Browsing by Subject "Europe"
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Item 16th Century Cast-Bronze Ordnance at the Museu de Angra do Heroismo(Texas A&M University, 2004-09-30) Hoskins, Sara GraceWithin the collections of the Museu de Angra do Heroismo (Terceira Island, Azores, Portugal) are nine cast bronze guns from the 16th century. Most were raised from the seafloor between the 1960s and 1990s, but this study comprises the first in-depth research into their design and manufacture. The importance of this kind of study lies in the fact that ordnance is commonly found on shipwrecks of this time. A greater knowledge of guns will help provide information about the ships from which they came. Careful documentation and study of the Museu de Angra cannon will add greatly to their value as museum exhibits, by allowing museum patrons to better understand where the guns came from, how they were cast, and why they were important. This documentation adds to our knowledge of Western European gunfounding technology during the sixteenth century, as four different countries commissioned the guns: Portugal, Spain, France, and England. With detailed documentation and publication, the Museu de Angra bronze guns can be added to the bibliography of ordnance of this period, which will aid future researchers who encounter similar pieces. The Museu de Angra bronze guns, as symbols of the military and naval power of the countries that commissioned them, were sent aboard ships, into the field, and mounted on fortress walls. Bronze guns of this time period are particularly important, as bronze was an expensive commodity, and the demand for ordnance was increasing rapidly. Countries developed more effective ways to make use of iron for the founding of guns, and the use of bronze became more symbolic of wealth. The information that each gun contains includes both the cutting-edge military technology of the time and the artistic statement of the founder. Some of the finest metalwork of the period was displayed in cast bronze guns, and due to the founding techniques, no two are the same, making each an important piece of history.Item The biopolitics of belonging : Europe in post-Cold War Arabic literature of migration(2013-08) Sellman, Johanna Barbro; El-Ariss, TarekSince the 1990s, a corpus of Arabic literary narratives has appeared that stage Europe from the perspective of forced migrants. This literature on refugees, asylum seekers, and clandestine migrants articulates central problems of migration to Europe in a period of migration policy reform in response to globalization. In this dissertation, I analyze a selection of Arabic and francophone North African literary narratives, including Mahmoud al-Bayaty's 2006 "Dancing on Water", Iqbal Qazwini's 2006 "Zubaida’s Window", Farouq Yousef's 2007 "Nothing and Nobody", Hamid Skif's 2006 "The Geography of Danger", Youssef Fadel's 2000 "Hashish", and Mahi Binebine's 1999 "Welcome to Paradise". This study is situated at the intersection of forced migration studies and Arabic literary studies. As the effort to standardize European migration policy and manage migration has increased states' power to filter and exclude, the human rights framework of migration policy has weakened (Fekete 2009; Menz 2008). Such shifts represent an intensification of what Michel Foucault calls "biopolitics," modern states' propensity to manage populations by producing belonging and exclusion (Foucault 2003). Literature of migration has become an important vehicle for reflecting on the ways that migration policies produce belonging and exclusion in contemporary Europe. Literature of forced migration requires modes of analysis that differ from the more modernist notions of exile that have dominated literary studies (Malkki 1995; McLeod 2000; Parvati 2010). In this study, I draw attention to the ways that literary narratives of migration re-figure Europe as a wilderness. The works that I analyze explore precarious migrant subjectivities through forests, urban jungles, and cannibalism, spaces onto which fantasies (and often nightmares) of the outside of political community can be projected Furthermore, I argue that wilderness provides sites of negotiation between the biopolitical and ideals of rights-based citizenship. While the biopolitical does not serve as a foundation of belonging in these narratives as suggested by some theorists (Agamben 2008), the literature posits new modes of belonging through the very exclusions produced by forced migration.Item Combined effects of global warming and a shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation on West African and European climate(2012-05) Brown, Meredith Guenevere Longshore; Cook, Kerry Harrison, 1953-; Fu, Rong; Dickinson, Robert E.; Jackson, Charles S.The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has a vast potential for abrupt climate change due to its large heat transport through the ocean and its nonlinear dynamics. Because of these unique properties, this paper investigates how the climate of West Africa and Europe will respond to a shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at the end of the 21st century. Here we use a regional climate model with 90-km grid spacing is forced by an idealized sea-surface temperature anomaly, based upon coupled atmosphere/ocean global model water hosing experiments, with a business-as-usual global warming scenario to discover how West African and European climate will change. In both the boreal spring and summer, cooling in the eastern Atlantic is associated with a strong intensification and eastward extension of the North Atlantic subtropical high over Europe throughout the depth of the atmosphere, a strengthening of the heat low over West Africa at low levels, and a weakening of the Saharan High in the upper atmosphere. Rainfall rates also decrease markedly throughout most of West Africa and Europe: in spring, rainfall rates decrease by 50-80% over Sahelian Africa, in summer rainfall over Europe decreases by up to 90%, while precipitation over West Africa is reduced by 40%.Item Cooperation between high-speed rail and air travel in the United States(2011-05) Suski, Shea Matthew; Zhang, Ming, 1963 Apr. 22-; Walton, MichaelThe United States as a whole is embarking on the historic task of implementing high-speed rail (HSR) throughout the country in an attempt to improve regional mobility, including congestion at some of the nation’s busiest airports. However, despite the wide overlapping of service that both air and HSR provide and the goal of reducing airport congestion, little discourse has occurred on the topic of how these two modes might interact in an intermodal context. This report explores how air travel and HSR might cooperate in the US, which is defined as an explicit attempt by the two modes to utilize each other in order to transport a passenger to their final destination. It will document potential benefits of cooperation, survey how cooperation works elsewhere in the world, and investigate the current climate within the US for cooperation, including a review of current HSR plans and analysis of air travel data. This information will form the basis for suggested airports for the integration of HSR and air travel, and for how US airlines might utilize HSR. Lastly, lessons learned will form a list of best practices to follow in order to better insure a cooperative and successful relationship between HSR and air travel.Item Costly citizenship : the supply and demand of political membership in Europe, 1970-2014(2016-08) Graeber, John David; Moser, Robert G., 1966-; Givens, Terri E., 1964-; Freeman, Gary P; Chapman, Terrence; Maxwell, Rahsaan DAs Europe has struggled to adapt to the modern reality of mass migration in recent decades, the question of citizenship has emerged as an increasingly salient political topic across the continent. Numerous scholars have begun to analyze the evolution of citizenship regimes in Europe, the politics of citizenship policymaking, and the consequences of such policies for citizenship acquisition and immigrant integration. This dissertation advances a new theoretical understanding of citizenship policymaking and citizenship acquisition together within a framework of supply and demand. According to the theory, naturalization rates, and the corresponding level of integration required to naturalize, are the equilibrium result of the interaction between the political forces supplying citizenship and the varying determinants of immigrant demand for citizenship. This dissertation examines both in turn. On the supply side, I first argue that citizenship policy in Europe results not simply from the influence of radical right parties, but from broader modes of party competition that provide electoral incentives to either liberalize or restrict access to citizenship. Using a new quantitative measurement of citizenship policies across sixteen European countries from 1970 to 2014, I reveal how left party competition is associated with more liberal citizenship policy change, while right party competition and radical right electoral threats engender more restrictive policies. I then utilize my citizenship policy index alongside other political, economic, and social variables on the demand side to examine the aggregate level structure under which citizenship acquisition occurs across European countries and across time. Finally, through a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence gathered on two federal countries in Europe, Germany and Austria, I show that these same aggregate level variables operating at the national level may also operate within them.Item Evidence from high-temporal-resolution strain rates for strain softening due to episodic fluid influx at Passo del Sole, Central Swiss Alps(2012-12) Stacy, Sarah Jean; Carlson, William, 1952-; Cloos, Mark; Ketcham, Richard ABerg (2007) determined hand-sample-scale high-temporal-resolution strain rates from rotated garnet for two samples of quartzose pelitic gneiss at Passo del Sole, Central Swiss Alps, documenting a correlation between dramatic increases in strain rate and compositionally anomalous garnet growth zones. Considering additional evidence that these anomalous zones resulted from externally derived ephemeral fluid flow, he concluded that increased strain rates at Passo del Sole are the result of strain softening caused by fluid influx. This study tests Berg's interpretation by calculating new hand-sample-scale high-temporal-resolution strain rates for two additional samples of the same gneiss: a control sample (Sample PDS 03-30) that shows no unusual zoning patterns, implying that it was unaffected by fluids; and another (Sample PDS 03-2) that features a prominent Ca spike, suggesting that it has been affected by fluid influx. Unique features of garnet from this locality--contemporaneity of chemical zones, near-simultaneous nucleation, size-proportional growth, and rock-wide chemical equilibrium--were exploited to calculate strain rates of unprecedentedly high temporal resolution. Thermodynamically modeled temperatures for several growth-zone boundaries in each garnet crystal were combined with a regional heating rate of 11.5 ± 3.5 °C/Myr (presumed constant) and measured deflections of inclusion trails in each zone to calculate strain rates for several discrete time increments during garnet growth. Sample PDS 03-2 displays a 2- to 16-fold increase in strain rate that correlates with growth of the high-Ca zone; strain rates are 0.4 x 10⁻¹⁴ s⁻¹ to 4.1 x 10⁻¹⁴ s⁻¹ for zones with normal Ca concentration and 9.1 x 10⁻¹⁴ s⁻¹ to 17.9 x 10⁻¹⁴ s⁻¹ for the high-Ca zone. Distinct amongst all analyzed samples from Passo del Sole, Sample PDS 03-30--which has not been affected by fluid influx--shows no fluctuations in strain rates, which remain low and similar (0.2 x 10⁻¹⁴ s⁻¹ to 2.6 x 10⁻¹⁴ s⁻¹) across all zones. Results from this study therefore further substantiate the correlation of high strain rates with compositionally anomalous zones, strengthening the interpretation that elevated strain rates at Passo del Sole result from strain softening caused by episodic, externally controlled flow of fluids through the system during synkinematic garnet growth.Item The dynamics of institutional change in transition economics(Texas Tech University, 2003-08) Starnes, Charles NewtonIn the 1990s there was a large addition of new economies to the world order with the collapse of socialism in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. As new structures emerged in these economies to deal with the conversion from predominantly centrally planned to market-based economies, the institutions to support the transition had to develop. This study develops and evaluates a model to measure the dynamic institutional change undergone by countries in transition. This measure provides an indication of the state of transition and whether economies have moved toward or away from market-based conditions. Criteria are established to determine whether and economy's transition is continuing or has finished. A panel data study confirms the relationship between economic growth and institutional change and validates the importance of institutional change to a transitional economy.Item The venture of self-fashioning in Mughal India(2010-05) Chakrabarti, Ishan; Wojciehowski, Hannah Chapelle, 1957-; Snell, Rupert; Talbot, CynthiaIndividuality – both as a philosophical category and a way of living – forms the focal point of a resonance between our times and the 17th-century. Impelled by this haunting resonance, and in an attempt to understand it, my paper examines the literary history of biographical writing in both Europe and South Asia, from 560 BCE to 1700 CE. What is it about the 17th century that is so specific? Why do only these biographies strike us as records of the lives of true individuals? And why do individuals first appear in 17th century South Asia? To adequately comprehend this nomadic literary genre, we must abstract ourselves from the geography and examine the thematic aspects of our texts. I suggest it is imperative to look at modes of life as they are formed over time, across Europe and South Asia. That is, we most focus on the philosophically-rich questions of the categories that structured lives. Pausing in the 17th century, I examine the Viaggi of Pietro Della Valle (an Italian traveler in Turkey, Iran and South Asia) and the Ardhakathānaka of Banārasīdāsa (the first Indian autobiography, comprising the records of a Jain merchant roaming South Asia). For just one generation, from 1600-1650, autobiographical writing becomes an ethical practice by which they reflect on and build individuality.