Identifying and implementing adaptive strategy in the U.S. military

Changes in the environment, including increased environmental complexity, require military supply units to employ a more adaptive strategy in order to enhance military agility. We extend the Lumpkin and Dess (1996) model and develop propositions that explore the interrelationships between/amongst entrepreneurial orientation (EO); opportunity recognition, evaluation and exploitation; environmental and organizational factors; and organizational performance. We propose that the innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking dimensions of EO are of primary importance in identifying adaptive solutions and that these relationships are moderated by environmental factors. The autonomy and competitive aggressiveness dimensions of EO are important in implementing solutions as adaptive strategies, especially in a military context, and these relationships are moderated by organizational factors. This chapter extends existing theory developed primarily for the civilian sector to the military. Military organizations are more rigid hierarchical structures, and have different measures of performance. At an applied level, this research provides insights for military commanders that can potentially enhance agility and adaptability.

De-colonising Shakespeare? : Agency and (masculine) authority in Gregory Rogers's The Boy, The Bear, The Baron, The Bard

Underlying social space are territories, lands,geographical domains, the actual geographical underpinnings of the imperial, and also the cultural contest. To think about distant places, to colonize them, to populate or depopulate them: all of this occurs on, about, or because of land. […] Imperialism and the culture associated with it affirm both the primacy of geography and an ideology about control of territory.

Sir Neville Howse (VC), Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick and Private Martin O’Meara (VC) and their contributions to Australian military medicine

Medical personnel serving with the Defence Forces have contributed to the evolution of trauma treatment and the advancement of prehospital care within the military environment. This paper investigates the stories of an Australian Medical Officer, Sir Neville Howse, and two stretcher bearers, Private John Simpson (Kirkpatrick) and Private Martin O’Meara, In particular it describes the gruelling conditions under which they performed their roles, and reflects on the legacy that they have left behind in Australian society. While it is widely acknowledged that conflicts such as World War One should never have happened, as civilian and defence force paramedics, we should never forget the service and sacrifice of defence force medical personnel and their contribution to the body of knowledge on the treatment of trauma. These men and women bravely provided emergency care in the most harrowing conditions possible. However, men like Martin O’Meara may not have been given the same status in society today as Sir Neville Howse or Simpson and his donkey, due to the public’s lack of awareness and acceptance of war neurosis and conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder, reactive psychosis and somatoform disorders which were suffered by many soldiers during their wartime service and on their return home after fighting in war.

Effect of physical activity and other stressors on appetite: Overcoming underconsumption of military operational rations revisited.

Recognizing the importance of good nutrition for physical and mental status, the Department of Defense asked the Institute of Medicine to guide the design of the nutritional composition of a ration for soldiers on short-term, high-stress missions. Nutrient Composition of Rations for Short-Term, High-Intensity Combat Operations considers military performance, health concerns, food intake, energy expenditure, physical exercise, and food technology issues. The success of military operations depends to a large extent on the physical and mental status of the individuals involved.

From Civil Strife to Civil Society: civil and military responsibilities in disrupted states

"The 1990s saw the United Nations, the militaries of key member states, and NGOs increasingly entangled in the complex affairs of disrupted states. Whether as deliverers of humanitarian assistance or as agents of political, social, and civic reconstruction, whether in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, or East Timor, these actors have had to learn ways of interacting with each other in order to optimize the benefits for the populations they seek to assist. Yet the challenges have proved daunting. Civil and military actors have different organizational cultures and standard operating procedures and are confronted with the need to work together to perform tasks to which different actors may attach quite different priorities."--BOOK JACKET.

Colonising Shakespeare? : agency and authority in Gregory Rogers's Shakespearean picture books

“You need to be able to tell stories. Illustration is a literature, not a pure fine art. It’s the fine art of writing with pictures.” – Gregory Rogers. This paper reads two recent wordless picture books by Australian illustrator Gregory Rogers in order to consider how “Shakespeare” is produced as a complex object of consumption for the implied child reader: The Boy, The Bear, The Baron, The Bard (2004) and Midsummer Knight (2006). In these books other worlds are constructed via time-travel and travel to a fantasy world, and clearly presume reader competence in narrative temporality and structure, and cultural literacy (particularly in reference to Elizabethan London and William Shakespeare), even as they challenge normative concepts via use of the fantastic. Exploring both narrative sequences and individual images reveals a tension in the books between past and present, and real and imagined. Where children’s texts tend to privilege Shakespeare, the man and his works, as inherently valuable, Rogers’s work complicates any sense of cultural value. Even as these picture books depend on a lexicon of Shakespearean images for meaning and coherence, they represent William Shakespeare as both an enemy to children (The Boy), and a national traitor (Midsummer). The protagonists, a boy in the first book and the bear he rescues in the second, effect political change by defeating Shakespeare. However, where these texts might seem to be activating a postcolonial cultural critique, this is complicated both by presumed readerly competence in authorized cultural discourses and by repeated affirmation of monarchies as ideal political systems. Power, then, in these picture books is at once rewarded and withheld, in a dialectic of (possibly postcolonial) agency, and (arguably colonial) subjection, even as they challenge dominant valuations of “Shakespeare” they do not challenge understandings of the “Child”.

The play's the thing? : Hamlet, Slings & Arrows, and the authority of theatrical consumption

This paper reads season 1 of the critically-acclaimed Canadian television series “Slings & Arrows” (2003). This six-episode series is set in a fictionalised version of the Stratford Festival, and tells the story of a plagued production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It follows the play’s rehearsal after the death of the festival’s artistic director; Geoffrey Tennant (himself a plagued Hamlet) takes over the role of director, and must face his past in order to produce a Hamlet that will save the festival, redeem his reputation, and repair his interpersonal relationships. Drawing on popular and theatrical understandings of Shakespeare’s play, the series negotiates tropes of metatheatre, filiality, cultural production and consumption, in order to demonstrate the ongoing relevance and legitimacy of “Shakespeare” in the twenty-first century. The “Slings & Arrows” narrative revolves around the doubled-plot of Hamlet and the experiences of the company mounting Hamlet. In quite obvious ways, the show thus thematises ways in which Shakespeare can be used to read one’s own life and world. In the broader sense, however, the show also offers theatre/performance as a catalyst for affect. In doing so, the show functions as a relatively straight adaptation of Hamlet, and a metatheatrical/metafictional commentary on the functions of Hamlet within contemporary culture. In Shakespeare’s play, the production of “The Mouse-Trap” proves, both to Hamlet and the audience, the legitimacy of the ghost’s claims. Similarly, in “Slings & Arrows”, the successful performance of Hamlet legitimises Geoffrey’s position as artistic director of the festival, and affirms for the viewer the value of Shakespearean production in contemporary culture. In each text, theatre/performance enables and legitimises a son carrying out a dead father’s wishes in order to restore or reproduce socio-cultural order. The metatheatrics of these gestures engage the reader/viewer in a self-reflexive process whereby the ‘value’ of theatre is thematised and performed, and the consumer is positioned as the arbiter and agent of that value: complicit in its production even as they are the site of its consumption.

Responsibility to Protect and Sovereignty

The responsibility to protect ('R2P') principle articulates the obligations of the international community to prevent conflict occurring, to intervene in conflicts, and to assist in rebuilding after conflicts. The doctrine is about protecting civilians in armed conflicts from four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. This book examines interventions in East Timor, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Kosovo. The chapters explore and question UN debates with respect to the doctrine both before and after its adoption in 2005; contrasting state attitudes to international military intervention; and what takes place after intervention. It also discusses the ability of the Security Council to access reliable information and credible and transparent processes to enable it to make a determination on the occurrence of atrocities in a Member State. Questioning whether there is a need to find a closer operational link between the responsibilities to prevent and react and a normative link between R2P and principles of international law, the contributions examine the effectiveness of the framework of R2P for international decision-making in response to mass atrocity crimes and ask how an international system to deal with threats and mass atrocities can be developed in the absence of a central authority. This book will be valuable to those interested in international law, human rights, and security, peace and conflict studies

Dublin Docklands Development Authority architectural concept competition for a landmark tower/U2 studio

The U2 Tower competition entry involved the architectural design for a landmark office tower with associated head office for the world acclaimed rock band U2. The selected site for the office tower was located on the banks of the river Liffey, Dublin. The tower design was intended as a signifier or gateway to the docklands and the city itself. The proposed design incorporated a podium level for music retail and a media centre, a concourse level including cafeteria and outdoor areas as well as a commercial tower.