Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography

Urquízar-Herrera’s well-researched book strikes deep into vital questions about the art history of Early Modern Spain. T

The Egyptian Muslim brotherhood and the road towards the Ummah

The paper examines the contemporary developments of the Ummah, a concept which began to receive more attention due to the globalization of political Islam. Since the Ummah is one of Islam’s ultimate goals, the Muslim Brotherhood started to strive for this concept through its political activity over the past decades and through its involvement on the international stage. The essay is divided in three parts. The first part analyzes the concept of Ummah and its implications with regard to Arab and Islamic unity. The second part searches for the reasons of the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and around the Muslim and Arab World. Furthermore, this part scrutinizes the ideological and political factors that determined the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the strife for the Ummah. The third part looks into the role that the Muslim Brotherhood plays on the international stage concentrating on its foreign policy stances with regard to the all-inclusive Ummah. This essay concludes that the Egyptian Brethren became a model for political achievements through their moderate standpoint thus giving a real hope to those Muslims looking towards unifying the Ummah

Islamic and Arab Perspectives on Machiavelli's Virtù

This paper argues that although the concept of virtue is an ambiguous concept rooted in ancient Greek philosophy and remarkably developed by Machiavelli, the Islamic view of this term deserves more attention since it might provide a useful insight to a deeper understanding of how this concept is used in Eastern philosophies. This paper also argues that the concept of virtue in Islamic philosophy has many commonalities with Machiavelli's concept of virtue although the last has certain revolutionary attributes for the European Middle Ages. The first part of the essay will discuss the various interpretations of the concept of virtue from the perspectives of Islamic scholars and that of Machiavelli. The second part will analyze the commonalities and the major differences between Machiavelli and two important Islamic scholars such as Ibn Zafar and Ibn Khaldun, both precursors of Machiavelli. This essay concludes that Machiavelli's concept of virtue (virtù) is not entirely an original concept although introducing the so-called vices as part of it is a revolutionary idea

Asymmetric amphiphilic triblock copolymers : synthesis, characterization and self-assembly

We developed a synthetic pathway to new amphiphilic ABC triblock copolymers with watersoluble blocks A and C and a hydrophobic middle block B. The synthesis involves a two-step polymerization. The prepolymer AB, constituted of poly(ethylene) oxide –b –poly(dimethyl) siloxane was prepared by anionic ring-opening polymerization of cyclic siloxanes, withandsiloxane units. The polymerization of strained cycles (e.g., D3) leads to polysiloxanes with monodisperse chains; the reaction time for anionic polymerization is lower and the yield of polymerization improved. Finally using the AB diblock copolymers as macroinitiators, a cationic polymerization of 2-methyloxazoline leads to asymmetric ABC triblock copolymers. As a model polymer we used an amphiphilic polyethylene oxide-b-polydimethylsiloxane-b-poly 2-methyloxazoline (PEO-b-PDMS-b-PMOXA) triblock copolymer. In aqueous solutions, this triblock copolymer self-assembles into well defined supramolecular aggregates. For certain compositions, the triblock copolymers form membrane like-superstructures and spherical vesicles in aqueous media. With the help of fluorescently labelled polymers, we were able to prove that the walls of these vesicles are asymmetric, due to the incompatibility between the hydrophilic chains: the blocks A and C are segregated on two different sides of the membrane. In case of nanometer-sized vesicles where membrane-curvature plays an important role we were even able to achieve a control over the membrane orientation, i.e., which of the two hydrophilic block is at the inner and which at the outer surface. This seems to be mainly gouverned by steric considerations: generally the smaller hydrophilic blocks are forced to the inner side where less space is available. Interestingly, the intrinsic asymmetry of the vesicular walls induced a directed insertion of transmembrane proteins. Using Aquaporinas a model system we employed immunoassay, immunofluorescence and immunogold labelling, to quantify the amount and the orientation of these proteins in the walls of the asymmetric ABC-block copolymer vesicles. The results clearly show a direct correlation between the membrane orientation and the prefered direction of the proteins. These studies indicate clearly that amphiphilic ABC triblock copolymers provide a convenient way to come to new materials with a directional functionality. Since they allow even a control over the orientation, they could allow to realize systems with a functionality that is reversed with respect to the biological model

Palestinian nationalism: from secularism to Islam

The objective of this essay is to critically analyze the modern developments of Palestinian nationalism. The essay is divided into three parts. The first part analyzes the concept of nationalism and its implications for Palestinian nationalism looking into the theoretical approaches when analyzing nationalism and their relevance when analyzing Palestinian nationalism. The second part searches for the reasons of the emergence of Palestinian nationalism in the Occupied Territories and in the countries that host large numbers of Palestinian refugees. The third part looks into the relationship between Palestinian nationalism and Islam. Furthermore, the third part analyses the relationship between land, nationalism and Islam and examines the rise of Hamas and its role in the development of Palestinian nationalism. This essay concludes that secular Palestinian nationalism was just a stage in the development of Palestinian national identity and it can not succeed in the contemporary political situation of the region. The political circumstances transformed the Palestinian nationalism into a Palestinian Islamic nationalism in order to fight for the independence of Palestine

Reframing a Medieval Miracle in Early Modern Spain: The Origins of Our Lady del Sagrario of Toledo

This chapter studies the transformation of the image of Our Lady del Sagrario into the contact relic of the Virgin’s Descent in Toledo Cathedral. The archbishops and cathedral canons of Toledo, who requested that such transformation to the relic status be effected, accomplished a twofold goal: to supply the Spanish Cathedral with relics after centuries of relic scantiness due to the Muslim occupation; and to fulfill the increasingly compelling need for miraculous cult images in late sixteenth-century Spain. At least from the thirteenth-century to approximately the turn of the seventeenth-century, Toledo Cathedral lacked a preeminent relic by means of which to venerate the Virgin’s Descent in the local space. A series of cultic reconsiderations, relic inventions, artistic retoolings, and spatial relocations within Toledo Cathedral reconfigured the Sagrario as a contact relic of the Virgin’s touch. Ultimately, Our Lady del Sagrario became the most preeminent sacred image within the liturgical space, and in historical narratives related to the architecture of the new Sagrario chapel of Toledo Cathedral

Effects of neutron irradiation on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the heat affected zone of stainless steel welds

The effects of neutron irradiation on austenitic stainless steels, usually used for the manufacturing of internal elements of nuclear reactors (e.g. the core shrouds), are the alteration of the microchemistry and the microstructure, and, as a consequence, of the mechanical properties. The present study is aimed at extending knowledge upon the impact of neutron-irradiation on the heat affected zone (HAZ) of welded materials, which was influenced by the thermal cycles upon fusion welding. Two types of austenitic stainless steels welds, AISI 304 and AISI 347, referred to as test materials, have been produced by FRAMATOME ANP (Germany) using a welding procedure that was a compromise between the conditions applied to real reactor components and the restrictions concerning dimensions and the allowable deformation imposed by this research project. The welded test materials have been irradiated with neutrons in a High Flux Reactor in Petten (The Netherlands) at a temperature of around 573 K (approximate operating temperature of light water reactors) to 0.3 dpa and 1 dpa. A welded AISI 304 type austenitic stainless steel, so-called in-service material, originating from a decommissioned light water reactor in Mol (Belgium) which had operated for 25 years and having accumulated different dose levels, to a maximum of 0.3 dpa, was also studied. The effect of neutron irradiation on the HAZ was evaluated by studying the microstructure and mechanical properties before and after irradiation. The characterisation of the microstructure was made by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The mechanical properties were determined by performing microhardness measurements and tensile testing. Tensile tests were conducted on small flat specimens at two deformation temperatures: room temperature and about 573 K. For the unirradiated and very low dose irradiated materials, optical microscopy observations showed that the grain size is larger in the HAZ as compared to the base material (BM) due to the high temperatures reached during welding. The HAZ extends over around 600 µm on both sides of the weld. TEM observations showed that the HAZ contains a higher dislocation density than the BM due to the thermal cycles upon welding. The HAZ also contains small ferrite islands dispersed in the austenite matrix. Concerning the irradiated materials, TEM observations have shown that the austenitic matrix contains a large number of irradiation-induced defects. These defects are black dots, too small to be identified in TEM, and Frank loops, which can be either of vacancy or of interstitial type. In the in-service material the irradiation-induced defect density was found to be higher in the HAZ as compared to the BM. The higher defect density in the HAZ may be due to the higher grain size in the HAZ as compared to the BM, leaving less sinks (e.g. grain boundaries) for irradiation-induced defects annihilation. No irradiation-induced defects have been observed by TEM in the bcc ferritic interphase, which confirms that the irradiation-induced defects accumulate at a smaller rate in bcc materials than in fcc ones. Following tensile testing at room temperature the microstructure of unirradiated materials contains mainly twins. Following tensile testing at high temperature, the microstructure appears composed of dislocation cells. These results are independent on the specimen position from the fusion line. In the case of irradiated materials the deformation microstructure contains mainly stacking faults and twins. It seems to present no significant dependence on the material type, the irradiation dose and the test temperature. Tensile tests performed on all irradiated materials revealed an increase in the yield strength (radiation hardening) and a decrease of the uniform elongation (loss of ductility), at both deformation temperatures. Radiation hardening presents lower values in the HAZ as compared to the BM. The loss of ductility is higher in the HAZ as compared to the BM. Radiation hardening was analysed using the dispersed obstacle hardening model. It was found that the measured radiation hardening cannot be explained solely by the presence of the irradiation-induced defects observed in TEM. Smaller irradiation-induced features (not resolvable in TEM) apparently also contribute to radiation hardening. In conclusion, the HAZ presents a resistance to neutron-irradiation that is similar to the one of the BM, in terms of accumulation of irradiation-induced defects (black dots and Frank loops) and changes in mechanical properties (hardening and loss of ductility). The degradation of the mechanical properties of the HAZ clearly results from irradiation and not from welding. It seems that the threshold dose for peculiar deterioration of the HAZ, in terms of apparition of cracks or microcracks, was not reached in the present study