Image‐Based Modelling from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Photogrammetry: An Effective,Low‐Cost Tool for Archaeological Applications

The recording and 3D modelling of complex archaeological sites is usually associated with high capital and logistical costs, because the data acquisition must be performed by specialists using expensive surveying sensors (i.e., terrestrial laser scanners, robotic total stations and/or ground‐penetrating radar). This paper presents a novel, low‐cost, user‐friendly photogrammetric tool for generating high‐resolution and scaled 3D models of complex sites. The results obtained with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry of an archaeological site indicate that this approach is semi‐automatic, inexpensive and effective, and that it guarantees quality.     

Identification of Green Pigment Used in Persian Wall Paintings (ad 1501–1736) Using PLM,FT–IR,SEM/EDX and GC–MS Techniques

The technique of oil painting was introduced to Iran via a cultural exchange with Europe in the Safavid period (ad 1501–1736). Since the first attempt at scientific conservation of wall paintings in Iran in the 1960s, the nature of green pigment used in Persian wall paintings has not been clear, although work on contemporary miniature paintings has identified malachite and verdigris. PLM, FT–IR, SEM/EDX, GC–MS and the study of contemporary historical treatises of the Safavid period were the main tools used in the present study to identify the green pigments in Persian (oil‐based) wall paintings. Eight samples taken from the two famous Safavid buildings, Chehel Sotoon Palace and the Sukias House in Isfahan, were analysed. Here, the identification of copper‐based pigment and of verdigris in oil as oleate amends the existing knowledge of the green pigment used in these paintings. It also suggests that oleate was introduced to Persian artists via the European influence on Persian painting as a result of cultural exchange in the Safavid period, when the technique of Persian painting changed from tempera to oil painting. However, as verdigris in oil and resin can appear as oleate over time, it is unknown whether the Persian artists did this deliberately or accidentally.     

Playing Politics with Sex Offender Laws: An Event History Analysis of the Initial Community Notification Laws across American States

Despite a decline in crime rates, the 1990s witnessed extensive media coverage of several high‐profile stranger abductions and murders of children. State legislators' swift response to the public's growing fear of sex offenders with the adoption of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws raises questions about the role of politics. Punctuated equilibrium theory and the diffusion of innovation jointly provide a context to conduct an event history analysis to assess the extent to which politics enhanced legislative responsiveness to public opinion in SORN policymaking. Contrary to the commonly held belief that attributes legislative interest in SORN to salient crimes against children, the results suggest that factors such as the percentage of a conservative population, district‐level competition, and state innovativeness accelerated the diffusion of innovation of the laws.     

Avoiding Blame—A Comprehensive Framework and the Australian Home Insulation Program Fiasco

It is widely acknowledged in the literature that the study of blame avoidance behavior (BAB) exhibited by public officials is scattered and unconcentrated, and that, for the most part, it neglects both contextual factors and comparative research. These deficits inhibit the production of the kind of generalized findings necessary to better understand potential consequences for the policy process and the workings of political systems. We address these deficits by developing a framework that takes stock of blame avoidance research, clarifies the explanatory potential of contextual factors, and allows for a systematic context‐sensitive cross‐case analysis. For illustrative purposes, the framework is applied to the Home Insulation Program in Australia as a critical case. This case reveals the explanatory potential of contextual factors for the understanding of BAB and the consequences thereof. We conclude by stating the advantages of our framework and explain how it can be used for comparative research.     

Tracing Process to Performance of Collaborative Governance: A Comparative Case Study of Federal Hydropower Licensing

Despite collaborative governance's popularity, whether collaboration improves policy performance remains uncertain. This study assesses the link between collaborative decision making and licensed environmental management protocols in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) process for licensing hydropower facilities in the United States. Using results from a previous study of FERC relicensing (Ulibarri, forthcoming), one high‐, one medium‐, and one low‐collaboration case were selected. Using documents including meeting minutes, public comments, and issued licenses, I assessed collaboration and license outputs, then conducted process tracing to examine whether and how differences in collaboration produced differences in license quality. High collaboration resulted in jointly developed and highly implementable operating regimes designed to improve numerous resources, while low collaboration resulted in operating requirements that ignored environmental concerns raised by stakeholders and lacked implementation provisions. These results support the hypothesis that collaboration can improve environmental outcomes, revealing the pragmatic value of collaboration. [Correction added on 13 January 2015, after first online publication: the occurrences of ‘0’ in the abstract were erroneous and have now been corrected.]     

宫殿而林壑——乾隆皇帝乐寿堂与颐和轩的陈设理念

根据档案记载,紫禁城内乐寿堂院中设有山子,山子仿清漪园乐寿堂前的"青芝岫",园林中的陈设被搬到了宫殿里。本文以此为出发点,对乐寿堂陈设及其理念作了详细考证,此外作者对乐寿堂和颐和轩的对联加以深入分析,厘清了春与仁、与寿、与山之间的关系。揭示了乾隆皇帝意图通过宫殿园林化实现长寿的终极目的。     

The Science of Empire: Darwinism,Human Diversity,and Russian Physical Anthropology

Summary : The article explores deployment of the Darwinian narrative of the “natural history of humanity” in Russian physical anthropology in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. It traces two narratives developed by the leading Russian school of physical anthropology: one narrative advanced a universalist vision of collective scholarly enterprise working toward clarifying the missing links in the a priori accepted developmental evolutionary model. The other constructed a new language that undermined the idea of species/subspecies/races/nations/ as stable, externally bounded, and internally homogeneous units and attempted to rationalize imperial hybridity. The article's main focus is on the latter classificatory narrative, its relational methodology, and the protostructuralist units of comparison that it produced.     

Water and power in South Arabia: the excavation of “Monumental Building 1” (MB1) at Sumhuram (Sultanate of Oman)

The ancient port city of Sumhuram (Dhofar Governorate, Sultanate of Oman) has been the focus of over 20 years of research by the Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO), University of Pisa, in collaboration with the Office of the Adviser to His Majesty the Sultan for Cultural Affairs (Muscat-Salalah, Sultanate of Oman). Excavation has revealed most of the town layout, leading to the identification of several buildings, alleyways, squares and workshops, among which two massive buildings stand out, significantly named by the excavators as “Monumental Building” 1 and 2 (MB1 and MB2). This paper presents the results of the excavation inside MB1, characterised by the presence of the only well discovered within the city walls, which was previously interpreted alternatively as a palace or as a temple. The architectural development of the building, its distinctive features, the archaeological material discovered inside it, and its chronology will be discussed. These results highlight the absence of fitting parallels from other ancient South Arabian towns. Overall, it is clear that access to, management of, and control over the water supply of the town represented a key asset which justified the huge investment in workforce and building materials that is reflected in the monumental architecture of this edifice.     

Spaces of violence: A typology of the political geography of violence against migrants seeking asylum in the EU

This paper, based on research conducted with asylum seekers in three European Union (EU) member-states, examines the connections among various forms of violence against forced migrants in different state settings. Because violence that is produced within states is not uniform and often transcends borders, understanding how it varies across different geographical settings illustrates the complexity of the risks that migrants face. This paper presents a typology that examines interconnections between the production of various forms of violence and the complex spaces that constitute irregular migration into the EU to better understand these multifaceted factors and why we can anticipate certain forms of violence in a particular space. It also fosters future avenues of research as it provides a foundation for greater collaboration and advocacy to expose and rectify hierarchical imbalances of power and actors responsible for such violence.     

胡家草场汉简与尹湾汉简数术文献中的“刑德行时”

荆州胡家草场12号汉墓出土竹简《五行日书》按端、令、罚、刑、德五时占测为事、初病、生子诸事项的吉凶。这篇文献与尹湾汉墓出土的《刑德行时》大体属于同一文献的不同版本,两相比照,有助于加深对其文本源流、内涵的理解和认识。