Communications in the Canadian Corps, 1915–1918: Wartime Technological Progress Revisited

Warfare has, for millenia, been a rich source of myth and legend, and one of the main reasons many historians proclaim Herodotus to be the first to ply their trade is because, at least, he discounted divine intervention as the prime explanation for the ebb and flow of battle. Myths, however, persist to this day, one of the most popular in our industrialized culture being a common belief that technological development accelerates in wartime. In many cases this might be true; the First World War, for example, saw much innovation (this author hesitates to use the word “progress”) in the development of tanks, aircraft, submarines, and chemical warfare. In that same war, however, communications technology did not keep apace, ironic (especially in the British Expeditionary Force) given commanders’ insistence that they needed to control their troops if they were to win battles. Though much has been said of the impact of machine guns and quick-firing artillery on the Western Front, another important source of heavy casualties was the lack of communication between the troops in combat and the officers responsible for providing artillery support or sending in reserves; as a result men died in hopeless, unsupported assaults or were overwhelmed by counterattacks after capturing their objectives. Communications were further complicated by the addition of aircraft to the battlefield, with artillery observation and photo reconnaissance adding the war over land to the war on land. Maintaining contact between aircraft and the troops they were supposed to support would be an ongoing challenge. An indication of the state of the art in 1914 could be found in the the most technologically advanced arm of the British Expeditionary Force—the artillery. Batteries could call on wireless aircraft to correct fall of shot, and in December what had simply been called the wireless unit became 9 Squadron, which supplied aircraft and crews to other units as required, though its pilots did not lead easy lives, as the transmitter they carried was so bulky they could not take an observer. Further, it required so much space in the small observer’s cockpit there was no room for a receiver, so the pilot could not be entirely sure his corrections were being monitored. As he had to carry out the observer’s duties as well as his own, with no one to keep a look-out for enemy aircraft, it could not have been popular work. Radio-telephony, the transmission of human speech by wireless, had been under development since 1910 but had not moved beyond basic experimentation at the end of 1914

Digital Technology and the End of Social Studies Education

In Fall 2000, when "Theory and Research in Social Education" (TRSE) first dedicated an issue to technologies in social studies education, Neil Postman contributed a View Point piece to this issue. Postman, who died in 2003, was an interesting choice because he was an outspoken critic of educational technology who believed that, as he said at the time, "the new technologies both in and out of the classroom are a distraction and an irrelevance." Taking his cue from Postman, the author addresses the issue of digital technology in social studies education by telling a story of his own. He offers a wandering narrative -- and an old-fashioned one at that -- common in the religious stories that Postman saw as the prototype for all cultural stories: the narrative of faith, tested by doubt, emerging reaffirmed. He also discusses two elements that he believes need to be far more present in social studies education, at the pre-service and K-12 level: (1) Clearer disciplinary perspectives; and (2) easier ways of working with data within these perspectives. Technologies, if carefully designed, can be helpful in both areas

On the Hausdorff dimension of countable intersections of certain sets of normal numbers

We show that the set of numbers that are $Q$-distribution normal but not simply $Q$-ratio normal has full Hausdorff dimension. It is further shown under some conditions that countable intersections of sets of this form still have full Hausdorff dimension even though they are not winning sets (in the sense of W. Schmidt). As a consequence of this, we construct many explicit examples of numbers that are simultaneously distribution normal but not simply ratio normal with respect to certain countable families of basic sequences. Additionally, we prove that some related sets are either winning sets or sets of the first category.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

The Russian Federation, protocol no. 14 (and 14 bis), and the battle for the soul of the ECHR

With a focus on the Russian Federation, this article examines the adoption by the Council of Europe of Protocol No.14 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and its long-delayed coming into force. The author starts with the question of the original object and purpose of the Council, and how they have now changed. This leads to an analysis of the nature of the crisis – a crisis of success – now faced by the ECHR system, and the reform process which started, on the 50th anniversary of the ECHR, in 2000. After describing Protocol No.14 itself, and the discussion which has surrounded it, the article turns to the central issue. This is not the question of procedural reform, or even admissibility criteria, but what lies behind – the “soul” of the ECHR system. Should the Strasbourg Court remain a court which renders “individual justice”, albeit only for a handful of applicants and with long delays; or should it make become a court which renders “constitutional justice”? The article focuses on the specific problems faced by Russia in its relations with the Council of Europe; and an analysis of the lengthy refusal by the Russian State Duma to ratify Protocol No. 14. The author concludes with an attempted prognosis

Minorities’ protection in Russia: is there a ‘Communist Legacy’?

Book synopsis: Twenty years after the demise of communist policy, this book evaluates the continuing communist legacies in the current minority protection systems and legislations across a number of states in post-communist Europe. The fall of communism and the process of democratisation across post-communist Europe led to considerable change in minority protection with new systems and national political institutions either developed or copied. In general, the new institutions reflected the practices and experiences of (western) European states and were installed upon advice from European security organisations. Yet many ideas, legislative frameworks, policies and practices remained open to interpretation on the ground. With case studies on a diverse set of post-communist polities including Slovakia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Ukraine, Estonia, Croatia, the Baltic States and Russia, expert contributors consider how the institutional legacies of the communist past impact on policies designed to support minority communities in the new European democracies. Providing unique empirical material and comparative analyses of ethnocultural diversity management during and after communism, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, European politics, political geography, post-communism, ethnic politics, nationalism and national identity