Investigation of the Seismic Behavior of a Historical Masonry Minaret Considering the Interaction with Surrounding Structures

This study examines the seismic behavior of the minaret of the well-known historical structure “Sultan Ahmed Mosque” under strong earthquake motion. Despite their slenderness and height, minarets are towers with well-established earthquake resistance. In general, these structures were constructed adjacent to the main structure and/or its components. Hence, it is expected that the dynamic behavior of the minarets is influenced by the dynamic characteristics of the adjacent structures as well as the contact conditions. In the presented study, the dynamic behavior of the M6 minaret of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, which is in contact with the portico that surrounds the courtyard of the mosque, is considered. Ambient vibration tests were conducted on site in order to identify the individual and coupled vibration modes of the minaret and the portico. A finite/discrete model was developed and seismic analysis was carried out. The comparative study reveals considerable differences in responses of different models under strong and very strong earthquake motion.     

Gender and Agenda Diversity: Cognitive Differences in Representatives’ Information Processing

A growing body of research examines the role of information processing on decision making in a variety of organizational settings such as authoritarian and democratic governments, subnational organizations, and market systems. Although an increasing number of scholars point to the importance of cognitive capacities of individuals in explaining macrophenomena, scant attention has been devoted to how individual human beings process incoming information. Utilizing original datasets of parliamentary speeches and the biographies of 1,100 members of parliament (MPs) who served in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey between 2002 and 2011, I explore female–male differences in MPs’ issue attention in the parliament. Drawing together the literatures on political agenda setting, gender studies, and cognitive psychology, I argue that women’s higher potential for empathic response to societal issues (i.e., lower cognitive threshold of urgency for social problems) leads them to speak about a wider range of issues facing society and find strong support for this hypothesis. The conclusion considers potential implications of these findings.     

New compositional data on ancient mortars from Hagia Sophia (Istanbul,Turkey)

This study shows the results of a multidisciplinary collaboration between the University of Calabria (Italy) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), about the compositional characterization of some mortars taken from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (Turkey), one of the most important buildings in antiquity. Twenty samples of joint mortars were analysed by micro-chemical analyses (SEM-EDS), X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), optical microscopy (OM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The compositional study allowed us to define, with more detail, the construction phases of the fifth, sixth and tenth century. The petrographic analysis in thin section by optical microscopy showed four typologies of sands, used as aggregate, with specific compositional features. SEM-EDS analyses and TEM observations of the binder around the ceramic fragments of the aggregate showed the presence of different morphologies of single C-S-H compounds.     

Toward an understanding of the exchange in ancient scented oils through organic residue analysis of Bronze Age Near Eastern ceramic bottles by GC-MS

This paper presents a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) organic residue analysis (ORA) of samples extracted from five Early Bronze Age ceramic bottles excavated at the archaeological site of Küllüoba in Anatolia (modern Turkey), and the first attempt at directly analysing the content of this category of products. Our results show that various types of liquid have been contained in different bottles and identify the presence of dicarboxylic and oleic acids with a large amount of palmitic acid in most samples, suggesting that they may have mostly contained a plant-based oil. The presence of diterpenoids further shows the addition of ingredients such as conifer resin and other plant-derived products. Overall, the analytical results presented here indicate the exchange of scented oils in Anatolia already during the late third millennium BCE. The different organic residue profiles contained in different samples also suggest a range of different recipes for these products.     

Ethnic nationalism versus religious loyalty: The case of Kurds in Iran

When religious differences are present within an ethnic group, how do they affect the scope of its nationalist mobilization? The Kurds of Iran presents an ideal case to address this question given their religious diversity and varying levels of involvement in Kurdish nationalist movements. Building on an institutional approach to ethnic identity, this article argues that the dynamics of Kurdish ethnic mobilization in Iran reflect the nature of political exclusion in the Islamic Republic that is primarily based on sectarian affiliation. The article, based on original datasets compiled using several languages, including Persian and Kurdish, shows that recruitment into the Kurdish insurgency in Iran is significantly stronger in the Sunni Kurdish areas than the Shiite ones. While religious identity limits the appeal of ethno‐nationalism among the Shiite Kurds, it doubles the sense of marginalization among the Sunni Kurds and makes them more receptive to violent insurgent mobilization.     

Impacts of Planners' Different Viewpoints on Optimum Land-Use Allocation

Development of different viewpoints/perspectives in the planning process and discussion of their empirical results will allow creation of “better land-use plans”. In this sense, one of the deficiencies met by the land-use planners is lack of decision support system that can analyse the empirical results of different viewpoints analytically. The aim of this study is to analyse impacts between planners' different viewpoints and the optimum land-uses allocation empirically and analytically. The study uses a generalized land assignment model formulated by Hanink and Cromley (1998) [Land-use allocation in the absence of complete market values, Journal of Regional Science, 38(3), pp. 465–480] that integrates the geographical information systems with multi-criteria decision-making techniques in Cesme/Izmir in Turkey. The study results indicated that the model is very useful to analyse impacts between planners' viewpoint and optimum land-use allocation.