Reporting Iraq's cosmopolitan society in the Australian print media : The case of the Assyrian church bombings

A series of bomb blasts that targeted a number of Assyrian churches in Baghdad and Mosul last year were reported in the Australian media and seemed to hint at the complexity of Iraq’s cosmopolitan society. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the representation of these events in four of Australia’s leading newspapers (The Australian, The Courier-Mail, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald) by using a multi-methodological approach. The analysis reveals that Australian print coverage falls short of detailing the complexities of Iraq’s cosmopolitan society and therefore engenders an Orientalist (Said, 1978) discourse that constructs the Assyrians as powerless and anonymous victims.

Logic and The Open Society : revising the place of Tarski’s theory of truth within Popper’s political philosophy

This chapter retraces the way in which the Austrian philosopher Sir Karl Popper came to accept a Correspondence Theory of Truth from the work of the Polish logician and mathematician Alfred Tarski. It is argued that Popper’s use of Tarski’s semantic theory of truth reveals crucial insights into the fundamental characteristics of Popper’s social philosophy.  Quite deceptively, arguments based upon Tarski’s theory of truth appear implicitly throughout the text of The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945). It is then demonstrated how Popper integrated a correspondence theory of truth into a theory of the functions of communicative language that he received from Karl Bühler.

Tribes as civil society organisations: the case of Iraq

The socio-political discourse about civil society inclines to use Western models in coneptualising civil society both in Western and non-Western societies. Iraq is one of those countries where civil society is mostly discussed the formally organised type. This paper critiques the disengagement of literature and empirical studies with exploring social structures like tribe within the civil society arena. It contends that civil society organisations should be understood based on their functions rather than forms. This paper argues that studying civil society should be comprehensive by studying other non-Western theories like 14th century Ibn Khaldun’s Muslim/Arab theories in its indigenous Arab and Muslim societies. On the premise of two factors: the Khaldunian asabiya or olidarity concept and the function of tribes in peace-building, policy formulation and democratisation, this paper uncovers how tribes in Iraq can be regarded civil society organisations.

The demise of Bicycle George : a life of crime

This short piece looks at the life of a murderer, George Blunderfield (alias Arthur Oldring), who was hanged in Melbourne in 1918. Melburnians, or visitors to the city, may have seen his image on the wall at the Old Melbourne Gaol. Blunderfield's life started out normally
enough, and then descended into horrific crime. His story includes bicycle racing, escape from an island prison, and then recruitment for service with the Australian Imperial Forces in wartime Victoria. In the last years of his life, Blunderfield wreaked havoc from the western to the eastern coasts of Australia. This in turn had a dramatic effect on his immediate family, which is also detailed here. This story draws on the archives at PROV as well as on State Records Office of Western Australia material, with help from Ms Jean
Bellamy, a distant relative of George Blunderfield.

HIGH STRENGTH CONCRETE: THE REINFORCED CONCRETE OF THE CENTURY 21(ST)

This work is about the 21st century reinforced concrete analysis under the point of view of its constituent materials. First of all it is described the theoretical approach of the bending elements calculated based on the Norms BAEL 91 standarts. After that, numerical load-displacement are presented from reinforced concrete beams and plates validated by experimental data. The numerical modellings has been carried on in the program CASTEM 2000. In this program a elastoplastic model of Drucker-Prager defines the rupture surface of the concrete in non associative plasticity. The crack is smeared on the Gauss points of the finite elements with formation criterion starting from the definition of the rupture surface in the branch traction-traction of the Rankine model. The reinforcements were modeled in a discrete approach with perfect bond. Finally, a comparative analysis is made between the numerical results and calculated criteria showing the future of high performance reinforced concrete in this beginning of 21st century.

Latin-American Society Of Forensic Genetics (SLAGF) results of the Interlaboratory Quality Control Exercise 2010-2011

Latin-American Society of Forensic Genetics (SLAGF) Interlaboratory Quality Control Exercise (2010-2011) included the analysis of three bloodstain samples in FTA Classic Card (three persons, biologically unrelated) and one theoretical exercise. There were 56 participating laboratories from 13 Latin-American countries that belong to society, were reported 70 STRs, including autosomal and sex chromosome markers with consensus in 53 STRs with a rate in reporting errors of 2.3%. Fifty-six laboratories reported results in theoretical exercise with mistakes in calculation of IP for each marker. It is necessary to hold meetings to discuss the results of this exercise to reach conclusions and recommendations on all aspects of DNA forensics analysis and paternity test, to improve results and quality in the results of each laboratory. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Los comerciantes de productos agrícolas de San Vicente y las Granadinas, Granada, Dominica y Santa Lucía = The agricultural traders of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Dominica and St. Lucia

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