The Generation of Memory: Reflections on the “Memory Boom” in Contemporary Historical Studies

Jay Winter delivered the following in the form of a lecture at the Canadian War Museum on 31 October 2000. A distinguished academic, Winter has been writing about the cultural history of the First World War for nearly three decades. He has taught at the University of Cambridge in England and is presently at Yale University. Since 1988, he has been a director of the Historial de la grande guerre in Peronne, an important war museum in northern France. In this capacity, he has become familiar with a great many institutions of war and military history around the world and he has great knowledge and familiarity with the important historical and intellectual debates that will be fundamental to the creation of a new Canadian War Museum, which is now slated to open in May 2005. Probably Winter’s best-known book is Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: the Great War in European Cultural History published in 1995. In it, he argues that the rituals of mourning associated with commemoration after the First World War had a history stretching far back in human life and experience. In this he contradicts the thinking of Canadian historian Modris Eksteins who argued that the Great War marked the birth of the modern age. Lately, Daniel Sherman has proposed that commemorative ceremonies and memorials are significantly politicized in the interests of state control. In the following paper Winter warns against the dangers of collective memory being collapsed into “a set of stories formed by or about the state” while also providing a rich overview of the great importance that attention to memory and culture studies has taken on in contemporary thought. These cannot be ignored in any serious attempt to lay the intellectual foundation of any new museum, and perhaps especially may have specific relevance to a new war museum

Museums and the Representation of War

Museums are the cathedrals of the twenty-first century, in that they have filled the void left by the conventional churches as a site in which mixed populations of different faiths or no faith at all, of different origins and beliefs, confront and meditate on sacred themes – sacrifice, death, mourning, evil, brotherhood, dignity, transcendence.1 War not only belongs in museums; war dominates museum space in much of the public representation of history and will continue to do so. That being so, it is the task of war museums to persuade visitors to pose the question: how can war be represented? While there is no adequate answer to this question, museum professionals must try to answer it anyway with a large dose of humility. By avoiding the didactic mode, that is, that they know the answer and will present it to the visitors, they can perform a major public service. By admitting the magnitude of the problems inherent in trying to represent war, and through it, trying to represent the pain of others, museum directors and designers fulfil a critical social task. Knowing about war is the business of an informed citizenship, and museums are those sites where moral questions are posed, questions inevitably raised about war, questions about sacrifice, suffering, brotherhood, courage, love, recovery, transcendence. Museums enable visitors to pose these enduring questions, by converting war time into museum space

Palimpsesti: Nacionalna, međunarodna i transnacionalna mjesta sjećanja

In this essay I claim that all sites of memory have both local and national meanings, since they say that something happened here or to the people who live here, in this country, which is worth remembering in public. Only some sites of memory are international, in that they are constructed not solely by locals or residents of a particular region or state, but by groups of people in different countries drawing attention to events they think significant. However, transnational sites are those which were constructed or designated as significant by people from different places or different states, who worked together to represent the past from a transnational perspective. Therefore, the central question of my research is what did memory agents, that is, the people who built or used these sites of memory, want to achieve through them? What were they for? The answers I present are based on war memorials and museums. Reflecting on these sites underscores the ways in which war memorials are palimpsests, in the sense that they have multiple levels of meaning attached to them, corresponding to the collective memory of local, regional, national, international and transnational communities about our violent age.U ovom eseju tvrdim da sva mjesta sjećanja imaju i lokalno i nacionalno značenje, jer govore da se nešto vrijedno javnoga sjećanja dogodilo ovdje ili ljudima koji žive ovdje, u ovoj zemlji. Samo su neka mjesta sjećanja međunarodna, jer ih ne grade samo mještani ili stanovnici određene regije ili države nego skupine ljudi u raznim zemljama, skrećući pozornost na događaje koje smatraju važnima. Međutim, transnacionalna su mjesta ona koja su izgradili ili označili kao važna ljudi iz raznih mjesta ili država, radeći zajedno na predstavljanju prošlosti iz transnacionalnoga vidokruga. Stoga je središnje pitanje mojeg istraživanja što su nositelji sjećanja, odnosno ljudi koji su izgradili ili rabili ta mjesta sjećanja, htjeli njima postići. Čemu su služila? Odgovori koje iznosim temelje se na ratnim spomenicima i muzejima. Razmišljanje o ovim mjestima naglašava načine na koje se ratni spomenici mogu smatrati palimpsestima, u smislu da im se pridružuju višestruke razine značenja koje odgovaraju kolektivnom sjećanju lokalnih, regionalnih, nacionalnih, međunarodnih i transnacionalnih zajednica o dobu nasilja u kojem živimo

The effect of maternal child marriage on morbidity and mortality of children under 5 in India: cross sectional study of a nationally representative sample

Objective To assess associations between maternal child marriage (marriage before age 18) and morbidity and mortality of infants and children under 5 in India

Hayabusa Re-Entry: Trajectory Analysis and Observation Mission Design

On June 13th, 2010, the Hayabusa sample return capsule successfully re-entered Earth s atmosphere over the Woomera Prohibited Area in southern Australia in its quest to return fragments from the asteroid 1998 SF36 Itokawa . The sample return capsule entered at a super-orbital velocity of 12.04 km/sec (inertial), making it the second fastest human-made object to traverse the atmosphere. The NASA DC-8 airborne observatory was utilized as an instrument platform to record the luminous portion of the sample return capsule re-entry (~60 sec) with a variety of on-board spectroscopic imaging instruments. The predicted sample return capsule s entry state information at ~200 km altitude was propagated through the atmosphere to generate aerothermodynamic and trajectory data used for initial observation flight path design and planning. The DC- 8 flight path was designed by considering safety, optimal sample return capsule viewing geometry and aircraft capabilities in concert with key aerothermodynamic events along the predicted trajectory. Subsequent entry state vector updates provided by the Deep Space Network team at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were analyzed after the planned trajectory correction maneuvers to further refine the DC-8 observation flight path. Primary and alternate observation flight paths were generated during the mission planning phase which required coordination with Australian authorities for pre-mission approval. The final observation flight path was chosen based upon trade-offs between optimal viewing requirements, ground based observer locations (to facilitate post-flight trajectory reconstruction), predicted weather in the Woomera Prohibited Area and constraints imposed by flight path filing deadlines. To facilitate sample return capsule tracking by the instrument operators, a series of two racetrack flight path patterns were performed prior to the observation leg so the instruments could be pointed towards the region in the star background where the sample return capsule was expected to become visible. An overview of the design methodologies and trade-offs used in the Hayabusa re-entry observation campaign are presented

Factors prompting and deterring suicides on the roads

Background In addition to the devastating impact on the individual and their families, suicides on the roads can cause distress and harm to other people who might be involved in a collision or witness an attempt. Despite an increased focus on the characteristics and circumstances of road-related suicides, little is known about why people choose to end their lives in this way. Aims The aim of the current study was to investigate the factors prompting and deterring the decision to attempt suicide on the roads. Method We conducted a secondary analysis of survey data, as well as seven in-depth qualitative interviews. Participants had lived experience of suicidal ideation or behaviour at a bridge or road location. We also carried out an online ethnography to explore interactions in different online communities relating to this method of suicide. Results Participants perceived a road-related suicide to be quick, lethal, easy and accessible and to have the potential to appear accidental. The proportion of participants who described their thoughts and attempts as impulsive appeared to be higher than had been observed with other method choices. The potential impact on other people was a strongly dissuasive factor. Conclusions Measures designed to prevent access to potentially lethal sites may be particularly important, given that many participants described their thoughts and behaviour as impulsive. In addition, fostering a culture of care and consideration for other road users may help to dissuade people from taking action on the roads

Defining Treatment‐Related Adverse Effects in Patients with Glioma: Distinctive Features of Pseudoprogression and Treatment‐Induced Necrosis

Background: Pseudoprogression (PP) and treatment‐induced brain tissue necrosis (TN) are challenging cancer treatment–related effects. Both phenomena remain insufficiently defined; differentiation from recurrent disease frequently necessitates tissue biopsy. We here characterize distinctive features of PP and TN to facilitate noninvasive diagnosis and clinical management. Materials and Methods: Patients with glioma and confirmed PP (defined as appearance 5 months after RT) were retrospectively compared using clinical, radiographic, and histopathological data. Each imaging event/lesion (region of interest [ROI]) diagnosed as PP or TN was longitudinally evaluated by serial imaging. Results: We identified 64 cases of mostly (80%) biopsy‐confirmed PP (n = 27) and TN (n = 37), comprising 137 ROIs in total. Median time of onset for PP and TN was 1 and 11 months after RT, respectively. Clinically, PP occurred more frequently during active antineoplastic treatment, necessitated more steroid‐based interventions, and was associated with glioblastoma (81 vs. 40%), fewer IDH1 mutations, and shorter median overall survival. Radiographically, TN lesions often initially manifested periventricularly (n = 22/37; 60%), were more numerous (median, 2 vs. 1 ROIs), and contained fewer malignant elements upon biopsy. By contrast, PP predominantly developed around the tumor resection cavity as a non‐nodular, ring‐like enhancing structure. Both PP and TN lesions almost exclusively developed in the main prior radiation field. Presence of either condition appeared to be associated with above‐average overall survival. Conclusion: PP and TN occur in clinically distinct patient populations and exhibit differences in spatial radiographic pattern. Increased familiarity with both conditions and their unique features will improve patient management and may avoid unnecessary surgical procedures. Implications for Practice: Pseudoprogression (PP) and treatment‐induced brain tissue necrosis (TN) are challenging treatment‐related effects mimicking tumor progression in patients with brain cancer. Affected patients frequently require surgery to guide management. PP and TN remain arbitrarily defined and insufficiently characterized. Lack of clear diagnostic criteria compromises treatment and may adversely affect outcome interpretation in clinical trials. The present findings in a cohort of patients with glioma with PP/TN suggest that both phenomena exhibit unique clinical and imaging characteristics, manifest in different patient populations, and should be classified as distinct clinical conditions. Increased familiarity with PP and TN key features may guide clinicians toward timely noninvasive diagnosis, circumvent potentially unnecessary surgical procedures, and improve response assessment in neuro‐oncology

Final results of Borexino Phase-I on low energy solar neutrino spectroscopy

Borexino has been running since May 2007 at the LNGS with the primary goal of detecting solar neutrinos. The detector, a large, unsegmented liquid scintillator calorimeter characterized by unprecedented low levels of intrinsic radioactivity, is optimized for the study of the lower energy part of the spectrum. During the Phase-I (2007-2010) Borexino first detected and then precisely measured the flux of the 7Be solar neutrinos, ruled out any significant day-night asymmetry of their interaction rate, made the first direct observation of the pep neutrinos, and set the tightest upper limit on the flux of CNO neutrinos. In this paper we discuss the signal signature and provide a comprehensive description of the backgrounds, quantify their event rates, describe the methods for their identification, selection or subtraction, and describe data analysis. Key features are an extensive in situ calibration program using radioactive sources, the detailed modeling of the detector response, the ability to define an innermost fiducial volume with extremely low background via software cuts, and the excellent pulse-shape discrimination capability of the scintillator that allows particle identification. We report a measurement of the annual modulation of the 7 Be neutrino interaction rate. The period, the amplitude, and the phase of the observed modulation are consistent with the solar origin of these events, and the absence of their annual modulation is rejected with higher than 99% C.L. The physics implications of phase-I results in the context of the neutrino oscillation physics and solar models are presented

Spectroscopy of geo-neutrinos from 2056 days of Borexino data

We report an improved geo-neutrino measurement with Borexino from 2056 days of data taking. The present exposure is $(5.5\pm0.3)\times10^{31}$ proton$\times$yr. Assuming a chondritic Th/U mass ratio of 3.9, we obtain $23.7 ^{+6.5}_{-5.7} (stat) ^{+0.9}_{-0.6} (sys)$ geo-neutrino events. The null observation of geo-neutrinos with Borexino alone has a probability of $3.6 \times 10^{-9}$ (5.9$\sigma$). A geo-neutrino signal from the mantle is obtained at 98\% C.L. The radiogenic heat production for U and Th from the present best-fit result is restricted to the range 23-36 TW, taking into account the uncertainty on the distribution of heat producing elements inside the Earth.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure