The New View from Russia

As changes rapidly unfold in the former Soviet Union, new opportunities present themselves ever more frequently to gain insight into a nation that not long ago was essentially closed to us. Such an opportunity occurred in a recent war game at the Naval War College sponsored by the Chief of Naval Operations’ Strategic Studies Group

Disks in a narrow channel jammed by gravity and centrifuge: profiles of pressure, mass density and entropy density

This work investigates jammed granular matter under conditions that produce heterogeneous mass distributions on a mesoscopic scale. We consider a system of identical disks that are confined to a narrow channel, open at one end and closed off at the other end. The disks are jammed by the local pressure in a gravitational field or centrifuge. All surfaces are hard and frictionless. We calculate the profiles of pressure, mass density, and entropy density on a mesoscopic length scale under the assumption that the jammed states are produced by random agitations of uniform intensity along the channel. These profiles exhibit trends and features governed by the balancing of position-dependent forces and potential energies. The analysis employs a method of configurational statistics that uses interlinking two-disk tiles as the fundamental degrees of freedom. Configurational statistics weighs the probabilities of tiles according to competing potential energies associated with gravity and centrifugation. Amendments account for the effects of the marginal stability of some tiles due to competing forces.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

New Urbanism: From Exception to Norm—The Evolution of a Global Movement

This thematic issue explores the evolution of the New Urbanism, a normative planning and urban design movement that has contributed to development throughout the world. Against a dominant narrative that frames the movement as a straightforward application of principles that has yielded many versions of the same idea, this issue instead proposes an examination of New Urbanism as heterogeneous in practice, shaped through multiple contingent factors that spell variegated translations of core principles. The contributing authors investigate how variegated forms of New Urbanism emerge, interrogate why place-based contingencies lead to differentiation in practice, and explain why the movement continues to be represented as a universal phenomenon despite such on-the-ground complexities. Together, the articles in this thematic issue offer a powerful rebuttal to the idea that our understanding of the New Urbanism is somehow complete and provide original ideas and frameworks with which to reassess the movement’s complexity and understand its ongoing impact

A Cyber Security Multi Agency Collaboration for Rapid Response that Uses AGILE Methods on an Education Infrastructure

Part 1: Innovative MethodsInternational audienceThis study provides a summary and analysis of a cyber security multi agency collaboration for rapid response by Regis University (RU), in partnership with the Colorado Army and Air Force National Guard (CONG) and the State of Colorado (SOC), deploying AGILE methods to improve the ability of the CONG and SOC to respond to attacks against Colorado’s critical infrastructure. The summary covers formative discussions and about a year-long series of physical exercises, lectures and certification exams that advanced the study participants domain knowledge, awareness of SOC policy and communication with industry. Other states and territories can use the model to the benefit of their citizens. Events included multiple simulations, physical exercise scenarios, and table top exercises designed to give real-world substance to more abstract cyber security concepts and integrate physical world consequences to actions performed by the participants

The Leading Edge 250: Oblique wing aircraft configuration project, volume 4

The design of a high speed transport aircraft using the oblique wing concept as a part of the High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) aircraft study is the Leading Edge 250 capable of travelling at Mach 4 with 250 passengers and has a 6,500 nautical mile range. Its innovation lies within its use of the unconventional oblique wing to provide efficient flight at any Mach number. Wave drag is kept to a minimum at high speed, while high lift is attained during critical takeoff and landing maneuvers by varying the sweep of the wing

Variability in kelp forest structure along a latitudinal gradient in ocean temperature

Subtidal forests comprised of kelps and other canopy-forming macroalgae represent critically important marine habitats. Kelp forests exhibit high rates of primary productivity, magnified secondary productivity, support high levels of biodiversity and provide various ecosystem services. Compared with many other regions, kelp forests around the UK have been largely understudied despite their recognised importance and the possible impacts of environmental change factors. We conducted surveys at 12 kelp-dominated open-coast sites within four regions in the UK, spanning ~ 9° in latitude and ~ 3 °C in mean sea temperature. We used a combination of quadrat-scale abundance and percent cover data as well as transect-scale canopy cover estimates to quantify ecological structure at multiple spatial scales. Kelp forest structure varied significantly between sites (nested within region) and also between regions. Regional-scale differences were principally driven by a higher abundance/cover of Alaria esculenta at the colder northern regions (i.e. north and west Scotland), and the presence of the Lusitanian kelp Laminaria ochroleuca at some sites in the southernmost region (i.e. southwest England) but nowhere else. The kelp Laminaria hyperborea dominated all sites and varied significantly between sites but not regions. All assemblage-level and population-level response variables were highly variable between sites within regions, suggesting that environmental factors varying at corresponding spatial scales (e.g. wave exposure, turbidity, sedimentation) are important drivers of pattern. The detection of regional-scale variability suggests that predicted changes in ocean climate, particularly increased sea temperature, may lead to changes in kelp forest structure in the future, with poleward range contractions (for A. esculenta) and expansions (for L. ochroleuca) likely. However, as the distribution-abundance patterns of the assemblage dominant L. hyperborea did not vary predictably with ocean temperature at this spatial scale, the fundamental structure of these habitats may be more influenced by localised factors, at least in the short-term. The relative importance of multiple, concurrent environmental change factors in structuring UK kelp forests remains largely unknown