Journal articles on the topic 'Brass Rods'

Abstract Brass films were formed on steel rods by magnetron sputtering by using 63 wt% Cu - 37 wt% Zn target in Ar plasma. The brass plated steel rods were inserted in crude rubber and then cured to form various samples. Rubber-brass inter-reacted layers were investigated by cross sectional TEM observation. Evaluation of adhesion force was also conducted in order to compare with the TEM investigation. The magnetron sputtering brass film has strongly oriented columner crystal structure and thickness of the film is uniform in whole area. The magnetron sputtering film has excellent adhesion regardless of the film thickness that cannot be attained by that of commercially manufactured steel cord.

The current paper is related to the study of the microstructure and texture of two machinable lead-free brass alloys, namely CuZn42 (CW510L) and CuZn38As (CW511L), which were evaluated in the as-drawn and post heat treated condition. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) was employed for the examination of the brass rods’ crystallographic properties in order to correlate the effect of post processing heat treatment on the evolution of phase structure and texture towards the interpretation of dynamic (impact) fracture properties. It is shown that α- and β-phase volume fractions, mean grain size, and grain boundary misorientation are the most influential factors altering the fracture resistance of single- and dual-phase brass alloy rods. The role of grain boundary engineering, through the formation of coincidence site lattice (CSL) boundaries and their evolution during thermomechanical processing, is of major importance for the design of the mechanical behaviour of new eco-friendly machinable brass alloys.

Brass alloys that meet ASTM C36000 standard were prepared from scrap copper alloys in this study. The mechanical properties of these brass alloy products were measured, and the results showed that yield strength, elongation, tensile strength, and hardness were respectively 164 N/mm2, 37.7%, 383 N/mm2, and 87.7 HV. The flow of elements in the brass alloy production process was also investigated using thermodynamic calculations and microstructural observations. It was discovered that elements such as Al, Mg, Pb, and Cd were easily oxidized as slag; Cd was easily volatilized at high temperatures, and impurities such as Fe, S, and P were precipitated as ZnS and Fe3P inclusions.

We studied the effects of the processing variables on the texture development of Ni tapes prepared from Ni powder compact rods. The Ni power was compacted into rods by cold isostatic pressing(CIP). The CIP-processed Ni rods were sintered for densification and made into Ni tapes of 100 microns by cold rolling. For the development of a cube texture, the rolled Ni tapes were annealed at various temperatures. The brass texture was converted into a cube texture during annealing and the degree of the formed cube textured was dependent on the annealing temperature. We analyzed the (200) cube texture by X-ray diffraction and pole figure analysis and EBSD(Electron beam backscattered diffraction pattern).

The location at which brace rods should be installed to reduce the risk of breakage in codominant stems traditionally has been below the crotch. In this study, codominant stems were pulled apart with measured force to determine if crotch strength was increased by installing a rod above the crotch rather than in the traditional rod location below the junction. With both red oak (Quercus rubra) and red maple (Acer rubrum), the strength of the codominant stem was increased significantly by installing the rod above the crotch a distance equal to the diameter of one of the stems. Brass rods tended to fail more than steel rods in oak but may be useful in small, weakerwooded trees.

A numerical simulation method is used to analyse the microstructure evolution of 8-mm-diameter brass (70wt%Cu30wt%Zn) rods during the vacuum continuous casting (VCC) process. The macro-and micro-scale coupling method is adopted to develop a temperature field model and a microstructure prediction model. The effects of casting parameters, including casting speed and pouring temperature, on the shape of the solid-liquid (S/L) interface and solidified microstructure are considered. Simulation results show that the casting speed has a large effect on the shape of the S/L interface and grain morphology.

The relative viscosities of suspensions of randomly oriented rods in a Newtonian fluid were measured using falling-ball rheometry. The rods were monodisperse and sufficiently large to render colloidal and Brownian forces negligible. Steel and brass ball bearings were dropped along the centreline of cylindrical columns containing the suspensions. The terminal velocities of the falling balls were measured and used to determine the average viscosities of the suspensions. The suspensions behaved as Newtonian fluids in that they were characterized by a constant viscosity. They exhibited a linear relative viscosity-volume fraction relationship for volume fractions less than 0.125, and, for volume fractions between 0.125 and 0.2315, the specific viscosity increased with the cube of the volume fraction. The relative viscosity was found to be independent of falling-ball size for a ratio of falling ball to fibre length greater than 0.3. It was found to be independent of the diameter of the containing cylindrical column for a ratio of column diameter to fibre length greater than 3.2. The value determined for the intrinsic viscosity is in good agreement with theoretical predictions for suspensions of randomly oriented rods.

Structure-texture states in brass rods after hot extrusion and air-cooling have been investigated with the orientation microscopy (EBSD). In the examined samples, a significant concentration of β-phase with the lattice, close to bcc and fcc α-phase, has been detected. The β-phase texture consisted of the main components: two close to {110}<110> and {001}<110>. The α-phase texture consisted of the main components: close to {001}<100> and two close {110}<111>. The analysis of crystallographic relationship of the texture components of β-and α-phases demonstrates that they may all be obtained, in accordance with the orientation relations, which are intermediate between the Kurdjumov-Sachs and Nishiyama-Wasserman types It is assumed that β-α transformation began in β-phase at coincident site lattice Σ3 and Σ33a boundaries.

Telah dilakukan percobaan severe plastic deformation (SPD) dengan metodeequal channel angular pressing (ECAP) pada batang kuningan CuZn 70/30 diameter 10 mm sampai 5 pas. Gaya penekanan meningkat secara signifikan pada awal langkah penekanan dan mencapai nilai maksimum lalu melandai. Pada pas pertama gaya penekanan mencapai 115 kN, pas kedua 130 kN, pas ketiga mecapai 150 kN dan pada pas keempat 165 kN. Dari pengukuran luas area di bawah kurva gaya penekanan diperoleh energi total pembentukan pada proses ECAP batang kuningan persatuan panjang adalah 95 Joule/mm pada pas pertama, sampai 130 Joule/mm pada pas ketiga, dan turun 125 Juole/mm pada pas keempat. Secara kumulatif total energi persatuan panjang meningkat secara linier sesuai dengan peningkatan jumpah pas, dimana pada pas keempat mencapai 597 MPa. Peningkatan gaya penekanan dan energi penekanan sebanding dengan terjadinya peningkatan kekerasan pada batang kuningan dan terjadinya penghalusan butir.Kata kunci: ECAP, gaya penekanan, energi pembentukan, kekerasan, penghalusan butir, kuningan.AbstractExperiments of severe plastic deformation (SPD) have been carried out by the method of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) on brass rods CuZn 70/30 diameter 10 mm to 5 pas. Pressing force significantly is increased emphasis on early steps and reaches a maximum value and then ramp. At the first pas the pressing force reached 115 kN, the second pass 130 kN, the third pass 150 kN and fouth pass is 165. From measurements of the area under the curve of pressing force, the total forming energy per unit length generated to form the brass rod in ECAP is 95 Joule / mm at the first pass, 130 Joules / mm at third pass and down to 125 Joule/mm at fouth pass. Cumulatively, the total forming energy per unit length increases linearly according to the increase in number of ECAP pass, where the fourth pass reach 597 Joule/mm. Increased emphasis pressing load and forming energy is proportional to the increase in hardness of the brass rod and the grain refinement.Keywords: ECAP, pressing load, forming energy, hardness, grain refinement, Brass

There have been few reports on the drilling of microholes on rod end faces by cutting, which can be employed for fabricating micronozzles or microneedles. Such drilling was therefore attempted in the present study using a micro turn-milling machine with the tool and workpiece axes being parallel. The drilling was performed on the end faces of brass rods with cemented tungsten carbide micro-cutting tools processed by electrical discharge machining (EDM). As a result, a microhole 12‍ μm in diameter was successfully drilled using a 10-μm-diameter tool at a feed speed of 0.5‍ μm/s. The feed speed could be increased to 25 μm/s for a tool with a diameter of 20 μm and body length of 50 μm.

Steel tire cord and steel saw wire represent typical precision pearlitic steel wire rods of wire products; it is a very important solar energy material with a diameter about 50 μm. This paper mainly discusses the research progress of the wire rod drawing process, and its main contents are as follows: First section—the control of the wire rod surface quality is summarized, including the thickness of the surface decarburization layer, the phase composition and thickness of the surface iron oxide scale, and the removal of surface iron oxide scale. Then, the research progress of the wire rod water bath treatment process during sorbitization is summarized. In addition, the development of brass plating technology for steel wire is summarized, including copper plating technology, coating phase composition, etc. Furthermore, the development of steel wire drawing methods is summarized. Finally, the development of the dies used in steel wire drawings is summarized.

The paper presents a description of the mechanical construction, measuring and control systems and the possibilities of a new type tribological testing device. The design was developed and built at the Department of Fundamentals of Machine Design and Tribology of Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. Described tester allows the investigate a friction and wear of components such as fibrous tapes, ropes, plaitings or fibers themselves in contact with solid materials. The paper describes in detail the construction of drive and the load pneumatic system. The innovative system of the device such measurement equipped with piezoelectric sensors and an experimental fixing unit of tested components also have been described. Work includes diagrams of used control and measurement systems and the central lubrication system. As a test the polyethylene cable in contact with brass rods has been examined. The results of this studies were been also presented in the paper.

Abstract A mathematical module for predicting and analysing the drawing forces is formed and verified. The process used in the current study is drawing. Geometric parameters of the deformation zone and the “selective transfer phenomenon” are also taken into consideration. The experimental verification is conducted through two tests: In the first test, the experimental blanks are cylindrical rods (steel 45, length 150 mm), and are preliminary turned, and the drawplate made of steel 9xc, are used. Regular micro-relief (RMR) hardens the working surfaces of the drawplate. In the second test, the same conditions are applied except for the samples, which represent solid cylindrical billets made of steel 45 with a complicatedly modified surface layer, including a brass film, regular microgeometry and a “servo-witte” copper film. As a result, in the first experiment, the discrepancies are in the range of -29.1% up to +23%. In the second experiment, the discrepancies are in the range of +1.38% up to +48.9%.

A Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is a process in which a microorganism respires and captures the electrons that normally passes through the electron transport system of the organism and produces electricity. This work intends to present the different operating parameters affecting the efficiency of a Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) process. To study the performance of the process, various materials for the cathode and anode rods with similar size and chape including, copper, aluminum, carbon cloth, steel and brass were considered to determine the combination that leads to the best results. Moreover, different oxidizing agents such as Copper Sulphate and Potassium Hexacyanoferrate were considered. Furthermore, the effects of shapes, sizes and distance between electrodes on the current and voltage were investigated. The power outputs between electrochemical and microbial cells were recorded. In addition, the power, whether expressed as voltage or current, was measured at different conditions and different cell combinations. The power is directly related to the area, volume of the bacterial solution and supplying air and stirring.

In this study multi objective optimization is utilized to optimize a turning operation to reveal the appropriate level of process features. The goal of this work is to evaluate the optimal combination of cutting parameters like feed, spindle speed, inclination angle and workpiece material to have a best surface quality Taguchi technique L9 mixed orthogonal array, has been adopted to optimize the roughness of surface. Three rods of length around (200 mm) for the three metals are used for this work. Each rod is divided into three parts with 50 mm length. For brass the optimum parametric mix for minimum Ra is A1, B1 and C3, i.e., at tool inclination angle (5), feedrate of 0.01, spindle speed of 1200 rpm. For copper the optimal parameters combination for best Ra is A1, B1 and C3, i.e., at tool inclination angle (5), feedrate of 0.01, spindle speed of 1200 rpm. For bronze the optimum parameters mix for minimum Ra is A1, B1and C3, i.e., at tool inclination angle (5), feedrate of 0.01, spindle speed of 1200 rpm.

This paper describes a magnetoelastic strain sensor based on the ∆E effect and discusses some materials used in its construction. A polycrystalline Fe–Al–B alloy with good quality magnetoelastic properties was used as the transducer and glued to the test object, either brass plates or rods of SAE 1010 steel. The strain-dependent magnetic field of the transducer changes the operating point of the resonator, a strip of field-annealed Metglas 2826MB3, resulting in a modification of its resonant frequency. A model was developed to simulate the strain-dependent magnetic field acting on the resonator and thus to calculate curves of resonant frequency vs. deformation. With the help of this model, differences in the shape of the frequency vs. strain curve can be understood. For a sensor with resonant frequency of 60.5 kHz glued to a rod of SAE 1010 steel, a total resonant frequency variation ∆f ~7 kHz was observed for a deformation of 1100 ppm. The geometry of this sensor is especially favorable for the remote monitoring of a steel surface, such as the wires of the tensile armor of a marine riser.

We are developing a practical-scale mechanical decladder that can slit nuclear spent fuel rod-cuts (hulls + pellets) on the order of several tens of kgf of heavy metal/batch to supply UO2 pellets to a voloxidation process. The mechanical decladder is used for separating and recovering nuclear fuel material from the cladding tube by horizontally slitting the cladding tube of a fuel rod. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) is improving the performance of the mechanical decladder to increase the recovery rate of pellets from spent fuel rods. However, because actual nuclear spent fuel is dangerously toxic, we need to develop simulated spent fuel rods for continuous experiments with mechanical decladders. We describe procedures to develop both simulated cladding tubes and simulated fuel rod (with physical properties similar to those of spent nuclear fuel). Performance tests were carried out to evaluate the decladding ability of the mechanical decladder using two types of simulated fuel (simulated tube + brass pellets and zircaloy-4 tube + simulated ceramic fuel rod). The simulated tube was developed for analyzing the slitting characteristics of the cross section of the spent fuel cladding tube. Simulated ceramic fuel rod (with mechanical properties similar to the pellets of actual PWR spent fuel) was produced to ensure that the mechanical decladder could slit real PWR spent fuel. We used castable powder pellets that simulate the compressive stress of the real spent UO2 pellet. The production criteria for simulated pellets with compressive stresses similar to those of actual spent fuel were determined, and the castables were inserted into zircaloy-4 tubes and sintered to produce the simulated fuel rod. To investigate the slitting characteristics of the simulated ceramic fuel rod, a verification experiment was performed using a mechanical decladder.

Thick wall (6.6 mm wall thickness) plastic samplers, 97.2 mm in internal diameter (area ratio of 29%), 700 mm in length (length of soil sample 640 mm), with a cutting edge angle of 23°, without clearance and with a sampler head have been used to collect very soft clay samples at Sarapuí II test site. Very good to excellent and good to fair quality samples have been surprisingly obtained in most cases, which were attributed to a combination of five factors: the absence of an inside clearance, the low friction of the plastic sampler, the small “trick” to close the top of the sampling rods assuring that suction would be imposed on the top of the sample, the very careful handling and trimming process, combined with no extrusion of the sample, and the small ratio between specimen diameter and sample diameter. It is still too early to propose the use of thick wall plastic samplers - in combination with the procedures outlined above - to be used in regular undisturbed soft clay sampling, and more research is needed to identify the role of each procedure in the final result. However, if confirmed, the procedures adopted will allow significant cost saving with respect to the use of thin wall brass (or stainless steel) samplers.

This study aims to develop thermal length expansion practicum sets that are expected to improve high-school science process skills (SPS) in expansion material on metal rods. This research was conducted at SMAN 2 Bekasi in class XI by comparing the control and the experimental class. This study uses the ADDIE approach to analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate the thermal expansion length practicum sets. The feasibility test of this practicum sets was carried out in two ways: conducting experiments and validating tests from experts. The experimental results for the linear expansion coefficient of an iron bar are 3.09%, the brass is 5.81%, and the aluminum is 7.39% from the reference value. All of the experimental data still below the error acceptance level which is below 10%. The validation results give 85.5% from media experts and 86.1% from material experts. The trials on users obtained 93.9% of teachers and 85.4% of students. The N-gain in control and experiment class then compared to see the increase in SPS in each category. There was an increase in the experimental class SPS value 7.3% higher than the control class, where the SPS value in the experimental class increased by 47.8%. Therefore, it can conclude that the thermal expansion practicum sets is feasible to use and can improve the science process skills of high school students.

Abstract Introduction Burn wound conversion is a process where superficial partial thickness burns convert into deep partial and even full thickness burn injuries. Unfortunately, the pathophysiology of this phenomenon is poorly understood. A therapeutic intervention that may prevent secondary progression and cell death in burn-injured tissue is desirable. Recent work by our group has established that tranexamic acid (TXA) has significant anti-inflammatory properties in addition to its well-known anti-fibrinolytic effects. This study investigates tranexamic acid as a novel therapeutic treatment to mitigate burn wound conversion and reduce systemic inflammation. Methods Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to a hot comb burn contact injury using a 150-g brass comb preheated to 100°C, to create four rectangular burns, separated by three unburned interspaces. A subset of animals underwent the comb burn injury with an adjacent 30% TBSA contact injury using solid brass rods. The interspaces represent the ischemic zones simulating the zone of stasis. The treatment group received IP injection of TXA (100mg/kg) immediately after injury and once daily until sacrifice. Sham animals underwent an identical procedure, with application of a room temperature comb. Animals were sacrificed at 6hrs and 7-day time points post-injury. Photo images were obtained of the comb burn injury. Full-thickness biopsies from the ischemic zones and lung tissue were assessed with established histological and immunohistochemical (IHC) techniques. Results At 7-days post injury, the percentage of ischemic zones with necrosis was significantly reduced in the treatment group when compared with untreated burn controls by photographic image analysis. When compared with controls, the treatment groups had significantly less progression of ischemic zones to necrosis when assessed by standard microscopy. These findings were consistent in both the comb burn only and comb burn + 30%TBSA injury models. The TXA treatment group demonstrated significantly more expression of the regeneration marker (CTHRC-1) and a trend toward increased expression of the Ki-67 proliferation marker when compared to untreated burn group. At 6 hours post-injury, TXA significantly decreased infiltration of neutrophils in the lungs for the 30%TBSA burn injury model. Furthermore, systemic levels of mitochondrial DNA, IL-1α and TNFα were significantly lower in TXA treated animals when compared to untreated burn controls. Conclusions Animals treated with tranexamic acid demonstrated reduced burn wound conversion and decreased burn-induced SIRS response. Lung inflammation was also significantly reduced by administration of TXA after injury. Applicability of Research to Practice Tranexamic acid and agents with similar mechanisms of action may provide a treatment to reduce burn wound conversion. This therapy could be easily incorporated into standard acute burn care practices.

Abstract A new pull-out cord adhesion test has been investigated. It consists of a cord partially embedded axially in a long steel-enclosed rubber cylinder. A strain-energy fracture mechanics approach was used to analyze the test in order to derive the energy of detachment, a more fundamental measure of the strength of adhesion than pull-out force, since the modulus and geometry terms are factored out. Good agreement was observed between strain-energy fracture mechanics theory and experiment. In the model system in which steel rods of various diameters were substituted for the cord, rubber thermal shrinkage after cure caused partial internal debonding along the rod if the level of adhesion was not sufficiently high. While no debonding could be detected with truck tire cords, the shrinkage probably reduced any friction effects leading to a more accurate measure of the energy of detachment/fracture. The disadvantage of the Coaxial Shear Pull-out Test geometry (for samples prepared by the hot-bonding procedure as described here) is that scientific discretion based upon measurements of axial stiffness and shear modulus calculations together with subsequent comparisons to shear moduli from an independent measurement, (e.g., hardness) must first be used in order to determine whether debonding has occurred. If debonding is present, then it should be corrected for as shown in the previous discussion section. If no debonding has occurred (e.g., certain brass-plated steel tire cord adhesion systems) then the analysis is more straightforward. Thus, in principle, providing the right analysis is performed on the result, this test is capable of yielding reasonably accurate estimates of the work of adhesion when failure is interfacial or the work of cohesive fracture when failure is in the rubber. In practice however, this pull-out test with samples prepared by the hot-bonding procedure should be reserved for measurements of strong adhesive systems, such as original adhesion of truck tire cords in commercial compounds. A mechanical solution for debonding, involving a cold-bonding procedure is advanced in Part II of this study.

Abstract Aim Remnants of provisional cement on the internal surface of cast restorations can have an adverse effect on the performance of the definitive luting agent. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of eugenolcontaining temporary cement removal by an ultrasonic or an organic solvent on the retentive strength of metallic rings cemented to amalgam cores using zinc phosphate cement. Methods and Materials A total of 36 cylindrical amalgam cores measuring 5.9×6 mm were made by condensing amalgam in brass molds for use in this in vitro study. Thirty-six cylindrical spaces measuring 6×6 mm were machined in the center of cast rods of Rexillium III alloy to create simulated retainers. The amalgam cores were divided into two groups and provisionally cemented in these cylindrical spaces (retainers) using zinc oxide–eugenol cement. After separation of the cores from the retainers, one group was cleaned with an ultrasonic cleaning device with water and the other group was cleaned with Solitine organic solvent. All specimens were then cemented with zinc phosphate cement and the samples were stored at 100% humidity in a 37°C water bath after which they were tested with a DARTEK testing machine at a 0.02 cm/minute cross head speed. The data were analyzed using the Independent t-test. Results The statistical analysis revealed a significant difference between the two groups (p<0.0005) with the ultrasonic group having significantly higher separation forces than the Solitine group. Conclusion Specimens treated with the ultrasonic cleaner showed a higher mean separation force (282.2 MPa) than the solvent group (439.5 MPa). Clinical Significance Despite the convenience of using an organic solvent for cleaning the internal surface of cast restorations, the ultrasonic cleaning method is more effective for removing zinc-oxide temporary cement. Citation Mosharraf R, Soleimani B, Sanaee-Nasab M. A Comparison of Two Methods of Removing Zinc Oxide-eugenol Provisional Cement Residue from the Internal Surfaces of Cast Restorations. J Contemp Dent Pract 2009 May; (10)3:027-034.

This study aims to know the process of making brass bushing to succeed into a product along with the value of violence and roughness. Methods used include evaporative method, CO2 sand mold and method x. This research is done by first preparing tools and materials then done casting process where brass used in melted then cast into casting castings and in chill with well water. Furthermore, the machining process using a lathe with carbide chisel and engine rotation used for 590 RPM. From roughness test result after machining process got value at outside diameter of point A 2,532 μm, point B equal to 2,544 μm, point C equal to 2,673 μm, then diameter in point A equal to 1,539 μm, point B equal to 1,749 μm. For the value of hardness on the method of sand mold CO2 obtained an average value of 42 HRB, evaporative methods of 33.2 HRB and method x obtained an average value of 39.8 HRB. Fromithese results it is known that the hardness of the best bushing in this research is by the method of sand mold CO2 because it has good heat resistance and good mold density.

In Braess paradox the addiction of an extra resource creates a social dilemma in which the individual rationality leads to collective irrationality. In the literature, the dynamics has been analyzed when considering impulsive commuters, i.e., those who switch choice regardless of the actual difference between costs. We analyze a dynamical version of the paradox with nonimpulsive commuters, who change road proportionally to the cost difference. When only two roads are available, we provide a rigorous proof of the existence of a unique fixed point showing that it is globally attracting even if locally unstable. When a new road is added the system becomes discontinuous and two-dimensional. We prove that still a unique fixed point exists, and its global attractivity is numerically evidenced, also when the fixed point is locally unstable. Our analysis adds a new insight in the understanding of dynamics in social dilemma.

In this paper I research famous Serbian music event, the Dragačevo Trumpet Festival, better known as the Guča festival, by analysing on line photographs about the festival. The Dragačevo Trumpet Festival is one of the most famous music festivals in Serbia and one of the most famous brass band festivals in the world. Since 1961, it is annually held in the village of Guča in western Serbia. From 1962, the participants from other parts of Serbia came to Guča, while in 1963 for the first time the Roma players participated. From that time on, Roma remained among the best trumpeters at the competitions. However, during these fifty years, the festival always demonstrated and was conceptualised as the carrier of the Serbian folk tradition and culture. In my research I use visitors’ photographs available on one of the websites dedicated to Guča, www.guca.rs, in order to question how the festival’s photographs visually represent the Serbs. The main goal of the paper is to explain and show how Guča festival found its place in modern Serbia in spite of its rural, folk, barbarian and sometimes nationalist representation.

Wire cut is a high-tech machining process and can be used to make high-precision products. This study aims to analyze the results of the workpiece surface and study the effect of current strength and wire speed on wire cut machining of EMS 45 on the surface roughness of straight gears. The results analyzed were the surface roughness values obtained by testing the surface roughness. The variations in the current used were 3 amperes, 5 amperes, and 7 amperes, while the wire speed used was 8 mm / min, 10 mm / min, and 12 mm / min. In the wire cut machining process, brass cutting materials are used with a wire diameter of 0.25 mm. The results showed that the greater the current and wire speed used, the lower the surface roughness value, conversely the smaller the current and the wire speed used, the higher the surface roughness value. The results of data analysis using the ANOVA analysis method, correlation, and regression get the optimal conditions for obtaining low surface roughness values and fast cutting time, namely at a current of 7 amperes with a wire speed of 10 mm/min.

The article demonstrates the peculiarities of the artistic sculpture of the Virgin Mary in the sculpture of the late XIX-first half of the XX century. The main positions of the restoration program and the course of its implementation are revealed. The plastic nature of the folds and compositional principles suggest that the sculptor worked in the mid-XIX - early XX centuries. The textural and petrographic properties of the stone are the basis for the assumption that the author worked in the village of Demnya because the complex of the church of St. Nicholas and the one analyzed in the article have many similarities. Comparing some of the sculptures of famous authors of the late Baroque and Classicism, we can identify fundamental similarities: portrait features, execution of tears, and the nature of the image of the lips, feet and hands. In the sculpture of the Mother of God from the village of Dobryany, Horodok district, the influence of the works of Peter Viitovych, Leonardo Marconi, Vuytsyk, Plishevsky and Soltys is noticeable. The works of these authors are characterized by realism, careful expression of the anatomy of the human body, true depiction of movement and clear composition. Before the restoration work began, the white stone sculpture was in poor condition. Below the figure, on a memorial plaque, it is written that masters from the village of Demnya restored it in 2000. 5 layers of whitewash were found on the sculpture. The sculpture in the village was whitewashed with lime in honour of holidays and solemn events. Initially, the figure was not covered with paint. The figure of the Virgin was divided into two parts. The lower bullet with the snake and the feet was broken off from the rest of the body. These parts were previously fastened to an anchor made of black iron and cement. Anchor slashed hard and spread the stone. As a result, the folds of the dress and previous masterpieces were peeled off at the bottom. After a thorough examination, non-professional fastening of the folded arms was revealed. There were inaccurate traces of cement additions and cracks in the places of glueing. A profiled base was also glued to the ball on a dense layer of cement. In general, due to the colonies of bio-growers and large areas of whitewash, the work lost its aesthetic appeal and symbolic content. The first stage of restoration consisted of the layer-by-layer sounding of limestone. After opening the limestone, the object was dry cleaned. Dry cleaning was done with scalpels, nylon brushes, and small brass and steel brushes, not durable places were tapped with a chisel in order not to damage the original surface of the stone. When the lime filler was poorly removed, the method of wet cleaning was used, a detergent solution dissolved the lime filler. The detergent solution was applied with a flute brush and the fluffy surface was cleaned with a nylon brush. The detergent solution is made for better penetration of surfactants into the pores - soap softens the surface of the water, which helps to dissolve the dirt in the pores of the stone. Subsequently, the stage of structural strengthening of the stone was performed. To achieve this goal, the organosilicon hardener Remmers KSE 300 was used. The solution was applied with a brush. To crystallize the organosilicon hardener a technological break was taken for two weeks, moving on to the stage of glueing parts. Bonding of elements took place with the help of epoxy glue from TENAX. Before applying the glue, the elements were coated with a 3% alcohol solution of polymer "Paraloid B72". The upper and lower parts of the sculpture were attached to epoxy resin and two stainless steel rods. The lost fragments of the folds of the Virgin's clothing were made of fibreglass reinforcement attached to the holes of the stone with epoxy glue. After completing the stage of glueing the sculpture, the addition of lost elements was performed. A mineral carbonate solution was used. After a two-week technological break, the stage of toning the supplemented parts began in order to achieve organic homogeneity of the figure. The next step is to cover the stone with a long-acting biocidal solution. At the end of the restoration, the work should be covered with lime water to even out the overall tone of the sculpture. The sculptural composition of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary from the village of Dobryany, Horodok district, is of great artistic and historical value. During the restoration of the sculpture the compatible materials were used as well as generally accepted and original restoration tools, which will allow the exhibition of the work of art in an authentic place near the chapel., After returning the work to its holders, it is recommended to exhibit it under an architectural cover to prevent the aggressive effects of precipitation and the negative changes in temperature and humidity in autumn-winter.

Abstract Background: HER2DX (Prat et al. EBiomedicine 2022) is a 27-gene prognostic (risk-score) and predictive (pathological complete response [pCR]-score) assay in early-stage HER2+ breast cancer based on clinical data and the expression of 4 gene signatures (immune, proliferation, luminal differentiation and HER2 amplicon). Here, we aim to evaluate, for the first time, the ability of HER2DX to predict pCR following neoadjuvant TCH or TCHP in HER2+ disease. Methods: Standardized HER2DX was performed in a central lab on baseline pre-treatment FFPE tumor biopsies from the GOM-HGUGM-2018-05 study in Spain, a consecutive retrospective series of patients (pts) with newly diagnosed stage I-III HER2+ breast cancer eligible for neoadjuvant therapy. Pts received standard 6 cycles of docetaxel, carboplatin and trastuzumab (TCH) or TCH with pertuzumab (TCHP) regimens. Primary aim was to test the ability of HER2DX pCR score to predict pCR (ypT0/is ypN0). Secondary objectives were to test the ability of HER2DX pCR score to predict pCR independently of clinical-pathological variables and the PAM50 subtype (HER2-enriched versus not), and to evaluate the association of HER2DX pCR score with the HER2DX risk-score. Logistic regression and receiver-operator curve (ROC) analysis were assessed. Statistical analyses were performed in R code 4.0.5. Results: HER2DX was evaluated in 155 pts (97%) enrolled in the study with available RNA (as of June 2022). Mean age of pts was 50 (range 22-74) and 55.2% of pts (n=85) were pre-menopausal. Clinical T2-4 disease represented 77.4% of cases (n=120), clinical node-positive disease (cN1-3) represented 63.9% of cases (n=99), and 68.0% of tumors (n=105) were hormone receptor-positive. The overall pCR rate was 57.4% (95% confidence interval [CI] 50-65): 52.2% (95% CI 40-64) with TCH (n=67) and 61.4% (95% CI 50-72) with TCHP (n=88). The proportion of HER2DX low-, medium- and high-pCR groups was 34.2%, 34.8% and 31.0%, respectively. HER2DX pCR score (as a continuous variable from 0 to 100) was significantly associated with pCR (odd ratio [OR]=1.03, p=5.91e-07). The pCR rates in HER2DX pCR-high and pCR-low groups were 75.0% and 28.0% (OR=7.6, 95% CI 3.2-19.1, p=7.14e-06), respectively. In pts treated with TCHP, the pCR rates in HER2DX pCR-high and pCR-low groups were 85.7% and 27.3% (OR=16.0, 95% CI 4.3-59.01, p=3.2e-05), respectively. The AUC ROC of HER2DX pCR score (as a continuous variable) and pCR status was 0.746 (in all pts) and 0.812 (in pts treated with TCHP). HER2DX pCR score was significantly associated with pCR independently of hormone receptor status, Ki67, age, menopausal status, pertuzumab use, clinical stage and PAM50 HER2-enriched subtype. The proportion of HER2DX low- and high-risk of relapse disease was 32.0% and 68.0%, respectively. The correlation of HER2DX pCR score and HER2DX risk-score was weak (coefficient=-0.17), as previously described. Proportion of cases according to both HER2DX scores and absolute difference of pCR rates between TCHP and TCH in each combined group is shown in Table. Conclusion: The HER2DX genomic test predicts pCR following neoadjuvant TCH or TCHP regimens independently of clinical-pathological variables and intrinsic subtype. The combination of both HER2DX scores might help better tailor systemic therapy in patients with newly diagnosed stage I-III HER2+ breast cancer. Citation Format: Coralia Bueno-Muiño, Isabel Echavarria, Sara López-Tarruella, Roche-Molina Marta, María del Monte-Millán, Tatiana Massarrah, Yolanda Jerez Gilarranz, Blanca Herrero, Salvador Gámez, Iván Márquez-Rodas, María Cebollero-Presmanes, Nevado Santos Manuel, Pilar de la Morena Barrio, Francisco Ayala de la Peña, José Ángel García-Sáenz, Fernando Moreno Antón, Álvaro Rodríguez Lescure, Teresa Quintanar, Diego Malón-Giménez, Laura Rodriguez-Lajusticia, Ana Isabel Ballesteros García, Dulce Bañón Torres, Lucía Villarejo, Nerea Lobato, Ainhoa Arias, Inmaculada Ocaña, Enrique Álvarez, Laia Paré, Mercedes Marín-Aguilera, Patricia Galván, Fara Brasó-Maristany, Ana Vivancos, Patricia Villagrasa, Joel S Parker, Charles M. Perou, Aleix Prat, Miguel Martín. Independent validation of the HER2DX genomic test in HER2-positive breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant docetaxel, carboplatin, trastuzumab +/- pertuzumab (TCH/TCHP): a correlative analysis from a multicenter academic study [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2022 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(5 Suppl):Abstract nr P6-01-46.

In this article, thermal performance of copper and brass immersion rods fitted inside aluminum pots has been compared on the basis of the values of convective heat transfer coefficients evaluated during evaporation of sugarcane juice for jaggery production. Experiments were conducted under varying heat input conditions for the sugarcane juice heating of constant mass by copper and brass immersion rods. The experimental data were analyzed by the Nusselt number expression using linear regression method. The convective heat transfer coefficients were observed higher in the case of sugarcane juice heating by copper immersion rod.

Abstract MUELLER Alloy 6680 is a non-leaded copper-base alloy (manganese bronze) with relatively good ductility and fair machinability. It can be used with soft or hard mating members where moderate strength is sufficient. It can be joined successfully by silver soldering or soft soldering. Its many uses include bearings, gears, pump parts, connecting rods, marine hardware and bushings. This datasheet provides information on composition, physical properties, hardness, elasticity, and tensile properties. It also includes information on corrosion resistance as well as forming, heat treating, machining, and joining. Filing Code: Cu-491. Producer or source: Mueller Brass Company.

Friction between rubbing pairs plays a key role in operating machines in an efficient approach. In some intended works or occasional circumstances, slipping friction may occur during dry or boundary lubrication. Lubricating mechanical equipment using proper and efficient lubricant agents is tremendously necessary. This work explores the synthesized triacetin as an additive for lubricant under slipping friction between steel rollers and aluminum, brass, copper, and stainless-steel rods under boundary lubrication. The metal surface morphology under the lubricant with 10% triacetin additive covering roughness periphery is investigated by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope imaging. In the dry slipping condition, the friction coefficient is lower for the copper-steel pair compared to the aluminum-steel combination. Compared to the absence of triacetin additive, the steel roller combinations with the rod metal specimens undergoing boundary lubrication with 10% triacetin additive in the lubricant can reduce the slipping friction coefficient by up to 49.2% in the case of steel roller and brass rod pair. The quantitative influences of triacetin additive on metal rubbing pair friction coefficients under boundary lubrication are inversely exponential correlated to triacetin additive, varying in the range of 0 to 10% v/v.

The use of Metalpoints such as silver, bronze (Brass), copper, gold or lead are of the most gentle and delicate techniques applied by the Renaissance masters in Europe predating the introduction of graphite. There is a wealth of detailed information available online. Metalpoint was a popular drawing and writing technique from the 14th to the early 16th century. This technique involves dragging a metal-stylus across a substrate coated with a somewhat abrasive emulsion leaving small particles of metal dust over the surface to create a mark. These metal-rods oxidate over a different period of time which is altered by the environmental circumstances, changing the drawing appearance. Similar to a pencil rendering, the silver line oxidises and becomes black. Although it is difficult to utilise metalpoint to produce a specific tiny mark, it is a desired tool for a highly talented draughtsman. This paper discusses the practical approach to substrate preparation; the hatching and cross-hatching technique employed by the masters and contemporary artists in addition to the provocative drawing and sensual rendering impact of the finished drawing.

The vibration induced by the cooling fluid flow around the fuel rods in the fuel Assembly of nuclear reactors causes the rods to be destroyed and eventually leak due to the fretting wear in the place of contact with their supports for a long time. In this paper, the vibration caused by axial fluid flow around a specific fuel rod under elastic supports is numerically simulated. In this study, the fluid flow is modeled using the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) turbulence model in the FLUENT software. The fluid-structure interaction is also modeled using the ANSYS coupling system. To validate the implemented numerical model, the test results of the reported brass rod vibration similar to the studied problem in this research are used. Due to the long execution time of the two-way fluid-structure interaction simulations with a high grid number, the one-way fluid-structure interaction method is proposed. The results of simulations show that the one-way fluid-structure interaction method can be used in cases where the vibration amplitude of the structure is less than the height of the viscous sub-layer. Also, this method reduces the simulation time by 80%. Finally, the results of the flow-induced vibration simulation of the fuel rod show that the vibration range of the fuel rod will increase by 20 times if the contact of the elastic supports with the rod is lost, which will lead to the intensification of the wear caused by the rod oscillation. Also, the main natural frequency of the rod decreases when the rod loses contact with the supports and falls within the range of the reactor excitation frequency, i.e. 0 to 50 Hz, which should be avoided.

Luminárias é uma cidade do sul de Minas Gerais, incluída no roteiro da Estrada Real e no circuito Vale Verde e Quedas D´Água do Governo do Estado. A região é propícia para a atividade ecoturística, pois apresenta diversidade de atrativos: rios, cachoeiras, cavernas, serras, área de cerrado e campos rupestres, além de importante patrimônio histórico-cultural e gastronomia peculiar. O objetivo do presente trabalho é resgatar a trajetória das ações formativas e avaliar o potencial de roteiros para práticas espeleoturísticas envolvendo aspectos naturais e culturais da região a partir da integração universidade-operadora local-organização não-governamental. Como o ecoturismo e o turismo de aventura na localidade ainda se encontram em um estágio incipiente, o desenvolvimento destas atividades de forma organizada e sustentável torna-se fundamental. Os atrativos naturais da região já vêm sofrendo consideráveis impactos decorrentes das ações antrópicas, principalmente de moradores da comunidade e de localidades vizinhas, além da dependência de atividades econômicas de grande impacto ambiental (mineração de quartzito e a agropecuária extensiva), preterindo o investimento em atividades mais sustentáveis, como o ecoturismo. A primeira etapa foi a realização do Curso de Atualização em Espeleoturismo e Educação Ambiental em Trilhas e Cavernas: Sugestões para Luminárias (MG), para monitores locais, promovido pela parceria SBE-PML-GESMAR nos dias 26 e 27 dezembro 2006 (12h-teoria e prática). Participaram 11 pessoas, sendo 2 mulheres e 9 homens da faixa dos 15 aos 31 anos. Nos anos seguintes foram realizadas atividades preparatórias com o teste dos roteiros: a) julho 2008, b) novembro 2010 e c) abril 2011. Entre os dias 23 a 26 de junho de 2011 foi aplicado o roteiro por meio da parceria entre GESMAR, Tabatinga-Ecoturismo e Aventura, Centro Universitário Fundação Santo André-FSA e Laboratório de Estudos do Lazer-UNESP Rio Claro, envolvendo alunos do curso de Biologia da FSA, na disciplina Educação Ambiental e Práticas Interdisciplinares (EAPI), alunos do curso de pós-graduação em Educação Ambiental e Sustentabilidade (EAS) e convidados, totalizando 23 participantes, contando com 3 monitores do GESMAR e 2 monitores da TABATINGA. O roteiro integrava trilhas, water trekking, espeleoturismo, dinâmicas de sensibilização espeleológica, manual de observação botânica, banho de cachoeira, aspectos culturais da cidade, e comida mineira com diferenciais, tais como a ”jararaca na chiadeira” (linguicinha caseira frita na brasa sobre uma pedra mineira) e roda de fogueira no alojamento. A inter-relação entre as atividades de ecoturismo, espeleoturismo e educação ambiental, potencializaram o programa de visitação, destacando o enfoque pedagógico, obtendo-se resultados de grande relevância. Observou-se que poderiam ser agregados valores à atividade gerando novas fontes de renda para a região, ao mesmo tempo em que se promove a aproximação população para uma atividade menos impactante e que também propicia a valorização da cultura local. Durante as atividades, pode-se avaliar a importância da percepção visual da paisagem, o contato com a água, com as rochas e a diversidade florística e faunística da região, na tentativa de harmonizar e promover maior interação de homens e mulheres com o ambiente natural. E ainda destacar a importância da vida rural e do trabalho no campo. PALAVRAS-CHAVES: Espeleoturismo; Atividades de aventura; Educação ambiental.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the effects of urban physical environment on individual obesity using geographically aggregated health behavior surveillance data applying a geo-imputation method.Introduction'Where we live' affects 'How we live'. Information about 'how one lives' collected from the public health surveillance data such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Neighborhood environment surrounding individuals affects their health behavior or health status are influenced as well as their own traits. Meanwhile, geographical information of subjects recruited in the health behavior surveillance data is usually aggregated at administrative levels such as a county. Even if we do not know accurate addresses of individuals, we can allocate them to the random locations where is analogous to their real home within a locality using a geo-imputation method. In this study, we assess the association between obesity and built environment by applying random property allocation (1).MethodsData from the Korean Community Health Survey (KCHS), which is the nationwide community-based cross-sectional survey conducted by 253 community health centers in South Korea, were used (2). More than 90000 subjects recruited in the capital city Seoul from 2011 to 2014. They were selected by two-step stratified random sampling (424 administrative communities with an average area of 1.16km2 and two house types) in each 25 counties. We re-allocated them randomly on the nested locality based on their community (administrative boundaries) and hose type (land-use) using GIS program (Figure 1). Surrounding built environment elements such as fast-food markets, driving roads, public transit and road-crosse were measured within 500m buffer from randomly allocated locations as density or distance. Variables associating obesity are measured by : 1) self-reported obesity (self-reported body mass index(BMI) ≥ 25) (Figure 2), 2) perceived obesity, 3) intention to weight control. We implemented logistic regression models to estimate the effect of physical environmental factors on obesity.ResultsThe person who lives in a detached house, nearer fast food markets or with higher driving road density was more likely to be obese. Who lives in a detached house was less perceived their obesity. Who lives in a detached house, nearer fast food markets or with higher driving road density was less likely to intend to control their body weights. Association between intention to weight control and accessibility to subway station showed marginal effect.ConclusionsUrban environments influenced individual's obesity, perception, and intention to weight loss. Since we used cross-sectional survey data, we do not account cumulative environmental influence. Moreover, individuals' self-selection of more healthier places were not accounted. Even though we did not measure the environment at individuals' real address, we can measure the effects of neighborhood environment more efficiently by using random property allocation.References1. Walter SR, Rose N. Random property allocation: A novel geographic imputation procedure based on a complete geocoded address file. Spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology. 2013;6:7-16. Epub 2013/08/27. doi: 10.1016/j.sste.2013.04.005. PubMed PMID: 23973177.2. Kim YT, Choi BY, Lee KO, Kim H, Chun JH, Kim SY, et al. Overview of Korean Community Health Survey. J Korean Med Assoc. 2012;55(1):74-83. (in Korean)

Historic-Archaeological Research of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milano on the Indus Delta (2010-2018). The following text is only an abridged note on the excavations at Banbhore and some significant extra-moenia surveys carried out by the Italian Team within the Institutional framework of a “Pak-French-Italian Historical and Archaeological Research at Banbhore” on the basis of a Licence issued by the competent Pakistani Authorities (2010-2015 - Coordinator of the Project Dr Kaleemullah Lashari), and, some later, within a new institutional asset: a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) signed in the 2017 between the Director General of the Department of Antiquities of Sindh (Manzoor A. Kanasro) and the Magnifico Rettore of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan (Prof. Franco Anelli). Aims of the said MoU are: (a) historical-archaeological research-work at Banbhore and Rani Kot; (b) training (theoretical and on the job) to selected students and officers of the DAS. The Italian group works under the sponsorship of the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs (now Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation/MAECI). Scientific director for the Italian Team is Prof. Valeria Piacentini, member of the Board of Directors of the Research Centre CRiSSMA of the Catholic University. In the following dissertation I won’t linger on the debated issue about the identification of the site of Banbhore with historic sites on the Indus delta (the historical Mihrān river) mentioned and described in the written sources of the past. Too many respected scholars and archaeologists have entered this debate since the end of the 19th Century, for which I refer to a well-known exhaustive literature. In the “50s of the previous century, Leslie Alckok – then official to the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan – carried out some preliminary excavations, followed by Dr Rafique Mughal and F.A. Khan. This latter carried out a systematic and extensive archaeological campaign of several years between the “50s and the “60s, well backed by one of the most authoritative Pakistani historians, N.A. Baloch. Khan brought to light extraordinary archaeological and architectural evidence, but, unfortunately, his excavation-notes have gone lost and little or nothing has been published. Thence, our research-work had to start from nothing. First of all and most urgent was an updated planimetric and altimetric study of the site by kite-photos: a massive wall of c. 1,4 km with 55 towers, 7 posterns, and major and secondary accesses to the citadel (2010-2012 by Y. Ubelman, S. Reynard, A. Tilia), regularly updated with advanced technologies (A. Tilia). Then, in collaboration with Dr M. Kervran, head of the French Team, we undertook an accurate study of the bastions and the shapes of its towers (squared, U-shaped, circular), which has brought to envisage three main occupational phases of the intra-moenia area: 1. Indo-Parthian/Indo-Kushan phase (c. III-II Century b.CE – III-IV Century CE); 2. Sasanian/Indo-Sasanian phase (c. III-IV Century – early VIII Century CE); 3. Islamic phase (VIII – XII/early XIII Century CE). Decay and/or abandonment and end of any settled life on the site can be dated around the XII-early XIII Century, due to attacks and pillaging by Turco-Mongol nomadic tribes, and/or the deviation of this branch of the Indus delta and consequent filling of the harbour, or both. Archaeological evidence come to light confirms the historical information. Our third aim (2010-2015) was to arrive to a first chronological panorama of the site through levels in stratigraphy and the assemblage of pottery and other significant evidence with the individual levels (N. Manassero – A. Fusaro – A. Tilia). Deep trenches were excavated (T/7 and T/9 on the Italian side; T/1 on the French side near the western portion of the bastions skirting the Hindu Temple. These brought to the very early Sasanian period or late Indo-Parthian (c. II-III Century CE), then the water-table invaded the trenches preventing us to go deeper; however, drillings (T/9) have allowed to go deeper for c.1,8 mt of shards …thus reaching a much earlier occupational phase. The question about an Hellenistic occupation at the bottom of the site (Arrian’s harbour of Alexander) is still unanswered… a dream…but the importance of Banbhore has induced to take it seriously and include it within our priorities. Ours and the French trenches have also produced significant information on the architectural panorama of the site for its earlier periods of life. A main N-S and E-W road axis was traced. The site was organised in insulae, each insula with its pits of organic and inorganic refusals, densely built along narrow roads by small mono-nuclear houses, roofed, bases in local stones and the elevation in unbacked bricks. Interesting the presence of refusals of some crafts, as if each building had at the same time the function of “home” and workshop. The refusals shew activities of ivory-working (T/1,T/4, T/9), and other crafts carried out “within the bastions of the citadel”, such as glass, shells and mother of pearl, alloys and various metallurgic activities, too, and so on. Significant the presence of a wealth of clay-moulds. T/5 has produced a clay-mould nearly intact in its shape. No less interesting, in the deeper layers, the presence of a well arranged organisation of the hydraulic resources (small canals, little domed cisterns in roughly cut local stones, wells..: T/9). One element of the site attracted our attention: the so called “Partition Wall”. It has a North-South direction; then, it bends Eastwards, including the Mosque and the Eastern lagoon, but cutting out the majestic Southern Gate. So far, it had been interpreted as a Wall that had a “religious” or “social” function to separate – after the Islamic conquest – the Muslims from the non-Muslim inhabitants of the site. Manassero dedicated the 2014 Field-Season to investigate: T/7 and T/8 were the trenches that gave a new profile to this structure and to the general occupational organisation of the citadel during its last period of life. The round-shaped tower in mud-bricks and the walls on both sides show that they had been hurriedly erected in a late phase of the life of the citadel (around the end of the X – early XI Century CE). They had been built on the top of pre-existing buildings either abandoned and collapsed or hastily flatted-down, likely to defend this eastern portion of the site and its Mosque by some human ravage that had succeeded to open a breach in the lower western bastion leaving the higher north-eastern area exposed to attacks (the skeleton found by Dr Kervran on her portion of the wall, and Khan’s skeletons with arrow-heads in their skulls and chests). According to F.A. Khan’s excavations and what he left us in his little booklet that so far – printed and re-printed – is the guide for visitors to Banbhore, in the eastern portion of the site during the latest stage of its life still stood beautiful palaces, the Friday Mosque, markets, and an eastern gate where a staircase (still in situ in the 2015) brought to a lagoon at the foot of the eastern bastions and to the river. At the end of this first stage of our historical and archaeological research-work, the identification of the site of Banbhore with the historic Sasanian/Indo-Sasanian fortified harbour-town seemed quite feasible. When we resumed our field-work in the 2017, we decided to go deeper in this direction. In the meantime, Dr Manassero had resigned due to personal choices of life. Dr Simone Mantellini bravely accepted to be our Field-Director for the archaeological sector. T/9 had unearthed an imposing Building (Building 1) running along the East-West road-axis, parallel to a second Building (Building 2). The road – wide about 5 meters – must have been a major road, that had played a central role within the general architectural urban asset of the site. Building 2 had the typical structure of the local houses: base in rough stones, elevation in mud-bricks. Excavations of Building 1 produced fillings well flatted and an endless chronological procession of floors in row mud, likely the re-occupation of an important palace during the last phase of the occupational life of Banbhore. The material (pottery and others) associated with the various levels in stratigraphy (Dr A. Fusaro) confirmed the dating of the dug portion from c. the early XIII to the XI Century CE. Historically speaking, it makes sense: chronicles of the time report about the invasion of Lower Sindh by the Seljuks (second half of the XI Century CE); they indulge on the assaults against the walls of its great harbour-town named Daybul, its long siege concluded with a peace-treaty that fixed the border with Makrān at Gwadar and gave to Daybul an autonomous status (nāḥiya) within the Seljuk dominion of Qāvurd-Khān ibn Chaghrī Beg. More interesting was the copious filling with ivory refusals. Along Building 2, were found semi-worked shells, glass, iron and brass rivets, iron instruments, alloys, coins and other. This induced to think to a late quarter of work-shops outside the Partition Wall, built on previous buildings. Lastly, some surveys extra-moenia and in the Lahiri Bandar and Mullah-ka Kot islands have revealed a close connection and interaction between these spaces and the citadel. Around the bastions: the remains of a densely settled area and a well organised regulation of the waters and the territory, rock quarries, urban quarters, dwellings, cairn-tombs (some of them re-used), an artificial lake of sweet water delimited to the south by a “barrage”, wells, and a vast so called “industrial area” to the north-northwest of the bastions, pottery kilns and others completed the image of a urban asset at least for a given span of time. Architectural and archaeological evidences have regularly been graphically, photographically and topographically documented (A. Tilia). Archaeometric analyses on the job (pottery, metals, alloys, coins…) and in Italy (ivory, glass, clay-moulds, shards…) have provided precious support and new elements to the archaeological work. We are now confronted with the plan of a positive shahristān. Banbhore is no longer only a fortified citadel. Written sources in Arabic and Persian confirm this feature. After the Jan.-Feb. 2018 field-season, the Islamic occupational phase of Banbhore and the “archaeological park” surrounding it enhanced this image: a positive fluvial and maritime system stemmed out, a well-fortified system and harbour-town, a centre of mercantile power, production and re-distribution of luxury goods, an international centre of pilgrimage and religious learning, too, outlet to the sea of the capital-city of the moment. For the forthcoming field-seasons, it was decided to concentrate the attention on the sector where the North-South axis crosses the East-West one. In particular: to further investigate Building 1; to look for the ivory-workshops that must be there around – given the copious pieces so far brought to light and used as refilling (more than 9.000 fragments) and some fragments of rough ivory (specialist of the Italian Team G. Affanni); to organise a deep-trench in the Pakistani sector (T/11), in order to resume Manassero’s investigations on the urban and architectural features of the pre-Islamic phases...and (why not?) try to overcome the water-table problem with the technological support offered by the Bahrya University of Karachi…the much dreamed quest of Alexander the Macedonian’s port. All in all and to conclude. Nowadays, at the end of this first stage of historical and archaeological research-work in collaboration with the DAS, the identification of the site of Banbhore and its surrounding area with the Sasanian/Indo-Sasanian and the Early-Islamic well-fortified harbour-town of Daybul/Debol can be confirmed. No other site with the characteristics described by the written sources of the time (chronicles, geographies, travelogues…plus Marco Polo and some significant Genoese archival documents) has so far come to light on the Indus deltaic region. Conversely, still un-answered are other queries: Banbhore can be identified also with the great harbour of Alexander the Macedonian? Or with the Barbaricum/Barbarikon/Barbariké, harbour-town of Parthian rulers or local lords of “Skuthia”, also mentioned in the Periplus Maris Erythraei? Or again with Dib/Deb, harbour mentioned in a Parthian-Manichaean text? Or again the Dibos of Greek sources? Or the Dêbuhl/Dêphul of an Arminian text à propos of the Prophet Mani? Wishful thinking; however, these queries represent some amongst the ambitious aims of our future research-work.

Despite the now-traditional tendency of noir scholarship to call attention to the retrospective and constructed nature of this genre— James Naremore argues that film noir is best regarded as a “mythology”— one feature that has rarely come under question is its association with the city (2). Despite the existence of numerous rural noirs, the depiction of urban space is associated with this genre more consistently than any other element. Even in critical accounts that attempt to deconstruct the solidity of the noir genre, the city is left as an implicit inclusion, and the country, an implict exclusion. Naremore, for example, does not include the urban environment in a list of the central tenets of film noir that he calls into question: “nothing links together all the things described as noir—not the theme of crime, not a cinematographic technique, not even a resistance to Aristotelian narratives or happy endings” (10). Elizabeth Cowie identifies film noir a “fantasy,” whose “tenuous critical status” has been compensated for “by a tenacity of critical use” (121). As part of Cowie’s project, to revise the assumption that noirs are almost exclusively male-centered, she cites character types, visual style, and narrative tendencies, but never urban spaces, as familiar elements of noir that ought to be reconsidered. If the city is rarely tackled as an unnecessary or part-time element of film noir in discursive studies, it is often the first trait identified by critics in the kind of formative, characteristic-compiling studies that Cowie and Naremore work against.Andrew Dickos opens Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir with a list of noir’s key attributes. The first item is “an urban setting or at least an urban influence” (6). Nicholas Christopher maintains that “the city is the seedbed of film noir. […] However one tries to define or explain noir, the common denominator must always be the city. The two are inseparable” (37). Though the tendencies of noir scholars— both constructive and deconstructive— might lead readers to believe otherwise, rural locations figure prominently in a number of noir films. I will show that the noir genre is, indeed, flexible enough to encompass many films set predominantly or partly in rural locations. Steve Neale, who encourages scholars to work with genre terms familiar to original audiences, would point out that the rural noir is an academic discovery not an industry term, or one with much popular currency (166). Still, this does not lessen the critical usefulness of this subgenre, or its implications for noir scholarship.While structuralist and post-structuralist modes of criticism dominated film genre criticism in the 1970s and 80s, as Thomas Schatz has pointed out, these approaches often sacrifice close attention to film texts, for more abstract, high-stakes observations: “while there is certainly a degree to which virtually every mass-mediated cultural artifact can be examined from [a mythical or ideological] perspective, there appears to be a point at which we tend to lose sight of the initial object of inquiry” (100). Though my reading of these films sidesteps attention to social and political concerns, this article performs the no-less-important task of clarifying the textual features of this sub-genre. To this end, I will survey the tendencies of the rural noir more generally, mentioning more than ten films that fit this subgenre, before narrowing my analysis to a reading of Moonrise (Frank Borzage, 1948), Thieves’ Highway (Jules Dassin, 1949), They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1949) and On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952). Robert Mitchum tries to escape his criminal life by settling in a small, mountain-side town in Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947). A foggy marsh provides a dramatic setting for the Bonnie and Clyde-like demise of lovers on the run in Gun Crazy (Joseph Lewis, 1950). In The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950), Sterling Hayden longs to return home after he is forced to abandon his childhood horse farm for a life of organised crime in the city. Rob Ryan plays a cop unable to control his violent impulses in On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952). He is re-assigned from New York City to a rural community up-state in hopes that a less chaotic environment will have a curative effect. The apple orchards of Thieves’ Highway are no refuge from networks of criminal corruption. In They Live By Night, a pair of young lovers, try to leave their criminal lives behind, hiding out in farmhouses, cabins, and other pastoral locations in the American South. Finally, the location of prisons explains a number of sequences set in spare, road-side locations such as those in The Killer is Loose (Budd Boetticher, 1956), The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953), and Raw Deal (Anthony Mann, 1948). What are some common tendencies of the rural noir? First, they usually feature both rural and urban settings, which allows the portrayal of one to be measured against the other. What we see of the city structures the definition of the country, and vice versa. Second, the lead character moves between these two locations by driving. For criminals, the car is more essential for survival in the country than in the city, so nearly all rural noirs are also road movies. Third, nature often figures as a redemptive force for urbanites steeped in lives of crime. Fourth, the curative quality of the country is usually tied to a love interest in this location: the “nurturing woman” as defined by Janey Place, who encourages the protagonist to forsake his criminal life (60). Fifth, the country is never fully crime-free. In The Killer is Loose, for example, an escaped convict’s first victim is a farmer, whom he clubs before stealing his truck. The convict (Wendell Corey), then, easily slips through a motorcade with the farmer’s identification. Here, the sprawling countryside provides an effective cover for the killer. This farmland is not an innocent locale, but the criminal’s safety-net. In films where a well-intentioned lead attempts to put his criminal life behind him by moving to a remote location, urban associates have little trouble tracking him down. While the country often appears, to protagonists like Jeff in Out of the Past or Bowie in They Live By Night, as an ideal place to escape from crime, as these films unfold, violence reaches the countryside. If these are similar points, what are some differences among rural noirs? First, there are many differences by degree among the common elements listed above. For instance, some rural noirs present their location with unabashed romanticism, while others critique the idealisation of these locations; some “nurturing women” are complicit with criminal activity, while others are entirely innocent. Second, while noir films are commonly known for treating similar urban locations, Los Angeles in particular, these films feature a wide variety of locations: Out of the Past and Thieves’ Highway take place in California, the most common setting for rural noirs, but On Dangerous Ground is set in northern New England, They Live by Night takes place in the Depression-era South, Moonrise in Southern swampland, and the most dynamic scene of The Asphalt Jungle is in rural Kentucky. Third, these films also vary considerably in the balance of settings. If the three typical locations of the rural noir are the country, the city, and the road, the distribution of these three locations varies widely across these films. The location of The Asphalt Jungle matches the title until its dramatic conclusion. The Hitch-hiker, arguably a rural noir, is set in travelling cars, with just brief stops in the barren landscape outside. Two of the films I analyse, They Live By Night and Moonrise are set entirely in the country; a remarkable exception to the majority of films in this subgenre. There are only two other critical essays on the rural noir. In “Shadows in the Hinterland: Rural Noir,” Jonathan F. Bell contextualises the rural noir in terms of post-war transformations of the American landscape. He argues that these films express a forlorn faith in the agrarian myth while the U.S. was becoming increasingly developed and suburbanised. That is to say, the rural noir simultaneously reflects anxiety over the loss of rural land, but also the stubborn belief that the countryside will always exist, if the urbanite needs it as a refuge. Garry Morris suggests the following equation as the shortest way to state the thematic interest of this genre: “Noir = industrialisation + (thwarted) spirituality.” He attributes much of the malaise of noir protagonists to the inhospitable urban environment, “far from [society’s] pastoral and romantic and spiritual origins.” Where Bell focuses on nine films— Detour (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Out of the Past (1947), Key Largo (1948), Gun Crazy (1949), On Dangerous Ground (1952), The Hitch-Hiker (1953), Split Second (1953), and Killer’s Kiss (1955)— Morris’s much shorter article includes just The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Gun Crazy. Of the four films I discuss, only On Dangerous Ground has previously been treated as part of this subgenre, though it has never been discussed alongside Nicholas Ray’s other rural noir. To further the development of the project that these authors have started— the formation of a rural noir corpus— I propose the inclusion of three additional films in this subgenre: Moonrise (1948), They Live by Night (1949), and Thieves’ Highway (1949). With both On Dangerous Ground and They Live by Night to his credit, Nicholas Ray has the distinction of being the most prolific director of rural noirs. In They Live by Night, two young lovers, Bowie (Farley Granger) and Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), attempt to escape from their established criminal lives. Twenty-three year old Bowie has just been released from juvenile prison and finds rural Texas refreshing: “Out here, the air smells different,” he says. He meets Keechie through her father, a small time criminal organiser who would be happy to keep her secluded for life. When one of Bowie’s accomplices, Chicamaw (Howard DaSilva), shoots a policeman after a robbing a bank with Bowie, the young couple is forced to run. Foster Hirsch calls They Live by Night “a genre rarity, a sentimental noir” (34). The naïve blissfulness of their affection is associated with the primitive settings they navigate. Though Bowie and Keechie are the most sympathetic protagonists of any rural noir, this is no safeguard against an inevitable, characteristically noir demise. Janey Place writes, “the young lovers are doomed, but the possibility of their love transcends and redeems them both, and its failure criticises the urbanised world that will not let them live” (63). As indicated here, the country offers the young lovers refuge for some time, and their bond is depicted as wonderfully strong, but it is doomed by the stronger force of the law.Raymond Williams discusses how different characteristics are associated with urban and rural spaces:On the country has gathered the idea of a natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue. On the city has gathered the idea of an achieved center: of learning, communication, light. Powerful hostile associations have also developed: on the city as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition; on the country as a place of backwardness, ignorance, limitation. (1) They Live By Night breaks down these dichotomies, showing the persistence of crime rooted in rural areas.Bowie desires to “get squared around” and live a more natural life with Keechie. Williams’ country adjectives— “peace, innocence, and simple virtue”— describe the nature of this relationship perfectly. Yet, criminal activity, usually associated with the city, has an overwhelmingly strong presence in this region and their lives. Bowie, following the doomed logic of many a crime film character, plans to launch a new, more honest life with cash raised in a heist. Keechie recognises the contradictions in this plan: “Fine way to get squared around, teaming with them. Stealing money and robbing banks. You’ll get in so deep trying to get squared, they’ll have enough to keep you in for two life times.” For Bowie, crime and the pursuit of love are inseparably bound, refuting the illusion of the pure and innocent countryside personified by characters like Mary Malden in On Dangerous Ground and Ann Miller in Out of the Past.In Ray’s other rural noir, On Dangerous Ground, a lonely, angry, and otherwise burned out cop, Wilson (Rob Ryan), finds both love and peace in his time away from the city. While on his up-state assignment, Wilson meets Mary Walden (Ida Lupino), a blind woman who lives a secluded life miles away from this already desolate, rural community. Mary has a calming influence on Wilson, and fits well within Janey Place’s notion of the archetypal nurturing woman in film noir: “The redemptive woman often represents or is part of a primal connection with nature and/or with the past, which are safe, static states rather than active, exciting ones, but she can sometimes offer the only transcendence possible in film noir” (63).If, as Colin McArthur observes, Ray’s characters frequently seek redemption in rural locales— “[protagonists] may reject progress and modernity; they may choose to go or are sent into primitive areas. […] The journeys which bring them closer to nature may also offer them hope of salvation” (124) — the conclusions of On Dangerous Ground versus They Live By Night offer two markedly different resolutions to this narrative. Where Bowie and Keechie’s life on the lam cannot be sustained, On Dangerous Ground, against the wishes of its director, portrays a much more romanticised version of pastoral life. According to Andrew Dickos, “Ray wanted to end the film on the ambivalent image of Jim Wilson returning to the bleak city,” after he had restored order up-state (132). The actual ending is more sentimental. Jim rushes back north to be with Mary. They passionately kiss in close-up, cueing an exuberant orchestral score as The End appears over a slow tracking shot of the majestic, snow covered landscape. In this way, On Dangerous Ground overturns the usual temporal associations of rural versus urban spaces. As Raymond Williams identifies, “The common image of the country is now an image of the past, and the common image of the city an image of the future” (297). For Wilson, by contrast, city life was no longer sustainable and rurality offers his best means for a future. Leo Marx noted in a variety of American pop culture, from Mark Twain to TV westerns and magazine advertising, a “yearning for a simpler, more harmonious style of life, and existence ‘closer to nature,’ that is the psychic root of all pastoralism— genuine and spurious” (Marx 6). Where most rural noirs expose the agrarian myth as a fantasy and a sham, On Dangerous Ground, exceptionally, perpetuates it as actual and effectual. Here, a bad cop is made good with a few days spent in a sparsely populated area and with a woman shaped by her rural upbringing.As opposed to On Dangerous Ground, where the protagonist’s movement from city to country matches his split identity as a formerly corrupt man wishing to be pure, Frank Borzage’s B-film Moonrise (1948) is located entirely in rural or small-town locations. Set in the fictional Southern town of Woodville, which spans swamps, lushly wooded streets and aging Antebellum mansions, the lead character finds good and bad within the same rural location and himself. Dan (Dane Clark) struggles to escape his legacy as the son of a murderer. This conflict is irreparably heightened when Dan kills a man (who had repeatedly teased and bullied him) in self-defence. The instability of Dan’s moral compass is expressed in the way he treats innocent elements of the natural world: flies, dogs, and, recalling Out of the Past, a local deaf boy. He is alternately cruel and kind. Dan is finally redeemed after seeking the advice of a black hermit, Mose (Rex Ingram), who lives in a ramshackle cabin by the swamp. He counsels Dan with the advice that men turn evil from “being lonesome,” not for having “bad blood.” When Dan, eventually, decides to confess to his crime, the sheriff finds him tenderly holding a search hound against a bucolic, rural backdrop. His complete comfortability with the landscape and its creatures finally allows Dan to reconcile the film’s opening opposition. He is no longer torturously in between good and evil, but openly recognises his wrongs and commits to do good in the future. If I had to select just a single shot to illustrate that noirs are set in rural locations more often than most scholarship would have us believe, it would be the opening sequence of Moonrise. From the first shot, this film associates rural locations with criminal elements. The credit sequence juxtaposes pooling water with an ominous brass score. In this disorienting opening, the camera travels from an image of water, to a group of men framed from the knees down. The camera dollies out and pans left, showing that these men, trudging solemnly, are another’s legal executioners. The frame tilts upward and we see a man hung in silhouette. This dense shot is followed by an image of a baby in a crib, also shadowed, the water again, and finally the execution scene. If this sequence is a thematic montage, it can also be discussed, more simply, as a series of establishing shots: a series of images that, seemingly, could not be more opposed— a baby, a universal symbol of innocence, set against the ominous execution, cruel experience— are paired together by virtue of their common location. The montage continues, showing that the baby is the son of the condemned man. As Dan struggles with the legacy of his father throughout the film, this opening shot continues to inform our reading of this character, split between the potential for good or evil.What a baby is to Moonrise, or, to cite a more familiar reference, what the insurance business is to many a James M. Cain roman noir, produce distribution is to Jules Dassin’s Thieves’ Highway (1949). The apple, often a part of wholesome American myths, is at the centre of this story about corruption. Here, a distribution network that brings Americans this hearty, simple product is connected with criminal activity and violent abuses of power more commonly portrayed in connection with cinematic staples of organised crime such as bootlegging or robbery. This film portrays bad apples in the apple business, showing that no profit driven enterprise— no matter how traditional or rural— is beyond the reach of corruption.Fitting the nature of this subject, numerous scenes in the Dassin film take place in the daylight (in addition to darkness), and in the countryside (in addition to the city) as we move between wine and apple country to the market districts of San Francisco. But if the subject and setting of Thieves’ Highway are unusual for a noir, the behaviour of its characters is not. Spare, bright country landscapes form the backdrop for prototypical noir behaviour: predatory competition for money and power.As one would expect of a film noir, the subject of apple distribution is portrayed with dynamic violence. In the most exciting scene of the film, a truck careens off the road after a long pursuit from rival sellers. Apples scatter across a hillside as the truck bursts into flames. This scene is held in a long-shot, as unscrupulous thugs gather the produce for sale while the unfortunate driver burns to death. Here, the reputedly innocent American apple is subject to cold-blooded, profit-maximizing calculations as much as the more typical topics of noir such as blackmail, fraud, or murder. Passages on desolate roads and at apple orchards qualify Thieves’ Highway as a rural noir; the dark, cynical manner in which capitalist enterprise is treated is resonant with nearly all film noirs. Thieves’ Highway follows a common narrative pattern amongst rural noirs to gradually reveal rural spaces as connected to criminality in urban locations. Typically, this disillusioning fact is narrated from the perspective of a lead character who first has a greater sense of safety in rural settings but learns, over the course of the story, to be more wary in all locations. In Thieves’, Nick’s hope that apple-delivery might earn an honest dollar (he is the only driver to treat the orchard owners fairly) gradually gives way to an awareness of the inevitable corruption that has taken over this enterprise at all levels of production, from farmer, to trucker, to wholesaler, and thus, at all locations, the country, the road, and the city.Between this essay, and the previous work of Morris and Bell on the subject, we are developing a more complete survey of the rural noir. Where Bell’s and Morris’s essays focus more resolutely on rural noirs that relied on the contrast of the city versus the country— which, significantly, was the first tendency of this subgenre that I observed— Moonrise and They Live By Night demonstrate that this genre can work entirely apart from the city. From start to finish, these films take place in small towns and rural locations. As opposed to Out of the Past, On Dangerous Ground, or The Asphalt Jungle, characters are never pulled back to, nor flee from, an urban life of crime. Instead, vices that are commonly associated with the city have a free-standing life in the rural locations that are often thought of as a refuge from these harsh elements. If both Bell and Morris study the way that rural noirs draw differences between the city and country, two of the three films I add to the subgenre constitute more complete rural noirs, films that work wholly outside urban locations, not just in contrast with it. Bell, like me, notes considerable variety in rural noirs locations, “desert landscapes, farms, mountains, and forests all qualify as settings for consideration,” but he also notes that “Diverse as these landscapes are, this set of films uses them in surprisingly like-minded fashion to achieve a counterpoint to the ubiquitous noir city” (219). In Bell’s analysis, all nine films he studies, feature significant urban segments. He is, in fact, so inclusive as to discuss Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss as a rural noir even though it does not contain a single frame shot or set outside of New York City. Rurality is evoked only as a possibility, as alienated urbanite Davy (Jamie Smith) receives letters from his horse-farm-running relatives. Reading these letters offers Davy brief moments of respite from drudgerous city spaces such as the subway and his cramped apartment. In its emphasis on the centrality of rural locations, my project is more similar to David Bell’s work on the rural in horror films than to Jonathan F. Bell’s work on the rural noir. David Bell analyses the way that contemporary horror films work against a “long tradition” of the “idyllic rural” in many Western texts (95). As opposed to works “from Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman to contemporary television shows like Northern Exposure and films such as A River Runs Through It or Grand Canyon” in which the rural is positioned as “a restorative to urban anomie,” David Bell analyses films such as Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that depict “a series of anti-idyllic visions of the rural” (95). Moonrise and They Live By Night, like these horror films, portray the crime and the country as coexistent spheres at the same time that the majority of other popular culture, including noirs like Killer’s Kiss or On Dangerous Ground, portray them as mutually exclusive.To use a mode of generic analysis developed by Rick Altman, the rural noir, while preserving the dominant syntax of other noirs, presents a remarkably different semantic element (31). Consider the following description of the genre, from the introduction to Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide: “The darkness that fills the mirror of the past, which lurks in a dark corner or obscures a dark passage out of the oppressively dark city, is not merely the key adjective of so many film noir titles but the obvious metaphor for the condition of the protagonist’s mind” (Silver and Ward, 4). In this instance, the narrative elements, or syntax, of film noir outlined by Silver and Ward do not require revision, but the urban location, a semantic element, does. Moonrise and They Live By Night demonstrate the sustainability of the aforementioned syntactic elements— the dark, psychological experience of the leads and their inescapable criminal past— apart from the familiar semantic element of the city.The rural noir must also cause us to reconsider— beyond rural representations or film noir— more generally pitched genre theories. Consider the importance of place to film genre, the majority of which are defined by a typical setting: for melodramas, it is the family home, for Westerns, the American west, and for musicals, the stage. Thomas Schatz separates American genres according to their setting, between genres which deal with “determinate” versus “indeterminate” space:There is a vital distinction between kinds of generic settings and conflicts. Certain genres […] have conflicts that, indigenous to the environment, reflect the physical and ideological struggle for its control. […] Other genres have conflicts that are not indigenous to the locale but are the results of the conflict between the values, attitudes, and actions of its principal characters and the ‘civilised’ setting they inhabit. (26) Schatz discusses noirs, along with detective films, as films which trade in “determinate” settings, limited to the space of the city. The rural noir slips between Schatz’s dichotomy, moving past the space of the city, but not into the civilised, tame settings of the genres of “indeterminate spaces.” It is only fitting that a genre whose very definition lies in its disruption of Hollywood norms— trading high- for low-key lighting, effectual male protagonists for helpless ones, and a confident, coherent worldview for a more paranoid, unstable one would, finally, be able to accommodate a variation— the rural noir— that would seem to upset one of its central tenets, an urban locale. Considering the long list of Hollywood standards that film noirs violated, according to two of its original explicators, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton— “a logical action, an evident distinction between good and evil, well-defined characters with clear motives, scenes that are more spectacular than brutal, a heroine who is exquisitely feminine and a hero who is honest”— it should, perhaps, not be so surprising that the genre is flexible enough to accommodate the existence of the rural noir after all (14). AcknowledgmentsIn addition to M/C Journal's anonymous readers, the author would like to thank Corey Creekmur, Mike Slowik, Barbara Steinson, and Andrew Gorman-Murray for their helpful suggestions. ReferencesAltman, Rick. “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 27-41.The Asphalt Jungle. Dir. John Huston. MGM/UA, 1950.Bell, David. “Anti-Idyll: Rural Horror.” Contested Countryside Cultures. Eds. Paul Cloke and Jo Little. London, Routledge, 1997. 94-108.Bell, Jonathan F. “Shadows in the Hinterland: Rural Noir.” Architecture and Film. Ed. Mark Lamster. New York: Princeton Architectural P, 2000. 217-230.Borde, Raymond and Etienne Chaumeton. A Panorama of American Film Noir. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002.Christopher, Nicholas. Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.Cowie, Elizabeth. “Film Noir and Women.” Shades of Noir. Ed. Joan Copjec. New York: Verso, 1993. 121-166.Dickos, Andrew. Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2002.Hirsch, Foster. Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir. New York: Limelight Editions, 1999.Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden. New York: Oxford UP, 1964.McArthur, Colin. Underworld U.S.A. London: BFI, 1972.Moonrise. Dir. Frank Borzage. Republic, 1948.Morris, Gary. “Noir Country: Alien Nation.” Bright Lights Film Journal Nov. 2006. 13. Jun. 2008 http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/54/noircountry.htm Muller, Eddie. Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1998.Naremore, James. More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. Berkeley, C.A.: U of California P, 2008.Neale, Steve. “Questions of Genre.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 160-184.On Dangerous Ground. Dir. Nicholas Ray. RKO, 1951.Out of the Past. Dir. Jacques Tourneur. RKO, 1947.Place, Janey. “Women in Film Noir.” Women in Film Noir. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. London: BFI, 1999. 47-68.Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres. New York: Random House, 1981.Schatz, Thomas. “The Structural Influence: New Directions in Film Genre Study.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 92-102.Silver, Alain and Elizabeth Ward. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. London: Bloomsbury, 1980.They Live by Night. Dir. Nicholas Ray. RKO, 1949.Thieves’ Highway. Dir. Jules Dassin. Fox, 1949.Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.