Decay of Limestone Statues at Mount Nemrut (Adiyaman,Turkey)

Mount Nemrut is a 2,206 m high mountain located in Adiyaman, Turkey. A number of monumental statues, a 50-m high tumulus, and a lion horoscope were constructed at the top of the mountain by King Antiochos I (69–36 bc) of the Commagene Kingdom. The site was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987 due to its unique character. However, the limestone statues located on both the east and the west terraces of the site are getting deteriorated. This study investigates the weathering of the limestone at Mount Nemrut based on field and laboratory studies. It is found that the dissolution occurs along microcracks developed in the limestone during geological time. It is more pronounced in the east terrace where freezing-thawing cycles are more than the west terrace. Furthermore, dissolution is more effective for the faces of the statues exposed to direct atmospheric contact. Due to harsh atmospheric conditions with dominant wetting-drying and freezing-thawing processes at the site, it is recommended that direct rain and snow contact with the statues should be minimized.     

Old Dilemmas or New Challenges? The Politics of Gender and Reconstruction in Afghanistan

This article situates the politics of gender in Afghanistan in the nexus of global and local influences that shape the policy agenda of post‐Taliban reconstruction. Three sets of factors that define the parameters of current efforts at securing gender justice are analysed: a troubled history of state–society relations; the profound social transformations brought about by years of prolonged conflict; and the process of institution‐building under way since the Bonn Agreement in 2001. This evolving institutional framework opens up a new field of contestation between the agenda of international donor agencies, an aid‐dependent government and diverse political factions, some with conservative Islamist platforms. At the grassroots, the dynamics of gendered disadvantage, the erosion of local livelihoods, the criminalization of the economy and insecurity at the hands of armed groups combine seamlessly to produce extreme forms of female vulnerability. The ways in which these contradictory influences play out in the context of a fluid process of political settlement will be decisive in determining prospects for the future.     

Timber-framed Houses Built for the Court Members after the 1894 Earthquake in Istanbul: Rationalization of Construction Techniques

During the second half of the 19th century, Western European industrial achievements affected construction techniques in Istanbul. Ottoman archival documents reveal the usage of industrial materials and machine shaped timber elements, which brought the rationalization of traditional timber construction techniques. After the 1894 Istanbul earthquake, many post-earthquake timber-framed houses constructed as temporary shelters in the precincts of masonry mansions were rapidly built due to the rationalization in building techniques. Since there is not any inventory for the industrial materials and techniques used in the second half of the 19th century in Istanbul, their determination is of crucial importance in the process of conservation.     

Renewing the purpose of geography education: Eco-anxiety,powerful knowledge,and pathways for transformation

Concerns about the decline in uptake of secondary geography education continue despite arguments supporting the value of geography education, the power of geographical thinking, and geography’s critical role in preparing students to deal with complex challenges. Already constrained by neoliberal politics of disadvantage, young people must plan and prepare for chaotic futures. Consequently, young people are becoming distressed and worried about their futures and feeling powerless as society fails to adequately address these issues. In this article, we ask what schools and universities can do as place-based public institutions to serve young people to effectively respond to eco-anxiety and build capacities to surf the unrelenting waves of change. We draw on journeys that brought three young doctoral candidates to study geography. From their stories, we sketch what a geographical education could offer in terms of relevance, practicality, and engagement with transformative system change. We think that under current world conditions, this is a moment to revive geography education and give it renewed purpose to encourage young people to develop skills and competences to tackle wicked problems.     

Women and Rural Development Policies: The Changing Agenda

The aim of this paper is to review and evaluate policies directed at rural women in the Third World, as reflected in WID research and policy documents. This review covers the assumptions behind the advocacy of direct assistance to rural women, the goals that are sought in providing such assistance and the means advocated to achieve them. An attempt is made to show how the agenda of mainstream WID research and policy formulation has closely followed, reflected and responded to changing international priorities in matters of development assistance in a manner that leaves crucial redistributive and political issues tangentially addressed and unresolved.     

Seismic Site Response Modeling for Three Missouri River Highway Bridges

Three highway bridges spanning the Missouri River flood plain were selected for evaluation of seismic site response for moderate size earthquakes emanating from the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) in the Midwestern United States. The NMSZ is known to be capable spawning earthquakes larger than magnitude (M) 7.0, four of which occurred in a three-month period between 1811 and 1812, and the M_w 6.0 earthquake of October 1895 centered near Charleston, Missouri. This study evaluated the likely impacts of long period motion of these historic earthquakes on three long-span highway bridges using geotechnical data obtained from recent investigations. Our results suggest site amplification between 6× and 9×, depending on the magnitude and epicentral distance. We believe that threshold magnitude for serious foundation failure and damage to these bridges is between M_w 6.5 and 6.6. Above these magnitudes widespread liquefaction is predicted, which would effect the peak horizontal acceleration and spectral accelerations, causing the ground motions to be different than predicted. Increase in amplification of the response spectra also should be expected where the periods are higher than 1.0 sec. Therefore, M_w 6.5+ earthquakes at ranges 210–260 km could be expected to engender resonant frequency problems for multiple span bridges and tall buildings (10 to 25 stories) in channel corridors containing 20 to 46 m of unconsolidated sediment.     

Poverty in Transition: An Ethnographic Critique of Household Surveys in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Post-Soviet transitions have prompted a search for new policy tools and methods of data collection. The shift from universal welfare provision under the Soviet system to targeted assistance and poverty monitoring has stimulated a new interest in the measurement of living standards and poverty lines. This has promoted the use of quantitative techniques and sample surveys (household surveys, in particular) as privileged tools for the collection of policy-relevant information. This paper contends that survey techniques have particular limitations as research tools in an environment where local level case studies are scarce and where a host of new socio-economic processes are creating fundamental shifts in the landscape of social provision, redistribution and employment. These limitations are illustrated by drawing upon a household survey conducted by the author in four villages from two regions in Uzbekistan, Andijan and Kashkadarya, between October 1997 and August 1998. The ambiguities surrounding five basic concepts, those of household, employment, access to land, income and expenditure are discussed in detail, as are the changes in their contents and meanings in the context of transition. The gender differentiated outcomes of current changes and their possible implications are highlighted throughout the text. The conclusion suggests that Uzbekistan finds itself at an uneasy juncture where the policies deployed to ‘cushion’ the social costs of transition may reach the limits of their sustainability. A more contextually sensitive approach to the mechanisms that generate new forms of vulnerability and the use of qualitative and longitudinal methodologies are essential to an adequate monitoring of further changes.