Spectatorship and the war on terror:creating consensus through global audiences

This paper considers the staging of violence, atrocities, and sexuality in the conduct of the war on terror. The piece discusses the manner in which the terms of the war on terror appear to shut down possible debate and examines the rhetorical and representational strategies that cause this. The paper argues that the war on terror includes a cultural project that seeks to create a consenting global audience. This cultural project appears more diffuse and less immediately instrumental than the military and diplomatic activities of this global battle. The piece argues that it is through the circulation of open secrets and accounts of torture and abuse that a global audience is constructed as both witness and participant in the practices and objectives of the war and that this positioning is designed to corral audience understanding into the suggested narratives of the proponents of the war. Este documento considera el escenario de la violencia, las atrocidades y la sexualidad en la conducta de la guerra contra el terror. El artículo plantea la manera en que los términos de la guerra contra el terror parecen suspender un posible debate y examina las estrategias retóricas y representativas que causaron esto. El documento plantea que la guerra contra el terror incluye un proyecto cultural que busca crear una audiencia global de común acuerdo. Este proyecto cultural parece más difuso y menos útil en el momento, que las actividades militares y diplomáticas de esta batalla global. El artículo sostiene que es mediante la circulación de secretos abiertos y de informes sobre la tortura y el abuso, que se forma una audiencia global tanto testigos como participantes de las prácticas y los objetivos de la guerra y que esa posición está designada a encerrar el conocimiento de la audiencia dentro de los relatos sugeridos por los proponentes de guerra.

Microstructure-based inherent anisotropy of asphalt mixtures

Asphalt mixtures have been demonstrated to be anisotropic materials in both laboratory and field tests. The anisotropy of asphalt mixtures consists of inherent anisotropy and stress-induced anisotropy. In previous work, the inherent anisotropy of asphalt mixtures was quantified by using only the inclination angles of the coarse aggregate particles in the asphalt mixtures. However, the inclination of fine aggregates also has a contribution to the inherent anisotropy. Moreover, the contribution to the inherent anisotropy of each aggregate may not be the same as in the previous work but will depend on the size, orientation, and sphericity of the aggregate particle. This paper quantifies the internal microstructure of the aggregates in asphalt mixtures by using an aggregate-related geometric parameter, the vector magnitude. The original formulation of the vector magnitude, which addresses only the orientation of coarse aggregates, is modified to account for not only the coarse aggregate orientation, but also the size, orientation, and sphericity of coarse and fine aggregates. This formulation is applied to cylindrical lab-mixed lab-compacted asphalt mixture specimens varying in asphalt binder type, air void content, and aging period. The vertical modulus and the horizontal modulus are also measured by using nondestructive tests. A relationship between the modified vector magnitude and the modulus ratio of the vertical modulus to the horizontal modulus is developed to quantify the influence of the inherent microstructure of the aggregates on the anisotropy of the mixtures. The modulus ratio is found to depend solely on the aggregate characteristics including the inclination angle, size, and sphericity, and it is independent of the asphalt binder type, air void content, and aging period. The inclination angle, itself, proves to be insufficient to quantify the inherent anisotropy of the asphalt mixtures. © 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.