LOCATION EFFECTS ON OXIDATIVE STABILITY OF CHÉTOUI VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

The effect of growing area on the natural antioxidant and oxidative stability of Chétoui virgin olive oil was studied. Total phenolic content, tocopherol composition, fatty acid composition and oxidative stability were analyzed. The results obtained in this study showed that Chétoui virgin olive oil composition is greatly influenced by growing environment, i.e., mainly by the climatic and pedologic factors. The cumulative rainfall appears to have a major influence on phenolic and o‐diphenol content. Among studied samples, Amdoun oil had the highest total phenolic content, which exceeded 700 mg/kg. Moreover, it contained the highest amounts of o‐diphenols 286.08 ± 6.74 mg/kg and total tocopherols 405.65 ± 4.17 mg/kg. The amounts of total phenols and o‐diphenols showed a good correlation (P ≤ 0.001) with stability while tocopherols showed a very low relation to oxidative stability.     

The Ambiguous Veil: On Transparency, the Mashrabiy'ya, and Architecture

Transparency without a glazed medium can be found in the Middle Eastern device of the mashrabiy'ya . Promoted by Orientalism as a typical Eastern motif, it has slowly become a mark of subjugation and confinement. The logic of the mashrabiy'ya permits other interpretations, however. By trying to etymologically and historically link it to weaving and holiness, to the veil and its uplifting, to the gaze and its subtleties, an attempt is made here to liberate this device from excessive interpretations and to present it as an architectural motif that involves a motivated perception of different spatial locations, a viewpoint, a stand, and an intention. Thus, the mashrabiy'ya becomes closely linked to phenomenological transparency.     

The Architects of the "Perchoir" and the Modernism of Postwar Reconstruction in Tunisia

In 1943, the government of Free France assigned the architect Bernard Zehrfuss the mission of estimating and repairing the devastation caused by the Second World War in Tunisia. Surrounded by a team of young architects, Zehrfuss set up a Department of Architecture and Urbanism, labeled the perchoir , which carried out a distinctive design philosophy. As a unique research laboratory, this Department was to become, for a little over four years, the arena of an architectural creation without precedent. The early colonial fascination with exotic and orientalist themes was substituted by an architecture that incorporated the local know-how in the expression of an abstract modernism.

Tunisia—past, present and future—is the land of the arch, the vault and the dome. It is also the workshop of the most advanced modern architecture and urbanism in North Africa and the home of the most extraordinary native construction…

—Kidder Smith, "Report from Tunisia," in Architectural Forum , July 1950