bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Docticity Fecundity Interiority in Pleonastic Pacuvian Psychology
Authors: Ellis Richard
Published: February 2017

In Marcus Pacuvius' playAntiopa, the title character is reunited with her twin sons Amphio and Zethus, whom she had previously abandoned on Mt Cithaeron. Such is her state of unkemptness that Zethus, it appears, did not recognise her:inluuie corporiset coma prolixa impexa conglomerata atque horrida(Pac.Antiopa13f. W)In dirtiness of bodyAnd hair unkempt, matted, compacted and bristled.

Many of Pacuvius' plays deal with mother-son recognitions, often at crux moments of incestuous marriage or unholy kin murder; here it is the physicality of dirt that perverts the perceptions of the mind. The language wallows in this filth, with asyndeton and assonance and homoeoteleuton and vowel elision that runs all the adjectives into each other, such that their pronunciation smacks of the hairball, spluttering for breath, a noisy mastication with an unpleasant grating from those last staccato syllables. The focus on the physical accumulation of detritus betrays a psychological distaste and an inability to unravel a personality and identity from behind this rotting palimpsest of decay. The language reflects this distaste, compacting thought and knowledge in a filth unspeakable. Thus we might conjecture that this is even asublimedirt(!), in the sense that Burke implies, one that terrifies, stuns and shuts down logical capacity. The awkward convolutions of the language mimic this inability to comprehend, and actually recognise, this awesome picture of the unwashed. Pacuvius thus uses linguistic ingenuity effectively to convey psychological disturbance by foregrounding its manifestation through a distorted apprehension of a physical phenomenon, one that reveals its very distortion as the language is matted and glued back into itself, denying the sort of clarity that recognition requires.
Nero and Octavia in Baroque Opera: Their Fate in Monteverdi's Poppea and Keiser's Octavia
Authors: Manuwald Gesine
Published: February 2017

The imperial history playOctavia, transmitted among the corpus of Senecan drama, has suffered from uncertainty about its date, author, literary genre and intended audience as regards its appreciation in modern criticism. Although the majority of scholars will agree nowadays that the play was not written by Seneca himself, there is still a certain degree of disagreement about its literary genre and date. Anyway, such scholarly quibbles seem not to have affected poets and composers in the early modern era: they recognised the high dramatic potential of the story of Nero and his love relationships in 62 CE along with the involvement of the historical character and writer Seneca.

Indeed, this phase in imperial history was apparently quite popular in Italian and German opera of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The earliest of a number of operatic treatments of the emperor Nero (also the first opera presenting a historical topic) and arguably the best known today is an Italian version:L'incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppaea)to a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello (1598-1659) and music attributed to Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), first produced in Giovanni Grimani's ‘Teatro di SS Giovanni e Paolo’ in Venice during the carnival season of 1643. Among the latest operas on this subject is a German version, which is hardly known and rarely performed today:Die Römische Unruhe. Oder: Die Edelmütige Octavia. Musicalisches Schau-Spiel (The Roman Unrest. Or: The Magnanimous Octavia. Musical Play)by the librettist Barthold Feind (1678-1721) and the composer Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739), first performed in the ‘Oper am Gänsemarkt’ in Hamburg on 5 August 1705. In this period German opera was generally influenced by Italian opera, but at the same time there were attempts, particularly in Hamburg, to establish a typically German opera.
ΤΟΣΣ' ΕΔΑΗΝ: The Poetics of Knowledge in Oppian's Halieutica
Authors: Kneebone Emily
Published: February 2017

τόσσ ἐδάην, σκηπτοῦχε διοτεϕές, ἔργα θαλάσσης (5.675).

This much I know of the works of the sea, sceptre-bearer, you who are dear to the gods.

Oppian's address to Marcus Aurelius signals the end of his five-book didactic epic on sea-fishing and encapsulates the poetic project of the Halieutica: no ordinary fish-treatise, this poem illuminates the extraordinary realm of the sea and is presented as a gift and homage to the Roman emperor. The work, written by a Cilician during the joint rule of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (176-180 CE), attained great popularity in antiquity, was used as a Byzantine school-text and was much admired in the Renaissance and subsequent centuries. In more recent times, however, Oppian has languished in relative neglect. At the turn of the twentieth century, Wilamowitz curtly (and characteristically) dismissed the Halieutica as tedious and derivative, a poem whose subject-matter stems less from first-hand observation than from a ‘stale’ academic knowledge:

This poem, which is extensive and technically quite correct, has met with acclaim which has been passed on, doubtless often without its being read. It is appallingly boring; the man may perhaps at some point have set out nets and cast a fishing-rod, but essentially he turns stale book-learning [‘abgestandene Buchweisheit’] about fish into verse, [information] which many had already relayed without any personal experience.
‘Sugaring the Pill’: Gregory of Nazianzus' Advice to Olympias (Carm. 2.2.6)
Authors: Whitby Mary
Published: February 2017

Advice on marriage and the proper deportment for wives begins with the earliest Greek literature. While Homer's Andromache and Penelope provide practical role models, Hesiod (Works and Days 695-705, Theogony 568-612), followed (in iambics) by Semonides (frr. 6, 7), forcefully articulates male concerns about evil wives and women's wicked wiles. Hesiod's imperatival infinitives as well as his viewpoint reverberate more than a millennium later in a poem of advice composed, probably in the early 380s, by the Christian Gregory of Nazianzus for the marriage (νῦν μὲν σοὶ τόδ' ἔδωκα γαμήλιον, ‘now I have given you this wedding gift’, 2.2.6.108) of Olympias, elder daughter of Vitalian, a local Nazianzene worthy. This paper seeks to contribute to recent revaluations of Gregory's poetry—and hence of his place in the larger development of later Greek hexameter poetry—by illustrating how reading of the Olympias poem is enriched by exploration of its literary allusions and intertexts and its poetic craftsmanship. My title adopts Gregory's own image of ‘sugaring the pill’ of instruction for the young by writing in verse, but I extend the expression to include the pleasure that any reader may obtain in recognising Gregory's literary artistry, even when unpalatable prescriptions for female married life are the theme. Since the corpus is not well known, I begin by locating the poem within the context of Gregory's verse.
Colluthus' Pastoral Traditions: Narrative Strategies and Bucolic Criticism in the Abduction of Helen
Authors: Prauscello Lucia
Published: February 2017

It is nowadays a commonplace to state that every literary genre is a highly selective segment of a broader world of potential representations, and presents itself to the reader as a complete, self-contained model of interpretable mimesis of that particular aspect of reality. Yet this is especially true of bucolic poetry, whose very act of foundation rests on a joint effort, on the part both of the poets and their readers, to ‘conjure up a pre-existing “bucolic” tradition’ in the very same act of ‘founding such a tradition’. Theocritus' pastoral universe has its own bucolic hallmarks: landscape, gods and ‘professional’ accessories such as those required of a rustic life (milk-pails, shepherd's staffs, goatskin-coats and the like) are appropriately paraded and customised, and these hyper-‘realist’ markers are casually made to exist on the same level as the most unrealistic aspects of bucolic life (Theocritus' shepherds sing their time away while occasionally looking after their flocks). But it is especially in later imitators and interpreters that the possibilities of Theocritus' pastoral microcosm become necessities: generic consistency and recognisability are constantly pointed out and alluded to by obsessive repetition and normalisation of Theocritus ‘open’ pastoral world. The aim of the present paper is to read Colluthus' exploitation and, I would say, mobilisation of such a crystallised pastoral world against the background of ancient exegesis on the ‘bucolic problem’. In particular, it will be shown how bucolic criticism and Homererklärung (together with some important Hesiodic elements) are indissolubly intertwined in Colluthus' interpretation and reception of Theocritus' pastoral world. Comprehensiveness in charting Colluthus' critical response to such reading practices will not be attempted here: instead attention will be focused on those passages where Colluthus' scholarly engagement with bucolic generic conventions and their later accretions has a more direct impact on his narrative strategy.
Living arrangements of community-dwelling older Singaporeans: predictors and consequences
Authors: GUBHAJU BINA , ØSTBYE TRULS , CHAN ANGELIQUE
Published: February 2017

In this paper, we examine predictors and consequences of living arrangements among community-dwelling older Singaporeans. We take a holistic approach and consider a range of social and economic as well as emotional and physical wellbeing indicators. Two waves (2009, 2011) of the Panel on Health and Ageing of Singaporean Elderly (PHASE) are analysed to (a) provide an overview of living arrangements in 2009 and assess the extent to which living arrangements change by 2011; (b) examine the predictors of living arrangements in 2009; and (c) examine the consequences of living arrangements over a two-year period. The majority (88%) of older Singaporeans co-reside with either their spouse and/or children. A small yet growing proportion live with others (5%) or live alone (6%). Very little change in living arrangements is observed over the two years. Our results show that women, the oldest-old and older adults with fewer children are more likely to live alone. Older adults who live alone are not particularly disadvantaged compared to those who live with their spouse and children or spouse only in their social and economic wellbeing. It is, in fact, older adults who live with their children that are disadvantaged in many aspects of social, economic and mental wellbeing. Measures to engage older adults living with their families (along with those living alone and with others) in broader social activities are imperative.
Viewpoint: The Catalogue Raisonné Scholars Association (CRSA)
Authors: Rogers Katy
Published: February 2017

The catalogue raisonne has been the bedrock of art historical research since the late 18th century. It provides the broadest and most comprehensive record of an artist’s work and their historical context. One would think that the contours of the catalogue raisonné would be firmly established by now, and in some ways they are, but new developments in research, demand and publishing have created a moment of transition and rich dialogue concerning the future of this most traditional of art research publications. Changing attitudes toward authenticity, online access and publishing, digital citations and an evolving user base all affect the how a catalogue raisonné scholar completes and disseminates their research.
From a dispersed medieval collection to one international library: the virtual reconstruction of the monastic library of Lorsch
Authors: Büttner Alexandra , Kautz Michael
Published: February 2017

The historically significant manuscript collection of the medieval Abbey Lorsch is today scattered over various institutions in different countries. Based on the last major research 309 manuscripts were identified in 73 libraries, archives and museums as part of the international digitization project Bibliotheca Laureshamensis - digital. By means of digital facsimiles all former Lorsch manuscripts were united in one virtual library, freely accessible in the internet, and enriched with detailed manuscript descriptions. The dispersed character of the library and the broad variety of holding institutions shaped the project profoundly. They not only had an impact on organisational matters as well as the digitization and cataloguing workflow but also coined the presentation and entire structure of the Virtual Monastic Library of Lorsch.
The Art Discovery Group Catalogue: a new and freely-available tool for art historical bibliographic research
Authors: Koot Geert-Jan
Published: February 2017

As project manager of the Art Discovery Group Catalogue project, and on behalf of the artlibraries.net committee, Geert-Jan Koot explains the development of the Art Discovery Group Catalogue. This discovery service powered by WorldCat is a new, separate project developed by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) in Europe for art libraries, which became officially available on May 1st 2014. The project has been accepted within the international Future of Art Bibliography (FAB) initiative of the Getty Research Institute as its bibliographic component. The fact that the system is being developed in Europe provides an excellent equilibrium between Europe and America within the project. Following the invitation to participate, over 80 libraries have so far expressed interest, of which 60 have joined the catalogue. This project is a major step in one of the FAB goals of making art bibliographical information available worldwide through collaboration.
Creating Cultural Change in Education: A Proposal for a Continuum for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Sustainable Schools Implementation Strategies in Australia
Authors: Davis Julie M. , Ferreira Jo-Anne
Published: February 2017

Networks are increasingly recognised as advantageous when creating and embedding cultural change within organisations. This paper explores and problematises ideas around networks for education for sustainability (EfS), specifically in relation to the implementation of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI), a national, whole-school approach to EfS. In three Australian states - New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland – AuSSI has been implemented in different ways. In examining the use of products, facilitators and networks to embed initiatives such as AuSSI in Australian schools, we propose a “continuum of cultural change strategies” as a framework for thinking about each of these approaches to creating organisational and cultural change for sustainability. We anticipate that such a framework may assist where choices need to be made in relation to the kinds of capacity building processes that might best achieve “deep and wide” change within schools hoping to engender significant cultural change.
The State of Undergraduate Education in International Relations
Authors: Hammond Grant T.
Published: February 2017

There can be no doubt about the increased attention focused on international relations. There is a need for, and interest in, undergraduate programs of instruction in the subject. Such initiatives are important to enable the U.S. to compete in the increasingly interdependent world of the 21st century. In the last few years, there have been a number of reports by various educational associations, task forces, panels and commissions all underscoring the need to do more in international studies and foreign language instruction. A number of colleges and universities have responded by changing curricula, starting new programs, and expanding existing ones. All this is admirable.

Yet, it is possible to graduate from most colleges and universities in the country and know nothing about international relations. Students are woefully ignorant of world geography, recent world history, the importance of international economics in our daily lives, the circumstances in which the rest of the world lives, and how to communicate in another language. This situation is compounded by their lack of knowledge about different political systems and how they operate as well as the significance of many important political issues in the world today. We are in our education, if not our circumstances as a nation, essentially uninformed and isolationist towards other nations. Certainly this is a challenge to American undergraduate education.
Scholarship Versus Pedagogy: The Future of International Studies Education
Authors: Gilbert Miriam
Published: February 2017

Student bashing has become all the rage. Allan Bloom has decried today's youth as “spiritually unclad, unconnected, isolated, and no inherited or unconditional connection with anything or anyone,” creating a storm of controversy. E. D. Hirsch has declared students to be culturally illiterate and the National Geographic Society now tells us they are geographically illiterate, as well.

Admittedly, statistics can be powerfully persuasive and the results of the recent National Geographic Society report should shake us up. One in seven Americans surveyed could not find the United States on a world map, let alone name the country in which “apartheid” is official government policy. Obviously, something larger than map skills is at stake here. As the survey demonstrated, a huge number of Americans know virtually nothing about world affairs. In a country whose influence is global, millions of people display indifference to, and ignorance of events, beyond our borders.

Surveys deocumenting the educational shortcomings of U.S. students indeed have become a dime a dozen. Yet whether or not we agree with these assessments, we have been undeniably offered a grim evaluation of both our students and the job we have done with them. I question, however, whether Bloom's “back to basics” prescription or the acquisition of Hirsch's data base of 5,000 key facts will really make our students smarter, more aware of the complex world they live in. Can “great books” alone (and who will choose them?) or arbitrary concepts devoid of context prepare our students for an interdependent world in which nothing—including the role of the United States— is really certain? Nonetheless, we are compelled to take a good, hard look at ourselves, to reexamine and clarify our role as educators, and to reaffirm education as a potential and potent vehicle for change.
Teaching the International Dimension of American National Government
Authors: Karp Basil
Published: February 2017

Despite enormous changes in the global circumstances that impinge on American government and despite a growing recognition that the undergraduate curriculum must be internationalized, relatively little has been done to incorporate a global perspective in the one place where political science teachers can reach very large numbers of undergraduate students—the introductory American national government course. The internationalization of the American economy, the developing interdependence between the United States and other countries, the growth of local-international links—these phenomena have scarcely touched the bedrock political science course.

Textbooks for the introductory American government course reflect this neglect of the international dimension. They typically allude to the international factor briefly in the context of the president's powers in conducting foreign relations and discuss it more extensively in a chapter on “Foreign Policy” or “Foreign and Defense Policy.” As a practical matter, however, this chapter is usually near or at the very end of the book, which many teachers and students probably never reach. A perusal of various current textbooks confirms the conclusion made by a 1981 survey of 50 leading textbooks that very few of the books recognize the interdependence phenomenon or the importance of global circumstances. Apart from textbooks, learning packages designed for the American government course on such topics are rare.

To expose students to the international dimension of American national government, the writer conducted a special project in two sections of his American national government course during the spring 1988 semester. The following instruction sheet was given to the students.
ABŪ BAKR AL-RĀZĪ ET LE SIGNE: FRAGMENT RETROUVÉ D'UN TRAITÉ LOGIQUE PERDU
Authors: Koetschet Pauline
Published: February 2017

This article argues that a fragment from a lost treatise by Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 925) is preserved in theBook on Morphology Kitāb al-Taṣrīf) by Ps-Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān. Paul Kraus reached the conclusion that the collection to which this book belongs was written between the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth century AD. This fragment represents the first attempt – to our knowledge – to analyze the logical structure of sign-based inference in Arabic, which is known asistidlāl bi-al-šāhid ʿalā al-ġāʾibamong theologians and philosophers. The author distinguishes between sign-inferences based on homogeneity (al-muǧānasa), course of habit (maǧrā al-ʿāda) and traces (āṯār). After providing a translation of the fragment, the first part of this paper argues that its author is Abū Bakr al-Rāzī. My argument is based on a comparison between this text and a passage from theDoubts About Galen, which is also by Abū Bakr al-Rāzī. I hypothesize that at least two other fragments from the same work or from different works by Abū Bakr al-Rāzī are preserved in the corpus attributed to Ps-Ǧābir. The second part of the paper aims to reconstruct Abū Bakr al-Rāzī’s theory of sign-inference. In so doing, I show the historical influence that Hellenistic debates on sign-inference might have had on al-Rāzī, and I situate al-Rāzī’s theory in the context of the prominent use that the theologians of thekalāmmade of theistidlāl bi-al-šāhid ʿalā al-ġāʾib. To offer a more comprehensive reconstruction of al-Rāzī’s theory of sign-inference, this article compares the critical approach presented in the newly identified fragment with the epistemological framework outlined in theDoubts About Galen.Finally, this article shows that Abū Bakr al-Rāzī’s theory of sign-inference had a strong influence on al-Fārābī’s logical developments especially in hisEpitome of the Prior Analytics, even if he does not acknowledge this intellectual debt.
THE ETHICAL PROGRESSION OF THE PHILOSOPHER IN AL-RĀZĪ AND AL-FĀRĀBĪ
Authors: Mattila Janne
Published: February 2017

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 925) and al-Fārābī (d. 950) both adopt the classical ideal of a philosophical way of life in the sense that being a philosopher implies certain ethical guidelines to which the philosopher should adhere. In both cases, moreover, their ethical writings appear to reflect a certain tension with respect to what the ethical goal of the philosopher consists of. In this study, I will argue that this apparent tension is relieved when their ethics is understood as a progression in a double sense. In the first sense, both authors adopt the Neoplatonic distinction between pre-philosophical and philosophical ethics. The second aspect of the progression takes place within the degree of virtue required of the philosopher, which for al-Rāzī and al-Fārābī proceeds in contrary directions. For al-Rāzī, the philosopher progresses from the moderately ascetic requirements ofSpiritual Medicineto the higher license present inPhilosophical Life, following the stages of the life of Socrates. In contrast, for al-Fārābī the progression follows roughly along the Neoplatonic grades of virtue from Aristotelian moderation, which inExhortation to the Way to Happinessis connected with character training in a pre-philosophical sense, towards purely contemplative existence.
Does What Works Clearinghouse Work? A Brief Review of Fast ForWord®
Authors: McArthur Genevieve
Published: February 2017

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) provides online reports to the public about the scientific evidence for educational interventions. The quality of these reports is important because they effectively tell the non‐scientific community which programmes do and do not work. The aim of this brief review is to assess WWC’s report on a clinically popular, yet theoretically controversial, intervention called Fast ForWord® (FFW). Some of the methods used by WWC to assess FFW were problematic: the literature review included studies that had not passed peer review; it failed to include a key study that had passed peer review; alphabetic skills were assessed with phonological awareness outcomes; effectiveness ratings were based on statistical significance; terms peculiar to WWC were not clearly defined; and existing quality control procedures failed to detect an error in the WWC report. These problems could be addressed by making minor adjustments to WWC’s existing methods and by subjecting WWC reports to the scientific peer‐review process before they are released to the public.
Ground-state OH maser distributions in the Galactic Centre region
Authors: Qiao Hai-Hua , Walsh Andrew J. , Shen Zhi-Qiang , Dawson Joanne R.
Published: February 2017

Ground-state OH masers identified in the Southern Parkes Large-Area Survey in Hydroxyl were observed with the Australia Telescope Compact Array to obtain positions with high accuracy (~1 arcsec). We classified these OH masers into evolved star OH maser sites, star formation OH maser sites, supernova remnant OH maser sites, planetary nebula OH maser sites and unknown maser sites using their accurate positions. Evolved star and star formation OH maser sites in the Galactic Centre region (between Galactic longitudes of −5° to +5° and Galactic latitudes of −2° and +2°) were studied in detail to understand their distributions.
PDR Emission from the Arched-Filaments and Nearby Positions
Authors: García Pablo , Röllig Markus , Abel Nicholas , Steinke Martin , Burton Michael , Blackwell Rebecca
Published: February 2017

We investigate the physical conditions of the gas, atomic and molecular, in the filaments in the context of Photo-Dissociation Regions (PDRs) using the KOSMA-PDR mode of clumpy clouds. We also compare the [CII] vs. [NII] integrated intensity predictions in Abel et al. 2005 for HII regions and adjacent PDRs in the Galactic disk, and check for their applicability under the extreme physical conditions present in the GC. Our preliminary results show that observed integrated intensities are well reproduced by the PDR model. The gas is exposed to a relatively low Far-UV field between 102 – 103 Draine fields. The total volume hydrogen density is well constrained between 104 – 105 cm−3. The hydrogen ionization rate due to cosmic-rays varies between 10−15 and 4× 10−15 s−1, with the highest value ~ 10−14 s−1 found towards G0.07+0.04. Our results show that the line-of-sight contribution to the total distance of the filaments to the Arches Cluster is not negligible. The spatial distribution of the [CII]/[NII] ratio shows that the integrated intensity ratios are fairly homogeneously distributed for values below 10 in energy units. Calculations including variation on the [C/N] abundance ratio show that tight constraints on this ratio are needed to reproduce the observations.
Star formation in a high-pressure environment: An SMA view of the dust ridge
Authors: Walker Daniel L. ,   CMZoom Survey Group (PIs: Eric Keto & Cara Battersby)
Published: February 2017

The star formation rate in the Central Molecular Zone is an order of magnitude lower than in the disk of the Galaxy, given the amount of dense gas there. Understanding why star formation is different in this region is crucial if we are to understand the environmental dependence of star formation. Here, we present the detection of high-mass cores in the CMZ’s ‘dust ridge’ that have been discovered with the Submillimeter Array. These cores range in mass from ~ 50 – 1800 M⊙ within radii of 0.1 – 0.25 pc. All are young (pre-UCHII), meaning that they are prime candidates for representing the initial conditions of high-mass stars and sub-clusters. We compare these with high-mass cores and clouds in the Galactic disk and find that they are very similar in terms of their masses and sizes, despite being subjected to external pressures that are several magnitudes greater (~ 108 K cm−3). The fact that > 80% of these cores do not show any signs of star-forming activity in such a high-pressure environment leads us to conclude that this is further evidence of the critical density for star formation being heightened in the CMZ due to turbulence.
Constraining the Variability and Binary Fraction of Galactic Center Young Stars
Authors: Gautam Abhimat K. , Do Tuan , Ghez Andrea M. , Lu Jessica R. , Morris Mark R. , Sakai Shoko , Witzel Gunther , Sitarski Breann N. , Chappell Samantha
Published: February 2017

We present constraints on the variability and binarity of young stars in the central 10 arcseconds (~ 0.4 pc) of the Milky Way Galactic Center (GC) using Keck Adaptive Optics data over a 12 year baseline. Given our experiment’s photometric uncertainties, at least 36% of our sample’s known early-type stars are variable. We identified eclipsing binary systems by searching for periodic variability. In our sample of spectroscopically confirmed and likely early-type stars, we detected the two previously discovered GC eclipsing binary systems. We derived the likely binary fraction of main sequence, early-type stars at the GC via Monte Carlo simulations of eclipsing binary systems, and find that it is at least 32% with 90% confidence.
Mopra Central Molecular Zone Carbon Monoxide Survey Status
Authors: Blackwell Rebecca , Burton Michael , Rowell Gavin
Published: February 2017

We present an update on the Mopra Central Molecular Zone Carbon Monoxide (CO) survey, with data taken in 2016 extending the original 3.5° ≥ l ≥ 358.5°, +1.0° ≥ b ≥ -0.5° to 4.0° ≥ l ≥ 358.0°, +1.0° ≥ b ≥ -1.0°. Using the four simultaneously observed lines of 12CO, 13CO, C18O, and C17O Nyquist sampled at 0.6′ spatial and 0.1 km/s spectral resolution, we are building an optical-thickness-corrected three-dimensional model of the diffuse gas, and making cloud mass estimates. This data, as part of the Mopra Southern Galactic Plane CO Survey (Braiding et al. (2015), Burton et al. (2013)), is at the highest resolution available across such a widespread region, and includes the Sagittarius A, Sagittarius B2, Sagittarius C, and G1.3 cloud complexes, as well as Bania’s Clump 2.
An X-ray view of Sagittarius C
Authors: Chuard D. , Terrier R. , Goldwurm A. , Clavel M. , Soldi S. , Ponti G. , Morris M. R. , Jin C.
Published: February 2017

Over the past 15 years, the molecular complex Sgr C has been repeatedly observed with both XMM-Newton and Chandra. These observations reveal new features indicating that the region might be more complex than previously thought. We find that its strong iron line emission at 6.4 keV varies significantly over time, which supports the X-ray reflection scenario.
VLBI astrometry toward Sgr D HII region with VERA
Authors: Sakai Daisuke , Oyama Tomoaki , Nagayama Takumi , Honma Mareki , Kobayashi Hideyuki
Published: February 2017

The Galactic centre region shows outstanding non-circular motion unlike the Galactic disk. As scenarios describing this non-circular motion, resonance orbits formed by the Galactic bar potential or expanding motion by past activity of the central BH are proposed. However, these both scenarios are based on line-of-sight velocities of molecular clouds in this region, and such one-dimension velocity information is insufficient to separate these scenarios.

To reveal dynamics of the Galactic centre region, we conducted astromertic observations of 22 GHz water maser sources toward the Galactic centre direction. We conducted astrometric observations toward water maser source associated with Sgr D HII region. As a result, we succeeded to measure the parallax and proper motion of the maser source. The measured distance was 2.36(+0.58/-0.39) kpc. This result clearly indicates that this source is not associated with the Galactic centre, but located on the Galactic disk.
Sgr A* as Source of the Positrons Observed in the Galactic Center Region
Authors: Jean Pierre , Guessoum Nidhal , Ferrière Katia
Published: February 2017

We explore the possibility that a substantial fraction of the positrons observed to annihilate in the central region of our Galaxy come from the supermassive black hole Sgr A* that lies at the center. This idea was proposed by several authors, but the propagation of the emitted positrons into the bulge and beyond remained a serious problem for models of the origin of GC positrons.

We assume models of positron production with different energies. The propagation of positrons from their production site is followed in detail with Monte-Carlo simulations, taking into account the physical conditions of the propagation regions as well as various physical interactions. Using the known physics of positron annihilation in astrophysical environments, we calculate the properties of the annihilation emission (time evolution and spatial distribution) for the different models under consideration.

We present the results of these simulations and the conclusions/constraints that can be inferred from them.
Towards a multi-scale understanding of the gas-star formation cycle in the Central Molecular Zone
Authors: Kruijssen J. M. Diederik
Published: February 2017

The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ, the central 500 pc of the Milky Way) contains the largest reservoir of high-density molecular gas in the Galaxy, but forms stars at a rate 10–100 times below commonly-used star formation relations. We discuss recent efforts in understanding how the nearest galactic nucleus forms its stars. The latest models of the gas inflow, star formation, and feedback duty cycle reproduce the main observable features of the CMZ, showing that star formation is episodic and that the CMZ currently resides at a star formation minimum. Using orbital modelling, we derive the three-dimensional geometry of the CMZ and show how the orbital dynamics and the star formation potential of the gas are closely coupled. We discuss how this coupling reveals the physics of star formation and feedback under the conditions seen in high-redshift galaxies, and promotes the formation of the densest stellar clusters in the Galaxy.
Molecular material in the Bubble of the Galactic Center
Authors: Torres Miguel Angel Requena , Noriega-Crespo Alberto
Published: February 2017

The Galactic Center (GC) is one of the more extreme environments in the Galaxy. The so call Bubble of the GC presents structures that do not match with the general behavior of the inner Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). In this work we study the molecular emission related to the observable ionized gas emitted by this Bubble. We find dense pockets of gas and bubble like structures in the velocity domain.
Observational constraints on the formation and evolution of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster with Keck and Gemini
Authors: Do Tuan , Ghez Andrea , Morris Mark , Lu Jessica , Chappell Samantha , Feldmeier-Krause Anja , Kerzendorf Wolfgang , Martinez Gregory David , Murray Norm , Winsor Nathan
Published: February 2017

We summarize work on the central parsec of the Galactic center based on imaging and spectroscopic observations at the Keck and Gemini telescopes. These observations include stellar positions in two dimension and the velocity in three dimensions. Spectroscopic observations also enables measurements of the physical properties of individual stars, such as the spectral type and in some cases the effective temperature, metallicity, and surface gravity. These observations show a complex stellar population with a young (4-6 Myr) compact star cluster in the central 0.5 pc embedded in in an older and much more massive nuclear star cluster. Surprisingly, the old late-type giants do not show a cusp profile as long been expected from theoretical work. The majority of the stars have higher than solar metallicity, with only about 6% of the stars having [M/Fe] < −0.5, which is consistent with an origin from the MW disk.
Modelling the thermal X-ray emission around the Galactic centre from colliding Wolf-Rayet winds
Authors: Russell Christopher M. P. , Wang Q. Daniel , Cuadra Jorge
Published: February 2017

The Galactic centre is a hotbed of astrophysical activity, with the injection of wind material from ~30 massive Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars orbiting within 12″ of the super-massive black hole (SMBH) playing an important role. Hydrodynamic simulations of such colliding and accreting winds produce a complex density and temperature structure of cold wind material shocking with the ambient medium, creating a large reservoir of hot, X-ray-emitting gas. This work aims to confront the 3Ms of Chandra X-ray Visionary Program (XVP) observations of this diffuse emission by computing the X-ray emission from these hydrodynamic simulations of the colliding WR winds, amid exploring a variety of SMBH feedback mechanisms. The major success of the model is that it reproduces the spectral shape from the 2″–5″ ring around the SMBH, where most of the stellar wind material that is ultimately captured by Sgr A* is shock-heated and thermalised. This naturally explains that the hot gas comes from colliding WR winds, and that the wind speeds of these stars are in general well constrained. The flux level of these spectra, as well as 12″×12″ images of 4–9 keV, show the X-ray flux is tied to the SMBH feedback strength; stronger feedback clears out more hot gas, thereby decreasing the thermal X-ray emission. The model in which Sgr A* produced an intermediate-strength outflow during the last few centuries best matches the observations to within about 10%, showing SMBH feedback is required to interpret the X-ray emission in this region.
3D AMR simulations of the evolution of the diffuse gas cloud G2 in the Galactic Centre
Authors: Schartmann M. , Ballone A. , Burkert A. , Gillessen S. , Genzel R. , Pfuhl O. , Eisenhauer F. , Plewa P.M. , Ott T. , George E.M. , Habibi M.
Published: February 2017

With the help of 3D AMR hydrodynamical simulations we aim at understanding G2’s nature, recent evolution and fate in the coming years. By exploring the possible parameter space of the diffuse cloud scenario, we find that a starting point within the disc of young stars is favoured by the observations, which may hint at G2 being the result of stellar wind interactions.
Contesting the Colonial Narrative’s Claims to Progress: A Nationalist’s Proposal for Agrarian Reform
Authors: Williams Elizabeth
Published: February 2017

In the years immediately following the imposition of mandatory rule in Syria in July 1920, French administrators declared their intention to develop the region in accordance with the ideals of progress and scientific rationality. Among the areas targeted for special attention and improvement was the field of agriculture. The first French agricultural counselor for the mandate, E. Achard, emphasized that attention to the mise en valeur (enhancement and development) of this sector could not only serve France’s need for specific commodities but would also make French mandatory rule a vehicle through which progress and scientific rationality would be imparted to what he depicted as an underdeveloped Syria. However, fifteen years later, it seems, little had changed. In 1935, Mohammed Sarrage, a Syrian student at Toulouse University, wrote a dissertation that soundly criticized the mandate government for its failure to institute the reforms necessary to advance or significantly increase Syria’s agricultural production. A closer examination of Sarrage’s critique and his proposed program for reform not only reveals the incoherence between French official discourse and actual policy, but suggests an alternative narrative to that of French officials regarding the sources of progress and modernity.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democrat in America, Colonizer in Africa
Authors: Fattal Simone
Published: February 2017

Alexis de Tocqueville was born an aristocrat, in the very conservative region of Normandy, in France in 1805. He was at the same time an admirer of the French Revolution, although due to his upbringing and family, he was unable to subscribe to all the principles inherent to that revolution. Tocqueville remains admirable on that score, as he lived under the counterrevolution and participated in the government of the new monarchy. His contradictions made him an observing outsider. He studied law and went into politics. He accompanied his friend, Gustave de Beaumont, who was sent by his government to the New Republic of America, to study the U.S. prison system for its eventual application in France. They cosigned the subsequent report.
A Vertical Sea: North Africa and the Medieval Mediterranean
Authors: Fromherz Allen
Published: February 2017

An extraordinary letter was discovered in a neglected pile of medieval diplomatic correspondence in the Vatican Libraries: a letter from Al-Murtada the Almohad, Muslim Caliph in Marrakech to Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254). The letter, written in finest official calligraphy, proposes an alliance between the Caliph and the Vicar of Christ, the leader of an institution that had called for organized crusades against the Islamic world. While the history of Pope Innocent IV’s contacts with the Muslim rulers of Marrakech remains obscure, the sources indicate that Pope Innocent IV sent envoys south to Marrakech. One of these envoys was Lope d’Ayn. Lope became Bishop of Marrakech, shepherd of a flock of paid Christian mercenaries who were sent to Marrakech by that sometime leader of the reconquista, Ferdinand III of Castile, in a deal he had struck with the Almohads. Although they now had Christians fighting for them and cathedral bells competing with the call to prayer, the Almohads were powerful agitators of jihad against the Christians only decades before. Scholars know only a little about Lope d’Ayn’s story or the historical context of this letter between Caliph Murtada and the Pope. Although very recent research is encouraging, there is a great deal to know about the history of the mercenaries of Marrakech or the interactions between Jews, Muslims and Christians that occurred in early thirteenth century Marrakech. The neglect of Lope d’Ayn and the contacts between the Papacy and the Almohads is only one example of a much wider neglect of North Africa contacts with Europe in the secondary literature in English. While scholarship in English has focused on correspondence, commerce and travel from West to East, between Europe, the Levant and Egypt, there were also important cultural bridges being crossed between North and South, between North Africa and Europe in the Medieval Western Mediterranean.
Tadmor’s Ghosts
Authors: cooke miriam
Published: February 2017

“You shall not escape us even while you sleep. Your victims’ vengeance will pursue you for blood… Even if you muzzle their complaints they will haunt you even as ghosts… You have poisoned the life of the people, wounded their souls… Wisdom at all times Is to destroy the jail Not to cut off the hand of the jailor. We have completed our little duty From now on we shall begin our great duty: This tyranny shall never recur” (Mamduh Adwan, The Ghoul 1995)

Mamduh Adwan (1941-2005) was right eighteen years ago. The people whose lives Hafiz al-Assad had poisoned and whose souls he had wounded would pursue his son for blood. Decades of living with walls that are—not have—ears have produced rage and a demand for vengeance and justice: “From now on we shall begin our great duty: This tyranny shall never recur.” These lines call for revolution. It is not enough to cut off the hand of the jailor. The jail must be destroyed.
Is Indonesia a Model for the Arab Spring? Islam, Democracy, and Diplomacy
Authors: Hoesterey James B.
Published: February 2017

As protestors filled Tahrir Square in Cairo in January 2011, Western diplomats, academics, and political pundits were searching for the best political analogy for the promise—and problems—for the Arab Uprising. Whereas neoconservative skeptics fretted that Egypt and Tunisia might go the way of post-revolutionary Iran, Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright praised Indonesia's democratization as the ideal model for the Arab Spring. During her 2009 visit to Indonesia, Clinton proclaimed: “if you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity, and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia.” Certainly Indonesia of May 1998 is not Egypt of January 2011, yet some comparisons are instructive. Still reeling from the Asian financial crisis of 1997, middle class Indonesians were fed up with corruption, cronyism, and a military that operated with impunity.
The Emergence of the Mona Lisa Battalions: Graffiti Art Networks in Post-2011 Egypt
Authors: Abdelmagid Yakein
Published: February 2017

During and after the January 2011 revolutionary protests, Egypt witnessed the surge and spread of graffi ti and street art activities. The story of graffi ti in Egypt is usually rendered as voices of dissent, modes of symbolic resistance, or expressive force of anger, solidarity, and commemoration. While it is true that the collapse of the state security services and the liberation of public space after the 2011 had fostered the growth of artistic revolutionary expressions, the story of artistic production implies more than politics of cultural representation. Rather, these artistic expressions are usually grounded in the formations, expansions, and contractions of social groups that keep on negotiating their identities, networks, capacities and limitations.
One Ideology, Two Paths: Gender, Education, and Emigration among the Lebanese Shīʿa of Jabal ʿĀmil and the Biqāʾ
Authors: Bracy Michael , Raouda Najwa
Published: February 2017

The demarcation of borders in the Middle East undermined the position of the Shia community in Lebanon. The French and the British agreement on the border between Lebanon and mandatory Palestine in the early 1920s reduced the size of mountainous region of Jabal ʿAmil. Among the Shia, the Jabal ʿAmil was historically known as the area extending from the Awali River in the north down to Acre, Tarshiha, and Safad in the south, and from the Mediterranean in the west to the Hula Lake and up to the Taym, south of the Biqaʾ Valley in the east. In 1924, an area of about 250,000dunums(an Ottoman unit of land measurement), including several villages and the Hula Lake, was detached from the Jabal ʿAmil and added to mandatory Palestine. This act severely disrupted the socioeconomic life of the region, particularly around Marjaʾyun. Shia anger over the loss of land was reinforced by the fact that in modern Lebanon the Jabal ʿAmil became known simply as “the South,” which the Shia took as an insult to their historical heritage.
Lebanese Power Struggles and Fashioning “Armenian” Space, 1957-1958
Authors: Nalbantian Tsolin
Published: February 2017

In 1957 and 1958, Lebanese Armenian political parties, through the medium of their newspapers, rearranged the Armenian neighborhoods of Bourj Hamoud and Corniche al-Nahr as Armenian territories, separate from, and often in opposition to, the Lebanese state. These Armenian parties, in vying with one another for authority over this territory, fashioned Armenian enemies of one another. The internal Armenian enemy of the Armenian nation was constructed from within the national space of Lebanon. The power struggle within the Armenian community in Lebanon challenges the placement of Armenians in the historiography of Lebanon, which considers them as refugees and therefore non-Lebanese or temporary residents of Lebanon as well as passive, impossible political actors.