MS-164: Assorted Documents from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)

This is an artificial collection consisting of various documents, letters, and booklets. It also includes textiles (UNRRA and IRO uniform badges) and a printed photo album (of Dachau concentration camp). These items offer a broad yet fleeting glance at the entire operation of UNRRA, ranging from upper-level administration (largely American, Canadian, or British) to displaced persons in Europe. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1138/thumbnail.jp

The public health crisis in Greece and its ties to a failing economy

In 2009 the Greek government admitted that the numbers it had been reporting to the European Union about its national budget deficit were artificially small. The deficit was actually huge, way larger than what the EU requires of member countries if they want to reap the benefits of being in this financial network. A benefit of being in the EU is that it makes it much easier for governments to take out large loans, because lenders trust that a member country will make good on its debts due to the security it has from being part of the union. This admission by the Greek government came at the tail end of, and was very much linked to, the global financial crisis felt here in the United States in 2008. As a result, lenders started enacting stricter borrowing rules, and Greece had to take out even more loans. By spring of 2010 it was veering towards bankruptcy, and in May of 2010 the first of three bailout agreements with the troika (International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank, and the European Commission) was reached. This bailout came with conditions, or austerity terms, that the Greek government had to agree to. These included deep budget cuts, steep tax increases, and promises to implement anti-corruption strategies and cut down on tax evasion. The second bailout came in 2012 after the recession continued to worsen. The third bailout came in summer of 2015 after a series of failed negotiations between Greece’s newly in power Syriza party and the troika, Greece defaulting on its loans, and a popular vote by the Greek people to reject the latest proposed bailout conditions.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/cwicposters/1028/thumbnail.jp

Unintegrated parton distributions and correlation functions

We discuss the limitations of the standard collinear approach. The kinematical approximations necessary to derive the collinear factorization are insufficient for the description of the exclusive final states. We argue that for a proper treatment of the final states one needs to use fully unintegrated parton correlation functions. We introduce the gauge invariant definitions of these objects and the factorization theorem for one jet production in deep inelastic scattering.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, pdflatex. Talk presented at 12th International Conference on Elastic and Diffractive Scattering, Hamburg, DES

Walking Together: Living Fearlessly, Loving Boldy

In this paper, I give an account of my capstone for the Religious Studies major. I tell about the research project-turned-applied-learning, and how my research as a Mellon Summer Scholar ’15 led me to start a prison ministry between Gettysburg students and the Adams County Adult Correctional Complex. I reflect on what I have done, how God has worked, and what I have learned. This is far from a typical research paper; then again, this was far from a typical research project

RHIC physics: short overview

This talk gives a very short overview of some of the important physical phenomena observed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The emphasis is put on the multiplicities, hard probes and the properties of the initial state.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, pdflatex. Talk presented at 12th International Conference on Elastic and Diffractive Scattering, in Hamburg, DES

Marine mammal tourism in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand : effects, implications and management : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Marine Ecology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Worldwide expansion of marine mammal tourism over recent decades has raised international concerns in terms of the effects of these tourism practices on the species they target. Moreover, the growth and success of the industry have often outpaced conservation planning, including in New Zealand. To illustrate, tour vessels have been operating for ca. 25 years in the Bay of Plenty (BOP), situated on the east coast of North Island, New Zealand. By 2010, a total of eight permits had been granted across the region. However, development of this local industry occurred without any baseline data on species occurrence, distribution, habitat use or behaviour. This study sought to assess the historical occurrence of the marine mammal species off the BOP and determine their spatial and temporal distribution. Current distribution, density and group dynamics were examined for common dolphins (Delphinus sp.) and New Zealand fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri), the two most frequently encountered species in the BOP and therefore, the primarily targeted species by tour operators. The extent of anthropogenic interactions with common dolphins was investigated and their effects on dolphin behaviour examined. The number of common dolphin individuals closely interacting with tour vessels was estimated and dolphin-vessel interactions were quantified to assess repetitive encounters. In the absence of previously undertaken systematic dedicated surveys, the present study investigated the historical spatial and temporal occurrence of dolphins, whales and pinnipeds in the BOP region. The examination of opportunistic data, collected between December 2000 and November 2010 via various platforms of opportunity including but not limited to tour vessels, identified fourteen species of dolphins, whales and pinnipeds occurring in the region. Confidence criteria in successful species identification were assigned based on observer expertise, diagnostic features of reported species and percentage of records reported by observer type. Common dolphins were the most frequently encountered species, followed by killer whales (Orcinus orca), bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and New Zealand fur seals, other species being infrequently encountered. A detailed examination of common dolphin habitat use revealed discrepancies with previous findings (e.g. higher use of shallower waters), possibly explained by inherent biases to the opportunistic dataset. Dedicated surveys, conducted between November 2010 and May 2013, investigated the current distribution, density and habitat use of common dolphins and New Zealand fur seals. Both species exhibited a strong seasonality with contrasting occurrence in summer and autumn for common dolphins and in winter and spring for fur seals. Dolphin seasonality is suggested to be linked to movements into deeper offshore waters and/or potentially to neighbouring regions (i.e. the Hauraki Gulf) and most likely related to foraging opportunities. Fur seal seasonality suggests that the western BOP supports a non-breeding colony and that foraging reasons may explain the species occurrence in the region. Higher density of common dolphins and fur seals identified over the shelf break and reefs can be explained by enhanced productivity. First application of Markov chain analyses to common dolphin within oceanic waters, allowed examination of the effects of tourism activities on common dolphins in the BOP. Dolphin foraging behaviour was significantly affected, as dolphins spent less time foraging during interactions with tour vessels and took longer to return to foraging once disrupted by vessel presence. Disruption to feeding may be particularly detrimental to common dolphins in the BOP open oceanic habitat, where prey resources are typically widely dispersed and unpredictable. While the overall level of tour operator compliance with regulations in the bay was relatively high, non-compliance was recorded with regards to swimming with calves and extended time interacting with dolphins. Evidence of repetitive interactions between tour vessels and common dolphins were examined using photo-identification to assess potential cumulative impacts. An estimated minimum of 1,278 common dolphin individuals were identified in the region, for which the majority (86.9%) showed low levels of site fidelity (i.e. only one encounter). At least 61.7% of identified dolphins were exposed to tour vessel interactions. However, spatial (i.e. between the western and eastern sub-regions) and temporal (i.e. daily, seasonal and annual) cumulative exposure to tourism activities was observed for less than 10% of these individuals. This is likely explained by tour operators “handing over” groups or returning to areas preferentially frequented by dolphins (i.e. presumed foraging hotspots). Due to the opportunistic methods used for photo-identification, these results are indicative only of the absolute minimum of repeated interactions common dolphins may face in the region. The present thesis represents the first comprehensive assessment of marine mammal tourism in the BOP. It offers important contributions to research and conservation in this area via the critical assessment of historical occurrence of marine mammals in the region. This thesis also provides comprehensive and detailed insights into common dolphin and New Zealand fur seal temporal and spatial distribution in the area. This can serve management agencies to implement efficient conservation plans. While identifying that tourism operations significantly affect common dolphin behaviour and repetitive interactions result in cumulative exposure, this thesis supports adaptive management and further long-term monitoring of marine mammal species in general, and in the BOP region more specifically

Fashionable connections: Alicia LeFanu and writing from the edge

This article focuses upon Alicia LeFanu (fl. 1809–36), author of several poems, six multi-volume novels, a critical biography of her grandmother, Frances Sheridan, and articles for the Court Magazine. Descended from an eminent literary family, and since misremembered as a mere ‘petticoat novelist’, LeFanu complicates ideas of the centre and the periphery in her writing. I explore how this interest is figured in LeFanu's use of the chapter epigraph, developing work I have undertaken as editor of LeFanu's early novel, Strathallan (1816). LeFanu's epigraphs persist across her fiction as a dimension in which she not only reflects upon literary legacies, but also contests the boundaries of her own print culture. Through its consideration of LeFanu, as author and reader, the article further reflects upon the significance of her example for a broader understanding of other women writers at the edges and borders of Romanticism, and of their literary networks

Fundamental limitations to high-precision tests of the universality of free fall by dropping atoms

Tests of the universality of free fall and the weak equivalence principle probe the foundations of General Relativity. Evidence of a violation may lead to the discovery of a new force. The best torsion balance experiments have ruled it out to 10^-13. Cold-atom drop tests have reached 10^-7 and promise to do 7 to 10 orders of magnitude better, on the ground or in space. They are limited by the random shot noise, which depends on the number N of atoms in the clouds. As mass-dropping experiments in the non-uniform gravitational field of Earth, they are sensitive to the initial conditions. Random accelerations due to initial condition errors of the clouds are designed to be at the same level as shot noise, so that they can be reduced with the number of drops along with it. This sets the requirements for the initial position and velocity spreads of the clouds with given N. In the STE-QUEST space mission proposal aiming at 2x10^-15 they must be about a factor 8 above Heisenberg's principle limit, and the integration time required to reduce both errors is 3 years, with a mission duration of 5 years. Instead, offset errors at release between different atom clouds are systematic and give rise to a systematic effect which mimics a violation. Such offsets must be demonstrated to be as small as required in all drops, must be small by design and must be measured. For STE-QUEST to meet its goal they must be several orders of magnitude smaller than the size of each individual cloud, which in its turn must be at most 8 times larger than the uncertainty principle limit. Even if all technical problems are solved and the clouds are released with negligible systematic errors, still they must be measured. Then, Heisenberg's principle dictates that the measurement lasts as long as the experiment and the systematic nature of the effect requires many measurements for it to be ruled out as a source of violation