Object lessons: the question of cultural property in the age of repatriation

Object lessons: the question of cultural property in the age of repatriation. Northwest Coast material culture has become increasingly identified as cultural property, a quasi-legal concept that denotes objects of a collective patrimony. This represents a radical shift from earlier notions of property, seen strongly as privately owned by individuals and family groups. Moreover, the status of these objects as art, that is, framed in a museum setting and partaking of certain transcendent qualities derived from the Western tradition, represents a dramatic redefinition of pieces that were considered analogous to human beings, as temporary entities. This process of redefinition, which is generational, political, and an invention of tradition, is probably inevitable.Leçons d’objets: la question de la propriété culturelle au temps du rapatriement. La culture matérielle de la Côte nord-ouest est de plus en plus conçue comme une propriété culturelle, un concept quasi légal qui identifie les objets comme éléments d’un patrimoine collectif. Il s’agit là d’une modification radicale par rapport aux conceptions anciennes de la propriété: celle-ci était fortement ancrée dans la possession privée par des individus et des groupes familiaux. Par ailleurs, l’accession de ces mêmes objets au statut d’œuvres d’art, par leur inscription dans les musées et l’affectation qui leur est faite, sur le mode occidental, d’une valeur transcendante, redéfinit complètement leur nature puisque, jusqu’alors, ils étaient considérés, à l’instar des êtres humains, comme des entités passagères. Ce processus de redéfinition, qui est dans l’air du temps, a une dimension politique et représente l’invention d’une tradition, est probablement inévitable.Lección de los objetos: el problema de la propiedad cultural en el tiempo de la rapatriación. La cultura material de la costa del Noroeste aparece más y más como una propiedad cultural, un concepto casi legal que se aplica a objetos formando un patrimonio colectivo. Eso representa un cambio radical respecto a las antiguas nociones de propiedad, las cuales remitían a la posesión privada por parte de individuos y grupos de familia. Aparte de eso, la adquisición por estos objetos del estatuto de obras de arte, ya que se exponen en museos y se les reconoce, al modo occidental, un valor transcendental, modifica su naturaleza misma: en efecto, antes eran considerados, al igual que los hombres, como entidades temporarias

Preliminary Canopy Removal Experiments in Algal Dominated Communities Low on the Shore and in the Shallow Subtidal on the Isle of Man

The algal dominated communities immediately above and below the low-water spring level on a moderately exposed Manx shore were investigated by canopy removal experiments. Fucus serratus, Laminaria digitata and L. hyperborea were removed. Competition was shown to be important in determining the zonation of L. digitata and the distribution along the wave exposure gradient of other species such as Alaria esculenta, Desmarestia aculeata and D. viridis, and L. saccharina. Many species of algal epiphytes were early colonizers of canopy removal areas suggesting that competition from canopy algae usually restricts them to an epiphytic habit. The results indicate that interactions between macrophytes are much more important than grazing in structuring these communities

A unified framework for the multi-scale computational homogenisation of 3D-textile composites

This paper extends the applications of a novel and fully automated multi-scale computational homogenisation framework, originally proposed by the authors (Ullah et al. (2017)) for unidirectional and 2D-textile composites, to 3D-textile composites. 3D-textile composites offer many advantages over 2D-textile composites but their highly complicated and unpredictable post-cured geometries make their design very challenging. Accurate computational models are therefore essential to the development of these materials. The computational framework described in this paper possesses a variety of novel features which have never been tried for this class of composites and can potentially help to fully automatise and improve their design process. A unified approach is used to impose the representative volume element boundary conditions, which allows convenient switching between linear displacement, uniform traction and periodic boundary conditions. The computational framework is implemented using hierarchic basis functions of arbitrary polynomial order, which allows one to increase the order of approximation without changing the finite element mesh. The yarns' principal directions, required for the transversely isotropic material model are calculated using a potential flow analysis along these yarns. This feature is very useful for 3D-textile composites and can accurately determine fibres’ directions even in the case of very deformed yarns. A numerical example from literature consisting of a 3D-orthogonal woven composite is used to demonstrate the correct implementation and performance of the developed computational framework. Also, the developed computational framework is used to perform a comparative study of the homogenised mechanical properties of five 3D-textile composites with different yarn architectures