The capabilities of Britain’s armed forces may not be diminishing as starkly as the numbers might suggest

Following a new announcement of cuts to the UK armed forces, many are asking whether we are seeing Britain’s defence capabilities in decline. Andrew Dorman warns against simply focusing on focus on numbers or money. There is no direct relationship between amount spent or size of the armed forces and the security of the nation or between numbers of personnel and capability. Also, focusing on the armed forces is also problematic given that in many ways the battlefields of today and tomorrow are different

The UK Defence Review recognises the immediate risks yet provides solutions that are years away

In publishing the latest National Security Strategy (NSS) and Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in November 2015 the government managed to deliver quite a feat. The usual defence ‘commentariat’ was largely silenced as their worst fears appeared to be assuaged. Instead of cuts that many had first feared, this review promised a whole series of improvements. However, as Andrew M Dorman points out, these promises rest on a number of flawed assumptions, which continue to dog defence policy in the UK

RENT: A Lighting Design

ABSTRACT Title of Document: RENT: A LIGHTING DESIGN THE INA AND JACK KAY THEATRE CLARICE SMITH PERFORMING ARTS CENTER UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND - COLLEGE PARK Andrew Thomas Dorman, Master of Fine Arts, 2011 Thesis Directed By: Associate Professor, Brian MacDevitt, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies The purpose of this thesis is to provide research, supporting paperwork, and production photographs that document the lighting design for the University of Maryland - College Park, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies' RENT. This thesis contains the following: research images collected to develop and visually communicate ideas about color, texture, intensity, form, composition, and mood to the production team; preliminary and final organization of desired equipment to execute the lighting design; a full set of drafting plates and supplementary paperwork used to communicate the organization and placement of lighting equipment to the master electrician; magic sheets and a cue list used as organizational tools for the lighting designer during the tech process. Archival production photographs are included as documentation of the completed design

European Adaptation to Expeditionary Warfare: Implications for the U.S. Army

The author briefly examines the European response to the changing security environment and the opportunities presented by the European Security and Defense Policy Expeditionary Force. As he correctly observes, the establishment of a European expeditionary force will be no easy matter, will require substantial investment, and will take years to complete. However, it is the right course for Europe to take. The European Union (EU) cannot manage emerging security issues using Cold War legacy forces because they are too ponderous to deploy. A lighter, more nimble expeditionary force is critical to EU policy. The author also points out that the United States must remain involved in the EU initiatives. Europe cannot go it alone and will need advice and perhaps even material support if it is to realize its ambitious agenda.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1809/thumbnail.jp

Broad-Scale Redistribution of mRNA Abundance and Transcriptional Machinery in Response to Growth Rate in Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium

We have investigated the connection between the four-dimensional architecture of the bacterial nucleoid and the organism\u27s global gene expression programme. By localizing the transcription machinery and the transcriptional outputs across the genome of the model bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium at different stages of the growth cycle, a surprising disconnection between gene dosage and transcriptional output was revealed. During exponential growth, gene output occurred chiefly in the Ori (origin), Ter (terminus) and NSL (non-structured left) domains, whereas the Left macrodomain remained transcriptionally quiescent at all stages of growth. The apparently high transcriptional output in Ter was correlated with an enhanced stability of the RNA expressed there during exponential growth, suggesting that longer mRNA half-lives compensate for low gene dosage. During exponential growth, RNA polymerase (RNAP) was detected everywhere, whereas in stationary phase cells, RNAP was concentrated in the Ter macrodomain. The alternative sigma factors RpoE, RpoH and RpoN were not required to drive transcription in these growth conditions, consistent with their observed binding to regions away from RNAP and regions of active transcription. Specifically, these alternative sigma factors were found in the Ter macrodomain during exponential growth, whereas they were localized at the Ori macrodomain in stationary phase

Ultraviolet Imaging of the Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae

We have used the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope to obtain deep far-UV (1620 Angstrom), 40' diameter images of the prototypical metal-rich globular cluster 47 Tucanae. We find a population of about 20 hot (Teff > 9000 K) objects near or above the predicted UV luminosity of the hot horizontal branch (HB) and lying within two half-light radii of the cluster center. We believe these are normal hot HB or post-HB objects rather than interacting binaries or blue stragglers. IUE spectra of two are consistent with post-HB phases. These observations, and recent HST photometry of two other metal-rich clusters, demonstrate that populations with rich, cool HB's can nonetheless produce hot HB and post-HB stars. The cluster center also contains an unusual diffuse far-UV source which is more extended than its V-band light. It is possible that this is associated with an intracluster medium, for which there was earlier infrared and X-ray evidence, and is produced by C IV emission or scattered light from grains.Comment: 13 pages AASLaTeX including one postscript figure and one bitmapped image, JPEG format. Submitted to the Astronomical Jorunal. Full Postscript version available at http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~bd4r

The Modified Weighted Slab Technique: Models and Results

In an attempt to understand the source and propagation of galactic cosmic rays we have employed the Modified Weighted Slab technique along with recent values of the relevant cross sections to compute primary to secondary ratios including B/C and Sub-Fe/Fe for different galactic propagation models. The models that we have considered are the disk-halo diffusion model, the dynamical halo wind model, the turbulent diffusion model and a model with minimal reacceleration. The modified weighted slab technique will be briefly discussed and a more detailed description of the models will be given. We will also discuss the impact that the various models have on the problem of anisotropy at high energy and discuss what properties of a particular model bear on this issue.Comment: LaTeX - AASTEX format, Submitted to ApJ, 8 figures, 20 page

UIT Detection of Hot Stars in the Globular Cluster NGC362

We used the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope during the March 1995 Astro-2 mission to obtain a deep far-UV image of the globular cluster NGC 362, which was formerly thought to have an almost entirely red horizontal branch (HB). 84 hot (T_eff > 8500 K) stars were detected within a radius of 8'.25 of the cluster center. Of these, 43 have FUV magnitudes consistent with HB stars in NGC 362, and at least 34 are cluster members. The number of cluster members is made uncertain by background contamination from blue stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). There are six candidate supra-HB stars which have probably evolved from the HB. We discuss the implications of these results for the production of hot blue stars in stellar populations.Comment: 10 pages AASLaTeX including one postscript figure and one compressed bitmap, .jpg format. To appear in Ap. J. Letters. Postscript version also available at http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~bd4r

The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury I: Bright UV Stars in the Bulge of M31

As part of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) multi-cycle program, we observed a 12' \times 6.5' area of the bulge of M31 with the WFC3/UVIS filters F275W and F336W. From these data we have assembled a sample of \sim4000 UV-bright, old stars, vastly larger than previously available. We use updated Padova stellar evolutionary tracks to classify these hot stars into three classes: Post-AGB stars (P-AGB), Post-Early AGB (PE-AGB) stars and AGB-manqu\'e stars. P-AGB stars are the end result of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase and are expected in a wide range of stellar populations, whereas PE-AGB and AGB-manqu\'e (together referred to as the hot post-horizontal branch; HP-HB) stars are the result of insufficient envelope masses to allow a full AGB phase, and are expected to be particularly prominent at high helium or {\alpha} abundances when the mass loss on the RGB is high. Our data support previous claims that most UV-bright sources in the bulge are likely hot (extreme) horizontal branch stars (EHB) and their progeny. We construct the first radial profiles of these stellar populations, and show that they are highly centrally concentrated, even more so than the integrated UV or optical light. However, we find that this UV-bright population does not dominate the total UV luminosity at any radius, as we are detecting only the progeny of the EHB stars that are the likely source of the UVX. We calculate that only a few percent of MS stars in the central bulge can have gone through the HP-HB phase and that this percentage decreases strongly with distance from the center. We also find that the surface density of hot UV-bright stars has the same radial variation as that of low-mass X-ray binaries. We discuss age, metallicity, and abundance variations as possible explanations for the observed radial variation in the UV-bright population.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap