enhanced immigration enforcement, and benefits US immigration agents, US employers and Mexican smugglers, while undocumented border crossers suffer the monstrous effects of militarised border enforcement.     

Long-term land-use changes in small/medium-sized cities. Enhancing the general trends and local characteristics

Small and medium-sized cities represent the backbone of the European territory, promoting cohesion and an economic base for development. The study compares the spatial and temporal trajectories of land use in three small/medium-sized cities located in central Portugal, between 1958 and 2011. The cities of Viseu, Leiria and Castelo Branco were chosen because they are located in different urban sub-systems and because of the different factors that frame their alterations in land use, occupation and consequent urban development. The research evaluates the transformations, supported by indicators to explain the spatial dynamics of losses and gains and a principal component analysis compares the land-use trajectories for the three cities. The general results reveal an increase from the central part of the study areas to the periphery, contrasting with a continuous decrease of the agricultural parts, illustrating peri-urbanization and rururbanization processes. The study allows identification of the dynamics in the three analysed areas, highlighting the different rhythms of change and relating them to the particularities that exist in each city. The methodology represents an advantage for the analysis and evaluation of territorial dynamics related to land-use change, and made possible the identification of the different forces.     

Pottery Production in the Buddhist Communities in Central Asia: The Kushan‐Sassanian Pottery Workshop of Kara Tepe (Termez,Uzbekistan)

We present the first full archaeometrical study of Kushan‐Sassanian pottery from the Buddhist monastic complexes at Kara Tepe (Termez, Uzbekistan), recovered both in the pottery workshop and in the monastery, using a combination of analytical methods (XRF, XRD, SEM–EDS and OM). The study allowed the identification of the reference group, the correspondent fabric, the raw materials used for its productions, some of the technological processes involved in manufacture and several weathering processes. All the results confirm that the kiln was supplying the religious community of the monastery with pottery, made using local raw materials, and highlight the possibility that the kiln could have supplied the nearby monastic complexes, where no kilns have been found. Further archaeological evidence indicates the existence of specialized potters working itinerantly at the broader Bactrian area.