Teos-based consolidants for stone conservation: evaluation of the effects and testing by x-ray imaging

Natural stones have been widely used in the construction field since antiquity. Building materials undergo decay processes due to mechanical,chemical, physical and biological causes that can act together. Therefore an interdisciplinary approach is required in order to understand the interaction between the stone and the surrounding environment. Utilization of buildings, inadequate restoration activities and in general anthropogenic weathering factors may contribute to this degradation process. For this reasons, in the last few decades new technologies and techniques have been developed and introduced in the restoration field. Consolidants are largely used in restoration and conservation of cultural heritage in order to improve the internal cohesion and to reduce the weathering rate of building materials. It is important to define the penetration depth of a consolidant for determining its efficacy. Impregnation mainly depends on the microstructure of the stone (i.e. porosity) and on the properties of the product itself. Throughout this study, tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) applied on globigerina limestone samples has been chosen as object of investigation. After hydrolysis and condensation, TEOS deposits silica gel inside the pores, improving the cohesion of the grains. X-ray computed tomography has been used to characterize the internal structure of the limestone samples,treated and untreated with a TEOS-based consolidant. The aim of this work is to investigate the penetration depth and the distribution of the TEOS inside the porosity, using both traditional approaches and advanced X-ray tomographic techniques, the latter allowing the internal visualization in three dimensions of the materials. Fluid transport properties and porosity have been studied both at macroscopic scale, by means of capillary uptake tests and radiography, and at microscopic scale,investigated with X-ray Tomographic Microscopy (XTM). This allows identifying changes in the porosity, by comparison of the images before and after the treatment, and locating the consolidant inside the stone. Tests were initially run at University of Bologna, where characterization of the stone was carried out. Then the research continued in Switzerland: X-ray tomography and radiography were performed at Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, while XTM measurements with synchrotron radiation were run at Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen.

The Polemic Construction of Judaism at the origins of Christianity: from Paul to Justin Martyr

This research aims to identify the guidelines that are opposed to Judaism in the body of the work Dialogue with Trypho of Justin Martyr, using the methodology engendered by Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson in their work, The Established and the Outsiders. As a result, our research intends to contribute to unveil another aspect of Justin’s work, considered by many scholars as a proselytistic tool; by taking it as a document builder of the Christian identity trough its dissociation from Judaism. For this reason, this thesis investigates and reviews the socio-cultural and political environment that gave rise to Roman Christianity, taking into consideration Christian internal conflicts and the resulting dichotomies within the Roman Christian community, as a result of its departure from its Jewish matrix.

The socio-cultural impact of the introduction of motorbike taxis in the rural community of Tombel, South West region, Cameroon

“The socio-cultural impact of the introduction of motorbike taxis in the rural community of Tombel, South West region, Cameroon” seeks to bring out the impact of commercial motorbike taxis on the lifestyle of the Bakossi. The principal objective of this research is to show how the introduction of motorbike taxis has modified the lifestyle of the Tombel population. This anthropological research defines the profile of a motorbike taxi rider, his role in society, the perception of the population towards this activity and the impact of this activity on the lifestyle of the rural population of Tombel. This study reveals that motorbike taxi riders are essentially made up of youths from all works of life who earn a living by riding a motorbike taxi on a daily bases for commercial purposes. The revenue earn here goes a long way to sustain the livelihood of the rider and his entourage, becoming an ascension tool into the social ladder. The activity is very dangerous not only for the riders buts also for the passengers because of the risks involved in riding for most of the riders do not have the basic knowledge of the road code. This research also reveals that motorbike taxi has become the preferred means of public transport of most inhabitants of Tombel to the point of monopolising certain destinations. The population of Tombel perceives this activity as an instrument of change that has brought development and progress. But this activity also constitutes a social ill because of the prevalent sexual promiscuity encouraged by the riders. This activity has also gotten a cultural impact on the society, changing perceptions and being involve in rituals. Motorbike taxis have become a force to reckon with in the organisation of the community. They are a “response from below” to the transport crises in Cameroon.

Language Construction of Reality in the German Tabloid Press/on Materials of BILD Newspaper/

From the moment of their birth, a person's life is determined by their sex. Goroshko wanted to find out why this difference is so striking, why society is so determined to sustain it, and how it can persist even when certain national or behavioural stereotypes are erased. She believes there are both social and biological differences between men and women, and set out to analyse these distinctions as they are manifested in language. Certain general characteristics can be identified. Males tend to write with less fluency, to refer to events in a verb phrase, to be time-oriented, to involve themselves more in their references to events, to locate events in their personal sphere of activity, and to refer less to others. Goroshko therefore concludes that the male is more active, more ego-involved in what he does and less concerned about others. Women were more fluent, referred to events in a noun-phrase, were less time-oriented, tended to be less involved in their event references, located events within their interactive community, and referred more to others. They spent much more time discussing personal and domestic subjects, relationship problems, family, health and reproductive matters, weight, food and clothing, men, and other women. Computer analysis showed that female speech was substantially more emotional, using hyperbole, metaphor, comparisons, epithets, ways of enumeration, interjections, rhetorical questions and exclamations. The level of literacy was higher in female speech, and women made fewer grammatical and spelling mistakes in written texts. Goroshko believes that her findings have relevance beyond the linguistic field. When working on anonymous texts she has been able to decide on the sex of the author and so believes that her research may even be of benefit to forensic science.

Performance of an abbreviated version of the Lubben Social Network Scale among three European community-dwelling older adult populations

PURPOSE: There is a need for valid and reliable short scales that can be used to assess social networks and social supports and to screen for social isolation in older persons. DESIGN AND METHODS: The present study is a cross-national and cross-cultural evaluation of the performance of an abbreviated version of the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6), which was used to screen for social isolation among community-dwelling older adult populations in three European countries. Based on the concept of lack of redundancy of social ties we defined clinical cut-points of the LSNS-6 for identifying persons deemed at risk for social isolation. RESULTS: Among all three samples, the LSNS-6 and two subscales (Family and Friends) demonstrated high levels of internal consistency, stable factor structures, and high correlations with criterion variables. The proposed clinical cut-points showed good convergent validity, and classified 20% of the respondents in Hamburg, 11% of those in Solothurn (Switzerland), and 15% of those in London as at risk for social isolation. IMPLICATIONS: We conclude that abbreviated scales such as the LSNS-6 should be considered for inclusion in practice protocols of gerontological practitioners. Screening older persons based on the LSNS-6 provides quantitative information on their family and friendship ties, and identifies persons at increased risk for social isolation who might benefit from in-depth assessment and targeted interventions.

THE FANNED FLAMES OF DISCONTENT: A SOLIDARITY-INSPIRED HISTORY OF THE IDENTITY/IDEOLOGY, CULTURAL HISTORY, AND RHETORICAL STRATEGIES OF THE WOBBLIES DURING THE 1916 MINNESOTA IRON ORE STRIKE

Rooted in critical scholarship this dissertation is an interdisciplinary study, which contends that having a history is a basic human right. Advocating a newly conceived and termed, Solidarity-inspired History framework/practice perspective, the dissertation argues for and then delivers a restorative voice to working-class historical actors during the 1916 Minnesota Iron Ore Strike. Utilizing an interdisciplinary methodological framework the dissertation combines research methods from the Humanities and the Social Sciences to form a working-class history that is a corrective to standardized studies of labor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Oftentimes class interests and power relationships determine the dominant perspectives or voices established in history and disregard people and organizations that run counter to, or in the face of, customary or traditional American themes of patriotism, the Protestant work ethic, adherence to capitalist dogma, or United States exceptionalism. This dissertation counteracts these traditional narratives with a unique, perhaps even revolutionary, examination of the 1916 Minnesota Iron Ore Strike. The intention of this dissertation's critical perspective is to poke, prod, and prompt academics, historians, and the general public to rethink, and then think again, about the place of those who have been dislocated from or altogether forgotten, misplaced, or underrepresented in the historical record. Thus, the purpose of the dissertation is to give voice to historical actors in the dismembered past. Historical actors who have run counter to traditional American narratives often have their body of "evidence" disjointed or completely dislocated from the story of our nation. This type of disremembering creates an artificial recollection of our collective past, which de-articulates past struggles from contemporary groups seeking solidarity and social justice in the present. Class-conscious actors, immigrants, women, the GLBTQ community, and people of color have the right to be remembered on their own terms using primary sources and resources they produced. Therefore, similar to the Wobblies industrial union and its rank-and-file, this dissertation seeks to fan the flames of discontented historical memory by offering a working-class perspective of the 1916 Strike that seeks to interpret the actions, events, people, and places of the strike anew, thus restoring the voices of these marginalized historical actors.

Book Review of “The Origins of Social Work: Continuity and Change”. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, by Malcolm Payne

Malcolm Payne’s latest work proposes to survey the continuity and change in social work from its inception and origins, up until the present day. In order to do justice to the theme, its author could have concentrated on developing a narrative of a national enterprise, or restricted himself to a regional analysis (Western European Social Work) or opt instead for a more narrowly focused cultural exploration, White Anglo-Saxon Social Work (WASSW). One can only infer that limiting himself in this fashion would have struck the author as parochial, or rather, that only a truly global enterprise could satisfy his capacious mind. One is left to marvel at the invocation of Darwin’s great work and wonder what was the process of the author’s “natural” selection of this material.

De-Territorialization and Re-Territorialization of “the social”. A debate

Deterritorialization has been used as an anthropological concept to designate the weakened ties between culture and place: Certain cultural/social processes and relations seem to increasingly transcend their previously given territorial boundaries in flexible capitalist societies. At the same time, policy studies, especially Studies on Governmentality, have emphasized the re-territorialization of the social, in which the former national welfare arrangements (welfare and nation state) as the scale of bio-political integration patterns are more and more substituted by small scaled inclusion areas (e.g. neighbourhoods, districts and communities). Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, de-territorialization processes have therefore always to be understood as combined with processes of a re-territorialization, producing new spatial formations. In this view, spatial arrangements and connections are not given and static structures, but controversial and unstable – nevertheless they are influential.

Citizenship Education – Between Social Inequality and the Promises of Modernity

For several reasons citizenship and democracy has moved into political and research focus. Socio-cultural tensions and inequalities created by globalisation processes boosted by neo-liberal modes of government seem to inspire a concern with “social cohesion”, and the European Community assigns a key role to education in engendering European democratic citizenship. It can be questioned whether it is within the scope of educational programmes to ensure social integration and democracy. However, to clarify the perspectives of the educational issue, the article discusses the conflicts and relationships between cultural identity and democracy within a framework of modernity before returning to the issue of education for democratic citizenship. It is shown on the basis of empirical studies that family background interacts with school factors in the reproduction of democratic inequalities. It is also indicated, however, that this must not be considered an unchangeable pedagogical fact, and the article briefly sketches a set of pedagogical and research challenges concerned with educating for democratic empowerment at different levels of school practice. Although this paper focuses on education and the educational system, the arguments and findings presented can also claim relevance for social pedagogy and social work, esp. in respect of recent developments that stress the educational dimensions of social work.

Youth criminality and urban social conflict in the city of Rosario, Argentina. Analysis and proposals for conflict transformation

The present article describes and analyses youth criminality in the city of Rosario, Argentina between the years 2003-2006. Key actors’ understandings of and responses to the conflict were investigated by means of semi-structured interviews, observations, discourse analysis of policy documents, analysis of secondary data, and draw heavily on the experience of the author, a citizen and youth worker of Rosario. The actors examined were the police, the local government, young delinquents and youth organisations. Youth criminality is analysed from a conflict transformation approach using conflict analysis tools. Whereas, the provincial police understand the issue as a delinquency problem, other actors perceive it as an expression of a wider urban social conflict between those that are “included” and those that are “excluded” and as one of the negative effects of globalisation processes. The results suggest that police responses addressing only direct violence are ineffective, even contributing to increased tensions and polarisation, whereas strategies addressing cultural and structural violence are more suitable for this type of social urban conflict. Finally, recommendations for local youth policy are proposed to facilitate participation and inclusion of youth and as a tool for peaceful conflict transformation.

Book Review of “Indigenous Social Work around the World. Towards Culturally Relevant Education and Practice”, 2008, edited by Mel Gray, John Coates and Michael Yellow Bird

One could be seduced into a critique of this volume that focuses on its potential to overstate the momentum for a shift in Western social work ideology when faced with the conundrum of cultural difference. One could posit that the discussion is too broad, the topics covered too numerous, the opportunity for detail missed, the urgency of the messages unnecessarily exaggerated, the “proof” not beyond anecdote and so forth. I reject this temptation to conform to the dominant professional dynamic most emphatically and offer that what Gray, Coates and Yellow Bird have presented to the social work field in this volume is the first tangible step towards an alternative paradigm for an occupation afflicted with unsustainable hypocrisy and thus at the brink of irrelevancy.

Sui Generis Rights for the Protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions Policy Implications

Within the international community there have been many calls for better protection of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs), for which classic instruments of intellectual property rights do not seem to fit. In response, at least five model laws have been advanced within the last 40 years. These are referred to as sui generis because, though they generally belong to the realm of intellectual property they structurally depart from classic copyright law to accommodate the needs of the holders of TCEs. The purpose of this paper is to provide a well-founded basis for national policy makers who wish to implement protection for TCEs within their country. This is achieved by systematically comparing and evaluating economic effects that can be expected to result from these regulatory alternatives and a related system or private ordering. Specifically, we compare if and how protection preferences of local communities are met as well as the social costs that are likely to arise from the different model laws.

Games as Cultural Heritage: Copyright Challenges for Preserving (Orphan) Video Games in the EU

The long-term preservation of complex works such as video games comes with many challenges. Emulation, currently the most adequate preservation strategy for video games, requires several acts that are technically possible, but closely governed and restricted by copyright law and technical protection measures. Without prior authorisation from the rightsholder(s), it is therefore difficult to legally emulate these works. However, games often have several rightsholders that are in some cases near impossible to identify or locate – particularly with regard to older games. This paper therefore focuses on these so-called orphan video games and examines whether (and to what extent) they are covered by the directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works 2012/28/EU (Orphan Works Directive). As complex works with software and audiovisual components, it is difficult to classify video games in their entirety. The Orphan Works Directive, however, only covers certain categories of works. This paper therefore analyses 1) whether video games in their entirety can be considered types of works that fall under the directive, i.e. audiovisual or cinematographic works, and 2) whether the provisions of the orphan work exception are suitable for the specifics of these complex, “multimedia” works.

Gender-fair Language Changes the Social Perception of Professional Groups: The Case of German and Italian.

Gender-fair language, including women and men, such as word pairs has a substantial impact on the mental representation, as a large body of studies have shown. When using exclusively the masculine form as a generic, women are mentally significantly less represented than men. Word pairs, however, lead to a higher cognitive inclusion of women. Surprisingly little research has been conducted to understand how the perception of professional groups is affected by gender-fair language. Providing evidence from an Italian-Austrian cross-cultural study with over 400 participants, we argue that gender-fair language impacts the perception of professional groups, in terms of perceived gender-typicality, number of women and men assumed for a profession, social status and average income. Results hint at a pervasive pay-off: on the one hand, gender-fair language seems to boost the mental representations in favor of women and professions are perceived as being rather gender-neutral. On the other hand professional groups are assigned lower salary and social status with word pairs. Implications of results are discussed.

Self-disclosure and privacy calculus on social networking sites: the role of culture

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have become extremely popular around the world. They rely on user-generated content to offer engaging experience to its members. Cultural differences may influence the motivation of users to create and share content on SNS. This study adopts the privacy calculus perspective to examine the role of culture in individual self-disclosure decisions. The authors use structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis to investigate this dynamics. The findings reveal the importance of cultural dimensions of individualism and uncertainty avoidance in the cognitive processes of SNS users.