12 october 2011
following up on previous post from 10 october

So there, we like to label things. When first perceiving something new, our brain instantly asks ‘what’s that?’ and we just as instantly try to answer with a name of the thing. Naming and labeling helps us categorize, feel familiar with, make sense of the multitude of things and stimulus we receive from our environment.
Knowing the label we believe to know the thing. Knowing the name of a thing or of a person, we assume to have familiarity with that thing or that person.
Jonathan? Sure, he lives in that house at the end of the road, doesn’t he? Sure, I know him.
Yes I have read that article on the famine in Africa, I know all about it, it’s horrible.
‘Mom! I don’t want you to take me to Europe, I hate Europe. I know, Bobby was there last year with his parents and he hated it, I know what it is like there!’.

But do we really? Can we know anything without having experienced it? Felt it and lived it? It is not a simple feat to distinguish between knowing and mere opinion, even be it ever so based on intellectual learnedness. We can read all we want and listen to as many teachers as we can find, unless we experience with our own bodies and mind our knowledge remains an intellectual construct. This is not to say such intellectual constructs can not be of real-life service. We do not need to jump or fall off the height of a 100 feet bridge to understand the consequences. Yet, even that is still only intellectual knowing and understanding.
Now how does all this relate to photography? Well, consider the last time you were at an art show, whether photography or other. The majority of works, even abstracts, were likely displayed along with a title. I am not referring to image-labels that simply provide a means of archival identification for the individual image, such as ‘Street Scene Paris # 5’, or ‘Yellow Flower’, but titles that say what the image is supposed to mean, to tell and inform, that provide the story.
Clearly, there are circumstances in which it is appropriate to add words to the image. Consider a photograph of a crowd in the street, clearly in uproar, yet the image does not provide any clue as to the reason for the uproar. In a documentary, journalistic context a title and possibly even lengthy words of explanation may be very appropriate. Were the image to be displayed as art, maybe for it’s purely photographic merits, however, how would a title influence our viewing and experience of the work?
We can consider various possibilities. If an image does not have the strength and clarity to express itself, can a title make up for it? Is it necessary for an image to ‘tell a story’ at all? Should the artist provide a meaning, an interpretation, along with the image? Why? Why not? Should we, as the audience and viewer, expect to be served a story and meaning along with the photograph? Every photograph?
When you look at images the next time, try to get a sense of how the mere reading of a label, a name, a title, influences the path our mind takes in interpreting and finding meaning in that work? How it shifts and directs the experience of the image. How it can subtly or not so subtly limit the relationship our own mind could create with the work.

Viewing art is an intimate exchange and communication that takes place within ourselves. It has the potential to find meaning from within the context of our own personal life experience that each of us, individually, brings into this exchange. We all relate not only to art, but to people and their behaviours, and events and circumstances in all areas of our lives, in our own personal ways.

Thus, I also prefer to decide for each image individually and depending on the context of use whether a title is necessary, desirable, or limiting the potential for the viewer, and if a title is chosen, which purpose it may serve and why. The title becomes an integral part of the final work, after all, and deserves the same deliberation as the image itself.
enjoy the autumn colours with or without meaning

Looking or Seeing Images

10  October  2011

Image and Message

There are various approaches to assessing the merits of a photograph. One can look for  technical aspects, such as lighting and exposure, shutter speed chosen, sharpness versus blurriness, tonalities. Then there are artistic choices such as composition and framing, use of colour and monochrome, in printing the choice of papers and presentation. The choice of the subject photographed itself, can be made part of deciding on the merits of the final image; some people may consider a photograph of a socially important issue to be, by mere selection as the subject matter, to have inherently more value or importance than, say, a photograph of a natural landscape; others may decide vice versa.

As in so many areas of life, variable factors, circumstances, conditions, and timing determine case by case how to create, view, and relate to an image; rarely can we, even should we, use final and fixed statements about whether an image is good, great, or not worthy of consideration. It all depends and differentiation is a more appropriate approach when assessing a photograph, or art in general … and other people, for that matter, too!
Differentiation, for example, between images that are of journalistic and documentary nature,  intending to record and present our world as realistically as seen by the photographer; purely artistic purposes, abstract images, or those that show us that same world in a way we have not noticed before; private and personal work that may never be intended to be seen by anyone else. So many options for our creative work.
Then consider the countless and all valid reasons for doing what we do, even within each of the above mentioned types of image work:
we may create
– for our own satisfaction of creativity;  maybe we never intend the image to be seen by anyone else, but to satisfy our own growth as a human being, furthering our own creative process and learning;
– to understand our own life better; for example by observing ourselves, our emotions, hopes, desires, and anxieties, habits, during the process of creating, such as in the practice of contemplative photography ;
– possibly without even being interested in the final image, creating simply for the love of the process of working and experimenting with the gadgetry of camera work;
– for an audience  – to see what we saw   – to appreciate and show natural beauty or to understand a message we see or intend in the image, be it drawing attention to other people’s lives and circumstances; environmental messages; to change the world; encourage others to action, to think, to question;
– to receive approval for our own ego ( neither easy to acknowledge nor to get past … but maybe I am just talking of myself here … ), or to find approval for furthering our recognition as a photographer, artist, our business;

None of these are inherently better or more or less deserving or worthy than another. After all, who is to judge one’s fellow being’s creative process. What is valuable, however, is to become aware of our own intentions and purposes for being creative in a given way. Insights gleaned from such awareness can not only support and further our artistic path, but will naturally transfer to and inform all other areas of our daily lives to become more insightful and aware as well.
Here then are the questions: Does an image require a message? Does a photograph, in order to be a ‘great image’, need to convey a story? Does the viewer need an interpretation for or of an image in order to be moved by it?
Are there differences in the ‘value’ of images that depict a scene of Nature, a poor person in the street, or an abstract image of artistic merit? Can they each affect us deeply wether or not they tell a particular story or deliver a specific message?
Well, as for myself, I admit to rarely letting myself be pinned down to some final and one-size-fits-all definite statement … and this may give you a hint as to how I answer those questions for myself.
Might it be valuable to your own creative process, too, to become more clear about these questions ?

have a good camera day

to look or to see

It is commonly known that, in most circumstances, people look at an image for only about 2 seconds and then wander on to the next, for another 2 seconds, and so on. I, too, can find myself rushing through image galleries when browsing the works of other artists on the net. There is just so much!
Considering the time, money, thought, and possibly lengthy conceptual visualization that we have invested in the creation of the image, this may be rather disappointing.
For sure, with the boundless imagery that is made to pass us by every day, it is unreasonable to think we could spend any length of time deeply viewing, exploring, experiencing every single image we encounter. Just think of the literally flashing-by imagery of commercials and the magazines with hundreds of similar looking images repeated with every week’s issue.
Yet, the instant and speedy consumption of imagery is maintained in environments such as galleries and museums, when leafing through photography books dedicated to exceptional image craft, and even in exhibitions of print competitions have I seen the audience strolling along the lines of prints no different than as if leisurely enjoying the local park, glancing at the prints merely in passing. In these environments, people have put themselves for the very purpose of looking at and experiencing the images on display.
Is it then a lack of interest in the potential depth of experience that a well created image can provide? Or a misunderstanding of the role of imagery as simply another goods of quick entertainment? Maybe there is a lack of having been taught, by example, the wealth and value of Arts in general? Is it just that more training and experience is needed in how to look at images, what to look for, what an image can provide, evoke, enhance in your own life?
Likely it is a combination of all of the above, and certainly, in any case, it is up to us, the image makers, to also supply some of the how-to of looking at, experiencing, and appreciating our image work.
Still, even without any intent of artistic experience, there will, occasionally, be an image that can cause a person to a sudden stop, a brief hesitation to rush on, a moment of looking again at some particular image.

Is this a moment of recognition or of questioning? Maybe a glimpse of something not superficially apparent in the image? A sense of feeling an image, of resonating with it outside of pure consumption and entertainment?
In a Miksang- Contemplative approach to the process of seeing this moment might be considered a flash of perception; pure perception, that is, before our mind slips a label over it, or makes a concept out of the perception, or adds an interpretation by means of intellectual process.
There are many ways, of course, by which a person may sense a resonance with an image. It may be the subject depicted, the location, the emotion of a person in the image, or the type of scene that causes recognition, memory, familiarity, or also opposition, questioning, or like or dislike.
Mood, as purveyed through colour palette, light and dark and contrast, graphic elements and patterns, textures, lines and shapes in the image can all become sources of resonance for an individual viewer to experience the image on a more intimate and intricate level.
Often, the cause and reason for our being drawn to, resonating with, a certain image may not even become apparent. We simply sense a “… wow!! “ and  “ … ohhh I like this one … !!  … “ or we simply stand and absorb and would not be able to put into words what in the image actually makes us feel as we do. This is perfectly fine, maybe often even more than fine, as we do not need to intellectualize every experience in our lives. When an image can make us experience the silence within, it speaks of something beyond words.
We, being the image makers, might, however, do well to contemplate what in an image are the  subtle or not-so-subtle visual means to make people look beyond 2 seconds.
Chances are that in the process of such contemplation, we also enhance the understanding of our lives in general. After all, learning to appreciate art can lead to appreciating and respecting life and the world in its multitude of manifestations, including ourselves, and that, I have no doubt, will be of benefit to All.

Silent Imagery

The world has become loud; and not just loud, but noisily loud. Consider how far out of town you need to get in order to experience the silence of a night without traffic, electric humming of appliances, air conditioners, furnaces, and the back ground vibrations of city life! Add the un-ceasing chatter in our minds and it is no wonder that many people, often especially kids, seem to be unable to sit without constant noise from music, TV, computer games, rarely radio, even be it only in the background. Silence becomes associated with emptiness. Emptiness being considered something inherently un-desirable. Not surprisingly so, in a culture in which all ‘things’ quantitative are valued more than most ‘things’ qualitative.

Combined with the constant fast-paced visual stimulation, mentioned in previous post, there is little space for the mind to find gaps into which it could retreat for rest. Let alone gaps into which it could possibly create something of its own accord. It is easier, so some believe, to have the external world supply, rather than to create from one’s own resources. It may be so, but likely only for the short run.

Winter Bench in Snow Storm

The snow storm for sure was hissing around my head, neither does the almost horizontally blowing snow convey quiet, calm, un-moving silence, either … yet, the image provides plenty of space to rest. Not simply by leaving ’empty’ white space, but by leaving just enough visible detail in that space to draw the mind into it with a minimum, barely noticeable, curiosity; and then leaving that space just empty enough to not provide anything for the mind to attach to and to label. Sure, the composition with the diagonal of the distant foggy tree line helps to lead the mind into that distance.  The eye usually first is drawn to areas of strong contrast, lightest area in an image, sharpest detail. So the contrast between the dark bench in foreground, likely the first visual perception for most viewers, and then the misty light back ground, too, has the eye move back and forth between bench and distance. The lucky wind direction which streaks the snow flakes from top left toward bottom right, parallel to the disappearing tree line, is a fortunate aid in leading the eye again and again into the empty distance.

There being nothing other than bench, snow, trees, without any clear story, meaning, interpretation, leaves the viewer without a perceived need to label, to put words and names upon the image. It leaves the viewer’s mind free to wander, to get lost, to stop for a while without noticing that it has stopped. An unexpected moment of experiencing the silence, not in the image, but in the mind.

How soulfully nourishing

Photographing a Stone

sit still as a rock

good wishes

here is a stone:

First Greetings

Simplifying life is a desire for more and more people, especially for those living in fast-paced cities.

Yet, simplifying life can be a rather complex process simply because of the multitude of activities, things, and especially thoughts we have going on day in and day out; mind in and mind out.

For sure, I am one of them, too, who would love to simplify lots of things, but find themselves rushing and busying on and on, day by day.

Well, if we can find or develop some activity to become an actual practice of simplification we can reduce that activity to a bare minimum, not in terms of time spent on doing it, but in requirements for doing it. In photographic practice, for example, concerns about equipment, cost, preparation for a day of image work, etc., can become elaborate and extensive. The real simplifying comes less from reducing the number of things externally, though such reduction of material concerns and costs certainly is very conducive to it, but from reducing things internally. Our minds makes our lives more complex and busy than need be by the constant chatter, concerns, opinions, likes and dis-likes, and pre-conceived ideas about pretty much everything.

Simplifying in photography can mean many things to many people. Here, we will explore of the process of making images, their subject matter, the looking, seeing, and viewing of images will become a means and a tool for the practice of simplification and improving not only our image making, but also to let those insights inevitably flow into and influence beneficially other areas and activities in our lives, and, for that matter, maybe other’s, as well.

take care


Accessibility links

Report: Europeans Spend $27B on Narcotics Each Year

FILE - Investigators display confiscated jars filled with heroin at the headquarters of the federal police in Wiesbaden, Germany, Oct. 9, 2014.

European Union citizens spend some $27.28 billion (24 billion euros) on illicit drugs every year, a report said on Tuesday, making it one of the continent's most profitable activities for organized crime groups.

The report, drawn up by Europol and European Union drugs monitoring center EMCDDA, said the advent of new technology such as encrypted networks and digital currencies had opened a new market for the online supply of drugs.

"Illicit drug production and trafficking remains one of the largest and most innovative criminal markets in Europe," Europol director Rob Wainwright said in a statement.

While technological advances were made, organized crime groups also sought out new routes to smuggle drugs into Europe, the report added, such as heroin increasingly being shipped through the southern Caucasus.

Europol's Wainwright added that cooperation between member states was needed to address the problem, also because criminal networks involved in the drug trade often branched out into other areas of crime.

"Concerted cross-border law enforcement cooperation is essential in reducing its scale and impact," he said.


Welcome to Russian Q&A

Can someone explain this expression to me?

0 votes
Кто а чём, а лысый о расчёске

I have seen this expression several times and i think i get the meaning, that someone keeps talking about something that means nothing to him, or something like that. Is there an easy phrase which it translates to in English?

asked Sep 12, 2015 by trappjustin (240 points)

1 Answer

0 votes
It means someone talking about something all the time. Not necessary that thing is useless for him. The point is he is annoying other with such behavior.
In Russian may also say: Кто о чем, а он все о том же.
There are similar phrase:
Кому что, а вшивому - баня.
But in this case it may mean that someone talks about something that is most important just for him at first place.
answered Jul 17, 2016 by lometari (280 points)


03 5331 4444
Bacchus Marsh
03 5366 3888

On 5 July 2017 the Fair Work Commission (FWC) issued a preliminary determination in relation to the rights for casual employees to convert to permanent employment under 85 modern awards.

Some awards, such as the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Manufacturing Award 2010, already contain rights for certain casual employees to request conversion to permanent employment after a qualifying period, which the employer can only refuse on certain grounds.  The FWC’s decision foreshadows that the same right will be extended to workers under a much larger number of awards, including awards applying to retail, hospitality and fast food workers.

Underlying the FWC’s decision was a concern that, in some cases, long-term engagement of casual employees can undermine minimum safety net entitlements, such as rights to sick leave, carer’s leave and notice of termination.  While the FWC found that casual pay loadings fairly compensate employees for giving up these entitlements in many circumstances, it also found that the negatives outweighed the positives for some, particularly long-term mature age casuals who are financially dependent on their employment.  Specifically, the FWC found that such employees are more likely to attend work while sick, be unable to care for sick family members, not take holidays, and have difficulty obtaining loans.

What the FWC proposes

The FWC has issued a draft casual conversion clause for inclusion in 85 modern awards which do not currently provide for casual conversion.  Importantly, the draft clause does not provide an automatic right for eligible casuals to convert to permanent employment, which unions had sought.  Rather, it provides a mechanism by which eligible casuals can request conversion, with the employer only entitled to refuse that request on certain (but broad) grounds.

The draft clause has four key features.
  1. Employees must have worked a 12-month qualifying period.
  2. To be eligible to request conversion, the casual must have worked a pattern of hours on an ongoing basis which, without significant adjustment, could continue on a permanent basis.
  3. Employers must provide all casual employees with a copy of the casual conversion clause within 12 months of commencing employment.
  4. Conversion to permanent employment can be refused on reasonable grounds (including that it would require a significant adjustment to the employee’s hours or it is reasonably foreseeable that the employee’s position will not cease to exist within the next 12 months).  Critics of the model clause have suggested that this gives employers too much scope to refuse a request to become a permanent employee.
The FWC has also determined that casuals employed under several awards, including awards applying to hospitality and retail workers, should be paid at overtime rates where their hours of work exceed a defined amount.

What does this mean?

The FWC has given interested parties until 2 August 2017 to respond to its proposals.  As such, we need to wait and see exactly what changes occur to each award.

However, at the very least, employers can expect that the FWC’s ultimate decision will make it more difficult to engage casual employees on a long-term basis.  Employers also need to prepare themselves to notify casual employees of conversion rights within the first 12 months of employment.

How can we help?

If you have any queries about your obligations to casual employees, please get in touch with us.  We can assist you to ensure you are complying with your obligations, to determine whether a casual is eligible to request conversion to permanent employment, and to determine whether you have good grounds to refuse a request.

Published 20 July 2017

For further advice or assistance

Contact James Remington on 5337 0266 or


Friends of Fiction Writers

An interesting issue arose out of a workshop piece this week that I wanted to open up for discussion. Fiction writers aren’t tied down with the strings of factual truth (story truth, yes, but that’s another issue), and so we are able to pull pieces from our lives without telling things as they happened. For instance, I could pull a description of a friend or a family member, combine it with a mannerism of a classmate and a dialogue quirk of a coworker to create a new character, one who is not representative of any of the people from whom I pulled.

The issue, though, can arise when someone recognizes his or herself, especially if the composite character is of the less-than-flattering variety. So my question is this:

As a writer, do I have a moral or ethical obligation to my friends and family to not create characters based too heavily on them? Where does one draw the line? What’s the difference between flattery and offense? How would you feel if you recognized pieces of yourself in one of my characters? Does the type of character matter?

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How do children learn to manage their attention and emotions, resist temptation, and behave in culturally-appropriate ways? How do parents and teachers promote these skills in children? The DESC Lab investigates the development of young children’s self-regulation and how it relates to the quality of their interactions with family members, mental health, school readiness, and overall cognitive functioning.

The DESC Lab is collecting data in Davis, California for studies examining parents’ and preschoolers’ self-regulation, physiology, mental health, and parent-child interactions. The Lab is also collaborating with The California Babies Project to investigate the impact of adversity and stress on emotional, behavioral, and physiological responses of family members and the socialization of self-regulation in young children of Mexican-origin parents.

The DESC Lab is serving as an academic partner to Mendocino County Health and Human Services Agency in an evaluation study of a new community-based intervention designed to promote resilience and recovery from adverse childhood experiences in rural at-risk youth and to help prevent intergenerational trauma. Most recently, the DESC Lab began investigating maternal and child adverse childhood experiences and mental health using data collected nationally from a popular crowd-sourcing internet marketplace.

Principal investigator of the DESC lab, Dr. Daniel Choe, is a developmental psychologist and assistant professor of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) at the University of California, Davis.

Former undergraduate research assistant, Ying Chen, reads to twin siblings in the Babies and Regulation (BAR) Lab, an observational, laboratory assessment space shared with HDFS collaborators, Drs. Leah Hibel and Siwei Liu.


Tag Archives: Force Structure

The Network as the Capital Ship

Future Capital Ship Topic Week

By Robert C. Rubel

The Core of the Fleet

Capital Capabilities

Merging Capital Ship and Networked Force Concepts

7. Hughes, pp. 268-274.

A Thoroughly Efficient Navy for the 21st Century, Pt.1

By David Tier

In 1987, William W. Kaufmann analyzed U.S. Navy force requirements and determined that the Navy sought to procure a force much larger than necessary to meet realistic Cold War-era force projection demands.His review dissected the Navy’s threat assessments and his work was used as a successful tool to stunt the Navy’s attempts at inducing greater budgets. Today, in much the same way as then, we see the Navy favor approaches like AirSea Battle and “sea-basing” that counter anti-access/area-denial strategies but are anchored in conventional warfare concepts that discount the less-sophisticated threats more likely to challenge our nation. The attention and resources diverted from chasing terrorists on land will almost surely have negative consequences for the U.S., while the challenge of using naval power to forcefully gain access into contested regions will likely not be necessary, or perhaps even suicidal if tried. Despite implications to the contrary of the Navy’s parochial interests, naval officers should advise America’s leaders that the danger of being denied military access to a theater of operation is manageable and that the threat of terrorism is the greater national security problem. To do otherwise puts American interests at greater risk. This article explores the Navy’s missions in the context of the current strategic environment, proposes adjustments to its missions to align with its national defense role, analyzes the number of platforms and capabilities required to counter projected threats, and recommends reallocating budget to reduce excessive capacity in the Navy’s force projection mission in favor of sustaining the Army and Marines’ counterinsurgency capability.

The Navy’s Missions

Throughout its nearly 70-year history, the Department of Defense has struggled to build a joint force portfolio that distributed resources in proportion to priorities established in the national defense strategy. However, intra-service politics often hampered efforts to cross-level in line with the strategy and each Service wound-up with nearly equal budgets instead. There have been a couple of noteworthy exceptions to this strategy-to-resources mismatch, however. The Eisenhower Administration’s policy of “massive retaliation” emphasized the role of nuclear forces over conventional, whereby the Air Force and Navy benefitted from budget increases at the expense of the Army. The Kennedy Administration reversed Eisenhower’s course with its “flexible response” policy, which sought to improve the Army’s ability to withstand a conventional attack in Europe as well as to develop counterinsurgency forces.

The military strategies that followed these policy changes gave birth to a principle that the U.S. should maintain capability to simultaneously fight at least two major regional wars. The U.S. maintained this defense strategy for decades and only recently sought to scale back. Still, not all was smooth sailing in the Defense Department, as defense analysts noted the need to curb budget waste that resulted from factors ranging from Congressional pork barrel projects to misplaced Service priorities. Kaufmann observed that the Navy had drifted off course in his 1987 analysis titled, A Thoroughly Efficient Navy.

At the time the Navy sought a 622-ship fleet cruising with 15 aircraft carriers, and submitted budget requests based on a vision articulated in 1986’s The Maritime Strategy. Overseen by then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James Watkins, the document went so far as to envision decisive warfare against the Soviet Navy called “Carrying the Fight to the Enemy,” which advocated using naval power to attack the flanks of the Soviet Union during the course of a potential war.2 The Maritime Strategy persuaded defense planners of the need for a large Navy to accomplish this end.3 Although the Navy advertised its conclusions to justify necessary means to accomplish assigned missions, outsiders viewed it as a parochial argument intended to gain force structure.

Kaufmann deconstructed the Navy’s approach and determined that a naval attack against the Soviet Union would incur losses that outweighed the value of the strikes, or might even be suicidal.4 In his analysis of the maritime threats, he observed an overstated stated need for aircraft carriers, and proposed force reductions that would have substantially curbed Navy carrier-building.

Like The Maritime Strategy, the Navy’s 2015 A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower is similarly off course. Section III of the document, titled “Seapower in Support of National Security,” overstates the need to achieve “all domain access” and to project power. It conditions the reader to expect that inflated anti-access threats imply that the most prudent solution is to apply brute force of naval power. One must examine the Navy’s purpose and missions within the context of today’s strategic security environment to establish a baseline for more reasonable Navy force requirements.

Notwithstanding the national defense strategy’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific, the Navy’s enduring missions in priority sequence are:

1. Protect the U.S. and deter enemy attack, particularly from seaborne threats
2. Secure economic sea lines of communication (SLOCs) to support national livelihood
3. Deny an adversary the use of the sea for military advantage
4. Secure military SLOCs to ensure access to distant theaters of operation, and enable military transport vessels safe transit to discharge their matériel in support of joint operations inland from the sea
5. Project forces that can attack adversary interests on land in support of other combat operations

Some may argue that these missions omit important tasks that the Navy is required to perform and others may argue that they are incorrectly prioritized. However, these arguments do not hold water. Although there is no mission listed above to provide “presence,” humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, or establish maritime superiority, these missions can be accomplished with the same assets needed for the other missions described, or otherwise derived from a combination of them. Forces conducting the first mission could assist humanitarian relief efforts and, in effect, the second, third, and fourth missions combine to describe graduating levels of sea superiority. No further forces would be necessary to accomplish these other missions. A close examination of the five listed missions can help identify and determine the capabilities required of America’s Navy.

Reconsidering Threats and Missions

First, protecting the nation from attack is the purview of all armed forces. Military threats to the U.S. are the primary reason America should procure military capability. Naturally, the Navy’s portion of this mission should focus on seaborne threats and, to an extent overlapping with the Air Force, threats overflying the sea. The primary maritime military threat to the United States today is the threat of ballistic missile submarines operating within firing range of American shores. There is no real threat of an amphibious attack against the U.S. There is also no serious threat of any enemy carrier or surface strike group threatening American territory, nor will there be any in the foreseeable future. The threat of submarine-launched missiles however, particularly nuclear ballistic missiles, should be the number one priority for the Navy to defeat. Therefore, the capability to detect, track, and destroy “boomers,” and even intercepting their missiles, should be the Navy’s primary focus. This places a premium on anti-submarine warfare (ASW) platforms such as long-range patrol aircraft, attack submarines, ASW helicopter-equipped surface action groups, and ballistic missile defense systems such as Aegis-equipped ships. Although fixed-wing ASW aircraft aboard an aircraft carrier also perform well in this role, aircraft carriers are not optimally employed in ASW and are an inefficient means to address this threat. Likewise, nuclear deterrence through deployment of U.S. ballistic missile submarines is an important capability for the Navy to maintain as part of the strategic deterrence triad. In conjunction with the other legs, it helps discourage enemy attacks against the U.S. by providing a credible second-strike threat.

Second, securing SLOCs to enable global maritime traffic and foiling an enemy’s attempt to blockade the U.S. is a vital maritime mission that ensures the nation’s way of life can continue despite attempts to wage war against it. This mission does not include protecting traffic in or through an active theater of war, but requires a capability for the Navy to establish safe lanes of transit from the territorial waters of the U.S. to the territorial waters of major international shipping ports around the globe. The primary military threat that sea-going commercial traffic might encounter would be attack submarines, although land-based long-range attack aircraft, and, to a lesser extent, surface groups or small water craft, could pose a threat. Accordingly, these threats require the Navy to maintain a transoceanic ASW capability, defensive anti-air warfare (AAW) capability, and the capability to defend against smaller surface threats. These are largely the same capabilities required in the first mission above, and greater numbers of the same types of assets can effectively be used for this second purpose.

The third mission for the Navy is to deny, or at least inhibit, enemy use of the sea for military advantage. An enemy must not be able to outflank land forces using maritime maneuver. This is where the need for sea-based fixed-wing attack and air-intercept aircraft makes their first appearance, as the Navy needs a limited strike and air combat capability to prevent an enemy from gaining localized sea control. America’s potential adversaries, however, do not furnish a strong blue-water capability that threatens to overturn the Navy’s long-established control of the sea. Even the most vaunted projected maritime threat, the People’s Liberation Army Navy of China (PLAN), will possibly field three aircraft carriers in the coming years, 85 ocean-going surface combatants, and nine nuclear-powered attack submarines.Although this may sound like a substantial challenge at first glance, a closer look assuages concern about blue water contests with the Navy. In a potential war against the U.S., the PLAN would not survive beyond the reach of land-based air cover since the Navy’s attack submarines would almost assuredly destroy their task forces on the open seas, and even be a significant threat for PLAN forces in their home waters. Furthermore, the Air Force’s long-range bombers would severely hamper Chinese maritime freedom of maneuver outside of the East and South China Seas. Therefore, only a few cruise missile-equipped ships, and possibly a single aircraft carrier with multi-role fixed-wing aircraft would be necessary to accomplish this third mission per theater of war. Even the amphibious assault ship-based U.S. Marine Corps attack aircraft may sufficiently address this role. A joint task force of attack submarines, amphibious assault ships, and Air Force strike aircraft could fulfill this task, thus lessening the demand for supercarriers.

The fourth mission for the Navy is to secure SLOCs into a theater of war, which necessitates a stronger offensive capability. This mission includes the possibility of forcefully gaining access to contested theaters and, combined with the second and third, accounts for the Navy’s desired capability of sea control as articulated in the Navy’s vision statement, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.6 The AirSea Battle concept envisions the most challenging aspect of this fourth mission. AirSea Battle considers a worst-case scenario where the Navy must escort military transports into the full weight of sophisticated enemy defenses—within ample range of the enemy’s inventory of attack aircraft, cruise missiles, attack submarines, and mines. However, there are only a few locations in the world where Navy forces would have to confront this most challenging task by themselves, and only one current location where this is even conceivable: the South China Sea. Regardless, even the worst-case scenario there would probably require no more naval forces than required during Operation Desert Storm or in the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom where the Navy deployed six aircraft carriers in each instance.7 Although this may seemingly vindicate the Navy’s need to maintain a double-digit number of carriers, we must be realistic about the threat faced. Admittedly, the challenge to escort convoys would substantially increase as task forces approached theaters of war but the chance that regional partners would not allow greater basing access assumed in some studies is overly pessimistic. This, combined with the low likelihood that a severe South China Sea problem would actually occur, reduces the challenges posed.

From a different perspective, consider more pessimistic accounts such that there were no bases in the region from which American forces could launch attacks, no allies contributing meaningful forces to assist the cause, and an enemy force that actually developed into the great adversary it is predicted to become. Were six carriers required in both wars against Iraq that sought to eject entrenched forces from an occupied country or force regime change as the 1991 and 2003 military missions respectively, or was that overkill? Couldn’t four carriers have accomplished the more limited objective of simply “gaining access” to that theater?  Self-serving parochial aspects aside, the Navy should recognize that overselling the capability to execute a highly-contested South China Sea mission under the worst circumstances promises to divert resources that could be employed against other, more likely threats, such as transnational terrorism.

The Navy has encountered difficulties persuading defense planners of the full narrative for its fifth mission—power projection—since the end of the Cold War. The Navy should indeed maintain a capability to project power into distant theaters of operation since there is great value in an ability to assail an enemy in as many ways as possible. The main problem with the Navy’s approach, however, is that it single-mindedly envisions large carrier strike groups for this role. Carrier strike groups should, at best, only be one part of a comprehensive package that could be accomplished by guided missile-capable attack submarines alone or with surface combatants, and possibly to a greater degree, by long-range bombers and tactical aircraft controlled by the Air Force. This is a joint, overlapping mission set. Because the power projection argument has lost favor in recent years, the Navy has sought a different narrative to justify its service size. Hence, the AirSea Battle concept was born.

This examination has identified, prioritized, and placed limiting stipulations on five core missions the Navy must accomplish. Next, an examination of the Navy’s present forces it has to carry out these missions, particularly its aircraft carriers, will help determine if there is excess capability it could reduce in favor of other national defense interests.

David Tier is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army and serves as a strategic plans and policy officer. He holds a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, has served three combat tours of duty in Iraq, served a tour of duty in the Pentagon, and has authored several articles. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or any of their components.

1. William W. Kaufmann, A Thoroughly Efficient Navy (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1987), 123.

2. Admiral James D. Watkins, The Maritime Strategy, (Annapolis, MD.: US Naval Institute Proceedings Supplement, January 1986), 9-13; John B. Hattendorf, Ph.D., Peter M. Swartz and Eds., U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1980s, (Newport, R.I.:  Naval War College Press, 2008), 221.

3. Hattendorf, Swartz, and Eds., U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1980s, 204.

4. Kaufmann, A Thoroughly Efficient Navy, 102-104.

5. Kenji, Minemura, “China to start construction of 1st aircraft carriers next year,” The Asahi Shimbun, December 31, 2008, available online at http://web.archive.org/web/20090526192305/http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200812310046.html, accessed on October 16, 2014.

6. Department of the Navy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, March 2015, 22.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (May 3, 2017) Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) observe the guided-missile destroyers USS Sampson (DDG 102), USS Halsey (DDG 97), USS Preble (DDG 86) and guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) during a Group Sail training unit exercise with the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Spencer Roberts/Released)

Alternative Naval Force Structure Week Concludes on CIMSEC

By Dmitry Filipoff

This past week CIMSEC hosted a topic week on alternative naval force structures. Contributors proposed new fleets with hypothetical warship designs with an eye towards future threats and technological opportunities. Others analyzed historical examples of attempts to overhaul naval force structure, and many authors applied imaginative thinking to see how the U.S. Navy can make the most of its existing fleet. The topic week’s Call for Articles may be read here. We thank our contributors for their excellent submissions.

The Perils of Alternative Force Structure by Steve Wills

Unmanned-Centric Force Structure by Javier Gonzalez

“The conundrum and implied assumption, with this or similar future force structure analyses, is that the Navy must have at least a vague understanding of an uncertain future. However, there is a better way to build a superior and more capable fleet—by continuing to build manned ships based on current and available capabilities while also fully embracing optionality (aka flexibility and adaptability) in unmanned systems.”

Is the U.S. Navy moving from an era of exceptional “ships of the line” – including LHA’s & LPD’s, FFG’s, CG’s, DDG’s, SSN’s and CVN’s – to one filled with USV’s, UAV’s, LCS’s, CV’s, SSK’s and perhaps something new – Long Range Patrol Vessels (LRPV’s)? But what in the world is an LRPV? The LRPV represents the 21st century version of the WWII APD – High Speed Transports.

“Designing and building new naval platforms takes time we don’t have, and there is still abundant opportunity to make the most of existing force structure. Fortunately for the Navy, histories of previous wars are a good guide for future action.”

Enhancing Existing Force Structure by Optimizing Maritime Service Specialization by Eric Beaty

“Luckily, the United States has three maritime services—the Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps—with different core competencies covering a broad range of naval missions. Current investments in force structure can be maximized by focusing the maritime services on their preferred missions.”

Augment Naval Force Structure By Upgunning The Coast Guard by Chuck Hill

“The Navy should consider investing high-end warfighting capability in the Coast Guard to augment existing force structure and provide a force multiplier in times of conflict. A more capable Coast Guard will also be better able to defend the nation from asymmetrical threats.”

“2045 is a useful target date, as there will be very few of our Cold War era ships left by then, therefore that fleet will reflect what we are building today and will build in the future. This article proposes several new ship designs and highlights enduring challenges posed by the threat environment.”

“The biggest deficiencies in reformulating the U. S. Navy’s force structure are (1) a failure to take the shrinking defense budget into account which (2) allows every critic or proponent to be like the blind men who formulated their description of an elephant by touching only his trunk, tail, leg, or tusk. To get an appreciation of the size of the problem you have to describe the whole beast, and what is even harder, to get him to change direction by hitting him over the head repeatedly.”

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (Oct. 2, 2016) The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) underway in the Philippine Sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Cmdr. Tyrone Pham/ Released)

Closing Remarks on Changing Naval Force Structure

Alternative Naval Force Structure Topic Week

By CAPT Wayne P. Hughes Jr., USN (Ret.)

A good thesis to make the point is by LT Juan L. Carrasco, published in 2009. It explores the number of fleet billets in (1) the then current 285 ship fleet (2) the proposed, now defunct, 313 ship Navy, and (3) a new fleet of over 650 vessels designed by nine members of the NPS faculty that included more than 260 smaller coastal warships. Carrasco showed, remarkably enough, the NPS-designed fleet required the fewest afloat billets. Looking at the details reveal why. One major reason was that the then-current Navy’s eleven CVNs took 46% of all fleet billets in 285 ship navy, so when the NPS-designed fleet cut the number of CVNs to six and added more than a dozen small sea-based air platforms, then they were more distributable 100,000 ton carriers. The smaller ones, more like a CVL in size, can operate in littoral waters where a CVN wing is more than is needed for long term littoral operations. Thus, there were enough billets to more widely distribute across the NPS fleet.

A Manpower Comparison of Three U. S. Navies: The Current Fleet, a Projected 313 Ship Fleet, and a More Distributed Bimodal Alternative by Juan L. Carrasco.

Those who haven’t thought about all the elements of a 600-ship navy will have a lot of questions about logistics, flying off smaller carriers, new tactics to accompany the new technologies, procedures to deal with warships damaged from missile attacks, and so forth. The Navy must confront its budget crunch while needing to buy more expensive missiles in greater numbers, restoring the SSBN fleet, sustaining the APN dollars to buy ever-more expensive aircraft, supporting Marine expeditionary operations, structuring an offensively capable surface ship fleet, building up—or merely sustaining—our increasingly valuable submarine forces, and maintaining enough CLF ships to take some losses and continue to maintain the fleet forward. This will take a lot more original thinking about the role of unmanned and robotic vehicles of many kinds, more teaming with partner nations, forward bases that support our friends in East Asia and Europe, applications of offensive cyber warfare, achieving more stealthy C2 ways to attack effectively first, all to achieve the end of building a more distributable, combat ready 21st Century U. S. Navy.

Captain Hughes is a designated professor in the Department of Operations Research at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds a master of science degree in operations research from the Naval Postgraduate School. On active duty he commanded a minesweeper and a destroyer, directed a large training command, served as deputy director of Systems Analysis (OP-96), and was aide to Under Secretary of the Navy R. James Woolsey. At the Naval Postgraduate School for twenty-six years, he has served in the Chair of Applied Systems Analysis, as the first incumbent of the Chair of Tactical Analysis, and as dean of the Graduate School of Operational and Information Sciences. Captain Hughes is author of Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat (2000), Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice (1986), and Military Modeling (1984), and he is a coauthor of A Concise Theory of Combat (1997). He served as a member of the Naval War College Press Advisory Board for over twenty-five years, until 2012.

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (Sept. 23, 2016) The forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) steams in formation with, from left to right, the amphibious transport dock ship USS Green Bay (LPD 20), the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown (LSD 42), USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65), the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62), and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) during a photo exercise during Valiant Shield 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kevin V. Cunningham/Released)


Main Page/PHYS 4210/Electron Spin Resonance

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Electron Spin Resonance

The objective of this experiment is to investigate the electron's internal angular momentum called spin. A sample containing a substance with a 'free' electron in an s-state is placed in a homogeneous magnetic field of strength B, which splits the energy levels for electrons with spin projections aligned with the field compared to the counter-aligned ones. A radio-frequency generator is used to resonantly pump electrons from the spin state with lower energy to the upper state. Tracing the resonance as a function of B provides the means for determining the gyro-magnetic ratio of the electron.

Key Concepts

  • Free Electron
  • S-state
  • Spin ½
  • Fermions
  • Angular momentum
  • Lande-g factor
  • Helmholtz Coils
  • Gyromagnetic Ratio
  • Anomalous Zeeman Effect
  • Normal Zeeman Effect
  • Magnetic Dipole
  • Axis of Quantization

In this experiment we obtain direct evidence for the unusual property of electrons, namely that while being point particles they exhibit the property of having two spin states. Most introductory texts on modern physics contain discussions of the historical developments leading to the discovery of this intrinsic angular momentum variable by Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck. Today we know that all elementary particles are spin - 1/2 objects called fermions, while the mediators of interactions are spin-1 objects called bosons (photons, gluons, W and Z gauge bosons for weak interactions). This experiment is also related to the study of electronic structure in magnetic and disordered systems; the 1977 Nobel Prize in physics went to P.W. Anderson, N.F. Mott, and J.H. Van Vleck for a number of achievements in this area. In chemistry ESR is applied as an important analysis technique to determine the properties of outer electrons responsible for covalent bonding in molecules. The twin concept to ESR is NMR - nuclear magnetic resonance - a technique known commonly as a non-intrusive medical diagnostic tool: it detects proton densities via their spin. It is also closely related to FMR – ferromagnetic resonance, and the Zeeman effect.

ESR is also known as EPR – electron paramagnetic resonance, since it deals only with paramagnetic materials. The atoms in a paramagnetic material have unpaired electrons, and therefore a net magnetic moment, but the internal interactions are not strong enough and do not create areas of similarly oriented magnetic moments, or ferromagnetism. The paramagnetic material is therefore a collection of randomly directed magnetic moments, all of which align the same direction due to the torque created by an external magnetic field. The paramagnetic material used in this experiment is an organic chemical called a free radical: diphnyl picryl hydrazyl (DPPH). The outer shell electron of this substance acts as though it was free, or almost so, resulting in a g-factor of 2.0023, which has a fractional difference of less than one part in a thousand from a perfectly free electron .

The idea in the spin resonance experiment is the following: if we place a macroscopic sample of material containing appropriate electrons in the vicinity of a radiating antenna, while an external magnetic field is present to make the energy splitting of the spin-up and spin-down states coincide with the energy of the radio wave quanta, we should be able to observe the fact that energy gets absorbed by the electrons in the sample. This observation is possible by detecting a change in a receiver placed in the vicinity, but also by observing the current that the radio generator passes through the coil (which acts as the antenna). In the microwave case one uses the former technique, while in the radiofrequency case (our experiment) the latter is preferred. The presence of the sample with resonating electrons (electrons in spin states of lower energy get transferred to the less favourable state, and decay later spontaneously) leads not only to a measurable change in the DC current through the coil, but also to a detuning of the frequency (the inductivity of the coil changes). For a discussion of both the radio wave and microwave methods read the descriptions of nuclear magnetic resonance and electron spin resonance in [1].

According to Quantum theory, an electron has ‘spin’, a property which behaves like angular motion, resulting in an angular momentum and consequently, as any ‘moving’ charge, a magnetic moment:

where µB is the Bohr magneton and g is the Landé factor. But since quantum theory permits only two values for the spin Sz= ± hbar/2 , the magnetic moment results in only two possible projections:

and the resulting energy levels are then:

Since the coupling of a magnetic moment with an external magnetic field B results in a torque aligning the magnetic moment with the field. The application of electromagnetic radiation to such a system, with a carefully set energy to match the splitting between the + and – values, results in the absorption of energy from the field, which is observable and therefore of interest to us:

here ω is the frequency of the applied electromagnetic field (What is the expected energy scale?). Since this result is for only a single free electron, while we’re dealing with a macroscopic sample, a statistical correction has to be made. Using the Boltzmann distribution for the energy levels N+ and N-:

where k is the Boltzmann constant and T is the temperature. It is important to note that a long natural lifetime of the upper state in a magnetic field is shortened at room temperature (kT=0.025eV), resulting in an equilibration of the spin level populations in a fraction of a second.

For most transition lines a fractional value of g was observed, a phenomenon highly important for the development of quantum theory. To unravel the complicated behavior of fractional g values in atomic spectroscopy, physicists had to figure out (before the advent of modern quantum mechanics) that the electron must have an internal angular momentum with an unusual value of g=2 (all classical charge distributions have g=1), and that this internal angular momentum when coupled to the orbital angular momentum (which has the classical value of g=1) leads to fractional g values for most optical transitions. Thus quantum mechanics was subject to tough testing with the Schrödinger-Pauli theory incorporating spin in an ad-hoc way, and explaining atomic spectroscopy to a high degree of accuracy. Later Dirac showed how the marriage of quantum mechanics and special relativity leads to a prediction of g=2 for fermions. Today the g value of the electron is one of the best-known quantities in physics (measured to 14 decimal places)[2]. The correction of the value of g=2 is fully explained by quantum field theory.

In the present experiment we investigate this internal angular momentum of the electron without the added complication of orbital angular momentum. The spin degree of freedom - in contrast to orbital angular momentum - has nothing to do with the orbiting motion of the electrons. The classical analogy of a spinning particle is also inappropriate, since there is not much meaning to a spinning point particle. As explained above, for the intrinsic spin angular momentum variable the interaction energy with a magnetic field requires a special choice for the gyro-magnetic ratio, namely g=2. For magnetic fields that can be created in the laboratory (sub-Tesla range) the interaction energies given by eq. (4) correspond to radiofrequencies ranging up to microwaves as B is increased (verify this. i.e. calculate frequencies and wavelengths for a few examples). Thus, we need a mechanism to perform the excitation, and a way to measure the relationship between the transition frequency and the magnetic field strength. Electron spin resonance solves both problems in an elegant way, we measure the energy splitting between the two spin levels in the ground state of the spatial motion directly.

To make the experiment work one modulates the external magnetic field with a low-frequency AC signal component (60 cycles). For a fixed radiofrequency one is then able to sweep through a range of B values, such that at a particular phase (time) the resonance condition is met, and this condition will happen periodically. By observing the DC current through the transmitting coil in coincidence with the voltage used to generate the external magnetic field one can find out at what strength of the magnetic field the resonance condition is met. For this technique to work, one has to know that the relaxation times for the electrons are shorter than the time constant of the modulating field. If this is not the case, then less than half of the electrons in the sample would be available for excitation, and the signal might deteriorate too rapidly for detection to occur.

A note about the directions of fields and polarizations used in this experiment; The transition that we are driving in this experiment is a magnetic-dipole transition- meaning that it is the magnetic field component of the radio-frequency radiation which is driving the transition. Also, note that we are transitioning from an ms=-1/2 to ms=+1/2 state. This type of transition (Δms=1) requires a circularly polarized driving field. The axis of quantization in this experiment is defined by the DC magnetic field created by the Helmholtz coils, so we need an RF magnetic field circularly polarized with respect to the DC magnetic field. The RF-coil used generates a linearly-polarized magnetic field along its axis. If the coil were aligned such that the RF-coil was along the axis of the DC-magnetic field from the Helmholtz coil, we would never drive the transition of interest. However, if the RF-coil was perpendicular to the DC magnetic field, then it can be shown that the a linearly-polarized field aligned perpendicularly to an axis of quantization is equivalent to a circularly-polarized field with respect to the axis of quantization. Therefore, in this experiment, the RF-coil is aligned perpendicular to the axis of the DC-magnetic field. (Be sure you understand this concept).

Part I: Verify the detection technique for the resonance condition.

A radiofrequency generator is connected to a probe with an inductance (three exchangeable coils with different inductances) L, and a variable capacitor C. Changing the capacitance results in an adjustable frequency range for each coil allowing us to scan between approximately 20 and 100 MHz. A digital frequency meter is built into the control box that contains the radio-oscillator, as well as the power supply for the Helmholtz coils for the magnetic field. Note that the oscillator is split into two parts with the electronics residing in the control box, and the frequency-determining components L and C (and an amplitude control potentiometer) residing in the probe.

A receiver circuit made up of a coil and a variable capacitance is brought close to the radiating coil. It is connected to an AC voltmeter that indicates the strength of the received signal. For fixed transmitter frequency one varies the receiver's capacitor until the receiver circuit matches the transmitter (i.e. achieve resonance). Observe how the receiver shows a strong signal on resonance, how the DC current through the transmitting coil drops on resonance, and how the frequency of the transmitting circuit detunes. Compare this to the resonance problem of classical mechanics (damped driven harmonic oscillator). Detuning is related to the fact that the resonance condition has a slight dependence on the damping constant. Describe your observations in the write-up. This part demonstrates that a transmitter (oscillator) reacts to the conditions of the space surrounding it (mathematically speaking: you are changing the boundary conditions in the Maxwell equations, and creating a load that affects the transmitting coil). The damping effect is not much different from the one obtained by putting an iron core into a coil, thereby forcing the alternating B field to do work on the electron spins in the iron core which would introduce damping in the oscillator circuit.

Part II: Calibrate the magnetic field produced by the Helmholtz coils for a known DC current.

Note that you have to place the two coils accurately at a separation a that corresponds to their radius R. Use the result from Biot-Savart's law for a single coil for the magnetic field strength for a given current along its axis as a function of the separation from the coil d:

To obtain the field generated by two coils separated at distance a=R (many first-year physics texts have this problem, e.g., Fishbane, Gasiorowicz, Thornton 2nd ed. Q 65 on p. 835). Here μ0 is not the same μ as in eq. (1)! Note that the current in Biot-Savart law is the current through each coil and not necessarily the total current in the circuit (You can use the Leybold manual to check whether your numbers are in the right range). Check the homogeneity of the field for a=R. How does your calibration compare to the Biot-Savart result? The number of turns is noted on the coils as n=320. Calibrate the Gaussmeter to zero for zero current. Does the Earth's magnetic field come into play in this experiment?

Part III: Perform the electron spin resonance experiment.

Connect the control box to the oscilloscope as outlined in the instructions provided by Leybold using the dual-channel set-up while triggering on the channel displaying the driving voltage for the Helmholtz coils. Understand the function of the controls of the DC current through the Helmholtz coils and the AC modulation by observing the voltage applied to the coil displayed on trace 1 (used to trigger the scope). This voltage is not coincident in time with the strength of the magnetic field. To adjust for that, one can shift the phase with a third control. This will be a one-time adjustment once the resonance condition is met. A phase adjustment is necessary since AC current and voltage are out of phase by about 90 degrees for an inductance. The second trace displays a voltage that is proportional to the DC current passing through the transmitting coil. Without a sample the trace should be a straight line.

Set the oscillator to a given frequency, set the DC current to some value (e.g. total current = 1A), pick a midrange value for the modulating magnetic field. Place the DPPH sample inside the transmitting coil. Vary the magnetic field modulation until dips in the trace representing the DC current through the transmitting coil appear. Due to the modulation in the field two resonant points should occur as the magnetic field passes through a maximum in its sinusoidal shape. Use the phase delay control in the control box to adjust the signal such that the resonant points occur symmetrically with respect to the maximum. This adjustment should be performed only once. It would not be necessary if we used a Gauss probe to measure the magnetic field in AC mode (try this out).

Now reduce the magnetic field modulation to a small value (you will need to decrease the DC component to maintain resonance). You can adjust the DC current through the Helmholtz coils so that the resonance occurs at those points in time where the AC component vanishes. Record the DC current through the Helmholtz coils at this point, since the resonance now occurs at the magnetic field strength corresponding to the DC current alone. Observe the frequency change (detuning) as you remove and re-insert the sample, and record it.

Repeat this measurement for about 15 settings of frequency in 5 MHz intervals. This requires a change in coils. Notice the different amount of detuning for the different coils. Perform a linear least squares fit with estimate of uncertainties. Does the fit pass through zero energy splitting (frequency) at zero current? If not, why not? Determine your value of the gyromagnetic ratio for the 'free' electron in DPPH.

  1. A.C. Melissinos , Experiments in Modern Physics, Academic Press, (2003).
  2. D. Hanneke, S. Fogwell & G. Gabrielse, New Measurement of the Electron Magnetic Moment and the Fine Structure Constant Phys. Rev. Lett. 100,120801 (2008)
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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Getting into a Bad Hobbit

As I write this, Peter Jackson's movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) - or rather, the first part of it – is a runaway hit.
That bodes well for Jackson, who has taken a gamble by turning a short children's novel into a trilogy on the model of The Lord of the Rings. But it doesn't bode well for the art of cinema. What could have been a charming movie is turning into a bloated monstrosity. I had been afraid of that from the outset, but some people I respect had praised the first installment, so I decided to give it a chance, but...
The best parts are those that are true to the book – the arrival of Gandalf and a dozen dwarves at Bilbo's home, and the riddle game with Gollum. Bilbo's reluctance to go adventuring, the comedy of his playing host to the dwarves and his being won over against his better instincts come right off the pages. So does Bilbo's duel of wits with Gollum – not the original 1937 version, but Tolkien's revision from 1951, when he was working on LOTR and making Gollum's ring the center of the quest in that epic rather than the handy invisibility gimmick it had seemed before. Only the scene is marred by a technical glitch that muffles some of the words.
Jackson, who took over as director (He had already been producer.) from Guillermo Del Toro after Del Toro left on account of lengthy delays occasioned by legal wrangling and other problems, was dead set on tying The Hobbit even more closely to LOTR as an epic of mythic import. But there simply isn't enough of that in the novel, so he had to pump it up by padding the canonical scenes unmercifully and adding new scenes that weren't in the story to begin with but allude to LOTR. There will be even more new material from the LOTR appendices in the second and third Hobbit movies.
Of course, an epic requires an epic hero, and that may be why Jackson made Thorin Oakenshield, described as only "enormously important" by Tolkien into a heroic-looking figure like Aragorn in LOTR, nothing like typical dwarves in appearance. Oddly enough, however, Thorin doesn't act the part as much as you might expect. Neither does Gandalf act much like a great and powerful wizard.
This begins with the scene where the dwarves are captured by the trolls. Thorin is helpless and Gandalf is nowhere to be seen. Yet in the novel, it is not Bilbo but rather Gandalf in hiding nearby who, using ventroloquism, gets the trolls to arguing among themselves until the rising sun turns them to stone. When the heroes are attacked by goblins in the troll cave, Gandalf kills several of them with magical pyrotechnics, and later frees the dwarves and Bilbo by the same means – Thorin then makes short work of the goblin king with one of the swords he had recovered in the troll cave.
In the movie, the struggle with the goblins (orcs) goes on and on and on, and their cavern looks like a theme park set or something out of a cartoon – Bilbo and the dwarves fall into it through a chute, and thereafter it seems to consist mostly of catwalks across which they must scramble to escape. Twice most of our heroes fall what must be a hundred feet, but aren't even scratched. “Well, that could have been worse,” Thorin says, as if it were some sort of a joke. As sf-fantasy critic Darrell Schweitzer put it on Facebook, they're like toons; nothing can hurt them. Except that they presumably aren't fireproof; they're trapped in a blaze in a pine forest after Gandalf (his first act of magic in the movie as opposed to the novel) ignites pine cones to toss at pursuing goblins. In the book, it was only their allies, the giant wolves called wargs – the goblins came along later to set fire to the tree where the dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf had taken refuge. And the tree was never hanging over a precipice, either – nobody has to fall or jump through the air onto the eagles.
Other examples of pumping up abound. In the novel, the battling stone giants are seen only in the distance; our heroes aren't actually on one of them and thus in dire peril. They only stop overnight at Elrond's house; Galadriel is never seen, and Gandalf doesn't have a skull session with Saruman and Radagast. That skull session in the movie isn't in itself intrusive, but Jackson insists on turning Radagast, a minor character even in LOTR, into a player. Only his "powers" include psychically healing a hedgehog. And in what has to be the most idiotic sequence in the whole movie, we must endure watching him race across the rough and snowless countryside, pursued by goblins, in a sleigh pulled by giant bunny rabbits. It's as if the director were thumbing his nose at the whole mythology of Middle Earth.
Well, Jackson has already turned Middle Earth, at least the Hobbiton part of it, into a theme park back in New Zealand. Three movies may bring in more tourists and well as tripling box office and later DVD sales.  And we can also imagine all sorts of spin-offs – dragon toys, elf toys, maybe even Radagast bunny sleigh toys. There's nothing subtle about movie tie-in merchandising. But art can be very subtle, and the first installment of The Hobbit is so unsubtle that I've seen some online comments that Jackson simply isn't capable of subtlety, or that he doesn't have any respect for Tolkien's material. And yet he is, and has – or at least he once did.
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was true to the vision of its source. There wasn't a false note in the portrayals of Frodo and the other hobbits, of Gandalf and Saruman, Aragorn and Arwen, dwarves and the elves, the riders of Rohan, even the ents. And the story not only moved, but was moving from start to finish. The quest itself is shown as the stuff of tragedy as well as triumph, for it leaves Frodo as a stranger in a familiar land where he can find no peace. And who can forget Jackson’s faithful renderings of such iconic scenes as Aragorn raising a ghostly army of oath-breakers, the madness and despair of Denethor, or the heroism of the warrior woman Eowyn?
It was also visually stunning, not only in its use of landscapes that had a sense of place, and in the designs of Moria, Gondor and the other locales, but in such brief yet telling scenes as the heroes passing the Sentinels of Númenor on the Great River. That is one of the scenes put up on YouTube, and there are a number of others. But perhaps the best is one that doesn't come from the letter of Tolkien and yet is true to the spirit of Tolkien. In The Return of the King, Frodo and Samwise are seated on thrones and praised with great praise. Not very cinematic, but Jackson knew how to create a scene that is truly cinematic – as the hobbits (including Merry and Pippin, who have fought heroically in the defense of Gondor) begin to pay homage to Aragorn (now King Elessar) and his bride Arwen on the ramparts of Gondor:
There have been a lot of movies about the nobility, or the supposed nobility, of olden times. There was little of any true nobility in the lords and knights of those times; nobility, it seems, is something we can believe only in fairy tales. But it that one scene, Jackson showed what it should have been, and might be in some better world than ours. Would that he had remained as true as that vision…


No Destination

16 – 31 July 2016

In a time when the physical distances narrow. In an era, the digital one, full of lone individuals prefixed to a virtual communication doctrine, in which intimacy and the true leitmotif of each human being is relegated to a community mirage, man still fights as his ancestors did, an old battle in the horizons and about the social skills around him. Metaphysical spaces elevated to a collective subconscious, to a popular imaginary where daily, we fight an eternal battle between the unconquered and the real.

Areas working as mirrors of a society destined to a fierce development, where future frequently confuses with present and past is lapidated by the burden of the now. Places as the yesterday’s close heritage, as the ruins of today, as a legacy of what we have been, and a close intermediate towards tomorrow.

No Destination has been developed in those spaces, highways, parking, yards, old factories, or service roads; time there seems to remain silent after an aesthetic and purely emotional resource: melancholy and decadence of a society riding without direction nor end to the encounter of an unachievable progress.

Tolo Parra’s (b. 1980 in Seville, Spain) work can be defined as the constant uncertainty of a tough destination; it manifests an acceptance of their impulses, obsessions and nostalgia: an autobiographical work in which portrays life through experience.Series are articulated under one common denominator: melancholy, a feeling enhancing the implausible triviality of the common scenes, many of them represented through dead spaces, where life memories enhance the state of solitude. This is a sort of scenic existentialism in a process of search of a harmony with the environment. In his work, the feelings become identifiable geographical points, palpable and subjectivized realities. They are not places to go, but the transit of a life generated by the living pulse.

Through the nude photography, free from interventions, he captures with a shy but determined approach, the scene found, assimilating a process of sensitive and not visual mimesis. Analogy between the physical need to shuttle, travel and exploration are but reflections of the desire for emotional migration, of the sensitive experimentation. His work appears articulated as memory does: in the same way that our thoughts are processed, through continuous fragmented ideas, and the suggestive with the explicit coexist, resulting in a contrasted perception, where the author displays an ideology from his privacy.

María Arregui (curator and critic)

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Foreign language dictionaries

Resources to help you learn a foreign language

WRITTEN BY: Janelle Vreeland
Foreign language dictionaries

One of your greatest assets that you can have while learning a foreign language is a great foreign language dictionary. As we know, often Web foreign language dictionaries aren’t the best sources to turn to, especially if you’re attempting a direct translation.

Of all the foreign language dictionaries available online, the best option is going to be the Oxford Language Dictionaries. Since it’s, unfortunately, not a free service, be sure to take advantage of it if your school has a subscription with the site. If they do you can browse the site and use their tools while your school foots the bill.

If you don’t have access to the Oxford foreign language dictionaries, there are still a variety of good online foreign language dictionaries to choose from. When looking for an online foreign language dictionary there are a few things to keep in mind. Make sure the dictionary is actually a dictionary and not just a translator. This is an important distinction, as dictionaries will list what part of speech a word is, helping you determine the correct one to use.  A translator, however, will simply translate and may not know what part of speech the word is or whether it is a verb that needs to be conjugated.

Also, try to look for a foreign language dictionary that specializes in only the particular language you’re studying. Chances are their understanding of the language will be deeper and they will have tools to help you study. Also, if the word is a noun, they will usually have the appropriate article in front of it (e.g. der Bruder) which will tell you what gender the word is and will help you use it correctly.

To get you started, here are a few foreign language dictionaries that may help with your language studies:


begin again...and again

I wish I could wake up every single day feeling like a complete badass. But some days I just wake up and everything hurts. This morning it was my right shoulder, it felt like someone was trying to put a knife between the muscle and bone. Yesterday it was my right hip, quad, lower back, and a knee that had become swollen for no reason. Tomorrow I might feel fine. Warm weather helps. Coffee and cold feet makes it hurt worse. So far all that the many doctors I've seen can deduce is that it isn't in my blood, but rather it has something to do with my nerves and it may be autoimmune. I finally was able to get an appointment at the University of Washington Pain Clinic, after months of attempts. That gives me hope.

As frustrating and painful and costly as this whole process has been, I can't keep putting my life on hold. I first approached the whole situation with my trademark to-do list attitude, it was simply a problem that needed fixing. I made the appointments, I went to said appointments. I got tests done. I expected after that to get answers, get a treatment protocol, and get better.

But that hasn't happened yet.

At first I was frustrated. That eventually boiled into full blown anger. Over time it turned to deep sadness. I felt limited, and mourned all the things I couldn't do.

I know in the scheme of things I am incredibly blessed. I have a beautiful family that loves me and supports me. I have an one of a kind partner who has my back every single day. I have a home. My vision, my hearing, most of my motor functions, my friendships, my career. I am grateful for each and every one of them.

My blessing became crystal clear to me a few weeks back. I was sitting on the shores of Nissau in the Bahamas after a post-workout barefoot walk in the sand. Talk about a blessing. Few people ever get to visit a place like that, let alone get to travel there for work.

I looked out at the ocean, and realized, that even with every obstacle I have faced with my health over the past 6 months, each day I am given the most precious gift: a chance to start over. To begin again. To set aside my worries and chose to keep moving forward.

I have days where I am discouraged. Where I am in pain. Where I feel like giving up. But I also have days where I feel incredibly capable. And strong. And even lately days where I can work out again. I can't always chose how each day unfolds, but I can chose to not hold onto my bad days. I can let them go, and instead look forward to the potential of the next day, and another chance to begin again.


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Jason Grimshaw finds out that his father Tony has passed awayITV

One of Coronation Street's major storylines of spring will unravel tonight as Jason Grimshaw receives the shock news that his father Tony has passed away from a suspected heart attack, with his mother Eileen having the devastating task of breaking it to him.

The double bill, which airs tonight at 7.30pm on ITV, will divulge facts concerning Tony's death including the grim revelation that he may not have been discovered for three days. Jason therefore loses the plot and takes it out on everyone around him as he feels the guilt of not finding out about his father's wellbeing sooner.

Ryan Thomas, who plays Jason, recently said of the major storyline: "Jason's devastated - his mum tells him and it's complete and utter shock and disbelief," Radio Times reports.

jason grimshaw
Jason's mother Eileen breaks the devastating news to JasonITV

"It's very upsetting for him. It is completely out of the blue - it isn't like he has been ill and they have been expecting it. It comes as a real shock and the knock-on effect is huge," he added.

IBTimes UK also reported last week that following the news of his father's death and alleged big inheritance, the cobbles resident villain Phelan will try and pocket Jason's new-found fortune as he worms his way into the family, even moving into the Grimshaw household.

Elsewhere in the soap, Nick Tilsley has a few angry outburst as he suffers with the notion that he will never fully recover from his brain injury. His relationship with fiancée Carla Connor hangs by a thread as his tempestuous behaviour leaves her petrified of him.

nick caral coronation street
Nick and Carla come to blows over a smashed coffee mugITV

Following an accident where he pours boiling water over his own hand, Nick throws his toys out of the pram and hurls his coffee mug at the wall. It all gets nasty when one of the broken pieces grazes Carla's face and the pair are left shaken up from the explosive incident.

But will Nick confess to Carla about his reasons for losing his marbles, or will they call off their engagement once and for all? Things were already on the rocks given Carla's affair and concealing it from Nick, and if he goes mental over boiling water, we dread to think what he will do if/when he finds out about her infidelity.

Watch some of these scenes unfold tonight (25 April) at 7.30pm on ITV.


Jul, 12 2017 12:31 JST

Source: Fujitsu Ltd

Development of algorithm contributes to strengthened summer safety in the workplace

TOKYO, Jul, 12 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu Limited today announced the development of a new algorithm to estimate ongoing heat stress in workers, such as security guards, using its artificial intelligence technologies, known as Human Centric AI Zinrai. Developed together with Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., Fujitsu aims to enhance solutions deployed on its digital business platform, "Fujitsu Digital Business Platform MetaArc"(1), that use IoT to support on-site safety management. This new algorithm will be available from the end of July. Also from June through September, Fujitsu is implementing solutions incorporating this new algorithm in a field trial with security guards at its own Kawasaki Plant.

Previous algorithms estimated heat stress levels(2) using a device worn on the arm to measure data such as humidity, temperature, as well as increases in pulse, and were primarily used in manufacturing and at construction sites. As the new algorithm can now estimate heat stress levels that accumulate over time, it is suitable for employees who continually work outdoors in the summer. Combined with the previous algorithm, it can be used to manage safety in a wide variety of situations.

In order to estimate the level of accumulated heat stress, and because a diverse range of data is handled in which correlations are difficult to discern, the new system uses AI technology to execute machine learning based on expert knowledge. In so doing, Fujitsu developed a logic in which AI can extract the characteristics of high heat stress to enable estimates such as those made by labor science experts.

In light of the knowledge gained from implementing this new technology, Fujitsu is accelerating safety management support for customers across a variety of industries. Fujitsu will help connect people, things and infrastructure across boundaries between companies and industries through "MetaArc" which will realize the customers' digital transformation, enhancing their competitiveness and creating new value.

In recent years, the number of workplace casualties(3) due to heat stroke in Japan has remained in the range of 400-500 people per year, even after 2010, which saw the worst heat wave on record. In 2016, the number of workplace casualties due to heat stroke reached about 450 people(4), leading companies to take measures to prevent such incidents.

Going forward, the demand for heat stroke countermeasures is expected to increase rapidly for security and other operations at outdoor events and worksites in the summer.

Fujitsu developed this new AI-based algorithm to enhance safety protection for employees working in extreme environments.

Features of the New Algorithm

In addition to the existing data of humidity, temperature and pulse, the new algorithm estimates the level of heat stress based on new data, such the amount of activity, as well as data that shifts over time.Since machine learning is appropriate for making estimates from a wide variety of data with unclear correlations, Fujitsu developed a logic in which AI can extract the characteristics of high heat stress from the stock of actual data and data evaluated by experts. This has enabled the algorithm to estimate accumulated heat stress in the same way that labor science experts would, enabling users to observe the status of individual employees in situations that do not require a great deal of activity, such as security guards who must spend long hours standing in the hot sun.

Summary of the Internal Field Trial

Fujitsu has applied its solution incorporating the new algorithm to monitor those entering its Kawasaki Plant as well as security guards on site. By conducting this internal trial from June through September, months of extreme heat and humidity, Fujitsu is gaining the necessary knowledge to eventually contribute to the safety of employees at customer facilities.

Sites where security and other duties typically take place may be locations where workers are susceptible to heat stress. However, changes in physical condition vary according to the individual, making it difficult to take uniform measures. This newly developed algorithm makes it possible to estimate the accumulation of heat stress on a per person basis, to tailor ways to protect people based on individual conditions.

Image of the internal field trial

This solution will be exhibited at "Heat Solution Tokyo 2017," to be held at Tokyo Big Sight, July 19-21.

(1) MetaArc
A digital business platform combining Fujitsu's system engineering knowledge and experience with cutting-edge technology, including the cloud, mobile, analytics, IoT and AI.
(2) Heat stress level
The Japanese Society of Biometeorology calculates heat stress levels from temperature, humidity and pulse, based on the relationship between WBGT (Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature), air temperature and humidity. The heat stress condition is estimated into four stages of safe, low, medium and high heat stress.
(3) Number of casualties
Number of deaths and people who took four or more days off work due to job-related illness.
(4) In 2016, there were approximately 450 casualties due to heat stroke in the workplace
"Occurrences of Worker Fatalities Due to Heat Stroke," June 2017 report from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan. http://www.mhlw.go.jp

About Fujitsu Ltd

* Please see this press release, with images, at:

Fujitsu Limited
Public and Investor Relations
Tel: +81-3-6252-2176
URL: www.fujitsu.com/global/news/contacts/
Source: Fujitsu Ltd
Sectors: Enterprise IT

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Challenge #70: Trade Area Drivetime Radii

Community Content Engineer
Community Content Engineer

The solution to last week's challenge is HERE!

Challenge 70.jpg

Today we’re challenged to find the total area (square miles) that we can move our company headquarters to such that it is an equidistant commute from 3 satellite offices. In order to do so, find the area that is shared by a 30 minute drive time radius starting from each of the satellite offices!

Be warned! You may arrive on different areas depending on the spatial data release that is used, in addition to the drivetime methodology selected. For the sake of comparison, use the above map as an estimation of the area if you are not using the Q2: 2016 TomTom US Peak Most Recent Vintage dataset. If you think you need a hint, expand the spoiler below!

This week's challenge is inspired by the methodologies covered in our Trade Area Tool Mastery article from the Knowledgebase. If you're having trouble, try mastering the Trade Area Tool first!

Alteryx Certified Partner
Alteryx Certified Partner

I used Tom Tom Q4 Peak.  Hopefully, I didn't miss anything here.

If I did, someone will point it out to me (I'm sure).

ACE & Alteryx Certified Partner

My (pseudo) solution. I don't have access to drivetime data, so I wasn't able to answer the question exactly as asked... but I can see comparing to @MarqueeCrew 's solution that I have the same process, so barring changing from "miles" to "minutes" if I'd had the drivetime dataset, I believe it's the same. So count this as my "I drew this with a stick in the sand because I didn't have the right tools" solution? :)

For my pseudo-solution, I made some assumptions about average speed limit based on a couple random GoogleMaps directions queries to places in the area of the three original points. Determined an average speed limit of about 32mph, which gave be about a 16 mile radius. The area in my answer is larger than that shown in the results, but since it's calculating the radii "as the crow flies... at precisely 32mph...", that's more or less explainable.

I don't have the spatial package either so I winged it to come up with 2 different areas to consider for the HQ.  I used a both spatial tools and spatial formulas to come up with the answers.

1) I created a center point by averaging all the longitudes and latitudes for the 3 offices.
2) Using the answer of an area of 30.967 square miles, I backed into a radius (3.14 - just happens to be approx. PI) to create a trade area around the center point.
3) Using midpoints between each point and also midpoints between each point and the center, I created a polygon, but the area was approx 50 square miles.
4) I then created new midpoints between the previous midpoints and the center to make the area smaller and closer to the center.  This polygon had an area of 12.64 square miles.

Alteryx Certified Partner

It is a bit frustrating that the correct solution is available only to the owners of a spatial package. But challenge is a challenge, and I made some driving time assumptions based on the speed limit. My assumptions are a bit bolder than those of NicoleJohnson, but the solution itself is similar.

Hey @MattD - are we as a community misunderstanding something (a few people have mentioned the dependence on spatial package), or is this indeed a solution that can only be fully completed if you have the additional license for this data?

For example - I'm wondering if you had something in mind related to punching out to a different API that can do this. IF this is the case - can you give a hint?

:) have a good day Matt

Used a similar "stick in the sand" approach as @NicoleJohnson and @Natasha.   As Nicole says, it's the same solution as Mark @MarqueeCrew, but using a mile-radius rather than a drive-time radius.    Still holding out that @MattD has some sneaky idea up his sleeve for those of us without spatial data packages...

Image below is the final resulting intersection and the original locations of the satellite offices.

I have an outdated spatial release (getting the update soon), so my numbers are slightly off. This is with 2015 Q3 data.

Map of the overlapping trade area:image.png

My workflow:
Community Content Engineer
Community Content Engineer

Hey Everyone!

For those of you who do not have the spatial data package, I went ahead and created a macro that uses Google Maps to calculate distance and drivetime between two points or addresses! While you'll still end up with a different total area as compared to the Q2: 2016 TomTom US Peak Most Recent Vintage dataset, this will make it so that you can answer these types of questions in the future without full access to the spatial data package!

Thank you @MattD!!! You're the best! :)