Defense Of Cities Research Articles

New sights on the impact of spatial composition of production factors for socioeconomic recovery in the post-epidemic era: a case study of cities in central and eastern China.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp economic contraction. A comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the spatial composition of production factor (SCPF) and socioeconomic recovery is still missing. Here, we applied the contrasting status of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations in cities in central and eastern China as natural laboratories. From the perspective of the spatial composition of land (SCL) and the dependence on the inflow population (DIP), four quantifiable indicators (resilience, impact, sensitivity, recovery speed) were used to analyze the adaptability of SCPF to the epidemic lockdown. The results indicate that appropriate SCPF is a prerequisite for a complete “land-population-industry” nexus. The built-up area proportion is below 74.38%, with higher adaptability to epidemic shocks. The range of rural built-up proportion conducive to economic recovery is 10.18%-15.18%. The proportions of various land types inside the city's defense unit should also be constrained. Similarly, DIP is advocated to be maintained below 17.5%. For urban-rural fringe areas, the response to epidemic prevention and socioeconomic recovery are rapid. This observation-driven study indicated that COVID-19 is a shocking reminder for policymakers, to improve the socioeconomic recovery ability from the spatial composition of production factor perspective in the post−COVID−19 era.

ОБОРОННИЙ КОСТЕЛ СВЯТОГО МИКОЛАЯ ТА МОНАСТИР ОО. БЕРНАРДИНІВ У БЕРЕЖАНАХ

The article is devoted to the history of the monastery of the Order of Bernardines in Berezhany in Ternopil region. The analysis of the architectural features of the complex is main purpose of the work. The monastery is located in the northwest corner of the city. The territory of the was surrounded by defensive bastion fortifications. The monastery fortifications were a part of the city defensive lines. The mountain, on which the monastery located, is called - "St. Nicholas Mountain". On the place of the present monastery was a boyar's manor in the XIV century, and then the orthodox church of St. Nicholas.The construction of a defensive complex of monastic buildings began in 1630. The Bernardine complex includes - the Catholic Church of St. Nicholas, the house of the monastery cells, defensive walls and ramparts. The complex occupied the highest position in the north-western wing of the city's defense system. It was an important strategic point that controlled the Lviv-Berezhany road. The construction of all the objects of the monastery lasted 112 years until 1742.In 1809–1812, the Austrian authorities liquidated the city's powerful defenses. In particular, the ramparts and bastions that were on the territory of the monastery were eliminated. Today there is only a fragment of a defensive wall and a moat on the southern slope of the mountain, which separated the territory of the monastery from the urban areas of the New Town. The fortifications of the monastery are shown on the map of 1720 by Major Johann von Fürstenhof. The bastion belt of the monastery had underground structures. In 2010, murals were found in the interior of the church. According to the author, the carved stone decoration of the church (columns, capitals) was made by the sculptor Johann Pfister (in 1630–1642). The altars, with carved figures of saints, were probably made by the artist Georg Ioan Pinzel from Buchach. The architecture of the monastery's defensive structures needs further research. In the temple there are several valuable icons of the prophetic series of iconostasis. These are works originating from the famous Krasnopushchany iconostasis by Gnat Stobynsky and Fr. Theodosius of Sichynskyi. This iconostasis was donated in 1912 by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi. Restoration work on the monastery began in 2007 after a visit by President Victor Yushchenko. First of all, the roof of the temple was repaired. Work is underway to restore and recreate the interior of the temple. Archaeological research of lost fortifications needs special attention.

ПОЛІТИЧНА ІСТОРІЯ ОЛЬВІЇ ПОНТІЙСЬКОЇ II СТ. ДО Н. Е. У СВІТЛІ ВІДНОВЛЕНОГО ЛІТОЧИСЛЕННЯ

Restoration of the chronology of Olbia Pontica IV-I centuries B.C. allowed to significantly refine the dating of a large group of inscriptions. It opens the prospect of revision of socio-political history, in particular, 2nd c. B.C. with a single chronological position. The decree in honor of Nicerat, the son of Papias, dates back to the early Roman times. The decree in honor of Stefan, the son of Alexandros belongs to the times of Mithridates VI Eupator. In the first quarter of 2nd c. B.C. a group of private dedications on granite has been issued. In the second quarter of the century is known inscription of builder walls of Posideos, the son Dionysios, which is interpreted as a measure to strengthen the city's defense from the Skilur. Four dedications of Posideos, the son of Posideos from the Naples of Scythians and one of Olbia dated to the turn of the 3rd-2nd centuries B.C. Accordingly, Posideos was not an advisor of Scilure. Traditional reading of coins legends ΒΣΕ, ΒΑΕΙΡΗ of the end of 3rd – first half of 2nd centuries B.C. as the names of the barbarian kings are only a variant of the interpretation.

ПОЛІТИЧНА ІСТОРІЯ ОЛЬВІЇ ПОНТІЙСЬКОЇ II СТ. ДО Н. Е. У СВІТЛІ ВІДНОВЛЕНОГО ЛІТОЧИСЛЕННЯ

Restoration of the chronology of Olbia Pontica IV-I centuries B.C. allowed to significantly refine the dating of a large group of inscriptions. It opens the prospect of revision of socio-political history, in particular, 2nd c. B.C. with a single chronological position. The decree in honor of Nicerat, the son of Papias, dates back to the early Roman times. The decree in honor of Stefan, the son of Alexandros belongs to the times of Mithridates VI Eupator. In the first quarter of 2nd c. B.C. a group of private dedications on granite has been issued. In the second quarter of the century is known inscription of builder walls of Posideos, the son Dionysios, which is interpreted as a measure to strengthen the city's defense from the Skilur. Four dedications of Posideos, the son of Posideos from the Naples of Scythians and one of Olbia dated to the turn of the 3rd-2nd centuries B.C. Accordingly, Posideos was not an advisor of Scilure. Traditional reading of coins legends ΒΣΕ, ΒΑΕΙΡΗ of the end of 3rd – first half of 2nd centuries B.C. as the names of the barbarian kings are only a variant of the interpretation.

The Fall of Acre in the 1948 Palestine War

In studies of the 1948 war, little attention has been paid to the swift fall of one of Palestine's most storied cities, the walled and fortified seaport of Acre. This article, based on archival sources, focuses on the six months leading up to the city's conquest on 17 May 1948. Describing in detail the preparations of the city's defense, the various military and political forces involved, and the dissensions and rivalries among them, the article goes on to trace the tightening siege and mounting harassment of the city and the growing despair of its residents, the city's place in Haganah strategy, and the actual battle. Of particular interest is the role of the Druze Regiment stationed nearby. Most important, the author provides a clear understanding of why events unfolded as they did.

O fabrico e uso da pólvora no Brasil colonial: o papel de alpoim na primeira metade do século XVIII

Gunpowder played a significant role in colonial Brazil. This reached a climax in the eighteenth century, when the country's large gold output enticed the greed of many. The French invasion of Rio de Janeiro in 1711 made the city's defense even more pressing to the metropolis. Brigadier Alpoim symbolized this reaction. He was a leading Luso-Brazilian engineer of that century, whose multiple activities set him apart in colonial life. These activities included a pioneer role in teaching the manufacture and use of gunpowder, about which he wrote extensively during the first half of the eighteenth century. His work is thus among the first to treat chemical technology in the colony at such an early age.

Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict

Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict by John B. Dunlop (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, xi, 234 pp, $54.95 cloth, $18.95 paper). Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus by Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal (New York: New York University Press, 1998, xiv, 416 pp, $39.50). Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power by Anatol Lieven (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, xii, 436 pp, $57.95 cloth, $25.60 paper). Prisoner of the Mountains directed by Sergei Bodrov (Orion Pictures, 1997, 99 minutes).In November 1994 Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia, was worried about his standing in the opinion polls. Elections to the State Duma the previous year had not gone well, and the legislature was now dominated by a 'red-brown' opposition of old-line communists and nationalists like Vladimir Zhirinovskii's somewhat misleadingly named Liberal Democratic party. Meanwhile, chronic economic difficulties, rising crime, and increasingly flagrant corruption continued to erode Yeltsin's popularity. Even more worrisome, in the Caucasus region on Russia's southern border, Islamic separatists were threatening the Russian Federation's fragile unity.The crisis in the south centred on Chechnya, a small Muslim nation on the northern edge of the Caucasus mountain range that had declared its independence from Moscow in November 1991, shortly after the collapse of the USSR. Ironically, Yeltsin initially encouraged Chechen separatism in his campaign to weaken the authority of his archrival, the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Although Yeltsin now opposed the move, over the next two years he did little to re-establish Moscow's authority over the breakaway republic. There were far bigger fish to fry at home, such as the struggle with the Supreme Soviet that had ended in a bloody showdown in October 1993.As for Chechnya, President Dzhokhar Dudaev, a charismatic former Soviet air force general with a penchant for melodramatic rhetoric and Cosa Nostra couture, had proven spectacularly unfit to govern his infant regime. With an unusually high number of BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes racing about the streets, there were many outward signs of prosperity in the capital, Grozny. Yet much of the republic's civic apparatus, such as schools and hospitals, had all but ceased to function. In the words of a British journalist: 'Dudaev seemed much more interested in the idea of calling Chechnya independent than in the practicality of making it work.' By 1994, Chechens were growing increasingly unhappy with their leader's laissez-faire style. There were many signs that his many domestic political opponents might soon force Dudaev out of office.Yeltsin was not prepared to wait. His own heavy-handed efforts to encourage Dudaev's foes had ended ignominiously on 26 November 1994, when an attempt to seize Grozny by opposition forces reinforced with Russian armour was easily quashed. The humiliation of this Caucasian Bay of Pigs only further encouraged hard-liners in the Kremlin. At the same time, although the presidential election was still more than a year away, it seemed that decisive action would surely boost Yeltsin's sagging political fortunes. One leading official reasoned: 'It is not only a question of the integrity of Russia. We need a small victorious war to raise the president's ratings.' After all, only two months earlier United States troops had easily occupied the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, in a similar operation to restore 'legitimacy' there. The Russian minister of defence, Pavel Grachev, boasted that one paratroop brigade would need no more than two hours to secure Grozny.General Grachev proved to be too optimistic. On 31 December, a day that happened to coincide with the minister's birthday, some 6,000 Russian ground troops launched a major assault on the Chechen capital. Even though Dudaev's men had done little to prepare the city's defences, it would take seven weeks of vicious urban combat and heavy artillery strikes to drive them out of their capital. …

The Political Mood in Leningrad during the First Year of theSoviet‐German War

The 872-day siege of Leningrad is one of the largest life-and-death struggles in history. No city in modern times has suffered greater loss of life over a comparable period of time. According to recent estimates, close to two million Soviet citizens died within the city or defending it from the outside between 1941 and 1944. The civilian death toll within Leningrad was about one million. When most of those deaths occurred, during the first year of the Soviet-German War, Leningrad was strategically important for the USSR. Had Germany taken the city in the latter half of 1941, it could have linked up with Finland, consolidated its position on the Baltic, and directed additional hundreds of thousands of troops to the offensive against Moscow. In turn, had Germany then quickly seized Moscow (and perhaps Stalin), Soviet resistance might have ended.' For historians of the Soviet Union, Leningrad's first year of war represents an important period for gauging the extent to which the general population supported the Communist state following years of state-directed mass terror, which had left an indelible mark on Leningrad. Expressions of support for the system, or protests against it, assumed a much greater significance in the first year of the war than at any time during the 1930s. With German Army Group North camped less than three miles south of Leningrad, the city's defense was very much in doubt. The prevailing uncertainty compelled supporters of the party-state to rally to its defense, and, likewise, gave opponents with pent-up grievances their best chance since the Civil War to overthrow the government, though all realized that political revolution would lead almost automatically to enemy occupation of Leningrad.

The Lower Theatre at Balboura

Amongst the standing remains of Greco-roman Balboura in northern Lycia are those of two theatres (Fig. 1). The smaller and better preserved clings to the steep south slope of the acropolis hill close to the line of the Hellenistic city's defence wall. The reports of early travellers provide little useful information about the monument, concerned as they are more with Balboura's rich epigraphic material than with her architecture. Spratt and Forbes, who visited the site in 1842 during their archaeological survey of the area, wrote a brief account, and nearly half a century later Petersen and Von Luschan published without comment a single photograph of the stage building's fine retaining wall showing its heavily bossed polygonal stones and its buttresses of squared blocks. No detailed picture was available, however, until the appearance in 1969 of the second volume of de Bernardi Ferrero's monumental survey of the ancient theatres in Asia Minor.The second theatre, located in a rocky bay in the hillside at the edge of the valley three hundred metres to the south, has attracted even less attention, and understandably so, for its remains consist of little more than the foundations for the stage building which lie half buried beneath earth and debris. De Bernardi Ferrero has published several photographs but no drawings. Her brief description concentrates on the system of arches supporting the pavement of the proscenium, an unusual feature for which she cites several parallels in the area.

Along Jerusalem's Walls

From 1973 to 1976, the Mount Zion Archeological Expedition conducted a series of excavations along the western and southern walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, extending some 700 meters (roughly 1/6 of the perimeter) from the southern moat of the Citadel-the so-called David's Tower-to the vicinity of Burj Kabrit. Significant phases in the history of the city's defenses emerged, including part of the Hasmonean wall and the line of Herod's fortifications on the western slope, and a medieval gate-tower on the southern slope.

Jupiter Blaze, Gods of the Hills, and the Roman Topography ofCILVI 377

On the basis of indications in CIL VI 377 the site and history of the temple of Jupiter Fulgur (Fulgerator) and of the Dei Montenses are discussed. The inner line of the City's defense parallel to the Agger of the Servian Wall is reconstructed in light of a thoroughfare, here named the Vicus Montanus, which crossed and linked the several hills and mounts of the City's northeastern portion, for purposes of defense in the early Republic. Evidence on the archaic rites and later interpretations of the Feast of Seven Hills (Septimontium) is reviewed. After a survey of Domitianic rebuilding of burned Rome, the so-called Hartwig relief from under the great Exedra of the Baths of Diocletian is re-examined in terms of Domitian's Altars of the Neronian Fire and his extraordinary Septimontial ceremony. The Hartwig monument is identified as the temple of the Gods of the Hills first built by Domitian in consequence of the fires of 64 and 80.

Excavations at Gloucester, 1968–1971: First Interim Report

SummaryThe 1968–71 excavations have produced a large body of information bearing on Roman Gloucester's development from legionary fortress to chartered city. It has proved possible to correlate Roman building sequences in different parts of the city. A building period which may be associated with the foundation of the colonia has been extensively excavated. The Roman forum has been discovered in a position equivalent to that of the principia of a fortress. Knowledge of the city's defences in both Roman and later periods has been amplified by work on three sides of the Roman circuit. Late Saxon use of the Roman wall is suggested and late Saxon buildings fronting Southgate Street have been discovered. At 13–17 Berkeley Street the first extensive excavation of medieval levels in the city has revealed a length of street fronted by late eleventh–fourteenth-century buildings.

Alcaeus 48 (B 16) and the Fall of Ascalon (604 B. C.)

large irregular stones which were probably a foundation course. Because of the cramped quarters at the bottom of the pit it was impossible to go deeper without enlarging the whole test area, and the approaching close of the campaign made this impossible. We did, however, find a little MB II A pottery here which is rare at Beitin. After removing dangerous fallen rock on the south face of the pit we were able to trace the gateway (?) face of this MB wall where it ended in an S-shaped bulge c. 3 m. from the city wall proper, indicating that the wall is broken beyond this point. Some stones are missing and some have toppled outward under pressure. This MB II wall was reused by the LB population, but it was destroyed at the end of LB. Since the season's work was devoted to the city's defenses, only a small number of important objects were found. In addition to those already described were 2 scarabs, a jar handle with a scarab impression, a jar handle with a Hebrew inscription, and an unusual jar in modified crater form, 55 cm. wide and 62 cm. high. Two ceramic observations, however, are in order. The cooking pot of MB I with steam holes was represented only by a couple of sherds, although other types of cooking pot sherds were very plentiful. MB II cooking pots without steam holes were found in great quantities. Also the trumpet-foot ware of this campaign represented a high percentage of poor work, in striking contrast to the fine craftsmanship of the best work found.9

The Seal Impression from Jericho and the Treasurers of the Second Temple

at least one violent destruction of the site (by John Hyrcanus in 128 B. C.?); (3) and after this destruction there was a comparatively brief, but extensive, reoccupation of the site at a time when the city's defenses were in ruins and hasty attempts were being made to repair them. In a tentative way we would suggest a date for the final phase of the city's life between 128 and a time not far removed from 100 B. C.