Metrical strength and contradiction in turkish Makam music

In this paper we investigate how note onsets in Turkish Makam music compositions are distributed, and in how far this distribution supports or contradicts the metrical structure of the pieces, the usul. We use MIDI data to derive the distributions in the form of onset histograms, and comparethem with metrical weights that are applied to describe the usul in theory. We compute correlation and syncopation values to estimate the degrees of support and contradiction, respectively. While the concept of syncopation is rarelymentioned in the context of this music, we can gain interesting insight into the structure of a piece using such a measure.We show that metrical contradiction is systematically applied in some metrical structures. We will compare thedifferences between Western music and Turkish Makam music regarding metrical support and contradiction. Such a study can help avoiding pitfalls in later attempts to perform audio processing tasks such as beat tracking or rhythmic similarity measurements.

A new classification of the Turkish terranes and sutures and its implication for the paleotectonic history of the region

The Turkish part of the Tethyan realm is represented by a series of terranes juxtaposed through Alpine convergent movements and separated by complex suture zones. Different terranes can be defined and characterized by their dominant geological background. The Pontides domain represents a segment of the former active margin of Eurasia, where back-arc basins opened in the Triassic and separated the Sakarya terrane from neighbouring regions. Sakarya was re-accreted to Laurasia through the Balkanic mid-Cretaceous orogenic event that also affected the Rhodope and Strandja zones. The whole region from the Balkans to the Caucasus was then affected by a reversal of subduction and creation of a Late Cretaceous arc before collision with the Anatolian domain in the Eocene. If the Anatolian terrane underwent an evolution similar to Sakarya during the Late Paleozoic and Early Triassic times, both terranes had a diverging history during and after the Eo-Cimmerian collision. North of Sakarya, the Küre back-arc was closed during the Jurassic, whereas north of the Anatolian domain, the back-arc type oceans did not close before the Late Cretaceous. During the Cretaceous, both domains were affected by ophiolite obduction, but in very different ways: north directed diachronous Middle to Late Cretaceous mélange obduction on the Jurassic Sakarya passive margin; Senonian synchronous southward obduction on the Triassic passive margin of Anatolia. From this, it appears that the Izmir-Ankara suture, currently separating both terranes, is composite, and that the passive margin of Sakarya is not the conjugate margin of Anatolia. To the south, the Cimmerian Taurus domain together with the Beydağları domain (part of the larger Greater Apulian terrane), were detached from north Gondwana in the Permian during the opening of the Neotethys (East-Mediterranean basin). The drifting Cimmerian blocks entered into a soft collision with the Anatolian and related terranes in the Eo-Cimmerian orogenic phase (Late Triassic), thus suturing the Paleotethys. At that time, the Taurus plate developed foreland-type basins, filled with flysch-molasse deposits that locally overstepped the lower plate Taurus terrane and were deposited in the opening Neotethys to the south. These olistostromal deposits are characterized by pelagic Carboniferous and Permian material from the Paleotethys suture zone found in the Mersin mélange. The latter, as well as the Antalya and Mamonia domains are represented by a series of exotic units now found south of the main Taurus range. Part of the Mersin exotic material was clearly derived from the former north Anatolian passive margin (Huğlu-type series) and re-displaced during the Paleogene. This led us to propose a plate tectonic model where the Anatolian ophiolitic front is linked up with the Samail/Baër-Bassit obduction front found along the Arabian margin. The obduction front was indented by the Anatolian promontory whose eastern end was partially subducted. Continued slab roll-back of the Neotethys allowed Anatolian exotics to continue their course southwestward until their emplacement along the Taurus southern margin (Mersin) and up to the Beydağları promontory (Antaya-Mamonia) in the latest Cretaceous-Paleocene. The supra-subduction ocean opening at the back of the obduction front (Troodos-type Ocean) was finally closed by Eocene north-south shortening between Africa and Eurasia. This brought close to each other Cretaceous ophiolites derived from the north of Anatolia and those obducted on the Arabian promontory. The latter were sealed by a Maastrichtian platform, and locally never affected by Alpine tectonism, whereas those located on the eastern Anatolian plate are strongly deformed and metamorphosed, and affected by Eocene arc magmatism. These observations help to reconstruct the larger frame of the central Tethyan realm geodynamic evolution.

Social evolution: war of the worms.

The discovery of a non-reproductive soldier caste in a clonally reproducing trematode greatly extends the taxonomic distribution of eusociality and reaffirms the importance of relatedness in the evolution of reproductive altruism.

Dots i llegats dels Baldrich de Valls (1768-1863)

Aquest article presenta les dificultats que van haver d’afrontar entre 1768 i 1863 els hereus de la casa Baldrich de Valls per liquidar els dots i les deixes testamentàries. Anton Baldrich Janer va nomenar hereu el fill gran del primer matrimoni amb l’obligació de pagar als seus germans i especialment als seus germanastres unes quantitats molt elevades de diners atorgats en un moment de grans expectatives econòmiques, gràcies al comerç amb Amèrica i el nord d’Europa. Durant la primera meitat del segle XIX, alguns anys de males collites, les contínues guerres i la independència de les colònies americanes feren minvar els recursos i van afeblir la hisenda familiar. Els successius hereus maldaven per pagar les contínues reclamacions dels cabalers i les cabaleres de les diferents generacions, fet que els impedia invertir en noves empreses per tal d’ampliar i modernitzar els seus negocis. L’any 1863, el darrer hereu Baldrich va morir sense descendència, havent pagat els darrers deutes familiars però sense haver creat nous horitzons per als seus successors.

War and the evolution of belligerence and bravery.

Tribal war occurs when a coalition of individuals use force to seize reproduction-enhancing resources, and it may have affected human evolution. Here, we develop a population-genetic model for the coevolution of costly male belligerence and bravery when war occurs between groups of individuals in a spatially subdivided population. Belligerence is assumed to increase an actor's group probability of trying to conquer another group. An actor's bravery is assumed to increase his group's ability to conquer an attacked group. We show that the selective pressure on these two traits can be substantial even in groups of large size, and that they may be driven by two independent reproduction-enhancing resources: additional mates for males and additional territory (or material resources) for females. This has consequences for our understanding of the evolution of intertribal interactions, as hunter-gatherer societies are well known to have frequently raided neighbouring groups from whom they appropriated territory, goods and women.

Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?

La tesis principal de Butler en Frames of War es que los marcos interpretativos por medio de los cuales nos es posible entender la violencia son parte material y esencial del propio acto de librar una guerra. Del mismo modo que un contenido y su envoltorio a veces no pueden separarse, lo que entendemos como"contenido" (el hecho bélico) está necesariamente enmarcado y no es posible aproximarse a él ajeno a los marcos que lo vehiculan. El marco es una estrategia activa de contención que no sólo contiene lo que es sino también su justificación y su interpretación, y en un contexto de guerra el marco dictamina, además de la justificación, la distinción entre las vidas que merecen ser preservadas y lloradas, y las que no.

“All we want in Laos is peace, not war": Intervención de Estados Unidos en Laos, 1954-1961

La guerra de Laos es probablemente uno de los episodios de la Guerra Fría más desconocidos e ignorados por la historiografía a pesar de las terribles consecuencias que tuvo. El hecho de que frecuentemente se considere como un conflicto periférico y ligado a la Guerra de Vietnam no contribuye tampoco a mejorar esta imagen.

Gone with the Wind and the Southern Way of Life: the Civil War as described in Margaret Mitchell’s Novel

This essay examines the American Civil War of 1861 – 1865, which is also known as the bloodiest war that the United States has ever experienced. The pretext for the war was the abolition of slavery in the South, and after many battles the Southern states lost: as a consequence, they experienced major changes in their economic and social life. This interesting piece from American history can be traced out throughout the characters’ lives in the novel Gone with the Wind which has been thoroughly analyzed in order to draw nearer and to comprehend the changes in the Southern way of life before and after the war. The author, Margaret Mitchell, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up with the stories about the war. As a result, Gone with the Wind studies not only its causes, but also the years after its end – a period which is not generally a subject of history and receives little attention – and the effects that such reversals have on former planters and slaves. From the position of contemporaneity, the reader can see that such changes in a society do not end with the laying down of an act, or in this case the end of the war, but they continue during many years; thus, the modern world can draw conclusions and lessons for events that are happening at the moment.

War and National Renewal: Civil Religion and Blood Sacrifice in American Culture

Wars are often associated with a rhetoric of renewal or new beginnings. This essay explores this claim through the lens of civil religion and a recent book by Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation, which combines Emile Durkheim with Réné Girard in proposing that modern national cohesion depends on blood sacrifice. I unpack some of the paradoxes raised by this theory of national renewal in the context of 9/11, with a special focus on the sacred status of the flag and the special attention given to uniformed serviceman in the American body politic.

Collection complète, par ordre chronologique, des lois, édits, traités de paix, ordonnances, déclarations et règlemens d'intérêt général antérieurs à 1789 restés en vigueur : avec des renvois à la législation nouvelle et à la jurisprudence... et une table raisonnée des matières.... IV. [1768-1778] / par M. Walker,...

[Acte royal. 0420-1789]