Books on the topic 'Near well region'

It is a well-known fact that organized crime has developed into an international network that, spanning from the simple ‘grave diggers’ up to powerful and wealthy white-collar professionals, makes use of money laundering, fraud and forgery. This criminal chain, ultimately, damages and dissipates our cultural identity and, in some cases, even fosters terrorism or civil unrest through the illicit trafficking of cultural property.The forms of ‘possession’ of Cultural Heritage are often blurred; depending on the national legislation of reference, the ownership and trade of historical and artistic assets of value may be legitimate or not. Criminals have always exploited these ambiguities and managed to place on the Art and Antiquities market items resulting from destruction or looting of museums, monuments and archaeological areas. Thus, over the years, even the most renowned museum institutions have - more or less consciously - hosted in their showcases cultural objects of illicit origin. Looting, thefts, illicit trade, and clandestine exports are phenomena that affect especially those countries rich in historical and artistic assets. That includes Italy, which has seen its cultural heritage plundered over the centuries ending up in public and private collections worldwide.This edited volume features ten papers authored by international experts and professionals actively involved in Cultural Heritage protection. Drawing from the experience of the Conference Stolen Heritage (Venice, December 2019), held in the framework of the NETCHER project, the book focuses on illicit trafficking in Cultural Property under a multidisciplinary perspective.The articles look at this serious issue and at connected crimes delving into a variety of fields. The essays especially expand on European legislation regulating import, export, trade and restitution of cultural objects; conflict antiquities and cultural heritage at risk in the Near and Middle East; looting activities and illicit excavations in Italy; the use of technologies to counter looting practices.The volume closes with two papers specifically dedicated to the thorny ethical issues arising from the publication of unprovenanced archaeological objects, and the relevance of accurate communication and openness about such topics.

Birds of the Darwin Region is the first comprehensive treatment of the avifauna of Darwin, a city located in Australia's monsoon tropics, where seasons are defined by rainfall rather than by temperature. With its mangrove-lined bays and creeks, tidal mudflats, monsoon rainforests, savanna woodlands and freshwater lagoons, Darwin has retained all of its original habitats in near-pristine condition, and is home or host to 323 bird species. Unlike other Australian cities, it has no established exotic bird species. Following an introduction to the history of ornithology in the region and a detailed appraisal of its avifauna, species accounts describe the habitats, relative abundance, behaviour, ecology and breeding season of 258 regularly occurring species, based on over 500 fully referenced sources, and original observations by the authors. Distribution maps and charts of the seasonality of each species are presented, based on a dataset comprising almost 120,000 records, one-third of which were contributed by the authors. Stunning colour photographs adorn the accounts of most species, including some of the 65 species considered as vagrants to the region. This book is a must-read for professional ornithologists and amateur birders, and an indispensable reference for local biologists, teachers and students, and government and non-government environmental agencies, as well as other people who just like to watch birds.

From the seventh century onwards the population of the Near East gradually became Muslim. Nevertheless, other religious communities continued to exist, maintaining an enduring presence in the region, despite being surrounded by Muslims and by people becoming Muslims. This book argues that the causes that led to the conversion of most of the Holy Land’s population, as well as the survival of some religious communities, are essentially social and geographic in nature, rather than theological, and that two parallel processes were the main catalysts of Islamization: de-urbanization and urbanization.

A thorough examination of the nation of Saudi Arabia, focusing on the current state of affairs and potential future challenges. Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region provides a comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of Saudi Arabia's strategic security efforts, both within the country and as a stabilizing regional presence. In this meticulously researched book, acclaimed geopolitical scholar Anthony Cordesman, well-known for his role as ABC News's national security analyst, takes readers inside the Saudi security structure for an unprecedented look at its internal and external forces, policymaking, and careful balancing of regional and East/West relationships. In Saudi Arabia, Anthony Cordesman shows how the Kingdom is responding to an unstable Iraq, a potentially nuclear Iran, the needs of its fellow Southern Gulf states, and the ongoing threat of terrorism inside its borders. Cordesman also considers a number of socioeconomic and demographic factors that could bring dramatic changes within the Kingdom in the near future. Nonpartisan, unbiased, and based on the author's unparalleled access to high profile Saudi officials, the book offers a level of expertise and insight no other consideration of the subject can match.

The USA is still the only power with the capability to have a major impact—for better or for worse—on the security orders in all major geographical regions of the world, most notably the Near/Middle East, East Asia, and Europe. A review of the major dynamics in regional orders shows that seven decades of American hegemony have always been short of the liberal ideal-type expectations—well before Donald Trump entered the scene. However, the Trump administration sees the international and regional security orders primarily as arenas for power competition in which economic and military might are the most relevant currencies. While the erosion of regional security orders is not primarily the result of the deeds and omissions in Washington, the missing liberal hegemon will make it much harder to reverse the trend and to rebuild these orders from within and from the outside.

This paper summarizes some of the main results that have been obtained through the archaeozoological study of the large Cypriot Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Shillourokambos, dated between 8300 and 7000 cal bc. It shows how the presence of the archaeozoologists in the field, as well as an original faunal-based critical approach of the relative chronology of the different phases of occupation of this site, can improve the quality of the archaeozoological contribution to the cultural history of the region. Special attention is also paid to the osteometric study of sexually dimorphic ungulates. The results concern the evolution of the system of exploitation of the animal resources during this important phase of the Near Eastern Neolithic transition. They also evidence the long-distance exchanges between early Neolithic villages and they indirectly document the early history of navigation in the eastern Mediterranean.

It is found experimentally that all the components of fluid velocity (not just thenormal component) vanish at a wall. No matter how small the viscosity, the large velocity gradients near a wall invalidate Euler’s equations. Prandtl proposed that viscosity has negligible effect except near a thin region near a wall. Prandtl’s equations simplify the Navier-Stokes equation in this boundary layer, by ignoring one dimension. They have an unusual scale invariance in which the distances along the boundary and perpendicular to it have different dimensions. Using this symmetry, Blasius reduced Prandtl’s equations to one dimension. They can then be solved numerically. A convergent analytic approximation was also found by H. Weyl. The drag on a flat plate can now be derived, resolving d’Alembert’s paradox. When the boundary is too long, Prandtl’s theory breaks down: the boundary layer becomes turbulent or separates from the wall.

Brucellosis has been successfully controlled and eliminated in a number of countries by effective, well managed vaccination and test-slaughter strategies. Their cost was essentially borne by national governments including the cost of acceptable compensation for culled animals. Brucellosis is, however, endemically persisting in livestock and causing human disease in the Mediterranean region, Africa, the Near East and Central America and is re-emerging as a major preventable disease in countries of the former Soviet Union and Mongolia. There has been significant progress in knowledge of the molecular biology of Brucellosis and with new antibiotics for the treatment of human cases. Significantly more efficacious and safe animal vaccines in terms of reduction of transmission are still lacking. Control strategies that have been successful in Western countries are not directly applicable to low income and transition countries because their national governments do not have the finance to compensate farmers and lack the technical capacity for effective control campaigns. However, new staged control approaches in developing economies are proving effective.

The second half of the seventh millennium BC saw the demise of the previously affluent and dynamic Neolithic way of life. The period is marked by significant social and economic transformations of local communities, as manifested in a new spatial organization, patterns of architecture, burial practices, and in chipped stone and pottery manufacture. This volume has three foci. The first concerns the character of these changes in different parts of the Near East with a view to placing them in a broader comparative perspective. The second concerns the social and ideological changes that took place at the end of Neolithic and the beginning of the Chalcolithic that help to explain the disintegration of constitutive principles binding the large centers, the emergence of a new social system, as well as the consequences of this process for the development of full-fledged farming communities in the region and beyond. The third concerns changes in lifeways: subsistence strategies, exploitation of the environment, and, in particular, modes of procurement, consumption, and distribution of different resources.

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture offers a wide-ranging introduction to the richness and diversity of the arts in the Byzantine world. It includes thirty-eight essays by an international roster of authors, from prominent researchers to emerging scholars, on various issues and media. Discussions consider art created for religious purposes, to enhance and beautify the Orthodox liturgy and worship space, as well as art made to serve in royal and domestic contexts. While the Byzantine period is defined as the years 330–1453 ce, some chapters treat the aftermath and influence of Byzantine art on later periods. Arts covered include buildings and objects from the Eastern Mediterranean region, including Italy, the Balkans, Russia, and the Near East. The volume brings together object-based considerations of themes and monuments that form the backbone of art history, with considerations drawing on many different methodologies—sociology, semiotics, anthropology, archaeology, reception theory, deconstruction theory, among others—all in an up-to-date synthesis of scholarship on Byzantine art and architecture. The handbook is a comprehensive overview of a rich field of study, offering a window into the world of this distinct and fascinating period of art.

Empires of Antiquities is a history of the rediscovery of the imperial civilizations of the ancient Near East in a modern imperial order that evolved between the outbreak of the First World War and the decolonization of the British Empire in the 1950s. It explores the ways in which near eastern antiquity was redefined and experienced, becoming the subject of imperial regulation, modes of enquiry, and international and national politics. A series of globally publicized spectacular archaeological discoveries in Iraq, Egypt, and Palestine, which the book follows, made antiquity material visible and accessible as never before. The book demonstrates that the new definition and uses of antiquity and their relations to modernity were inseparable from the emergence of the post-war international imperial order, transnational collaboration and crises, the aspirations of national groups, and collisions between them and the British mandatories. It uniquely combines a history of the internationalization of archaeology and the rise of a new “regime of antiquities” under the oversight of the League of Nations and its institutions, a history of British attitudes to, and passion for, near eastern antiquity and on-the-ground colonial policies and mechanisms, as well as nationalist claims on the past. It points to the centrality of the new mandate system, particularly mandates classified A in Mesopotamia/Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan, formerly governed by the Ottoman Empire, and of Egypt, in the new archaeological regime. Drawing on an unusually wide range of materials collected in archives in six countries, as well as on material and visual evidence, the book weaves together imperial, international, and national histories, and the history of archaeological discovery which it connects to imperial modernity.

This chapter begins with the Black Death’s well-studied social toxins—the flagellant movement and the burning of Jews. It shows them not as the near-universal consequences of the plague, as often assumed, but confined to certain regions of Europe and almost exclusively described by chroniclers in German-speaking regions. The chapter concentrates on a less dramatic but more diffused horror described by Black Death commentators—the cruel abandonment of loved ones and the flight of trusted professionals. By examining a large body of contemporary texts, it challenges the orthodoxy that these assessments were literary devices to enhance the Black Death’s drama. More remarkable is how swiftly these horrors disappeared with subsequent waves of pestilence through the Renaissance. Instead of dividing societies as in 1348, processions and flagellant movements, such as the Bianchi, unified communities across sex, city and countryside, and social class in peace movements to eradicate litigation and factional conflict.

This unique and fascinating volume features every type of deity from every culture in all regions of the world, from prehistory to the present. Guide to the Godsfeatures the familiar gods and goddesses of the ancient Near East, as well as those of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas: deities associated with creation, with the heavens, with the earth, with the weather, and with nearly every aspect of human life-from love, sex, marriage, and economic endeavors to prophecy, ritual, magic, and healing. The deities are categorized by function and attribute, and entries are alphabetized within each category. Every entry includes at least one citation to a printed primary or secondary source. Guide to the Godsrepresents a major contribution to the fields of anthropology, religious studies, and folklore. Students, scholars, researchers, and writers will find it an invaluable research tool. This work is an entertaining and important reference source that will be a necessary addition to public, academic, and school library collections.

In the spring of 1996 a young girl from the Uzbek-majority city of Shibirghan was killed in mysterious circumstances. Strange phenomena soon started to occur next to Bibi Nushin’s burial place, suggesting that the deceased was of exceptional spiritual rank. Within a few weeks her burial place had been turned into a major pilgrimage site, attracting the sick, needy, deprived and persecuted from near and far. From 1996 to 2006, Shibirghan therefore witnessed a phenomenon that many local people interpreted as the emergence of a new Muslim saint for troubled times. However, at the same time, the spiritual rank of Bibi Nushin was heavily contested for political as well as religious reasons, not least through the influence of local warlords and strongmen. This chapter examines these developments in relation to regional varieties of Islam and women’s religiosity in the brutal contexts of a warlord society.

The clinical presentation of myocarditis is multifaceted and electrocardiogram (ECG) changes as well as biomarkers tend to be non-specific. Therefore, the diagnosis of myocarditis can be challenging and should be based on an integrated approach including patient history, physical examination, non-invasive tests such as ECG and serum biomarkers, and non-invasive cardiac imaging. As myocarditis may lead to global ventricular dysfunction, regional wall motion abnormalities, and/or diastolic dysfunction, echocardiography should be routinely performed. However, hallmarks of acute myocarditis comprise structural changes such as cardiomyocyte swelling, an increase in extracellular space and water content, accumulation of inflammatory cells, potential necrosis or apoptosis of cardiomyocytes, and myocardial remodelling with fibrotic tissue replacement that can be depicted by cardiovascular magnetic resonance. Nuclear techniques are still not routinely recommended for the work-up of myocarditis—with the possible exception of suspected sarcoidosis—due to limited data, limited diagnostic specificity, limited availability, and risk from radiation exposure. This chapter focuses on those non-invasive cardiac imaging techniques that are used in daily clinical practice for work-up of suspected myocarditis. However, as research continues and novel imaging techniques become available, it is hoped that even more accurate and timely diagnosis of myocarditis will be possible in the near future.

This publication, jointly sponsored by the FAO, IAEA, ICAO, ILO, IMO, INTERPOL, OECD/NEA, PAHO, CTBTO, UNEP, OCHA, WHO and WMO, is the new edition establishing the requirements for preparedness and response for a nuclear or radiological emergency which takes into account the latest experience and developments in the area. It supersedes the previous edition of the Safety Requirements for emergency preparedness and response, Safety Standards Series No. GS-R-2, which was published in 2002. This publication establishes the requirements for ensuring an adequate level of preparedness and response for a nuclear or radiological emergency, irrespective of its cause. These Safety Requirements are intended to be used by governments, emergency response organizations, other authorities at the local, regional and national levels, operating organizations and the regulatory body as well as by relevant international organizations at the international level.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more than a local or regional dispute. Its ongoing and escalating nature increases the risk that the violence will spill over its present borders and contribute to both extremism and terrorism. While the Intifada from 1987 to 1993 was largely a popular uprising and a political struggle, the recent clash is a war with a steady escalation between conventional and unconventional forces. It is in the interest of all major powers, the international community, and the United Nations to press both sides to accept a realistic peace plan. Noted Middle East expert Anthony Cordesman details this continuing struggle by explaining the issues at stake for each side; the various combatants (both directly and indirectly engaged); as well as the course of the war in its various incarnations. The situation on the ground is complex and the quest for peace is ever more uncertain. If the Intifada was a struggle for recognition that a peace had to be reached that was just for both sides, the Israeli-Palestinian War has polarized both sides away from peace, convincing them of the justice of their own cause and tactics and the fundamental injustice of the other side's tactics and goals. Each side has used human rights, international law, and civilian casualties as political weapons. The history of a near century of conflict is used to justify war rather than a search for peace.

This book provides a detailed, global examination of energy transitions, supplying a long-term historical perspective, an up-to-date assessment of recent and near-term advances in energy production technology and implementation, and an explanation of why efforts to limit global warming and to shift away from fossil fuels have been gradual. Based on the best international and national statistical sources, the second edition of Energy Transitions: Global and National Perspectives supplies an in-depth evaluation of how economies and nations around the world are striving to move away from traditional energy sources, the unfolding decarbonization process, and problems with intermittent energies and national transition plans. It supplies readers with a clear introduction to the basic properties of energy systems and key concepts of their appraisal, puts energy transition patterns in long-term historical perspective, and looks at the energy transition in eight of the world's leading economies. The last chapters focus on the advances in the decarbonization of the global energy supply and consider how the energy transition will continue in the coming decades. This fully updated and substantially expanded edition addresses the many new developments affecting energy supply, such as the recent expansion of hydraulic fracturing, oil price fluctuations, the Fukushima nuclear power plant catastrophe, advances in solar and wind generation, adoption of combined cycle gas turbines, and increased availability of electric cars. The coverage highlights the differences in the pace of transitions in various countries, thereby providing a complete and accurate picture of the current state of energy development in different parts of the world. The book serves as an invaluable resource for students as well as for anyone interested in a realistic appraisal of the current state of energy transitions in various nations and regions and the likely future development of the global energy supply.

The aim of the study was to determine the influence of different disturbances (both natural and anthropogenic) on species composition and stand structure of old-growth mixed mountain forests in the Western Carpathians. These stands are usually dominated by beech, fir and spruce, mixed in different proportions. The tree main species represent different growth strategies, and they compete against each other. The longevity of trees makes the factors influencing the stand structure difficult to identify, even during longitudinal studies conducted on permanent research plots. That is why dendroecological techniques, based upon the annual variability of tree rings, are commonly used to analyze the disturbance histories of old-growth stands. Dendroecological methods make it possible to reconstruct the stand history over several centuries in the past by analyzing the frequency, intensity, duration and spatial scale of disturbances causing the death of trees. Combining the dendroecological techniques with the detailed measurements of stand structure, snag volume, CWD volume, and the analyses of regeneration species composition and structure allows us to identify the factors responsible for the changes in dynamics of mixed mountain forests. Various disturbance agents affect some species selectively, while some disturbances promote the establishment of tree seedlings of specific species by modifying environmental conditions. Describing the disturbance regime requires a broad scope of data on stand structure, on dead wood and tree regeneration, while various factors affecting all the stages of tree growth should be taken into consideration. On the basis of the already published data from permanent sample plots, combined with the available disturbance history analyses from the Western Carpathians, three research hypotheses were formulated. 1. The species composition of mixed mountain forests has been changing for at least several decades. These directional changes are the consequence of simultaneous conifer species decline and expansion of beech. 2. The observed changes in species composition of mixed mountain forests are the effect of indirect anthropogenic influences, significantly changing tree growth conditions also in the forests that are usually considered natural or near-natural. Cumulative impact of these indirect influences leads to the decrease of fir share in the tree layer (spruce decline has also been observed recently),and it limits the representation of this species among seedlings and saplings. The final effect is the decrease of fir and spruce share in the forest stands. 3. Small disturbances, killing single trees or small groups of trees, and infrequent disturbances of medium size and intensity dominate the disturbance regime in mixed mountain forests. The present structure of beech-fir-spruce forests is shaped both by complex disturbance regime and indirect anthropogenic influences. The data were gathered in permanent sample plots in strictly protected areas of Babia Góra, Gorce, and Tatra National Parks, situated in the Western Carpathians. All plots were located in the old-growth forest stands representing Carpathian beech forest community. The results of the measurements of trees, snags, coarse woody debris (CWD) and tree regeneration were used for detailed description of changes in the species composition and structure of tree stands. Tree ring widths derived from increment cores were used to reconstruct the historical changes in tree growth trends of all main tree species, as well as the stand disturbance history within the past two to three hundred years. The analyses revealed complex disturbance history in all of the three forest stands. Intermediate disturbances of variable intensity occurred, frequently separated by the periods of low tree mortality lasting from several decades up to over one hundred years. The intervals between the disturbances were significantly shorter than the expected length of forest developmental cycle, in commonly used theories describing the dynamics of old-growth stands. During intermediate disturbances up to several dozen percent of canopy trees were killed. There were no signs of stand-replacing disturbances, killing all or nearly all of canopy trees. The periods of intense tree mortality were followed by subsequent periods of increased sapling recruitment. Variability in disturbance intensity is one of the mechanisms promoting the coexistence of beech and conifer species in mixed forests. The recruitment of conifer saplings depended on the presence of larger gaps, resulting from intermediate disturbances, while beech was more successful in the periods of low mortality. However, in the last few decades, beech seems to benefit from the period of intense fir mortality. This change results from the influence of long-term anthropogenic disturbances, affecting natural mechanisms that maintain the coexistence of different tree species and change natural disturbance regimes. Indirect anthropogenic influence on tree growth was clearly visible in the gradual decrease of fir increments in the twentieth century, resulting from the high level of air pollution in Europe. Synchronous decreases of fir tree rings’ widths were observed in all three of the sample plots, but the final outcomes depended on the fir age. In most cases, the damage to the foliage limited the competitive abilities of fir, but it did not cause a widespread increase in tree mortality, except for the oldest firs in the BGNP (Babia Góra National Park) plot. BGNP is located in the proximity of industrial agglomeration of Upper Silesia, and it could be exposed to higher level of air pollution than the other two plots. High level of fir regeneration browsing due to the deer overabundance and insufficient number of predators is the second clear indication of the indirect anthropogenic influence on mixed mountain forests. Game impact on fir regeneration is the most pronounced in Babia Góra forests, where fir was almost completely eliminated from the saplings. Deer browsing seems to be the main factor responsible for limiting the number of fir saplings and young fir trees, while the representation of fir among seedlings is high. The experiments conducted in fenced plots located in the mixed forests in BGNP proved that fir and sycamore were the most preferred by deer species among seedlings and saplings. In GNP (Gorce National Park) and TNP (Tatra National Park), the changes in species composition of tree regeneration are similar, but single firs or even small groups of firs are present among saplings. It seems that all of the analysed mixed beech-fir-spruce forests undergo directional changes, causing a systematic decrease in fir representation, and the expansion of beech. This tendency results from the indirect anthropogenic impact, past and present. Fir regeneration decline, alongside with the high level of spruce trees’ mortality in recent years, may lead to a significant decrease in conifers representation in the near future, and to the expansion of beech forests at the cost of mixed ones.