Aragonese Tiles in a Flemish Castle: A Chivalric Gift-Exchange Network in Fifteenth-Century Europe

Excavation of the mid-fifteenth-century castle of Pieter Bladelin, a high-ranking Burgundian official, in the village of Middelburg-in-Flanders, near Bruges (Belgium), has unearthed a remarkable series of blue and white painted and glazed floor tiles. Post-excavation archival and heraldic inquiries into the tiles has led to a deeper understanding of the role that gift exchange of luxury objects played within the diplomatic network of Alfonso V “the Magnanimous”, King of Aragon, and Philip “the Good”, Duke of Burgundy, in shaping a shared chivalric and crusading culture between Burgundy and Aragon. The study demonstrates the added value of the integration of archaeological and historical data in studying economic, political and cultural processes for the later medieval or early modern period.     

张家花园瓦当文化

瓦当是屋檐最前端的一片瓦,瓦当的图案设计优美,常能体现一个地方的民俗文化.张家花园的瓦当以植物纹、几何纹、抽象纹为主,纹样图案寓意吉祥,当面图案简洁、对称、抽象,体现出清末滇南地区建筑的古朴与典雅,也反映出云南少数民族文化与汉文化的交流融合.     

基于机器视觉的瓷砖尺寸检测研究

以瓷砖尺寸的检测为研究对象,研究了基于机器视觉的瓷砖尺寸检测。根据瓷砖的国家标准,利用机器视觉传感器,对采集图像进行降噪和图像增强,构建了一套瓷砖尺寸在线检测装置,并对该装置进行试验验证。结果表明,机器视觉对瓷砖尺寸检测达到国家标准和企业标准。     

从汉代瓦当“四神”图形解读秦汉的造型艺术

汉瓦当“四神”图形在秦汉时期社会生活中广泛应用,它的造型艺术可以使我们清楚地看到秦汉时代造型艺术风格特点：创造性地利用“适合造型”;以“炉火纯青”的造型艺术语言创造了“经典”的“四神”形象;运用夸张和变形的造型手法来“抒情写意”;对传统神灵形象的升华和再创造。它表现出一种时代和民族的生机勃发的艺术精神和本质。     

Technical replicas of Portuguese ceramic tile bodies produced in the Oporto region in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries

Portugal is well known for its facades decorated entirely with ornamented glazed ceramic wall tiles called azulejos. On ageing, the tiles may detach and fall off, or deteriorate to such an extent that it becomes necessary to replicate them. Hence tile replication is a common practice in Portugal for façade restoration, but very often these new tiles do not have the same physical and/or chemical properties as the original ones. Such differences might be a factor in differential deterioration of the façades after restoration. One step toward an improvement in compatibility is to make new ceramic bodies with the same characteristics as the original ones. This study focuses on two types of glazed ceramic wall tiles from the Oporto region in Portugal: ‘calcic faience’ and pó de pedra. A total of 25 samples from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries were studied systematically as an attempt to improve knowledge of these materials and to create a basis for their replication. All samples were collected from facades that were under conservation/restoration at the time when sampling was performed. The original traditional ceramic bodies were analyzed by X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence. Total open porosity, capillary absorption coefficient, and mercury intrusion porosimetry were also measured in order to gain knowledge on their physical characteristics in addition to their chemical and mineralogical compositions. High-temperature crystalline phases such as diopside, gehlenite, and mullite were found in the calcic faience, suggesting that the firing temperature of calcic faience bodies was within the range of 1100–1150?°C. Calcination trials were also performed in order to determine the most probable firing temperatures of the ceramic bodies. Collected data led to the assumption that the raw materials used for the ceramic bodies were kaolinitic clay, quartz sand, limestone, and talc. The raw materials for pó de pedra tiles were found to include kaolinite clay and quartz with firing temperatures estimated within the temperature range of 1150–1360?°C. Technical replicas made on the basis of these investigations were found to have the same mineralogical and capillary properties as the original tiles.     

Spelling transparency and its impact on dyslexic and unimpaired children’s memory for words

The phonologically transparent Persian orthography is normally transcribed with two distinct spellings; words spelled with vowels (letters) transcribed as a fixed part of the spelling (transparent) and words spelled with vowels (diacritics) omitted (opaque). Three groups of Persian readers, namely developmental dyslexics (n=29, mean age=9.4, SD=1.4), unimpaired readers matched on age (n=49, mean age=9, SD=1.3), and reading age (n=23, mean age=7.2, SD=0.4) with the dyslexics performed on a short-term memory verbal test. The time taken to read aloud lists of words with opaque and transparent spellings, the errors made on reading the words in each list, and the number of correctly recalled words in each list was subjected to statistical analysis. The results showed that transparent words as a whole were read more accurately than opaque words. However, recall of words was best for opaque words for the older group of unimpaired readers compared to the transparent words, while the opposite was true for dyslexics and unimpaired reading age matched participants. The implications of these results are discussed.     

昭化出土的汉砖艺术初探

汉代是艺术繁荣兴盛的时代,四川昭化出土的汉砖是汉代极为发达、有高度艺术价值的艺术品,在中国汉砖艺术的发展史上占着极为重要的地位,昭化汉砖艺术高度发展的原因是其政治、经济、军事和文化的繁荣。     

Lexical and nonlexical processes in the skilled reading and spelling of Persian

The objective of the present study was to examine the contribution of lexical and nonlexical processes to skilled reading and spelling in Persian. Persian is a mixed orthography that allows one to study within one language characteristics typically found in shallow orthographies as well as those found in deeper orthographies. 61 senior high-school students (mean age = 17; 8, SD = 4 months) attending schools in Iran were tested on reading and spelling of words and nonwords. The word stimuli differed in terms of reading transparency (transparent when all phonemes have corresponding letters vs. opaque when short vowels were not marked with a letter) and spelling polygraphy (nonpolygraphic phonemes vs. polygraphic phonemes). The nonwords were transparent and nonpolygraphic. The reading results showed that both transparent and opaque words were read faster than nonwords, and that transparent words were read faster than opaque words. Moreover, both transparent and opaque words were affected by word frequency. These findings suggest that skilled readers of Persian relied on lexical processes to read words. In contrast, the spelling results failed to show a word-advantage effect suggesting that skilled spellers of Persian rely on nonlexical processes to spell words. Moreover, orthographic complexity also affected spelling. Specifically, nonpolygraphic words were spelled faster than polygraphic words for both transparent and opaque words. Taken together, the findings showed that skilled reading and spelling in Persian rely on different underlying processes.     

Subject Anaylsis Systems

No abstract available for this article.     

益延寿宫考略

益延寿宫是汉武帝为求仙于甘泉宫所建的宫观,但其名称和地理位置历有异议。通过对宫观遗迹、遗物的考查,结合相关历史文献记载,论证益延寿宫应在今陕西省淳化县甘泉宫遗址,其宫名应为"益延寿宫"。