Between tradition and modernity: determining spatial systems of privacy in the domestic architecture of contemporary Iraq

The notion of privacy represents a central criterion for both indoor and outdoor social spaces in most traditional Arab settlements. This paper investigates privacy and everyday life as determinants of the physical properties of the built and urban fabric and will study their impact on traditional settlements and architecture of the home in the contemporary Iraqi city. It illustrates the relationship between socio-cultural aspects of public/private realms using the notion of the social sphere as an investigative tool of the concept of social space in Iraqi houses and local communities (Mahalla). This paper reports that in spite of the impact of other factors in articulating built forms, privacy embodies the primary role under the effects of Islamic rules, principles and culture. The crucial problem is the underestimation of traditional inherited values through opening social spaces to the outside that giving unlimited accesses to the indoor social environment creating many problems with regard to privacy and communal social integration

Virtual platforms for heritage preservation in the Middle East: the case of medieval Cairo

Much of the effort in VH is directed towards accurate representation of historic structures, objects or artefacts. There is little attention is paid, however, to the human aspects of city life, the intangible heritage to which people can actually relate. Digital models of historic buildings and spaces only give a sense of precision. Yet, rituals, human attitude and cultural traditions remained a gap in current research and advanced technology in heritage visualization. Virtual Heritage Environments (VHE) suffer from the lack of ‘thematic interactivity’ due to the limited cultural content and engaging modules largely used in photorealistic video gaming systems. In order to approach virtual fidelity and accurate reproduction of historic environments, this paper reports on a research process to investigate and incorporate a Cultural-feed into digital platforms of Virtual Heritage. In doing so, the paper focuses on the Middle East in general and Medieval Cairo in particular. It discusses conceptual and practical framework for the development of virtual heritage platforms as a research, educational and engagement tool that brings historic spaces and buildings back to the recognition of the public eye of the ordinary user. It analyses current practices and projects of the virtual heritage technologies and reports on field work that took place in Islamic Cairo with Five Start-Up entrepreneurs

Contested heritage: an analysis of the physical transformation of Derry/Londonderry’s siege monument

Transformations of Derry/Londonderry’s medieval city walls during the twentieth century have shaped an urbanism of segregated settlements within a city of religious confrontation. The heritage of military blockades, peace lines and watchtowers imposed upon the city’s Walls has influenced the disintegration of public space and created areas of no man’s land around the peripheries of the monument. The aim of this paper is to examine physical transformation and trace the consequences of urban planning regarding the historic city Walls. This change includes the shifting of residential settlements in the Bogside/Fountain areas and the movement of Protestant settlements towards the Waterside of Derry/Londonderry. The history and heritage of the Walls are analysed by focusing on four periods: 1600, when the first medieval walls were constructed; the housing crisis of 1948; the 1968 urban area plan and the beginning of the ‘Troubles’; and the present day. This analysis offers an understanding of the spatial relationships between enclaves and the monument over key moments of conflict and political change. The paper reveals that the manifestations of the Walls have aided in the further division of religiously segregated communities in Derry/Londonderry

Taming the Yukawa potential singularity: improved evaluation of bound states and resonance energies

Using the tools of the J-matrix method, we absorb the 1/r singularity of the Yukawa potential in the reference Hamiltonian, which is handled analytically. The remaining part, which is bound and regular everywhere, is treated by an efficient numerical scheme in a suitable basis using Gauss quadrature approximation. Analysis of resonance energies and bound states spectrum is performed using the complex scaling method, where we show their trajectories in the complex energy plane and demonstrate the remarkable fact that bound states cross over into resonance states by varying the potential parameters.Comment: 8 pages, 2 tables, 1 figure. 2 mpg videos and 1 pdf table file are available upon request from the corresponding Autho

The rotating Morse potential model for diatomic molecules in the tridiagonal J-matrix representation: I. Bound states

This is the first in a series of articles in which we study the rotating Morse potential model for diatomic molecules in the tridiagonal J-matrix representation. Here, we compute the bound states energy spectrum by diagonalizing the finite dimensional Hamiltonian matrix of H2, LiH, HCl and CO molecules for arbitrary angular momentum. The calculation was performed using the J-matrix basis that supports a tridiagonal matrix representation for the reference Hamiltonian. Our results for these diatomic molecules have been compared with available numerical data satisfactorily. The proposed method is handy, very efficient, and it enhances accuracy by combining analytic power with a convergent and stable numerical technique.Comment: 18 Pages, 6 Tables, 4 Figure

The Investigation of Lead Borate Glass Composites for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy Shielding

In this work, we studied the lead borate glass composites to optimize its shielding properties of thermal neutrons and gamma-rays for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) applications. Attenuation coefficients, half-value layer (HVL), and tenth-value layer (TVL) were measured for a broad range of gamma-ray energies, i.e., 356, 511, 662, 1173, 1274, and 1332 keV experimentally. Theoretical results using XCOM software show an agreement with the NaI(Tl) detector-based experimental measurements. The attenuation of collimated thermal neutrons, from Cf-252 source, was simulated using Monte Carlo-based code and compared experimentally with measurements by BF3 detector. A reasonable agreement between simulations and experiments was observed, suggesting that the shielding properties of lead borate glass (LBG) composites are monotonically increasing with the increasing of the lead and boron additives

The Virtual Living Museum: Integrating the Multi-Layered Histories and Cultural Practices of Gadara’s Archaeology in Umm Qais, Jordan

This paper discusses a novel technological approach using virtual heritage technology to reflect Umm Qais heritage’s intertwining and interdependent nature that shapes its identity and value today. It developed the first model of a “virtual living museum” that brings both the tangible and intangible heritage of the site and community together into an integrated virtual environment that gives equal importance to local community narratives, traditions and history. We argue that integrating both human and digital records enriches the virtual twin of cultural heritage sites as a living and more humane experience that best represents the multi-layered and overlapping history of ancient Gadara’s archaeology and the cultural practices within Hara Fouqa and its Ottoman houses. As heritage is neither one dimensional nor frozen in time, virtual experiences must be fluid, dynamic, inclusive, integrative and open to change, reflecting living historical narratives

Relativistic scattering with spatially-dependent effective mass in the Dirac equation

We formulate an algebraic relativistic method of scattering for systems with spatially dependent mass based on the J-matrix method. The reference Hamiltonian is the three-dimensional Dirac Hamiltonian but with a mass that is position-dependent and having a constant asymptotic limit. Additionally, this effective mass distribution is locally represented in a finite dimensional function subspace. The spinor couples to spherically symmetric vector and pseudo scalar potentials that are short-range such that they are accurately represented by their matrix elements in the same finite dimensional subspace. We calculate the relativistic phase shift as a function of energy for a given configuration and study the effect of spatial variation of the mass on the energy resonance structure.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure