The Disarmament School: US Policy for the Disarmament and Demobilization of the Germany Army, November-December 1944

World War II was waged on an unprecedented scale, and the peace which followed was equally unprecedented. The Allies did more than simply call for an armistice; they made their goal the complete destruction of the German Wehrmacht and the German Military Tradition. This demilitarization of Germany was the chief goal of victory and means of ensuring lasting peace in Europe. In November and December of 1944, the US Army hosted the Disarmament School, a series of lectures by experts in the field of demilitarization planning. Based in London, these lectures familiarized US staff officers with the history of planning for the disarmament, demobilization, and final disposal of the Wehrmacht, as well as the current state of those plans. By accessing the transcripts of these lectures as well as original documents and memoranda of US post-hostilities planning staffs, I demonstrate that these groups at the SHAEF and USGCC levels were caught between the need for post-war security and the call for unconditional surrender as they planned for the control and disposal of the doomed German military machine. Though much would change between the time of the Disarmament School and the final defeat of Nazi Germany, the lectures of the Disarmament School nonetheless provide a valuable insight into the assumptions upon which Allied planning rested during a crucial stage of the war in Europe

Chronicles of Oklahoma

Article honors the life and contributions of Thomas Jefferson Harrison, who was a member of the Oklahoma Historical Society Board of Directors, one of the founders of Pryor Library, a collector of ancient and rare bibles, and dedicated to his community

Application of Remote Sensing to the Chesapeake Bay Region. Volume 2: Proceedings

A conference was held on the application of remote sensing to the Chesapeake Bay region. Copies of the papers, resource contributions, panel discussions, and reports of the working groups are presented

Application of Remote Sensing to the Chesapeake Bay Region. Volume 1: Executive summary

The proceedings are presented of a conference, jointly sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the University of Maryland. The purpose of the Conference was to assemble representatives of federal and state government agencies engaged in research on the condition and evolution of the Chesapeake Bay to compose a status report, to present current activities and future plans, and to recommend a long-range future course of policies and programs

Online psychoeducation with parent management training: Examining the contribution of peer support

Psychoeducation is an empirically based intervention that is increasingly delivered online to individuals and groups. Low participation has been a problem for online designs that include peer support. New technology designs have been called for, and in response, we developed a model that synchronized the delivery of individual and group-based psychoeducational activities for parent management training. We used a problem-based learning strategy delivered to caregivers of youth demonstrating oppositional behaviours to encourage the development of helping processes and peer support. This mixed methods intervention study had high rates of participant retention and positive measurable changes for two of its three psychoeducational outcome measures. When we merged the study data, we observed that mutual aid—a frequently sought goal of group-based interventions—contributed to participant outcomes

Book Reviews

Book reviews of: Song of My Life: A Biography of Margaret Walker. By Carolyn J. Brown Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014. Author’s note, afterword, acknowledgements, illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Pp. xi, 147. $20.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781628461473. Searching for Freedom after the Civil War: Klansman, Carpetbagger, Scalawag, and Freedman. By G. Ward Hubbs. (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2015. List of illustrations, preface, prologue, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Pp. ix, 223.$34.95 cloth, $34.95 ebook. ISBN: 978-0-8173-1860-4.) Choctaw Resurgence in Mississippi: Race, Class, and Nation Building in the Jim Crow South, 1830-1977. By Katherine M. B. Osburn. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. Acknowledgements, illustrations, maps, notes, index. Pp. 342.$65 Cloth, $25 Paper. ISBN: 0803240445.) Stennis: Plowing a Straight Furrow. By Don H. Thompson (Oxford: Triton Press, 2015. Acknowledgments, illustrations, notes. Pp. 176.$35 cloth. $14.95 paper. ISBN: 1936946467.) Corazón de Dixie: Mexicanos in the U. S. South since 1910. By Julie M. Weise. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Acknowledgments, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. Pp. 358.$32.50 paper, $29.99 e-book. ISBN: 9781469624969.) The Great Melding: War, the Dixiecrat Rebellion, and the Southern Model for America’s New Conservatism. By Glenn Feldman. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2015. Acknowledgements, notes, index. Pp. x, 388.$59.95 cloth, $59.95 ebook. ISBN 978-0-8173-1866-6.) Baptists in America: A History. By Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Preface, acknowledgements, notes, index. pp. xii, 329.$29.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780199977536.) One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. By Kevin M. Kruse. (New York: Basic Books, 2015. Acknowledgements, notes, index. Pp. xvi, 352. $29.99. ISBN: 9780465049493.) Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi: Essays on America’s Civil War, Vol. 1, Edited by Lawrence Lee Hewitt with Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., and Thomas E. Schott. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013. Acknowledgments, illustrations, maps, notes, index. Pp. xxiii, 302.$54.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781572338661.) Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South. By R. Douglas Hurt. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Acknowledgements, maps, tables, notes, index. Pp. xi, 349. $45 paper. ISBN: 1469620006.) Womanpower Unlimited and the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi. By Tiyi M. Morris. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015. Acknowledgements, illustrations, notes index. Pp. xvi, 237.$69.95 cloth, $24.95 paper. ISBN: 0820347302.

The Typical Flight Performance of Blowflies: Measuring the Normal Performance Envelope of Calliphora vicina Using a Novel Corner-Cube Arena

Despite a wealth of evidence demonstrating extraordinary maximal performance, little is known about the routine flight performance of insects. We present a set of techniques for benchmarking performance characteristics of insects in free flight, demonstrated using a model species, and comment on the significance of the performance observed. Free-flying blowflies (Calliphora vicina) were filmed inside a novel mirrored arena comprising a large (1.6 m1.6 m1.6 m) corner-cube reflector using a single high-speed digital video camera (250 or 500 fps). This arrangement permitted accurate reconstruction of the flies' 3-dimensional trajectories without the need for synchronisation hardware, by virtue of the multiple reflections of a subject within the arena. Image sequences were analysed using custom-written automated tracking software, and processed using a self-calibrating bundle adjustment procedure to determine the subject's instantaneous 3-dimensional position. We illustrate our method by using these trajectory data to benchmark the routine flight performance envelope of our flies. Flight speeds were most commonly observed between 1.2 ms−1 and 2.3 ms−1, with a maximum of 2.5 ms−1. Our flies tended to dive faster than they climbed, with a maximum descent rate (−2.4 ms−1) almost double the maximum climb rate (1.2 ms−1). Modal turn rate was around 240°s−1, with maximal rates in excess of 1700°s−1. We used the maximal flight performance we observed during normal flight to construct notional physical limits on the blowfly flight envelope, and used the distribution of observations within that notional envelope to postulate behavioural preferences or physiological and anatomical constraints. The flight trajectories we recorded were never steady: rather they were constantly accelerating or decelerating, with maximum tangential accelerations and maximum centripetal accelerations on the order of 3 g

Building capacity for modeling in Africa

The use of models in decision support is important as field experiments provide empirical data on responses to only a small number of possible combinations of climate, soil, and management situations. Yet, crop modeling by African scientists so far has been limited. Therefore, to build the capacity of African scientists in the use of decision support systems, a provision was made for training within two main projects: Water Challenge Project (WCP) and Desert Margins Programme (DMP), jointly led by TSBF-CIAT (Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture) and International Centre for Research in the Semiarid Tropics (ICRISAT). A unique approach to training on modeling was developed and was based on four main pillars: (a) learning by doing, (b) integrated follow-up, (c) continuous backstopping support and (d) multi-level training embedded in a series of three training workshops. Although crop models are useful they have limitations. For instance, they do not account for all of the factors in the field that may influence crop yield and inputs must be accurate for simulated outputs to match observations from the field. Thus it is imperative that these issues are carefully considered and weighted before attempting to evaluate the predictability of a crop model. However, the use of crop models and decision support systems in concert with experiments can provide very useful alternative management options for resource-poor farmers in Africa and other regions across the glob

Multi-layer scintillation detector for the MOON double beta decay experiment: Scintillation photon responses studied by a prototype detector MOON-1

An ensemble of multi-layer scintillators is discussed as an option of the high-sensitivity detector Mo Observatory Of Neutrinos (MOON) for spectroscopic measurements of neutrino-less double beta decays. A prototype detector MOON-1, which consists of 6 layer plastic-scintillator plates, was built to study the sensitivity of the MOON-type detector. The scintillation photon collection and the energy resolution, which are key elements for the high-sensitivity experiments, are found to be 1835+/-30 photo-electrons for 976 keV electrons and sigma = 2.9+/-0.1% (dE/E = 6.8+/-0.3 % in FWHM) at the Qbb ~ 3 MeV region, respectively. The multi-layer plastic-scintillator structure with good energy resolution as well as good background suppression of beta-gamma rays is crucial for the MOON-type detector to achieve the inverted hierarchy neutrino mass sensitivity.Comment: 8 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Nucl.Instrum.Met