Truman Smith’s Reports on Nazi Militarism: A Study of Domestic Political Priorities and U. S. Foreign Policy-Making in Franklin Roosevelt’s First and Second Terms

As much of the world’s leadership was not sure what to think of the emerging Nazi movement in the 1920’s through the 1930’s, Truman Smith clearly saw the dark potential of a Nazi led Germany. From 1920-1924, Smith served as assistant military attaché in Germany. While serving, Smith was the first American diplomat to interview Hitler. Smith reported on the manipulative sway Hitler had over the masses, as well as the danger the world could face if Hitler gained power. Smith returned to Germany later in his career and served as head military attaché from 1935-1939. During this stay, Smith orchestrated a wildly successful scheme to utilize the aviator Charles Lindbergh’s fame in order to gain intelligence on German air technology. Together, Smith and Lindbergh provided the United States with unprecedented intelligence on German military build-up; however, Smith’s reports were almost entirely ignored by the Roosevelt administration. A diverse combination of domestic political factors contributed to the poor reception Smith’s reports received. Most notably, Smith’s reports conflicted with Roosevelt’s plan for the United States. In addition, negative consequences from Roosevelt’s personal rivalry with Lindbergh flowed through to Smith. An examination of Smith’s story offers a clear example of how domestic political agendas clouded decision making in the United States government leading up to World War II

Acoustic conditions in orchestra pits: are metadiffusers a potential solution?

Rising concerns about public health and safety have progressively induced a change in control of noise regulations, specifically on those applicable to the work environment. These directives have been developed to protect employees from harmful side effects of their working conditions, firstly targeting high noise levels generated by heavy machinery in industry. Nowadays, noise control regulations are widely effective and applicable to nearly all working environments, including institutions dedicated to the arts, such as opera houses. To the latter, directives on noise control are of major concern as opera performances tend to generate very high sound levels, especially in the area of the orchestra pit – the sunken space between stage and audience. In such context, management faces a difficult task conforming to noise regulations as they must balance the sometimes competing demands to (i) dutifully protect their employees – musicians and others – from any harmful ‘sounds’ or ‘noise’ that might be generated, and (ii) deliver world-class operatic art for the public, where noise regulations might compromise the culture of the art form. ‘Sound’ and ‘noise’ are two terms of intense interest when dealing with control of noise regulations in the entertainment sector. Indeed, noise is generally described as ‘unwanted’ sound, judged as unpleasant, whereas music is considered most of the time as a ‘desirable’ and pleasant sound; leading to a debate on the pertinence of noise regulations within the musical arts. Such debate has recently been discussed in the High Court in London, where the court favoured an orchestral viola player who claimed to have suffered noise induced hearing loss during a rehearsal of Wagner's Valkyrie1; the major argument being that the opera house exceeded industry-wide standards on noise control, viz. daily LAE > 85 dBA. Such a case has no precedent in UK history, raising concerns for other opera houses and music spaces on how to enforce noise regulations without affecting the performances’ nature. This leads to the question of whether noise control regulations should apply to all industries, regardless of the type of sound they generate

Fungus Disease in Relation to Managing Prairie Plants With Fire

Specific fungal foliar diseases were assessed on selected prairie plant species in relation to fire as a management practice on Hayden Prairie Preserve, Iowa. Selected plant species in burned and unburned areas were visually inspected and rated for presence and severity of specific fungal diseases at three sampling times in July and September 1987 and in June 1988. Less disease and lower disease severity ratings were recorded on plants in burned areas except for powdery mildew on Canada tickclover [Desmodium canadense (L.) DC.]. Increasing amounts of disease developed on plants in the areas unburned for one and two years

Shear-driven size segregation of granular materials: modeling and experiment

Granular materials segregate by size under shear, and the ability to quantitatively predict the time required to achieve complete segregation is a key test of our understanding of the segregation process. In this paper, we apply the Gray-Thornton model of segregation (developed for linear shear profiles) to a granular flow with an exponential profile, and evaluate its ability to describe the observed segregation dynamics. Our experiment is conducted in an annular Couette cell with a moving lower boundary. The granular material is initially prepared in an unstable configuration with a layer of small particles above a layer of large particles. Under shear, the sample mixes and then re-segregates so that the large particles are located in the top half of the system in the final state. During this segregation process, we measure the velocity profile and use the resulting exponential fit as input parameters to the model. To make a direct comparison between the continuum model and the observed segregation dynamics, we locally map the measured height of the experimental sample (which indicates the degree of segregation) to the local packing density. We observe that the model successfully captures the presence of a fast mixing process and relatively slower re-segregation process, but the model predicts a finite re-segregation time, while in the experiment re-segregation occurs only exponentially in time

Unpulsed UBV Optical Emission from the Crab Pulsar

Based on observations of the Crab pulsar using the TRIFFID high speed imaging photometer in the UBV bands using the Special Astrophysical Observatory's 6m telescope in the Russian Caucasus, we report the detection of pronounced emission during the so-called `off' phase of emission. Following de-extinction, this unpulsed component of emission is shown to be consistent with a power law with an exponent of alpha = -0.60 +/- 0.37, the uncertainty being dominated by the error associated with the independent CCD photometry used to reference the TRIFFID data. This suggests a steeper power law form than that reported elsewhere in the literature for the total integrated spectrum, which is essentially flat with alpha ~ 0.1, although the difference in this case is only significant at the ~ 2 sigma level. Deeper reference integrated and TRIFFID phase-resolved photometry in these bands in conjunction with further observations in the UV and R region would constrain this fit further.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures, uses aasms4.sty, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Segregation by thermal diffusion in granular shear flows

Segregation by thermal diffusion of an intruder immersed in a sheared granular gas is analyzed from the (inelastic) Boltzmann equation. Segregation is induced by the presence of a temperature gradient orthogonal to the shear flow plane and parallel to gravity. We show that, like in analogous systems without shear, the segregation criterion yields a transition between upwards segregation and downwards segregation. The form of the phase diagrams is illustrated in detail showing that they depend sensitively on the value of gravity relative to the thermal gradient. Two specific situations are considered: i) absence of gravity, and ii) homogeneous temperature. We find that both mechanisms (upwards and downwards segregation) are stronger and more clearly separated when compared with segregation criteria in systems without shear.Comment: 8 figures. To appear in J. Stat. Mec

Insights into the Mechanism of Intermediate-Depth Earthquakes from Source Properties as Imaged by Back Projection of Multiple Seismic Phases

This study investigates the spatial and temporal distribution of energy release of large, intermediate-depth earthquakes using a modified back projection technique first used to study the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman megathrust event. Multiple seismic phases are included in the back projection analysis, which provides the capability to determine the energy distribution with respect to depth and time. A total of 22 intermediate-depth earthquakes with moment magnitudes greater than or equal to 6.5 are investigated with hypocentral depths between 100 and 300 km. For most of these events, the vertical extent of energy release is either below the resolution of this study $(\leq5 km)$ or slightly above $(\leq15 km)$. This observation agrees with previous studies that find large, intermediate-depth earthquakes have subhorizontal rupture planes. The results also show a significant portion of the events have multiple rupture planes that are well separated in depth. The closeness in time of the ruptures on separate planes and the distance between the planes suggest dynamic triggering where the P waves from the first rupture initiate rupture on the second plane. We propose that a dehydration embrittlement mechanism combined with preferentially hydrated subhorizontal faults can explain the observations of dominant subhorizontal rupture planes and the frequent occurrence of rupture complexity involving multiple subevents.Earth and Planetary Science