Search Results (4)

Man-made hazards pose serious threats to the safety and preservation of heritage structures. With armed conflict becoming increasingly prominent, it is urgent to enhance our understanding of how these structures respond under extreme conditions to drive conservation strategies. The Citadel of Aleppo in Syria, placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2013 due to the civil war, tragically exemplifies the vulnerability of cultural heritage in times of conflict. In such a framework, this study focuses on the Minaret of the Ayyubid Great Mosque of the Citadel of Aleppo as a representative masonry tower to investigate the effects of man-made threats. Based on a 3D finite element model built in the Abaqus/Explicit environment, blast scenarios associated with aviation bombs and human-borne improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were simulated. The Conventional Weapons Effects (CONWEP) model was used to assess the structural response to blast pressures, also as a function of charge size, standoff distance, and modelling parameters (mesh size, strain rate). This study’s outcomes provide insights into the potential damage caused by aviation bombs and IED attacks, advancing the understanding of the vulnerability of tower-like masonry structures to such hazards while also informing future conservation strategies. Full article

Police crime reports are a critical but often underutilized source of information for understanding intimate partner violence (IPV). They provide systematic, population-level data on when, where, and how IPV incidents occur, complementing surveys and clinical studies. This study provides a descriptive analysis of IPV crime reports in Los Angeles (January 2020–December 2023) and models temporal trends using Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA). Results showed that a total of 74,776 IPV-related incidents were reported to the LAPD in the four-year period, averaging 51.22 incidents per day (SD = 10.84). Most incidents occurred in residential settings (71.9%), followed by public spaces (18.2%) and transportation settings (6.5%). Females accounted for the majority of incidents (77.35%) compared to males (22.65%), and Physical IPV was the most frequently reported subtype (77.0%). Of these Physical IPV reports, most incidents did not involve a weapon (83.82%), while the use of firearms, bladed weapons, blunt objects, and improvised implements was relatively uncommon. Temporal modeling using SARIMA indicated that month-to-month variation was dominated by stable seasonal and autoregressive dynamics, with no evidence of a distinct pandemic-specific shift in call volume. By integrating descriptive and temporal analyses, the study offers actionable insights for public health, law enforcement, and community organizations working to prevent and respond to IPV. Full article

Flails are one of the most contentious and misunderstood classes of medieval weaponry, despite their prevalence in popular media: some researchers question their existence entirely and the bulk of historians are skeptical of widespread temporal and geographical prevalence, while others, and a significant volume of period evidence, would argue the contrary. While the expansive use of flails in Eastern Europe and Byzantium is familiar, many Central, Western, and Southern European sources are less well known or largely forgotten, especially those stemming from the later-early and early high medieval eras (up to 1250). In this work, I collate and discuss the bulk of the available literary references and artistic depictions of flails and their use alongside some of the archaeological finds from Western, Central, and Southern Europe, with an emphasis on the 12th and 13th centuries. The significance of this volume of evidence is examined, and an assessment of flails as a part of medieval culture and warfare is considered. Collectively, this would suggest that knowledge of flails as instruments of war and associated cultural connotations, if not their actual prevalence and use in warfare, was far more widespread across Europe this time period than has been previously estimated. Full article

Threat assessments continue to conclude that terrorist groups and individuals as well as those wanting to cause harm to society have the ambition and increasing means to acquire unconventional weapons such as improvised nuclear explosive devices and radiological disposal devices. Such assessments are given credence by public statements of intent by such groups/persons, by reports of attempts to acquire radioactive material and by law enforcement actions which have interdicted, apprehended or prevented attempts to acquire such material. As a mechanism through which to identify radioactive materials being transported on an individual’s person, this work sought to develop a detection system that is of lower-cost, reduced form-factor and more covert than existing infrastructure, while maintaining adequate sensitivity and being retrofittable into an industry standard and widely utilised Gunnebo Speed Gate system. The system developed comprised an array of six off-set Geiger–Muller detectors positioned around the gate, alongside a single scintillator detector for spectroscopy, triggered by the systems inbuilt existing IR proximity sensor. This configuration served to not only reduce the cost for such a system but also allowed for source localisation and identification to be performed. Utilising the current setup, it was possible to detect a 1 µSv/h source carried into the Speed Gate in all test scenarios, alongside locating and spectrally analysing the material in a significant number. Full article