Fellowship in Provenance of Cypriot Pottery

Another fellowship opportunity under the NARNIA scheme (information from job posting):

A 3-year Early Stage Research Fellowship (ESR06) in the framework of NARNIA Marie Curie ITN. The successful applicant will enrol as a PhD student at the Department of Art Sciences and Archaeology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium to conduct “Provenance research on Cypriot pottery classes circulating in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze and early Iron Age".

Title of Research Project

“Provenance research on Cypriot pottery classes circulating in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze and early Iron Age”

Fellowship Description

The main scope of the research project is a contribution to the understanding of the long-distance exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze and early Iron Age. More specifically, the project aims at elucidating the provenance of Cypriot pottery classes circulating in the Eastern Mediterranean during this particular time span, by determining the regional isotopic fingerprint of Cyprus. This builds upon current research at the VUB that investigates the use of isotopic tracers (lead and strontium) in pottery provenance research. Next to isotopic analyses, the fellow will apply other techniques such as thin section petrography and chemical analyses to compare and standardise the data. The fellow will carry out fieldwork in Cyprus and follow training courses offered in the NARNIA network.

The successful candidate will have the competence to combine archaeological and scientific information within an integrated programme of research.

More information can be found here.

Position in NARNIA

NARNIA

New Archaeological Research Network for Integrating Approaches
to ancient material studies

A Marie Curie Initial Training Network

Early Stage Researcher Fellowship Announcement

Fellowship Title and ID code

Marie Curie Early Stage Research Fellowship (ESR08) at G.M EuroCy Innovations LTD (Nicosia, Cyprus), in cooperation with the KIOS Research Center for Intelligent Systems and Networks and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Cyprus.

Title of Research Project

“Application and development of computational intelligence methodologies in analyzing archaeological data”

Fellowship Description

The main scope of the research project is to investigate, design, implement and use intelligent algorithms to facilitate archaeological research and archaeometry, in analyzing, classifying and making sense out of large quantities of structured and semi-structured data. The Fellow (PhD student) is expected to undertake research in the broad area of computational intelligence (pattern recognition, neural networks, statistical and adaptive learning, optimization etc.) and collaborate with the academic and industrial partners in the NARNIA network and beyond, to exploit the research outcomes.

Read more: http://scholarshipdb.com/early-stage-researcher-fellowship-announcement.html#ixzz1E20NdlwL

http://www.ucy.ac.cy/data/archreun/narnia%20information.pdf

CHARISMA program - proposals due 15 Spet. 2010

CHARISMA (Cultural Heritage Advanced Research Infrastructures: Synergy for a Multidisciplinary Approach to Conservation/Restoration) is an EU-funded integrating activity project carried out in the FP7 Capacities Specific Programme "Research Infrastructures".

The project provides transnational access to most advanced scientific instrumentations and knowledge allowing scientists, conservators-restorers and curators to enhance their research at the field forefront. Specialists from arts and sciences, design and set-up new instrumentations and methodologies developing the  most promising technological applications and sustainable solutions to improve diagnostics and monitoring. New extended cooperation among European infrastructures, paves the way towards expanding the harmonisation of best practices in studies and conservation.

The CHARISMA transnational access (TA) programs offer European scientists a to carry out their experiments utilizing 3 different and complementary groups of facilities (ARCHLAB, MOLAB and FIXLAB) through a service embedded in a multidisciplinary environment involving material science and artwork conservation/restoration.

* FIXLAB provides access to large and medium scale European installations, including the beamlines of one synchrotron radiation, one neutron source and two ion-beam analytical facilities;
* MOLAB offers access to a portable set of advanced analytical equipment, for in-situ non-invasive measurements on artworks, without any movement of the artefacts from their location and any contact with the surface;
* ARCHLAB permits the access to the structured scientific information and analytical data, stored in the archives of the most prestigious European museums and conservation institutions.

In a program that covers joint research, transnational access and networking, the planned challenging activities require a combined effort and commitment of an high-level partnership of twenty-one organizations to provide access to advanced facilities and develop research and applications on artwork materials finalised to the conservation of cultural heritage and favoring the opening of larger perspective to the heritage conservation activities in Europe.

The access activities are supported by 3 outreach programs as networking (NA) cooperation activities, with the intent to achieve a permanent interoperability among the European institutions of the CHARISMA consortium and those external to it. The activity fosters the culture of international cooperation, providing harmonisation of methodologies, sharing knowledge and best practices on conservation projects, adopting progressive standard compatibility, and providing education, training, users' awareness events, technology transfer and dissemination of project results.

3 Joint Research activities (JRA), intend to exploit advanced technologies and techniques as well as most promising applications and integrated solutions, to complement the project scheme providing innovative instrumentations and methodologies tailored to the user's needs.

New plans to monitor Space Debris

(image found on Spiegal Online International)
With thousands of pieces of assorted Space Debris circling the earth every day, the recent collision of two satellites was an eye opener for some people, especially in Europe. When the recent collision of a US Iridium commercial satellite with an old Soviet military satellite happened the ESA (European Space Agency) had no clue of the incident. They "had to ask the United States for information in order to gauge the danger the space debris presented to its own satellites. The Space Surveillance Network is an American program that constantly monitors more than 17,000 objects in Earth's orbit -- and the up-to-date information it provided also helped the Europeans get out of an awkward situation."

The Europeans are now looking into creating a program like the Americans have for monitoring assorted space debris so that they don't need to ask the neighbors for what kind of threats exists above their friendly skys. "We still need to do a lot more about monitoring," says Jean-François Kaufeler, the head of the ESA department responsible for space debris.

"Observers point out that there is currently no global air traffic control system that tracks the position of all satellites. NASA veteran turned space consultant James Oberg wrote, "At physical contact at orbital speeds, a hypersonic shock wave bursts outwards through the structures. It literally shreds the material into confetti and detonates any fuels." Oberg is hopeful that the Obama administration would take "forceful, visible, and long-overdue" measures to address the problem of space debris."

I am very surprised that all of the major nations don't have a joint monitoring program currently implemented so that if any unexpected suprised do decided to drop in literally they can be a bit more prepared for the aftermath. With over 30,000 pieces of debris floating above the earth, not to mention the thousands of space goodies that fly by the earth every year, even a small piece coming down could cause some huge problems with where ever it hits.

Hopefully, this recent incident will help to unveil a new program for monitoring our friendly sky's just in case someone decides to pop down for a visit. This recent incident is estimated to have created over 10,000 pieces of debris from the impact. Granted a majority of it because of its size will burn up on re-entry into the earths atmosphere, but what about the rest that doesn't burn up so quickly? Where will that end up?

Eyes on the Sky: Europe Plans to Monitor Space Junk (spiegal)
Mystery Fireball Streaks Across Texas Sky (ABC News)
Broken bits of satellites could post 10,000 year treat (FierceCIO)