1,720,963 research outputs found
Another Life, Another World: The Spiritual Origins of Spaceflight
Get PDFThis work reassesses the origins of the idea of humanity’s destiny in outer space, examining the development of popular enthusiasm about extraterrestrial life and reincarnation in Europe and America from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. It connects popular interest in the afterlife to transcendental and spiritualistic perceptions of outer space, which originated as mystical and theological ideas which over the course of the nineteenth century became increasingly secular and scientific. The result was a utopian view of humanity’s future on other planets, one which transformed from the spiritual to the physical and inspired early rocket pioneers to seriously theorise and advocate for spaceflight, leading to the ultimate achievement of this goal in the 1960s
The Red Road to Victory: Soviet Combat Training 1917-1945
Get PDFThis thesis provides a comprehensive account of early Soviet combat training and its
associated attitudes from 1917 to 1945. From its inception in 1918 and throughout the evolution
of Soviet military doctrine and practice, the Red Army paid insufficient attention to existing and
growing deficiencies in military training. Due to a combination of Bolshevik ideology, leftover
Imperial Russian influences, and unique historical circumstances, Soviet leaders – both
deliberately and accidentally – embraced a military culture based on amateurism and
dilettantism. The military leadership’s systemic oversights regarding combat training and
military professionalism undermined the tactical combat capacity of the Soviet Armed Forces in
the short and long term. While Joseph Stalin’s dictatorial policies had a negative impact on
combat training during the 1930s, they merely exacerbated an existing crisis that began with the
formation of the Soviet state in 1917. Despite periodic efforts to remedy this problem, military
reformists largely failed to overcome the formidable institutional forces that continue to advance
a harmful military culture on combat training to the present day. This study also provides
valuable historical context to a similar crisis in combat training faced by the Russian Armed
Forces during their ongoing invasion of Ukraine in 2022
Quiet In The Rear: The Wehrmacht and the Weltanschauungskrieg in the Occupation of the Soviet Union
Get PDFHistorians widely acknowledge that the Second World War witnessed a substantial degree of ideology in the conflict itself. This paper will establish the degree to which the ideology of National Socialism shaped the Wehrmacht’s decision-making process prior to and during their occupation of the Soviet Union, as well as the outcomes of those decisions. To this end, those in positions of authority in the military – including Hitler himself, the OKW, the OKH and various subordinate commanders – will be examined to determine how National Socialist tenets shaped their plans and efforts to quell and exploit the occupied Soviet Union
Graveyard of Republics: An Analysis of Torture in Counterinsurgency
Get PDFCounterinsurgency relies on the dual instruments of propaganda and coercion. If well balanced, these instruments may convince the civilian populace that the rebels cannot win; furthermore, the agenda of counterinsurgents seems to be morally superior to that of the rebels. To attain this balance, counterinsurgents must have a steady flow of intelligence. This is a key to victory, but intelligence gathering is a complex and time-consuming process. In times of great pressure, counterinsurgents tend to fall back on brutality, including torture, to compensate for a lack of information. Although torture provides a great volume of information, the cost of its acquisition is enormous: torture cripples pacification efforts, as it alienates the civilian populace and boosts insurgency. Furthermore, the credibility of information gained via torture is uncertain. The French campaign in Algeria and the American Global War on Terror were lost in part because security agencies resorted to torture in order to gain vital intelligence. The poison pill of torture is inimical to rational counterinsurgency operations
Indictments, Dismissals, and Obstruction – Republika Srpska: 1992 - 2011
Get PDFThis work details the transformation of the Republika Srpska from its foundation in 1992 to the election of Milorad Dodik as the entity's president in 2011. It covers the bloody birth of the RS and the role of its founders in the within the Serb Democratic Party (SDS). It extensively discusses the postwar political divisions between members of the SDS old guard, which include Biljana Plavsic, Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and others. This work also discusses the rise, fall, and rebirth of Milorad Dodik who transitioned from a reformist oriented toward the West, to a reactionary bent on the independence of the RS. Throughout this time, the Office of the High Representative gained tremendous power within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and subsequently lost it. This work explains how American disengagement, force reduction, and shifts in the geopolitical balance of power caused the OHR's lacklustre decline and Dodik's empowerment
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
1799. aasta Alpide kampaania kui Vene mägisõjadoktriini lävepakk
No full textKeiserlik Vene armee võitles esimest korda mägedes 1799. aastal, kui Aleksandr Suvorov viis oma korpuse Itaaliast üle Šveitsi Alpide, et ühineda Vene vägedega Zürichi all ja tõrjuda Prantsuse armee Šveitsist välja. Tema sõdurid olid kogenud professionaalid, kes olid Itaalias prantslaste vastu sõdides võitnud muljetavaldava hulga lahinguid. Suvorov ei näinud ette Alpides tekkida võivaid raskusi ja oli veendunud, et ta pühib sinna siirdud Prantsuse garnisonid kergesti oma teelt. Kuid mägisõja kogemuste puudumise tõttu põrkus Suvorovi korpus tohutute strateegiliste, taktikaliste ja logistiliste probleemidega, kaotas poole oma elavjõust ega saavutanud oma eesmärke. Šveitsi sõjakäik näitas, et mägisõjas pole kohta amatööridele, diletantidele ja spontaansusele. Hiljem Venemaa piiridel paiknevates mägedes sõdides ignoreerisid Vene ja siis Nõukogude armee samuti mägisõja omapära ning võitlesid kõigil neil sõjakäikudel nagu tasandikel – koos ettearvatavalt kohutavate tagajärgedega
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