The role of the outsider as an agent for change

This context statement explores and reflects on the role of the outsider as an agent for change. It argues that an outsider is often able to see things differently, to offer new insights, to detect patterns and to identify commonalities that are not apparent to an insider. I tell the narrative story of my career spanning the media, cultural policy and education policy, and cultural funding. I examine key aspects of my professional practice: as managing director of Classic FM; as the author of independent government reviews into music education and cultural education in England; and as chief executive of Arts Council England, reflecting on a series of five published works that, together with this context statement, form the overall submission for my candidacy for the Doctorate in Professional Studies by Public Works. Although my work has been in different fields and, on the surface at least, did not appear to me at first to have a unifying common thread, the critical reflection involved in creating this context statement helped me to identify that there was in fact a central theme running through the narrative of my professional practice. Far from it being a series of disjointed events, I argue that the development of my professional practice has, in fact, been linear in its form, allowing me to reflect on the learning from each of the experiences as new challenges were encountered. With the benefit of reflection, I come to recognise the tacit knowledge and understanding that I have built up over thirty years of professional practice, in the process, identifying a framework for delivering change, built upon a set of common behaviours and values. I set out to illustrate how these behaviours and values have been present in my own professional practice and how they could be replicated by other outsiders who find themselves in roles where they are agents for change

Long range order in the classical kagome antiferromagnet: effective Hamiltonian approach

Following Huse and Rutenberg [Phys. Rev. B 45, 7536 (1992)], I argue the classical Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the kagom\'e lattice has long-range spin order of the $\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$ type (modulo gradual orientation fluctuations of the spins' plane). I start from the effective quartic Hamiltonian for the soft (out of plane) spin fluctuation modes, and treat as a perturbation those terms which depend on the discrete coplanar state. Soft mode correlations, which become the coefficients of a discrete effective Hamiltonian, are estimated analytically.Comment: 4pp, no figures. Converted to PRB format, extensive revisions/some reorderings to improve clarity; some cut

China Maritime Report No. 26: Beyond the First Battle: Overcoming a Protracted Blockade of Taiwan

If there is a war over Taiwan, an extended Chinese blockade is likely to determine the outcome. While a blockade might include intercepting ships at sea, the primary focus would be on sealing airfields and ports, particularly on the west coast of Taiwan. China could sustain that type of blockade indefinitely. Penetrating a prolonged blockade and keeping Taiwan alive would require a serious U.S. investment in systems and operational concepts that we currently do not have. Unless we make that investment, we may win the first battle, defeating an attempted landing. But we cannot win the war.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/1025/thumbnail.jp

Probing the wind-wind collision in Gamma Velorum with high-resolution Chandra X-ray spectroscopy: evidence for sudden radiative braking and non-equilibrium ionization

We present a new analysis of an archived Chandra HETGS X-ray spectrum of the WR+O colliding wind binary Gamma Velorum. The spectrum is dominated by emission lines from astrophysically abundant elements: Ne, Mg, Si, S and Fe. From a combination of broad-band spectral analysis and an analysis of line flux ratios we infer a wide range of temperatures in the X-ray emitting plasma (~4-40 MK). As in the previously published analysis, we find the X-ray emission lines are essentially unshifted, with a mean FWHM of 1240 +/- 30 km/s. Calculations of line profiles based on hydrodynamical simulations of the wind-wind collision predict lines that are blueshifted by a few hundred km/s. The lack of any observed shift in the lines may be evidence of a large shock-cone opening half-angle (> 85 degrees), and we suggest this may be evidence of sudden radiative braking. From the R and G ratios measured from He-like forbidden-intercombination-resonance triplets we find evidence that the Mg XI emission originates from hotter gas closer to the O star than the Si XIII emission, which suggests that non-equilibrium ionization may be present.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Wondrous Cetaceans

The Renaissance was named for the cultural rebirth it witnessed. It meant a decrease in the widespread artistic and scientific suppression of the Middle Ages. As a result, Europeans enjoyed a new exploratory enthusiasm, which brought them to the far corners of the world. The concept of exoticism was renewed by European contact with places like China and Brazil. But as well as new cultural connections being bolstered, immense scientific discovery was going on. Science, then named natural philosophy, was seeing breakthrough after breakthrough. Scientists and interested persons brought knowledge and specimens from far and wide together in curiosity cabinets, museums, and galleries. These wunderkammern, as German speakers called them then, were truly an embodiment of the scientifically inquisitive times. What better then, to embody these cabinets of curiosities, than an object which featured in so many of them: the narwhal tusk? [excerpt