The Comparative Cost of Privatized Public School Transportation in Tennessee

This paper provides evidence from an empirical test of service contracting versus bureaucratic production of school bus transportation. Actual contracted cost of school bus service is compared to the estimate of in-house cost for providing the same service in 19 Tennessee public school systems. In-house cost is estimated from a two-output, two-input translog cost function regressed on 91 school systems. Contracted cost is found to be lower than in-house cost in 15 of the 19 contract systems. The potential savings equals 27% of average contract cost for these 15 systems. In the other 4 contract systems, actual cost exceeds the estimated in-house cost by 21% of their average contract cost.     

Human Right to Water: Contemporary Challenges and Contours of a Global Debate

Abstract: In recent years, significant debate has taken place around the concept of the “human right to water”. In this paper, we seek to respond to recent critiques and clarify the terms of the debate by presenting an in‐depth exploration of the human right to water. We explore several critiques of the concept, situate it in the context of the current neoliberalization of water provision and in relation to contemporary water challenges, and present some examples of how it has been deployed to further the cause of access to water for vulnerable populations in varied contexts. We conclude that, rather than abandoning the concept as critics have suggested, the human right to water maintains importance as a discourse and strategy in the contemporary moment.     

A Report on a Party and the Guests

“People of protest,” it may be the best name for the men encountering the dictatorship of Qajar dynasty and Reza Shah—The first king of Pahlavi Dynasty (1921–1939) in Iran— the men who paid an expensive price for being protesters: being vanished in the history. In the summer of 2011, we conducted excavation at Neshat Garden and at the house of Kamal ol Molk—the famous painter of Qajarid Iran— two sites dating from the previous century. The interviews indicated the Garden was used for the parties in which numerous guests were invited, but the finds of the archeological investigation represent also a hidden function for the site as well. Studying the agency of garden owners, local villagers and Kamal as well as the remained letters and documents showed the possibility of presence of a political opposition group in the region in 1920s. This essay sheds more light on a process in which the Iranian intellectuals have had to change their ironic protests to armed opposition in 1920s–1940s. Though, the excavation at Neshat Garden offers an illustration of this process of transformation of the nature of political opposition.     

Foreign ceramic tradition,local clays: the Handmade Burnished Ware of Tell Kazel (Syria)

Late Bronze Age Handmade Burnished Ware (HMBW) from Tell Kazel was studied by thin-section petrography and neutron activation analysis in order to investigate its manufacturing technology and origin of production. Results show that the majority of the HMBW fabric groups point to a local area of production while a few petrographic loners might have been produced elsewhere in the Akkar Plain or imported. The manufacturing technique, in terms of clay paste recipe, forming and finishing techniques, is however new in the Tell Kazel pottery assemblage, hinting at the work of foreigners present at the site. The historical and archaeological contexts further suggest that these foreigners were some of the Sea Peoples and the stylistic and analytical data further reinforce the link between the northern Levant and the western Mediterranean.     

Portraits in the Background of “Nothingness” Sheikh Jabber Burnt House, an Object of Persian Gulf War

War is a common heritage of Middle East, the experience of war was changed to a dramatic propaganda in Iran while the southern neighbor of Iran experienced it in another way: oblivion. In such a context, both states attempt to change the facts of the war, one to a process of sanctification and one to the portraits of nothingness. We, as archaeologists, were accidentally encountered with a heritage of Persian Gulf War during a contemporary archaeology project. Our curiosity made us to take a look at Jabber house, a forgotten building, a domestic architecture destroyed by a racket during the war. What was recorded in our frames was actually an artistic work, out of its original context. Our subjectivity as archaeologists made us to think about the other objects fossilized in museums, they are out of their painful context and structure, they are only beautiful, the portraits in the background of nothingness, in a burnt gallery. Persian Gulf War is treated in Kuwait as a negative heritage, what is discussed in this article as the main theme??a negative heritage lost its original context and meaning: Sheikh Jabber house.     

The Consumptive Ruins Archaeology of Consuming Past in the Middle East

After the collapse of Ottoman Empire and division of old Iran, the new geography of Middle East needed new identities. The ancient mythical past could not respond the new idea of identity anymore; because of that, the archaeological past replaced the mythical ones. All over the Middle East, the heaven of archaeologists, was excavated; ancient ruins were recovered and redefined. In such a context, the archaeological evidences remained in the hands of Middle Easterner governments. During mid-1960–1970s, Pan Arabism and Pan Aryanism both raised in the region. In both Iran and Syria, the governments celebrated ancient empires. Such festivals have been known responsible for further fundamental thoughts relevant to archaeological past. The world witnessed the demolish of Palmyra ancient ruins by ISIS. Such an action is the other site of propagandist abuse of ancient ruins by governments. Both consume the past, and both try to redefine it: one in form of demolishing and the other in form of propaganda. In this article, the authors endorsed on various forms of consuming the past in the Middle East by opposition groups and by governments.     

A hypothesis on different technological solutions for outdoor and indoor Roman wall paintings

The determination of the chemical composition of different parts of wall paintings (pigments, mortars and binders) provides information about technology of preparation of an artefact. Herein, we present a multi-methodological characterisation of wall paintings from a Roman archaeological site in Cuma, focusing on differences between an indoor (domus) and outdoor fabrication (a temple, Tempio con Portico (TCP)). Both pigments, binders and mortars were studied via a combination of destructive/μ-destructive (mass spectrometry, ionic chromatography, ICP-based techniques) and non-destructive (Raman microscopy, small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and X-ray diffraction) methodologies. Particularly, the systematic presence of dolomite only in mortars from TCP may suggest an intentional use of such limestone for the outdoor fabrication of public interest. Differences between TCP and domus are also related to the composition of the pigment binder. In particular, the detected binders (studied by LC-MS/MS and GC-MS) were proteinaceous in the case of domus (possibly egg and animal glue) and drying oils in the case of TCP. Ultimately, our multi-methodological study provides an overall picture of the material components of paintings from fabrications with different use, proposing a hypothesis on technological choices according to conservative and destination reasons.