Postcard mobility: going beyond image and text

Most existing research about postcards focuses merely on their visual representation, but postcards offer more than only images and texts. We analyse 134 postcards sent from Smyrna between 1895 and 1922 by discussing five interdependent mobilities constituting the New Mobilities Paradigm (Urry, 2000 and Urry, 2007), namely mobility of objects, corporeal, imaginative, communicative and virtual mobility, and pertaining systems enabling them. We aim to show the empirical richness of postcards and a way of looking at them through the concept of mobilities. By this we uncover who were the people sending postcards, for what purposes, which places postcards connected through images and words, and how did postcards function as ordering artefacts in the pre-telephone and internet era

O nalazu rijetkog i manje poznatog puža golaća Piseinotecus sphaeriferus (Schmekel, 1965)(Gastropoda, Nudibranchia, Piseinotecidae) u Jadranskom moru

The paper is describing the record of a less known nudibranch Piseinotecus sphaeriferus (Schmekel, 1965) in the port of Koper in November 2012. The specimen was found in the environment of dense epifauna, dominated by polyps of Aurelia aurita. Taking into consideration the available published data on this species we report on the first record of this less known nudibranch species in the Adriatic Sea.U radu se iznose podaci o manje poznatom pužu golaću Piseinotecus sphaeriferus (Schmekel, 1965) pronađenom u luci Koper u studenom 2012. godine. Primjerak je pronađen u okruženju guste epifaune u kojoj dominira polip Aurelia aurita. Uzimajući u obzir raspoložive objavljene podatke o ovoj vrsti, želimo izvijestiti o ovom prvom pronalasku ove manje poznate vrste puža golaća u Jadranskom moru

Measuring Urban Development and City Performance

Cities represent the driving force of development in economic, social, and cultural life, reflecting also the spatial organization of human society. Taking into account the fact that cities are becoming generators of economic development and a source of growth for the national economy, there is an increasing urge to identify the stages of development and to establish a system for the ranking and positioning of cities and regions in this process (the level of categorization). This will allow the preparation of appropriate strategic and development guidelines for cities and urban regions to take place. In order to be able to compare the level of their efficiency in fostering development, there is an intensifying need to develop indicators that measure the performance of cities, are representative and comparable between countries, and allow verification to others. At present, there are many different urban indicators and institutions that compile and analyze them. Performance measurement systems, developed for internal use in some cities, already show a degree of measurement feasibility. The fundamental problem is that this variety of indicators lacks consistency and comparability (over time and between compared cities). Therefore, their use cannot be approved in a wider context (benchmark) of comparative situations. Upon the case of medium-sized cities, we consequently have to question the applicability of the methodology and indicators, used mostly in cases of large, global cities by internationally recognized institutions. With the established set of indicators and assistance of computer programs for multiparameter decision-making processes (analytic hierarchical process [AHP]), this paper also seeks to investigate comparisons between performance of selected European cities (on a qualitative basis)

Social Media Groups in Interaction With Contested Urban Narratives: The Case of Koper/Capodistria, Slovenia

Social media is arguably the most widespread tool for digital communication in Europe and worldwide, which makes it particularly important to investigate how this type of communication tool affects and reflects the processes that shape the urban physical and socio-cultural environment. Its influence on urban realities may be twofold: On one side we can use it as a reflection (or extension) of the processes that occur on the ground; on the other side, the specific ways in which social media operate might influence processes that shape the urban environment. This interaction between the urban and digital spaces is increasingly influencing how collective memory and related heritage discourses are shaped, transformed, and contested. In this article, we present the case of Koper (Italian: Capodistria), the main seaside harbour town of Slovenia, which faced a deep demographic and socio-cultural transformation in the aftermath of the Second World War. Its historic urban core became a deeply contested urban environment, where a hegemonic historical narrative clashed with several subaltern ones. The dissonance between contested narratives has re-emerged in the digital space through a handful of history-oriented Facebook groups in recent years. We analyse how digital tools have influenced the dynamics between the contested narratives and how these refer to specific locations within the town or to its historic urban core as a whole

An improved local radial basis function method for solving small-strain elasto-plasticity

Strong-form meshless methods received much attention in recent years and are being extensively researched and applied to a wide range of problems in science and engineering. However, the solution of elasto-plastic problems has proven to be elusive because of often non-smooth constitutive relations between stress and strain. The novelty in tackling them is the introduction of virtual finite difference stencils to formulate a hybrid radial basis function generated finite difference (RBF-FD) method, which is used to solve smallstrain von Mises elasto-plasticity for the first time by this original approach. The paper further contrasts the new method to two alternative legacy RBF-FD approaches, which fail when applied to this class of problems. The three approaches differ in the discretization of the divergence operator found in the balance equation that acts on the non-smooth stress field. Additionally, an innovative stabilization technique is employed to stabilize boundary conditions and is shown to be essential for any of the approaches to converge successfully. Approaches are assessed on elastic and elasto-plastic benchmarks where admissible ranges of newly introduced free parameters are studied regarding stability, accuracy, and convergence rate

Prvi nalaz Aplysiopsis elegans (Deshayes1853) (Gastropoda Opisthobranchia: Saccoglossa) u Jadranskom moru

A specimen of Aplysiopsis elegans (Deshayes, 1853) was found by snorkeling on a beach in Rovinj (Istria, Croatia) on a belt of the red algae Halopteris scoparia in the shallow rocky coast. This species was previously recorded only at few localities in northern western Mediterranean and at the Canary Archipelago.Primjerak Aplysiopsis elegans (Dshayes, 1853) je pronađen tijekom ronjenja na plaži u Rovinju (Istra, Hrvatska) u pojasu crvene alge Halopteris scoparia na plitkoj stjenovitoj obali. Prethodni nalazi ove vrste su zabilježeni na samo nekoliko lokaliteta u sjeverno-zapadnom Sredozemlju i Arhipelagu Kanarskog otočja

Sesmic design of reinforced concrete structures

The diploma deals with the seismic design of reinforced concrete structures according to SIST EN 1998-1. In the first part of my work we discuss about designing, dimensioning and constructing of reinforced concrete frameworks with ductility class medium. The second part of the work, indicated as a supplement, describes the procedure of calculation made with multi-modal response spectrum analysis on footpath. The process of calculation for period of forms, period of times, seismic forces and movements was made in SAP programme, which was used in the diploma

The analysis of changes in actual use of the land in settlements Brdice pri Neblem, Šlovrenc and Kozarno

The thesis is based on the archives of Franziscean Cadastre and records on actual use of the land of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food of the Republic of Slovenia. We observed the changes in the use of land since the beginning of the 19th century until today, in the area of the villages Brdice pri Neblem, Šlovrenc and Kozarno, which are all located in the cadastral municipality of Biljana. The theoretical part presents some basic concepts related to methods of determining land use, and finally a detailed description of the used methods for obtaining data on land use. We have found that in the mentioned region the vineyard and built-up areas have been in increase, and this confirms our assumption about the spread of the these areas. The results of the analysis are presented in tabular and graphic, but the use of space is presented on thematic maps. The task was made by using software Quantum GIS 2.12.1