Remote Outpost Research Articles

Warfare and Logistics Along the US-Canadian Border During the War of 1812 by Christopher D. Dishman

Reviewed by: Warfare and Logistics Along the US-Canadian Border During the War of 1812 by Christopher D. Dishman David Curtis Skaggs Christopher D. Dishman. Warfare and Logistics Along the US-Canadian Border During the War of 1812. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2021. Pp. 334. Bibliography. Index. Maps. Notes. Cloth: $39.95. There’s an old military adage that “amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.” Others invoke the maxim attributed to Erwin Rommel: “Battles are won by the quartermasters.” To the military, logistics is concerned with maintaining supply lines of personnel, equipment, food, weapons, and ammunition from one point to another while disrupting the capabilities of an enemy to do the same thing. The importance of supplying military forces is similarly emphasized in Christopher D. Dishman’s Warfare and Logistics Along the US-Canadian Border During the War of 1812. In the preface, Dishman notes that “Victory for either side often depended on enough men and supplies arriving promptly at a remote outpost or dockyard. This dependence on external supplies meant that military operations in one theater could produce cascading effects hundreds of miles from the battle.” In addition to logistics, he also undertakes the operational and tactical actions of the contending military and naval forces from Lake Champlain to Lake Michigan. No one previously has integrated the logistical and combat aspects of the border warfare in this central region of this war’s military operations as effectively as he. Unfortunately, William S. Dudley’s Inside the US Navy of 1812–1815 (2021), with its supportive conclusions, was unavailable before Dishman’s manuscript went to press. Michiganders will find special interest in the inept American leadership during its failures at Detroit and Frenchtown (now Monroe), as well as the surrender of Fort Michilimackinac (as it was spelled at the time) on Mackinac Island and the failure to retake the post in 1814. Dishman gives a detailed analysis of the combined operations led by General William Henry Harrison and Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie and southwestern Upper Canada in 1813. Critical to both the operational and logistical aspects of this conflict was the control of Lake Ontario, where both sides failed to implement combined operations decisively and the British were able to escape disaster by the narrowest of margins. As Dishman’s study becomes more involved in the detail of combat in 1814, the depth of logistical discussion declines. He could easily have developed more thoroughly the logistical problems of the Lake Champlain campaign. His description of the expedition of Miller Worsley, for the relief of Fort [End Page 117] Michilimackinac in the fall of 1814 deserves greater depth. Totally ignored is the role played by the British Army, the North West Company’s operatives, and Native Americans who relied on support out of Mackinac Island for operations in the upper Mississippi Valley. Dishman’s disparagement of the militia compared with the regular army fails to contrast the performances of the common militia (mostly conscripts) and the volunteer militia, which sometimes exceeded that of the regulars in battle. Also, he demotes one of my unsung heroes of the war, West Point graduate Eleazer Wood, who was a lieutenant colonel, not a major, before being killed during the 1814 Niagara campaign. Finally, one reason why British negotiators at the Treaty of Ghent agreed to the status quo antebellum was that the Harrison-Perry campaign had resulted in the United States controlling both sides of the Detroit River in the Western District of Upper Canada. Had the treaty been settled on uti possidetis (retaining property held at the war’s end), this would have given the Americans domination of the logistical route to Lake Huron, although the British would have acquired the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin. But such trivial criticisms should not disparage the thoroughly researched, engagingly written, insightfully analytical contents of Warfare and Logistics, which should be part of anyone’s collection of important War of 1812 studies. After reading it, you will agree with Dishman’s conclusion: “The war along the US-Canadian frontier was a testament to the importance of logistics when waging war.” David Curtis Skaggs Professor Emeritus of History Bowling Green State...

Hardly predictable and yet an equitable solution: Delimitation by judicial process as an option for Greece and Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean

AbstractThis article addresses the dispute between Greece and Turkey concerning the reach of their sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the Eastern Mediterranean, which is essentially about delimitation of the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Turkey has delineated its continental shelf in the region to extend directly to the outer limits of the territorial waters of the Greek islands, specifically Crete, Rhodes, and Kastellorizo. Greece sees this as an attempt to deprive the islands of their maritime zones. The present article discusses what the two states might expect if they would request the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to determine the course of their maritime boundaries. The outcome of such a process would be difficult to foresee because international case law regarding the effect of islands on the delimitation of the continental shelf and EEZ is rather diffuse. Nevertheless, this article will explore what an equitable solution could look like. In particular, the small island of Kastellorizo, Greece’s most remote outpost in the Eastern Mediterranean, which lies just off the Turkish coast, requires special consideration. The present article discusses different options for dealing with this island in a future delimitation.

1 - Métissage in Nineteenth Century Senegal:Hybrid Identity and French Colonialism in a West African Town

This paper argues that Saint Louis’ peculiarity did not match neither the identity of African societies of the interior nor that of metropolitan France. neither was it identical to notions of sychretism or creolisation. At the contrary, this city gave birth to a cosmopolite society with different national, ethnic linguistic and religious identities comparatively influenced as they were by their relationships with States and societies of the Senegal Valley region, the transatlantic trade. This paper offers a re-reading of accounts by European travellers and officials combined with study of archival records, publications such as the Moniteur du Senegal, private papers and portrait photographs. Based on extensive field work, this paper sheds light on an overlooked aspect of African history and casts new light on modern Atlantic and French colonial history by suggesting that these locations were not solely formed by elite European actors but by local inhabitants of the colonies and remote outposts..

1 - Metissage in Nineteenth Century Senegal: Hybrid Identity and French Colonialism in a West African Town

This article argues that Saint-Louis’ peculiarity matched neither the identity of African societies of the interior nor that of metropolitan France. Nor was it identical to notions of sychretism or creolisation. On the contrary, this city gave birth to a cosmopolitan society with different national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious identities comparatively influenced as they were by their relation- ships with States and societies of the Senegal Valley region, and the trans- Atlantic trade. The article offers a re-reading of accounts by European travel- lers and officials combined with study of archival records, publications such as the Moniteur du Senegal, private papers and portrait photographs. Based on extensive fieldwork, the article sheds light on an overlooked aspect of African history and engages modern Atlantic and French colonial history by suggesting that these locations were not solely formed by elite uropean actors but by local inhabitants of the colonies and remote outposts.

Renewable energy and energy storage to offset diesel generators at expeditionary contingency bases

Expeditionary contingency bases (non-permanent, rapidly built, and often remote outposts) for military and non-military applications represent a unique opportunity for renewable energy. Conventional applications rely upon diesel generators to provide electricity. However, the potential exists for renewable energy, improved efficiency, and energy storage to largely offset the diesel consumed by generators. This paper introduces a new methodology for planners to incorporate meteorological data for any location worldwide into a planning tool in order to minimize air pollution and carbon emissions while simultaneously improving the energy security and energy resilience of contingency bases. Benefits of the model apply not just to the military, but also to any organization building an expeditionary base—whether for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, scientific research, or remote community development. Modeling results demonstrate that contingency bases using energy efficient buildings with batteries, rooftop solar photovoltaics, and vertical axis wind turbines can decrease annual generator diesel consumption by upward of 75% in all major climate zones worldwide, while simultaneously reducing air pollution, carbon emissions, and the risk of combat casualties from resupply missions.

Black Islands, White Ocean: Postcolonial Paradoxes in a Caribbean “Paradise"

Black Islands, White Ocean:Postcolonial Paradoxes in a Caribbean "Paradise" William F.S. Miles (bio) Welcome to "Paradise" Vauclin, French West Indies Let's play a geographical word association game: I say "Martinique," and you say _______ (fill in the blank). Plausible answers may be "beach," "tropics," "Caribbean." Somewhat informed players might add "French," "sugar," or "rum." But few will think "misery" or "prison." It was quite by accident that I learned the most rudimentary facts about this island in the Lesser Antilles. As my two-year stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) teacher in the former French West African colony of Niger was drawing to an end, I chanced upon a pamphlet circulating among PCVs about other teaching opportunities. One, by the same organization that administers Fulbright, sought applicants to be English language teaching assistants in France. Though this was forty years ago, I'll never forget the asterisk and associated footnote in the program description that would come to change my life forever: "Those candidates with teaching experience are eligible to apply for a teaching assistantship in Martinique." That is how I first learned that Martinique was (and still is!) part of France. It put me on a path that would net me not only a doctoral dissertation topic but a Martinican woman to wed and two cherished fruit of that love. Websites were inconceivable back then; all I had was my imagination to conjure up an idea of Martinique. After two years in a parched and landlocked African post-colony of France, the notion of spending seven months speaking French in proximity to an ocean, where sand embroidered the beach rather than encroaching from the Sahara, was appealing. Little did I know how complicated race relations were on the "Old Colony" island compared within the independent republics of former French West Africa. Even today, with Internet galore, the ambivalence of Martinique's place within greater France pierces through the French Government website that describes the teaching assistantship [End Page 255] program today: "The history of Martinique appears to be intimately linked to colonial expansion and the evolution thereof." "Appears" to be linked? Before Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc claimed for Louis XIII in 1635 the island then called Madinina or Madiana, the indigenous Caribs, and before them the Arawaks, had left little in the way of historical records. By the 1670s, French colonists had already given up on enslaving the island's Amerindians in favor of importing much more disoriented ones from Africa. By the 1700s, the original Amerindian islanders had virtually ceased to exist as a community, having succumbed to genocide and deportation (to a reserve in neighboring Dominica). Enslavement of deported Africans followed: the otherwise heralded beauty of the island certainly was lost on them. Slavery was abolished twice—first during the French Revolution, until its restoration by Napoléon in 1802—and definitively in 1848, thanks largely to the abolitionist Victor Schoelcher. Technically, Martinicans were thereafter citizens of France. In reality, racial equality on the island was a struggle—not only between blacks and whites, but between "real" blacks and mixed-race Creoles (still called "mulattos"). The entire population of the capital—save for a single prisoner in thick walled dungeon of a jail—was wiped out by a tremendous volcanic explosion in 1902. Colonial functionaries posted to this remote outpost of France in the Americas received hardship pay. Local conscripts who survived the Battle of the Somme to freeze in the winter of 1916–1917 may have pined for the tropical warmth back home; but malaria, yellow fever, and malnutrition were scarcely reasons for nostalgia. France's abdication to Nazi Germany in 1940 gave way to Vichy governance on the island, and overt racism, well into 1943. Refugees from Europe—Jews, anti-fascists, intellectuals—sailed to Martinique as an escape from persecution, only to be detained and in some cases expelled back to the continent from which they fled. Some were held in a former leper colony; war-time tropical island anguish suffused the camp. For four decades I have been returning to Martinique. At first it was as a teaching assistant in a lycée technique, a vocational high...

From D-Day to Beirut: Bibliotherapy as Adjunct in Trauma Recovery?

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Clinical & ResearchFull AccessFrom D-Day to Beirut: Bibliotherapy as Adjunct in Trauma Recovery?Elias Aboujaoude, M.D., M.A.Elias AboujaoudeSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., M.A.Published Online:29 Mar 2021https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2021.2.32AbstractA wise author’s or philosopher’s words may augment standard interventions to help people heal from trauma.Elias Aboujaoude, M.D., M.AThe blast in Beirut, Lebanon, on August 4, 2020, has been described as one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded. Nearly 3,000 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate caught fire, resulting in over 200 deaths, 6,500 injuries, 50,000 damaged homes, and untold cases of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traumatized residents rushed to survey the devastation, documenting it in a series of images that communicated to the global community the scale of the horror and that might as well be called Beirut year zero.One, depicting a 19th century residence torn open by the blast, stood out as witness and metaphor. Severely damaged, the house still stood, and its destroyed walls offered a peek into an interior mural of Gibran Kahlil Gibran, the author of The Prophet, looking forlorn, as though mourning the city. You couldn’t see the house and not want to try to shore up its walls. You couldn’t glimpse the mural and not want to seek solace in The Prophet.In 1895, Gibran Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) embarked from the now decimated Port of Beirut heading to Boston via Ellis Island. He remains widely read on his native shores, in the United States, and beyond: The Prophet is one of the best-selling books of all time and has been translated into more than 100 languages. Gibran’s transcendental, humanitarian message and his unwavering defense of the vulnerable and oppressed have long made him a favorite in times of hardship and uncertainty.A 19th century residence torn open by a blast in Beirut in August 2020 reveals a mural of Gibran Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese American poet, writer, and philosopher.Dia MradTo help lift soldier morale in World War II, the Council on Books in Wartime created, in 1943, the Armed Services Edition library, printing millions of paperback copies of select titles, including The Prophet. Measuring about 5.5 inches by 4.5 inches, the books were meant to fit into a cargo pocket. They were distributed to troops on the battlefield, shipped to hospitals caring for injured soldiers, and airdropped on remote outposts. Not much is known about how The Prophet was received by GIs, but one can imagine weary soldiers reading it in their bunkers and drawing inspiration from words like: “You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.”Yes, trauma is real, painful, and weakening, the author seems to teach, but inner resilience is still somewhere to be accessed, and, if tapped, it can help the weakened find strength, victims recover, cities rebuild, and hope take root.Several treatments have been proposed for the victims of trauma. Cognitive processing therapy, desensitization therapy, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and the alpha-1 adrenergic blocker prazosin all have evidence to support their use. Others like memory consolidation blockers and virtual reality-based interventions hold promise. But a wise author’s or philosopher’s words may also help the healing process and “augment” standard interventions, as some preliminary research into bibliotherapy for PTSD seems to suggest. This may be as relevant in Beirut today as it was in Normandy in 1944. ■Elias Aboujaoude, M.D., M.A., is a clinical professor, chief of the Anxiety Disorders Section, and director of the OCD Clinic in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. ISSUES NewArchived

Origins and diversity of the Bering Sea Island fauna: shifting linkages across the northern continents

We synthesize the historical biogeography of non-marine fauna (mammals, birds, fish, non-parasitic and parasitic invertebrates) occurring across Bering Sea islands, considering endemism, species with origins in both North America and Far East Asia, and the impacts of introduced species through the Bering region. Insular communities often constitute assemblages of unique evolutionary lineages that reflect both neutral and selective processes of diversification as a consequence of isolation and through responses to in situ environmental change. However, current knowledge of the basic distribution, ecology, and evolutionary identity of the majority of terrestrial species through the Bering Sea region is still generally lacking. A preponderance of scientific effort associated with these islands has instead focused on conservation and management of marine-associated species and economically viable biological resources. Given the critical role that terrestrial environments play in maintaining evolutionary and ecological linkages between land and sea, a greater understanding of existing biodiversity, and the biological processes that influence community integrity through this remote region is warranted. Resolving responses of resident insular species to rapidly warming Arctic climate and to modern human-associated disturbances provides valuable insight for effective management of future population trajectories and for revealing the dynamics of intra- and inter-specific connectivity across the northern hemisphere and between marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The location of this region at a high-latitude cross-roads has led to a preponderance of island taxa having trans-Beringian distributions. Species associated with the Palearctic or the Nearctic occur across a strong longitudinal gradient, reflecting the role of the Bering Sea as a dispersal filter between mainland areas. Aleutian oceanic islands reflect different biogeographic histories among taxonomic groups from land-bridge islands of the Bering Sea. We discuss evidence of recent biodiversity responses to modern environmental perturbations, including continued colonisations and novel species interactions, and call for increased scientific scrutiny of terrestrial fauna across these remote outposts.

Tradition and Trade Beads: The Early Sobaipuri O’odham–Spanish Contact Period at San Xavier Del Bac, Arizona

Our paper investigates aspects of initial contact between the Sobaipuri O’odham and Spanish missionaries at San Xavier del Bac in the late 1600s to early 1700s. Cultural contact and change are of enduring interest to anthropologists, and our recent research on the San Xavier District provides important new data on this subject. Specifically, we investigate the degree of indigenous adoption of European material culture and religious teachings at this remote outpost of the Spanish empire after contact with Father Kino in 1692. We use archaeological data from a Protohistoric-early Historic period locus northeast of the San Xavier Mission to investigate our research topic. Through our excavation results and comparative data from other Sobaipuri sites and publications, we demonstrate that the Sobaipuri villagers at Bac initially exhibited indifference to the presence of the Spanish until the mid-1700s when they began to participate in more active forms of resistance to Spanish domination.

Endothelial Heterogeneity Enables Parallel Processing of Multiple Stimuli

The endothelium is the innermost layer of all blood vessels and changes in the behavior of this single layer of cells underlie almost all cardiovascular disease. To regulate cardiovascular function, the endothelium must integrate hundreds of signals. These signals can arrive from as close as neighboring cells to substances circulating in the blood from the most remote outpost of the body. However, how the endothelium detects and relays the information stored in each of these signals to initiate a physiological output is not fully understood. The problem in integrating signals is made even more complex as the central relay system within an endothelial cell is a single ion, Ca2+. Here, we show the endothelium manages a multitude of extracellular signals by utilizing spatially‐distinct endothelial cells. Furthermore, the Ca2+ signal generate by each activator has unique distinguishing characteristics.To determine how multiple extracellular signals are detected in the endothelium we analysed the Ca2+ activity from ~1000 endothelial cells from intact arteries. Male‐Sprague‐Dawley rats were euthanized by CO2 overdose and second order mesenteric arteries were extracted, cut open and pinned flat. The endothelium was loaded with a Ca2+ indicator Cal‐520/AM and imaged using fluorescence microscopy. Ca2+ activity was separately analysed in each of the 1000 individual endothelial cells using a custom built software package written in Python.For each activator (ACh, ATP, ADP & Histamine) full concentration response curves were carried out to determine the EC25 concentration (the concentration at which 25% of cells responded). The addition of the four activators (each separately applied), at their respective EC25 concentration, to the same field of endothelium revealed the endothelium utilizes sub‐populations of endothelial cells to detect each activator. The Ca2+ signal began in small sub‐populations of endothelial cells that were organised in clusters and propagated between cells as Ca2+ waves. The cells responsible for the detection of a specific activator were spatially unique and there was no significant overlap with cells that were primed to detect another agonist (P<0.05). Each activator generated a unique Ca2+ signal that was specific to the agonist. When the activators were applied in combination at the EC25 concentration, the unique characteristics of the Ca2+ signal for a specific activator when applied alone was drastically altered. Interestingly, the characteristics of the Ca2+ signal when applied in combination was not a simple linear summation of the individual signals. Expansive responses occurred, in that the outputs exceeded the sum of the inputs. These results suggest individual endothelial cells communicate with their neighbors and complex computations are carried out by combining the information from each source to generate a distinct output. By using spatially‐distinct cells, unique signal characteristics and communication, the endothelium is able to detect and relay the information stored in the multitude of extracellular activators to initiate physiological outputs.Support or Funding InformationWellcome Trust & British Heart FoundationThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

The flexible city: Cinematic (re)constructions of Cape Town

Abstract Safe House (Espinosa, 2012) is, in almost all respects, a conventional Hollywood espionage thriller. What is unconventional about Safe House is the setting: the narrative’s ‘remote outpost’ is Cape Town, South Africa. And, in a refreshing change (at least for South African viewers), Cape Town appears as itself, not as a mock-up of another city in the world. Drawing on Edward Soja and Gilles Deleuze, I critique the ‘apparently innocent spatiality’ of urban settings by examining the identity of Cape Town within the globalized image economy of transnational cinema. The article shows the complicated ways in which media cities are marketed, and the tension between how they are perceived and how they are promoted as filmmaking destinations. The versatility of the ‘flexible city’ as a location masks the process through which places become globally interchangeable and exploitable spaces.

Parallel Processing of Multiple Stimuli in the Vascular Endothelium

The endothelium is a complex network of cells that lines the entire vasculature and controls virtually all cardiovascular functions. Changes in the behaviour of endothelial cells underlies almost all cardiovascular disease. To regulate cardiovascular function, the endothelium integrates hundreds of signals that provide constant instructions. Signals arrive from as close as neighbouring endothelial cells and underlying smooth muscle cells to substances circulating from the most remote outpost of the body. These signals provide endless streams of information to the endothelium that must be integrated and decoded. How this is achieved is not understood. Here, we show the endothelium manages a multitude of extracellular signals by using spatially‐distinct endothelial cells that are primed to detect specific extracellular signals. In response to each extracellular signal, cells generate intracellular messages with unique characteristics. When multiple extracellular signals are present messages are communicated across cells and computations carried out to generate a consensus. These endothelial mechanisms may underlie how signals that utilise only one messenger (Ca2+) can generate different stimulus‐specific responses across a vast number of cells.To determine how signals evoked by multiple agonists (ACh, ATP, ADP & histamine) were transduced in the endothelium, we studied Ca2+ signals evoked by the extracellular activators in intact arteries. Male Sprague‐Dawley rats were euthanized by CO2 overdose and second order mesenteric arteries were extracted, cut open and pinned flat. The exposed endothelium was loaded with a Ca2+ indicator, Cal‐520/AM and imaged using fluorescence microscopy. Changes in intracellular Ca2+ in thousands of endothelial cells were measured simultaneously and a custom analysis package written in Python was used to analyse the data.For each agonist, full concentration response curves were carried out to determine the EC25 concentrations (the concentration at which 25% of the cells were activated). Interestingly, the EC25 concentration increased 10‐fold between ACh (7.5 nM) & ADP (61.1 nM) and 100 fold between ACh & ATP (627.1 nM) and also for ACh & histamine (1.1 μM). The Ca2+ signal to the EC25 for each agonist began in spatially‐distinct clusters and propagated between cells as Ca2+ waves. There was no significant overlap in the cells that first responded to each agonist or indeed in the entire population response (P<0.05). The activation of spatially‐distinct cells permits the endothelium to selectively process separate information and functions in parallel. A critical aspect of endothelial transduction of extracellular signals is how a single ion can control a host of different responses. Previous studies have shown that changes in the amplitude, frequency and kinetics of a Ca2+ signal within a cell can lead to the generation of different responses. By studying thousands of endothelial cells our study reveals another novel feature of Ca2+ signaling. Each agonist, when applied at low concentrations (EC25) evoked unique Ca2+ signals. This may provide insight into how the response that is generated to different agonists is communicated between cells to give an endothelium wide response. These results suggest that spatially‐distinct, stimulus‐specific cells unravel the constant streams of information to the endothelium held in the multitude of extracellular signals.Support or Funding InformationThis work was supported by the Wellcome Trust and British Heart FoundationThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

The free and unfree settlements of Norfolk Island: an overview of archaeological research

The name ‘Norfolk Island’ has long been synonymous with its use between 1825 and 1855 as a harsh punishment station for recidivist British convicts. Much of its previous archaeological investigation has focused on the conservation and management of standing structures from that period, to the detriment of an overall understanding of the archaeology of the island. This paper reviews the several phases of post-1788 occupation of this tiny and remote outpost of the British Empire and considers the archaeological potential of each of these distinct phases of free and unfree habitation. New directions and themes for further archaeological research are considered, including broader comparison with contemporary mainland Australian free and convict settlements and a focus on processes of adaptation and re-appropriation of buildings, sites and landscape by successive colonist groups.

Small-unit water purifiers for remote military outposts: A new application of multicriteria decision analysis

During the U.S. military's first 145 years, waterborne and other infectious diseases caused more casualties than battlefield injuries, underscoring the importance of clean drinking water to military success. Ensuring drinking water safety poses special challenges to the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces, because treatment equipment used in the conventional Army is too heavy and operationally complex to deploy to remote outposts. Due to the lack of purpose-built water purifiers, Special Forces often rely on commercial-off-the-shelf systems, but guidelines on selecting optimal systems for specific deployment contexts are lacking. To fill this gap, this research examines whether multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) can provide an operational framework for selecting water purifiers for Special Forces. Our objectives are to apply MCDA to help an officer preparing for village stability operations in Afghanistan select a water purifier and to assess whether other Army stakeholders agree with the officer's choice. In addition, because previous research has suggested that alternative MCDA methods can yield different rankings of decision alternatives, we test whether the MCDA method used is as important as who conducts the ranking. Toward these objectives, we use 4 MCDA approaches for eliciting preferences among 4 water purifiers from the deploying officer and 6 other Army stakeholders. The results show that regardless of method, the officer and 5 of the 6 stakeholders identified the same preferred alternative, although rankings for the less preferred water purifiers varied by method (intermethod rank-order correlation = .57). In responses to survey questions, stakeholders indicated that they would support using the results to support decisions about water purifier acquisition (average support = 5.3 on a 0–6 Likert scale with 6 indicating strongest support).

Dublin, 1916 … Phoenix, 2016

It's a long, long way to Dublin from Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Billing itself as Small Slice of Ireland in the Desert, the Arizona Irish Cultural Center (AZICC) attempts to bridge that distance by providing residents of Phoenix and the surrounding area access to range of resources related to Ireland and the Irish diaspora. Located on Central Avenue near downtown, the AZICC complex is a striking architectural anomaly surrounded by bleak mid-century modern office buildings, luxury high-rise condominiums, the Buckminster Fuller-inspired Phoenix Central Library, and the equally unexpected Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix. If these environs are decidedly un-Irish, the complex itself has attempted to recreate the look and feel of the Emerald Isle with a replica of a Famine-era Irish cottage, a Great Hall containing a fireplace constructed of stones from County Clare, and, towering over all this, the McClelland Irish Library, modeled on a twelfth-century Norman Castle. These simulacral structures, with their evocative forms and quaint touches, promise to transport visitors to a different world, far from the heat and hustle of downtown Phoenix, where they might connect or reconnect with another way of life, another set of values. Like many other Irish cultural centers around the United States, the AZICC promotes the heritage of Celtic peoples by giving place to a full calendar of cultural programming: language courses, book discussions, genealogy tutorials, film screenings, dance performances, music showcases, traveling exhibitions, and even a Bloomsday Beerfest. There is no doubt that Irish cultural centers provide a valuable service to Irish immigrants, Irish Americans, and their local communities with such programming. And yet these activities and their settings also raise a number of questions for Irish Americans about the preservation and transmission of their cultural heritage: what events in, images of, and ideas about Ireland should be sanctioned? How should the past be reconstructed or reimagined in relation to the present? What objects, narratives, and identities should be recognized as Irish? How should these images of and narratives about Ireland be integrated into the cultural life of the United States? To these we might add the more pointed question of how Irish cultural centers in the United States should negotiate the longstanding divides between Catholic and Protestant, Republic and United Kingdom, cultural nationalism and historical revisionism that have shaped and continue to shape any understanding of what Irish culture is. A significant hazard, of course, is that in their efforts to protect and promote Irish cultural heritage these centers become little more than theme parks of uncritical nostalgia, remote outposts of the heritage industry, where a sanitized and simplified version of Irish culture is presented to their membership and the general public. The centenary commemorations of the Easter Rising, which took place not just across Ireland, but across the United States and the rest of the globe last year, have brought a new urgency to these questions about the preservation and transmission of Irish cultural heritage. In Ireland more than 1,800 official events were scheduled to mark the occasion, events ranging from poetry readings at local libraries and art installations in regional museums to the reopening of the renovated Kilmainham Courthouse and a massive military parade through the streets of Dublin on Easter Sunday. In the century since 1916, the Rising has become central to Irish national memory. Many conceive it to be among the most important, if not indeed the most important, event in the history of the island, marking the beginning of the end of British occupation and spiritual birth of an independent nation. But many in Ireland also expressed concern that official commemorations would offer a one-dimensional heroic narrative of 1916 and still others announced worries that such commemorations of the Rising might reawaken old tensions and animosities. …

Experimental investigation and performance evaluation of a vacuum tube solar air collector based on micro heat pipe arrays

An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the thermal performance of a vacuum tube solar air collector that is based on micro heat pipe arrays (MHPA) and features wavelike fins attached to the condenser section of the MHPA. The experimental results were used to analyze the thermal performance of the collector, particularly the temperature distribution in the different localizations of the air collector. The heat loss analysis provided a useful parameter to evaluate the heat loss of the collector. Results showed that a decrease in the inlet, will led to an increase in efficiency because of the reduced heat losses to the environment. The daily thermal efficiency varied between 50% and 70%. In the performance analysis of the MHPA collector, varying flow rates were employed to observe the change in efficiency, outlet temperature, MHPA temperature behavior variation vs. solar radiation, and air flow rate. The utilization of the collector can reduce the amount of emissions of gaseous waste emissions, which has large energy saving potential and environmental benefits.The proposed MHPA-based vacuum tube solar air collector shows good potential in large-scale applications, such as in the room heating of farmhouses, industrial buildings, and remote outposts, as well as in the agricultural sector.

Kiwi Crime Writing: A Rich Tradition from a Distant Sea

16 WLT JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2016 photo : stephen murphy N ew Zealand is, relatively speaking, a tiny country with a population half the size of New York City and in a location so remote, a commercial flight from Los Angeles takes over fifteen hours to get there. The closest big city, Sydney, is three hours across the almost landless Tasman Sea. Legendary for the beauty of its landscape and the fierce Maori culture that has occupied the islands since the late thirteenth century, Aotearoa, as the Maoris called the north island, had its first European contact in 1642, and its coastline wasn’t mapped extensively crime & mystery Kiwi Crime Writing A Rich Tradition from a Distant Sea by J. Madison Davis WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 17 until Captain Cook arrived in 1769. After that, immigrants began appropriating the land, and today the ethnic population is about three-quarters European. The travel book cliché is that New Zealand is culturally the “most British” of the former British colonies, and we can see that in the influence of Kiwi writers on that most British of literary genres, the mystery, from the very beginnings of the genre. One of the earliest best-selling mysteries in the world was written by Fergus Hume, who is claimed by New Zealand even though he was born in 1859 in the Worcestershire City and County Pauper Lunatic Asylum in England, where his father worked, and only lived in New Zealand from age three to age twenty-five. In 1861, during the Otago gold rush on the south island of New Zealand , his father became superintendent of the Dunedin lunatic asylum. Educated in what is now the Otago Boys’ High School in this remote outpost of the empire, and likely isolated even more by living on the grounds of an asylum, young Fergus must have dreamed of bigger things. Even though Dunedin’s population multiplied fivefold in the 1860s and became New Zealand’s largest city from 1865 to roughly 1900, it was under twenty-five thousand people even then. Hume matriculated to the University of Otago, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1883, but the prospect of a steady career as a lawyer was not enough. He wrote poetry and anonymous reviews that were published in the local press and became involved in local theater. He developed a reputation as a dandy, but being a big fish in a small pond was still not enough. He moved on to Melbourne, Australia, which had a more lively theater culture, but the theater community of Melbourne was basically a closed shop. Hume could not get any of his plays read, let alone produced . Determined to break into writing, he thought perhaps a novel would work for him. He researched what was selling and discovered that the novels of Émile Gaboriau were popular. Edgar Allan Poe is credited with first making the mystery a popular genre, and Poe’s influence on the French was very powerful. Gaboriau ’s L’Affaire Lerouge (1866) began a series of pioneering French mysteries drawing from the memoirs of Eugène François Vidocq (as Poe had) and further popularized and developed the crime novel. Gaboriau died in 1873, but the translations inspired Hume to write The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, which, like his plays, no publisher would touch. They had no faith in a book by a colonial, he was told. The complicated story of its publication was recently researched and recounted in Blockbuster! by Lucy Sussex. When Hume had it privately printed in 1886, the book flew off the shelves. British publishers now came hat in hand, but Hume didn’t believe it would be as successful in Britain and America, so he sold his book rights for fifty pounds. The New York Times reported in Hume’s obituary that the book sold half a million copies. He made money on the dramatic version, however, and moved to England, where he wrote mysteries until his death in 1932. Hansom Cab, it is worth noting, preceded the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes by a year, and thus this backwater colonial deserves major credit as one of the most influential creators of the mystery...

Kiwi Crime Writing: A Rich Tradition from a Distant Sea

16 WLT JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2016 photo : stephen murphy N ew Zealand is, relatively speaking, a tiny country with a population half the size of New York City and in a location so remote, a commercial flight from Los Angeles takes over fifteen hours to get there. The closest big city, Sydney, is three hours across the almost landless Tasman Sea. Legendary for the beauty of its landscape and the fierce Maori culture that has occupied the islands since the late thirteenth century, Aotearoa, as the Maoris called the north island, had its first European contact in 1642, and its coastline wasn’t mapped extensively crime & mystery Kiwi Crime Writing A Rich Tradition from a Distant Sea by J. Madison Davis WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 17 until Captain Cook arrived in 1769. After that, immigrants began appropriating the land, and today the ethnic population is about three-quarters European. The travel book cliché is that New Zealand is culturally the “most British” of the former British colonies, and we can see that in the influence of Kiwi writers on that most British of literary genres, the mystery, from the very beginnings of the genre. One of the earliest best-selling mysteries in the world was written by Fergus Hume, who is claimed by New Zealand even though he was born in 1859 in the Worcestershire City and County Pauper Lunatic Asylum in England, where his father worked, and only lived in New Zealand from age three to age twenty-five. In 1861, during the Otago gold rush on the south island of New Zealand , his father became superintendent of the Dunedin lunatic asylum. Educated in what is now the Otago Boys’ High School in this remote outpost of the empire, and likely isolated even more by living on the grounds of an asylum, young Fergus must have dreamed of bigger things. Even though Dunedin’s population multiplied fivefold in the 1860s and became New Zealand’s largest city from 1865 to roughly 1900, it was under twenty-five thousand people even then. Hume matriculated to the University of Otago, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1883, but the prospect of a steady career as a lawyer was not enough. He wrote poetry and anonymous reviews that were published in the local press and became involved in local theater. He developed a reputation as a dandy, but being a big fish in a small pond was still not enough. He moved on to Melbourne, Australia, which had a more lively theater culture, but the theater community of Melbourne was basically a closed shop. Hume could not get any of his plays read, let alone produced . Determined to break into writing, he thought perhaps a novel would work for him. He researched what was selling and discovered that the novels of Émile Gaboriau were popular. Edgar Allan Poe is credited with first making the mystery a popular genre, and Poe’s influence on the French was very powerful. Gaboriau ’s L’Affaire Lerouge (1866) began a series of pioneering French mysteries drawing from the memoirs of Eugène François Vidocq (as Poe had) and further popularized and developed the crime novel. Gaboriau died in 1873, but the translations inspired Hume to write The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, which, like his plays, no publisher would touch. They had no faith in a book by a colonial, he was told. The complicated story of its publication was recently researched and recounted in Blockbuster! by Lucy Sussex. When Hume had it privately printed in 1886, the book flew off the shelves. British publishers now came hat in hand, but Hume didn’t believe it would be as successful in Britain and America, so he sold his book rights for fifty pounds. The New York Times reported in Hume’s obituary that the book sold half a million copies. He made money on the dramatic version, however, and moved to England, where he wrote mysteries until his death in 1932. Hansom Cab, it is worth noting, preceded the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes by a year, and thus this backwater colonial deserves major credit as one of the most influential creators of the mystery...

Invariably genocide? When hunter-gatherers and commercial stock farmers clash

ABSTRACTThe five century long process of European overseas conquest included many instances of the extermination of Indigenous peoples. Where commercial stock farmers invaded the lands of hunter-gatherers conflict was particularly destructive, often resulting in a degree of dispossession and slaughter that destroyed the ability of these societies to reproduce themselves biologically or culturally. The frequency with which encounters of this kind resulted in the complete, or near complete, annihilation of forager societies raises the question whether this form of colonial conflict was inherently genocidal. The focus of this article is on how the global economic system tended to bring together the practices of metropolitan and colonial governments, the interests of providers of capital and the consumers of commodities, and the agency of local actors ranging from military commanders to graziers in remote outposts in ways that fostered the violent dissolution of native society. It seeks to identify salient shared features in conflicts between hunter-gatherers and market-oriented stock farmers that served to intensify hostilities and tilt the balance toward genocidal outcomes.

Australia: A Mid-level Imperialist in the Asia-Pacific

Australia, long seen as a remote outpost of the British Empire in the South Pacific and more recently as a loyal lieutenant of Washington, does not fit the traditional image of an imperialist country. Nonetheless, while it may not be one of the big three or four world powers, it is, I will argue, a mid-level imperialist that leverages its alliance with the United States to project power over its region. It has been and remains reliant on foreign capital, but it is also a wealthy independent centre of capital accumulation and military power with its own national interests and with an increasing financial footprint overseas.