Predictive Tri-Linear Benchmark Curve for In-Plane Behavior of Adobe Walls

In the present study, numerical simulations are conducted to estimate the in-plane response of adobe walls subjected to pseudo-static cyclic loading based on the finite element code ABAQUS. The simplified micro-modeling approach is adopted and an interface model reported in ABAQUS material library is applied as material model for zero-thickness interface elements. The comparison between obtained results and field test data results in good agreement. Parametric studies are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of independent parameters changes on response of adobe walls. It is noted that mechanical properties of joints and adobe units play an active role on in-plane behavior of walls. A tri-linear benchmark curve is proposed to predict the response of aforementioned walls. In this regard, a statistical study is performed to derive the predictive tri-linear benchmark curve. The regressive analysis on 59 numerical models resulted in proposing predictive models. Finally, by comparing tri-linear curves obtained from the regressive analysis, numerical analysis, and experimental study, appropriate accuracy of theoretical model can be found.     

Multi‐Domain User‐Generated Content Based Model to Enrich Road Network Data for Multi‐Criteria Route Planning

By utilizing today's web‐based technologies, people can act as sensors and share their perceptions, emotions and observations in a variety of data forms, such as images, videos, texts, Global Positioning System (GPS) trajectories and maps. These forms are collectively called user‐generated content (UGC). These data are in different domains and have a multi‐modality nature. Although recent efforts have probed the acquisition of local knowledge by using single‐domain UGC data in specific applications, such efforts have not thus far presented a model considering multi‐domain UGC specifically to enrich road network data. This article aims at presenting such a model wherein, with the help of each data domain of UGC, one aspect of people knowledge about the road segment is obtained. These different aspects of knowledge are integrated using a Skyline operator to support multi‐criteria route finding. We name this model ERSBU (enriching road segments based on UGC). In ERSBU, road segments are basic spatial units, and their subjective properties have been extracted by using available UGC. The scenic score for each road segment was computed by using geo‐tagged Panoramio photos. The accessibility level of each road segment to different facilities was calculated based on data captured from Wikimapia and OpenStreetMap. Moreover, for measuring the movement popularity of each road segment, Wikiloc and Everytrail GPS trajectories were utilized. For the implementation of the ERSBU model, Tehran region 6 was considered the case study area. The Evaluation of the results proved that road segments that achieved a high score based on knowledge extracted from UGC also mostly gained top scores by analyzing traditional maps. ERSBU allows users to accomplish more‐qualitative path finding by considering the multi‐view characteristics of road segments.     

A Bayesian Updating Applied to Earthquake Ground-Motion Prediction Equations for Iran

This article presents new ground-motion prediction equations for three distinct seismic regions of Iran via updating the previous global model using observed data for each region by means of Bayesian updating. The Bayesian theory has the advantage that it results in more accurate results even in situations when little data is available. This leads the way for updating global models to obtain new local models for seismotectonic regions with little available data like Iran. The proposed updated model was compared against currently available models for Iran and the results reveal the overall stability and quality performance of the proposed model.     

Book reviews

Traditionelle und moderne Formen der Landwirtschaft in Iran: Siedlung, Wirtschaft und Agrarsozialstruktur in nördlichen Khuzistan seit dem Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. [Traditional and Modern Forms of Agriculture in Iran: Settlement, Economics, and Agrarian Social Structure in Northern Khuzistan since the End of the Nineteenth Century.] By Eckhart Ehlers. With a contribution by Grace Goodell, “Agricultural Production in a Traditional Village of Northern Khuzistan.” A publication of the Geographical Institute of Marburg University in the series, Marburger geographische Schriften, Vol. 64, 1975. x + 289 pp., 12 charts, DM33.

Unity in the Ghazals of Hafez. By Michael C. Hillmann. Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976. 181 pp.

Afghanistan in the 1970s. Edited by Louis Dupree and Linette Albert. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974.     

Evaluation of 2D Seismic Site Response due to Hill-Cavity Interaction Using Boundary Element Technique

This paper deals with the evaluation of two-dimensional site-effects due to the seismic interaction between hills with various configurations and underground cavities. The time-domain boundary element method is used to evaluate the site-effects of hill-cavity interaction subjected to vertically propagating in-plane SV and P waves. The presence of an underground cavity and the hill topography are expected to induce significant effects on the surface ground motion. To further examine the contribution of the amplification ratio of the hill-cavity system, a fairly simple approach, which can compute the response spectra of the hill’s surface motion above a cavity based on the real input motions, is also used to input motions.     

Women’s education,time use and marriage in Iran

In many parts of the world, higher education has increased female chances of paid work and reduced the economic benefits of marriage. In Iran, however, female labour force participation has remained in low rates despite considerable improvements in female education. In the absence of direct economic benefits of education for women, this paper uses data from the 2009 Time Use Survey, representing urban areas of Iran, to explore another pathway of the impact of education on transition to marriage. It is postulated that female education can lead to later marriage by changing women’s role priorities, at least in two ways. While enrolment in education is time-consuming and incompatible with requirements of marital life, higher education can increase the chances and desire for engagement in alternatives to the roles related to marriage. The findings provide partial support for both explanations. These findings not only deepen our understanding about differentials in the time use and the potential pathway of the impact of female education on marriage, but also provide important information for policy makers who are concerned with marital and fertility behaviours of the large cohort of young educated women in Iran.     

A Linguistic Survey of Khorasan: Implications for Language Isolation,Language Change,and Contact Linguistics

This paper describes and analyzes data from a number of Modern Iranian dialects spoken in Khorasan in the east of Iran which are unusual among the other Western Iranian languages in that they have grammaticalized a split tense-sensitive alignment in indexation, compared to other Iranian languages whose indexation splitness is sensitive to both tense and transitivity. These dialects are the former dialect of Birjand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the present-day dialect of Ferdows, Khanik, and Se-Ghal’e. The findings are put in the context of the available data from the Classical Persian texts to show that the tense-sensitive splitness mentioned above is traceable in those texts. A number of external factors are discussed which seem to have been influential in the restructuring of the split-alignment of the former dialect of Birjand into a uniformly nominative-accusative alignment in terms of indexation as observed in the present-day dialect of Birjand. It is proposed that this restructuring is an instance of simplification. The three other dialects cited above are endangered in the sense that they can undergo the same kind of restructuring as happened to the dialect of Birjand.