Mesopotamian or Iranian? A New Investigation on the Origin of the Goddess Anāhitā

Ar?dvī Sūrā Anāhitā, a popular Zoroastrian yazatā, is celebrated in Ya?t 5 (ābān Ya?t). Anāhitā is mostly believed to be an Indo-Iranian or Iranian deity who has absorbed influences from the creed and iconography of Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess, in the course of history. The type and the degree of such influences are still under debate. The paper places this goddess into the context of ancient Western Asia. Findings are presented in two sections: in the first section, the Indo-Iranian, Iranian and western Iranian origins of Anāhitā are questioned, and in the following section two points are clarified: first, the Mesopotamian origin for Anāhitā is more consistent with historical and archaeological evidence, and second, Anāhitā is the same as Annunit/Annunitum, Sippar—Amnamum’s goddess of war and victory and the avatar of Antu, who was added to the list of his royal patron deities as a result of political and military developments early in the reign of Artaxerxes II.     

Razi on Reason and Political Authority: A Study in Medieval Persian Political Thought

The Philosopher of Rey, Mohammad-e Zakariya-ye Razi and his Ismaili adversaries, Abu Hatam-e Razi and Naser-e Khosrow, share a political understanding of religion according to which religion is a theologico-political system of domination. However, they are at odds over the political philosophy appraisal of religion qua a system of authority. The paper explicates the latter disagreement in part based on Razi's and his opponents' conflicting ideas about the nature of the faculty of Reason and its distribution among men. Consequently, the paper underlines a democratic implication of Razi's thesis on the makeup of the human intellect.     

The Unfolding of Unreason: Javad Tabatabai's Idea of Political Decline in Iran

Javad Tabatabai, a leading theorist and historian of political thought in Iran, has presented a controversial theory regarding the causes of the decline of political thought and society in Iran over the last few centuries. His ideas on Iranian decline have affected the intellectual debates on modernity and democracy currently underway in Iran. Tabatabai's career-long research has revolved around this question: “What conditions made modernity possible in Europe and led to its abnegation in Iran?” He answers this question by adopting a “Hegelian approach” that privileges a philosophical reading of history on the assumption that philosophical thought is the foundation and essence of any political community and the basis for any critical analysis of it as well. This article critically engages with Tabatabai's ideas of “crisis,” and “decline” by challenging his exposition of the Persian tradition.     

The neglected research of Egas Moniz of internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion

Egas Moniz is generally remembered for having discovered cerebral angiography in 1927, and having introduced lobotomy as a form of treatment for mental illness in 1935. Less well known is his pioneering research on occlusive cerebrovascular disease, namely internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion, as documented by cerebral angiography. It is our contention that the medical community has, until recently, largely overlooked this research. His neglected observations on ICA occlusion and the important diagnostic role played by angiography are reviewed. We propose to show how our paper differs from previous publications regarding Moniz's ICA occlusion contributions. Whereas most previous reviews have focused on either the role played by cerebral angiography in the diagnosis of ICA occlusion, or on the importance of Moniz's internal carotid occlusion observations, our review attempts to integrate both topics. We will tie Moniz's ICA occlusion research to his documented use of angiography.     

An Introduction to the Network Weight Matrix

This study introduces the network weight matrix as a replacement for the spatial weight matrix to measure the spatial dependence between links of a network. This matrix stems from the concepts of betweenness centrality and vulnerability in network science. The elements of the matrix are a function not simply of proximity, but of network topology, network structure, and demand configuration. The network weight matrix has distinctive characteristics, which are capable of reflecting spatial dependence between traffic links: (1) elements are allowed to have negative and positive values capturing the competitive and complementary nature of links, (2) diagonal elements are not fixed to zero, which takes the self‐dependence of a link upon itself into consideration, and (3) elements not only reflect the spatial dependence based on the network structure, but they acknowledge the demand configuration as well. We verify the network weight matrix by modeling traffic flows in a 3 × 3 grid test network with 9 nodes and 24 directed links connecting 72 origin‐destination (OD) pairs. Models encompassing the network weight matrix outperform both models without spatial components and models with the spatial weight matrix. The network weight matrix represents a more accurate and defensible spatial dependency between traffic links, and offers the potential to augment traffic flow prediction.     

Seismic Protection of the Piers of Integral Bridges using Sliding Bearings

Seismic resilience and continued operation of bridges after earthquakes are important seismic design criteria. A new seismic protection concept for integral bridge piers is explored that uses sliding bearings to separate the superstructure from the piers. The influence of sliding bearings on the seismic response of a representative 3-span integral highway bridge is investigated. With sliding bearings, the pier column shear force was limited to the bearing design friction force. Furthermore, the abutment ductility demands were found to be insensitive to the friction forces in the sliding bearings because the bridge displacement demands were controlled by the equal displacement rule.     

An Improved Displacement-Based Adaptive Pushover Procedure for the Analysis of Frame Buildings

The main purpose of this article is to develop an alternative adaptive pushover method in which multiple inelastic response spectra proportional to the instantaneous ductility ratio of the structure are employed to reflect the actual energy dissipation characteristic of the structure at a given deformation level. Based on the proposed methodology, two load patterns are independently applied to the structure and the envelope of the demand values is computed. The obtained results demonstrate that the proposed method provides improved predictions of the peak interstory and total drift profiles of the structure.     

A Single-Run Dynamic-Based Approach for Pushover Analysis of Structures Subjected to Near-Fault Pulse-Like Ground Motions

In this paper, a fairly effective procedure called dynamic load pattern (DLP), is proposed to account for the effects of near-fault ground motions in estimating the seismic demands of structures from pushover analyses. The seismic demands are obtained by enveloping the results of single-run conventional first-mode and single-run DLP pushover analyses. Improving the estimation of target displacement is another objective, implemented by performing response-spectrum analysis. Three special steel moment-resisting frames are considered and the seismic demands resulting from DLP are compared to those from the nonlinear time-history analysis as a benchmark solution, as well as to those predicted from modal pushover analysis.     

Application of Endurance Time Analysis in Seismic Evaluation of an Unreinforced Masonry Monument

In this article, seismic behavior of the main dome of a well-known middle-eastern historical- monument, “Imam Reza Shrine” (Mashhad, Iran) which is located in a high seismic area in Iran is evaluated. This study focuses on the response history analysis using intensifying dynamic excitations in the framework of Endurance Time Method. Endurance Time Analysis gives acceptable results for a wide range of earthquake intensities and considerably reduces the computational demand in comparison to the conventional Time History Analysis and Incremental Dynamic Analysis. The aim of this study is to investigate the applicability and efficiency of Endurance Time Analysis for masonry monuments and to suggest modifications and interpretations to improve compatibility of the results with Time History Analysis. In addition, to facilitate evaluation of the structural behavior, a dimensionless index, Cumulative Plastic Strain Index, is proposed as a criterion to compare structural performance in terms of the severity and the extent of damage as a function of earthquake intensity.