A Unique Partnership: William and Lawrence Bragg and the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics

The award of the 1915 Nobel Prize in physics jointly to William Henry Bragg and his elder son, William Lawrence Bragg – `for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of Röntgen rays' – seems to have been largely uncontroversial at the time, butthere are a number of questions that surround the award and the events that followed it that deserve exploration. This paper attempts to address these questions.     

Non-destructive monitoring methods as indicators of damage cause on Cathedral of St. Lawrence in Trogir,Croatia

Durability is one of the most important engineering properties of cultural heritage monuments. For the purpose of the preservation of structures for future generations, the causes of damage should be determined for the proper choice of type and location of strengthening. The condition of the foundation is difficult to determine without an extensive investigation which is critical because most often the cause of damage is found in such foundations. Geotechnical investigation techniques require the damage and destruction of a building's surroundings or the damage of a foundation with a boring device. Non-destructive methods, such as geophysical methods, are less reliable and the results of such investigations must be combined with the results of subsurface exploration. This paper is a presentation of results achieved through the monitoring of the activity of a number of joints on the Cathedral of St. Lawrence in Trogir, Croatia, which is a cultural heritage monument protected by UNESCO. Excavations for the purpose of flagging replacement in the zone around the east frontage were made in 1979. A probe beneath the main apse uncovered a water cistern where the connection between the mid and north apses is located, and instead of a staggered foundation, a wall with a depth of more than 2.2 m beneath the flagging was discovered. With respect to the given that churches were built on existing ones, it is possible to assume that this is a wall of the late-antiquity church described by Constantin Porfirogenet in the 10th century, built on and later adapted to the foundation for the new structure. The displacement in time of the construction elements of the cathedral were measured and recorded using non-destructive methods. Fissure displacement behaviour, air temperature and air humidity were monitored. The monitoring of the air humidity did not lead to any useful conclusion, so it was quickly dismissed. Observations of data were performed during two periods with an interruption between the two caused by insufficient monetary resources. Data from almost 8 years of continuous measuring are available. The aim of this paper is to present the data of the measured fissure displacements which were correlated with air temperature changes and mathematical models which were based on statistical analysis. Correlation coefficients show that the analysed fissures react to the air temperature changes with different intensities. The obtained data lead to the conclusion that the causes of the structural damage are not found within a displacement or failure of the foundations. Instead, the causes of the damage were found in other parts of the structure.     

With all Good Intentions: Jacob Lawrence at the Museum of Modern Art

In the exhibition ‘One-Way Ticket (2015)’, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presented African-American artist Jacob Lawrence’s series Migration (1941). However, despite a curatorial intention to do otherwise, MoMA’s exhibition diminished Lawrence as an artist and his Migration series as art by defining Lawrence as an African-American ‘painterly-historian’, rather than an American artist looking to an international art scene. This article examines ‘One-Way Ticket’ and compares Migration with exhibitions of Otto Dix’s 1924 Der Krieg series to demonstrate the racial bias undergirding even an honest attempt to pay homage to an artist outside of a white modernist mainstream. With the acknowledgement of profound differences in impact and scale, this article contends that there is a parallel between MoMA’s ‘One-Way Ticket’ and the consistent assumption of African-American otherness to a white norm undergirding today’s climate of racial unrest.     

Joseph Willits and the Rockefeller's European Programme in the Social Sciences

The Rockefeller Foundation'spost-war social science programme in Europe wasdirected by Joseph Willits. In 1946, Willitsdecided to focus his Division's efforts onFrance, and to offer fellowships to a newgeneration of social scientists. TheFoundation's social science activity in Europetapered off after 1955. This paper examinesWillits' initiatives, and considers theirconsequences.     

Fiscal and economic aspects of book consumption in the European Union

One of the available and yet controversial tools in cultural policy at the national level is the reduction of VAT rates for cultural goods and services. We document the standard and reduced VAT rates in EU-28 countries in the period from 1993 to 2013 and explore the underlying determinants. We further introduce a simple theoretical framework to explain how reduced fiscal rates are expected to decrease prices and increase quantities of the consumed cultural goods and services. We then estimate quantitatively that a decrease in the VAT rate for books by one percentage point is associated with an economically significant drop in the price by 2.6%. Finally, we show the positive effect of a fiscal rate reduction on the book expenditure, where a one percentage point decrease in the VAT rate for books leads to an increase in expenditure by 2.7%.     

公元439年:河陇地域学术发展的转捩点

永嘉之乱中原流民迁入河陇及北魏太延五年河西士族东迁平城,这两次移民事件,对河陇学术的影响截然不同,这种不同不仅仅局限在人口的迁出与迁入这一层面上。以移民迁入河陇来说,学者们所热衷于讨论的永嘉移民使中原学术转移保存于河陇说,实际上是对陈寅恪学术观点的误读。陈寅恪先生所论是指文化重心转移而非移民所带来的文化之转移。而河西士人东迁平城后,又因他们的境遇很差,对北魏的贡献也大打折扣。相反的,河西士族被竭泽式的迁出,对于河陇,特别是对河西学术的影响却是灾难性的,河陇地域学术五百多年以来所形成的士族模式和地域格局因之发生了转折。     

欧澳景区"零收费"

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