The politics of Timor-Leste : democratic consolidation after intervention

The Politics of Timor-Leste explores the critical issues facing the Asia-Pacific's youngest nation as it seeks to consolidate a democracy following years of international intervention. The authors study the challenges that have burdened the state since it broke from Indonesia amid the violence of 1999 and formally achieved full independence in 2002. They assess the notable accomplishments of Timor-Leste’s leaders and citizens, and consider the country’s future prospects as international organizations prepare to depart. A close study of Timor-Leste sheds light on ambitious state-building projects that have been initiated, with varying success, across the globe.

Contributors to this volume map the nation’s recent political evolution through studies of its constitutional debates, political parties, and foreign policy responses to powerful neighbors. They address the social and economic conditions that complicate Timor-Leste’s political development, such as gender discrimination, poverty, corruption, and security-sector volatility. The contemporary history of Timor-Leste reflects the experiences of many postcolonial and developing countries that have sought to establish a viable state following conflict and a declaration of independence. This small nation has been the subject of five consecutive UN missions with varying mandates. The Politics of Timor-Leste ought to serve as a key source for comparative postcolonial studies and a guide to future trends in international state-building and assistance.

Decentralization

Decentralization in Timor-Leste, as required by the constitution, will hve benefits as well as challenges to the young state.

Jemma Purdy, ed. Knowing Indonesia : intersections of self, discipline, and nation

This review considers debates in the study of Indonesia, in particular the politics of such study.

'Shadow-lands' : the suffering image

"Folio X documents the exhibition '"Shadow-lands': the suffering image" held at Dennys Lascelles Exhibition Gallery, Alfred Deakin Prime Ministerial Library, Deakin University, Waterfront Campus, Geelong, Victoria, Australia, April 18-May 18, 2012. The project was part and parcel of the author's PhD study, "Visual agency in art and architecture" .... and an experimental representation of the values embedded in the photography and film-essays of Chris Marker..."

New trends in the making of international commercial law

This paper analyzes trends in the making of international commercial law including the impetus for generating conventions, the growth of regional conventions, and soft law.There has never been a better time to be an international commercial law scholar. After decades of being held hostage to state-centered ideas, international commercial law has finally broken through to become more solution oriented. Increasingly, nation states are becoming less important in the creation of international commercial law with the growth of regional organizations, non-state actors, and international arbitration. This is spurred on by the march of globalization and the need for international commercial law. The term "harmonization will be used as a surrogate to discuss the creation of international commercial law as it is the primary means by which international commercial law is created. This article seeks to explore two preponderant trends that have become visible in the making of international commercial law. In Part I, I shall describe the background. In Parts II and III, I will highlight the growing role of regional endeavors at harmonization, and the rise of non-binding instruments.

Two fluid numerical model for coastal applications

Wave breaking is an important coastal process, influencing hydro-morphodynamic processes such as turbulence generation and wave energy dissipation, run-up on the beach and overtopping of coastal defence structures. During breaking, waves are complex mixtures of air and water (“white water”) whose properties affect velocity and pressure fields in the vicinity of the free surface and, depending on the breaker characteristics, different mechanisms for air entrainment are usually observed. Several laboratory experiments have been performed to investigate the role of air bubbles in the wave breaking process (Chanson & Cummings, 1994, among others) and in wave loading on vertical wall (Oumeraci et al., 2001; Peregrine et al., 2006, among others), showing that the air phase is not negligible since the turbulent energy dissipation involves air-water mixture. The recent advancement of numerical models has given valuable insights in the knowledge of wave transformation and interaction with coastal structures. Among these models, some solve the RANS equations coupled with a free-surface tracking algorithm and describe velocity, pressure, turbulence and vorticity fields (Lara et al. 2006 a-b, Clementi et al., 2007). The single-phase numerical model, in which the constitutive equations are solved only for the liquid phase, neglects effects induced by air movement and trapped air bubbles in water. Numerical approximations at the free surface may induce errors in predicting breaking point and wave height and moreover, entrapped air bubbles and water splash in air are not properly represented. The aim of the present thesis is to develop a new two-phase model called COBRAS2 (stands for Cornell Breaking waves And Structures 2 phases), that is the enhancement of the single-phase code COBRAS0, originally developed at Cornell University (Lin & Liu, 1998). In the first part of the work, both fluids are considered as incompressible, while the second part will treat air compressibility modelling. The mathematical formulation and the numerical resolution of the governing equations of COBRAS2 are derived and some model-experiment comparisons are shown. In particular, validation tests are performed in order to prove model stability and accuracy. The simulation of the rising of a large air bubble in an otherwise quiescent water pool reveals the model capability to reproduce the process physics in a realistic way. Analytical solutions for stationary and internal waves are compared with corresponding numerical results, in order to test processes involving wide range of density difference. Waves induced by dam-break in different scenarios (on dry and wet beds, as well as on a ramp) are studied, focusing on the role of air as the medium in which the water wave propagates and on the numerical representation of bubble dynamics. Simulations of solitary and regular waves, characterized by both spilling and plunging breakers, are analyzed with comparisons with experimental data and other numerical model in order to investigate air influence on wave breaking mechanisms and underline model capability and accuracy. Finally, modelling of air compressibility is included in the new developed model and is validated, revealing an accurate reproduction of processes. Some preliminary tests on wave impact on vertical walls are performed: since air flow modelling allows to have a more realistic reproduction of breaking wave propagation, the dependence of wave breaker shapes and aeration characteristics on impact pressure values is studied and, on the basis of a qualitative comparison with experimental observations, the numerical simulations achieve good results.

L'idea di metafora nell'opera di Oswald Mathias Ungers

This research focuses on the definition of the complex relationship that exists between theory and project, which - in the architectural work by Oswald Mathias Ungers - is based on several essays and on the publications that - though they have never been collected in an organic text - make up an articulated corpus, so that it is possible to consider it as the foundations of a theory. More specifically, this thesis deals with the role of metaphor in Unger’s theory and its subsequent practical application to his projects. The path leading from theoretical analysis to architectural project is in Ungers’ view a slow and mediated path, where theory is an instrument without which it would not be possible to create the project's foundations. The metaphor is a figure of speech taken from disciplines such as philosophy, aesthetics, linguistics. Using a metaphor implies a transfer of meaning, as it is essentially based on the replacement of a real object with a figurative one. The research is articulated in three parts, each of them corresponding to a text by Ungers that is considered as crucial to understand the development of his architectural thinking. Each text marks three decades of Ungers’ work: the sixties, seventies and eighties. The first part of the research deals with the topic of Großform expressed by Ungers in his publication of 1966 Grossformen im Wohnungsbau, where he defines four criteria based on which architecture identifies with a Großform. One of the hypothesis underlying this study is that there is a relationship between the notion of Großform and the figure of metaphor. The second part of the thesis analyzes the time between the end of the sixties and the seventies, i.e. the time during which Ungers lived in the USA and taught at the Cornell University of Ithaca. The analysis focuses on the text Entwerfen und Denken in Vorstellungen, Metaphern und Analogien, written by Ungers in 1976, for the exhibition MAN transFORMS organized in the Cooper - Hewitt Museum in New York. This text, through which Ungers creates a sort of vocabulary to explain the notions of metaphor, analogy, signs, symbols and allegories, can be defined as the Manifesto of his architectural theory, the latter being strictly intertwined with the metaphor as a design instrument and which is best expressed when he introduces the 11 thesis with P. Koolhaas, P. Riemann, H. Kollhoff and A. Ovaska in Die Stadt in der Stadt in 1977. Berlin das grüne Stadtarchipel. The third part analyzes the indissoluble tie between the use of metaphor and the choice of the topic on which the project is based and, starting from Ungers’ publication in 1982 Architecture as theme, the relationship between idea/theme and image/metaphor is explained. Playing with shapes requires metaphoric thinking, i.e. taking references to create new ideas from the world of shapes and not just from architecture. The metaphor as a tool to interpret reality becomes for Ungers an inquiry method that precedes a project and makes it possible to define the theme on which the project will be based. In Ungers’ case, the architecture of ideas matches the idea of architecture; for Ungers the notions of idea and theme, image and metaphor cannot be separated from each other, the text on thematization of architecture is not a report of his projects, but it represents the need to put them in order and highlight the theme on which they are based.