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Generating and Sustaining Combat Effectiveness: British 6th Airborne Division, 5th November 1942 – 27th August 1944
Get PDFThe highly effective leadership of General Richard Nelson Gale overcame the haphazard nature of airborne operations 1939-1945, and enabled the unproven British 6th Airborne Division to achieve its objectives during the Normandy Campaign of June – August 1944.
Despite its scattered parachute landings 6th Airborne achieved its D-Day goals and held the line for three months, a task for which it was not equipped. The historiography of the Normandy campaign and British Airborne Forces has recorded this achievement, but the reasons have not been explored. This thesis examines the factors that made this possible and analyses Gale’s impact on the Division’s organisational development, preparation and training which lay behind this success.
To establish the environment within which Gale had to operate, this thesis explores the shaping forces which influenced the creation of 6th Airborne Division: the constraint of inadequate resources and the absence of a clear applied airborne doctrine, inter-service politics and the influence of key war figures such as Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke. The study pursues the links between war situation, the cost and capability of equipment and manpower, developing technology, and ongoing training through to distinguishable impact on the enemy. Two unique models form the heart of the study. The first shows the process of 1940-1945 airborne assault methods based on British cognisance of 1940-1943 operations. The second exposes the influences needed to create high value military formations based on 6th Airborne’s experience – with Gale acting as a critical accelerant.
The leadership provided by Gale in the creation, development and Normandy operations of 6th Airborne Division was critical. The capability of the Division was developed through a tough regime of realistic and relevant training which also forged a robust identity. Aggressive and inventive leadership was selected and employed throughout the order of battle, while intelligent but simple operational planning was used as the base of briefing which was then cascaded throughout. The impact of surprise in the landing operation and a pragmatic approach toward co-opting the firepower of surrounding forces then maximised 6th Airborne’s combat effectiveness. It was Gale and his leadership culture which underpinned the development of the capability of the airborne soldier and the cohesion of the fighting force as a whole. A theory of regarding Gale’s leadership can therefore be established
The Bear Learns to Swim: Russia's Re-emergence in the Mediterranean
No full textThe article explores the recent surge of Russian military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and evaluates the implications of Moscow’s decision to challenge the regional status quo. In November 2015, the downing of a Russian fighter jet over Syrian airspace turned analysts’ attention to the increasing involvement of Russia in the Syrian battlefield. Moscow’s entanglement in the Syrian civil war was only the latest episode in its historically persistent effort to establish a permanent presence in Mediterranean waters. Developments in recent years, however, point to a more ambitious approach. This article argues that Moscow’s unfolding strategy entails the gradual assertion of Russian air superiority over critical parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, a Russian aspiration that has been elusive even during the peak of the Cold War rivalry. Moscow’s grand strategy, in this regard, signals a renewed effort to disrupt NATO's south-eastern flank. Under this prism, the deployment of long-range S-400 and S-300 Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs), S-300 equipped ships and advanced fighter jets across regional flashpoints may prove to be a game changing initiative. The implications of Russia’s contemporary strategy could be important for the future of the Eastern Mediterranean, as Moscow’s approach appears to be upsetting the regional balance of power. Israel’s unchallenged dominance of the skies over Syria and Lebanon is compromised for the first time since 1970, when Russian air-defence forces were deployed to Egypt. The Turkish armed forces, moreover, will struggle to compensate for the Russian game plan, which complicates Ankara’s ability to project power over Syria, Iraq and the Aegean Sea. These dispersed airpower “webs” could, finally, restrict NATO’s capacity to deploy assets in the region and nullify the credibility of the alliance’s anti-ballistic shield. Overall, contemporary developments may enable Russia to challenge American control of a geopolitically vital area that has been in essence uncontested since the end of World War II
On the Discrimination Power of Dynamic Features for Online Signature
Get PDFThe mobile market has taken huge leap in the last
two decades, re-defining the rules of communication, networking, socializing and transactions among individuals and organizations.
Authentication based on verification of signature on mobile
devices, is slowly gaining popularity. Most online signature verification algorithms focus on computing the global Equal Error Rate across all users for a dataset. In this work, contrary to such a representation, it is shown that there are user-specific differences on the combined features and user-specific differences on each feature of the Equal Error Rate(EER) values. The experiments to test the hypothesis is carried out on the two publicly available dataset using the dynamic time warping algorithm. From the experiments, it is observed that for the MCYT-100 dataset, which yields an overall EER of 0.08, the range of user-specific EER is between 0 and 0.27
Automatic Hotspots Detection for Intracellular Calcium Analysis in Fluorescence Microscopic Videos
No full textIn recent years, life-cell imaging techniques and their software applications have become powerful tools to investigate complex biological mechanisms such as calcium signalling. In this paper, we propose an automated framework to detect are-as inside cells that show changes in their calcium concentration i.e. the regions of interests or hotspots, based on videos taken after loading living mouse cardiomyocytes with fluorescent calcium reporter dyes. The proposed system allows an objective and efficient analysis through the following four key stages: 1) Pre-processing to enhance video quality, 2) First level segmentation to detect candidate hotspots based on adaptive thresholding on the frame level, 3) Second-level segmentation to fuse and identify the best hotspots from the entire video by pro-posing the concept of calcium fluorescence hit-ratio, and 4) Extraction of the changes of calcium fluorescence over time per hotspot. From the extracted signals, different measurements are calculated such as maximum peak amplitude, area under the curve, peak frequency, and inter-spike interval of calcium changes. The system was tested using calcium imaging data collected from Heart muscle cells. The paper argues that the automated proposal offers biologists a tool to speed up the processing time and mitigate the consequences of inter-intra observer variability
Imagined Steps: Mental Simulation of Coordinated Rhythmic Movements Effects on Pro-Sociality
No full textRhythmically coordinating with a partner can increase pro-sociality, but pro-sociality does not appear to change in proportion to coordination success, or particular classes of coordination. Pro-social benefits may have more to do with simply coordinating in a social context than the details of the actual coordination (Cross, Wilson, & Golonka, 2016). This begs the question, how stripped down can a coordination task be and still affect pro-sociality? Would it be sufficient simply to imagine coordinating with others? Imagining a social interaction can lead to many of the same effects as actual interaction (Crisp & Turner, 2009). We report the first experiments to explore whether imagined coordination affects pro-sociality similarly to actual coordination. Across two experiments and over 450 participants, mentally simulated coordination is shown to promote some, but not all, of the pro-social consequences of actual coordination. Imagined coordination significantly increased group cohesion and deindividuation, but did not consistently affect cooperation
Neuropathic pain in a rehabilitation setting after spinal cord injury: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of inpatients’ experiences
Get PDFStudy Design: Qualitative, semi-structured interviews.
Objectives: Neuropathic pain (NP) can be psychologically and physically debilitating, and is present in approximately half of the spinal cord injured (SCI) population. However, under half of those with NP are adherent to pain medication. Understanding the impact of NP during rehabilitation is required to reduce long-term impact and to promote adherence to medication and psychoeducation recommendations.
Setting: United Kingdom.
Methods: Five males and three females with SCI and chronic NP, resident in rehabilitation wards at a specialist SCI Centre in the UK, took part. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants less than 15 months post-SCI (mean = 8.4 months). Verbatim transcripts were subject to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).
Results: Three super-ordinate themes were identified, mediating pain and adherence: (1) the dichotomy of safety perceptions; (2) adherence despite adversity; and (3) fighting the future. Analyses suggest that experience of the rehabilitation setting and responsiveness of care shapes early distress. Attitudes to medication and psychosocial adjustment are relevant to developing expectations about pain management.
Conclusions: Enhancing self-efficacy, feelings of safety in hospital, and encouraging the adoption of adaptive coping strategies may enhance psychosocial and pain-related outcomes, and improve adherence to medication. Encouraging adaptive responses to, and interpretation of, pain, through the use of interventions such as coping effectiveness training, targeted cognitive behavioural pain management, and acceptance-based interventions such as mindfulness, is recommended in order to reduce long-term reliance on medication.
Keywords: SCI/SCD; pharmacological treatment; acceptance; coping; safet
Mindfulness Interventions in Medical Education: A Systematic Review of their Impact on Undergraduate Medical Student Stress, Depression, Fatigue and Burnout
Get PDFIntroduction. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have gained popularity in medical education. A systematic review was conducted to determine the effectiveness of MBIs for reducing psychological distress in undergraduate medical students.
Methods. A search protocol was conducted using online databases Embase, PubMed, PsycINFO, and MEDLINE. Articles were required to meet the following criteria to be included: (1) describe a MBI or use of mindfulness exercises as part of an intervention, (2) include at least one of: stress, burnout, fatigue or depression, as an outcome, (3) include quantitative outcomes, and (4) published in English in a peer-reviewed journal.
Results. 12 articles were reviewed. Seven studies reported improvements in at least one targeted outcome. Four of seven studies exploring the impact on stress reported improvements. Five articles studying depression reported reductions. One study exploring burnout reported a decrease on a single subscale. Only one study measured the impact on fatigue (no change reported). Half of studies reviewed included predominantly female samples.
Conclusions. Mixed evidence was found for the use of MBIs for reducing psychological distress in undergraduate medical students. Future work should aim to clarify the impact of mindfulness on burnout and fatigue, and explore the replicability of improvements in male medical students alone
Cyber warfare and autonomous self-defence
Get PDFThe last two decades have witnessed increased activity by states within the ‘fifth dimension’ (cyberspace) to conduct both civilian and military operations. It is now over two decades since Arquilla and Ronfeldt warned about the advent of cyber warfare in the foreseeable future, and cyberspace has now become a primary battlefield. Prevailing at the forefront of academic scrutiny within the jus ad bellum context is the extent to which cyber operations fall within the paradigm of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. A traditional and restrictive interpretation of the cornerstone prohibition contained in Article 2(4) would conclude that the type of force (either threatened or actual) would need to be military / kinetic, thus potentially excluding the possibility of cyber activities. Naturally, some states would contest that it is the consequence suffered rather than the modality of attack.
In turn, this raises issues as to whether or not the injury suffered by a state subjected to a cyber attack would be sufficient to invoke its inherent right of self-defence. The scope of this article is to consider the natural technological trajectory of self-defence in cyber operations by examining the very real possibility that computer networks may be enabled to eventually seek to automatically defend themselves against more aggressive cyber intrusions—‘automated cyber self-defence’. This would therefore necessitate an examination of the way and extent to which such actions would fall within the existing framework regulating a defensive response. More controversially, the article will also assert that the temporal parameters of self-defence in response to a cyber attack may need re-calibration—issues of detection (particularly against dormant malware etc.) and attribution would prevent a state from responding in a more conventional timeframe. Would self-defence therefore be permissible or indeed desirable several months after an attack has occurred if it is only then attribution becomes clear
Touch Gesture-Based Authentication: A Security Analysis of Pattern Unlock
No full textPattern Unlock is one in a family of graphical passwords used on smart mobile devices. They were proposed as an alternative to PIN and Password as a result of a study [2] that showed better human memorability of visuals words than textual. Researchers have made several attempts to analyse and quantify the security of Pattern Unlock. However, only a few studies have been done on the correlation of human characteristics and choice of patterns.
In this paper, we investigated the Android Pattern Unlock authentication and presents a comprehensive analysis of user pattern characteristics and strength of patterns generated by users. We extended the analysis by looking in depth into gender and also different Android operated devices to get the lock-out and wait time, to lay the foundations of a practical security framework.
Our results (125 participants) indicated how users weakly choose their patterns by simply embedding and reusing patterns that are alphabetic or numeric-like, and having a strength score less than 27bits of entropy. The results highlighted the need to make users more aware and conscious when choosing their authentication patterns