Medal of the 11th Hapoel Games

Obverse: Emblem of the games, inscription. Reverse: Figures of four athletes engaged in various sports.

American Jewish Committee. Office of Jewish War Records, undated, 1918-1921, 1962.

The records consist of documentation of the American Jewish Committee's project to describe Jewish participation in the United States Armed Forces during World War I. The bulk of the material consists of questionnaires that the AJC sent to servicemen to determine Jewish identity, which contain information on personal identification and details of military service. Responses to the questionnaire come from both Jews and non-Jews. In addition, the collection contains office papers concerning the project and a ledger of manuscripts. The manuscripts document the distribution of records the Office of Jewish War Records collected, as well as list Jews who died or were given military honors.

On Games on Non-Wellfounded Sets and Stationary Sets

In this thesis we study a few games related to non-wellfounded and stationary sets. Games have turned out to be an important tool in mathematical logic ranging from semantic games defining the truth of a sentence in a given logic to for example games on real numbers whose determinacies have important effects on the consistency of certain large cardinal assumptions. The equality of non-wellfounded sets can be determined by a so called bisimulation game already used to identify processes in theoretical computer science and possible world models for modal logic. Here we present a game to classify non-wellfounded sets according to their branching structure. We also study games on stationary sets moving back to classical wellfounded set theory. We also describe a way to approximate non-wellfounded sets with hereditarily finite wellfounded sets. The framework used to do this is domain theory. In the Banach-Mazur game, also called the ideal game, the players play a descending sequence of stationary sets and the second player tries to keep their intersection stationary. The game is connected to precipitousness of the corresponding ideal. In the pressing down game first player plays regressive functions defined on stationary sets and the second player responds with a stationary set where the function is constant trying to keep the intersection stationary. This game has applications in model theory to the determinacy of the Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse game. We show that it is consistent that these games are not equivalent.

Manuscript Items relating to the Civil War, including letters

Digital image

Legacies of War--[Ten percent terror]

Ten Percent Terror brings together leading creatives from the fields of contemporary theatre, contemporary dance, music theatre, circus and digital arts in the first collaboration of its kind. Commissioned by Brisbane Powerhouse, with support from the Anzac Centenary Arts and Culture Fund and in partnership with Dancenorth and Company 2, this is an inter-disciplinary work that combines theatrical narrative with eloquent physicality, through circus and dance, to express certain truths of the soldiers' experience. This production will be a circus-narrative that uses the form and language of circus to express the key themes of risk, panic and brotherhood. Ten Percent Terror is intended to be a work of scale, yet also intimacy: of stillness and panic, inertia and chaos. Project partners, Dancenorth and Company 2, share the vision to use contemporary artistic disciplines to connect younger and modern audiences to the ANZAC legacy, perhaps offering a connection for those audiences that they may not find through more traditional art forms. The development process has included a community research project in Townsville, conducted by Shane Pike, which explored contemporary Australians’ stories through interviews with serving military personnel and the local community, as well as collecting photographic documentation and other artefacts from around Townsville. This was followed by an archival research project in Brisbane, where Pike reviewed letters, photographs and personal accounts of soldiers from WW1. The results of these projects will be used by the creative team to inform the development of Ten Percent Terror. Given Townsville’s reputation as Australia’s ‘garrison’ city, the project partners plan to deliver the world premiere performance of Ten Percent Terror in Townsville in late 2015. It is intended that Ten Percent Terror will receive its Brisbane premiere in November 2015 at Brisbane Powerhouse, as part of a four-performance season. This expert panel included discussion of the project and its place in analysing key aspects of Australia's wartime history.

The Soviet Union, Finland and the Cold War : The Finnish Card in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1956-1959

From the Soviet point of view the actual substance of Soviet-Finnish relations in the second half of 1950s clearly differed from the contemporary and later public image, based on friendship and confidence rhetoric. As the polarization between the right and the left became more underlined in Finland in the latter half of the 1950s, the criticism towards the Soviet Union became stronger, and the USSR feared that this development would have influence on Finnish foreign policy. From the Soviet point of view, the security commitments of FCMA-treaty needed additional guarantees through control of Finnish domestic politics and economic relations, especially during international crises. In relation to Scandinavia, Finland was, from the Soviet point of view, the model country of friendship or neutrality policy. The influence of the Second Berlin Crisis or the Soviet-Finnish Night Frost Crisis in 1958-1959 to Soviet policy towards Scandinavia needs to be observed from this point of view. The Soviet Union used Finland as a tool, in agreement with Finnish highest political leadership, for weakening of the NATO membership of Norway and Denmark, and for maintaining Swedish non-alliance. The Finnish interest to EFTA membership in the summer of 1959, at the same time with the Scandinavian countries, seems to have caused a panic reaction in the USSR, as the Soviets feared that these economic arrangements would reverse the political advantages the country had received in Finland after the Night Frost Crisis. Together with history of events, this study observes the interaction of practical interests and ideologies, both in individuals and in decision-making organizations. The necessary social and ideological reforms in the Soviet Union after 1956 had influence both on the legitimacy of the regime, and led to contradictions in the argumentation of Soviet foreign policy. This was observed both in the own camp as well as in the West. Also, in Finland a breakthrough took place in the late 1950's: as the so-called counter reaction lost to the K-line, "a special relationship" developed with the Soviet Union. As a consequence of the Night Frost Crisis the Soviet relationship became a factor decisively defining the limits of domestic politics in Finland, a part of Finnish domestic political argumentation. Understood from this basis, finlandization is not, even from the viewpoint of international relations, a special case, but a domestic political culture formed by the relationship between a dominant state, a superpower, and a subordinate state, Finland.

State Agent, Identity and the "New World Order" : Reconstructing Polish Defence Identity after the Cold War Era

National identity signifies and makes state s defence- and foreign policy behaviour meaningful. National consciousness is narrated into existence by narratives upon one s own exceptionalism and Otherness of the other nations. While national identity may be understood merely as a self-image of a nation, defence identity refers to the borders of Otherness and issues that have been considered as worth defending for. As national identities and all the world order models are human constructions, they may be changed by the human efforts as well; states and nations may deliberately promote communitarian or even cosmopolitan equality and tolerance without borders of Otherness. The main research question of the thesis is: How does Poland constitute herself as a nation and a state agent in the current world order and to what extent have contextual foreign and defence policy interactions changed the Polish defence identity during the post-Cold War era? The main empirical argument of the thesis is: Poland is a narrated idea of a Christian Catholic nation-state, which the Polish State, the Catholic Church of Poland, the Armed Forces of Poland as well as a majority of the Polish nation share. Polish defence identity has been almost impenetrable to contextual foreign and defence policy interactions during the post-Cold War era. While Christian religious ontology binds corporate Poland together, allowing her to survive any number of military and political catastrophes, it simultaneously brings her closer to the USA, raises tensions in the infidel EU-context, and restrains corporate Poland s pursuit of communitarian, or even cosmopolitan, global equality and tolerance. It is not the case that corporate Poland s foreign and defence policy orientation is instinctively Atlanticist by nature, as has been argued. Rather, it has been the State s rational project to overcome a habituated and reified fear of becoming geopolitically sandwiched between Russian and German Others by leaning on the USA; among the Polish nation, support for the USA has been declining since 2004. It is not corporate Poland either that has turned into a constructive European , as has been argued, but rather the Polish nation that has, at least partly, managed to emancipate itself from its habituation to a betrayal by Europe narrative, since it favours the EU as much as it favours NATO. It seems that in the Polish case a truly common European CFSP vis-à-vis Russia may offer a solution that will emancipate the Polish State from its habituated EU-sceptic role identity and corporate Poland from its narrated borders of Otherness towards Russia and Germany, but even then one cannot be sure whether any other perspective than the Polish one on a common stand towards Russia would satisfy the Poles themselves.

Reconstituting identity and history in post-war Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina

This paper by Carl Grodach demonstrates the careful unravelling of complexity, diversity, contestation and contradictions involved in the reconstruction of symbolic urban spaces after violent conflict, and the allied processes of cultural reinterpretation, political reconfiguration and material revaluation which accompany it. The paper analyses the reconstruction and redevelopment of the 16th-century historic centre of Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, following the Bosnian Wars of 1992–1995. Reconstruction efforts centre around Stari Most, the 16th-century Ottoman bridge destroyed by Bosnian Croat military in 1993. In Mostar, both international and local organizations are in the process of reinterpreting Bosnia’s legacy of Ottoman city spaces. This research and analysis illuminates how such spaces can be central to contemporary projects to redefine group identities and conceptions of place. It provides insight into the ways various groups are attempting to reshape outside perceptions of the city—and Bosnia’s ethnic conflict—to articulate a new definition of local identity and ethnic relations and to remake a stable tourist economy through Mostar’s urban spaces.

Structuring time and questioning to achieve tactical awareness in games lessons

Background: A paradigm shift in educational policy to create problem solvers and critical thinkers produced the games concept approach (GCA) in Singapore's Revised Syllabus for Physical Education (1999). A pilot study (2001) conducted on 11 primary school student teachers (STs) using this approach identified time management and questioning as two of the major challenges faced by novice teachers. Purpose: To examine the GCA from three perspectives: structure—lesson form in terms of teacher-time and pupil-time; product—how STs used those time fractions; and process—the nature of their questioning (type, timing, and target). Participants and setting: Forty-nine STs from three different PETE cohorts (two-year diploma, four-year degree, two-year post-graduate diploma) volunteered to participate in the study conducted during the penultimate week of their final practicum in public primary and secondary schools. Intervention: Based on the findings of the pilot study, PETE increased the emphasis on GCA content specific knowledge and pedagogical procedures. To further support STs learning to actualise the GCA, authentic micro-teaching experiences that were closely monitored by faculty were provided in schools nearby. Research design: This is a descriptive study of time-management and questioning strategies implemented by STs on practicum. Each lesson was segmented into a number of sub-categories of teacher-time (organisation, demonstration and closure) and pupil-time (practice time and game time). Questions were categorised as knowledge, technical, tactical or affective. Data collection: Each ST was video-taped teaching a GCA lesson towards the end of their final practicum. The STs individually determined the timing of the data collection and the lesson to be observed. Data analysis: Each lesson was segmented into a number of sub-categories of both teacher- and pupil-time. Duration recording using Noldus software (Observer 4.0) segmented the time management of different lesson components. Questioning was coded in terms of type, timing and target. Separate MANOVAs were used to measure the difference between programmes and levels (primary and secondary) in relation to time-management procedures and questioning strategies. Findings: No differences emerged between the programmes or levels in their time-management or questioning strategies. Using the GCA, STs generated more pupil time (53%) than teacher time (47%). STs at the primary level provided more technical practice, and those in secondary schools more small-sided game play. Most questions (58%) were asked during play or practice but were substantially low-order involving knowledge or recall (76%) and only 6.7% were open-ended or divergent and capable of developing tactical awareness. Conclusions: Although STs are delivering more pupil time (practice and game) than teacher-time, the lesson structure requires further fine-tuning to extend the practice task beyond technical drills. Many questions are being asked to generate knowledge about games but lack sufficient quality to enhance critical thinking and tactical awareness, as the GCA intends.

Operationalising and measuring flow in video games

This paper explores the obstacles associated with designing video game levels for the purpose of objectively measuring flow. We sought to create three video game levels capable of inducing a flow state, an overload state (low-flow), and a boredom state (low-flow). A pilot study, in which participants self-reported levels of flow after playing all three game levels, was undertaken. Unexpected results point to the challenges of operationalising flow in video game research, obstacles in experimental design for invoking flow and low-flow, concerns about flow as a construct for measuring video game enjoyment, the applicability of self-report flow scales, and the experience of flow in video game play despite substantial challenge-skill differences.

Is it the economy, stupid? The role of social versus economic factors in people’s support for hosting the Olympic Games: Evidence from 12 democratic countries

Public referenda have gained momentum as a democratic tool to legitimize public mega projects such as hosting the Olympic Games. Interest groups in favour of hosting the Olympics therefore try to influence voters through public campaigns that primarily focus on economic benefits. However, recent studies find no or hardly any economic impact of hosting the Olympics, instead providing evidence for a positive social impact. This raises the question whether citizens consider economic or social factors when deciding on hosting the Olympics. Based on representative survey data from 12 countries, our results suggest that economic factors can influence voting behaviour, although the influence of social factors is stronger.