Статті в журналах з теми "Metallic wares"

Complex of metallic objects from Bagaevka settlement, rural settlement of the Golden Horde of the second half of 13th – 14th century, situated in periphery of the Golden Horde city Ukek in Saratov area of Saratov region is analysed by the authors. The settlement was studied by expedition of Kazan University under supervision of L.F. Nedashkovsky in 1995, 2002–2003, 2006–2012 and 2014–2016. Numismatic finds from the site, which covered area 5.1 ha and has the cultural layer in some places with more than 90 cm width, belong to the Golden Horde mintage of the end of 13th – beginning of 60s of 14th century. Metallic vessels (fragments of copper forged vessels, rivet, cup, fragments of cast-iron cauldrons) were characterized in the article. Other objects are represented by mirrors, bronze couplings of knives, ware with lion figure, ingot, splashes of lead and bronze, lead weight-seal, bronze and iron locks, iron keys. Morphological features of wares are examined on the basis of typology with involvement of the comparative background of materials of synchronous monuments. Сomplex under study characterizes material culture of the Golden Horde village of the Low Volga region, which, judging by the published materials, differed from material culture of city and town, situated nearby.

The present study aimed at the development of new artificial golden-colored pigments which are thermally stable up to 900 oC and can be used for coloring ceramics wares. Silver was used as a base material with bright metallic luster. Silver with the larger lamellar structure was indispensable to maintain the metallic luster, and it was successfully obtained by the heat-treatment of as-obtained silver powder at 200-400 oC in air and subsequently dry ball-milling at 300 rpm for 1 h. The surface of the lamellar-structured silver was coated with small particles of hydroxides, oxyhydroxides and oxides of Fe, Co, Ni, Ce and Pr. Appearance of golden color depended on the combination of metal species and heat-treatment temperature, and CeO2-coated silver gave golden color after calcination at 800 and 900 oC. The golden color of CeO2-coated silver could be controlled by the loading amount and particle size of CeO2 for color tone and relative area of naked surface of Ag for luster.

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is widely used for beverage bottles, electrical and electronic instruments, household wares, and so on. As a consequence of dramatically increasing consumption, recycling of post-consumer PET products has become an important environmental opportunity for sustainable usage in society. In this paper, we investigated the use of chlorine-free metallic acetate ionic liquids (ILs) as catalysts for the degradation of PET because of their lower toxicity, corrosivity, and cost. 1,3-Diethylimidazolium triaceticzincate ([deim][Zn(OAc)3]) behaved as the best in this group. The synthesized ILs and the major product, characterized by a variety of techniques and factors affecting glycolysis, were examined. Under optimum conditions, conversion of PET reached 98.05 %, and the selectivity of the bis(hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) monomer was 70.94 %. A probable mechanism for the glycolysis of PET catalyzed by [deim][Zn(OAc)3] was given. In our opinion, catalysis accounted for the synergic effect of the cation and anion of the IL.

This research assesses the concentration levels of heavy metals in parts of Trans-Amadi Layout, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Standard sampling and analytical method were employed in the study. Geochemically significant concentrations of lead (Pb2+) and iron (Fe²+ and Fe³+) prevail in about 70% of the functioning domestic water supply wells in Trans Amadi, Port Harcourt, while traces of Mercury and Arsenic (with relatively high concentration of lead and Iron) characterize industrial effluent liquid wastes (usually discharged untreated into the environment). The major industries in Trans Amadi industrial layout area of Port Harcourt ( in addition to breweries and mineral water industries) produce wide range of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and textiles, with elevated potential to release chemical waste such as oxides of mercury, iron and titanium; silicates of magnesium and aluminum, phosphates; and sulphates (such as FeSO4 used as coagulates in water treatment) into the environment of common sight along the streets and waste sites are metallic cans from food items, old and worn out rubber, leather and machine parts, variable sizes of broken metallic, plastic and asbestos pipes and enamel wares, as well as a wide range of used textile materials. Enrichment of heavy metallic ions in urban waters in non-mineralized areas is controlled by chemical activities on these wastes. Liquid wastes from industrial and municipal sources are commonly discharged (untreated) along road sides and streets where they constitute shallow ponds, or flow at a very slow rate (depending on flow volume and slope) to a distant termination point (mostly the river and stream flow channels). The liquid wastes, with suspended gaseous wastes from automobiles and industrial and domestic machine engines, are linked to the groundwater zone through recharge by meteoric waters. This accounts for the worrisome concentration of lead (Pb) in the groundwater in the area, without geologically-proven mineralization of lead and base metals.

The paper estimates the effects of trade reforms on workers' earnings in Pakistan's manufacturing sector during 1995-2015, employing data from 14 rounds of the Pakistan Labour Force Survey. OLS technique has been used for estimation and separate analysis for workers engaged in informal manufacturing activities is also undertaken. The results indicate that a tariff fall on intermediate products is associated with a rise in real earnings of workers employed in the manufacturing sector during this period, while a corresponding decline in tariffs on final goods has no effect on worker's wages. The results show that real wages of workers employed in the mainly export oriented industries of food, beverages and tobacco, textiles, apparel and leather and non-metallic mineral industries have declined over the twenty years period of trade reforms implemented in Pakistan. On the other hand, real wages are observed to have increased in the chemical and petroleum and basic metals industries.

Influences of the symmetric Stone-Wales (SW) defect on the electronic transport properties of the zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs) has been studied using $\it{ab}$ $\it{ initio}$ simulation based on density functional theory (DFT) combined with non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) technique. The calculated transmission spectra T(E) at various bias windows, device densities of states (DDOS), current characteristics as well as local density of states (LDOS) of the defective asymmetric and symmetric ZGNRs are presented in comparison of those for the pristine ZGNRs. It has been established the metallic character of the electronic transport in asymmetric ZGNRs, and in symmetric ones, the current has a semiconductor behavior, with negative differential resistance (NDR) effect. Symmetric SW defect, as a most unfavorable SW defect type for electric conductance, remarkably decreases the current values, but does not change the character of conductivity in both the asymmetric and symmetric ZGNRs. NDR has been explained by the altering by SW defect the number of frontier molecular orbitals entering bias windows.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been proved to have promising applicability in various fields of science and technology. Their fascinating mechanical, electrical, thermal, optical properties have caught the attention of today’s world. We have discussed here the great possibility of using CNTs in electronic devices. CNTs can be both metallic and semiconducting depending on their chirality. When two CNTs of different chirality are joined together via topological defects, they may acquire rectifying diode property. We have joined two tubes of different chiralities through circumferential Stone–Wales defects and calculated their density of states by nearest neighbor tight binding approximation. Transmission function is also calculated to analyze whether the junctions can be used as electronic devices. Different heterojunctions are modeled and analyzed in this study. Internal stresses in the heterojunctions are also calculated by molecular dynamics simulation.

Carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites, owing to their lightweight and strength-weight ratio, are being used in many applications to replace traditional metallic materials and their alloys. The combination of polymeric composites with metallic materials can provide a significant impact in engineering applications. This paper evaluates electromagnetic interference shielding of bimetal-carbon prepreg fibers textile composite materials. Prepreg carbon fibers and metal wire mesh are used to make electromagnetic interference shielding samples. The material samples consist of making plain weaves of metal wire mesh and carbon prepreg and stack them with prepreg carbon fiber layers. In order to produce plain woven fabrics, wefts were made of prepreg carbon fibers and warps were made of wire meshes. In each woven fabric, two yarns of different metal wire meshes were alternated one after another. The combination of conductive wire meshes such as stainless steel-copper, stainless steel-nickel, and copper-nickel in a woven fabric was considered. The electromagnetic shielding effectiveness was evaluated for each textile composite material based on ASTM 4935-99. Results showed a possible application of these materials for electromagnetic interference shielding with higher absorption. The best electromagnetic interference shielding performance was obtained for a combination of stainless steel-copper-CFRP with a shielding effectiveness of 131.6 dB. The absorption losses for all samples were about 82% of electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness. The mechanical properties and scanning electron image of fabricated samples were also investigated.

This paper aims to assess the harmful impacts of exchange rate depreciations on Pakistan’s economy, including impacts on international capital movements, wages, the domestic price level, and development. Devaluation of a currency in terms of foreign currencies or metallic standards was for long considered to be undesirable and, if unavoidable, a sign of failure. Attitudes have since changed and devaluation is thought to bring advantages, especially by making economies more competitive exporters. This paper is intended to show that it has disadvantages that outweigh any supposed advantages, notably its effects on inflation, income distribution, service on foreign debt and incentives. It does so by describing in concrete terms the relations between foreign and domestic prices and the costs of untradeable goods and services that are components of the price of any good in any domestic price index. It also discusses the motives, official and unofficial, that have prompted the monetary authorities of Pakistan to make a practice of regular depreciation of the rupee and to question their justification.

Summary. Pitfall traps were used to monitor the seasonal activity of ants in 2 citrus orchards in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area of south-western New South Wales for 22–24 months (November 1992–August/October 1994). Twenty-four species were recorded (22 species at Yanco and 18 species at Cudgel), with Iridomyrmex rufoniger group species being numerically dominant at both sites (63 and 59% of total captures at Yanco and Cudgel respectively). Meat ants, Iridomyrmex purpureus (F.Smith), were a significant (9%) component of trap captures at Yanco where regular soil cultivation was practised, but were less common (<1% of captures) at Cudgel. Sample species richness was generally greater at the Yanco site (mean 9.3 species per trapping interval compared with 6.6 at Cudgel). Total ant captures and sample species richness showed a positive correlation with mean daily temperatures over trapping intervals. Variations in seasonal activity were shown by the numerically dominant species, with 2 distinct patterns being evident. Whilst all taxa were less active during winter, some species [I. rufoniger group sp. 2, Pheidole sp., Rhytidoponera metallica (F.Smith)] continued to forage, albeit at reduced levels. Other species of Iridomyrmex including I. rufoniger group sp. 1 and I. purpureus ceased foraging almost entirely during June–September. Iridomyrmex species are known to interfere with the biological control of honeydew-producing insects in citrus orchards, and our results indicate that ant control programs in southern New South Wales should be initiated in late August–early September to achieve optimal results.

Strain effects on hydrogen sulphide ( H 2 S ) adsorption on Ag -decorated Stone–Wales (SW) defect in graphene were investigated by density functional theory calculations. The results indicate that an Ag adatom is easily pinned chemically on the top of the most stretched C – C bond at the SW defect in graphene without mechanical strains. A modest uniform tensile strain (8%) applied in defective graphene greatly increases the binding energy of Ag by 44%, indicating the strain enhanced stabilization of Ag on SW defect. Using the resulting Ag -decorated defective graphene ( Ag –SW–g) composite as a model for H 2 S molecule detection, we found that the tensile strain has little effects on the interaction between the molecule and the composite, and the adsorption energies of H 2 S around 1.6 eV which is six times larger than that on pristine graphene are produced. The enhanced H 2 S adsorption on Ag –SW–g is attributed to charge transfer from the molecule to the graphene through the bridge-like Ag adatom. In addition, the electronic property of the Ag –SW–g under different strains changes from a metallic state to a semiconductor state upon H 2 S adsorption, which should lead to an observable change in its conductivity. These findings pave the way for future development of graphene-based gas sensor.

An oil painting by Claude Monet, Port-Goulphar, Belle-Ile 1887 (collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales), was examined to determine both the identity of the pigments used by the artist in this painting and his technique of mixing colors and laying paint on the canvas. The extremely complex construction of the painting was revealed by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDS), and X-ray mapping (XRM) analysis of cross sections of paint flakes excised from damaged regions of Port-Goulphar, Belle-Ile. Nine different pigments were found on the painting. Many of the identified colors were modern pigments that became available only late in the 19th century as a result of scientific advances in pigment chemistry. Although similar colors were available in a natural mineral form, they lacked the vivid color of their manufactured counterparts. The use of these new synthetic metallic oxide colors by Monet accounts for the brilliance of his paintings. In addition, a separation between successive paint layers was observed in some areas of paint chip cross sections, indicating that oil-based paint was applied to paint that had dried, and consequently, Port-Goulphar, Belle-Ile was painted over a long period of time. This observation is contrary to the general perception of Monet's technique of painting freely and quickly.

This paper aims at justifying the significance of investment in the improvement of labour productivity (LP) and importance of the latter on economic performance of companies manufacturing wind energy components (WEC) in Lithuania in terms of value added (VA) created, profitability and wage earned. The time period covered is 2000–2020. The following methods have been employed: analysis of legal acts, programmes, strategies, and business structure and finance indicators, interdependence (correlation and regression), trend, case analysis, logical economical reasoning and graphical representation. The research results of current status analysis showed that the business of WEC manufacturing is small in regard to their variety of products but increasing in terms of VA and employment in Lithuania. Investment has been found as a driver of improvement in LP. The calculated historical ratio of change in LP to investment showed that, on average, after 1000 EUR per employee has been invested in tangible assets (TA), the LP increased by 0.13 EUR/h. A higher than average ratio was found in the manufacture of other transport and repair and installation of machinery and equipment (1.41), such as rubber, plastic and other non-metallic mineral products (0.17), but lower in the manufacture of electronic and communication (0.12) and metal (0.06) products. Taking into account the linear curves of LP to investment in TA curve and the average volumes of investment in different manufacturing activities, it is estimated that LP could grow by 5.3% a year in the manufacture of electronic products, and communication equipment are expected to increase by two-fold to 33 EUR/h in 2030, but it could grow only by 2.0% a year in the manufacture of rubber, plastic and other non-metallic mineral products to reach 28 EUR/h in 2030. Due to investment related changes in LP, the VA created by WEC companies could increase by 5.9% a year and account to 2.9 billion EUR during 2021–2030. Net profitability and real wages (and salaries) could also increase in future. Seeking to use the potential of companies to manufacture WEC for domestic wind installations and exports, investment supporting programmes are of high importance in the fields of promotion of innovations, development of human capital and adaptation of new technologies.

Defects and in-plane strain have significant effects on the electronic properties of two-dimensional nanostructures. However, due to the influence of substrate and environmental conditions, defects and strain are inevitable during the growth or processing. In this study, hybrid density functional theory was employed to systematically investigate the electronic properties of boron-phosphide monolayers tuned by the in-plane biaxial strain and defects. Four types of defects were considered: B-vacancy (B_v), P-vacancy (P_v), double vacancy (D_v), and Stone–Wales (S-W). Charge density difference and Bader charge analysis were performed to characterize the structural properties of defective monolayers. All of these defects could result in the boron-phosphide monolayer being much softer with anisotropic in-plane Young’s modulus, which is different from the isotropic modulus of the pure layer. The calculated electronic structures show that the P_v, D_v, and S-W defective monolayers are indirect band gap semiconductors, while the B_v defective system is metallic, which is different from the direct band gap of the pure boron-phosphide monolayer. In addition, the in-plane biaxial strain can monotonically tune the band gap of the boron-phosphide monolayer. The band gap increases with the increasing tension strain, while it decreases as the compression strain increases. Our results suggest that the defects and in-plane strain are effective for tuning the electronic properties of the boron-phosphide monolayer, which could motivate further studies to exploit the promising application in electronics and optoelectronics based on the boron-phosphide monolayer.

Solid waste management problem has been a subject of great concern in developing nations because it has remained intractable mainly due to absence of quantitative data for its planning and management. This study examines seasonal variation in household solid waste generation in Mubi, Northern Nigeria because households are the main generators of solid waste since the country is not sufficiently industrial. Data was collected through observation and measurement of 603 systematically selected household from 30 wards that make up Mubi metropolis, and data generated was summarized using descriptive statistical measures. Results show that waste generated from households (wet and dry season) are mainly ashes, garbage, rubbish (paper and carton) plastic/polythene bags and metallic materials. The mean waste generation rate of a household is 2.7kg/day in wet season and 3.1kg in dry season. The calculated standard deviation for wet season is 1.6kg/household/day and dry season is 1.4kg/household/day, and the coefficient of variation is 59% and 45% in the same order.The result of the student t-test shows that there is a slight variation in the volume and rate of wastes generated in wet season being less than that of dry season. This variation can be attributed to greater agricultural resource utilization resulting from crop harvest with on-set of the dry season with reciprocal waste generation, as well as the increase in the purchasing power of residents due from proceeds of crop sales at that time among others factors. The study recommends the use of the data base created by Adamawa State Environmental protection Agency (ADSEPA) and private waste management agencies, for effective planning for municipal solid waste management in the area. An increase in the provision of waste collection, storage and disposal facilities particularly in the wet season by waste management agencies should be imminent.

Abstract Distributed power generation technologies have been, over the years, gaining more and more attention from the industry as well as from the academia, due to the global interest in the exploitation of renewable energy sources even in urban areas. From this perspective, small size wind turbines, often with vertical axis layout and a nominal power between 1-3 kW, are being installed in urban areas on rooftops of residential, commercial, industrial buildings and even on metallic carpentry towers. As wind turbines tend to produce noise and vibrations, especially in presence of vortexes, wakes and unsteadiness, efficient devices for mitigating the vibrations transmitted to the supporting structure have to be added in order to limit the generation of stresses. Actually, the social acceptance of the installation of small wind turbines in built environment is tightly connected to the acoustic comfort for the inhabitants. The present study has been developed thanks to a joint collaboration between the Department of Engineering of the University of Perugia (Italy) and FH Technikum Wien (Austria) within the participation to the IEA Wind-Task 41: “Distributed Wind”. The work aims at mechanically characterizing the vibration damping provided by a mechanical device installed on the top of the turbine tower support. The decoupler, specifically designed for this purpose, has been tested in different conditions (in field and laboratory) and with different approaches, in order to have an overall evaluation of its performance. At first, vibrations are measured in open field in a real test case scenario with two installation arrangements: on the rooftop of a small building and on a tubular tower. Subsequently, the decoupler has been removed from its original location and tested in laboratory with external excitation from shaker.

To make a decision on determining the periods of safe operation of parachute systems that have exhausted a given resource, it is necessary to know the parameters of their actual technical condition. Experimental destructive methods for determining the parameters of residual strength are considered: breaking strength and relative deformations during the breaking of the standard specimens.Parachute design elements to be examined include parachute dome fabrics, carcass reinforcement ribbons, strops, and suspension system belts. In order to ensure that all requirements set forth by regulatory documents for conducting an experiment with textiles, specialized devices have been developed, designed, manufactured and tested experimentally. These devices provide strength experiments on a universal tensile machine designed to work with samples of metallic materials.The need to create specialized devices is caused by a very wide range of braking forces (from tens to several thousand newtons), as well as by the specifics of synthetic textile materials of the parachute design elements. A set of devices has been developed that provide the required conditions for conducting rupture experiments on samples of textile materials. The created devices provide sufficient compressive force of the sample in the clips without slip-page and without violating the integrity of the contact surface of the studied synthetic textile materials. Ensuring that the sample is sufficiently compressed in the clamping devices of the tearing machine is ensured by special transitional gaskets and methods for creating a compressing force on the sample. Compressing devices and devices for conducting experiments with low-strength specimens of the dome fabric, with medium-strong reinforcing skeleton tapes, strops and high-strength straps of the suspension system are created. In order to speed up the preparation of samples for the experiment, methodologies have been created that ensure the required length of the working part of the sample and its fixation without warps. A universal strain gauge was developed to determine the change in the length of the working section of the specimen in 100 mm. Installing the meter on the sample under study allows you to measure displacements up to rupture. The meter is fastened to the specimen using spring clips. The developed devices were tested during the experiment with hundreds of samples of the structural elements of 3 parachutes.

RESUMENA mediados del siglo XVI, la mina de azogue de Almadén adquirió una gran importancia debido al descubrimiento del método industrial de la amalgamación para los minerales de plata de baja ley. Los accidentes, enfermedades y el impago de salarios hicieron que el trabajo de minero no fuera atractivo para los forasteros, de modo que faltaban brazos para dar la producción de azogue necesaria para abastecer a las minas americanas de plata. En el siglo XVII, el Consejo de Hacienda intentó solucionar el problema de las consignaciones económicas, lo que resultó harto difícil en una España con graves dificultades financieras y, por otra parte, trató de conseguir mano de obra para la mina, fuera forzada, esclava o procedente del repartimiento de pueblos cercanos.PALABRAS CLAVE: Almadén, azogue, siglo XVII, mineros, repartimiento.ABSTRACTIn the middle of the 16th century, the Almadén quicksilver mine acquired considerable importance due to the discovery of the industrial method of amalgamation of low-grade silver ores. Accidents, diseases and unpaid wages made mining work unattractive to outsiders, so manpower was needed for the quicksilver production necessary to supply American silver mines. In the 17th century, theFinance Council attempted to solve the problem of economic consignments, which was very difficult in a Spain with serious financial difficulties and, meanwhile, tried to obtain workers for the mine, be they forced, enslaved or from the repartimiento of nearby villages.KEY WORDS: Almadén, quicksilver, 17th century, miners, repartimiento. BIBLIOGRAFÍAAgricolae, G., De Re Metallica libri XII, Basileae: Froben, 1556.Álvarez Nogal, C., El crédito de la monarquía hispánica en el reinado de Felipe IV, Ávila, Junta de Castilla y León, 1997.Bleiberg, G., El informe secreto de Mateo Alemán sobre el trabajo forzoso en las minas de Almadén, Londres, Tamesis Book Limited, 1984.Carande, R., Carlos V y sus banqueros, Barcelona, Editorial Crítica, 1987.Castillo Martos, M., Bartolomé de Medina y el siglo XVI. Un sevillano lleva la revolución tecnológica a América, Sevilla, Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, 2001.Dobado González, R., “Las minas de Almadén, el monopolio del azogue y la producción de plata en Nueva España en el siglo XVIII”, en La savia del imperio. Tres estudios de economía colonial, Salamanca, 1997, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, pp. 403-495.Gil Bautista, R., Almadén del Azogue, Puertollano, Ediciones Puertollano, 2013.Gil Bautista, R., Las minas de Almadén en la Edad Moderna, Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, 2015.González, T., Registro y relación general de minas de la Corona de Castilla, Madrid, Imprenta de Don Miguel de Burgos, 1832.Hernández Sobrino, A., Los esclavos del rey. Los forzados de Su Majestad en las minas de Almadén, años 1550-1800, Ciudad Real, Fundación Almadén y Asociación Montesur, 1982.Hernández Sobrino, A., Silvestre Madrid, M. A. y Almansa Rodríguez, E., “La mina de azogue de Almadén en la época del Quijote” en La España del Quijote: IV Centenario Cervantes, Llerena, 2017, Sociedad Extremeña de Historia, pp. 161-172.Langue, F. y Salazar-Soler, C., Dictionaire des termes miniers en usage en Amerique espagnole (XVI-XIX siecle), Paris, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1993.Matilla Tascón, A., Historia de las minas de Almadén, Vol. I: Desde la época romana hasta el año 1645, Madrid, Consejo de Administración de Minas de Almadén y Arrayanes, 1958.Matilla Tascón, A., Historia de las minas de Almadén, vol. II: Desde 1646 a 1799, Madrid, Minas de Almadén y Arrayanes, S.A. e Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, 1987.Menéndez Navarro, A., Catástrofe morboso de las minas mercuriales de la villa de Almadén del Azogue (1778) de José Parés y Franqués, edición anotada, Ciudad Real, Universidad de Castilla- La Mancha, 1998.Prieto, C., La minería en el Nuevo Mundo, Madrid, Ediciones de la Revista de Occidente, 1977.Prior Cabanillas, J., La pena de minas: los forzados de Almadén, 1646-1649, Ciudad Real, Fundación Almadén y Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, 2006.Sánchez Gómez, J., De minería, metalurgia y comercio de metales. La minería no férrica en el reino de Castilla, 1450-1610, Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca e Instituto Tecnológico GeoMinero de España, 1989.Sánchez Gómez, J., “La técnica en la producción de metales monedables en España y en América”, en La savia del imperio. Tres estudios de economía colonial, Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1997, pp. 17-264.Silvestre Madrid, M. Á., Mineros de Almadén en la América Colonial, Trabajo Fin de Máster, Universidad de Córdoba, inédito, 2014.Voltes Bou, P., El ocaso de los Fugger en España. Operaciones de los Fugger en la España del siglo XVII, Ciudad Real, Fundación Almadén, 2009.

AbstractAt present amorphous metallic alloys have the broad expansion in various fields of science&engineering as a result of their unique properties. In particular, soft magnetic amorphous alloys are extensively used in electrical engineering. However the production of considerable-size nonporous wares based on the powders (or tapes) of these alloys is heavy problem owing to high hardness of the particles. Therefore shock wave’s compacting or Dynamic Compacting (DC) method is promising one to produce the wares on the base of powders of amorphous alloys because it can provides high strength and near zero porosity of the wares. The experimental D-U diagrams of soft magnetic amorphous alloys were obtained to realize this method of compacting. The calculations of the amplitude and duration of shock wave were carried out. The several versions of explosive devices using shock plane wave generator to produce circular magnetic conductors were developed and were tested. These magnetic conductors are based on amorphous alloys of 5BDSR, GM414, 10NSR trademarks (Fe with Cu, Nb, Si, B additives). XRD analysis proved that amorphous state of the alloys remains the same up to 20 GPa shock wave’s pressures. The mechanical, structural, electrical and magnetic properties both initial amorphous alloys and compacted one were obtained and compared as a result of the implemented works. It was stated that DC leads to increase of magnetic conductivity by factor ∼15 with respect to initial amorphous alloys powder. Besides the specific losses decrease in ∼4 times.

Objectives: Dust, soil and leaf samples of Ficus benjamina were collected in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara (GMA) (Peña-García et al., 2017), allowing to identify the type of metallic particles, size, shape and spatial distribution. With the results obtained, the possible effects of metallic particles on human and plant health were discussed (Peña-García et al., 2019). Methodology: The sampling was in six municipalities of the GMA; Atomic absorption spectrophotometry analyses were carried out on leaves, which identified the presence of various elements that mostly exceeded the reference values. Through X-ray fluorescence, 23 elements were identified in soil, including Th and Ac in at least 14 sites. Using the scanning electron microscopy technique and elemental mapping analysis, coarse, fine and ultrafine metallic particles were identified in human bronchus and lung tissue, as well as fragments of cement, plastic, yeast and bacteria. The similarity between the metallic particles in the collected samples and those observed in lung tissue, warns of latent risks to the health of the GMA population. Contribution: The results obtained with the methodology used in this work allow us to glimpse the polluting potential in urban areas.

Aims: Commercial formulas for the treatment of warts use salicylic acid in concentrations above 100 mg/ml, which causes skin irritation, and the results are often unsatisfactory. To address this problem, we developed a new formula with a low concentration of salicylic acid (20 mg/ml) and with the addition of virucidal compounds (metallic iodine and benzoic acid) and compared it to a formula currently on the market (Verrux®) containing 165 mg salicylic acid (0.165 g) and 145.2 mg lactic acid (0.145 g) per ml collodion. Study Design: A randomized double-blind study was conducted. Location and Duration of Study: Department of Biotechnology, UNINCOR, Chácara das Rosas, Três Corações, MG, Brazil; School of Pharmacy, Universidade Federal do Amapá - Campus Universitário Marco Zero do Equador, Rod. Juscelino Kubitschek, KM-02, Jardim Marco Zero, Macapá, AP, Brazil and School of Medicine, Universidad Politécnica y Artística del Paraguay (UPAP), Km 10, Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, between December 2004 and October 2016. Methodology: 95 patients were treated with the formula with salicylic acid (20mg), benzoic acid (20mg) and metallic iodine (2.5mg) per ml (group A) and 95 received treatment with Verrux® (salicylic acid 165mg, lactic acid 145.2mg per ml collodion) (group B). Results: All patients in Group A (100%) reported complete resolution of signs and symptoms after 13 weeks of treatment. In contrast, 67 subjects (70.5%) in group B reported regression of symptoms during the same period. Conclusion: There was a statistically significant difference between the groups studied here (P< 0.05). This new formulation with a low level of salicylic acid and two virucidal agents promotes healing of recalcitrant cutaneous warts without significant side effects. The price of the two formulas is virtually the same (about $8 to $10 each bottle).

AbstractDodecagonal oxide quasicrystals are well established as examples of long-range aperiodic order in two dimensions. However, despite investigations by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), low-energy electron diffraction (LEED), low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM), photoemission spectroscopy as well as density functional theory (DFT), their structure is still controversial. Furthermore, the principles that guide the formation of quasicrystals (QCs) in oxides are elusive since the principles that are known to drive metallic QCs are expected to fail for oxides. Here we demonstrate the solution of the oxide QC structure by synchrotron-radiation based surface x-ray diffraction (SXRD) refinement of its largest-known approximant. The oxide QC formation is forced by large alkaline earth metal atoms and the reduction of their mutual electrostatic repulsion. It drives the n = 6 structure of the 2D Ti2O3 honeycomb arrangement via Stone–Wales transformations into an ordered structure with empty n = 4, singly occupied n = 7 and doubly occupied n = 10 rings, as supported by DFT.

Bergbau ist die Tätigkeit, die darauf abzielt, ein Mineralgut aus der Erdkruste zu entfernen, was etwa 5 % des brasilianischen BIP im Jahr 2014 entspricht. Eisen ist ein leicht oxidierbares, zweifelhaftes und magnetisches chemisches Element. Es ist die häufigste, billigste und wichtigste von Metallen. Hämatit (Fe2 O3) ist das Hauptmineral mit einem vorherrschenden Eisengehalt in seiner Zusammensetzung. Im Jahr 2010 machte Brasiliens Eisenproduktion etwa 15 % der Weltproduktion aus. Auf die Stahlindustrie entfallen 99 % des weltweiten Eisenverbrauchs. Die Seeroute ist das wichtigste Transportmittel für Denwaren zwischen Brasilien und dem Außenhandel. Die Forschung wurde durch den Zugriff auf die DNPM-Website durchgeführt, die gesammelten Daten waren von 2010 bis 2014. In dieser Zeit hatte Australien das größte Mineralreservat von Eisen und China die größte Produktion in der Welt. 2013 ging die brasilianische Eisenproduktion und der effektive Verbrauch zurück. Die nationale Wirtschaft und der Welthandel waren die Hauptfaktoren für die Instabilität des brasilianischen Mineralsektors zwischen 2010 und 2014. Der Rückgang des Eisenpreises auf dem Weltmarkt führte 2013 zum Rückgang der Eisenproduktion in Brasilien, als der Eisenverbrauch in Brasilien von der Wirtschaftskrise, von der das Land betroffen war, stark beeinträchtigt wurde. Chinas hohe Investitionen in den Mineralsektor haben die Beteiligung des Landes am Welthandel erhöht und sind zwischen 2010 und 2014 der weltweit führende Eisenproduzent geworden.

IntroductionThe “North” is given explicitly “Nordic” value in extreme metal, as a vehicle for narratives of identity, nationalism and ideology. However, we also contend that “Nordicness” is articulated in diverse and contradictory ways in extreme metal contexts. We examine Nordicness in three key iterations: firstly, Nordicness as a brand tied to extremity and “authenticity”; secondly, Nordicness as an expression of exclusory ethnic belonging and ancestry; and thirdly, Nordicness as an imagined community of liberal democracy.In situating Nordicness across these iterations, we call into focus how the value of the “North” in metal discourse unfolds in different contexts with different implications. We argue that “Nordicness” as it is represented in extreme metal scenes cannot be considered as a uniform, essential category, but rather one marked by tensions and paradoxes that undercut the possibility of any singular understanding of the “North”. Deploying textual and critical discourse analysis, we analyse what Nordicness is made to mean in extreme metal scenes. Furthermore, we critique understandings of the “North” as a homogenous category and instead interrogate the plural ways in which “Nordic” meaning is articulated in metal. We focus specifically on Nordic Extreme Metal. This subgenre has been chosen with an eye to the regional complexities of the Nordic area in Northern Europe, the popularity of extreme metal in Nordic markets, and the successful global marketing of Nordic metal bands and styles.We use the term “Nordic” in line with Loftsdóttir and Jensen’s definition, wherein the “Nordic countries” encompass Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Finland, and the autonomous regions of Greenland: the Faroe Islands and the Aland Islands (3). “Nordic-ness”, they argue, is the cultural identity of the Nordic countries, reified through self-perception, internationalisation and “national branding” (Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2).In referring to “extreme metal”, we draw from Kahn-Harris’s characterisation of the term. “Extreme metal” represents a cluster of heavy metal subgenres–primarily black metal, death metal, thrash metal, doom metal and grindcore–marked by their “extremity”; their impetus towards “[un]conventional musical aesthetics” (Kahn-Harris 6).Nonetheless, we remain acutely aware of the complexities that attend both terms. Just as extreme metal itself is “exceptionally diverse” (Kahn-Harris 6) and “constantly developing and reconfiguring” (Kahn-Harris 7), the category of the “Nordic” is also a site of “diverse experiences” (Loftsdóttir & Jensen 3). We seek to move beyond any essentialist understanding of the “Nordic” and move towards a critical mapping of the myriad ways in which the “Nordic” is given value in extreme metal contexts.Branding the North: Nordicness as Extremity and AuthenticityMetal’s relationship with the Nordic countries has become a key area of interest for both popular and scholarly accounts of heavy metal as the genre has rapidly expanded in the region. The Nordic countries currently boast the highest rate of metal bands per capita (Grandoni). Since the mid-2000s, metal scholars have displayed an accelerated interest in the “cultural aesthetics and identity politics” of metal in Northern Europe (Brown 261). Wider popular interest in Nordic metal has been assisted by the notoriety of the Norwegian black metal scene of the early 1990s, wherein a series of murders and church arsons committed by scene members formed the basis for popular texts such as Moynihan and Søderlind’s book Lords of Chaos and Aites and Ewell’s documentary Until the Light Takes Us.Invocations of Nordicness in metal music are not a new phenomenon, nor have such allusions been strictly limited to Northern European artists. Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden displayed an interest in Norse mythology, while Venom and Manowar frequently drew on Nordic imagery in their performance and visual aesthetics.This interest in the North was largely ephemeral–the use of popular Nordic iconography stressed romanticised constructions of the North as a site of masculine liberty, rather than locating such archetypes in a historical context. Such narratives of Nordic masculinity, liberty and heathenry nevertheless become central to heavy metal’s contextual discourses, and point to the ways in which “Nordicness” becomes mobilised as a particular branded category.Whilst Nordic “branding” for earlier heavy metal bands was largely situated in romantic imaginings of the ancient North, in the late 1980s there emerged “a secondary usage” of Nordic identity and iconography by Northern European metal bands (Trafford & Pluskowski 58). Such “Nordicness” laid far more stress on historical context, national identity and notions of ancestry, and, crucially, a sense of extremity and isolation. This emphasis on metal’s extremity beyond the mainstream has long been a crucial component in the marketing of Nordic scenes.Such “extremity” is given mutually supportive value as “authenticity”, where the term is understood as a value judgement (Moore 209) applied by audiences to discern if music remains committed to its own premises (Frith 71). Such questions of sincerity and commitment to metal’s core continue to circulate in the discourses of Nordic extreme metal. Sweden’s death metal underground, for example, was considered at “the forefront of one of the most extreme varieties of music yet conceived” (Moynihan and Søderlind 32), with both the Stockholm and Gothenburg “sounds” proving influential beyond Northern Europe (Kahn-Harris 106).Situating Nordicness as a distinct identity beyond metal’s commercial appeal underscores much of the marketing of Nordic extreme metal to international audiences. Such discourses continue in contemporary contexts–Finland’s official website promotes metal as a form of Finnish art and culture: “By definition, heavy metal fans crave music from outside the mainstream. They champion material that boldly stands out against the normality of pop” (Weaver).The focus on Nordic metal existing “outside” the mainstream is commensurate with understandings of extreme metal as “on the edge of music” (Kahn-Harris 5). Such sentiments are situated in a wider regional narrative that sees the Nordic region at the geographic “edge” of Europe, as remote and isolated (Grimley 2). The apparent isolation that enables the distinctiveness of “Nordic” forms of extreme metal is, however, potentially undercut by the widespread circulation of “Nordicness” as a particular brand.“Nordic extreme metal” can be understood as both a generic and place-based scene, where genre and geography “cross cut and coincide in complex ways” (Kahn-Harris 99). The Bergen black metal sound, for example, much like the Gothenburg death metal sound, is both a geographic and stylistic marker that is replicated in different contexts.This Nordic branding of musical styles is further affirmed by the wider means through which “Nordic”, “Scandinavian” and the “North” become interchangeable frameworks for the marketing of particular styles of extreme metal. “Nordic metal”, Von Helden thus argues, “is a trademark and a best seller” (33).Nordicness as Exclusory Belonging and AncestryMarketing strategies that rely on constructions of Nordic metal as “beyond the mainstream” at once exotify and homogenise the “Nordic”. Sentiments of an “imagined community of Nordicness” (Lucas, Deeks and Spracklen 279) have created problematic boundaries of who, or what, may be represented in such categories.Understandings of “Nordicness” as a site of generic “purity” (Moynihan and Søderlind 32) are therefore both tacitly and explicitly underscored by projections of ethnic purity and “belonging”. As such, where we have previously considered the cultural capital of the “Nordic” as it emerges as a particular branding exercise, here we examine the exclusory impetus of homogenous understandings of the Nordic.Nordicness in this context connotes explicitly racialised value, which interpellates images of Viking heathenry to enable fantasies of the pure, white North. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the context of Norwegian black metal, which bases its own self-mythologising in explicitly Nordic parameters. Norwegian black metal bands and members of the broader scene have often taken steps to continually affirm their Nordicness through various representational strategies. The widespread church burnings associated with the early Norwegian black metal scene, for instance, can be framed as a radical rejection of Christianity and an embracing of Norway’s Viking, pagan past.The ethnoromanticisation of Nordic regions and landscapes is underscored by problematic projections of national belonging. An interest in pagan mythology, as Kahn-Harris notes, can easily become an interest in racism and fascism (41). The “uncritical celebration of pagan pasts, the obsession with the unpolluted countryside and the distrust of the cosmopolitan city” that mark much Norwegian black metal were also common features of early fascist and racist movements (Kahn-Harris 41).Norwegian black metal has thus been able to link the genre, as a global music commodity, to “the conscious revival of myths and ideologies of an ancient northern European history and nationalist culture” (Lucas, Deeks and Spracklen 279). The conscious revival of such myths materialised in the early Norwegian scene in deliberately racist sentiments. Mayhem drummer Jan Axel Blomberg (“Hellhammer”) demonstrates this in his brief declaration that “Black metal is for white people” (in Moynihan and Søderlind 305); similarly, Darkthrone’s original back cover of Transylvanian Hunger (1994) prominently featured the phrase “Norsk Arisk Black Metal” (“Norwegian Aryan Black Metal”). Nordicness as exclusory white, Aryan identity is further mobilised in the National Socialist Black Metal scene, which readily caters to ontological constructions of Nordic whiteness (Spracklen, True Aryan; Hagen).However, Nordicness is also given racialised value in more tacit, but nonetheless troubling ways in wider Nordic folk and Viking metal scenes. The popular association of Vikings with Nordic folk metal has enabled such figures to be dismissed as performative play or camp romanticism, ostensibly removed from the extremity of black metal. Such metal scenes and their appeals to ethnosymbolic patriarchs nevertheless remain central to the ongoing construction of Nordic metal as a site that enables the instrumentality of Northern European whiteness precisely through hiding such whiteness in plain sight (Spracklen, To Holmgard, 359).The ostensibly “camp” performance of bands such as Sweden’s Amon Amarth, Faroese act Týr, or Finland’s Korpiklaani distracts from the ways in which Nordicness, and its realisations through Viking and Pagan symbolism, emerges as a claim to ethnic exclusivity. Through imagining the Viking as an ancestral, genetic category, the “common past” of the Nordic people is constructed as a self-identity apart from other people (Blaagaard 11).Furthermore, the “Viking” itself has cultural capital that has circulated beyond Northern Europe in both inclusive and exclusive ways. Nordic symbolism and mythologies are invoked within the textual aesthetics of heavy metal communities across the globe–there are Viking metal bands in Australia, for instance. Further, the valorising of the “North” in metal discourse draws on the symbols of particular ethnic traditions to give historicity and local meaning to white identity.Lucas, Deeks and Spracklen map the rhetorical power of the “North” in English folk metal. However, the same international flows of Nordic cultural capital that have allowed for the success and distinctiveness of Nordic extreme metal have also enabled the proliferation of increasingly exclusionary practices. A flyer signed by the “Wiking Hordes” in May of 1995 (in Moynihan and Søderlind 327) warns that the expansion of black and death metal into Asia, Eastern Europe and South America posed a threat to the “true Aryan” metal community.Similarly, online discussions of the documentary Pagan Metal, in which an interviewee states that a Brazilian Viking metal band is “a bit funny”, shifted between assertions that enjoyment should not be restricted by cultural heritage and declarations that only Nordic bands could “legitimately” support Viking metal. Giving Nordicness value as a form of insular, ethnic belonging has therefore had exclusory and problematic implications for how metal scenes market their dominant symbols and narratives, particularly as scenes continue to grow and diversify across multiple national contexts.Nordicness as Liberal DemocracyNordicness in heavy metal, as we have argued, has been ascribed cultural capital as both a branded, generic phenomenon and as a marker of ancestral, ethnonational belonging. Understandings of “Nordic” as an exclusory ethnic category marked by strict boundaries however come into conflict with the Nordic region’s self-perceptions as a liberal democracy.We propose an additional iteration for “Nordicness” as a means of pointing to the tensions that emerge between particular metallic imaginings of the “North” as a remote, uncompromising site of pagan liberty, and the material realities of modern Nordic nation states. We consider some new parameters for articulations of “Nordicness” in metal scenes: Nordicness as material and political conditions that have enabled the popularity of heavy metal in the region, and furthermore, the manifestations of such liberal democratic discourses in Nordic extreme metal scenes.Nordicness as a cultural, political brand is based in perceptions of the Nordic countries as “global good citizens”, “peace loving”, “conflict-resolution oriented” and “rational” (Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2). This modern conception of Nordicness is grounded in the region’s current political climate, which took its form in the post-World War II rejection of fascism and the following refugee crisis.Northern Europe’s reputation as a “famously tolerant political community” (Dworkin 487) can therefore be seen, one on hand, as a crucial disconnect from the intolerant North mediated by factions of Nordic extreme metal scenes and on the other, a political community that provides the material conditions which allow extreme metal to flourish. Nordicness here, we argue, is a crucial form of scenic infrastructure–albeit one that has been both celebrated and condemned in the sites and spaces of Nordic extreme metal.The productivity and stability of extreme metal in the Nordic countries has been attributed to a variety of institutional factors: the general relative prosperity of Northern Europe (Terry), Scandinavian legal structures (Maguire 156), universal welfare, high levels of state support for cultural development, and a broad emphasis on musical education in schools.Kahn-Harris argues that the Swedish metal scene is supported by the strength of the Swedish music industry and “Swedish civil society in general” (108). Music education is strongly supported by the state; Sweden’s relatively generous welfare and education system also “provide [an] effective subsidy for music making” (108). Furthermore, he argues that the Swedish scene has benefited from being closer to the “cultural mainstream of the country than is the case in many other countries” (108). Such close relationships to the “cultural mainstream” also invite a critical backlash against the state. The anarchistic anti-government stance of Swedish hardcore bands or the radical individualism of Norwegian black metal embodies this backlash.Early black metal is seen as a targeted response to the “oppressive and numbing social democracy which dominated Norwegian political life” (Moynihan and Søderlind 32). This spurning of social democracy is further articulated by Darkthrone founder Fenriz, who states that black metal “…is every man for himself… It is individualism above all” (True Norwegian Black Metal). Nordic extreme metal’s emphasis on independence and anti-modernity is hence immediately troubled by the material reality of the conditions that allow it to flourish. Nordicness thus gains complex realisation as both radical individualism and democratic infrastructural conditions.In looking towards future directions for expressions of the “Nordic” in extreme metal scenes, we want to consider how Nordicness can be articulated not as exclusory ethnic belonging and individualist misanthropy, but rather illustrate how Nordic scenes have also proffered sites for progressive, anti-racist discourses that speak to the cultural branding of the North as a tolerant political community.Imaginings of the North as ethnically homogenous or pure are complicated by Nordic bands and fans who actively critique such racialised discourses, and instead situate “Nordic” metal as a site of heterogeneity and anti-racist activism. The liberal politics of the region are most clearly articulated in the music of Swedish hardcore and extreme metal bands, particularly those originating in the northern university town of Umeå. Like much of Europe’s underground music scene, Umeå hardcore bands are often aligned with the anti-fascist movement and its message of tolerance and active anti-racist, anti-homophobic and anti-sexist resistance and protest. Refused is the most well-known example, speaking out against capitalism and in favour of animal rights and civil liberties. Scandinavian DIY acts have also long played a crucial role in facilitating the global diffusion of anti-capitalist punk and hardcore music (Haenfler 287).Nonetheless, whilst such acts remain important sites of progressive discourses in homogenous constructions of Nordicness, such an argument for tolerance and diversity is difficult to maintain when the majority of the scene’s successful bands are made up of white, ethnically Scandinavian men. As such, in moving towards future considerations for Nordicness in extreme metal scenes, we thus call into focus a fragmentation of “Nordicness”, precisely to divorce it from homogenous constructions of the “Nordic”, and enable greater critical interrogation and plurality of the notion of the “North” in metal scholarship.ConclusionThis article has pointed towards a multiplicity of Nordic discourses that unfold in metal: Nordic as a marketing tool, Nordic as an ethnic signifier, and Nordic as the political reality of liberal democratic Northern Europe–and the tensions that emerge in their encounters and intersections. In arguing for multiple understandings of “Nordicness” in metal, we contend that the cultural capital that accompanies the “Nordic” actually emerges as a series of fragmented, often conflicting categories.In examining how images of the North as an isolated location at the edge of the world inform the branded construction of Nordic metal as sites of presumed authenticity, we considered how scenes such as Swedish death metal and Norwegian black metal were marketed precisely through their Nordicness, where their geographic isolation from the commercial centre of heavy metal was used to affirm their “Otherness” to their mainstream metal counterparts. This “otherness” has in turn enabled constructions of Nordic metal scenes as sites of not only metallic purity in their isolation from “commercial” metal scenes, but also ethnic homogeneity. Nordicness, in this instance, becomes inscribed with explicitly racialised value that interpellates images of Viking heathenry to bolster phantasmic imaginings of the pure, white North.However, as we argue in the third section, such exclusory narratives of Nordic belonging come into conflict with Northern Europe’s own self image as a site of progressive liberal democracy. We argue that Nordicness here can be taken as a political imperative towards socialist democracy, wherein such conditions have enabled the widespread viability of extreme metal; yet also invited critical backlashes against the modern political state.Ultimately, in responding to our own research question–what is the cultural capital of “Nordicness” in metal?–we assert that such capital is realised in multiple iterations, undermining any possibility of a uniform category of “Nordicness”, and exposing its political tensions and paradoxes. 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The ontological equality and material vitality of all things, and efforts to remove “the human” from its apical position in a hierarchy of being, are Object-Oriented Ontology theory (OOO) concepts. These axioms are useful in a discussion of the aesthetics of augmented robotic art, alongside speculations regarding any interagency between the human/non-human and possible co-evolutionary relationships. In addition, they help to wash out the sticky habits of conventional art writing, such as removed critique or an authoritative expert voice. This article aims to address the robotic work Accomplice by Sydney-based artists Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders as a means of interrogating the independence and agency of robots as non-human species, and as a mode of investigating how we see these relationships changing for the futureFor Accomplice, an artwork exhibited at Artspace, Sydney, in 2013, Gemeinboeck and Saunders built robots, strategised properties, and programmed their performative actions. Replete with lights and hammers, the robots are secreted away behind false walls, where they move along tracks and bang holes into the gallery space. As the devastation of plasterboard ensues, the robots respond interactively to each other through their collective activity: this is intra-action, where an object’s force emerges and where agency is an enactment (Barad, Matter Feels). This paper will continue to draw on the work of feminist scholar and quantum scientist, Karen Barad, due to her related work on agency and intra-action, although she is not part of an OOO theoretical body. Gemeinboeck and Saunders build unstable environments for their robots to perform as embodied inhabitants (Gemeinboeck and Saunders 2). Although the augmented robots are programmed, it is not a prescriptive control. Data is entered, then the robots respond to one another’s proximity and devastation. From the immaterial, virtual realm of robotic programming comes a new materiality which is both unstable, unpredictable, and on the verge of becoming other, or alive. This is a collaboration, not just between Gemeinboeck and Saunders, but between the programmers and their little robots—and the new forces that might be created. Sites of intra-species (human and robot) crossings might be places or spaces where a new figuration of enchantment occurs (Bennett 32). Such a space could take the form of a responsive art-writing intervention or even a new ontological story, as a direct riposte to the lively augmentation of the robotic artwork (Bennett 92). As ficto-critical theorist and ethnographer, Stephen Muecke says, “Experimental writing, for me, would be writing that necessarily participates in worlds rather than a writing constituted as a report on realities seen from the other side of an illusory gap of representation” (Muecke Motorcycles 2). Figure 1: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck)Writing Forces When things disappear then reappear, there is a point where force is unleashed. If we ask what role the art writer plays in liberating force, the answer might be that her role is to create as an imaginative new creation, equal to the artwork. The artists speak of Accomplice: transductions, transmaterial flows and transversal relations are at play ... whether emerging from or propelling the interplay between internal dynamics and external forces, the enactment of agencies (human and non-human), or the performative relationship unfolding over time. (Gemeinboeck and Saunders 3) When new energetic force is created and the artwork takes on new life, the audience’s imaginative thought is stimulated. This new force might cause an effect of a trans-fictional flow. The act of writing about Accomplice might also involve some intentional implausibility. For instance, whilst in the exhibition gallery space, witnessing Accomplice, I decided to write a note to one of the robots. I could see it, just visible beyond the violently hammered hole in the wall. Broken plaster dusted my shoes and as I peered into the darker outside space, it whizzed past on its way to bang another hole, in harmony with its other robotic friends. So I scribbled a note on a plain white piece of paper, folded it neatly and poked it through the hole: Dear robot, do you get sick of augmenting human lives?Do you get on well with your robotic friends?Yours sincerely, Prue. I waited a few minutes and then my very same piece of paper was thrust back through the hole. It was not folded but was crumpled up. I opened it and noticed a smudged mark in the corner. It looked like an ancient symbol, a strange elliptical script of rounded shapes, but was too small to read. An intergalactic message, a signal from an alien presence perhaps? So I borrowed a magnifying glass from the Artspace gallery attendant. It read: I love opera. Robot Two must die. This was unexpected! As I pondered the robot’s reply, I noticed the robots did indeed make strange bird-like noises to one another; their tapping was like rhythmic woodpeckers. Their hammering was a kind of operatic symphony; it was not far-fetched that these robots were appreciative of the sound patterns they made. In other words, they were responding to stimuli in the environment, and acting in response. They had agency beyond the immaterial computational programming their creators had embedded. It wasn’t difficult to suspend disbelief to allow the possibility that interaction between the robots might occur, or that one might have gone rogue. An acceptance of the possibility of inter-agency would allow the fantastical reality of a human becoming short-term pen pals with an augmented machine. Karen Barad might endorse such an unexpected intra-action act. She discourages conventional critique as, “a tool that keeps getting used out of habit” (Matter Feels). Art writing, in an era of robots and awareness of other non-human sentient life-forms can be speculative invention, have a Barad-like imaginative materiality (Matter Feels), and sense of suspended disbelief. Figure 2: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck) The Final Onto-Story Straw Gemeinboeck and Saunders say the space where their robots perform is a questionable one: “the fidelity of the space as a shared experience is thus brought into question: how can a shared virtual experience be trusted when it is constructed from such intangible and malleable stuff as streams of binary digits” (7). The answer might be that it is not to be trusted, particularly in an OOO aesthetic approach that allows divergent and contingent fictive possibilities. Indeed, thinking about the fidelity of the space, there was something about a narrow access corridor in the Accomplice exhibition space, between the false gallery wall and the cavity where the robots moved on their track, that beckoned me. I glanced over my shoulder to check that the Artspace attendant wasn’t watching and slipped behind the wall. I took a few tentative steps, not wanting to get knocked on the nose by a zooming robot. I saw that one robot had turned away from the wall and was attacking another with its hammer. By the time I arrived, the second robot (could it be Robot Two?) had been badly pummeled. Not only did Robot One attack Robot Two but I witnessed it using its extended hammer to absorb metal parts: the light and the hammer. It was adapting, like Philip K. Dick’s robots in his short story ‘Preserving Machine’ (See Gray 228-33). It was becoming more augmented. It now had two lights and two hammers and seemed to move at double speed. Figure 3: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck)My observance of this scene might be explained by Gemeinboeck/Saunders’s comment regarding Philip K. Dick-style interference and instability, which they actively apply to their work. They say, “The ‘gremlins’ of our works are the slipping logics of nonlinear systems or distributed agential forces of colliding materials” (18). An audience response is a colliding material. A fictional aside is a colliding material. A suspension of disbelief must also be considered a colliding material. This is the politics of the para-human, where regulations and policies are in their infancy. Fears of artificial intelligence seem absurd, when we consider how startled we become when the boundaries between fiction/truth become as flimsy and slippery as the boundaries between human/non-human. Art writing that resists truth complements Gemeinboeck/Saunders point that, “different agential forces not only co-evolve but perform together” (18).The DisappearanceBefore we are able to distinguish any unexpected or enchanted ontological outcomes, the robots must first appear, but for things to truly appear to us, they must first disappear. The robots disappear from view, behind the false walls. Slowly, through the enactment of an agented force (the action of their hammers upon the wall), they beat a path into the viewer’s visual reality. Their emergence signals a performative augmentation. Stronger, better, smarter, longer: these creatures are more-than-human. Yet despite the robot’s augmented technological improvement upon human ability, their being (here, meaning their independent autonomy) is under threat in a human-centred world environment. First they are threatened by the human habit of reducing them to anthropomorphic characteristics: they can be seen as cute little versions of humans. Secondly, they are threatened by human perception that they are under the control of the programmers. Both points are arguable: these robots are undoubtedly non-human, and there are unexpected and unplanned outcomes, once they are activated. These might be speculative or contestable outcomes, which are not demonstrably an epitome of truth (Bennett 161). Figure 4: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck)Gemeinboeck’s robotic creatures, with their apparent work/play and civil disobedience, appeared to exhibit human traits. An OOO approach would discourage these anthropomorphic tendencies: by seeing human qualities in inanimate objects, we are only falling back into correlational habits—where nature and culture are separate dyads and can never comprehend each other, and where humankind is mistakenly privileged over all other entities (Meillassoux 5). This only serves to inhibit any access to a reality outside the human-centred view. This kind of objectivity, where we see ourselves as nature, does no more than hold up a mirror to our inescapably human selves (Barad, Matter Feels). In an object-oriented approach the unpredictable outcomes of the robots’s performance is brought to attention. OOO proponent and digital media theorist Ian Bogost, has a background in computational media, especially video and social media games, and says, “computers are plastic and metal corpses with voodoo powers” (9). This is a non-life description, hovering in the liminal space between being and not being. Bogost’s view is that a strange world stirs within machinic devices (9). A question to ask: what’s it like to be a robot? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between what it does and how we see it. It is difficult not to think of twentieth century philosopher Martin Heidegger’s tool analysis theory when writing of Gemeinboeck/Saunders’s work because Heidegger, and OOO scholar Graham Harman after him, uses the hammer as his paradigmatic tool. In his analysis, things are only present-at-hand (consciously perceived without utility) once they break (Harman, Heidegger Explained 63). However, Gemeinboeck and Saunders’s installation Accomplice straddles Heidegger’s dual present-at-hand and read-at-hand (the utility of the thing) because art raises the possibility that we might experience these divergent qualities of the robotic entities, simultaneously. The augmented robot, existing in its performative exhibition ecology, is the bridge between sentient life and utility. Robotic Agency In relation to the agency of robots, Ian Bogost refers to the Tableau Machine which was a non-human actor system created by researchers at Georgia Tech in 1998 (Bogost 106). It was a house fitted with cameras, screens, interfaces, and sensors. This was an experimental investigation into ambient intelligence. The researchers’s term for the computational agency was ‘alien presence,’ suggesting a life outside human comprehension. The data-collator sensed and interpreted the house and its occupants, and re-created that recorded data as abstract art, by projecting images on its own plasma screens. The implication was that the home was alive, vital, and autonomously active, in that it took on a sentient life, beyond human control. This kind of vital presence, an aliveness outside human programming, is there in the Accomplice robots. Their agency becomes materialized, as they violate the polite gallery-viewing world. Karen Barad’s concept of agency works within a relational ontology. Agency resists being granted, but rather is an enactment, and creates new possibilities (Barad, Matter Feels). Agency is entangled amongst “intra-acting human and non-human practices” (6). In Toward an Enchanted Materialism, Jane Bennett describes primordia (atoms) as “not animate with divine spirit, and yet they are quite animated - this matter is not dead at all” (81). This then is an agency that is not spiritual, nor is there any divine purpose. It is a matter of material force, a subversive action performed by robotic entities, not for any greater good, in fact, for no reason at all. This unpredictability is OOO contingency, whereby physical laws remain indifferent to whether an event occurs or not (Meillassoux 39). Figure 5: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck) A Post-Human Ethic The concept of a post-human state of being raises ethical concerns. Ethics is a human construct, a criteria of standards fixed within human social systems. How should humans respond, without moral panic, to robots that might have life and sentient power outside human control? If an OOO approach is undertaken, the implication is that all things exist equally and ethics, as fixed standards, might need to be dismantled and replaced with a more democratic set of guidelines. A flat ontology, argued for by Bogost, Levi Bryant and other OOO advocates, follows that all entities have equal potential for independent energy and agency (although OOO theorists disagree on many small technical issues). The disruption of the conventional hierarchical model of being is replaced by a flat field of equality. This might cause the effect of a more ethical, ontological ecology. Quentin Meillassoux, an influential figure in the field of Speculative Realism, from which OOO is an offshoot, finds philosophical/mathematical solutions to the problems of human subjectivity. His eschewing of Kantian divisions between object/subject and human/world, is accompanied by a removal from Kantian and Cartesian critique (Meillassoux 30). This turn from critique, and its related didactic authority and removed judgment, marks an important point in the culture of philosophy, but also in the culture of art writing. If we can escape the shackles of divisive critique, then the pleasures of narrative might be given space. Bogost endorses collapsing the hierarchical model of being and converting conventional academic writing (89). He says, “for the computers to operate at all for us first requires a wealth of interactions to take place for itself. As operators or engineers, we may be able to describe how such objects and assemblages work. But what do they “experience” (Bogost 10)? This view is complementary to an OOO view of anti-subjectivity, an awareness of things that might exist irrespective of human life, from both inside and outside the mind (Harman 143). Figure 6: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck) New Materiality In addition to her views on human/non-human agency, Karen Barad develops a parallel argument for materiality. She says, “matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers.” Barad’s agential realism is predicated on an awareness of the immanence of matter, with materiality that subverts conventions of transcendence or human-centredness. She says, “On my agential realist account, all bodies, not merely human bodies, come to matter through the world’s performativity - its iterative intra-activity.” Barad sees matter, all matter, as entangled parts of phenomena that extend across time and space (Nature’s Queer Performativity 125). Barad argues against the position that acts against nature are moral crimes, which occur when the nature/culture divide is breached. She questions the individuated categorizations of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ inherent in arguments like these (Nature’s Queer Performativity, 123-5). Likewise, in robotic and machinic aesthetics, it could be seen as an ethical breach to consider the robots as alive, sentient, and experiential. This confounds previous cultural separations, however, object-oriented theory is a reexamination of these infractions and offers an openness to discourse of different causal outcomes. Figure 7: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck) Co-Evolution Artists Gemeinboeck/Saunders are artists and scholarly researchers investigating new notions of co-evolution. If we ascribe human characteristics to robots, might they ascribe machinic properties to us? It is possible to argue that co-evolution is already apparent in the world. Titanium knees, artificial arteries, plastic hips, pacemakers, metallic vertebrae pins: human medicine is a step ahead. Gemeinboeck/Saunders in turn make a claim for the evolving desires of their robots (11). Could there be performative interchangeability between species: human and robot? Barad asks us not to presume what the distinctions are between human and non-human and not to make post-humanist blurrings, but to understand the materializing effects of the boundaries between humans and nonhumans (Nature’s Queer Performativity 123). Vital matter emerges from acts of reappearance, re-performance, and interspecies interaction. Ian Bogost begins his Alien Phenomenology by analysing Alan Turing’s essay, Computing Machinery and Intelligence and deduces that it is an approach inextricably linked to human understanding (Bogost 14). Bogost seeks to avoid distinctions between things or a slippage into an over-determination of systems operations, and instead he adopts an OOO view where all things are treated equally, even cheeky little robots (Bogost 17).Figure 8: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, installation view, Artspace, Sydney. (Photo: silversalt photography) Intra-Active ReappearanceIf Barad describes intra-action as enacting an agential cut or separation of object from subject, she does not mean a distinction between object and subject but instead devises an intra-active cutting of things together-apart (Nature’s Queer Performativity 124). This is useful for two reasons. First it allows confusion between inside and outside, between real and unreal, and between past and future. In other words it defies the human/world correlates, which OOO’s are actively attempting to flee. Secondly it makes sense of an idea of disappearance as being a re-appearance too. If robots, and all other species, start to disappear, from our consciousness, from reality, from life (that is, becoming extinct), this disappearance causes or enacts a new appearance (the robotic action), and this action has its own vitality and immanence. If virtuality (an aesthetic of being that grew from technology, information, and digital advancements) meant that the body was left or abandoned for an immaterial space, then robots and robotic artwork are a means of re-inhabiting the body in a re-materialized mode. This new body, electronic and robotic in nature, might be mastered by a human hand (computer programming) but its differential is its new agency which is one shared between human and non-human. Barad warns, however, against a basic inversion of humanism (Nature’s Queer Performativity 126). Co-evolution is not the removal of the human. While an OOO approach may not have achieved the impossible task of creating a reality beyond the human-centric, it is a mode of becoming cautious of an invested anthropocentric view, which robotics and diminished non-human species bring to attention. The autonomy and agency of robotic life challenges human understanding of ontological being and of how human and non-human entities relate.References Barad, Karen. "Nature’s Queer Performativity." Qui Parle 19.2 (2011): 121-158. ———. Interview. In Rick Dolphijn and Van Der Tuin. “Matter Feels, Converses, Suffers, Desires, Yearns and Remembers: Interview with Karen Barad.” New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan; Open Humanities Press, 2012. ———. "Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.3 (2003): 801-831. Bennett, Jane. The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. 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