http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio Greg Daigle's Blog gregdaigle@mac.com 2005-10-03 14:34:58 -0500 hourly 1 2005-10-03 14:34:58 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041011122853/LHA20051003141907/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041011122853/LHA20051003141907/index.html

Notes on the Nobel Conference 2005, St. Peter, MN

Date Created: Oct 03, 2005, 02:19 PM

41st Nobel Conference Sept 27 & 28, 2005 Gustavus Adolphus, St. Peter The Legacy of Einstein Day One Day One morning: Speaker One: Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle - John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. 2001 Nobel laureate in physics Wolfgang Ketterle is widely known for his research in atomic physics and laser spectroscopy, particularly in the area of ultracold atomic matter using samples of Bose-Einstein condensates. His research group at MIT has used these condensates as amplifiers for light and atoms and for high-precision atom interferometry. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize for physics with two physicists from the University of Colorado “for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates.” Quantum gases: the coldest matter in the universe. What is temperature? Movement of atoms. What happens to atoms at low temperatures? They slow down. How fast do they move? At the speed of a jet airplane: 500-600 mph (~250 m/sec). At low temperatures they slow down from 250 m/sec to 1mm/sec. Why can't you cool below -459 deg. F (0 deg. Kelvin)? Because there is no (free) energy left. What is the difference in temperature between summer and winter? On average 15% is the answer. This is a very small change. In the laboratories temperatures can easily go down to a nanokelvin: more than a million times colder than interstellar space. Why can you make new discoveries at these cold temperatures? It's like if you lived on the sun and invented refrigerators. You would be the first to discover liquids and solids. The role of the scientist is to take the veil off the face of nature (as symbolized in the graphics portrayed on the Nobel medal). What is Bose Einstein Condensation (BEC)? Phase transition at very low temps. Think of condensates as moving in lock step, like troops. They are no longer particles, but a wave. Like ordinary light vs laser light. So it is for the creation of matter with the properties of laser light. Albert Einstein in 1925 took the predictions of and Satyendra Nath Bose and Max Planck's notion of black-body radiation "photons" and generalized them to gases. After making the prediction he asked "the theory is pretty, but is there also some truth to it?" In 1938 Fritz(?) realized that it is an observable phenomenon. Cooling methods include laser cooling and evaporative cooling. Laser cooling uses lasers to heat atoms to fluorescence. The atoms absorb the longer laser light and (using the trick of Doppler shifting the light to "bluer" frequencies) reemit the energy as more energetic blue shifted light. The release of more energetic photons lowers the energy level of the atoms and thus cools it. Not cold enough for BEC. So they add evaporative cooling. Magnetic trapping is a thermos for nonokelvin atoms. Then you make sure the hottest atoms escape, and that leaves you with the BEC. 450 picokelvin is the lowest manmade temperature achieved so far. Experiments are complex and that's a challenge. How do we show that the BEC has very low energy? We can't touch it to measure it. The condensate is a puff of gas 100,000 times thinner than air. Width of the condensate is comparable to the thickness of a hair and it is magnetically suspended in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber. How to measure temperature? Essentially, they put it in a balloon in vacuum chamber, pop balloon and the speed at which it leaves the chamber as an effusive atomic beam is measured. Using formula for kinetic energy, you can calculate the temperature. Ballistic expansion gives direct information about velocity distribution. Measuring the shadow of the atoms you can establish a distribution and that indicates the temperature. Shadow of atoms is also known as the absorption image. (He showed the shadow of a cloud of bosons as the temperature is decreased.) A shrinking condensate is indicated by a smaller and smaller gray shadow. Suddenly the center of the shadow becomes black and elliptical. Temperature is linearly related to the rf frequency which controls the evaporation. At 679 kHz it is a complete condensate. First observation of BEC in sodium. 10th anniversary coming up. Magnetic trap with optical plug, using magnetic field coils to trap atoms. In one early experiment they noted that some gas didn't fly away from each other. Indicated BEC. But the shadow was split. The problem was the cooling laser beam pushed the BEC away. Needeed to switch off the laser beam. When rewired the apparatus they did that, 15 minutes later, they got BEC clearly. To confirm the finding that atoms could move coherently like laser light, they split the beam and condensed two closely adjacent areas. Then they reduced the distance and the two condensates overlapped. A histogram showed an image of interference patterns, with atoms (light absorbing) shown as the dark lines and no atoms (0% absorption) as the light areas. When awarded the prize, an artist captures the significance of each recipient's discovery in the art of the certificate showing his work abstractly. How do we show that the BEC is a superfluid? Interestingly, they found their answer late at night. Supports his contention that nothing happens in morning, mostly late evening to 5AM. Just the nature of doing physics. How to prove tht atoms march in lockstep? Would have to prove they are a wave. e.g. shoot a paint ball on a white wall and you get a red spot. Another paint ball gives two red spots and a darker overlap. If you overlap two laser beam points you get a fringe pattern: bright-dark-bright-dark patterns. If you overlap two condensates, the shadow pictures shows (split with laser (splitter) What they observed were fringe patterns. Superconductivity and superfluidity are related. For charges particles you get superconductivity and superfluidity for neutral particles. Differences between normal and quantum matter are profound if you rotate them. With normal matter the water rotates with bucket and you get a meniscus. Rotating a superfluid develops mini-tornadoes. You are rotating waves. Wave has to close on itself. Faster it rotates, faster it wiggles around. Wave has to bite its own tail. Normal bucket of fluid spins faster near the edge A wave has steps or discontinuities as you get closer to the edge. You would expect rings with different levels. But nature doesn't do concentric rings, so you get individual vortices. The rotating bucket experiment is done with a superfluid gas 100,000 times thinner than air, you rotate green laser beams and then expand it. The result is little tunnel vortices in the gas. Current research: cold molecules and cold fermions. Molecules more complicated, but perhaps cool a molecule and then split to two cooled atoms. . If atoms and molecule of two atoms have exactly the same energy, then you get a Feshback resonance. Then two atoms at BEC temps can form a BEC molecule. It was less than 2 years ago that 3 groups achieved BEC with molecules. Outlook: ultracold chemistry, coherent transformation of atoms to molecules, ultracold fermions. Two kinds of particles: bosons and fermions. Bosons have an even number of spin and quarks. Fermions have odd number of spin and number of quarks. Bosons and fermions can also be atoms: if the total number of neutrons, protons and electrons in an atom is odd, then the atom is a fermion: if this total is even then the atom is a boson atoms: and are high energy. They are "sociable and will share the same quantum numbers. Fermions have odd number of spin, are lower energy and want to stay away from each other. The Pauli principle forbids them from sharing same quantum level as other particles. Fermions have oddnumber of protons, neutrons and electrons. Bosons have even number of protons, neutrons, electrons. Could get two fermions to come together on a level. Within that level you have an even number. So they act like bosons. Fermions form a fermi sea: atoms are not coherent and no superfluidity. That is why sodium can become a boson or fermion, depending upon the number of neutrons (forming different isotopes). Pairing of fermions is one of the most important frontiers in condensed matter physics. Electrons are also fermions. Paring of electrons is important to superconductivity, magnets, loss-less transport of energy [something to do with cooper pairs]. For the Future: ultracold atoms: a toolbox for designer matter. Normal matter is tightly packed atoms, complicated interactions, impurities. Ultracold atoms are extremely dilute, so it's a challenge to work with larger clumps matter. The forces between BEC atoms are 100M times weaker because they are spaced further apart than regular matter, have no impuriies, and exact calculations can be made for their behavior. Q&A Gates - Supersymmetry and superstrings, how different is your use of "super"? A - Uses it to mean extraordinary, going beyond. "Super" as a prefix has provided good marketing and advertisement, but use it sparingly. Levinson - phase transitions .. what happens at that moment of phase transition? A - It is a special moment. Thorne - Einstein 35 years before laser, now it's 50 years after laser. What happens 50 years from now? A - it's an atom laser, maybe in all households. Atoms very differnt nature from light. Light penetrates the air but atoms get stuck in the atmosphere. Possibly mater wave sensors and other applications. Ellis - Think about the duality of studying lowest energy in universe rather than highest energy possible as fusion physicists do. Interesting bipolarity. Gates - Are designer materials, ultrapure? What can you do with that? A - Yes and no. Remember BECs are only 10M atoms big. Fentograms worth, that's nothing. Other - Q - how does Pauli exclusion principle apply? A - It applies to the electronics inside, but doesn't easily apply to the electrons at those low temperatures. Q - Why sodium? A - Picked an atom with best properties. Element with existing associated lasers. Also convenience. Q - Sodium has odd # electrons, is it a fermion? A - You have to consider all nucleons (protons, neutrons). Q - Why magnets? A - Sodium is magnetic, can use magnet to hold atoms together and in place. Q - Which other molecules will you study? A - Using sodium molecules now, later, rubidiuim molecules Q - Why does it form vortices? A - It forms a regular lattice of vortices to attain the lowest possible form of energy. In some sense the vortices are like particles. Q - How accurate were predictions in the original paper? A - Accurate for an ideal gas. LUNCH Day One afternoon: Speaker Two: Thomas Levenson - Associate Professor of Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Author and documentary film maker, Watertown, Massachusetts Thomas Levenson is an associate professor of science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of books on science, technology, and history, including the widely acclaimed biography Einstein in Berlin (Bantam, 2003). Einstein in Berlin focuses on the 18 years, from 1914 through 1932, that the Einstein spent in Germany between the two world warsa span that mirrored the entire 20th century in its swings from periods of great hope to calamitous strife. Levenson's narrative tells the story of how a former patent clerk became the greatest scientist of the modern era. "The Education of Albert Einstein 1914 - 1932" Tried to keep the world from sliding into disaster. Mention of Einstein in Dylan's Desolation Row. Who was the real man, not the icon? Icon: wild hair, sage, being stalked by his mythogical namesake. Wit, person who could joke. Though high school too militaristic. Finished university at 21. Was a father at about age 25. Unable to land academic job because of open warfare with his professors. His real education begins in earnest in 1914, nine years after his first publication. Berlin was where he could do his work undisturbed. He wanted to be free of all obligations. First Lesson: in which Elinstein learns that intelligence and wisdom are not correlated. Aug 4, 1914, Gret Brittan entered WW1. Thomas Mann, "Praise God ... for the collapse of the peaceful world" (1914). Mann was not alone, many did rejoice. Einstein thought that horrible. The enthusiasm is what bothered Einstein. He didn't find that group of like-minded individuals in Berlin. Left Berlin, hoped to serve as a military courier. He revered Max Planck, but Planck was a supporter of war. Blamed Brittain and France on the war. He was a racist, blaming "mongrels and negroes...". One of his associates developed poisen gas. That scientist's wife developed depression and committed suicide. Called it brilliant brutality. Made himself obnoxious to German Govt. Was ranked #19 on list of dissident scientists known by the German Govt. His writings to urge his government to make ties with others after the war was considered radical and not supported by other scientists. October 1915 wrote essay for group while writing the theory of GR. Wrote that as a Jew he recognized that Jesus told people to work by their deeds and the German people should do so. Germans didn't care. He that by rising to top of scientific heap he would ascend to a plateau above politics, but no such island existed. He confronted necessity to confront evil in public. Even during the last week of his life he signed an appeal for sanity. The Second Lesson: In which Einstein discovers how to be Jewish. - framing his desire to act as a moral person in the world. He was not a joiner, not a believer in the conventional sense. Previously not religious. But later had his picture taken holding a violin and wearing Yamaha. Berlin became terrible place to be a Jew after the war started. Camps became hell-holes. Jewish establishment also saw inflow of Eastern Jews as a threat to their own establishment. Einstein, appalled by government's acts officially joined the Berlin Jewish community. Important to remember that this was hardly a risk-free position. He was very publicly known, but his name was found on death lists. Never contemplated the existence of a diety. Argued that serving God was equated with serving the living. Never saw a conflict between the bible and science. "Live rightly, accept justice and walk modestly with your God" [??] Praised non-Jews at Jewish events for their support. "Sacrifice becomes grace." Third Lesson: In which Einstein confronts the eternal war between truth and beauty - Group shot of first "Solday Conference" [??] for physicists. "Still unsolved problem of the quantum". At 5th Solday conference, big names. By 1925 Heisenburg described quantum mechanics (QM). Schroeinger developed a similar method for QM. Aesthetically it was unlovely. In 1916 suggested conservation of momentum might not always exist. He didn't like the model of QM. Thought theory was not elegant enough "He does not play dice". Bohr, responsed "Who are you to tell God what to do?" Where did revolution of 1925 go? Best work for Einstein and that of Bohr and Heisenberg, were at ages 24-26. Einstein knew he was very elderly for a physicist doing his best work. Made conscious choice not to accept QM. Had an aesthetic side, sense of what was beautiful. But beauty is an unreliable marker of truth. Fourth Lesson: In which Einstein confronts the gap between hope and fact. In early 1930s Joseph Goebbels forced Einstein to abandon his research in Germany. Accepted that he failed to influence politics and accepted that failure. Became a true pacifist, saying that moral stand was more important than your country. In Dec. 1932 he gave up. He left Germany. Saw Hitler for what he was. Knew he was intent on war. No longer a pacifist, he wanted allies to prepare for war against Hitler. In 1939, first of 2 letters to Roosevelt re: atomic bomb. second sent soon after. Democracy is forced to fight for survival. Signed manifesto for global disarmament along with Bertrand Russell. Q&A Q - Dirac believed his theory of QM was based purely upon beauty, what did Einstein think of it? A - Einstein thought it not beautiful. Dyson tested relativity during the eclipse of 1919. Didn't mention to British authorities that relativity was a German theory, but it got Eddington out of military service. Gates - Einstein called racism America's worst disease. Firmly convinced that racism was fatal misconception. Spoke out for rights of African Americans. FBI had file on Einstein as a subversive. Q - What are the other lessons for Einstein? A - Gregarious, he found out about nature of fame and publicity. Had core set of political and social passions. Not a builder of laboratories, but helped others build theirs. Thorne - Einstein never set foot on German soil again. How obstinate was he re: Germany. A - After holocaust became known he didn't care if Germany was dismantled stone by stone. After 1936 became a "bear in his den". He rarely traveled. BREAK Day One late afternoon: Speaker Three: Kip Thorne - Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California Caltech’s Kip Thorne is one of the world’s foremost experts on the consequences of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Thorne has done pioneering research on black holes and gravitational physics and laid the foundations for the theory of pulsations of relativistic stars and the gravitational waves they emit. He is a co-founder of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) Project, whose goal is to detect gravitational waves emitting from black holes, a search that could ultimately provide a view of one of the universe’s most mysterious objects. Studies black holes. Cofounded the laser interferometer lab for detecting the gravity waves produced by black holes. CalTech faculty. National Academy of Sciences, many honorary degrees. co-authored "Gravitation". Recognized for research, general writings, teacher. Newton and Einstein. Newton 1643-1727: a framework for the laws of nature that last 200 years. Space, time, forces, accelerations ... everyday experience. Einstein 1876 - 1955: A new framework, now in place for 100 years. Laws the same in all reference frames. Time is "relative" (personal); space is "relative" (personal). Minkowski: Space-time unified; absolute (4 dimensions). Teacher of Einstein's Discovered in Einstein's laws a way to unify space and time. This is an absolute reference frame. Laws as 4 dimensional geometry. Space-time (and space & time) warped by mass & energy they contain. The warping of space he means: space is warped inside and around the sun and any other massive body. So a flat sheet bisecting the sun won't be euclidian. The parallel lines will cross. Warping of space and time like a rubber sheet. Deflection of starlight [Einstein 1915]. There is a shift (gravity lensing). Verified by Eclipse Expedition of 1919. By 1955 the test data was found to be not very accurate. Appeared to be too big by about 20%. In 1970 they used radio interferometry. By 2005 accuracy was found to be to 1 part in 10,000 (.01%). Using SIM (Space Interferometry Mission), to be launched in 2011, researchers will map stars in sky to 4 microarcsecond accuracy, 1,000 times more accurate that solar light deflection for measurements far from the sun. But this may be bumped by Bush's Moon/Mars mission. Warping of Space: gravitational Lensing [Einstein 1912, 1936]. SIM will search for exotic objects, map dark matter in galaxies and clusters of galaxies, and measure the cosmological properties of the Universe. Warping of Time [Einstein 1915] TIme slows near any massive body. 1955 it's still controversial! Sun is messy! 1976 Gravity Probe A, Robert Vessot predicted time slows near earth by 4 parts in 10 billion. Confirmed to accuracy of 0.01 per cent. Warping of Time today: global positioning System (GPS) works on basis of accurate clocks in satellites. GPS would not work if correction for rate of time not built into it. The Whirl of space: The angular momentum of a rotating body drags space into tornado like whirl around it [ Lens & Thiring 1919]. Accounts for one revolution every six million years. Gravity Probe B's goal is to measure space whirl to one per cent accuracy. Some data in. Results due in one year. Black Hole (BH) made from warped space-time. Predicted by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916. Oppenheimer & Synder gave specific predictions in 1939. Diameter is very large compared to pi because of the warping of space (dimple). Below the event horizon no signal or light can escape because time slows, and below the horizon time flows backward [?]. As black hole spins it creates a whirl of space. The challenge for coming decade: probe black holes in exquisite detail. Map for non-spinning hole. At event horizon the rate of time is zero. A fast spinning hole has a long narrow throat. How can we see a black hole and map its space-time warpage? Use radiation made from the same stuff as the hole: a second smaller black hole in orbit will produce gravitational waves. Full map of big hole's warpage is encoded in the waves. This includes all aspects of small black hole as it orbits a big black hole. For a pair, the small BH creates frequency, large BH creates precession of small BH, given as a modulation in the signal. How to monitor gravitational waves? Consider it being like two corks on the waves of the ocean. Monitor that motion with corks. Earth-based detectors. Small holes in distant galaxies: about 10-100 suns, about 100 km in size. Using a network LIGO detectors. Network is required for detection confidence, waveform extraction and direction by triangulation. LIGO has built two detectors in the US (one in Hanford WA, one in Livingston LA). Full network requires collaboration of about 500 scientists at about 50 institutions in 8 countries. LIGO (laser interferometer gravitational-wave detector) works by the motion of mirrors. It will detect one part in 10 to the -21st power in the GW field. Motion is 4 times 10 to the -16th power cm of movement. How small is ten to the -16th"? Well, 1-cm is 10 to the -2 m, human hair is 10 to the -4 m, wavelength of light is 10 to the -6 m, atomic diameter is 10 -8 m, nuclear diameter is 10 to -13 m, LIGO sensitivity is 10 -16th m. A year-long search begins next month. LISA is a planned 3 satellite laser interferometer space antenna to be launched in 2014 (again, probably Moon/Mars funding will ground LISA). Looks at giant holes in distant galaxies where there may be 1 million suns the same diameter as LISA when deployed. In orbit around the sun like the Earth. What if map is not that of a BH? May have discovered a new type of inhabitant of the dark side of the universe. Two long-shot possibilities are: - Boson stars - objects made from cold, dark matter (dark "stars") - Naked Singularities - where gravity becomes infinitely strong with strange warping of gravity. Probing the big BH's event horizon and subsequent tides by small BH, will be the job of LISA. Most interesting source of waves will be collisions of BHs. The most violent events in the universe. In such a case 10% of a hole's mass is converted to radiation. Fusion has efficiency of .5 of 1%. With a colliding BH there are no electromagnetic waves emitted whatsoever, just gravity waves. When they collide you get tornados, wild vibrations of warped space-time. How far can we see these collisions? 250M light years (includes about 50,000 galaxies) estimates predict one collision every 10 years (so we have to be lucky to see one). Upgrade in 2010 to advanced detectors with greater capability. Want to interpret observed waves and compare with computer simulations. Simulations are very difficult. Movie made by numerical relativity group in Golem Germany depicts the waves. Singularity in BH's core. Domain of quantum gravity: string/M theory (Gates' lecture). Is there any hope to ever do experimental studies of singularities in the present day universe? Probably not. Roger Penrose' Cosmic Censorship Conjecture: all singularies are hidden. Thorne bet Hawking about naked singularies along with Prescal. Hawking has conceded the bet, but not graciously. Conceded because of the result of imploding gravitational waves. They had enough energy to nearly form a BH, but waves went in , interacted nonlinearly, and created a naked singularity. At the center both time and space began to boil. Right at the center was a naked singularity. Lasts for infinitesimal time. Wormholes and Time travel: Wormholes span the universe through a hole in hyper-space. GR says they could exist if you could keep throat open. But to do that you have to thread through it a string of matter with a negative energy. Backward Time Travel: Kip said in 1988-90 that if you have a wormhole, it's easy to make a time machine. Time dilation ahead or behind if you go through the wormhole. Kip and Kim 1990 say you get an explosion when you try to activate it due to quantum fluctuations in the same space and time. You get a quantum feedback loop. Kip later said that the explosion is weak, resulting in no destruction. Hawking said you're wrong and that the time machine self destructs.: chronology protection conjecture. Growing consensus is that only the laws of quantum gravity know for sure. Stephen Hawking's 60th birthday gift to Kip: a first attempt to estimate via quantum gravity that there is zero probability that time machines can be created (to the level of 1 in 10 to the 60th). His 60th birthday gift to Stephen was LIGO and LISA will test his BH predictions. Our extreme ignorance of warped space-time: Does a BH have the precise shapes of warping that GR predicts? What happens when BHs collide? What other objects made from warped space-time ... exist? Singularies: what are their structures? Q&A Q - ? A - If the laws of physics permit time travel they should keep the world safe for not only historians but also physicists. Self consistency proposed by Novakoff. Says you can't go backward in history. Full story not known. Might collide with yourself coming back so balance might be preserved. Q - Ellis - expert on GR. No fixed space-time to grab onto. It's all moving around. Also, time machines discussion between Einstein and Gerbel. It upset Einstein. A - Went to see Gerbel, wanted to know about galaxy spins lining up. Time travel perhaps affected by net spin of universe. Duhler [?] example of naked singularities. Hawking says nature abhors naked singularity. Challenge is whether or not singularity is generic or a special case. If you disturb it slightly do you still get a naked singularity? Q - Freedman - do you have concern about the background noise to be detected by LIGO ? A - Lasts for seconds to tens of minutes. If only a few times a day it should be okay. For LISA it is a major issue. Small objects falling into BH all the time. Have to sort them out. Have to develop ways to separate out sources. Thousands or millions of sources for LISA. Q - Levenson - how well was precession of Mercury known at that time of Einstein? A - Maybe 10%, not real good, but enough to be a question for decades until Einstein's predictions. Q - Gates - Ray Wise some months ago, LIGO science has started already. What are possibilities that might lie around corner if they are lucky? A - Depends on how kind nature is to us. There are uncertainties. Here, as with x-ray astronomy, theorists can predict but the astronomy capability lags behind theory. Do have a shot at seeing real waves. LIGO is funded by NSF, not NASA. However LISA depends upon NASA. Q - How fast do gravity waves travel? A - GR says at speed of light. Nature of physics says energy travels via quanta called gravitons. Like photons they lack zero rest mass. Can test. Gamma ray bursts would exhibit gravity waves and light waves arriving at same time. Q - Quantization of time? A - Gates: quantization of space-time, no fundamental quantization of time, but some measure of effect on scale of space-time that can be measured. Q - Mathematical predication of where BHs are found? A - Look in region of space with clusters of stars or massive stars. Better odds there. Day Two Day Two morning: Speaker Four: Sylvester James Gates, Jr. John S. Toll Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park S. James Gates Jr. has focused his research on the mathematical and theoretical physics of “super-symmetric” particles, fields, and “strings,” including topics such as the physics of quarks, leptons, gravity, super and heterotic strings, and unified field theories of the type first envisioned by Albert Einstein. Gates’s work has been featured, along with that of several fellow physicists working in superstring theory, in a 1996 television program titled “The Path of Most Resistance,” part of the PBS television series Breakthrough: The Changing Face of Science in America. "Is Cosmic Concordance in Concomitance with Superstring/M-Theory". What is important is to find you passion and then live it every day. Gravity, QM and GR need to be combined somehow. Super-symmetry and string theory may be the path. Accessible only to a small number of physicists who can do the math. Teaches undergrads every year. Kenneth Griggs did the animation. Images are his creations. Necessary because no part of string theory has every been observed in the laboratory. Einstein's biggest blunder: the Cosmological Constant. Introduced in his Field Equation. It was for the "quasi-static distribution of matter as required by the fact of the small velocities of the stars". Later thought it was the "biggest blunder he ever made in his life". Lambda is the cosmological constant. At the time all thought the universe had been here forever. It was a fudge factor inserted in the field equation. Big bang and big crunch is possible if Lambda = 0 (no constant). If Lambda is less than 0 you get expanding universe that speeds up (concordance model). If Lambda is greater than 0 you get a fixed universe bubble or fast expanding universe. Dark energy: 65% of energy in universe, dark matter is 30% regular matter (baryons) is 5%. Dark matter keeps galaxies together. Computer simulations show that without it a pinwheel galaxy would spin apart. So it plays some role sustaining galaxies over billions of years. Galaxy at instant of big bang has equal distribution of energy, (concordance model). One early clue was that satellites launched into orbit to detect nuclear explosions occasionally got out of alignment and turned their sensors outward. They detected explosions from outside the solar system. Natural phenomena. This creates violent ripples in space-time. LIGO is set to detect these. LIGO measures changes in distance caused by ripples in space that are perhaps 1/100th of the diameter of a proton. It's like a sonogram. Analogy is that we're in the womb making sonograms of our mother (the universe). Science fiction is motivated by science. Strings are on the order of 10 to the -35 meters in scale. Compare to protons on the scale of 10 to the -15, atoms on the scale of 10 to the -10, DNA on the scale of 10 to the -9, cells on the scale of 10 to the -5. The Bosonic String uses non-covariant and covariant equations. Employs number theory, topology, etc. Leptons (electrons & friends) include all those that spin at a half H-bar. Quarks are in protons, neutrons, etc. and they spin at a whole H-bar. Action at a distance is not consistent with Einstein's SR. Time and space are not independent. According to the math, action is instantaneous, but that's not the case if all travels at the speed of light. How to resolve? The interaction paradigm is one photon sending a message carrier. That message carrier conveying forces has a time delay that accounts for forces not being instantaneous. Photoelectric effect showed that there was a classical path and a quantum path. Analogy: Kids don't understand at first how objects fly through air, but they learn. Dogs catching frisbees can learn it too. Einstein didn't trust QM, but cell phones are a good test that it does work. Interaction paradigm could also be an electron giving off a photon and it splits into an electron and a positron, they recombine, and it is transferred to another photon. Quantum weirdness. Feynman Rules. Ultra-violet infra-red catastrophe of GR. In 1960 Hawking and Beckinstein said you can escape from a BH but requires quantum weirdness. So you have quantum rules happening on a gravitational scale. Hawking's BH radiation paper used gray-body factors and suggested that there is a gap that contains this "guess" that combines them. Where does string theory fit in physics? Waves and particles replaced by filaments. It has normal modes (like notes from a string). Strings can be open or closed (ends tied together). Like spaghetti and spaghetti-Os. These are not fairytales, they represent the mathematics. Complex, but not more than an orchestral performance represented by musical scores. In how many different perspectives can you see an object? In 3D there are three: top-bottom, back-front, left-right. But strings require 25 ways. In the first generation of string theory no one incorporated spin. So they took the math of spinning electrons and applied it to strings. Created "spinning string". This approach required only 10 dimensions. In 1984 four physicists wrote equations for the 10D heterotic superstring. Nodes of vibration are points that don't move in a vibrating string. They rotated the nodes. Propagation of left-moving modes. In a single package this describes gravity and quantum theory. This filled in the "guess" that Hawking made. Exactly in agreement. In late 90s 4D heterotic superstrings. Electrical charge, weak charge & families save the day. More complicated than their 10D cousins. Right movers and left movers (propagation of left-moving modes). So this shows that extra dimensions aren't required (but still may happen). Formulation C: three formulations of heterotic strings. How forces arise in string theory: two free closed strings join to form a single closed string: C3. In reverse, they can split apart (C3 : C1 and C2). Since strings represent notes and notes are particles, following the notes shows that there is a well established mathematical basis for quantum gravity. SLeptons and Leptons means that symmetry mandates string versions of leptons. This yields photinos, selectrons, smuons, staons. He says it would have been proved by the super conducting supercollider, but wasn't built. So they saved the cost of 4-5 B2 bombers by not building it. Q&A Freedman - Is String Theory Concomitant? A - Many parts are, especially concordance of dark matter. String theory looks very good here. Quintessence (cosmological constant) is greatest challenge to string theory. Fudge factor is highly nontrivial. In special limit of string theory you can put fudge factor in if superstring theory employed. Levenson - in legacy of Einstein, how does string theory fit? Geometry is a way of thinking. Geometrical thinking A - Geometry is the key to string theory. Incomplete. We don't understand what geometry means in totality of string theory. Still looking for that iconic image of a man in the elevator. No such deep dramatic statements in string theory. Few think Einstein will be correct in this regards. Ellis - you are cautious and many colleagues in string are not. Penrose's Road to Reality discusses geometric side. 4D very exciting but not linked to cosmology yet. Loop quantum gravity is a new theory and this could link to string. A - Loop Quantum Gravity he opposes. Problem is that Energy Momentum Tensor (us) can be set to zero. But in string theory you can not set EMT to zero, you must have it for 4D theory. Says space, matter, energy equally important. Thinks the two theories will coalesce through use of spin networks. GR has no fixed reference frame, and string theory does. String loops (spaghetti-Os) are the forces of gravity. Covariant string field theory. That's the geometric route for spaghetti-Os to combine with Einstein's theories. Q - Place of uncertainty in string theory? A - Assume that we have properly understood quantum theory, so uncertainty is a basis. Q - Is there a medium in which strings vibrate? A - It doesn't vibrate in a medium despite the animations (not the truth). Don't require an extra dimension in which to perform the vibrations. Q - Is 10 to the -35 scale is coincident with Planck's constant? A - Not a coincidence. Math of string theory has behavior of Einstein's graviton. Had to insert Planck length to make it work. Q - Multiple spatial dimensions but only 1 temporal dimension. Could there be more than one temporal? A - Yes, called inequities string theories. Not sure why they're there or what they're good for. Not the only place in physics where two time dimensions exist. Q - If Einstein were alive what would he say. Levenson - he'd say math is above him, would have been an outsider but would have approved of program. Open question if he would find this satisfying solution but would approved geometric quality of the work. Didn't like QM but recognized it worked. Ellis - Wouldn't have understood it. Freedman - Was looking for unified theory and philosophically would have been delighted. Gates - Krauss appeared on panel and this question came up. He said Einstein would have been working on not but would not have told anybody! Q - How would superconducting supercollider (SSC) advance physics? A - Was to have been built in Texas. Looking for a Higgs particle. Enormously important particle, "God particle". LHC Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is 1/3 as powerful. Hope it has enough energy to see Higgs. Q - How large can a string get? A - Being explored. Whitten suggested cosmic string (crack in space-time) causing gravitational [??] Tiny strings could generate larger cosmic strings. Sizes could be astronomical. LUNCH Day Two afternoon: Speaker Five: Wendy Freedman - The Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair and Director of Carnegie Observatories, Pasadena, California Observational cosmology, galactic evolution, and the evolution of stellar populations are Wendy Freedman's main professional interests. She was a principal investigator for a team of 30 astronomers who carried out the Hubble Key Project to measure the current expansion rate of the universe. Her current research interests are directed at measuring the past expansion rate of the universe, and in characterizing the nature of dark energy, which is causing the universe to speed up its expansion. "The Legacy of Albert Einstein for Cosmology". Played hockey at U Toronto. Einstein Simplified: College-level course on GR. Rather simple explanations are deceptive to non-mathematicians. Most equations lead to very long equations. SR (1905) says space and time are related. GR (1915) says space is dynamical (curved). Newton said the force of gravity depends on the mass of the objects and falls inversely as the square of the distance between them. Unappealing aspect of gravity for Newton: Action at a distance. Pre-Einstein view of the universe said it had structures (stars) and was 30K light years across. Composition of universe was stars with some clusters. Static universe. Origin unknown. Space and time are absolute. Sun at the center of the Milky-way galaxy. Today we know that the radius of the observable universe is 13.7 B light years. Composition is stars, galaxies, dark matter, dark energy. Dynamic (changing in time). Big Bang origin. Space and time are related; space is curved. 100B stars in our galaxy, about 100B galaxies in the universe. Dark matter interacts only weakly with matter. Dark energy accelerates the universe expansion. It is a runaway Universe. Einstein's Ideas: G represents curvature of space geometry in his equation. Implication is that a massive body curves space in its vicinity. GR predicts gravitational waves, ripples in the space-time curvature. Ripples travel at speed of light through space. GR says light beam near a massive object appears to fall (bend). LIght "falls" due to gravity! Matter tells space how to curve and space tells matter how to move. GR: 4D space-time. Hubble: 1929 discovered expansion of Universe. Interested in fuzzy patches of light (nebulae). Galaxies not known at the time. Mt. Wilson telescope. Variable stars change position on a human timeframe. Variable stars discovered in 1700s. Get bright then fade their luminosity gradually, e.g. the Cepheid Variable (in Andromeda). Wanted to compare difference in luminosity between cepheids. Found very large distances between them that indicated existence of galaxies. So galaxies are moving and far apart. Suggests evolution of the universe with dense matter and inflation. 386K years after the big bang you get microwaves from the first galaxies. After 1B years you get light. One test of big bang is remnant radiation (microwaves) and temperature of background would be 2.7 deg K. with a characteristic spectrum. Peak of distribution is bluer for hotter bodies than cold bodies. This is the "black body" spectrum. That's what they found. Measured error of 1/1000%, so it's very accurate. Structure of the universe: Temperature measurements on a plot were shown. Rate of expansion is the Hubble Constant. Quantum uncertainties led to temperature differences. Locally there is a lot of structure formed by filaments but as a whole it is very homogeneous. Measuring and modeling the universe: combining physics of the very small with physics of the very large. Quantum and Cosmology. GR equation said Hubble parameter equals mass density minus curvature of the universe plus vacuum energy density. Hubble found distance related to how fast galaxies are moving away from us. Showed that expansion of the universe required in Einstein's equations. Brighter cepheid variables pulsate slower than the less bright cepheids. Showed a cartoon showing married astronomers fighting about ... the Hubble constant? The universe is 1/3 matter and 2/3 dark energy. Evidence for dark energy is that the universe is accelerating. Supernovae can be observed across the universe to chart its expansion. What is a Type 1a supernova? When fuel exhausted star collapses to white dwarf. If in a binary system with a companion the white dwarf pulls in atmosphere (gases) and eventually it explodes. 1998 observing distant supernovae showed fainter than predicted if inflation were slowing down. Showed inflation was speeding up. Observatory in the Andes mountain. 290 nights per year are clear and far from the city lights. Chilean telescopes The Magellan in Las Campanas. Used for measuring dark energy. Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) consistent with other observations of 1/3 matter 2/3 dark energy. Giant future ground-based telescope. 24 meter, Giant Magellan Telescope. 7 independent mirrors, each with 8.4 meter mirrors, 21.5 meter aperture. Completion in 2016. Q&A Ellis - Should have been clear to Einstein that there's no way to have an infinite universe. So why didn't he challenge it? After all, stars don't last forever. And in a stable universe they would have to last forever. Ellis - proposes that awards should have been given to Gamoff who predicted cosmic background radiation and its energy level. A - Cosmologists didn't take it seriously enough to measure accurately. Q - Don't assume that universe is spatially flat. Frustrating that in reducing data people ignore some small measures that turn out to be very important. Whether the universe is spatially closed depends upon this. A - Agrees Gates - 2 questions. How do you know Earth is billions of years old? Were you there? (trying to make a point) A - Time scales are based on inference. Geological tests dating minerals. Using theory of radioactivity to measure decay rate and relative abundance. Can test theory and see if predictions are what is measured. Gates - Issue of knowing seems very volatile in public debate. Each scientist charged with nature of previous knowledge. Don't know all the answers but believe they have the ability to find them. Science is the DNA of your technology. Levenson - People have trouble with biological experiments (e.g. evolution), but less so for physical sciences. Attacked from all angles before they can be believed. A - Something is just a theory, people say. Scientists use it very differently. Gravity is just a theory. There is always testing. It is the nature of the enterprise. Gates - We call our greatest accomplishments theories. We must accept that someone else can prove that we are wrong or it isn't a theory. In principle others can always prove that we are wrong. That defines science. Other reason we call them theories is that for scientists they are more real than facts. Theories are based upon what we think of as facts and thus are greater than facts. Millions of facts are proved by theories. More powerful. But, in kind, facts can destroy theories. Bottom line for "pedestrian view" versus "scientist view": "Your guesses aren't as good as ours". Ellis - Maxwell's equations are proved with every cellphone call. Q - What are dark mass and dark energy? A - dark matter has mass and interacts weakly. One theory is that dark matter is made up of the most simple of the string theory particles. LATE AFTERNOON Speaker Five: George F. R. Ellis - Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa. George Francis Rayner Ellis specializes in general relativity theory, an area first broadly investigated by Einstein. A professor of applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, he is considered among the world’s leading relativistic cosmologists; his most recent investigations question whether there was ever a start to the universe and if there is in fact only one universe or many. He is as widely respected for his anti-apartheid, Quaker activism as for his significant contributions to cosmology. In 2004 he was awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, for “his important contributions to the dialogue at the boundary of theology and science.” Science of cosmology. Religion and science. "The existence of life in the universe and the crucial issue of ethics". Relationship of morality and compassion. Universe is vast, expanding, big bang, structures formed. Stars and planets formed and provided the environment for life to exist. Hundreds of millions of stars in star clusters. Our galaxy is similar to Andromeda. Scale of our galaxy is about 50K light years across. Galaxies exist in clusters giving a total of 200B stars in each of the estimated 200B galaxies. Showed original data from Edwin Hubble in 1929. When omega [related to lambda??] is 0 the universe has flat 3-spaces where kinetic energy and gravity are roughly in equilibrium. These are the ones that separate slowly. In the case of the negatively curved omega the kinetic energy wins and the universe expands rapidly. Positively curved 3-spaces gravity wins in a big crunch. CBR isotropy. When the isotropic is at 1 part in 100 the sky is completely uniform. 1 part in 1000 you get anisotropy where some parts are hot and some are cold. We are moving relative to the universe at 300 m/sec. 1 part in 100,000 you get lots of clusters and voids of hot and cold. This is close to what exists. After the big bang the universe was opaque for up to about 300,000 years [??] Then it becomes transparent because atoms are able to stick together. About 1% of the snow on your TV is from the background radiation signal in the universe. First galaxies formed of hydrogen and helium, and a little deuterium. Second generation stars give you heavier elements. Helium 4 varies with density of ordinary matter... goes up to a plateau. Deuterium goes down, and Lithium takes a bobble, but goes up overall. Nucleosynthesis theory and element abundance agree provided the baryon density in the early universe is low. Together with the density estimates from cosmology provides evident for much more non-baryonic dark matter than baryonic matter in the universe and for non-luminous baryonic matter. Heavier elements spread through supernova explosions. Particle physics tells us early universe particle physics played a major role. Quantum field theory allowed a violation of the standard energy condition at very early times. There can be a period of accelerated expansion driven by scalar files. "Inflation" with expansion accelerating rapidly takes place through many e-foldings before a subsequent HBB era begins (when the inflationary field has decayed to ordinary matter and radiation). First galaxies formed after the first 1B years. Quantum cosmology says some kind of quantum gravity effects will dominate the dynamics of the universe and provide the initial conditions for inflation. Attempts to describe this quantum cosmology era include: wave function for the universe, re-big bang theory based on string dualities, brane cosmology: our universe lives on a 4 dimensional brane imbedded. But can you test it? Proposed particle interactions and/or extension of classical gravity theory is not directly testable. But they are indirectly testable via their effects on structure formation. No fully formulated theory of quantum gravity. In the end we don't know if there was a start to the universe or not. Decay of supernovae in distant galaxies provides a usable standard candle (maximum brightness correlated to decay rate). With redshifts, it gives the first reliable detection of non-linearity ... showing the universe is presently accelerating. Consequently there is presently an effective positive cosmological constant with Omega = about 0.7 Second set of observations: WMAP main results support theory well. Just a small problem at the high end of the scale. If dark matter density value is about 0.3 and the constant is about 0.7 you get the concordance model. Add them you get about 1.0. So the universe does have flat spatial sections. This was expected on the basis of inflationary theory. Context for humanity: Life occurs in this context - the laws of physics plus boundary conditions for the universe allow life to exist. First life arose by accident, then there was continual improvement by Darwinian processes - continual accretion of biological information and creation of higher order structures: life. Conditions for the existence of life: If you alter either the physical laws or boundary conditions at the beginning of the universe, even slightly, intelligent life as we know it would be prevented. Any change in strong coupling and weak coupling would result in no atoms being formed. Also, number of time dimensions and number of spatial dimensions leave a small area for life to occur. IF you are GOD you have to get all of these just right: - electrical force/gravitational force - strength of nuclear binding - normalized amount of matter in universe - normalized cosmological constant - in-homogeneous sees for cosmic structures Why does the universe have the peculiar properties that allow intelligent life to exist? Could be because of ensembles of universes, or "multiverses". This is the only purely scientific approach to solving the puzzles raised by the anthropic issue: if enough variety of properties occur then somewhere conditions will be right. Probability and ensembles bring cosmology with the realm of statistical analysis, giving a basis for probability. But it is completely unverifiable - metaphysics rather than physics. It is based on faith rather than evidence. Other life: Are we alone? Given the laws and existence of planets, life is almost inevitable. Almost certainly we are not alone: there are many others out there. But they may not be in communicable distance. If they are there how like us will they be? Will we still be alone even if they exist? Recent books on the convergence of biochemistry and of mechanics of life. There are only a restricted number of ways to solve the problems of life which has universal necessities. Simon Conway Morris: "Life's Solution". Almost certainly carbon based, RNA, DNA, convergent microbiology e.g. citric acid cycle. You would get something like DNA but not necessarily the triplets of codes in amino acids. So are we alone? Would nerves be the same? Some good reasons for their structure. Conveyance also of the way the brain works at a psychological level - to meet universal necessities. Are we alone: will we find aliens? Will we be able to understand them? Mental processes say decisions are a combination of rationality and faith/hope and emotion. Emotions are primarily genetic/biological in character. Also depends upon social and cultural influences, and combination of perception/risk/intuition. Overriding these are ethics of what is the right thing to do. Hard to imagine another intelligent being that didn't have these types of broad overriding structures. What kind of ethics will they obey? Structure does not determine the kind of ethics they may obey. Is there any reason to believe they will have the same kind of ethics? Will they be friendly? What kind of ethics will they think we obey? Sphere of TV programs surrounding us constantly projects the image of homicidal aggression. How can we approach them in a way that will make them think we are friendly and compassionate? First, we should become as friendly and compassionate as we think we are. What kind of ethics do we obey? What is the future life span of the human race? We will only survive if we make an ethical transition. Is that likely to happen? Is our ethical understanding is at a standstill or going backwards? Actually we have been making progress but not enough to have any certainty we will survive another thousand years: it's touch and go ... on the edge. But science by itself cannot provide the needed ethical transition to a compassionate way of life. Scientific and reductionist view of humanity are promoting a non-ethical way of life. What is the true nature of deep ethics? Some have advanced that it is based upon wealth, power or intellectually certainty. Ellis claims that deep ethics is kenotic or self-emptying, based upon generosity and compassion. To convert an enemy to a friend you must create for them true security. True security comes from being surrounded by friends rather than enemies. A move of this kind can provide a true transformative quality. This moves ethics to a totally new regime: the arena of deep ethics that can indeed transform content and situation. It is recognized as an aspect of the highest good for all the major religions and one can suggest that it is indeed the true nature of a realist universal ethic, deeply imbedded in the nature of the universe. Q&A Levenson - Ethics are hoped for but far from proved A - Possibility of multiverse arises because of parameters. Life is special and needs an explanation. Physical view of them might well be different but biochemistry would be similar. Kinosis tries to bridge that tension between justice and love. Justice is often not ethical. Q - How to convince ET that we're fundamentally good? A - That's a problem considering the way the broadcast television service tells our youth that if you have a problem go kill someone. There are a small percentage of films that don't say this, but not enough. Q - Shouldn't we build a strong human community before building all these physics experiments? A - Ethical living won't come by money but instead by common purpose. Spiritual leaders arise out of oppression. Ghandi, M.L. King, Desmond Tutu, etc. Gates - Being a scientist is to be a hopeless optimist. Lots of signs that what you do will be fruitless and you will never see the answers. EInstein referred to following, "Lines of scripts from the books of the ancient ones". But possibly your idea will be picked up by someone of a later generation. Physicists have confidence in humanity. In that way one appeals for the support of science. A - Man does not live by bread alone. Lives to understand, Q - Could deep ethics be basis for absolute truth on a universal scale. A - Yes! Q - How can politicians learn lessons of good ethics. A - By feedback mechanisms, but elections make poor mechanisms. Pay should be cut if they don't perform their jobs.

]]> 2005-10-03 14:31:36 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145926/LHA20050224155129/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145926/LHA20050224155129/index.html

An Anthropometric Study of Pregnant Women: a HyperCard Stack

Date Created: Feb 24, 2005, 05:45 PM

An Anthropometric Study of Pregnant Women: a HyperCard Stack © 1988 Gregory C. Daigle, all rights reserved This HyperCard stack provides a database for industrial designers and clothing designers interested in the anthropometry of pregnant women. The stack was conceived and developed by Mr. Daigle as a user-friendly tool for designers. The original study was conducted 1982-83 through the Industrial Design Graduate Dept., U. of Illinois, Urbana. At its time it was the most thorough and complete study of anthropometric measures during pregnancy. The study was conceptualized and conducted by Bryce G. Rutter; B.I.D, M.F.A, Ph.D. James A. Haager; B.F.A., M.F.A. devised measurement techniques and equipment as well as developed recording forms with Mr. Rutter. Gregory C. Daigle; B.A., B.S., M.S., M.F.A., functioned as statistician, assistant administrator and was responsible for the write-up of the final project. The original study was conducted with a grant from Carle Clinic, Urbana, Illinois. Stanley Smith, Jr., M.D. served as Clinical Advisor for Carle Clinic. Normal T. McFarland, Chairman of the Graduate Industrial Design Dept., U. of Illinois, Urbana served as academic advisor. Published papers documenting the original study include: "An Anthropometric Study of Pregnant Women", Rutter, B., Haager, J.A., Daigle, G.C., Proceedings of the International Conference on Occupational Ergonomics, 1985. "An Anthropometric Study of Pregnant Women", Rutter, B., Haager, J.A., Daigle, G.C., Carle Selected Papers, vol. 36,1984. Description of Database: The stack included the following information: In the upper right, a grouping of three icons representing (from left to right): 1) Scales for Designers (not completed) 2) Landmark Glossary Index 3) Alphabetic Index of Measurements src="Media/PrURIcons.png" width="108" height="46" alt=""> The Index of Measurements included the following measures taken in early pregnancy and late pregnancy: - Abdominal curvature - Abdominal extension circumference - Abdominal extension depth - Abdominal extension height - Acromial height - Acromial height, sitting - Buttock-popliteal length - Chest circumference below bust - Chest depth below bust - Hip breadth, sitting - Hip circumference at trochanterion - Lumbar apex to wall - Mid-thigh circumference - Pre pregnant weight - Popliteal height - Sitting height - Stature - Symphysis pubis height - Thigh depth at gluteal furrow - Thigh-thigh breadth, sitting - Thigh-thigh breadth, supine - Torso depth at trochanterion - Trochanterion height - Trochanterion to wall - Upper thigh circumference - Xiphoid depth - Xiphoid height The four icons on the left represent: 1) Grouped Measures (e.g. depths, heights, etc.). Also known as "Level 1" - The Grouped Measures depict percentile rankings of similar measures (e.g. different body depths) and displays the rankings for measurement in early pregnancy (first 6 weeks), late pregnancy (near term) and delta (the difference in the two measures. The following percentile rankings are given: 1st, 2.5th, 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, 95th, 97.5th, 99th. Also given are the mean, median, mode, standard deviation, standard error, minimum, maximum and range. src="Media/PrLevel1.png" width="122" height="69" alt=""> 2) Slideshow of individual measurements (and links to visually define each measure). Also known as "Level 2" src="Media/PrLevel2.png" width="125" height="38" alt=""> 3) Trends Index - The Trends Index compares the correlation coefficients between two or more measures given as "R value" (strength of comparison) and significance level. It begins with select single measures (e.g. Week of pregnancy) and lists those measurements with the strongest correlations. src="Media/PrTrnd.png" width="68" height="71" alt=""> 4) Discussion (not completed) src="Media/PrDisc.png" width="66" height="41" alt=""> The following images from the stack are some examples of measures and how they are displayed. Landmark Glossary Index - src="Media/PrGlos.png" width="501" height="309" alt=""> Skeletal Landmarks - src="Media/PrSkel.png" width="501" height="309" alt=""> Reference Plane System - src="Media/PrRefPlane.png" width="501" height="309" alt=""> Grouped Measures (Level 1) - depicting early pregnancy, late pregnancy (50th %tile), and delta of the two. Clicking on value box for Xiphoid depth gives Level 2 measure for Xiphoid and select %tiles. src="Media/PrPrXiph.png" width="501" height="309" alt=""> Clicking on Xiphoid depth text gives definition of the measure. src="Media/PrXiphDef.png" width="501" height="309" alt=""> DOWNLOAD: THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY GREGORY C. DAIGLE `AS IS` AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL GREGORY C. DAIGLE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. About Apple's HyperCard Player: Sorry, but HyperCard stacks can't be viewed directly on the Web, so you'll have to download it. HyperCard runs on Macintosh OS 8.1 - 9.2.3 using the HyperCard Player. Users of OS X will be able to user the player in the "Classic" OS mode. There is no easy answer for users wishing to view the stack in Linux or Windows. You can download the latest HyperCard Player at VersionTracker: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/mac/339

]]> 2005-02-24 17:45:13 -0600 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145915/LHA20050219155020/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145915/LHA20050219155020/index.html

Wireless Content Services for Municipal RFPs

Date Created: Feb 19, 2005, 03:50 PM

There is a steadily growing trend for municipalities to establish wireless networks as either "free" public amenties or as subscriber-based public-private partnerships. Public-private partnerships such as "community television" have for decades served the public good by offering a voice to community-based television producers. Now, wireless networks provide a similar opportunity for municipalities to continue their stewardship of community resources. Community access programming over wireless networks has not yet been mandated by any municipal Request for Proposals (RFPs) to wireless providers. The following description is proposed for inclusion in municipal wireless RFPs and defines the community access services as DCAP, or Digital Community Access Programming. DCAP is a digital service analogous to cable access television, but targeting PCs and smart cell phones rather than televisions. Digital Community Access Programming - [Your city] has a tradition of fostering social, artistic and educational dialogues through community programs, arts and outreach. Wireless networks provide community members with new opportunities to expand this discourse within the local community. Such programming-related content shall be termed "Digital Community Access Programming". Digital Community Access Programming (DCAP) is defined as community-produced programs made available wirelessly to computer desktops, laptops, PDAs and smart cell phones. DCAP is a digital variation on "cable access" programming, also known as PEG (Public, Education and Government) and made available to the public through the cable television industry. However, DCAP content and function may differ greatly from traditional cable access content. Overview of responsibilities - The Respondent shall: 1) Provide software template tools for collaborative project planning and collaborative content at no additional charge to users. Such tools will provide a framework for community members and community organizations to identify common interests, plan community activities, host interactive content, and contribute to the cultural and artistic fabric of the community. Template tools shall include the below listed Template Tool Set, Assessment of Community Needs, Design Document, Portal Provision, and Template Production. 2) Provide ongoing program planning advice and support to community members for the fostering and guidance of community-centered content and interactive programs developed by community members. Programming planning shall include the below listed Call for Programs and Projects, Advising on Programs and Projects, Promulgation of Services, and Ongoing Services. The Respondent shall develop the above template tools and program planning in consultation with community-based non-profit organizations and educational programs in new media. Examples of non-profits include Digital Watershed (http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/Digitalwatershed.html). Examples of educational programs include the [insert local university and college resources here]. Organizations collaborating in the development of template tools and program planning services must have a community-based focus, knowledge of developing and delivering custom software content, and must also demonstrate an understanding of: a) The challenges and opportunities specific to digital access community programming in [your city]. b) Delivering custom software solutions c) The capabilities and limitations of wireless information services Template Tools - After an assessment phase, software production templates will be developed, offered to community members and hosted on the DCAP portal. Once completed, these templates may be utilized by any community member with access to the municipal wireless network. One template alone could not address the wide range of community uses forecast, so a set of templates shall be produced. Templates shall be developed using open-source software when possible. Templates shall be playable on Windows, Macintosh OSX and Linux platforms when possible. 1) The Template Tool Set shall be comprised of: a) Collaborative Project Template - Develop collaborative software template allowing community organizers to plan online community-based projects. Collaborative software, also known as groupware, is software that integrates work on a single project by several concurrent users at separated workstations (i.e. desktops, laptops.) Online projects are those where the planning (calendar scheduling, delineating tasks, sharing documents, messaging) is done over the Internet using software tools accessible to all wireless network users. For example, if a wireless network user wanted to organize work parties for a community garden plot, they list the project online and request interested community members to sign up for tasks such as procuring organic fertilizer, tilling, and providing refreshments for the work party. This can all be done online. Refer to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_software) for general definitions of collaborative software. b) Performance Template - Develop or modify open-source or freeware collaborative tools to allow "real-time" or "near real-time" music, dance and performance arts collaboration and compositions online. For example, a director may stage a play about the Grand Canyon and have members of the community upload photographs from their Grand Canyon vacations over the Internet during the play. The images would be screened for content and projected onto the play's scenery in real time. c) Virtual Architecture Review for Public Spaces - Develop or modify open-source or freeware 3D engines to allow the public to freely review and navigate virtual 3D design models of proposed public buildings and community development plans in the metro area. Respondent will not be responsible for providing the architectural or planning models. d) Online social networking - Make available to users existing or customized online social networking services used to identify other individuals with shared interests. Examples include "Friend of a Friend" (http://rdfweb.org/topic/FoafProject) and Friendster (www.friendster.com). Refer to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking) for description of social networking. e) Mobile Weblogs (Moblogs) - Develop guidelines and provide minimally [insert number] sets of hardware for mobile Weblogers employing wireless handheld PDAs, cell phones and wireless digital video cameras. f) Legacy E-learning Content - Identify and host locally-produced legacy e-learning content for the community. Collaborate with local public broadcasters, museums, and learning centers on providing legacy content to children and the general public. g) Open Play - Make available to users existing "open-source" or freeware tools for the development of mobile games playable on laptops, smart cell phones and wireless PDAs. Develop general guidelines for creation of content. 2) Assessment of community needs - Assessment to be conducted by technologist/anthropologist teams knowledgeable of wireless technology, interactive media and local neighborhood and non-profit organizations. Constituencies included in the assessment to include staff members designated by the city of [your city] , neighborhood associations, community service non-profit organizations, and professional media associations. Outputs: - Convene at least three planning sessions with individuals and groups representing citywide constituencies. - Develop a Planning Document to include a refined set of organizational and operational goals, impacts, timeframes and action items. Outcomes: - At least 80% of the participants will express moderate to high satisfaction with the assessment process. 3) Design Document - The Design Document will standardize features and attributes of the template tools for collaborative project planning and arts collaborative. The Design Document will also provide guidelines for the development of a portal for hosting content and tools. The design effort will be led by an experienced team of local producers for interactive content development. Outputs: - Design Document, including graphics Style Guide and Production Handbook offering production guidelines to community members. Outcomes: - Designated interests from the city to approve and sign-off on Design Document. 4) Portal Provision Digital Community Access Programming will be accessed through a portal site. The Respondent shall develop, implement, maintain and update the portal. The Respondent must provide a link to the DCAP portal no more than two "clicks" away from the network log-in confirmation page. Outputs: - Design and develop a DCAP network "portal" site to host Template Tools and Production Handbook, archive prior productions, provide access to current productions, and to collect feedback from community members. Outcomes: - Designated interests from the city to approve and sign-off on portal site. - At least 30 collaborative projects hosted within first year of operation. - At least 20 arts collaborations hosted within first year of operation. - At least 10 legacy e-learning content projects hosted within first year of operation. 5) Template Production - Utilizing the results of the community assessments and adhering to Design Document guidelines, initiate the development of the templates. Templates shall be developed iteratively to incorporate incremental design modifications and functional capabilities. Respondent shall conduct beta testing with focus groups drawn from prior assessment sessions and the local media production community. Stable pre-release beta builds shall be made available for downloading through the DCAP portal until final release versions are made available. Outputs: - Beta versions and final versions of templates. Outcomes: - Online materials accessed by at least 10% of the user community within first year of operation. Program Planning - Concurrent with Template Production, the Respondent shall establish ongoing program planning services for the purpose of identifying interested community producers and soliciting feedback on template design interface, features and functions. After completion of templates the Respondent shall offer ongoing advisory services to local content producers and project organizers. 1) Call for Programs and Projects - Initiate a call for content programs and collaborative projects to interested members of the community. Responses from the public will determine final features sets of current templates and desired features sets for future templates. Outputs: - Meet with local education, arts, and humanities non-profits to identify potential community producers. - Meet with local community service organizations to solicit their interest in projects. - Meet with local professional media groups such as MCAI (http://www.mcai-mn.org/aboutus/mcai-faq.html) to identify interested content producers. - Develop a production calendar and introduce community producers to the template tools developed for them. Outcomes: - Receive at least 40 collaborative project inquiries within first year of operation. - Receive at least 30 arts collaboration program inquiries within first year of operation. 2) Advising on Programs and Projects - Offer ongoing advisory services to local content producers and project organizers in the form of online forums and monthly workshops. Outputs: - Offer online forums, FAQs and forum archives for community producers. - Offer monthly workshops with content producers on digital production processes. - Develop production and multicasting schedule. Outcomes: - At least 70% of the community producers will express moderate to high satisfaction with the assessment process. 3) Promulgation of services - As Digital Community Access Programming is seen as a potential national model for municipal wireless network content, the Respondent shall promulgate program descriptions and production methods to other municipal networks. Outputs: - Outreach to online publications, conferences and other municipalities in the form of white papers, articles and speaking engagements as appropriate. - Make available online materials describing the production model Outcomes: - PR releases on methods, production models and usage by the community is made available online and submitted to at least 20 online and print publications annually. 4) Ongoing services - The Respondent shall provide for: - Ongoing maintenance of the DCAP portal - Ongoing advisory services to community-based producers and project organizers - Updates to existing template tools - Periodic addition of new template tools as appropriate - Annual re-assessment of community needs - Annual review of community-generated programs and projects - Annual evaluation of DCAP services © 2005 Digital Watershed

]]> 2005-02-19 15:50:57 -0600 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041011122853/LHA20050131114704/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041011122853/LHA20050131114704/index.html

Practical Gravity

Date Created: Jan 31, 2005, 11:50 AM

by Gregory Daigle Years ago, as a professor of industrial design, I would lead my students through what I termed "imagination-centered" design experiences. It focused upon the possibilities rather than the pragmatism of design thinking. We would start with either a new technology or the promise of one and free-associate applications before conceding to the stricter regimens of product engineering and regulatory mandates. I still occasionally indulge my imagination in such exercises. So when I read that in 2001 ESA (the European Space Agency) funded a study to evaluate the concept of gravity control, I allowed my imagination a "bit of leash" to consider what applications might result. ESA made headlines most recently when its Huygens probe made the first successful landing on Saturn's moon Titan. Though also forward-thinking, their gravity study was not unique. It followed NASA's 1996 Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program that looked for new concepts in propulsion enabling interstellar travel. The ESA study finally published its findings in December 2004 concluding that, "... control of gravity, even if achievable, would not imply a breakthrough for propulsion". But then it continued, "... even though it could be of major importance for e.g. possible microgravity applications on Earth." Relatively Speaking Gravity research is hot. Today, a satellite circles far above the earth measuring the affects of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Using rotating spheres ten thousand times smoother than a billiard ball in a near-perfect vacuum, the Gravity Probe B experiment is gathering data to prove (or disprove) how speeding objects drag space-time with them in gravitational fields. In an adjacent area of research, several labs in Europe and the U.S. are vying to be the first to detect gravity waves. British oddsmakers Ladbrokes gives 6/1 odds that gravity waves will be detected by 2010 and several labs say it's even closer. Other researchers are less interested in detecting gravity than in generating microgravity in the lab. Microgravity generation (for this article, MGG) has also been called "gravity-shielding effect" and "AC gravity" (since some claim it can be either attractive or repulsive). It has been studied by NASA, BAE Systems (a major British aerospace company), and has been reported on by such pragmatic journals as Business Week and Popular Mechanics. Research papers on the topic have been presented at mainstream conferences such as the American Institute of Physics. Academicians such as U.S. researcher Dr. Ning Li and European researcher Eugene Podkletnov suggest that gravity can be attenuated by small amounts, on the order of 2 to 5%. Their experiments have been the focus of the NASA and BAE programs. Other non-academicians, notably experimenter Marcus Hollingsworth of England, claim that effects capable of lifting tons of weight have been produced. Whether any of these results will be found to be scientifically valid is anyone's guess. The technology to produce microgravity is as speculative and the theory is as lacking as cold fusion was in the late 1980s ... but the implications may be more far-reaching if found true. By the way, last year the U.S. Department of Energy issued a report concluding that aspects of cold fusion merit consideration for future research ... so who knows? What would a future with MGG look like? How would our present world be changed? Holding "pathological disbelief" (a term coined by Nobel laureate Brian Josephson) in abeyance, let's look at a few of the potential impacts for everyday living and the barriers that might slow their implementation. Gravity as optional Certain assumptions have to be met for the successful introduction of a microgravity generator. First, it must be competitively priced both to purchase and to operate in comparison to alternate conventional technologies. Second, it must operate at an efficiency that allows it to perform work at various scales, ideally from palm-sized generators capable of lifting several kilos to closet-sized generators capable of lifting several tons. Third, its operation must not present unacceptably high risks to operators, citizenry, or the environment. Fourth, any byproducts of its usage must be managed and disposed of safely. With these assumptions in mind, how might MGG affect our everyday lives? Transportation - In 1979 the "visual futurist" Syd Mead depicted a family transported to a picnic by a hovering station wagon in his book "Concept" for U.S. Steel. That friendly and inviting image of a hovering automobile contrasts greatly with the flying police vehicles Mead later designed for the dystopic film "Blade Runner". In that film the vehicles were a symbol of police power and authority while common citizens were restricted to ground transportation. In several movies such as "Back to the Future II" and "The Fifth Element" the use of flying hoverboards and taxi cabs are commonplace and suggest how mundane even remarkable technology can become. But that's the movies, right? Looking back, many of Mead's drawings seemed utterly fantastic when I first saw them while a grad student in design. I remember one such sketch of a group of powered self-balancing unicycles cruising down the road and thought "they'll just fall over forward when they brake." But since the introduction of the self-balancing Segway scooter and the subsequent concept design of EMBRIO (a self-balancing one-wheel sport bike by Canadian transportation manufacturer Bombardier) I've reigned-in my skepticism of what may be possible. Until Mead's transportation visions do come true we can look at the potential of MGG for more modest impacts in transportation. MGG could be a supplement for increasing lift in dirigibles and maglev trains. It could also serve in reducing the friction on wheel bearings for any vehicles with axles, thus reducing wear, lowering operating temperatures and improving fuel efficiency and mileage. But once the wheels leave the ground it's a different game altogether. If MGG is accomplished to the degree envisioned by Mead and others, an immediate implication is whether the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) would rule that such vehicles are subject to law under the FAA, or, the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). And it follows to ask whether accidents would be investigated by the National Transportation and Safety Board as ground or air based crashes? Presumably MGG vehicles would be licensed under the auspices of the FAA since all but hovercrafts, WIG (Wing In Ground-effect) vehicles and others that rely upon ground effect are classified as aircraft under the UN's ICAO (International Civl Aviation Organization). So the distinction might be decided at the UN. Initially, getting MGG vehicles allowed in the U.S. might be very difficult. Again, take the case of the Segway. The Segway™ Human Transporter (www.segway.com) is a unique self-balancing electric vehicle designed for sidewalks. Its manufacturer spent years lobbying state legislators for its use. Six state currently have yet to pass legislation affirmatively permitting Segway use on public ways and only four states have no prohibitions against the use of powered conveyances on sidewalks and in pedestrian areas. Add to this local municipal codes that may further restrict what statewide legislation approves and you can imagine the complexity of legislating for a hovering or flying vehicle. There is also a long history of experimentation with personal flight systems, which fall short of being full vehicles. Popularized in the late 1940s by movie serials Buck Rogers and Commander Cody, the "jet pack" became a familiar site to matinee-watching kids. These products of Hollywood preceded actual engineered prototypes. In the early 50s a working version of the jet pack called the "JetVest" preceded the Bell Rocket Belt (www.rocketbelt.nl) which was made familiar in the James Bond movie "Thunderball". New devices under study include verticle takeoff (VTOL) vehicles such as the Trek Aerospace Springtail (http://www.trekaero.com). Personal MGG flight systems would have limited appeal compared to fully realized vehicles but there will always be an appeal to early risk-taking adopters just as there was with the introduction of motorcycles a century ago. Architecture - Since late in the 19th century architects have worked and reworked images of what Manhattan and other metropolises might look like in the coming century. In visions typified by the work of architect Hugh Ferriss in his 1929 "Metropolis of Tomorrow" all the way up to the animated series "The Jetsons" and "Futurama", urban architecture accommodates the lifestyle of the flying commuter. Ferriss depicted airplanes flying through large passageways in his urban skyscrapers while in the Jetsons cartoons both workplaces and vehicles floated above. Floating cities have been portrayed in art by "magic realists" such as René Magritte, in films such as Star Wars Episode 5's "Cloud City", and in science fiction literature such as James Blish's "Cities in Flight". The "Freedom Ship" (http://www.freedomship.com/) is a plan for a more conventional ocean liner city that floats on the world's oceans, circumnavigating every three years. Taken as a template for cities-in-the-sky, the Freedom Ship offers year-round residency, schools, medical facilities, trade centers, an airport and operates subject to international maritime law. Why build an architectural scale structure that floats in the air? Well, there are several potential reasons. First, there are no costs associated with the purchase of land or land rights since it does not sit on land. A subsequent drawback for land owners might be that the cost of prime real estate could plummet since it would no longer be a limiting resource constraining development. This would particularly reverberate in dense urban areas such as New York, Tokyo and Paris. Another reason would be the enhanced view and relative privacy would be greatly enhanced. But for every benefit there would be many negative impacts. Just as with the regulatory issues mentioned for transportation, floating a home, factory or even a city would be replete with legal consequences. Therefore the benefits must greatly outweigh not only the added costs but also the legal drawbacks. Insurance would be sky-high (sorry) and recent issues of environmental rights in downtown spaces would be prevalent. For example, right to sunlight has been a common topic in urban development. No matter what you do, a floating structure is going to cast a shadow on someone. In some Japanese municipalities blocking sunlight is only allowable if the builder gains unanimous consent from neighbors. However, such violations of "Rights of Light" might be attenuated if the structure is nomadic and allowed to shift its "mooring". In some U.S. urban cores a building can not be built taller than code allows unless a transfer of an adjacent building's "air rights" (Transferable Development Rights - TDRs) can be arranged. Presumably a similar transfer of credits could be afforded to floating structures. Additionally, landlords willing to shift "moorings" to achieve desirable outcomes might be given dispensations. For example, scheduling large structures to provide shade above major highways might reduce traffic accidents by reducing the sun's glare during commutes. Areas desiring additional sunlight might schedule the presence of structures with reflective exteriors to follow the path of the sun, providing reflected sunlight where needed. The non-gravitational technical hurdles to developing floating structures provide added difficulties as well. Services and amenities such as electricity, water, sewage, garbage pickup, etc. would have to be self-contained. Resources and waste would either have to be conveyed up to the site or the structure would have to occasionally land to be provisioned. In the days of the zeppelins tall buildings were designed as moorings and transfer points for passengers and supplies. But even assuming these service issues could be overcome there are still social issues to consider. Geographers and demographers would have to develop new methods for mapping and measuring population densities reflecting the multiple tiers of populations possible. Measures of urban density would become almost meaningless since that term is an artifact of a two-dimensional model of urban development. When populations become continually transient new models of population density will necessarily need to be more dynamic. Census data and voting registration laws might also have to be revised to reflect mobile tracts. Since floating a structure would be at a premium cost, there is the potential for cultural schisms such as those popularized in the Star Trek episode "The Cloud Minders." In that dystopia the rich and privileged lived above the clouds with the less well off living below. When you think about it there is nothing new about relating income level and class to topography. Building castles on hills overlooking the countryside are a familiar part of Western culture as is building more contemporary estates on hillside summits. But floating a structure would provide a degree of separateness not currently displayed by even the highest of the penthouse dwellers. Manufacturing - I've already mentioned MGG's potential use in the reduction of friction in transportation applications. This same technique could apply to manufacturing, construction and mining technologies. If MGG could produce repulsive force at a distance (as has been suggested by some researchers) then such a force could be used in process manufacturing. One example would be redirecting and controlling the flow of bulk materials such as steel billets and molten steel. It could also be used to replace some common manufacturing techniques such as the explosive forming of blanked metal sheet between dies to obtain deeply drawn forms. If the generation of a repulsive force from a central source can be accomplished then it should work equally on gases ... including air molecules. This suggests the ability to generate a spherical vacuum around the generator as air molecules are pushed away from the field source. Such an effect was noted in postings by Marcus Hollingshead. This would be useful in any industrial process requiring partial vacuums, such as metal deposition and coating, vacuum and homogenization for food processing, clean room environments, fire suppression and others. In physics, a uniformly accelerating system may be considered equivalent to a local gravitational field. The difference can not be distinguished by an observer within the system (Einstein's Principal of Equivalence). Therefore any industrial process requiring centrifugal forces to separate or filter materials by their specific gravity could be reproduced by intensifying the gravity field. Such MGG separation could be applied to the bulk separation of molten materials, liquids and gases, particularly where high acceleration forces are required. Construction could benefit from the ability to hoist materials without use of the cables and rigging that occasionally mar the surface of softer materials such as limestone slabs. Mining operations might not only benefit from the hoisting of bulk materials but also from the ability of generators to act as "virtual timbers" providing temporary bracing and stanchions in emergencies. Medical - MGG could be used to lessen the weight of patients to prevent the formation of bed sores and to take the weight off of severe burn victims. Bed sores can lead to life-threatening conditions for quadriplegics, such as the condition that recently led to the death of actor Christopher Reeves. Placing weight on second and third degree burns is not only painful but also retards healing and contributes to breaks in the skin that become potential sites of infection. NASA scientists have established that long periods of weightlessness have medical drawbacks. Astronauts are known to lose bone and muscle mass while in weightless conditions and suffer from weakened immune systems. Though muscle atrophy can be blocked by disrupting gene activity associated with it, the weakening of the body's immune system and its resultant lower ability to fight off infection provides a challenge for enduring space flights. The use of MGG to produce gravity for long space flights would help astronauts maintain their health during transits. Increasing an existing gravitational field can also have benefits. In a variation on weight-bearing exercise, MGG could be utilized to increase bone and muscle mass through exercising in an enhanced gravitational field. This could be an excellent tool for athletic conditioning as well as physical rehabilitation. It might also be beneficial in reversing osteoporosis and in decreasing the healing time for broken bones. Retail - If compact self-contained generators capable of lifting their own weight plus a few pounds ever emerge as a viable technology then expect to see floating platforms for a wide range of purposes. These might take the form of camera platforms for police and traffic surveillance or personal platforms conveying anything from schoolbooks to groceries. The security of children is ever a concern to parents. Technologies that can track and locate children today through GPS are passive systems. A system that could accompany the child and act as an autonomous companion would provide an added level of security. Think of such a floating platform as each child's personal "tinkerbell" for providing overhead light when it gets dark, surveilling the path ahead, even a protective umbrella when it rains. Any floating platform technology available at retail would immediately have an impact upon individual privacy and security. Residents of high rises typically see their residences as being safer and more private than residents of ground-level homes. This would no longer be true. Privacy would be diminished until other safeguards could be developed against camera platforms and the like. Sporting Goods - In addition to flying broomsticks and jalopies, the Harry Potter™ book and movie series introduced us to Quidditch™, the game with Chasers, Beaters, Bludgers, a Quaffle, a Seeker and a Golden Snitch™. No doubt this game would be one of the first to be emulated with the introduction of MGG. But flying sports are not new, even without use of an airplane. There are several sites across the country providing indoor skydiving sports using vertical wind tunnels. It is more truly flying than traditional skydiving (which is more like sky falling) since you stay in one place while a vertical stream of wind gives you lift. Semantics - Impacts of new technologies aren't always physical. Often the most significant changes are expressed in new ways of thinking. In the English language "gravity" is a synonym for weightyness, sobriety, soberness, solemnity, somberness and graveness. Its antonyms include levity, bouyancy, flightiness and light-heartedness. Gravity is directional, always downward. Gravity fights us in old age, eventually and irreversibly leading us to our grave (same root). To suggest that gravity might not be constant and immutable but rather variable, pliable, even reversible on a continuum with lightness would be a small semantic revolution. During the Renaissance the rediscovery of the technique of perspective drawing changed more than just how art was made. The discovery that every person's "point of view" is different yet just as valid as another's viewpoint changed social discourse. The use of perspective in art also opened the Medieval mind to natural laws of geometry and science. The resultant enlightenment expanded to other vistas of politics, religion and the written word. In narrative writing, establishing a character's viewpoint and relating that point-of-view in time are interconnected and interdependent. As a result of visual artists exploring perspective, writers increasingly explored attitude, contexts, relations and relativity (the phrase "it's all relative" garnering its own small semantic revolution this past century after Einstein's theories become part of the public mindset). Social climbers with "lofty aspirations", pragmatists with their "feet on the ground", and elitists who think themselves so "high and mighty" are just some of the ways that our culture expresses itself in the third dimension. So in addition to changing the physical world, a greater impact of the practical control of gravity might be in how it prompts us to think about ourselves. © 2005 Greg Daigle

]]> 2005-01-31 11:50:55 -0600 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145915/LHA20041119143957/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145915/LHA20041119143957/index.html

Community Access for the Digital Age ... the Digital Watershed

Date Created: Nov 19, 2004, 02:45 PM

by Gregory Daigle Cable access television, the municipal service that provides coverage of local city council meetings, community lectures and talk shows hosted by local citizens, has benefited cable subscribers in communities for decades. But the television viewing audience, especially the young, is increasingly trading TV time for Internet time. The result is a growing gap in community-centered programming for those who choose online experiences as their preferred media. This article suggests a model for improving community-centered programming through "digital community access", a service that complements traditional cable access services. Community Television Turns 30 Something Cable access television (also known as cable communications, public access, community television, and PEG - Public, Education and Government) began in Dale City, Virginia in 1968 1. It was established to provide a community-centered voice over the newly established cable television network. Municipal cable networks were (and often still are) local monopolies. In the late 1960s establishing an alternative to corporate television programming on cable networks was considered a "free speech" issue and resulted in pressure on cable system owners to make access available to citizens through their local municipal government. In 1972 the FCC issued "Third Report and Order", a mandate that required all cable systems in the top 100 U.S. television markets to provide three access channels, one each for educational, local government and public use 2. It also required the cable companies to provide equipment and facilities for community members to produce programs. The FCC mandate was later extended to include communities with over 3,500 subscribers. Since those early days of cable access many state governments, including Minnesota's 3, have codified that relationship between exclusive cable services and local governmental units. Access channels provided by the cable networks have focused upon community-centered programming. They include coverage of local government (school board meetings, city government meetings, and state legislative sessions), community and educational lectures, high school sports, talk shows and other programs representing a wide range of diverse community interests. Cable access programs are shaped and defined by the technology of television. Like all television programs, cable access programs can be tape-delayed or live. The relatively low resolution of analog television works well for video imagery but less so for graphics and text. Finally, in standard analog television the video and audio travel one way ... to the viewers ... without a direct back-channel. Digital and "interactive" television may change some of these givens by allowing higher resolution for text and graphics and some limited capacity for interactivity, but such capability is rare for cable access facilities. TV is down, Online is up The Internet is now accessed by 75% of the nation's population 4. Another popular consumer technology, DVD players, has been adopted by consumers faster than any other electronic device. Yet DVD player penetration in U.S. households is projected to be only 66% by the end of 2004 5 . At the same time, youth markets are online more and watching the television less. Currently one-quarter of all Internet users say that the Internet has decreased the time they spend watching television, with fully one-third (37%) of broadband users saying this 6. Cable access remains an important community resource yet these and other trends indicate that it is losing potential viewers to the Internet even as the number of cable households climbs. One of the limitations of cable access is that its facilities are centralized. The editing facilities, studio, and cable head-end are usually in a single location. Only portable equipment such as cameras are made available to citizen-producers for remote shoots on-location. This locally centralized model of cable access becomes an unintended hurdle for new producers and their productions. Even with the addition of consumer-owned digital video cameras and consumer PC video editing, the scheduling of highly desired studio time and broadcast slots limit access and act to curtail a wider range of community viewpoints. Due to the limitations of bandwidth and the broadcast calendar, cable access is suitable for a limited number of viewpoints, perhaps in the hundreds. When conceived as a new service in the 1970s, planning for a moderate diversity of viewpoints seemed all that would be necessary. But with the increasing popularity of the Internet, citizens are regularly "publishing" their viewpoints not in the hundreds or even the thousands, but in the millions as personal Web sites. Cable access, though a valued resource, can not provide this level of access. How many individual Web sites are there? That's impossible to say. However, the Google search engine, widely considered the most effective as of this writing, currently claims to index over 4 billion distinct web pages. However, not every page is indexed by the Google search engine, and Web sites are made up of multiple pages. But even if a conservative estimate is made, it is clear that there are far more Web sites existing than the total number of cable access programs ever produced. In fact, some 44% of U.S. Internet users currently create content online ... that's 53 million American adults and youth. And creating content is not reserved exclusively for only the well educated or upper income brackets. Online content creators are as likely to be female as they are to be male, as likely to not have graduated from high school as they are to have graduated from college, as likely to be African-American as they are white, and as likely to have income levels from $30-50K as they are $50-75K 7. Online content creation from the community is not only commonplace, it is also "equal opportunity". Are Web sites the best model for bringing community access and discourse into the digital age? Perhaps not. First of all, Web refers to the World Wide Web. Once your Web site is up, it is just as easily viewed from Europe or Asia as it is by your neighbor down the street. Is the focus upon community-centered issues diluted by worldwide access? Are there advantages to being able to limit your audience geographically? Cable access programs are available only over the geographic reach of the community cable system and so their program content tends to be geographically targeted. With cable, you can't go beyond your geographic target. With the Web, you can't limit it. Digital Media is not TV Because the majority of Internet access is still through dial-up most access is currently ill-suited to broadband video content. But even if broadband were to dominate access, streaming video over the Internet typically offers little in the way of collaborative or interactive capabilities. Streaming video over the Internet offers little over cable television. In the late 1920s and early 30s the first generation of television producers faced a similar question. What makes for good television programs? In those days television programming was a mixed bag of dance ensembles, film clips and orchestra programs. Early producers found that you couldn't just sit in front of a television camera and read a script. Before long television included more suitable programs formerly hosted by radio, such as sports broadcasts, political speeches, quiz shows, even Milton Berle. It was several years before the "rules" of television were created and mature content developed for television came into its own. So should cable access programs be the production model for digital community access? It may work technically, but the result may not take full advantage of the capabilities of the medium. When television programming was being invented, it was a tabula rasa, an empty slate. But online content has already reached maturity (or at least its adolescence) without significant broadcast content to boost its acceptance. Due to the relatively slow adoption of broadband, video compression techniques, and the copyright fears of Hollywood, online content has had time to established itself without reliance upon broadcast media and its mantra of the uninterrupted "viewer experience". The "viewer experience" is what television is all about. Attend the National Association of Broadcasters annual conference and you will hear repeated again and again just how important that uninterrupted experience is to viewers. But is it important to online media users? Users of online media aren't just ambivalent about the sacrosanct viewer experience, they reject it completely. This is frequently reported by studies of how online users multi-task, attending to several media streams at once. Is this shorter attention span a symptom of lack of focus, or, a coping mechanism for sampling a torrent of competing media streams? Regardless of cause, it is not the way that television is watched and therefore the model for programming must change for online experiences. Online content differs from TV programming in choice, directionality and level of interactivity. Web access is fragmented into a ubiquity of "channels" ... tens of millions of sites, remember? ... not the mere few hundreds that cable access can offer. The Internet is two-way, whereas TV has a "one-way" directionality from broadcaster (or cable head-end) to viewer. Yes, you can dial a 900 number to vote for your favorite "idol" but that requires a phone. Finally, Web content is "interactive". What we mean by "interactive" varies from user to user and requires some clarification. But first, can television be interactive? Since the late 90's broadcasters have been hopeful about "enhanced" or "interactive" television (ITV) technology as a step towards "convergence". ITV can be supplied over cable or, infrequently, broadcast 8 . But ITV is most likely a "bridge" or "tweener" technology. One of the limitations of ITV content is its direct association with a particular program. Watching The McNeal News Hour with ITV allows the translucent overlay of text and graphics pre-selected to be associated with the broadcast content. Interactivity is limited to simple on-screen menu options and often selected by "tabbing" with a non-mouse remote. Even with more capable interfaces, the content is usually unavailable after the duration of the broadcast to to preserve the "viewer experience" for the next program. So content is limited by both topic and duration. By most standards of the Internet this would NOT be a good online experience. Adoption rates of ITV hardware are miserably low and foreshadow that even if this bridge technology is fully realized, that it's a bridge to nowhere. A True Community Discourse Typically, Web sites limit their level of interactivity to simple navigations such as linking between pages of content. For example, a consumer may upload a set of vacation photographs to their homepage and you (as the user) may select between viewing different years of vacation photos, but little more. The Web sites become repositories of static content, not dynamic information. They often lack the ability to exchange ideas with others. Merely giving community members tutorials on how to build their own Web sites may not be the answer for dynamic community discourse. A truly dynamic interactive capability would be like a conversation. In fact, it may be a conversation. Web content is only one manifestation of the protocols that underlie the Internet. Don't forget chats, instant messaging, email, or FTP for upload/downloading files. Online communities frequently employ these dynamic environments. Online social networking tools like Meetup or Friendster allow people with common interests to identify each other, share communications online, even meet in person. Collaborative tools such as Net Meeting or Groove Workspace allow users to share and edit files simultaneously, chat, even teleconference. Online games with virtual 3D engines allow users to interact in real time over networks, sometimes in the personas of knights, monsters or military soldiers. Collaborative content would promote new forms of performance media, mobile Weblogs, e-learning and community discourse promoting a greater understanding and sharing of ideas and experiences. Collaborative tools and content typically provide a more participative rich-media discourse for sharing content and opinion. Social networking tools and collaborative software tools are a means to organize people for local opinion sharing and decision making. "Eighty to ninety percent of [real-world] social networks have a digital component" according to Antony Brydon 9, president and cofounder of social network analyst firm Visible Path. Users would be able to identify interested participants by employing social networking tools that identify relationships and shared interests between users. Participants would then be free to collaborate online through chats, white-boards, file sharing, editing documents and even edit presentations together. A new model of digital community access would employ these dynamic elements preferentially over traditional Web sites. The offering would be inclusive, community-oriented and uniquely distinct from standard Web content offerings. Software templates for the online planning of community-centered projects would be designed and developed for community organizers. For example, if a city resident wanted to organize work parties for a community garden plot they would ask people to go online and sign up for tasks such as procuring organic fertilizer, tilling, and providing refreshments for the work party. This can all be done online. These programs would permit experiences more interactive than "streaming" of stored audio and video clips. Templates and tools would also be for use by digital artists, playwrights and musicians. Near real-time collaboration between artists and audience would provide a new model of community participation. The collaborative content designed to entertain or educate would be developed by community producers. For example, a director may stage a play about the Grand Canyon and have members of the community send photographs from their Grand Canyon vacations over the Internet during the play.  The images would be screened for content and projected onto the play's scenery in real time. Wireless Community Access As mentioned before, wiring a city for fiber-optic cable is an expensive proposition. Fortunately, the cost of "Wi-Fi" is low compared to laying cables. Wi-Fi is one of the fastest growing wireless network technologies for connecting computer users to the Internet and each other. Its "connect anywhere" mobility and growing community acceptance makes possible new opportunities for community access and collaborative participation. Many wireless hobbyists throughout the country are slowly cobbling together local Wi-Fi "hotspots" into community networks, but their progress has been slow. Several small cities such as Cerritos, CA and some larger cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, and New York see wireless networks as a lower-cost alternative to laying fiber-optic cable. They see the same social tenets supporting the provisioning of the power grid and television cable as also supporting the establishment of information services over wireless networks. Wireless has the capability to provide communications for government and public safety, convention centers, businesses, schools, libraries and residents. Whether established as a "free" amenity 10 or as a "pay for use" system, a wireless network is seen as providing for the public good. The signals used in Wi-Fi are limited in bandwidth and in strength. Even though the distance at which a signal can be received is usually only a few city blocks, there may be several access points in an area competing for the same bandwidth. This means that Wi-Fi is not only a shared resource in the community but also a limited one. Granting an industry partner the right to build a network covering an entire city would essentially be the granting of a monopoly. These the same constraints under which television cable systems were introduced in the late '60s and early '70s and which led directly to the establishment of cable access services. Wireless networks and cable television networks share another similarity. They are both limited geographically. It is often forgotten that Wi-Fi is a WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) technology. This is very similar to the LAN you might have in your office for the sharing of printers, servers and to keep PCs protected behind a corporate firewall. And just like the office LAN, the WLAN can be configured to allow access to the Internet. This provides the possibility of limiting access to community-centered programming, yet also providing access to the Web when desired. The ability to limit your audience geographically when you so choose and yet open it to a worldwide audience when you so choose is powerful. In an update of the adage, "Think globally, act locally", producers of digital community access programming can choose to "Think globally, access locally". What is a Digital Watershed? John Wesley Powell, scientist geographer, said that a watershed is: "... that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community." A digital watershed is the equivalent of a natural watershed in its common linkage of all people into a community ... albeit connected digitally. In 2003 the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB) began consideration of a citywide wireless network with access points throughout the extensive park system in the city. Access points would be seeded throughout the community like so many "digital springs" with data flowing to and from community members. Apropos in a city nationally acclaimed for its park lands following miles of springs, creeks, lake shores, wetlands and river front. Like the natural watershed, the wireless spectrum in the city is a commonly shared yet limited resource. Accordingly, the city sought stewardship of this valuable resource. On January 16, 2004 the Minneapolis City Council passed a resolution that Business Information Services (BIS) shall be the central organization responsible for all activities related to the development and deployment of a comprehensive city government-wide wireless strategy and infrastructure that integrates with the city's IT, telephony (including cell phones), radio and data communications environments. BIS was charged with defining specific wireless requirements to accommodate city department and business community needs and to negotiate shared ownership with the MPRB. On November 12, 2004 the City Council approved a measure granting authority to BIS to publish an RFP (Request for Proposal) for WISPs (Wireless Internet Service Providers). In January of 2004 the non-profit "Digital Watershed" was founded to provide templates and tools to community members for the creation of community-centered projects and creative programs. Digital Watershed is similar in philosophy to cable access television, yet focused upon digital community access. It is not an Internet service provider nor does it seek to create physical networks.  Support services include: - Advise new media content producers in digital production processes - Mentor producers on interactive opportunities inherent in the medium - Mentor the development of content reflecting the local diversity and accessibility challenges - Assist content creators navigate technical barriers - Advise other community organizations on producing collaborative online experiences - Coordinate accessibility outreach programs for the network - Provide server space installed with collaborative software - Provide server space for archiving creative programs - Work with local new media program efforts from existing non-profits such as the University of Minnesota's Department of Art, Institute for New Media Studies, InterMedia Arts, and the Minnesota TV and Film Board. Services Not Offered - Digital Watershed should not be seen as a Web site address or a Web-based "portal" for community resources. It's primary use is for discourse within a community network, not as an informational Web site. Services currently offered on the Web to citizens of Minneapolis will not be offered by Digital Watershed. These include informational resources and forums provided by the following Web sites (and more): Minneapolis City services provided by http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/ Minneapolis Public Schools: http://www.mpls.k12.mn.us/ Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board http://www.minneapolisparks.org/home.asp Minneapolis Public Housing Authority: http://www.mphaonline.org/ Minneapolis Community Development Agency: http://www.mcda.org/ Metropolitan Airports Commission: http://www.mspairport.com/mac/ Minneapolis Public Library Board: http://www.mplib.org/board_admin.asp Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program: http://www.nrp.org/ Minneapolis Commuter Connection: http://www.mplstmo.org Minneapolis Telecommunications Network: http://www.mtn.org/ Minnesota Dept. of Transportation: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/ Minnesota E-democracy Project: http://www.e-democracy.org/mpls/ MPR Forum: http://forum.mpr.org/ Twin Cities Forum: http://forums.prospero.com/kr-tcitiesnews/start Star Tribune Forum: http://online.startribune.com/forum/ Twin Cities Free-Net: http://freenet.msp.mn.us/conf/list.html Areas of Production In addition to collaborative software templates for community projects, Digital Watershed will be encouraging content creation in the following areas of creative program offerings: Performance Media - Performance has always played a prominent part of Minneapolis' cultural fabric. Collaborate software extends that capability. Participants may sample a live music performance, modify it, then play it back as a duet with the musician during the performance. Or, during a stage play amateur videographers and photographers may upload video clips and photos in real time to a stage manager who selectively projects them as part of a stage play's background montage. Interactive dramas and storytelling where the remote participants become part of the play are also possible. Citizen Journalism - This includes new models of reporting and journalism typified by Mobile Web Logging (Moblogs) and explanatory "interactives" such as viewed on CNN.com. Wireless technologies provide additional opportunities, such as video blogs using Wi-Fi-ready video cameras and role-playing or scenario interactions using video game engines. For example, a blogger may feed live video to a weblog while community members simultaneously upload personal photographs, interviews and data adding to the depth of the report. E-learning - In this context, e-learning covers the presentation of non-curricular educational games and simulations. Minneapolis has a rich history of educational software firms who have produced many fine examples developed for both CD-ROM and the Web. Versions of those software titles may be made available to network users. There is also the opportunity to coordinate non-curricular content efforts with the Minnesota State Digital Learning Plan. MSDLP is a technology group dedicated to "the technologies that will meet the necessary learning goals, efficiently serve educators' and learners' needs, and ensure accountability" for the state's K-12 students. Games - Games and simulations are an important part of digital learning. They run the gamut from fanciful video games to interactive communities like the SIMs. Modeling the social and civic dynamics of the real world is of particular interest. Participants could model and simulate local community issues as if they were navigating a version of the "SIMS" video game but using real governmental information, real settings and real issues. They could also do so networked to other players in real time. Simulations can be informational, such as emulating the process of passing legislative bills or participating in political caucuses. Beth Noveck, a professor of law at New York Law School stated that, "My supposition is that virtual worlds are going to be the best training ground for teaching the practices of democracy ... they offer a playground for complex social interactions and collaborative decision making, according to a set of rules defined by the game space" 11 . With a mobile network, games need not confine the user to the home. They can lead a player through the corridors of city hall to see where and how a permit is obtained, or guide and educate players in the outdoors while learning about the flora and fauna of the parks system. Producers of content may also blend the above offerings into hybrid productions because no one knows which formula may be most effective for communicating to a particular audience. For example, we may find students producing a live Earth-Day performance on the environment including a live day-long blog on the topic. They may ask lakeside residents to take a short online e-learning course about biology surveys, then submit shoreline zebra mussel counts to a school server. Or they may ask non-lakeside residents to play a 3D a game simulation pitting water temperature versus Asian Carp migration. Design Review for Public Spaces - Minneapolis is a leader in innovative architecture for public facilities. Recent examples have included the Sears building renovation, the downtown public library, and LRT (light rail transit) stations along the Hiawatha corridor into downtown. Other projects have ranged from small scale architecture such as benches and bus stops on the Nicollet Mall to large scale architectural artifices such as recent submissions for baseball stadium designs. Providing venues for public commentary on such designs is essential to good stewardship of the city. However, 2D renderings of proposals aren't always accurately interpreted by the public. To assist visualization, architectural firms are increasingly using animated walk-throughs or fly-throughs as visual tools. But these animations travel along a predetermined "path" that also limits viewpoint. Digital Watershed proposes the added use of 3D game engines to allow the public to freely navigate proposed architectural spaces. Such engines give nearly unlimited viewpoint to the user and are able to incorporate adjacent building facades and landscapes into the virtual space. The computer does the work of projecting the design into the space from any angle and viewpoint as it depicts context, construction and material textures. Some "open source" game engines are available to download and use for free. They run on modestly priced PCs and will even work on many laptops. So one could even visit the architectural site in person and, using a Wi-Fi enabled laptop, download and move through the design virtually. Since many architectural firms already render their designs in 3D they need only import the data and textures into the game editor to enable viewing. The public will be unable to modify the designs. The incentive for the architects would be that the public will have a better understanding of their designs and therefore give a more informed consent. Community Alert Notices - In addition to the above service areas of content, Digital Watershed cuold also make possible the promulgation of Community Alert Notices. Community Alert Notices are infrequent but are important, especially to people who may be on the city-wide network and without access to radio or telephone. Notices may include: - Emergency weather alerts capable of sending maps, text, video, audio - Emergency environmental hazard alerts for beach closings, derailments, etc. - Amber Alerts _____________ 1 Gillespie, Gilbert. Public Access Cable Television in the United States and Canada. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975 (pgs 35-36) 2 http://www.geocities.com/iconostar/history-public-access-TV.html 3 Minnesota Statutes 2003, Chapter 238, Cable Communications. 4 Nielsen/Net Ratings Enumeration Study, February 2004 5 Digital Entertainment Group 6 Getting Serious Online, March 3, 2002, Pew Internet & American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org) 7 "Content Creation Online", by Amada Lenhart 2/29/04 Pew Internet & American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org) 8 http://etvcookbook.org/extra/saf.html 9 "Internetworking", by Michael Fitzgerald, Technology Review, April 2004. 10 "Who Pays for Wireless Cities", http://www.technologyreview.com 11 http://www.wired.com/news/games0,2101,61188,00.html © 2004 Gregory Daigle

]]> 2004-11-19 14:45:05 -0600 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041011122853/LHA20041026150242/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041011122853/LHA20041026150242/index.html

Notes on the Nobel Conference 2004, St. Peter, MN

Date Created: Oct 26, 2004, 03:09 PM

40th Nobel Conference Oct 5,6 2004 Gustavus Adolphus, St. Peter The Science of Aging Day One morning: Speaker One: Dr. S. Jay Olshansky - "Human by Design" U of Ill. Chicago Has a 1.5 million dollar bet with Dr. Steven Austin (began at $150, but by the time collected interest will have increased it 10,000 times) that someone alive in 2000 will be alive in 2150. "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" ( T. Dozhensky??) Topic: Why, when, and how do we age? Aging is defined as the passage of chronological time. Senescence defined as the passage of biological time. Showed photograph of twins with different senescence. Life-span is defined as the observed duration of life for an individual. Life expectancy defined as the average of number of years of life remaining for a population. Maximum life-span defined as the longest lived member of a species. The world record for life-span has been increasing. In the age of pestilence and famine there were oscillating birth and death rates. But in the last 100 years lower mortality rate at birth. Ref to his article in 1993. Distribution of death of females in 1900 contrasted with 2000. Presently no one is older than 122. The maximum age has increased about 7 years in the last 100 yrs. DNA is immortal (germ lines, that is), but evolution determined that its carriers became mortal. Note - there is a graphic symbol for immortality - similar to infinity symbol Starting from the work of Darwin, senescence theory was started by Sir Peter Medawar (based upon mutation accumulation), George Williams (antagonistic pleiotropy) Tom Kirkwood (disposable soma). Senescence is only found in animals that we protect, or us. Otherwise animals die from predators or environmental causes. All organisms have genetic programs for growth, development and reproduction, but none have programs for death (see C. Kenyon for biomolecular view). Life-span sectored by pre-reproductive period, reproductive period, and post reproductive period. Natural selection is only active in the reproductive period. Duration of life is calibrated to the onset and length of a species' reproductive window. Life-span of a mouse is 1,000 days, dog 5,000, elephant 26,000, human 29,000, sea turtle, 55,000, bowhead whale 77,000. Aging or senescence is an accident of surviving beyond the warranty period for living machines. Senescence is a byproduct not a program. Surgery, chemotherapy, etc. puts light on the "shadow of senescence". It lengthens life but doesn't change the nature of senescence. You have to modify the bedrock (the DNA) to change senescence. The next longevity revolution will focus upon two forces. His book, "Redesigning humans" depicts how he would redesign the morphology of humans to last into longer years of wear. The article in Scientific American "If humans were built to last" appeared in 2001 and 2003. "Human by Design" is forthcoming in American Scientist Jan. or Feb. of 2005 and revised his vision. Two views of body design: 1) Michelangelo - perfection, 2) Darwin - anatomical oddities. Both agree that time reveals the "flaws" in a body design that was not intended for long-term use. Species that share so many common characteristics in terms of genetics, physiology and morphology have life expectancies and maximum life-spans that differ so widely. Project Life-quest. Dan Buttoner (from MN). It is an educational program for Children. He and a team are going internationally to evaluate centenarians and super centenarians. You can extend life, but he says the process of aging has never been modified. He asks, "As long as we can make people live longer, why should anyone care whether life extension occurs by slowing aging or reducing fatal illness?" Jay says the difference is critical. If we only address fatal manifestations of aging, we may see a dramatic rise in frailty and disability among the elderly. You only add years to the end of a life span, not to the beginning or earlier (again, see Kenyon). Q&A: What is the difference between aging and disease? Alzheimer's has an ICD code doctors use for categorizing illness to the government, suggesting it is a disease? On average, humans would only gain 10-15 years to their lives if stroke, cardiac/heart ailments, and cancer were eliminated completely. Alzheimer's elimination would gain only 19 days of longevity! - If we're programmed for reproduction why do females live longer than males? 75% of reproduction accomplished by humans by age 32. Actually most males and females have similar in reproductive success and mortality before middle age. - Does oxidation affect aging? Body sows the seeds of its own destruction as soon as life begins. - In senescence does the 2nd law of thermodynamics apply? No, we are open systems, not closed systems. - What about studying the mitochondrial haplotypes (gene in mitochondria) in Italian and Sweden populations? We really don't have fundamental knowledge about the nature of longevity. - Can you predict age? A 90 year old ran 3:40 in the recent Twin Cities marathon. So who knows? - In his new article in Scientific American he redesigned the human knee to bend backwards and added a tail for balance. Someone asked what would a chair look like then? You just lean back on your tail, no need for chair! Day One afternoon: Speaker Two: Dr. Leonard Hayflick, U of California, San Francisco. "Hay-flick Limiting" is rule that cells can replicate 50 times or so, then they die. Cells are not immortal. Lineage of cells eventually dies. Interestingly, normal cells frozen then thawed remember how many times they divided (or doubled) before freezing. He also developed human cell strains. This strain WIi38 made possible billions of immunizations without the risk of developing vaccines contaminated with virus strains from animals. His papers are some of the most referenced in all of biology. There are four aspects of the finitude of life. He will discuss key terms, 3 major concepts, why aging occurs, why it's not a disease, role of genes, what research on aging is and is not. Four aspects : determinants of longevity, aging, age-associated diseases, death. The first 3 are often confused. Confusion results in missfunding, public policy disputes, and misinterpretation of research findings. Trees are often cited as the oldest organisms on earth, but he contends humans are older. In redwood trees (3K years old) or bristle-cone pine (5K years old) only its dead cells are that old. Their live cells are less than 30 years old, so anyone over 30 is older than the living parts of those trees. But we slough away our dead cells and trees keep them as their architecture. Since only protected animals age, aging is a sociological phenomenom. Biological aging is the random, systemic, loss of molecular fidelity that eventually exceeds repair or maintenance capacity and occurs after reproductive maturity in animals that reach a fixed size in adulthood. Alligators, deep sea fish, etc. age so slowly it's almost imperceptible. This progressive loss of molecular fidelity increases vulnerability to age-associated diseases. Miss-folded proteins give rise to age related diseases. Some are subtle such as cataracts, hearing loss, loss of muscle mass, etc. and are not life threatening. But immune system losses, and amyloid fibrils cause Alzheimer's, Huntington's and Parkinson's. These are fatal. All complex biological molecules have evolved energy states sufficient to maintain fidelity until most of the animals they constitute reach reproductive success. If not, the species would vanish. All molecules include those that compose repair, turnover and maintenance processes. Mean time to failure of humans is 78 yrs. Molecules change because some of their properties are thermodynamically unstable. E.g., the effect of hydrogen, covalent and Van der Waals bond twisting, angle bending, and bond lengthening. Examples of damage include glycation, inactivity due to conformational alterations, aggregation, precipitation and denaturation, amyloid formation, rate changes in degradation, synthesis, etc. Premises for longevity: 1) Energy for fidelity must be retained from conception to reproductive success. 2) Selection for redundant physiological capacity in vital organs. More redundancy means more resiliency. 3) Excess physiological capacity gained after reaching the age of reproductive success is what indirectly determines longevity. Conclusions: 1) Redundancy at sexual maturation governs potential additional survival time. 2) Genome directly determines events from conception to sexual maturation. Post reproductive longevity is determined indirectly. 3) Potential longevity is determined by fidelity of molecules. 4) ? 5) Molecules must first exist free of age (they start at zero age). 6) ?. Why aging is not a disease: 1-3) ? 4) Aging happens only in feral animals protected by humans, 5) Aging increase the vulnerability to death. 6) At molecular levels, gradual deterioration occurs similarly in animate (organisms) and inanimate objects (like cars). Longer age can be attained if diseases can be resolved: Removing specific causes of death adds specific number of years to life: cardiovascular: 6.73 years, cancer: 3.4 years, accidents: 0.92 yrs. All of these are years added at birth. Slightly less # of years added at age 65. Hayflick doesn't believe genes determine aging. Aging is spontaneous and genes are unnecessary to drive a spontaneous process. Aging is not a disease, but the process increases vulnerability to disease. What is research on aging? It embraces all aspects of the finitude of life. Biogerontologists do research on the fundamental biology of aging which is only one small part of longevity. No large research effort is directed toward the understanding of fundamental biology of human aging. The greatest risk factor for the leading causes of death is the aging process. Q&A - Only recently have we paid attention to animals that don't reach a fixed size in adulthood. Sea Bass is a patagonian tooth fish. We don't know their age, but 100 years or older is frequent for the ones that are sold at the fish market. They are endangered. - Cancer cells are immortal, unlike normal cells. Due to telemers being sealed. Cancers use telemerase and replace that end section at end normally lost during replication. Normal cells lose a layer of telemers during each replication. - No evidence that antioxidants pass the gut to reduce "rusting" in the cells. So taking antioxidants have limited positive affect. Vitamin E does get to the brain, but no antioxidants have been shown to retard the aging process. - Stem cells may replace organs, but are not a fountain of youth. Speaker Three: Dr. Dennis Selkoe - Harvard Medical School Alzheimer's can be treated as a disease. Other protein folding diseases like Huntington's and Parkinson's and Lou Gherig's can also be treated, though progress is slow. Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia. It affects 3-4 million Americans, over 20M worldwide, all races and ethnic groups. It accounts for over $100B in annual cost in the U.S. alone, and there is no effective treatment. Senility is senile dementia. It is a progressive mental failure after age 65. AD is the most common of over 20 causes for dementia. AD accounts for ~60% of dementia in US. Progresses over 5-20 years and is fatal. It shortens life expectancy by some 30-60%. At age 75, 4.3% of the population have AD, 8.5% at age 80, 16% at age 85, 28.5% at age 90. 360,000 new cases per year. 1.14 million cases by 2050. AD causes inflammation (microgliosis and astrocytosis), degenerates selectively, and creates deficits in acetylcholine, glutamate, somatostatin, serotonin, GABA, dopamine, norepenephrine, etc. We have no idea why neurons next door to fibroid tangles and dead axons are unaffected. Tangles inside neurons are composed of altered forms of the microtubule-associated protein called "tau". Amyloid plaques outside cells are composed of the 40-42 long amino chain amyloid beta proteins. 12 year olds with Downs also have amyloid deposits. APP is beta-amyloid precursor protein. Long and stick like. Alpha-beta (∂ß) is the damaging section cut from APP and this may be a normal process, not a disease. What causes the problem is an imbalance between ∂ß production and clearance (removing them). Four genes are related to AD predilection. All are related to increased ∂ß peptide production. APP and Presenilin (gamma-secratase) come together in the cell. Presenilin threads its way in and out of the neuron membrane 8 times. Every cross causes potential for problems. ∂ß production decreases when the Presenilin aspirates are mutated. Presenilin does the final cut of APP. There are antibodies to ∂ß and an ∂ß vaccine has made it into trials. Immunizing animal with the peptides that create the plaques keep the plaques from forming. It slows cognitive decline but a series side effect is that it causes inflammation in 6% of the patients, so trials were halted a year ago. But a new version of the vaccine understands why the inflammation was caused. Trials of this new vaccine started Nov 03. Q&A - Counter-viewpoint is the "Taoist" (tau protein) persuasion. Neuron causes it, but ∂ß required. Suggests a stronger role for tau. - What makes AD a disease and not part of aging? Some indication shows a buildup of protein causes a precursor to AD and this might trigger a cascade effect. - Aluminum as a contributing cause to AD? Aluminum does not induce tangles, but might cause another aggregate. In some patients, Aluminum was found to be elevated, but upon replicating the study it didn't pan out. There is currently little evidence that aluminum is involved in AD. - Lesions occur more often in cognitive areas of the brain than in motor function areas. Thus cognitive function more effected than motor skills. A MRI will show shrinkage in motor areas, but that is not specific to AD. - AD is being seen as a mix of genetics and environment. Inheriting 1 allele heightens chances of getting it greatly, 2 or more increases that risk greatly. Prevention: select your parents carefully (!), take vitamin E, possibly ibuprofen to reduce inflammation (breaks the cycle of protein aggregation somewhat). Epidemical studies say exercise and mental activity hold it off. See the study by Shodden and the Mankato nuns. Day Two morning: Speaker Four: Laura Carstensen - Stanford University School of Geriatric Psychology. Adding 30 years to life-span over the past 150 years is one of the greatest achievements of humankind. How to keep ourselves mentally, emotionally and physically fit into old age is a discussion worth having. Implicit theory of gerontology is that things get worse or decline as you age. Processing capacity does decrease as the mind ages (this can be measured several different ways). However, world knowledge increases or at least stays stable. This can be shown through studies of patients recalling Shipley vocabularies, antonym vocabularies and synonym vocabularies. "Testing the limits paradigm". Young people outperform elders on memory tests. But both improve with practice, though younger people improve faster. When you emphasize that "this is a MEMORY test" in your instructions, this results in a bigger young/old difference, but when instructions given describe tasks as "learning" there is only a small difference. In positive conditions people do better than when negative conditions are given in instructions. So motivation counts. Likely due to self-image of the elderly. Motivation affects perception of time. Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory. Because chronological age is associated with time left in life, goals change across the life span. Goals are always set in temporal contexts. When focusing on the present and your time is known to be limited, people invest in sure things, deepen relationships, savor life. They know what's important in life and live in the moment. In these situations the future becomes irrelevant. So time perception rather than age is the most important factor. Theoretical postulates: 1) Perceived constraints on time motivate people to pursue emotionally meaningful goals. 2) Goals influence cognitive processing. 3) Pursuing emotional goals is good for emotional health. Social partner options (given the choice of whether to spend time with the author of book you just read, or a recent acquaintance, or a member of your immediate family). Older people choose familiar social partners if time is open ended. If time is constrained (e.g. you're about to move away to another state) both old and young choose familiar partners highly. If its found that you could live for another 20 years (no time constraint) older people choose familiar partners less often than young. (Forget my family, I'm going to try new experiences!). Memory for emotional narrative increases as you get older, because it's more relevant to them. Older people strongly prefer emotional print and TV ads (text referencing ones you love or "special moments") But this goes away if the timeframe is open ended. Elders remember emotionally meaningful slogans much better than knowledge-related slogans. Positive images (warm and fuzzy) and negative images (snakes, slime) are recalled equally by youth and elders, but positive images are remembered more strongly than negative images. So is this visual information not encoded or not perceived in the first place? With MRIs they found that brain activation when first shown positive images were recalled with the same results. But scans show elders don't really think about negative images. They just don't register. Amygdala scans show they attend to positive images, not to negative images (actually there is negative activity for both neutral or negative images). Elders also orient toward positive faces (smiles), and away from negative faces (fear or disgust). When people of any age try to recall their past more accurately (going for informational content), their recollections are more negative than the real event. When they try to recall it emotionally, they're more positive. Elders remember positive emotional images better than the young do. From age 12-34 negative emotions in day-to-day life slide downward. From 35-64 there is a minimum frequency of negative emotions in day-to-day life. Above 65 the frequency of negative emotions go up. Q&A - Longitudinal studies are less misleading than cross-sectional studies. In other words, you should study the same people at age 20 and at age 70. More accurate than studying people of different ages at the same time. E.g. With cross-sectional studies it would be accurate to report that: In Florida, most people are born hispanic and die Jewish. Kind of funny but you get the idea. - Her new book about increasing life-span over the past century, "The Unexpected Years" - Call for scientific effort on later years. - Compared to younger people, elders have lower rates of all other mental afflictions like phobias, except for dementia. - Because of their preference to positive images, elders are less likely to respond to negative political ads. Day Two afternoon : Speaker Five: Dr. Cynthia Kenyon - U of San Francisco. Genes that establish longevity. Nematode "C. elegans" used for study. Adults have 957 cells in body. Found three (possibly four) pathways that influence longevity. These are the genes that control aging (note that the other speakers used the term aging differently and Hayflick claimed that aging isn't controlled, it just happens). Life-spans: mouse 2 years, canary 15 years, bat 50 years. Similar animals like gray squirrels, 25 years. yet the rat is only 3 years. Michael Class found a mutant worm that lived 50% longer than others. So first they changed the genes at random. Found that mutations that damage a gene called daf-2 double the worm's life-span. Nematodes have 20,000 genes (humans have 30,000). This added longevity was not just time tacked on to the end of their lives, but they seems to age more slowly. Seems to be an evolutionary traits to deal with times when food is in short supply. Worms raised with little food enter a "dauer" state where they don't eat. To enter this state they must be before adulthood. If no daf-2 gene they become dauer even if food is present. When does daf-2 activity act to promote dualism? To damage action of the gene they use RNAi. Gene acts on the worm soon after hatching (whether dauer conditions or not) then again in the adult to control rate of aging. Daf-2 encodes a hormone receptor. When hormones are placed at the receptor it tells the cell to age. Aging is therefore controlled, it doesn't just happen. This hormone receptor is very similar to receptors for insulin and IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor). When the hormone receptor is removed for nematodes, fruit flies and mice they all live longer. When removing the insulin receptor for fat tissue mice lived longer and stayed thin. The same genes aren't active in all tissue. The genes for the eyes that let you see aren't active in the heart, and vice versa. In same way these control genes affect the activities of many genes but may be more or less active. Are these genes contributing to the life span of daf-2 changed animals? Looking at the mutant worms, their activity is increased in long-lived animals. They really look youthful. Many genes less active in the long-lived mutants also influence longevity but are not control genes - they are more "downstream" from the control genes and influenced by them. What do these "downstream genes" do? Some produce antioxidants, or chaperones (helper proteins), or antimicrobial, or metabolic genes, or novel genes. Worms have better protection against infection with chaperones. Daf-2 "conducts" other components that all work together. This system evolved from response to harsh environmental conditions. Dauer worms are also less sensitive to heat, radiation, etc. Huntington's protein put into normal C. elegens forms aggregates, but formation of aggregation is delayed in long-lived mutants. Long-lived mutant mice are more resistant to cancer as well. Long-lived flies are more resistant to heart failure. Animals are biologically younger, so therapeutic applications are possible. In other words, you can treat them after birth. To test this they added chemicals that inhibit the chaperone proteins. Inhibiting the chaperones caused aggregates to form in younger animals and to form in longer-lived mutants. So absence of these downstream genes can accelerate disease in normal or mutant animals. Reproduction and aging: These studies show that life-span can be extended without inhibiting reproduction. Upcoming article in Nature on guppies. No tradeoff between life-span and reproduction. If one alters daf-2 gene plus you remove the reproductive system in the same animals, the worms live 6 times as long. Some super-long lived worms are ten times as long-lived. Human longevity: changes in genes during the evolution from single celled animals have increased life-span by >1000 fold. Rates of damage and deterioration versus rates of maintenance and repair probably determine the rate of aging (remember, the germ lineage is immortal). We probably live so long because elders are wise; possibly also to help take care of grandchildren. Probably not much selective value in living much longer. Lack of role models if you live too long! - Ethical implications: Living longer could result in overpopulation, too many elderly, no room in job market? Q&A - They've tested many of the genes and some affect mitochondria by inhibiting respiration. But altering that gene must be done in childhood, so unlike daf-2 it changes the hormone system in adults. This mitochondrial gene operates differently from those affected by food restriction (caloric restriction) in adults. There are perhaps 4 systems (upstream controllers) for controlling long-livedness. - Environmental triggers (expression of genes)? Those triggers affect smell and taste. If you knock out those olfactory genes they live longer. Implication is that if you have no smell or taste you could live longer! Speaker Six: Dr. Peter J. Whitehouse, Department of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve U. - Personally, he abandoned the distinction between work and play. He loves his work. Is an ethicist and a theologian. Gave a disclosure about his grants and funding and consulting fees from over the years. The language we use and the social, political and economic forces associated with our words are powerful. Integrating liberal arts and sciences (mentions a program called SAGES0). Says the university circle is the world's most powerful learning environment. Also has a focus on reinventing aging, that is, life span perspective. Co-gnos "together knowledge". Unity of knowledge. - Dementia ("impaired mind"). Alzheimer's (AD) named in 1906. In standard medical/scientific view, AD is not normal aging. Believes that genetic approaches to AD will be most effective. Conceptions of AD: 1) Biological - strongly genetic condition. 2) Clinical - a part of the narrative of the affected individual's life linked to the healer through relationship based care. 3) Cultural - AD is a cultural concern. Have we created a terror in our society around AD? When labeled with AD we put those patients in another box. Would we all develop AD if we lived long enough? There are different levels of impairment. Mild cognitive impairment has no dementia, but is at-risk for AD. Such mild impairment exhibits relatively intact activities, yet they rate below the standard deviation for impairment for the same age group. What are the clinical implications of MCI: (mild cognitive impairment). Person says: I may or may not have it, may or may not get it. Partner says: I care for them, am cared by them, or, I do not and will not give care to them. Society says: this means we are going to have more impaired elderly. Technically, before MCI there is a pre-MCI. There is also "Aging Associated Memory Impairment" (pre-pre MCI). How do you talk about these states outside of our culture? Some languages can make the distinctions, but some don't. If you take MCI, translate it to Chinese, then back translate it from Chinese you get "loss of wisdom". Wisdom can be seen as "executive functions" with a special dose of emotions and values, including purpose, planning, monitoring. Wisdom is both collective and individual. Everyone has it to one degree or another and can enhance it in themselves and others. Bioethics was invented in 1970 by Dr. V.R. Potter. It is a bridge between science and humanities. It is an interdisciplinary profession emergent from biology, law, humanities. Focus is upon the goal of world-wide sustainable quality of life (QOL). It is a search for necessary wisdom and contains a personal ethical credo. He posits a transformative power of therapy. Electronic reminiscence therapy (??). Memories of the theatre (??). NIA funded book club. The Intergenerational School is a school he helped develop has an Intergenerational Literature Collection, and staffs elderly as reading mentors for kids. Intergenerational Storytelling is a program within the school. It is another method for creating collective wisdom. Overstated and provocative conclusion - the most important cognitive challenge is to recognize that experts may divide the world of AD into boxes that have the potential to terrorize people. Wiser solution is to realize that AD is a form of brain aging which will affect us all. Q&A - Try aromatherapy, touch therapy. Many different ways to stimulate the brain. Some evidence that AD patients can recognize and read the faces of others. Some evidence that community volunteerism also delays onset. - Unfortunately, not all caregivers are equally competent at giving care and even trained doctor are capable of ignoring the patient and addressing caregiver even with the patient in the room. - Children of AD patients tend to have phobias about AD. When tested objectively and found to not have impairment, they are still concerned about impairment. If they are still concerned he asks them to take away 5% of what they do to reduce their anxiety about AD. - Jay Olshansky doesn't take vitamins. The randomness of the aging process made him realize that length of life is less important than how he feels. He has a moderate diet and exercises daily. - Hayflick: none of the experts know of any intervention to slow or stop aging. But many things can be done to delay or postpone aging. - Jay: if Cynthia (Kenyon) is right, modifying a gene may cascade into both desirable effects like longer life, but also undesirable effects like forced retirement, housing shortage, etc. But in the absence of an aging "magic bullet", interventions like activity and exercise appear to help.

]]> 2004-10-26 15:09:56 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041011122853/LHA20041026204808/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041011122853/LHA20041026204808/index.html

Notes on the Nobel Conference 2003, St. Peter, MN

Date Created: Oct 14, 2003, 08:57 PM

Nobel Conference, Oct 7-8, 2003 Dr. James Peters former Science Museum of MN president, now President of Gustavus Adolphus. Panel: - banquet speaker: Dr. Christian de Duve, 1974 Novel laureate in physiology/medicine - Niles Eldredge, evolutionary theorist from the American Museum of Natural History, NY - Peter Grant and Rosemary Grant, evolutionary biologists from Princeton University - John Haught, Prof of Theology, Georgetown University, on God after Darwin - Tim White, from UC Berkeley on Unearthing Human LIneage - Philip Currie, Royal Tyrrell Museum Alberta, on feathered dinosaurs and origin of birds - Sean Carroll, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison on The Molecular Approach Day 1 Lecture 1 - Dr. Eldredge, paleontologist - First to convince world, but not first to come up with theory, that life evolved from single source. Review Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene". Changes in physical environment effect evolution. Happens when you get dramatic changes in environment. Darwin and George Gaylord Simpson are two key figures. Founding father of evolutionary synthesis. How do you do evolutionary biology with samples so old there is no genetic material left? Says there are repeated patterns in life than can be studied. Stromatolites are blue-green algae. There was a big die-off at end of Permian period (end of Paleozoic Era 230M years ago). Oxygen spiked at certain times of change, spurring growth of life on earth. Three evolutionary patterns include "stasis" (straight line), "speciation and stasis" (line, oblique break, line) and "lineages" (lots of lines and breaks). Also known as "turnover pulse" (stasis + speciation). If glaciers cover an area there is little local evolution because of little environmental change - until the glacier melts. Local adaptations happen, but unlikely to make a major evolutionary change if the environment is stable. "The sloshing bucket" theory of evolution. Reproductive success affects local population, local ecosystem , regional ecosystem, then the biosphere. Elizabeth Vrba's work on turnover pulses is the newest outlook on evolution theory and lineages. Panel - change isn't rising from the genes but from the environment. Sixth extinction (present day). In 10K years we went from 5 million people on earth to 5 billion people. Lecture 2 - Peter and Rosemary Grant - The change in Darwin's Finches took place over 3M years. In the beginning there was a singular finch 3M years ago. Radiation (outward migration). Multiplication of species. Evolution happens when the environment changes. The reproductive barrier between species. Hybridization. The Galapagos Islands were never part of the mainland. Disbursement greatest after El Nino year because of overpopulation. First disbursement was due to volcanic eruptions burning Ecuadorian forests and finches flee out to sea. Fewer islands 3M years ago, but eruptions and sea-mount building caused many more to form. Temperature changes as well. Temperature lowered over time with greater ranges in fluctuation. Molecular data indicates radiation began with finch bill becoming more like warbler bill (short and thin). Another finch developed a short but stouter beak. Used micro-satellite DNA phylogeny. Mitochondrial DNA analysis would show the same phylogenic radiation. 14 species derived. Niches increased as islands increased. Has to be ecological separation (different food) and reprodutive separation (no interbreeding) for separation of species. In some niches finches feed on eggs and blood of boobies (they used to feed on flies that bled boobies, but now have shortened the food chain). Study of beak sizes over 30 years. Beak depth increases with rainfall (El Nino) as population increases and smaller seeds are "over grazed". Measuring evolution is done by taking measure in generation before replication and comparing it to second generation after replication (skipping a generation). Measured mean trait values across years. So natural selection on Daphne island is observable, natural, has morphogenic consequences. What is reproductive barrier between species and is it "leaky"? Birds only mate with their own species. They develop the same song sung by their father even if the father's singing of it is wrong. If they learn song of other species they will mate with member of that other species. This is called introgression and increases genetic variation on which selection can act. Perching birds all learn songs but doves and pigeons don't learn their songs. Lecture 3 - John Haught - Richard Dawkins in a Materialist who believes that any religion is against the tenets of evolution. Separatists see science in one realm, religion (meaning and purpose) in another, but compatible. Evolutionary Theology tries to rethink theology to deeper insights into God. More accommodating and progressive than Materialism. "Evolution and Divine Providence". Classical view of providence has a hierarchical universe. Contemporary picture of universe is 13.7 B years. Imagine 30 volumes of books with each volume at 450 pages. Each page = 1 M years. Earth begins at volume 21. Life begins at volume 22. Cambrian explosion volume 29 and modern humans on p450 of volume 30. Evolution's recipe: accidents + natural selection + deep time. How to map classic hierarchy onto this picture? Providence after Darwin? Approaches: Should we consider that providence is entirely unbelievable? or initial cosmic design? or hidden plan? or evolution as divine pedagogy? or we can see broad evolutionary trends suggesting divine influence? or Darwin's recipe itself that there is providence in evolution applied through randomness, natural selection and deep time. - Natural selection: is cruel - Dawkins says there is only pitiful indifference. Darwin suffices. - Is providence hidden behind accidents of evolution? Alexander Pope says, chance is "direction which thou canst not see". Perhaps there's some wider divine plan. Human sense of order may only be a narrow view. - Evolution as divine pedagogy? Guy Murchie, The Seven Mysteries of Life. Darwinian process is harsh but educational. Earth as a soul school: obstacles essential to life. What kind of work would you have created? Says God made a world that is educational, contrasty, thrilling, tantalizing and beautiful to develop spirit in. Writings by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (priest and geologist). He noted that there is a gradual increase in organized complexity. Corresponding increase in consciousness. Sufficient to give meaning to evolution. Also increase in centration (search for center) from nucleus to central nervous system to more complex brain to self-awareness to religion. Called this final centration the "noosphere". Said suffering is inevitable in an unfinished universe. Ultimate explanation of evolution is an emergent hierarchy and God draws the world toward unity from "up ahead". Alfred N. Whitehead said the aim of evolution is toward more and more intense versions of beauty (balance of novelty and order) as derived from adventure. Balances the forces of ennui and chaos. God is persuasive as opposed to forcing, allows for chance, freedom and Darwinian evolution. God's will = maximizing of beauty. - Or, evolution is God's Self-gift. Giving himself away to the universe. Only way the finite world can adapt to the infinite is to undergo self-transcendence (which is evolution). Universe is seeded with promise rather than design. In the bible providence is tied to the theme of promise. Because the world around us isn't that well designed. Promise is consistent with present ambiguity in the world. Darwin's 3-part recipe is consistent with promise. - Contingency leads to to nature's openness to the future - Laws of nature lead to a universe we can depend on - Deep time is indicative of divine timeframe. Waiting is never disinterested passivity but the highest form of interest in the other. Awaiting keeps an open space for the other, gives the other time, and creates possibilities of life for the other. Day 2 Lecture 4 - Dr. Tim White in paleoanthropology. Human evolutionary studies at Berkeley. Spokesperson for research area in Ethiopia (Middle Awash). Funded since 1981 through the NSF and IGPP Los Alamos. There are dozens of creation myths across the world. Do any reflect the evidence? Lava dome in Ethiopia split and now opens to the Red Sea (great east African rift). Afar depression, near Addus Abba. Lots of clouds over dome and that leads to drainage and deposits into the rift. Fracture zone of rift creates volcanos, which play an important role since resultant ash horizons are datable by Argon/Argon dating. Eruptions in the past are larger then Mt. Pinatubo in Philippines. Ash deposits several meters thick. At 1.8M years ago hominids are leaving Africa. 1M years ago homo erectus has a range that stretched from China to Mediterranean. They used stone tool technology. Neanderthals: extinct or ancestral? About 100K years ago. National Geographic couldn't decide in mid 80s. Maternal DNA from mitochondria. High variation in chimps, small range of variation in humans. So there was some keyhole of lineage humans went through that resulted in limited genetic diversity. We had an "Eve" or lucky mother who led to all humans, about 100K years ago. After one season found hippopotamus bones and hand axes, plus marks on bones. Looking for fossils you walk toward the sun to see the reflections off bones because they're mostly silica. Uncovered nearly intact skull with cranium of a 7 year old nearby. Both had tool marks on them suggesting cannibalism. No other bones near by. Some form of mortuary practice. 400K years ago in Europe there was some glaciation and that led to the specialization of Neanderthals. Neanderthal craniums had greater breadth at the parietals but it was lower than for sapiens, no canine fossa. The more deeply we look back, ancestors seems more anatomically remote. Panel - Eldredge said molecular biology is newer but paleontology gives different information including a context of other animals and flora. Tim, Neanderthal fossil record is broken. No clue as to where it ended. But knows that they disposed of dead in a cave where bear bones where found also. Men, women and children remains found there. Close to 30 remains. These were early Neanderthal, less facial ridge development. Persisted after it became more tropical as far north as Croatia (hippos found there). Seems like they were a glacial adaptation, supplanted by homo sapiens after the glaciers receded. - Why did early man leave Africa? Well, they didn't all leave. It was an expansion. Lecture 5 - Philip Currie - studies vertebrates including dinosaurs, aquatic reptiles, and feathered dinosaurs and the origins of birds. From Alberta CA where there are lots of fossils. Found that small carnivorous dinosaurs had feet very similar to birds (ligatures, etc.). There are passive flying squirrels, fish and even flying snakes. Active flyers include birds, bats and pterosaurs. Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, they are pre-dinosaurs and not ancestors to birds. Though some were as small as robins or wrens. Jeholopterus has been found in China and it was covered with fur. They now know that pterosaurs were fur-covered. Archaeopteryx closely related to dinosaurs. Feathers are preserved which is the only way discoverer knew they were related to birds. 1870 Thomas Huxley already said that dinosaurs are closest relative to birds. Fused clavicles of fish and amphibians = furcula (wishbone). Theilman (?) though more ancient ancestor to dinosaurs gave rise to birds. Later, crocodiles were suggested. How could dinosaurs have been precursors to birds since dinosaurs had no fused clavicles. Lontgisquama insignis is another reptile recently suggested as ancestor, but their feathers are structured differently. Turns out that dinosaurs do have a bird-like furcula. Turns out oviraptor has a furcula. Furcula have been misidentified until mid 1970s. Often placed improperly in reconstructions in museums. Many bird-like dinosaurs were larger than most birds, including Dromaeosaurus (child-size). Whole new types of dinosaurs still being discovered. Ornithomimus also looks birdlike (ostrich like). Even beak was preserved. Birds have lots of air sacs in body and air tubes that go through bones. Confuciusornis with short tail and long tail feathers was found in Colorado. Had spaces suggesting air sacs and had bone cross-sections bird-like. Farmer in China who discovered a new species sold one specimen impression to one museum and the other half of the impression to another museum. That animal, about the size of a chicken, Sinosauropteryxis a dinosaur with "feathers". They are very small feather-like structures on head. Not hairs, but branching structures. Inside stomach was last meal: including jaws from two small mammals. Another had small lizard in it. Even dinosaurs the size of a man had feathers. Then a new one, Caudipteryx, found to have tail with long fan of feathers and fan of feathers behind short arms. It had feather barbs and barbs had barbules, just like modern feathers. Sat in intermediate position where it had real feathers and physiology of a dinosaur. Lately found that misidentified eggs likely belonging to this dinosaur on top of it (likely defending and protecting the nest). 9 species of feathered dinosaurs now known. Thought that early feathers gave a slightly aerodynamic edge for gliding. Some species are even larger than a man. So closely related to raptors and tyrannosaurus that maybe in some early stages of life TRex had feathers for heat retention, etc. Panel. Did flight start from tree down or ground up? Some dinosaurs had feathers in back of hind legs and that might suggest it started with gliding from trees. Lecture 6 - Dr. Sean Carroll: evo/devo (evolutionary development) underlying mechanisms that allow animals to look vastly different from each other. NSF Young Investigator award. Butterflies, Zebras and Fairy-tales: Genetics and the Making of Animal Diversity. Early in genetics there were lots of questions regarding form. How do individual animal forms develop? How have so many different animal forms evolved? Evolution of form occurs through changes in development assimilated over many generations. Would evolution of new animals and parts involve new genes? Would humans have more genes than other animals? Is there a gene for every piece of anatomy ad trait - every finger, toe, muscle, etc. Making animals: Common features of animal design - Modularity (snakes, worms) and serial homology (lobsters, butterflies and humans have repeating blocks that are modified through specialization). Williston's Law, "... the parts in an organism tend toward reduction in number, with the fewer parts greatly specialized in function." Monsters and master genes - Fruit fly mutations include the wrong number of wings (extra pair), extra legs (replacing antennae). Mutations that kill before maturation can effect the number of segments, their polarity (direction they face), distribution. Controlled by genes. How do these dramatic genes work? Building animals - Basic logic divides up the embryo through divisions like latitude and longitude marking on a globe. Coordinates include height and depth, like mountains with various elevations on a globe. Latitude divides up into north, mid and southern latitudes along the length of the organism, corresponding to the head, middle, tail. Longitudinal divisions are made into quadrants (NWSE) for dorsal-rt, dorsal-left, ventral-rt, ventral-left. All this happens in about 60 minutes of differentiation in the fruit fly embryo. Shown under fluorescent laser light. At certain intersections of latitudinal and longitudinal meridians it creates a little globe respond for complete development of legs, arms, etc. Genetic toolkit for the animal kingdom - The homeotic genes mark longitudes along the main body axis and the control of the identity of segment and body parts. 8 genes control this. In 1963 E. Mayr said "search for homologous genes is quite futile except in very close relatives" Not true. Sean found what applied to fruit flies also applied to mice and chickens. Evo/Devo applies to species through time (paleontology) systematics (species, variation and speciation), and genes in population (genetics). Embryology is no long a "black box". Eyes - you can turn off "eyeness" gene. Same gene for fruit flies or mice. "Distal-less" gene makes legs into nubs. Same gene for fruit flies, crustaceans, fish fin, chicken wing, or sea urchin. Common ancestor of vertebrates and arthropods lived prior to Cambrian Explosion (>544 M years ago) Don't know what animal it is, though it was bilaterally symmetrical and has extensive toolkit of developmental genes. Toolkit paradox - If we share an extensive toolkit of body-building genes, mice and humans have virtual identical sets. Chimps and humans are >98% identical, so how do differences in form arise? Resolution: It's in the way that you use it" (a reference to E. Clapton). Differences in the time and place of gene expression. DNA contains both genes and control switches. 29,000 genes in human, mice , ape genome. Switches are regulatory, they don't control anything by themselves. The xrays causing mutations in fruit flies broke the switches, they didn't create or change the genes. Genetic switches act like GPS locators to determine where genes turn on and off. One ON switch might show up in stripes on an embryo, with OFF genes overlapping in large bands, making the area of no overlap the only place where ON switches allow genes to grow legs (for example). Insects evolved wings from respiratory structures in aquatic crustaceans. Only switches changes as to where wings were allowed to develop and not to develop. Butterfly wing spots use the "distal-less" gene in the wing for the center of the eye spot. The patterns of two other genes mark the outer rings of the eye spots. Evolved by adding switches. Switches may be the main thing differentiating between species (especially close species. Apes have speech centers in brain according to recent studies, so difference between them and man is just a matter of degrees ... one mediated by switches.

]]> 2003-10-14 20:57:00 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145915/LHA20041029125652/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145915/LHA20041029125652/index.html

The Scientific American Frontiers ETV Experience

Date Created: Jul 15, 2001, 01:01 PM

Local Data Enhancements Greg Daigle - July 2001 This overview highlights a spring 2001 trial for inserting local data enhancements into national digital television broadcasts. The challenge to the local production team was to create interactions based upon information from local sources and insert those interactions seamlessly between nationally produced enhancements accompanying the broadcast program. This overview is for television producers who will be working with interactive producers to create enhanced television experiences through digital television in accordance with the Advanced Television Enhancement Forum (ATVEF) specification. Background ATVEF provides two means for the delivery of interactive content for an associated television program. In one variation known as Transport A, content "triggers" arriving in the broadcast instruct the receiving set-top box to pull assets (animations, graphics, text, interactive elements, etc.) from the Web via an Internet connection. This trial instead utilized ATVEF Transport B to send the entire set of assets over the broadcast stream. No Web connection was required. The subject of this trial was the PBS program "Scientific American Frontiers", produced by Chedd-Angier. It took place during the broadcast of four episodes: "The Bionic Body", "Chimps R Us", "Flying Free" and "Fat and Happy". The Scientific American Frontiers (SAF) enhancement effort involved two production levels: the national enhancement team from Chedd-Angier and seven local enhancement teams at various PBS stations. The Minneapolis/St. Paul (TPT -Twin Cities Public Television) team included a Technical Director, an Executive Producer, and a development team from interactive agency SixtyFootSpider. The development team consisted of a Producer (team leader, writer), a Programmer (scripting, testing) and a Designer (visual, interactive asset creation). Quality assurance and testing was performed by a Webmaster. Establishing the User Experience The national enhancement team had responsibility for establishing an overall "look and feel" for the user experience. This included a template for the screen layout and the underlying HTML coding. The template took into consideration factors such as NTSC-safe colors and reduced screen resolution. Its design took into account an aesthetic selection of colors established to coordinate with each of the episodes (e.g. palette of "jungle" greens for the primate episode and "sky" blues for the episode on flight, etc.). During viewing of the enhancements, the broadcast image was reduced to roughly two-thirds screen size and relocated to the upper right of the screen corner (see Figure above). The remainder of the screen was reserved for the display of enhancement assets and interactive elements. This maintained the integrity of the viewing experience and kept assets and interactions from obscuring the broadcast image. The flexible use of the template was negotiated between the local team and the national team. This gave the local team the ability to portray unique local source information. For example, in the "Flying Free" episode a range of animations from the Minnesota Museum of Science depicting airflow were selectable by shape and angle. Also, a unique multiple choice navigation scheme was developed for the "Chimps R Us" episode, allowing viewers to participate in a quiz developed in concert with the Minnesota-based Jane Goodall Institute's Center for Primate Studies (not shown). Location of TPT's signature (lower right in the text area) was also negotiated early in the process, as was the end credit for SixtyFootSpider. Project Constraints Several technical constraints made the development of enhancements different than typical Web page development. The remote control device provided with the set-top box hardware limited the users to "tabbing" through selection options on the screen by depressing one of four navigation directional arrows on a "thumb-stick". A blue rectangular highlight on the screen indicated which element was selected. Depressing the thumb-stick would "enter" the selection. This is very different from a PC's point-and-click interface provided by a mouse or touch-pad and was a key consideration in simplifying the onscreen navigations (see Figure 3). The available memory on the receiving platform (a Triveni Digital set-top box) established a 1 megabyte limit for the assets to be displayed. Reception of broadcasts on a PC-based datacasting receiver would have fewer memory constraints but the hardware is less common than set-top boxes. Wavexpress, a provider of PC-based datacasting receiver hardware, also participated in this national trial but was not a platform available in TPT's trial reception area. Other multimedia elements such as sounds were not included in the enhancements. Imbedded navigational and voiceover sound files were not considered as they might conflict with the show's soundtrack. Local Production The local development team was charged with finding and creating local enhancement experiences that would coordinate with the concurrent broadcast experience. The local team was given final scripts. Scripts indicated in their text the approximate insertion point of the enhancement trigger (no timecode reference was available). A rough-cut of the episode was not available for viewing in advance of developing the enhancements. It was the local Producer's responsibility to develop the local enhancement concept for each episode. Upon approval from TPT the Producer then contacted potential source organizations for information and reviewed source materials. Text and captions were developed in coordination with a content editor. The Programmer was advised of interactive requirements and gave input and recommendations to the Producer. Any new graphical schemes and assets were developed and prepped by a Designer. When all assets were ready the Programmer authored scripts in HTML and Javascript. The Webmaster reviewed scripts for best practices and made QA changes. Outcomes Securing permissions from local organizations for use of material in a single enhancement rather than multiple enhancements made the production time longer. Building those relationships, developing understanding and trust with local organizations took a large chunk of time relative to the outcome. Lack of familiarity with enhanced television also required some time before the organizations were willing to sign-off on use of materials. The average production time to produce each enhancement was 2 to 3 production-days (including quality assurance testing). The production team agreed that the level of difficulty was similar to that of a small Web site. Most production slowdowns during the trial were not unlike issues encountered during Web site development. They include the gathering of assets (photographs, animations) and iterative reviews of editorial content with local sources, TPT and Chedd-Angier. The same graphical procedures and coding practices applicable to Web site design were easily adapted to this media. Early in the development process the team was cautioned that an accurate test of functionality and screen layout of text and design elements required the use of a set-top box emulator installed on a PC. The emulator possessed less functionality than a PC browser and lacked simple built-in navigational controls such as "back" and "forward". This deviation from typical Web development should be taken into account when establishing production timetables. Recommendations For Future Trials The local enhancement team recommends some improvements to the process for the next trial: - A more detailed description of where enhancements are triggered in the script (i.e. by timecode) and where the enhancements are "flushed" from the set-top box memory. - Establishing naming conventions and procedures early in the process to track most recent versions of graphics, text and HTML code. - Supply local enhancement teams with a consolidated "design style guide" establishing all of the guidelines for fonts, graphics, color, layout and navigation. - A prioritization of style guide rules so that when a team needs to "break the rules" they will know which rules have flex and which are inviolate. - As the local enhancement team was developing for a specific platform they were not faced with the added difficulty of designing for multiple set-top box platforms. The ideal of Create Once Play Everywhere (COPE) is still just that ... an ideal; just as it is in the Web world. Coordination with the leading interactive television authoring tool developers would be a valuable step toward that goal. - As sound has become an important part of the Web, so too will sound play some role in enhanced content. Usage may be minimal at first (navigation sounds and confirmations of interactive selections) but some thought as to their co-existence with the broadcast soundtrack is warranted.

]]> 2001-07-15 13:01:47 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145926/LHA20041105121155/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145926/LHA20041105121155/index.html

Designing Justice into Products

Date Created: May 08, 1988, 01:12 PM

Presented as the lecture "What Eliot Noyes Didn't Tell Us" Mid America Art Conference, 1988 by Greg Daigle, Associate Professor of Industrial Design We are immersed in a "product environment". Manufactured products surround us at work, at play, we ride upon them, we even commute within them. This environment is one with which people are constantly interacting. When we use products they become part of the way we cognitively structure the world. When we use products to interact with other people it structures the way we relate to others. In everything from sharing a phone to using advanced teleconferencing systems, the form and function of a product can influence and indirectly mold our relationships with others and society in general. The Golden Rule applied to products A person who is treated ethically and with consideration by others has a higher potential for reciprocating that favored treatment towards others. It is another restatement of "reversibility of logic", the golden rule, and other social tenets through which people are expected to treat others with at least as much respect and sense of fair play as they have received. Similarly, consideration given to others through the medium of our designed products can make an individual feel either justly treated, or mistreated and abused. Products can be designed to promote their fair and equitable usage or to make usage exclusive. Usage can be rigid and suitable to only a small segment of the population (e.g. left-handed users) or it can be flexible and used by almost everyone. Similarly, function can be abrupt, uncaring and impersonal or it can be personalized and made more bearable. For example, the ability to create personalized answering machine messages and allow unlimited recording time for incoming calls would make the experience of leaving a message less objectionable. Compare it to the joylessness of a terse and impersonal factory-recorded message with an inflexible 15-second interval to leave your message. According to psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, an individual will progress toward full development as a moral being to the extent that the quality of justice is experienced in the environment. Justice is at the heart of morality. In Kohlberg's model, moral judgments are integrated into a hierarchy. The hierarchy is not of decisions themselves but of cognitive structures for producing a higher or better quality of decision. "Higher" or "better" here meaning the "capability of understanding and solving more complex problems and/or providing more adequate resolutions of moral dilemmas or conflicts" (here I reference an unpublished dissertation by John Steward). Every conflict in interaction with the environment eventually reaches a form of "equilibrium in interaction" and provides the basis for creating another round of even higher cognitive structures leading to successively higher levels of interaction. As the judgments become higher, accompanying decisions possess a higher quality, are more differentiated, articulated, and become more equitable. They become more just. If one of our roles as designers of products is to contribute to the development of every person coming into contact with our products, then we are obligated to impart into each design a sense of justness. Table 1. gives polar word pairs describing some qualities of justness. Lower levels of justness are on the left and higher levels on the right. Products imparting a sense of greater justness would exhibit the qualities shown in the right hand column. Low Level                 High Level edicts                           contracts heteronomy                homonomy powerlessness             enabled rules                              principles stereotype                    objective knowledge undifferentiated          differentiated egocentric                    exocentric diffuse                           integrated Table 1.   Levels of Justness Let's look at specific examples of how products can be imbued with higher levels of justness. In the interest of brevity only the first two word pairs will be considered: 1) edicts versus contracts 2) heteronomy versus homonomy Edicts versus Contracts: Beyond accessorizing In a free market where choices exist and consumerism is allowed to operate freely, the purchasing of a product is an implicit contract between purchaser and manufacturer. The purchaser makes payment for an item and in return expects that it will: 1) function as described 2) include all promised features 3) cover defect with explicit warrantees When there is no free choice in deciding which products to buy there is no genuine contract between purchaser and producer. It is an edict without appeal, interpreted as "buy or go without". In most consumer goods the contract is minimally negotiable before purchase. The consumer does have free choice of which model to purchase. This is limited to the full line of models manufactured and by what is currently available in stock. Also, additional service agreements of variable terms might be available. After the purchase, contracts are much less negotiable. Any negotiation is usually limited to exchanges of merchandise, usually if the product is damaged, broken, or sometimes, the wrong color. However, a highly just contract would always be open for re-negotiation between parties, even after purchase. But how does one re-negotiate the features and functions of a product after it has been manufacturer? One answer is to accessorize. Consumers of 35 mm cameras know that you can buy just about any add-on for your camera to make it the camera system you should have purchased in the first place. Lenses, filters, extension tubes, mechanical drives, all extend the functionality. But even though accessorizing provides many options, it still does not provide enough options or personalization for many dedicated users. The alternative is open architecture. Products designed with open architecture lend themselves to post-manufacture modification and adaptation by owners or knowledgeable third parties. Consumers whose needs exceed accessorizing have limited choices. Personalized handles for arthritics and personalized wheelchair seat pads are examples where mere accessorizing is inadequate. For those users, post-purchase modifications of form and function are required. Products being modified today include orthodic inserts for running shoes, foam infills for downhill ski boots, even custom installation of car stereo equipment. Future product categories may include other athletic equipment, personalized office chairs, housewares, medical appliances and entire vehicles. The need for "after-market" modifications is being filled by a new group of service entrepreneurs who have specialized knowledge to adapt and modify products to fulfill specialized needs. Such after-market customizers enrich the connections between manufacturer and purchaser. These service entrepreneurs may be former users or come from other service areas related to product use such as sports medicine, biomechanics, gerontology, physical therapy and nursing. Why should this concern industrial designers? Because service entrepreneurs are not "Maytag repairmen" waiting for a product to break down and be fixed. They are activists and advocates. Activist in that they actively seek the limits of the products they adapt and modify. Advocate in that if they find a product which lends itself well to modification and personalization then they will promote that product within their user group and to their clients. This can mean a dramatic increase in sales for the manufacturer. Many of them form their own user groups, similar to the thousands of computer user groups. These user groups can be very sophisticated, often publishing their own newsletters or magazines with very high circulation rates. The implications for the industrial designer is that where after-market modifications when projected, the designer should develop a product which lends itself to modification by knowledgeable parties. Furthermore, the designer, knowing this potential, should recommend to their product managers that there is a potential to aid after-market modification (and enhance revenues) by designing the tools, technical information kits, supplies, etc. which will be needed by the service people to modify the products. This area in itself could provide a major business opportunity for manufacturers. Heteronomy versus Homonomy: Modeling the behavior of nature Heteronomy is a biological term. It is the state where an organism is at the mercy of the world, buffeted by the unjust caprices of the natural environment. The organism is almost inseparable from the influences of the environment. Infants, unable to fend for themselves, live in this world. They are defenseless and dependent upon their parents to keep them safe. As the child matures, a sense of autonomy develops. This autonomy separates the organism from the environment. They become independent actors. Eventually the child surpasses the forces of the environment and finally dominates, sometimes cruelly, over the environment. This is the state of personal autonomy. Further maturation coupled with the psychological development of self esteem and self assuredness finally culminates in homonomy. In the state of homonomy the self-assured individual can associate with others in a group, yet without the loss of self identity. The group could be a family, a religion, a community, a school or any other social organization. Homonomy recognized the inextricable interrelationships of self, others and nature while maintaining self identity. Domination over nature is not a recent phenomenon. It has existed in Western culture for millenia. Yet since the 1930s the practice of industrial design has engaged the "machine aesthetic" to further separate us from the natural world. It is my feeling that such separation has somehow diminished us as a culture. With the growing influence of non-Western cultures and the breaking down of barriers to, for example, non-Western medicine, industrial design should similarly lower its barriers to allow influence from non-machine aesthetics. This is not a call for the revival of Arts and Crafts or other decorative arts. A new approach would eschew static surface decoration as mere affectation. It would not be based upon reproducing grape cluster forms in plastic, or lampshades with abstracted petal forms, or even computer generated fractal landscapes. A homonomous approach would stress those relationships which are interactive and dynamic in nature. The study of animal behavior and ecological relationships are two such dynamic processes. Their analogues in industrial design are "product behavior" and "product symbiosis". Product Behavior As long as machines were relegated to printed output on paper, a CRT screen, or dials and displays we called it "information flow". But we forget that in the study of ethology (animal behavior in the natural environment) animals are also said to "display" behavior. As machine displays become more environmentally based (heard, smelt, felt, move) and as they become more idiosyncratic (refrigerators acting characteristically like other refrigerators) the perception of "information flow" will dissolve. Products will begin to be perceived less as functioning and more as "behaving". Products talk. They say, "Add laundry softener", "The time is ...", and "Fasten your seat belt". The need for such messages is still very debatable in everyday non-critical situations. However, products also shout, "WIND SHEAR!" The need for such a message is clear and vital to a pilot. Products remind us, scold us, warn us. So far they do not wait for a verbal response, but that day is coming soon. Not long after that day, they may wait for a reply ... and wait ... finally responding, "Forget it, I'll do it myself!" Do today's engineers and programmers of EEPROMs (talking chips) like those placed into washing machines and automobiles realize their profound impact on unaware users? As reported recently by a reader of a Minnesota newspaper ... My 3-year-old son was playing at his grandparents' in Hopkins when he rushed into the house, terrified, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Outside ... outside", he sobbed. He led us to grandpa's car and pointed at the parking lights, which were on, then broke down into sobs again. We were puzzled, but finally my father figured it out. "Oh," he said, "Did the lady tell you to turn off the lights?" My son nodded, sobbing again at the memory. He had been playing in the car, pressing buttons and flipping switches to his heart's content, when suddenly the ethereal voice of the car's computer started saying, over and over, "Please turn off the lights. Please turn off the lights ..." Even a mildly annoying rebuke can be terrifying to a child. A former administrator at Control Data told an anecdote of an early exploration with speech synthesis. He programmed his office terminal to speak a list of cleaning chores for the nightly custodian to perform. All they had to do was punch the return key. But his office did not get cleaned for a week. The custodian replied that he hadn't entered the office after hearing the instructions spoken aloud by computer that first night. "I understood the instructions just fine," he replied, "I was just worried what the computer would say if I did them wrong." Are the insights and training of software designers sufficient when even the most simple business software can be confusing and subject to misinterpretation? How should a product behave? How severely should they interact with us? How often? How persistently? Who will write the book of etiquette for products? Katherine McCoy of Cranbrook Academy of Art has argued that "Industrial designers are the ... experts on the man-machine interface. Designers must position themselves as the experts at humanizing the machine for their users." So far, we have differed much of this control to software designers. But when displays leave the screen to become more ubiquitous, more interactive and more behavior-like, the industrial designer, etiquette book in hand, should be ready. Comedian Woody Allen remarked about the poor manners of "smart products" in his monologue "Mechanical Objects", where he remarks about a regular television which can't be reasoned with and a smart elevator that won't be reasoned with ... I'm watching my portable television set, and the set begins to jump up and down. I go up to it (I always talk before I hit) and I said, "I thought we had discussed this, what's the problem?" And the set kept going up and down, so I hit it; and it felt good hitting it. I beat the hell out of it. I was really great. I tore off the antennae ... And I felt very virile. Two days later I go to a dentist in New York (I had gone to my dentist but I had a very deep cavity and he sent me to a chiropodist) and I go into a building in midtown New York. And they have those elevators. I hear a voice say, "Kindly call out your floors, please." I say, "Sixteen", the doors close and the elevator starts going up to sixteen. And on the way up the elevator says to me, "Are you the guy ... that hit the television set?" I felt like an ass, you know? It took me up and down fast between floors and it threw me off in the basement, and it yelled out something that was anti-semitic. Product Symbiosis Over the entire history of tool making by the human species, cultures advanced with each successive modification of natural materials. Clays are turned into ceramics, ores into metals, metals into alloys, barrels of oil into plastics, and carbon into graphite fibers. Even resources which are biological have not escaped our intervention. Wild grain is bred into domestic wheat, wild oxen into more productive breeds of cattle, yeast fermentation into beer and wine production, hydrogenation of fatty acids to make margarine, and now selective breeding and genetic manipulation of microbes. Each technological advance moves us further from the natural world, yet even the most simple addition of wood or raw stone to an otherwise "modern" product gives us a sense of connectedness to the natural environment. But application can be crass. Adding wood trim to a television or a stone base to a coffee maker is an inappropriate decorative application (however, a stone TV is okay if you're the Flintstone family!) Can products feature a dynamic relationship with a natural material while contribution more than simple static decoration? One possibility is product symbiosis. Biological symbiosis is the mutually beneficial interdependence of two organisms. For example, the bacteria in our gut which help us in digestion. Product symbiosis is the mutually beneficial interdependence of an organism and a man-made product. Our culture is replete with examples. Beer and wine production comes from vats designed to ferment select strains of yeast. Similar vats produce vitamins, pharmaceuticals, even soy sauce. Artificial bee hives have been essential to domestic honey production for centuries. And without delicately seeding milk with just the right strains of mold we would never know the joy of Roquefort cheese. But the modern consumer has been separated from this process. We enjoy the by-products of mold or yeast, but don't want them growing in our bathrooms. Understandable. But by removing ourselves from the processes of nature we lose some sense of its importance and vitality. With the advent of industrial-scale genetic manipulation the opportunities are rife for renewing that contract with organisms for better food production or antibiotics. But how does the industrial designer apply this knowledge? By taking a cue from the cheese maker and seeding consumer products with natural organisms. A properly designed product seeded with selected bacteria could provide a suitable growing environment for a select organism which, in turn, could generate some by-product of value to the user. The outcome could add any of a variety of qualities to the product, making it sticky, slick, oily, fragrant, acidic, alkaline, fruity, etc. For example, take a baseball bat with a grip region composed of non-skinning foamed plastic. It has millions of tiny cells left open to the air. Spray the area with a nutrient medium so that each cell has an interior coating promoting growth of only a specific bacteria. Seed the handle with resin-producing bacteria activated to produce a sticky residue in the presence of human sweat. The bat gradually generates resin when grasped with sweaty palms. The more sweat, the more resin is produced giving a more secure grip. The batter's grip is improved and the bacteria thrive. Storing the bat at the end of the season in a dry closet allows the bacteria to go dormant and resin production ceases until spring training begins. In addition to resin for tool grips, other possibilities include mucous production to reduce drag on racing yacht hulls, or fragrance generation in the presence of specific chemicals associated with undesirable odors. By employing biological agents as part of the product function a direct connection back to nature is made. That connection is as alive as the biological agent. It is therefore somewhat fragile and needs care and attention to function properly. In some ways this is the bioengineering equivalent of the lessons of responsibility and animal husbandry taught through 4H clubs. Knowing that the biological agents require some minimal care and attention for proper functioning requires us to care for our products with the same responsibility as we do for our plants or pets. This is the antithesis of designing "indestructible" products. Such products may be valued for their endurance, but they teach us nothing of caring for things. And caring for things instills lessons that can apply to caring for the environment and caring for each other. And as we have seen through Kohlberg's work, an imperative for care and stewardship can translate to lessons on how to become a more caring and fully developed individual and member of society.

]]> 1988-05-08 13:12:35 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145926/LHA20041217152019/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145926/LHA20041217152019/index.html

Designing with Intent ... industrial design, human factors and morality

Date Created: Mar 15, 1985, 03:22 PM

by Gregory Daigle Senior Designer and Research Manager, Wm Stumpf + Associates Appeared originally in Interface '85, a joint publication of the Human Factors Society and the Industrial Designers Society of America. Many industrial designers have only an abbreviated appreciation for the field of human factors. The fault lies partially in the limited overview of human factors taught in design schools. As they graduate into the professional ranks of design, knowledge of human factors may be limited to experiences with standard anthropometric and ergonomic look-up tables. Both students and beginning design professionals would benefit from a more expanded view of the breadth of human factors concerns. To this end a model familiar to many designers and often referred to in design methodology classes is described below. It will help explain to designers the power of an expanded model of human factors. The model is the five-tiered "hierarchy of needs" proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow (1968). It is an set of conditions necessary for optimum human development. His model classifies human needs into a series of increasingly higher levels of motivations, each emerging as soon as the immediately previous levels of needs has been satisfied. The hierarchy is: 1) physiological needs 2) safety needs 3) social needs 4) ego needs 5) self-actualization needs Each of these five needs will be linked to an area of human factors which can be affected by design. The Needs as Human Factors The first two areas, physiological factors and safety factors are the human factors most familiar to designers. Physiological factors include the most basic needs of thirst, hunger, sex and sleep; but also those of cleanliness, quite, privacy, etc. For example, any designer engaged in tableware design should not consider making a reusable piece which is impossible to clean. The same should also be true for any other product likely to collect dirt, dust or grease. A dishwasher which puts out as many decibels as a jet engine can not be considered desirable for the home kitchen. Similarly, a noisy matrix dot printer in the office is a headache for everyone. Privacy is another basic need. Privacy to make phone calls at an airport, privacy in your office workspace, privacy of your bank records, all satisfy a basic physiological need for reducing stress. Safety factors protect one from physical harm. You need only to drive all day in a vehicle with poor ergonomic design to know that anthropometric and ergonomic considerations keep you safe from harm and save you trips to the chiropractor. Safety factors also protect from harm by providing for medical and counseling care, due process, confidentiality and job security. Medical care comes not only from the design of medical tools but also the design of caring environments, such as those providing non-glare work surfaces and healthful chairs. Designing for due process can take the form of clear, understandable signage in an otherwise faceless governmental office. Financial records confidentiality can be better achieved through software recognizing the need for confidentiality as well as the legitimate needs of the government and employers. Finally, a greater sense of job security can be had if an employee is able to select and even modify the tools needed to do work to the best of his/her ability. Tools can range from simple hand wrenches to amino acid synthesizers. Social factors are less familiar to designers. Social factors are those for relating to others. Recreation, love, identification, social and personal interaction, acceptance, companionship and role models are examples. Recreation isn't just designing a better football. It's building playfulness into common objects so that using them includes elements of play. Objects can elicit social interactions, such as tools specially designed to be shared by a variety of users and which encourage respect for the other users. A swiveling front passenger seat in a family van encourages personal interaction during long drives between a parent and the children in the back seat. A sensitively designed child's orthopedic appliance may mean acceptance and inclusion into a new neighborhood of friends. Ego factors are composed of needs for status, self-esteem, education, mutual respect, assertiveness, understanding, and self-assessment. They can include giving variety to a product line to bestow degrees of status or indicate levels of success and achievement. Self-esteem can be heightened by designing a flexible teaching machine to improve educational achievement for slow learners. As phone message recording machines allow users to sit by and screen callers, they encourage avoidance. It would be just as easy to design a machine to encourage assertiveness, even help you practice assertive responses for the telephone. Understanding how objects work could be encouraged more by infusing a little humility and humbleness. To make the object easy to understand; investigation should be encouraged. No black boxes, no mechanisms which can't be repaired. The last area, self-actualization factors, is the least familiar because most people spend little time operating at this elevated level. Included are: cultural opportunities, freedom of expression, intellectual stimulation, continued self-development and use of creative abilities. Designs encouraging and promoting these factors would embody similar features, including: - flexibility of use in unanticipated situations - products best described by their usefulness, not stylishness - form related to performance and visual syntax, not stereotypical or hackneyed - symbology of the form is not literal, crass or bigoted - emphasizes the positive aspects of life, not just avoidance of the negative. By now it should be apparent that a single product can satisfy more than one area of factors at a time. A product can be easy to clean, safe to use and easy to share. A product should be designed to operate in as many areas and consider as many factors as possible. Designers will have to rely on knowledgeable human factors specialists to provide them with the most reliable and accurate factors-related databases. This means relying on the expertise of anthropometrists and ergonomists as well as biostatisticians, psychologists, anthropologists, social workers and others who study the human factor. The prior model is just a brief checklist of human factors. The real challenge is to apply a methodology. However, separate from model and method there is a third issue: moral intent. Intent, like "spirit of the law", describes how well a methodology is applied. Poor intent can subvert both method and model. The following discussion will explore the effect of three levels of moral intent on the quality of methodology. The example of one human factor, "safety" will be followed for each level of demonstrate the influence of intent. Also, the "designer" described at each level is hypothetical being, since no person is likely to operate exclusively at one level. The three levels of design intent are: 1) Pre-conventional Design Intent 2) Conventional Design Intent 3) Principled Design Intent Intent and the Quality of Methodology Their descriptions are derived from John Stewart's (1975) work in moral educational development. These levels can be thought of as a sliding scale graduated in degrees of directedness. At the first and lowest level, Pre-conventional Design Intent, the direction of intent is turned inward upon the designer (egocentric) rather than toward the ultimate users (exocentric). It precludes normal design conventions, hence is pre-conventional. Satisfying the designer's point of view becomes the focus of the intent. End users and others who will be affected by the product are of no consideration to the designer at this level. No research is undertaken or even considered. No efforts are made to improve the product and any changes are for novelty's sake only. The only consideration of the designer is to seek gratification (reward) and avoid blame (punishment). For example, a designer operating at this level of intent would put the absolute minimum of effort into the human factor area of "safety". A typical response would be to knock-off another design already on the market, that is, copy it as closely as possible to incorporate its safety features but not improve on those features. If there are safety problems the response would be to cover them up or hide them as long as the blame doesn't fall back on the designer. One overpowering motivator at this level is the avoidance of lawsuits. Of course more conscientious designers also seek to avoid lawsuits. Here, avoidance is the only motivating factor. At this level if a designer avoids litigation and other "punishment", and if the design conforms to his desires, then it is judged as "good" design. Moving up the scale away from such absolute egocentric judgments towards a more outwardly directed orientation, the designer begins to see "good" design as one which satisfies his own needs and occasionally those of others, but only if they produce some direct benefit to him Design concessions are given very begrudgingly and only if something else is given in return. Reciprocity is mechanical. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Product safety problems are rectified only far enough to please the client. If there is a potential safety problem but the client accepts the risks, then the designer does not address the problem since it results in no immediate personal gain. The second level of intent is more familiar, less polarized, more conventional, hence the term Conventional Design Intent. At this level the designer begins to judge the rightness or wrongness of a design through comparisons to implicit norms. These norms may be benchmarks for measuring implicit quality standards like "straightness" and "smoothness", or performance measures like "roundness" and "accuracy". A design is compared not directly with other similar designs, but to a stereotypical image of that category of design, like "comfortable chair" or "fast car". Design problems are approached by rigidly categorizing them or offhandedly labeling them rather than giving them individual consideration. There is conformity to what is "normally" acceptable to the design profession, though "normal" is subjective. The designer becomes more outwardly oriented than before but stops short at tastes known by inference only. This level requires some knowledge of what other people (even other designers) think is "good" design. But it is based upon stereotypical notions of how products should look, perform, wear, etc. At this level of intent the consideration of human factors areas is also stereotypic. Anthropometric and ergonomic testing may be performed on the designer, the people in the design studio or others readily available for on-the-spot testing or measurement sessions. At this level designing for human factors safety considerations would be based on implicit norms or what the designer believes to be "adequate" safety features. A designer operating at the upper ranges of this level would begin to rely upon more explicit standards. We would begin to see the designer bring in substantiating studies or references to accepted design standards. Anthropometric measures of "normal" populations may be referenced, but designers at this level may use "average" measures and percentiles without rigorous consideration of their user population, measurement techniques or statistical methods. Such useful information may be misinterpreted by designers looking for an easy concept to grasp. Review of original data bases or embarking on original research would not occur at this level. There is reliance on "design standards" as the acceptable norm for safety. The final level of intent is the most outwardly directed and concerned with others who may come in contact with the product. It is much more free of egocentric constraints than the previous two levels and is based in principles of justice. This post conventional level is termed Principled Design Intent. A designer working at this level may begin with explicitly known standards, but modify them to provide better solutions to design problems. It is a collaboration between the known norm and the creative notion a designer has, resulting in a product composed of arbitrated values: the known and the innovated. Principled Design A competent designer may design a gas range using a control layout considered safe and generally accepted by the profession as a design standard. The principled designer may see the potential for an even safer layout and risk abandoning the design standard for one with greater performance ... adopting a dynamic performance standard in place of the stagnant design standard. This is not making change for its own sake but is the principled and creative process of innovation. The upper range of this principled level is a domain where few designers have trod. At this level good design is an absolute without compromise, adhering to principles of justice and reciprocity for all who come into contact with the product during manufacture, during use and after its life cycle. Not only does the designer question the safety of the user but also every person involved in its manufacture, people likely to be standing by as the product is being used, and society in general. If designing a weed trimmer, a principled designer would have to consider how much pollen is thrown into the air and the potential discomfort to allergy sufferers living nearby. They would ask if cutting the weeds the best solution for all? Perhaps a non-toxic, non-polluting organic chemical would be better. What would be its medical side effects or environmental impact for future generations? Ultimately, the measured benefits to direct and indirect users are weighed, now and in the future. The best solution is that which is most principled. References Maslow, Abraham H., Toward a Psychology of Being, Princeton, J.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1968, p. 83-92. Stewart, John S., The School as a Just Community: A Transactional - Developmental Approach to Moral Education -- A Working Paper, (unpublished, prepared for presentation to the Moral Education division of the Philosophy of Education Society annual meeting, Kansas City, Missouri, March 24, 1975. © 1985 Gregory Daigle

]]> 1985-03-15 15:22:22 -0600 http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145926/LHA20041217125816/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/gregdaigle/blogwavestudio/LH20041026145926/LHA20041217125816/index.html

Conflict Management in the Design Office

Date Created: Feb 01, 1983, 12:59 PM

© 1983 Gregory Daigle Originally appearing in Innovation (Journal of the IDSA), p.14 Vol.2, No.3 Our Fictional Scenario - Despite the bad weather, the design coordination meeting to discuss new product appearance guidelines moved smoothly through the morning. The corporate design manager was pleased with the participants' enthusiasm, but he proceeded carefully knowing that the final recommendations could draw a volatile response from the staff if they didn't balance everyone's viewpoint. The main threat lay probably in the staff's fear of losing control over the product, the manager thought to himself. His attention was brought abruptly back to the conference table by a vociferous exchange between Smith from San Diego and Jones from the corporate office in Cleveland. Smith was criticizing Jones' approach to radiused edges. Jones countered by citing Smith's approach to the 4300 series, which had disappointed the corporate office and had required a hasty reworking by a summer intern. "You know very well that the 4300 was a rush job all the way," Smith defended himself. "It's not a valid example of what I'm trying to do with our design approach. I never had the chance to give it my personal attention, and it needed that." Smith added that Jones was intentionally trying to prevent any change in the company's design approach, automatically rejecting any change for fear that it would threaten his position in the company. "Just because I think a slipshod redesign jeopardizes the product line, you think I'm out to save my own butt", Jones replied. A mocking on his face, he leans forward, "Frankly, Smith, I think your design ideas will cost us market share. They don't convey the image we've spent years nurturing. You're advocating change for the sake of change to glorify yourself, to become the Big Name Designer on the cover of Business Week. But it's the company that will suffer." Smith flushed at the accusation. "I'm not calling for something radical and rushed to market, but your idea of a design cycle is ten years! We'll lose market share if we don't innovate NOW! " The manager watching this feels he's losing control of the meeting. A destructive conflict is clearly escalating, but he can't find the real issue at the root of the conflict. Is it strictly personal? How does the topic of the meeting - the design guidelines - play into this? They've already agreed to establish new guidelines, that can't be the source of the conflict ... or is it? The Hidden Agenda of Conflict in Design Offices In our scenario the thermometer of destructive conflict is rising higher not because of the design guidelines, which represent the "formal agenda", but because of the subjective issues. The subjective issues are vehicles for intense feelings about design integrity and personal worth. This is the "hidden agenda". The problem facing the manager is how to cope with the personal conflict yet not derail the meeting's purpose. Problems like these are relevant to all managers, but particularly so in large corporations where coordination of design efforts on a large scale may increase the potential for conflict. The conflicts a design manager confronts often derive from the nature of the work setting and the personality of designers. One work-setting source of conflict is the nonalignment of goals within an organization. For example, conflict will probably arise when two or more departments with mutually exclusive goals are required to work together or are made interdependent. Other primary sources of conflict include the dissonance between job goals and an employee's personal goals, or, misinformation arising from incomplete or unclear communication. Administrative theory developed in the 1930s held that all conflict is destructive and its avoidance desirable. Thus conflict was best tabled indefinitely until another method presented itself. This school of thought was displaced slowly in later decades as organizational behavioralists were brought into corporate positions. They explained to managers that conflict was a positive force, although one that should be placated rather than managed. "Smoothing" and "compromise" are two techniques advocated by organizational behavioralists to minimize the differences between employees while emphasizing common ground. If maintaining the relationship is more important than clarifying the conflict, these devices work reasonably well. Conflict as Interaction More recently, interactionist approaches have surfaced, replacing the behavioralist approach. This approach recognizes conflict as natural and encourages the positive effects. Interactionists maintain that the design manager must take an active role in seeking to manage conflict. In fact, some leadership theories suggest that a manager's primarily contribution to the organization is by positively managing friction. Thus the first requirement for a manager is to develop an enlightened attitude recognizing conflict's positive nature prior to its appearance. It can and usually does facilitate job effectiveness. If effectiveness is lost, it is not lost through the conflict itself, but in the time and energy people waste trying to avoid or eliminate the conflict. A design manager's role should encourage personnel to see conflict as natural and desired as part of the design process. The manager's role has evolved from conflict abatement to encouraging conflict. Conflict becomes a natural element of decision making. The rationale for this interactionist approach is that when conflict is seen as a natural occurrence it can be encouraged and directed positively. Conflict can be used to open the way for diverse ideas that help prevent group dogmatism and expand awareness of the problem. The energy level of ideas generated in conflict is higher than for other interactions, and the alternatives generated are more diverse. Properly encouraged, conflict will not disrupt or fragment a group. It will bind the members to a mutually accepted goal where disagreements center upon issues, not personalities. In the best of all possible worlds staff would openly work with conflict and use it as a tool to clarify areas of dispute. But such levels of trust and cooperation are only attainable in the most open and forthcoming environments. Only rarely do businesses approach such levels of openness. So the remainder of this article will focus upon the next best alternative ... managing continued conflict. Strategies for Managing Continuous Conflict You can manage conflict two ways: by "problem-solving" or by "forcing". Problem-solving strategies use elements of collaboration and joint resolution to find a mutually acceptable solution. Forcing entails authoritarian decision making, often resulting in a win/lose gap between the parties. The availability of resources and the manager's preference usually dictate the method used. In the problem-solving approach, emotions, opinions and information are shared to provide the basis of immediate resolution as well as provide a foundation for approaching future conflicts. It requires the fulfillment of three criteria if it is to product satisfying results. 1) All parties must be aware that there is either a potential for conflict or an actual conflict. 2) Power inequalities must be set aside to make all parties peers while the resolution is developed. 3) An atmosphere of cooperative consensus building and recognized mutualities, including mutual goals and reciprocal trust must exist. Conflict management through problem-solving is best if collaborative, open and equitable. Information and opinions are shared in order for participants to work toward a mutually determined goal. They do so while giving respect for each individual's point of view. Moreover, to achieve a good solution through problem-solving the parties should identify potential conflict areas as early as possible. Such anticipation will reduce the risk of destructive interaction at a later date. Collaboration also requires that the interaction seem fair to all parties. Each member must understand the other's point of view before solutions can be formulated. This minimized win/lose perceptions and makes the final decision more acceptable. Conflict management through forcing is the other strategy option. It is probably used more often than the problem-solving option because it is more convenient and timely to implement ... at least initially. With forcing, decisions are handed down from the top rather than resolved from the bottom up. Thus it is more common in companies with vertical structures. Vertical organizations have a strict hierarchy with clearly demarcated layers of authority. They promotes resolution of a superior/subordinate conflict by authoritarian means, often on a win/lose basis. Forcing conflict resolution can also occur in less hierarchial matrix-ordered organizations. In such cases forcing is more likely to be utilized when only one solution to a conflict is possible. This may be due to either company policies made immutable by regulatory mandates, or if the organization is particularly slow to change its corporate goals. Let's apply forcing strategy to our scenario. Smith's innovative style will probably run afoul of the firm's current design approach represented by Jones from the corporate office. There is little room for mutual understanding since Jones sees his role as defender of the status quo. Unless the collective organization is willing to enter into the conflict resolution process, the result will probably be decided through forcing. If Smith remains adamant then the design manager's solution may have to include Smith's transfer or termination. Only if the manager embraces accommodating divergent points of view can the resolution move into problem-solving. Of the two approaches, problem-solving is closest to the process of design. In design there is an emphasis on collaboration. Problem-solving is therefore a more familiar technique given the similarity between it and the basic design process. But implementing problem-solving is not without difficulties. The inherently competitive nature of designers to implement their "vision" is a contributing factor. Competition functions primarily to establish self-identity, internal standards, individual creativity and autonomy - all qualities possessed by designers. Designers tend to do their best work when operating fluidly between collaboration and personal vision. Collaboration builds mutual relationships and trust - necessary elements in a project team working toward a common goal. Personal vision builds self-esteem and personal advocacy - necessary for innovation in the marketplace. Unbridled competition between designers values personal vision over collabortion, detracting from team cohesiveness. Such autonomy must be kept in check when it threatens team goals. CIrcumstances will dictate whether problem-solving or forcing is the most appropriate approach. Both can be dysfunctional and each has its own unique advantages. Regardless of the approach chosen, the manager should stay with their chosen approach and avoid mixing the two during the design process. Switching between forcing conflict resolution and problem-solving conflict resolution sends confusing and often contradictory messages. Intervening In Conflict Managing conflict on an ongoing basis requires that conflict remain topical, business-related and verbal. When conflict is too emotional, founded in personality differences or not verbalized, its destructive potential rises, often very rapidly. It may then be necessary for the manager to aggressively intervene. If the conflict is explosive and the designers involved are subordinates, the manager should set up a meeting where their attendance is required. If the conflict is between designers and non-designers, consultation with the non-designers' manager is required. If the conflict is more subdued and occurs within an interdepartmental cross-disciplinary project team, then the manager can either alter the meeting's agenda to confront the conflict or schedule ancillary meetings to address the conflict. Indefinitely postponing resolution is not an option. Regularly scheduled project review sessions also provide a forum for intervention. If the manager initiates intervention then he or she must ensure that all parties attending accept that such a departure from their schedule will benefit both themselves and the organization. Moreover, each designer involved must be genuinely engaged in finding a solution. Tardiness or inattentiveness at a meeting about the conflict may indicate an attempt to avoid the conflict confrontation. Intervention should have purposeful change as its goal, executed so as to minimally disrupt the project timeframe. Contingency plans can be identified in case road blocks occur during the intervention. Intervention must given a priority at least as high as the project. Scheduling intervention must be flexible to change as circumstances dictate. Prejudgment of the situation should be avoided. Finding the nature of the conflict, be it personal, organizational or based in miscommunications, is a key determinant in approaching the intervention. Defining and Defusing the Conflict Issues One of the first tasks in any conflict intervention is to let those involved know that you perceive that a conflict exists. Assuming you are right and they acknowledge it, the conflict needs to be defined in neutral terms and then parsed into manageable discussion points. In fact, defining the conflict may help to defuse it. If defining the areas of conflict is too difficult, first define the areas of agreement. Often designers in conflict will be surprised at how much they agree upon. If the nature of the conflict isn't first identified, clarified by conflicting parties, and parsed into salient issues, then the emotional intensity of the conflict can escalate. A manager must intervene against any exchange of minor threats by participants, whether implied or stated. Threats as often as not end up in a vicious circle, with each party engaging and re-engaging the other. The manager can break the cycle by suggesting neutral language or reframing the discussion, such as suggesting a compromise proposal. If the designers insist on continuing the cycle of threats, they should be held accountable for any actions they initiate. If one designer makes an offering of peace and the other fails or refused to acknowledge it, the manager should intervene. Ensure that the gesture is not ignored. Peace offerings are concessions made to reduce hostilities and initiate a climate for trust. Once concessions are made, rephrase them as commitments specific to dates, times and actions. Concessions may come in the form of an offer to supply equipment or personnel to help out in a pinch, or an offer to cease a specific activity. Offers are excellent tools for breaking deadlocks and initiating movement. The Smith/Jones Conflict Analyzed What of the conflict depicted in the Smith/Jones scenario? The manager's intervention should actually have started before the meeting since some strong feeling were easily predicted considering the topic's wide-ranging impact. Scheduling frequent breaks and a flexible seating arrangement would have been a good start. Smith's criticism of Jones' aesthetic choices indicated a conflict, but not necessarily a destructive one. It was at this point that the design manager should have asked for clarification on the nature of the criticism and whether it reflected a viewpoint accepted by all at the table. If not, personal antagonisms may have been involved. If still unclear, the manager should have asked specifically how Jones' reference to the 4300 series applied to the meeting's agenda. A simple clarification would reassure Smith that it was business-related instead of a personal attack. Because the manager took no action whatsoever, the scenario ended with both designers attacking personal motives and the conflict had become the shouting, insulting, red-faced imbroglio we all seek to defuse. In conclusion, conflict management is a proactive rather than a reactive skill. It anticipates the emergence of conflict from a variety of sources and is facilitated by intimate knowledge of individuals. The delicate balance between a designer's personal standards and the design standards held by a corporation are dynamic and occasionally get out of balance. The role of the design manager to maintain the balance by confronting and managing conflict is perhaps their most important role. Bibliography Foundation for Research on Human Behavior, Conflict Management in Organizations, edited by Elise Boulding. Ann Arbor: Braun & Brumfield, Inc., 1965. Likert, Rensis and LIkert, Jane G., New Ways of Managing Conflict. New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 1976. Pareek, Udai, "Developing Collaboration In Organizations", 1981 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators. LaJolla, CA: University Associates, 1981, pp. 165-181. Phillips, Eleanor and Cheston, Ric. "Conflict Resolution: What Works?" California Management Review, 1979 Vol. 21, No. 4, pp.76-83. Sheane, Derek, "When and How to Intervene in Conflict", Personnel Management. Nov. 1979, pp.32-36. Swingle, Paul, ed., The Structure of Conflict. New York: Academic Press, 1970. Varney, Glenn, "Strategies for Designing an Intervention", 1978 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators. LaJolla, CA: University Associates, 1978, pp.133-137.

]]> 1983-02-01 12:59:41 -0600