Appetite for destruction. Current interpretations of accidental or deliberate destructions in Bronze Age Cyprus

Destruction processes are considered 'time capsules of material culture' (Driessen 2013) as they freeze a site at one moment of its history providing key evidence for interpreting the archaeological record and reconstructing social, political, cultural and ideological circumstances. By focusing on selected case-studies, this paper aims at briefly discussing existing evidence of destruction events in Bronze Age contexts in Cyprus, and at a preliminary presentation of new research data resulting from ongoing interdisciplinary analyses at Middle Bronze Age Erimi

Design of X-Concentric Braced Steel Frame Systems Using an Equivalent Stiffness in a Modal Elastic Analysis

In this work, a general method for the design of concentric braced steel frames (CBF) with active tension diagonal bracings, applicable to single- and multi-storey structures, is presented. The method is based on the use of an elastic modal analysis with a response spectrum, which is carried out using an appropriate modified elastic stiffness of diagonal bracings. The reliability of the proposed method is validated through the analysis of significant case studies, making a series of numerical comparisons carrying out time-history non-linear dynamic analysis

Identification of mesoscale model parameters for brick-masonry

Realistic assessment of existing masonry structures requires the use of detailed nonlinear numerical descriptions with accurate model material parameters. In this work, a novel numerical-experimental strategy for the identification of the main material parameters of a detailed nonlinear brick-masonry mesoscale model is presented. According to the proposed strategy, elastic material parameters are obtained from the results of diagonal compression tests, while a flat-jack test, purposely designed for in-situ investigations, is used to determine the material parameters governing the nonlinear behaviour. The identification procedure involves: a) the definition of a detailed finite element (FE) description for the tests; b) the development and validation of an efficient metamodel; c) the global sensitivity analysis for parameter reduction; and d) the minimisation of a functional representing the discrepancy between experimental and numerical data. The results obtained by applying the proposed strategy in laboratory tests are discussed in the paper. These results confirm the accuracy of the developed approach for material parameter identification, which can be used also in combination with in-situ tests for assessing existing structures. Practical and theoretical aspects related to the proposed flat-jack test, the experimental data to be considered in the process and the post-processing methodology are critically discussed

DYNAMICAL FACTORS RELATED TO VERTICAL JUMP PERFOMANCE

INTRODUCTION - In most of sport exercises, the displacement of body Center of Mass (CM) is an important factor to de-terminate performance. And greater the velocity at takeoff phase, greater the height achieved by the body CM. High jumps are influenced by the net combination of different joints moments and its synchronization during this task. Thus, also the countermovement may influence high jump performance (HOCHMUTH & MARHOLD, 1978). To measure the effectiveness of training into increasing the height in vertical jump relays information to both coach and athlete in manner to adapt the training. The purpose of this study is to analyze temporal and frequencies factors of ground reaction force GRF and the effect of limitation of arms swing and trunk extension in vertical jump. METHODS AND EQUIPMENT - All the exercises were performed on a strain gauges force platform. The ground reaction force (GRF) had been sampled at 800 Hz frequency and after the determination of its frequency components by the use of FFT, the raw signals were low-pass filtered at 160 Hz. A video camera was exerted to control the set of jumps. The volunteer subject for this study was a male high jumper, 26 years old, 70.4f0.5 kg weight, 184.0k0.5 cm tall. Four different types of vertical jumps were performed (set of 5 trials) and analyzed in this study: 1) standard vertical jump; 2) jump with- out the elevation of upper limbs; 3) jump without the extension of trunk; and 4) jump without both the elevation of upper limbs and extension of trunk. All that jumps were preceded by countermovement. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION - Although four different techniques had been per- formed for high jumps, the temporal factors (DOWLINH & VAMOS, 1993) did not differ statistically (duration of major positive impulse and duration of major negative impulse). Eccentric and concentric phases was not different statistically. Power spectral analysis has showed that trunk mobility might be more influent than upper limb swing in the dynamic4 characteristics of the analyzed movement. Informations provided by spectral analysis probably relays important data to identify the influence of different body segments in vertical jump. It was not confirmed that the maintenance of a steady state just before the maximum vertical GRF or reducing the depression between the two positive peaks is related to the acceleration caused by arms swing. On the other hand, our results indicate that the first positive peak is probably exerted by trunk extension. In spite of the limitation of trunk and upper limb mobility, it is clear that is not possible to exclude their influence in total body moment of inertia. CONCLUSION - According to our results, despite different jumping exercises, restrictions to joints mobility changes the maxi- mum vertical GRF. Besides, tests that intend to measure the performance in high jumps according the use or not of parts of the human body may be reconsidered. REFERENCES Hochmuth G.; Marhold G. (1983) In Asmussen E. Jagenssen K. Biomechanics VI B. Dowling J.J.; Vamos L. (1 9933 J. Applied. Biornech. 9, 95-110

Relating two standard notions of secrecy

Two styles of definitions are usually considered to express that a security protocol preserves the confidentiality of a data s. Reachability-based secrecy means that s should never be disclosed while equivalence-based secrecy states that two executions of a protocol with distinct instances for s should be indistinguishable to an attacker. Although the second formulation ensures a higher level of security and is closer to cryptographic notions of secrecy, decidability results and automatic tools have mainly focused on the first definition so far. This paper initiates a systematic investigation of the situations where syntactic secrecy entails strong secrecy. We show that in the passive case, reachability-based secrecy actually implies equivalence-based secrecy for digital signatures, symmetric and asymmetric encryption provided that the primitives are probabilistic. For active adversaries, we provide sufficient (and rather tight) conditions on the protocol for this implication to hold.Comment: 29 pages, published in LMC

Advancements in Design, Analysis, and Retrofitting of Structures Exposed to Blast

The objective of this special issue is to provide an overview on the current trends and recent advancements in terms of design, analysis, experimental testing, and retrofitting of structural systems and assemblies exposed to exceptional loads such as explosions

Memory usage verification using Hip/Sleek.

Embedded systems often come with constrained memory footprints. It is therefore essential to ensure that software running on such platforms fulfils memory usage specifications at compile-time, to prevent memory-related software failure after deployment. Previous proposals on memory usage verification are not satisfactory as they usually can only handle restricted subsets of programs, especially when shared mutable data structures are involved. In this paper, we propose a simple but novel solution. We instrument programs with explicit memory operations so that memory usage verification can be done along with the verification of other properties, using an automated verification system Hip/Sleek developed recently by Chin et al.[10,19]. The instrumentation can be done automatically and is proven sound with respect to an underlying semantics. One immediate benefit is that we do not need to develop from scratch a specific system for memory usage verification. Another benefit is that we can verify more programs, especially those involving shared mutable data structures, which previous systems failed to handle, as evidenced by our experimental results

Physical Exercise Affects Adipose Tissue Profile and Prevents Arterial Thrombosis in BDNF Val66Met Mice

Adipose tissue accumulation is an independent and modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). The recent CVD European Guidelines strongly recommend regular physical exercise (PE) as a management strategy for prevention and treatment of CVD associated with metabolic disorders and obesity. Although mutations as well as common genetic variants, including the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met polymorphism, are associated with increased body weight, eating and neuropsychiatric disorders, and myocardial infarction, the effect of this polymorphism on adipose tissue accumulation and regulation as well as its relation to obesity/thrombosis remains to be elucidated. Here, we showed that white adipose tissue (WAT) of humanized knock-in BDNFVal66Met (BDNFMet/Met) mice is characterized by an altered morphology and an enhanced inflammatory profile compared to wild-type BDNFVal/Val. Four weeks of voluntary PE restored the adipocyte size distribution, counteracted the inflammatory profile of adipose tissue, and prevented the prothrombotic phenotype displayed, per se, by BDNFMet/Met mice. C3H10T1/2 cells treated with the Pro-BDNFMet peptide well recapitulated the gene alterations observed in BDNFMet/Met WAT mice. In conclusion, these data indicate the strong impact of lifestyle, in particular of the beneficial effect of PE, on the management of arterial thrombosis and inflammation associated with obesity in relation to the specific BDNF Val66Met mutation

CO–ethene copolymerisation catalysed by [PdCl2(PPh3)2]/PPh3/HCl in MeOH

The system [PdCl2(PPh3)2]/PPh3/HCl catalyses the carbonylation of ethene in MeOH as a solvent to give methyl propanoate (MP) or a polyketone (PK). The influence of temperature, Pd/P, CO/ethene and Pd/HCl ratios, and concentration of H2O on the catalytic activity has been studied. The catalytic system is active only in the presence of HCl and is stable when P/Pd is 656/1 up to 110 \ub0C. At 100 \ub0C, with Pd/P/HCl = 1/6/1600 (HCl initially added), under 6.0 MPa total pressure, the main product is MP at 1.0 MPa of ethene, whereas is PK when the pressure of the olefin is higher than 4.0 MPa. Water, which forms in the solvent, because of the reaction of MeOH with HCl, has a minor effect. The PK product presents a 2.5\u20134/1 ratio between the keto and ester end groups. The proposed catalytic cycle takes into account the results