Journal articles: 'Central Iranian Block' – Grafiati (2024)

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Relevant bibliographies by topics / Central Iranian Block / Journal articles

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Author: Grafiati

Published: 4 June 2021

Last updated: 4 May 2024

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1

Wang, Xiangdong, MohammadN.Gorgij, and Le Yao. "A Cathaysian rugose coral fauna from the upper Carboniferous of central Iran." Journal of Paleontology 93, no.3 (December26, 2018): 399–415. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jpa.2018.89.

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AbstractTwelve rugose coral species belonging to seven genera are described and discussed based on 70 thin sections of 32 specimens collected from the Anarak section, northeast of Nain, Esfahan Province, Yazd Block, central Iran. These species include two new colonial rugose coral species,Antheria fedorowskiiandAntheria robusta, and five previously named species of colonial rugose corals,Antheria lanceolataandStreptophyllidium scitulum, and solitary rugose corals,Arctophyllum jiangsiense,Caninophyllumcf.somtaiense, andPseudotimania delicata. Five species are left in open nomenclature:Antheriasp.,Arctophyllumsp.,Caninophyllumsp.,Nephelophyllumsp., andYakovleviellasp. These Iranian corals are associated with the fusulinidsRauserites(several species) andUltradaixina bosbytauensis, indicating a latest Carboniferous age (Gzhelian age). All the described genera and named species belong to the families Aulophyllidae, Bothrophyllidae, Cyathopsidae, and Kepingophyllidae, among which the family Kepingophyllidae has been previously documented only from China and Indochina. They are typical representatives of the Cathaysian rugose fauna, which was widely developed around the South China and Indochina blocks near the paleoequator and was absent from the Gondwanan and Cimmerian continents in high latitudes during the Late Pennsylvanian. Hence, the occurrence of the Cathaysian fauna from central Iran in the latest Carboniferous suggests that it may have had a close biogeographical connection with China and Indochina, which further implies its latitudinal position intermediate between the Gondwanan continent and South China and Indochina blocks during this time.UUID:http://zoobank.org/5257d2bb-1346-4dee-8f3e-f4b1b33ba5a9

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2

Schlagintweit, Felix, Koorosh Rashidi, and Reza Hanifzadeh. "Campanellula herishtensis n. sp. (Foraminifera; Orbitolinidae?) from the upper Aptian (Lower Gargasian) of Central Iran." Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen 294, no.3 (December1, 2019): 251–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1127/njgpa/2019/0857.

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The new orbitolinid foraminifer Campanellula herishtensis n. sp. is described from the upper Aptian (Gargasian) of the Yazd Block, Central Iran. Campanellula herishtensis n. sp. occurs within a small interval of the Herisht section near Ardakan, displaying more or less uniform microfacies types (foraminiferal wackestones/packstones). The Iranian form differs from Campanellula capuensis De Castro (upper Hauterivian – lower Barremian of Italy, and Algeria), the only species described of the genus so far, in size and morphology (shape, apical angle). The generic assignment of the new taxon is discussed including also the genus Orbitolinopsis Henson. The suprageneric placement of Campanellula within the Orbitolinidae according to current classifications (but contrasting the original description) still remains doubtful.

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Mousavi, Naeim, and Javier Fullea. "3-D thermochemical structure of lithospheric mantle beneath the Iranian plateau and surrounding areas from geophysical–petrological modelling." Geophysical Journal International 222, no.2 (May28, 2020): 1295–315. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggaa262.

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SUMMARY While the crustal structure across the Iranian plateau is fairly well constrained from controlled source and passive seismic data, the lithospheric mantle structure remains relatively poorly known, in particular in terms of lithology. Geodynamics rely on a robust image of the present-day thermochemical structure interpretations of the area. In this study, the 3-D crustal and upper mantle structure of the Iranian plateau is investigated, for the first time, through integrated geophysical–petrological modelling combining elevation, gravity and gravity gradient fields, seismic and petrological data. Our modelling approach allows us to simultaneously match complementary data sets with key mantle physical parameters (density and seismic velocities) being determined within a self-consistent thermodynamic framework. We first elaborate a new 3-D isostatically balanced crustal model constrained by available controlled source and passive seismic data, as well as complementary by gravity data. Next, we follow a progressively complex modelling strategy, starting from a laterally quasi chemically homogeneous model and then including structural, petrological and seismic tomography constraints. Distinct mantle compositions are tested in each of the tectonothermal terranes in our study region based on available local xenolith suites and global petrological data sets. Our preferred model matches the input geophysical observables (gravity field and elevation), includes local xenolith data, and qualitatively matches velocity anomalies from state of the art seismic tomography models. Beneath the Caspian and Oman seas (offshore areas) our model is defined by an average Phanerozoic fertile composition. The Arabian Plate and the Turan platform are characterized by a Proterozoic composition based on xenolith samples from eastern Arabia. In agreement with previous studies, our results also suggest a moderately refractory Proterozoic type composition in Zagros-Makran belt, extending to Alborz, Turan and Kopeh-Dagh terranes. In contrast, the mantle in our preferred model in Central Iran is defined by a fertile composition derived from a xenolith suite in northeast Iran. Our results indicate that the deepest Moho boundary is located beneath the high Zagros Mountains (∼65 km). The thinnest crust is found in the Oman Sea, Central Iran (Lut Block) and Talesh Mountains. A relatively deep Moho boundary is modelled in the Kopeh-Dagh Mountains, where Moho depth reaches to ∼55 km. The lithosphere is ∼280 km thick beneath the Persian Gulf (Arabian–Eurasian Plate boundary) and the Caspian Sea, thinning towards the Turan platform and the high Zagros. Beneath the Oman Sea, the base of the lithosphere is at ∼150 km depth, rising to ∼120 km beneath Central Iran, with the thinnest lithosphere (<100 km) being located beneath the northwest part of the Iranian plateau. We propose that the present-day lithosphere–asthenosphere topography is the result of the superposition of different geodynamic processes: (i) Arabia–Eurasia convergence lasting from mid Jurassic to recent and closure of Neo-Tethys ocean, (ii) reunification of Gondwanian fragments to form the Central Iran block and Iranian microcontinent, (iii) impingement of a small-scale convection and slab break-off beneath Central Iran commencing in the mid Eocene and (iv) refertilization of the lithospheric mantle beneath the Iranian microcontinent.

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Wilmsen, Markus, Franz Theodor Fürsich, Kazem Seyed-Emami, and Mahmoud Reza Majidifard. "The Upper Jurassic Garedu Red Bed Formation of the northern Tabas Block: elucidating Late Cimmerian tectonics in east-Central Iran." International Journal of Earth Sciences 110, no.3 (February17, 2021): 767–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00531-021-01988-z.

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AbstractThe Garedu Red Bed Formation (GRBF) of the northern Tabas Block (Central-East Iranian Microcontinent, CEIM) is a lithologically variable, up to 500-m-thick, predominantly continental unit. It rests gradually or unconformably on marine limestones of the Esfandiar Subgroup (Callovian–Oxfordian) and is assigned to the Kimmeridgian–Tithonian. In the lower part, it consists of pebble- to boulder-sized conglomerates/breccias composed of limestone clasts intercalated with calcareous sandstones, litho-/bioclastic rudstones and lacustrine carbonates. Up-section, sharp-based pebbly sandstones and red silt-/fine-grained sandstones of braided river origin predominate. Palaeocurrent data suggest a principal sediment transport from west to east and a lateral interfingering of the GRBF with marine greenish marls of the Korond Formation at the eastern margin of the Tabas Block. Westwards, the GRBF grades into the playa deposits of the Magu Gypsum Formation. Red colours and common calcretes suggest arid to semi-arid climatic conditions. The onset of Garedu Red Bed deposition indicates a major geodynamic change with the onset of compressive tectonics of the Late Cimmerian Tectonic Event (LCTE), being strongest at the eastern margin of the northern Tabas Block. When traced southwards, the same tectonic event is expressed by extension, indicating a shift in tectonic style along the boundary fault between the Tabas and Lut blocks. The complex Upper Jurassic facies distribution as well as the spatio-temporal changes in tectonic regime along the block-bounding faults are explained by the onset of counterclockwise vertical-axis rotation of the CEIM in the Kimmeridgian. The block boundaries accommodated the rotation by right-lateral strike slip, transpressional in today’s northern and transtensional in today’s southern segments of the block-bounding faults. Rotation occurred within bracketing transcurrent faults and continued into the Early Cretaceous, finally resulting in the opening of narrow oceanic basins encircling the CEIM. Palaeogeographically, the GRBF is part of a suite of red bed formations not only present on the CEIM, but also along the Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone (NW Iran), in northeastern Iran and beyond, indicating inter-regional tectonic instability, uplift and erosion under (semi-)arid climatic conditions across the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary. Thus, even if our geodynamic model successfully explains Late Jurassic tectonic rotations, fault motions and facies distribution for the CEIM, the basic cause of the LCTE still remains enigmatic.

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Zamaniyan, Ehsan, Mohammad Khanehbad, Reza Moussavi-Harami, and Asadollah Mahboubi. "Sedimentary environment and provenance of sandstones from the Qadir member in the Nayband Formation, Tabas block, east-central Iran." Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana 73, no.1 (April1, 2021): A140920. http://dx.doi.org/10.18268/bsgm2021v73n1a140920.

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Qadir Member of Nayband Formation, located in East of Central Iran, has developed to a great extent. Investigation of the lithofacies and sedimentary environment, resulted in identification of the deltaic and marine deposits. Based on field evidence and facies features, Qadir Member consists of two lithofacies, including carbonate and siliciclastic facies. The siliciclastic facies were identified as having four sandstone facies including Sr, Sh, Sp, St, three fine-grained lithofacies, including FI, Fm, Fl (Sr) / Sr (FI) and one coal facies. Also, regarding the field, laboratory studies, and identification of lithofacies, the coastal plain, deltaic (including deltaic plain, proximal delta front, distal delta front, and prodelta) and open marine environments were identified for Qadir Member which is is under the impact of tidal currents. The chemical weathering index (71%) indicated semi-arid to semi-humid conditions and plotting the geochemical data showed the provenance of re-cycling and active continental margin and because of Chemical Index of Alteration, the weathering rate was found to be rather medium to high. The geochemical diagrams also showed a probable source of the intermediate igneous and sedimentary rocks. The active continental margin conditions for this deposit could suggest the Neotethys subduction under Iran’s plate and volcanic activity at the end of Triassic, which coincided with the early Cimmerian orogeny in Alborz and Central East Iranian Microcontinent.

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Arvin, Mohsen, and PaulT.Robinson. "The petrogenesis and tectonic setting of lavas from the Baft Ophiolitic Mélange, southwest of Kerman, Iran." Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 31, no.5 (May1, 1994): 824–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e94-076.

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A Late Cretaceous ophiolite complex in the Baft area, southwest of Kerman, Iran, is characteristic of the Central Iranian Ophiolitic Mélange Belt, which wraps around the Lut Block. Despite the extensive tectonic disruption of the Baft complex, most ophiolitic lithologies are present and many original igneous contacts are preserved. A lack of cumulate gabbros within the sequence suggests that a large and continuous magma chamber did not exist beneath the Baft spreading axis. Geochemical data confirm the presence of two distinct compositional groups in the mafic lavas: (1) tholeiitic basalt and (2) transitional tholeiitic basalt. The tholeiitic lavas are similar to typical mid-ocean-ridge basalt compositions, whereas the transitional tholeiites are similar to intraplate basalts. The available data suggest that the Baft ophiolite complex formed in a small ocean basin, possibly at or near a ridge–transform intersection. Emplacement may have occurred as a result of conversion of the transform fault to a subduction zone during a change in relative plate motion. A ridge–transform setting is compatible with the intraplate character of some of the transitional basalts, which probably represent off-axis (seamount) magmatism, marked by the absence of cumulate gabbros and the presence of a serpentinite mélange cut by basaltic dykes. The ridge–transform model suggests formation of the ophiolite in a narrow ocean basin separating the Sanandaj-Sirjan microcontinent from the Central Iran Block in Late Cretaceous time.

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Kaviani, Ayoub, Anne Paul, Ali Moradi, Paul Martin Mai, Simone Pilia, Lapo Boschi, Georg Rümpker, Yang Lu, Zheng Tang, and Eric Sandvol. "Crustal and uppermost mantle shear wave velocity structure beneath the Middle East from surface wave tomography." Geophysical Journal International 221, no.2 (February21, 2020): 1349–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggaa075.

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SUMMARY We have constructed a 3-D shear wave velocity (Vs) model for the crust and uppermost mantle beneath the Middle East using Rayleigh wave records obtained from ambient-noise cross-correlations and regional earthquakes. We combined one decade of data collected from 852 permanent and temporary broad-band stations in the region to calculate group-velocity dispersion curves. A compilation of >54 000 ray paths provides reliable group-velocity measurements for periods between 2 and 150 s. Path-averaged group velocities calculated at different periods were inverted for 2-D group-velocity maps. To overcome the problem of heterogeneous ray coverage, we used an adaptive grid parametrization for the group-velocity tomographic inversion. We then sample the period-dependent group-velocity field at each cell of a predefined grid to generate 1-D group-velocity dispersion curves, which are subsequently inverted for 1-D Vs models beneath each cell and combined to approximate the 3-D Vs structure of the area. The Vs model shows low velocities at shallow depths (5–10 km) beneath the Mesopotamian foredeep, South Caspian Basin, eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, in coincidence with deep sedimentary basins. Shallow high-velocity anomalies are observed in regions such as the Arabian Shield, Anatolian Plateau and Central Iran, which are dominated by widespread magmatic exposures. In the 10–20 km depth range, we find evidence for a band of high velocities (>4.0 km s–1) along the southern Red Sea and Arabian Shield, indicating the presence of upper mantle rocks. Our 3-D velocity model exhibits high velocities in the depth range of 30–50 km beneath western Arabia, eastern Mediterranean, Central Iranian Block, South Caspian Basin and the Black Sea, possibly indicating a relatively thin crust. In contrast, the Zagros mountain range, the Sanandaj-Sirjan metamorphic zone in western central Iran, the easternmost Anatolian plateau and Lesser Caucasus are characterized by low velocities at these depths. Some of these anomalies may be related to thick crustal roots that support the high topography of these regions. In the upper mantle depth range, high-velocity anomalies are obtained beneath the Arabian Platform, southern Zagros, Persian Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean, in contrast to low velocities beneath the Red Sea, Arabian Shield, Afar depression, eastern Turkey and Lut Block in eastern Iran. Our Vs model may be used as a new reference crustal model for the Middle East in a broad range of future studies.

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CHEN, SANPING, and VICTORH.MAIR. "A “Black Cult” in Early Medieval China: Iranian-Zoroastrian Influence in the Northern Dynasties." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 27, no.2 (January24, 2017): 201–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1356186316000584.

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AbstractThrough an analysis of Chinese theophoric names - a genre that emerged in the early medieval period largely under heavy Iranian-Sogdian influence - we suggest that there was a contemporary ‘black worship’ or ‘black cult’ in northern China that has since vanished. The followers of this ‘black cult’ ranged from common people living in ethnically mixed frontier communities to the ruling echelons of the Northern Dynasties. By tapping into the fragmentary pre-Islamic Iranian-Sogdian data, we link this ‘black cult’ to the now nearly forgotten ancient Iranic worship of the Avestan family of heroes centered around Sāma. This religio-cultural exchange prompts an examination of the deliberate policy by the ethnic rulers of the Northern Dynasties to attract Central Asian immigrants for political reasons, a precursor to the Semu, the Mongols’ ‘assistant conquerors’ in the Yuan dynasty.

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Brown-Rytlewski,D.E., and P.S.McManus. "Outbreak of Leucostoma Canker Caused by Leucostoma cincta on McIntosh Apple Trees in Wisconsin." Plant Disease 84, no.8 (August 2000): 923. http://dx.doi.org/10.1094/pdis.2000.84.8.923b.

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In fall 1996, cankers were observed on branches of 7- to 9-year-old apple trees (Malus domestica cvs. Empire and McIntosh, strains Marshall and Redmax) in a research orchard in Sturgeon Bay, WI. By summer 1997, cankers had developed on scaffold limbs or the central leaders of 48 of 48 Marshall McIntosh trees and 26 of 40 Redmax McIntosh trees, but they rarely were found in an adjacent block of 40 Empire trees. In 1998, new cankers were not observed, but existing cankers expanded. By 1999, the Marshall McIntosh block was so severely affected it was removed; 50% of the Redmax trees and 13% of the Empire trees also were removed. Initially, cankers appeared as orange discolored areas on bark and frequently, but not always, were associated with pruning wounds. Canker expansion was greater during spring and fall than during summer. At later stages of canker development, bark cracked and peeled, and leaves distal to cankers died. These features were consistent with descriptions of Leucostoma canker of apple (2,3), a disease previously reported only in Michigan, Germany, and Iran (1–3). All of 10 cankers sampled in 1997 and several more cankers sampled in 1998 yielded fungal colonies on potato-dextrose agar resembling Leucocytospora spp., which are anamorphs of Leucostoma spp. (2). Colonies initially were white to buff and later turned brown. Conidium morphology was consistent with descriptions of Leucocytospora spp. (2). Alternaria spp. also were isolated frequently; other fungi, which were not identified, were isolated rarely. The presence of abundant pycnidia of Leuco-cytospora, but not perithecia of Leucostoma, on cankers was different from the signs described for Leucostoma canker caused by Leucostoma cincta in Michigan (2,3). However, simple matching coefficient analysis of randomly amplified polymorphic DNA data indicated 74% similarity between a typical isolate from apple in Wisconsin (97-82) and two isolates of L. cincta from apple in Michigan (3; ATCC 64878 and 64879) but only 49 to 54% similarity to L. cincta and L. persoonii isolated from stone fruit trees (Prunus spp.). Inoculation of wounded branches of mature apple trees (cvs. Golden Delicious and Cortland) with isolate 97-82 in July 1998 and 1999 resulted in cankers that resembled young cankers observed on trees in the research orchard. Eight weeks after inoculation, the pathogen was reisolated from these cankers, which fulfilled Koch's Postulates. Therefore, we conclude that Leucostoma canker was responsible for the serious damage to apple trees of different cultivars at the research station, with strains of McIntosh affected most severely. We speculate that low-temperature injury during the unusually cold winter of 1995-1996 might have created infection sites and predisposed trees to disease development. This is the first report of Leucostoma canker of apple in Wisconsin. It is rare that this disease causes such significant losses (2). References: (1) M. Ashkan. Iranian J. Plant Pathol. 30:33, 1994. (2) A. L. Jones and H. S. Aldwinckle, eds. 1991. Pages 40–41 in: Compendium of Apple and Pear Diseases. American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN. (3) T. J. Proffer and A. L. Jones. Plant Dis. 73:508, 1989.

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Ярцев,С.В. "ON THE DESIGNATION OF THE CENTRAL ASIAN DYNASTIC LINE of THE BOSPORAN ARISTOCRACY." Proceedings in Archaeology and History of Ancient and Medieval Black Sea Region, S1 (December9, 2022): 187–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.53737/2713-2021.2022.36.69.007.

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В центре внимания — династическая история Боспорского царства на рубеже эр. Принимая во внимание мнение о царе Асандре как родоначальнике новой сармато-иранской династии, следует полагать, что члены этого клана опирались на родственные им сарматские племена, выходцы из которых служили боспорским царям — потомкам Великого Ахемена. Но после женитьбы Аспурга на фракийской принцессе Гипепирии и появления в среде сармато-иранской аристократии Боспора фракийской династической линии один из её представителей — Митридат VIII (III) — начал открытую борьбу за независимость от Римской империи. Полагая, что в числе кочевников, пришедших тогда из глубин Азии во главе с Фарзоем и Инисмеем, были родственники мятежного царя, следует выделить этих деятелей (вместе с частью родственной сармато-иранской знати Боспора) в центральноазиатскую династическую линию, лидеры которой затем неоднократно претендовали на трон в борьбе с представителями фракийской линии и сармато-иранскими аристократами. The paper focuses on the dynastic history of the Bosporan Kingdom at the brink of the eras. It is accepted here that King Asander should be considered the founder of the new Sarmatian-Iranian dynasty. The members of this clan relied on the related Sarmatians, who have been serving to the Bosporan kings, the descendants of Achaemenes the Great. However, after Aspurgus and Thracian princess Gepaepyris were married, and when the Thracian line arose side by side with the Sarmatian-Iranian aristocracy, one of them, Mithridates VIII (III), had started an open struggle for independence against the Roman Empire. It is assumed that the barbarians led by Pharzoius and Inismeus, who came at that time to the Northern Black Sea region from the depths of Asia, were relatives to the rebellious ruler. This is the reason why the noble nomadic comers together with some related Sarmatian-Iranian Bosporan aristocrats are classified here as the Central Asian dynastic line. Later, its leaders have repeatedly been making claims to the throne, when defending their rights and fighting against representatives of the Thracian line, as well as against those from the milieu of the Sarmatian-Iranian aristocracy.

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KAUR, RAVINDER. "Sacralising Bodies On Martyrdom, Government and Accident in Iran." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 20, no.4 (October 2010): 441–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s135618631000026x.

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AbstractIn post-revolution Iran, the sacred notion of martyrdom has been transformed into a routine act of government – a moral sign of order and state sovereignty. Moving beyond the debates of the secularisation of the sacred and the making sacred of the secular, this article argues that the moment of sacralisation is realised through co-production within a social setting when the object of sacralisation is recognised as such by others. In contemporary Iran, however, the moment of sacralising bodies by the state is also the moment of its own subversion as the political-theological field of martyrdom is contested and challenged from within. This article traces the genealogy of martyrdom in contemporary Iran in order to explore its institutionalised forms and governmental practices. During the revolution, the Shi'a tradition of martyrdom and its dramatic performances of ritual mourning and self-sacrifice became central to the mass mobilisation against the monarchy. Once the revolutionary government came into existence, this sacred tradition was regulated to create ‘martyrs’ as a fixed category, in order to consolidate the legacy of the revolution. In this political theatre, the dead body is a site of transformation and performance upon which the original narrative of martyrdom takes place even as it displaces it and gives new meanings to the act.A CrashOn the morning of 6 December 2005, an Iranian military plane C-130 carrying journalists and Army officials crashed near Mehrabad airport in Tehran. The plane was attempting an emergency landing when it hit a ten-storey apartment block, setting off a big explosion which set fire to the building. In all, one hundred and sixteen charred bodies were recovered – ninty four passengers and twenty two residents of the building – from the smoke and rubble in this working class area of south-western Tehran. The residents were mostly women and schoolchildren who had stayed home – because of an official anti-pollution drive – to avoid a thick layer of smog that had developed over Tehran skies over the previous few days. Dozens of people were injured on the ground and the riot police had to be called in to clear the area of curious onlookers who were blocking the emergency services.The plane crash was met with grief, guilt and hints of anger. The Iranian media was most vocal in its expression of rage – seventy eight journalists had lost their lives in an instant. The ‘Iran News Daily’, a leading English language newspaper based in Tehran, two days later devoted a full page to the crash coverage including scathing editorials demanding accountability and answers to “disturbing questions” from the government. The editorial entitled ‘Duty and Responsibility’ stated that “condolences are not enough. People, the near and dear ones of victims in particular, have the right to know. Did the C-130 have technical problems? Was it fit for the passenger service? What would have really happened if the flight was cancelled? Who gave the final permission for the journey to go ahead? Is this another case of human error or engine failure? How can such major loss of innocent life be explained, leave [sic] alone justified?”2Similarly, Hossein Shariatmadari, influential editor of the conservative Persian daily ‘Kayhan’, called for a full investigation, not because it would bring “the dead back to life but (to) prevent repetition of similar incidents and further disasters”.3As private and public condolences began pouring in – newspapers had allocated prime space for such purpose – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a short message through state media that dramatically altered the narrative of grief and anger against the authorities. The message read as follows: “I learned of the catastrophe and the fact that members of the press have been martyred. I offer my condolences to the Supreme Leader and to the families of the victims”. With this message the dead journalists had been officially pronounced ‘martyrs’ – a moral-political subjectivity that traces its genealogy to the martyrdom of Imam Hussein.4In a single moment, the burnt corpses were no longer the bodies of ordinary victims of a plane crash, but the corpses of martyrs, and their charred remains sacrificial relics.

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Amirhassankhani, Fatemeh, Baba Senowbari-Daryan, and Koorosh Rashidi. "Upper Triassic (Norian-Rhaetian) Foraminifera from the Nayband Formation of the Lut Block (Garm Ab section, Northeast Iran)." Carnets de géologie (Notebooks on geology) 23, no.4 (April1, 2023): 77–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.2110/carnets.2023.2304.

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Studies of Nayband Formation from the Garm Ab section in Lut Block in Central Iran led to the identification of 26 foraminiferal taxa. Nine species are reported from Iran for the first time: Involutina ex gr. liassica (Jones), Involutina sp., Lamelliconus permodiscoides (Oberhauser), Palaeolituonella cf. meridionalis (Luperto), Palaeolituonella cf. angulata Senowbari-Daryan & Cacciatore, Gaudryinella cf. kotlensis Trifonova, Ammobaculites eumorphos Kristan-Tollmann, Frondicularia rhaetica Kristan-Tollmann, Frondicularia cf. xiphoidea Kristan-Tollmann, and Orthotrinacria ? expansa (Zaninetti et al.). The taxa restrict the Upper Triassic interval to probably just the Rhaetian. Based on the foraminifera and their abundance, three different association-types could be distinguished, i.e., the Decapoalina schaeferae-Miliolipora cuvillieri, Trocholina turris-Agathammina iranica and Involutina ex gr. liassica-Trocholina umbo associations. Comparisons of foraminiferal associations in different parts of central Iran, such as 1) Hassan Abad section, SW of Ferdows in Lut Block, 2) the type locality of the Nayband Formation in Tabas Block, NE of Esfahan in the eastern part of Central Domain Block, and 3) the Garm Ab section in Lut Block, indicate that the hyaline foraminifers are most abundant in the Garm Ab. Besides, in the Lut Block, the reef environments in the Garm Ab section are deeper water than those of the Hassan Abad section. The association of Trocholina umbo with Miliolipora cuvillieri is similar to the foraminiferal association from the NE of Esfahan and shows similar conditions in Lut Block and Central Domain Block. The two assemblages of hyaline foraminifers, especially the new report of Involutina and Trocholina, prove to be Rhaetian in age.

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LEROSEY-AUBRIL, RUDY. "The Late Palaeozoic trilobites of Iran and Armenia and their palaeogeographical significance." Geological Magazine 149, no.6 (April27, 2012): 1023–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0016756812000179.

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AbstractThe Iranian territory is composed of a mosaic of tectonic units, several of which underwent in the Permian and Triassic periods a migration from northern Gondwana to southern Laurussia associated with the opening of the Neo-Tethys Ocean. Although this broad outline of Permo-Triassic palaeogeographical evolution of Iranian microplates is now widely accepted, the individual timing of migration of these blocks, and their biogeographical relationships, remain insufficiently known. Here I review the Late Palaeozoic record of trilobites in Iran and Armenia, and discuss their palaeobiogeographical affinities in an attempt to shed light on the Permian palaeogeographical evolution of Iranian and Armenian terranes. Seven Iranian or Armenian localities, representative of five tectonic units, have yielded Carboniferous and Permian trilobites. Ten species are recognized, including two new taxa, Persia praecox gen. nov. sp. nov. and Pseudophillipsia (s.l.) parvizii sp. nov. P. praecox is the only Carboniferous (Tournaisian) species. The others are Wordian to Wuchiapingian in age and can be separated into three morphological groups, probably representing clades. One is composed of representatives of Acropyge, while the two others (armenica-group and paffenholzi-group) comprise species of Pseudophillipsia. Only P. (s.l.) parvizii sp. nov. from the Zagros Mountains (Arabian Plate) is not attributed to one of these groups. The distribution of trilobites in Iran and Armenia strongly suggests that the Alborz, Central Iran and Transcaucasia microplates represented a single biogeographical unit in Middle and Late Permian times. Special relationships of this biochore with South China can also be stressed.

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Rastegar-Pouyani, Nasrullah, and Göran Nilson. "A New Species of Eremias (Sauria: Lacertidae) from Fars Province, South-Central Iran." Russian Journal of Herpetology 4, no.2 (October15, 2011): 94–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.30906/1026-2296-1997-4-2-94-101.

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A new species of the lacertid genus and subgenus Eremias is described based on material collected by the senior author from 150 km northeast of Shiraz, Fars province, south-central Iran at about 1800 m elevation. It differs from all other Iranian species of the typical subgenus (E. persica, E. strauchi, E. velox, and E. lalezharica) in that it has a very distinctive and unique color pattern, unmistakable in this character: the wide dorsolateral stripe is uniformly black without light spots and there is no ocelli on the upper surface of limbs; the third pair of submaxillary shields are separated by 4 granular scales; and the tympanic shield is rudimentary and almost absent. The new species is sympatric with Eremias persica and apparently restricted in distribution to the steppes and open plains in the northern regions of Fars province, south-central Iran.

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Hairapetian, Vachik, Mansoureh Ghobadi Pour, LeonidE.Popov, Peep Männik, and C.GilesMiller. "Silurian stratigraphy of Central Iran – an update." Acta Geologica Polonica 67, no.2 (June27, 2017): 201–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/agp-2017-0014.

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AbstractThe Silurian biostratigraphy, lithostratigraphy, and facies of Central Iran including the Kashmar (Boghu Mountains), Tabas (Derenjal Mountains, Ozbak-Kuh), Anarak (Pol-e Khavand) and Kerman regions is reviewed and updated. The current state of knowledge of the Silurian in the Zagros Basin, Alborz, Kopet-Dagh and Talysh regions, as well as in a few areas scattered across the Sabzevar Zone, and the Sanandaj-Sirjan terranes is also reviewed. Silurian volcanism in various parts of Iran is briefly discussed. The end of the Ordovician coincided with a widespread regression across Iran synchronous with the Hirnantian glaciation, and only in the Zagros Basin is there a continuous Ordovician-Silurian transition represented by graptolitic black shales of the Sarchahan Formation. In the Central-East Iranian Platform marine sedimentation re-commenced in the early to mid Aeronian. By the Sheinwoodian, carbonate platform depositional environments were established along its north-eastern margin. In other parts of Iran (e.g., Kopet-Dagh and the Sabzevar Zone), siliciclastic sedimentation continued probably into the late Silurian. The Silurian conodont and brachiopod biostratigraphy of Central Iran is significantly updated facilitating a precise correlation with the Standard Global Chronostratigraphic Scale, as well as with key Silurian sections in other parts of Iran. The Silurian lithostratigraphy is considerably revised and two new lithostratigraphical units, namely the Boghu and Dahaneh-Kalut formations, are introduced.

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FAGHIH, ALI, TIMOTHY KUSKY, and BABAK SAMANI. "Kinematic analysis of deformed structures in a tectonic mélange: a key unit for the manifestation of transpression along the Zagros Suture Zone, Iran." Geological Magazine 149, no.6 (June29, 2012): 1107–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0016756812000295.

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AbstractKinematic analysis of mélange fabrics provides critical information concerning tectonic processes and evaluation of the kinematics of ancient relative plate motion. Systematic kinematic analysis of deformed structures within a tectonic mélange exposed along the Zagros Suture Zone elucidates that this zone is an ancient transpressional boundary. The mélange is composed of a greywacke and mudstone matrix surrounding various lenses, blocks and ribbons of radiolarian chert, limestone, sandstone, pillow lava, tuff, serpentinite, shale and marl. The deformation fabrics of the mélange suggest that the mélange units were tectonically accreted at shallow levels within a subduction complex, resulting in layer-parallel extension and shearing along a NW–SE-trending suture that juxtaposes the Afro-Arabian continent to the south and the Central Iranian microcontinents to the north. The tectonic mélange is characterized by subhorizontal layer-parallel extension and subsequent heterogeneous non-coaxial shear resulting in alternating asymmetric and layer-parallel extensional fabrics such as P–Y fabrics and boudinaged layers. Kinematic data suggest that the mélange formed during oblique subduction of the Neo-Tethys oceanic lithosphere in Late Cretaceous time. Kinematic shear sense indicators reveal that the slip direction (N9°E to N14°E) during accretion-related deformations reflects the relative plate motion between the Afro-Arabian continent and Central Iranian microcontinents during Late Cretaceous to Miocene times.

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Jahantigh, Hossein. "Investigation and analysis of the Iranian autumn rainfall thickness pattern." Időjárás 127, no.3 (2023): 267–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.28974/idojaras.2023.3.1.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate and analyze the trend of autumn precipitation thickness pattern in Iran. For this purpose, two environmental and atmospheric databases have been used. Environmental data is prepared and networked in two stages, in the first stage with the help of 1434 stations and in the second stage with the help of 1061 stations. Atmospheric data includes geopotential height data obtained from the National Center for Environmental Prediction and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP / NCAR). The spatial resolution of this data is 2.5 × 2.5 degrees. The thickness of the atmosphere, which is usually between 500 and 1000 hectopascals, is shown. This thickness is considered as the thickness of the whole atmosphere. The results of the autumn precipitation trend showed that although autumn precipitation on monthly and annual scales has experienced an increasing trend in most regions, in less than 5% of Iran, the upward trend has been significant. The most intense upward trend is observed in the form of spots in the central and northern parts of the Zagros Mountain, while the greatest decreasing trend has been observed in the form of cores along the Caspian coastal cities. The results of the autumn precipitation thickness pattern showed that the autumn precipitation thickness pattern is affected by deflection and instability due to high latitude cold and humid weather and low latitude hot and humid weather occurred in North Africa, in such a way that the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea provide the required moisture in high latitudes and the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in low latitudes.

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Chochorowski, Jan, Marek Krąpiec, Sergej Skoryj, and Vadim Skrypkin. "Wiggle-Match Dating of Tree-Ring Sequences from the Early Iron Age Defensive Settlement Motroninskoe Gorodishche in Mielniki (Central Ukraine)." Radiocarbon 56, no.2 (2014): 645–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.2458/56.17460.

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In 2002–2003, excavations were carried out within the early Iron Age fortified settlement of Motroninskoe Gorodishche in Mielniki (central Ukraine, obl. Cherkassy). The excavations revealed relics of a charred wooden structure in the core of the earth rampart, originally forming the outside fortification line of the settlement. Dendrochronological analysis of 20 charred pieces of the oakwood from the rampart demonstrated that they all represented a single construction phase. However, the chronology produced from them spanned only 62 yr, and the attempts of dating against the European oak standards were unsuccessful. For absolute dating, radiocarbon analysis was conducted on nine samples consisting of 4–8 tree rings, relatively dated and coming from selected timbers, of which dendrochronological sequences defined the above chronology. The wiggle-matching method allowed to determine the two most plausible periods tree cutting: 665–630 or 625–520 BC. The construction date of the rampart outlines the beginning of construction of the fortification system of one of the most heavily reinforced strongholds in eastern Europe raised by the local, settled population for defense against the nomadic Scythians invading from the steppe. Taking into account historic data and other dated artifacts, it may be assumed that the first period, 665–630 BC, would be more probable. This conclusion supports the historical process (crucial for eastern Europe) of migration of the Iranian Scythians from inside Asia and settling in areas around the Black Sea.

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Chochorowski, Jan, Marek Krąpiec, Sergej Skoryj, and Vadim Skrypkin. "Wiggle-Match Dating of Tree-Ring Sequences from the Early Iron Age Defensive Settlement Motroninskoe Gorodishche in Mielniki (Central Ukraine)." Radiocarbon 56, no.02 (2014): 645–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0033822200049687.

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In 2002–2003, excavations were carried out within the early Iron Age fortified settlement of Motroninskoe Gorodishche in Mielniki (central Ukraine, obl. Cherkassy). The excavations revealed relics of a charred wooden structure in the core of the earth rampart, originally forming the outside fortification line of the settlement. Dendrochronological analysis of 20 charred pieces of the oakwood from the rampart demonstrated that they all represented a single construction phase. However, the chronology produced from them spanned only 62 yr, and the attempts of dating against the European oak standards were unsuccessful. For absolute dating, radiocarbon analysis was conducted on nine samples consisting of 4–8 tree rings, relatively dated and coming from selected timbers, of which dendrochronological sequences defined the above chronology. The wiggle-matching method allowed to determine the two most plausible periods tree cutting: 665–630 or 625–520 BC. The construction date of the rampart outlines the beginning of construction of the fortification system of one of the most heavily reinforced strongholds in eastern Europe raised by the local, settled population for defense against the nomadic Scythians invading from the steppe. Taking into account historic data and other dated artifacts, it may be assumed that the first period, 665–630 BC, would be more probable. This conclusion supports the historical process (crucial for eastern Europe) of migration of the Iranian Scythians from inside Asia and settling in areas around the Black Sea.

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Zymovets,R.V. "IMAGE OF A WILD BOAR IN THE SCYTHIANS ANIMAL STYLE OF THE NORTHERN PONTIC REGION. INTERNAL EVOLUTION AND EXTERNAL IMPACTS." Archaeology and Early History of Ukraine 31, no.2 (June25, 2019): 409–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.37445/adiu.2019.02.34.

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The article deals with relatively rare but important for Scythians animal style repertoire image of a wild boar. The sources of iconography and style of the image are analyzed, as well as his inner evolution and external influences from Central Asia, Near East, Iran and Greece. Full figure image of a wild boar in the Northern Black Sea region in archaic period are very rare unlike Central Asia and Southern Seberia, where these images were quite popular. Nevertheless some typical Asian styled figures (in a «sudden stop» pose or standing «on a hoof tips») are represented in Kuban’ and Dniepr Forrest-Steppe regions. Obviously they connected to Central Asia tradition and may be an evidence of migration process from eastern region to the Northern Black Sea in VII—VI centuries BC. The article notes, that already in archaic period in Scythians burials being discovered artifacts with typical Greek and Middle East images of a wild boar as well as Celtic imports from Central Europe. In classical period the situation is changing. A new wild boar image iconography appears: with bent legs. At the current stage of research it’s impossible to unambiguously determine a geographical source of such image: was it Central Asia or Near East. The images with new iconography performed mostly in gold and decorated most often the weapons (bow cases, sword sheaths), ritual and cult items (bowls, rhytons, headdress). At the same time the image of a separate wild boar head appears. It became more popular than full figures and gained wider distribution from the late VI — early V century BC. It being developed in two stylistic directions: laconic, connected with Sauromathian impact and realistic-decorative, as a result of further development of this image by Bosporus artisans. The article also deals with semantics of the image. Many researchers associated the image of a wild boar with the embodiments of gods of war and victory — Indo-Iranian Veretragna and Scythians Ares. Author argues that a wild boar could be associated also with a chthonic destructive power and victory over him made the winning warrior a real hero, equal to his «cosmic» rival. Two new artefacts with a wild boar images from the territory of Crimea peninsula are introduced into scientific circulation.

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Suvin, Darko. "Parables and Uses of a Stumbling Stone." arcadia 52, no.2 (October30, 2017): 271–300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/arcadia-2017-0035.

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AbstractParallels are discussed between the Biblical (Jewish and then Christian) use of ‘stumbling stone’ and Shklovsky’s thisworldly notion of estrangement – ‘making the stone stony.’ To Shklovsky’s esthetic salvation through estranged perception, Brecht adds value criteria from salvational politics, using, for example, in The Caucasian Chalk Circle a Marxist figuralism, which rationalizes the sensual body. However, estrangement as a formal device which doubts the present norms is ideologico-politically ambiguous: in the Brecht or Marxist wing it is ‘critical,’ but in other hands it may be ‘mythical’: Hamsun, Jünger, Pound, and the Iranian Ta’ziyeh play use it with a lay or religious proto-fascist horizon. The final section follows Timpanaro’s insistence on biological death as not fully reducible to politics in the usual sense, and juxtaposes stumbling, death, and creative eros as politics. In spite of Hegel’s insistence on death as a powerful negative, it is a blind spot in canonical Marxism. Even Ernst Bloch, positing hope as the central principle, does not fully engage with it, though I mention some initial useful leads from him, Brecht, and Jameson. We are left with the Freudian topology pitting eros against thanatos, and the essay closes on a discussion of Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress.

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Biliaieva,S.O. "THE UKRAINIAN HORIZONS OF THE NORTH BLACK SEA AREA: HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS." Archaeology and Early History of Ukraine 38, no.1 (June1, 2021): 438–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.37445/adiu.2021.01.31.

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The important role in the history of Ukrainian lands belong to the North Pontic Area. Last decades the revision of old position from one side and the growing of the attention towards the problems of this region take place. The beginning of own ethnical development of Slavs tribes, known by «Ants» name or «Okrainni» by Indo-Iranian language. On the next stage of history, the tribes of Russ chronicle: Ulichi and Tyvertsy settled on Black Sea region. Colonization of this area by the Slavs lasted through more than 500 years, which created the fundamental ethnical base of autochthone population. With formation of Kyiv Russ the North Black Sea area take the important place in political, economic, ethno cultural and trade fields of the new country. The numerous settlements fixed on the Lower Dnieper and other rivers in spite of numerous nomadic tribes: every society occupy the own part of the landscape in connection from their economic type. In the of Post Kyiv Russ and Lithuanian-Russ federation, the South Russ principalities preserved their traditions and continue the progressive development. At the end of the XIV — at the beginning of XV centuries the new fortification line built under the chief of the Great Prince Vitovt in the North Black Sea Area, which opened the new stage of fortification: stone fortresses. The brilliant example of this kind is the first stone fortress Tyagin of the South part of the Lithuanian-Russ principality, as a part of the early Ukraine. In the time of Crimean-Ottoman administration in region, the Christiania autochthone population with Ukrainian part also, continue to live in the North Black sea area and became the region of Cossack colonization. The artefacts of Ukrainian culture founded in the course of the archaeological excavation (Akkerman, Ochakiv) even in the Ottoman fortresses. The anthropological investigations support the existence of great part of the settled population, which take the considerable morphological contacts with Ukrainians of the South, Central and West regions of the XVII—XIX centuries. The important factor of the living of Christian population, including Ukrainians, was the existence and activity of the Brailiv metropolis of the Konstantinopol patriarchate in the middle of the XVI—XIX cent., which escape the large area from Braila to Tyagin. The archaeological investigation of the South Ukraine increase the possibility of the knowledge of the Ukrainian history from the new modern position.

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Sharapova,SvetlanaV., Alexandr Ya Trufanov, DariaV.Kiseleva, EvgenyS.Shagalov, DanilA.Danilov, ArinaN.Khorkova, TatyanaG.Okuneva, NataliaG.Soloshenko, AnastasiaD.Ryanskaya, and Natalya Sergeevna Uporova. "A FIND OF THE NORTH-CAUCASIAN CERAMICS IN THE ELITE BURIAL OF THE ISAKOVKA I BURIAL GROUND (WESTERN SIBERIA)." History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Caucasus 18, no.2 (June23, 2022): 429–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.32653/ch182429-462.

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We present the results of a multi-disciplinary analysis of a jug and its contents from the elite burial complex of the Sargat culture in Middle Irtysh Basin (burial Isakovka I, mound 3, burial 6). The burial, along with military equipment and various metallic import, contained a ceramic jug, the closest analogies to which are found in the production centers of the settled population of the foothill zone of the central and partially eastern regions of the North Caucasus, as well as the steppe territory (the basin of the Kuma River). The studied piece is distinguished by its massive form and traces of repair of the upper part. The jug was placed in the burial filled with a granular substance with fragments of light and gray-black color. Laboratory analysis found no traces of tartrates, i.e. the jug was not used for cooking or transporting beverages of grape juice. The detected fractions of biogenic apatite could possibly originate from fish bones and scales, used for the production of glue, which was added for clarification of wine, beer and mead. At the same time, the composition of the filling contains organic substances related to the production of a low-alcohol drink based on honey, fermented with the addition of cereal grains (local wild or coming from agricultural centers). There are two versions for defining this drink: either it was beer – one of the oldest ritual drinks, the use of which in pastoral cultures is confirmed by texts of the Nart sagas and is confirmed by similar forms of words of Iranian origin; or an infusion of herbs/cereals based on honey, also common in the ritual practices of ancient and traditional cultures. This find is considered exceptional, since the North Caucasian antiquities of the Early Iron Age have been previously unknown in the forest-steppe monuments of the Trans-Urals and Western Siberia. It is possible that the area of the Sargat culture is so far the easternmost territory of distribution of such ceramics.

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Shaghaghi, Mahdi, and Mohammad-Reza Vasfi. "An Investigation into the Underpinning Factors of Plagiarism among Universities in Iran." Libri 69, no.3 (September25, 2019): 201–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/libri-2017-0100.

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Abstract We are living in a time where plagiarism is a highly critical issue in the publish-or-perish stage of academic life. There have been many efforts to address this issue by holistic socio-cognitive variables but they do not seem explanatory enough in context-specific areas. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the root causes of plagiarism in a specific context, i. e. Iranian universities, by offering a structural model to reveal the building blocks of this phenomenon. Setting the goal, we chose Corbin and Strauss’s (2008) Grounded Theory (GT) approach, avoiding its paradigmatic cliché that a theoretical model emerges only from data without any pre-assumption. The research population included faculty members, PhD candidates and master’s students selected from universities in Tehran, Iran. Open theoretical sampling and, then, discriminative sampling were used. Fifty-one interviews, two newspaper interviews, and three focus groups were conducted. The interviewees were accessed through universities’ library and information centers. Taken together, 56 interviews were transcribed and codified. Lincoln and Guba’s (2008) criteria were used to control the quality of the research process. “Indifference” to plagiarism is the central phenomenon and “cultural depositories” plus “governmental capitalism” were found to be the root factors. These two factors may lead to “Bureaucratic university” (Moodie 2006) as a context for the emergence of “research formalism”, “uncritical education” and “scholastic habitus”. All these factors, together with direct reflexive elements including bad exemplars, the irresponsibility of professors, immoral trade-off, unscientific evaluation, insignificant differentiation, and vindications, lead to “indifference”. One of the research’s implications is that plagiarism in Iran seems not to result from individual-psychological factors but from cultural, economic, legal and organizational factors. Another implication is that in the investigation of social or organizational problems we should take a look at the concept of normality. We explored the factors tending to make a problem a normal phenomenon. We also pinpointed the things making people indifferent to a problem, factors pushing abnormal phenomenon to the realm of normality, and elements constituting the origins of the current order of things which are mysteriously silenced and practically behaved.

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Трейстер,М.Ю. "ON JEWELLERY FROM THE FIRST CENTURIES CE COMPLEXES ON THE TERRITORY OF COLCHISAND SURROUNDING AREAS OF THE NORTH-EASTERN BLACK SEA REGION (ABOUT THE SO-CALLED STYLISTIC GROUP “GORGIPPIA — LOO”)." Proceedings in Archaeology and History of Ancient and Medieval Black Sea Region, no.15 (October31, 2023): 336–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.53737/7965.2023.55.50.008.

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В данной работе пойдет речь о золотых полихромных украшениях, происходящих из комплексов на территории Западной Грузии (Гонио, Махо, Капандиби, Клдеети) и прилегающих областей (Лоо), а также относящейся к этой же группе подвески с изображением Минервы, которая в начале XX в. находилась в собрании ростовского коллекционера Ф.С. Романовича (она специально рассматривается в приложении к статье). По мнению О.В. Шарова, высказанному впервые в 2006 г., указанные украшения входят в группу полихромных ювелирных изделий позднеримского времени, названную им группой «Горгиппия—Лоо» и датированную в первой работе — III в. н.э., в дальнейшем — второй половиной II — первой половиной III в. н.э. Отчасти это характеристика действительно соответствует находкам из склепа II/1975 в Горгиппии (но лишь отчасти — композиции из зерни, также как и касты с зубчатым краем в их декоре не использованы), но при этом находки из Горгиппии не имеют ничего общего с указанными украшениями из Гонио, Клдеети, Капандиби и Лоо, для которых использование филиграни, как в изделиях из Горгиппии, не характерно. Соответственно, очевидно, что следует отказаться от такого необоснованного термина, который обозначает изделия, не связанные между собой. Анализ особенностей формы и декора украшений из Колхиды и прилегающих областей, а также стилистический и хронологических анализ комплексов, из которых они происходят, позволяет прийти к следующим выводам. Прямых оснований датировать III в. н.э. ни один из рассматриваемых комплексов из Колхиды и Лоо — нет. Более того, ювелирные изделия, входящие в состав кладов и погребений из Махо, Гонио, Капандиби и Лоо, вряд ли выходят за рамки I в. н.э., а часть из них с очевидностью может быть датирована еще I в. до н.э. Вместе с тем, подробный анализ бляхи из собрания Ф.С. Романовича дает основание предполагать, что образцом для подражания ювелира могла послужить монетная эмблема, которая появляется на монетах Каракаллы и Геты и, соответственно, датировать подвеску не ранее рубежа II—III вв. н.э. Таким образом, не исключено, что мастерские, появившиеся в Колхиде еще на рубеже н.э. и изготавливавшие в I в. н.э. золотые украшения в характерном стиле, с широким использованием зерни и цветных вставок, преимущественно в пластинчатых кастах с зубчатым краем, продолжали работать в указанном стиле, по крайнем мере, до начала III в. н.э., что теоретически не исключает и более позднюю датировку колхидских комплексов в рамках второй половиной II — первой половиной III в. н.э. Укажем в этой связи, что сочетание в комплексах значительно более ранних импортных драгоценных вещей (в частности, римской бронзовой, серебряной посуды, гемм) и римских и парфянских монет I—II вв., в том числе золотых, которые рассматривают в качестве дипломатических даров, в целом характерно для богатых погребений некрополей Картли, особенно Мцхеты, середины / второй половины II — начала / первой половины III в. н.э. О.В. Шаров высказал предположение, что изготовление и стиль орнаментации украшений рассматриваемой группы «изначально связаны с традициями еще Аршакидского Ирана, а часть предметов могла изготавливаться мастерами Иберии, находящейся в III в. н.э. под сильным иранским влиянием». И этот тезис вызывает серьезные сомнения, учитывая отсутствие в Иране не только близких параллелей по форме украшений, но и сочетаний композиций из зерни со вставками в кастах с зубчатым краем. Скорее рассматриваемые изделия следует рассматривать как изделия местных мастерских и не Иберии, а Колхиды (т.е. Западной Грузии) в том числе с учетом очевидных элементов и мотивов, восходящих к произведениям ювелирного искусства Колхиды более раннего времени. Обращает на себя внимание и практически полное отсутствие украшений, которые можно определить как римские. Разве что можно было бы говорить о происхождение перстня и вставки в одну из блях из Лоо. Стеклянный кубок из Лоо был вероятно изготовлен в Сирии, тогда как серебряный канфар из Капандиби находит ближайшие параллели оформлению ручек на сосудах августовского времени из Центральной Европы. Парфянские же коннотации прослеживаются лишь в случае навершия с характерными подвесками из клада в Гонио и возможно, с фаларом из этого же клада, но и они не имеют никакого отношения ни к III в. н.э., ни к мастерским Иберии. This paper focuses on gold polychrome jewellery originating from the complexes in Western Georgia (Gonio, Makho, Kapandibi, Kldeeti) and adjacent areas (Loo), as well as a pendant with the image of Minerva belonging to the same group, which in early 20th century was acquired by the Rostov-on-Don collector F.S. Romanovich (it is specially considered in the appendix to the article). According to O.V. Sharov, whose opinion was expressed for the first time in 2006, these adornments are included in the group of polychrome jewelry of the late Roman period, which he called the “Gorgippia — Loo” group and dated in 2006 to the 3rdcentury CE, later — to the second half of the 2nd— the first half of the 3rd century CE. In part, this characteristic really corresponds to the finds from crypt II/1975 in Gorgippia (but only in part — compositions made of granulation, as well as cells with a jagged edge, were not used in their decoration), but the finds from Gorgippia have nothing in common with the jewellery from Gonio, Kldeeti, Kapandibi and Loo under discussion, for which the use of filigree, as in the finds from Gorgippia, is not typical. Accordingly, it is obvious that such an unreasonable term, which denotes objects that are not related to each other, should be abandoned. An analysis of the characteristic features of the shape and decoration of jewellery from Colchis and adjacent areas, as well as a stylistic and chronological analysis of the complexes from which they originate, allows us to come to the following conclusions. There are no direct reasons to date to the 3rd century CE any of the complexes from Colchis and Loo under discussion. Moreover, the jewellery found in the hoards and burials from Makho, Gonio, Kapandibi and Loo is unlikely to be later than the 1stcentury CE, and some of these items can obviously be dated even to the 1st century BCE. At the same time, a detailed analysis of the pendant from the collection of F.S. Romanovich gives reason to believe that the coin emblem that appeared on the coins of Caracalla and Geta could serve as a prototype for the jeweler and, accordingly, this allows to date the pendant no earlier than the turn of the 2nd—3rdcenturies CE. Thus, it is possible that the workshops that were established in Colchis at the turn of the Christian era and produced in the 1st century CE gold jewellery in a characteristic style, with extensive use of granulation and colored inlays, mainly in sheet cells with a serrated edge, continued to work in this style, at least until the early 3rdcentury CE, which theoretically does not exclude the later dating of the Colchis complexes within the second half of the 2nd — the first half of the 3rdcenturies CE. In this regard, I would point out that the combination in the complexes of much earlier imported precious items (in particular, Roman bronze and silver utensils and gems), as well as Roman and Parthian coins of the 1st—2ndcenturies, including gold ones, which are considered as diplomatic gifts, is in general typical for the rich burials of the necropoleis of Kartli, especially Mtskheta, of the middle / second half of the 2nd — early / first half of the 3rdcenturies CE. O.V. Sharov suggested that the manufacture and the style of decoration of the jewellery of the group under consideration “originally was associated with the traditions of Arsakid Iran, and some of the items could have been made by craftsmen of Iberia, experiencing in the 3rd century a strong Iranian influence”. Also this thesis raises serious doubts, given the absence in Irannot only of close parallels to the forms of jewellery under discussion, but also of combinations of compositions made of granulation with inlays in cells with a jagged edge. Rather, the objects in question should be considered as products of local workshops and not of Caucasian Iberia, but of Colchis (i.e., Western Georgia), also taking into account obvious elements and motifs dating back to the works of jewellery art of Colchis of an earlier period. Noteworthy is the almost complete absence of adornments which could be identified as Roman, unless one could consider the origin of the finger ring and cameo inlay in one of the plaques from Loo. The glass goblet from Loo was probably made in Syria, while the silver cantharus from Kapandibi finds the closest parallels in the design of the handles among the vessels of the Augustan period from Central Europe. Parthian connotations can be traced only in the case of a finial with characteristic pendants and, possibly, a phalera from the Treasure from Gonio, but they also have nothing to do neither with the 3rdcentury, nor with the workshops of Iberia.

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Shakerardakani, Farzaneh, Franz Neubauer, Xiaoming Liu, Yunpeng Dong, Behzad Monfaredi, and Xian-Hua Li. "New detrital zircon U–Pb insights on the palaeogeographic origin of the central Sanandaj–Sirjan zone, Iran." Geological Magazine, August26, 2021, 1–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0016756821000728.

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Abstract New detrital U–Pb zircon ages from the Sanandaj–Sirjan metamorphic zone in the Zagros orogenic belt allow discussion of models of the late Neoproterozoic to early Palaeozoic plate tectonic evolution and position of the Iranian microcontinent within a global framework. A total of 194 valid age values from 362 zircon grains were obtained from three garnet-micaschist samples. The most abundant detrital zircon population included Ediacaran ages, with the main age peak at 0.60 Ga. Other significant age peaks are at c. 0.64–0.78 Ga, 0.80–0.91 Ga, 0.94–1.1 Ga, 1.8–2.0 Ga and 2.1–2.5 Ga. The various Palaeozoic zircon age peaks could be explained by sediment supply from sources within the Iranian microcontinent. However, Precambrian ages were found, implying a non-Iranian provenance or recycling of upper Ediacaran–Palaeozoic clastic rocks. Trace-element geochemical fingerprints show that most detrital zircons were sourced from continental magmatic settings. In this study, the late Grenvillian age population at c. 0.94–1.1 Ga is used to unravel the palaeogeographic origin of the Sanandaj–Sirjan metamorphic zone. This Grenvillian detrital age population relates to the ‘Gondwana superfan’ sediments, as found in many Gondwana-derived terranes within the European Variscides and Turkish terranes, but also to units further east, e.g. in the South China block. Biogeographic evidence proves that the Iranian microcontinent developed on the same North Gondwana margin extending from the South China block via Iran further to the west.

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Baron-Szabo,RosemarieC., Felix Schlagintweit, and Koorosh Rashidi. "Coral fauna across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary at Zagros and Sistan Suture zones and Yazd Block of Iran." Swiss Journal of Palaeontology 142, no.1 (May9, 2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13358-023-00264-8.

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AbstractFrom the upper Maastrichtian (Tarbur Fm.) and Paleocene of Iran, 20 species of scleractinian corals belonging to 17 genera and 14 families, and one species of the octocoral Heliopora are newly recorded. Furthermore, coral species previously described from the upper Maastrichtian Tarbur Fm. and the Paleocene are revised and included in the evaluation, resulting in a total of 37 species from 28 genera belonging to 20 families (including 3 subfamilies) for the Iranian K/Pg-boundary time period. The majority of the taxa (21 out of 37 = 57%) crossed the K/Pg-boundary. The genera Acropora and Stylocoeniella are recorded from strata older than the Paleogene (upper Maastrichtian) for the first time; for Lobopsammia it is the first report from strata older than the Eocene (Selandian‒Thanetian). The vast majority of the coral taxa occurring in both the upper Maastrichtian (Tarbur Fm.) and the Paleocene of Iran have been reported from a variety of both reefal and non-reefal paleoenvironments. On the species level, a slight majority of the corals from the upper Maastrichtian (Tarbur Fm.) are endemic (14 out of 27 species = 52%). In contrast, the vast majority of the Paleocene Iranian corals are cosmopolitan to subcosmopolitan; only 4 taxa are endemic during the Paleocene. While the upper Maastrichtian coral fauna of Iran shows greatest affinities to contemporaneous assemblages of Europe and the Caribbean, the Paleocene coral fauna is most closely related to contemporaneous coral associations of central Asia, Europe, and North America.

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Salehi, Mohammad Ali, Markus Wilmsen, Ehsan Zamanian, Alireza Baniasad, and Christoph Heubeck. "Depositional and thermal history of a continental, coal-bearing Middle Jurassic succession from Iran: Hojedk Formation, northern Tabas Block." Geological Magazine, October6, 2022, 1–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0016756822000814.

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Abstract During the early Bajocian, a conspicuous coal-bearing siliciclastic succession was deposited in the northern Tabas Bock, which is important for understanding the regional geodynamics of the Central-East Iranian Microcontinent (CEIM) as well as for the Jurassic coal genesis in this part of Laurasia. Sedimentary facies analysis in a well-exposed section of the lower Bajocian Hojedk Formation (Kalshaneh area, northern Tabas Block) led to the recognition of ten characteristic sedimentary facies and three facies associations, representing channels with point bars and floodplains of a Bajocian meandering river system. Modal analysis indicates that the mature quartz arenites and quartzo-lithic sandstones of the Hojedk Formation originated from the erosion and recycling of older, supracrustal sedimentary rocks on the Yazd Block to the west. The coal petrography and maturity show an advanced maturation stage, whereas the great thickness of these continental strata points to a pronounced extension-related subsidence in the northern Tabas Block. The rapid rate of differential subsidence can be explained by accelerated normal block-faulting in the back-arc extensional basin of the CEIM, facing the Neotethys to the south. Compared to the thick Jurassic, the post-Jurassic strata are relatively thin and played a limited role in the thermal history of the coal in the northern Tabas Block. A relatively high geothermal gradient in the tectonically highly mobile area of the northern Tabas Block and/or heating by regionally widespread Palaeogene intrusions were most probably the key drivers of the thermal maturation of the Middle Jurassic coals.

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MohammadzadehMoghaddam,M., S.Mirzaei, and M.Abedi. "New Insights into Interpretation of Aeromagnetic Data for Distribution of Igneous Rocks in Central Iran." Russian Geology and Geophysics, December27, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.2113/rgg20204315.

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Abstract —New insights in the aeromagnetic data over the Central Iranian Microcontinent (CIM) have revealed interesting results for future studies and exploration. This work presents the interpretation of different magnetic analyses and the calculated 3D inversion model to provide important insights into the distribution of igneous rocks in the area that may be traced under significant cover. By analyzing several hundred magnetic susceptibility data points and aeromagnetic anomalies of known igneous rocks over the area, it was determined that mafic–ultramafic intrusive rocks generally have a high magnetic susceptibility and produce a strong magnetic response. Intermediate–felsic intrusive rocks have a low magnetic susceptibility and show a smooth gradient variation and commonly regular shape. Volcanic rocks show a wide range of magnetic susceptibility; therefore, the aeromagnetic anomalies are often random or show strong amplitude with high frequency signals and are rapidly eliminated when an upward continuation is applied. Based on the results of analysis of different magnetic maps and 3D inversion of data, and combining this information with known outcropped of igneous rocks, we revealed 1215 concealed intrusive rocks and 528 volcanic rocks in the area. We also renewed the boundaries of tens outcropped igneous rocks. The known and new mapped igneous rocks can be identified as 12 regions (or zones) for intrusive rocks and 4 regions for volcanic rocks. The results indicate that the mafic–ultramafic rocks are mainly located in the Sistan suture zone of eastern Iran along the Nehbandan fault zone. They also show that the many parts of the Lut block as the main structure of CIM have been under magmatic events, so that most of concealed igneous rocks are distributed in the middle and southern part of the Lut block. Volcanic rocks are widespread in the southeastern and northern parts of the area such as the Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc, North Lut, and Bam region.

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Amraei, Sakine, Mohammad Yazdi, Liang Qiu, Chang‐Zhi Wu, Lei Chen, Bertrand Moine, Majid Ghasemi Siani, Qihui Zhang, and Shahrokh Rajabpour. "Apatite U–Pb geochronology and whole rock, Sr–Nd–Pb isotopic geochemistry of XV mafic‐ultramafic intrusion, Bafq, Central Iran: Implications for petrogenesis and tectonic setting." Island Arc 33, no.1 (January 2024). http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/iar.12514.

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AbstractThe XV mafic‐ultramafic intrusion is located in the western part of the Posht‐e‐Badam Block (PBB) within the Central Iranian Micro‐Continent (CIMC). Petrographically, the intrusion is composed of gabbro and pyroxenite. Apatite U–Pb dating has established the crystallization age of this intrusion to be 363 ± 67 Ma. The XV intrusive rocks are tholeiitic to slightly calc‐alkaline in nature and are characterized by an enrichment of large ion lithophile elements (LILE) and light rare earth elements (LREE) relative to high field strength elements (HFSE) and Heavy Rare Earth Elements (HREE), respectively. The major oxide elements display continuous trends relative to SiO2. The 87Sr/86Sr(i) ratios range from 0.7045 to 0.7056, and the εNd(i) values range from 2.63 to 3.30. In addition, the 206Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, and 208Pb/204Pb ratios exhibit a narrow range, varying from 18.68 to 18.70, 15.67 to 15.71, and 38.84 to 38.99, respectively. The geochemical and isotopic characteristics suggest that the parental magma was derived from a Sub‐ Continental Lithospheric Mantle (SCLM) that was modified by oceanic slab‐derived components. The locations of the XV intrusive rocks in εNd(i) versus TDM (Ga) and Nb/La versus discrimination diagrams further support this conclusion. Fractional crystallization is identified as the dominant process influencing the formation of distinct lithological units within the XV intrusive rocks. Our newly presented isotopic and geochronological data, when considered in the regional context, suggest that the XV intrusive rocks were formed in an extensional tectonic setting. In this scenario, upwelling from the asthenospheric mantle induced heating, leading to the melting of previously subduction‐modified SCLM. Comparative analysis with previously published ages indicates that extensional magmatism in the PBB continued into the Middle Paleozoic.

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SEROBYAN, VAHRAM, TANIEL DANELIAN, VACHIK HAIRAPETIAN, CATHERINE CRÔNIER, ARAIK GRIGORYAN, CARINE RANDON, and BERNARD MOTTEQUIN. "FRASNIAN (UPPER DEVONIAN) BRACHIOPODS FROM ARMENIA: BIOSTRATIGRAPHIC AND PALAEOBIOGEOGRAPHIC IMPLICATIONS." RIVISTA ITALIANA DI PALEONTOLOGIA E STRATIGRAFIA 129, no.2 (July6, 2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.54103/2039-4942/19826.

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An assemblage of seven brachiopod species belonging to the orders Rhynchonellida, Atrypida and Spiriferida are studied from three localities (Ertych, Djravank and Noravank) of Central Armenia. The examined material is recovered from shallow water nodular limestones and provides insights into the diversity of Frasnian brachiopods on that part of the northern margin of Gondwana preserved within the South Armenian Block. The revision of Atrypa (Planatrypa) ertichensis, a biostratigraphically significant species for the Frasnian of the Lesser Caucasus (Armenia and Nakhichevan), revealed the presence of frills, an ornamental feature rarely observed in Atrypa (Planatrypa) representatives and considered as unknown in this species. Taxonomic discussion also involves the selection of neotypes for Ripidiorhynchus gnishikensis and A. (P.) ertichensis. The newly described taxon, Angustisulcispirifer arakelyani n. gen., n. sp., appears to be one of the most biostratigraphically important species for the Frasnian of Armenia. The size variability of Cyphoterorhynchus koraghensis and Desquamatia (Seratrypa) abramianae is documented quantitatively for the first time and it shows a continuous and progressive growth without any distinct groupings; the former is a palaeobiogeographically important species for the Frasnian strata of the northern Gondwana margin. Pending the revision of the Pakistani and Iranian material ascribed to C. koraghensis, that may include several subspecies, a plaster cast of its lectotype from the Frasnian of Kuragh in Chitral (northwest Pakistan) and the holotype as well as one of the paratypes of Cyphoterorhynchus koraghensis interpositus from the Frasnian Bahram Formation of the Ozbak-Kuh region in eastern Iran are illustrated herein. Finally, a new Frasnian brachiopod zone, namely the Ripidiorhynchus gnishikensis–Angustisulcispirifer arakelyani assemblage Zone is here introduced for the studied sections. Although its base and top cannot be identified, it is constrained to the Frasnian based on conodonts identified in the Djravank section. It may be considered as a partly lateral equivalent of the Cyrtospirifer subarchiaci–Cyphoterorhynchus arpaensis brachiopod Zone established in Nakhichevan.

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Kadivar, Jamileh. "Government Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media: The Case of Iran (2009)." M/C Journal 18, no.2 (April29, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.956.

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Human history has witnessed varied surveillance and counter-surveillance activities from time immemorial. Human beings could not surveille others effectively and accurately without the technology of their era. Technology is a tool that can empower both people and governments. The outcomes are different based on the users’ intentions and aims. 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu noted that ‘If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win numerous (literally, "a hundred") battles without jeopardy’. His words still ring true. To be a good surveiller and counter-surveiller it is essential to know both sides, and in order to be good at these activities access to technology is vital. There is no doubt that knowledge is power, and without technology to access the information, it is impossible to be powerful. As we become more expert at technology, we will learn what makes surveillance and counter-surveillance more effective, and will be more powerful.“Surveillance” is one of the most important aspects of living in the convergent media environment. This essay illustrates government surveillance and counter-surveillance during the Iranian Green Movement (2009) on social and mobile media. The Green Movement refers to a non-violent movement that arose after the disputed presidential election on June 2009. After that Iran was facing its most serious political crisis since the 1979 revolution. Claims of vote fraud triggered massive street protests. Many took to the streets with “Green” signs, chanting slogans such as ‘the government lied’, and ‘where is my vote?’ There is no doubt that social and mobile media has played an important role in Iran’s contemporary politics. According to Internet World Stats (IWS) Internet users in 2009 account for approximately 48.5 per cent of the population of Iran. In 2009, Iran had 30.2 million mobile phone users (Freedom House), and 72 cellular subscriptions for every 100 people (World Bank). Today, while Iran has the 19th-largest population in the world, its blogosphere holds the third spot in terms of number of users, just behind the United States and China (Beth Elson et al.). In this essay the use of social and mobile media (technology) is not debated, but the extent of this use, and who, why and how it is used, is clearly scrutinised.Visibility and Surveillance There have been different kinds of surveillance for a very long time. However, all types of surveillance are based on the notion of “visibility”. Previous studies show that visibility is not a new term (Foucault Discipline). The new things in the new era, are its scale, scope and complicated ways to watch others without being watched, which are not limited to a specific time, space and group, and are completely different from previous instruments for watching (Andrejevic). As Meikle and Young (146) have mentioned ‘networked digital media bring with them a new kind of visibility’, based on different kinds of technology. Internet surveillance has important implications in politics to control, protect, and influence (Marx Ethics; Castells; Fuchs Critique). Surveillance has been improved during its long history, and evolved from very simple spying and watching to complicated methods of “iSpy” (Andrejevic). To understand the importance of visibility and its relationship with surveillance, it is essential to study visibility in conjunction with the notion of “panopticon” and its contradictory functions. Foucault uses Bentham's notion of panopticon that carries within itself visibility and transparency to control others. “Gaze” is a central term in Bentham’s view. ‘Bentham thinks of a visibility organised entirely around a dominating, overseeing gaze’ (Foucault Eye). Moreover, Thomson (Visibility 11) notes that we are living in the age of ‘normalizing the power of the gaze’ and it is clear that the influential gaze is based on powerful means to see others.Lyon (Surveillance 2) explains that ‘surveillance is any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purpose of influencing or managing those whose data have been granted…’. He mentions that today the most important means of surveillance reside in computer power which allows collected data to be sorted, matched, retrieved, processed, marketed and circulated.Nowadays, the Internet has become ubiquitous in many parts of the world. So, the changes in people’s interactions have influenced their lives. Fuchs (Introduction 15) argues that ‘information technology enables surveillance at a distance…in real time over networks at high transmission speed’. Therefore, visibility touches different aspects of people’s lives and living in a “glasshouse” has caused a lot of fear and anxiety about privacy.Iran’s Green Movement is one of many cases for studying surveillance and counter-surveillance technologies in social and mobile media. Government Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media in Iran, 2009 In 2009 the Iranian government controlled technology that allowed them to monitor, track, and limit access to the Internet, social media and mobiles communication, which has resulted in the surveillance of Green Movement’s activists. The Iranian government had improved its technical capabilities to monitor the people’s behavior on the Internet long before the 2009 election. The election led to an increase in online surveillance. Using social media the Iranian government became even more powerful than it was before the election. Social media was a significant factor in strengthening the government’s power. In the months after the election the virtual atmosphere became considerably more repressive. The intensified filtering of the Internet and implementation of more advanced surveillance systems strengthened the government’s position after the election. The Open Net Initiative revealed that the Internet censorship system in Iran is one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated censorship systems in the world. It emphasized that ‘Advances in domestic technical capacity have contributed to the implementation of a centralized filtering strategy and a reduced reliance on Western technologies’.On the other hand, the authorities attempted to block all access to political blogs (Jaras), either through cyber-security methods or through threats (Tusa). The Centre for Investigating Organized Cyber Crimes, which was founded in 2007 partly ‘to investigate and confront social and economic offenses on the Internet’ (Cyber Police), became increasingly important over the course of 2009 as the government combated the opposition’s online activities (Beth Elson et al. 16). Training of "senior Internet lieutenants" to confront Iran's "virtual enemies online" was another attempt that the Intelligence minister announced following the protests (Iran Media Program).In 2009 the Iranian government enacted the Computer Crime Law (Jaras). According to this law the Committee in Charge of Determining Unauthorized Websites is legally empowered to identify sites that carry forbidden content and report that information to TCI and other major ISPs for blocking (Freedom House). In the late fall of 2009, the government started sending threatening and warning text messages to protesters about their presence in the protests (BBC). Attacking, blocking, hacking and hijacking of the domain names of some opposition websites such as Jaras and Kaleme besides a number of non-Iranian sites such as Twitter were among the other attempts of the Iranian Cyber Army (Jaras).It is also said that the police and security forces arrested dissidents identified through photos and videos posted on the social media that many imagined had empowered them. Furthermore, the online photos of the active protesters were posted on different websites, asking people to identify them (Valizadeh).In late June 2009 the Iranian government was intentionally permitting Internet traffic to and from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter so that it could use a sophisticated practice called Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to collect information about users. It was reportedly also applying the same technology to monitor mobile phone communications (Beth Elson et al. 15).On the other hand, to cut communication between Iranians inside and outside the country, Iran slowed down the Internet dramatically (Jaras). Iran also blocked access to Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Twitter and many blogs before, during and after the protests. Moreover, in 2009, text message services were shut down for over 40 days, and mobile phone subscribers could not send or receive text messages regardless of their mobile carriers. Subsequently it was disrupted on a temporary basis immediately before and during key protests days.It was later discovered that the Nokia Siemens Network provided the government with surveillance technologies (Wagner; Iran Media Program). The Iranian government built a complicated system that enabled it to monitor, track and intercept what was said on mobile phones. Nokia Siemens Network confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls [...] The product allowed authorities to monitor any communications across a network, including voice calls, text messaging, instant messages, and web traffic (Cellan-Jones). Media sources also reported that two Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE, provided surveillance technologies to the government. The Nic Payamak and Saman Payamak websites, that provide mass text messaging services, also reported that operator Hamrah Aval commonly blocked texts with words such as meeting, location, rally, gathering, election and parliament (Iran Media Program). Visibility and Counter-Surveillance The panopticon is not limited to the watchers. Similarly, new kinds of panopticon and visibility are not confined to government surveillance. Foucault points out that ‘the seeing machine was once a sort of dark room into which individuals spied; it has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole’ (Discipline 207). What is important is Foucault's recognition that transparency, not only of those who are being observed but also of those who are observing, is central to the notion of the panopticon (Allen) and ‘any member of society will have the right to come and see with his own eyes how schools, hospitals, factories, and prisons function’ (Foucault, Discipline 207). Counter-surveillance is the process of detecting and mitigating hostile surveillance (Burton). Therefore, while the Internet is a surveillance instrument that enables governments to watch people, it also improves the capacity to counter-surveille, and draws public attention to governments’ injustice. As Castells (185) notes the Internet could be used by citizens to watch their government as an instrument of control, information, participation, and even decision-making, from the bottom up.With regards to the role of citizens in counter-surveillance we can draw on Jay Rosen’s view of Internet users as ‘the people formerly known as the audience’. In counter-surveillance it can be said that passive citizens (formerly the audience) have turned into active citizens. And this change was becoming impossible without mobile and social media platforms. These new techniques and technologies have empowered people and given them the opportunity to have new identities. When Thompson wrote ‘the exercise of power in modern societies remains in many ways shrouded in secrecy and hidden from the public gaze’ (Media 125), perhaps he could not imagine that one day people can gaze at the politicians, security forces and the police through the use of the Internet and mobile devices.Furthermore, while access to mobile media allows people to hold authorities accountable for their uses and abuses of power (Breen 183), social media can be used as a means of representation, organization of collective action, mobilization, and drawing attention to police brutality and reasons for political action (Gerbaudo).There is no doubt that having creativity and using alternative platforms are important aspects in counter-surveillance. For example, images of Lt. Pike “Pepper Spray Cop” from the University of California became the symbol of the senselessness of police brutality during the Occupy Movement (Shaw). Iranians’ Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media, 2009 Iran’s Green movement (2009) triggered a lot of discussions about the role of technology in social movements. In this regard, there are two notable attitudes about the role of technology: techno-optimistic (Shriky and Castells) and techno-pessimistic (Morozov and Gladwell) views should be taken into account. While techno-optimists overrated the role of social media, techno-pessimists underestimated its role. However, there is no doubt that technology has played a great role as a counter-surveillance tool amongst Iranian people in Iran’s contemporary politics.Apart from the academic discussions between techno-optimists and techno-pessimists, there have been numerous debates about the role of new technologies in Iran during the Green Movement. This subject has received interest from different corners of the world, including Western countries, Iranian authorities, opposition groups, and also some NGOs. However, its role as a means of counter-surveillance has not received adequate attention.As the tools of counter-surveillance are more or less the tools of surveillance, protesters learned from the government to use the same techniques to challenge authority on social media.Establishing new websites (such as JARAS, RASA, Kalemeh, and Iran green voice) or strengthening some previous ones (such as Saham, Emrooz, Norooz), also activating different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts to broadcast the voice of the Iranian Green Movement and neutralize the government’s propaganda were the most important ways to empower supporters of Iran’s Green Movement in counter-surveillance.‘Reporters Without Borders issued a statement, saying that ‘the new media, and particularly social networks, have given populations collaborative tools with which they can change the social order’. It is also mentioned that despite efforts by the Iranian government to prevent any reporting of the protests and due to considerable pressure placed on foreign journalists inside Iran, social media played a significant role in sending the messages and images of the movement to the outside world (Axworthy). However, at that moment, many thought that Twitter performed a liberating role for Iranian dissenters. For example, Western media heralded the Green Movement in Iran as a “Twitter revolution” fuelled by information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social media tools (Carrieri et al. 4). “The Revolution Will Be Twittered” was the first in a series of blog posts published by Andrew Sullivan a few hours after the news of the protests was released.According to the researcher’s observation the numbers of Twitter users inside Iran who tweeted was very limited in 2009 and social media was most useful in the dissemination of information, especially from those inside Iran to outsiders. Mobile phones were mostly influential as an instrument firstly used for producing contents (images and videos) and secondly for the organisation of protests. There were many photos and videos that were filmed by very simple mobile cell phones, uploaded by ordinary people onto YouTube and other platforms. The links were shared many times on Twitter and Facebook and released by mainstream media. The most frequently circulated story from the Iranian protests was a video of Neda Agha-Sultan. Her final moments were captured by some bystanders with mobile phone cameras and rapidly spread across the global media and the Internet. It showed that the camera-phone had provided citizens with a powerful means, allowing for the creation and instant sharing of persuasive personalised eyewitness records with mobile and globalised target populations (Anden-Papadopoulos).Protesters used another technique, DDOS (distributed denial of service attacks), for political protest in cyber space. Anonymous people used DDOS to overload a website with fake requests, making it unavailable for users and disrupting the sites set as targets (McMillan) in effect, shutting down the site. DDOS is an important counter-surveillance activity by grassroots activists or hackers. It was a cyber protest that knocked the main Iranian governmental websites off-line and caused crowdsourcing and false trafficking. Amongst them were Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's supreme leader’s websites and those which belong to or are close to the government or security forces, including news agencies (Fars, IRNA, Press TV…), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Police, and the Ministry of the Interior.Moreover, as authorities uploaded the pictures of protesters onto different platforms to find and arrest them, in some cities people started to put the pictures, phone numbers and addresses of members of security forces and plain clothes police officers who attacked them during the protests and asked people to identify and report the others. They also wanted people to send information about suspects who infringed human rights. Conclusion To sum up, visibility, surveillance and counter-surveillance are not new phenomena. What is new is the technology, which increased their complexity. As Foucault (Discipline 200) mentioned ‘visibility is a trap’, so being visible would be the weakness of those who are being surveilled in the power struggle. In the convergent era, in order to be more powerful, both surveillance and counter-surveillance activities aim for more visibility. Although both attempt to use the same means (technology) to trap the other side, the differences are in their subjects, objects, goals and results.While in surveillance, visibility of the many by the few is mostly for the purpose of control and influence in undemocratic ways, in counter-surveillance, the visibility of the few by the many is mostly through democratic ways to secure more accountability and transparency from the governments.As mentioned in the case of Iran’s Green Movement, the scale and scope of visibility are different in surveillance and counter-surveillance. The importance of what Shaw wrote about Sydney occupy counter-surveillance, applies to other places, such as Iran. She has stressed that ‘protesters and police engaged in a dance of technology and surveillance with one another. Both had access to technology, but there were uncertainties about the extent of technology and its proficient use…’In Iran (2009), both sides (government and activists) used technology and benefited from digital networked platforms, but their levels of access and domains of influence were different, which was because the sources of power, information and wealth were divided asymmetrically between them. Creativity was important for both sides to make others more visible, and make themselves invisible. Also, sharing information to make the other side visible played an important role in these two areas. References Alen, David. “The Trouble with Transparency: The Challenge of Doing Journalism Ethics in a Surveillance Society.” Journalism Studies 9.3 (2008): 323-40. 8 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616700801997224#.UqRFSuIZsqN›. Anden-Papadopoulos, Kari. “Citizen Camera-Witnessing: Embodied Political Dissent in the Age of ‘Mediated Mass Self-Communication.’” New Media & Society 16.5 (2014). 753-69. 9 Aug. 2014 ‹http://nms.sagepub.com/content/16/5/753.full.pdf+html›. Andrejevic, Mark. iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence, Kan: UP of Kansas, 2007. Axworthy, Micheal. Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic. London: Penguin Books, 2014. Bentham, Jeremy. Panopticon Postscript. London: T. Payne, 1791. Beth Elson, Sara, Douglas Yeung, Parisa Roshan, S.R. Bohandy, and Alireza Nader. Using Social Media to Gauge Iranian Public Opinion and Mood after the 2009 Election. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2012. 1 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2012/RAND_TR1161.pdf›. Breen, Marcus. Uprising: The Internet’s Unintended Consequences. Champaign, Ill: Common Ground Pub, 2011. Burton, Fred. “The Secrets of Counter-Surveillance.” Stratfor Global Intelligence. 2007. 19 April 2015 ‹https://www.stratfor.com/secrets_countersurveillance›. Carrieri, Matthew, Ali Karimzadeh Bangi, Saad Omar Khan, and Saffron Suud. After the Green Movement Internet Controls in Iran, 2009-2012. OpenNet Initiative, 2013. 17 Dec. 2013 ‹https://opennet.net/sites/opennet.net/files/iranreport.pdf›. Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford UP: 2001. Cellan-Jones, Rory. “Hi-Tech Helps Iranian Monitoring.” BBC, 2009. 26 July 2014 ‹http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8112550.stm›. “Cyber Crimes’ List.” Iran: Cyber Police, 2009. 17 July 2014 ‹http://www.cyberpolice.ir/page/2551›. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977. Foucault, Michel. “The Eye of Power.” 1980. 12 Dec. 2013 ‹https://nbrokaw.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/the-eye-of-power.doc›. Freedom House. “Special Report: Iran.” 2009. 14 June 2014 ‹http://www.sssup.it/UploadDocs/4661_8_A_Special_Report_Iran_Feedom_House_01.pdf›. Fuchs, Christian. “Introduction.” Internet and Surveillance: The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media. Ed. Christian Fuchs. London: Routledge, 2012. 1-28. Fuchs, Christian. “Critique of the Political Economy of Web 2.0 Surveillance.” Internet and Surveillance: The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media. Ed. Christian Fuchs. London: Routledge, 2012. 30-70. Gerbaudo, Paolo. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto, 2012. “Internet: Iran’s New Imaginary Enemy.” Jaras Mar. 2009. 28 June 2014 ‹http://www.rahesabz.net/print/12143›.Iran Media Program. “Text Messaging as Iran's New Filtering Frontier.” 2013. 25 July 2014 ‹http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en/blog/227/13/04/25/136›. Internet World Stats News. The Internet Hits 1.5 Billion. 2009. 3 July 2014 ‹ http://www.internetworldstats.com/pr/edi038.htm›. Lyon, David. Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. Buckingham: Open UP, 2001. Lyon, David. “9/11, Synopticon, and Scopophilia: Watching and Being Watched.” The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility. Eds. Richard V. Ericson and Kevin D. Haggerty. Toronto: UP of Toronto, 2006. 35-54. Marx, Gary T. “What’s New about the ‘New Surveillance’? Classify for Change and Continuity.” Surveillance & Society 1.1 (2002): 9-29. McMillan, Robert. “With Unrest in Iran, Cyber-Attacks Begin.” PC World 2009. 17 Apr. 2015 ‹http://www.pcworld.com/article/166714/article.html›. Meikle, Graham, and Sherman Young. Media Convergence: Networked Digital Media in Everyday Life. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Morozov, Evgeny. “How Dictators Watch Us on the Web.” Prospect 2009. 15 June 2014 ‹http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/how-dictators-watch-us-on-the-web/#.U5wU6ZRdU00›.Open Net. “Iran.” 2009. 26 June 2014 ‹https://opennet.net/research/profiles/iran›. Reporters without Borders. “Web 2.0 versus Control 2.0.” 2010. 27 May 2014 ‹http://en.rsf.org/web-2-0-versus-control-2-0-18-03-2010,36697›.Rosen, Jay. The People Formerly Known as the Audience. 2006. 7 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/the-people-formerly-known_1_b_24113.html›. Shaw, Frances. “'Walls of Seeing': Protest Surveillance, Embodied Boundaries, and Counter-Surveillance at Occupy Sydney.” Transformation 23 (2013). 9 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_23/article_04.shtml›. “The Warning of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the Weblogs and Websites.” BBC, 2009. 27 July 2014 ‹http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2009/06/090617_ka_ir88_sepah_internet.shtml›. Thompson, John B. The Media And Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. Thompson, John B. “The New Visibility.” Theory, Culture & Society 22.6 (2005): 31-51. 10 Dec. 2013 ‹http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/22/6/31.full.pdf+html›. Tusa, Felix. “How Social Media Can Shape a Protest Movement: The Cases of Egypt in 2011 and Iran in 2009.” Arab Media and Society 17 (Winter 2013). 15 July 2014 ‹http://www.arabmediasociety.com/index.php?article=816&p=0›. Tzu, Sun. Sun Tzu: The Art of War. S.l.: Pax Librorum Pub. H, 2009. Valizadeh, Reza. “Invitation to the Public Shooting with the Camera.” RFI, 2011. 19 June 2014 ‹http://www.persian.rfi.fr/%D8%AF%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%AA-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%B4%D9%84%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%88%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%A7-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A8%DB%8C%D9%86-%D8%B9%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B3%DB%8C-20110307/%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86›. Wagner, Ben. Exporting Censorship and Surveillance Technology. Netherlands: Humanist Institute for Co-operation with Developing Countries (Hivos), 2012. 7 July 2014 ‹https://hivos.org/sites/default/files/exporting_censorship_and_surveillance_technology_by_ben_wagner.pdf›. World Bank. Mobile Cellular Subscriptions (per 100 People). The World Bank. N.d. 27 June 2014 ‹http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2›.

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PARIZAD, Elnaz, Majid MIRZAIE ATAABADI, Marjan MASHKOUR, and DimitrisS.KOSTOPOULOS. "Samotherium Major, 1888 (Giraffidae) skullsfrom the late Miocene Maragheh fauna (Iran)and the validity of Alcicephalus Rodler & Weithofer, 1890." Comptes Rendus Palevol, no.9 (December1, 2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.5852/cr-palevol2020v19a9.

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Samotherium Major, 1888 (Giraffidae) is recorded from several late Miocene localities, primarily in the Balkans, the northern Black Sea region, Anatolia, central Asia and China. The first complete cranial material, with several mandibular rami, and postcranials of Samotherium are described here from the Middle Maragheh sequence in northwest Iran. The Maragheh taxon appears metrically and morphologically similar to the smaller Samotherium taxon from the Samos Island (Greece) referred to as S. boissieri Major, 1888, type species of the genus. These new data trigger further discussion about the Iranian Samotherium record, including Alcicephalus Rodler & Weithofer, 1890, which was recently resurrected as a valid genus in the Maragheh fauna. Our analysis of the material referred to this genus indicates that Samotherium is the most likely attribution for the Maragheh A. neumayri Rodler & Weithofer, 1890. Differences between S. boissieri and S. neumayri are more pronounced in postcranial elements than in cranial and dental ones and need further investigation.

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Shojai, Amir, and Kaveh Fattahi. "Left open spaces—light shafts in Iran and side setbacks in Japan: a socio-spatial approach to study awareness in open spaces in urban residential blocks." City, Territory and Architecture 8, no.1 (February12, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40410-021-00131-4.

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AbstractThis article addresses an urban design issue at a micro-urban design level; the spaces between buildings on neighboring blocks or the side yards, how such spaces they are used, and their social impact on residents. A socio-psychological approach was taken into studying arrangements of these open spaces in contemporary residential zones in—side setback spaces in Japan, and backyards and light shafts in Iran in terms of their similarities and differences. The research involves development policies and interviews with residents in buildings where such conditions prevail, in two different contexts—Shiraz, Iran and Sapporo, Japan, two cities comparative in their size and densities for their cultural differences might have on their social responses. Seventy-two respondents in Shiraz District 6 were recruited by Shiraz University architecture students and in Japan, 75 responses were collected in Central Ward, Sapporo, from various groups of residents. Majority of the windows to side setbacks in Sapporo had matte glasses; therefore, privacy concerns were not among residents. Lack of maintenance in inner courtyards was a major concern for Iranians and they see side setbacks as a challenge to their and safety, however providing opportunities for neighborly atmosphere, if the windows have matte glasses and provided with guards. It argues that contacts are not controlled are perceived the same in two different cultures; however, the arrangement of open spaces play a role in light reception and ventilation in Japanese example.

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Marcov, Zoran. "Piese de armament african din colecția Muzeului Național al Banatului (sec. XIX-XX) / African weaponry in the collection of the National Museum of Banat (19th–20th centuries)." Analele Banatului XXVII 2019, January1, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.55201/jgvr2487.

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e collection of weapons of the National Museum of Banat in Timişoara currently includes ten pieces attributed with certainty to the African space, all ten objects falling into the category of cold weapons. Even though it is numerically small, the Timişoara collection includes five different types of cold weapons: 1. A Kaskara-type Sudanese broadsword; 2. A Shotel-type Ethiopian sword and a Mandingo-type West African sword; 3. Two Gabonese Fang daggers, one Congolese Konda dagger and one Sudanese Khanjar dagger; 4. Two Marutse-Mambunda battle axes; 5. A Zande-type Central African arrow quiver. e Timişoara collection covers a vast geographical area, from Sudan and Ethiopia in the east, to Mali and Gabon in the west, and from the central part of the continent, respectively the Congo area, to the south-eastern extremity of Black Africa. e Timişoara collection includes both weapons of Islamic influence, in the geographical area that separates the north of the continent from sub-Saharan Africa, and pieces typical of Black Africa, attributed to indigenous tribes who lived in the central and southern part of the continent. Islamic influence, especially Persian, is found mainly in Sudan, in Northeast Africa, where many types of cold weapons made after the Iranian model were used at the end of the nineteenth century.A special feature of African pieces is related to the materials and techniques used to make them. In the northern half of the continent, predominantly Muslim, the skins of various reptiles were used to cover the scabbard and handles (the most extravagant pieces are those covered in crocodile skin), and some less used metal-chemical techniques practiced in Europe (a process in which the calligraphic inscriptions were embossed on the surface of the steel). Among the weapons from the Black African area, the most spectacular pieces are the Gabonese daggers, which stand out with an extravagant design and superior quality of the materials used.Of the ten African weapons in the NMoB collection, two are purely ceremonial pieces, not designed for use on the battlefield. e two Sudanese weapons, the Kaskara broadsword and the Khanjar dagger, have many characteristics typical of ceremonial pieces: blunt edges, thinness and fragility of the blades, scabbards made of cardboard reinforced with textile material, then covered in crocodile skins.Regarding the dating of African weapons in the NMoB collection, we can propose a general dating ranging from the 19th century to the first decades of the following century. We also have more accurate dates of some of the pieces. is is the case of the two Marutse-Mambunda battle axes, picked up by the Czech explorer Emil Holub during his South African expeditions in the second half of the 19th century. e two pieces are also the oldest African weapons in the NMoB collection, having been inventoried in the fall of 1894. In terms of provenance, along with the Holub donation, we must also mention the batch of weapons inventoried in 1968 (Fang daggers and Zande arrow quiver), but also the parts purchased in 2009 (the Mandingo sword and the Konda dagger). e ten African weapons, which are part of the group of exotic pieces in the NMoB collection, illustrate the richness and diversity of Romanian museum collections in the military field. Unfortunately for scientific research, the collections of exotic weapons present in Romanian museums, although spectacular and attractive, are far too little known in the international specialized literature.

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Chitsazzadeh, Elnaz, Mahsa Chizfahm Daneshmandian, Najmeh Jahani, and Mohammad Tahsildoost. "Delineating protective boundaries using the HUL approach a case study: heritage waterways of Isfahan." Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, February8, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jchmsd-03-2022-0035.

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PurposeThe UNESCO recommendation under the historic urban landscapes (HUL) title and Operational Guidelines (OPG) were used to create dynamic protective boundaries to maintain the integrity and authenticity of Isfahan's heritage waterways. Accordingly, by using GIS and Isfahan urban layers, three protective zones were proposed and evaluated; the central zone, the functional zone and the visual zone.Design/methodology/approachHeritage waterways in historic cities are not adequately protected against the negative impacts of urban development, and there is a lack of a dynamic protective system to protect their integrity and authenticity. The problem can be observed in Isfahan, a historic Iranian city, where the boundaries of urban heritage waterways (Madi canals) are usually rigid and arbitrary. This study aims to develop a practicable paradigm for determining protection boundaries for Isfahan's Jolfa Madi, an urban heritage waterway.FindingsCompared to the current protective boundaries, the authors found that proposed protective boundaries create a greater amount of protection space, which makes a strong connection among the ecological, historical and socio-economic characteristics of the urban context. Furthermore, the protective zones based on the HUL approach give Isfahan's urban planning policy the opportunity to consider participatory tools, financial tools and regulatory systems.Originality/valueMany studies have emphasized a fixed-width buffer or an arbitrary distance from the urban waterway's axis (urban heritage) or its banks. Although these protections include technical conservation or setting restrictions on the adjacent buildings and blocks, studying crucial concepts such as urban dynamic, urban heritage context and producing a particular technique for protected boundaries has not been investigated. In this article three dynamic boundaries are delineated with various functions in order to provide urban heritage with dynamic preservation and sustainable development for the historic urban landscapes.

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Darabi-Golestan,F. "Gold metallogeny in Iran, implications for gold exploration and conceptual modeling." Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis, June16, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/geochem2023-010.

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Significant progress in the classification, definition, and understanding of the main Au deposit types could significantly aid improvements in Au exploration. Because of the wide occurrence of Au in the central part of the Tethyan Eurasian Metallogenic Belt, Iranian structures composed of more than seventeen zones (arcs and blocks) are considered as having one of the largest Au reserves in the Middle East. Without attempts at understanding the tectono-magmatic evolution of Iran and the geodynamic settings of Au deposition, the establishment of a reliable predictive exploration model for Au-type deposits in Iran and other parts of the world will be unsuccessful. By considering, a total number of 33 Au deposits and prospects in Iran, a mineralization sequence is revealed from VMS, orogenic, Carlin-type, epithermal/ porphyry Cu-Au/ skarn, epithermal/ and IOCG, respectively. The trend of deposition gradually changes in the SW-NE axis to intrusion-related, epithermal, and porphyry Cu-Au deposits at UDMA and post-arc magmatism. Orogenic and volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits occur adjacent to the northeast Zagros Fold and Thrust Belt, at the SSZ. The Zagros Orogeny and associated post-collisional magmatism at Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc (UDMA) host many porphyry, epithermal, and intrusion-related Au deposits, with a major magmatism peak in the Miocene. The finding of the manuscript reveals that orogenic and Carlin-type Au mineralization are linked genetically. After each associated subduction for paleo-tethys (286-215 Ma) and Neo-tethys (210-68 Ma) in Iran, VMS and orogenic Au-deposits are formed in the border of the subduction (±obduction) zone. The porphyry, intrusion-related, epithermal, and IOCG mineralization are emplaced in appropriate formations and structures during collision and post-collision processes.

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Ghalehnovi, Samira, VahidE.Ardestani, RussellN.Pysklywec, and Mehrdad Balouch. "The coherence function and lithospheric elastic thickness of the Zagros fold and thrust belt." Geophysical Journal International, April6, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggad152.

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Summary This study derives the spatial variation of the elastic thickness (Te) and its implications for understanding the structure, geodynamic, and seismicity of the lithosphere for the Zagros fold and thrust belt region of the Arabia-Eurasia collision zone. Te is calculated using the coherence function in the fan wavelet domain based on recent terrestrial Bouguer gravity and topography data as input signals. Utilizing the load deconvolution method and Brent's method of 1D minimization, the final Te for the survey region is estimated for each grid node of the studied area. To illustrate the mass distribution in the studied area, the subsurface loading fraction (F) is calculated simultaneously with Te in the inversion. The crust thickness and density from three different global crustal models are tested and the results obtained for these input models do not yield substantially different Te patterns. The final results are in accord with the global Te models as well as previous rheological, geodynamical, and flexural studies, however, this study establishes much more detailed regional information. The calculations yield a mean value of Te of 61 km for the Zagros, with a mean estimated error of about 5 km. The high-Te values (>70 km) are observed in the southeast of the studied area (some parts of the Sanandaj-Sirjan zone, Urumieh-Dokhtar magmatic arc and most of the Central Iranian blocks); while over most of the northwest of the studied area, the value of Te is about 58 km. The Te results are consistent with the lithospheric structure of the study area and also support the idea of the crust-mantle decoupling. Further, there is a positive and negative correlation between the surface wave velocity and surface heat flow, respectively. The mean value estimated for the internal loading friction (F) of 0.4 means in most of the studied areas we may consider that the surface loading is dominant, or at least the ratio of the surface and subsurface loading can be assumed equal. Based on earthquake distribution in the period 1900–2020, seismicity is more likely to occur in areas with a relatively low value of Te.

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Zhang, Yongyan, Fan Liu, Bin Wang, Dongliang Qiu, Jiapeng Liu, Huan Wu, Chunzhen Cheng, Xuejun Bei, and Peitao Lü. "First Report of Burkholderia cepacia Causing Finger-Tip Rot on Banana Fruit in the Guangxi Province of China." Plant Disease, December2, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1094/pdis-05-21-1083-pdn.

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Banana (Musa acuminata) is one of the most popular and widely consumed fruit crops in the world. During late October to early November 2020, a banana finger-tip rot disease was observed in the banana (cultivar ‘Brazil’, AAA group) orchard of about 12 hectares located in Zhongcun, Zhangmu Town, Fumian District, Yulin City, Guangxi province, China. The disease incidence was about 0.5% at the surveyed field. Infected fingers and their tips were usually normal in the appearances and then turned to brown to black discoloration in the central fruit pulp adjacent to the fingertips (Fig. 1A). In severe infection, diseased fingers showed brown to black discoloration in both the central and the periphery fruit pulp, and along the longitudinal axis throughout the fruit (Fig. 1B-C). The symptomatic banana fingers were surface-disinfected with 1% sodium hypochlorite for 30 sec, 75% ethanol for 30 sec then rinsed three times with sterile distilled water. The flesh tissues were ground in a sterile mortar and soaked in 1 ml of sterile distilled water for 30 min. A 50 μl of tissue suspensions was streaked onto Luria-Bertani (LB) medium. Single colonies were picked and re-streaked onto new LB medium. The cultures were incubated at 37°C for 24 h. Two representative strains, GX and GX2, were obtained from symptomatic pulps and used in the following studies. To molecularly identify the bacterial species, we performed a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using 16S rRNA and recA primers (Turner et al. 1999; Lee and Chan 2007) and amplified 1,442 bp and 1,019 bp sequences, respectively. The amplified sequences were deposited in GenBank under the accession numbers MZ267253 and MZ961355 for the 16S rRNA and MZ287336 and MZ983484 for the recA genes. BLASTn searches shared more than 99% similarity with the reference sequences of B. cepacia strains (MK680073.1 and KC261418.1 for 16S rRNA; AY598028.1 and KF812859.1 for recA). Phylogenetic trees were constructed using the 16 rRNA and recA sequences and showed that the representative strains, GX and GX2, strongly clustered with B. cepacia type strains (Fig. 2). To further determine the genomovars of strain GX, we used specific PCR primers to the B. cepacia epidemic strain marker (BCESM), type III secretion gene cluster (bcscV) and cable pilin subunit gene (cblA) (Lee and Chan 2007; Ansari et al. 2019). The presence of bcscV and BCESM were confirmed by PCR, while cblA was not observed in the strains GX and GX2, suggesting that the isolated strains belong to B. cepacia genomovar III and are slightly different from the Iranian and Taiwan strains of B. cepacia (Lee and Chan 2007; Ansari et al. 2019). Pathogenicity test was conducted on banana fingers (cultivar ‘Zhongjiao No.3’) at the immature and full ripe stages. A final suspensions of 106 CFU/ml, was injected into the banana fingers (100 μl per finger) through the center of the stigma (Lee and Chan 2007; Ansari et al. 2019). The fingers inoculated with sterile water were used as negative control. To maintain humidity, the treated fingertips were wrapped with Parafilm. For each treatment, ten independent replicates were conducted. At 10 days post-inoculation (dpi), the pulp of immature bananas exhibited reddish brown decaying tissue, which symptoms were similar to those observed in the field (Fig. 1D). Moreover, the pulp tissues of ripe bananas showed a dark brown discoloration in the tip at 5 dpi, whereas the controls remained symptomless (Fig. 1E). The same bacterium was re-isolated from diseased tissues and its identification confirmed by 16S rRNA, thus fulfilling the Koch’s postulates. This disease was first described in Honduras in Latin America, and then reported in Taiwan province of China, and Iran (Buddenhagen 1968; Lee et al. 2003; Ansari et al. 2019). To our knowledge, this is the first report of banana finger-tip rot caused by B. cepacia in the Guangxi province, China. It is necessary to determine the distribution of B. cepacia and to prevent its spread in Guangxi province of China.

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Burns, Alex. "Doubting the Global War on Terror." M/C Journal 14, no.1 (January24, 2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.338.

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Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)Declaring War Soon after Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the Bush Administration described its new grand strategy: the “Global War on Terror”. This underpinned the subsequent counter-insurgency in Afghanistan and the United States invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Media pundits quickly applied the Global War on Terror label to the Madrid, Bali and London bombings, to convey how Al Qaeda’s terrorism had gone transnational. Meanwhile, international relations scholars debated the extent to which September 11 had changed the international system (Brenner; Mann 303). American intellectuals adopted several variations of the Global War on Terror in what initially felt like a transitional period of US foreign policy (Burns). Walter Laqueur suggested Al Qaeda was engaged in a “cosmological” and perpetual war. Paul Berman likened Al Qaeda and militant Islam to the past ideological battles against communism and fascism (Heilbrunn 248). In a widely cited article, neoconservative thinker Norman Podhoretz suggested the United States faced “World War IV”, which had three interlocking drivers: Al Qaeda and trans-national terrorism; political Islam as the West’s existential enemy; and nuclear proliferation to ‘rogue’ countries and non-state actors (Friedman 3). Podhoretz’s tone reflected a revival of his earlier Cold War politics and critique of the New Left (Friedman 148-149; Halper and Clarke 56; Heilbrunn 210). These stances attracted widespread support. For instance, the United States Marine Corp recalibrated its mission to fight a long war against “World War IV-like” enemies. Yet these stances left the United States unprepared as the combat situations in Afghanistan and Iraq worsened (Ricks; Ferguson; Filkins). Neoconservative ideals for Iraq “regime change” to transform the Middle East failed to deal with other security problems such as Pakistan’s Musharraf regime (Dorrien 110; Halper and Clarke 210-211; Friedman 121, 223; Heilbrunn 252). The Manichean and open-ended framing became a self-fulfilling prophecy for insurgents, jihadists, and militias. The Bush Administration quietly abandoned the Global War on Terror in July 2005. Widespread support had given way to policymaker doubt. Why did so many intellectuals and strategists embrace the Global War on Terror as the best possible “grand strategy” perspective of a post-September 11 world? Why was there so little doubt of this worldview? This is a debate with roots as old as the Sceptics versus the Sophists. Explanations usually focus on the Bush Administration’s “Vulcans” war cabinet: Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who later became Secretary of State (Mann xv-xvi). The “Vulcans” were named after the Roman god Vulcan because Rice’s hometown Birmingham, Alabama, had “a mammoth fifty-six foot statue . . . [in] homage to the city’s steel industry” (Mann x) and the name stuck. Alternatively, explanations focus on how neoconservative thinkers shaped the intellectual climate after September 11, in a receptive media climate. Biographers suggest that “neoconservatism had become an echo chamber” (Heilbrunn 242) with its own media outlets, pundits, and think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and Project for a New America. Neoconservatism briefly flourished in Washington DC until Iraq’s sectarian violence discredited the “Vulcans” and neoconservative strategists like Paul Wolfowitz (Friedman; Ferguson). The neoconservatives' combination of September 11’s aftermath with strongly argued historical analogies was initially convincing. They conferred with scholars such as Bernard Lewis, Samuel P. Huntington and Victor Davis Hanson to construct classicist historical narratives and to explain cultural differences. However, the history of the decade after September 11 also contains mis-steps and mistakes which make it a series of contingent decisions (Ferguson; Bergen). One way to analyse these contingent decisions is to pose “what if?” counterfactuals, or feasible alternatives to historical events (Lebow). For instance, what if September 11 had been a chemical and biological weapons attack? (Mann 317). Appendix 1 includes a range of alternative possibilities and “minimal rewrites” or slight variations on the historical events which occurred. Collectively, these counterfactuals suggest the role of agency, chance, luck, and the juxtaposition of better and worse outcomes. They pose challenges to the classicist interpretation adopted soon after September 11 to justify “World War IV” (Podhoretz). A ‘Two-Track’ Process for ‘World War IV’ After the September 11 attacks, I think an overlapping two-track process occurred with the “Vulcans” cabinet, neoconservative advisers, and two “echo chambers”: neoconservative think-tanks and the post-September 11 media. Crucially, Bush’s “Vulcans” war cabinet succeeded in gaining civilian control of the United States war decision process. Although successful in initiating the 2003 Iraq War this civilian control created a deeper crisis in US civil-military relations (Stevenson; Morgan). The “Vulcans” relied on “politicised” intelligence such as a United Kingdom intelligence report on Iraq’s weapons development program. The report enabled “a climate of undifferentiated fear to arise” because its public version did not distinguish between chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons (Halper and Clarke, 210). The cautious 2003 National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) report on Iraq was only released in a strongly edited form. For instance, the US Department of Energy had expressed doubts about claims that Iraq had approached Niger for uranium, and was using aluminium tubes for biological and chemical weapons development. Meanwhile, the post-September 11 media had become a second “echo chamber” (Halper and Clarke 194-196) which amplified neoconservative arguments. Berman, Laqueur, Podhoretz and others who framed the intellectual climate were “risk entrepreneurs” (Mueller 41-43) that supported the “World War IV” vision. The media also engaged in aggressive “flak” campaigns (Herman and Chomsky 26-28; Mueller 39-42) designed to limit debate and to stress foreign policy stances and themes which supported the Bush Administration. When former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey’s claimed that Al Qaeda had close connections to Iraqi intelligence, this was promoted in several books, including Michael Ledeen’s War Against The Terror Masters, Stephen Hayes’ The Connection, and Laurie Mylroie’s Bush v. The Beltway; and in partisan media such as Fox News, NewsMax, and The Weekly Standard who each attacked the US State Department and the CIA (Dorrien 183; Hayes; Ledeen; Mylroie; Heilbrunn 237, 243-244; Mann 310). This was the media “echo chamber” at work. The group Accuracy in Media also campaigned successfully to ensure that US cable providers did not give Al Jazeera English access to US audiences (Barker). Cosmopolitan ideals seemed incompatible with what the “flak” groups desired. The two-track process converged on two now infamous speeches. US President Bush’s State of the Union Address on 29 January 2002, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on 5 February 2003. Bush’s speech included a line from neoconservative David Frumm about North Korea, Iraq and Iran as an “Axis of Evil” (Dorrien 158; Halper and Clarke 139-140; Mann 242, 317-321). Powell’s presentation to the United Nations included now-debunked threat assessments. In fact, Powell had altered the speech’s original draft by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was Cheney’s chief of staff (Dorrien 183-184). Powell claimed that Iraq had mobile biological weapons facilities, linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Mohamed El-Baradei, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Institute for Science and International Security all strongly doubted this claim, as did international observers (Dorrien 184; Halper and Clarke 212-213; Mann 353-354). Yet this information was suppressed: attacked by “flak” or given little visible media coverage. Powell’s agenda included trying to rebuild an international coalition and to head off weather changes that would affect military operations in the Middle East (Mann 351). Both speeches used politicised variants of “weapons of mass destruction”, taken from the counterterrorism literature (Stern; Laqueur). Bush’s speech created an inflated geopolitical threat whilst Powell relied on flawed intelligence and scientific visuals to communicate a non-existent threat (Vogel). However, they had the intended effect on decision makers. US Under-Secretary of Defense, the neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, later revealed to Vanity Fair that “weapons of mass destruction” was selected as an issue that all potential stakeholders could agree on (Wilkie 69). Perhaps the only remaining outlet was satire: Armando Iannucci’s 2009 film In The Loop parodied the diplomatic politics surrounding Powell’s speech and the civil-military tensions on the Iraq War’s eve. In the short term the two track process worked in heading off doubt. The “Vulcans” blocked important information on pre-war Iraq intelligence from reaching the media and the general public (Prados). Alternatively, they ignored area specialists and other experts, such as when Coalition Provisional Authority’s L. Paul Bremer ignored the US State Department’s fifteen volume ‘Future of Iraq’ project (Ferguson). Public “flak” and “risk entrepreneurs” mobilised a range of motivations from grief and revenge to historical memory and identity politics. This combination of private and public processes meant that although doubts were expressed, they could be contained through the dual echo chambers of neoconservative policymaking and the post-September 11 media. These factors enabled the “Vulcans” to proceed with their “regime change” plans despite strong public opposition from anti-war protestors. Expressing DoubtsMany experts and institutions expressed doubt about specific claims the Bush Administration made to support the 2003 Iraq War. This doubt came from three different and sometimes overlapping groups. Subject matter experts such as the IAEA’s Mohamed El-Baradei and weapons development scientists countered the UK intelligence report and Powell’s UN speech. However, they did not get the media coverage warranted due to “flak” and “echo chamber” dynamics. Others could challenge misleading historical analogies between insurgent Iraq and Nazi Germany, and yet not change the broader outcomes (Benjamin). Independent journalists one group who gained new information during the 1990-91 Gulf War: some entered Iraq from Kuwait and documented a more humanitarian side of the war to journalists embedded with US military units (Uyarra). Finally, there were dissenters from bureaucratic and institutional processes. In some cases, all three overlapped. In their separate analyses of the post-September 11 debate on intelligence “failure”, Zegart and Jervis point to a range of analytic misperceptions and institutional problems. However, the intelligence community is separated from policymakers such as the “Vulcans”. Compartmentalisation due to the “need to know” principle also means that doubting analysts can be blocked from releasing information. Andrew Wilkie discovered this when he resigned from Australia’s Office for National Assessments (ONA) as a transnational issues analyst. Wilkie questioned the pre-war assessments in Powell’s United Nations speech that were used to justify the 2003 Iraq War. Wilkie was then attacked publicly by Australian Prime Minister John Howard. This overshadowed a more important fact: both Howard and Wilkie knew that due to Australian legislation, Wilkie could not publicly comment on ONA intelligence, despite the invitation to do so. This barrier also prevented other intelligence analysts from responding to the “Vulcans”, and to “flak” and “echo chamber” dynamics in the media and neoconservative think-tanks. Many analysts knew that the excerpts released from the 2003 NIE on Iraq was highly edited (Prados). For example, Australian agencies such as the ONA, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Department of Defence knew this (Wilkie 98). However, analysts are trained not to interfere with policymakers, even when there are significant civil-military irregularities. Military officials who spoke out about pre-war planning against the “Vulcans” and their neoconservative supporters were silenced (Ricks; Ferguson). Greenlight Capital’s hedge fund manager David Einhorn illustrates in a different context what might happen if analysts did comment. Einhorn gave a speech to the Ira Sohn Conference on 15 May 2002 debunking the management of Allied Capital. Einhorn’s “short-selling” led to retaliation from Allied Capital, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and growing evidence of potential fraud. If analysts adopted Einhorn’s tactics—combining rigorous analysis with targeted, public denunciation that is widely reported—then this may have short-circuited the “flak” and “echo chamber” effects prior to the 2003 Iraq War. The intelligence community usually tries to pre-empt such outcomes via contestation exercises and similar processes. This was the goal of the 2003 NIE on Iraq, despite the fact that the US Department of Energy which had the expertise was overruled by other agencies who expressed opinions not necessarily based on rigorous scientific and technical analysis (Prados; Vogel). In counterterrorism circles, similar disinformation arose about Aum Shinrikyo’s biological weapons research after its sarin gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system on 20 March 1995 (Leitenberg). Disinformation also arose regarding nuclear weapons proliferation to non-state actors in the 1990s (Stern). Interestingly, several of the “Vulcans” and neoconservatives had been involved in an earlier controversial contestation exercise: Team B in 1976. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assembled three Team B groups in order to evaluate and forecast Soviet military capabilities. One group headed by historian Richard Pipes gave highly “alarmist” forecasts and then attacked a CIA NIE about the Soviets (Dorrien 50-56; Mueller 81). The neoconservatives adopted these same tactics to reframe the 2003 NIE from its position of caution, expressed by several intelligence agencies and experts, to belief that Iraq possessed a current, covert program to develop weapons of mass destruction (Prados). Alternatively, information may be leaked to the media to express doubt. “Non-attributable” background interviews to establishment journalists like Seymour Hersh and Bob Woodward achieved this. Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange has recently achieved notoriety due to US diplomatic cables from the SIPRNet network released from 28 November 2010 onwards. Supporters have favourably compared Assange to Daniel Ellsberg, the RAND researcher who leaked the Pentagon Papers (Ellsberg; Ehrlich and Goldsmith). Whilst Elsberg succeeded because a network of US national papers continued to print excerpts from the Pentagon Papers despite lawsuit threats, Assange relied in part on favourable coverage from the UK’s Guardian newspaper. However, suspected sources such as US Army soldier Bradley Manning are not protected whilst media outlets are relatively free to publish their scoops (Walt, ‘Woodward’). Assange’s publication of SIPRNet’s diplomatic cables will also likely mean greater restrictions on diplomatic and military intelligence (Walt, ‘Don’t Write’). Beyond ‘Doubt’ Iraq’s worsening security discredited many of the factors that had given the neoconservatives credibility. The post-September 11 media became increasingly more critical of the US military in Iraq (Ferguson) and cautious about the “echo chamber” of think-tanks and media outlets. Internet sites for Al Jazeera English, Al-Arabiya and other networks have enabled people to bypass “flak” and directly access these different viewpoints. Most damagingly, the non-discovery of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction discredited both the 2003 NIE on Iraq and Colin Powell’s United Nations presentation (Wilkie 104). Likewise, “risk entrepreneurs” who foresaw “World War IV” in 2002 and 2003 have now distanced themselves from these apocalyptic forecasts due to a series of mis-steps and mistakes by the Bush Administration and Al Qaeda’s over-calculation (Bergen). The emergence of sites such as Wikileaks, and networks like Al Jazeera English and Al-Arabiya, are a response to the politics of the past decade. They attempt to short-circuit past “echo chambers” through providing access to different sources and leaked data. The Global War on Terror framed the Bush Administration’s response to September 11 as a war (Kirk; Mueller 59). Whilst this prematurely closed off other possibilities, it has also unleashed a series of dynamics which have undermined the neoconservative agenda. The “classicist” history and historical analogies constructed to justify the “World War IV” scenario are just one of several potential frameworks. “Flak” organisations and media “echo chambers” are now challenged by well-financed and strategic alternatives such as Al Jazeera English and Al-Arabiya. Doubt is one defence against “risk entrepreneurs” who seek to promote a particular idea: doubt guards against uncritical adoption. Perhaps the enduring lesson of the post-September 11 debates, though, is that doubt alone is not enough. What is needed are individuals and institutions that understand the strategies which the neoconservatives and others have used, and who also have the soft power skills during crises to influence critical decision-makers to choose alternatives. Appendix 1: Counterfactuals Richard Ned Lebow uses “what if?” counterfactuals to examine alternative possibilities and “minimal rewrites” or slight variations on the historical events that occurred. The following counterfactuals suggest that the Bush Administration’s Global War on Terror could have evolved very differently . . . or not occurred at all. Fact: The 2003 Iraq War and 2001 Afghanistan counterinsurgency shaped the Bush Administration’s post-September 11 grand strategy. Counterfactual #1: Al Gore decisively wins the 2000 U.S. election. Bush v. Gore never occurs. After the September 11 attacks, Gore focuses on international alliance-building and gains widespread diplomatic support rather than a neoconservative agenda. He authorises Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan and works closely with the Musharraf regime in Pakistan to target Al Qaeda’s muhajideen. He ‘contains’ Saddam Hussein’s Iraq through measurement and signature, technical intelligence, and more stringent monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Minimal Rewrite: United 93 crashes in Washington DC, killing senior members of the Gore Administration. Fact: U.S. Special Operations Forces failed to kill Osama bin Laden in late November and early December 2001 at Tora Bora. Counterfactual #2: U.S. Special Operations Forces kill Osama bin Laden in early December 2001 during skirmishes at Tora Bora. Ayman al-Zawahiri is critically wounded, captured, and imprisoned. The rest of Al Qaeda is scattered. Minimal Rewrite: Osama bin Laden’s death turns him into a self-mythologised hero for decades. Fact: The UK Blair Government supplied a 50-page intelligence dossier on Iraq’s weapons development program which the Bush Administration used to support its pre-war planning. Counterfactual #3: Rogue intelligence analysts debunk the UK Blair Government’s claims through a series of ‘targeted’ leaks to establishment news sources. Minimal Rewrite: The 50-page intelligence dossier is later discovered to be correct about Iraq’s weapons development program. Fact: The Bush Administration used the 2003 National Intelligence Estimate to “build its case” for “regime change” in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Counterfactual #4: A joint investigation by The New York Times and The Washington Post rebuts U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United National Security Council, delivered on 5 February 2003. Minimal Rewrite: The Central Intelligence Agency’s whitepaper “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs” (October 2002) more accurately reflects the 2003 NIE’s cautious assessments. Fact: The Bush Administration relied on Ahmed Chalabi for its postwar estimates about Iraq’s reconstruction. Counterfactual #5: The Bush Administration ignores Chalabi’s advice and relies instead on the U.S. State Department’s 15 volume report “The Future of Iraq”. Minimal Rewrite: The Coalition Provisional Authority appoints Ahmed Chalabi to head an interim Iraqi government. Fact: L. Paul Bremer signed orders to disband Iraq’s Army and to De-Ba’athify Iraq’s new government. Counterfactual #6: Bremer keeps Iraq’s Army intact and uses it to impose security in Baghdad to prevent looting and to thwart insurgents. Rather than a De-Ba’athification policy, Bremer uses former Baath Party members to gather situational intelligence. Minimal Rewrite: Iraq’s Army refuses to disband and the De-Ba’athification policy uncovers several conspiracies to undermine the Coalition Provisional Authority. AcknowledgmentsThanks to Stephen McGrail for advice on science and technology analysis.References Barker, Greg. “War of Ideas”. PBS Frontline. Boston, MA: 2007. ‹http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/newswar/video1.html› Benjamin, Daniel. “Condi’s Phony History.” Slate 29 Aug. 2003. ‹http://www.slate.com/id/2087768/pagenum/all/›. Bergen, Peter L. The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al Qaeda. New York: The Free Press, 2011. Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 2003. Brenner, William J. “In Search of Monsters: Realism and Progress in International Relations Theory after September 11.” Security Studies 15.3 (2006): 496-528. Burns, Alex. “The Worldflash of a Coming Future.” M/C Journal 6.2 (April 2003). ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0304/08-worldflash.php›. Dorrien, Gary. Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana. New York: Routledge, 2004. Ehrlich, Judith, and Goldsmith, Rick. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Berkley CA: Kovno Communications, 2009. Einhorn, David. Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short (and Now Complete) Story. Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Ellison, Sarah. “The Man Who Spilled The Secrets.” Vanity Fair (Feb. 2011). ‹http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/02/the-guardian-201102›. Ellsberg, Daniel. Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. New York: Viking, 2002. Ferguson, Charles. No End in Sight, New York: Representational Pictures, 2007. Filkins, Dexter. The Forever War. New York: Vintage Books, 2008. Friedman, Murray. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005. Halper, Stefan, and Jonathan Clarke. America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004. Hayes, Stephen F. The Connection: How Al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Heilbrunn, Jacob. They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons. New York: Doubleday, 2008. Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Rev. ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002. Iannucci, Armando. In The Loop. London: BBC Films, 2009. Jervis, Robert. Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War. Ithaca NY: Cornell UP, 2010. Kirk, Michael. “The War behind Closed Doors.” PBS Frontline. Boston, MA: 2003. ‹http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/›. Laqueur, Walter. No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Continuum, 2003. Lebow, Richard Ned. Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations. Princeton NJ: Princeton UP, 2010. Ledeen, Michael. The War against The Terror Masters. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003. Leitenberg, Milton. “Aum Shinrikyo's Efforts to Produce Biological Weapons: A Case Study in the Serial Propagation of Misinformation.” Terrorism and Political Violence 11.4 (1999): 149-158. Mann, James. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet. New York: Viking Penguin, 2004. Morgan, Matthew J. The American Military after 9/11: Society, State, and Empire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Mueller, John. Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. New York: The Free Press, 2009. Mylroie, Laurie. Bush v The Beltway: The Inside Battle over War in Iraq. New York: Regan Books, 2003. Nutt, Paul C. Why Decisions Fail. San Francisco: Berrett-Koelher, 2002. Podhoretz, Norman. “How to Win World War IV”. Commentary 113.2 (2002): 19-29. Prados, John. Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War. New York: The New Press, 2004. Ricks, Thomas. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: The Penguin Press, 2006. Stern, Jessica. The Ultimate Terrorists. Boston, MA: Harvard UP, 2001. Stevenson, Charles A. Warriors and Politicians: US Civil-Military Relations under Stress. New York: Routledge, 2006. Walt, Stephen M. “Should Bob Woodward Be Arrested?” Foreign Policy 10 Dec. 2010. ‹http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/10/more_wikileaks_double_standards›. Walt, Stephen M. “‘Don’t Write If You Can Talk...’: The Latest from WikiLeaks.” Foreign Policy 29 Nov. 2010. ‹http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/29/dont_write_if_you_can_talk_the_latest_from_wikileaks›. Wilkie, Andrew. Axis of Deceit. Melbourne: Black Ink Books, 2003. Uyarra, Esteban Manzanares. “War Feels like War”. London: BBC, 2003. Vogel, Kathleen M. “Iraqi Winnebagos™ of Death: Imagined and Realized Futures of US Bioweapons Threat Assessments.” Science and Public Policy 35.8 (2008): 561–573. Zegart, Amy. Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI and the Origins of 9/11. Princeton NJ: Princeton UP, 2007.

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Burns, Alex. "Oblique Strategies for Ambient Journalism." M/C Journal 13, no.2 (April15, 2010). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.230.

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Alfred Hermida recently posited ‘ambient journalism’ as a new framework for para- and professional journalists, who use social networks like Twitter for story sources, and as a news delivery platform. Beginning with this framework, this article explores the following questions: How does Hermida define ‘ambient journalism’ and what is its significance? Are there alternative definitions? What lessons do current platforms provide for the design of future, real-time platforms that ‘ambient journalists’ might use? What lessons does the work of Brian Eno provide–the musician and producer who coined the term ‘ambient music’ over three decades ago? My aim here is to formulate an alternative definition of ambient journalism that emphasises craft, skills acquisition, and the mental models of professional journalists, which are the foundations more generally for journalism practices. Rather than Hermida’s participatory media context I emphasise ‘institutional adaptiveness’: how journalists and newsrooms in media institutions rely on craft and skills, and how emerging platforms can augment these foundations, rather than replace them. Hermida’s Ambient Journalism and the Role of Journalists Hermida describes ambient journalism as: “broad, asynchronous, lightweight and always-on communication systems [that] are creating new kinds of interactions around the news, and are enabling citizens to maintain a mental model of news and events around them” (Hermida 2). His ideas appear to have two related aspects. He conceives ambient journalism as an “awareness system” between individuals that functions as a collective intelligence or kind of ‘distributed cognition’ at a group level (Hermida 2, 4-6). Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks are examples. Hermida also suggests that such networks enable non-professionals to engage in ‘communication’ and ‘conversation’ about news and media events (Hermida 2, 7). In a helpful clarification, Hermida observes that ‘para-journalists’ are like the paralegals or non-lawyers who provide administrative support in the legal profession and, in academic debates about journalism, are more commonly known as ‘citizen journalists’. Thus, Hermida’s ambient journalism appears to be: (1) an information systems model of new platforms and networks, and (2) a normative argument that these tools empower ‘para-journalists’ to engage in journalism and real-time commentary. Hermida’s thesis is intriguing and worthy of further discussion and debate. As currently formulated however it risks sharing the blind-spots and contradictions of the academic literature that Hermida cites, which suffers from poor theory-building (Burns). A major reason is that the participatory media context on which Hermida often builds his work has different mental models and normative theories than the journalists or media institutions that are the target of critique. Ambient journalism would be a stronger and more convincing framework if these incorrect assumptions were jettisoned. Others may also potentially misunderstand what Hermida proposes, because the academic debate is often polarised between para-journalists and professional journalists, due to different views about institutions, the politics of knowledge, decision heuristics, journalist training, and normative theoretical traditions (Christians et al. 126; Cole and Harcup 166-176). In the academic debate, para-journalists or ‘citizen journalists’ may be said to have a communitarian ethic and desire more autonomous solutions to journalists who are framed as uncritical and reliant on official sources, and to media institutions who are portrayed as surveillance-like ‘monitors’ of society (Christians et al. 124-127). This is however only one of a range of possible relationships. Sole reliance on para-journalists could be a premature solution to a more complex media ecology. Journalism craft, which does not rely just on official sources, also has a range of practices that already provides the “more complex ways of understanding and reporting on the subtleties of public communication” sought (Hermida 2). Citizen- and para-journalist accounts may overlook micro-studies in how newsrooms adopt technological innovations and integrate them into newsgathering routines (Hemmingway 196). Thus, an examination of the realities of professional journalism will help to cast a better light on how ambient journalism can shape the mental models of para-journalists, and provide more rigorous analysis of news and similar events. Professional journalism has several core dimensions that para-journalists may overlook. Journalism’s foundation as an experiential craft includes guidance and norms that orient the journalist to information, and that includes practitioner ethics. This craft is experiential; the basis for journalism’s claim to “social expertise” as a discipline; and more like the original Linux and Open Source movements which evolved through creative conflict (Sennett 9, 25-27, 125-127, 249-251). There are learnable, transmissible skills to contextually evaluate, filter, select and distil the essential insights. This craft-based foundation and skills informs and structures the journalist’s cognitive witnessing of an event, either directly or via reconstructed, cultivated sources. The journalist publishes through a recognised media institution or online platform, which provides communal validation and verification. There is far more here than the academic portrayal of journalists as ‘gate-watchers’ for a ‘corporatist’ media elite. Craft and skills distinguish the professional journalist from Hermida’s para-journalist. Increasingly, media institutions hire journalists who are trained in other craft-based research methods (Burns and Saunders). Bethany McLean who ‘broke’ the Enron scandal was an investment banker; documentary filmmaker Errol Morris first interviewed serial killers for an early project; and Neil Chenoweth used ‘forensic accounting’ techniques to investigate Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer. Such expertise allows the journalist to filter information, and to mediate any influences in the external environment, in order to develop an individualised, ‘embodied’ perspective (Hofstadter 234; Thompson; Garfinkel and Rawls). Para-journalists and social network platforms cannot replace this expertise, which is often unique to individual journalists and their research teams. Ambient Journalism and Twitter Current academic debates about how citizen- and para-journalists may augment or even replace professional journalists can often turn into legitimation battles whether the ‘de facto’ solution is a social media network rather than a media institution. For example, Hermida discusses Twitter, a micro-blogging platform that allows users to post 140-character messages that are small, discrete information chunks, for short-term and episodic memory. Twitter enables users to monitor other users, to group other messages, and to search for terms specified by a hashtag. Twitter thus illustrates how social media platforms can make data more transparent and explicit to non-specialists like para-journalists. In fact, Twitter is suitable for five different categories of real-time information: news, pre-news, rumours, the formation of social media and subject-based networks, and “molecular search” using granular data-mining tools (Leinweber 204-205). In this model, the para-journalist acts as a navigator and “way-finder” to new information (Morville, Findability). Jaron Lanier, an early designer of ‘virtual reality’ systems, is perhaps the most vocal critic of relying on groups of non-experts and tools like Twitter, instead of individuals who have professional expertise. For Lanier, what underlies debates about citizen- and para-journalists is a philosophy of “cybernetic totalism” and “digital Maoism” which exalts the Internet collective at the expense of truly individual views. He is deeply critical of Hermida’s chosen platform, Twitter: “A design that shares Twitter’s feature of providing ambient continuous contact between people could perhaps drop Twitter’s adoration of fragments. We don’t really know, because it is an unexplored design space” [emphasis added] (Lanier 24). In part, Lanier’s objection is traceable back to an unresolved debate on human factors and design in information science. Influenced by the post-war research into cybernetics, J.C.R. Licklider proposed a cyborg-like model of “man-machine symbiosis” between computers and humans (Licklider). In turn, Licklider’s framework influenced Douglas Engelbart, who shaped the growth of human-computer interaction, and the design of computer interfaces, the mouse, and other tools (Engelbart). In taking a system-level view of platforms Hermida builds on the strength of Licklider and Engelbart’s work. Yet because he focuses on para-journalists, and does not appear to include the craft and skills-based expertise of professional journalists, it is unclear how he would answer Lanier’s fears about how reliance on groups for news and other information is superior to individual expertise and judgment. Hermida’s two case studies point to this unresolved problem. Both cases appear to show how Twitter provides quicker and better forms of news and information, thereby increasing the effectiveness of para-journalists to engage in journalism and real-time commentary. However, alternative explanations may exist that raise questions about Twitter as a new platform, and thus these cases might actually reveal circumstances in which ambient journalism may fail. Hermida alludes to how para-journalists now fulfil the earlier role of ‘first responders’ and stringers, in providing the “immediate dissemination” of non-official information about disasters and emergencies (Hermida 1-2; Haddow and Haddow 117-118). Whilst important, this is really a specific role. In fact, disaster and emergency reporting occurs within well-established practices, professional ethics, and institutional routines that may involve journalists, government officials, and professional communication experts (Moeller). Officials and emergency management planners are concerned that citizen- or para-journalism is equated with the craft and skills of professional journalism. The experience of these officials and planners in 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in the United States, and in 2009’s Black Saturday bushfires in Australia, suggests that whilst para-journalists might be ‘first responders’ in a decentralised, complex crisis, they are perceived to spread rumours and potential social unrest when people need reliable information (Haddow and Haddow 39). These terms of engagement between officials, planners and para-journalists are still to be resolved. Hermida readily acknowledges that Twitter and other social network platforms are vulnerable to rumours (Hermida 3-4; Sunstein). However, his other case study, Iran’s 2009 election crisis, further complicates the vision of ambient journalism, and always-on communication systems in particular. Hermida discusses several events during the crisis: the US State Department request to halt a server upgrade, how the Basij’s shooting of bystander Neda Soltan was captured on a mobile phone camera, the spread across social network platforms, and the high-velocity number of ‘tweets’ or messages during the first two weeks of Iran’s electoral uncertainty (Hermida 1). The US State Department was interested in how Twitter could be used for non-official sources, and to inform people who were monitoring the election events. Twitter’s perceived ‘success’ during Iran’s 2009 election now looks rather different when other factors are considered such as: the dynamics and patterns of Tehran street protests; Iran’s clerics who used Soltan’s death as propaganda; claims that Iran’s intelligence services used Twitter to track down and to kill protestors; the ‘black box’ case of what the US State Department and others actually did during the crisis; the history of neo-conservative interest in a Twitter-like platform for strategic information operations; and the Iranian diaspora’s incitement of Tehran student protests via satellite broadcasts. Iran’s 2009 election crisis has important lessons for ambient journalism: always-on communication systems may create noise and spread rumours; ‘mirror-imaging’ of mental models may occur, when other participants have very different worldviews and ‘contexts of use’ for social network platforms; and the new kinds of interaction may not lead to effective intervention in crisis events. Hermida’s combination of news and non-news fragments is the perfect environment for psychological operations and strategic information warfare (Burns and Eltham). Lessons of Current Platforms for Ambient Journalism We have discussed some unresolved problems for ambient journalism as a framework for journalists, and as mental models for news and similar events. Hermida’s goal of an “awareness system” faces a further challenge: the phenomenological limitations of human consciousness to deal with information complexity and ambiguous situations, whether by becoming ‘entangled’ in abstract information or by developing new, unexpected uses for emergent technologies (Thackara; Thompson; Hofstadter 101-102, 186; Morville, Findability, 55, 57, 158). The recursive and reflective capacities of human consciousness imposes its own epistemological frames. It’s still unclear how Licklider’s human-computer interaction will shape consciousness, but Douglas Hofstadter’s experiments with art and video-based group experiments may be suggestive. Hofstadter observes: “the interpenetration of our worlds becomes so great that our worldviews start to fuse” (266). Current research into user experience and information design provides some validation of Hofstadter’s experience, such as how Google is now the ‘default’ search engine, and how its interface design shapes the user’s subjective experience of online search (Morville, Findability; Morville, Search Patterns). Several models of Hermida’s awareness system already exist that build on Hofstadter’s insight. Within the information systems field, on-going research into artificial intelligence–‘expert systems’ that can model expertise as algorithms and decision rules, genetic algorithms, and evolutionary computation–has attempted to achieve Hermida’s goal. What these systems share are mental models of cognition, learning and adaptiveness to new information, often with forecasting and prediction capabilities. Such systems work in journalism areas such as finance and sports that involve analytics, data-mining and statistics, and in related fields such as health informatics where there are clear, explicit guidelines on information and international standards. After a mid-1980s investment bubble (Leinweber 183-184) these systems now underpin the technology platforms of global finance and news intermediaries. Bloomberg LP’s ubiquitous dual-screen computers, proprietary network and data analytics (www.bloomberg.com), and its competitors such as Thomson Reuters (www.thomsonreuters.com and www.reuters.com), illustrate how financial analysts and traders rely on an “awareness system” to navigate global stock-markets (Clifford and Creswell). For example, a Bloomberg subscriber can access real-time analytics from exchanges, markets, and from data vendors such as Dow Jones, NYSE Euronext and Thomson Reuters. They can use portfolio management tools to evaluate market information, to make allocation and trading decisions, to monitor ‘breaking’ news, and to integrate this information. Twitter is perhaps the para-journalist equivalent to how professional journalists and finance analysts rely on Bloomberg’s platform for real-time market and business information. Already, hedge funds like PhaseCapital are data-mining Twitter’s ‘tweets’ or messages for rumours, shifts in stock-market sentiment, and to analyse potential trading patterns (Pritchett and Palmer). The US-based Securities and Exchange Commission, and researchers like David Gelernter and Paul Tetlock, have also shown the benefits of applied data-mining for regulatory market supervision, in particular to uncover analysts who provide ‘whisper numbers’ to online message boards, and who have access to material, non-public information (Leinweber 60, 136, 144-145, 208, 219, 241-246). Hermida’s framework might be developed further for such regulatory supervision. Hermida’s awareness system may also benefit from the algorithms found in high-frequency trading (HFT) systems that Citadel Group, Goldman Sachs, Renaissance Technologies, and other quantitative financial institutions use. Rather than human traders, HFT uses co-located servers and complex algorithms, to make high-volume trades on stock-markets that take advantage of microsecond changes in prices (Duhigg). HFT capabilities are shrouded in secrecy, and became the focus of regulatory attention after several high-profile investigations of traders alleged to have stolen the software code (Bray and Bunge). One public example is Streambase (www.streambase.com), a ‘complex event processing’ (CEP) platform that can be used in HFT, and commercialised from the Project Aurora research collaboration between Brandeis University, Brown University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CEP and HFT may be the ‘killer apps’ of Hermida’s awareness system. Alternatively, they may confirm Jaron Lanier’s worst fears: your data-stream and user-generated content can be harvested by others–for their gain, and your loss! Conclusion: Brian Eno and Redefining ‘Ambient Journalism’ On the basis of the above discussion, I suggest a modified definition of Hermida’s thesis: ‘Ambient journalism’ is an emerging analytical framework for journalists, informed by cognitive, cybernetic, and information systems research. It ‘sensitises’ the individual journalist, whether professional or ‘para-professional’, to observe and to evaluate their immediate context. In doing so, ‘ambient journalism’, like journalism generally, emphasises ‘novel’ information. It can also inform the design of real-time platforms for journalistic sources and news delivery. Individual ‘ambient journalists’ can learn much from the career of musician and producer Brian Eno. His personal definition of ‘ambient’ is “an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint,” that relies on the co-evolution of the musician, creative horizons, and studio technology as a tool, just as para-journalists use Twitter as a platform (Sheppard 278; Eno 293-297). Like para-journalists, Eno claims to be a “self-educated but largely untrained” musician and yet also a craft-based producer (McFadzean; Tamm 177; 44-50). Perhaps Eno would frame the distinction between para-journalist and professional journalist as “axis thinking” (Eno 298, 302) which is needlessly polarised due to different normative theories, stances, and practices. Furthermore, I would argue that Eno’s worldview was shaped by similar influences to Licklider and Engelbart, who appear to have informed Hermida’s assumptions. These influences include the mathematician and game theorist John von Neumann and biologist Richard Dawkins (Eno 162); musicians Eric Satie, John Cage and his book Silence (Eno 19-22, 162; Sheppard 22, 36, 378-379); and the field of self-organising systems, in particular cyberneticist Stafford Beer (Eno 245; Tamm 86; Sheppard 224). Eno summed up the central lesson of this theoretical corpus during his collaborations with New York’s ‘No Wave’ scene in 1978, of “people experimenting with their lives” (Eno 253; Reynolds 146-147; Sheppard 290-295). Importantly, he developed a personal view of normative theories through practice-based research, on a range of projects, and with different creative and collaborative teams. Rather than a technological solution, Eno settled on a way to encode his craft and skills into a quasi-experimental, transmittable method—an aim of practitioner development in professional journalism. Even if only a “founding myth,” the story of Eno’s 1975 street accident with a taxi, and how he conceived ‘ambient music’ during his hospital stay, illustrates how ambient journalists might perceive something new in specific circumstances (Tamm 131; Sheppard 186-188). More tellingly, this background informed his collaboration with the late painter Peter Schmidt, to co-create the Oblique Strategies deck of aphorisms: aleatory, oracular messages that appeared dependent on chance, luck, and randomness, but that in fact were based on Eno and Schmidt’s creative philosophy and work guidelines (Tamm 77-78; Sheppard 178-179; Reynolds 170). In short, Eno was engaging with the kind of reflective practices that underpin exemplary professional journalism. He was able to encode this craft and skills into a quasi-experimental method, rather than a technological solution. Journalists and practitioners who adopt Hermida’s framework could learn much from the published accounts of Eno’s practice-based research, in the context of creative projects and collaborative teams. In particular, these detail the contexts and choices of Eno’s early ambient music recordings (Sheppard 199-200); Eno’s duels with David Bowie during ‘Sense of Doubt’ for the Heroes album (Tamm 158; Sheppard 254-255); troubled collaborations with Talking Heads and David Byrne (Reynolds 165-170; Sheppard; 338-347, 353); a curatorial, mentor role on U2’s The Unforgettable Fire (Sheppard 368-369); the ‘grand, stadium scale’ experiments of U2’s 1991-93 ZooTV tour (Sheppard 404); the Zorn-like games of Bowie’s Outside album (Eno 382-389); and the ‘generative’ artwork 77 Million Paintings (Eno 330-332; Tamm 133-135; Sheppard 278-279; Eno 435). Eno is clearly a highly flexible maker and producer. Developing such flexibility would ensure ambient journalism remains open to novelty as an analytical framework that may enhance the practitioner development and work of professional journalists and para-journalists alike.Acknowledgments The author thanks editor Luke Jaaniste, Alfred Hermida, and the two blind peer reviewers for their constructive feedback and reflective insights. References Bray, Chad, and Jacob Bunge. “Ex-Goldman Programmer Indicted for Trade Secrets Theft.” The Wall Street Journal 12 Feb. 2010. 17 March 2010 ‹http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703382904575059660427173510.html›. Burns, Alex. “Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism.” M/C Journal 11.1 (2008). 17 March 2010 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/30›.———, and Barry Saunders. “Journalists as Investigators and ‘Quality Media’ Reputation.” Record of the Communications Policy and Research Forum 2009. Eds. Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, 281-297. 17 March 2010 ‹http://eprints.vu.edu.au/15229/1/CPRF09BurnsSaunders.pdf›.———, and Ben Eltham. “Twitter Free Iran: An Evaluation of Twitter’s Role in Public Diplomacy and Information Operations in Iran’s 2009 Election Crisis.” Record of the Communications Policy and Research Forum 2009. Eds. Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, 298-310. 17 March 2010 ‹http://eprints.vu.edu.au/15230/1/CPRF09BurnsEltham.pdf›. Christians, Clifford G., Theodore Glasser, Denis McQuail, Kaarle Nordenstreng, and Robert A. White. Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Clifford, Stephanie, and Julie Creswell. “At Bloomberg, Modest Strategy to Rule the World.” The New York Times 14 Nov. 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/media/15bloom.html?ref=businessandpagewanted=all›.Cole, Peter, and Tony Harcup. Newspaper Journalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010. Duhigg, Charles. “Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds.” The New York Times 23 July 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html?_r=2andref=business›. Engelbart, Douglas. “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, 1962.” Ed. Neil Spiller. Cyber Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era. London: Phaidon Press, 2002. 60-67. Eno, Brian. A Year with Swollen Appendices. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. Garfinkel, Harold, and Anne Warfield Rawls. Toward a Sociological Theory of Information. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2008. Hadlow, George D., and Kim S. Haddow. Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World, Butterworth-Heinemann, Burlington MA, 2009. Hemmingway, Emma. Into the Newsroom: Exploring the Digital Production of Regional Television News. Milton Park: Routledge, 2008. Hermida, Alfred. “Twittering the News: The Emergence of Ambient Journalism.” Journalism Practice 4.3 (2010): 1-12. Hofstadter, Douglas. I Am a Strange Loop. New York: Perseus Books, 2007. Lanier, Jaron. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. London: Allen Lane, 2010. Leinweber, David. Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines and Wired Markets. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Licklider, J.C.R. “Man-Machine Symbiosis, 1960.” Ed. Neil Spiller. Cyber Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era, London: Phaidon Press, 2002. 52-59. McFadzean, Elspeth. “What Can We Learn from Creative People? The Story of Brian Eno.” Management Decision 38.1 (2000): 51-56. Moeller, Susan. Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death. New York: Routledge, 1998. Morville, Peter. Ambient Findability. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Press, 2005. ———. Search Patterns. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Press, 2010.Pritchett, Eric, and Mark Palmer. ‘Following the Tweet Trail.’ CNBC 11 July 2009. 17 March 2010 ‹http://www.casttv.com/ext/ug0p08›. Reynolds, Simon. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. London: Penguin Books, 2006. Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. London: Penguin Books, 2008. Sheppard, David. On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno. London: Orion Books, 2008. Sunstein, Cass. On Rumours: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Tamm, Eric. Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Colour of Sound. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995. Thackara, John. In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. Boston, MA: The MIT Press, 1995. Thompson, Evan. Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Science of Mind. Boston, MA: Belknap Press, 2007.

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