Missing Links, Cultural Modernity and the Dead: Anatomically Modern Humans in the Great Cave of Niah (Sarawak, Borneo)

The Great Cave of Niah in Sarawak (northern Borneo) came into the gaze of Western Science through the work of Alfred Russell Wallace, who came to Sarawak in the 1850s to search for ‘missing links’ in his pioneering studies of evolution and the natural history of Island Southeast Asia and Australasia. The work of Tom and Barbara Harrisson in the 1950s and 1960s placed the Great Cave, and particularly their key find, the ‘Deep Skull’, at the nexus of the evolving archaeological framework for the region: for decades the skull, dated in 1958 by adjacent charcoal to c.40,000 BP, was the oldest fossil of an anatomically modern human anywhere in the world and thus critical to ideas about human evolution and dispersal. Although several authorities later questioned the provenance and antiquity of the Deep Skull, renewed investigations of the Harrisson excavations since 2000 have shown that it can be attributed securely to a specific location in the Pleistocene stratigraphy, with direct U-series dating on a piece of the skull indicating an age for it of c.37,500 BP and the first evidence for associated human activity at the site going back to c.50,000 BP. The new work also indicates that the skull is part of a cultural deposit, perhaps a precursor to the long tradition in Borneo of processing of the dead and secondary burial. These indicators of cultural complexity chime with the complexity of the subsistence behaviour of the early users of the caves discussed by Philip Piper and Ryan Rabett in chapter ten of this volume.

Architectural synthesis of an image processing algorithm using IRIS

Details are presented of the IRIS synthesis system for high-performance digital signal processing. This tool allows non-specialists to automatically derive VLSI circuit architectures from high-level, algorithmic representations, and provides a quick route to silicon implementation. The applicability of the system is demonstrated using the design example of a one-dimensional Discrete Cosine Transform circuit.

Changing Paradigms in Space Theories:Recapturing 20th Century Architectural History

The concept of space entered architectural history as late as 1893. Studies in art opened up the discussion, and it has been studied in various ways in architecture ever since. This article aims to instigate an additional reading to architectural history, one that is not supported by "isms" but based on space theories in the 20th century. Objectives of the article are to bring the concept of space and its changing paradigms to the attention of architectural researchers, to introduce a conceptual framework to classify and clarify theories of space, and to enrich the discussions on the 20th century architecture through theories that are beyond styles. The introduction of space in architecture will revolve around subject-object relationships, three-dimensionality and senses. Modern space will be discussed through concepts such as empathy, perception, abstraction, and geometry. A scientific approach will follow to study the concept of place through environment, event, behavior, and design methods. Finally, the research will look at contemporary approaches related to digitally supported space via concepts like reality-virtuality, mediated experience, and relationship with machines.

Efficiently exploring architectural design spaces via predictive modeling

Architects use cycle-by-cycle simulation to evaluate design choices and understand tradeoffs and interactions among design parameters. Efficiently exploring exponential-size design spaces with many interacting parameters remains an open problem: the sheer number of experiments renders detailed simulation intractable. We attack this problem via an automated approach that builds accurate, confident predictive design-space models. We simulate sampled points, using the results to teach our models the function describing relationships among design parameters. The models produce highly accurate performance estimates for other points in the space, can be queried to predict performance impacts of architectural changes, and are very fast compared to simulation, enabling efficient discovery of tradeoffs among parameters in different regions. We validate our approach via sensitivity studies on memory hierarchy and CPU design spaces: our models generally predict IPC with only 1-2% error and reduce required simulation by two orders of magnitude. We also show the efficacy of our technique for exploring chip multiprocessor (CMP) design spaces: when trained on a 1% sample drawn from a CMP design space with 250K points and up to 55x performance swings among different system configurations, our models predict performance with only 4-5% error on average. Our approach combines with techniques to reduce time per simulation, achieving net time savings of three-four orders of magnitude. Copyright © 2006 ACM.

Efficient Architectural Design Space Exploration via Predictive Modeling

Efficiently exploring exponential-size architectural design spaces with many interacting parameters remains an open problem: the sheer number of experiments required renders detailed simulation intractable.We attack this via an automated approach that builds accurate predictive models. We simulate sampled points, using results to teach our models the function describing relationships among design parameters. The models can be queried and are very fast, enabling efficient design tradeoff discovery. We validate our approach via two uniprocessor sensitivity studies, predicting IPC with only 1–2% error. In an experimental study using the approach, training on 1% of a 250-K-point CMP design space allows our models to predict performance with only 4–5% error. Our predictive modeling combines well with techniques that reduce the time taken by each simulation experiment, achieving net time savings of three-four orders of magnitude.

An Ethical Production of Place:A Case for Economy in Architectural Design

Architects typically interpret Heidegger to mean that dwelling in the Black Forest, was more authentic than living in an industrialised society however we cannot turn back the clock so we are confronted with the reality of modernisation. Since the Second World War production has shifted from material to immaterial assets. Increasingly place is believed to offer resistance to this fluidity, but this belief can conversely be viewed as expressing a sublimated anxiety about our role in the world – the need to create buildings that are self-consciously contextual suggests that we may no longer be rooted in material places, but in immaterial relations.
This issue has been pondered by David Harvey in his paper From Place to Space and Back Again where he argues that the role of place in legitimising identity is ultimately a political process, as the interpretation of its meaning is dependent on whose interpretation it is. Doreen Massey has found that different classes of people are more or less mobile and that mobility is related to class and education rather than to nationality or geography. These thinkers point to a different set of questions than the usual space/place divide – how can we begin to address the economic mediation of spatial production to develop an ethical production of place? Part of the answer is provided by the French architectural practice Lacaton Vassal in their book Plus. They ask themselves how to produce more space for the same cost so that people can enjoy a better quality of life. Another French practitioner, Patrick Bouchain, has argued that architect’s fees should be inversely proportional to the amount of material resources that they consume. These approaches use economics as a starting point for generating architectural form and point to more ethical possibilities for architectural practice

Between Order and Modernity: Resurgence Planning in Revolutionary Egypt

Egypt’s Revolution of 1952 presented a major historical change to its political and economic structure, its society, and its institutions. This paper examines how Nasser’s regime operated through the state apparatus to exhibit features of modernity. Under the pretext of modernization, renovating Cairo’s authentic urban fabric was one of the channels that displayed the new ambitions to unveil a centralized system of governance and ideologies of socialism. The paper particularly looks at the city’s resurgence attempts, promoted by upgrading practices that displayed Western ideals of planning. Eventually, the contradictory planning legislative system introduced by the government raised early alarms at the problems encountered in the planning institution that was not only unable to liberate Cairo’s urban districts from its long-rooted decay, but also struggled to implement the regime’s flagship policy of social justice in a context wherein it was much needed.