Architecture, memory and historical continuity in Old Cairo

The hawari (local communities) of Old Cairo resemble a unique societal context whose history is actively involved in the contemporary everyday production of local habits, traditions and social practice. By the virtue of its durability and ability to survive, Architecture brings events and traditions of the past alive into the present through the spatial transformation, social practice and the value of the historical-fabric. The presence of buildings and houses from different historical periods has helped the local community’s memory to carry social practices over from one generation to another. This article explores the relationship between architecture, memory and everyday social practices through determining the way architecture moderates community experiences and communicates narratives among generations in haret al-Darb al-Asfar in old Cairo. Architecture emerges as a moderator of cross-time communication and as physical elements that help visualize history, situate values and materialize local traditions in old Cairo. Architecture, as process and product this article reports, works as agent of continuity, which in conjunction with the narrators, brings the full experience of the past alive in the present and helps guide future generations.

Low-cost digital signature architecture suitable for radio frequency identification tags

Continuing achievements in hardware technology are bringing ubiquitous computing closer to reality. The notion of a connected, interactive and autonomous environment is common to all sensor networks, biosystems and radio frequency identification (RFID) devices, and the emergence of significant deployments and sophisticated applications can be expected. However, as more information is collected and transmitted, security issues will become vital for such a fully connected environment. In this study the authors consider adding security features to low-cost devices such as RFID tags. In particular, the authors consider the implementation of a digital signature architecture that can be used for device authentication, to prevent tag cloning, and for data authentication to prevent transmission forgery. The scheme is built around the signature variant of the cryptoGPS identification scheme and the SHA-1 hash function. When implemented on 130 nm CMOS the full design uses 7494 gates and consumes 4.72 mu W of power, making it smaller and more power efficient than previous low-cost digital signature designs. The study also presents a low-cost SHA-1 hardware architecture which is the smallest standardised hash function design to date.

Home curation versus teenage photography: Photo displays in the family home

In this paper we report an empirical study of the photographic portrayal of family members at home. Adopting a social psychological approach and focusing oil intergenerational power dynamics, our research explores the use of domestic photo displays in family representation. Parents and their teenagers from eight families in the south of England were interviewed at home about their interpretations of both stored and displayed photos within the home. Discussions centred on particular photographs found by the participants to portray self and family in different ways. The findings show that public displays of digital photos are still curated by mothers of the households, but with more difficulty and less control all with analogue photos. In addition, teenagers both contribute and comply with this curation within the home, whilst at the same time developing additional ways of presenting their families and themselves online that are 'unsupervised' by the curator. We highlight the conflict of interest that is at play within teen and parent practices and consider the challenges that this presents for supporting the representation of family through the design of photo display technology. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Reception of Byzantium in European Culture since 1500

Studies on the reception of the classical tradition are an indispensable part of classical studies. Understanding the importance of ancient civilization means also studying how it was used subsequently. This kind of approach is still relatively rare in the field of Byzantine Studies. This volume, which is the result of the range of interests in (mostly) non-English-speaking research communities, takes an important step to filling this gap by investigating the place and dimensions of ‘Byzantium after Byzantium’.
This collection of essays uses the idea of ‘reception-theory’ and expands it to show how European societies after Byzantium have responded to both the reality, and the idea of Byzantine Civilisation. The authors discuss various forms of Byzantine influence in the post-Byzantine world from architecture to literature to music to the place of Byzantium in modern political debates (e.g. in Russia). The intentional focus of the present volume is on those aspects of Byzantine reception less well-known to English-reading audiences, which accounts for the inclusion of Bulgarian, Czech, Polish and Russian perspectives. As a result this book shows that although so-called 'Byzantinism' is a pan-European phenomenon, it is made manifest in local/national versions.
The volume brings together specialists from various countries, mainly Byzantinists, whose works focus not only on Byzantine Studies (that is history, literature and culture of the Byzantine Empire), but also on the influence of Byzantine culture on the world after the Fall of Constantinople.

FPGA montgomery modular multiplication architectures suitable for ECCs over GF(p)

New FPGA architectures for the ordinary Montgomery multiplication algorithm and the FIOS modular multiplication algorithm are presented. The embedded 18×18-bit multipliers and fast carry look-ahead logic located on the Xilinx Virtex2 Pro family of FPGAs are used to perform the ordinary multiplications and additions/subtractions required by these two algorithms. The architectures are developed for use in Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems over GF(p), which require modular field multiplication to perform elliptic curve point addition and doubling. Field sizes of 128-bits and 256-bits are chosen but other field sizes can easily be accommodated, by rapidly reprogramming the FPGA. Overall, the larger the word size of the multiplier, the more efficiently it performs in terms of area/time product. Also, the FIOS algorithm is flexible in that one can tailor the multiplier architecture is to be area efficient, time efficient or a mixture of both by choosing a particular word size. It is estimated that the computation of a 256-bit scalar point multiplication over GF(p) would take about 4.8 ms.

Architecture in Cinema: A Relation of Representation Based on Space

Architecture, whether in the foreground or background, is an intrinsic part of any film, and cinema holds a position as a transformative reference in contemporary architecture. This book addresses the role of architecture in cinema, and through a focus on the use of space, it presents a critical overview of the relation between the two. Through framing, flattening and editing, cinematic space, as the representation of architectural space, focuses on its certain qualities, while eliminating others. Thus, cinema emphasizes individual aspects of space that may be overlooked when the whole context is considered. Space 'acts' in the foreground rather than simply filling the background in the films of Peter Greenaway and Wim Wenders, which are used to analyze two significant cinematic approaches to space, space as form and space as symbol. The detailed analysis of Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect and Wenders' Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) offers an innovative and original perspective on space to those interested in both fields of architecture and film studies.