Trevor Pearcey and the First Australian Computer: A Lost Opportunity?

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 209 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Willis ◽  
J. F. Deane

Shortly after the Second World War Trevor Pearcey joined the Radiophysics Division of the Australian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the predecessor of today's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). He designed the first Australian electronic computer, which was constructed in the Division. By 1951 this machine was functioning, but three years later a decision was made to discontinue work on computer development in CSIRO. Pearcey however went on to play a vital role in Australian computing, both in CSIRO and in academia. This paper tells something of Pearcey's early contribution to Australian computing. It also takes a fresh look at some of the factors involved in the 1954 decision to terminate computer development in CSIRO.

2021 ◽  
Vol 148 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-823
Author(s):  
Karolina Wanda Olszowska

Poles have found a place of refuge in Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) for centuries. For example, there is a village near Istanbul, Polonezköy (former Adampol), which was especially created with the Poles on the search for a second home in mind. When one considers the Polish community in Turkey during and after the Second World War, the contributions made by the Polish engineers to the development and expansion of the Turkish aviation and industry are often forgotten. The assistance that Turkey provided Poles with during the war as a ‘friendly’ neutral country has also been overlooked. Although, there were relatively few Poles living in Turkey during this period, they played a vital role in the development of the country. Nowadays they barely receive a mention. For the most part, their accomplishments have been overlooked. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the shared past and to the period when these two countries came to each other’s assistance once more.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-216
Author(s):  
Alfred Tembo

This article examines how Northern Rhodesian ex-servicemen experienced home life after the Second World War, the problems they encountered, and the society into which they were reintegrated. Challenges faced by African veterans made them restless and discontented compared to European ex-servicemen who benefited from entrenched discriminatory racial practices. Using hitherto unexplored materials from the National Archives of Zambia, this article further argues that African ex-servicemen were preoccupied with their immediate personal well-being and not wider societal issues such as nationalism. This stands in contrast to older academic arguments that African ex-servicemen played a vital role in nationalist politics.


2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-203
Author(s):  
Jeremy Haselock

George Bell is perhaps best known today as an ecumenist, for his courageous criticism of the saturation bombing of German cities during the Second World War, and for awakening the church in Europe to its vital role in post-war reconciliation and reconstruction. This international reputation has masked his many other talents and achievements as a diocesan bishop, not least his work in the field of pastoral liturgy. He had very early contact with the Continental leaders of the Liturgical Movement and became an active promoter of their aims, encouraging liturgical awareness among the parish clergy of his diocese and beyond.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyoko Murakami

This article recognises the crucial role cultural and social contexts play in shaping individual and collective recollections. Such recollections involve multiple, intertwined levels of experience in the real world such as commemorating a war. Thus, the commemoration practised in a particular context deserves an empirical investigation. The methodological approach taken is naturalistic, as it situates commemoration as remembering and recollection in the real world of things and people. I consider the case of a war veterans’ reunion as an analogy for a pilgrimage, and in that pilgrimage-like transformative process, we can observe the dynamics of remembering that is mediated with artefacts and involves people’s interactions with the social environment. Furthermore, remembering, recollection and commemorating the war can be approached in terms of embodied interactions with culturally and historically organised materials. In this article, I will review the relevant literature on key topics and concepts including pilgrimage, transformation and liminality and communitas in order to create a theoretical framework. I present an analysis and discussion on the ethnographic fieldwork on the Burma Campaign (of the Second World War) veterans’ reunion. The article strives to contribute to the critical forum of memory research, highlighting the significance of a holistic and interdisciplinary exposition of the vital role context plays in the practice of commemorating war.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Redmond

Irish medical migrants had a visible presence in twentieth-century British hospitals, particularly during the Second World War. This chapter outlines the profile of migrants returning from Britain to Ireland during the Second World War by using demographic information gleaned from travel permit application forms. The chapter asks: how were medical migrants regulated as ‘legally landed aliens’ from a neutral country whilst living and working in a belligerent one? How did this regulation compare with workers in other fields? Was their personal profile similar or different to other applicants? What do the sources under scrutiny reveal about geographical patterns of settlement for migrants in the medical field? Finally, what can individual cases illuminate about conditions for Irish immigrants in wartime Britain? The chapter demonstrates that that this migrant group was highly distinctive from the larger majority of unskilled Irish workers in Britain, known as ‘Ireland’s medical diaspora’. It also explores the vital role of Irish women in the British medical service by highlighting their diversity, agency and the ways in which their profile disrupts stereotypical narratives of immigrant women occupying marginal sectors of the British economy.


Author(s):  
Dheva Rajan S.

This chapter is devoted to the study of mathematical modelling part of infectious diseases, especially the nipah virus. In the past few decades, one cannot deny that enormous new unanticipated diseases have been the cause of serious concern among the human community and that so many viruses have begun emerging and re-emerging though people are trying all means to get rid of diseases. It can even be said that diseases of all sorts are ruling the world. Early prediction of diseases that spread in humans plays a vital role to protect living beings. Most of such diseases are highly infectious, get transmitted from human to human or through some other vectors. Several research and developments take place in the pharma industry notably after the Second World War. Hence, the predictions are not just for theoretical purposes as quite a number of pharma industries use mathematical models for their findings in new medicines and even to decide the quantity of medicine production. This chapter gives an overview of the different researches conducted in mathematical modelling of nipah virus.


Author(s):  
Iain E. Johnston-White

Often undervalued in the existing historiography of the Second World War, the dominions provided assistance to the UK in many ways that proved fundamental to British strategy. This chapter seeks to demonstrate how important this was in one such area—bolstering British maritime power. The most crucial support was provided by Canada in the North Atlantic. Canada helped maintain the link between North America and the UK, which was essential to both British survival and the capacity to maintain offensives. More surprisingly, the Union of South Africa had a vital role to fulfill on the Cape Route once the Mediterranean was effectively closed to Allied shipping. The island dominions of Australia and New Zealand could do little more than fall in line with Allied strategy, since the direction of the war to some extent marginalized the importance of their role in the British maritime effort. In the long attritional war at sea, the dominions proved foundational in their importance to British maritime power. This effort kept the Commonwealth connected during one of the most challenging phases of its existence.


2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-33
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Wallis ◽  
Cherry Lavell

An account of the vital role played by indexing in the code-breaking work carried out at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.


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