Military doctrine, command philosophy and the generation of fighting power: genesis and theory

Military doctrine is one of the conceptual components of war. Its raison d’être is that of a force multiplier. It enables a smaller force to take on and defeat a larger force in battle. This article’s departure point is the aphorism of Sir Julian Corbett, who described doctrine as ‘the soul of warfare’. The second dimension to creating a force multiplier effect is forging doctrine with an appropriate command philosophy. The challenge for commanders is how, in unique circumstances, to formulate, disseminate and apply an appropriate doctrine and combine it with a relevant command philosophy. This can only be achieved by policy-makers and senior commanders successfully answering the Clausewitzian question: what kind of conflict are they involved in? Once an answer has been provided, a synthesis of these two factors can be developed and applied. Doctrine has implications for all three levels of war. Tactically, doctrine does two things: first, it helps to create a tempo of operations; second, it develops a transitory quality that will produce operational effect, and ultimately facilitate the pursuit of strategic objectives. Its function is to provide both training and instruction. At the operational level instruction and understanding are critical functions. Third, at the strategic level it provides understanding and direction. Using John Gooch’s six components of doctrine, it will be argued that there is a lacunae in the theory of doctrine as these components can manifest themselves in very different ways at the three levels of war. They can in turn affect the transitory quality of tactical operations. Doctrine is pivotal to success in war. Without doctrine and the appropriate command philosophy military operations cannot be successfully concluded against an active and determined foe.

ASSET: moving forward through feedback

Providing high quality and timely feedback to students is often a challenge for many staff in higher education as it can be both time-consuming and frustratingly repetitive. From the student perspective, feedback may sometimes be considered unhelpful, confusing and inconsistent and may not always be provided within a timeframe that is considered to be ‘useful’. The ASSET project, based at the University of Reading, addresses many of these inherent challenges by encouraging the provision of feedback that supports learning, i.e. feedback that contains elements of ‘feed-forward’, is of a high quality and is delivered in a timely manner. In particular, the project exploits the pedagogic benefits of video/audio media within a Web 2.0 context to provide a new, interactive resource, ‘ASSET’, to enhance the feedback experience for both students and staff. A preliminary analysis of both our quantitative and qualitative pedagogic data demonstrate that the ASSET project has instigated change in the ways in which both staff and students think about, deliver, and engage with feedback. For example, data from our online questionnaires and focus groups with staff and students indicate a positive response to the use of video as a medium for delivering feedback to students. In particular, the academic staff engaged in piloting the ASSET resource indicated that i) using video has made them think more, and in some cases differently, about the ways in which they deliver feedback to students and ii) they now see video as an effective means of making feedback more useful and engaging for students. Moreover, the majority of academic staff involved in the project have said they will continue to use video feedback. From the student perspective, 60% of those students whose lecturers used ASSET to provide video feedback said that “receiving video feedback encouraged me to take more notice of the feedback compared with normal methods” and 80% would like their lecturer to continue to use video as a method for providing feedback. An important aim of the project was for it to complement existing University-wide initiatives on feedback and for ASSET to become a ‘model’ resource for staff and students wishing to explore video as a medium for feedback provision. An institutional approach was therefore adopted and key members of Senior Management, academics, T&L support staff, IT support and Student Representatives were embedded within the project from the start. As with all initiatives of this kind, a major issue is the future sustainability of the ASSET resource and to have had both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ support for the project has been extremely beneficial. In association with the project team the University is currently exploring the creation of an open-source, two-tiered video supply solution and a ‘framework’ (that other HEIs can adopt and/or adapt) to support staff in using video for feedback provision. In this way students and staff will have new opportunities to explore video and to exploit the benefits of this medium for supporting learning.

Dynamic vergence telepresence system incorporating active gaze control

Visual Telepresence system which utilize virtual reality style helmet mounted displays have a number of limitations. The geometry of the camera positions and of the display is fixed and is most suitable only for viewing elements of a scene at a particular distance. In such a system, the operator's ability to gaze around without use of head movement is severely limited. A trade off must be made between a poor viewing resolution or a narrow width of viewing field. To address these limitations a prototype system where the geometry of the displays and cameras is dynamically controlled by the eye movement of the operator has been developed. This paper explores the reasons why is necessary to actively adjust both the display system and the cameras and furthermore justifies the use of mechanical adjustment of the displays as an alternative to adjustment by electronic or image processing methods. The electronic and mechanical design is described including optical arrangements and control algorithms, An assessment of the performance of the system against a fixed camera/display system when operators are assigned basic tasks involving depth and distance/size perception. The sensitivity to variations in transient performance of the display and camera vergence is also assessed.

Implications of climate change for expanding cities worldwide

This paper analyses the trends of the changing environmental effects within growing megacities as their diameters exceed 50–100 km and their populations rise beyond 30 million people. The authors consider how these effects are influenced by climate change, to which urban areas themselves contribute, caused by their increasing greenhouse gas emissions associated with rapidly expanding energy use. Other environmental and social factors are assessed, quantitatively and qualitatively, using detailed modelling of urban mesoscale meteorology, which shows how these factors can lead to large conurbations becoming more vulnerable to climatic and environmental hazards. The paper discusses the likely changes in meteorological and hydrological hazards in urban areas, both as the climate changes and the sizes of urban areas grow. Examples are given of how these risks are being reduced through innovations in warning and response systems, planning and infrastructure design, which should include refuges against extreme natural disasters. Policies are shown to be more effective when they are integrated and based on substantial community involvement. Some conclusions are drawn regarding how policies for the natural and artificial environment and for reducing many kinds of climate and hazard risk are related to future designs and planning of infrastructure and open spaces.

Bioscience Horizons: the national journal of undergraduate research

Bioscience Horizons (BH)commenced publication in 2008 and features research papers and reviews written by graduating UK bioscience students. The journal is run by a consortium of UK universities (the Universities of Nottingham, Reading, Leeds and Chester) in association with Oxford University Press. Its submissions encompass the full range of subjects taught by UK bioscience departments, ranging from agronomy to zoology and including animal behaviour, cancer research, environmental biology, microbial sciences, molecular biology, pharmacolgy, primatology, taxonomy and other areas. BH receives manuscripts from recent graduates (with a bachelor of science or equivalent first degree) describing research carried out during their undergraduate studies, usually as a final-year research project. All submissions undergo expert review and have to meet strict criteria for scientific excellence and originality. Articles are written by a single author and published with the agreement of the graduate's home university department. The journal has an ISSN number and is open-access; articles are freely 'cite-able' contributions to the bioscience research literature.

Comparative genomics of Brachyspira pilosicoli strains: genome rearrangements, reductions and correlation of genetic compliment with phenotypic diversity.

Background. The anaerobic spirochaete Brachyspira pilosicoli causes enteric disease in avian, porcine and human hosts, amongst others. To date, the only available genome sequence of B. pilosicoli is that of strain 95/1000, a porcine isolate. In the first intra-species genome comparison within the Brachyspira genus, we report the whole genome sequence of B. pilosicoli B2904, an avian isolate, the incomplete genome sequence of B. pilosicoli WesB, a human isolate, and the comparisons with B. pilosicoli 95/1000. We also draw on incomplete genome sequences from three other Brachyspira species. Finally we report the first application of the high-throughput Biolog phenotype screening tool on the B. pilosicoli strains for detailed comparisons between genotype and phenotype. Results. Feature and sequence genome comparisons revealed a high degree of similarity between the three B. pilosicoli strains, although the genomes of B2904 and WesB were larger than that of 95/1000 (~2,765, 2.890 and 2.596 Mb, respectively). Genome rearrangements were observed which correlated largely with the positions of mobile genetic elements. Through comparison of the B2904 and WesB genomes with the 95/1000 genome, features that we propose are non-essential due to their absence from 95/1000 include a peptidase, glycine reductase complex components and transposases. Novel bacteriophages were detected in the newly-sequenced genomes, which appeared to have involvement in intra- and inter-species horizontal gene transfer. Phenotypic differences predicted from genome analysis, such as the lack of genes for glucuronate catabolism in 95/1000, were confirmed by phenotyping. Conclusions. The availability of multiple B. pilosicoli genome sequences has allowed us to demonstrate the substantial genomic variation that exists between these strains, and provides an insight into genetic events that are shaping the species. In addition, phenotype screening allowed determination of how genotypic differences translated to phenotype. Further application of such comparisons will improve understanding of the metabolic capabilities of Brachyspira species.

Cloud bands over southern Africa: seasonality, contribution to rainfall variability, and modulation by the MJO

Tropical-extratropical cloud band systems over southern Africa, known as tropical temperate troughs (TTTs), are known to contribute substantially to South African summer rainfall. This study performs a comprehensive assessment of the seasonal cycle and rainfall contribution of TTTs by using a novel object-based strategy that explicitly tracks these systems for their full life cycle. The methodology incorporates a simple assignment of station rainfall data to each event, thereby creating a database containing detailed rainfall characteristics for each TTT. This is used to explore the importance of TTTs for rain days and climatological rainfall totals in October–March. Average contributions range from 30 to 60 % with substantial spatial heterogeneity observed. TTT rainfall contributions over the Highveld and eastern escarpment are lower than expected. A short analysis of TTT rainfall variability indicates TTTs provide substantial, but not dominant, intraseasonal and interannual variability in station rainfall totals. TTTs are however responsible for a high proportion of heavy rainfall days. Of 52 extreme rainfall events in the 1979–1999 period, 30 are associated with these tropical-extratropical interactions. Cut-off lows were included in the evolution of 6 of these TTTs. The study concludes with an analysis of the question: does the Madden-Julian Oscillation influence the intensity of TTT rainfall over South Africa? Results suggest a weak but significant suppression (enhancement) of intensity during phase 1(6).

The effects of explicit versus parameterized convection on the MJO in a large-domain high-resolution tropical case study. Part I: Characterization of large-scale organization and propagation

High-resolution simulations over a large tropical domain (∼20◦S–20◦N and 42◦E–180◦E) using both explicit and parameterized convection are analyzed and compared to observations during a 10-day case study of an active Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) event. The parameterized convection model simulations at both 40 km and 12 km grid spacing have a very weak MJO signal and little eastward propagation. A 4 km explicit convection simulation using Smagorinsky subgrid mixing in the vertical and horizontal dimensions exhibits the best MJO strength and propagation speed. 12 km explicit convection simulations also perform much better than the 12 km parameterized convection run, suggesting that the convection scheme, rather than horizontal resolution, is key for these MJO simulations. Interestingly, a 4 km explicit convection simulation using the conventional boundary layer scheme for vertical subgrid mixing (but still using Smagorinsky horizontal mixing) completely loses the large-scale MJO organization, showing that relatively high resolution with explicit convection does not guarantee a good MJO simulation. Models with a good MJO representation have a more realistic relationship between lower-free-tropospheric moisture and precipitation, supporting the idea that moisture-convection feedback is a key process for MJO propagation. There is also increased generation of available potential energy and conversion of that energy into kinetic energy in models with a more realistic MJO, which is related to larger zonal variance in convective heating and vertical velocity, larger zonal temperature variance around 200 hPa, and larger correlations between temperature and ascent (and between temperature and diabatic heating) between 500–400 hPa.

Understanding advances in the simulation of intraseasonal variability in the ECMWF model. Part I: the representation of the MJO

As a major mode of intraseasonal variability, which interacts with weather and climate systems on a near-global scale, the Madden – Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a crucial source of predictability for numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Despite its global significance and comprehensive investigation, improvements in the representation of the MJO in an NWP context remain elusive. However, recent modifications to the model physics in the ECMWF model led to advances in the representation of atmospheric variability and the unprecedented propagation of the MJO signal through the entire integration period. In light of these recent advances, a set of hindcast experiments have been designed to assess the sensitivity of MJO simulation to the formulation of convection. Through the application of established MJO diagnostics, it is shown that the improvements in the representation of the MJO can be directly attributed to the modified convective parametrization. Furthermore, the improvements are attributed to the move from a moisture-convergent- to a relative-humidity-dependent formulation for organized deep entrainment. It is concluded that, in order to understand the physical mechanisms through which a relative-humidity-dependent formulation for entrainment led to an improved simulation of the MJO, a more process-based approach should be taken. T he application of process-based diagnostics t o t he hindcast experiments presented here will be the focus of Part II of this study.

Understanding advances in the simulation of intraseasonal variability in the ECMWF model. Part II: the application of process-based diagnostics

In Part I of this study it was shown that moving from a moisture-convergent- to a relative-humidity-dependent organized entrainment rate in the formulation for deep convection was responsible for significant advances in the simulation of the Madden – Julian Oscillation (MJO) in the ECMWF model. However, the application of traditional MJO diagnostics were not adequate to understand why changing the control on convection had such a pronounced impact on the representation of the MJO. In this study a set of process-based diagnostics are applied to the hindcast experiments described in Part I to identify the physical mechanisms responsible for the advances in MJO simulation. Increasing the sensitivity of the deep convection scheme to environmental moisture is shown to modify the relationship between precipitation and moisture in the model. Through dry-air entrainment, convective plumes ascending in low-humidity environments terminate lower in the atmosphere. As a result, there is an increase in the occurrence of cumulus congestus, which acts to moisten the mid troposphere. Due to the modified precipitation – moisture relationship more moisture is able to build up, which effectively preconditions the tropical atmosphere for the t ransition t o d eep convection. R esults from this study suggest that a tropospheric moisture control on convection is key to simulating the interaction between the convective heating and the large-scale wave forcing associated with the MJO.

Enhancing fieldwork learning with technology: practitioner's perspectives

This research paper reports the findings from an international survey of fieldwork practitioners on their use of technology to enhance fieldwork teaching and learning. It was found that there was high information technology usage before and after time in the field, but some were also using portable devices such as smartphones and global positioning system whilst out in the field. The main pedagogic reasons cited for the use of technology were the need for efficient data processing and to develop students' technological skills. The influencing factors and barriers to the use of technology as well as the importance of emerging technologies are discussed.

A digital ecosystems model of assessment feedback on student learning

The term ecosystem has been used to describe complex interactions between living organisms and the physical world. The principles underlying ecosystems can also be applied to complex human interactions in the digital world. As internet technologies make an increasing contribution to teaching and learning practice in higher education, the principles of digital ecosystems may help us understand how to maximise technology to benefit active, self-regulated learning especially among groups of learners. Here, feedback on student learning is presented within a conceptual digital ecosystems model of learning. Additionally, we have developed a Web 2.0-based system, called ASSET, which incorporates multimedia and social networking features to deliver assessment feedback within the functionality of the digital ecosystems model. Both the digital ecosystems model and the ASSET system are described and their implications for enhancing feedback on student learning are discussed.

Wave activity in the tropical tropopause layer in seven reanalysis and four chemistry climate model data sets

Sub-seasonal variability including equatorial waves significantly influence the dehydration and transport processes in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL). This study investigates the wave activity in the TTL in 7 reanalysis data sets (RAs; NCEP1, NCEP2, ERA40, ERA-Interim, JRA25, MERRA, and CFSR) and 4 chemistry climate models (CCMs; CCSRNIES, CMAM, MRI, and WACCM) using the zonal wave number-frequency spectral analysis method with equatorially symmetric-antisymmetric decomposition. Analyses are made for temperature and horizontal winds at 100 hPa in the RAs and CCMs and for outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), which is a proxy for convective activity that generates tropopause-level disturbances, in satellite data and the CCMs. Particular focus is placed on equatorial Kelvin waves, mixed Rossby-gravity (MRG) waves, and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The wave activity is defined as the variance, i.e., the power spectral density integrated in a particular zonal wave number-frequency region. It is found that the TTL wave activities show significant difference among the RAs, ranging from ∼0.7 (for NCEP1 and NCEP2) to ∼1.4 (for ERA-Interim, MERRA, and CFSR) with respect to the averages from the RAs. The TTL activities in the CCMs lie generally within the range of those in the RAs, with a few exceptions. However, the spectral features in OLR for all the CCMs are very different from those in the observations, and the OLR wave activities are too low for CCSRNIES, CMAM, and MRI. It is concluded that the broad range of wave activity found in the different RAs decreases our confidence in their validity and in particular their value for validation of CCM performance in the TTL, thereby limiting our quantitative understanding of the dehydration and transport processes in the TTL.