The evolution of the Civil Affairs force

Beginning with the United States (U.S.)Mexican War in 1846 and continuing to the most recent combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, United States military history has repeatedly shown the importance of civil affairs operations: that is, shaping the civil component of the operational environment. During this span, civil affairs operations have evolved from operations conducted only by combat units to those conducted by a dedicated Civil Affairs force. The demand for Civil Affairs has increased significantly since September 11, 2001, and in response to that demand, the Army has attempted to grow the Civil Affairs force in both the active and reserve components. The rapid growth in demand for Civil Affairs has led to the creation of a Civil Affairs force composed of one active-duty Civil Affairs special-operations brigade, one active-duty Civil Affairs brigade for conventional forces, and nine reserve civil affairs brigades. The current Civil Affairs force structure is subordinate to three commands: the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, U.S. Forces Command, and the U.S. Army Reserve Command. This thesis analyzes the current Civil Affairs force structure within the active and reserve components by using three metrics: training efficiency, organizational efficiency, and operational efficiency. It addresses the question of whether the current Civil Affairs structure reflects the most efficient design, and if not, what changes are needed to improve efficiency.http://archive.org/details/theevolutionofci1094538928Major, United States ArmyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Steady-State Analysis of Load Balancing with Coxian-22 Distributed Service Times

This paper studies load balancing for many-server ($N$ servers) systems. Each server has a buffer of size $b-1,$ and can have at most one job in service and $b-1$ jobs in the buffer. The service time of a job follows the Coxian-2 distribution. We focus on steady-state performance of load balancing policies in the heavy traffic regime such that the normalized load of system is $\lambda = 1 - N^{-\alpha}$ for $0<\alpha<0.5.$ We identify a set of policies that achieve asymptotic zero waiting. The set of policies include several classical policies such as join-the-shortest-queue (JSQ), join-the-idle-queue (JIQ), idle-one-first (I1F) and power-of-$d$-choices (Po$d$) with $d=O(N^\alpha\log N)$. The proof of the main result is based on Stein's method and state space collapse. A key technical contribution of this paper is the iterative state space collapse approach that leads to a simple generator approximation when applying Stein's method

Coherent Transport through an interacting double quantum dot: Beyond sequential tunneling

Various causes for negative differential conductance in transport through an interacting double quantum dot are investigated. Particular focus is given to the interplay between the renormalization of the energy levels due to the coupling to the leads and the decoherence of the states. The calculations are performed within a basis of many-particle eigenstates and we consider the dynamics given by the von Neumann-equation taking into account also processes beyond sequential tunneling. A systematic comparison between the levels of approximation and also with different formalisms is performed. It is found that the current is qualitatively well described by sequential processes as long as the temperature is larger than the level broadening induced by the contacts.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures included in tex

Preliminary assessment, restoration and aquaculture support for a small wetland

In line with the strategy of regional wetland datasets integration to a common national digital platform, map of small wetlands less than 2.2 ha in Kochi Taluk was prepared. A representative small wetland at Edakochi village of Kerala was selected through maps and field visits for preliminary assessment and restoration. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission’s Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was used to assess the general elevation, slope and flow accumulation pattern of the selected wetland along with assessment of the catchment area and drainage pattern. Restoration works of the selected wetland was carried out vis-a-vis side bund strengthening and sluice gate fortification. The comparative analysis of water quality assessment of wetland before and after restoration revealed improvement in water quality parameters as well as increase in water level. The Dissolved Oxygen level of the aquatic system was found to have increased substantially along with other several favourable changes in water parameters due to the restoration activities. The restored wetland at Edakochi was further utilised for multispecies farming of prawns, Pearl spot, Milk fish and Grey mullet and the harvest indicated sustainable yield. Aquaculture practice in wetlands with real time scientific advisories could ensure continuous data generation and village level climate resilience

On two problems in graph Ramsey theory

We study two classical problems in graph Ramsey theory, that of determining the Ramsey number of bounded-degree graphs and that of estimating the induced Ramsey number for a graph with a given number of vertices. The Ramsey number r(H) of a graph H is the least positive integer N such that every two-coloring of the edges of the complete graph $K_N$ contains a monochromatic copy of H. A famous result of Chv\'atal, R\"{o}dl, Szemer\'edi and Trotter states that there exists a constant c(\Delta) such that r(H) \leq c(\Delta) n for every graph H with n vertices and maximum degree \Delta. The important open question is to determine the constant c(\Delta). The best results, both due to Graham, R\"{o}dl and Ruci\'nski, state that there are constants c and c' such that 2^{c' \Delta} \leq c(\Delta) \leq 2^{c \Delta \log^2 \Delta}. We improve this upper bound, showing that there is a constant c for which c(\Delta) \leq 2^{c \Delta \log \Delta}. The induced Ramsey number r_{ind}(H) of a graph H is the least positive integer N for which there exists a graph G on N vertices such that every two-coloring of the edges of G contains an induced monochromatic copy of H. Erd\H{o}s conjectured the existence of a constant c such that, for any graph H on n vertices, r_{ind}(H) \leq 2^{c n}. We move a step closer to proving this conjecture, showing that r_{ind} (H) \leq 2^{c n \log n}. This improves upon an earlier result of Kohayakawa, Pr\"{o}mel and R\"{o}dl by a factor of \log n in the exponent.Comment: 18 page

Magnetic Impurity in a Metal with Correlated Conduction Electrons: An Infinite Dimensions Approach

We consider the Hubbard model with a magnetic Anderson impurity coupled to a lattice site. In the case of infinite dimensions, one-particle correlations of the impurity electron are described by the effective Hamiltonian of the two-impurity system. One of the impurities interacts with a bath of free electrons and represents the Hubbard lattice, and the other is coupled to the first impurity by the bare hybridization interaction. A study of the effective two-impurity Hamiltonian in the frame of the 1/N expansion and for the case of a weak conduction-electron interaction (small U) reveals an enhancement of the usual exponential Kondo scale. However, an intermediate interaction (U/D = 1 - 3), treated by the variational principle, leads to the loss of the exponential scale. The Kondo temperature T_K of the effective two-impurity system is calculated as a function of the hybridization parameter and it is shown that T_K decreases with an increase of U. The non-Fermi-liquid character of the Kondo effect in the intermediate regime at the half filling is discussed.Comment: 12 pages with 8 PS figures, RevTe

Biopolymer-based structuring of liquid oil into soft solids and oleogels using water-continuous emulsions as templates

Physical trapping of a hydrophobic liquid oil in a matrix of water-soluble biopolymers was achieved using a facile two-step process by first formulating a surfactant-free oil-in-water emulsion stabilized by biopolymers (a protein and a polysaccharide) followed by complete removal of the water phase (by either high- or low-temperature drying of the emulsion) resulting in structured solid systems containing a high concentration of liquid oil (above 97 wt %). The microstructure of these systems was revealed by confocal and cryo-scanning electron microscopy, and the effect of biopolymer concentrations on the consistency of emulsions as well as the dried product was evaluated using a combination of small-amplitude oscillatory shear rheometry and large deformation fracture studies. The oleogel prepared by shearing the dried product showed a high gel strength as well as a certain degree of thixotropic recovery even at high temperatures. Moreover, the reversibility of the process was demonstrated by shearing the dried product in the presence of water to obtain reconstituted emulsions with rheological properties comparable to those of the fresh emulsion