Retrieving the Cultural Biography of a Gun

Abstract

The meanings of objects change as the people with whom they are associated change. Over the course of an artefact’s existence, the sum of these meanings constitutes a cultural biography, a life-story of the item. This is the case with objects associated with conflict, just as with those from other contexts; in this case, cultural biographies can have sharply contrasting phases. However, identifying the object in each of its changing relationships with people can be problematic. In the case of a World War I German 150 mm gun, that is one of the few of its type remaining in the world, this has been achieved by comparison of detailed characteristics, markings, and battle damage with historical photographs and surviving documentation. By these means, its role in the Battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918, and after its capture by the Australian Corps, can be pieced together. The biography of such a gun can include manufacturing technology, a means of destruction, a valued war trophy, a public exhibit, a neglected relic, a source of scrap metal, a museum showpiece, and even a children’s plaything, but the gun investigated here was more fortunate. It is preserved in a museum, although its relationship to people could continue to change.     

Prostitution and infection: transnational and comparative perspectives on Italian health policy (1922–1958)

ABSTRACT

In 1958 the Italian parliament abolished controlled prostitution and closed the case di tolleranza – brothels licensed and supervised by the state. Justified in the nineteenth century as a means to combat venereal diseases, discussions surrounding the state-regulated prostitution became increasingly complex after the Second World War. This article will focus on the presumptive chief argument, the brothels’ benefit to public health. Using a historical comparison, it will identify this factor’s role in the continuation or abolition of the regulated system and any aspects unique to the Italian case. To take full advantage of the comparative approach, countries have been selected that permit an entangled historical comparison that is both synchronic and diachronic: Whereas the change in prostitution regulations occurred after the Second World War in France and Italy – the same era – we must jump back to a different period, the pre-war years, for the German case.     

Duties and rights in the thought of Giuseppe Mazzini

Abstract

In the Mazzinian sense, duties are not commandments. Duty means dià logos, dialogue. It posits a dialectical approach that welcomes different points of view, recognizes the dignity and legitimacy of diversity, is determined to understand the reason of ‘others’ for the sake of peaceful coexistence, and to oppose institutions and governments that trample on fundamental human rights. Duties in the Mazzinian sense are ethical guidelines, to be examined and applied personally on a daily basis, keeping in mind the consequences of one's actions. This definition of duty is the premise for the Mazzinian concept of republican solidarity, which rises from the awareness that everyone and everything has an assigned role and a dignity of its own, and is therefore in direct or indirect relationship with the rest.     

Landscapes of Desire in the Poetry of Vittorio Sereni

The article studies trasformismo (party-switching) in Italian regional councils, examining Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, and Puglia from 1970 to 2010. Although lato sensutrasformismo – enrollment in the mixed group and party switches among the electoral lists – also has empirical relevance at regional level, stricto sensutrasformismo – the transition from the majority to the opposition, or vice versa – was quantitatively negligible. In the transition from the first to the second phase of the Italian Republic (after 1994), the regional system was reorganized according to a government model in which there is a clear distinction between the roles of the majority and the opposition, by virtue of the direct election of presidents from 1995 onwards. Thus, the thesis formulated by Giovanni Sabbatucci is confirmed: trasformismo is a pattern of government from the ‘center’ of the political space, which is a very different option from the adversarial model of democracy which has emerged in the regions over the last two decades. As a result, this also seems to confirm the neo-institutionalistic thesis expressed by Robert D. Putnam in his classic Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1993), according to which ‘institutions shape politics’ and the behavior of its actors.     

STRUCTURAL RESPONSE AND DAMAGE ASSESSMENT BY ENHANCED UNCOUPLED MODAL RESPONSE HISTORY ANALYSIS

The Uncoupled Modal Response History Analysis (UMRHA) method developed by Chopra et al. is modified in this paper to estimate damage to welded moment-resisting connections in a steel frame (MRSF) subjected to earthquake ground motions. The behaviour of these connections is modelled by a moment-rotation relationship that accounts for the cracking of the beam flange-to-column flange groove weld. The behaviour of the frame is approximated by a sequence of single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) models for the first three modes to allow for the contribution of higher modes of vibration. The dynamic properties of these SDOF systems are determined by nonlinear static pushover analyses of the building frame. Because of the significant drop in connection strength caused by beam-to-column weld cracking, the pushover procedure uses a changing rather than invariant distribution of horizontal loads, while the structural responses are calculated from shapes that are based on the displaced shape of the frame after damage occurs. The accuracy of the method is demonstrated by a comparison with the results of a nonlinear time history analysis of the frame. This method can be used for rapid assessment of seismic damage or damage potential and to identify buildings requiring more detailed investigation.     

Microtremor HVSR Study of Site Effects in the Ilirska Bistrica Town Area (S. Slovenia)

The region of Ilirska Bistrica is one of the most seismically active areas of Slovenia, where 15 damaging earthquakes with maximum intensity equal or greater than V EMS-98 have occurred in the last 100 years. These earthquakes have shown that strong site effects are characteristic of the parts of the town that are built on soft Pliocene clay and sand overlain by Quaternary alluvium. Since there is a lack of boreholes and geophysical and earthquake data, the microtremor horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) method was applied to a 250 m dense grid of free-field measurements over an extended area and to a 200 m dense grid in the town area in order to assess the fundamental frequency of the sediments. Measurements were additionally performed in ten characteristic houses to assess the main building frequencies. The effects of wind and artificial noise on the reliability of the results were analyzed. The map of the fundamental frequencies of sediments shows a distribution in a range of 1–20 Hz. The lower frequency range (below 10 Hz) corresponds to the extent of Pliocene clays and sand overlain by alluvium, which form a small basin, and the higher frequencies to flysch rocks, but variations within short distances are considerable. The measurements inside the buildings of various heights (2–6 stories) showed main longitudinal and transverse frequencies in the range 3.8–8.8 Hz. Since this range overlaps with the fundamental frequency range for Pliocene and Quaternary sediments (2–10 Hz), the danger of soil-structure resonance is considerable, especially in the northern part of the town. Soil-structure resonance is less probable in the central and southern part of the town, where higher free-field frequencies prevail. These observations are in agreement with the distribution of damage caused by the 1995 earthquake (M_L?=?4.7, I_max?=?VI EMS-98), for which a detailed damage survey data is available.     

Vector-valued Intensity Measures Incorporating Spectral Shape For Prediction of Structural Response

Vector-valued ground motion intensity measures (IMs) are developed and considered for efficiently predicting structural response. The primary IM considered consists of spectral acceleration at the first-mode structural period along with a measure of spectral shape which indicates the spectral acceleration value at a second period. For the IM to effectively predict response, this second period must be selected intelligently in order to capture the most relevant spectral shape properties. Two methods for identifying effective periods are proposed and used to investigate IMs for example structures, and an improvement in the efficiency of structural response predictions is shown. A method is presented for predicting the probability distribution of structural response using a vector IM while accounting for the effect of collapses. The ground motion parameter ε is also considered as part of a three-parameter vector. It is seen that although the spectral shape parameter increases the efficiency of response predictions, it does not fully account for the effect of ε. Thus, ε should still be accounted for in response prediction, either through informed record selection or by including ε in the vector of IM parameters.     

Seismic Performance Assessment of Steel Frames with Shape Memory Alloy Connections,Part II – Probabilistic Seismic Demand Assessment

This article is the second of two companion articles that evaluate the seismic performance of steel moment-resisting frames with innovative beam-to-column connections that incorporate shape memory alloy (SMA) elements to enhance the energy dissipation characteristics of such frames. Building upon the finite element models of the three- and nine-story frames that were developed in the first article, the seismic demands on partially restrained frames with and without SMA elements are evaluated within a probabilistic framework. The results of this evaluation, expressed in the form of demand hazard curves, depict the effectiveness of the SMA connections in enhancing building performance over a range of demand levels. Martensitic SMA connections are most effective in controlling deformation demands on the frame from high levels of seismic intensity. In contrast, the recentering capability of superelastic SMA connections make them most suitable for reducing residual deformations in the structure, a reduction that is achieved at the expense of increased deformation demands during strong excitation. However, neither connection is uniformly beneficial at all hazard levels, suggesting that SMA systems must be tailored to the specific performance objectives for the building structural system.     

Seismic Response of Bridges Subjected to Different Earthquake Types Using IDA

Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) was used to evaluate the seismic response of straight, continuous 4-span bridges with different sub-structure configurations. Three different record sets were chosen to represent three different earthquake types which can occur for a site such as Vancouver (i.e., crustal, subduction interface, and subduction inslab earthquakes). Seventy eight records were considered in each set (i.e., a total of 234 records) and the capacities of the bridges were evaluated using a fast IDA algorithm. A simplified method to account for the effects of spectral shapes was used. Different subsets of the records with specific characteristics were also used in the IDA. The bridges were designed and evaluated for two different design force modification factors and bridges with different degrees of irregularity were studied. Comparisons of the IDA results obtained indicated that in most of the cases the interface record sets resulted in lower median collapse capacities and hence were the most critical of the ground motions studied.     

Selection of the Most Unfavorable Real Ground Motions for Low- and Mid-rise RC Frame Structures

The goal of this article is to select those real (or recorded) ground motions capable of exposing the low- and mid-rise reinforced concrete frame structures to an extreme limit state. By performing correlation analyses, two optimal intensity measures are first selected to represent the ground motion damage potential. Then based on each record's damage potential, four subsets of strong ground motions, referred to as the most unfavorable ground motions, are identified and preliminarily confirmed to be applicable to the low- and mid-rise RC frame structures.