Reliability Analysis of St. Barbara’s Church in Otovice

The Churches of the Broumov region are well known for their unique baroque architecture, distinct shapes, sizes, and constitutes an integral part of the Czech cultural heritage. The St. Barbara’s Church that has been studied in this article, is in the Otovice village of Broumov. It was built in the year 1726 by Bavarian architects Christoph Dientzenhofer and Kilian Ignaz and is significant because of its religious, artistic and historic values. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the structural safety and stability of St. Barbara’s Church based on a probabilistic approach. A deterministic assessment of the structure is carried out and the results are assessed concerning the present site condition. Depending upon the observed damages, a condition for failure is defined for the structure. The uncertainties in the material parameters are considered and reliability analysis is performed to determine the reliability index, probability of failure and influence of different material parameters in the structural stability.

Guest Editors' Editorial

In lieu of an abstract, the first paragraph is included here In 2017, the Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS) met for its annual conference at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, forty-four years after it had been founded there in 1974 and seventy years after the first Salzburg Seminar had been held at the same place. The "Schloss," as the present site of the Salzburg Global Seminar is lovingly called, was the setting of many of the past conferences of the association and is intricately connected with the founding and development of the field of American Studies in Austria and Europe. The conference topic, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? The Changing Nature of American Studies," was meant to open up a dialogue about the temporal dimensions of American studies as a discipline, from the past to the present and the possible futures. Sixty-five speakers from nine countries, among them four invited keynote lecturers, and sixteen graduate students met in the spirit of collegiality that the Seminar has become famous for. This inaugural volume of a new journal issued by the AAAS will demonstrate that the conference yielded productive and interesting insights into the nature of American studies.

Historic Approaches to Sonic Encounter at the Berlin Wall Memorial

Investigations of historic soundscapes must analyze and place results within a complex framework of contemporary and past contexts. However, the conscious use and presentation of historic built environments are factors that require more deliberate attention in historic soundscape analysis. The following paper presents a multimodal research methodology and promising preliminary results from a study at the Berlin Wall Memorial in Berlin, Germany. Here, the historic context from the Wall’s recent past is presented within the surroundings of the contemporary unified capital city. The study approached the past soundscape and present site by combining historic and current-conditions research, linking archival research, conditions assessments via binaural recording and psychoacoustics analysis tools, and soundscape surveys rooted in standardized soundscape research practices. In so doing, archival textual and pictorial sources provided a rich source of primary information integrated within the study and are suggested as a resource for similar inquiries elsewhere. The investigation identified concerns specific to heritage sites that require critical consideration for historic soundscape research of the recent past—survey-participant composition and the problematized use of typical descriptors in soundscape surveys are the two concerns that are discussed. Some standardized soundscape terminology and research methodologies were found to be insufficient in historic contexts. Initial qualitative results from the research are presented as a proof of concept for the research approach with signposts for future analysis and developments.

The tale of the fungi of two gardens: non-lichenised fungi of the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow

A brief history of the early days of mycology in Scotland is given to act as a starting point from which to view the fungal records made in the gardens at Sandyford and Kelvinside. The former was vacated in 1842 and the garden transferred to the present site at Kelvinside under the authority of the Glasgow City Council. The role of J.F. Klotzsch in generating the earliest records is emphasised and the compilation of fungal records, mainly of macrofungi, until the present day is discussed. A short account of the microfungi is given. A complete list of the fungi recorded from the two gardens is provided.

A new lattice model of three-lane traffic flow

A lattice model is proposed for three-lane traffic flow. The extended lane-changing rates are presented to mimic the lane-changing behavior by considering the congestion degree at the present site and the acceptance degree at the targeted site. The stability condition of the model is derived by applying the linear stability method. The spatiotemporal evolution of traffic flow transfer rates is investigated. The results demonstrate that the new model can reproduce the characteristics of lane changing.

DERMOSCOPY OF THE MONTH Nevi with Site-Related Atypia

The term “nevi of special sites” refers to melanocytic nevi of specific anatomic locations including the breast, axillae, umbilicus, genitalia, flexural areas, acral surfaces, ear, scalp and the conjunctiva. Nevi from these anatomic sites display sometimes dermoscopic and histological features of melanoma, resulting in unnecessarily high rates of excisions and re-excisions. Some authors have categorized nevi excised in the axillary, breast, umbilical and perineal areas as the nevi of the milk line. Two patients, a 32-year-old female and 23-year-old male with breast and periumbilical pigmented lesions, presented to our Department during 2017. Dermoscopy revealed features that were highly specific for melanoma. Excisional biopsies were done and histopathology revealed benign nevi with present site-related atypia. Irregular blotches, non-uniform radial streaks, blue-gray veil, and regression are the most specific features of melanoma of the breast and flexural areas. Excision is always recommended in pigmented lesions on the breast and flexural areas, which exhibit these features. However, larger studies are needed to define specific criteria required to distinguish special-site nevi from melanoma.

Site-selective characterization of Src homology 3 domain molecular recognition with cyanophenylalanine infrared probes

We present site-selective CNPhe labeling combined with FT IR spectroscopy as a fast, minimally-perturbative, reproducible approach to characterize protein microenvironments.

Reading The Road with Paul Ricoeur and Julia Kristeva: The Human Body as a Sacred Connection

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road confronts readers with a question: what is there to live towards after apocalypse? McCarthy locates his protagonists in the aftermath of the world’s fiery destruction, dramatizing a relationship between a father and a son, who are, as McCarthy puts it, “carrying the fire.” This essay asserts that the body carrying the fire is a sacred, incandescent body that connects to and with the world and the other, unifying the human and the divine. This essay will consider the body as a sacred connection in The Road. Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic approach will help to explore what is sacred. In addition, their works elucidate the body as a present site of human connection and sacredness while calling attention to what is glaringly absent yet hauntingly present in McCarthy’s text: the mother. In the aftermath of destruction, primitive, sacred connections become available through the sensual body, highlighting what is at stake in the novel: the connection of body and spirit. The essay will attempt to show that McCarthy’s rejection of a redemptive framework, or hope in an otherworldly reality, shrouds spirit in physicality symbolized by the fire carried by the body. This spirit offers another kind of hope, one based on the body’s potential to feel and connect to the other. The thought and works of Ricoeur and Kristeva will broaden a reading of McCarthy’s novel, especially as a statement about the unification of body and spirit, contributing a multidimensional view of a contemporary problem regarding what sustains life after a cataclysmic event.

La fundación de Tuxta: una leyenda chontal

In this etiological tale in the Chontal language of Tabasco the informant relates how originally the town of Tuxta was not where it is today. Children were stolen from the villagers by the Spanish conquerors in those times. The evil spirit of the place was a woman called Bolom. The people prayed a novena, the woman disappeared, the kidnapping of children ceased and the town of Tuxta was moved to its present site.