Manfredo Tafuri: Choosing History

The Ministries Quarter, the MQ, in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, is a very interesting case for modern planning and architecture, conceptualised and developed in the first quarter of the twentieth century. As with other governmental centres and administrative hubs, it was attributed the mission of representing the political power of the newly born nation, facilitating physical, symbolic, cultural and historic channels of producing meaning. However, the successive intervention and involvement of architects, planners, landscape designers, governmental officials and statesmen in the shaping of this unique physical setting has ended with an urban environment wherein the ordinary citizen can nowadays just about grasp some piecemeal and minor messages from the total intentions, and experience habitually only the remnants of the original architecture and distorted elements. Focusing mainly on the first twenty five years of the design and shaping of the MQ, this article concentrates on the generic planning principles implemented in the design of the setting and on how these were undermined by new constraints introduced by globally well-known architects and urban designer, due to the lack of an authoritative principal document defining the original layout, that recorded and helped to preserve its unique spatial qualities at the outset.     

The use of site surveys in the collection of recreation data,with particular Reference to the congleton district of Cheshire

The provision of countryside recreation facilities at a local level is likely to receive increasing attention during the next decade. As an integral part of the assessment of the quality of present provision within the Congleton District of Cheshire (U.K.) five site surveys were made. Each site provides different facilities for recreation and interview questions were designed to investigate the background of the visitors and the nature of the interplay between site and visitor. The analysis of answers attempts to illustrate those aspects of this interrelationship, which may be important during the consideration of future provision of recreation sites and their management.     

Changes in zooplankton populations in the White Volta with particular reference to the effect of Abate

The 24‐hour LC 50 of the nauplii of Thermocyclops hyalinus using Abate CE 200 solution was 0.23 ppm., while the 24‐hour LC 50 of both the copepodite and adult stages was 0.2 ppm.

The numbers of drifting zooplanktonic Microcrustacea in the White Volta increased in numbers during the months of March, April, May, June and July in the dry season. The increase in numbers in the post‐sunset samples related to the vertical migration of the zoqplankton in the reservoir upstream. The aerial weekly application of Abate CE 200 solutions at very high lethal concentrations did not seem to affect the Microcrustacea population probably because (a) Microcrustacea drifting into the reservoir from upstream sustained populations in the reservoir; (b) Microcrustacea living at the banks of the reservoir escaped the abate effect flowing downstream; and (c) spraying was done around noon, when the majority of the zooplankton population had migrated to the bottom of the reservoir.     

A Social-Psychological Model of Human Crowding Phenomena

Previous research on crowding has generally lacked a theoretical perspective. Moreover, there has been a tendency to view crowding in terms of spatial considerations alone and a failure to distinguish between the physical condition (density) and the psychological experience (crowding). In the present discussion, a heuristic model of human crowding phenomena is proposed which permits an integration of various theoretical perspectives and the derivation of experimental hypotheses. Although the limitation of space remains as the essential ingredient of crowding, the proposed model introduces personal and social variables which have a direct bearing on a person's perception of spatial restriction as well as on his attempts to cope with this constraint. The relation between the dimensions of the model is examined in terms of social-psychological theory. Finally, a program for future research is discussed.     

Fabrication and characterization of poly(methyl methacrylate)/CaCu3Ti4O12 composites

Composites comprising Poly(Methyl Methacrylate) (PMMA) and CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂ (CCTO) via melt mixing followed by hot pressing were fabricated. These were characterized using X‐ray diffraction, thermo gravimetric, scanning electron microscopy, and Impedance analyzer for their structural, morphology, and dielectric properties. Composites were found to have better thermal stability than that of pure PMMA. The composite, with 38 Vol % of CCTO (in PMMA), exhibited remarkably low dielectric loss at high frequencies and the low frequency relaxation is attributed to the space charge polarization/MWS effect. Theoretical models were employed to rationalize the dielectric behavior of these composites. At higher temperatures, the relaxation peak shifts to higher frequencies, due to the merging of both β and α relaxations into a single dielectric dispersion peak. The AC conductivity in the high frequency region was attributed to the electronic polarization. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 54:551–558, 2014. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Social context cognition crowd‐sourcing and semi‐automatic parametrization

This paper presents a semi‐automatic method of parameterizing an existing social context cognition model. It discusses benefits of the social context cognition models for example in personality modeling and their key issue that is parametrization. It briefly introduces social context cognition model and describes a new method of its crowd‐sourcing‐based parametrization. Later, validation is provided, and ability to recreate social context cognition in the provided samples is presented with good generalization for the unknown cases. Finally, model's stability for the continuous stream of dynamic social context input data is shown. Presented system contributes to the believable agent modeling and social simulations by making much needed applications of social context cognition models easier by addressing the so far unsolved troublesome parametrization issues. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Convergent Activation Concept for CO2 Fixation in Carbonates

Concepts to facilitate the conversion of epoxides with carbon dioxide to the corresponding cyclic carbonates commonly focus on the activation of the epoxide. Herein we report a catalytic system which allows the simultaneous activation of carbon dioxide and the epoxide. This convergent activation concept is realized by combining a suitable carbene as catalyst for the carbon dioxide activation with a second catalytic system based on potassium iodide for epoxide activation. Initial experiments showed synergistic effects and thus proving the feasibility of this activation concept. Moreover a standard protocol was developed and the substrate scope under these conditions has been studied. Under mild and solvent‐free conditions 14 epoxides could be converted. The respective cyclic carbonates were obtained in good to excellent yields with selectivities ≥ 99 % after simple filtration.

     

Dynamic Reductive Kinetic Resolution of Benzyl Ketones using Alcohol Dehydrogenases and Anion Exchange Resins

Dynamic reductive kinetic resolutions of racemic 3‐arylalkanones have been performed by the proper combination of an alcohol dehydrogenase and a basic anionic resin. The best results were found for the bioreduction with the alcohol dehydrogenase type A from Rhodococcus ruber DSM 44541 overexpressed in Escherichia coli (E. coli/ADH‐A) and the commercially available evo‐1.1.200, while the Amberlite IRA‐440 C and the DOWEX‐MWA‐1 resins allowed efficient in situ racemizations. Reaction conditions were optimized in terms of enzyme source and loading, type and amount of resin, pH, temperature and reaction times, obtaining a series of (R,R)‐substituted propan‐2‐ols with good conversions and both diastereoselectivity and stereoselectivity. As a proof of concept, the subsequent intramolecular cyclization of a selected propan‐2‐ol substrate afforded a valuable isochroman heterocycle without any loss of the optical purity.