HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Ernst Mayr Library
of the Museum of
Comparative Zoology
MCZ
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MAY 27 m
harvard
UNIVERSITY
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JUM 1 9 2006
Journal of the
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Volume 92
Number 1
Spring 2006
Contents
The Editor Comments . . . . . . . . . i
Instructions for Authors . . . . . . . . ii
Raymond Prince, Large Scale Public-Private Projects and Their Macroeconomic Impact ... 1
Stephen Weil, Learning from the Eurotunnel to Benefit Moonbase Development . . 19
Gary G. Nelson, Organizational Evolution, Life-Cycle Program Design .... ... 25
Dragon Tevdovsky, Irina Naoumova, & Stuart Umpleby, A Method for Designing
Improvements in Organizations, Products and Services . . . 45
Affiliated Institutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
The Philosophical Society of Washington, Selected Minutes . 63
Marine Technology Society News . . . 79
Affiliated Societies . Inside back cover
ISSN 0043-0439
Issued Quarterly at Washington DC
l^asfjtngton Stabemp of ^ttcntefi
Founded in 1898
Board of Managers
Elected Officers
President
William Boyer
President Elect
Alain Towaide
Treasurer
Harvey Freeman
Secretary
James Cole
Vice President, Administration
Rex Klopfenstein
Vice President, Membership
Thomas Meylan
Vice President, Junior Academy
Paul L. Hazan
Vice President, Affiliated Societies
Mark Holland
Members at Large
Cyrus (Bob) Creveling
Donna Dean
Frank Haig, S .J.
Jodi Weseman
Vary Coates
Peg Kay
Past President: F. Douglas Witherspoon
AFFILIATED SOCIETY DELEGATES:
Shown on back cover
Editor of the Journal
Vary T. Coates
Associate Editors:
Alain Touwaide
Sethanne Howard
Academy Office
Washington Academy of Sciences
Room 63 1
1200 New York Ave
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202/326-8975
email: was@washacadsci.org
The Journal of the Washington Academy of
Sciences
The Journal is the official organ of the Academy.
It publishes articles on science policy, the history of
science, critical reviews, original science research,
proceedings of scholarly meetings of its Affiliated
Societies, and other items of interest to its members.
It is published quarterly. The last issue of the year
contains a directory of the current membership of
the Academy.
Subscription Rates
Members, fellows, and life members in good
standing receive the Journal free of charge.
Subscriptions are available on a calendar year basis,
payable in advance. Payment must be made in U.S.
currency at the following rates.
US and Canada . $25.00
Other Countries . 30.00
Single Copies (when available) . 10.00
Claims for Missing Issues
Claims must be received within 65 days of mailing.
Claims will not be allowed if non-delivery was the
result of failure to notify the Academy of a change
of address.
Notification of Change of Address
Address changes should be sent promptly to the
Academy Office. Notification should contain both
old and new addresses and zip codes.
POSTMASTER:
Send address changes to WAS, Rm.631,
1200 York Ave. NW
Washington, DC. 20005
Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences
(ISSN 0043-0439)
Published by the Washington Academy of Sciences
202/326-8975
website: www.washacadsci.org
THE EDITOR COMMENTS:
1 » ttoe
WE are pleased to announce a new Associate Editor, Dr. Sethanne
Howard, an astronomer with much experience in editing scientific
publications for the National Naval Observatory.
“Large scale public technology” might serve as the theme for this issue
of the Journal. The first two papers, originally presented at the Academy’s
2005 MoonBase Conference, discuss the development and funding of very
large scale projects such as the Channel Tunnel or a manned facility on
the moon. A third paper probes issues in systems engineering and the
acquisition of complex systems. Finally, a paper by authors from three
countries presents and demonstrates a method for identifying priorities for
improving an organization, institution, project, or service.
The activities of two of the Academy’s affiliated scientific societies are
featured in this issue. The Minutes from selected meetings of the
Philosophical Society are presented, each of which features a succinct and
pithy summary of a lecture by a distinguished local scientist. Second,
Mark Holland lays out the activities, accomplishments, and agenda of the
Marine Technology Society. All of Affiliated Societies and Institutions are
urged to send similar information for coming issues of the Journal.
^SiTy
Spring 2006
II
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
THE JOURNAL of the Washington Academy of Sciences is a
peer-reviewed journal. Exceptions are made for papers requested
by the editors or positively approved for presentation or
publication by one of our affiliated scientific societies.
We welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary scientific research
reports and papers on technology development and innovation,
science policy, technology assessment, and history of science and
technology. Book reviews are also welcome.
Contributors of papers are requested to follow these guidelines
carefully.
• Papers should be submitted as e-mail attachments to the chief
editor, vcoatesfohnac.com. along with full contact information for
the primary or corresponding author.
• Papers should be presented in Word; do not send PDF files.
• Papers should be 6000 words or fewer. If more than 6 graphics are
included the number of words allowed will be reduced
accordingly.
• Graphics must be in black and white only. They must be easily
resized and relocated. It is best to put graphics, including tables, at
the end of the paper or in a separate document, with their preferred
location in the text clearly indicated.
• References should be in the form of endnotes, and may be in any
style considered standard in the discipline(s) represented by the
paper.
Spring 2006
LARGE SCALE PRIVATE-PUBLIC PROJECTS
AND THEIR MACROECONOMIC IMPACT*
i
Raymond Prince
U. S. Department of Energy
Abstract
This paper examines the factors common to three periods of the
elevated, sustained productivity growth for which adequate data exists:
the late 1800s from the end of the Civil War to 1890; the decade
between the end of World War I and the onset of the Great Depression;
and the two decades after World War II. The question posed is whether
the public sector should be a source of support for technologies that
have a potential for a broad economic impact. Noting that these
productivity booms followed major wars in which US emerged the
clear victor, the paper concludes that a potential role of government is
to pursue peacetime policies that bring into play some of the factors
present in a postwar economy. Such activities could include the support
of applied technology research; reducing the risk borne by private
sector through, for example, caps on liability; and fiscal policies, such
as depreciation rates, that impact the capital turnover rate.
Introduction
The U.S. economy has been enjoying substantially faster
productivity growth for the past eight years than it did over the preceding
two decades. From 1995 to 2003, labor productivity - measured as output
per worker - rose at an average annual rate of about 3 percent, up from
around 1.5 percent between 1973 and 1995. A rise in the rate of
productivity growth over an extended period of time can create a societal
benefit in the form of a significantly higher average standard of living.
For an economy with a labor force that is a constant percentage of the
population, a 1.5 percent productivity growth can allow a doubling of the
This paper was presented at the MoonBase Conference, held in Washington, D.C.,
October 2005, co-sponsored by the Academy, the Italian National Institute of
Astrophysics, and High Frontier, Inc.
Spring 2006
2
standard of living every 47 years. At a 3 percent growth, the doubling time
is virtually halved.
Past periods of rapid productivity growth are worth examining,
therefore, to answer questions that arise when considering future
technologies with a potential for a broad based impact including cost
reductions and enhanced capabilities in communications, transportation
and energy industries. Such past periods witnessed a marked increase in
investment in capital that embodied the new technologies. Paramount
among questions about these periods is, therefore, the role of government
in fostering such periods of rapid growth. More specifically, should the
public sector be a source of support of these technologies that have a
potential for a broad impact, for example, by funding of research,
investment in infrastructure, or guarantees that reduce the risk borne by
the private sector.
In this paper I examine 1 e factors common to three earlier periods
of the elevated, sustained productivity growth for which adequate data
exists: the late 1800s from roughly the end of the Civil War to around
1890; the decade or so between the end of World War I and the onset of
the Great Depression; and the two decades after World War II. I do not
attempt to examine our latest period because, in the opinion of this author,
not enough time has lapsed to fully assess the causes and effects of the
productivity growth associated with the dissemination of computers, the
internet, wireless communications and related technologies during the last
ten years.
The majority view of economists regarding the factors behind
elevated productivity growth was recently expressed by Ferguson and
Washer (2004). [See also Chandler (1977), Baskin and Miranti (1997),
White (2000), and Bemanke (2005).]
Productivity booms seem to involve four key ingredients:
technological innovation; the willingness and ability of owners and
corporate managers to reengineer the internal organization of their firms to
take maximum advantage of those innovations; financial sector
innovations tailored to the forms of business organization predominating
at the time; and a skilled and flexible workforce.
Government policies have only a limited role in these periods of
elevated productivity growth. The larger share of the credit goes to the
private sector, as private agents are generally responsible for creating and
exploiting the technologies that drove these previous productivity booms.
Washington Academy of Sciences
3
Nonetheless, governments can play an important subordinate role by
promoting an economic, financial and legal environment that is conducive
to innovation and to the diffusion of new technologies.
While not disagreeing with this conclusion, it is the purpose of this
paper to shed some additional light on the influence of the public sector in
productivity spurts and to suggestion some additional policies that may be
appropriate.
The Historical Record
For the total period from 1873 to 2003, labor productivity rose at
an average rate of 2.2 percent per year, with both technological change
and capital deepening contributing importantly to overall productivity
growth. Periods of robust growth were interspersed with periods of more
modest productivity gains. The first episode of strong productivity growth
was the post Civil War period from 1873 to 1890. During this period,
labor productivity rose 2.6 percent per year, a rate thought to be
considerably higher than the average growth experienced over the first
100 years of the United States.
From 1 890 to 1917, the growth rate of labor productivity slowed to
an average pace of only 1.5 percent per year. The U.S. economy then
enjoyed a relatively brief spurt in labor productivity growth after World
War I until about 1927, with labor productivity rising 3.8 percent per year.
Productivity growth was markedly slower during the period that included
the Great Depression and World War II (from 1927 to 1948), largely
because of a lack of capital deepening. However, the rate of technological
innovation - as measured by the growth of multifactor productivity -
continued at a solid, if somewhat slower, pace than earlier in the century.
From 1948 to 1973, a period sometimes referred to as the golden
age of productivity growth, labor productivity rose at an annual rate of
close to 3 percent. During this period, productivity accelerated across a
broad range of industries, and both capital deepening and a high rate of
technological innovation contributed to the strong pace of growth. During
the productivity slowdown of the 1970s and 1980s, labor productivity
growth slowed to an average pace of 1 .4 percent per year.
Spring 2006
4
The Post Civil War Productivity Boom
Diffusion of Technology >
The productivity boom after the Civil War, for instance, appears to
have had its genesis in a set of technological improvements that increased
the flexibility of production and reduced transportation costs, which
allowed firms to take advantage of economies of scale in production and
distribution. The widespread introduction of steam engines and machinery
powered by coal enabled firms to move away from sources of water power
and closer to areas where inputs of labor and raw materials were more
readily available.
The expansion of railroad transportation also helped raise
productivity growth in the second half of the nineteenth century. Improved
methods of steel production-notably, the Bessemer process and, later,
Siemens's open hearth method-enabled railroads to lay steel track that was
longer-lasting than iron track. The growth of telegraphy enabled railroad
companies to coordinate the movement of trains over a wider area.
Although the magnitude of the railroad’s contribution to
productivity growth during this period is the subject of considerable
debate (David 1969, Fishlow 2000, Fogel 1979), the expansion of the
railroads clearly drove transportation costs sharply lower and resulted in
significant increases in the geographic size of product markets. In 1830,
the transportation of goods from New York to Chicago occurred mainly
by canal and required three weeks even during the warmer months of the
year. By 1870 the same goods could be transported between these two
cities in three days by railroad at any time of the year (Paullin 1932).
Subsequently, freight rates fell from 2.25 cents per ton-mile in 1860 to
less than 1 cent per ton-mile by 1 890. As a result, the quantity of goods
transported by rail increased sharply, from about 12 billion ton-miles in
1870 to 80 billion ton-miles in 1890 (Fishlow 1966).
The advances in transportation were complemented by improved
communications, largely as a result of the expansion of the telegraph.
Initially, sending a telegram was relatively expensive, with rates between
New York and San Francisco averaging $7.45 for ten words or fewer in
the late 1860s. By the late 1880s, rates for the same message had fallen to
as little as $1.00. As a result, the number of telegraph messages handled
Washington Academy of Sciences
5
by Western Union rose from fewer than 6 million in 1867 to nearly 56
million in 1890 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1997, Series R48 and R74).
Changes in Business Organization
Before the Civil War, most businesses were either sole
proprietorships or partnerships serving local markets. As the spread of
railroads lowered transportation costs and increased the size and number
of potential markets, the greater availability of steam power enabled
manufacturers to set up factories to take advantage of economies of scale
in production. As a result, the size of firms rose substantially in many
industries. In the cotton industry, for example, the median firm size
(measured as the annual value of gross production in 1860 dollars) rose
from $31,000 in 1850 to nearly $100,000 in 1870; similarly, in the iron
industry, the median firm size rose from $24,000 in 1850 to more than
$200,000 in 1870 (Atack 1986).
With the telegraph making rapid communication over great
distances more feasible, firms were able to monitor activities from a
central administrative office. However, to make effective use of the
opportunities presented by better communications, firms often set up
hierarchical management systems to control the production process and to
coordinate the flow of goods across the distribution system. The more
informed decision making associated with this administrative structure
enabled firms to match production to orders, shorten delivery times and
reduce inventory holdings.
Changes in Finance
Before the Civil War, most non-financial business investment was
financed internally with retained earnings, with capital provided by family
or friends or through partnerships formed with other proprietors. The chief
exceptions were the canals and railroads, which were issuing stocks and
bonds in the 1850s (Chandler 1977). The main sources of funding in the
decades after the Civil War were debt and preferred stock. (Railroad
companies were an exception to this pattern - they sold sizable amounts of
common stock to investors seeking large capital gains after the completion
of new construction projects (Fishlow 2000).) Debt often took the form of
secured loans, in large part because investors were concerned about the
informational asymmetries they faced in evaluating the bankruptcy risk of
Spring 2006
6
particular firms. Indeed, the total value of bank loans rose from less than
$1 billion in 1870 to more than $4 billion in the early 1890s, during a
period when the aggregate price level was falling (U.S. Census Bureau,
1997, Series X581).
Changes in the Labor Market
During the productivity boom in the late nineteenth century,
technological change had two disparate effects on the demand for labor.
First, the shift in manufacturing production from artisanal shops in the
mid- 1800s to factories after the Civil War and the subsequent rapid
growth in the capital stock led to a substantial increase in the demand for
unskilled labor (Engerman and Sokoloff 2000). Although this effect
reduced the average skill level of the manufacturing workforce, the
availability of a large pool of unskilled labor enabled firms to take
advantage of the potential organizational efficiencies and economies of
scale associated with the new technologies, thus raising productivity for
the economy as a whole.
Second, increases in firm size and the growth of businesses in the
distribution sector increased the demand for workers who could perform
clerical and managerial tasks. For example, the share of employed men
who worked in white-collar occupations rose from less than 5 percent in
1850 to nearly 18 percent by 1900 (Margo 2000). Such workers tended to
have more formal education than the average individual although the level
of competency needed for these jobs required, at most, a high school
education (Chandler 1977).
The Post World War 1 Productivity Boom
Diffusion of Technology
In the second productivity boom in the years after World War I,
the chief technological innovation was most likely the spread of
electrification to the factory floor (David 1990, Mowery and Rosenberg
2000). For example, the amount of mechanical energy derived from
electric motors rose from 475,000 horsepower in 1899 to nearly 34 million
horsepower in 1929, and the fraction of overall factory horsepower
produced with electricity rose from less than 5 percent to more than 80
percent over that period (U.S. Census Bureau, 1997, Series P70). As a
result, manufacturing plants could be organized in a way that maximized
the efficient movement of materials, rather than the efficient transmission
Washington Academy of Sciences
7
of power. In this regard, electric motors facilitated the spread of
continuous processing techniques and assembly lines. By one estimate,
productivity growth in the manufacturing sector as a whole increased
about 5.5 percent per year between 1919 and 1929 (Kendrick 1961).
Other technological innovations also contributed to productivity
growth during this period. Notable among them were the telephone, the
internal combustion engine, and a variety of technological advances in
machine tools. In addition, the early 1900s were characterized by the first
wave of office automation equipment, including the portable typewriter
and adding and duplicating machines. These machines improved the
efficiency of a wide range of management and accounting tasks. In real
terms, business investment in office equipment increased from about $50
million (in 1929 dollars) in 1899 to nearly $500 million in 1929, with a
particularly large jump evident in the 1920s (Cortada 1993).
Changes in Business Organization
The second major productivity boom, in the years after World War
I, required changes in business organization that permitted firms to take
advantage of advances in production processes in the early 1900s. A
change in the optimal size of the firm occurred that involved both the
economies of scale associated with the increasingly complex production
techniques and also large organizations embracing economies of scope.
The diffusion of the electric motor throughout the factory floor increased
the use of continuous-process methods and the assembly line and, thus,
accelerated the trend toward mass production. In addition, as early as the
1880s, manufacturers had begun to integrate forward into distribution; one
noteworthy example was the meatpacking industry, in which firms
purchased refrigerated rail cars that allowed the shipment of beef from
centralized slaughterhouses to branch houses that served local markets.
The advances in mass production techniques and the increasing
complexity of many manufactured products led firms in other industries to
integrate forward not only into distribution but also into retailing; this
vertical integration reduced transactions costs even more and further
increased the optimal size of firms.
As a result, marketing, advertising, and accounting departments
increased in size and importance within the typical corporation. Also, with
their executives now more sensitive to market share and their cost
advantage over their competitors, large corporations began to develop
Spring 2006
8
applied research departments aimed at providing the firm with a
technological edge.
Changes in Finance
Corporate finance in the years after World War I was characterized
by an increase in the importance of equity markets. At the New York
Stock Exchange alone, the volume of stock sales rose from 186 million
shares in 1917 to more than 1 billion shares in 1929 (U.S. Census Bureau,
1997, Series X531), the value of preferred and common stock issuance
increased from $455 million to $6.8 billion over the same period (U.S.
Census Bureau, 1997, Series X5 14-5 15), and the number of individuals
holding stock jumped from 500,000 in 1900 to 10 million by 1930
(Hawkins 1963).
The public’s interest in common stock increased for several
reasons. First, expanding middle and upper classes wanted to take part in
the economic gains associated with the introduction of new technologies.
Second, about the same time, the informational problems that had
constrained interest in common stock through the early 1900s were
declining. Starting in the late 1800s, there was a proliferation of
newsletters that reported on developments in the railroad industry, and
similar publications soon sprang up to provide information on other traded
securities. These newsletters evolved into ratings agencies covering a wide
range of individual corporations, with Moody’s issuing the first bond
ratings in 1909. Third, more public companies recognized a need to
address investors’ concerns about risk and began to issue regular audited
financial statements (Miranti 2001). Fourth, the marketing of securities to
the household sector became more aggressive in the 1920s, led by
investment trusts which offered investors a means of diversifying
individual portfolios-and retail brokerage firms.
Changes in the Labor Force
The productivity boom of the early twentieth century was
accompanied by a significant rise in the demand for higher-skilled labor.
The need for white-collar workers continued to increase with the further
growth in corporate size and the new focus on activities not directly
related to the manufacture of goods. The greater complexity of the newly
installed capital equipment increased the demand for workers who could
Washington Academy of Sciences
9
read manuals and blueprints, perform mathematical calculations, and had
some basic knowledge of science (Goldin and Katz 1998). In response,
enrollment rates in secondary schools increased sharply, and the high
school graduation rate rose to more than 25 percent by the late 1920s
(U.S. Census Bureau, 1997, Series H599). Chandler (1977) also notes the
inception of the modem business school during this period, with classes
on commerce, accounting, marketing, law and finance.
The Post World War II Productivity Boom
Diffusion of Technology
The productivity gains of the 1950s and 1960s had their roots in a
wide range of technologies first developed during the 1930s (Field 2003,
Kleinknecht 1987, Schmookler 1966, and Mensch 1979). Examples of
important innovations during this decade include research advances in
polymer chemistry that led to the invention of Plexiglas, Teflon and
Nylon; significant advances in civil engineering; and the introduction of
the DC-3 aircraft in 1936.
Research aimed at enhancing U.S. military capabilities during
World War II also led to new technologies that had important spillovers to
commercial applications after the war (Mowery and Rosenberg 2000). For
example, although the major research advances in synthetic
polymerization chemistry (most notably, the introduction of catalytic
cracking in the processing of crude oil) were made in the 1920s and
1930s, the synthetic rubber program launched during the war resulted in
techniques that led to the mass production of the first synthetic polymer
from petroleum-based feedstocks. Similarly, production of polyethylene, a
petrochemical based plastic discovered in the 1930s, jumped in the 1940s
because of its widespread use in military equipment. The military’s need
for large stocks of penicillin led to a production process for it that turned
out to have applicability to a wide range of pharmaceuticals, while
wartime advances in microelectronics subsequently contributed
significantly to the development of new commercial electronic products.
Overall, between 1947 and 1970, production in the rubber and plastic
products industry rose nearly 7 percent per year, and the output of the
chemical products industry rose more than 8 percent per year (Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Indexes of Industrial
Production). In comparison, over the same period, production in the
manufacturing sector as a whole rose about 4 percent per year.
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Another notable contributor to productivity growth during this
period is the invention of the transistor in 1947. Commercial applications
of the transistor, initially in solid state consumer electronic products, were
stimulated by improvements in the fabrication process (in 1954) and by
the introduction of the integrated circuit (in 1958). With the rise in
demand, semiconductor production jumped markedly, rising nearly 20
percent per year during the 1960s (Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System, Indexes of Industrial Production).
In transportation, the 1950s and 1960s saw major productivity
improvements in all three major segments: air, rail and trucking.
Contributing importantly to those productivity gains were the replacement
of steam locomotives with diesel locomotives and innovations that
increased the capacity of the rolling stock (Mansfield 1965). The use of
the jet engine in commercial aircraft - most notably, the introduction of
the Boeing 707 in 1958 - was important. Gordon (1992) estimates place
the growth of productivity in the commercial airline industry at more than
7 percent per year during the 1960s, well above the rate of labor
productivity growth for the economy as a whole.
Finally, productivity gains in trucking - estimated by Gordon at
about 3.5 percent per year in the 1950s and 1960s - were fueled
importantly by substantial investment in road improvements, most notably
the federally funded expansion of the U.S. highway system (Keeler and
Ying, 1988).
Changes in Business Organization
During the third productivity boom, following World War II, firms
responded to the myriad of new products by increasingly splitting their
firm's activities into separate divisions, each with its own manufacturing
and marketing departments. For domestic production, this multidivisional
approach was well suited to the manufacturing of diverse product lines by
a single company (Baskin and Miranti 1997). This structure also turned
out to be an effective method of handling corporate operations in different
geographic areas, as seen by the rise of multinational corporations during
this period. To handle these long-distance operations more easily,
corporations often set up foreign subsidiaries that could adapt quickly to
changing circumstances in the host country's marketplace.
Washington Academy of Sciences
11
Changes in Finance
The third productivity boom, in the years after World War II, was
accompanied by another rapid increase in bond and equity issuance with
the ratio of external financing to overall capital spending rising from an
average of around 30 percent in the late 1940s to more than 40 percent in
the early 1970s (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Flow
of Funds Accounts).
Two specific developments in financial markets during this period
bear mentioning.
First, the late 1950s and 1960s saw the rise of the Eurodollar
market - a market for U.S. dollar deposits and loans outside the United
States that became a useful source of short-term financing -
complementary to the commercial paper market - for large corporations
seeking alternatives to more costly domestic commercial bank loans
(Johnston 1982, Kindleberger 1993). Baskin and Miranti (1997) estimate
that this market increased from about $9 billion in 1964 to $247 billion by
1976.
Second, the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by a sharp rise in
the importance of large institutional investors - especially pension funds -
in the stock and bond markets. This rise, coupled with the growth of
mutual funds and brokerage houses, enabled smaller investors (either
explicitly or implicitly) to invest more easily in stocks and bonds and to
diversify their portfolios.
Changes in the Labor Force
The productivity boom of the 1950s and 1960s showed a similar
pattern. The new technologies and skilled labor again were complements
in production, so that the availability of skilled labor in this episode
helped to maintain the returns to technological innovation. As in the early
1900s, the greater cognitive skills possessed by more educated workers
were especially effective in implementing the new technologies (Nelson,
Peck and Kalachek 1967), and in this instance, the demand for workers in
professional and technical occupations increased sharply, with especially
rapid growth for engineers and technicians (U.S. Census Bureau, 1997,
Series D233-D682). With the occupations in highest demand now
requiring a college education, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds
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12
enrolled in college rose from about 14 percent in 1950 to roughly 32
percent in 1970 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1997, Series H701).
Lessons from the Past
The Characteristics of a Sustained Productivity Boom
Productivity booms seem to involve four key ingredients:
• technological innovation;
• the willingness and ability of owners and corporate managers to
reengineer the internal organization of their firms to take
maximum advantage of those innovations;
• financial sector innovations tailored to the forms of business
organization predominating at the time; and
• a skilled and flexible workforce.
There are undoubtedly many valuable lessons from these
similarities, but we will touch on a few that seem particularly important.
First, many of the technological innovations associated with past
productivity booms were “general purpose technologies” with widespread
applicability. Such technologies often operate through various channels -
through improvements in energy, transportation or communications, for
example - raising productivity not only in production but also in
distribution and business practices.
Second, in many cases - railroads and computers being notable
examples - the productivity improvements were initially most pronounced
in the production of the capital equipment embodying the new
technologies.
Third, the development of these new technologies often had
important intersectoral linkages to other industries (Fishlow 2000;
Mowery and Rosenberg 2000). In the nineteenth century, for example, the
construction of railroads had backward linkages to the coal, iron and steel,
and machinery industries and forward linkages to the distribution sector.
Likewise, in the twentieth century, the innovations in electricity,
chemistry and the development of the internal combustion engine led both
to widespread productivity improvements in mature industries (like steel
and railroads) and the creation of new industries (like plastics and
commercial air transportation) (Meyer 2003).
Washington Academy of Sciences
13
A fourth lesson from past productivity booms is that investors
must be willing to hold securities if firms are to raise the capital they need
to take advantage of the productivity potential of new technologies.
Fifth, efforts by policymakers to provide broad access to education
has also helped to stimulate economic growth by improving the ability of
the workforce to adapt to technological change.
Sixth, sound macroeconomic policies have also been essential in
promoting long-run economic growth. Several empirical observations
suggest such a link between the level of business fixed investment - and
thus the diffusion of new technologies through renewal of the capital stock
- and an economic environment characterized by sustainable economic
growth and low inflation (Fischer 1993, Rudebusch and Wilcox 1994).
The Role of the Public Sector Reconsidered
The importance of general purpose technologies raises the question
of whether governments should attempt to stimulate the development of
these technologies. To be sure, government intervention has, at times,
made valuable contributions to technological progress. First, state and
federal governments have been an important source of funding for basic
research. Second, the legal system provides incentives for innovation
through the protection of intellectual property rights by allowing the
inventors of new technologies to reap the benefits of their innovations,
while, hopefully, encouraging the timely diffusion of new technologies
(Engerman and Sokoloff 2000).
Third, in some cases, government has supported certain new
technologies more directly. In the 1850s and after the Civil War, for
example, federal land grants and state and local aid were a source of
financing for railway construction. Military support for chemical research
that focused on developing new materials during World War II
contributed to subsequent productivity gains in the private sector. After
World War II, new trade agreements and efforts to revitalize Europe and
Japan allowed American firms to make significant inroads into foreign
markets. Also, the Federal government funded the building of the
interstate highway system during the 1 950s and 1 960s.
Without downplaying the role of government in encouraging
invention, however, the prevailing view of economists is that the
government can arguably contribute most effectively to technological
change by promoting an economic, financial, and legal environment that is
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conducive to innovation and to the diffusion of new technologies - and
then allowing businesses the flexibility to reorganize their operations in
ways that permit them to take maximum advantage of new technologies.
It is often pointed out, for example, that even for the nineteenth-century
railroads, external financing came mainly from private domestic or foreign
sources; the proportion of government-funded investment by railroad
companies was less than 10 percent after the Civil War (Fishlow 2000).
At the same time, it is impossible to notice that each of the
historical productivity booms followed the end of a major war. Those who
regard this as largely correlation, rather than causation, often point out that
it is difficult to see what activities of the government during the Civil War
and World War I could have made a major contribution to the subsequent
period of elevated productivity growth. Moreover, it is usually noted that
the post- 1995 productivity boom did not follow the end of a war and that
other major wars were not followed by productivity booms. We have
already noted that we prefer to defer judgment on the last ten years for a
while longer. Regarding the last point, we will only note that other past
productivity booms followed major wars in which the United States
emerged the clear victor.
In addition, it is possible to point to certain factors present in a
postwar economy and attributable to public sector activity (conduct of a
war) that can make an important contribution to productivity growth.
Among these are a pent-up demand for consumer products resulting from
the reallocation of resources to wartime production (World War II);
control over new resources and technologies acquired from vanquished
nations (World War I); a breakdown of factors previously restraining
growth (Civil War - see Olson 1982); war-related advances in applied
technology (World War II); and a rise in capital turnover rates.
Regarding this last point, capital turnover rates are important
because so much of new technology is embodied in new equipment.
Typically, during a war maintenance of equipment falls below pre-War
schedules due to manpower shortages. By the end of an extended war, a
significant part of the capital stock may be at, or nea r, the end of its useful
life. The shift of resources away from war productions creates, therefore,
an opportunity to invest in new capital that embodies the latest
technology, thus providing the impetus for a rise in productivity growth.
Of course, few would advocate a major war in order to benefit
from a subsequent productivity boom. More relevant is the question of
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whether it is possible through peacetime policies to bring into play some
of the factors present in a postwar economy. For some factors - pent-up
demand, acquisition of new resources from conquered nations, and even
the breakdown of restraining factors - the answer is probably no. But it
may be possible for the public sector to set the stage for accelerated
productivity growth during peacetime by increasing its support of applied
technology research; reducing the risk borne by the private sector through,
for example, caps on liability; and through fiscal policies, such as
depreciation rates, that impact the capital turnover rate.
We have for some time now existed in a world where rates of
return are low by historical standards. In such a world, favorable tax
treatment and enhanced public sector funding of applied research may be
appropriate. Such policies, however, would have to be predicated on the
availability of a set of technologies whose impact is broad enough to have
a measurable effect at the macro-economic level.
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LEARNING FROM THE EUROTUNNEL*
TO BENEFIT MOONBASE DEVELOPMENT
Stephen Weil
TI Partners, London
Abstract
A manned facility on the Moon would likely be comparable in scale in
its early days to the infrastructure developed in the early 1 990s for the
Eurotunnel connecting France and the United Kingdom. That consisted
of three railway tunnels under the Channel and the marshalling yards
and associated service facilities at the ends of the tunnel. Many of the
issues, especially funding issues, raised by a Moonbase development
are similar to issues raised by the Channel tunnel. Review of decisions
made by Eurotunnel developers could help Moonbase developers avoid
some mistakes.
A MANNED FACILITY CONSTRUCTED ON THE MOON, which WC will
call “the Moonbase,” would at the outset presumably consist of sizeable
infrastructure to support a transport hub, including shuttle-docking,
launch, and repair facilities; a medical facility; a rest and recreation
facility; and communications and security facilities.
Quite quickly, it is expected, the Moonbase would develop a
hospitality facility for visitors; research laboratories for R&D; an
academic facility; several observatories; and the infrastructure necessary
to support a growing mineral extraction industry and related construction
facilities.
The scale of the Moon-side facilities is likely to be comparable, even
in the earliest days, to the infrastructure created in the early 1990s on the
French side of the railway tunnels under the Channel connecting France
with the United Kingdom. The French facilities include major railway
marshalling yards, a huge (by European standards) retail complex, and
office buildings, linked to the European motorway network.
This paper was presented at the MoonBase Conference, held in Washington, D.C.,
October 2005, co-sponsored by the Academy, the Italian National Institute of
Astrophysics, and High Frontier, Inc.
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On account of the scale of the facilities required for a manned
observatory on the Moon, it is useful to look at the methods of, and
lessons learnt from, the funding of the railway tunnels connecting France
with Great Britain as a useful precedent of how an international, public-
private project of such great strategic significance might come together.
Many of the issues raised by the Moonbase - issues of international
relations, concessions to private sector suppliers, structure of the supplier
contracts, commitments from users, project funding - were addressed and
answered (if not always wisely, as we shall see) by Eurotunnel, the
Channel Tunnel operator.
Some readers may have taken the train between London and Paris, or
between London and Brussels; for those not familiar with the Channel
Tunnel, the Tunnel infrastructure has two railway tunnels plus one service
tunnel under the Channel, with real estate at either end of the Tunnel for
retail, office and distribution. The Tunnel is a railroad-only link, allowing
express trains to link directly London with Paris and Brussels; cars and
freight are carried on special shuttle vehicles.
The Channel Tunnel idea shares with the Moonbase some distinctive
challenges:
• The primary role of both projects is to act as an international
gateway: the Channel Tunnel is a gateway between Britain (50
million population in 1987) and continental Europe (290 million
population in 1987), while the Moonbase will provide access
between the Earth (6 billion population in 2005) and the Solar
System. As a result, some form of international treaty, and
implicitly political backing at the highest levels, is needed to give
the project authority and credibility.
• A second shared feature is that, due to the nature and novelty of
the physical challenges, the up-front sunk costs are very high, and
subject to significant large variations. With the Tunnel, the cost
was projected at the start of construction to be $10.8 billion US;
actually, the cost turned out to be $18 billion US, close to $30
billion US in current terms.
Today’s Channel Tunnel was three years in formation, from the
signing of an international treaty by France and the United Kingdom in
late 1984, laying the legal framework, to the raising of most of the funding
at the end of 1987. There had been a prior bid, ten years earlier, between
1973 and 1975, by the French and British Governments to authorize the
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building of a tunnel. This first attempt failed when both governments fell.
The second attempt won out, with strong leaders in power in both
countries. President Francois Mitterand in France and Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. Maybe the first important
lesson for the Moonbase is this imperative for strong governments to give
it force.
The two governments succeeded in selling the idea of the Tunnel to
their voters. They did this in part by announcing that there was to be no
public funding for the construction and operation of the Channel link; the
project was to be realized by private promoters. This took away the sting
of much of the opposition to the project as a cost to the tax-payer. By
insisting on no state funding. President Mitterand and Prime Minister
Thatcher switched the focus of the debate from tax and cost to opportunity
and challenge. This is the second lesson for realizing the Moonbase
The two governments were careful to select a private promoter
through an “open” bidding process, so no one could accuse the
governments of favoritism. Three bidders emerged, each offering
different technical solutions: the winner was the Eurotunnel consortium.
Technically, the Tunnel is a major engineering triumph. Since its
1994 opening, apart from one fire in which fortunately no one died, it has
had no major structural or technical problems.
Financially, the Eurotunnel company has been a fiasco for its backers
and funders.
Eurotunnel’s core private sector consortium emerged out of a wide
spread of construction and finance industry interests from France and the
United Kingdom. Though the Project’s credibility demanded the inclusion
of major corporations, it would have been better to have widened the core
investor group to include users. For the Moonbase, we might think of
energy, minerals explorations and chemicals corporations, and satellite
tracking businesses. The absence of users in the Eurotunnel consortium
was to prove a fundamental weakness in the design and execution of the
project.
With hindsight, the make-up of the core consortium, narrowed to
suppliers, was the first error for a project on this scale of complexity and
novelty.
The core members subscribed collectively for around 5 percent of the
total initial funding requirement. The balance of the equity, around 10
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percent of the total initial funding requirement, came through a public
equity issue. Raising money from the public for a project of this
magnitude and uncertainty, before building work was completed and a
track record established, was the second mistake made by Eurotunnel.
(Eurotunnel’s then managers would probably have argued that, given the
way the capital markets looked at that time, only a public equity offering
was viable.) Anyway, the outcome was wild speculation, and a volatile
shareholder base which lacked stability.
A premature approach to the public market was, then, the second
mistake made by Eurotunnel in its finance structure.
The rest of the funding, around 85 percent, was bank debt, partly
secured by contracts from the railways agreeing to pay a minimum usage
charge for the first 12 years of operation. Even so, the greater part of the
bank debt servicing hinged on revenue streams, projected by consultants,
of the number of vehicles and freight traffic using the Tunnel, and the
prices their owners would be prepared to pay.
As it turned out, the projections were wrong by a factor of one half,
primarily because no one foresaw the impact of budget airlines and
Internet bookings, which encouraged more traffic to cross the English
Channel by air, not through the Tunnel.
Too much reliance on consultants’ projections for a new business,
rather than firm user contracts, was the third key weakness in Eurotunnel’s
financial structure.
What can the Moonbase learn from Eurotunnel’s successes (broad
political support, technical triumph) and its mishaps (losses for investors
and banks)? The decisions taken prior to start of construction are critical.
We can identify three distinctive stages prior to the start of building:
Stage 1
A number of governments agree to invite commercial concessions for
a Moonbase, with a clear statement that there will be no state funding for
the Moonbase, setting out an outline structure of a transparent concession
bidding process, run by a combination of public officials and private
sector specialists, and monitored by an independent, internationally-
recruited Ethics Committee, in turn reporting to a committee of
representatives of the governments.
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Stage 2
The transparent concession bidding process takes place, subject to
overview by an independent Ethics Committee (similar to the Ethics
Committees in a drug company), leading to the selection of a successful
bidder.
Stage 3
The contractor negotiates contracts with users such as:
• NASA (R&R for astronauts, hospitals, monitoring,
tracking. Earth observation),
• Energy exploration,
• Minerals exploration, and
• Academic research.
The contracts are contingent upon supply of facilities by a given date.
In a parallel process the contractor puts in place funding contingent on
user contracts; and insurance to cover the risk of technical failure.
Throughout the various initial stages and subsequently, the Ethics
Committee supervises the activity of the contractor to check for any
damage to the environment or to human beings. The contractor should not
be allowed by the financial authorities to offer its shares to the public
before an operating track record is established, while firm user contracts
should provide a solid base for the debt funding of the program.
If structured correctly at the outset, the Moonbase provides an
opportunity for a major cooperative effort among governments,
universities, and business for the benefit of all.
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ORGANIZATIONAL EVOLUTION, LIFE-CYCLE
PROGRAM DESIGN:
ESSENTIAL ISSUES IN SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND ACQUISITION OF
COMPLEX SYSTEMS *
Gary G. Nelson
Homeland Security Institute
Abstract
A society of puiposeful agents — humans and now their artificial
symbionts — self-organizes into partitions of activity (nations,
corporations, agencies, services) and a scale hierarchy of governance.
This complex-adaptive society is properly evolutionary. Such a society
designs “projects” that create purposeful artifacts with a developmental
life cycle. As the projects become more and more ambitious, the real
and conceptual boundary between the evolutionary and the
developmental — between the project and the society blurs. Over just
the last seven decades, this growth in “designed complexity” has
spawned the design of formal processes of systems engineering,
concurrent with formal processes of acquisition (allocation of and
accountability for significant social resources). The most interesting
examples of such projects are the information systems for decision
support that become the social linkage of indefinite extent, and the very
means of collective design and acquisition of projects. So, we have two
essential problems: 1) The blurring of designing subject and designed
object, and 2) a recursive relation between the object and the designing
process. Empirically (from experience with major federal programs),
there is a vast conceptual confusion between evolution and
development (including the design phase). This is reflected in
persistent problems with the formal engineering and acquisition
processes. Some principles of complex systems, with special reference
to decision support systems, are articulated to identify and ameliorate
the very practical problems encountered in the life-cycle development
of complex designs by complex organizations.
There is nothing uncommon about the scene: an organization
undertakes a project of some complexity in order to fulfill the purpose of
the organization. To be concrete, suppose the organization is a federal
* Presented at CapitalScience 06, March 25-26, 2006, in the Washington Evolutionary
Systems Society’s Symposium on the Emergences of Designs.
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agency and the project is a multi-billion dollar automation
/surveillance/communication system that enables the agency to perform its
operational mission (e.g., homeland security, air traffic management,
transportation operation). There are many such concurrent projects going
on at any time. Several end up in the newspapers as immense failures. I
was intimately involved in one — the Advanced Automation System
(AAS) for air traffic management — in its early design, program
management and acquisition phases. But there are other more prosaic
projects, like highway or rail transit construction, that collectively alter the
physical connectivity of society. Both informational connectivity through
“cybernetic” systems and geographical connectivity through transport
projects represent an extraordinary endeavor: designed systems that are
inherent in the emergence of the designing society itself.
Starting in the 1970s, it took me that decade to realize the vast gap
between reach and grasp in transport planning: the projects were made to
look small, through the stated regulatory and judicially-confirmed doctrine
of “logical termini.” This is effectively a decomposition of the network
into its links, one at a time. And yet all the purpose and rhetoric about the
projects — individually or collectively — are extrapolated to vast social
extents to cite benefits to the economy, society, and even the environment
(ironic in face of the fact that most tangible environmental impacts are
local and negative). These observations soon connected with the work
inspired by Ilya Prigogine and conducted by Peter Allen [1978, 1981,
1987] under the sponsorship of Bob Crosby (founder of the Washington
Evolutionary Science Society) who was then at the U.S. Department of
Transportation. That work was about the networks that self-organize as
our geography, polity, and economy. I was introduced to that work by my
graduate school advisor, Pitu Mirchandani in 1981. The connections I
started making between what I had observed about regional transport
planning and the clear principles of complex systems [Nelson/Allen,
2001] included:
1. Society presumed to do “long range” planning about regional
development (including transport), but all the evidence pointed to
this being nugatory (neither legally effective nor factually accurate
in prediction).
2. The long range planning was a legal and predictive cover for a host
of projects (mostly highway expansions), that in the disaggregate
had only the most tenuous relation to the regional models.
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3. The very idea of planning was defeated by our social ideology of
localistic laissez-faire.
Compared to our presumptions about large-scale planning of any kind,
our real and intuitive models of society are much better fitted to the
complex system that society is. Both our economic-market and political-
democratic doctrines emphasize emergence from localistic interaction.
The residual debate is about the role of a scale hierarchy of governance in
what otherwise would be simply a one-scale anarchy of interaction. But
the scale hierarchy (groups that conceive and act upon aggregate social
objects, or sets of common rules of interaction) is an inherent structure of
self-organizing (i.e., complex-adaptive or evolutionary) systems. That
much I realized after reading Stan Salthe [1985, 1993] with whom I since
have engaged in many fruitful dialogs.
In the 1980s I joined MITRE and became engaged in the AAS, at
that time the most ambitious example of a cybernetic system yet
undertaken. This was in direct line of succession from what I consider to
be the first system-integration effort (the British air defense system in
World War II) through the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE)
system from which MITRE emerged (1958) and the original digitized air
traffic management system, called National Airspace System (NAS) Stage
A (1973). It happens that air traffic management is a fine example of the
tri-scaled structure posed by Salthe. Being involved with the AAS benefit-
cost/risk analysis and some of its operational planning [Nelson, 1992] I
began to see how information and risk-decision making were really the
key evolutionary-development analogues between social activity, the true
biological structure, dynamics of evolution, and development.
More recently, I have been concerned with facilitating groups in
complex system engineering processes that I center on the concept of
operations (CONOPS) portion, for reasons that will be elaborated. I have
also witnessed what I consider to be the third phase of development of the
system engineering process, between the early 1960s and now. Since the
1980s, the acquisition process — taken as the budgeting and expenditure of
public funds for the complex system projects — has also become much
more formalized, culminating in the OMB Exhibit-300 requirements for
federal projects and including “reference models” with appeal to complex
system theory. The following observations emerge:
A. Complexity, in projects or processes, tends to be laid out in linear,
sequential ways that lose important attributes of the complex
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system and process. This is, of course, responsive to projects that,
however complex, are purposefully designed and have finite life
cycles because the purpose, their environment, or their
functionality changes.
B. There is much talk about “evolutionary development” that
conceptually tries to bridge the ongoing project environment
(including the designers as well as interfacing systems) and the
finite designed-project. A small fraction of people who espouse the
concept know what they are talking about (as witnessed by making
“to evolve” a transitive verb).
C. The problems with the acquisition process, much more than the
system engineering process, are evident, acute and expensive.
They could be addressed by the necessary fusion of evolution and
development as evo-devo (to adopt another biological metaphor).
The theme of “design” versus evolution is current. Strictly, design of a
system is just one phase of its life cycle development and not part of
acquisition. The thrust of this paper is that the fundamental dichotomy is
in the original biological concepts of evolution (referring to the processes
of genetic change) and development (referring to the life cycL of the
individual organism, or proteome or phenotype tried by the genor The
important principles concern how the purposeful organization (at multiple
scales) persists robustly through the mechanism of instantiating a number
of trials of interaction in the common environment.
An Image of Evo-Devo
Evo-Devo is a network. In a geographical metaphor, it is the
emergent “fitness landscape” that incorporates the dynamic competition
between transient niches that persist long enough to be seen as real and
reproducing phenotypes. The genome is, of course, physically instantiated
with the phenotypes. The conceptual trick leading to the scale hierarchy is
that the genome also has a persistence and emergent identity above the
physical instantiations. At that point, our metaphors become muddled: the
genome is a design for the phenotype, but does not purposefully design the
phenotype. Anything real and physical is recursive between parts of
organisms, organisms, and the rest of the physical environment that
organisms shape.
Let us shift what we can from the biology to a particular set of
organisms (us) who are purposeful agents (decision makers). But in this
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information age, the “us” will be extended to artificial agents. Here is an
axiomatic statement of that evo-devo network:
1. Agents are linked by information.
2. The information is created pairwise by agents making decisions,
and each agent is a node where information is received and
created.
3. Every decision is informed by received information (this excludes
decisions totally indifferent to the environment). This means that
every decision is a risk decision: there is uncertainty relative to the
value, or “utility” of the decision to an agent, and the uncertainty is
resolved in whole or part by received information.
4. The emergent network of agent nodes and information -
communication links is a congested network. It is the environment
of the agents, including all their information inputs and outputs,
and so partially the result of the agents themselves.
5. The network has an associated physics of mass/energy, but this is
either irrelevant to the logical agents and information, or interfaces
to the agent network by sensors and actuators via risk decisions.
This set of axioms was reduced after long consideration about
what is essential to complex organizations and their projects. Yes,
physical outcomes matter and are the ultimate, objective measures of
“fitness.” But all our processes and how we act to design, develop, and
acquire are concerned with the logical network of agents, as are design-
objects that are decision support systems (including communication and
information systems, whose purpose is to inform risk decisions).
These axioms may seem a long way from practical matters of how
evolutionary organizations (sub networks as described) develop projects.
But the axioms imply structures, dynamics and deductions (principles)
that get directly to the problems of complex systems trying to develop
complex systems. A few relevant expansions of the axioms will be made.
Risk Decisions
There are at least three qualitatively different definitions of risk.
The axioms consist with an assertion that risk is the uncertainty around a
payoff to an agent making a decision. And although there have been
decades of debate about even this notion of risk, it is largely consistent
with the view taken by game theory and economics.
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We can link the network of agents with learning concepts, because
that also is essential to evo-devo: agents or their organizations
demonstrate fitness by “learning” to promote some local measure of value
(e.g., fertility, wealth, happiness, power). Those familiar with the concept
of “utility” will realize that the measure can be internalized and
completely subjective, with no real explanatory power. It is important that
groups of agents tend to demand objective value measures regarding the
use of joint resources (including information). But such measures internal
to a group can be just as metaphysical as utility. Benefit-cost analysis for
public projects is a case in point, where the best we can do is translate
supposed distributed outcomes (physical or not) into dollars that is just an
abstract numeraire, and furthermore outside of real markets that are the
only source of “value” for such a numeraire.
Game theory is the best context for discussing the network of
interacting agents. Each decision is a commitment to a “move.” In
complex organizations, there are usually extended path(s) through agents
(sequential and parallel decision chains) to get to a physical product (and
with or without relevant physical data to begin with!). Therefore, a
commitment or move may be taken as either the sending of information or
(rarely) the creation of a real outcome-producing physical state of the
environment. Each agent considers the agent-local value of potential
decisions. Because the chains are long to ultimate outcomes, they are
subject to other decisions (i.e., information not yet available), hence
uncertain. Uncertainty is just the absence of valuable information. This
puts the game in a Bayesian framework: the value of incoming
information is always relative to how it affects a hypothesis (predicted
value) of an agent. This is how and why information is created pairwise
among agents. Information accrues value only in the transaction between
an agent in one “hypothesis state” and another.
But this also gets back to the basic Shannon/Hartley/Szilard
definition of information. Information is defined by its resolution of
uncertainty. But when we analyze what this means, it is about an outcome
on a channel with two agents (source and receiver). A physical bit means
nothing by itself. The logical bit referred to here has to inform by being
part of a message whose meaning is defined by the payoff to the receiving
(and decision making) agent. But it equally requires the participation of
the sending agent, for whom the transmission of the bit is, in fact, a
decision.
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The approach here clarifies the difference between physical
information (unpredictable channel-state change) and logical information
(or valuable “meaning” to an agent). That difference is essential to the
network of agents, how it structures and how it changes (adapts, or fails
to). Via game theory we can start getting an “economic” explanation of
the network. But essentially, it is always about the allocation of scarce
resources. In discussing projects, the allocation is about budgets to
projects and the agents are people with authority to contribute resources
that are either theirs personally or “public.” In the latter case, agent value
about power and position (their ex officio identity) are extremely
important to what happens. In order to get to the essence of development
and acquisition processes, we need to see the agents as the congested
network contending over abstract payoffs via information (although
fisticuffs cannot be excluded entirely).
This model of a congested network of risk decisions has a very
important generalization: It does not matter whether the agents are within
a “collaborative” organizational identity or not. It works across all
contentions over some common resource. It works for antagonistic
economic desires, and it works for terrorists versus securers. The network
is marked by what does emerge as the common context of interaction, and
that is what is local to organizational clusters. But the problems faced by
the organizations cross organizations. Since so much of the systems
approach was developed for weapons, this is the general model we need.
Both the process of development and the objects of development are about
resource contention games. Improvements in play are about the
information to support risk decisions and that necessarily involves
contending players.
Scale Hierarchy
A flat view of the agents in the network is inadequate. Every
organization has a management hierarchy. This responds to the emergence
of scales from partitioned interaction.
The scale hierarchy is a structure of all evo-devo systems, and the
congested network of agents. It follows from the Simon-Ando principle of
partial decomposability [1961]: Self-organized networks emerge up-scale
from modular interaction that overcomes the combinatorial barriers to
unitary self-assembly. The modules themselves have some mechanism to
instantiate each interaction. We have here a conceptual triad that resonates
with some other triadic concepts [Salthe/Nelson, in progress]:
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Peircean Categories
Aristotelian Causes
Scale Hierarchy Triad
Thirdness (emergence)
Final
Emergent Context
(network)
Secondness (connection)
Formal/Efficient
Collective of peer modules
Firstness (object)
Material
Mechanism
There are rich connections and implications of this table. From the
Peircean perspective, any design is about instantiating a concept via the
connection of parts whose whole corresponds to the concept. For self¬
organization, absent a designer, we just eliminate the first step that is
recursive with the emergent result anyway. From the causes, finality
corresponds to the concept and/or emergent. The material cause is what is
assembled. Formal and efficient causes must be seen as a dialectic, and
can be interpreted as what an agent decides to do (efficiency) being
“formed” by information from the emergent environment.
The formal/efficient dialectic is fundamental to either biological
development (morphogenesis) or any product development. An engineer
perceives a time series profile in design and construction in which the
early phase is dominated by imposing the concept on unorganized material
(efficiency). But then as the product emerges, it is actually the product that
highly constrains (cf. “decides”) the further organization of materials and
the balance shifts to formality. This time-series profile of agency (hence
information) is essential to every life cycle engineering and acquisition
process. The locus of information creation that shifts from
design/efficiency to product/formality is what creates and then resolves
program risk. Risk management is about the process by which the
information is created over time with respect to resources. Fort this
reason, a normal expenditure/progress profile in earned value management
(EVM) is S-shaped like the profile that can be defined for the entropy rate
of any development [Salthe, 1993]. Organizations show this profile: when
they are formative, they are efficiently creating the structure to adapt to
the niche they are filling. When mature, the organization is dominated by
its own structure, that is good at what it was originally doing but
maladaptive to a changing environment.
The scale hierarchy has manifold interpretations. For the congested
network of agents, what we visualize as the tinker-toy network of agents
transacting information is the focal scale and the collective of peer agents.
They partition (decompose) the information of the entire network into
local information and common protocols (rules, laws, norms). The fact of
each agent’s state is the mechanism by which the pairwise transactions are
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33
made among the collective. In the market model we would say that the
context scale are property laws and price, the focal collective is the market
itself of producers and consumers exchanging goods, and the mechanism
scale is the production process and processed commodities owned by each
producer. Note that the goods are emergent from the production process,
and indeed we can include pure money or information transactions here.
There is a similar qualitative shift between each pair of scales.
In the pure information network, the information transacted is
essentially the predictor of the source-agent’s state, and that state is
produced by the source agent’s own, hidden mechanism. That is the
valued information in the risk-decision game of commitments. What the
receiving agent “owns” as a result of the transaction is the power to
achieve a payoff by use of this information. The source agent may be an
opposing player or a surrogate for such a player in a long chain of
prediction. This model makes no distinction about whether the ultimate
opponent is another sentient agent or a state of nature. Having a prediction
about rain serves a similar payoff to a prediction that someone will spray
you with a hose. The same applies to preparedness for natural disasters or
intentional terror.
Now, self-similarity of scales implies that if information of value
can emerge from some mechanism to a focal scale, the same can be
replicated over several scales. This applies to any modular or
organizational decomposition. It is why we get several scales of
management in a big corporation or nation. The principle of prediction
among peer agents, no matter what scale they represent, is the same. The
scales result from the partitioning of local information and there will be a
number of scales according to the total information in the total
environment (within any defined system and its external interfaces). The
partitioning results from the finite predictive capability of any module or
agent. And the “finite” limit is the risk tolerance of the payoff. No
efficient agent will decide when the limits are so large that decisions are
really random. No system will “learn” and adapt under such
circumstances. But this limit scales: higher managers will be very
uncertain about the individual state of agents a few levels down. What
they have to be reasonably sure about is the performance of the
organization over a strategic scale. To achieve this, formal constraints are
imposed (rules, directives, guidance, physical facilities) on lower scales
that act like mechanisms to higher scales.
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There are many fine points here about the dynamics of the total
environment. It is assumed that the environment is non-equilibrium, and
statistically non-stationary. That means that all predictions are fallible, in
terms of exceeding risk limits. This time series-effect is also reflected on
the ensemble of agents. There is a well-known distribution of exploiters
and explorers among collectives of agents (or risk-avoiders and risk-
takers). This amounts to the variety in phenotypical trials that creates and
occupies niches. This is how any relative context scale learns in a non-
stationary environment. What persists (and hence what we see) are good
mixtures of agent types organized in ways that lets the exploiters get
resources for the organization under a given environment and lets the
explorers change the organization as the environment changes.
Layers
The scale hierarchy is exhibited as layers of management or self¬
similar layers of decomposition. But in information architectures, layers
have another meaning. They are a decomposition of an end-to-end
information transaction, or channel. For the purposes here, three layers are
important:
1 . The network of logical agents, who value information and make
decisions (create information).
2. Decision support applications that assist the agents by processing
the valuable information (and it is here that a network of artificial
agents may be placed relative to human agents).
3. The communication of information in channels that far from
creating or using information are expected to slavishly pass it
along unaltered.
The third layer is the object of “information technology” and
communications. It has its own decompositions, e.g. into a seven layer
stack, or some variation on those, that constitutes the Internet (TCP/IP
protocol layers). And the bottom layer is always a physical medium that
can take on physical-bit states.
These layers must be kept in mind for proper focus in the scale
hierard There may be any number of scales (layers) of logical agents or
modules in a system. They all look “flat” if viewed as their physical
instantiation (people, a machine). Anyone in a suit could be an executive
or applicant for the mail room. Similarly, the means of interaction may be
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a common communications infrastructure. This is implicit. How that
communications works (physical mail versus Internet, landline telephone
versus cellphone, horse versus airplane) is a powerful environmental
context for the agent society. And so a society of designing agents may be
trying to design a system for interaction (e.g., a large-scale
communications and computer network for decision support, or a new
transport network) that will alter how they interact, or even how they
design such systems. This evokes a more radical dialectic of formal and
efficient cause: It puts subject and object at the same focal scale of
interaction.
Where is Design in Complex Systems?
The challenge is not a simple widget that is designed and
produced. The reason for the interest in elaborate system engineering, or
life-cycle development and acquisition processes, is the ambition to create
complex systems with the ability to transform the very organization that
designs and interacts with that system. This is the sense in which
“business process reengineering” or “enterprise transformation” is used
now in the systems community. But even if the effect of the system is not
recursive, the organization that manages a complex development for
“someone else” will be challenged and transformed by its interaction with
its object.
The past decades have been dominated by a shift from the
“waterfall” model of systems design and development to other models that
encounter the confusion between evolution and development at the same
time they claim to both. The “waterfall” represents a progressive
instantiation of a product system from concept to operation. But in fact
this must always occur if anything real is to be produced purposefully (by
design). The waterfall may be associated with any relation between an
agent and the mechanism scale in the scale hierarchy, because every agent
locally wants to see a progressive sequence toward an output of some
kind. The confusion arises by failing to put that into a full scale hierarchy
where most focal scales have an iterative interaction with peers, and
emergent context (that is iterative with the focal scale), and a mechanism
scale that is not the final product instantiation. More often, an agent is
only serving as the coordinative context (management) of a further set of
peers. The ability to trace what appears to be a linear thread of increasing
specification toward instantiation of a product is only an illusion absent
the back and forth, mistakes, revisions and reconceptualizations that occur
in reality.
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The alternative to the waterfall is evo-devo, and that usually
reduces to some sort of “spiral” concept. Spirals refer to an image of a
concept going through successive, tentative instantiations (e.g., rapid
prototypes). There is a learning feedback that adds information to a next
phase that can go back to a concept before progressing to a more
substantial prototype product. This is a good approach, but all it is doing is
formalizing the back-and-forth that always occurred in the engineering of
complex systems and that a strict waterfall image just overlooks.
Where is “design” in this? The best we can say is that it represents
a transient phase local to each agent where a causal relation between a
concept and an output is perceived. But that applies to every agent
transaction. Most such transactions are purely informational: a decision is
in fact a “design” of what message string will be sent. But we tend to think
of design as applying to a physically instantiated product. In complex
systems that design is as decentralized and time-spread as the agents
themselves. This is why we distinguish self-organization and evolution
from design. The difficulty arises when we try to apply a causal concept of
progressive specification to a collective of agents in any complex system.
The Design/Development/Acquisition Life-Cycle Process
How does the empirical evidence of any dew ment process
compare with the scale hierarchy theory? All formal \ ocesses define
levels of interaction that progress from the conceptual to the formal
instantiation. These levels or scales are roughly as follows:
• A scale deciding what to do (mission).
• A systems integration scale that defines modules of functionality
and is concerned with their interfaces to fulfill the mission.
• Teams concerned with further specifying each module, meaning
that further modular levels and interfaces are created.
• Until we reach the scale where a module is instantiated and
assembled into th- ole system that fulfills the mission.
The acquisition process generally jumps in at some level of
maturity of modular specification. This raises an issue of how resources
are allocated to research as opposed to what is strictly considered
acquisition of a product. But, at some point in a supposed progressive
instantiation of a design, an interest is excited between engineers and
executives who then are synchronized into series of benchmark progress
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37
reviews and the risk management of the formal/efficient information
profile. We simply want the development money to run out when the
product is “done.” At that point there is generally another “color” of
money to complete the operational life cycle. Another issue here is how to
deal with the significant lag in the budgeting process relative to
development. About three years are necessary to get a budget “wedge”
established for a project big and complex enough to excite the interest of
OMB review. That planning horizon has much to do with generating
program risk because of the uncertainty about the development profile:
The environment may change, the specification may change, the reality of
the formal cause will contend with the efficient concept. But these
problems are inherent in an interaction between engineering and
budgeting. If ideas want resources, they are the beggars.
A Prescription: The Scaled CONOPS
A lot of evidence can be given on the problems in complex
organizations through the life cycle. To cut that short, a jump will be made
to a simple observation and prescription for the process. This is based on
the scale hierarchy and a specific peer collaboration process that will be
called the CONOPS.
The empirical development process has always had a number of
self-similar scales as alluded to above. In older system engineering
processes, levels of specifications were called out. Each of these
progressively represents a further decomposition of modules and a richer
specification of them and their interfaces. But fundamentally the same
kind of scale-hierarchy triad was occurring around each scale, now also
represented as a time-series of increasing specification toward
instantiation:
• A contextual “mission” (general specification) is received by all
agents at a scale (a collaborative). The agents represent a
decomposition of functionality also passed with the mission. The
decomposition is integrated by an interface specification also
maintained at the upper context scale.
• The agents cluster as a loosely coupled system. There may be
several physical agents assigned to a module. The inter-module
interaction is less intensive but can reflect back to the context
scale to change protocols and specifications.
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• The “design” interaction within a module is intensive. It results in
the next scale of specification. When this is passed on, it appears
as context to a next scale of collaboration. The next scale is the
mechanism for progressing toward instantiation.
While this looks like a waterfall description, it also incorporates
spirals, especially when the reverse sequence up the scales is stated, and as
occurs in reality. So, a sequence down the scales can instantiate one phase
of prototype as well as “final product.” In a globally evolutionary system,
the finite life cycle of any product means that there is always recursion
back to the “top” scale, although often that is with different physical
agents, in another thread for another “project.”
Dynamically the scale hierarchy implies a requirement of nested
stability between scales. This means that a context scale has to be stable
long enough to complete a specification-to-mechanism and reverse cycle.
Stability means that the information from context remains sufficiently
constant over the cycle not to alter any of the information from an agent
cluster to its mechanism, and, in addition, to allow time for an agent
cluster to learn from feedback from its relative mechanism scale This is
the condition for convergence of learning from the development cycle
itself. If this does not occur, the “vertical” information generated in the
process as part of the formal/efficient dialectic cannot be organized. That
is, the system will not self-organize toward a product. This criterion is
equivalent to “requirements stability,” something that is often
pathologically violated. However, the ability to adapt the requirements
from internal information is allowed and this is often what is meant by an
evo-devo process in the product life-cycle context.
Clearly, the internal stability criterion can be overturned by
“external” information. A new market, technical or threat environment can
render obsolete any development. If this external information dominates,
the system is not self-organizing. However, the incorporation of
fluctuations (in Prigogine’s sense) is part of the adaptive process. This
puts constraints on the absolute cycle times of the scale interactions.
We want “fast” development because we want a return on
investment of the product relative to an inevitably changing environment.
We can enhance this quality if we make each focal scale expeditious in
achieving a self-similar cycle of receiving context, interacting, and
specifying. A principle for doing this is to convene the agents
(stakeholders) relevant to any module in a concurrent process, as opposed
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to preventing the intensive intra-module interaction. But this simple
principle scales; in order for any relative context scale to adapt the
interfaces (that are loosely coupled at a focal scale but intensively relative
to the context scale) the higher manager must similarly convene and make
concurrent the lower-scaled modules.
Now, it happens there is a model for this expedited process readily
at hand, and it has been there for a few decades, at least. It is the
Operational Concept Description (OCD), often called a concept of
operations (CONOPS). However, a CONOPS can also be construed
narrowly as a codification of what an operation does, and the OCD proper
is strictly a document as product early in a development thread of a
system. But the content requirement of the OCD is fundamental:
1 . Statement of the functional mission.
2. The environmental scenarios that stress the functions.
3. An analysis of shortfalls in the functionality.
4. Improvements (and alternatives) to make the functionality
adequate.
5. An impact evaluation of the prescribed improvements.
There is a process behind producing this content, and a
constituency. Also, strongly implied by the contents and process is the
“architecture” of the system, a notion that arrived later in systems
engineering than the OCD, but that is really the system description
embedded in the CONOPS. The architecture picture emerges from the
interaction of the constituents of the CONOPS. What has just been stated
is nothing more than a description of:
• An allocation of mission from context scale.
• The interaction between the focal scale of agents within the
mission context.
• The focal scale making a further specification of the proposed
system to a next scale of specification.
• The emergence of an architecture as the integrative concept, back
to context scale (or we can view architecture as part of mission
allocation with the focal scale adding a level of specificity; in any
case it performs the modular integration role).
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The agents at the focal scale include the operational domain
experts, who properly are the customers for the system. But equally the
engineers must be included. And we can specify scenario creators
(simulators) and evaluators as additional fields of expertise. Proper
facilitation of such a constituency, with modular specification being
embodied in prior and offline knowledge of the participants, achieves the
desired interactive and concurrent expedition of the process, at any scale.
We can have physical agents participate at multiple scales to embody the
vertical interfaces between scales.
This seems simple enough, but there is a great deal of resistance to
it. Firstly, the standard jargon destroys the self-similarity between the
scales of process that become sequential steps of process. At some high
level, there is strategy, policy, possibly mission analysis. In fact any
discourse by agents at that scale will include, however implicitly, the five
related contents of the OCD. The mistake would be to generate some
unconsidered high-level specification (policy) and leave the other parts to
someone else sometime later. Then, the OCD/CONOPS by name appears
only early in the acquisition process, generally long after the content at
that scale has been generated, as part of formal documentation. It is pasted
together absent the proper constituency, perhaps by some group distant
from the earlier development process, absent operational stakeholders.
This is where the problems in the requirements process start, and it is quite
contrary to the intent of the OCD and its placement in the development
process. Then at some lower scale one is just “designing” some modular
system component and the process again becomes implicit. If in fact the
higher scales have constrained the design so much as to obviate the need
for a systematic look at the modules at a particular scale, the process has
become too dominated by the formal constraints too soon, unless you do
indeed believe in a straight-through waterfall progression.
In addition to failing to recognize the necessary self-similarity of
the OCD process at multiple scales, there is the tendency to make a critical
path serialization of the content steps: Someone defines the operational
functions (that may or may not be part of a separate “architecture”
process), someone comes up with improvement concepts (researchers and
engineers), someone does modeling and simulation on alternatives,
someone does the “investment analysis” of impacts. There can be, and is,
a great deal of confusion on what order these should be done in because
there is a great deal of confusion about their scaling. The tendency is to
make each part a big project itself, and to engulf scales that should have
Washington Academy of Sciences
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been specified earlier, or should be specified later. And so there is often
criticism that none of this is adaptive to either external or internal
information. In any case it slows and bulks the process. It does not help
that the acquisition benchmark reviews are established as yet another
chain of activities, with other constituents.
While the modem life-cycle development processes retain the
OCD (more or less as it has been for at least 20 years now), they have not
fully recognized its significance and how it fits a true evo-devo system.
There are several rather vague prescriptions for tailoring the prescribed
steps of the life cycle process to complex systems. But a scale hierarchy of
self-similar CONOPS interactions is the complex system of agents
appropriate to the instantiation of not just one product, but an ongoing
adaptive set of such products.
The challenge is to see how the ongoing, scaled organization
(although with different physical agents filling ex officio logical positions
over time) relates to the threads of finite life-cycle development. So, the
tendency is to customize a linear, progressive acquisition thread to parallel
the maturity of the product thread. That by itself contradicts another
intuitive approach of “portfolio management.”
The portfolio approach is just a modular clustering of projects.
This may or may not be used properly in the risk management sense of
having an ensemble of projects to accomplish a mission. Often, a portfolio
is just a set of different but critically interdependent projects. However,
with an ensemble of projects there is large-scale management of the
portfolio and smaller scaled management of its constituents. This concept
can be aligned with the modular decomposition of any project. It is
difficult for this scaled approach to supplant the dedicated acquisition
chain if the projects themselves are monolithically discrete. But that in
itself is what is opposed by the reaction to the waterfall approach coupled
with “big bang” projects. That reaction comes directly from experience
with projects such as the A AS, although it must be noted that the
predecessors to the AAS and the systems approach itself are famously
successful “big bang” projects like the ICBM, the Polaris submarine,
SAGE and NAS Stage A. An alternative hypothesis is that the AAS was
victim to formalized process that interfered with the natural scale
hierarchy, tried to keep constituents at arm’s length, and made the
interactive steps excessively sequential.
42
Today, “open systems” are the norm. This concept exactly reflects
partial decomposability and the scale hierarchy. But given this concept of
an evolutionary system with life-cycle modules, there is no reason to make
projects so monolithic that they require a separate acquisition chain for
each thread in addition to the ongoing scale hierarchy of modular
interfacing and specification. The waterfall model can come back as the
“rainfall” model. That is, because of the dynamic scaling requirements,
large-scale specifications are general but enduring. As we go down the
scales there is a more and more raindrop-like “falling” of specifications
that hit the physical ground as real modular instantiations. Then, the
reality of the whole system “evaporates up” again as aggregate
information to emerge as new general concepts that precipitate.
This model has the key advantage that it keeps the foci of agents
properly scaled. For instance, executives need to keep a strategic view.
When we entrain them in acquisition threads, they are distracted.
Conversely, the builders are often left with inadequate context so that
failures are blamed on “poor requirements” traceable all the way up. We
can, and should, modularize real instantiations so that their mechanism
management is kept small scale. This approaches biological evo-devo:
The genome launches portfolios of phenotypical trials and does not itself
engage in the real trials of life cycles. But for purposeful agent systems,
what we have is a set of scales, with CONOPS all the way through and the
reification of products only low in scale. This also preserves a balanced
profile of efficient causality pursuing the mission (final cause) versus
formal cause of the instantiations made material.
Conclusion
The intent here is to use basic evo-devo theory to address the
problems of complex organizations building complex systems. In complex
systems, development is not opposed to evolution but is its mechanism.
Life cycle instantiations that have a development path are the means for
the evolutionary system to adapt. In the biological application of this
concept, design is problematic. In organizations of purposeful agents, it is
inherent. By being purposeful, every agent designs, if only to decide a
message or an action. The problem is that we engage in the fallacy of
extrapolating this individual-agent activity to the collective that emerges
with scale-hierarchy structure. The highest ex officio position in such a
hierarchy is filled by a designing individual: the state, or the corporation,
or the organization however does not “design.” This fallacy carries over
into the problem of how the process for life cycle development and
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43
acquisition is “designed.” We entrain the highest scales of the
organization in development threads as if there were corporate design of
the products. But there is not — there is only the scaled functioning of the
organization that must continually integrate physical instantiations into an
indefinitely large system that was not by any means designed. Under the
“open systems” doctrine — that is synonymous with evo-devo — there is no
need to scale-up what is designed until it approaches the scale of the
emergent organization.
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Washington Academy of Sciences
A METHOD FOR DESIGNING IMPROVEMENTS IN
ORGANIZATIONS, PRODUCTS, AND SERVICES
45
Dragon Tevdovski
University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius,
Skopje, Macedonia
Irina Naoumova
Kazan State University,
Kazan, Russia
Stuart Umpleby
The George Washington University
Washington, D.C.
Abstract
A Quality Improvement Priority Matrix (QIPM) may be used for
identifying priorities for improving an organization, a product, or a
service. This paper reports on the use of the QIPM method by members
of the Department of Management Science at The George Washington
University and members of the Department of Management at Kazan
State University in Kazan, Russia, in 2002. Features of a Department,
such as salaries, teaching assistants, computer hardware, etc. (a total of
5 1 features), were evaluated on the scales of importance and
performance. Recent research has significantly improved the method
as a way of determining priorities, monitoring progress, identifying
consensus or disagreement, and comparing two organizations. This
paper discusses additional statistical improvements and ways of
presenting the results of statistical analysis. The QIPM method is a
way of achieving agreement among a group of people on the most
important actions to be taken.
Introduction
The features of an organization, as evaluated by employees, might
include salaries, health benefits, office space, secretarial help, and
computer equipment. The features of a product, as evaluated by
customers, might include price, styling, reliability, and resale value.
Assuming an organization wants to improve its performance, where
Spring 2006
46
should it focus its attention? How can an organization use limited
resources so as to achieve the greatest return in customer and employee
satisfaction?
A Quality Improvement Priority Matrix (QIPM) can be used to
determine priorities among features and to monitor performance
improvement. Customers or employees evaluate various features of an
organization or product or service on two scales: importance and
performance. The intent is to identify features that are rated high in
importance and low in performance. A Quality Improvement Priority
Matrix was first described by the managers at GTE Directories
Corporation in 1995. They conducted a customer satisfaction
measurement program for determining what was important to their
customers, how well the company was performing, and how the comp°
could do better. (Chapman, 1995 and Carlson, 1995)
A similar method called a “strategic improvement matrix” was used uy
the people from Armstrong Building Products Operation. (Wellendorf,
1996) A QIPM was found to be useful for evaluating the Junior Faculty
Development Program by Naoumova and Umpleby (2002). Melnychcnko
and Umpleby (2001) and Karapetyan and Umpleby (2002) used a QIPM
to identify priorities in a University department. Prytula, et al. (2004)
devised the Importance/ Performance Ratio. Dubina and Umpleby (2006)
applied cluster analysis and suggested that standard deviation be used as a
measure of lack of agreement.
The aim of this paper is to compare the assessments by faculty
members of the Department of Management Science at the George
Washington University (GWU), USA, and the Department of
Management at Kazan State University (KSU), Russia, and to further
develop the QIPM method as a guide for improvement efforts. We define
a high priority feature as having high importance and low performance.
Naoumova and Umpleby (2004) earlier compared priorities of thusa
Departments, but in their analysis they used simple quantitative methods
In this paper we shall improve the comparison of the features and thd*
priorities by using more advanced statistical techniques. We present the
data in Part II. Evaluation and standardization of the measures is made in
Part III. Part IV presents and discusses the data in matrix form for the two
departments. Parts V and VI compare the priorities of the two
departments and show the results of a cluster analysis.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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47
The Data
Data were collected by means of a questionnaire. The
questionnaire covered 51 features. The features included in the
questionnaire were issues that had been discussed by the GWU faculty in
recent years. The same features were used in the KSU questionnaire in
order to make comparisons. The questionnaire was given to management
faculty members at both GWU and KSU in 2002. Twenty responses were
received from GW faculty, and eighteen from KSU faculty. Faculty
members evaluated the importance and performance of each feature of the
department. A scale from 0 to 10 was used. On the importance scale 0
means that the feature has no importance at all and 10 means that the
feature has a very high importance for the department. On the
performance scale 0 means that the department’s performance is very
poor, whereas 10 means the department’s performance is excellent.
Evaluation of Importance and Performance
The scores for each feature were averaged. Descriptive statistics
for GWU and KSU are shown in Table 1 .
Table 1: Descriptive statistics for GWU and KSU
Importance - Performance
Std.
N
Range
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Deviation
Importance
(GWU)
51
4.80
4.20
9.00
7.5408
1.25207
Performance
(GWU)
51
4.90
3.25
8.15
5.4890
1.18905
Importance
(KSU)
51
6.00
4.00
10.00
7.3371
1.84934
Performance
(KSU)
51
8.39
.50
8.89
4.3529
2.49989
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For all the features the mean value on importance at GWU was
7.54. At KSU the mean value for importance was 7.34. These results
imply that the features are considered to be quite important by faculty
members at both universities. The mean scores on performance at GWU
and KSU are 5.49 and 4.35, respectively. These scores suggest that
corrective actions should be taken in order to improve the functioning of
both university departments.
Dispersion is a measure of consensus among the faculty members.
A standard deviation of 0 implies that faculty members evaluate a feature
the same way. The higher the standard deviation is, the higher are the
evaluation differences among the faculty members. GWU standard
deviations are 1.25 and 1 .19 on importance and performance, respectively.
KSU has much higher standard deviations, 1.85 and 2.50 on importance
and performance, respectively. In order to compare the evaluation
differences we measured the coefficient of variation. It ranges between 0%
and 100%. If the coefficient of variation is 0%, this means that there is
consensus among faculty members. If its value is 100%, this means that
all faculty members differ in their evaluations. The coefficients of
variation of GWU and KSU are presented in Table 2.
Table 2: Coefficients of Variation of GWU and KSU
Coefficient of Variation
Importance (GWU)
16.60%
Performance (GWU)
21.66%
Importance (KSU)
25.21%
Performance (KSU)
57.43%
GWU has higher agreement among faculty members. Or, in
other words, differences among KSU faculty members are higher. Table 2
also suggests that the differences on performance are higher than those on
importance. Especially note the high values of dispersion on the KSU
performance measures.
In order to equalize the level of consensus among faculty members
at the two universities we standardized the importance and performance
measures. Every feature was divided by the respective standard deviation.
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Standardized importance and performance measures are presented in
Table 3.
Table 3: Standardized Importance and Performance
N
Range
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Importance
Standardized
(GWU)
51
3.84
3.35
7.19
6.0225
1.00
Performance
Standardized
(GWU)
51
4.12
2.73
6.85
4.6157
1.00
Importance
Standardized
(KSU)
51
3.25
2.16
5.41
3.9661
1.00
Performance
Standardized
(KSU)
51
3.36
0.20
3.56
1.7408
1.00
Note that standard deviations are equal to one. This means
that the evaluations of importance and performance have the same level of
consensus among members of the GWU and KSU departments. GWU
faculty members found the features to be more important than the
members of the KSU department. GWU has a standardized importance
mean 1.51 times higher than KSU. The comparison of performance is
even more significant. GWU has a standardized performance mean 2.65
times higher than KSU. This indicates that KSU faculty members rate the
performance of their department lower than do GWU faculty members. A
visual comparison of GWU and KSU standardized importance and
performance means is shown in Figure 1 .
We used the QIPM as a tool for determining the priority of the
features. A QIPM consists of four quadrants. The northeast quadrant
contains features with high importance and high performance. The
features in this quadrant do not need corrective action. The features in the
northwest quadrant have low importance and high performance. Resources
of the department should be transferred from the features of this quadrant
to features with high importance and low performance. The third quadrant
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is southwest. The features in it are characterized by low importance and
low performance. Using department resources on the features in this
quadrant depends on their importance. The last quadrant is the southeast
Figure 1: GWU and KSU Standardized Importance and Performance
Means
Standardized Importance Standardized Performance
Quality improvement Priority Matrix
quadrant. These features have high importance and low performance.
These features have the highest priority for the department. For these
features corrective action is necessary. Hence, we focus our attention on
the features in this quadrant.
Figure 2 shows the QIPMs for the GWU and KSU departments.
The data are non-standardized. Fifteen features are found in the GWU
southeast quadrant and nineteen in the KSU southeast quadrant. These
numbers suggest that there are many features in both departments that
need corrective action.
In order to focus our attention on urgent features we changed the
borders of the quadrants. See Figure 3. The new borders are average
values of the total GWU and KSU features. The joint GWU and KSU
importance average is 7.44, and joint GWU and KSU performance
average is 4.92. Six features are found in the GWU southeast quadrant:
office security, building physical environment, conference room and other
space, secretarial support, department strategic plan and computer
laboratories. Nine features are found in the KSU southeast quadrant: travel
support, projection equipment, salaries, classroom facilities, copiers,
building physical environment, accounts payable, computer hardware and
teaching assistants.
Washington Academy of Sciences
Figure 2: GWU and KSU QIPM
Importance Standardized (GWU)
Importance Standardized (KSU)
Figure 3: GWU and KSU QIPM Based on Joint Averages
Importance Standardized (GWU)
Importance Standardized (KSU)
Figure 4 shows the matrices for the GWU and KSU departments
based on the standardized values of importance and performance.
Standardization is used to achieve the same level of consensus among the
members of both departments on the evaluation of importance and
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performance. However, this approach can be misleading. If the importance
and performance scales were reversed, so that 0 was high importance or
performance and 10 was low, dividing by standard deviation would raise
rather than lower importance and performance scores. To see the impact
of standardization compare the coordinates of Figures 3 and 4. Note that
the coordinates of the features are shifted from their original positions.
The shift in coordinates is proportional to the standard deviations of the
respective importance and performance scales. A higher standard
deviation leads to a larger downward shift of the corresponding
importance or performance features. In Figure 4 not a single feature at
KSU has a performance score above the combined performance mean.
Standardization by dividing by standard deviation may be more useful
when comparing a large number of universities. In this case, comparing
just two very different universities, the unstandardized means may be
more informative.
Figure 4: GWU and KSU QIPM Based on Standardization
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Importance Standardized (KSU)
In the QIPM of the GWU department most of the features have
high evaluations on the importance scale. Only 2 from all 5 1 features have
low importance. The rest of the features are in the quadrants with high
importance. Among them 12 are features in the southeast quadrant. They
have high importance and low performance. A list of these priority
features is given in Table 4.
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The main characteristic of the KSU department is the low
performance ratings of the features. There are no features with a high
standardized performance evaluation. There were 26 priority features in
the southeast quadrant. These are listed in Table 5.
In general, the priorities differ between the GWU and KSU
departments. Only 4 features are found to be in the southeast quadrants for
both departments: building physical environment, accounts payable,
department strategic plan and department organization to implement its
strategic plan. Note that the number of priority features of the KSU
department is more than double the number for the GWU department. This
result can be explained by the lower average performance evaluations by
the KSU faculty members relative to the GWU faculty members. It seems
that more work needs to be done to improve performance at KSU than at
GWU.
Table 4: GWU Features in the Southeast Quadrant
GWU Priority Features
Standardized
Importance
Standardized
Performance
Office security
7.15
3.62
Building/ physical environment
5.99
3.36
Dept, organization to implement its strategic plan
5.67
3.23
Dept, strategic plan
5.97
3.45
Help with writing research proposals
4.71
2.73
Use of continuous improvement methods in the
Department
5.13
3.01
Conference room and other space
5.91
3.57
Secretarial support
5.91
3.70
Accounts payable
5.5
3.55
Working papers series
4.22
2.92
Course evaluations
4.47
3.74
Social activities
4.12
3.69
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Table 5: KSU Features in the Southeast Quadrant
KSU Priority Features
Standardized
Standardized
Importance
Performance
Funds to support research
4.84
0.20
Travel support
4.83
0.20
Office space for faculty
5.41
0.44
Projection equipment
4.69
0.50
Salaries
5.33
0.80
Classroom facilities
5.14
0.89
Copiers
5.03
1.12
Building/ physical environment
5.03
1.24
Accounts payable
4.60
1.24
Computer hardware
4.89
1.50
Consulting opportunities in area
4.98
2.05
Teaching assistants
4.08
1.88
Dept, organization to implement its strategic plan
4.40
2.12
Computer labs
4.88
2.37
Computer software
4.88
2.40
General ability of students
4.92
2.45
Dept, strategic plan
4.82
2.61
Transparency promotion process
4.84
2.88
Opportunities to work with faculty in other departments
4.54
2.80
Library journal collection
5.08
3.27
Library book collection
4.81
3.29
Opportunities to meet local businessmen and managers
4.54
3.17
Coordination with other depts.
4.70
3.32
Dept, head protects faculty from administrative
interference
4.46
3.20
A supportive climate in the dept.
4.89
3.56
Opportunities for academic work with Dept, faculty
4.87
3.55
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Ranking the Priorities
These results define the priorities in the two departments, as
judged by their respective faculty members. But department resources are
limited. In order to highlight the features where corrective action is most
needed we ranked the priorities. For this purpose we used two methods:
an index method and cluster analysis. In this part we describe the index
method.
A standardized importance-performance ratio (SIP) is defined as:
SIP = —
p,
where Is is standardized importance and Ps is standardized performance.
The higher the value of the index the higher the priority that should be
given to that feature.
It is important to note that the SIP ratio has one weakness. It gives
the same value to features on the same linear distance. For example, a
feature with standardized importance 8 and standardized performance 4
has the same priority as a feature with standardized importance 4 and
standardized performance 2 (the SIP is 2 in both cases). This is a
significant weakness, because one might easily decide that only the first
feature has priority. In order to avoid this problem we only ranked features
in the southeast quadrant.
In Table 6, we present the five features with the highest priority for
the GWU faculty members, according to SIP. The KSU department’s top
five priority features according to SIP are presented in Table 7. (The
features in Tables 4 and 5 are also ranked in order by SIP.)
Table 6: Highest Ranking GWU Priorities According to SIP Ratio
Rank
GWU Priority Features
SIP
1
Office security
1.977
2
Building/ physical environment
1.781
3
Dept, organization to implement strategic plan
1.756
4
Dept, strategic plan
1.729
5
Help with writing research proposals
1.724
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Table 7: Highest Ranking KSU Priorities According to SIP Ratio
Rank
KSU Priority Features
SIP
1
Funds to support research
24.19
7
2
Travel support
24.17
0
3
Office space for faculty
23
9
4
Projection equipment
9.387
5
Salaries
6.631
The Tabic 6 and 7 rankings show two main differences between
the GWU and KSU departments. First, the KSU top priorities are directly
related to the improvement of the conditions of the individual faculty
members. The GWU top priorities, on the other hand, are mainly
concerned with improving the functioning of the department. Second, SIP
ratios are much higher in KSU than in GWU. This is a consequence oi the
low KSU performance scores.
Clustering the Priorities
We used cluster analysis in order to sort different priorities into
clusters so that the dissimilarity between two priorities is minimized if
they belong to the same cluster and maximized otherwise. The measure of
dissimilarity is Euclidean distance. This is the geometric distance in the
two-dimensional space, in this case the distance between the features in
the space importance - performance. It is computed as follows:
distance^, p) = ^{i2 )2 +(p2 - ptf
Where /, and /?, are importance and performance of the first
feature, and i2 and p2 are importance and performance of the second
feature. In this method, the distance between two clusters is calculated as
Washington Academy of Sciences
57
the weighted average distance between all pairs of scores in the two
clusters.
We divided the GWU department features into five clusters. The
cluster analysis is presented in a working paper by the same authors
available at www.gwu.edu/~umpleby/qipm.html. The mean values of
each cluster are shown in Table 8. We ranked the clusters according to
their SIP ratios. Cluster 1 should have the top priority for the GWU
management. This cluster contains only one feature: office security. The
next cluster in priority is cluster 2. It contains two features: help with
writing research proposals and use of continuous improvement methods in
the department. Cluster 3 contains six features: building physical
environment, department organization to implement its strategic plan,
department strategic plan, conference room and other space, and
secretarial support. Figure 5 visually presents the GW priority clusters.
Table 8: GWU Cluster Centers
Cluster
1
2
3
4
5
Importance
Standardized
7
4
5
4
4
(GWU)
.15
.92
.83
.22
.3
Performance
Standardized
3
2
3
2
3
(GWU)
.62
.87
.48
.92
.72
1
1
1
1
1
SIP
.97
.71
.67
.44
.15
KSU priorities are divided into seven clusters. The cluster analysis
is presented in the working paper available at
www.gwu.edu/~umpleby/qipm.html. The mean values of each cluster are
shown in Table 9. The highest priority for KSU management should be
cluster 1. It contains three features: funds to support research, travel
support and projection equipment. Cluster 2 contains three features:
office space for faculty, salaries and classroom facilities. The third cluster
by priority contains four features: copiers, building physical environment.
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accounts payable and computer hardware. The KSU clusters are presented
in the Figure 6.
Figure 5: GWU SE Quadrant
Table 9: KSU Cluster Centers
Cluster
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Importance
Standardized
(KSU)
4.79
5.29
4.89
4.24
4.90
4.60
4.87
Performance
Standardized
(KSU)
0.30
0.71
1.27
2.00
2.38
3.01
3.40
SIP
15.97
7.45
3.85
2.12
2.06
1.53
1.43
Washington Academy of Sciences
Figure 6: GWU SE Quadrant
A supportive c limrte in the de
Importance Standardized (KSU)
Conclusion
We used the method of a Quality Improvement Priority
Matrix combined with statistical methods in order to determine the
priorities of the Department of Management Science at The George
Washington University and the Department of Management at Kazan
State University and to learn how a QIPM can be used to compare two
organizations. We found that priorities differ between the GWU and KSU
departments. In addition, after standardization of the measures, the
number of priorities (features in the SE quadrant) of the KSU department
is more than double the number for the GWU department. This is a
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consequence of the lower performance ratings given by the KSU faculty
relative to the GWU faculty. However, the features used in the study were
based on discussions in the GWU department. If the list of features had
come from both the GWU and KSU departments, the results would have
been somewhat different.
The paper also experimented with standardization by
dividing mean importance and mean performance by the standard
deviation to achieve the same level of agreement for the two groups. This
procedure seemed to bias the results. So, it should be used carefully.
Furthermore, we experimented with clustering the features in the southeast
quadrant. This is an alternative means of prioritization to using the
importance/ performance ratio. The ratio may be a simpler guide to
action. As this and previous papers describing experiments with the
QIPM method show, the QIPM is a conceptually simple but surprisingly
informative means of prioritizing actions and tracking results.
REFERENCES
Carlson, M. (1995), “GTE Directories: Customer Focus and Satisfaction,” The Quest for
Excellence VII , Official Conference of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award, February 6-8, 1995, Washington, DC.
Chapman, C.R. (1995), “Conference Report: Quest for Excellence VII.” Journal of
Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology , Volume 100,
Number 3, pp. 287-299.
Dubina, I., S. Umpleby (2006), “Agenda Setting and Improvement Monitoring in a
University Department,” Twelfth Annual Deming Research Seminar, New York
City.
Karapetyan, A., S. Umpleby (2002), “How a Quality Improvement Priority Matrix
Reveals Change in a University Department,” Russell J. Meyer and David
Keplinger (eds.), Perspectives in Higher Education Reform , Volume 12,
Alliance of Universities for Democracy, Texas Review Press, pp. 315-322.
Melnychenko, O., S. Umpleby (2001), “Using a Quality Improvement Priority Matrix in
a University Department,” Customer Satisfaction Management Frontier - VI,
Johnson A. Edosomwon (eds.), Fairfax, VA: Quality University Press, pp. 6.1-
6.12.
Naoumova, I., S. Umpleby (2002), “Two Methods Useful for Starting a Quality
Improvement Program,” in Russell J. Meyer and David Keplinger (eds.),
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Perspectives in Higher Education Reform , Volume 1 1, Alliance of Universities
for Democracy, Texas Review Press, pp. 185-193.
Naoumova, I., S. Umpleby (2004), “A Comparison of Priorities in an American
Academic Department and a Russian Academic Department”, Proceeding of the
Annual Meeting of the Alliance of Universities for Democracy, Vilnus,
Lithuania.
Wellendorf, J.A. ( 1 996), “Armstrong Building Products Operations:
Information and Analysis,” The Quest for Excellence VIII , Official
Conference of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award,
February 4-7, 1996.
Spring 2006
AFFI1ATED INSTITUTES
The National Institute for Standards and Technology
Meadowlark Botanical Gardens
The John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress
Potomac Overlook Regional Park
Washington Academy of Sciences
63
THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
SELECTED MINUTES
Ronald O. Hietala, Recording Secretary
The Phibdhical Soiet© Washingts is the area’s oldest
scientific society, founded in 1871 . The society meets twice a month from
October through May in the Powell Auditorium of the Cosmos Club. The
meetings, on Friday evenings at 8:30, are free and the public is cordially
invited to attend, and to remain after the meetings for refreshments and
conversation.
Each meeting of the Philosophical Society features a lecture by a
distinguished scientist. By tradition, these lectures are summarized by the
Recording Secretary in the Minutes of the meeting and are read aloud at
the next meeting. Selected Minutes, chosen for broad interest in the
subject matter of the lecture, are printed below with the kind permission of
the Directors of the Society, the speakers, and the Recording Secretary,
Mr. Ronald Hietala.
For further information, go to www.philsoc.org.
Minutes of the 2189th Meeting
March 77, 2005
Lecture: Genetics Testing and Personalized Medicine:
Ms Joann Boughman
President Robert Hershey called the 2189th meeting to order at 8:18 p.m.
on March 11, 2005. The minutes of the 2188th meeting were read and
approved.
Mr. Hershey introduced the main speaker of the evening, Ms. Joann
Boughman of the American Society for Human Genetics. Ms. Boughman
spoke on “Genetic Testing and Personalized Medicine, The Genome and a
Health Care Revolution.”
Ms. Boughman reviewed the recent history of human genetics. In 1990,
the Human Genome Project was launched, NIH started the Ethical, Legal,
and Social Implications Program, and the first gene for breast cancer was
mapped. Since then, developments have been rapid and many. They
include sequencing of the first bacterial gene in 1995, sequencing of a
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mouse gene and mapping of the human genome in 1996. Sequencing of
the human genome was begun in 1999 and draft sequences appeared in
2000 and were published in 2001. ahead of schedule and under budget.
The finished version appeared in 2003.
Despite all that progress, we are only entering the genome era. Ms.
Boughman believes.
We are now beginning to understand that a gene does not cause a
disease. It is only one of many factors, some of them environmental.
Making use of genetic disease information involves identifying the
controlling gene, understanding the basic defect, and developing
diagnostics, preventive measures, drug therapies, and genetic therapies.
The most important genetic test, she said, is family history. She urges
her audiences to collect this history’ soon; she has seen many cases where
passage of time has made it very difficult to collect this information. She
recommended two web sites that can be helpful with this: www.ashg.org
and www.hhs.gov familvhistorv. and she recommended the Surgeon
Generafs family history tool. Beyond that, current genetic tests include
diagnostic tests, newborn screening, carrier testing, prenatal testing, and
predictive testing.
Diagnostic testing is often used to confirm or rule out a diagnosis. An
example was a 41 -year-old male in an emergency room with chest pain.
When the doctor learns the man’s father and paternal uncle had
myocardial infarctions at ages 40 and 44. the diagnosis and treatment
proceed quickly. This shows how powerful genetic information can be.
Infant screening is mandated for a number of diseases and this leads to
much more effective follow-up and treatment, as does carrier screening.
Prenatal screening is often used to assess the health of a fetus, especially
when there is a known genetic risk. Predictive testing indicates
presymptomatic and predispositional conditions; presymptomatic meaning
the disease will develop if the relevant mutation exists and
predispositional meaning the development of symptoms is likely but not
certain. On the matter of predictions, she quoted Yogi Berra -
“Predictions are tricky. ... especially ones about the future.”
Information about the future is one distinct feature of genetic tests.
They are also exceptional in how they affect family members and in their
complex and probabilistic nature.
She sketched two hypothetical scenarios of a woman and her use of
genetic information. In one, the woman used the Surgeon General’s family
history tool early and as a result had a complete gene sequence
determined. Following a preventive diet and exercise regime and taking
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65
needed treatments promptly, she lived a long and relatively healthy life. In
the other scenario, she never heard of the Surgeon General’s family
history tool. She declined gene sequencing because her brother had lost
his health insurance because of genetic information. She ate an unhealthy
diet, gained weight and developed high blood pressure. She began a drug
treatment for the hypertension but developed a hypersensitivity reaction
and stopped taking it. At 50, she developed pain in her left arm. Her M.D.,
unaware of her risk, diagnosed it as musculoskeletal and prescribed rest.
The next day she was back in the ER in cardiogenic shock. Lack of
genetic information prevented quick choice of optimal treatment. She died
in the emergency room.
Anticipating some of the possibilities suggested by these two scenarios,
37 states have made laws prohibiting discrimination in health insurance or
employment based on genetic information. The U.S. . Senate passed a
similar bill by 98 - 0. A bill has been introduced in the House.
Ms. Boughman made some predictions for the future of genomics in
medicine. She believes that primary care providers will practice genetic
medicine, that cancer therapies will be targeted to the specific types of
tumors, that individualized pharmacogenomic treatments will become
common, and that there will be interventions available that will use
targeted genetic switches. She pointed out, however, that the effectiveness
of genetic treatment will depend on accurate transmission of complex and
predictive accurate information and on understanding how to act on that
information.
She briefly discussed stem cells. There are three types - adult, cord
blood, and embryonic stem cells. Embryonic cells, which appear to have
the most promise, are grown by taking the inner cell mass out of a
blastocyst and putting those cells in a culture to reproduce. There are more
than 400,000 blastocysts in freezers that are not going to be used
otherwise. However, federal funds cannot be used on stem cells outside
the permitted lines. Another possibility is to remove the nucleus from an
egg and replace the nucleus with a somatic cell to stimulate division to
produce stem cells that will reproduce in a culture.
Ms. Boughman offered to answer questions.
A hardy Finn from the Gulf of Bothnia, having survived knife fights
and wolf attacks, remains concerned about prostate cancer. Is there a test
for it, he asked? Not a specific one, Ms. Boughman said.
What are the non-genetic diseases? Too numerous to count. Viral and
bacterial infections, certainly, and AIDS. She mentioned, however, that
some people seem to be naturally resistant to AIDS, which is a fascinating
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clue to how it might be treated.
One person asked if it is true that there are about 100,000 genes and
that thousands of them do nothing. Although it once was thought there
were 80,000 to 100,000 genes, it now appears tb~re are about 25,000,
which is interesting, because some other species have far more. The so-
called unused genes are important as place-holders and it appears they are
somehow otherwise very important. They are like junk, not like garbage.
Garbage is thrown out, junk is put in the attic. The chimpanzee and human
are 98 percent alike in their genes. Perhaps the spacing will explain some
of the differences.
Mr. Hershey announced the next meeting and made the parking
announcement. He invited visitors to join the Society, and then adjourned
the 2189th meeting at 9:35 to the social hour.
Attendance: 33
Weather: Misty, occasional sprinkles
Temperature: 5 C.
Respectfully submitted,
Ronald O. Hietala, Recording Secretary
© 2005 Ronald O. Hietala
Minutes of the 21 91st Meeting
April 8, 2005
Lecture: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance-based
Quantum Computing: Ms Karen Sauer
President Robert Hershey called the 2191st meeting of the Philosophical
Society of Washington to order in the Powell Auditorium of the Cosmos
Club at 8:20 p.m. on April 8, 2005. The minutes of the 2190th meeting
were read by William Saalbach, acting recording secretary, and approved.
This was the occasion of the David Franklin Bleil Memoria* ‘ .* cture
in Physics, sponsored by David Frederick Bleil.
Mr. Hershey introduced the speaker, Ms. Karen Sauer of George
Mason University. Ms. Sauer spoke on “Nuclear Magnetic Resonance-
based Quantum Computing.”
Why study quantum computing? Ms. Sauer reminded us of Moore’s
law, which states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 1 8
months. The inside story says that chip development is not the controlling
factor; it is that 18 months must pass before introducing a new product
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which will infuriate the existing customers. No matter which is closer to
the truth, current computer architecture does limit the effectiveness of
computing.
There would seem to be two major advantages of a quantum
computer, large searches and factoring large numbers. Using quantum
computing, the effort of finding a needle in a haystack of N elements
increases with the square root of N instead of N. Finding a certain word
for a crossword puzzle that would take a conventional computer 500,000
steps would take a quantum computer 1 000 steps.
Factoring would also be much faster. Using Shor’s factoring
algorithm, factoring would be exponentially faster than the best known
classical algorithm, which would have major implications for
cryptosystems.
The building block of quantum computing is called the qubit instead
of a bit. A bit can represent any intersection of two lines; a qubit can
represent any point of a solid. It can be a combination of a 1 -state and a 0-
state, or a number of them. N qubits can stand for 2N power at once. A
mere 50 qubits can represent every binary number from zero to more than
a trillion, simultaneously. The readout, however, would be very long.
Qubits are also unique by their entangled state. In classical computing
architecture, two bits can be 00, 01, 10, or 11. The value of one bit does
not affect another. In quantum computing, it does, because of the way the
states of quantum factors affect others.
Ms. Sauer reviewed the experimentation to date. Nuclear magnetic
resonance computation has been accomplished with seven cubits. An ion-
trap system has been developed to control and read three qubits. Using
superconducting electronics, computation has been accomplished with two
qubits. A quantum dot system, using the spin of the electrons, has been
used in computing with one cubit.
Almost any interaction with the environment collapses the quantum
state into a very definite state, or decoherence, and calculation stops.
Therefore, the computer must be isolated from the environment, which
makes it difficult to control and read the quantum states.
A magnetic nucleus in a magnetic field behaves like a gyroscope and
precesses about the field. The magnetic moment precesses in proportion to
the field, and this has led to great concern and competition in the size of
the superconducting magnets used. They are now working with magnets
of 1 1 .7 tesla.
Fundamentally, the way an NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance)
computer works is this: a magnetic field is used to align the magnetic
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moments. Radio-frequency pulses at the Larmor frequency tip the
magnetic moments out of balance. The transverse then rotates at the
Larmor frequency and is detected by a coil using Faraday’s law. The coil
is part of a “tuned” circuit that is sensitive to a limited band of
frequencies. The ability of the pulses to reverse spins has given NMR
computing the boost to seven qubits.
Isolating the computers is done by dissolving the molecules in a
liquid. The effect of the magnetic field of one nucleus on another is
largely averaged away in a liquid.
The major problems with NMR Quant computing are that:
• It is best done on single molecule, but NMR needs 108 molecules
to see the signal. The solution is to use a large number of
molecules and read out a collective answer.
• NMR is too weak to determine the outcome and cause the state’s
collapse into specific states for each molecule. However, it is often
good enough to see an NMR signal that represents the average
over all the molecules.
• The equilibrium states of the molecules’ nuclear spins are nearly
random, with only a relative few pointing in the right direction.
The solution is to use temporal, spatial, or logical labeling methods
to single out the small fraction that do represent the desired initial
state.
These methods produce “pseudo-pure” states, where the readout
shows what is designed even though most of the mix does not.
Ms. Sauer predicts that the field will turn to a solid instead of a liquid
form for the chemicals. Liquid state NMR computers will likely be limited
to about 10 to 20 qubits; 50 to 300 are needed. She believes quantum
computing has enormous potential, particularly for large-scale searches
and factorization of large numbers. She recognizes that actual quantum
computing is far behind current theory, but she says NMR has provided a
good test bed for quantum computing, with its precise control of magnetic
moments. Other quantum computers with better scalability should benefit
from the ideas, concepts and solutions that NMR experiments have
yielded.
Ms. Sauer offered to answer questions.
One questioner observed that the systems she described do not seem
fast. They won’t do traditional calculations well, she said, but that’s not a
fair comparison. They will do different calculations.
How do you input a number? someone asked. We do not know how to
put a number in a molecule. In solids, this may not be the problem it
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69
seems to be now. Why can’t the same problems be put on a classical
computer? another asked. Because a quantum mechanical state can mean a
numericity of states.
Ms. Sauer admitted there is no advantage to quantum computing
currently. There is no problem the current machinery can’t do better. It is
the potential that is great.
Mr. Hershey encouraged visitors to join the Society. He announced the
next meeting and made the parking announcement. He invited everyone to
stay for the social hour. Finally, he adjourned the 2191st meeting at 9:50
p.m.
Attendance: 50
Weather: Moist and mild
Temperature: 17 C.
Respectfully submitted,
Ronald O. Hietala, Recording Secretary
© 2005 Ronald O. Hietala
Minutes of the 2192nd Meeting
April 22, 1005
Lecture: Smallpox and Ebola Viruses as Agents
Of Bioterrorism: Mr. Peter Jahrling
President Robert Hershey called the 2192nd meeting of the Philosophical
Society of Washington to order in the Powell Auditorium of the Cosmos
Club at 8:16 p.m. April 22, 2005. The minutes of the 2191st meeting were
read and approved.
Mr. Hershey introduced the speaker of the evening, Mr. Peter
Jahrling. Mr. Jahrling is chief scientist of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. Mr.
Jahrling spoke on “Smallpox and Ebola Viruses as Agents of
Bioterrorism.”
Emerging infections arise, Mr. Jahrling said, by unnatural means.
New organisms have always arisen or evolved as a result of adaptation or
environmental pressures. New pressures come from the extension of civil
engineering into new geography, international travel, political instability,
natural disasters (often involving sanitation), war and famine and
displaced persons that result from them, and intentional release. Only the
last is the action of terrorists. The reality of bioterrorism did not sink in
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until anthrax attacks of 2001.
In the past 10-15 years, new viruses that have broken out include
the
- Hantavirus Outbreaks in the U.S.
- Ebola-related Reston Filovirus
- Andes Virus - Argentina
- Ebola - Ivory Coast, Zaire, C^bon, Uganda, Sudan
- SARS - China, Canada, (wo wide?)
- Monkeypox, almost indistinguishable from smallpox
- Marburg Virus (Angola) - presently ongoing
- Influenza H5N 1 (poised to emerge)
Mr. Jahrling said he had never intended to work with ebola. There
is no treatment for it, it is fatal, and results in a gruesome death.
He gave several examples of how tricky and dangerous it is to
work with these viruses. One of them was the dying golden tamarins at the
National Zoo. It turned out to be a virus which was being transmitted to
the tamarins by the baby mice the caretaker was feeding them. The
tamarins were being bred and some of the infected ones had been
scheduled to be shipped to Brazil. It was a narrow escape that they were
not.
Monkeypox came to the United States in a shipment of Giant
Gambian rats. Here they were cohoused with prairie dogs, and the prairie
dogs were sold as pets in the Midwest. Humans were infected by prairie
dog bites. A disturbing fact was that it was extant in the country for about
30 days, even though the symptoms look very much like smallpox, before
it was reported to appropriate authorities. It infected 30 people in 15
states. It was just fortunate that it happened to be a weak strain of the
monkeypox virus.
Smallpox was declared dead in 1980. The campaign to defeat it
was successful because it has no natural reservoir; it has only one natural
host, humans. Its last vestiges were wiped out in Africa by identifying
cases and then sending in teams to vaccinate everyone the infected person
came in contact with.
At that time, however, the Soviet Union was manufacturing it. They
were making 20 tons of smallpox every six months. They were planning to
put it in the nose cones of missiles to wipe out any survivors of a nuclear
war. That was Russian military doctrine. They say they don’t do it any
more, and Mr. Jahrling believes that, but we can only wonder if all that
material has been effectively destroyed, although the evidence he has seen
has not been very alarming. They also produced anthrax, and an accidental
Washington Academy of Sciences
71
release of that killed 80 people downstream.
There was an outbreak of smallpox in Kazakhstan in 1971. It
originated in the Russian smallpox factory on an island in the Aral Sea.
The woman who contracted it had been vaccinated, but for some reason
the vaccination was ineffective.
He described a planning exercise called “Dark Winter.” It assumes
3000 people arc exposed to smallpox in simultaneous attacks on three
shopping centers in different states. Since 42% of the population have
never been vaccinated, and assuming that each case exposes ten others and
that only 15 million doses of vaccine are available, by the fourth
generation of the disease, in nine weeks, three million people would have
caught smallpox and one million would have died. The planning exercise
demonstrated two important points: the lack of vaccines limits
management options in dealing with diseases, and the United States lacks
the resources to deal with a mass outbreak of smallpox, or indeed any
contagious bioterrorism agent. As an interim policy, the best they could do
is targeted vaccination of contacts. Asymptomatic contacts would be
monitored but not isolated. Any delay in vaccination would increase
mortality greatly.
Smallpox, he concludes, is a very credible agent of terrorism. Ring
vaccination would be only a partial solution to a large or multi-centered
attack. Mass vaccination, it appears, works better than targeted
vaccination, largely because of the time required to find the people at risk.
There is surprisingly little material around to show what smallpox
looks like. They do have a preserved human arm and, of course, there are
old pictures.
They are working to develop an animal model of the disease.
People in moon suits have infected monkeys with variola in labs of the
Centers for Disease Control. Another model under development is
infection of monkeys with monkeypox virus. It looks much like smallpox
and its spread appears to be very similar. It appears that infected monkeys
are not contagious until they are obviously sick.
They did a study of the effectiveness of cidofovir against variola.
A massive variola exposure resulted in death for all the controls. Three of
the six treated animals survived, but they were the ones treated at 24 hours
after infection. The three treated at 12 hours all died.
An aerosol exposure of the monkeys was not very effective. It
takes too much variola material to infect monkeys through the air.
He showed some pictures of monkeys with variola and of humans
with smallpox. Both are pretty scary. His description was “Really ugly.”
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72
The infection produces nasty, boil-like sores all over, inside and out.
Mr. Jahrling concluded that effective countermeasures against
smallpox terrorism can be developed through research by an international
community of scientists. They will presumably include better vaccines,
antiviral drugs, and methods to distribute and use them.
Mr. Hershey made the usual announcements. Finally, at 9:46 p.m.,
he adjourned the 2192nd meeting to the social hour.
Attendance: 20
Weather: Misty to sprinkly
Temperature: 12 C.
Respectfully submitted,
Ronald O. Hietala, Recording secretary
© 2005 Ronald O. Hietala
Minutes of the 2194th Meeting
September 9, 2005
Lecture: Life in the Age of Risk Management
Ms. Kimberly M. Thompson
President Robert Hershey called the 2194th meeting to order at 8: 17 p.m.
on September 9, 2005. The minutes of the 2192nd meeting were read and
approved.
Mr. Hershey introduced the speaker of the evening, Ms. Kimberly
M. Thompson of the Harvard School of Public Health, where she is
Associate Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science and Director
of the Kids Risk Project. Ms. Thompson observed that it was a pleasure to
be speaking in the John Wesley Powell room; she attended John Wesley
Powell High School in Mesa, Arizona, where her interest in science was
kindled.
Ms. Thompson spoke on “Life in the Age of Risk Management”
and delighted the audience with cartoons from her book called Risk In
Perspective : Insight and Humor in the Age of Risk Management. She
posed a question of whether we are living in a state of fear, and quoted
several observations of Michael Crichton, who said that “... all reality is
media reality,” and that the politico-legal-media complex is dedicated to
promoting fear.
Ms. Thompson said we are living in a time when life is full of
risks, choices often involve tough trade-offs, and good data and risk
Washington Academy of Sciences
73
analysis play a critical role in decisions, both individual and collective.
These are the characteristics of the age of risk management.
At this time, we have the benefits of enormous advancements in
science and technology. We have high-quality information about risks, a
large spectrum of choices, computational tools, and better understanding
of problems and solutions. Success still depends on our ability to
understand and communicate how things work and to effectively manage
variability and uncertainty.
There is great good news about risks. Since 1 900, life expectancy
has gone from less than 50 years to over 75.
The big questions about risks are, which risks are big and which
are small, what can and should we do about them, are we investing the
right resources and spending wisely, what data do we need, how do we
deal with challenges of scale, and how do we effectively communicate?
Communication regarding risks especially needs our attention.
Risk analysis uses mathematical models to characterize
information - what can happen, how likely is it, and if it happens, what are
the consequences? The models are used to evaluate options and weigh
trade-offs - what can we do, what happens if we do it, what is the best
option? Finally, we need to communicate risk information.
She distinguished variability from uncertainty. Variability is the
degree of heterogeneity or variability in a population. Uncertainty is
ignorance about a poorly characterized phenomenon.
She discussed three examples of risk problems - the effectiveness
of airbags in cars, the mortality risk to people on the ground from crashing
airplanes, and the dynamics of managing the risks of polio.
The air bag question had its roots in the concern about the 40,000
deaths a year in car crashes. There was a time, a short time, when a car
would not start if the seat belt was not fastened. People did not like that,
and it did not last long. After that, rates of seat belt use were poor, and
interest in a passive method developed. This interest led to several errors
related to estimating the benefits of airbags. The fact that airbags would
kill people was overlooked. A compliance test was needed to show
whether airbags worked, and the standard involved in the test led to
ignoring variability in human physique and behavior. Not everyone is a
50th percentile male and not everyone sits still in the seat facing forward
all the time, like a dummy. Also, the early experience with seat belts led to
pessimism regarding seat belt use, and estimates of the effectiveness of
airbags inadvertently included people whose outcomes should have been
credited to seat belts.
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From this several insights were drawn. Technologies perform
differently in controlled versus uncontrolled settings. Efforts should be
made to quantify the risks of safety technologies. Distributional issues
should be examined. We need to guard against overconfidence and we
need to be aware of political realities.
It is an irony that airbags are an engineering solution to a
behavioral problem and that the result of children being killed by airbags
necessitates a new behavioral solution of putting kids in the back.
However, we have learned that both the engineering and the behavior
matter.
She turned to the problem of airplanes crashing on people on the
ground. A paper in 1992 indicated the risk of this was four in a million
over a lifetime, which is above the one in a million threshold used to
identify actionable risks. A closer look at the data now reveals some
interesting facts. The data show that the rates of accidents have gone down
substantially, and more importantly that the risks differ greatly for people
near and far from airports. The risk is hundreds of times higher close to
major airports. This leads to very different ideas about what should be
done about the risk. It also shows that, for most of us, the risk is
negligible.
The story about polio is one of a brilliant success of vaccines.
Polio paralysis cases in the U.S. peaked in 1952 at over 21,000 cases. Ms.
Thompson mentioned that we recently celebrated 50 years of polio
vaccine and reminded the audience about the major headlines on April 12,
1955 announcing the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine. The decrease
in the disease after that was dramatic, and for some time now we have
been within striking distance of eradication.
Oral vaccine, a weakened -virus vaccine, causes polio at a very low
rate. In 1979, wild cases of polio virtually disappeared. In the late 1990s,
the U.S. decided the risk of polio from oral vaccine was unacceptable and
we went back to using the killed-virus, injectable vaccine.
Since the oral vaccine is a live virus that spreads through populations
and is easier to administer, it is the preferred method if we want to
eradicate polio. However, what to do after successful eradication remains
a difficult choice.
Ms. Thompson discussed how the risks and concerns changed over
time. Sometimes choices get tougher as the original problem is reduced.
The devil is in the details. The best options for some people will not be the
best for others.
In concluding, Ms. Thompson emphasized the need for good
Washington Academy of Sciences
75
science to realize the potential of risk analysis and get the most out of life
in the age of risk management.
Mr. Hershey announced the next meeting, invited people to apply
for membership in the Society, and invited everyone to enjoy the social
hour. He adjourned the 2194th meeting at 9:54 p.m. to the social hour.
Attendance: 38
Weather: Clear, mild, beautiful
Temperature: 15C.
Respectfully submitted,
Ronald O. Hietala, Recording Secretary
Minutes of the 2198th Meeting
December 10, 2005
Lecture: Einstein ’s Warped Universe
Mr. Ted Jacobson
President Robert Hershey called the 2198 meeting to order at 8:20 p.m.,
on December 10, 2005. The minutes of the 2197th meeting were read and
approved.
Mr. Hershey then introduced the speaker of the evening, Mr. Ted
Jacobson of the University of Maryland. Mr. Jacobson spoke on
“Einstein’s Warped Universe.”
“I’m glad to have the opportunity to tell you some things about
Einstein’s warped universe,” Mr. Jacobson began. He noted that we are in
the anniversary of Einstein’s “miraculous year,” 1905, in which he
published four seminal papers that spanned all of the revolutions of
modem physics of that time.
One introduced the idea of photons and the particle nature of light.
Another gave calculations of Brownian motion, which helped to establish
the atomic nature of matter. Third, he introduced the idea of mass as not
independent of energy, but as an aspect of energy. And fourth, he showed
that simultaneity and space and time measurements depend on the motion
of the observer. Einstein was 26 at the time and a clerk in a patent office.
He could not get an academic job, Mr. Jacobson joked.
Einstein did say that “a practical profession is a salvation for a man of my
type. An academic career compels a young man to scientific production,
and only strong characters can resist the temptation of superficial
analysis.”
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The 1905 work on time and space is called special relativity. In it,
time, space, and mass are taken as not absolute. This work omits the
whole matter of gravity. It wasn’t until 1915 that he incorporated gravity
and inertia. He conceived gravity as a warping of time and space.
What does it mean to say that space and time are not absolute? In 1905,
Einstein had inherited Maxwell’s theory of electrodynamics and Newton’s
theory of mechanics. Neither of them implied a preferred state of rest.
Maxwell’s theory did predict that light and electromagnetic waves
propagate at a definite speed. Light from a flashlight travels at the same
speed regardless of whether the flashlight moves. Einstein saw that
therefore we cannot attach any absolute signification to the concept of
simultaneity.
Consider a flash of light in a box. If the flash originates in the
middle of the box, it reaches both ends at the same time, as reckoned by an
observer at rest with respect to the box. If another observer is running
toward the box, he sees the box approaching him, so he sees the light
reach the back end before it reaches the front end. Thus, a time ordering
between two events can depend on who is observing. This is the relativity
of simultaneity.
One implication of this relativity is that time elapsed between two
events depends on the path in spacetime that connects them. One who
travels a straight line from one point to another might age, say, fifty years.
One who visits a distant intermediate point on the interim ages less, and
the difference is relative to the additional distance traveled. The terms
time and space are not used. Instead, they use timelike and spacelike,
because what it means to remain at “the same point of space” depends on
the observer.
Newton conceived gravity as a universal force, an attraction of
masses to each other. It explained both the falling of an apple and the orbit
of the planets around the sun.
Einstein said he was sitting in the patent office in Bern when all of
a sudden a thought occurred to him: If a person falls freely, he won’t feel
his own weight. He was startled.
This simple thought made a deep impression on him. Then he had
the happiest thought of his life, that a gravitational field has only a relative
existence.
To illustrate Einstein’s happy thought, Mr. Jacobson showed a
picture of a dancer in an airplane following a parabolic free-fall arc,
dancing in the air in a space that was static relative to the confines of the
Washington Academy of Sciences
77
airplane and feeling none of the weight of Newton’s force. She seemed to
be having a good time.
Gravity in Einstein’s conception is the curvature of spacetime. A
freely falling object follows a straight line in spacetime. When an apple
falls, what really happens is that the apple and the earth approach each
other. Their initially parallel paths in spacetime do not remain parallel,
because the spacetime is curved. This is analogous to two lines of
longitude on the earth that start out parallel at the equator, yet converge as
they proceed north towards the pole. This convergence is due to the
curvature of the surface of the earth, while the approach of a falling apple
and the earth is due to curvature of spacetime. He described a little of how
the global positioning system works. The earth devices have clocks on
them. Locations are determined by comparing the times of the origin of
the different signals. These times are measurably affected by relativity,
due to both the motion of the clocks and the gravitational time dilation
effect: a higher clock runs more quickly than a lower one.
Gravity bends light. Mr. Jacobson showed some pictures of a
galaxy viewed through the gravitational lens of another galaxy. Rings of
light from the distant object that appear around the nearer object are called
Einstein rings. Actually, you usually see only arcs, not complete rings. In
some cases, the time difference between two paths of light from the same
source is over a year.
To bring the matter closer, he showed a picture of the Smithsonian
castle and another picture of it as it might appear through a gravitational
lens, as if a black hole were between the camera and the castle. Parts of
the building seemed to bend around and enclose parts of the clouds behind
it.
He showed a picture of an antenna in Puerto Rico. This instrument
first detected signals from a binary pulsar in 1974. The binary has an orbit
period of eight hours and a pulse period of 59 ms. Such systems emit
gravitational waves. Gravitational waves carry energy, the orbits arc
reduced, and the orbit period has been observed since 1974 to decrease at
the predicted rate.
As another approach, there is an attempt underway to measure
gravitational waves directly using very-long-baseline laser interferometry.
Instruments have been placed far apart on the earth, one in the state of
Washington, one in Louisiana. Other interferometers elsewhere on earth
are also being used, and eventually interferometers in space are planned.
As yet, no detection has been achieved.
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Then he took up some other questions about the universe. Is it
closed or open? Is it curved or flat? How did it begin? Does it expand
forever? What about the beginning of time? What is time like inside a
black hole? He offered some speculations on these questions.
Mr. Jacobson offered to answer questions from the audience. In
response to questions, he noted that Einstein made gravity equal to the
curvature of spacetime, which means that gravity is the warping of inertia.
Someone complained that he would never understand the
spacetime thing. Where does it get started? How do you measure time
without an instrument? You can’t, Jacobson said. Time is what a clock
measures.
Is the cosmos as a whole warped? Yes, it is.
Does the 3-dimensional universe have an analog in a 2
dimensional universe?
Yes, this is an outgrowth of string theory. It is a theory in two
dimensions that has no gravity.
Electromagnetic waves are harnessed for useful purposes, is
anything like that possible for gravitational waves? Yes, for astronomy.
Could we generate them? Anything we can generate would be extremely
weak. He guessed detecting waves we have generated won’t happen in the
next 50 years.
The annual business meeting was held (the business records are
kept by the corresponding secretary).
Mr. Hershey announced the next lecture and invited guests to join
the Society. Finally, he made the parking announcement, invited everyone
to enjoy the social hour, and at 9:50 p.m., adjourned the 2197th meeting.
Attendance: 71
Weather: Unremarkable
Temperature: 6 C.
Respectfully submitted,
Ronald O. Hietala, Recording Secretary
© 2005 Ronald O. Hietala
Washington Academy of Sciences
79
MARINE TECHNOLOGY SOCIETY NEWS
The Marine Techndy Soiety has published MTS
Journal: Promoting Lifelong Ocean Education (Winter 2005/2006). This
issue of the quarterly, peer-reviewed journal describes solutions to the
problem of ocean literacy, and includes information on successful
programs that are currently promoting learning. According to the issue's
editor, Blanche W. Meeson, of Oceans US and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "To my knowledge this is a first:
an issue of a major science and technology society's signature journal
dedicated to education."
MTS has developed an Experts Directory and a Speakers Bureau,
both of which are searchable databases on the MTS Web site at
www.mtsociety.org. The directories are available to anyone wishing to
find marine technologists and engineers for speaking engagements,
collaborations, general questions, etc.
Justin Manley is the new editor of the MTS Journal. As editor,
Manley has three goals: to continue to improve the Journal's quality; to
capitalize on the diverse interests of MTS as a strength so as to provide a
unique perspective on the intersection of science/technology, business and
policy; and to frame MTS and public discussion of key issues, such as
ocean energy and the role of advanced technology in the oceans. Manley
is a senior engineer at Battelle. He chairs both the National Atmospheric
and Space Administration's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Working
Group and the MTS AUV Professional Committee. Manley replaces
outgoing editor Dan Walker, senior program officer of the National
Research Council.
In April, MTS sponsored the online Pre-Engineering Times, a
publication of JETS, which works to increase interest and awareness of
engineering and technology-based careers. As sponsor, MTS provided two
articles to the publication, one aimed at young people who might be
interested in focusing their engineering interest in the marine sciences and
another on the society-sponsored student outreach programs and
scholarships.
The MTS-sponsored Oceans 2006 Conference is scheduled for
September 18-21 in Boston. The conference plans to highlight several "hot
Spring 2006
80
topic" areas, including homeland security applications, tsunami early-
warning systems, autonomous underwater vehicle/unmanned undersea
vehicle/glider technology, distributed sensors and networks, tracking and
data fusion, non-acoustic sensing and imaging, integrated ocean
observatories, marine mammal classification, Artie Ocean science, optical
properties of water, aquaculture engineering and marine archaeology. For
more information, visit www.oceans06mtsieeeboston.org.
The MTS-sponsored Dynamic Positioning Conference 2006 is
scheduled for October 17-18 in Houston, Texas. The annual DP
conference attracts leading DP professionals from around the world.
Check the Web site to find out when registration will begin. Exhibitors are
encouraged to reserve space now, since space is limited. For more
information, visit www.dynamic-positioning.com.
The MTS-sponsored Underwater Intervention 2007 is scheduled
for January 30-February 1, in New Orleans, La. Prospective speakers are
invited to submit proposals to the conference in one of the following
areas: commercial diving, ROVs, AUVs, sonar, acoustics, underwater
inspections, underwater construction/repairs, training/education, legal and
regulatory, safety issues, certification, underwater cutting/welding,
equipment maintenance, bid specifications and military issues. Deadline
for abstract submission is July 15, 2006, and final papers are due
December 15, 2006. The conference draws over 2,000 attendees —
purchasing agents, project managers, engineers, operations managers,
owners, directors and many other key decision makers from the United
States and 30 other countries. For more information, visit
www.underwaterintervention.com.
MTS members participated in the Consortium for Oceanographic
Research and Education (CORE) Public Policy Forum in Washington,
D.C., in March. Among those speaking was Vice Adm. Conrad
Lautenbacher. Andrew Clark participated in a panel discussion on Ocean
Observing Systems. Richard Spinrad and Shirley Pomponi were part of a
panel discussion on Ocean Research Priorities Plan and Implementation
Strategy.
MTS is one of the hosts of the Conference on Ocean Literacy
(CoOL), June 7-8, at the Ronald Regan Building and International Trade
Center in Washington, D.C. The two-day forum will bring together
members of government, education, textbook publishing, industry, science
centers, non-profits and other interested entities to discuss ocean literacy
Washington Academy of Sciences
81
and the challenges and opportunities for educating the public to make
informed, responsible decisions about the ocean and its resources. The
conference chair is MTS member Sharon Walker.
MTS member Shirley Pomponi has been appointed to the Florida
Oceans and Coastal Council. The council will develop priorities for ocean
and coastal research, and establish a statewide ocean research plan. The
group will also coordinate public and private ocean research for more
effective coastal management.
MTS member JDR Cable Systems has appointed John R. Havey as
technical sales manager of the JDR Oil and Gas Division, North America.
The announcement was made by MTS member Paul Gahm, executive vice
president of sales and marketing, JDR Oil and Gas Division. Formerly
sales manager at Dril-Quip, Havey is a 30-year veteran in the offshore oil
and gas industry.
The Supervisory Board of MTS member INTEC Engineering and
Heerema Holding have named Bruce Crager to be chief executive officer
of INTEC Engineering based in Houston. Crager brings more than 30
years of experience in the oil and gas industry.
MTS member Eric Steimlc of the University of South Florida-St.
Petersburg, developed a radio-controlled guided surface vehicle (GSV)
that carried a D1DSON imagining sonar and a hydrophone listening device
to eavesdrop on the spawning sounds of black drum fish. The fish raise a
loud chorus when they spawn. The instrumentation helped to determine
whether the sound production was matched by real results— tight clusters
of newly fertilized fish eggs.
MTS member Teledyne RD Instruments announced the
appointment of William Kikendall as general manager. Kikendall has
served as general manager of Teledyne Geophysical Instruments,
Houston, Texas, for the past six years and will now oversee operations at
both Teledyne Technologies' facilities.
Jill Zande is the new chair of the Monterey Section of the Marine
Technology Society. Zande is outreach director and ROV Competition
coordinator of the MATE Center in Monterey, Calif.
MTS member John Moore moderated a panel discussion on
American Security Interests and the Law of the Sea at a Senate
appropriations hearing in Washington, D.C., in April. Moore is the
director of the Center for Oceans Law and Policy at the University of
Spring 2006
82
Virginia School of Law. Among the panelists contributing to the
discussion was MTS member Douglas Burnett, an international law
adviser and a partner with Holland and Knight, LLP.
MTS member William Kuperman of the University of California,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography is on the National Research Council-
approved Committee to Review the Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science
and Technology (JSOST) Ocean Research Priorities Plan.
MTS member Dr. Reginald Beach has served as the Consortium
for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE) director of research
for the last four years and is leaving to become the chief scientist for the
Ocean Exploration program at NOAA.
Offshore survey company and MTS member Fugro Chance
recently promoted Greg Pilgrim to operations manger. Marine
Construction Survey in Houston, Texas. The Marine Construction Survey
Group develops innovative survey methods and customized procedures for
deepwater construction projects.
MTS was a signatory to letters sent to U.S. Senate and House
appropriations subcommittees on Science, State, Justice and Related
Agencies encouraging them to provide NOAA with an appropriation of
$4.5 billion in fiscal year 2007. "NOAA is critical to protecting ou* ocean
resources, coastal communities and economy. In fact, weather and nate
sensitive industries account for about one-third of the Nation’s GDP. An
investment of $4.5 billion averages out to $15 per person annually," the
letters stated, adding that this "small amount" provides an enormous
amount of information, research and local community assistance. "A better
understanding of the oceans not only benefits coastal communities. In fact,
economists have estimated that altering planting decisions based on
improved El Nino and La Nina forecasts would save U.S. farmers $265-
$300 million."
Susan M. Branting
Communications Manager, MTS
Washington Academy of Sciences
DELEGATES TO THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
REPRESENTING AFFILIATED SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES
Acoustical Society of America
Paul Arveson
American/Intemational Association of Dental Research
J. Terrell Hoffeld
American Association of Physics Teachers
Frank R. Haig, S .J.
American Ceramics Society
VACANT
American Fisheries Society
Ramona Schreiber
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
David W. Brandt
American Institute of Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration
Michael Greeley
American Meteorological Society
Kenneth Carey
American Nuclear Society
Steven Arndt
American Phytopathological Society
Kenneth L. Deahl
American Society for Cybernetics
Stuart Umpleby
American Society for Microbiology
VACANT
American Society of Civil Engineers
Kimberly Hughes
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Daniel J. Vavrick
American Society of Plant Physiology
Mark Holland
Anthropological Society of Washington
Marilyn London
ASM International
Toni Marechaux
Association for Women in Science (AWIS)
Emanuela Appetiti
Association for Computing Machinery
Lee Ohringer
Association for Science, Technology, and Innovation
F. Douglas Witherspoon
Association of Information Technology Professionals
Barbara Saffanek
Biological Society of Washington
VACANT
Botanical Society of Washington
Alain Touwaide
Chemical Society of Washington
James J. Zwolenik
District of Columbia Institute of Chemists
James J. Zwolenik
District of Columbia Psychology Association
David Williams
Eastern Sociological Society
Ronald W. Mandersheid
Electrochemical Society
Robert L. Ruedisueli
Entomological Society of Washington
F. Christian Thompson
Geological Society of Washington
Bob Schneider
Historical Society of Washington, DC
VACANT
History of Medicine Society
Alain Touwaide
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
Douglas Griffith
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
Sajjad Durrani
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
Murty Polavarapu
Institute of Food Technologies
Isabel Walls
Institute of Industrial Engineers
Neal F.Schmeidler
Instrument Society of America
Hank Hegner
Marine Technology Society
Judith T. Krauthamer
Mathematical Association of America
Sharon K. Hauge
Medical Society of the District of Columbia
Duane Taylor
National Capital Astronomers
Jay H. Miller
National Geographic Society
VACANT
Optical Society of America
Jim Cole
Pest Science Society of America
VACANT
Philosophical Society of Washington
Vary T. Coates
Society of American Foresters
G. Foster
Society of American Military Engineers
VACANT
Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine
Darren Roesch
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
VACANT
Soil and Water Conservation Societyw
Bill Boyer
Technology Transfer Society
Clifford Lanham
Washington Evolutionary Systems Society
Jerry L.R. Chandler
Washington History of Science Club
Albert G. Gluckman
Washington Chapter of the Institute for Operations
Research and Management Science
Russell R. Vane III
Washington Paint Technology Group
VACANT
Washington Society of Engineers
Alvin Reiner
Washington Statistical Society
Michael P. Cohen
World Future Society
Diane Pickar
Washington Academy of Sciences
Room 637
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Washington, DC 20005
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Volume 92
Number 2
Summer 2006
Journal of the
WASHINGTON
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Contents
Instructions for Authors . i
Incoming President’s Message . ii
Affiliated Institutions . iv
William T. Franz, Bottle Rockets, Teacups and the Real World . 1
Carl E. Mungan, Relative Speeds of Interacting Astronomical Bodies . 7
Colin F. Mackenzie and Yan Xiao, Videos of Emergency Care Show Challenges for Patient
Safety . 15
M. Sue Bogner, It’s Not Who in 98,000 Medical Error Deaths, It’s What . 29
Gerald P. Krueger, Fatigue, Drowsy Decision-Making and Medical Error: Issues of Quality Health
Care . 41
Frank R. Haig, S.J. and Peg Kay, The Role of Academies of Science in the Critical Examination
of New Ideas: Looking at Gaia . 61
Affiliated Societies . Inside back cover
ISSN 0043-0439
Issued Quarterly at Washington DC
^asJjtngton Ucabemp of ^cicntcs!
Founded in 1898
Board of Managers
Elected Officers
President
William Boyer
President Elect
Alain Towaide
Treasurer
Harvey Freeman
Secretary
James Cole
Vice President, Administration
Rex Klopfenstein
Vice President, Membership
Thomas Meylan
Vice President, Junior Academy
Paul L. Hazan
Vice President, Affiliated Societies
Mark Holland
Members at Large
Sethanne Howard
Donna Dean
Frank Haig, S .J.
Jodi Wesemann
Vary Coates
Peg Kay
Past President: F. Douglas Witherspoon
AFFILIATED SOCIETY DELEGATES:
Shown on back cover
Editor of the Journal
Vary T. Coates
Associate Editors:
Alain Touwaide
Sethanne Howard
Academy Office
Washington Academy of Sciences
Room 63 1
The Journal of the Washington Academy of
Sciences
The Journal is the official organ of the Academy.
It publishes articles on science policy, the history of
science, critical reviews, original science research,
proceedings of scholarly meetings of its Affiliated
Societies, and other items of interest to its members.
It is published quarterly. The last issue of the year
contains a directory of the current membership of
the Academy.
Subscription Rates
Members, fellows, and life members in good
standing receive the Journal free of charge.
Subscriptions are available on a calendar year basis,
payable in advance. Payment must be made in U.S.
currency at the following rates.
US and Canada . $25.00
Other Countries . 30.00
Single Copies (when available) . 10.00
Claims for Missing Issues
Claims must be received within 65 days of mailing.
Claims will not be allowed if non-delivery was the
result of failure to notify the Academy of a change
of address.
Notification of Change of Address
Address changes should be sent promptly to the
Academy Office. Notification should contain both
old and new addresses and zip codes.
POSTMASTER:
Send address changes to WAS, Rm.631,
1200 New York Ave. NW
Washington, DC. 20005
Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences
(ISSN 0043-0439)
Published by the Washington Academy of Sciences
202/326-8975
1200 New York Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20005 website: www.washacadsci.org
Phone: 202/326-8975
email: was@washacadsci.org
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INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS OCT 1 1 2006
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
THE JOURNAL of the Washington Academy of Sciences is a peer-
reviewed journal. Exceptions are made for papers requested by the editors
or positively approved for presentation or publication by one of our
affiliated scientific societies.
We welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary scientific research reports
and papers on technology development and innovation, science policy,
technology assessment, and history of science and technology. Book
reviews are also welcome.
Contributors of papers are requested to follow these guidelines carefully.
Papers should be submitted as e-mail attaclunents to the chief editor, vcoafes r/ mac.com.
along with full contact information for the primary or corresponding author.
Papers should be presented in Word; do not send PDF files.
Papers should be 6000 words or fewer. If more than 6 graphics are included the number
of words allowed will be reduced accordingly.
Graphics must be in black and white only. They must be easily resized and relocated. It is
best to put graphics, including tables, at the end of the paper or in a separate document,
with their preferred location in the text clearly indicated.
References should be in the form of endnotes, and may be in any sty le considered
standard in the discipline(s) represented by the paper.
The editor for this edition of the Journal is Sethanne Howard. Those
papers by Mackenzie, Bogner, and Krueger are from the Potomac Chapter
of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society session of Capital Science
2006, The papers by Mungan and Franz are from the American
Association of Physics Teachers, Chesapeake Section session.
Summer 2006
II
At the Academy ' s Animal Awards Banquet , on May 9 at the United States
Botanic Garden , Bill Boyer was installed as president for 2006-2007
A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT:
At my first meeting of the Board of Managers of the Washington
Academy of Sciences I was, and still am struck by their positive team
work and dedication. At a time when many non-profit professional
organizations are struggling just to keep going, the Academy stands out.
Even among other academies of sciences in other states and cities, the
Washington Academy stands out.
Several months ago Peg Kay asked me what plans I have to lead
this organization. Sometimes this organization reminds me of a sailboat
gliding across the Chesapeake Bay. The sails are out, the breeze is steady,
the crew is working like an organized team, and I’m holding on for dear
life.
After our recent Capital Science event I asked members of the
Board what THEY wanted for the future direction of the Academy. Here
is what they said are the strong points of the Academy:
• Younger people are stepping up to leadership roles;
• Traditions remain strong and are cherished;
• Unlike Academia or much of the government, the Board of
Managers can disagree without getting personal;
• Our Junior Academy and STARS program (Science and
Technology Aptitude Recognition for Schools) encourages a
future supply of young scientists;
• Sponsorship of conferences, like Capital Science and
specialized symposia serve the local and regional scientific
community;
• The Journal provides a venue for interdisciplinary and offbeat
research and analysis ;
• The Awards Banquet recognizes outstanding contributors to
science, scientific education, and public service;
Washington Academy of Sciences
Ill
• The dissemination of news about the meetings and activities of
affiliated scientific societies encourages networking across
disciplines, professions, and institutions.
Areas where the Academy needs some attention and improvement
include:
• We need to do a better job of involving and serving our
Affiliates;
• The Junior Academy should move beyond Science Fair
judging, perhaps to offer scholarships, for example;
• We need to secure a stronger financial foundation;
• We should improve our benefits and activities for members and
fellows who are not on the Board;
• We should have more academic members, considering the
many colleges in the area.
Other specific ideas were offered that will be discussed in the
coming year.
I asked the Board members to envision the Academy 5-10 years
from now and here’s what they saw for the future:
• The Washington Academy as a full-fledged member of the
area’s scientific establishment, called on for Congressional
testimony, interviewed by the Post on matters of science and
science policy;
• A vibrant Junior Academy built along the lines of the Academy
and graduating members able to step into careers in science and
roles in the Academy;
• Involvement of more people with increased diversity;
• An operations manual with guidance for new board members;
• Regular activities for all members, in addition to Board of
Managers meetings;
• Membership should double or triple what it is today.
Summer 2006
IV
As you can tell, there is belief in the Board that the Academy
should be used to spread the word that science is an important part of the
lives of the people living in this region. Even when science seems to be a
pawn of politics, there are scientists and scientific organizations working
hard to make sure science is recognized as a tool to make our lives better.
In 1898, the purpose of the new Academy was to encourage the
advancement of science and “to conduct, endow, or assist investigation in
any department of science.” That purpose guided the Academy throughout
its first 100 years and will continue to be our guide through the coming
century.
Bill Boyer , President
Other newly elected officers of the Washington Academy of Sciences
(2006-2007):
President Elect: Alain Touwaide
Treasurer: Harvey Freeman
Secretary: James Cole
Vice President for Administrative Affairs: Rex Klopfenstein
Vice President for Membership Affairs: Tom Meylan
Vice President for Affiliate Affairs: Mark Holland
Vice President for Junior Academy: Paul Hazan
At Large Members of the Board: Peg Kay and Vary Coates,
Journal Editor
Immediate Past President: Douglas Witherspoon
AFFILIATED INSTITUTIONS
The National Institute for Standards and Technology
Meadowlark Botanical Gardens
The John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress
Potomac Overlook Regional Park
Washington Academy of Sciences
Bottle Rockets, Teacups and the Real World:
A senior seminar to bridge the gap between physics
students and life after college**
William T. Franz
Department of Physics, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA 23005
Abstract
One of the peculiar aspects to being a professional physicist is the
authority we all seem to have to comment on 'real life' phenomena. I
have been asked about event hi ng from divining rods to space junk
during my career. The senior seminar at Randolph-Macon College is
designed to be a culminating experience that asks students to synthesize
their course and research experience and improve their presentation
skills. The most recent iteration focused on problems that varied from
urban legends to wacky theories with an emphasis on laboratory
measurement, practical calculation, and presentation of results.
Methods for heating water to make tea and the practicality of launching
people with bottle rockets will be discussed.
Introduction
The new curriculum at Randolph-Macon College asks each
department to create a culminating or “capstone” experience for its major
students. The goals of the college curriculum include the statement: “Each
student should participate in some activity which draws together principles
from various courses of study, examines a topic of special interest using
skills and abilities drawn from several courses, or invites comparisons and
contrasts about components of the major courses of instruction.”1
The physics department has instituted a number of courses in
guided research and a senior seminar. Through the guided research
courses, students engage in an independent research project of their own
design under the tutelage of a departmental faculty member. Several
projects have resulted in publication and/or presentation. The senior
seminar course includes as its goals - development of communication
skills, both written and oral; integration of course material with real-world
applications; and building a bridge between the academic world and the
Frank Haig Prize winner, presented at the Chesapeake Section of the American
Association of Physics Teachers
Washington Academy of Sciences
2
so-called real world after college. The emphasis is on skills so that the
choice of content, while important, is largely irrelevant.
The bridge to life after college is taken quite seriously in the design
of the senior seminar. Many of our graduates will find themselves in front
of a classroom at some point in their post-graduate lives. For some, they
are intending a career in education, for others, there will be opportunities
as a teaching assistant in graduate school. Therefore the seminar includes a
component designed to teach some basic educational theory, and it
provides an opportunity to practice teach in both informal settings and in
our introductory class.
Life after college is also defined by the need to search for solutions
where the answer is not in the back of a book and the methodology is not
taught in one particular course. The seminar therefore provides an
opportunity for problem solving in “non-traditional” applications. This
work is devoted to two examples of problems chosen for the seminar, the
student results, and their presentations.
The Research Problems
PROBLEM #J: The Great Tea Cup Controversy
An e-mail from a colleague2 posed an interesting question. A
discussion in a local law office had reached a spirited level regarding the
proper method of heating water for preparing tea. One person alleged that
water heated in a teapot retained its heat longer than water heated in a
microwave oven and was therefore a better method for brewing tea. In
response to the colleague, it was suggested that water had a notoriously
poor memory and that the method used to heat the water would have
nothing to do with the rate at which it cooled. Nonetheless, there was the
possibility that the container into which the water was poured could be
influencing the observations as heated water poured into a cold vessel
would be found cooler than water remaining in a teapot that had been
heated along with the water.
Despite the sound physics and the reasonable attempt at forcing a
compromise, the colleagues remained unconvinced by the solution. The
problem was posed to the seminar students and they were asked to conduct
a series of definitive experiments to prove the point.
Summer 2006
3
Experiments were conducted with water being heated by three
different methods - electric teapot, tea kettle on a hot plate, and in a
microwave oven. Water was brought nominally to boil and then poured
into cups initially at room temperature. Experiments were conducted using
Styrofoam cups and aluminum beakers. Using temperature probes
interfaced through a Pasco interface system3, the students measured the
temperature of the water as it cooled for several minutes and then fit their
data to a traditional Newton’s Law of Cooling curve and determined the
fitting parameters. Figures 1 and 2 show typical data obtained.
Water cooling rates in Styrofoam Cups
100 150
Time (seconds)
[—♦—Conventional « Electrical Microwave - Expon. (Conventional) — Expon. (Electrical) - Expon. (Microwave) |
Figure 1
Results of the student experiments revealed that the variation in
cooling rate from one method of heating to another was smaller than the
experimental uncertainty where the uncertainty was determined by
examining the variation among values obtained in several repetitions of
the cooling experiment for a single set of experimental variables (same
method of heating, same vessel).
Students presented their results in a formal talk before an audience
of other students and faculty in a seminar setting. They prepared a set of
power point slides that described the nature of the problem, the
experimental protocol they had developed, the results, and a discussion of
the validity of their results.
Washington Academy of Sciences
4
Water cooling rates in Aluminum
—
—
150
Time (seconds)
Conventional -»•- Electrical Microwave - Expon (Conventional) - Expon (Electrical) - Expon (Microwave) |
Figure 2
PROBLEM #2: Launching a person with water rockets
A cable television network4 shows a series called “MXC” based on
the Japanese game show “Takeshi’s Castle.” The program, a rather
slapstick reality show, has something of a cult following. A film clip from
this program showing a young Japanese man being launched using a back
pack consisting of water rockets has been circulating on the Internet. One
version of the clip has been found on a web page devoted to water
rocketry.'
The “power pack” strapped to the back of the adventurer consists
of a set of about 20 bottles appearing to be 2 liters in capacity. They are
partially filled with water and then pressurized using a bicycle pump and
sealed. A mechanism allows for the seals on the bottles to be
simultaneously broken such that the water is ejected and the adventurer is
launched a considerable distance in the direction opposite to the ejection
direction of the water.
The seminar students were asked to determine the plausibility of
this film clip being real. Using the laws of conservation of energy and
momentum, reasonable assumptions regarding the pressure capacity of a
Summer 2006
5
plastic soda bottle, and basic kinematic equations, they determined the
maximum distance a typical person could be launched. The adventurer in
the film clip appears to fly a distance of perhaps 100 meters during a flight
that lasts over 6 seconds.
The students performed various test launches of water rockets and
determined that the maximum thrust delivered to the rocket occurred when
the bottle was about 14 full of water. Using 20 bottles at 0.5 liters of water
per bottle (and therefore 1.5 liters of air) and a maximum of 10
atmospheres of pressure per bottle,6 the students estimated the energy
content of the power pack at 300 liter-atmospheres or 30,000 Joules.
Assuming the mass of water to be 10 kg and the mass of the adventurer to
be 60 kg, the momentum available to the ejected water (backward) and the
adventurer (forward) is 720 kg m/s. The maximum forward velocity of the
adventurer at launch, presuming 100% energy conversion efficiency and
the most optimistic assumptions, is 12 m/s. This corresponds to a range of
about 15 meters and a flight time of about 1.7 seconds, far below the
apparent flight distance and time in the film clip.
While toy water rockets fly impressively, it is their relatively small
mass as compared with the mass of the water ejected that leads to this
phenomenon. The bulk of the energy in such a “reverse collision problem”
is carried away by the lighter mass. In the case where the payload mass
dominates the fuel mass, it is the fuel, not the payload that gets most of the
energy.
Results were presented to an audience of introductory students
who were studying the laws of conservation of momentum and energy at
the time. A week later, several students commented that they had seen an
experimental analysis of the same phenomenon on another TV show on
another network.7 This experimental analysis confirmed the calculations
as the payload launched by the water rocket fizzled immediately.
Furthermore, more advanced concepts such as the stability of the
adventurer against torques leading to wild rotations could not be avoided.
Conclusion
Students in a senior seminar were exposed to non-traditional
problems that crossed the boundaries between traditional sub-disciplines
of physics. Using simple experimentation, ideas from mechanics,
electromagnetism and thermodynamics, they evaluated assumptions and
Washington Academy of Sciences
6
rendered opinions on “real world” possibilities. They presented their
results formally and defended their theories and experimental results.
The students reported great satisfaction with the course. Of even
greater importance, their abilities to synthesize and process information
improved and their confidence and presentation skills prepared them for
life after college.
A cbiow I edge merits
I am indebted to Elizabeth Griffin and Paulo Garcia whose data are
presented here. I am also indebted to R. Ferrell Newman whose initial
inquiry sparked the “Tea Cup Controversy” and began a chain of events
that led to this course structure.
References
1 . Randolph-Macon College curriculum goals.
2. R. Ferrell Newman, private correspondence.
3. Model CI-6525 Temperature Sensor and Science Workshop 750 Interface, both
available from Pasco Scientific.
4. Spike Television Network has broadcast programming initially called "Most
Extreme Challenge" which lias eventually been abbreviated as MXC.
5 . http://www.ast. leeds.ac.uk/~knapp/rockets/
6. ibid
7. "Mythbusters" is shown by The Discovery' Channel.
Summer 2006
7
RELATIVE SPEEDS OF INTERACTING
ASTRONOMICAL BODIES
Carl E. Mungan
U.S. Naval Academy. Annapolis. MD
Abstract
Simultaneous conservation of linear momentum and of mechanical
energy can be used to calculate the relative speed of an isolated pair of
astronomical bodies as a function of the distance separating them. An
exact treatment is straightforward and has application to such
contemporary topics as the launch velocities of rockets, and collisions
between an asteroid and the Earth. In contrast, when these topics are
discussed in introductory physics courses, an infinite-Earth-mass
approximation is typically invoked. In addition to being unphvsical.
this denies students an opportunity for a richer exploration of the
conservation laws of mechanics.
Introduction
Consider two spherically symmetric bodies 1 and 2 moving through
space and interacting with each other gravitationally but not subject to any
other forces (such as gravitational forces from other bodies or thrusts from
propulsion systems). This configuration is depicted in Fig. 1. Object 1 has
mass ni\ and velocity x>\, while the second body has mass m2 and velocity
x>2 The distance between the centers of the two objects is r. Then
conservation of linear momentum implies that
+m2V2i = m\°\{ + "M>2f ’ (D
while conservation of energy states
1 O 1 O Grthm^ 1 o 1 o Gm,m^
2 m\ wii + 2 m2 v~2, - - = 2 m\ "Tf + 2 W/2 y2r - > (2)
where the subscripts / and / denote initial and final instants in time, and G
is the universal gravitational constant.
Summer 2006
8
Fig. 1 Geometry of two objects moving under the influence of their
mutual gravitational attraction. Object 2 is represented as being larger
than object 1 because we will think of 2 as being the Earth and 1 as a
meteoroid or rocket. Since object 1 is the body whose motion is of
primary interest, we define the relative velocity to specify its velocity
relative to that of object 2.
Define the relative speed v of the two objects as the magnitude of the
relative velocity vector Then Eqs. (1) and (2) can be
combined (see the Appendix) to find
(\ o
Vr = . V~ + 2 GjM I -
U
(3)
where M = m]+ is the total mass of the system. It is worth
emphasizing that this result is independent of the directions of the initial
and final relative velocity vectors1, they need not be directed one-
dimensionally along the line joining the two bodies. This angle
independence is akin to the fact that we can use energy conservation to
predict the landing speed of a projectile tossed off a building of known
height with a known launch speed regardless of the launch angle.
Also note that Eq. (3) can be generalized to the motion of particles
under the action of other mutual inverse-square forces. For example, it can
be applied to the electrostatic interaction of two charges qx and q2 if we
replace G by -k(qx / ml )(q0 / w0) where k is the Coulomb constant.
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Three applications of Eq. (3)
An immediate application of this result is to compute the escape speed.
This is the minimum initial speed that enables the two objects to climb out
of each other’s gravitational potential wells, or in other words that causes
their relative speed to fall to zero as they approach infinite separation.
Putting = 0 at rf = °° implies that the launch speed V- = Vesc is
(4)
where R = r is the distance between the centers of the two objects at
launch. (In the case of a terrestrial rocket, R is the distance of the
spacecraft from the center of the Earth after the engines have been shut off
and the booster stages ejected. Unless one is launching off a high-orbit
platform, R is essentially equal to Earth’s radius in this case.) Note that
Eq. (4) differs from the usual approximate textbook expression2 in that M
is the sum of both masses, rather than just m2 alone. This difference is of
negligible consequence when launching a rocket off Earth, but can be
significant in the case of two astronomical bodies of more comparable
mass trying to escape from each other (< e.g ., the Moon’s original
breakaway from the Earth, or the response of a pair of orbiting bodies
after a third body sweeps past or collides into one of them).
Another important application of Eq. (3) is to calculate the impact
speed of a meteoroid (object 1) striking Earth (object 2). In that case, the
final distance is Earth’s radius, = RE = 6380 km . Suppose the
meteoroid is initially detected when it is far from the Earth, rf In ~ 0, and
that it is then traveling at about the same speed as the Earth because of the
Sun’s gravitational pull, vE = v2[ = vE where Earth’s orbital speed about
the Sun is vE =(Gws //?ES) “ =29.8 km/s. (Here is the solar mass
and RE$ is one astronomical unit or 150 million kilometers. This
expression is derived by setting the Sun-Earth gravitational force
GmsmE/RES equal to the product of Earth’s mass mE and centripetal
acceleration vE/RES.) If we take the dot product of the expression
u =t)Ii -\)oj with itself, we get v\ = 2*^(1 -cos#) where #is the angle
between the initial directions of travel of the meteoroid and the Earth (so
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that Ujj v>2i =V\\V2\ cos^ = cos#). Equation (3) now becomes
v( = ^I2vK]-cos6))+vL.e (5)
where vcscE = (2GmE / RE) = 11.2km/s from Eq. (4), assuming the
meteoroid is small. This impact speed v$ is plotted in Fig. 2 as a function
of the angle 0. The results are in good agreement with astronomical data
collected for actual meteoroid arrival speeds at Earth’s upper atmosphere.3
angle (degrees)
Fig. 2 Speed relative to Earth with which a meteoroid strikes our
atmosphere (assuming the meteoroid is much smaller in size and mass
than the Earth). The abscissa is the angle between Earth's orbital
velocity (assumed fixed in direction) and the meteoroid's initial
velocity. Large angles imply a head-on collision (so that the relative
impact speed is approximately 2V0. while small angles imply that
either the asteroid strikes Earth from behind or vice-versa (so that the
intercept along the ordinate is i>esc E). as the inset diagrams suggest.
A third important application of Eq. (3) is Solar System escape: How
should a rocket be launched from Earth’s surface so that it escapes both
the Earth and Sun? A solution can be obtained by separately considering
the escape from each of these bodies. This is called the “independent
escape” approximation and its validity has been confirmed by numerical
solution of the exact three-body problem.4 Substitute into Eq. (3) the
Washington Academy of Sciences
values M ~ mE , /• = , rf = «> , launch speed vi = VQSC ss relative to the
Earth in order to escape from the Solar System, and final velocity Desc s
relative to the Sun [in order to escape from it with speed
v s = (2G/7?s / ^ES)1/2 = 42. 1 km/s ] which implies a final speed relative
to Earth of = t>esc s “ ve > assuming the rocket is launched in the
direction of Earth's orbital velocity t)E (Earth’s axial velocity can also be
included if the rocket is launched eastward from the equator, as is often
done for deep-space satellites.) Rearranging, one thereby obtains
yesc,SS = \l(l'csc.S~Vl J + VL.E = 1 6 7 km/s • (6)
which is only a little larger than the escape speed from Earth alone! In
particular, this speed is much smaller than the 42.1 km/s escape speed
from the Sun starting at rest relative to the Sun at Earth’s distance. Taking
advantage of Earth’s motion by launching in the direction of its orbital
velocity confers a huge assist. (Additional boosts are possible using the
gravitational slingshot effect as the spacecraft passes other planets on its
way out of the Solar System.)
It is important to note that Eq. (6) cannot be obtained by assuming that
the sum of the kinetic energy of the rocket (in Sun’s frame of reference)
and the potential energy of the rocket relative to the Sun and Earth is
conserved, i.e., by letting ni be the rocket’s mass and writing
\m(Vesc.SS + Vi:j
Gm^m
Gm^m ?
^ES
? 7 I
= 0 ^ Vesc,SS =yVlsc,S + *4sc,E ” VE
which does not agree with Eq. (6). The error is that the change in Earth’s
kinetic energy (in Sun’s frame of reference) has been neglected. In the
solar frame the Earth is moving, and the rocket is exerting a gravitational
force on it in its direction of motion. Therefore work is done on the Earth,
so that Earth’s kinetic energy must increase. To put it another way, work
(and hence the change in kinetic energy) are dependent on the reference
frame of the observer. (In the terrestrial frame, no work is done on the
Earth.) It is only the sum of the work that the Earth and rocket do on each
other that is frame independent (namely it equals the decrease in
gravitational potential energy of the Earth-rocket system), as can be seen
from Eq. (13) in the Appendix.
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Conclusions
In summary, calculation of the relative speed between two
astronomical bodies resulting from their mutual gravitational interaction
(or between two point charges interacting electrostatically) is an elegant
and useful application of the conservation laws of energy and momentum.
The math is considerably simplified by measuring the positions and
velocities of the bodies in the center-of-mass reference frame, so that an
exact derivation is within the scope of an introductory physics course. In
contrast, standard treatments such as Eq. (7) only consider the mechanical
energy of a single body. The latter approach not only violates conservation
of linear momentum, it is not even properly defined because potential
energy is actually a property of the system of interacting bodies and not of
one body alone. That standard approach only gives the correct answer,
such as Eq. (4), when one body is much more massive than the other and
the velocities are measured in the rest frame of the heavy body, as
required by the work-kinetic-energy theorem.
One application of the exact result given by Eq. (3) is to compute the
escape speed of one body relative to another. It is given by Eq. (4)
regardless of the sizes of the two objects (unlike the usual textbook
expression). That explains why the formula is symmetric in the radii and
masses of the two bodies. The escape speed for object 1 to escape from 2
must be the same as for body 2 to escape from 1 .
A second application is the calculation of the speeds of meteoroids
impacting the Earth. Most of the variation in speed here is due to the large
range of angles between the meteoroid’s and Earth’s velocities, as can be
seen from Eq. (5). A head-on collision approximately doubles the impact
speed (ignoring the small boost due to Earth’s gravity described by the
vesc£ term), while a rearward collision almost cancels it, assuming the
Earth and meteoroid have similar initial speeds relative to the Sun.
Finally Eq. (6), describing escape from the Solar System, depends on
three separate speeds: the escape speed from Earth’s surface, the escape
speed from the Sun at Earth’s distance, and the orbital speed of Earth
about the Sun. The two escape terms are added in quadrature because
kinetic energy depends on speed squared. Meanwhile, the orbital speed is
subtracted from the solar escape speed because Earth’s motion about the
Sun boosts the rocket toward escape, provided one launches in the
direction that takes advantage of this assist. In fact. Earth’s orbital speed is
71% (2~1/2) of the required escape speed from the Sun, which explains
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why Solar System escape is actually dominated by escape from the Earth
Appendix — Derivation of Eq. (3)
The simultaneous solution of Eqs. (1) and (2) is simplified by the wise
choice of coordinate system. Since the two bodies 1 and 2 are isolated
from external forces, the total linear momentum of the system is
conserved, and hence the center of mass has constant velocity. We can
thus choose the origin to be fixed at the center of mass and to move with
it, which properly defines an inertial reference frame. In that case, the total
linear momentum of the system is always zero, and Eq. (1) implies that
mxX)Xx = -m2X) 2i = -m2 (6^ -X*x ) (8)
since X)x is the initial velocity of object 1 relative to 2. This equation can
be rearranged to obtain
= <9)
where Mis the total mass of the system. Similar reasoning for the second
body gives
l)
2i
Hh
M
(10)
(The minus sign here reflects the symmetry in the definition of the relative
velocity.) Equations (9) and (10) imply that the initial kinetic energy of
the system is
1 2 1 2 1 2
-mxvXl + -m2v2l = -MV{
(11)
where ju = mxm~, I M is called the reduced mass of the system. (The
reason for this name is that it is a quantity with units of mass and is
smaller than both mx and m2. One can think of the total mass as the
“series” sum of the individual masses, M - mx + m0, while the reduced
mass is the “parallel” sum, 1 / n - 1 / mx + 1 / m^ .) In like fashion, the final
kinetic energy is
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14
1 2 1 2 1 2
wij % + m2 v2i- nv{ •
(12)
Equation (2) in the main text can therefore be compactly expressed in
terms of the relative speeds and distances as
2 Gmxm2 _ 1 Grthm
2^
=~m -
1"'2
(13)
Finally, noting that mxm^ = Mju , Eq. (13) can be immediately rearranged
to give Eq. (3).
References
1. In contrast, if we wished to determine the final velocities. u if and 0)2 f. and not merely
the relative speed, then we would have 6 unknowns (i.e.. three components of each
velocity). Equations (1) and (2) only provide 4 independent relationships (3
components of linear momentum plus 1 scalar energy expression). One would then
need to invoke conservation of angular momentum to get 2 more relations. The
resulting analysis is no longer introductory level but instead invokes non collinear
scattering theory, treated in texts such as S.T. Thornton and J.B. Marion. Classical
Dynamics of Particles and Systems. 5 th ed. (Thomson. Belmont CA. 2004).
2. See. for example. R.A. Serway and J.W. Jewett. Jr., Principles of Physics . 4th ed.
(Thomson. Belmont CA. 2006). p. 348.
3. A. Diaz-Jimenez and A.P. French. "A note on 'Solar escape revisited .” Am. J. Phvs .,
56. 85-86(1988).
4. N.J. Hannon. C. Leidel. and J.F. Lindner, "Optimal exit: Solar escape as a restricted
three-body problem.” Am. J. Phvs. 71. 871-877 (2003). Also see A.Z. Hendel and
M.J. Longo. ‘'Comparing solutions for the solar escape problem,” Am. J. Phvs.. 56.
82-85 (1988).
Washington Academy of Sciences
15
VIDEOS OF EMERGENCY CARE SHOW CHALLENGES
FOR PATIENT SAFETY
Colin. F. Mackenzie
Yan Xiao
National Study Center for Trauma & EMS
Program in Trauma and Department of Anesthesiology
University of Mary land
Abstract
Video data collection and analysis is simple and fruitful and is currently
underused in healthcare to understand unsafe acts, pre-cursor events
and system failures leading to patient safety issues. Video recorded
examples of two brief, risky, but beneficial emergency tasks performed
routinely in emergency care, were used in this paper to illustrate, yy ith
human factors and ergonomic methods, lioyv video can identity and
potentially provide solutions for correction of safety deficiencies in
emergency and routine clinical care. In comparison with safety'
recommendations of expert clinicians and best clinical practice models,
video recorded performance of routine and emergency tasks showed
that rarely were either expert recommendations or best practices used
consistently. The safety7 issues, what really occurred, and potential
solutions to prevent recurrences yvere revealed by the video record.
Because of the fine-grained analyses possible, the video record
captured pre-cursor and fleeting events, subtle cues, brief utterances,
and unsafe acts leading to the safety deficiencies.
The Problem
Traditional data collection methodologies have difficulty capturing
fleeting events, subtle cues, brief utterances, or team interactions and
communications (Rogers, 1992). There is a paucity of data about what
occurs in uncertain emergency medicine workplaces, where risky but
beneficial procedures are carried out, often in non-optimal circumstances.
Such data may be critical to identification of what Reason (1990) has
termed unsafe acts, pre-cursor events, accident opportunities, latent and
systems failures. This paper discusses how patient safety shortcomings in
the emergency medical domain can be identified and potentially rectified
through a video-based data collection, analysis, and educational feedback
approach. Successful preventive strategies were identified for patient and
clinician safety performance problems that were revealed using this
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robust, inexpensive video technology through which fine-grained data
analyses are possible.
Significance
Video data collection and analysis are simple, fruitful and currently
underused to examine the real-life medical workplace and understand
what is really happening and how improvements can be made (Mackenzie,
Xiao, & Horst 2004). Emergency medical departments have many
different physical characteristics, personnel work routines, and team
organization structures; yet video data collection is a methodology that is
applicable in all domains. Video analysis provides both the systems-based
solutions that can be generalized across many emergency medical domains
and unique solutions to a specific location. Video data captures real-life
events that can be used to develop simulations and training material to
prevent a recurrence (Weinger el a / 2004). This approach for improving
patient care outcomes in healthcare used in a systematic manner can
identify many of the deficiencies in knowledge about pre-cursor events,
error opportunities, and provide solutions for correction of deficiencies.
Methods
Video clips from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, video
library and 15 year experience of video data collection and analysis
methodologies captured during emergency care of trauma patients were
used as source material. The challenges in identification of safety,
organizational, and systems based problems in technical work in
emergency care, were characterized using human factors and ergonomic
methods. A multidisciplinary approach for analysis and data extraction
included experienced trauma clinicians, experts in industrial engineering,
psychology, and applied technology.
As an example of the patient safety data collection from video¬
recording in the trauma workplace, video records were made of airway
management (placement of a plastic tube into the trachea - called tracheal
intubation). Misplacement of the airway is a major source of adverse
outcome in anesthesia and during trauma patient resuscitation. In an
analysis of 2,046 closed claims from medical insurance company files,
762, or 37%, of such events were caused by misplacement of the tracheal
tube into the esophagus, resulting in no oxygen delivery to the lungs and
an adverse patient outcome (Caplan et al 1990). In a 300 patient sub¬
group of these patients who had traumatic injury, the incidence of brain
damage and death was 47% (Cheney el al 1991). The misplacement of the
tracheal tube into the esophagus also occurred with the pre-hospital use of
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this airway management technique, resulting in 50% mortality (Katz &
Falk, 2001). The task of tracheal intubation is therefore a risky, but at the
same time a potentially life-saving procedure, likely to be a fruitful source
of patient safety issues captured on video records.
A second, brief, risky, but beneficial medical procedure performed
frequently in injured patients is chest tube insertion. Video recording was
used in a similar manner to that employed for tracheal intubation to
evaluate performance of insertion of the tube through the chest wall. This
procedure is used to relieve pressure from air or fluids (such as blood) that
accumulate after trauma, between the chest wall and lung tissue,
collapsing one or both lungs. The risks of chest tube insertion include
damage to the lungs, heart, diaphragm, liver, stomach, and spleen (if the
tube is misdirected or inserted too low or too far into the chest). In trauma
patients there is a reported morbidity of 6% to 36% of all chest tube
insertions (Etoch el al. 1995). At our own institution there was a 16%
incidence of infection within the chest following chest tube insertion
(Caplan et al. 1984), about four times the incidence of many other similar
institutions (Ernst el al. 2003). The suspected mechanism for infection was
contamination during the procedure of chest tube insertion. Management
of such infections within the chest requires prolonged hospital stay,
lengthy drainage from an indwelling tube, and often extensive surgery to
peel the infection from the lung. Video recording of chest tube insertion
seemed likely to be able to identify causes of possible contamination
during insertion
Results
Tracheal Intubation
Among the first 50 video recordings of tracheal intubation, there
was a single video record of a prolonged undetected esophageal
intubation. This video was reviewed a) by the anesthesia care providers
whose care was video recorded; b) by subject matter experts (SMEs),
experienced anesthesiology clinicians; c) in comparison to performance of
tracheal intubation and a consensus airway management algorithm agreed
upon by 20 experienced trauma anesthesiologists; and, d) in comparison to
the other 49 video records of tracheal intubation, performed in both
elective and emergency circumstances during patient resuscitation and
routine anesthesia induction in the Operating Room. Each of these four
analyses yielded different aspects of the pre-cursor events, unsafe acts, and
system failures that lead to the error and identified factors that allowed the
window of error opportunity to occur.
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Participant Anesthesia Care Providers Review The care providers were
part of an ad hoc team in which a medical student, on his first clinical
rotation in the trauma center resuscitation team, incorrectly communicated
that he heard breath sounds in the chest. The anesthesia care providers did
not check this themselves, and a second communication from the student
(“it’s also going in here, too”) when he listened over the stomach was
obscured by loud conversation and laughter from a nearby area. Video
review allowed the care providers to see their failure to use diagnostic
equipment to detect carbon dioxide (the lack of which would have
confirmed esophageal not tracheal intubation) and identified the fixation
error that occurred because the patient appeared stable despite the
misplaced airway tube because he had been given oxygen by face mask
for eight minutes before attempts at tracheal intubation. Lack of
communications among the team occurred when there was the greatest
uncertainty about the patient status. In addition, the patient’s vital signs
monitors were cycling for 3 minutes after esophageal intubation without
displaying data.
Subject Matter Expert Review The SMEs noted the reluctance of the
surgical and nursing team members to intervene, even when the oxygen
monitor provided a signal showing very low levels of oxygen. Five to
seven team members were standing around the patient for the 6 minute
duration of the unrecognized esophageal intubation and did not directly
offer assistance or question the airway management; rather they made
subtle suggestions (see Table 1). The SMEs also noted the poor error
recovery when the patient was not re-oxygenated before re-attempting
tracheal intubation when the patient showed signs of severe lack of
oxygen, even though a nurse can be seen on the video offering the needed
face mask. Team members did not coordinate the recovery efforts after the
tube was removed from the esophagus by protecting the airway or by
assisting the repeat tracheal intubation.
Comparison to Best Practice Algorithm The standard operating procedure
recommended by the expert consensus following passage of a tracheal
tube is for the clinician who inserts the tube to listen, first to the left and
then right sides of the chest, and communicate to the team whether the
breath sounds are heard and whether they are equal on both sides of the
chest. Following this the clinician listens over the stomach and
communicates “no breath sounds in the belly.” The last check
recommended is to test to see if carbon dioxide is present in the exhaled
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gas from the airway tube. The communication “carbon dioxide positive”
provides the definitive confirmation of correct placement of the airway
tube in the trachea. The anesthesia care providers never listened to the
chest until the patient showed severe oxygen deprivation, and only used
the carbon dioxide monitor when it was clear from other data that the tube
was misplaced. The inexperienced medical student did listen to the
patient’s chest and abdomen in the recommended sequence, but
misinterpreted hearing breath sounds in the chest, due to air entering the
stomach. The significance of air entry into the stomach was not
recognized, and the exam was not repeated. The student communication
was picked up by the directional microphones on the ceiling above, but
was not heard by the team standing three feet away because of noise from
a nearby location.
Comparison with Other Video Recorded Tracheal Intubations Data was
extracted from each video record of tracheal intubation in a systematic
manner using a template that evaluated the completion of steps in the
overall task of tracheal intubation and timed the duration between these
steps (Mackenzie el a/. 1996). As a result, a fourfold greater time interval
was noted between tracheal intubation and testing exhaled gas with the
carbon dioxide monitor to confirm correct tracheal tube position in those
patients intubated under emergency conditions in the resuscitation area,
rather than electively in the Operating Room. The same procedures were
used and the same personnel performed the intubations in each location.
However, in the resuscitation area there was no connection to allow
carbon dioxide sampling in the anesthesia circuit used to provide oxygen.
Insertion of a 25-cent connector was recommended to allow carbon
dioxide sampling immediately after tracheal intubation.
Standard Operating Procedures were changed as a result of these
video analyses to a) ensure that the clinical exam task was carried out, b)
stress communication of the clinical findings, and c) advocate conduct of
carbon dioxide testing immediately after all tracheal intubations. In the 10
years since this prolonged, uncorrected esophageal intubation occurred,
after implementation of the task/communication algorithm and insertion of
the carbon dioxide sampling connector, more than 14,000 tracheal
intubations have been performed, with no recurrence of undetected
esophageal intubation.
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Table 1: Specific Video Review Findings of Esophageal Intubation
Pre-cursor Events
a) Lengthy pre-oxygenation with face mask before
esophageal intubation delayed recognition of lack of
oxygenation after tube misplacement.
b) Ventilation device used after emergency
intubation had no simple carbon dioxide analyzer
connection (positive carbon dioxide confirms lung,
not esophageal ventilation).
c) Patient physiological monitors of oxygenation
and blood pressure failed to provide signal for
nearly 3 minutes after esophageal intubation.
Fleeting Events
a) Anesthesia team member blows down tracheal
tube causing “gurgling” sounds indicating air going
down esophagus into stomach.
b) Trauma team failed to assist the anesthesia team
for 30 seconds when misplaced tube removed.
Subtle Cues
a) Uncertainty about tube misplacement revealed by
comments heard on audio record between team
members “Should you pull the tube out?”, “He’s got
a good pulse”, “We’re in there!”, “Do you want a
new tube?”
Brief Utterances
a) “It’s also going in here too” comment by medical
student listening over abdomen, not heard by team
due to nearby loud conversation.
b) “Correlates well with pulse and says 39 to 40”
(nurse commenting on both the accuracy and low
oxygen monitor value of first display - normal level
98-100. Correlation with pulse suggests value is
accurate).
Unsafe Acts
a) Video record showed neither anesthesia care
provider carried a stethoscope to listen to chest
(standard operating procedure).
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b) Carbon dioxide analysis (“gold standard” to
detect lung ventilation) was delayed for 5 minutes
after esophageal intubation.
c) No reoxygenation (“holding pattern”) established
before re-attempt intubation.
Chest Tube Insertion
Surgical texts, semi -structured interviews and a questionnaire
completed by senior trauma surgeons were used to establish best practice
techniques for chest tube insertion. From the first 49 video records of
chest tube insertion we extracted more than 80 short (15 - 120 second)
clips showing good and non-optimal performance of chest tube insertion.
These were copied onto a compact disc and distributed among 15 senior
trauma clinicians who scored statements linked to each video clip on a
Likert scale (1-10, where 1= strongly agree and 10= strongly disagree).
Scores aggregating below three were considered to represent a consensus.
Several analyses were conducted of the video records: a) examination of
breaks in sterile technique during emergency and elective insertion of
chest tubes together with practices that would have prevented these
breaks; b) task analysis template data extraction by SMEs of times,
number of insertion attempts, instrument tray positioning, etc.; c)
evaluation of whether the practices reaching consensus among the senior
trauma clinicians were carried out in each video recorded chest tube
insertion; and d) ergonomic analysis of instrument tray position,
instrument tray content and number of instrument trays used for chest tube
insertion (both unilateral and bilateral chest tube insertions occurred).
Examination of Breaks in Sterile Technique
Among the 26 emergency chest tube insertions, video records
showed that 100% had breaks in sterile technique. All but one of these
breaks in technique, many of which were fleeting events (see Table 2),
occurred within one minute of the start of the surgical procedure after the
skin had been prepped with antibacterial fluid. One surgical site remained
sterile for three minutes. Among the 24 elective chest tube insertions all
but one surgical site was contaminated within 13 minutes. In one patient
the site remained sterile for 28 minutes before eventual contamination. All
chest tube insertions, whether carried out in emergency or elective
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circumstances, had breaks in surgical sterile techniques. In emergencies
there were 113 breaks in sterile technique noted by video analysis; in
elective there were 64 breaks in sterile technique (Mackenzie et al 2002).
Practices that would have prevented these breaks in sterility included
wearing of sterile gloves and gowns, more extensive prepping of the skin
with antibacterial fluid, wider draping of the surrounding area with sterile
drapes, improved operator technique, and better patient analgesia.
Task Analysis Template Data
There was a wide range of duration for chest tube insertion.
Emergency chest tube insertion was shorter in duration than elective and
required fewer unsuccessful attempts. Two needle sticks and one knife cut
were video recorded in these 49 chest tube insertions. Infection and
“sharp” injury risks appeared to be increased by sharing of instrument
trays and simultaneous invasive surgical procedures.
Consensus Practices
Discrepancies between SMEs recommended practices and
observed practices seen in the video records of chest tube insertion were
prevalent. Particular discrepancy was in the use of maximum barrier
protection to prevent contamination, which was a well recognized standard
operating procedure included in all surgical best practices. However,
among the first 25 video records of emergency chest tube insertion
procedures, these were frequently omitted; e.g ., no sterile gown (12/25),
no sterile gloves (5/25), inadequate sterile drape (18/25), inadequate skin
cleansing (12/25).
Ergonomic Analysis of Instrument Tray Position
The principle of keeping the instrument tray near the chest tube
insertion surgical site was routinely violated. Fifty-two percent of tray
positions used were rated as sub-optimal by the surgeons themselves. The
most common position (61%) for the instrument tray was directly behind
the surgeon, requiring over a 90 degree turn. Fifteen of the chest-tube
insertions required the operator to walk up to six feet from the surgical site
to retrieve instruments (Seagull et al 2006). Simple ergonomic problems
impeded performance and created safety risks for patients and operators.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Table 2: Specific Video Review Findings of Chest Tube Insertion
Pre-Cursor Events
a) No preparatory sterile gown and gloves worn by
team when notified of critical emergency patient
admission requiring sterile procedures.
b) Multiple team members and trainees routinely
perform simultaneous invasive procedures in
emergency patient care.
Fleeting Events
a) Frame-by-frame video analysis shows elbow
contaminating instrument tray.
b) Surgeon wearing sterile gloves grabs patient’s
arm reaching for chest tube insertion site and does
not change contaminated gloves.
Subtle Cues
a) Surgical instrument trays often placed 6 feet from
surgical site (Seagull el ci! 2006) probably increases
contamination occurrence and procedure duration.
b) Video revealed non-sterile gloves were difficult
for other team members to distinguish from sterile.
Brief Utterances
a) “This won’t take long and we will numb the area
so you won’t feel it” comment by team member
before chest tube insertion in anxious patient who is
seen on video to move, reach for site and loudly
complain of pain.
Unsafe Acts
a) Among all 25 video records of emergency chest
tube insertion there was an omission of one or more
measures to prevent contamination including skin
preparation, adequate sterile draping, sterile gown
and sterile gloves (standard operating procedures).
b) Mentoring of trainees during chest tube insertion
failed to follow maximum contamination barrier
precautions (Guzzo el a 1 2006).
Summer 2006
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c) Infection and “sharp” injury risks of sharing of
instrument trays and multiple simultaneous invasive
procedures.
Discussion
Video has the advantage over observation of capturing the
minutest and briefest particulars of human interaction while retaining the
context of the event and making it available for analyses by multiple or
independent subject matter experts. As this paper shows, video recording
in the medical environment makes it possible for clinicians to review their
own activities and for analysts to extract qualitative and quantitative data.
Understanding human activities in real, complex environments is
important (Klein et al 1993). Many significant variables, such as
expertise, risk, uncertainty, and composition of teams are often difficult to
replicate in usual laboratory settings. Studies in real environments and in
sophisticated simulation environments with experienced practitioners are
required. Although indirect data such as recalled past incidents can be
utilized (Klein, 1989), direct collection of behavioral data is needed to
overcome potential biases in retrospective construction of past events.
Tools for collecting behavioral data have become increasingly
sophisticated.
The most influential among these new tools is probably video
recording (Dorwick & Biggs, 1983). With video recording, the person
who was recorded can provide comments on his or her covert mental
processes cued by video records. Such cognitive approaches to
examination of real medical events are a powerful tool to examine
performance and identify patient and practitioners safety issues.
Video was used with simulation for medical education (Cooper et
al. 2000) and in the analysis of crisis resource management trauma
assessment training debriefing after patient simulation (Gaba & DeAnda
1998; Lee el al 2003). Video by its nature is a powerful tool for
behavioral researchers, and its value was recognized soon after its initial
consumer availability (Tardiff et al. 1978; Dorwick & Biggs 1983). The
potential utilities of video recording for studying performance in high risk
healthcare settings are difficult to overstate.
The advances in hardware and software have made video
technology a routine tool for research in individual and collaborative
Washington Academy of Sciences
25
performance. An increasing number of research projects include video
recoding as a key data collection method. How this tool should be
exploited methodologically and theoretically is thus a key question for
researchers (Xiao & Mackenzie, 2004).
The video analysis data described in this paper shows the
advantages compared to other approaches to knowledge acquisition about
safety and technical work in emergency medical care. Subject matter
expert interviews conducted before chest-tube insertion did not identify
what was actually occurring in the real-life event; rather the experts
described an ideal version of what they hoped would occur in the real
event. Examination of standard operating procedures, even those
developed by consensus for the two tasks of tracheal intubation and chest
tube insertion, were deficient in ensuring safe practices for the patient and
the clinician. Medical texts provided only non-specific assistance to
optimum task performance. The literature and evidence based best
practices identified problems, but were unable to articulate solutions that
would increase patients’ safety during these two tasks.
The importance of omission of a high priority task was confirmed
by the critical incident that resulted in prolonged uncorrected
misplacement of the tracheal tube in the esophagus. In this incident, the
anesthesia care providers became fixated on lack of information about the
vital signs and oxygen levels. They failed to employ simpler, but less
technological contingency solutions, such as listening to the chest, to
identify tracheal tube position. They also, as has been recognized in other
critical incidents, failed to use equipment that was at hand (carbon dioxide
analyzer) that could have definitively answered their concerns about
whether the tracheal tube was correctly placed.
While emergency chest tube placement was almost twice as rapid
as elective chest tube placement, there were no steps omitted once the skin
incision started the procedure. Rather, the task omissions occurred before
skin incision when operator gowning, adequate skin preparation, and
surgical draping were deficient. Because of these preparatory deficiencies,
the opportunities for subsequent contamination of the surgical site due to
break in sterile technique was magnified. The 14-inch long flexible plastic
chest tube is difficult to control and easily became contaminated
unintentionally on the operator’s non-sterile clothing or on an area of the
patient not covered with surgical drapes. In some instances, the patient
themselves contaminated the surgical site because the hand (positioned
above the head to open the space between the ribs) on the side of the chest
Summer 2006
26
tube insertion was not held. The non-optimal positioning of the surgical
instrument tray increases the likelihood that breaks in sterile technique
could occur. Large workload under time pressure creates challenges not
only for individuals but also for the resuscitation staff as a whole to
coordinate activities.
For both the studied tasks, video record review, especially of
emergency task accomplishment, provided fine-grained data analyses that
identified errors of omission and non-optimal performance. Even the
experienced team members who participated in the care that was video
recorded were not immune from these deficiencies, and were unaware of
their performance until receiving the feedback from the video record.
Aggregate data from multiple task accomplishments compared at two
levels of task urgency was a non-pejorative means of conveying the need
for procedural changes to increase patient and clinician safety.
End Note: This paper is based in part on the formal presentation
Videos of Emergency Care Show Challenges for Patienl Safely by Colin F.
Mackenzie, MD. It was presented in a symposium on Human Error in
Medicine by the Potomac Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics
Society at the Washington Academy of Sciences’ Capital Science 2006
Conference, held at the National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA
March 25, 2006.
Acknowledgements
The video data and analyses presented here would not have been
possible without the human factors engineering and psychology expertise
(Jacob Seagull PhD), technical skills (Peter Fu-Ming Hu), and clinical
expertise of the subject matter expert (SME) surgeons, anesthesiologists
and nurses in the Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland
Funding from Office of Naval Research (ONR), National Science
Foundation (NSF), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ),
and the Army Research Institute (ARI) for the Behavioral and Social
Sciences
Washington Academy of Sciences
27
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It's Not Who in 98,000 Medical Error Deaths, It's What!
Marilyn Sue Bogner
Institute for the Study of Human Error, LLC
msbo gnerifoerols . com
Abstract
In 1999 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that 44,000 to 98,000
hospitalized patients die annually due to medical error (Kolm.
Corrigan & Donaldson. 1999). This caused public consternation.
Following recommendations from the report that care providers be
held accountable for their errors and research should be focused
primarily on accountability through error-reporting programs, the
report continued that the purpose of such research was to reduce the
incidence of error by 50% in 5 years. The findings from that $250
million of U.S government funded research provided little if any
indication of how the magnitude of error might be reduced effectively.
The ensuing background material may seem tedious and theoretical for
a problem that needs urgent and effective action. The detail is
important because it supports a paradigm change from the person, the
care provider - the “who” - being solely responsible for the
unexpected adverse outcome associated with an error to a paradigm
that errors and attendant adverse outcomes are the result of the systems
of environmental factors affecting the individual - the “what”. The
power of this systems paradigm for addressing the interplay of factors
that induce error is illustrated by the discussion of a case with an
adverse outcome. The implications of this systems paradigm to
effectively reduce health care error by considering the role of the
“what” as well as the “who” are discussed.
The Problem
In health care as in other industries when an incident occurs in
which an act of one person results in harm to another, directly as in health
care or indirectly as in aviation, that act typically is considered an error.
This attribution of error is evident not only in the media, but also in
conversations about the incident especially if that incident involves health
care. Indeed, health care providers often blame themselves for an adverse
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outcome because they are taught they are responsible for what happens to
the patient Blaming the person associated with the act that caused actual
harm or an inappropriate act in which no harm occurred reflects the Stop
Rule - the predilection when reviewing or backward-chaining the
conditions to identify what caused an error to stop at a familiar possible
cause, one that can be readily addressed (Rasmussen, 1990). What more
familiar and more easily addressed cause of an incident than the individual
associated with the act? The extent to which the presumption that the care
provider is the source of medical error is pervasive in health care and its
literature on error is evident in the title of the IOM report To err is human
(Kohn, Corrigan & Donaldson, 1999) and in its primary recommendation
to determine health care provider accountability.
The IOM report states that one way to learn from errors is from a
reporting program and that such programs can serve two functions - they
can “ . . . hold providers accountable for performance, or alternatively . . .
provide information that can lead to improved safety” (Kohn, Corrigan &
Donaldson, 1999, p. 74). According to the report those two functions are
not incompatible but can be difficult to satisfy simultaneously. In light of
that, the report recommended that an error-reporting program be
developed that focuses on the former function, that of provider
accountability, that such error reporting be mandatory and that a national
database be developed from the error reports. The IOM report also
recommended that the latter function of an error-reporting activity -
providing information that can lead to improved safety — is in the domain
of voluntary reporting. The error reporting for accountability reflects the
prevailing definitions of error.
Error is defined in terms of the point in process of care an incident
occurred such as errors of missed diagnosis, mistakes during treatment,
medication mistakes, inadequate postoperative care, and mistaken identity
(Gibson & Singh, 2003). Definitions of errors have been differentiated
into technical errors reflecting skill failures, judgmental errors that involve
the selection of an incorrect strategy of treatment, and normative errors
which occur when the larger social values embedded within medicine as a
profession are violated (Bosk, 1979). The focus of most of the IOM report,
that of provider accountability, is in keeping with those definitions.
Indeed, the recommendation for provider accountability perpetuates the
presumption that the person is the sole cause of an error and by collecting
data only on the provider perpetuates blaming that person. This illustrates
the potency of the Stop Rule triggering the attribution of the cause of an
error to the easiest explained: the care provider caused the error because
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he or she performed the act led to an unexpected adverse outcome.
Because the explanation stopped with the provider, the act is considered as
solely of his or her own volition, so reporting errors is of the form of “who
did what” - for example. Dr. Surgeon lacerated Mrs Patient’s liver.
To address the chilling statistics that 44,000 to 98,000 hospitalized
patients die annually because of error in their health care, the IOM report
stated that error related research and related efforts were to focus on
provider accountability and that the results of those efforts were to reduce
the incidence of error by 50% in 5 years. Congress appropriated $50
million per year for those 5 years to meet that goal. At the conclusion of
the 5 years, November 2004, a conference was held to determine the
extent to which the $250 million in research funding approached the goal
of 50% reduction in errors. In considering the findings from that research
it was generally concluded that efforts to attain the 50% reduction in error
not only failed to meet that goal but the impact of those efforts on error is
negligible (Commonwealth Fund, 2004) and that “ . . . little data exist
showing progress and researchers are still debating not how to save lives,
but what to measure” (Zwillich, 2004). Indeed one presenter stated that
many states and private health systems require health workers to report
medical errors or near misses in which a patient is put at potential risk, but
researchers still have not figured out what to do with the reports once they
have them (Wachter, 2004).
Despite the lack of empirical support for error reporting for
provider accountability as a means of reducing error that approach to the
problem persists. Rather than continuing work on a non-productive
approach, an alternative should be pursued. The alternative approach is to
consider error for what it is. The previously stated definitions of error
describe an error, but do not define the process by which an error occurs -
that process is an action, a behavior. Behavior has been documented by
centuries of research and theory in psychology and the social sciences as
well as the physical sciences and millennia of philosophical thought as the
interaction of an entity - for the purpose of this discussion a person - with
factors in the environment. In light of this evidence-based research,
addressing only the individual when considering an error is misleading
and inaccurate.
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Error as Behavior
Considering error as behavior provides an action oriented approach
to addressing error by identifying those factors in the environment that by
affecting the person induce error. It should be noted that it is only those
internal and external factors that affect the individual at the time of
performing the task either directly or indirectly as the influence of past
experience or anticipation of future actions, are to be considered when
addressing that person’s behavior (Lewin, 1946/1964). Often in discussing
health care error reference is made to the system, which is the health care
system. This is not appropriate when considering an error associated with
an individual because all aspects of that system do not affect that person
(Bogner, 2004a). To even consider them is to confuse the issue to the
point of considering an un-analyzable situation. The question then
emerges as to how to identify those factors in the complex environment in
which health care is provided. Lessons learned through error research by
other industries afford a viable means to address that issue.
Error research in manufacturing and nuclear power (Moray, 1994,
Senders & Moray, 1991, Rasmussen, 1982) identifies categories of
interacting factors or systems of factors that affect the person performing a
task. Those systems and factors in terms of health care are: the patient (the
focus of the task) weight, co-morbidity, name; means of providing care
(tools for performing the task) medications, medical devices; the care
provider (the person performing the task) stamina, physical characteristics,
fatigue. Those systems interact in the context of five systems of
environmental factors of: ambient conditions of illumination, temperature,
noise, altitude; the physical environment with placement of medical
equipment, room size, clutter; the social environment of other care
providers and personnel, family members, professional culture;
organizational factors such as workload, hours worked, reports, policies
for caring for uninsured persons, organizational culture; and legal-
regulatory-reimbursement-national culture factors that include threat of
litigation, regulatory constraints, reimbursement policies, and national
cultural mores. These interacting systems as represented in Figure 1
(Bogner, 2002) can function in a hierarchal manner and often in a reverse
ripple effect, that is, impact on the more super-ordinate system of factors
impacts those systems below that system or in Figure 1 all those systems
within the circle impacted.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Systems of Influence for
the Care Provider
Figure 1
In keeping with models of error discussed in terms of food - Swiss
cheese (Reason, 1991), an onion (Moray, 1994) - this systems behavior
model of error is likened to an artichoke with the care provider at the
center as the heart of the artichoke represented in Figure 2. The influence
of the systems of factors is represented by the encircling leaves of the
Artichoke - when the affect of those systems of factors becomes great, the
provider can be Artichoked into a behavior - an error.
Application of the Behavior Systems Approach
The value of the Artichoke systems approach (Bogner, 2006) is
illustrated by the case of the previously mentioned adverse incident in
which Dr. Surgeon lacerated Mrs. Patient’s liver. Conforming to the
provider accountability requirement of reporting an adverse outcome. Dr.
Surgeon reported the incident. The typical response to this is that Dr.
Surgeon would be reprimanded in a Mortality and Morbidity session in
which the staff discusses cases and could be sued for negligence. The
impact of that would be a blow to Dr. Surgeon’s self-esteem and
professional pride, a possible increase in his malpractice insurance rate all
Summer 2006
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of which could lead to Dr. Surgeon seriously considering leaving the
profession. Alternatively, Dr. Surgeon recorded several factors that
affected him in the course of the procedure on an incident worksheet based
on the Artichoke systems approach (Bogner, 2000). The names of each of
the eight systems of factors in the Artichoke model are listed as a column
down the left side of the worksheet with a line for the person reporting the
incident to record the factors in the specific system that affected him or
her.
Provider in Context
Figure 2
The names of each of the systems on the worksheet serve as
memory aides for the provider in identifying the factors that affected him
or her and contributed to the incident. In Dr. Surgeon’s case, he noted that:
the patient was morbidly obese, the means of providing care was a
laparoscopic also known as keyhole surgical procedure in which the
surgeon manipulates instruments with long shafts viewing the surgical site
via a small video camera inserted into the site as illustrated in Figure 3.
Dr. Surgeon noted that he (the care provider) was short; in the physical
environment the operating table could not be lowered sufficiently for the
mass of Mrs. Patient’s body to be of optimal height to manipulate the
instruments so it was necessary for Dr. Surgeon to stand on a stool and
have the foot peddle that operates a certain instrument also placed on the
stool. The incident occurred when the foot pedal fell off the stool as Dr.
Surgeon reached his foot to operate it. This caused him to be off balance;
Washington Academy of Sciences
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as Dr. Surgeon’s body instinctively lurched to avoid falling off the stool,
an instrument he was holding moved and lacerated Mr. Patient’s liver.
Figure 3
The information provided by the incident worksheet can be used to
reduce the likelihood of such an incident occurring again. It can be
forwarded to a designated person who: notifies manufacturers of the need
for lower operating tables and more usable laparoscopic instruments,
informs the hospital purchasing agent of the importance of considering the
body mass of obese patients when acquiring new equipment particularly
tables and table-like items such as gurneys and beds, and contacts
engineering to install a means to secure foot pedals on stools not only in
the operating room (OR) in which the incident occurred, but in all ORs in
the facility.
The comparison of the two approaches underscores the value of the
Artichoke systems approach. Information from the typical error-reporting
for provider accountability - the “who did what” approach -addresses
only the provider, so the error-inducing conditions of the stress and fatigue
from working in an awkward position with attendant muscle fatigue, and
the foot pedal falling from stool continue. With the Artichoke approach.
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the error inducing conditions are identified and addressed and the impact
on patient safety can be evaluated. Thus, the Artichoke systems approach
provides viable information that can lead to improved safety by reducing
the likelihood of errors. This approach also has implications for preventing
error through designing the means of providing care.
Design Implications
The relationship between product design including labeling and
information presentation and task performance is the focus of the
discipline of human factors or ergonomics. Since the inception of the
discipline, which typically is considered as during World War 2, it has
guided aspects of the design of weapon systems, airplanes, and a variety of
consumer goods; however, its application in health care has been limited.
A notable exception is the study of medication errors published in 1960
(Safren & Chapanis, 1960a, 1960b) the findings of which are analogous to
those of the Harvard Medical Practice Study (Leape et al, 1991) - the
latter findings to a large extent served as the basis for the
recommendations of the IOM study (Kohn, Corrigan & Donaldson, 1999).
This lack of applications of human factors and ergonomics considerations
in health care could reflect the focus of the provider as sole source of
error; if only the individual is responsible for the error, there is no need to
address the design of the equipment and other aspects of the context in
which health care is provided.
The Artichoke systems approach by identifying error-inducing
contextual factors in each of the eight systems of the Artichoke expands
the focus from the provider, the “who”, to contextual factors, the “what”.
Given that perspective, human factors and ergonomics considerations can
be applied to the interaction of those factors so the context might be
designed to positively affect provider performance. Thus, this Artichoke
systems approach, which is practical, problem-solving, action oriented,
and evidence based not only can reduce error through design by the
application of human factors and ergonomics considerations, it also can
increase reliability in device use - the fewer errors, the more reliable the
performance. This approach also provides a counter-argument to a typical
industry response to error involving a medical device that attributes the
cause to the user - if the device had been used as intended, the error would
not have occurred. There are conditions such as the human constraints of
the provider that challenge the “use as intended” admonition. An example
is a left handed anesthesiologist writing the legally mandated log of the
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case while squeezing the bag ventilating the patient as illustrated in Figure
4.
Paradigm Change to the Behavior Approach to Error
By focusing on the perspective of the provider heart of the
Artichoke and considering health care as behavior, the care provider is a
collaborator in patient safety rather than an adversary and target for blame
as in error reporting for provider accountability. Rather than the care
providers conforming to an inappropriately designed device, human
factors and ergonomics considerations can be applied to information
gleaned from applying the Artichoke systems approach incident worksheet
to conditions that are considered as hazardous or accidents waiting to
happen. This identifies those contextual factors to be addressed so that the
device might be designed for use by the range of users in worst-case
context including lay persons providing home care.
Figure 4
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Thus, the design of devices conforms to the care provider in
context of use and as such enhances the performance of the provider.
This approach by identifying error inducing factors so they may be
addressed and changed to be neutral if not performance enhancing affords
the means to change the script of health care provider performance. For as
a script directs the performance of an actor whoever may be in the role of
the script, so do the contextual factors determine the performance of a
health care provider whoever he or she may be (Bogner, 2004b). Thus,
applying the Artichoke and changing the error-inducing factors affects not
only the provider involved in the incident, change affects all providers
encountering those contextual factors thus enhancing patient safety.
To effectively reduce the incidence of error, it is time, indeed past
time, to change the paradigm for addressing health care error from solely
considering the “who” to a paradigm that considers the “what” is involved
so why an error occurs can be determined and resolved, as represented by
the Artichoke systems approach.
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Fatigue, Drowsy Decision-Making and Medical Error:
Issues of Quality Health Care@
Gerald P. Krueger, CPE
Krueger Ergonomics Consultants
Alexandria. Virginia
Abstract
Health-care providers, particularly interns, residents, and nurses,
participate in lengthy workshifts in excess of 10 hours, often work
overtime, work through the night, or serve on-call at the hospital for
over 24 hours at a stretch. Mam care providers obtain insufficient
sleep, worker fatigue and drowsiness creep in. mood and attitudes drift
to lower levels, and performance becomes degraded. Health care
providers must meet high performance expectations while paying
continuous attention during sustained monitoring of patients. When
drowsy, they may engage in cntical decision-making while they are
less than fully alert. This paper identifies issues of "quality of health
care" pertaining to length} hours of work, rotating shiftwork schedules,
circadian rhythm physiology effects, sleep loss, and drowsiness,
increasing the likelihood of worker fatigue-related error while
providing institutional health-care services. General principles for
preparing hospital staffs for sustained performance are outlined.
Human Error in Around-The-Clock Provision of Health Care
Medical personnel at hospitals, nursing homes, and extended care
facilities have always been in the forefront of meeting our societal
expectations for around-the-clock health care, seven days per week, 365
days per year (/>., 24/7/365). New patients show up at hospital emergency
rooms at any time. Many hospitalized patients require continuous care,
necessitating full time health care staffing. Elder patients stay in hospitals
(v This paper was presented in a symposium on Human Error in Medicine . sponsored by
the Potomac Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society at the Washington
Academy of Sciences' Capital Science 2006 Conference at the National Science
Foundation, Arlington. VA March 25. 2006.
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or at nursing homes until they become well enough to return home, or
until they succumb to illness or the frailties of old age.
Human error in medicine As a prescient soothsayer, Marilyn
Sue Bogner’s book: Human Error in Medichie (Bogner 1994) predated the
National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) 1999
publication To Err is Human. Building a Safer Health System (Kohn,
Corrigan & Donaldson, 1999). Both books describe many types of human
error that intrude into provision of health care, suggesting that thousands
of patients' lives are adversely affected or even shortened by health care
provider errors. A subset of medical errors is attributable in part to health
care worker fatigue. Drowsy, sleepy, or fatigued health care providers
begin to experience a slackening of alertness, lose situational awareness;
neglect to monitor a patient’s vital signs properly, fail to detect subtle
changes in a patient’s condition, omit taking some action they should have
done, or make less crisp and effective judgments (Krueger 1994).
Concerns about worker fatigue leading to medical errors range from a
physician making an inappropriate diagnosis; referral of a patient to
incorrect treatment for specific illnesses; a surgeon operating on the wrong
organ or limb; a surgical team leaving sponges or instruments inside a
patient’s abdominal cavity; an anesthesiologist failing to monitor a
patient’s vital signs or administering the wrong gaseous mix for the
patient’s precarious condition; or a treatment nurse misreading a drug
order and giving the patient the wrong dose, or even the wrong drug.
Medical errors are often multi -factorial, involving human factors
such as inattention or poor communication, as well as fatigue (Cook &
Woods 1994). In terms of making faulty judgments, medical errors are not
readily documented, nor self-reported; and it is difficult to pinpoint health
care provider fatigue as a proximal cause of medical errors. Scant direct
data shed little light on how frequently an inappropriate or incorrect
treatment decision is made while a health care worker, e.g ., an intern or a
resident, was overly drowsy. Whether making judgments differently while
one is fatigued translates to actual instances of medical error or simply
results in “less than crisp” medical decisions (not classified as “errors”) is
not easy to determine, even in case studies.
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Drowsy, Tired, Fatigued Health Care Workers Can Affect Quality of
Health Care
Fatigue and health care providers
It is difficult to pinpoint influences of worker fatigue on the
incidence of medical errors. Just what are the impacts of fatigue on
provision of health care? Such discussion includes questions of: “What is
fatigue, and what do we mean by it?” and “What is the role or contribution
of fatigue in the workday life of health care providers?” Addressing those
questions necessitates pointing out the importance of workers obtaining
sufficient quantity’ and quality sleep on a regular daily basis, and normal
fluctuations in circadian time-of-day influences on drowsiness, mood,
attitude, and on performance (Krueger 1994).
Short of witnessing a person falling asleep on the job, studying the
effects of fatigue on worker performance in actual workplaces is very
time-consuming and not easy to do. Much of what we know about worker
fatigue comes from psychology laboratory studies and simulations
(Hancock & Desmond 2001). From numerous experiments we know that
tiredness or drowsiness does not necessarily result in errors per se. When
sustained operations test participants place a high premium on accuracy of
their work, they often maintain correctness of response through the onset
of drowsiness or fatigue, even after missing significant amounts of needed
sleep. Fatigue primarily affects speed of thinking and is almost always
accompanied by loss of alertness and measurable degradations in
performance on cognitive tasks and even on some psychomotor tasks. In
timed laboratory trials, participants tend to make a speed-accuracy
tradeoff - that is, in doing the best they can, test participants preserve
accuracy, but they tend to slow down their work, and therefore accomplish
fewer items of work over time. Generally they may not complete all
assigned work (Krueger 1989). However, fatigue often also affects a
person’s situational awareness, including the ability to incorporate several
sources of data into on-the-spot problem-solving as well as many other
cognitive processes. Practical parallels in many workplaces, including
health care settings, demonstrate that worker fatigue effects manifest as
speed-accuracy tradeoffs, compromises in situational awareness, lessening
of attention to important details, and compromises in judgment.
“What actually happens when medical care personnel get tired,
drowsy, or fatigued?” A review of the published literature on these
important questions suggests the answers are more qualitative than
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quantitative. Poulton, el at. (1978) pointed out physicians have
performance deficits on grammatical reasoning tests after sleep
deprivation, and they make the classical speed-accuracy tradeoff, but
concluded that physicians can, and often do, compensate for effects of
sleep loss in both simple and complex psychomotor and cognitive
functions. In addressing the lengthy hours of work expected of interns and
resident physicians, Gaba and Howard (2002) wrote:
. . despite many anecdotes about errors attributed to fatigue,
no study has proved that fatigue on the part of health care
personnel causes errors that harm patients. Even when
impaired clinical performance due to fatigue or falling
asleep has allegedly been the cause of specific medical
catastrophes, these incidents have been viewed as isolated
lapses that do not prove that the safety of patients was
systematically jeopardized.
It is too simple to suggest that health care providers are different
from other workers, able to ward off the effects of fatigue and drowsiness
in their work. Extracting from several articles in the literature. Table 1 lists
comments made by health care professionals when asked about their
sensations, thoughts, and experiences with fatigue in their workplace.
Table 1: Health Care Provider Comments on Experience with Fatigue
I had difficulty concentrating. I had a depressed mood. I get irritable, I
get hostile. _
Feeling hopelessness, passivity, lifeless, demoralized, pessimistic.
As the night wears on, we become irritable, argumentative, easily agitated;
sometimes tempers fray; we might snap at nurses and fellow workers, pick
on people. We become anxious, explosive, or feel very depressed. _
I verbally snapped at fellow workers, the staff, even the patients, in ways
that tell me I am getting overly tired and ornery. _
When fatigued, I am not a cheery friend to those to whom 1 usually am so.
Reports of inappropriate affect: I inappropriately laughed at things said
regarding patients that I would not laugh at if I was well-rested. _
Memory deficit: You immediately forget what you or others just said; or
in conversation, you forget what you want to say. _
I didn’t recall whether or not I administered the needed medication; or
whether or not I administered the correct drug, or the correct dosage. _
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I alternate between adrenalin-charged highs when an ambulance arrives
and crushingly weary lows when patients die or are transferred.
My mind slows after 2 a m. and we all cut comers on even the most
routine procedures.
I give or gave inappropriate orders or directions to fellow health care
workers, i.e. nurses or subordinates that I would have likely given
differently if I had been fully alert and awake.
I miswrote instructions or memos in the medical charts or records of
patients.
Misdialing phone numbers, making mistakes in typing out orders,
misreading medication prescriptions, bottle labels, etc.
I drink lots of caffeinated coffee in an attempt to stay awake or alert.
I begin yawning, exaggerate eye-blinking, scratch my head, hit the side of
my face or head, to stay awake; feel an insatiable urge to take a nap.
I quietly become apathetic, negative, and don’t give a damn; give bad care
to patients.
Sleep deprivation dangerously impairs judgment, gives a sensation of a
sleep-walking nightmare.
My reading attention level drops. I have troubles reading medical journal
articles or references; must reread passages numerous times; unable to
comprehend fine points of prescription drugs in the Physician \s Desk
Reference.
You recognize you were about to administer the wrong medication or the
wrong dose, or use the wrong procedures in setting up equipment, e.g .,
administering an IV, or setting up an infusion pump correctly.
During internship, under the pressure of sleepless call nights, my worthy
aspirations as a medical professional transformed into cynicism.
A resident in our program got so impaired by sleep deprivation she fell
asleep at the wheel and crashed while returning from a 40-45 hour
workshift.
(This list is adapted from a variety of sources, with modifications by this author.)
Interns , Resident Physicians , House Officers
In the 1890s when graduate medical education programs began at
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, a resident physician was expected to
live at the hospital, work exceedingly long hours, and frequently be “on-
call” through the night A resident attended lectures and conferences, was
exposed to a broad spectrum of patient cases, and provided health care any
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time day or night for upwards of 30-40 hours at a stretch, very often
without much sleep. Residents stayed near their patients to observe the
sequalae of disease over successive days and to witness the impact of
medical interventions administered.
Modern residency training includes 3-5 years of long, intensive
work and study under supervision of senior faculty physicians - so as to
obtain substantial hospital clinical experience with patients, intermixed
with attending didactic lectures and participating in numerous professional
meetings and seminars on specialized research and practice topics (Adler,
Werner, & Korsch 1980). The combination of hands-on clinical work and
the intensified academic training prepares physicians for practice in
medical or surgical specialties.
Today’s interns and residents work dayshifts lasting 8 to 12 hours,
along with working a night call shift every 2 to 4 nights. Residents
typically do not sleep much during night-call shifts, yet are expected to
continue their training the following day. There are only 168 hrs in a 7-day
week; but some residents reported working shifts of from 18 to 60 hours
duration, with every other night on-call, and accumulations of more than
120-130 work hours per week. These circumstances can involve severe
drowsiness and sleepiness, with an accompanying loss of situational
awareness or alertness, contributing to the likelihood of medical errors
associated with fatigue.
During on-call shifts, sleep obtained during brief slack periods
tends to be intermittent, interrupted, non-restorative sleep. When an
ambulance arrives, emergency room interns who are temporarily asleep,
perhaps napping, are abruptly awakened to respond to the arrival of new
patients. Arousing from a short sleep in the middle of the night commonly
produces an experience of sleep inertia - bouts of severe grogginess and
incomplete arousal attributable to awakening from the deeper stages of
sleep (stage 3 & 4 sleep). Sleep inertia can last 10-20 minutes. A person
experiencing sleep inertia can act confused, exhibit poor memory, and
demonstrate inferior decision-making (Bruck & Pisani 1999). It is
common for residents or interns to experience bouts of acute fatigue,
accompanied by sleep inertia after awakening from naps.
Due to today’s medical advances and concern for cutting costs,
patient stays in hospitals are shorter then a decade ago. With rotating
workshifts, and more hand-off of patients among health care providers,
today’s resident no longer spends as much time watching a patient’s
disease progress. Having interns work 24+hour on-call schedules provides
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teaching hospitals with necessary personnel -related efficiencies netting
obvious cost savings by employing residents as relatively “cheap labor’1
(Steinbrook 2002). Sleep deprivation, extreme drowsiness, and resultant
fatigue in the medical workplace are identified as some of the several
major sources of stress in residency (Colford & McFee 1989) prompting
interns and residents to declare they suffer from chronic fatigue during
residency. However, many in the medical profession argue that sleep-
depriving night-call is a valid learning experience and quality of care is
not compromised by sleep-deprived physicians (Asken & Raham 1983).
Traditional on-call assignments still are deemed necessary as part of
resident training. Thus, for over 100 years, not much has changed
regarding the exceedingly long duty hours for medical residents.
Large numbers of today’s residents are more likely to be older than
was true fifty years ago; many residents have families or other
commitments outside the hospital. Over 50% of medical residents in the
United States are women, with unique considerations such as childcare
needs. These facts complicate life and affect how residencies are managed
in today’s medical schools. Few studies focused solely on how extended
duty hours affect the home life of resident physicians; but we do know that
medical workers on sustained schedules, including residents, are involved
in significant numbers of traffic accidents driving home after lengthy
hospital workshifts (Barger el a/. 2005). Many stressors combine to affect
resident life, but it is unclear that extended duty hours themselves are
responsible for negative consequences in health care (Liskowsky 1991).
Residents and interns working lengthy schedules invoke a vision of
drowsy young doctors making important health care decisions while they
are sleep-deprived, when their attention levels are not as crisp, and when
they might fail to correctly grasp nuances of some medical maladies of
their patients’ cases. Do drowsy residents make judgments or medical
decisions which are not fully appropriate for the circumstances at hand?
Sleep deprivation impairs decision-making involving the
unexpected innovation (or involving innovation), revising plans, and
competing distractions, as well as interfering with effective
communication (Krueger 1994). These are all involved in making accurate
diagnosis and prescribing the best treatments for tricky medical cases that
may arise while resident physicians are sleepily working their way through
on-call duty. Although no studies captured performance measures with
physicians on unexpected, innovative, plan revision, communication-laden
decision-making circumstances, it is tempting to connect the intuitive link
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between worker fatigue and degradation in decision-making performance.
We would dread having sleepy residents in the middle of the night making
life-determining decisions for our medical case at the emergency ward.
Most laboratory studies of performance decrement effects of sleep
deprivation employ “probe tests,” simple tasks (e.g., vigilance, reaction
time, and short term memory) known to be sensitive to sleep deprivation
and representative of the attention-demanding requirements of dull,
monotonous monitoring tasks in everyday jobs. Studies of sleep
deprivation indicate resident physician performance is impaired for some,
but not all tasks; task performance decrements are similar to those for
psychological tests sensitive to sleep loss (Samkoff & Jacques 1991). A
30-year old study by Goldman, McDonough, and Rosemond (1972) found
substantial decrements in the performance of surgical interns after
obtaining too little sleep on-call nights. Following one night of sleep loss,
interns exhibited poor planning skills, inferior surgical technique, and
committed more errors. After night on-call duty, sleep-deprived interns,
exhibit poorer concentration (Robbins & Gottlieb 1990); compromised
language and numeric skills (Hawkins et al. 1985); degraded retention of
information (Hart et al 1987); and fleeting short term memory (Rubin et
al 1991).
After missing one night’s sleep, surgeons were more prone to
errors and performed slower on a laparoscopy simulator (Taffinder et al.
1998). Whereas, Reznick & Folse (1987) found no performance
differences between sleep-deprived and rested surgery residents on a
comprehensive psychomotor test battery. Fatigue is common for members
of surgical teams who repeatedly become involved in long, complicated
operative cases such as intricate neurosurgeries that sometimes take from
12 to 20+ hours to complete (Greenberg 1997). In a 24-hour performance
study, emergency physicians made more errors on a simulated triage test
and while intubating a training mannequin (Smith-Coggins et al. 1997).
Other studies of impaired performance by “fatigued” residents and
interns found: evaluation and interpretation of electrocardiograms wanting
(Lingenfelser et al 1994); excessive time was required to review and
mistakes were made with telemetered ECG data (Friedman, Bigger, &
Komfeld 1971); inconsistent response times monitoring of anesthesia
during simulated surgery (Denisco, Drummond, & Gravenstein 1987);
general degradations in cognitive performance (Jacques, Lynch, &
Samkoff 1990), lapses in memory and slower responses (Hart et al ,
1987); mistakes while ordering medications and documenting medical
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histories (Gottlieb et al. 1991); compromised clinical problem solving
(Rubin et at. 1991; Nelson et al. 1995), and stresses in radiology
residencies (Christensen et al. 1977).
Less easily quantified are the negative affects such as poor mood
or communications and the interactions a sleepy care provider has with
patients (Deary & Tait 1987). Resident physicians in training readily
report more negative feelings and less concern about their patients when
they are suffering from insufficient sleep on-call (Orton & Gruzelier
1989). Wallerstein, Rosner, and Wallace (1989) reported rested interns
had better moods, felt more vigor, less fatigue, and more elation.
Baldwin, Dodd and Wrate (1997) reported numerous concerns for the
health and the psychological stresses, even clinical depression of interns,
resident physicians, and student nurses. Some stresses noticeably affect
family issues and in some cases prompt divorces (Nelson & Henry 1978).
Residents Interns Workshift Honrs
There have been several attempts to assess and propose ways to cut
down on resident fatigue in training programs ( e.g . Richardson et al.
1996). Although different traditional workshift lengths have been
examined for nurses, there are only a few comparison studies for
physicians. In comparing 8- vs 12-hour shifts for emergency physicians,
Thomas, Schwartz and Whitehead (1994) found only insignificant
differences in performance. In the 1980s some medical school training
programs developed the night-float rotation system , whereby residents
work a series of from 5 to 15 consecutive nights on-call without any
daytime work activities and are permitted to sleep during the day. The
night-float rotation system gives day-residents greater opportunity to sleep
at night and produces high levels of satisfaction among residents; but,
those on night float reported lower sleep quality and duration, mood
changes, less vigor, slower thought processes, and some depression,
claiming their attention levels were unchanged, but admitted to more
errors of omission, and fatigue inertia (Cavallo, Ris, & Succop 2003).
Although the night-float rotation system has intuitive appeal, the full
impact of this system is not clear, and there is room for more study of how
best to integrate it into modern residency training.
Another contributor to the shortage of sleep and free time of
medical residents is the large amount of moonlighting (overtime work)
they undertake. Moonlighting shifts are often at odd work hours and are
disruptive to normal sleep patterns. Presumably, the driving incentive is to
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earn the extra money moonlighting offers. Nearly half of all emergency
medicine residents in the United States partake in moonlighting (Li,
Tabor, & Martinez 2000); as many as 65 per cent of internal medicine
residents and fellows moonlight (McCue, Janiszewski, & Stickley 1990).
Moonlighting is common among other residencies and fellowships as well
(Majidian el al 1993).
New Work Hour Limits for Residents and Interns
A New York hospital incident in 1984 stimulated public concern
about fatigued interns and residents, triggering attempts to limit resident
hours of work. Ms Libby Zion was admitted to a hospital emergency
room, where she was treated by an intern and a junior resident; but she
died several hours later. Both the intern and the resident had been on duty
for 18+ hours prior to her admission. It was alleged they failed to properly
monitor their patient, and that they prescribed medications contraindicated
in light of her history of drug and medication use. Additionally, they were
not properly supervised by a senior supervisory physician (Asch & Parker
1988). This case prompted much publicity and discussion about overwork
in medical residency programs (Green 1995). The resulting campaign to
limit the number of work shift hours of interns and residents in New York
caught on across the country. (Daughtery, Baldwin & Rowley 1998
ACGME 2003).
After the 1999 IOM study of medical error, sensitivity to patient
safety issues has been heightened more generally. The US medical
profession, and some state legislatures, are implementing reform plans to
restrict hospital work schedule lengths by developing hours of service
(HOS) limiting rules for residents similar to those in place for
transportation operators and controllers of nuclear power plants.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
(ACGME), the accrediting body for 7,800 graduate medical education
programs in 118 specialties in the United States worked two decades to
establish limits to duty hours of resident physicians and interns. Effective
in July 2003, ACGME’s new approved rules limited work hours for
medical students to no more than 80 hours a week (averaged over a 4-
week period) and limited shift duration to no longer than 24 hours, with at
least a minimum of 10 hrs off-duty between workshifts. Residents must
have at least one full day (24-hours) out of seven free of educational and
clinical care responsibilities (averaged over 4-weeks). Residents must not
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be assigned in-house call more often than every third night (averaged over
4-weeks). Continuous time-on-duty including in-house call must not
exceed 24 consecutive hours, with additional time (up to six hours) for
inpatient and outpatient continuity, transfer of care, educational debriefing
and formal didactic activities. Residents may not assume responsibility for
new patients after 24 hours. Since moonlighting to perform other patient
care activities may be inconsistent with interns obtaining enough
rest/sleep, these activities require prospective permission from program
directors and sponsoring institutions, and resident performance must be
monitored. ( www.acgme.org )
ACGME’s new rules emphasize faculty supervision to ensure safe
patient care and resident learning. Faculty and residents are to be educated
to recognize the signs of worker fatigue and to apply preventive and
operational countermeasures. A medical school program director and the
faculty are to monitor residents for the effects of sleep loss and fatigue,
and are to respond when fatigue may be detrimental to resident
performance and his/her well-being.
The new hours limitations have enormous cost implications as the
need for additional hospital staffing increased (Weinstein 2002;
Steinbrook 2002). However, if the new work-hours rules are not followed
ACGME threatens to withdraw a teaching hospital’s accreditation, which
could cost training hospitals millions of dollars in federal funding. To
emphasize the seriousness of the changes, in July 2003, after it was
determined that several first-year residents worked almost 90 hours per
week, the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s accreditation was compromised for
five months until it restructured workshifts to comply with the new
standards.
After two years experience with ACGME’s common duty hours, a
confidential Internet survey of over 50,000 residents indicates many
residency programs are using innovative approaches to restructure duty
hour schedules for residents and the vast majority of residency programs
are complying with the new duty hour rules (ACGME Press Release,
September 2005). However, it is also clear that the rules’ several
extenuating circumstances, ( e.g ., averaging over 4-weeks, etc.) have
provided sufficient “wiggle-room” for there to be internal scheduling
tradeoffs that somewhat thwart the spirit and intent of the rules to prevent
intern and resident fatigue.
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Nurses, Shiftwork, & Fatigue
The literature contains reports of numerous studies of shiftwork
schedules for nurses: presenting examinations of job performance via self-
reported or supervisor-rated measures; patient ratings of quality of care
received; use of sick-days and health services by nurses; and nurses’
preferences for particular shift schedules. Just as it is with interns and
residents, the “whole person” is of concern; for many factors play into
provision of excellent nursing care. Nurses work a variety of non-daytime
shifts, and endure circadian rhythm disruption not just for the duty-time at
work, but often chronically over the duration of their professional and
personal lives. While the likelihood of nursing care errors attributable to
sleep loss, waning alertness, cognitive fatigue, and circadian disruption are
addressed here, it must also be acknowledged that nurses often experience
physical fatigue while administering to patients, especially while
repeatedly helping bed-ridden patients move about in hospital rooms and
nursing centers.
Shiftwork schedules that are more compatible with circadian
rhythm physiology and which permit nurses to obtain more quality sleep,
should result in less fatigued, more alert nurses on the job. However, many
other variables involved with shiftwork make problematic the delineation
of fatigued nurses per se. Nurses’ reasons for agreeing to work particular
shifts involve personal schedule preferences, the need for child care at
home, worries of personal security in dark hospital parking lots, salary
differences, desires to work overtime or not, electing to work longer hours
over fewer days in trade for more successive days off from work,
perceived control over their jobs, and other family reasons and indicators
of worker satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Determinations of whether
nurses’ work schedules affect levels of alertness on the job or increase
fatigue-related medical error is difficult for more than a case-by-case
basis.
Nurses’ workshift schedules generally follow six basic scheduling
schemes (Liskowsky 1991):
(1) Traditional 8-hour day shifts, 5 days per week, with 15-30 minutes
tacked on for transfer/changeover of patient care to incoming
personnel; rotation to different start times is on a one week
change-over cycle (start times usually are 7 a.m., 3 p.m., or 11
pm.);
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(2) “4 to 40” - four 10-hour shifts, followed by three days off-duty;
(3) “Baylor Plan” - two or three 12-hour shifts for separate 2-3 day
weekend staffing; while regular staff works traditional five 8-hour
shifts the Monday -Friday workweek,
(4) “7-on, 7-off’ - working seven days or nights of 10-hour shifts on
alternate 70-hr work weeks, with the intervening week off-duty;
(5) “12-hour shifts” - three 12-hour shifts one week, then four 12-hr
shifts the next week;
(6) “Customized schedules” - choice of many combinations of shift
lengths, start and end times.
Scheduling has been a major source of stress among hospital
nurses. In 1991, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment
estimated one-third of all RNs worked some combination of day, evening,
and night shifts, including rotating all three shifts; only 7 per cent of RNs
had every weekend off (Liskowsky, OTA 1991). Younger, less
experienced nurses tend to be assigned to rotating shifts, and more
experienced nurses are assigned the more desirable dayshifts. Many US
hospitals pay extra for evening and nightshift work, but not for weekends.
Nurses draw 1.5 times as much pay for overtime work; and many nurses
like to amass their weekly working hours in 12-hr shifts to obtain more
consecutive days off.
Supervisors rate quality of nursing care; or it may be measured in
terms of nursing care process ( e.g ., chart audits of following planned
procedures). Other indicators of quality include incident reports of
medication errors, accidents or injuries, and occasionally patient ratings of
satisfaction with care received. Nurses themselves may occasionally
experience adverse circumstances in the workplace (e.g., administering an
incorrect drug or dose) but they do not readily attribute drowsiness or
fatigue with a contributory role in the outcome of some decision-making
or action they took or that they should have taken on a patient’s behalf.
Nurses’ shiftwork schedules, or working extended duty hours, are among
several factors contributing to medical incidents in hospitals or nursing
homes, but, as with the physicians, it is difficult to partial out the effects of
drowsiness or fatigue of nursing care providers on the likelihood of
medical errors.
Although there are numerous studies of the effects of shiftwork on
nurses, few studies directly examined the relationship between nursing
shiftwork schedules and job task performance, or match schedule effects
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to indicators of quality of patient care. In a pediatrics unit, when
comparing the 4-to-40 workweek (four 10-hr workshifts per week) to the
traditional 8-hr, 5-dayshift system, process measures did not differentiate;
but staff reports showed the 4-to-40 schedule made improvements in
quality of intershift continuity of care (Kent 1972). In a comparison of 12-
hr shifts to 8-hr shifts for nurses in an intensive care unit Eaton and
Gottselig (1980) found no significant differences between types of shift
for reaction time measures of alertness, or for self-ratings of fatigue.
Although reaction times on the 12-hour shift were faster for day shift than
for nightshift nurses, quality of nursing care was deemed not to have
changed. In a similar study in a surgical intensive care unit adopting 12-hr
shifts, some nurses reported increased subjective feelings of fatigue, and
decreased accuracy was reported on some performance tests; but evidence
from chart audits revealed no significant changes in quality care, and the
nurses themselves reported they thought their performance actually had
improved (Mills, Arnold, & Wood 1983). In another study, RNs in
intensive care units on 12-hr vs. 8-hr shifts volunteered comments about
experiencing more fatigue; but ratings of patient care were not
substantially different (Nelson & Blasdell 1988).
Most shiftwork studies address the issue of whether regular
shiftworkers obtain sufficient sleep. All shiftworkers adopt sleep patterns
different from a “normal daytime worker” and, in so doing, most,
especially night workers, experience deficits in the quality and the
quantity of sleep, generally obtaining about an hour less sleep per 24-hr
day (Scott 1990).
An early NIOSH study reported nurses on rotating shifts, or even
on fixed nightshifts, experienced more problems with sleep, as compared
to nurses who worked dayshifts or fixed afternoon swing shifts; and
rotating shift nurses exhibited higher rates of digestive disorders than other
nurses (Tasto el ctl. 1978). Those on fixed nightshifts reported obtaining
the least sleep overall. Harma, Ilmarinen, and Knauth (1988) reported
nurses on irregular rotating shifts experienced decreased sleep duration
after nightshift work. Gadbois (1981) also described how women nurses
on fixed nightshifts reported shorter sleep durations, with more frequent
sleep interruptions for married women with children than for unmarried
women. After working the nightshift, mothers with young children went to
bed later in the day than did the unmarried women. Nurses working
rotating shifts and nightshifts involving only a few nights on duty tend to
have more sleep disturbances than other nurses. The greatest disruption of
family and social life occurs for nurses on rotating shifts. Nurses who are
Washington Academy of Sciences
55
also mothers express dissatisfaction with time available to be with their
children (Liskowsky, OTA 1991).
On March 13, 2006, the American Nurses Association requested
the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in its
2006 National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) give priority to
sponsoring additional research on nursing care and fatigue.
Advice and Discussion Points
This article provides only a cursory review of some of the concerns
for the risk of health care provider fatigue influencing the likelihood of
medical errors. It should prompt discussion among managers and
supervisors in medical institutions about what to do to manage worker
alertness and fatigue. Based upon substantial prior experience as an
operator fatigue subject matter expert consultant to US military forces,
and to the long haul truck driving community, this author offers two lists
of hints for reducing the risks of worker fatigue in health care settings.
Advice for institutional health care managers and supervisors
The 1994 chapter in Bogner’s first edition of Human Error in
Medicine (Krueger, 1994) ended with basic pointers regarding fatigue,
performance, and medical error. Those not-so-simple hints which are still
valid today are amplified here in a 12-step fatigue management program
for hospital and nursing home management staff. If supervisors want to
help their employees reduce risks of worker fatigue, which can contribute
to costly human errors in provision of health care, they are advised to:
1. Allocate adequate staffing for around-the-clock operations.
Scrutinize rosters for under-staffing in peak periods; rectify
staffing discrepancies.
2. Cross-train several workers for the same tasks so they will be able
to spell or relieve one another, permitting periodic rest breaks.
3. Train staff to perform tasks so well (over-learning) that they are
less likely to be subject to fatigue effects. Acknowledged, it is
difficult to over-learn medical care decision-making.
4. Honor known bodily circadian rhythm principles when designing
shiftwork schedules.
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5. Schedule rest breaks during long work sessions, especially at high
fatigue risk periods (mid-afternoon, and from 1 to 5 a.m).
6. Approve implementation of fatigue countermeasures, including
infusing short nap-taking into some workshifts ( e.g . night calls);
provide a good place to take naps; emphasize recognition of sleep
inertia.
7. Stress importance of rest and sleep for an alert staff. Implement a
training program on worker alertness and fatigue.
8. Encourage employees to eat nutritious meals. Ensure ready access
to healthy food choices.
9. Learn to recognize signs of fatigue in medical staff personnel.
ACGME’s new work hour rules require both faculty and residents
to be educated to recognize the signs of fatigue, and to apply
preventive and operational countermeasures. Internship program
directors and faculty must monitor residents for effects of sleep
loss and fatigue, and respond when fatigue may be detrimental to
resident performance and well-being.
10. Bring in a worker-fatigue expert to provide alertness and fatigue
management assessment and training for all employees, especially
those at high fatigue risk (i.e., nurses, interns, residents).
11. Become knowledgeable of the circumstances surrounding the
numerous shift schedule issues of your institution. Do not tamper;
but offer an understanding ear to those who are making the
schedules and to those who are living them.
12. Set the example and develop a sleep management / sleep discipline
plan for yourself; and then encourage others to do likewise.
Mastering alertness and coping with worker fatigue for health care
providers
Health care providers (hospital and nursing home employees) must
learn to cope with shiftwork, long working hours, and shortage of sleep.
They must learn to recognize waning alertness, the onset of worker
fatigue, and know what to do about it. The following pointers may be of
some help:
1 . For supervisors and those at risk of worker fatigue, a good place to
start is by attending the Institution’s training course on mastering
alertness and managing health care provider fatigue.
2. Rotating one’s shiftwork schedule every couple days or weeks
(forward or backward on the clock) forces our physiology to make
Washington Academy of Sciences
57
adjustments to resynchronize our circadian biological timing
system (suprachiasmatic nuclei).
3. Rapid rotations of one’s work schedule cause physiological
discomforts, and disrupts ability to acquire the right amount of
sleep. Learning principles of circadian rhythm physiology and
workshift scheduling may help workers sort out the best ways to
cope with arduous work hours.
4. Generally, working longer than 12 hours in a row at almost
anything increases risk of worker fatigue. Try to avoid working
double shifts that go beyond 12-hours of continuous work. (On-call
residents will often be required to make exceptions to this
admirable goal).
5. Workshifts requiring some night work ( e.g ., swing and midnight
shifts) often result in the worker obtaining approximately 1.2 hours
less sleep per day.
6. Adults operate reasonably well with 7-8 hours of sleep in every 24-
hour period. Obtaining sleep in long continuous bouts (4+ hours) is
preferred to taking numerous shorter sleeps (naps).
7. It is important to augment shorter sleeps with naps to reach a goal
of 7-8 hrs of sleep in every 24-hr period.
8. With daily shortages of sleep we accumulate a sleep debt which
biologically we must pay back to our brain and body. It is
critically important to obtain extra long sleeps on days off
(recovery sleep), to make up for our accumulated sleep debt, and to
restore alertness.
9. Develop a list of signs of “waning alertness, onset of fatigue”
symptoms, to be able to recognize the onset of fatigue, and know
what to do about it.
10. Be knowledgeable and attuned to possible fatigue countermeasures
available; learn to use them. Education and trial and error of
various techniques can help.
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Washington Academy of Sciences
The Role of Academies of Science in the Critical
Examination of New Ideas: Looking at Gaia
Frank R. Haig, S.J., and Peg Kay*
61
Abstract
In science, new ideas have to fight for acceptance. The process is
essential to ensure the founded confidence of the scientific community.
There is a continuum ranging from speculation at one end through
theory to fact at the other end. This paper deals with the role of
Academies of Science in encouraging the widest possible discussion of
legitimate theories. The Gaia Theory of the earth as a self-regulating
system is used as an example of the type of controversial theory that
benefits from scientific discussion. A description of the Gaia
Conference follows the paper.
"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually
die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
-Max Planck
Facts, Theories, and Speculation
In science a new idea has to fight its way to acceptance. The path
may be long and conflicted. The opposition may be intense and tortuous.
The process, however, is necessary to ensure the emergence of a founded
confidence on the part of the broad scientific community.
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of the opposition a new
theory can meet comes in the case of Alfred Wegener and his concept of
what we now call continental drift and plate tectonics. Wegener started
presenting his theory in 1912. The scientific community reacted with
ridicule and derision. His personal treatment by colleagues was almost
brutal. His work, however, is now considered by many the most important
element of progress in the Earth sciences of the 20th century. Nonetheless,
Wegener was never able to obtain a university position in his native
Germany.
*Both authors are past presidents of the Academy
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62
Wegener’s major problem was that he could propose no
mechanism for continental drift. And so, this theory was subjected to
intense criticism. Perhaps also there was a feeling that he was out of his
field. After all, his doctorate was in astronomy, not geophysics or anything
related.
Science, however, cannot afford to let ideas sweep through a field
the way social fads do in modern society. Consider the case of Trofim
Lysenko, a Russian biologist who became the darling of Joseph Stalin. In
a famous speech in 1929 Stalin extolled practical scientists against the
more theoretical ones who joyfully spent their days studying fruit flies
while a famine raged all around them.
Lysenko was a former country boy who could inspire peasant
farmers who had been largely turned off by Stalin’s collectivization
projects. Lysenko did not believe in careful bench work in agriculture. His
ideas were a mixture of Lamarkianism1 and other half examined notions.
There was no control from the profession. In fact, he waged a bitter and
savage campaign against established scientists with the happy support of
the NKVD, the then Soviet secret police. It took some time after the death
of Stalin for Soviet science to break free from Lysenkoism. Science
requires a self-discipline to remain out of the clutches of charlatans and
ideologues. New ideas cannot and should not expect to win easy victories.
THE ROLE OF ACADEMIES OF SCIENCE
Academies of science have a special role in the exposition and
critical examination of new ideas. They provide a willing but intelligent
audience to which an innovator can make a presentation. In so doing,
academies do not endorse such theories. They only allow them to be easily
and widely exhibited and so begin their battle to achieve confirmation and
acceptance or relegation to the dustbins of history.
Of course, academies of science start with an established concept
of what science is. Academies are not in the business of providing
platforms for mountebanks and crack-pots. There exists, therefore, a filter
that academies use to select concepts worthy of consideration.
Washington Academy of Sciences
63
WHAT IS A THEORY?
To begin with, there exist certain known facts. Cooling water
under normal conditions will result in its freezing. Under normal
conditions, a cubic foot of lead is more massive than a cubic foot of
hydrogen. In the healthy human body, blood circulates through the
structure. There is a body of statements not dependent on opinion.
At the other extreme there are statements that are of the order of
guesses, speculations, initial conjectures not yet subjected to verification.
A theory may start in such an environment. Unfortunately, many people
unacquainted with science take the word “theory” to mean such untested
conjectures.
But for scientists a theory must link together facts, show their
interrelationships, and present some kind of a model that makes the
situation intelligible. Even more, it must at some point exhibit
verifications so that the theory can be confirmed or rejected. Only then
does an idea move to the status of being a theory.
Every field of developed science has such fundamental structures
that have been hammered out over time and through repeated critical
evaluation. Wegener’s plate tectonics, Mendel’s genetics, Newton’s
explanation of the tides, Darwin’s evolution, big bang cosmology, and
more. All are subject to analysis and revision as new data become
available or new understandings emerge.
A classical example is the Michelson-Morley experiment. In
Michelson’s day. Maxwell’s laws of the electromagnetic field were a
prized possession. Maxwell, however, used a concept of the ether to hold
his ideas together. Michelson decided to measure the motion of the earth
through that strange entity. His experiment was brilliantly conceived and
meticulously carried out. After all, Michelson was one of the greatest
experimentalists the human race has ever produced. But the result was a
null value. Ether could not be shown to exist.
It is not totally clear whether this experiment was the motivation of
the re-thinking Einstein then produced in his 1905 Theory of Special
Relativity. But it could have been. To this day it is easy to explain the
Theory of Relativity by starting from the Michelson-Morley experiment.
Einstein himself seems to have been thinking in a different direction in his
original work in the field. The point, however, is that the Michelson-
Morley experiment and the Theory of Special Relativity exhibited a
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64
reformulation of Newton’s rich concepts of space and time. New data and
new insights can refashion even seemingly established theories.
Constant and consistent verifications of Special Relativity have
made it an accepted part of our model of reality, and part, we think, of the
laws of the universe.
Of course, Einstein went on to develop his ideas further and came
to include acceleration and gravity in his perspective and so produced the
General Theory of Relativity. Continuing and ever more accurate
measurements are part of the life of this theory and its steady evolution.
It is worth recalling, however, that Einstein’s work did not
immediately win acceptance. It had to fight to earn its place. Einstein did
not receive his Nobel Prize in Physics for relativity. It was still too
controversial in 1921. He received the prize for his work on the
photoelectric effect which won more ready acceptance although it, too,
had to be verified by sets of experiments.
Perhaps the great editor who published Einstein’s 1905 articles had
the best statement. That was Max Planck who had himself achieved fame
by his work originating modern quantum mechanics in 1900. We have
used his statement at the head of this article.
THE GALA THEORY
The point of this discussion is to treat a theory that is controversial
and even hotly disputed. How does an academy of science act in such a
case?
The example is James Lovelock’s approach to understanding life
and evolution - the Gaia theory.
Lovelock began speculating about the possibility of the Earth’s
being a self-regulating system in 1965 when he was part of NASA’s
planetary exploration team. He began to formulate a hypothesis, namely
that living organisms regulate the atmosphere in their own interest.2 He
discussed this hypothesis with the author, William Golding (Lord of the
Flies), a discussion that resulted in Lovelock’s accepting Golding’s
suggestion that he name his fledgling hypothesis “Gaia” - a result that has
dogged the theory since its inception. Scientists find it very difficult to
take seriously a theory named after a Greek Earth Goddess.
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65
Over time, the hypothesis lost its teleological aspect and the Gaia
Theory as now set forth by Dr. Lovelock and his close collaborator. Dr.
Lynn Margulis, proposes that the Earth is a self-regulating system made
up of physical, chemical, biological, and human components.3 As with all
but the most simple mechanical systems, sophisticated feedback loops are
at work. Despite Lovelock’s insistence that he never meant to imply that
the earth was a living, purposeful organism, that he used the term “living”
only in a metaphorical sense, many fringe scientists adopted what is now
known as the “strong” Gaia theory - i.e., the Earth is alive in the
biological sense. This silliness has become the strawman that is often used
to discredit the theory.4
The more mainstream Gaia has made a number of striking
predictions. Among them are: that Mars would be lifeless (based on
atmospheric evidence and confirmed by the Viking mission in 1977); that
elements are transferred from the ocean to the land by biogenic gases
(supported by the discovery of dimethyl sulphide, dimethyl selenide, and
methyl iodide in 1973 and 2000); that climate is regulated through
biologically enhanced rock weathering (strengthened by the discovery that
microorganisms greatly increase the rate of rock weathering/')
Did all that convince the scientific world that Gaia was a true
representation of reality? Not entirely. Controversy still abounds, with
many scientists pointing out that theories other than Gaia could have made
the same predictions.
In addition, Stephen Schneider observed that “Controversy
occurred for at least three reasons: (1) there was outright hostility to the
name ‘Gaia’...; (2) there was little or no shared understanding... of the
‘Gaia hypothesis;’ and (3) studying Gaia required strong multidisciplinary
training and an interdisciplinary commitment that transcended traditional
scientific approaches.”6
Despite the scientific uneasiness with Gaia, the first American
Geophysical Union Chapman Conference on Gaia was held in 1988 to
discuss the possibility of active climatic regulation systems and the
relative importance of feedback processes between organic and inorganic
compounds. This Conference was a major factor in stimulating
interdisciplinary work as well as introducing Gaia to the mainstream of
scientific debate. Many of the results of that debate were explicated in the
second AGU conference held in 2000. The papers given there were
collected in Scientists debate Gaia1 A partial listing of the contents of that
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66
volume illustrates Gaia’s success in fostering the interdisciplinary research
that was so formidably resisted less than two decades ago:
Lynn Margulis, “Clarifying Gaia: regulation with or without
natural selection”;
Timothy M. Lenton, “Gaia is life in a wasteworld of byproducts”;
Tyler Volk, “Models and geophysiological hypotheses”;
J. Scott Turner, “Homeostatic Gaia: an ecologist's perspective on
the possibility of regulation”;
David Wilkinson, “Phosphorus, a servant faithful to Gaia?
Biosphere remediation rather than regulation;
Karl B. Foyllmi [el a/.] “Self-regulation of ocean composition by
the biosphere”;
Lee R. Kump, “A new biogeochemical earth system model for the
Phanerozoic Eon”;
Noam M. Bergman, Timothy M. Lenton and Andrew J. Watson -
Gaia and glaciation: Lipalian (Vendian) environmental crisis;
Mark A.S. McMenamin, “Does life drive disequilibrium in the
biosphere?”;
K. M. Nordstrom, V.K Gupta and T.N. Chase, “Food web
complexity enhances ecological and climatic stability in a
Gaian ecosystem model; and
Keith Downing, “On causality and ice age deglaciations”.
A description of the next Gaia Conference, to be held in October
2006, follows the endnotes of this paper.
Whether one accepts Gaia or not, it is difficult not to admit that (1 )
without those conferences the interdisciplinary work necessary to the
Earth sciences would not have occurred in this timeframe and (2) the on¬
going debate has fostered greatly increased understanding of how life and
our planet work. For these reasons, the Washington Academy of Sciences
is pleased to co-sponsor the Conference scheduled for October of this year
(see http://www.gaiatheorv.orq).
To repeat our earlier statement:
Academies of science have a special role in the exposition and
critical examination of new ideas. They provide a willing but intelligent
audience where an innovator can make a presentation. In so doing,
academies do not endorse such theories. They only allow them to be easily
Washington Academy of Sciences
67
and widely exhibited. They can then begin their battle to achieve
confirmation and acceptance or relegation to the annals of history.
End Notes
1 A theory of biological evolution holding that species evolve by the inheritance of traits
acquired or modified through the use or disuse of body parts.
2 Lovelock, James "The Living Earth", Nature . 426. pp. 769-770. Dec, 2003.
3 This statement is virtually identical with the first bullet point of the Amsterdam
Declaration, issued by a joint meeting of the International Geosphere Biosphere
Programme, the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global
Environental Change, the World Climate Research Programme, and the International
Biodiversity Programme on July 13. 2001. It was that Declaration that helped to
elevate Gaia from the status of hypothesis to that of a generally accepted theory
(although not necessarily by the name of "Gaia”).
4James Lovelock. “Reflections on Gaia”, Scientists debate Gaia: the next century edited
by Stephen H. Schneider. Cambridge. Mass. MIT Press. 2004. p. 2.
5 op cit. "The Living Earth.”
6 Preface to Scientists debate Gaia, op. cit.
Scientists debate Gaia, op. cit.
Summer 2006
68
CONFERENCE:
The Gaia Theory - Model and Metaphor for the 21st Century
AMONG THE SPONSORS ARE:
Washington Academy of Sciences
Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority
George Mason University,
ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute),
Arlington Public Schools,
Arlington County Department of Environmental Services,
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Northern Virginia Conservation Trust,
Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment,
Earth Force,
My Organic Market (MOM) Grocers,
Gaia International,
Audubon Naturalist Society
DATE:
Saturday and Sunday, October 14-15
LOCATION:
George Mason University Law School - Arlington, Virginia
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Dr. Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor,
Department of Geosciences, Univ. of Massachusetts -
Amherst
Other speakers are: Robert W. Corell, Lee Kump, Robert Artigiani, Eileen
Crist, Lloyd Pinkham, Menas Kafatos, Tyler Volk, Donald Aitken, Dick
Richardson, James Strick, Dan Zimble, Michael Zito, H. Bruce Rinker,
Oran Sandel, Joel Salatin, Thomas I. Ellis, Scott Turner, J. Baird Callicott,
David Schwartzman, Thomas Lovejoy
Contact person: Martin Ogle: Chief Naturalist
Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority
Potomac Overlook Regional Park
2845 Marcey Road, Arlington, VA 22207
potomac@nvrpa.org. 703-528-5406
Washington Academy of Sciences
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For registration and schedule see:
http : //www . gai ath eory . org/
GOALS OF THE CONFERENCE
• To promote awareness and understanding of the Gaia Theory
among a diverse audience including scientists, educators, policy
makers and the general public.
• To explore the broad implications of the Gaia Theory and the
connections it reveals between science, culture, economics,
politics, education and other aspects of human life.
• To explore & celebrate artistic and literary significance of the
metaphor, Gaia.
• To inspire the implementation of ongoing interdisciplinary
thinking and actions.
Summer 2006
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HARVARD Fall 2006
UNIVERSITY
Journal of the
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ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Contents
The Editor Comments . . . . . . i
Affiliated Institutions . . . . . . i
Instructions to Authors . . . . . . ii
Luciano Battocchio, Mission Support to the Moon Explorations ......................... 1
G. Giacomelli, D.E. Lynch, F. Piccolo, P.Sadler, C. Severini, From Alaska to Moon Base ... 11
P. Spillantini, Moon Base: Scientific Opportunities for Astroparticle Physics ............... 15
Stefano Lagrasia and Cosimo La Rocca, Positioning and Navigation on the Moon . . . 29
P. Magnani, B. Midollini and B. Papalia, Robotic Aid to Moon Base . . . 61
Roberto Varassi, M.D. and Roberto Revelli, M.D., Jane and John Born in Lunar Jamestown,
2020 . 69
Gabriele Peraldo Bertinet, Rodolfo Guzzi, Bruno Ratti, Anna Rebecchi, A Moon Base
Knowledge and Imagination Portal . 75
News of Members and Affiliates . 87
Affiliated Societies
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Vary Coates
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THE EDITOR COMMENTS:
DEC 1 8 2006
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
THE ACADEMY’S ANNUAL AWARD for Excellence in
Physical Sciences (May 2006) went to John C. Mather of the Goddard
Space Flight Center; he had also been a featured speaker at our CapSci 06
conference in March. On October 3 the Nobel Prize Committee confirmed
our prescience, naming John Mather as co-winner of the 2006 prize in
Physics (along with George F. Smoot of the University of California) for
identifying radiation from the Big Bang. Congratulations to Dr. Mather,
and also to the Academy’s Awards Committee for their astute recognition
of outstanding work.
A PROPOSAL TO BUILD a condominium of observatories on
the Moon, presented at the Academy’s Capital Science 2004 conference
led to a series of papers and conferences on this exciting topic, including a
MoonBase Conference sponsored by the Academy in Washington in
March 2005; a second in Venice, Italy, in May, 2005, co-sponsored by the
Academy, the Italian National Academy of Astrophysics, and High
Frontier, Inc.; and a third, with the same co-sponsors, in Washington in
October 2005. Several papers by American and British participants in
those conferences were subsequently published in the Journal. In this issue
we are pleased to present a series of papers by Italian participants in the
conferences, and as always we invite comments by readers.
AFFILIATED INSTITUTIONS
The National Institute for Standards and Technology
Meadowlark Botanical Gardens
The John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress
Potomac Overlook Regional Park
Fall 2006
II
INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS
1 . Manuscripts should be in Word or WordPerfect, and not pdf.
2. They should be 5,000 words or fewer (exceptions may be made by
the Editor).If there are 7 or more graphics, the number of words
should be reduced.
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and white only, and should be easily resizable by the editors to fit
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4. References (and bibliography, if included) may be in the format
generally acceptable for the disciplinary or professional field
represented by the manuscript. They must of course be accurate,
complete, and consistent in format throughout the paper.
5. Manuscripts should be sent by e-mail as an attachment, or on a
CD, to Joumal@washacadsci.oro: or directly to the editor,
vcoates@mac.com. Hard copy can not be accepted.
6. Be sure to include both an e-mail address and a postal address for
the author (or primary author) including title and institutional
affiliation if any.
1
MISSION SUPPORT TO THE MOON EXPLORATIONS
Luciano Battocchio
Abstract
A mission to the Moon will require extensive technical and logistical
support from Earth. Technical support will differ from current forms
since it must support real time decisions made on the Moon. Logistic
activities must from the start be based on Life Cycle Cost Analyses in
order to define appropriate maintenance and spares policies.
Introduction
A mission to the Moon requires extensive support from Ground
Centers. The astronauts on the Moon will have to face an unknown
environment and will depend (at least for the first missions) on the
resources that Mother Earth will provide them.
These resources will cover the elements absolutely necessary for
survival, but also those items that will guarantee proper functioning of the
equipment necessary to survive and to perform mission activities, in
primis. For Moon exploration, in other words. Ground Base has to provide
consumables, like air, water and food, and hardware, like spare parts.
These elements will not cover all the support that the Moon explorers
need. Additional support that is also extremely important is based on
information, which could be technical or geographical, including
information on the functioning of the equipment or related to the Moon’s
surface.
In other words, the support provided by the Ground Base will
include information as well as hardware or consumables, and the support
will be, in general, of two kinds:
• Technical support, and
• Logistic support.
Fall 2006
2
Technical Support
Technical Support to a Manned Space Mission
Technical support to a manned space mission is based on provision to
Mission Control of technical information, including a set of data related to
the functioning of the various systems, subsystems and equipment, not
only during their operations, but also operational procedures, data
resulting from trend analyses, etc.
Technical support could be divided into three phases based on mission
timing:
• Pre-mission analyses;
• Technical support during the mission;
• Post-mission technical support.
Pre-mission analyses: During the definition of a mission, it is
necessary to evaluate the performance of the various systems, subsystems
and equipment, given the mission constraints, in order to verify their
capability to support applicable mission steps.
In order to perform this evaluation, it is necessary to conduct
analyses, simulations and tests based on the available models of the
systems, subsystems and equipment. It is mandatory that these models be
updated based on the evolution of the system, subsystems and equipment
configuration.
Some of the most important activities identified are:
• Inputs, review and assessment of the mission plan, mission rules
and mission procedures;
• Design, development and manufacturing of the modifications
related to the specific mission;
• Technical support to the mission manifest and integration cycle;
• Technical support to the resolution of flight manifest issues;
• Participation in the mission integration process;
• Mission-specific software build-up and configuration;
Washington Academy of Sciences
3
• Dedicated mission analyses and tests (structural, thermal,
environmental, electrical, EMC);
• Support to system level mission specific verification;
• Support to end-to-end tests and integrated mission simulations.
Technical support during the mission: Ground support to Mission
Control is also necessary during the performance of mission activities, in
order to assess the correct performance of the systems, subsystems and
equipment, and in order to support re-planning and anomalies resolution.
With respect to the pre-mission technical support, it has to be noted that
the most important part of the technical support is not pre-planned and has
to be given in near real time, being correlated with the above mentioned
anomalies resolution.
Also in this case it is possible to identify the most important activities,
which are:
• Systems, subsystems and equipment monitoring and status;
• Assessment;
• Re-planning support and flight products (flight notes) assessment;
• Real time manifest change evaluation;
• Support anomaly resolution;
• Off line support to real time team for specific technical support,
flight products preparation (i.e. S/W PPL) and/or anomaly
resolution.
Post- mission technical support: The technical support given after the
completion of a mission is typically related to the analysis of the
performances, as well as the behavior of the operative parameters, of the
systems, subsystems and equipment during the various mission phases.
In particular, the real operative parameters will be analyzed in front of
the parameters obtained with the analytical prediction, in order to
understand if the behavior of the systems, subsystems and equipment was
as predicted.
From the results of this first level analysis, trend analyses are
performed, in order to analytically define the behavior of the systems,
subsystems and equipment for the future operative developments and
missions.
Fall 2006
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Based on the results of the analyses, several actions could derive.
Some of the most important derived activities are:
• Updating of planning, including logistic planning and models;
• Corrective actions, such as removal and replacement of
units/equipment;
• Manufacturing of new spare parts based on new logistic needs;
• Definition of changes in the Flight Unit configuration;
• Design and development of new units;
• Updating of the configuration of the various hardware models,
simulate etc.
Technical Support to Moon Missions
In order to properly understand the main differences between
technical support to a “standard” manned space mission and the Moon
base, it has to be noted that the main differe e is related to the Mission
Control models.
In a “standard” manned space Mission, the control is al ken
by Earth and the decisions that could be taken by the crew are very
limited.
On the Moon, however, the explorers must have an increasing
responsibility for the control of their activities, since it is absolutely clear
that they have to face unknown situations and therefore pre-planning
could be somehow useless. It is clear that the amount of responsibility
delegated to the explorers will increase over time: the crew of the first
missions will have a limited autonomy, while the crew of the following
missions will have more and more autonomy, until the entire Mission
Control responsibility is left to the Moon explorers.
With this scenario of increasing autonomy, and of increasing
responsibility of the Moon explorers, it is clear that the role o hmcal
support will change, in particular for those aspects related u. support
during the mission.
Also with respect to the “mission” concept, Moon missions have a
different approach. In “standard” manned space missions the mission
covers the entire time from lift-off to return to ground. In this case, it
could be assumed that a “mission” covers al ^ a specific set of activities to
Washington Academy of bo dices
5
be performed externally to the Moon Base. In other words, a long
“mission” (long term permanence on the Moon) will be divided into
different short “missions,” based on a set of activities performed on the
Moon, e g. on a daily basis.
Given these conditions, it is clear that the most important
modifications to technical support will be in the area of “technical support
during the mission.” As a matter of fact, the technical support team must
give real time support to the Moon explorers, in order to immediately
support decisions that have to be taken during their activities.
Progressive transfer of the Mission Control would therefore have
heavy impacts on the Moon Base architecture, in particular in three
important areas:
• Communications Earth-to-Moon. Real time support from the Earth will
result in heavy requirements to the Earth-to-Moon communications
system.
• Communications Moon-to-Moon: Progressive transfer of Mission
Control to the Moon Base will require a Moon-to-Moon communications
system.
• Data Base on the Moon : Progressive transfer of Mission Control to the
Moon Base will require that the Mission Control data base, including
relevant technical information, be progressively transferred to the Moon
Logistic Support to a Manned Space Program
Modem approaches to system/mission support are based on
Logistic Support Analysis (LSA) and Integrated Logistic Support (ILS)
models, developed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD); such
models provide a powerful approach to logistic support definition,
planning, management, implementation and acquisition by the user.
Although they normally apply to a Defense context, such models are
successfully adopted by space programs, and in particular manned space
programs, to effectively manage applicable logistic support requirements
and implementation.
In Europe, the European Cooperation for Space Standardization
(ECSS) space standards explicitly refer to USA DOD MIL-STD-1388-1 A
(LSA) and MIL-STD-1388-2B (LSA Record). The ECSS also endorse and
tailor fundamental methodologies issued by DOD to standardize specific
Fall 2006
6
logistic disciplines which are closely related to LSA and ILS activities,
namely:
• RAMT (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Testability);
• FMECA (Failure Modes Effect Criticality Analysis);
• Safety and Hazard Analysis;
• Configuration Management;
• PHST (Package, Handling, Storage and Transportation).
Further studies and techniques must be integrated with the above
mentioned disciplines, namely:
• Human Factor Analysis, and
• Support Facilities Analysis.
Basic guide-lines to effectively manage LSA/ILS processes are:
• They must be initiated in the early phase of the mission concept
definition, in order to influence design concepts when they are not
yet consolidated.
• They must be integrated within the system design process to fully
achieve mission objectives.
• They must take into account user needs, operating environment,
constraints, capabilities and resources;
• They must cover the complete system life cycle, up to the disposal
phase.
A key point for logistic support success is logistic management,
which must be established in the early phase of Mission design It must be
based on a continuous data acquisition process and correlated analysis
phases, since LSA/ILS processes efficiency closely depends on the
capability to follow system requirements evolution and timely track
system design upgrades.
Modifications Required by Moon Missions
The Moon Base program implies a complexity that mankind never
faced during past space missions. This complexity is obviously reflected
Washington Academy of Sciences
mi
7
in several issues related to logistics, and in particular some requirements
increase their importance, such as:
• The design must comply with serious safety impacts and system
reliability requirements;
• A reliable rescue strategy must be defined to react in a timely way
to unpredictable emergency conditions, notwithstanding the Moon
Base’s distance from the Earth;
• An extensive approach is required to properly select, prepare,
manage, transport, deploy, start-up, and maintain the Moon Base in
working order, for a long period of time.
Unfortunately, the modification or increasing importance of some
requirements cannot cover the substantial modification necessary to
implement efficient logistic support in the Moon Missions environment.
The Moon Base program then not only requires a sophisticated
system design, but a specific additional effort must be spent for logistic
engineering and logistic support definition, development and management.
Complex analyses are required to identify mission support
objectives and priorities, to coherently define the Moon Base expected
independence (personnel skill, workload, tools and spares) and external
support strategies.
An assessment process is required to optimize support objectives,
dependability requirements and mission targets according to economical
and technical constraints.
The Logistic Support Scenario for Moon Missions
The logistic scenario associated with a Moon Mission is very
similar to one associated with a ship that is on a mission far away from the
coasts. In both the cases, it will be strictly necessary to trust in proper
resources, since it will be very difficult to get support from the base.
This means that the system design must implement requirements,
in terms of safety, reliability, etc., that will guarantee to the system a very
high probability of correct functioning.
Extremely important is the maintenance policy, since it is strictly
associated with the keeping of high reliability levels and with the
operational readiness of the systems.
Fall 2006
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With respect to the three traditional maintenance levels
(organizational, intermediate and depot), some special considerations are
necessary.
As a first approach, in u<e beginning the applicable maintenance
level will be the organizational level, and in particular the
removal/replacement operations will be largely utilized.
This will immediately bring up a different issue, that is, the policy
to be followed for failed units: they cannot be disposed of, for obvious
reasons, on the Moon, and have therefore to be transported to Earth for
depot repair or disposal, or destroyed during re-entry.
With the increase of the Moon Base autonomy, it is reasonable to
assume that intermediate level maintenance capability would increase,
permitting the repair of failed units directly on the Moon, provided that
relevant tools, test equipment, etc., are available on the Moon. Increase of
intermediate maintenance capabilities will also allow the possibility of
performing on condition maintenance.
The key element to be considered for the decision of the
maintenance policy is obviously the cost.
The decision to perform depot repair or to dispose of a unit will be
taken considering the recovery costs from the return flight and repair
costs, in front of the costs on a new spare unit. In the same way, the repair
costs at the intermediate level on the Moon have to include also the costs
to have available on the Moon the tools, test equipment, etc., necessary to
perform that maintenance, and have to be verified in front of the costs of
procuring a spare unit on Earth and transferring it to the Moon.
In other words, the definition of maintenance and, in general,
logistics policy depends on one of the most important logistics
engineering tools: Life Cycle Cost Analysis.
Life Cycle Cost Analysis is a logistics tool utilized in various
programs, but there will be a significant difference, since costs of the units
will be largely lower with respect to transportation and storage costs on
the Moon. Therefore, these models have to be modified in order to face
the new situation.
With respect to other logistics issues, such as spares policies, the
approach will be more traditional; the decisions on spare units, and spare
units’ availability on the Moon, will be based on the results of safety and
reliability analyses.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Exploitation of logistic programs will be based also on software
tools, such as:
• Inventory management,
• Maintenance data collection,
• Configuration control,
• Limited life items monitoring, etc.
Also, in the case of logistic support, these software tools and the
associated database will be resident on Earth; transfer of this database to
the Moon will not be so urgent, even if the Moon Base has increased
autonomy, since the logistic support could be organized from the Earth.
Conclusions
This paper presented the support that has to be given from Earth to
the explorers of the Moon.
The identified support is either:
■ Technical support, or
■ Logistic support.
Technical support could be divided into three phases, based on
mission timing:
■ Pre-mission analyses;
■ Technical support during the mission;
■ Post-mission technical support.
Technical support during the mission will drastically change with
respect to present technical support, since it will be mandatory to support
real time decisions.
With respect to logistic support, the most important result is that
all the logistic activities (LSA, etc.) must be supported from the beginning
by Life Cycle Cost Analyses in order to define maintenance policies,
spares policies, etc.
In order to accomplish these tasks, several infrastructures must be
implemented, such as Earth-to-Moon and Moon-to-Moon
Fall 2006
10
communications, and technical and logistics databases implemented in the
Moon Base.
Acknowledgements:
This paper lias been prepared with the support of:
C.V. P. Forlani, Defence General Staff, Roma.
Dr. M. Canzonetta, SETEL Group. Roma.
Dr. M. Vescovo. FASER Sri. Torino.
Dr. E. Vittone. ALTEC. Torino.
Washington Academy of Sciences
11
From Alaska to Moon Base
Prof. G. Giacomelli
(Univ. Arizona. Dept, of Plant Sciences)
D. E. Lynch
(ASRC AeroSpace)
F. Piccolo
(Aero Sekur)
P. Sadler
(Sadler Machine Co.)
Prof. C. Severini
(Univ. Foggia. Agricultural Faculty)
Reference Scenario
The reference scenario for the Space Greenhouse Project is
President’s Bush “Vision” presented on January 14th, 2005, which made
the Moon a fundamental step towards Solar System exploration, and a
potential base for power production, observation and a logistic base for
interplanetary journeys. Such a journey, or the target of building up a
permanent base on the Moon, requests synergic and coordinated efforts,
concentrated on enabling technologies pointed out and analyzed in the
framework of the first Moon Base workshop.
In the framework of the NASA exploration plan, and among primary
objectives targeted by ESA, Life Support stands as one of the most
interesting and promising topic for an inter- Atlantic cooperation.
Fall 2006
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A two year’s journey makes re-supply of food, oxygen and water
not feasible, mainly for economic reasons. In this light, a synergic
cooperation between Italy and U.S. would prove very promising.
Competences will be aggregated with plant technology on the U.S. side,
food conservation and treatment on the Italian side, through the
development of inflatable equipment and infrastructures.
Moon Base Growth Plant
Testing in an extreme environment will take an important place in
the future Development Plan. The extreme environment for the test can be
Antarctica or Alaska; but it will be the first opportunity to test a closed
loop, controlled atmosphere system, like the one that will be used in
Space. At first the main objective will be to replicate the terrestrial
environment (in terms of temperature, humidity, pressure and atmosphere
composition, plus water resources control) capable of allowing growth of
plants on the lunar soil, and producing all the food that will be the primary
source of astronauts’ diet, through reasonable photosyntetic conditions.
Food production facility will be:
- light and reconfigurable
- modular
- integrated in a Life Support management system capable of
completely recycling air, water, and non edible residual parts of
cultivated plants.
Inflatable equipment
Food treatment equipment will make extensive use of the enabling
inflatable technologies (whose primary characteristics will be lightweight,
stowed to deployed volume ratio) that will be a real result of the
forthcoming international cooperation.
The University of Arizona with its CEA Centre has been involved
for 20 years in detailed research on cultivars selection and environment
parameters optimization (light, temperature, biological cycles, etc.) with
the aim of increasing the automatic level of the system. In the recent past,
the University of Arizona has deployed a Test Chamber Unit at the U.S.
South Pole Station, as a preliminary test bed before a lunar endeavour.
Now is the time for a joint inflatable growth chamber (or greenhouse).
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Additional equipment that will be fundamental for closing the loop
is the composter designed by Sadler Machine Company in Phoenix, AZ,
capable of transforming residual non edible parts of plants partly in
nutrient solution, partly in carbon dioxide, necessary for the life and
growth of plants. The next generation will be an inflatable composter.
But the most intriguing device is a Sadler Machine design thermal
well, designed to take water out of the ice inside lunar regolith at high
lunar latitudes.
A preliminary demonstrator has been manufactured and presented
at the Habitation 2006 workshop in Orlando, FL.
And a brand new set of devices for food treatment and
conservation will be:
• Inflatable masher,
• Inflatable blancher, and
• Inflatable cutter,
designed by the University of Foggia and developed by Aero Sekur to be
capable of treating food products and transforming them into rations for
astronauts, to be stowed eventually in an additional external stowage rack
or module of the station.
Fall 2006
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Washington Academy of Sciences
15
Moon Base: Scientific Opportunities for Astroparticle
Physics
P. Spillantini
University and INFN. Firenze (Italy)
Abstract
The establishment of a permanent base on the Moon in a not too far
future will be an important opportunity for astronomical and
astrophysics observations. Since the electromagnetic component has
been already treated in a previous workshop, the discussion here is
restricted to the opportunities offered for the observation of the cosmic
ray component. In this field the most relevant open questions are: (1)
precise determination of the single fluxes of heavy nuclei (including
actinides): (2) rare nuclei and isotopic separation up to several tens of
GeV/nucleon; (3) spectra of antiparticles up to the TeV region and the
hunt for possible anti-nuclei at energies that allow them to diffuse
towards us: (4) elemental composition up to several tens PeV (well
over the knee): (5) Ultra High Energy (UHE) Cosmic Rays (CR) up to
a few ZeV. At these high energies we can conceive of an efficient UHE
neutrino Observatory, capable of opening a new observation window to
the observation of the space and time edges of the Universe. A few
concepts of possible moon based detectors are described.
Introduction
The renewed interest of Space Agencies and Industrial
Associations in Lunar exploration and use offers the unique opportunity of
profiting from the facilities that will be there, and allows us to conceive of
Moon based experiments for studying the most important problems
presently faced in astronomy and astrophysics.
The initiative to study possible facilities on the Moon was taken by
a working group, promoted by High Frontier, Inc (USA) and the
'Solidarieta e Sviluppo Association’ (Italy), representing a group of
professionals working in Research Centers and in Space Industries. In
2003 the High Frontier Inc., in its final report to the NASA Office of
Space Flight, assessed the current technology base and recommended a
comprehensive program to reaffirm the US Human Space Flight Program
and reach a succinct goal: “Columbia, the First Lunar Base within a
Decade” [1],
Fall 2006
16
In 2003 a few months in advance of the US President’s
announcement (in January 14, 2004) of a major program aimed at the
human exploration of the Solar System using the Moon as a starting point,
the Promoting Committee of the MoonBase initiative set a program for an
intense study of the problem, involving the main space agencies in
partnership with industries and scientific organizations. The program was
implemented in different studies. The program and these studies were
made public by the International Conference “Moon Base: A Challenge
for Humanity”, realized by a series of dedicated workshops. The first
workshop was held in Venice in May 2005, and the second in Washington.
The US Presidential Commission, set in January 2004 just after the
US President’s announcement, recommended in its final report [2] to
engage the scientific community in a “re-evaluation of priorities to exploit
opportunities created by the space exploration vision”. Endorsing this
recommendation, in addition to the political and technical themes,
particular attention was given by the MoonBase initiative to the possibility
of using the Moon for scientific observations in astronomy and
astrophysics. The electromagnetic component was treated in the Venice
workshop by the director of the European Southern Observatory [3], while
in the Washington workshop I handled the particle component.
Motivations
Several motivations for using the Moon as a suitable platform for
Cosmic Ray (CR) observations, as well as for astronomical and
astrophysics observations, are mentioned in the “Lunar Observatory for
Cosmic Ray Physics” [4], in response to the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025
ESA call. I recall some of them here:
• Cosmic rays experiments are presently, and for the next decade,
carried out on the ground or in low Earth orbit (LEO). Ground-based
apparatus can only register the characteristics of the atmospheric
shower, a greatly altered remnant of the primary CR (PCR). Also even
with very large equipment and using long-term observations they
cannot reach the extreme energies where PCR mainly need to be
studied. Balloon- or space-borne experiments can detect and
adequately study PCR, but they are limited in size, weight, and
lifetime, so that at the highest energies the number of detected events
is not very large.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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• The presence of the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field has an
overwhelming impact on detecting PCR, especially at lower energies.
The magnetic field prevents charged particles from reaching the
Earth’s surface, except near the geomagnetic poles.
• A lunar base that includes several experiments with a common
calorimeter can reach most of the research items in the PCR field
through a comprehensive approach from astrophysics to fundamental
physics. Using a common calorimeter as the main component helps
also to save costs. Most of its mass can be provided by the lunar
facilities that will handle lunar resources, such as water, and provide
constructive elements.
• Technical and technological developments achieved during last
decades in particle detectors, in space systems, and in handling huge
quantity of data make lunar bases feasible and promise a significant
jump forward beyond the present programs, owing to the important
discovery potential that is typical of particle and astro-particle
research.
• As was the case in the seventies for the Great Observatories (Hubble
telescope, CGRO, AXAF, SIRFT) in view of the shuttle operations, a
complete program at the forefront of space science and technology
should include a set of Moon based Observatories to explore any
aspect of the Universe. A Moon based CR Observatory would be part
of this plan to expand our knowledge to the extreme Universe at higher
energies.
Possible observations
The main unsolved problems in the observation of CR are
represented in Fig 1. The vertical lines represent the energy limit that can
be reached in next 10-15 years for the corresponding observations when
the observed fluxes and the technical limitations on the Earth surface and
in the Low Earth Orbit satellites are taken into account. In the boxes the
present experiments are indicated by their acronyms at different stages of
running, or planning, or designing.
Fall 2006
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High Z
[ENTICE, ECCO]
Light
elements
and Isotopes
[ACE]
Antiparticles
and Antinuclei
[BESS.PAMELAAMS]
1 -
Elemental
Composition
[CREAM. ATIC. BEAR. NUCLEON.
ACCESS?, INCA?, PROTON-5?]
Extreme Energy CR
[AUGER, EUSO, TUS. KLYPVE?, OWL??]
Fluxes of Cosmic Rays
1 particle per rn second
Knee
1 particle per m^year
Ilndirect^d^tectipriJEAS
| ’[arfa,ys & foresee nee]
|Ankle
1 particle per km^ year
*tGeV
TeV
•| . i
|PeV
i,., | i.
EeV
io17 I id2
Energy (eV)
Fig. 1 - Global energy spectrum of primary CR - The main unsolved
problems are mentioned in the boxes [present experiments and projects
are indicated by their acronyms].
Direct observations of PCR cannot reach the most interesting
energy region around the knee at a few PeV. At these energies and beyond
we can only rely on indirect observations that, in spite of the huge efforts
and resources investments dedicated in the last forty years, supply greatly
altered information. Only when the energy of the PCR reaches its extreme,
beyond 1019 eV, where the florescence of the shower in the mosphere is
intense enough to allow us to register its longitudinal development, does it
offer some chance for the PCR identification and a better determination of
its energy. However the PCR flux becomes so tiny that significant
statistics will hardly be reached.
Let me mention in more detail the limitations to the CR
observation in the different energy regions for the most relevant physics
problems mentioned in Fig. 1 .
High!
By measuring the single fluxes of the high Z (beyond iron) and
ultra-high Z (actinides) nuclei we can learn about their formation in
violent processes, as in supemovae, and evaluate the rate of these
Washington Academy of Sciences
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processes in the universe. The low abundances (10'n of hydrogen for the
actinides) require an enormous detection surface to be deployed outside of
the atmosphere. Present projects (ENTICE and ECCO) are still not
funded, and in any case promise to collect not more than a few tens of
actinides in several years. Furthermore, for the registration of the heaviest
elements only passive techniques can be used (as in the ECCO project),
implying the recovery from space of the detector for analysis. On the
Moon these limitations are overcome: many tens of square meters of the
(relatively light) detector elements can be installed on the lunar surface
and can be recovered for the analysis; furthermore the total absence of
magnetic field allows a significant increase (by one order of magnitude
compared with a LEO) of the collection rate. Many thousand of actinides
can be collected in a few years. The rates of nuclei that have different
decay-times make possible, inter alias, the determination of the rate of
their production processes.
Elemental composition
Let now consider the flux of the dominant components of CR, i.e.
the nuclei that can be synthesized in stellar processes, from helium to iron.
The global PCR elemental composition and the energy spectra of the most
abundant ones can be adequately studied only by detecting the PCR before
its interaction with the terrestrial atmosphere, i.e. in balloon borne or
satellite borne experiments. The unsurpassable mass limits of these
experiments and the limitations in transport to space do not allow one to
reach and pass the so called knee energy (about 3 x 1015 eV), where the
spectral index changes, and new phenomena must be invoked to explain
the continuation of the energy spectra at higher energy. It is the central
problem of the CR physics that cannot be solved by detecting them on and
around the Earth. At higher energies CR can be detected by the shower of
particles they produce in the atmosphere, but the characteristic of the
initial particle cannot be easily extracted. Only on board a satellite as big
as the Moon, is it possible to reach the needed capture area of hundreds of
m2sr. Twenty years ago John Linsley, in his contribution to the NASA
workshop “Future Astronomical Observations on the Moon”[5] suggested
equipping light inflatable gas detectors on the thick roof of lunar shelters.
We believe now that on the Moon surface there is water in macroscopic
quantity (with concentration between 1% and 10% in the regolith in the
polar craters, if the hydrogen signatures seen by the Clementine mission
are water). Huge water quantities could be extracted mechanically or
thermodynamically. A very efficient method by collecting water vapour
Fall 2006
20
from microwave heating of the regolith is presently under study in the
framework of the Moon Base initiative. More than 1000 tons of water can
be collected by employing 120 kW of electric power in less than 5 years
[6], The availability of large quantities of water is surely a prerequisite for
the establishment of a permanently inhabited Moon Base [7]. The
detection of ultra high energy PCR could usefully profit from this
possibility. Their charge could be measured on the top of a large water
volume equipped by Cherenkov light sensors that could act as a
calorimeter and measure their energy. A capture area of several tens m2sr
gives an observation rate that goes well beyond the knee energy (see Fig.
2). Such a measurement will finally allow us to clarify the confused
situation of elemental composition as deduced by EAS experiments on
Earth surface.
Fig. 2 - PCR rates as a function of the energy.
Light elements and isotopes
Let consider now the rarest CR components. The important and
well performing ACE device is already operating at a very large distance
from the Earth, outside the effect of its magnetic field. It collected a large
amount of PCR up to a few GeV/nucleon, and it continues to work. The
quality of data is excellent and the rare elements and isotopes ratios allow
us now to clarify many astrophysics questions. It is important to extend
this kind of observation up to several tens of GeV/nucleon, because the
evolution with energy of rare elements and isotopic ratios is very sensitive
to different models of synthesis in the stars, injection into the Galaxy and
of diffusion through the Galaxy, and therefore sensitive to different stellar
and Galaxy models. The most important attempt of an experiment
dedicated to this problem (LISA on the ASTROMAG facility) was never
realized because of the cancellation of the Freedom Space Station
program. Several years later a large area balloon borne device equipped by
Washington Academy of Sciences
21
a superconducting magnet spectrometer (ISOMAX) was lost in a flight
accident. No more projects are in view for the next 10 and more years. The
(by-product) data from the BESS-Polar long duration balloon experiment
and from the PAMELA and AMS satellite experiments will not give a
final answer to the main unsolved questions. On the Moon it will be
possible to install detectors of several m2sr of geometrical area, and the
absence of magnetic field will allow us to extend the spectra and isotopic
ratios measurements up to several tens of GeV/nucleon, sufficient to
definitively set reliable Nucleosynthesis and Galaxy models.
Antiparticles and antinnclei
Antiparticles are somewhat rare CR components. For the
antiproton and positron elementary particles in addition to the hope of
observing their secondary origin in interactions of particles with cosmic
matter, is the hope of observing in their energy range effects such as their
primordial existence, or production from steady sources, or signals of the
so called new physics, that increase with energy and became significant
beyond several hundred GeV. The observed fluxes for their secondary
origin are enough high to push the detection up to several hundred GeV,
the limitation being the punch-through of the much more abundant
particles of opposite charge sign in the sample of the detected events. The
PAMELA and AMS experiment represent the maximum effort that can be
afforded on LEO experiments, promising the accurate study of the
antiproton and positron spectra up to this limit. It would be important to
reach the TeV region in this study also considering that the diffusion time
from distant regions of the Universe can be less than the Universe age
only at such high energies, and the effect of the galactic wind in
preventing particles from entering our Galaxy is totally unknown.
Obviously this is much truer for the possible arrival from very distant
regions to our point of observation of antinuclei, an unambiguous signal of
the presence of antimatter at the astronomical level. The antiproton rate for
different trends of the antip/p ratio is reported in Fig. 3 for a capture area
of 100 m2sr.
Fall 2006
22
log(Rates/(sr*1 00m2*year))
primordial antip
source' -
secondary antip
10
>lne,rflyiIeV)
100 1000 10000
Fig. 3 - Antiproton rates for different possible trends of the
antiproton proton ratio.
On the Moon very rigid particles can be bent by a relatively modest
magnetic field extended over large volumes, which is not allowed by
present launch capabilities in LEO. Such a magnet could be inserted in a
larger detection system devoted to the detection of the tiny flux of ultra
high energy CR. (Fig. 4)
5-MOm
5-MOm
Direction and ionization measurements
- 1
Spectrometers
identification
_ 1
Elc
ictromagnetic calorimeter
Hadronic c
calorimeter
Fig. 4 - Insertion of a specialized device in the large HECR detection
system
However it must be also noted that the location of a large capture
area device on the Moon capable of a very good angular resolution and
good calorimetric measurement of the released energy could use the Earth
magnetic field as a magnetic spectrometer (see Fig.5).
Washington Academy of Sciences
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23
Fig. 5 - Deflection of a PCR passing at different distances from the Earth
magnetic axis
In the hypothesis of the existence of large scale antimatter domains in the
Universe (Symmetric Universe), an angular resolution better than 1 mrad
allows a significant rate for antiproton up to about 10 TeV (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6 - Antiproton rate for a Matter-Antimatter Symmetric Universe in a
device that uses the Earth magnetic field in the spectrometer
Extreme energy CR
At energies of the primary CR exceeding 1017 - 1018 eV the
fluoresce emission of the shower in the terrestrial atmosphere becomes
intense enough to be detectable by suitable devices. This fact allows us not
only to measure the total energy released by the CR in the shower but also
to follow its longitudinal development, giving information on the nature of
the primary CR, and allowing us to distinguish the different CR
Fall 2006
24
components. At high enough energies, exciding a few EeV, the
fluorescence light emission is intense enough to be observed and measured
at a large distance. A huge air volume can be monitored by a few devices,
especially if they can be operated from far away on an Earth satellite.
However the limitations in mass and dimensions of the transport
systems into orbit will not allow us in the foreseeable future to go very far
in energy, and most of the region beyond the GZK will be out of reach.
The observation of the fluorescence light from a very high altitude
satellite, as the Moon is, could increase by two orders of magnitude the
observable atmospheric volume, but, due to the three orders of magnitude
of the distance from the terrestrial surface, it requires a huge diameter of
the optical system to maintain a not too high energy threshold for the
detection (see Fig. 7).
Fig. 7 - Rate of PCR for a device installed on the Moon surface and based
on the observation of the florescence light emitted in the terrestrial
atmosphere. The evaluation is based on the -2.6 value of the index of the
differential energy spectrum and does not take into consideration the GZK
effect. The energy threshold is indicated for several diameter* of the area
of the optical system. The rates for the EUSO and OWL projects are also
reported for comparison
The observation of Extreme Energy Neutrinos
Optical systems with the diameters indicated in the Fig. 7 likely are
not a goal for the first generation of lunar experiments, and in any case
diameters of the optical area exceeding 100 m cannot presently be easily
conceived. However diameters in this range could be taken into
consideration if in the meantime the need arises for an ‘Extreme Energy
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Neutrino Observatory’; neutrinos become the fundamental actor in the
astronomy of the extreme space and time Universe and of the extreme
energy astrophysics when they are by-products of the decay of the super¬
heavy elementary particles hypothesized in the Grand Unification
Theories of the Elementary Particle Physics.
It must be observed that, besides the Tess improbable’ cosmogenic
neutrinos that become relevant beyond 1019 eV and could still be abundant
beyond 1021 eV (and should be already measured at the time when a Moon
based Neutrino Observatory could be planned), several models foresee
significant neutrino fluxes at 1022 eV and beyond. The results from the
neutrino experiments performed in the meantime will indicate their
importance and will drive the parameters of the possible Moon based
Neutrino Observatory.
An interesting perspective for the observation of extreme energy
neutrinos is that proposed by the Lebedev Institute of the Russian
Academy of Sciences (LORD and LORD 10 projects). It is based on the
detection by a lunar satellite of the ‘Cherenkov light’ emitted (in radio
frequencies) by the shower produced by the neutrino on the limb of the
Moon. The monitored target volume increases with energy and becomes
competitive for energies beyond 102° eV (Fig. 8).
Such a device, even if not installed on the Moon surface, could
usefully profit from the facilities of a future Moon Base, and be
considered a Moon based experiment.
Fall 2006
Fig. 8 - Ob sellable target volume for different experiment - LORD and
LORD 100 projects are based on the detection on board of a Moon
satellite of the radio signal emitted (as Cherenkov light) by the Ultra HE
show er produced by PCR on the limb o f the Moon.
Conclusions
As a conclusion let me present the scheme reported in Fig. 9,
where the achievement that could be obtained by Moon based CR
experiments are schematically summarized.
High Z HNeXpiorer (HNX) jexp ENTICE + ECCO] r stand by
pcssoe orvy on the Moon surface
Isotopes (E>GeV/YV) on Earth oft* =60 are accessible txi no pians exist
iig tt solcoes from BESS PAMELA AMS m next years
nqri rale assured on the Moon up io very heft E
Rare components art#4/N upto<10*(AMS)
artp up to a >200 GeV (PA^LA ed AMS)
electrons up to >3 TeV (PAMELA A MS CALET)
0 TeV reqen or, reach or *ne Moor; suface
Elemental composition up to 100TeVbyba#oomng (gomgon)
up to 1 PeV n ortxt (several projects and concepts )
up to 1 CO PeV I weft behind the knee; or the Moor
Ultra High Energies up to fe* * IGGEeV on Earth surface (gotig on)
up to 1000 EeV tom ortxt (but EUSO in stand by}
x :c a fe* ' C ZeV fror tne Mocr sjtqcs
a JHE Neutrino Observatory 1 C,,g s feasbte
Fig. 9 - Summary' of possible achievement by future Moon based
experiments.
It must be emphasized that there are some important measurements
that can be conducted on the Moon surface Each of these measurements
could take advantage from, and be the target of. a specific project for a
dedicated Moon-based experimental facility However, the combination
of all of them in a single base represents the very challenging and really
advanced program, because of the synergy of different detection systems
and measurements.
References
1 Heiss K.P.. ^Columbia: A Permanent Lunar Base". Final report of High Frontier Inc.
to NASA Office of Space Flight. December 17. 2003
2 "A Journey to Inspire. Innovate, and Discover", report of the President's
Commission on Implementation of US Space Exploration Policy. June 2004
Washington Academy of Sciences
27
3 Gilmozzi R.. “Moon Base: Scientific Opportunities (in Astronomy)”. International
Workshop Moon Base. Venezia. May 27. 2005
4 Pace E. and Spillantini P.. “Lunar Observatory for Cosmic Ray Physics”, in response
to the ESA call for ideas ‘Cosmic Vision 2015-2025'. May 30. 2004.
5 Linslev J.. “Cosmic Ray Detectors on the Moon". Workshop of the American
Astronomical Society and of NASA on Future Astronomical Observatories ob the
Moon’, Houstoa Texas. January 10. 1986. proceedings NASA Conference
Publication 2489. 1988. pag.55.
6 Heiss K.P.. Ignatiev A. and Van Susante P.. “IRSU-Based Development of a Lunar
Water Astroparticle Observ atory”, report prepared for the Planetary and Terrestrial
Mining Sciences Symposium. NORCAT. Sudbury. ON. 2006.
7 The Jamestown Group LLC, “Components of an Economical Development Scenario
for the Moon”, report in press.
Fall 2006
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Washington Academy of Sciences
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POSITIONING AND NAVIGATION ON THE MOON
Stefano Lagrasta1
Telespazio S.p.A.
Cosimo La Rocca
Galileo Industries Italia S.p.A.;
ABSTRACT
The following article provides a “tutorial" overview of the navigation
problem, with details on the related math modelling and viable
solutions, depending upon the available infrastructure, translating the
experience gained on Earth to the Moon environment. To this purpose,
localization with Pseudolites and Satellite Constellations is considered,
with emphasis on different equipment and related application notes,
from the point of view of system design. Alternatives are analyzed for
2D and 3D determination of coordinates. A finalization of the study
should be part of a 4'phase A” activity specifically targeted to the Moon
localization problem.
Introduction
After over 30 years of successful experience with GPS (Global
Positioning System) and GLONASS (GLObal NAvigation Satellite
System), satellite radio-assisted navigation is now at the beginning of a
new era.
There is a push originating with the demand of increased accuracy
and availability, not simply and not only targeted to military purposes, but
involving new, growing communities - those of civilian users.
The SOL (Safety of Life) applications, such as air services to assist
aircraft approach and landing, needed for precision and a certified
reliability require an implementation through the delivery of appropriate,
real-time Integrity information.
The first response to these issues was the introduction of Satellite
Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS), such as the American WAAS
(Wide Area Augmentation System) and European EGNOS (European
Geostationary Navigation Overlay System).
At the same time, “Selective Availability” intentional degradation
was suppressed, and a modernization program was scheduled for the
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existing systems. Twelve new satellites of the GPS HR block will provide
the new civilian band “L2C” and new “M code” military signals. A third
GPS civilian signal (L5) will be made available after the launch of the first
6 IIF block satellites.
GLONASS is also undergoing a complete renovation that is
expected to achieve a full operational capability - based upon 24 space
vehicles - by 2009.
Europe is developing the Galileo system, designed to be fully
compatible and interoperable with existing GPS and GLONASS, although
self-standing. From the beginning Galileo will modulate 10 circular
polarized navigation signals, using spread-spectrum CDMA (Code
Divisional Multiple Access) technique for multiplation, on three different
carriers and bands: LI, E5, and E6. It plans to achieve excellence in user
positioning by allowing multi -frequency terminals to apply autonomous
on-the-fly ambiguity resolution for “real time kinematics” based on carrier
phase measurements. At the same time, Galileo will broadcast its own
Integrity data, without the need of any complementary system.
In this scenario, new applications and technology enablers come
from the vision of engineers and scientists, able to implement their own
solutions.
In the past, “GPS like” signal generators were used only on the
ground within laboratories to develop and test navigation receivers.
However, since early ‘80, it was understood that new ideas about their use
had brought benefit. Engineers started to “fix” signal generators outdoors,
and experiment with the so called pseudo-satellites: emitters similar to the
satellite navigation payload, capable of allowing autonomous positioning
or incrementing availability, by complementing with “ground resources”
the original signals from constellations. The time for exploiting the so
called “pseudolites” in all their potential has just started notwithstanding
the difficulties related to their use (< e.g the “near - far” problem).
All of this experience, as well as technological and industrial
capability, seem mature enough to be exported, in order to provide a
viable solution to the positioning problem on planets. The difference, with
respect to the application on Earth, is the lack of pre-existing
infrastructures. We cannot forget that global positioning is based upon the
concept of a worldwide applicable reference system and time scale; all of
this must be properly established in advance.
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Fortuitously, a satellite based navigation system is a twofold
“toolset,” on one side, it allows one to determine the user coordinates and,
on the otlher side, it is a precise “measurement instrument” to support the
maintenance of time and global frame references.
Code and Carrier Range Models For a Navigation Constellation
Around a Planet
Let us denote with 1 a time instant on a uniform, reference time
scale.
We need a reference time to mark the occurring events; as a matter
of fact, all the equipment involved in the “navigation system” is made up
of several clocks, each generating its own time measurement, T, each
different with respect to the others.
The raw read-outs from a navigation receiver unit consist mainly
of the so called code range (p ) and carrier range (<j> ) observables. As we
shall see, elapsed time measurements are converted into distance, or
“ranging” information.
sv
The ET (end terminal) and SV (space vehicle) clock scales T£r T
aim at reproducing the previously mentioned absolute time reference t\
however, they depend upon accuracy of local (receiver and navigation
payload) clock oscillators, and relativistic effects.
A time difference between instants in the two scales 7™ T is at
ET
the basis of the first “navigation observable” to be considered: the raw
code-range, p .
p is a length measurement, achieved after correlating the “local
replica” of a PRN (Pseudo Random Noise) code with the signal from a
Space Vehicle (SV) or Pseudolite (PL) and multiplying the relative time
shift, needed to align the codes, by the speed of light, c.
p can be modeled as follows:
P(7r) = c-(7r - 7^) + (high) noise + multipath (1)
where TR is the End Terminal (ET) receiver clock time measurement when
p is “sampled”; when ET time reads TR. t the reference time is tR.
Fall 2006
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Tr=TM- (2)
T is the SV clock time measurement at the emission of the RF wavefront
that reaches the ET at tR, when the navigation payload clock reads the
absolute time is
E SV
T =T (tE). (3)
The difference:
r= *R ~ *E
(4)
is the effective “light travel time” of the navigation signal. One has:
T *E ^REL-SV + ^
Tr - *R + A* REL-ET + €ET
(5)
(6)
where e£T and £ 1 are the “time errors” of the ET and SV clocks, while
A t rel-et anc^ A ^rel-si' are r^tivistic terms, due to the fact that both
satellite and receiver are moving and “embedded “in a gravitation field.
The signal propagation time depends upon the real distance p
between SV and ET, as well as on delays due to both the atmosphere, if
existing, and the gravity gradient. In the language of satellite navigation,
the variable refractive index caused by the presence of free electrons
represents the “ionospheric” delay (A tJONO); the excess path caused by a
non-ideal refractivity in the neutral atmosphere is the “tropospheric” effect
(with delay AtTROPO)- The gravity gradient implies a new relativistic effect
with associated lag denoted as A t
One can write
T ~ ((r “ *£■) ~ P I c +A tREi + A tJONO+ At TROPO (7)
with p = || AA • rsl (tR - T) - rEJtR) || (8)
so that T appears implicitly defined, being in both terms of the previous
equation. Vectors r1^, r_Er denote the respective positions of SV and ET
antennae in the established, planet centered and fixed (non-inertial)
reference coordinate system.
Operator AA is an “attitude” matrix, accounting for planet motion
over the time interval r. In the case of the Earth and WGS 84 or GTRF
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Earth Centered and Fixed (ECF) Cartesian frame, AA results, with good
approximation, to be a “pure” rotation about z-axis, of the angle
accumulated by the Earth rotation in the time interval r:
AA =
cos(x • co0 )
-sin(x • cd0)
0
sin(x- co0)
cos(t • 0)0 )
0
0
0
1
(9)
It is worthwhile to establish a planet centered and fixed global reference
frame with z-axis close to the effective rotation axis of the celestial body,
so that, in the absence of significant precession and nutation motions over
the interval, r, equation (9) is still valid. In the case of Earth, one has:
C0o> 0, (Oo = 7.29212 x 10 ~ rad/s
while in the case of the Moon
(Ocj> 0, (Oo= 2.66167 x 10”6 rad/s.
The Moon rotates much slower, about 27 times slower than Earth does.
Substituting the previous equations into (1), the following final
expression is found:
p(TR) = p +c-(£et- /') +... (10)
+ C ' ( ^REL-SV + ^
REL-ET
^ REL +
^ IONO +
^TROPc) +'
+ noise + multipath + eEm
The carrier-phase observable, (p, is the second fundamental raw
output measurement from a navigation receiver. Given in units of cycles,
it can be converted from the very basic read-out into units of length,
multiplying it by the wavelength. A; it can be demonstrated that the
resulting model for “carrier range” 5> is very similar to the one of code
range , being modeled as follows:
0(7^) =/t- $ =p +c-(eET- (11)
+ C ’ ( ^ REL-SV + ^ REL-ET + ^ REL ~ ^ IONO + ^TROPc) + ^ ' N +. . .
+ (negligible) noise + (low) multipath + e£pH
where N - the so called “initial ambiguity” - is an integer term, with
relative sign, not a priori known, that remains constant, until carrier
tracking is lost. N equals the integer number of wavelengths along the
Fall 2006
34
path between signal generator and user receiver, counted at the time of
signal phase lock; such an ambiguity parameter remains constant, until
any fail of phase tracking by the receiver.
Carrier range measurements obtained from navigation signals
modulating different carrier frequencies do have different ambiguity
terms. When changing the satellite, a distinct ambiguity value is to be
accounted for.
Note that the ionospheric effect appears in the expression of <I>
with a negative sign.
Both in (1) and (11), the term £EPIP known as “ephemeris error”, is
not caused by a physical source. It has to be accounted for, whenever an a
priori model for i_ (t) is used, in order to solve for user position vector,
r_ET In other words, eEpH comes out due to the poor accuracy in the
knowledge of the emitter location. This is true, unless the problem under
consideration is the dual one, i.e ., if r£T is well known, and the aim is to
nrr
solve for r , as it happens in the constellation Orbit Determination.
Solution of Navigation Equations
We do not put down here all the “processing details” necessary to
solve for user position; however, some basic equations are given, which
allow one to understand the fundamental issues and problems
The standard solution provided by a navigation receiver uses code
range raw observables. The approach consists of an iterative process,
assuming that a first “guess”, is available for ET coordinates, as well an
initial value £** for the ET clock error and for signal travel time, r*.
Based on such initial rough estimates, and assuming one knows an
evaluation can be obtained for “signal emission” time instant as well as
a better estimate for r we get
tE tR ~ T = Tr - £* - r* (12)
r<- p/C - e. + isv(tE). (13)
Here £SI is an estimate of the SV clock error, built up by using the “clock
correction” engineering information transmitted by navigation systems
within the so called “navigation message”.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Given t the position of navigation satellite is achieved
through the « precision ephemeris » of the navigation message. Mainly
from r* and rSl , plus additional elements of the navigation message ( e.g
the « ionospheric correction parameters ») and meteorological data
(pressure, humidity, temperature), the following overall set of estimates
can be achieved:
£ 1 ^ REL-SV* ^ REV ^ IONCT ^ TROPO-
The aim is to produce a “corrected” code range pc , i.e..
Pc - P + £ “ C ' ( ^ REL-SV + ^ R£L + ^ IONO+ ^ TROPc) ’
Assimilating At ET within the clock error e one has
PC = P +*'eET +€
where e « conglobates » noise, multipath, as well as the uncompensated
terms, to be intended as all undesired signal components that do not cancel
out, after application of the feed-forward compensation formula ( 1 5).
Equation (16) is linear in the unknown receiver clock offset e£V
whilst it is non-linear with respect to ET coordinates, r£T .
(14)
(15)
(16)
A linearization about point r * provides
1 T A
p = p* - p Ar
p* “*
(17)
where
rET = L, + Ar
(18)
£>, = AA ■ if1 - rt
(19)
P. =11 A II = II AA -r, ||.
(20)
Substituting (17) into (16) yields:
Pc -A= -T-p/-Ar +c-eET+e
(21)
P*
where £>* is a 1 x 3 row vector.
Fall 2006
36
From ni distinct and “corrected” code range measurements
{ p J, pc? p"1 }, all affected by the same clock offset e£r one can build
up a linear system
= M
Ar
C ■ £et
+ 8
M =
-4 <pDt •
pi
pi -
-•(pm)T i
.m 'll* '
(22)
Note that M is an m x 4 matrix; a least-squares solution for Ar, eET (that is:
4 scalar unknowns), is provided by
Ar
C • 8et
= (Mt • M)'1 MT •
(23)
assuming that m > 4 , and that 4x4 matrix (M • M) is nonsingular.
After applying (23), letting
£* £ ET (24)
t* = L*+ Ar (25)
allows us to start with a new iteration of the algorithm, performing all
computation steps indicated by (12), (13), (15), (19), (20), and finally (23).
Iterations are stopped when || Ar || comes out to be of negligible
dimension.
Error Budget and System Features
Whatever the user positioning algorithm is that estimates r£r e£T
from the set of “corrected” code range measurements {p^ , pc2 p^11 },
the linear relationship (23) is always the proper one to describe how the
Washington Academy of Sciences
37
uncompensated error £ that still affects observables
positioning and timing error
converts into
' Sr ‘
c • ST
= (Mt • M)"1 -Mt -e
(26)
where
positioning error
dr — v — f
- -ET -ET
(27)
timing error
a?
II
1
m>
Let us assume that an ellipsoid is defined to approximate the
surface profile of the planet. Several applications require the error Sr to be
converted into “local coordinates”, i.e., projected in a frame {xL,yL, zl)
co-located with the end terminal, the axes {xl, yi] defining a plane tangent
to the ellipsoid at the user position, whilst zl is in the zenith direction. If
the orientation matrix L converts from planet centered to local
coordinates, one has
" §Il "
Ol
Sr
c ST
_0T 1
c-ST
(28)
L =
- sin(?t)
- sin((|)) • cos(^)
cos((|)) • cos(^)
cos(A,) 0
- sin((j)) • sin(A,) cos(<}))
cos(<|)) • sin(^) sin((j))
(29)
On Earth, {A, (f)} are the well known geodetic longitude and latitude of the
user.
Let us assume now that residual measurement error e is purely
stochastic and characterized by the covariance: P = E{e • £} = ap2 • I ,
that means all error components affecting code range measurements are
intended to have the same variance, ap2. If this is the case, the following is
achieved
C2(xl)
C2(xl)
o2(xl)
o2(T)
(30)
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38
LT 0
0T 1
and the “Dilution of Precision” (DOP) parameters defined as:
GDOP cp2
= (Trace of W ) • gp2
= a\xL) + <r(yL) + a\zL) + g2(7)
(31)
TDOP2 cp2
= W(4,4) • ap2 = t AT)
(32)
PDOP2 • Cp2
= ( GDOP2 - TDOP2 ) • Gp2
= g2{xl) + a2 (yL) +o2 (zL)
(33)
VDOP2 cp2
= W(3,3) • Gp2 = g2(z/)
(34)
HDOP2 Cp2
= ( PDOP2 - VDOP y*
= g2(xl) + G^i)
(35)
where GDOP means “Geometric DOP”, PDOP “Position DOP”, TDOP
“Timing DOP”, HDOP “Horizontal DOP”, and VDOP “Vertical DOP”.
Even if £*is not purely stochastic or Gaussian, the DOP parameters
provide a crucial indication on what happens in a given navigation satellite
or pseudolite configuration. As a matter of fact, DOP coefficients imply an
amplification (or de-amplification, in some lucky cases) of the residual
measurement error components. Given a budget for £ DOP elements
explain what will be the final impact on positioning and timing, further
“splitting” the positioning into horizontal and vertical localization
accuracies.
Obtaining a limiting budget for gp2 (the so called HERE, User
Equivalent Range Error) is one aspect of the navigation mission study.
For instance, given a target, and maximum allowed 3D positioning
error || 5 r || max, a “prudent” mission design suggests:
PDOP < || & _ || max /(3op) (36)
As already said, any configuration of satellites or pseudolites must
be accompanied by a careful DOP analysis in the area of service coverage
(that is the overall planet in the case of satellite navigation).
L O'
oT 7
(Mt- M)'
L 0
\T 1
(Mt • M)-1
Lt 0
o2 = W-o2
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39
Laser Ranging Techniques
Laser Ranging (LR) technology is based upon the emission of a
pulsed laser beam, transmitted from ground to a space target. The returned
laser photons will be collected by a telescope, and the timing between
issue and receipt of each single laser pulse converted to an accurate
measure of the distance between ground equipment and the space mirror.
As explained in [5], Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) was one of the
first space geodetic techniques, providing observations a short time after
the first manned mission to the Moon in 1969 (Apollo 11).
As a matter of fact, Apollo 1 1 and a number of subsequent
missions to the Moon deployed passive retro-reflectors on its surface; LLR
allows one to perform ranging measurements of the distance between
points on Earth and on lunar surface.
In the following picture from [6], the history of precision attained
on measurements is shown over a time period of 35 years
Historical Accuracy of Lunar Laser Ranging Data
Weighted RMS Least Squares Residual [cm]
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
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40
When the laser signal returns after bouncing off of a spacecraft target, the
technique is called Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR).
Telespazio operates the Matera Laser Ranging Observatory
(MLRO), a joint SLR/LLR station; its telescope is shown in the figure
below. It employs a 1.5 m astronomical quality reflector. The laser is a
hybrid that produces a 100 MHz pulse train with a pulse length that is less
than 50 picosec.
The analytical expression of range measurement p is required, in
terms of the elements to be estimated, to follow a well assessed physical
and geometrical model. Simplifying, let x be the vector listing the items to
be determined, and p/= h(x , /) the model for the ith two-way (laser ray
round-trip) distance measurement.
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41
Partial derivatives of the range are computed relative to the
components of x. Assuming that an initial guess x* is available for the
unknowns, the linearization of h(x , /') about x* provides
fi = h(x^ /) + H 1 • Ax ,
H1 =
dh( x . i )
dx
x=x*
(37)
so that, after collection of a large number m of measurements from
different sites and at different time instants, the correction Ax to x* is
obtained from pseudo-inversion of a linear model, where the design matrix
M has lines made up of row elements {H1, / = 1,2, . m}
’ p‘ -h(x,l) "
H1
Ax = (Mt M)-1 -Mt •
p2 -h(x,2)
M =
H2
pm -h(x,m )
H'”
The observability of items improves with variableness in the structure of
Jacobian rows {H1}.
LLR data analysis, through least-squares solution of large models
with respect to their coefficients correction “deltas”, provides a number of
numeric parameter values. More precisely, according to [5], two groups of
parameters (170 in total) are determined by a weighted least-squares fit of
the observations; the first group comprises, among others, these five
parameters:
- geocentric coordinates of three Earth-based LLR stations and
their velocities;
- a set of Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP);
- selenocentric coordinates of used retro-reflectors;
- rotation of the Moon at one initial epoch (physical librations);
orbit (position and velocity) of the Moon at this epoch.
Thus, LLR contributes to the establishment of both the Terrestrial and
Moon global reference frames as they result from the station coordinates
and velocities; the IERS technical notes of [7] provide a deep insight on
definition of the International Terrestrial reference Frame.
Compared to SLR, LLR has the advantage of following targets
with stable, highly accurate “orbit” lack of non-conservative forces from
Fall 2006
42
the atmosphere, which (on the contrary) perturbs significantly satellite
orbits.
The definition of ground points on the Moon, with respect to
selenocentric coordinates, is the first step to achieve localization
capabilities on it. For instance, using LLR, precise coordinates of
pseudolite emitters and reference receivers can be achieved, following the
techniques described in the beginning.
Complementary calculation of the lunar gravitational field and of
other parameters of physical interest can be achieved by means of SLR
observations made from the Moon towards a spacecraft put in circumlunar
orbit.
Local Positioning With Pseudolites
Pseudolites (PL) are ground-based transmitters broadcasting
GPS or Galileo-like signals. In principle, pseudolites may complement or
even fully replace a constellation of satellites for radio-assisted navigation.
PL instruments can be easily monitored, managed, and also maintained,
whilst this is not applicable for navigation payload on-board of space
vehicles.
We will not treat the specific RF problems coupled with using PL
equipment, which can be faced by a proper design of the single component
(PL or receiver). On the contrary, system design issues will be addressed.
It is just recalled here that one major impediment in the use of PL’s
is known as the “near-far” problem - when the signal originates from a
constellation of navigation satellites, the average power at the end terminal
site has a relatively small range of variation. When using Pseudolites the
situation is completely different. When the receiver approaches the “near”
distance limit close to a transmitter, that PL causes an undesired jamming
to signals from the other emitters. When at the “far limit”, the terminal
captures a signal power that stays just a little bit above noise level.
The use of pulsed RF emission operation, with a low duty-cycle
( e.g ., 10%), allows one to increase the ratio between far and near
distances, up to a “far limit” on the order of tens of nautical miles,
compared to a “near limit” which reduces to below a few hundred meters.
In what follows, system design issues will be considered,
depending upon the technology adopted to implement the PL; emphasis
will be given to the core aspects of related math models that are explicitly
Washington Academy of Sciences
43
written, in order to understand how to achieve the solution of user
positioning problem.
Free-running Pseudolite s (FPL)
When the signal source to the ET is a pseudolite, then in the case
of a “free running” pseudolite equipment (FPL) the modeling of code
range and carrier range observables is similar to that one from a navigation
constellation.
Assuming operation on the Moon, neglecting atmospheric delays,
one has
Pet = P+c-{eET- £PL) +...
(39)
+ noise + multipath + e£pH
with
1
('ll
(40)
p|j denotes the code range measurement attained by “ET”, which is a
receiver (symbol is “down”), when signal is emitted by the “PL”, that is a
generator (symbol is “up”).
It is immediately clear that, in order to use the observable p£j,
some ground infrastructure has to estimate and communicate the clock
offset / L to the receiver; it is an unknown that cannot be autonomously
solved for by the ET.
One can also guess that, if the pseudolite “fixed” position vector
is not precisely known, the “ephemeris error” eEpH will be a constant
bias. This is much worse than for navigation satellites, where e£pH is time
dependent and changing polarity within the validity window of Navigation
message (Precise Ephemeris) parameters.
To implement a system configuration based on FPL equipment, a
relatively easy approach is based upon the adoption of a “master” station
(MS), capable of collecting code range measurements and broadcasting
them to the ET, via a digital communication RE channel. The concept is
illustrated in the following figure.
Measurements by ET are:
Pet = Pet +c' (%“ (41)
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44
with pJET =|| £ - r_E1{lR)
(42)
whilst the set of observables collected by the MS receiver is
Pms = Pms + c ' (£ms ~ *4 7=1,2, . ..,m (43)
with Pms =11 Zf — LMS ||. (44)
If now the MS “sends” the ET its measurements, the latter will be
able to form the m differences
Apj = Pet - Pms- Pet ~ Pms + c ' Ae » j=h2,...,m (45)
Af- ( £et~ £ms )■
Assuming that the position of MS, rMS, and those ones of all
pseudolites {/^, j= 1,2, ..., m) are known a priori , then all distances
{ pJMS, j= 1, 2, m} can be calculated.
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A linearization brings us to the solution of the positioning problem,
where the unknowns to be determined are the increment A r£T to improve
an initialization value r* for ET coordinates and the clock offset difference
Ae
Ap1 - pi +Pms
AP2-P.2+Pms (46)
Ap -p* +Pms J
Synchronies (SL)
There are several alternative implementations for a “pseudolite
transceiver”, a unit able to receive, process, and re-generate a navigation
signal.
A first design, appropriate for application on a planet, is depicted
in what follows. The equipment receives a navigation signal from a single,
“master” generator (a GPS/Galileo satellite or a FPL), then it re-modulates
such a signal, with the same carrier, but a different PRN code.
The ET will receive both the “direct” (master) source, as well as
the output of all synchrolites (SL).
The processing needed for positioning will not foresee any
“master” station. The intended configuration is shown in the following
figure.
The “direct” FPL signal generates the code range observable
Pet — Pet + c ' A^ (47)
Ae ={eET- e).
It can be shown that the measurement at the ET side, from the jth SL, is
Pet = pj° + pJET + c-Ae + c- 8 , j = 1, 2, m (48)
Af
c Ae
(MT • M)'1 -Mt
with
Pj =\\LJ - £ II, 7= 1,2, m
Pet =11 £ - Let II* 7= 1,2, ..., m
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(49)
(50)
46
where { r', j = 0, 1,2, . . ,m) are the “a priori known” positions of all
pseudolites, that is, the “master” FPL and all synchrolites.
The new addictive terms {8\ j = 1, 2, ..., m} denote the time
delay for the synchrolite to re-transmit the incoming signal.
The linearized model for calculating ET coordinates is
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47
Ar
c • Ae
Pet ~ P? + P* -c • 81
= (Mt • M)_l ■ Mt • p|T-p"+p?-c S2 , (51)
and it is readily seen that estimates are assumed to be available for each
SL operational delay. S'. This undesired bias can be effectively monitored
and communicated to the ET, by providing the SL of a receiver the ability
to demodulate its own signal as seen in the figure below.
As a matter of fact, if the new receiver “embedded” within the SL
is clocked by the same timing source which feeds the signal generator, its
“self-measurement” of generated signal reads out as
Pj = C- S' , j= 1,2, ...,m
(52)
and this value can be communicated to the ET.
i
DIGITAL
LINK
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48
Differlites (DL)
The term “Differlite” was introduced by the Aerospace Robotics
Laboratory at Stanford University to describe a new pseudolite system,
suitable for positioning on planets (Self-Calibrating Pseudolite Array
(SCPA), see LeMaster).
The DL belongs to the class of pseudolite transceivers, in the sense
that it comes equipped with a signal generator and a receiver.
In its simplest realization, the DL is made ;p of
transmitter/receiver components that are fully “separate” (witi ^erent
clocks); the only feature that couples the two elements is the cat y by
the receiver to demodulate the signal produced by the emitter, ^ich is
materially a (simple) FPL. Lr is consider the configuration that is shown
in the following picture:
Only a couple of DL are provided; this will not be sufficient to s e for
ET coordinates, but is necessary to demonstrate that DL units a . to be
used in “pairs”.
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Note that, assuming a separation between receiver and emitter
hardware resources, two distinct clock offsets are to be considered within
each unit and the following primary equations hold
Pet — Pet + c ' ( £et~ £
Pet - Pet + c ' ^£et~ e )
with pJET =|| rj - rET{tR) ||, j = 1,2 (54)
where d , d are the clock errors of the FPL element in each DL.
Further, one has
Pi2 = Pi2+c-(£;- ?) , Pi1 =c-(et - d) (55)
pj r P|2+c-(e,-f') , p l = C ■ (e2 - e) (56)
where € e , are the clock errors of the receiver element in each DL, and
where p,2 = || r1 - r || (57)
assuming (for the sake of simplicity) that the emitter and receiver antennae
are co-located.
In each DL a computation capability allows one to perform the
following differences (which justify the term “Differlites”)
Ap2 = Pi2 - Pi1 s Pi2 - c • (e - e1) (58)
AP2 = P2 - P2 2 Pi2 + c ■ {e - d). (59)
The ET can calculate as well the difference
APet = Pet — Pet — Pet — Pet — c — d). (60)
Now, assume the two Differlites are able to communicate the differences
(58), (59) to the ET; one sees that the ET will be able to extract the
unknowns pf and Ae2-1 = (d - d) from linear system
Api2
"1 -f
P?
=>
Pi2
_ 1
1 f
Ap,2
_Ap2_
_Ap2 _
1 1
c • Ae2-1
c- Ae2-1
” 2
-1 1
(61)
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50
After detection of A£, given that r7, r are known, the linearized model for
calculating ET coordinates is:
Ar = (Mt • M)"1 -Mt •
^Pet “P* + P* + c- Ae2-1
Ap£f* - p* + p* + c • Ae4-3
^Pet5 - p* + p* + c • Ae6-'
APet7 - p* + p l + c • Ae8-7
(62)
where “coupled” pairs of DL are considered to be in each other’s “line of
sight”, and no “master station” (MS) is needed; note that a MS would
impose the (severe) requirement of receiving signals from all emitters
simultaneously.
Using the DL architecture, techniques have been developed as in
[11 PI [3], so that the array of emitters is capable of “self-surveying” the
relative locations, creating a Self-Calibrating Pseudolite Array (SCPA).
The approach can be extended to the carrier range measurements to
achieve centimeter accuracy [4],
Sensitivity of DOP Figures to Geometry
When using pseudolites on the surface of a planet, DOP figures
that approach the classical solution of user 3D coordinates show dramatic
singularities.
As an example, assume that four PL are placed at the corners of a
box, centered at Apollo 11 Mission landing base: selenodetic longitude:
Ao= 23.5° East, latitude: </>0= 0.7° North.
Let the box sides span ±0.16° in latitude and longitude, with a fifth
PL placed exactly at the center of the area. All PL are assumed to be
placed at 50 m of altitude above the surface of the Moon, to compensate
for its curvature and to grant optical visibility.
The PDOP figure for such a configuration is shown below, where
black diamonds denote the antennae of signal generators:
-L
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51
3D Position Dilution of Precision (PDOP) factor
300
250
200
100
50
0
23.1
Ion [deg] la* 1*41
Values are too high and cannot be accepted. The fact is that there is a
difficulty in evaluating the vertical component of the ET position.
To overcome it, one may define a “local horizon fixed” coordinate
system, for instance related to the “central” PL , using matrix L defined by
(29) to convert vectors {r\ j = 1 , ..., 5}, denoting PL coordinates, from
planet-centered axes to the local frame {*1, yu zl}-
Then, the ET position can be solved neglecting the zL coordinate
(approximately the altitude, in a little area), thus obtaining a 2D solution
of the navigation problem. In this case, PDOP values are given below.
Within the area having PL at corners, the PDOP value is of the
order of 0.95, which is perfect. An equivalent performance is obtained as
well by eliminating the 5th PL emitter at the origin Ao, (/>o of local
coordinates.
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52
2D Position Dilution of Precision (PDOP) factor
lat [deg]
1.1-i
1.0-
0.9-
0.8-
0.7-
0.6-
0.5-
0.4-
0.3-
23.1
— I —
23.2
23.8
23.9
2D Position Dilution of Precision (PDOP) factor
— i - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - r~
23.3 23.4 23.5 23.6 23.7
Global Moon Positioning With Constellations
Ion [deg]
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The basic equation set (22), with solution (23), is the standard
receiver approach to determine ET coordinates in geocentric as well as
selenocentric fixed coordinates.
The navigation equations (22), (23) imply the need to determine
four scalar magnitudes (the three components of position adjustment, A r,
and the ET clock offset eET).
A necessary condition is to have ni > 4 navigation space vehicles in
view. To this purpose, several studies analyze the (minimum) number of
visible satellites at the nodes of a grid, over the surface region of the Moon
that is meant to be covered by a “positioning service”.
However, this is not sufficient; in fact, the solution of (23) must be
T
well posed and the inversion of the 4x4 matrix (M • M) far from
singularities.
In other words, the geometric configuration of satellites, as seen
from the user receiver, has to be favorable, with DOP figures illustrated in
the beginning characterized by promising values.
If four satellites are in view, but (for instance) all pertaining to the
same orbit plane, the ET will not be able to solve for its position. DOP
values will jump to very high values in the proximity of singularity
conditions.
One should also take into account a “masking angle” on elevation
of visible satellites. On Earth, navigation space vehicles that are still in
view, but below a minimum elevation of 5° with respect to the ET local
horizon, are commonly excluded from positioning computations, due to
the large portion of atmosphere that is passed through by signals. The
Moon does not exhibit such a huge variation of the refraction index;
however, a not-null masking angle is to be considered when performing
“volume” simulation of performances, to account for natural obstacles to
the propagation of rays. If a “trial” constellation appears sensitive to small
masking angles (say 2°), then its design should be re-examined.
In order to “save” the number of satellites needed for positioning,
or to overcome temporary singularities for the 3D position determination,
one may assume a simplification and treat a 2D problem instead.
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54
The problem of imposing long-term orbits is an open issue as well,
due to the intrinsic instability of Moon orbit profiles, which will not be
treated here in detail.
2D Positioning with Navigation Constellations
This can be accomplished by projecting the unknown correction
Arto local horizon coordinates, {xL,yL, -l}, then neglecting the “delta”
along zi and assuming one estimates only its components about
Let us consider again the basic equation set (22), and split matrix
M according to the 3 x 1 structure of Ar and of the scalar (c- £ET), so that
= H Ar
+ 1 • (c • )
+ e,
H =
i (P*)
p*
— L.(p”)T
m — *
P *
Now, using the transpose of matrix L defined by (29)
Axi
"1
0"
"0"
T T
L -ArL = L ■
<1
T
= L
0
1
Axl'
Ay t
+
0
_Azl _
0
0
► L _
1
(63)
(64)
Azl = 0 => Ar = W
Axl
Avl
with
"1
0"
-sin(?i*)
-cos(^*)sin(<|)*)
0
1
=
cos(>,* )
— sinf^t^ ) - sintfj)^ )
0
0
cos((|)*)
L,
(65)
(66)
Substituting (66) into (63) and rearranging terms, one obtains the desired
2D formulation of the positioning problem
Washington Academy of Sciences
55
~1 1
Pc ”P*
~2
i —
_!
<1
Pc "P*
= M
Avl
~ m _ m
_c • £ex _
|_Pc “P* J
+ £
M =
pi
(P*)TW
-4-(p;)T w
p*
pr
(Pl”)Tw 1
(67)
with the solution
Axl
Ayl
= (Mt • M)_l Mt •
Pc - pi
Pc -P*
_C-£Et_
_Pcm -P*m.
(68)
Walker Constellations
After having assigned a nominal semi-major axis, eccentricity,
inclination, common to all space vehicles, a Walker satellite constellation
is characterized by three (constant) integer parameters: Tl PI F, where
T= total number of satellites, P = number of orbit planes, F= “phase
factor”, with 0 < F < (P - 1 ) .
From Tl PI F, the following derived parameters are obtained:
D Number of satellites per plane: S = T I P
° Pattern unit [deg]: PU =360 IT
a In-Plane spacing angle [deg]: IPS = PU x P
n Angular spacing of ascending nodes [deg]: NS = PU x S
° Phase delta angle [deg]: PHD = PU x F
The PHD is the angular distance of a satellite with respect to the
ascending node of its orbit, evaluated at the time when the companion
satellite in the next most Western plane achieves its ascending node.
A navigation constellation may be designed as the “union” of
several distinct constellations, each one being of Walker type. For
instance, the Galileo navigation system baseline is a Walker 27/3/1
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constellation, with an additional 3/3/1 set of “spare” vehicles, sharing the
same orbit planes of the former.
Halo Orbits
There are no stable Lunar orbits; thus, in order to maintain a
spacecraft in a planned trajectory path around the Moon over a long time,
frequent station-keeping maneuvers are to be executed.
Fuel budget is a critical issue for settling and keeping up a
constellation on the Moon.
A spacecraft in the Earth-Moon system is the “third body” (of
negligible mass) in a configuration with two additional large primaries.
The singularities of the manifold of the states of motion are
equilibrium points for the dynamical system, named Lagrangian or
libration points. A good tutorial is provided by [8] on this topic.
There are three “collinear” (LI, L2 and L3) and two “triangular”
(L4 and L5) points; in the Earth-Moon system, the Earth is the primary
with bigger mass and it is possible to demonstrate that this implies the two
“interesting” points LI and L2 are close to the Moon
The possibility of taking advantage of the nature of the libration
points for useful spacecraft orbits has been analyzed in the literature. In
more detail, R.W. Farquhar discovered that full 3D periodic “halo” orbits
can occur around LI and L2. He proposed the use of a communication
satellite in a halo orbit about L2, then complementing it with a second
relay satellite, placed at the cislunar libration point LI.
The application of halo orbits for navigation purposes is an
interesting perspective. It has been estimated that a cost of about 100
m/s/year is enough to counteract the solar gravity force and radiation
pressure that tends to interrupt the periodicity of the halo orbits.
The drawback is that halo orbits are difficult to design and
implement with real missions; the problem is highly non-linear, so that
small changes in the initial conditions compromise the possibility to
achieve or to maintain the desired orbit profile, as explained in [8].
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Sample Lunar Constellation
Even with the lack of a rigorous demonstration, it is seen that at
least 18 satellites are needed to solve for 3D global positioning on the
Moon, without an augmentation performed by ground pseudolites.
There is a number of alternative ways to arrange 18 satellites to
form a navigation constellation, aiming at covering both its polar and
equatorial regions with a suitable positioning service.
A proposed example of constellation with 18 space vehicles is
made up of:
a polar Walker sub-constellation, with T= 12/ P = 3 / F= 2
an equatorial sub-constellation of 6 equally-spaced additional
satellites
all with null nominal eccentricity and an orbit semi-major axis about 5
times the Moon radius.
The overall arrangement is shown in the following picture:
z
The minimum number of visible satellites is shown hereafter, assuming a
masking elevation angle of 2°
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lat [deg)
Minimum number of visible satellites
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Ion [deg]
The worst case PDOP figures are as follows
lat [deg] 3D Position Dilution of Precision (PDOP) factor
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Ion [deg]
One sees that there are “spots” where temporary performances degrade at
a maximum 4.6 times the 1 -sigma of residual error affecting code range
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measurements; all the rest of the surface experiments have satisfactory
DOP values, including the polar regions.
Conclusion
Local and global navigation on the Moon are seen as an achievable
objective with current technologies, especially with Pseudolites and
Satellite Navigation Constellations, providing that all possibilities and
combinations of these “tools” are carefully examined.
A strong effort on the study phase will maximize the attainable
results, with a proper trade-off between available alternatives. Especially
considering the opportunity of complementing the navigation space
vehicles with “advanced” ground emitters, it will drive the design of very
promising equipment and related localization systems.
When dealing with constellations, a number of features are to be
accounted for, which include the difficulty of “bringing” and maintaining
the satellites on target orbits, due to the lack of stable Moon trajectories.
Issues range from geometric DOP figures to the cost for reaching
and keeping over time a desired orbit profile by each navigation vehicle.
Special care is required in developing mission studies, due to the
complexity and inter-discipline skills related to the matter. However, the
preliminary feasibility analyses demonstrate that all of this is not science
fiction, but a real opportunity for a joint adventure between Europe and
America.
REFERENCES
[1] E.A. LeMaster, S.M. Rock: "Self-Calibration of Pseudolite Arrays Using Self-
Differencing Transceivers”. Institute of Navigation GPS-99, Nashville, TN,
September 1999.
[2] E.A. LeMaster. S.M. Rock: "A Local-Area GPS Pseudolite-Based Mars
Navigation System”. IEEE 10th International Conference on Advanced Robotics.
Budapest. Hungary', August 2001.
[3] E.A. LeMaster. S.M. Rock: "An Improved Solution Algorithm for Self-
Calibrating Pseudolite Arrays”. Institute of Navigation National Technical
Meeting. San Diego, CA, January' 2002.
[4] E.A. LeMaster. S.M. Rock: “A Local-Area GPS Pseudolite-Based Navigation
System for Mars Rovers”. Journal of Autonomous Robots. Vol. 14. No. 2-3. Mar-
May 2003, pp. 209-224.
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[5] J. Muller. J.G. Williams. S.G. Tun shew P.J. Shelus: “Potential Capabilities ol
Lunar Laser Ranging for Geodesy and Relativity". September 6th. 2005
[6] Tom Murphy (UCSD) "‘Next-Generation Lunar Laser Ranging". Presentation on
"APOLLO" (Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation)
[7] C. Boucher. Z. Altamimi. P. Sillard. M. Feissel- Vernier: “The ITRF 200(T.
International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS). Technical
Note No. 31
[8] Franco Bemelli Zazzera. Francesco Topputo. Mauro Massari: “Assessment of
Mission Design Including Utilization of Lib ration Points and Weak Stability
Boundaries". Study developed under ESA Contract N°.18147/04/NL/MV
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ROBOTIC AID TO MOON BASE
P. Magnani(*), B. Midollini(*), B. Papalia(°)
(*)Galileo Avionica S.p.A. (°)ENEA
This article focuses on the role played by Automation and
Robotics (A&R) as part of the logistics system, in support of human
beings in the different phases of their presence on the Moon: from
exploration, to base settlement and running, to resources localization and
exploitation.
It was late 13th century when Marco
Polo reached China after a 15,000
miles journey on sea and land which
took him three and a half years.
Two centuries later, Cristoforo
Colombo reached America after having
sailed for 79 days and 3,000 miles: even if shorter than the journey of his
predecessor, this event represented a turning point
for our history, marking the end of the medieval
age and the start of the modern era.
These are only two outstanding examples, but
human exploration was born much earlier than
then, right since the very first appearance of
humanity on the Earth. Since then, humans have
extended their exploration, taking advantage
meanwhile of the means that scientific and
technological research were bringing.
Thanks to these means we have been able to cover in few days the over
350,000 km distance from our satellite, to orbit around it and, eventually,
to step on the Moon’s surface.
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Courtesy: NASA
Now we are going to face this new
challenge: set an initial outpost on the Moon
in view of creating a proper, self-reliant,
permanently inhabited base, where research
and experiments will be carried out, and
which will be used as a starting point for
future missions of the solar system human
exploration.
Courtesy: NASA
The astronaut is not alone
in his adventure: the
relatively simple rover
used to explore limited
areas around the lander in
1970 will be now replaced
by systems employing the
technologies developed in
the last decades, which
will provide valid
instruments able to perform tasks otherwise not feasible or which will ease
human’s work on the Moon.
Courtesy: NASA
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Among such systems are those based on robotics and automation
techniques. These systems will be effectively used in a number of
applications, e g.:
• Site exploration
• Site preparation
• Modules recovery, placement
and integration
• Resources exploitation
• Monitoring and maintenance
A first example
is provided by
Moon
exploration:
candidate sites
for the base
installation
need to be
surveyed prior Courtesy: ESA
to final selection in order to check for surface and subsurface
characteristics. In this case A&R technology can provide light surveyor
rovers with appropriate degrees of autonomy equipped with stereo camera
and a positioning system (such as a lunar GPS or lunar Galileo, or local
radar/optical reference). This will allow one to build a topographical
model of the whole site to be used as reference for all robotic operations.
The rovers will also be equipped with drilling and sample manipulation
capabilities to determine the physical properties of soil and subsoil.
Courtesy: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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A&R technology will be used also for site preparation: stones and debris
will be removed by means of robotic arms with clamps or shovels end
effectors and the terrain will be properly leveled. Digging devices will be
used to prepare the terrain for those sections of the base (like stock rooms,
tanks or communication lines) which need to be located under the regolith.
Once the infrastructure site has been localized and prepared, the various
units and modules which have been
sent to the Moon (and which are
physically distributed on a certain
area) must be recovered from the
landing place and transported to the
right location.
To this end, a large vehicle will be
used, with specific capabilities for
handling and transportation of Courtesy: Texas University
payloads where particular care must be taken (for example, sealing
capability to protect it from dust or leveling capability).
Finally, the modules have to be assembled: also
in this case a considerable amount of work can
be done by tele-controlled robotic arms
installed on a vehicle, or running on a rail
system around the
module.
Courtesy: nasa The robotic system
will correctly position the various parts (in
terms of relative distance and relative
orientation) to allow inflate procedure,
deployment and installation; and it will be
capable of assembling pipes or communication lines between the different
modules.
The use of lunar resources is a key point to reduce cost and
dependability from Earth. Once identified by sampling and analysis, the
material (like rocks or ice) could be collected by autonomous mining
vehicles and then refined in-situ (when timely processing is required
because of the presence of volatile material) or at dedicated processing
plants, and stored for later use. Loose material as well as material cut in
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particular shapes can be collected and processed, the shape depending
once again on the type of material handled.
But the cooperation between astronauts and
robots can also be usefully extended to the
internal environment. This is a structured
environment which, however, may vary
either in a correct way (i.e. for the
intentional intervention of the astronauts) or
because of a problem or malfunction.
Courtesy: NASA , ,
Robotic systems, basing on an a priori
knowledge of the plant layout, could automatically detect and evaluate
sudden variations and give a warning to the crew.
A&R systems can effectively perform tasks of surveillance and detailed
inspection, together with transportation of parts, ordinary maintenance,
execution of tasks typical for the facility (for example, run of experiment
facility or of production areas) and contingency operations.
To summarize, the A&R equipment needed for the Moon Base can be
grouped as follows:
Courtesy: University of Bologna
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• wheeled or walking medium size vehicles, both for outer and inner
operations, allowing astronaut transportation and dexterous
interaction with the environment by means of manipulator arms
equipped with specialized end effectors;
• drilling systems reaching a depth of meters to tens of meters with
sampling capability and the possibility to collect and temporarily
store large volumes of material;
• heavy robots with high thrust and stability against terrain and
special simple tools and arms for interaction with the soil;
• large roving vehicles and cranes capable of handling big payloads
with simple interfaces and allowing stable transportation also on an
unprepared terrain;
• small robots for inspection, repair and maintenance with crawling
capability and smart articulation
For all these equipment, the main control mode should be tele-operation
with astronaut supervision, while simple or repetitive tasks can be
performed autonomously. In both cases, the majority of tasks will be
planned and tested in advance.
The basic building blocks are common to all these robotic equipment, and
this permits one to undertake a modular approach for the design.
Also, Italy can rely on the experience and capability gained not
only in robotics, but in general in integrated space systems and missions
definition.
This allows us to reduce the design efforts and to effectively
contribute to the implementation of the robotic support to Moon Base.
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JANE AND JOHN BORN IN LUNAR JAMESTOWN, 2020
AN OUTLINE OF A RESEARCH PROJECT ON SEXUALITY,
FERTILITY, PREGNANCY, AND BIRTH ON THE MOON
Roberto Varrasi, MD
Alberto Revelli, MD
Department of Obstetrical and Gynaecological Sciences
University of Toruno. Italy
Abstract
In order to have a safe birth on the Moon or in other low gravity or no
gravity environments, we need to know much more about how gravity,
or the absence of it affects the human body and its functioning related o
fertility, pregnancy, and birth. This paper briefly outlines the research
needed to supply this know ledge.
Introduction
THE birth of a baby represents the continuity of humanity, and
therefore is always a blessing; this is even more valid if the baby first sees
the light in Jamestown, the first human colony on the Moon. The first
baby born in Jamestown will certainly be mentioned in the history books
as the first real Universe explorer. This baby will be more important than
Cristoforo Colombo or Neil Armstrong: they were bom on the Earth,
while she or he will be the first human being born outside the “Mother
Earth,” and therefore will automatically become the living symbol of the
humanity that wants to explore and pacifically colonize other Worlds.
In order to have a safe birth, at least from the point of view of
health, the road is very difficult: a wide research program is necessary to
guarantee to the baby and to the mother the best conditions for this very
important test. Studies of the human body’s behavior outside the
protection of Mother Earth are still at the first steps; to date, it is not well
known what all the consequences may be of the prolonged absence of
gravity or low gravity environment and artificial atmosphere.
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This is, in particular, applicable to problems related to sexuality
and reproduction.
Scientific Program
Background and Rationale
The physiology of human reproduction is of major interest when
hypothesizing a human colony living in the Moonbase in Jamestown in the
near future. At present knowledge about human reproduction outside the
Earth’s atmosphere is, to the best of our knowledge, totally lacking, and
thorough experimental work through a broad research program is needed
to estimate the reproductive potential of human beings on the Moon.
The scientific program will include not only tests and instrumental
analyses, but these activities will be constantly supported by scientific
interviews with the persons involved in the experimental program.
The following scientific and experimental steps will give us the
necessary information to obtain safe born of a baby on the Moon.
Step 1: Sexuality
The first step is aimed at identifying the behaviours associated with
sexuality. Two areas of research are identified.
The Physiology of Erection and Ejaculation : Healthy volunteers
living in the absence of gravity or in a low gravity environment are given
stimulation and results are measured with proper instrumentation. Semen
win be collected and transferred to analysis. No severe technological issue
is identified.
Intercourse: The dynamics of sexual intercourse in absence of gravity
or in a low gravity environment are studied.
Step 2: Fertility
The second step is to identify the behaviors associated with the
physiology of female and male sexual apparatus. With respect to issues
that have high ethical contents, animal models will be utilized as a first
step. The following areas of research are identified.
Menstruation and Owlation: The menstrual rhythm of healthy female
volunteers living in the absence of gravity or in a low gravity environment
is recorded. During the menstrual cycle they are submitted to repeated
blood sampling aimed to estimate the occurrence of ovulation and to
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check for the eventual increase of stress hormones potentially interfering
with ovulation.
Semen Examination: Semen samples are objectively studied in situ
by a computer-assisted analyser. A necessary technological issue is to
develop an apparatus to perform this test in the absence of gravity
Semen Ccipcicitation : Collected semen samples are processed
through an automatic semen capacitating apparatus; the final preparation
is analysed by a computer-assisted semen analyser. The above defined
technological issue applies.
In Vitro Fertilization ( IVF ): This issue, which implies ethical
problems, is one of the subjects to be treated also by means of animal
models. Animal models will be based on associated studies of mice and
lab-raised monkeys.
The purpose of this experiment is to obtain fertilization of ova in
orbit or in a low-g environment.
Several analytical approaches could be used.
A first hypothesis is to analyse the fertilization potential of fresh
oocytes obtained on the ground and incubated in orbit with fresh or
thawed semen.
A second possibility could be the utilization of frozen oocytes
from fertile subjects that are thawed in the absence of gravity and
fertilized in vitro with spermatozoa taken from frozen-thawed or freshly
produced semen samples of fertile healthy subjects. In this second case the
intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is applied to get fertilization. The
injected oocytes are kept in IVF incubators and fertilization is assessed by
microscopy some hours later. Mandatory technological improvement
associated with this hypothesis is to develop an apparatus able to
automatically perform intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
Embryo Development: This issue is a direct follow-up of the
previous problem; therefore, in this case also animal models will apply, in
accordance with the above defined approach.
The purpose of this experiment is to observe the development, in
the absence of gravity or in a low gravity environment, of fertilised ova in
the first six days of life.
Fertilized oocytes are kept in IVF incubators up to day 6 of
development. Their growth is daily observed by an invertoscope until they
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reach the blastocyst stage (day 6). After the return to ground and the
recovery of these embryos, ultrastructural and chromosomal analysis will
be performed.
Proper flight standards of the normally utilized laboratory
instrumentation shall be developed.
Step 3 : Pregnancy
This issue, even if does not imply ethical problems, is also one of
the subjects to be treated by means of animal models.
This third step is designed to analyze the behaviors associated with
the pregnancy. Two areas of research are identified.
It has to be observed that, considering the duration of the
pregnancy either of humans or of the candidate animal models, several
possibilities could be considered; i.e., having the test subjects in the
absence of gravity or in a low gravity environment only for a part of the
pregnancy, eg. the first or the central part of the pregnancy.
Also in this case, proper flight standards for the normally utilized
laboratory instrumentation shall be developed.
Utero-placental Blood Fluxes: The blood fluxes in the uterine and
umbilical circulation are studied by ultrasound Doppler fluximetry in the
absence of gravity at different stages of a normal pregnancy (I, II and III
trimester). The foetal growth is assessed throughout the pregnancy by
repeated ultrasound-based biometry.
Foetal Heart Beal: The foetal heart beat of healthy foetuses in the
third trimester of pregnancy are registered by cardiotocography in the
absence of gravity.
Step 4: Delivery
The last step is obviously the goal of the entire scientific program
and is associated with the delivery of the baby, and with the problems
associated with neonatal care. Animal models (i.e. delivery of babies of
animals) will obviously anticipate delivery of the human baby.
Spontaneous Vasinal Delivery: A spontaneous vaginal delivery is
observed in the absence of gravity or in the presence of reduced gravity.
Neonatal Care: A newborn delivered in the absence of gravity or
in the presence of reduced gravity is studied with particular attention to
the respiratory and cardiovascular functions.
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Programmatic Considerations
All the above activities require several years to be performed; this
applies in particular to those experimental activities that need
development of automatic equipment to be utilized on orbit.
During the program it is clear that development of animal models
must be performed before the development of corresponding experiments
on humans, in order to benefit from the experience with animals.
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Washington Academy of Sciences
*
A MOON BASE
KNOWLEDGE AND IMAGINATION PORTAL
75
Gabriele Peraldo Bertinet,
Rodolfo Guzzi,
Bruno Ratti,
Anna Rebecchi
Geoknowledge Foundation’
“Che sulla lima... non intendo gia come tuttalvolta che non vi si
generino cose simili alle nostre "
(Galileo “Dialogo dei Massiini Sistemi")
Abstract
Knowledge represents the ultimate rational of the Moon
Base Enterprise and more generally of space exploration. In
the present Knowledge Society, knowledge is central for its
capability to create value through cognitive multiplication
based on sharing and reuse. In this paper the creation of “A
Moon Base Knowledge Portal” infrastructure to this aim is
proposed. The Portal will be structured as a
multidisciplinary Portal of Portals based on formal
ontology. This Portal can permit achievement of important
objectives essential for the success of the Moon Base
Program, in particular: to support an Inspiration Program to
involve new and future generations of students; to obtain
consensus of public opinion and support of all stakeholders
(government, science, universities, taxpayers) who must
share aims and objectives of the Program.
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Introduction
The Earth-Moon System probably was born as a result of a
collision between the young Earth and other smaller planetary bodies that
were also growing. One of these hit Earth late in Earth's growth process,
blowing out rocky debris. A fraction of that debris went into orbit around
the Earth and aggregated into the Moon about 4.5 billion years ago (W. K.
Hartmann and D. R. Davis 1975). The giant impact hypothesis had the
advantage of invoking a stochastic catastrophic event that might happen
only to one or two planets out of nine. Furthermore, as also was evidenced
by the rocks collected during the Apollo Moon landings, the Moon has
exactly the same oxygen isotope composition as the Earth, showing that
the Moon formed from material found in Earth's mantle. Mars rocks and
meteorites from other parts of the Solar System have different oxygen
isotope compositions. This giant impact may have also produced the
Earth’s axial tilt and initial rotation. For these reasons the Moon has been
essential for the formation of the terrestrial environment and, being part of
the history of the Earth, has co-evolved with the birth and evolution of
mankind.
Its presence in the sky was never seen as an anomalous presence,
but humans always aspired to the Moon because they understood its
influence on several natural events that were linked to life. Its presence
became part of our biological and cultural memory. In the ancient cult the
Moon was a Goddess, and poets, painters, and musicians have dedicated
their art to our Moon before scientists discovered that the Moon influences
several phenomena on the Earth from sea tides to tree growth up to the
recently guessed influence on human life and death.
For these reasons our Moon is in the immaginario collettivo
(collective imagination) and its appeal crosses the whole range of human
imagination and emotions. Thus the Moon is not only the subject of
knowledge but it is part of our imagination and, today, the Earth-Moon
system belongs more to the imagination than to the science.
The aim of this paper is to treat the Moon not only as subject of
knowledge, but also part of our imagination, fantasy, and dreams. The best
representation in which science and fantasy are combined is a pertinent
portal whose structure and function will be outlined in the next
paragraphs.
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Ontology Quest and Web Portal Structure
The basis of knowledge is the ontology quest. This marks the
cultural aspect of people and their heritage. The basic assumptions for one
culture may be not the same for another. People’s queries differ from one
culture to another, even though the imagination and emotions may play a
certain role, and the ontology quest follows these aspects. Educational
tools (Guzzi et al 2005) may be developed by formal ontology
(Cocchiarella 1991) and that are able to reach different users:
■ To support an Inspiration Program with extensive use of
advanced e-learning techniques, to involve new and future
generation of students, at different degrees, in science,
engineering, technology disciplines relevant to Space
Exploration;
■ To obtain consensus of public opinion by media;
■ To support all stakeholders (government, science, universities,
taxpayers) which must share aims and objectives of the
Program, through an effective communication on space
exploration’s expected results.
The best solution to these questions, which also causes web surfers
to dream, is to create a web portal whose aim is to produce knowledge and
induce fantasy. Such portals could be the “Moon Base Knowledge &
Imagination Portal.”
The access through the Portal to video and simulation games can
engage, in particular, young people very familiar with virtual reality,
multimedia, and web techniques, in learning principles of celestial
mechanics, space flight, and exploration activities, achieving extraordinary
educational results and benefits. In addition mysterious rooms will be
created to support the imagination and induce the fantasy of the users.
The Moon Base Knowledge and Imagination Portal will be
implemented as a “Portal of Portals” developing the encounter between
nations participating in the Moon Enterprise. It will be the result of an
International Cooperative Program involving:
■ International and national space agencies;
■ Scientific institutes and research centers;
■ Universities;
■ Private companies operating in space and related sectors;
and
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■ Cultural associations and foundations.
As a result of this cooperative effort a Partnership will be
established between participant entities inclusive of a management
structure responsible for direction, standards definition admission policies,
intellectual property, etc.
Building up the Web Portal
The Web Portal will be structured in four major areas: scientific
knowledge, system and engineering activities, enabling technologies and
applications, and institutional legal and economic framework.
Scientific Knowledge
This is relevant mainly to the results of colonization and of the
Condominium of Observatories on the Moon. Among the topics to be
included:
■ Cosmology;
■ Planetology: with particular emphasis to study of the Moon- Earth
System;
■ Climatology: climate change, interactions between solar activity
and climate on the Earth
■ Life science; and
■ Energy generation and storage.
Information will be organized in different levels of complexity for
different targets of people accessing this Portal, having in mind the
objective of maximum dispersion and sharing of knowledge.
System and Engineering Activities
Implementations and activities to build up and maintain a Space
Infrastructure on the Moon will be outlined in this area, in order to keep
people informed and involved in the enterprise. Among the topics
addressed:
■ Lunar Missions profiles;
■ Space transportation systems;
■ Living modules;
■ Life support systems;
■ Environmental control Systems;
■ Observation Payloads and Infrastructures;
■ Communication and Location Infrastructure; and
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■ Lunar Resources Exploitation.
Enabling Technologies and Applications
Development of the enabling technologies and applications
supporting the Moon Program will be indicated and summarized while
remaining compatible with intellectual property rights and “sensitivity” of
information. Emphasis will be given to technologies which may have a
direct fallout on our day by day lives as:
■ Telemedicine;
■ Advanced Materials and structures
■ Robotics;
■ Advanced nuclear power generation;
■ Wide Band Communications;
■ Nanotechnologies;
■ Observation sensors;
■ Waste material recycling; and
■ Environmental Control.
Institutional Legal and Economical Framework
The establishment of an International Cooperation between
governments and Partnerships with private industry financial involvement
(PPP) will be a way to implement the Project. Commercial exploitation of
resources and new products deriving from the colonization of the Moon
may require the reconsideration of the 1967 Space Treaty. Issues of
property rights, freedom of navigation, and technology transfer will
become relevant. All these aspects and their evolution will be dealt in this
area of the Portal.
Furthermore, within the Web Portal mysterious rooms will be
present along the whole portal stimulating the fantasy and the imagination,
in the same way as happened for the early theories of the origin of Earth
and Moon, because fantasy and imagination are also crucial for future
discovers of mankind.
The Geoknowledge Paradigm
Within the Moon Base Knowledge & Imagination Portal a GIS
(Geographic Information Systems) Portal to represent the “geographic
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knowledge” of the Moon will be also implemented to discover the
geographic dimension of our life in the new continent of the Moon.
The Moon is considered as the Earth’s seventh continent, the
colonization of which would lead to increased acumen, so maintaining the
geo-knowledge terminology for the Moon goes with retaining ontology,
semantics, and methodologies used for the knowledge of the Earth. The
geo-knowledge of the Moon will be referred to Earth sciences (such as
geophysics, geology, topography) and processes on the Moon (such as
mobility, production of energy, buildup of infrastructures, exploitation of
resources). For these reasons a 3D Moon GIS has to be implemented to
support missions on the Moon.
Example Web Portal
Every information system has its own ontology ascribing meaning
to the symbols used according to a particular vision of the world (Guarino
1995, 1998). The Information System consists of three different
components: application programs, information resources like databases
and/or knowledge bases and user interfaces. The ontology impacts on
information systems by two orthogonal dimensions: temporal and
structural. In the first case the semantics expressed by ontology is
transformed and translated into an information system component. In fact,
users reuse the knowledge instead of the software by using a common
vocabulary across heterogeneous software platforms (even though current
ontology is limited yet). In the second case, even though the quantity of
ontological knowledge available may be poor, the quality can improve the
analysis process.
Graphic Interface
In a portal the major role is played by the graphics interface. We
don’t enter into the methodology of the web portal building, but describe
here the ontology of the portal and the operations to be carried out. Users
act on classes and descriptors of the system getting directories containing
images, data, movies and sound files related to the topics of the domain
knowledge selected. During this phase, the system acts selecting the best
items or statements describing the domain knowledge. The task is carried
out by an Evaluator, in which the domain knowledge is explicitly
transferred by means of simple rules defined in system. This unit
Washington Academy of Sciences
81
maintains and uses the Ontology Integration System to Information
System. Figure 1 shows the layout of the system. Figures 2 and 3 show
both the iconographic aspect of the Portal and its appeal.
Figure 1: Structure of the system with the evaluator between the
formalized knowledge and users’ knowledge
Fall 2006
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Washington Academy of Sciences
83
Figure 3: MOON BASE Knowledge & imagination portal. Contents
artistic view
Movies and Role Games
Using formal ontology an educational tool about Moon missions
has been developed. It is shown in figure 4. The techniques have been
described by Guzzi et al (2005) for planetary missions. We referred to
some detailed scientific documents on space mission design (Wertz,
Larson (1999) and Doody (2001)) to identify the main parameters
affecting a generic space mission. Real Moon missions documented by
NASA (JPL-NASA, NASA missions, JPL reports, NASA database) have
been used to tune mission parameters and main items with real mission
quantities. We have fragmented a hypothetical mission into several pieces
and within these we have identified several possible different cases. A
proper interface to QuickTime has been built up for AVI and MPEG
movies, which are in the right part of the picture. In the upper left the
chosen instrument for the scientific mission, in the middle the instruments
to perform the space mission (from the navigation sensors to power, etc),
and in the lower part the suitable amount of fuel.
Fall 2006
84
Figure 4: Graphic user interface of Space Mission as described in the text
The Launch Button allows the mission to run and to be visualized.
Vice versa when a set up error occurs, a warning related to the mission
failure is shown. The warning also contains a link to the space mission
online manual where there is information allowing the usei to understand
his error and correct it.
Conclusions
In this paper we have outlined a Portal of Portals for Moon
missions and discoveries. Despite the technical aspect of the mission, we
have remembered the role played by the Moon on imagination, our
memory and our fantasy. For this reason we have introduced in our Portal
the concept of imagination and we have drawn the pertinent iconographies
in order to give more appeal to the information system. At the same time
we have introduced the formal ontology and its first application already
Washington Academy of Sciences
85
done and addressed to the Moon Mission. Furthermore since, nowadays,
we have matured our primordial mental geography in a way to build the
first cartography of the Moon as we made with the first continents some
centuries ago; considering the Moon as the seventh continent, we also
introduced the first Moon GIS to give the first geographic route for future
travelers.
References:
Cocchiarella. N. B. 1991. “Formal Ontology’' In H. Burkhardt and B. Smith (eds.).
Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology. Philosophia Verlag. Munich: 640- 647
Doodv (2001) “Basics of Space Flight’* JPL D-20120. Dave Doody. February 2001. from
Imp : //www . j pi . nasa . gov/basics/
Guarino N.. “Formal Ontology. Conceptual Analysis and Knowledge Representation”
International Journal of Human and Computer Studies , special issue on The
Role of Formal Ontology in the Information Technology edited by N. Guarino
and R. Poli. vol 43 no. 5/6. 1995
Guarino N.. “Formal Ontology and Information Systems”. In N. Guarino (ed.). Formal
Ontology in Information Systems Proc. of the 1st International Conference.
Trento. Italy, 6-8 June 1998. IOS Press (amended version) you may refer also to
the online database
http: ' 'm’ww. ladseb. yd. cm. n intor ontoloz\ 'Papers ( )nioioz\ ’Papers. htnrl #Onlol ogv
Guzzi R.. S. Scarpanti, G.Ballista. & W. DiNicolantonio 2005 Educational Technology &
Society 8. (1) 80-90
Hartmann. W. K. and D. R. Davis 1975 Icarus . 24. 505
JPL NASA home page at http://ww w. jpl.nasa. gov/
JPL NASA mission reports at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/status/
NASA planetary database at http : //photo i oumal . jpl . nasa. gov/
JPL NASA current space missions at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/
James Wertz. Wiley Larson. “Space Mission Analysis and Design.” Space Technology
Library, Larson and Microcosm, inc. Third Edition. 1999.
*
The GeoKnowledge Foundation: Considering that space exploration has introduced a system approach in
remote-sensing and modelling the planets in our Solar System, thus improving the knowledge of the
planetEarth, and that developments in information and communication technology have facilitated a new model
of knowledge, based on sharing and reuse, the Foundation’s aim is to systematically develop geo-knowledge
according to the paradigms of the Knowledge Society, activating a collaboration network of the principal agents
of the geographic information and introducing a cognitive multiplication factor into the sustainable usage of the
territory. The Foundation will:
■ create a cultural meeting point for institutions and individuals who are interested in geographic
knowledge, which will generate scientific, social, technological and economic guidelines;
Fall 2006
86
foster the creation of epistemological geographic communities, where shared knowledge will be
based on a common ontology of the territorial context which unifies visions, viewpoints and
meanings:
stimulate an interdisciplinary discussion on models of geographic knowledge, at national and
international level:
promote the awareness that GIS (Geographic Information Systems) are essential tools for the
intelligence of natural and anthropic processes which exist in our territory' and are a common
language for increasing geographic knowledge.
Geoknowledge Foundation • Via Tiburtina. 755 • Tel. 06 40696201 • Fax 06 40696333 •
info(5>geoknowledgefoundation.org
Washington Academy of Sciences
87
NEWS OF MEMBERS AND AFFILIATED SOCIETIES
TO JERRY GIBBON, former president of the Academy, our sincere
condolences on the death of his son, in October.
SETHANNE HOWARD, Associate Editor of this Journal, has announced the
forthcoming publication of her book. The Hidden Giants , discussing the
4000 year history of women in science.
SAJ DURRANI has been elected President of the D C. Council of
Engineering and Architectural Societies. The Council, formed in 1936, has
more than 35 affiliated societies.
The American Statistical Society’s new president is Jill
Montaquila, of Westat, Inc. Michael Cohen is the President Elect and
continues as the Society’s representative to the Academy’s Board.
THE IEEE COMMUNICATIONS society will hold a Global Communications
Conference in Washington on November 26-30, 2007. This event
regularly attracts several thousand attendees. Jerry Gibbon will serve as
General Chairman of GlobeCom2007. For more information see
www.ieee-gl obecom. ora/2007.
Please send news of Members and Affiliated Societies , including events to
occur after December 2006 to the Editor , vcoates@mac.com.
Fall 2006
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Journal of the
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ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Contents
The Editor Comments . i
Instructions to Authors . ii
Athanasios Diamandopolous, Artemisia Revisited . 1
Robert M. Cutler, The Paradox of Intentional Emergent Coherence . 9
Roulette William Smith, Nature versus Nurture in Evolution, and Emergences of Designs in
Genetics, the Immune System, and the Brain . 29
Thomas Meylan, Environmental Impacts on Human Moods and Emotions: Implications for
Workplace and Workflow Design . 51
Vary Coates, BOOK REVIEW: The Best Science Writing 2006, ed. by Atul Gawande . 73
News of Members, Fellows, and Affiliates . 75
Affiliated Institutions . 78
Membership Directory . 79
Affiliated Societies . Inside back cover
ISSN 0043-0439
Issued Quarterly at Washington DC
l^asiJjtngton Scabemp of Sciences!
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Thomas Meylan
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Paul L. Hazan
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Mark Holland
Members at Large
Sethanne Howard
Donna Dean
Frank Haig, S.J.
Jodi Wesemann
Vary Coates
The Journal is the official organ of the Academy.
It publishes articles on science policy, the history of
science, critical reviews, original science research,
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THE EDITORS COMMENT:
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A DIRECTORY OF THE FELLOWS AND MEMBERS of WA$^^?tF?SlTY
as is traditional, in the Winter Issue of the Journal. The dues,
contributions, and volunteer labor of these members support all of the
activities of WAS: for example, the publication of the Journal, the
planning and organization of the biannual Capital Science Conferences
and other specialized conferences throughout the year, and the Junior
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and Fellows — for help in reaching out to the many scientific societies in
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(see the list on the inside back cover of the Journal). The Affiliates’ other
members, however, are not always familiar with the Academy and with its
activities, or with the Journal. We ask that when you go to meetings of
these societies, you take one or more issues of the Journal to display, and
invite the attendees to subscribe, and to contribute papers. The WAS
office can, on request, supply some additional copies of the Journal for
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We thank our members and subscribers for their participation and
support throughout 2006, and look forward to working for you and with
you in 2007-2008. Please contact the Editors to submit papers or book
reviews, to send news items about your own or others’ science related
activities, and to suggest ways to improve the Journal.
Editor: Vary Coates, v coates@ m ac . com
Assoc. Editor: Alain Touwaide, atouwaide@hotmail com
Assoc. Editor: Sethanne Floward, sethanneh@msn.com
Assoc. Editor: Elizabeth Corona, el i zab eth corona@ mnai 1 . com
Winter 2006
II
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
THE JOURNAL of the Washington Academy of Sciences is a
peer-reviewed journal. Exceptions are made for papers requested
by the editors or positively approved for presentation or
publication by one of our affiliated scientific societies.
We welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary scientific research
reports and papers on technology development and innovation,
science policy, technology assessment, and history of science and
technology. Book reviews are also welcome.
Contributors of papers are requested to follow these guidelines
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included the number of words allowed will be reduced
accordingly.
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the end of the paper or in a separate document, with their preferred
location in the text clearly indicated.
• References should be in the form of endnotes, and may be in any
style considered standard in the discipline(s) represented by the
paper.
Winter 2006
1
ARTEMISIA REVISITED
Diamandopoulos Athanasios*
Saint Andrews Regional Hospital
Patras. Greece
Abstract
Recently, several groups have promoted the use of artemisinin, a
derivative of the plant artemisia. as a potent antimalarial. It is cultivated
widely in China and there is hope that it could replace quinine to which
plasmodium falciparum has developed resistance. In this article, we
trace the use of artemisinin for treating malaria as far back as the 1st
century AD. in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin. Its employment for
this purpose continued in a semi-official mode until the 19th century. It
was finally replaced by quinine, albeit now we witness a comeback. In
conclusion, artemisinin is but an old drug of Western medical tradition
in new exotic clothes, still potent and beneficial.
The use of Artemisinin, a derivative of the plant Artemisia, as
an anti-malaria drug, has recently gotten extended publicity both in the
daily [1,2] and the scientific press [3,4], Specifically, there was strong
criticism of the World Health Organization (WHO) on the grounds that it
failed to foresee in time the potential of the substance and use it in Africa,
where the disease is endemic and frequently fatal [5,6,7], In summary, it
was pointed out that the Organization “ignored a new Chinese drug
proved efficient to treat malaria since the Vietnam War [8], favoring the
old drug, quinine.”
Although from a strictly medical point of view the statement seems
sound, from a historical perspective we suggest that all three components
of the statement should be altered. The drug is not new, it is not
exclusively Chinese, and its efficiency against malaria and other parasitic
diseases has been well known since antiquity.1 Malaria has been an
endemic disease in Greece and the Mediterranean Basin since the
Neolithic period, with exacerbations in the Classic and Roman eras.
The author is President of the Panhellenic Society for the History and Archaeology of
Medicine.
Winter 2006
2
Hippocrates in his works De aere aquis et locis and De mortis
popularity s made several references to tertian and quartian fevers
accompanied with symptoms resembling the malarial ones. Similarly,
Plato referred to this kind of fevers in Timeus. An extended overview of
the incidence of malaria in Greece can be found in the work of Mirko
Grmek, “Les maladies a l’aube de la civilisation occidental ” [9]
No specific treatment was mentioned in the Classic period,
although there are allusions related to the plant artemisia in the
mythological cycle of the god Dionysus. [10] An early medical reference
to it was made by the celebrated Greek medical writer Dioscorides in his
work De Materia Medica, in the 1st cent. AD, wherein its properties as a
warming, drying and purgative drug are described. [11] The plant was also
called oxetesia, ephesia, anactorios, sozusa, lea, lycophrys, sanguis
hominis, chrysanthemon, herba regia, rapium, tetrabageta, ponem, zuoste.
[12] It was synonymous and/or likened to absinth. [13] It was
recommended for many diseases such as parasites of the bowel, kidney
stones and intended miscarriage of dead embryos. More relevant to the
topic of this article is that Dioscorides also proposed it as a cure for tertian
or quartian fevers, [14,15] terms that are still used to describe malarial
fever.
If there is any doubt about the inclusion of malaria in the array of
diseases manifested with this kind of fever, Galen (lst/2nd cent. AD)
clarifies the issue. He proposed the use of artemisia against tertian and
quartian fevers and describing other findings of the disease he added: “it is
accompanied by [. . .] infection and enlargement of the spleen,” [16]
findings typical for malaria. [17]
We can hardly expect the use of the actual word malaria in texts
written 20 centuries ago. The notion was repeated by many medical
writers of Late Antiquity and Byzantium [18,19,20,21,22] who
continuously suggested the use of artemisia in tertian and quartian fevers.
It was also recommended specifically against the hardening of the spleen.
[23] The practice of using artemisia as a medicament passed via
Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica in the Latin West and then in the
Medieval Herbaria. With the invention of printing in the 15th century,
ancient medical knowledge spread quickly across Europe and
consequently did so the use of artemisia. [24]
Washington Academy of Sciences
3
With the appearance of the Enlightenment and the domination of
scientific over traditional medicine, the use of artemisia as an antimalarial
agent started to fade. It was preserved in some odd quarters, like the
“kitchen - medicine” of the Henriot sisters in the Swiss town of Covet,
where they prepared at their tiny still on a kitchen stove a concoction
containing, between other ingredients, absinth, otherwise known as
artemisia, in the time honoured way of the “wise women ” It was
consumed as a general panacea for many diseases or just as a health
booster. A French royalist, the physician Pierre Ordinaire (1741-1821),
staying in self-exile in the village, was acquainted with the drink and
began peddling it. The concoction was called Absinthe as the Latin name
of one of its ingredients (wormwood, meaning in German “preserver of
the mind”) was Artemisia Absinthum . Later (in 1797), the recipe was
bought by a Major Henri Dubied and through his enterprising heirs who
opened a larger distillery at Pontarlier, France, was introduced to the
French illustrious society, initiating the absinth frenzy. [25] This was a
repetition of the ancient’s idea that the substance was simultaneously a
potent stimulant and an agent promoting soberness to its consumer, while
he was drinking heavily. [26]
The consumption of liquors or other mixtures containing absinth
was consequently banned from Europe because of its side effects, except
for a few countries like Denmark and Czechoslovakia. Through the
Internet it started again to be advertised world - wide as a symbol of
culture and invigoration. [27] Traditionally, it belongs to the bitter drinks
group like Vermouth and Amaretto, the latter containing bitter almonds
instead of absinth. Galen had already suggested the replacement of absinth
by bitter almonds, if there was a lack of the former [28],
Recently, the Chinese promoted it again as an ancient plant from
their traditional pharmacopoeia, reputably incorporated in the Sheng
Nung’s writings circa 101 BC, as introduced by the Divine Ploughmen
around 2800 BC. [29] They cultivated it widely, extracting its active
substance artemisinin, which is a sesuiterpene with five oxygen atoms,
two of them in a peroxide bridge system over a seven-member ring with
two others in a lactone ring structure [30] and branding it under the name
of artemisinin.
In May 2001, the big drug company Novartis made a public-
private collaboration agreement with the World Health Organization
Winter 2006
4
(WHO) in the fight against malaria. The essence of the agreement is that
Novartis commits to making Coartem® (a drug containing a derivative of
artemisia) available on a "not-for-profit" basis for distribution to public
sector agencies of malaria-endemic developing countries. Through grants
provided by “The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria”, j
Novartis has equally undertaken to supply, under the aegis of WHO,
Coartem® to public sector agencies [3 1 ^Consequently, we do not meet
the problem of a new drug facing difficulties in ousting an old, established
one, but on the contrary, a very old drug, trying hard to reclaim its
position from the usurper quinine. It is characteristic that currently there
are roughly seventeen thousand entries on the Internet discussing
artemisia, one thousand four hundred proclaiming its antimalarial
properties and only one connecting it with Dioscorides, but failing to
notice the indication in De Materia Medica for treating tertian and
quartian fevers.
It is the usual “I said it first” syndrome we observe in the History
of Medicine. [32] Everyone rediscovering an abandoned treatment
advertises it loudly, ignoring or forgetting to state that many before him
had used it. But the really great scientist always announces his debt to
previous writers. As for example Isaac Newton (1642-1727) who wrote:
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
However he forgot to add that the same expression has been used by
Robert Burton (1577-1640) in his introduction to “Democritus to the
Reader,” who did not mention that it belonged to Diego de Estella’s
(1524-1578) “In Sacrosanctum Iesu Christi Evangelium secundum Lucam
enarratio,” who failed to report that it had been used by Bernard de
Chartres (d. 1126) [33], In spite of the above implication of practising
plagiarism it would be wrong to assume that modem researchers in
general, and the advocates of artemisinin in particular, do not do anything
more than copy the ancients. Because: “even if the ancients had
discovered everything, one thing will be always new, the application of
the discoveries already made and their interpretation.” [34]
1 Etymologically. The botanical species name of wormwood, absinthium , is indeed the
classical Latin name for that plant and derives from Greek apsinthion [a\|/iv0iov] (in the
New Testament apsinthos [a\j/iv0og]): the word still lives in some Romance tongues:
Italian assenzio . Spanish ajenjo , Galician axenxo and Portuguese absinto. It lias also
spread to some unrelated languages, like Basque axinse and Hebrew absint [ttf’DDKn].
Washington Academy of Sciences
5
The etymology of Greek apsinthion is not clearly explained: a theory derives it from a-
(negation) + psinthos |vj/iv0oq]. an obscure adjective meaning "enjoyable.” cf. also
Sanskrit ashiva "unpleasant, pernicious ". The meaning of the compound, "unpleasant,""
would seem fit for a bitter herb, but may well be the product of folk etymology. A better
guess is that tire name actually stems from some Middle Eastern language: in Middle
Persian, the name aspemd is recorded for a bitter plant (perhaps Syrian rue. Peganum
harmala ): modem Farsi has afsentin [ "wormwood"' and espemd [>hH] ""Syrian
me". This plant is not related to the herb commonly called rue. (http://www.uni-
eraz.atATatzer/end/Artc vul.html#absinthe)
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2. DJ McNeil. Switch to herbal malaria drug is on. Herald Tribune . (10/5/2004). p. 1.
3. G Yamey. Health agencies and in - fighting on malaria. BMJ (2004), 328: 1095 (8/5)
4. MB Denis. TM Davis. S Hewitt, et al.. Efficacy and safety of dihydroartemisinin -
piperaquine ( Artekin) in Cambodian children and adults with uncomplicated falciparum
malaria. Clin Infect. Dis. 35 (2002). pp 1469 - 1476.
5. N White. F Noston. A Bjorkman et al. WHO. the Global Fund, and medical
malpractice in malaria treatment. Lancet. 363 (2004), p. 1 160.
6. A Attaran. KI Bames. C Curtis et al. WHO. The global Fund, and medical malpractice
in malaria research. Lancet. 363 (2004). P. 237.
7. K Bames. J Mwenechanya, M Tempo, et al. Efficacy of rectal artesunate compared
with parental quinine in initial treatment of moderately severe malaria in African children
and adults: a randomized study. Lancet. 363 (2004) p. 1598.
8. T Hien, C Dolescek. P Phuong et al. Dihydroartemisinin - piperaquine against
multidrug - resistant Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Vietnam: randomized clinical
trial. Lancet. 363 (2004). Issue 9402. p. 18 - 22.
9. M Gnnek. Les maladies a l'aube de la civilisation occidentale. Payot (edt) (1983).
Paris.
10. Bibliotheca, ed. R Henry. Photius. Bibliotheque. 8 vols. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
1:1959: codex. 190, p,150a.* 1. 27.
11. De materia medica, ed. M. Wellmann. Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei de materia
medica libri quinque. 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann. 3:1914. book 3. ch. 113. s. 1. 1. 1.
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12. R Gunther. The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides. illustrated by a Byzantine A.D. 512,
Englished by Jolm Goody er A.D. 1655. Edited and first printed A.D. 1933. Oxford
University Press (1934). Oxford, p. 357.
13. De materia medica. ibid, book 4. eh. 60. 1.1.
14. De materia medica. ibid, book 4. ch. 60. s. 1. 1. 6.
15. Euporista vel De simplicibus medicinis. ed. M. Wellmann. Pedanii Dioscuridis
Anazarbei de materia medica libri quinque. vol. 3.Berlin, 1914 (repr. 1958): book 2, ch.
19. s. 1.1. 5
16. De tv pis liber, ed. C.G. Kohn. Claudii Galeni opera omnia, vol. 7. Leipzig:
Knobloch. 1824 (repr. Hildesheim: Olms. 1965): 463-474 book. 7, p. 469. L 18.
17. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. 6th edition (1970). McGraw - Hill Book
Company. New York etc. pp 1030 - 1034.
18. Iatricorum liber v. ed. A. Olivieri, Aetii Amideni libri medicinales v-viii [Corpus
medicorum Graecorum. vol. 8.2. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. 1950]: 6-119. ch. 80. 1. 7
19. Eclogae medicamentorum. ed. J. Raeder. Oribasii collectionum medicarum reliquae.
vol. 4 [Corpus medicorum Graecorum. vol. 6.2.2. Leipzig: Teubner. 1933]: 185-307. b.
45. s. 6.1. 1.
20. De febribus. ed. T. Puschmann. Alexander von Tralles, vol. 1. Vienna: Braumoller.
1878 (repr. Amsterdam: Hakkert. 1963): 291-439. (Cod: 20.743: Med.) 1. 373.4
21. Epitomae medicae libri septem. ed. J.L. Heiberg. Paulus Aegineta. 2 vols. [Corpus
medicorum Graecorum, vols. 9.1 & 9.2], Leipzig: book. 2. ch. 19. p. 1 1. 6.
22. De virtutibus herbarum (e cod. Paris, gr. 2502 and Vindob. med. gr. 23. ed. H.-V.
Friedrich. Thessalos von Tralles [Meisenheim am Gian: Hain. 1968]: 43-44. 56. 59. b 1.
ch. 8, s. t l.L
23. Synopsis ad Eustathium filium, ed. J. Raeder. Oribasii synopsis ad Eustathium et libri
ad Eunapium [Corpus medicorum Graecorum. vol. 6.3]. Leipzig: Teubner. 1926 (repr.
Amsterdam: Hakkert. 1964).
24. G Penso. Les Plantes Medicinales. Roger Dacosta (Edt) (1986). Paris, p. 101 and
139.
25. Man and Scythe Inn absinthe page: http ://w w w . Manandscvthc.co.uk/absinte.htm
26. Libri ad Eunapium, ibid. 1. 12. 5. 1.
27. Welcome to Bar Absinthe. Find, buy and appreciate great absinthe here.
http : /Avww . bar-absinthe .co m/
Washington Academy of Sciences
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28. De succedaneis liber, ed. C.G. Kuhn. Claudii Galeni opera omnia, vol. 19. Leipzig:
Knobloch. 1830 (repr. Hildesheim: Olms. 1965): 721-747.
29. M R. Lee. Plants against malaria. Part 2. Artemisia Annua. Qingshaosu or the SW
Wormwood. J. R. Coll. Physicians Edinb 2002. 32:300
30. hi tp :/Av w vv.ifpma . ora/Heal tli/ma la ria/health coartem ma 1 . aspx
31.0. Famin. H Ginsburg. Differential effects of 4 - aminoquinine - containing
antimalarial drugs on hemoglobin digestion in plasmodium falciparum-infected
erythrocytes. Biochemical Pharmacology (2002). 63 (3): 393
32. A Diamandopoulos. The use of Ancient and Medieval Greek literature for avoiding
the «I said it first» research syndrome. Proceedings of the 2nd World Congress '‘Ancient
Greece and the Modem World '. Olympia. 12-17 July 2002. University of Patras Press.
Patras. 2003. p. 40. (in Greek).
33. P Prioreschi. The idea of progress in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Vesalius
(2002). VIII. 1.34-45.
34. Seneca. Ad Lucilium epistulae morales. 64. vii. ix. in: Prioreschi P.. ibid. p. 36.
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Washington Academy of Sciences
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THE PARADOX OF INTENTIONAL EMERGENT
COHERENCE:
ORGANIZATION AND DECISION IN A COMPLEX WORLD
Robert M. Cutler1
Institute of European and Russian Studies. Carleton University
Abstract
The work presented here draws upon previous research into the
development of a particular type of international organization, the
international parliamentary institution (IPI). of which the European
Parliament is the best-known example. It generalizes the concepts
framing that research to organizations at large, including but not limited
to political nation-states. By explicating how that framework is
grounded in the theory of complex systems, the present article shows
how it is applicable to social systems in general. The tasks facing IPIs
seeking to survive and grow, on the one hand, and on the other hand the
tasks facing states responding to the international political environment,
are in fact similar in cybernetic terms. Since only the resources
available to them differ, the organizational and human information¬
processing phenomena that form and constrain state foreign policy
decision-making are comparable to those that are expressed in the
epigenetic development of an IPI. Since the general framework
presented here provides a way to take into account the differences in
resources to which states and IPIs have access, it is applicable by
extension to any political or social system or organization that
continually confronts an external environment that it itself helps to
shape through interpretation as well as action. This general framework
may therefore be properly applied not just to analyzing the behavior of
formal social organizations constmcted by human collectivities for
defined political purposes, but also to the analysis of decisions, growth,
and development of individual human beings in life itself.
“Complexity Science” or “The Complex Sciences”?
Complex-science or “complex-scientific” studies, like structuralist
studies, are an approach to the creation of knowledge. Consequently, it is
more appropriate to speak of “the complex sciences” than of “complexity
science.” The former locution makes it clear that the complex sciences are
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not a delimited set of fields of knowledge to be explored from either a
complexity standpoint or a non-complexity standpoint, but rather the
manifestation of one perspective on the world and knowledge-creation
about the world. In order to underline this distinction, for the purpose of
the present article the compound attributive adjective “complexity-
science” (as in “complexity-science approaches”) is replaced by
“complex-scientific” (thus “complex-scientific approaches”).
It is necessary to explicate the distinctive characteristics of the
complex sciences in order to ascertain what the limits to knowledge about
them are. The best vehicle for that explication is by analogy to the
exegesis of Levi-Strauss’s structuralism by Piaget, who shows how
different applied structuralisms within various fields of knowledge are
conditioned by the sociologies of knowledge constructing these
disciplinary fields of study, which in turn vary across time and space, even
within the same field of knowledge. The three central notions of Piaget’s
exegesis of Levi -Strauss are totality , self-regulation , and transformation .
Defining these three categories as the components of a structure, Piaget
distinguishes how they manifest and differentiate comparative
structuralisms across fields of knowledge from mathematics to
anthropology, passing through the natural sciences, life sciences, and
social sciences.11
Winch’s application of a Wittgensteinian approach to social
science sets Piaget’s notion of structuralism into relation with the
epistemology of complex systems. In particular. Winch explains how any
social science may construct its epistemology by establishing the
categories of structure, norms, and behavior, and using any two of these to
study the third.111 Inspection of Piaget’s exegesis of Levi-Strauss reveals
“totality” as the principal characteristic of a given structure , “self¬
regulation” as principally characterizing norms (since it is according to
norms that such self-regulation occurs), and “transformation” as a
characterization principally of behcnior (involving change over time and
therefore differential). In other words, structures define what is possible
while norms operate within structural constraints so as to generate that
which actually manifests in the world. So it is that norms operate upon
structure to produce behavior; or, put another way, structure is mediated
through norms into behavior. Stated with a still greater degree of
generality: Totality is akin to a domain, self-regulation akin to a function,
and transformation akin to a range: the laws of self-regulation act upon the
totality and result in transformation.1''
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Complex-scientific approaches to knowledge-creation are the
constructive response that goes beyond the critical destructiveness of
“post-structuralism. ”v Building blocks of the complex sciences include
three fundamental categories that are extensions of the three categories
forming the basis for the structuralist epistemology that Piaget extracts
from Levi-Strauss. In particular: (l)the complex-scientific extension of
the structuralist category of “totality” is coherence , (2) the complex-
scientific extension of the structuralist category of “self-regulation” is
autopoiesis ,V1 and (3) the complex-scientific extension of the structuralist
category of “transformation” is emergence. However, Winch’s
epistemology as applied to the structuralist social sciences does not
provide the basis for extension to the epistemology of the complex
sciences; specifically, in the complex sciences it is not the case that any
two fundamental categories (among coherence, autopoiesis, and
emergence) can be used to study the third. Rather, autopoiesis mediates
coherence and emergence.
There are three interrelated approaches to the modern study of
complex systems, each focusing on one of the components of a social
science as enumerated above according to Winch: (1) how interactions
give rise to patterns of behavior , a largely North American approach
typified by an emphasis on “complex adaptive systems”;
(2) understanding the different ways in which complex systems may be
normative/y described , a mostly European approach characteristic of the
natural sciences and typified by Prigogine and the approach to
thermodynamics; and (3) the process of structural formation of complex
systems through pattern formation and evolution, a cybernetics-based and
system-theory-oriented approach adopted in both Europe and North
America.™ The present article is situated in the tradition of the third of
these approaches, which, in Winch’s terms, combines the study of
behavior and of norms in order to explain structure.
Functionalism and Organizational Development
Within this general approach, the present article establishes a
framework for evaluating the growth and decline of organizations and
other social systems, determining what leads some of them to respond
adequately to demands imposed upon them by their environment, and
others not. The framework synthesizes two apparently mutually exclusive
taxonomies: one concerning how organizations maintain homeostasis in
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order to survive, the other about how organizations develop and adapt in
order to grow.'111 Table 1 summarizes the first taxonomy, which concerns
how organizations survive; it emphasizes the creation of organizational
structures so as to accomplish functional tasks; it comprises the two
principal categories, internal functions and external functions. The order in
which any organization accomplishes the internal functions in fact defines
an evolutionary sequence: (1) informational activities, (2) normative
activities, (3) rule-creating activities, (4) rule-supervisory activities, and
(5) operational activities. Only organizations that successfully perform
lower-numbered internal functions have the opportunity to move on to the
higher-numbered. “Operational activities” are activities undertaken with
reference to the physical and institutional environment. They represent the
spillover from the full development of internal functions to the
deployment of external functions. 1X
Internal Functions
External Functions
1) Informational activities
2) Normative activities
3) Rule-creating activities
4) Rule-supervisory activities
5) Operational activities
1 ) Interactions with other organizations
2) Adaptation
3) Normative integration
4) Cultural issues
Table 1. Internal and External Functions of an Organization.
Table 2 summarizes the second taxonomy, which adopts an
“epigenetic” approach, concentrating not on established functions (as does
the first taxonomy), but rather on the new functions that must develop for
effective growth; it addresses the growth of institutions and communities
through an almost biological metaphor. This second taxonomy establishes
four categories, each of which identifies each category with an analytical
task in the study of organizational survival and development. Setting these
two taxonomies in relation to one another problematizes the relevant
theoretical questions, establishes the necessary constraints on the research
design, and suggests how to code information concerning the development
of these organizations x
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ERKLARUNG
(“Explanation,” its “variables,” and t
heir categories)
VERSTEHEN
(“Understanding”)
,f Variables ”
(in “Explan¬
ation”)
Independent:
Evolution¬
ary level
Intervening:
Locus of power
Dependent:
Performance
[Interpretation:]
Sequence of
integration
Categories of
variables
Stage of:
- Initiation
- Takeoff
- Spillover
Degree of:
- Elitism8
- Internalization3
- Responsiveness to
demands and
feedback
Robustness of:b
- Information
and commu¬
nication
- Motivation
- Spheres of
competence
Nature of:c
- Merging units
- Emerging unit
-Functional
statements vs.
“real sequences”
Table 2. Elements for an Epigenetic Analysis of General Organizational Evolution.
“ The present short article does not address these categories; however, operationalizations may be found in
Hayward R. Alker, “On Political Capabilities in a Schedule Sense: Measuring Power, Integration, and
Development,” pp 307-73 in Mathematical Approaches to Politics, ed. by H R. Alker, K.W. Deutsch. and
A.H. Stoetzel (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1973).
b See the reformation of Etzionf s categories as explicated in the text.
c This column of the Table is more directly pertinent to Etzioni's original concern with international
communities, than to state foreign policy making per se. therefore, it is included for completeness but not
discussed in the present article.
The first taxonomy emphasizes the creation of organizational
structures to fulfill and accomplish prescribed “internal” and “external”
functions while the second, adopting an epigenetic approach and
concentrating on new behaviors called forth by the environment,
comprises four principal categories: stages of development, locus of
power, performance, and sequences of integration. The innovation and
incorporation of procedures for accomplishing “internal functions”
represent a response to developmental challenges in the life of the
institution. Organizational success in adapting to these tasks therefore
represents a passage from one phase to another. Organizations must as a
rule first evolve internal functions permitting them to exist stably in
relation with their constituent parts. Only then, according to this idealized
functional sequence, may they engage pro-actively with the external
environment. Therefore the development of internal and external
functions, posited by the functional taxonomy, may be heuristically treated
as a teleology of potentials for the evolution of any given organization.
The functional framework is thus first-order cybernetic, pertaining
to the cybernetics of observed systems; the epigenetic is second-order
cybernetic, pertaining to the cybernetics of observing systems.M Their
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synthesis, denoted the “paradox of intentional emergent coherence,” lays
stress on autopoiesis and learning. In this presentation, the two taxonomic
frameworks are intermediated by necessary constructs that may properly
be called one-and-a-half-order-cybernetic. These constructs are akin to the
“middle voice” of verbs in classical Greek, where the subject acts on or for
itself, halfway between (passive) first-order-cybernetic and the (active)
second-order-cybernetic frameworks. Indeed, insofar as constructivism in
the social sciences dissolves the distinction between norms and structures,
treating them equally as merely different ways of regarding institutions, it
represents a bridge to autopoiesis as the mediating term between
coherence and emergence. This is the process that fundamentally
characterizes the Paradox of Intentional Emergent Coherence.™
David Easton’s application of systems theory to the study of
politics distinguished among the elite, regime, and community sectors of
the political system.™1 What the elite is, is self-evident.™ The “regime
sector” comprises those institutions of the political system through which
governance is executed. The community sector is basically everything
else. David Apter explicitly reintroduced the notion of qualitative
communication among these sectors. He drew particular attention to the
flow of “information” from the community to the regime and from the
regime to the elite, and of “coercion” in the reverse direction. His mature
theoretical work is inspired more by Deutsch’s than by Almond’s
adaptation of Easton’s systems approach.™ Karl Deutsch replaced
Easton’s “less precise concepts of demands and supports” with “the
concept of message units or informative bits.”™1 More important, he
introduced the crucial distinction between primary and secondary
feedback in the attempt to grasp what “consciousness” and “learning”
might mean where political systems were concerned. His overall goal was
to explicate such philosophic categories as “choice,” “will,” and
“autonomy” in information processing terms. Following Deutsch’s
definition of “information” as a “patterned relationship between events,”
Apter retuned to the emphasis placed by Max Weber’s American student
Talcott Parsons on action , “a more narrow term that includes choice and
will,” as opposed to behavior , which “may include the mechanistic
response characteristic of lower animals.”™11
Work by Karl Deutsch helps to render Etzioni’s epigenetic
framework operationally second-order cybernetic. According to Deutsch,
foreign policy learning may be cognitively manifested either through the
transformation of goals held at the outset into goals not previously
conceived, or through the choice of pre-existing alternative goals over
Washington Academy of Sciences
15
other goals originally held. His project in his classic Nerves of
Government was, among other things, to translate the categories of
classical European philosophy (before the latter was depsychologized by
Bertrand Russell and his continuators) into cybernetic language™11
However, the limitations of the conceptual apparatus available to social
science at the time he wrote leave him often a prisoner of a functionalist
and homeostatic framework. In the later sections of the book where he
reintroduces the category of will and other volitional concepts, he points
explicitly towards the key second-order cybernetic principle of
autopoiesis.
Indeed, Deutsch’s translation of “faith” and “grace” into cybernetic
language are remarkable attempts to overcome the limitations of first-
order cybernetics. Deutsch’s cybernetic treatment of categories of classical
European philosophy goes some distance, though not all the way, towards
infiltrating an autopoietic (second-order cybernetic) aspect into the first-
order cybernetic framework that he inherited from the structural-
functionalist application of general systems theory within political science.
In this way Deutsch partly infiltrated an autopoietic aspect into the first-
order cybernetic framework that he inherited from general systems theory.
Epigenesis and Organizational Autopoiesis
Etzioni’s epigenetic “performance” categories were
(1) communication, (2) information, and (3) control. However, these
categories are still somewhat limited by the dynamics of first-order
cybernetics. It is therefore necessary somewhat to reconceptualize them.
One additional well-known mainstream political-science work, the
seminal work on the foreign-policy decision-making approach from the
early 1960s, completes the integration of Etzioni and Deutsch into a fully
second-order cybernetic outlook. X1X It not only helps to correct Etzioni’s
taxonomic triad of performance variables, but also supplies a framework
in which certain categories of Deutsch specify and operationalize that
performance triad of Etzioni. That work enumerated three “clusters of
variables” (or sets of phenomena), each of which addresses some facet of
how people making decisions in organizations operate.
These clusters are (1) communication and information,
(2) motivation, and (3) spheres of competence. Together they motivate the
re-specifications of Etzioni’s performance categories. The relation to
Etzioni’s triad of performance variables is as follows. The communication
and information cluster is about communication in organizations, and also
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about the organization of communications; it subsumes two of Etzioni’s
original categories. The motivation cluster is about goals in organizations
and is entirely absent in Etzioni. Deutsch uses it along with other
volitional concepts. The cybernetic term for autonomy of motive is
autopoiesis , and this concept is the lever with which to open the overall
problematique to second-order cybernetic considerations. The spheres of
competence cluster is about authority in organizations; it is a less
mechanistic, more second-order cybernetic expression of Etzioni’ s
category of “ control.”
The three “stages of development” inherent in the epigenetic
framework (initiation, takeoff, and spillover) may be considered as not
“stages” per se fully describing a continuum of development, but rather
phases in the transition of an organization from one category to another in
this typology. With this expanded theoretical content, it produces a
hierarchy for classifying organizational development (see Table 3) that
serves also as a template for mapping foreign policy decisions.xx
Still closer inspection of the synthesis of the functional and
epigenetic taxonomies discovers the influences upon an organization’s
achievement or failure to move from one rung of the developmental ladder
to another. These influences are expressed in particular by the setting into
mutual relation of the “locus of power” and “performance” categories of
the epigenetic framework on the one hand with, on the other hand, the
organization’s “external functions” as specified in the functionalist
framework. External functions have two aspects: normative and
behavioral. The key to examining performance is an assessment of the
“behavioral aspects.” The functionalist framework defines this as the
organization’s adaptation and its interactions with other organizations.
(“Organizations” may be construed in the sociological sense to include
non-bureaucratic structures as well as structures in the environment.)
Adaptation occurs (or fails to occur) with respect to the organization’s
institutional environment, and in the second instance, with respect to the
demands (both internal and external) on the nascent organization.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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(Implem en tat ion)
Phase 3
Competence
Operational activities
Spillover
( Preparation for
implementation)
Phase 2
Motivation
R u 1 e- s upend s ory
activities
Takeoff (2nd moment)
Rule-creating activities
Takeoff (1st moment)
( Processing of
information )
Phase 1
.
. .
Communication
Normative activities
Initiation (2nd moment)
and information
Informational activities
Initiation (1st moment)
(Collection of
information)
Phase 0
(Phase of for¬
eign policy deci¬
sion making )
Functional requisite of
organizational devel¬
opment (see Table 1)
Evolutionary
phase of
organization
Epigenetic moment in
organizational devel¬
opment (see Table 2)
Table 3. Concordance between Functional Requisites and Epigenetic Moments in
Organizational Development, and also by extension to Phase of State
Foreign Policy’ Decision Making. (Read this Table from bottom to top.)
There is a one-to-one correspondence between the analytical
subcategories of these interactions with other organizations, under the
functionalist framework, and the criteria of performance under the
epigenetic framework. To be exact, there are under the functionalist
framework three elements of “interactions with other organizations”
(threat systems, hierarchies, and goal definition and realization), and under
the epigenetic framework there are likewise three performance criteria.
Table 4 sets these into a one-to-one correspondence, establishes the
synthesis and, through the Deutsch-Etzioni transformation, it
operationalizes the first-order-cybernetic categories necessarily in a
second-order-cybernetic manner
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EPIGENETIC “LOCUS OF POWER ”
[ Response to demands/feedback = Performance ]
Performance
variables operational¬
ized as “capacities ”
Hierarchies
Goal definition and
realization
Threat systems
Primacy capacity
Secondary capacity'
1) Fundamental
restructuring
2) Inner rearrange¬
ment
1 ) Steering capacity
2) Depth of memory
1 ) Power
2) Intake channels
Functional behavior
characteristic of the
performance variable
Communication and
information
Motivation
Spheres of
competence
[ Interactions with other organizations ]
FUNCTIONAL “EXTERNAL BEHAVIOR”
Table 4. How Deutschian “Capacities” Operationalize Performance V ariables from the
Functional and Epigenetic Taxonomies, Transforming the First-Order Cybernetic
into the Second-Order-Cybernetic.
The introduction these second-order cybernetic correctives to
Etzioni’s original epigenetic taxonomy of performance variables
transforms the functionalist framework, which treats organizations
homeostatically, into an epigenetic cycle of organic development.
Deutsch’s remarks on obstacles to learning in cybernetic systems are
directly to this point. Specifically, he discusses “losses,” any of which can
prevent effective learning. Since the inverse of such a loss is a capacity, he
in fact enumerates six capacities that promote learning. It turns out that a
different pair of these six capacities is related to each of the functionally
defined external behaviors (threat systems, hierarchies, and goal definition
and realization). Thus the three pairs of capacities are mutually exclusive;
and collectively, they exhaust the set of six, as follows:
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1. Hierarchies are inhibited primarily by ‘loss of capacity for
fundamental restructuring” and secondarily by “loss of depth of
memory ” Cognitive hierarchies are not internalized and
organizational hierarchies are not imprinted in the absence of
information and communication. These requisite capacities
therefore depend most closely upon the
information communication performance variable, which is in
turn most characteristic of the initiation phase of epigenetic
development.
2. Goal definition and realization are inhibited primarily by “loss
of steering capacity” and secondarily by “loss of capacity for
inner rearrangement.” Goals are not defined or realized in the
absence of motivation. The requisite capacities therefore
depend most closely upon the motivation performance variable,
which is in turn most characteristic of the takeoff phase of
epigenetic development.
3. Threat systems are inhibited by “loss of power” and
secondarily by “loss of intake channels.” Threat systems are at
best ineffective, and at worst nonexistent, in the absence of
competence. The requisite capacities depend most closely upon
the competence performance variable, which is in turn most
characteristic of the spillover phase of epigenetic development.
Theoretical structures of second-order cybernetics, outlined above,
establish links between members of this conceptual triplet and the one
immediately preceding. However, it would be inconsiderate to adduce
supernumerary abstractions to such a demonstration, particularly in the
presence of editorial limits on the length of this article. Therefore Table 5
summarizes those connections in apothegms unifying them with the
fundamental analytical issues in the complex sciences, enumerated at the
outset of the chapter.
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APPOSITE APOTHEGM
(Second-order cybernetic) perform¬
ance criterion and corresponding phase
of epigenetic evolution
Complex' -scientific category corresponding
to tire functionally defined behavior
(Consolidated explication)
Epigenetic phase
Performance
criterion
Manifesting complex-
scientific behavior
j Functional
j behavior
During the phase of ini¬
tiation , information and
communications emerge
as [and manifest as cog¬
nitive and organizational]
hierarchies.
Initiation
Information and
communications
Emergence
! Hierarchies
During the phase of take¬
off \ motivation changes
and stabilizes [and mani¬
fests as and sustains] goal
definition and realization.
Takeoff
Motivation
Autopoiesis (for
sustainability)
! Goal definition
and realization
During the phase of spill¬
over, competence self-
organizes [and manifests
and coheres as) threat
systems.
Spillover
Competence
(Self-organized)
Coherence
! Threat systems
; (for response
I to threat)
Table 5. Concordance between Categories for Assessing Institutional Development of International
Organizations and Foreign -Policy Decision Making on the One Hand, and, on the Other
Hand, Fundamental Issues in the Complex Sciences Enumerated at the Outset of This
Article,
The Paradox of Intentional Emergent Coherence
The paradox of intentional emergent coherence is a condensation
and a transformation of this first order cybernetic system into a second
order cybernetic system. It is explicitly second-order-cybernetic and
founded in the theory of complex systems. Consequently it operationalizes
autopoiesis in particular better than any recitation of functional
mechanisms. For an organization, autopoiesis is the crucial attribute
marking the successful performance of functional tasks associated with the
developmental stage of take-off. It signifies the capacity proactively to
undertake relations with other organizations, as opposed to remaining only
a coordinating center for actions of its own component organizational
elements. It is the foundation of autonomous motive.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Figure 1. A Functionalist General-systems Inventory of Influences on State Foreign Policy Behavior.
Figure 2. The Paradox of Intentional Emergent Coherence: A Cyclical Developmental Framework
for Organizations and Social Systems, Unifying the Functional and Epigenetic Approaches.
Figure 1 portrays a standard functionalist general-systems
flowchart of influences on the foreign-policy behavior of a state.
Inspection will show that all “variables” (boxes with Roman numerals)
and “causes” (labeled arrows) in Figure 1 appear also in Figure 2, albeit
some in abbreviated form. [I], [II], and [III] represent the demands upon
the political system and supports to it and their reciprocal intermediation
by (A-l), (A-2), and (B-l). Those three flows, together with (B-2) are seen
in Figure 2 to represent the flow from [I] to [III], interpreted as transition
from the phase of Emergence to that of Coherence, in turn represented in
Table 3 as progression from Phase 0 to Phase 1. The movement from [III]
to [V] in Figure 1 is the beginning of processing of information on the new
i
Winter 2006
22
situation after it has been collected; “Conversion” is the structural-
functional category identifying this process, and it is there intermediated
by the flows (C), (D), and (E). In Figure 2, this represents the transition
from Coherence to Crisis, as the new challenge begins coming to a head;
and in Table 3, it is the progression from Phase 1 to Phase 2, where the
crucial issue of motivation comes to the fore, especially along with
associated second-order-cybernetic concerns with autopoiesis and goal
definition.
The critical elaboration of a response (“Decision and
Implementation”) is portrayed schematically in Figure 1 by the move from
[V] to [VI] via (F), interpreted in Figure 2 as the resolution of the Crisis by
Performance (either good or bad, and implemented either poorly or
efficiently), and captured in Table 3 as the movement from Phase 2 to
Phase 3. Finally, in Figure 1 for the case of state foreign-policy decision¬
making, there is feedback to the international and domestic political
environments, i.e. from [VI] to [I] and [II], via the flows (G-l) and (G-2).
These are also represented in Figure 2; for Table 3, it is the “relapse” from
Phase 3 to Phase 0, awaiting a new situation of challenge to arise.
The progressive transformation of Figure 1 into Figure 2
demonstrates that the functionalist schema hides an organic cycle of
epigenetic development. Indeed, forsaking the functionalist for the
epigenetic standpoint in fact renders the schema more parsimonious with
no sacrifice of analytical rigor; the analytical rigor is enhanced, as two
conceptual consolidations transform the functionalist, first-order-
cybemetic schema in Figure 1, so as to reveal its epigenetic, second-order-
cybemetic essence in Figure 2. First: The epigenetic approach discovers
that the endogenous demands and supports evolve with each metamorphic
stage through which an organization passes; therefore, these demands and
supports may be treated together as a single expression of the
developmental stage that it has reached. Second: Conversion, decision,
and implementation together constitute the response to the epigenetic
challenge at hand; therefore, these may be collapsed to single category
representing the organization’s performance-response to outgrow that
developmental stage answer the self-transformative challenge to enter the
next.™
Conclusion
The basis for the two correspondences just enumerated is that the
innovation and incorporation of procedures for the various kinds of
Washington Academy of Sciences
23
activities specified under “internal functions,” represent a response to a
developmental challenge. Successful adaptation therefore represents the
passage from one metamorphic stage to another, in the epigenetic course
that inheres in the organization, whether it is a state or an international
organization or any other social system. The assertion that initiation,
takeoff, and spillover are not point discontinuities between different
phases but rather are themselves transition phases in the life of the
organization is validated by their specification as being composed of
developmental functional tasks. The transformation of Figure 1 into Figure
2 discovers the ladder of epigenetic development concealed by the
functionalist cycle and embedded in it. This ladder indeed conditions the
very parameters of that functional cycle.
The transformation of the functionalist into the epigenetic
framework demonstrates the intrinsic unity of the two approaches. It maps
unambiguously the “internal functions” and the “stages of epigenetic
development” onto a common domain. The complete ladder of
institutional development is a hierarchy representing a typology of the
nature of the emerging units (a category under the “sequences of
integration” category of the epigenetic framework in Table 2). This
correspondence integrates the principal category of the epigenetic
framework with the principal taxonomy of the functional framework. The
Paradox of Intentional Emergent Coherence unfolds as a result. Thus
Table 5 sustains and illustrates, as was asserted in the beginning, that in
the complex-scientific approach, autopoiesis intermediates emergence
with coherence; and from that, the rest of this theoretical construct is
generated and supported.
REFERENCES
i. Senior Research Fellow. Institute of European and Russian Studies. Carleton
University. Postal address: Station H. Box 518. Montreal. Quebec H3G 2L5. Canada.
Email address <rmcf§.alum.mit.edu>; website <http://www.robertcutler.org>. Member
of the Washington Evolutionary Systems Society. A draft of this article was presented to
the Washington Academy Conference CapSci2006. The author's first oral presentation
of these ideas was to two interdisciplinary conferences sponsored by the New England
Complex Systems Institute in Boston in October 1998 and March 1999.
Winter 2006
24
ii. Jean Piaget. Le structuralisme (Paris: Press universitaires de France. 1968); for a
summary, see Jean Piaget. Epistemologie des sciences de I 'homme (Paris: Gallimard.
1970). pp. 278-86.
iii. Peter Winch. The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1958); 2nd ed. (London: Routledge. 1990). For a
commentary comparing the arguments in the two editions, see Philip Pettit "Winch's
Double-edged Idea of a Social Science." History of the Human Sciences 13. no. 1
(February 2000): 63-77.
iv. Totality is thus as like a mathematical Object: self-regulation, an Operation; and
transformation, a Relation. See Arthur F. Bentley. "Sociology and Mathematics" [first
published in 1931]. pp. 53-100. in Bentley. Inquiry into Inquiries: Essays in Social
Theorw ed. with Introd. bv Sidney Ratner (Boston. Mass.: Beacon Press. 1954). at 56-
59.
v. Paul Cilliers. Complexity’ and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems
(London: Routledge. 1998).
vi. Autopoiesis is the capacity’ of complex systems, and especially complex adaptive
systems, to set their own goals through progressive interaction with their environment
and through learning in response to this. John Holland. Hidden Order: How Adaptation
Builds Complexity (New York: Perseus Books. 1996); Niklas Lulnnan Soziale Svsteme:
Grundriss einer allgemeine Theorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. 1984). translated as Niklas
Luhmann. Social Systems (Writing Science ). trans. John Bednarz and Dirk Baecker
(Stanford. Calif.: Stanford University’ Press. 1995).
vii. Based on [Yaneer Bar-Yam]. "NECSI Guide: About Complex Systems,”
<http:/Avyvyv. necsi.org/guide/study .html>. accessed 10 October 2006.
viii. Respectively: The United Nations System: International Bibliography, ed. by Klaus
Hiifner and Jens Naumann (Munich: Verlag Dokumentation. 1976-present); and Amitai
Etzioni. "The Epigenesis of Political Communities at the International Level,” American
Journal of Sociology. 68. no. 4 (December 1963): 407-21. reprinted at pp. 346-58 in
International Politics and Foreign Policy, ed. by James N. Rosenau. rev. ed.. (New York:
Free Press. 1969).
The Hufner-Nauman taxonomy is based in the "structural-functionalist" school
of political analysis, which emphasizes "capabilities" of a different nature than discussed
here, and of which the locus c/assicus is Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingham Poyvell. Jr.,
Comparative Politics: A De\’elopmental Approach (Boston: Little. Broyvn. 1966).
drayving heavily but implicitly on the magnum opus of Almond's teacher Talcott Parsons.
The Social System (Neyv York: Free Press. 1951). which was unimaginably influential in
its time. Parsons in turn was the chief American exegete of the great German sociologist
Max Weber, yvhose attention to historical detail he however sacrificed for the gain of
abstract conceptualization at the grandest level of theory . The resulting deficiencies (and
Washington Academy of Sciences
25
they continue still today to affect organizational and foreign-policy analysis by many
mainstream North American political scientists) are trenchantly laid out by the pioneering
American sociologist William Foote Whyte. “Parsonian Theory Applied to
Organizations,’' pp. 250-267 in The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons: A Critical View,
ed. by Max Black (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1961).
The issues that Etzioni outlines are not far from a the recent attempt in Security
Communities . ed. by Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 1998), to revive the approach by Karl W. Deutsch et al. , Political
Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University Press.
1957). to the study of security communities. However. Etzioni' s framework better
houses recent advances in social network analysis, including the important qualitative
differences now rigorously demonstrated between triads and the dyadic relationships
emphasized by methodological-individualist approaches: see. e.g .. Ronald L. Breiger.
Explorations in Structural Analysis: Dual and Multiple Networks of Social Structure
(New York: Garland Press. 1991). and Stanley Wassennan and Katherine Faust. Social
Network Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994): compare Bam
Buzan and Ole Waever. Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003). At the same time, social network
analysis conserves the systems-theory approach underlying Deutsch' s perspective and
easily accommodates the cybernetic aspects of complex systems, as explained among
others by Paul A. Stokes. “Socio-Cybemetics and the Project of Scientificization of
Sociology." pp. 3 1 1-334 in Self-Steering and Cognition in Complex Systems: Towards a
New Cybernetics . ed. by Francis Heylighen. Eric Rosseel. and Frank Demeyene (New
York: Gordon and Breach. 1990).
ix. For a more elaborate argument of some of these points, see Cutler, ‘The Emergence
of International Parliamentary Institutions" (fn 2).
x. For an example of how this synthesis generates a philosophically grounded and
empirically applicable coding methodology for organizational development, see Robert
Cutler and Alexander von Lingen. “The European Parliament and European Security and
Defence Policy," European Security 12. no. 2 (June 2003): 1-20. also at
<http ://www . robertcutler.org/ar0 3 es . htm> .
xi. As Felix Gever notes in “The Challenge of Sociocybemetics,” Kvbernetes , 24. no. 4
(1995): 5-32. another main difference as set out by Heinz von Forster was that “second-
cybernetics explicitly includes the observer(s) in the systems to be studied [and] generally
deals with living systems."
xii. Compare Alicia Juarrero. Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex
System (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1999). pp. 109-25 passim.
xiii. David Easton. The Political System (New York: Knopf. 1953). and several
subsequent monographs on the same time.
26
xiv. Actually, elite studies have long been an identified topic within the comparative
politics subdiscipline of political science, complete with its own problematization and
definition of different elites. What an elite is. is nevertheless fairly clear in an ordinary-
language way. w hereas that is not necessarily the case for the concept of ' regime.”
xv. David E. Apter. Choice and the Politics of Allocation (New Haven. Conn.: Yale
University Press. 1971).
xvi. Law rence C. Mayer. Comparative Political Inquin' (Homew ood. Ill.: Dorsev.
1972) . p. 136.
xvii. Ibid., p. 127.
xviii. Kari W. Deutsch. The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication
and Control (New York: Free Press of Glencoe. 1963). pp. 96. 210. 222. The
transformation of goals held at the outset into goals not previously conceived is rare and
cannot be programmed. Haas reserv es the term “learning*' for goal transformation, as
distinct from “adaptation." See Ernst B. Haas. “Collective Learning: Some Theoretical
Speculations." in Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy \ pp. 62-99. esp. pp. 72-97 .
Compare: James N. Rosenau. “Foreign Policy as Adaptive Behavior: Some Preliminary
Notes for a Theoretical Model.*' Comparative Politics 2. no. 3 (April 1970): 365-387.
Rosenau. The Study of Political Adaptation: Essays on the Analysis of World Politics
(London: Frances Pinter. 1981); Steve Smith. Foreign Policy’ Adaptation (Famborough.
Gower. 1981): Smith. “Rosenau* s Adaptive Behaviour Approach." Review of
International Studies 7. no. 2 (1981) pp. 107-26.
xix. Richard W. Snyder. H.W. Bruck. and Burton Sapin. “Decision-making as an
Approach to the Study of International Politics." pp. 106-170 in Foreign Policy Decision
Making: An Approach to the Study of International Politics, ed. by Snyder. Bruck. and
Sapin (New York: Free Press of Glencoe. 1962).
xx. The italicized entries in the alternate cells in the left-hand column of Table 3 are
taken from Robert Axelrod. “Schema Theory: An Information Processing Model of
Perception and Cognition.” American Political Science Review 67. no. 4 (December
1973) : 1248-1266: compare Alessandro Bruschi. “Informazione e processi decisionali
nel sistema politica." pp. 165-213 in Ministero degli affari esteri. Istituto diplomatico.
Relazioni internazaionali: metodi e tecniche di analisi (Florence: Centro Studi e ricerche
di politica comparata. 1973); also the periodization of decision-making in domestic
affairs by Peter H. Solomon. Soviet Criminologists and Criminal Policy: Specialists in
Policy-Making (New York: Columbia University Press. 1978). p. 1 14. Fig. 1.
xxi. The successful implementation of a good decision strengthens these supports and
develops new capabilities. A poor decision w eakens supports, and a poor implementation
(even of a good decision) stunts the development of new capabilities. Successes and
failures are not isolated events but experiences that condition the whole of future
Washington Academy of Sciences
27
evolution. For a discussion of this notion in relation to the development of domestic
political systems, see Leonard Binder et a /., Crises and Sequences in Political
Development (Princeton. N. J. : Princeton University Press. 1971); and Crises of Political
Development in Europe and the United States, ed. by Raymond Grew (Princeton. N.J.;
Princeton University Press. 1978).
Winter 2006
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Washington Academy of Sciences
NATURE VERSUS NURTURE IN EVOLUTION,
AND EMERGENCES OF DESIGNS IN
GENETICS, THE IMMUNE SYSTEM AND THE BRAIN
29
Roulette William Smith
Institute for Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Studies
Palo Alto, CA
Abstract
Even though much remains to be explicated, it generally is agreed that
DNA provides a parsimonious basis for evolution associated with
speciation. differentiation, development, immunity, cognition and
behavior, aging, and dying and death. Until published reports of two
human genome projects (HGPs) in mid-Feb ruarv 2001. it had not been
appreciated that proteomic components of the human genome account
for approximately 2% of the human genome (-30.000 genes) and at
most 25% of the genome comprise the proteome (i.e.. the protein¬
encoding portion of the genome) and its regulatory elements. Based on
studies of “slow viruses” and their roles in “dementia" in both the brain
and the immune sy stem. Smith hypothesized that DNA must be the
repository of long-term memories in living systems (LTM) - and
especially in the brain - with broad implications for evolution (1979).
Contemporaneously. Tonegawa demonstrated rearrangements in DNA
account for immunoglobulin specificity (1978; Sakano et al. . 1979).
Taken together, these findings support three interdependent
evolutionary7 schemas in humans and other higher animals with bony
crania (Smith. 2006a; Smith. 2006b). One evolutionary scheme is
associated with Daryvinian proteomic (i.e., genetic and epigenetic)
evolution. A second interdependent evolutionary pathway is associated
with 7/7 utero transmission of immunoglobulins and other evolutionary
information (Vemy and Kelly, 1981/1983). and breastfeeding -
especially in humans. The third pathway is associated with imitation in
behavior associated with mirror neurons (Arbib et al., 2000; Rizzolatti
and Craighero. 2004; Iacoboni et al., 2005) and other mechanisms
involving the transmission of information to and within the brain - the
latter generally comprising DNA changes in non-proteomic portions of
the genome. This report explores emergences in spontaneous, “natural"
and aberrant designs and heuristics among the three interdependent
evolutionary7 subsystems and their associated transmission mechanisms.
Emergent designs associated with proteomic regions of the genome
largely represent designs in “nature," whereas emergent designs
associated with the remaining interdependent evolutionary7 schemas
often reflect consequences of designs associated with “nurturance."
Winter 2006
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Background and Introduction
On Design - ‘ Caveats Emptor ' and Limiting the Scope of this Report
The central theme of this symposium - “emergences in designs” -
conjures a variety of meanings and opportunities. This report focuses on
four (of eight) definitions of design taken from the Merri am -Webster
Online Dictionary (www.m-w.com). These definitions are “... 4) a
preliminary sketch or outline showing the main features of something to
be executed : <the design of the stadium>; 5 a) an underlying scheme that
governs functioning, developing, or unfolding : PATTERN, MOTIF <the
general design of the epic>; 5 b) a plan or protocol for carrying out or
accomplishing something (as a scientific experiment); also : the process of
preparing this; 6) the arrangement of elements or details in a product or
work of art; and, 7) a decorative pattern ...” Because of space limitations,
this report focuses solely on those definitions of design which are nouns.
A goal is to disambiguate nature and nurture in evolution, and elucidate
emergences in designs associated with three “emergent” interdependent
evolutionary schemas to be described momentarily.
On Evolution An Introduction to a Post-Darwinian Model of Evolution
Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution and speciation (1859),
while widely accepted by life scientists and most scholars, have been
challenged by other scholars who praise Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
(1819/1984) on adaptation, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1959) on
phenomenology and ‘inward’ reflection, and others ( e.g ., Huxley, 1941).
Reported findings in mid-February 2001 from two human genome projects
(HGPs), when coupled with experimental findings and speculations about
DNA dynamics (McClintock, 1950; Tonegawa et al. , 1978; Sakano et al .,
1979; Smith, 1979; Zou and Buck, 2006) now support a novel post-
Darwinian tripartite model of evolution.
The tripartite model derives from the HGPs’ revelation that,
according to its most generous interpretation, at most 25% of the human
genome accounts for the proteome, with as much as 75% or more of non-
proteomic regions of the human genome remaining to be explicated (see
February 2001 issues of Nature [Volume 409, 15 February 2001] and
Science [Volume 291 (5507), 16 February 2001]). Non-proteomic regions
of the genome sometimes are referred to as “junk” DNA.
Washington Academy of Sciences
31
Although notions of proteomic and non-proteomic regions of a
genome were unknown in 1979, Smith (1979) anticipated that changes in
DNA (i.e., LTM) would take place in the non-contiguous and non-
proteomic regions in the brain and immune system, that endogenous
retrovirus-like elements may play roles in depositing information in non-
proteomic regions of the genome, and that Francis Crick’s “central
dogma” was grossly deficient because of overwhelming evidence of an
inverse information pathway (cf. Crick, 1958; Crick et a /., 1961; Crick,
1970; Smith, 1979; Smith 2006a; Smith, 2006b). The subsequent design
and invention of proXomc-ehcixomc-iomc-phoionic molecular calculating
(preliophic moleculating) devices and processes demonstrated the
potential for inverse molecular information pathways (Smith and Shadel,
2003 patents pending). It then was proposed that trinucleotide repeat
(TNR) diseases provide further support for inverse molecular information
pathways and junctions between proteomic and non-proteomic regions of
genomes (Smith, 2003; cf. Cleary and Pearson, 2003).
Clues to the need for a tripartite model of evolution derive from
DNA rearrangements associated with immunoglobulin production and
DNA changes in non-proteomic regions of the brain - neither of which
are transmitted to the germ-line. Previously, interpretations of DNA
rearrangements associated with immunoglobulin specificity were
interpreted as evidence for rejecting the “one gene - one protein” dogma.
Scholars had overlooked that those gene rearrangements were not being
passed along to germ-line tissue. A need for a second (non-Darwinian)
interdependent evolutionary schema was evident upon reflection on
passive immunity associated with in utero transmission of
immunoglobulins and breastfeeding, the effects of addictive drugs on
fetuses during pregnancy and the newborn, and possible transfers of
soulful information in utero (Verny and Kelly, 1981/1983). A need for a
third evolutionary pathway became evident because changes in DNA in
the brain are unlikely to be accompanied by cell division (i.e., a significant
evolutionary event was to retain the ability to change DNA without cell
division, especially for cells constrained by a bony cranium), because of
the complexity of neural networks fostering the need for efficient
intracellular communication through axons and dendrites, because DNA
changes in brains, may represent a priori events with changes in axons-
dendrites representing a posteriori consequences of those DNA changes,
and because DNA changes in the brain are not transmitted to the germ¬
line. In short, a tripartite system of evolution became essential because of
separate transmission mechanisms associated with genetic reproduction
Winter 2006
32
associated with the germ-line, passive immune transfers in utero , and
DNA changes in the brain. Moreover, transmission mechanisms in the
brain may invoke mirror neuron systems (Arbib el cil, 2000; Rizzolatti
and Craighero, 2004; Iacoboni el a/., 2005; Blakeslee, 2006) for acquiring
information by imitation and mimicry (cf. Ekman, 1973; Ekman and
Friesen, 1975; Ekman, 2003). Evidence of “psychoviruses” (Smith, 1987;
Smith, 1988) and life-long consequences of traumatic events also support
infectious cognitive snippets leading to DNA changes (Smith, 2006a;
Smith, 2006b). Thus, transmissions of evolutionary information associated
with changes in DNA (in humans) may involve: a) sexual reproduction; b)
in utero transfers and breastfeeding; and c) imitation, mimicry, and trauma
and psychoviruses.
Based on considerable theoretical, experimental and clinical
evidence, DNA changes in the brain probably involve changes from
adenine*thymine-rich regions to guanine*cytosine-richer regions in
genomes in selected neurons. Rates of changes should differ, say, for the
forebrain (i.e., associated with cognition) and cerebellum ( i.e associated
with acquired sensory-motor responses). One crude measure of nurturance
is the ratio of guanine* cytosine base-pairs :: adenine*thymine base-pairs
in selected regions (Smith, 2003b; hereafter designated G*C :: A*T). We
also introduce the term sytitropy to refer to mathematical, chemical and
physical representations of increased ordering and organization in
information.
Intriguing consequences of the tripartite model of evolution are its
predictions of significant roles for nurturance, and the organization and
ordering of information. Both G*C :: A*T ratios and syntropy have
important implications for emergences in designs. Moreover, whereas
G*C :: A*T ratios represent crude quantitative measures of nurtures, for
DNA in the brain, (G*C :: A*T)changing ltm / (G*C :: A*T)baseiine are crude
measures of ‘syntropy’ - with (G*C :: A*T)baseiine being determined for
tissue not undergoing changes in DNA ( e.g ., DNA from a hair follicle).
Clearly, if (G*C :: A*T)baSeiine is chosen as a crude measure of nature, then
(G*C :: A*T)changing LTM / (G*C :: A*T)baseiine also is an expression of the
vast importance of nurture relative to nature. These crude measures of
nature, nurture and syntropy also represent crude measures of designs.
[Increases in G*C :: A*T are indicators of increased avidity in chemical
bonding]
Washington Academy of Sciences
33
Nature versus Nurture in Emergences in Designs
Because of ongoing speculations regarding possible intelligent
designs,’ this report now has an opportunity to both debunk intelligent
design arguments while clarifying how designs may emerge (or arise
spontaneously or aberrantly) in living and non-living systems. In the
context of the tripartite model of evolution, discussions of emergences in
designs also provide unique opportunities to highlight sciences of the
'real’ and ‘artificial,’ as well as evolution in designs. Finally, a focus on
abnormal, aberrant, disordered and dysfunctional designs (cf. Smith, 1979)
can provide rich opportunities to parlay “Murphy’s Law” into a theory of
“debugging” design, disorder, and disease (Smith, 1979). Equally
important, an emphasis on design provides opportunities for the arts to
inform the sciences and engineering ( e.g ., see “help for the unknowingly
needy and worried well” at the end of the Glossary), and vice versa.
Debunking ‘ Intelligent ’ Design
If there are any take-home lessons from the tripartite model of
evolution, they are that the three interdependent evolutionary systems are
co-evolving from fundamentally distinct initial “designs” - even though
those systems are parsimonious insofar as DNA is the thread underlying
all evolution. The Darwinian model of evolution works well for random
mutations, selections and survival of, say, the most ‘fit.’ It even can
account for symbiosis and Archaebacteria being precursors of
mitochondria, or hydra representing an assemblage of cells.
Darwinian evolution is less successful in accounting for
consciousness, nurturance, spirituality, elder wisdom or other elements of
the transpersonal. Each of these evolutionary developments represents
“designs” according to definitions cited earlier, though there are no
underlying elements of intelligence - nor are there any reasons to invoke
intelligence. Indeed, some “designs” may be extraordinarily “beautiful,”
“exquisite,” and “elegant” - as in the structure and function of
countercurrent mechanisms in kidneys and oceans. Other designs may
represent “kludges” (e.g., in the liver and brain) or even the unintelligent
(e.g., in the interaction between human female ovaries and the associated
fimbrae). Moreover, the evolutionary emergence of the umbilicus and
bony cranium may have been central to the tripartite model, whereas in
Winter 2006
34
other animals (or plants) entirely different evolutionary schemas may be
necessary.
Perhaps most important, the evolution of gods and godliness may
recapitulate the evolution of evolution, which, in turn, may recapitulate the
dispersion of matter and information secondary to a presumptive 'big
bang.’ Stated differently, if there is intelligence, it certainly changes and
differs throughout evolution!
Emergences in Designs Associated with Nature
As noted, the proteome comprises less than 2% of the human
genome, or, being generous, at most 25% if allowances are made for
unknown or uncertain regulatory processes. That said, evolutionary and
developmental biologists (/.£., the “evo-devo” movement) have
characterized a variety of "designs” in genes, structures and functions
which are parsimonious across species and over time. Indeed, attendees at
the Washington Evolutionary Systems Society Symposium (March 25-26,
2006) were treated to a marvelous plenary presentation by Francis Collins
(Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute) in which he
described the use of haplotype mapping (HapMap) and HGP technologies
to identify a gene site implicated in progeria, a premature aging disease
caused by a “ de novo” gene mutation (Collins, 2006).
Table 1 (see the end of the article) represents an attempt to
schematize and systematize some of those and other "designs” associated
with nature, though without unduly focusing on specific genes, structures
or functions. That said, it is instructive to contrast humans to chimpanzees.
One finds greater than 95% homology between their proteomes, yet all
will agree to their remarkable differences. Homologies between human
and chimpanzee proteomes and genomes also underscore their
extraordinary "designs.” Both species retain similar and analogous:
physical, biological, and physiological characteristics; sensory and
perceptual features; asymmetries and symmetries; codes and
redundancies; etc. Differences between humans and chimpanzees probably
are represented in the structure, codes, and values of information
represented in non-proteomic regions of their genomes. This could
represent as much as 98% of the human and/or chimp genomes, with the
95+% homology comprising approximately 2% of their genomes.
Table 1 also provides a paradigm for conceptualizing emergences
in designs, and especially in living systems. "'Man-made’ / artificial”
Washington Academy of Sciences
35
constructs reveal opportunities for inventions and professional responses,
whereas “abnormal, aberrant, disordered, and dysfunctional” possibilities
point to diseases, outliers, and other anomalous situations. The term
“aberrant” specifically is chosen to minimize stereotyping and
unnecessary (or inappropriate) value judgments. Its earliest use is in our
research involves individuals whose commonsense differs fundamentally
from others’ commonsense, though with those individuals’ commonsense
generally serving their needs (Smith, 1987; Smith, 1988).
Emergences in Designs Associated with Nurture / Nurturance
Possibly the most significant contribution of the tripartite model of
evolution is that it moves discussions of evolution beyond phenotypes and
speciation. According to the DNA change hypotheses in the immune
system and the brain, evolution exists within individuals and their species
- and especially in humans. Passive immunity was cited because of its
elegance when dealing with novel pathogens for highly mobile
populations. Indeed, perhaps the greatest tragedy of the 20th century has
been the failure to recognize that the AIDS pandemic fundamentally
involves distinctions between relatively common versus relatively
uncommon pathogens (Smith, 2004). A potential avian influenza
pandemic could underscore this point of view, though with far more
significant consequences.
As noted, nurturance is central to the second and third evolutionary
pathways. Table 2 (see the end of the article) represents an attempt to
systematize and schematize emergent designs associated with nurture /
nurturance. Not surprisingly. Tables 1 and 2 overlap in many ways, even
though examples cited in Table 2 are deliberately limited. If one considers
the contrast between humans and chimpanzees cited earlier, it immediately
is apparent that nurturance contributes greatly to the explication of the
“man-made / artificial” and the “abnormal, aberrant, disordered and
dysfunctional.” Nurturance also contributes greatly to “life-span,”
“methodological,” “philosophical,” and the “m eta-evolutionary and
metaphoric” categories.
What 's Ahead . . .
The tripartite model of evolution may foreshadow several long-
range possibilities. Just as Darwin’s theory of evolution could give rise to
Winter 2006
36
the tripartite model of evolution in some animal species, future
evolutionary schema may include heretofore unforeseen additional
pathways producing further possibilities for emergent designs. Man-
machine and man-chemical interfaces must rank among high-probability
future evolutionary pathways. Hang-gliding, paragliding and rock-
climbing activities all point to the potential for an intersection between
nature and nurture to alter phenotypic genetic traits and other patterns of
nurtured transmissions over time. These examples are cited because they
reveal man’s potential to acquire skills generally thought to be
inaccessible to humans ( e.g ., flying). Other examples include the use of
chemicals to enhance performance (e.g., in sports) or interactions with
distant contacts using computers (e.g., using the Internet or when
communicating with man or other living systems during space travel). Not
to be overlooked would be novel possibilities for the design of drugs and
other pharmaceuticals. Drugs, chemicals and other substances targeting
non-proteomic regions of the genome - and especially in the brain -
could lead to alternative treats for schizophrenia, dissociative identity
disorders (e.g.., multiple personalities), “brain-washing,” post-traumatic
stress syndromes, and other diseases / syndromes (cf. Smith, 2003a)
In citing these examples, one should not interpret them as
predictions. Our goal is to stimulate others’ imaginations regarding future
evolution, the evolution of evolution, and, emergent designs associated
with nature and nurture in evolution. A further goal is to encourage
dialogues regarding moral, ethical, and other philosophical issues (cf
Gaarder, 1994).
One last comment in regard to evolution and its implications for
nature, nurture, and emergent designs. Just as Darwin found evidence for
his theory of evolution of species after exploring the Galapagos Islands, an
‘island theory’ also has value in the exploration of nurture (cf. Smith,
1994). Much can be learned from studies of nurturance in small groups
and on islands - whether physical (e.g., in New Zealand, Sicily, Sardinia,
Hainan, Iceland), social (e.g., cults, prisons, militaries and armies,
ghettos), political (e.g., “red” and “blue” states in the USA) and/or
economic (e.g., associated with caste and class). Even though Hardy-
Weinberg equations may not apply in regard to nurture, analogous
heuristics reveal the value of studies of island populations.
Washington Academy of Sciences
37
Conclusions
A novel post-Darwinian model of evolution is discussed in this
brief essay. The model represents a modest attempt to integrate evolution
across species with a broader view of evolution within individuals, within
their species, and across species. The proposed tripartite model of
evolution has five additional salutary features. First, it provides clues to
quantitative assessments of nurture and the relative contributions of nature
and nurture in animals with brains in bony crania - though especially in
humans. Second, the model reveals the importance of understanding
different modalities for the transmission of evolutionary information; to
wit, genetic and germ-line transmission constitute a relatively small part of
evolution. Third, the model points to alternative futures, some of which
had been anticipated accurately ( e.g ., HIV/AIDS; see Smith, 1979; Smith,
1984; Smith, 1994; Smith, 2001; Smith, 2003a; Smith, 2004), and
alternative evolutionary schemas. Fourth, the model reveals that
Lamarckian and Darwinian notions of evolution are parsimonious, with
Lamarck’s notion of adaptation (Lamarck, 1819) comporting well with our
notion of nurturance. Finally, it may be reasonable to anticipate drugs and
other chemicals (including psychedelic preparations) having direct effects
on non-proteomic regions of genomes and attendant biochemical pathways
(e.g., associated with adenine <-> adenosine biochemical pathways).
The possible distinction regarding the relative contributions of
nature and nurture in evolutionary settings provides a unique opportunity
to discuss emergent designs associated with nature and nurture. Although
Tables 1 and 2 point to some emergent design considerations related to
nature and nurture respectively, these Tables are by no means complete.
For example, psychological, political, and economic aspects of emergent
designs associated with nature and nurture are not discussed. The latter
would include discussions of early detection of emergent designs, memory
for emergent designs (e.g., ‘Oscar moments’ involving memory for scenes
in movies), transmission of emergent designs (e.g., on radio, television,
and the Internet), aberrant processes (e.g., “transmissible negativism” and
aberrant commonsense; out-of-body, near-death and past-life experiences;
etc.), and/or cultural aspects of emergent designs (cf. Smith, 2006c). Nor
do Tables 1 or 2 address emergent design issues specifically related to the
separate interdependent evolutionary pathways - and especially in utero
and other placental pathways (Gross, 2006; Kriegs et ciL, 2006). These
will be the basis for future studies. Finally, opportunities for social designs
and engineering are not discussed (e.g., novel designs and theories of
Winter 2006
38
measurement and testing which take into account nurturance and peer
group processes).
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Cortex. Science 311 : 1477-148 1 .
Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to Jerry L. C. Chandler, Neill Edwards, Carlos Torre,
Anita Rodriquez, and Vijay Padmanabhan for their personal and
professional assistance. Their assistance was truly invaluable!
Glossary
Aberrant / Aberration / Aberrancy - a notion that some traits / behaviors
may differ from normal, modal or median-like traits / behaviors. The term
aberration is used to distinguish between occasional situations that may
arise in life though in contrast to blatant abnormality, disease, illness,
and/or other “wrong” or implicitly “negative” contexts. For purposes of
this report, we posit my variant on “Murphy’s Law;” to wit, “if things can
be different in living situations, those different situations will arise in life
- possibly as aberrations, aberrant situations or outliers.”
Genome - The full complement of DNA in a cell of a particular organism.
In humans, the genome comprises 23 pairs of chromosomes along with an
“X” and/or “Y” chromosome, and mitochondrial DNA.
Murphy's Law - “If something can go wrong, it will ...”
Non-proteomic - referring to that portion of cellular DNA which does not
encode for proteins.
Washington Academy of Sciences
41
Nurture - Nurture, which often is contrasted to nature, refers to the
process of acquiring and replicating learned, cultural, or other experiential
information and its possible transmission (usually via non-genetic, non-
proteomic means) to others. In this report, a central thesis and premise is
that nurture most often is reflected in non-proteomic changes in DNA
which are not transmitted to the host’s germ-line (/.*?., sperm or ova),
whereas nature is reflected in genetic and proteomic (i.e.9 non-learned)
traits that generally are transmitted via the germ-line. For clinical and
pragmatic purposes, it is hypothesized that the ratios of C*G :: A*T DNA
base-pairs in select organs ( e.g ., in selected regions in the brain and the
immune system) represent crude, albeit quantifiable , measures of nurture
- perhaps the first quantitative measures of nurture!
Parsimony - A notion that a single or “best-fit” “thread” or theme may
underlie one or more phenomena. The notion of parsimony put forth in
this report deliberately goes beyond the notion of Ockham’s Razor insofar
as those which may be “best-fit” may fundamentally involve complexities
rather than mere simplicities. The old saw or adage of “keeping it simple,
stupid” [KISS] is rejected, particularly as it applies to the transpersonal
and its evolution.
Preliophic moleculator - Devices and processes invented in 1996 to
capture the bidirectional flow of molecular information based on
PRotonic-ELectronic-IOnic-PHotonlC gradients (Roulette Wm. Smith and
Robert Shadel, international patents pending). The device is called a
moleculator for MOLECUlar calcu LATOR.
Proteome - The portion of the genome which encodes for proteins.
Proteomic - referring to the proteome; to wit, that portion of the genome
which encodes for proteins.
Syntrophy - mathematical, chemical and physical measures of tendencies
toward organization and order in information (as contrasted to entropy).
For DNA in brain and if G*C connotes Guanine*Cytosine base pairs and
A*T connotes Adenine*Thymine base-pairs, then (G*C :: A*T)Changing ltm
/ (G*C :: A*T)baseiine are crude measures of ‘syntropy’ - with (G*C ::
A*T)baseiine being determined for tissue not undergoing changes in DNA
(e g., DNA from a hair follicle). [NB: An obvious example of syntropy
occurs when single complementary strands of DNA are deposited in an
aqueous solution, with their complementary base-pairing occurring after
Winter 2006
42
relatively short order. For practical considerations, 'time’ is not a variable
in the calculation of syntropy; rather, syntropy is a measure of increased
order/organization.]
Transmissible - the acquisition of information or traits by genetic and or
other non-prole omic genomic mechanisms.
Transpersonal - stages and/or states of human development through
which a person's self-awareness extends beyond the personal. Classic
examples of the transpersonal include consciousness, rational, spirituality,
mystical, dreams, etc. For this discussion, the transpersonal is more
broadly defined and includes soul, spirit, knowledge and beliefs, erotetics
(that is, the logic of one’s [especially good] questions), competence,
“commonsense,” appearance, taste and aesthetics, wisdom and elder
nurturance, persistence and tenacity, and antecedent (and sometimes
evolutionary) conditions which may define or shape one’s development.
Help for Unknowingly Needy and Worried Well - (A model for social
design and engineering)
It is said that ...
“Mankind may be divided into four classes:
( 1 ) Those who KNOW and know that they KNOW - of them
seek knowledge;
(2) Those who KNOW but do not know that they KNOW -
awaken them;
(3) Those that do not KNOW and know that they do not
KNOW - instruct them;
(4) Those who do not KNOW but think that they KNOW-
they are fools, dismiss them.”
Salomon Ibn Gabirol (also known as Avicebron)
In Mibhar Hu-Peninim [ Choice of Pearls ]
No. 60 (circa 1050 AD)
[NB: An analysis of this adage reveals that those with and without
knowledge may be partitioned, albeit somewhat simplistically,
according to their education, alertness, motivation and ability
to educate. The range of possibilities is even more instructive if
the words “NEED” and/or “HELP” are substituted for the
capitalized and italicized word “KNOW.”]
Washington Academy of Sciences
43
Table 1 - Examples of Emergences of Designs in Nature
Concepts,
Formations &
Formalities
Examples
Man-Made /
Artificial
Abnormal,
Aberrant,
Disordered &
Dysfunctional
Geological
formations
Crystals; geodes;
Quartz timers and
transistors
Earthquakes;
tsunamis; etc.
Physical,
biological and
physiological
Counter-current
mechanisms in
oceans and
kidneys;
Viruses and
infectiousness;
Stem cells;
Velocity -
Electro
negativity of
phosphates,
sulfates, etc.;
genetic tools
(e.g., restriction
enzymes,
nucleases,
kinases,
proteases, etc.);
Submarines and
ballasts;
Genetic
engineering;
Stem cells;
Gradients in
preliophic systems;
In vitro
fertilization;
Cell sorting;
Genetic,
congenital and
other birth or
developmental
disorders;
trauma;
bioterrorism;
HIV/AIDS
Sensory and
perception
Sounds; shapes;
sights; sizes;
smells; etc.
Sounds; shapes;
sights; sizes;
smells; etc.
Synesthesia;
dyslexia; other
diseases of
sensation &
perception;
Biophysical
Movements &
gradients;
Microtubulin-
associated
proteins (MAPs)
Electrophoresis;
Isoelectric
focusing;
Ampholytes;
Aberrantly
synthesized
molecules
Processes
Cellular
Electrophoresis;
slow viruses;
molecular
Preliophics;
HIV/AIDS;
information
processes
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44
Pathways
Electron chains
and proton
processing
Mitochondria
Chloroplasts;
Central dogma;
Inverse
molecular
information
pathway;
Biochemical
pathways;
Preliophic
moleculators
Genetic
diseases and
defects
Asymmetry,
symmetry,
parallelism and
segmentation
Organisms
Preliophics
Tumors &
cancers
Mathematics &
codes
Fibonacci
sequences
Recursion;
constants
Redundancy
G*C and A*T
base pairings;
Redundancy and
fault tolerance;
Space probe
disasters
Philosophical
In vivo;
hi virtualis
(pre/iophics);
In vivo;
A priori A
posteriori;
Evolutionary;
Complexity;
In vitro;
In vivo^in
vir tit a list-tin vitro;
A priori A
posteriori;
Parsimony;
Ockham’s razor;
Infection &
disease;
Causality
versus
consequences;
Illogical &
Aberrant
logics;
Metaphoric
“Ontogeny
recapitulates
phylogeny”
“Engineering
recapitulates
reality”
Computer
worms &
viruses;
psychoviruses;
re¬
engineering;
Washington Academy of Sciences
Table 2 - Examples of Emergences of Designs Involving Nurture
Concepts,
Formations
&
Formalities
Examples
Man-made /
Artificial
Abnormal,
Aberrant,
Disordered &
Dysfunctional
Geological
formations
and
representa-
Tions
Statues;
sculpture;
arts;
dream
space &
time
among
aboriginal
peoples
“down
under”
Timers and
clocks; cave
paintings;
movies; edifices
and monuments
Aberrant measurements
and prurient constructs;
Inappropriate habitats
along coasts,
earthquake faults,
liquefaction sites
Physical,
biological,
physiological
, social,
educational
Nesting;
parenting;
fight-
flight-
fright
mechan¬
isms;
menses
and meno¬
pause;
gender;
passive
immune
transfers
& breast¬
feeding;
imitation
& psycho¬
virus
transmis¬
sions
Homes; schools;
villages; hunter-
gathers; justice;
caste (Laws of
Manu); class;
slavery; war;
religion;
government;
printing press;
agriculture, radio,
television,
computers;
internet; iPODs;
social inventions;
pushing the limits
Prisons; trauma;
orphanages;
bankruptcies;
medical/surgical
consequences;
discrimination; racism;
divorce; pandemics;
war; bombs; autism
syndromes; HIV/AIDS;
bioterrorism
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Sensory and
perception
Tastes;
smell;
other
tactile
responses;
food;
rituals;
beliefs
versus
reality;
Creativity; fine
arts; literature;
cuisine; apparel;
music; dance;
recreational and
ritual substances;
shamanistic
practices;
enhancement
substances and
activities; radio;
TV
Psychedelics and
substance abuse;
lack of thorough
documentation of
extinctions;
destruction and
disorders of senses and
perceptions;
Biophysical
and meta¬
physical
Sleep,
dreams,
rest and
relaxation,
contempla
tion;
anticipa¬
tion
Clairvoyance
Sleep disorders; out-of-
body experiences; near
death experiences; past
life experiences;
apparitions
Transpersona
1 and other
processes
Conscious
ness;
commonse
nse;
desire;
spirituality
; wit;
humor;
wisdom;
compassio
n; gifts &
volunteeri
sm;
heroism
Religion;
philanthropy;
archetypes
Trauma; autism;
transmissible
negativism;
psychoviruses; lying;
Temporary’ autism;
bigotry
Pathways
Careers;
avocations
and
interest
Religion; spiritual
&
transformational
quests
Cults; terrorism;
exploitation;
Asymmetry,
symmetry.
Central
dogma
Cooperation;
competition;
Trinucleotide (TNR)
diseases; bankruptcies;
Washington Academy of Sciences
47
parallelism
and
segmentation
versus
inverse
molecular
informatio
n
pathways;
genetic
code
versus
inverse
code
governing
storage of
molecular
informatio
n in DNA
economic models
and decision
theory;
globalization in
labor, economies
and war; business
cycles;
Mathematics
and codes
Fibonacci
sequence
Recursion;
heuristics;
computability;
Dewey decimal
system & Library
of Congress filing
schemas;
international book
numbering
systems; DOI
article and journal
referencing
codes;
cryptography
Computer viruses and
worms
Redundancy
Redundan
cy in
language
and brain
structures
/
processes
Redundant
designs in
aircraft,
emergency
vehicles, &
hospital services
and procedures
Apollo, Challenger and
space probe failures
Life-span
Aging;
elder
wisdom;
Insurance; Social
Security;
Medicare /
Accidents, war;
diseases
Winter 2006
48
legacy;
impact;
impor¬
tance;
knowing
when and
how to
stop;
extinct¬
ions
Medicaid;
Elderhostels;
adult education;
life after death
and reincarnation;
archetypes
Methodologi
cal
Census;
simulation
Epidemiology;
preliophics
Failure to record and
report common versus
uncommon pathogens
Philosophical
Subtlety;
elegance;
appreciati
on; open-
minded¬
ness;
verisimili¬
tude;
reliability;
validity;
efficiency;
phenomen
ology;
logic;
causality;
conse¬
quences;
“good”
question¬
asking &
“good”
question
answering
(erotetics),
paradigms
&
paradigm
Peer review;
juries;
autotoxicity;
autovirulence;
context-
specificity;
knowing when
and how to stop
(involving
decisions,
experiments,
gambling,
substance abuse
and other
addictions, and
war); ge dan ken
studies; Henle-
Koch postulates
for a single
pathogen causing
a single disease
“Is the good the enemy
of the best?” (Horrobin,
1982); Henl e-Koch
postulates for complex
infections (e g., EBV
and HIV); Dogma
including Lthe central
dogma’, 'one gene -
one protein, HIV is the
sole cause of AIDS,
and infectious
pathogens must include
nucleic acids
Washington Academy of Sciences
49
shifts;
morals &
ethic;
Meta¬
evolutionary
and
metaphoric
Structure
versus
function;
cosmolog
y and the
cosmic
gaming
‘Big Bang’;
inflation theory;
God and
godliness;
syntropy versus
entropy; Does
structure precede
function, or does
function precede
structure? Do
sciences
recapitulate arts?
War; decline and fall of
empires; Holocausts;
extinctions of the
endangered
Winter 2006
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Washington Academy of Sciences
51
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
ON HUMAN MOODS AND EMOTIONS:
IMPLICATIONS FOR WORKPLACE AND WORKFLOW
DESIGN
Thomas Meylan, Ph D.
EvolvingSuccess®
Burtonsville. MD
Abstract
The human body is designed to monitor a variety of multi-band
channels delivering extremely large amounts of information from the
environment. It is also designed to monitor vast amounts of
information regarding its own internal states and conditions. This
information flow is filtered and assessed by a large number of control
loops that prepare the body for life-sustaining activity. These
preparations also generate a large number of subliminal emotions that
start to intrude themselves into a person’s inner dialog if the control
loops generating them remain unclosed or unsatisfied for a long enough
period of time. The lack of congruence between natural environments
and the typical workplaces inhabited by know ledge workers means that
the information flow received by these control loops lacks evidence
that the workplace can sustain life, and the loops remain unclosed and
unsatisfied. The implication of these information deficient work
environments on knowledge worker mental health and productivity is
discussed, and general recommendations made for re-engineering
w orkspaces and w orkflow .
Introduction
The human organism is intimately linked to its environment
through the intake of massive amounts of information from the
environment. This is facilitated through a wide variety of multi-band
channels into the body. The availability and openness of these channels,
combined with the density of data being delivered through them, set the
pedestal level for the psychological comfort of the healthy human
individual.
In addition, information flow within the body is highly dependent
on the stimulation received through the senses, and upon the chemical and
hydration state of the body itself. Information-expectant control loops,
either chemically based or based in the nervous system, monitor both the
Winter 2006
52
state of the body and the state of the environment. Depending on the states
detected, these control loops create motivations for the body to act in
accord with the three primary drives presented in an earlier paper, and
listed in a section below.1
Illustrations to Expose the Phenomena
On average, the highest rates of suicide among industrialized
nations occur in Scandinavian countries. Research into this statistical
oddity revealed a phenomenon now called seasonal affective disorder
(SAD). It has been connected to the relative lack of exposure to full
spectrum sunlight during winter months brought about by the high
latitudes of these countries.
Interestingly, during the past two years, news reports have
occasionally appeared describing research on sun-tanning addiction.
Apparently, exposing the skin to solar levels of UV radiation triggers the
release of endorphins. For many people, this creates a condition similar to
runner’s high (which we’ll talk about in a minute).
Now that we have two firmly established data points on a
phenomenon, we can draw our uncontestable straight line through them
and (also) draw the following conclusion: human bodies are programmed
to seek out exposure to sunlight. Why? Mostly, in addition to triggering
the release of endorphins, exposure to sunlight also triggers the
photosynthesis of vitamin D in the skin. This is a vital element in good
health.
Let’s get back to runners’ high to anchor another uncontestable
two-point conclusion. Physical exertion in competitive sports is widely
known to create positive moods in a large segment of the physically active
population. Anecdotally, one often hears of people claiming to feel very
good after completing heavy physical chores, especially if they have
sedentary professional occupations.
To define our second point on this line, we look at the rise of cases
of depression during the 20th Century. While some arguments could be
made that a significant rise in depression is due to increased reporting of
such cases to doctors, the rise of depression maps very well to the
transition of large segments of the American population out of rural-based
farming lifestyles into urban-based, less physically demanding lifestyles.
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The level of physical activity has continued to drop off for most people
through the remainder of the 20th Century to the present, and the condition
of mental health in the country remains relatively poor. (See Seligman
19952, p. 37 for summaries of four studies in the time-development of
depression in the American population.)
What do we conclude here? The human body is programmed to
monitor its own level of physical activity, and apparently is also
programmed to reward the owner with certain positive emotional perqs if
it achieves certain levels of exertion. Why should this be? Perhaps the
answer is as simple as this: active animals are better players at the game of
natural selection. Successful animals have to hustle, at least once in a
while. “Doing” trumps “being” in the animal kingdom. So, the emotional
programming of the human body includes emotional rewards based on
physical exertion, and the control loops that deliver them.
In other words, information about physical exertion is generated in
the body’s chemistry. The readout of that information affects the
emotional state of the individual. Various levels of exertion apparently
create a spectrum of positive emotional experiences, while sedentary
lifestyles generate increasingly inert piles of complacency or even mild
depressions. The control loops monitoring life-sustaining activities
“know” when a body isn’t being used properly, and “punish” accordingly
with an increasingly unsatisfying emotional experience of life.
These anecdotal musings provide us with two illustrations of
information management in a human body. One illustration provides us a
glimpse of information collection strategies to monitor external
conditions. The second one shows us that large amounts of information
are also generated within the body itself, and is in fact utilized in creating
or destroying various motivational mechanisms. Let’s mark down two
simple, more or less self-evident conclusions:
1. The emotional experiences of people are highly dependent on
information collected from the environment within which they
find themselves, and,
2. The emotional experiences of people are highly dependent on
the information generated within their own bodies about the
conditions within them.
In the rest of this article we will propose answers to the following
questions:
• Where does all of this information come from?
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• How does this information affect emotional states?
• Why do modem work environments affect so many people
adversely?
• How can a manager re-engineer workspace and workflow to
emulate the environments human bodies expect to function in?
Methodology
There may be some who will be less than satisfied with the lack of
rigorous connection to a base of scholarly or professional literature in this
presentation. However, the literature in evolutionary psychology (“ev
psych” for convenience), the field which provides the basis of this
presentation, is aimed at a very different set of studies. To be both candid
AND fair, it has established a single principle of study, that being the
application of natural selection to the formation of successful animal
behavior, and for humans, the formation of both successful behavior and
thought. If we view thought as a form of behavior instead of as a non¬
material phenomenon associated exclusively with humans, we get a better
handle on dealing with this admittedly difficult topic.
The problem with much literature in ev psych is that it has jumped
to big problems before is has refined the way its primary principle is
applied to human thought and behavior at a smaller level. It is trying to
answer questions from other fields before it has adequately defined
questions arising from its own initial inquiries.
To illustrate this point, let’s briefly look at the history of
astronomy. Ancient Greek astronomy took its foundational premise from
contemporaneous philosophy, which stated that in the perfection of the
heavens, all heavenly bodies travel in perfect circles. As we know from
the history of astronomy, it was very difficult to reconcile eye-ball
observations of planetary motions with this “accepted truth.” With this is
mind, let’s consider an example from literature in ev psych. An early
popular book in this field made a similar jump from philosophy. In The
Moral Animal (Wright 19943) the author explicitly believes that humans
exhibit moral behavior, and then attempts to use ev psych to explain why
this is so. However, like the premature acceptance of circles in Ptolemaic
astronomy, the use of the term “moral behavior” is premature in that it
establishes a category which may not necessarily simplify the scientific
study of human thought and behavior, especially when the term is used to
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form value judgments instead of define a quantity suitable for objective
measurements.
What we instead are attempting in this presentation is “rough
science” (to steal the title of a great PBS television program) on field
studies of large primates in their most commonly observed setting. These
are populations of humans at work. Our team at EvolvingSuccess has a
combined experience of over 100 years in observing and working with
people in a very wide range of knowledge-based industries. We also have
over 50 years of combined experience managing people in professional
contexts which include the pastoral ministry, human resources
management and training, large computer system integration management
for Federal and Fortune 100 clients, as well as real time astronomy
satellite operations and research center management.
To work through this large trove of admittedly anecdotal data, we
have derived a small number of ideas from the basic principle of ev psych.
In traditional academia, ev psych is used to explain various phenomena in
humans based on the premise that most of these behaviors occur as
services to the genes carried by animals’ bodies and were optimized for
conditions one to three million years ago to assure the transmission of
these genes. For instance, about five years ago numerous news magazines
and nightly news television shows picked up findings about human mate
selection strategies based on a few ev psych studies. Men, it was
determined, try to engage as many mates as possible in order to spread
their genes around in the greatest numbers possible. Women, who by the
nature of things can’t arbitrarily throw their genes around, tend to select
well-healed mates to assure that the small number of offspring they
produce will live to sexual maturity, start their own reproductive activities,
and therefore keep their genes moving more broadly into the ecosystem.
As astrophysicists (turned high tech business people), with a
somewhat more cosmological view of things, we find this “selfish gene
worldview” somewhat silly, and certainly overly anthropomorphic. Even
if there is a form of geno-mechanics that facilitates a functional
“selfishness” in genes, if the environment says a certain combination of
genes loses the game of natural selection, then that combination loses,
plain and simple. It doesn’t matter how selfish genes are, they don’t come
near to having the final say in the course of evolution.
Our work, on the other hand, attempts to reassert the importance of
environment in understanding human thought and behavior as a product of
natural selection. This is an explicitly macroscopic view of natural
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selection. Humans have changed the environmental pressures upon
themselves faster than natural selection can keep up, and consequently the
information systems currently installed in human animals are tuned to a
different set of pressures than humans currently face in modern work
places. Our model of human information processing sub-systems,
produced via the method of system reverse engineering (and presented in
the Fall, 20051 issue of this journal) suggests epochs for the appearance of
each of these sub-systems scattered back through several hundred million
years of natural history. Our argument is if a sub-system emerged a
million years ago, it is probably tuned to conditions at that place and time
much better than it is tuned to current. First World, knowledge-based work
environments.
The aim of this interpretive work is to generate practical
applications from ev psych. Our ambition is to derive repeatable human
capital management techniques that will improve business performance in
knowledge-based companies or the performance of any service-oriented
organization. The human animal is built for best performance in
environments other than the modem, knowledge industry work place.
How can managers adapt themselves and their work forces to overcome
and/or take advantage of this reality?
By examining our anecdotal dataset, collected over 50 years of
highly successful managerial experience with the interpretive tools made
available by evolutionary psychology and information system engineering,
we hope eventually to answer that question. In the present paper, we offer
some observations about the effects of modern work environments on
human emotion as distilled from our managerial experience by this
interpretive approach. The observations suggest a few high-level strategies
for modifying work environments to achieve better performance from
people working outside of “their naturally selected comfort zones.”
Natural Selection, Information Requirements for Large Mammals,
and the Channels Currently Utilized
j
As noted in the previous paper in this sequence , the following
drives serve as guiding principles for animal success in general, and as
system design requirements for animal information processing in
particular:
• The drive to eliminate or avoid all forms of pain or discomfort.
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• The drive to have sex.
• The drive to nurture offspring to self-sufficiency in the shortest
time possible.
In this macroscopic context, all living things are highly dependent
on information collection and response to play the game of natural
selection. However, the information requirements for animals are huge
when compared to the members of other living kingdoms. This becomes
ever more clear when we attempt to map out the channels carrying
information into an animal body. One also begins to appreciate the
tremendous power of human sensory processing capability when you take
a close look at those channels. These channels look extremely wide-band
from one perspective, but most of them are not. Human eyes, for example,
can collect data from only about one octave out of the electromagnetic
spectrum (being sensitive from roughly 350 nanometers to 700
nanometers: doubling the wavelength gives you an octave). That is a mere
sliver of the entire range of energies photons can deliver. Yet, even within
this narrow range of photon energies, the eye and brain divide those
energies into separate channels that we experience as individual color
sensations.
The Channels and Detectors
Contrary to subjective impression, human sensory organs are
detecting stimuli on a 24x7 basis. Furthermore, all sensory organs are
functioning simultaneously. “Back-office” processing of this information
changes with the 24 hour diurnal cycle. It changes when various
stimulation thresholds are breached. It changes more drastically when
various internal conditions fall more greatly out of balance, and the body
begins to seek out resources for rebalance. Pre-processing in the sensory
organs, as well as back-office processing in the brain, change even more
quickly when threatening conditions are detected.
Let’s list and briefly work through the various channels which
deliver information to the human body. The channels under consideration
here are limited to those that provide information about the external
environment with which the body is not in direct physical contact, as
required for touch and taste. However, the channels that remain go beyond
sight, sound and smell.
• Infrared radiation channel
t
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Infrared radiation is experienced as heat or warmth. It is sensed
mostly through the skin, and its detection tells us whether we need to find
a warmer place or a colder place, how many clothes to put on, or how
many to take off While your skin isn’t able to produce images, it can do
pretty well at detecting the direction of a source of heat, like the sun or a
large fire in the distance.
The detection of infrared radiation by your skin also affects your
body chemistry, and a variety of physiological conditions change with the
level of heat your skin detects. Extremes of heat or cold often lead to
strong emotional responses such as fear.
• Visible spectrum light channel
This is the light detected by properly functioning eyes. Even
though the eyes only detect approximately one octave of the entire
electromagnetic spectrum, it is possible that this represents the most data-
dense channel that human beings use. The imaging and resolution
capabilities of human eyes provide greatly detailed information about the
environment extending for several miles, and very much useful
information for as far as the air is clear. The combination of two eyes also
provides very good information about distances, sizes, changes, speeds,
and many other quantities.
The information from the eyes is also color-coded. Color is an
information enhancement artifact generated by eyes and brain; colors as
perceived are arbitrary from a universal standpoint, but the colors do
convey real information. They help to interpret the content of the
environment. Green is a soothing color, presumably because it represents
locations where food and water can be obtained. Likewise, sparkling
things attract our attention, probably suggesting the presence of open
water.
There is also a type of geometric coding that’s important for
vision. Human eyes are part of an exceptionally complex pattern
recognition system, and the patterns they are tuned to recognize are fractal
patterns. These are the patterns in the shapes of trees, or the shapes of
clouds, or river streams, or even the textures observed in a field of grass.
This is the geometry of the natural environment to which all human
information processing systems are tuned.
When an individual is deprived of exposure to natural colors, like
the greens of healthy vegetation, and deprived of exposure to settings
dominated by fractal geometry, many information processing loops in the
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body go unclosed. This is interpreted by the body’s systems as though it is
in a resource-poor environment and thus creates any of a number of
anxieties.
• Ultraviolet radiation channel
Ultraviolet, or UV, radiation is also mainly detected by the skin.
Its most obvious effect on the skin is tanning in the sun. You can even
create simple, contact images on your skin if you’re patient enough (or
have a “properly vented” swimsuit). But tanning is only one of a family of
chemical reactions in the skin that strongly affect mood. As noted above,
there is a strong correlation between exposure to UV sunlight and
emotional states.
• Audio signal channel
Audio signals received by the ears represent perhaps the second
densest channel of information into your body. You don’t get quite the
detail that you do with vision, but information about location, distance,
speed, and size can be obtained. Like color in vision, audio signals are also
coded in pitch. And also like vision, your sense of hearing is equipped
with pattern recognition capabilities that look for fractal geometry patterns
with respect to time. Rhythmic patterns in music tend to be fractal,
produced by the continued halving of the durations of notes and the
inteijection of percussive events splitting the time between two other
simple musical events.
Sound also tells you how rich in resources your environment is.
Most people enjoy the sounds of running water, like streams or waves on
the beach. The sounds of birds are also pleasing to most people. Why?
They are clear-cut clues that you can find food and water nearby. When
your sense of hearing is deprived of these natural sounds, you begin to
experience anxieties out of concern for a lack of resources to keep alive.
• Infrasonic signal channel
The deep bass of thunder, waves, and earthquakes are perceived as
pressure waves on the body as a whole. These waves are perceived like
touch instead of like sound. The thumping feet of large animals may also
be detected in this way, providing something of a warning of approaching
predators. High pressure, low frequency acoustic waves elicit a variety of
emotional responses depending on the perceived source of the stimulus.
• Chemical detection channel
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Perhaps the most under appreciated channel affecting mental
health is the sense of smell. Compared to vision, the sense of smell doesn’t
offer a wealth of detail. About all you can tell when you smell something
is that there’s a source of the smell somewhere nearby. You can also tell
whether or not the smell is likely to be good for you in greater
concentrations.
But here’s the key. Everything in your body, including all of your
information processing systems, is run on biochemistry. Life operates on
the basis of the chemical resources that an animal body can find. If you
can’t find food and water you’re dead. That’s why being able to detect
vital chemicals in your environment is so important.
The chemical detectors of the nose are the only sensory detectors
directly wired to the brain. What’s fascinating is that your nose is busy
detecting chemicals that you don’t even sense as smell Yet, when your
nose detects key chemicals in the air, it signals the brain that the
appropriate resources are close by.
Conversely, when your environment is filled with filtered air, your
nose is deprived of evidence that you are living in a resource-rich
environment. For lack of chemical evidence detected by your nose, you
start to become anxious.
Let’s collect together the channels for easier reference.
• Infrared radiation channel
• Visible spectrum light channel
• Ultraviolet radiation channel
• Audio signal channel
• Infrasonic signal channel
• Chemical detection channel
The reason we call these channels (aside from the fact that that’s
what they are) is to evoke a specific image. The “transmitter” of these
channels, if you will, is the environment itself. These channels create a
connection between the environment and the individual human attempting
to succeed in it. We can then think of the human being as a mobile
computing unit operating in a vast network of data sources.
What makes this a point of criticality is that the mobile computing
unit (i.e., the human being) is equipped with extensive arrays of pre¬
initialized condition expectations. These amount to the triggers that make
us feel good or feel bad under any given set of circumstances. For large
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mammals in particular, the deviations from these environmental
expectations (or deviations from internal “specifications” as well) are
extremely closely monitored by the systems that create our emotions. As
noted in the previous paper1, emotions exist to function as condition
assessments, alerts, and, when appropriate, the signals that a drive
satisfaction behavior has succeeded.
Let’s look at this more closely in the next section.
Naturally Selected Sensory Targets, Emotions, and Drive Satisfaction
Strategies
In the previous section we listed the various channels that your
body, as a node on the environment’s “wireless network,” is connected to.
These wireless channels provide data to your body about the state of your
environment, and whether it can sustain your life easily or not.
If you were to remove this node (your body) from this wireless
network of environmental data resources, it would receive MUCH LESS
information to use in determining how well you can live where you are.
The flow of data from the natural environment would drop to nearly zero,
which basically tells your body you are living in a completely barren
location without food and water. Over a long enough time, this elevates a
cluster of negative emotions into the awareness of your inner dialog,
where you start trying to figure out what’s driving you crazy. This
becomes increasingly worse, because you can’t figure out why you feel
this way.
Working in an office in front of office machinery is one way to
remove a node from the natural environment. You’re working in a
perfectly comfortable place, are perfectly well fed and watered, and the
job is going great. Yet you still feel antsy enough to run out of your office
in a panic (or, at least, a good number of people experience vaguely
unsettled or unsatisfactory emotional states). This doesn’t come about
from “an urge to be free.” It comes about because your body arouses itself
to seek an environment that more obviously and assuredly will support its
life. Most minor workplace anxieties would evaporate for people if they
simply got some serious exposure to active natural settings everyday, a
couple times a day.
In the previous paper outlining the primary EvolvingSuccess
model of human thought and behavior1, we made use of the following
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diagram to describe how an emotional experience evolves with time while
a given drive goes unbalanced or unsatisfied.
Figure 1: Time Dependence of Subjective Emotional Experience when
a Drive or Data-handling Function is out of Balance
Every one of the data input ports in the human body is followed
by, or attached to, some cluster of data evaluation systems. These
evaluative functions could be hosted on a chemically-based process, a
neurological process, or (most commonly) a combined assessment
process. They store the needed standards by which to judge the incoming
data as containing “good” information (yielding a positive emotional
experience, no matter how fleeting), or “bad” information (initiating the
downward sloping curve of a negative emotion that will persist until the
information changes, or time reduces its significance).
The vast majority of these evaluative systems, and there are many
of them, do not generate information that creates an inner dialog event,
meaning they do not generate thoughts. They aren’t strongly connected to
information processing systems that operate through symbols that human
beings typically use to understand and communicate their experiences, as
illustrated in Figure 2 below. They usually, if not always, generate an
emotional response that only rarely breaks through the subliminal into the
inner dialog with a label (like anxiety).
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Figure 2. Schematic Representation of the Four Information Sub¬
systems at Work in the Human Body, with emphasis on the poor
connection between the dominant sub-system of emotions and the less
well developed problem solving sub-system.
Symbol-based
Problem Solving
Sub-system
Pre-tuned Condition Alert
Sub-system (Emotions)
Sensory Data Collection
and Response Sub-system
Chemical-based Information Processing Sub-system
There are two things about this emotional response. Of secondary
interest to this article is the fact that the experience of an emotion is
actually only a bi-product of processes which are preparing the body to
work on re-balancing one of the three drives. Of primary importance is
that all we become aware of in our conscious experience is a feeling, and
that feeling is often difficult to hook to a clear event in the environment.
What does this mean for the everyday experience of life in an
ordinary work environment? It means that most of our feelings at any
given time are the product of a vast number of environment assessment
processes over which we have very little direct awareness and no direct
control whatsoever.
There is another factor for emotional comfort implied by the curve
in Figure 1: the factor of time. Each of the data evaluation systems
includes a time dependence. The deadlines for behavioral responses for
virtually all of them are very short when compared to the length of the
average knowledge- work project. For example, the time it takes to flee
from a predator, or conversely to chase down a running animal, is
measured in seconds on the short side, and one or two minutes on the long
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side. If a satisfactory conclusion to the event occurs, then all of the
evaluation systems reset to an emotionally neutral state. If they don’t,
well, if you’re prey you’re eaten, and if you’re predatory you’re still on
the prowl. If you don’t find food for several days you continue on your
quest until you succeed or you starve (a couple of weeks tops).
Knowledge work, on the other hand, often entails projects that run
for months or even years. Even if the job is piece work, like data entry, the
sedentary nature of the job and the confinement to a single desk or cube
means that an individual is not functioning properly, from a system-design
point of view.
We wrote early in this paper that physical activity affects
emotional states, where, within certain bounds, great physical exertion
tends to create positive emotions. Sedentary lifestyles, in general, lead to
more negative moods, especially where there is also a lack of mental
stimulation such as reading or problem solving. This indicates that there
are also many data assessment processes that are monitoring internals
states in the body. As a self-regulating system, the human body is full of
data-driven control loops that motivate the animal to exert itself in the
satisfaction of its drives.
When there is a lack of bodily activity, many of these control
feedback loops remain out of balance in the manner illustrated in Figure 1
above. “Out-of-balance, open, or otherwise unsatisfied control loops
initiate and maintain downward sloping emotional sensations. Why should
this be? The figure suggests a naturally selected advantage for active
animals, or human beings. In nature an animal has to exert itself physically
to satisfy drives. But modem knowledge work is sedentary. Successful
drive satisfaction behaviors in modern life do not “trip the switches”
indicating drive satisfaction success as currently configured by natural
selection. These unsatisfied control loops will start to trigger unpleasant
emotions whether the worker is successful in his or her career or not.
One may ask, “What is actually experienced when these unfulfilled
data evaluation functions fire off7” The answer depends, of course, on
how long they go unfulfilled. The longer they go unfulfilled, the more
likely a person’s awareness of them will eventually make an impression
on his or her inner dialog. But prior to that point, here are some anecdotal
answers:
• “I feel a little off, like something might be wrong, but I just
can’t tell.” (More commonly from women than men.)
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• “Boy, I feel restless.”
• “My shoulders are so stiff”
• A person might become surly or otherwise difficult to deal with
for no apparent reason (more commonly men than women).
What is it about knowledge business workplaces that create these,
and more serious, emotional and behavioral phenomena in human beings?
The Modern Workplace: As Alien to the Human Body as a Flying
Saucer
Most modern living and work environments are devoid of natural
sights, sounds, colors, smells, solar radiation, fractal patterns, and other
clues indicating that they might be able to support human life for the
duration of a human lifespan. For a human body that is specifically tuned
by millions of years of evolution to function in a natural environment, the
lack of these stimuli triggers a large number of subliminal danger signals.
The emotions these danger signals generate appear to follow the curve in
Figure 1, as indicated by numerous coaching sessions we’ve had with
employees over the years.
Add to this lack of direct sensory stimulation the extended periods
of time that sedentary humans perform physically inert work and you have
a recipe for numerous subliminal distractions that will impact the
productivity of a knowledge workforce in increasingly negative ways. The
self-regulatory mechanisms of the body assess the sedentary state as
negative and act to push the human animal into action. The restlessness
many people experience is completely real; their bodies are attempting to
get them up, out of their chairs, and into fresh air and sunlight. Over
extended periods of time these unattended subliminal distractions turn into
various levels of anxiety, depression, frustration, and even aggressive
behavior.
To put the sharpest of points on this, these negative responses are
exactly what the human body is built to do when conditions are
detrimental to personal health and safety. Before the human inner dialog
came into existence, emotional programming pushed hominids to act on
behalf of their own welfare. The ability to think using symbols to model
and simulate other conditions and possible solutions was not needed for
the human body to meet the design specifications of natural selection. The
human body is designed to have a negative emotional response to
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environments which make living difficult, and to enjoy environments
which are rich in the basic resources required to sustain animal existence.
Or, to put it more colloquially, human bodies don’t “know” when their
knowledge-worker owners have it so good.
None of these data evaluation routines in the body “understand”
trading time for money as a drive satisfaction strategy. The smell of
money doesn’t really elicit a gut-level response, unless it’s just been dug
out of rich soil. Only a very small information system in your body
understands the concept of gainful employment, and it’s not big enough to
change thousands of small responses your body has to an environment ill-
suited to human living.
However, success in guiding troubled workers through emotional
difficulties suggests that the system that understands the concept of gainful
employment can also be taught how to manage those thousands of small
responses to avoid negative emotional states.
Managing Subliminal Emotional Responses
by “Re-engineering” Workplaces and Workflows
The most empowering way to deal with subliminal emotional
responses is to systematically retrain a worker’s inner dialog to deal with
them. That, however, is well beyond the scope of this article. On the other
hand, we have employed techniques in the workplace that can “fool” the
data evaluation functions of the body into assessing the environment as
“good, safe, and life-sustaining.”
We are not going to detail a wide range of specifics. There are many
practical reasons why workspaces and workflows can not be “completely”
engineered to cater to more primitive animal responses in human beings.
However, with a knowledge of the data channels emanating from the
natural environment, we can perhaps experiment with various work
environment conditions to remediate negative worker experiences.
Likewise, with a knowledge of the time dependence of these subliminal
emotional experiences, workflow can be staged differently to provide both
points of success that satisfy them, and to allow time for exposure to
natural environments through the day.
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Reconnecting, Workers to the Environment 's Data Outflow Channels:
Workspace Design Supporting Positive Workplace Emotions
From an architectural standpoint, many builders and designers
have attempted to create workspaces which emulate certain natural
conditions. These include the extensive use of windows to bring in natural
light, natural colors (various greens and earth tones), and plants. Some
locations make use of fountains and other forms of moving water to create
a little light-play and to produce natural sounds. Let’s look at these in
more detail.
The use of sunlight in workplaces makes obvious sense for a lot of
reasons. It provides many key forms of visual stimulation. However, glass
blocks ultraviolet radiation, the most important part of the solar spectrum
for creating positive moods in people. People need to get outside for
proper exposure (cancer risks and all) to the sun.
The color palette for workplaces is probably important, but the key
is the patterns with which they are applied. Common experience indicates
that large areas of unchanging visual stimulation are uninteresting. Vast
sheets of light green or neutral beige are not as soothing as natural colors
applied in some form of natural looking fractal pattern. There are other
visual stimuli that can be built into a workspace that evoke specific kinds
of natural settings, which can include everything from large format
photographs and murals to large portions of the building built with glass
that actually face an attractive natural setting, like nearby woods,
farmland, or parks.
Our model suggests that plants are most likely a positive addition
to workplace decor. In larger spaces larger plants and small trees strongly
evoke a more life-friendly sense of the environment. They can also add
important biochemical molecules to the air to improve subliminal
emotional states. The olfactory sensory system provides a direct,
biochemically driven informational link between the human and external
conditions (Amen 19984).
Decorative water displays obviously have to be proportionate to
the area within which they operate. However, small table-top “meditation”
fountains have become popular in workplaces, and perhaps these sounds
can be integrated into larger, more complicated spaces.
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Other acoustic effects could be built into a workplace using various
mechanical or electronic technologies. Wind sounds could be produced,
rustling leaves, or even the noises small animals make under the brush.
Our model also suggests that the least attended-to set of stimuli are
the airborne ones. Office air is typically highly filtered and de-humidified.
Worse, the latent scents from various cleaners and the outgassing of many
synthetic products fill the air with what the brain perceives as dangerous
smelling chemicals. Remember, the body is built to seek out an
environment containing optimal biochemical resources without needing
to think about it. Office air is full of strong, unsubtle clues that the office
is NOT an optimal source of biochemical resources. It smells like a vat of
poisons to the brain, and that creates a lot of subliminal anxiety.
Obviously, things need to be kept clean. We use advanced
technology with its many, unintended by-products. That cannot be
avoided. Can an office building’s air be re-filtered and stocked with trace
chemicals of a natural kind9
If it can’t, then the solution, again, is to get the worker outside for
some part of the day. If a human body can’t be in fresh, naturally
perfumed air all of the time, at least it can be exposed to enough good air
(current pollution problems aside) to create the subliminal “belief’ that
good air is quickly and easily available. Of course, getting outside also
exposes the human body to all of the other stimuli for which it is so well
tuned to collect, assess, and appreciate. In our many years managing, we
often have heard people comment on their refreshed states and improved
moods after a walk outside.
In fact, the best of workplace designs probably doesn’t involve
interior design and architecture. Our model of the human being as a node
in the environment’s network of information resources suggests that the
best of workplace designs may be to build extensive garden parks around
the campus of a major business district, and fill them with as many
naturally stimulating features as they can contain.
Synchronizing with Workers ’ Internal Clocks: Workflow Design
Supporting Positive Workplace Emotions
Apart from migrations and other long travels in search for food and
water, few behaviors in the entire animal kingdom last more than a few
minutes. Virtually all of the self-regulating controls of the human body are
built on these same behavioral time scales.
Washington Academy of Sciences
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Workplace reality, however, is that nothing takes a few minutes.
In the very least, most people are expected to sit dutifully at their desks for
every minute they expect to get paid. People don’t sit there like that for
many of the reasons we’ve been discussing, but the person signing the
paychecks would prefer things that way.
For many knowledge workers, though, work projects run for
months and sometimes years with virtually no short timescale successes to
satisfy a worker’s subliminal control loops. Very few things occur “by
human hand” in business in a matter of minutes. As it turns out, our
problem solving capabilities give us enough logic to keep us plugging
away day after day, but that merely locks the animal part of human
experience in a cage that is more than merely psychological.
Things, of course, have to get done, and they have to get done in
the workplace. They have to be done in environments and on timescales
that strongly conflict with the naturally selected characteristics of the
typical human being. How does a manager use this knowledge to avoid
loss of productivity in his or her shop?
For major projects, built on tasks, goals, objectives, and so forth,
the current trend is to design the workflow against cost barriers and time
deadlines. That’s probably not changeable for practical business
performance reasons. However, the granularity of the workflow design
CAN be optimized for human mental health and best performance levels.
How might a different granularity of task be used to re-design work?
In nature, animal behavior is dominated by three types of activity
with fairly immediate rewards if they succeed:
1 . An animal searches for food and water, and if it succeeds it
obtains enjoyment.
2. An animal engages in a mating activity.
3. An animal flees a predator, and if it succeeds it enjoys a sense
of relief.
For most of human history, success has been immediately followed
by reward. By business standards, each of these three activities is a small
scale effort. Obviously a business can’t drop a cupcake on everyone each
time they successfully complete 15 minutes of work, nor can you bring in
the dancing girls or Chip’n’Dales. And merely getting the boss (the
predator) off your back for a short period of time isn’t adequate
compensation either.
Winter 2006
70
The point is that there is a granularity of effort and a system of
rewards that can be found to optimize human performance and maintain
good mental health in the workforce. It takes a committed and engaged
management team to experiment and find it. The EvolvingSuccess team
has been very successful in identifying the appropriate granularity of task
to get the most productivity out of project participants while keeping them
happy on the job. Interestingly, the more difficult and esoteric the project,
the more successful our productivity techniques tend to be.
On the basis of our ev psych model of human thought and
behavior, we have composed an idealized daily workflow schedule
designed to keep tasks short, get a modicum of exercise, as well as get
exposure to natural settings should they be close to the work place. Again,
this is highly idealized. Our work teams have only approximated it in
practice. However, our experience in staging work with a time-granularity
that aims at this ideal has been very effective.
Table 1: Daily Schedule to Optimize Knowledge Worker Performance
and Maintain Good Mental Health
1. Take the low-stress route to work, regardless of how long it
takes.
2. Once you get to work, take care of 2 to 4 tasks taking an
average 30 minutes each.
3. Get outside and get 30 to 60 minutes of exercise at the highest
level of exertion you can reasonably work up.
4. Get something to eat, but just enough to settle the hunger.
5. Take care of another 2 to 4 tasks averaging 30 minutes each.
6. Get outside for a 30 minute walk.
7. Have a healthy, reasonably sized lunch.
8. Take care of another 2 to 4 tasks averaging 30 minutes each.
9. Get outside and get 30 to 60 minutes of exercise at the highest
level of exertion you can reasonably work up.
10. Get another light snack.
11. Take care of another 2 to 4 tasks averaging 30 minutes each.
12. Take the low-stress route back home, and don’t be in a hurry.
13. Get in another 30 minute walk before supper.
This schedule is designed to fool the body’s various environment
assessment systems and self-regulating controls into assessing the
situation as good. The order of events in this schedule presumes the “ short
Washington Academy of Sciences
71
effort, immediate gratification” model of animal behavior in natural
settings. By business standards this is an extravagant use of time during
work hours. In our experience, where this ideal has been attempted but not
met, this schedule avoids burnout, maintains mental freshness, and
engenders productivity levels that pay for themselves.
Conclusions
The human body is clearly pre-tuned to receive specific data inputs
from the environment. When those inputs are not received, the body
generates motivations to get out of the resource-poor or dangerous
environment, and move into a life-friendly environment. The longer it
takes the individual to succeed in moving to a better environment, the
more deeply negative are the emotions that that individual experiences.
The body is also extremely well tuned to the state of its internal
conditions. Many people often experience urges to get a little food, water,
or other relief without a conscious thought to do so. If the body is
experiencing conditions outside of its “safe operating specifications,”
negative emotions crop up to motivate the individual to take care of the
need. The longer it takes to satisfy the need, the more extreme the
emotional sensation becomes.
Modern living and working conditions place barriers between the
human being and the data sources his or her body expects to detect. Long¬
term disconnection from these sources appears to be creating chronic
mental health problems in the American workforce. This, of course, has
various impacts on business productivity.
We have suggested principles by which to guide a manager in the
re-engineering of workspaces, including the landscape architecture
surrounding work locations. We have also supplied a rationale to guide in
the restructuring of long term work efforts. Lastly, we provided an
idealized work schedule aimed at structuring time utilization on the day-
to-day level. This schedule maps to the basic psychology built into human
beings by natural selection to optimize their mental health and business
productivity.
Notes
1 Thomas Meylan, “Using Evolutionary Psychology and Information
Systems Engineering to Understand Workplace Patterns of Thought and
Winter 2006
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Behavior: An Empirical Model of Human Information Processing,” I
Autumn, 2005, Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences.
2 Martin E.P Seligman, Ph D., The Optimistic Child, Harper Perennial, pp.
37-42, 1995.
3 Robert Wright, The Moral Animal, Pantheon, 1994.
4 Daniel G. Amen, M.D., Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, Three
Rivers Press, pp. 37-43, 1998.
Washington Academy of Sciences
73
BOOK REVIEW
The Best American Science Writing 2006 , edited by Atul Gawande
(Harper Collins, Publishers, 2006, 362 pp.)
IN SPITE OF THE TITLE, this almost certainly is not. “The best
science writing” of any year should surely be factually sound, balanced,
informative, and enjoyable to scientists and non-scientists alike. The 21
articles reprinted here for the most part meet those criteria. Beyond that,
however, surely the best science writing would present material that has
not already been repeatedly reported, or provide new perspectives on
familiar material, or introduce provocative and fruitful interpretations of
scientific findings. By and large, these articles do not meet that challenge.
Little of the material here is new even to general readers.
One might suspect just from the list of original sources of these
articles that they might not constitute “the best” science writing of the
year. One would not, it is true, expect the best to be drawn from premier
scientific journals such as Science or the New England Journal of
Medicine, where original research results are presented by scientists for
other frontline scientists, in what is to non-scientists usually mind-
numbing detail. But of the 21 articles collected here, no fewer than 6 are
drawn from The New Yorker (is it a coincidence that the editor is a staff
writer for that magazine as well as a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital?). Four more come from Harper's or The Atlantic Monthly.
Another 4 first appeared in The New York Times or its Sunday Magazine.
Only two originated in first tier scientific magazines directed at the
general educated public. Sigma Xi’s American Scientist and Scientific
American. Another two were from Discover and one from Wired. There
were none from IEEE’s Spectrum , none from Mind or MIT’s Technology >
Review, all of which feature first-class science writers. That does not
mean, of course, that the specialized science-oriented magazines have a
lock on the best science writing; but it makes one wonder about the scope
of the Editor’s reading.
The ten articles drawn from the literary magazines, by the way,
reflect the characteristics common to articles in those publications — they
are so excessively long as to try many readers’ patience and needlessly
confuse the information they are meant to convey.
Winter 2006
74
But if one sets aside reservations about “the best” and is willing to
merely enjoy “very good” science writing, this is a book to appeal to most
readers with an interest in a wide range of scientific activities, the people
who carry them out, and the implications for the rest of us.
The topics range from the ordinary and personal (Why are chess¬
playing computers getting better at it? What’s the best strategy for a music
lover who is gradually losing his hearing? Is obesity as much of a threat to
health as we are being led to believe?) to the sublime ( What is the nature
of time? And is the idea of God an evolutionary artifact, or perhaps an
accidental outcome of the way we think about ourselves?). The rehashing
of the debate about the origin of progressive supranuclear palsy on Guam,
or the closer-to-home but even more bitterly conflicted debate about
childhood vaccinations as a possible cause of autism seem stale in terms
of 2006, but the implications of a possible avian flu epidemic are, to use a
phrase from a TV series, “ripped from the headlines.”
It would, in short, be a very demanding reader who will not find
something to enjoy and something to ponder in this collection.
— Vary Coates,
vcoates@mac. com
Washington Academy of Sciences
75
NEWS OF MEMBERS, FELLOWS, AND AFFILIATED
SOCIETIES
Daryl Chubin, WAS Fellow, has been selected a Sigma Xi (Scientific
Research Society) Distinguished Lecturer, 2007-2009. Daryl recently
published, with S.M. Malcolm, “The New Backlash on Campus,” in
College and University > Journal , Fall 2006. In September he spoke at the
Math Alignment and Transition Conference at Southern Connecticut State
University, on “Why Take More Math? A National Policy Response.”
Daryl has received an NSF grant on Building Community Resources for
the NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in the K-12 Education Program.
Mark Holland, WAS Vice President for Affiliated Societies, received a
Faculty Appreciation Award from the Alumni Association of Salisbury
University. The award is given irregularly to faculty members
spontaneously nominated and elected by alumni.
Alain Touwaide, President Elect of WAS, has recently published 14
entries on the history of ancient medicine and pharmacology in Medieval
Science , Technology, and Medicine, An Encyclopedia, ed. by T. Glick, S.
Livesey, & F. Wallis, 2005; as well as entries on botany and horticulture
in J.W. Meri, ed.. Medieval Islamic Civilization. He also wrote on
“Byzantine Hospitals Manuals as a Source for the Study of Therapeutics,”
in B Bowers, ed.. The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice (Avista
Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art). In
November Alain presented three Lansdowne Lectures at the University of
Victoria in Canada; in December he gave the inaugural lecture at the 5th
Conference of the Pan-Hellenic Society for History of Medicine in
Thessaloniki, Greece.
Jodi Wesemann (WAS Board member-at-large) has been elected president
of the DC Metropolitan Area chapter of American Women in Science, and
Ester Sztein (also a WAS member) is the new Vice President for
Programs.
Vary Coates, editor of the WAS Journal, has been chosen as a Fellow of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “in
Winter 2006
76
recognition of her early and continuing support of the concept of
technology assessment.”
Dr. Edward O. Haenni, a longtime member of the Academy, died on
August 28, 2006, in Sanibel, Florida, at age 99.
The DC Council of Engineering and Architectural Societies (DCCEAS)
will hold an Engineers Week Lunch on February 21, at the Pier 7
Restaurant, and an Awards Banquet on February 24 at the Crowne Plaza
Hotel in Silver Spring. Sajjad Durrani, a WAS Fellow, is President of the
DC Council. DCCEAS promotes science and technology in high schools
and colleges, and sponsors a Student Paper Competition in local
universities. DCCEAS has as affiliates 37 local chapters of engineering
and architectural societies.
The Philosophical Society of Washington, the area’s oldest scientific
society, has scheduled eight public lectures by prominent scientists from
February 2 to May 11; topics include the scourge of malaria, astrobiology,
the global positioning system, obesity, chemistry against crime, Benjamin
Franklin’s experiments, technologies of the future, and “the dawn of the
universe.” All lectures are free and are held at the Powell Auditorium,
2170 Florida Ave, NW (Dupont Circle Metro stop). See www.philsoc.orR
for the exact schedule.
The World Future Society’s annual meeting will be held July 29-31 in
Minneapolis, and will offer multiple sessions on technology, health,
governance, education, values, and social trends. It will be preceded by
short courses on futures research techniques and followed by a
Professional Members’ Forum on August 1. For more information see the
web site, www.wfs.oru.
The Washington area sections of the IEEE and the IEEE’s
Communications Society will host the 2007 Global Communications
Conference (N ov. 25-Dec. 1, at the Washington Hilton Hotel). The web site
already has information about the program, exhibits, and activities:
http ://www.comsoc. oru/confs/ul obecom/2007/i ndex , html . Jerry Gibbon, a
past president of WAS, is the General Chairman of the conference.
The Chesapeake Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers
held its annual meeting October 27-28 at James Madison University, and
elected the following officers: President, Brett Taylor (Radford
Washington Academy of Sciences
77
University); Vice President, Deonna Woolard (Randolph-Macon College);
Secretary, David Wright (Tidewater Community College); Treasurer, Eric
Kearsley (High Point High School, Beltsville); Vice-President for
Communications, Rhett Herman (Radford University); Section
Representative, David Wright (Tidewater Community College). In
addition, the following prizes were awarded:
Frank R. Haig Prize (best paper from a 4 year college): a tie: Joseph W.
Rudmin (James Madison University) and Brett Taylor (Radford
University)
James Newman Prize (best paper from a high school): a tie: Saharsha
Nambiar (Millbrook High School) and Michael Pagel (Collegiate School)
David Wright Prize (best paper from a two year college): James
O’Connell (Frederick Community College)
Winter 2006
AFFILIATED INSTITUTIONS
The National Institute for Standards and Technology
Meadowlark Botanical Gardens
The John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress
Potomac Overlook Regional Park
Washington Academy of Sciences
79
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY 2006
M=Member; F=FeIlow; LF=Life Fellow; LM=Life Member; EM=Emeritus
Member; EF=Emeritus Fellow
ABDULLA YER, KENZHE (M)
ABDULNUR, SUHEIL F. (Dr.) 5715 Glenwood Road, Bethesda MD
20817(F)
ABELSON, PHILIP H 10528 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring MD 20902 (F)
ALLEN, J. FRANCES (Dr.) The Southerlands, Apt 213, 600 Mount View
Street, Front Royal VA 22630 (EF)
ANASTAS, PAUL T (Mr.) 217 E. Bellefonte AveSt, Alexandria VA
22301-1351 (M)
APPETITI, EMANUELA PO Box 25805, Washington DC 20027 (M)
ARSEM, COLLINS (Mr.) 3144 Gracefield Rd Apt 117, Silver spring MD
20904-5878 (EM)
ARVESON, PAUL T. (Mr.) 6902 Breezewood Terrace, Rockville MD
20852-4324 (F)
BAILEY, R. CLIFTON (Dr.) 6507 Divine Street, Mclean VA 22101-4620
(LF)
BARBOUR, LARRY L. (Mr.) Pequest Valley Farm, 585 Townsbury
Road, Great Meadows NJ 07838 (M)
BARWICK, W. ALLEN (Dr.) 13620 Maidstone Lane, Potomac MD
20854-1008 (F)
BASILI, VICTOR R. (Dr.) A.V. Williams Building, University of
Maryland, College Park MD 20742 (F)
BEACH, LOUIS A. (Dr.) 1200 Waynewood Blvd., Alexandria VA 22308-
1842 (EF)
BEAM, WALTER R. (Dr.) 4804 Wellington Farms Drive, Chester VA
23831 (F)
BEMENT, ARDEN (Dr.) National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson
Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia 22230 (F)
BERG, RICHARD E. (Dr.) 8308 Quill Point Dr., Bowie MD 20720 (F)
BERGMANN, OTTO (Dr.) 1039 South 19th St., Arlington VA 22202-
1611 (EF)
BERMAN, BARRY L. (Prof.) Department of Physics, George
Washington University, Washington DC (M)
BERRY, JESSE F. (Mr.) 2601 Oakenshield Drive, Rockville MD 20854
(M)
BIBERMAN, LUCIEN M. (Mr.) 3731 Glen Eagles Drive, Silver Spring
MD 20906 (F)
Winter 2006
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BIONDO, SAMUEL J. (Dr.) 10144 Nightingale St., Gaithersburg MD
20882 (F)
BLUNT, ROBERT F. (Dr.) 541 1 Moorland Lane, Bethesda MD 20814-
13335 (F)
BODSON, DENNIS (Dr.) 233 N. Columbus Street, Arlington VA 22203
(F)
BOGNER, MARILYN SUE (Dr.) 9322 Friars Road, Bethesda MD 20817-
2308 (LF)
BOYER, WILLIAM (Mr.) 3725 Alton PI, N.W., Washington DC 20016
(M)
BRANCATO, EMANUEL L. (Dr ) 7370 Hallmark Road, Clarksville MD
21029 (EF)
BRIMMER, ANDREW F. (Dr.) Suite 302, 4400 MacArthur Blvd., NW,
Washington DC 20007 (F)
BRISKMAN, ROBERT D. (Mr.) 61 Valerian Court, North Bethesda MD
20852 (F)
BROWN, ELISE A B (Dr.) 6811 Nesbitt Place, Mclean VA 22101-2133
(LF)
BURNS, EDGAR JOHN 415 Lincoln Ave, Avon NH 07717 (EF)
BUTTERMORE, DONALD O. (Mr.) 34 West Berkeley St, Uniontown
PA 15401-4241 (LF)
CAMPBELL, FRANCIS J. (Mr.) Apt 113, 7406 Spring Village Dr,
Springfield VA 22150 (EF)
CERF, VINTON G. (Dr.) 1435 Woodhurst Blvd., McLean VA 22102-
2234 (F)
CHANDLER, PH D., JERRY 837 Canal Drive, Mclean VA 22102-1407
(F)
CHERESHNEV, VALERIY A (Mr.) 91, Pervomayskya, Yekaterinburg
6202 19, Russia (F)
CHRISTMAN, GERARD (Mr.) 1 16 Tanley Rd, silver Spring MD 20904
(M)
CHUBIN, DARYL E. (Dr.) 1200 New York Ave, NW, Washington DC
20005 (F)
CLINE, THOMAS LYTTON (Dr.) 13708 Sherwood Forest Drive, Silver
Spring MD 20904 (F)
CLORE, GIDEON MARIUS (Dr.) Lab of Chemical Physics, Bldg 5, Rm
B 1-301, NIDOK, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD 20892 (F)
COATES, JOSEPH F. (Mr.) Apt. 401 Tilden Gardens, 3930 Connecticut
Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008 (F)
COATES, VARY T. (Dr.) Apt. 401 Tilden Gardens, 3930 Connecticut
Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008 (F)
Washington Academy of Sciences
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COFFEY, TIMOTHY P. (Dr.) 976 Spencer Rd., McLean VA 22102 (F)
COHEN, MICHAEL P. (Dr.) 1615 Q. St NW T-l, Washington DC
20009-6310 (LF)
COHEN, ROBERTA (Ms.) The Brookings Institution, 1775
Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC 20036 (F)
COLE, JAMES H. (Mr.) 9404 Fairpine Lane, Great Falls VA 22066 (M)
CONLEY, ROBERT E. (Dr.) Conley & Associates, Inc., 9001 Saunders
Lane, Bethesda MD 208 1 7 (F)
COOPER, KENNETH W. (Dr.) 4497 Picacho Drive, Riverside CA
92507-4873 (EF)
COSTRELL, LOUIS (Mr.) Apartment 640, 1801 East Jefferson St,
Rockville MD 20852 (EF)
CREVELING, CYRUS R. (Dr.) 4516 Amherst Lane, Bethesda MD 20814
(F)
CURRIE, S.J., C. L. (Rev.) Pres., Assn of Jesuit, Colleges & Universities,
One Dupont Circle NW #405, Washington DC 20036 (F)
DAVIS, DANIEL (Dr.) 6324 N. 24th St., Arlington VA 22207 (M)
DAVIS, ROBERT E. (Dr.) 1793 Rochester Street, Crofton MD 21 1 14 (F)
DEDRICK, ROBERT L. (Dr.) 1633 Warner Avenue, Mclean VA 22101
(EF)
DEAN, DONNA (Dr.) 29 Eldwick Court, Potomac MD 20854-2027 (F)
DENG, Francis M. (Dr.) (F)
DEUTSCH, STANLEY (Dr.) 7109 Laverock Lane, Bethesda MD 20817
(EF)
DOCTOR, NORMAN (Mr.) 6 Tegner Court, Rockville MD 20850 (EF)
DONALDSON, EVA G. (Ms.) 3941 Ames St Ne, Washington DC 20019
(F)
DONALDSON, JOHANNA B. (Mrs.) 3020 North Edison Street,
Arlington VA 22207 (EF)
DUBEY, SATYA D. (Dr.) 7712 Groton Road, West Bethesda MD 20817
(EF)
DUNCOMBE, RAYNOR L. (Dr ) 1804 Vance Circle, Austin TX 78701
(F)
DUPONT, JOHN E. (Mr.) P.O. Box 358, Newtown Square PA 19073 (F)
DURRANI, SAJ (Dr.) 17513 Lafayette Dr, OLNEY MD 20832 (EF)
EDINGER, STANLEY EVAN (Dr.) Apt #1016, 5801 Nicholson Lane,
North Bethesda MD 20852 (F)
EISNER, MILTON PHILIP (Dr.) 1565 Hane Street, Mclean VA 22101-
4439 (F)
EL KHADEM, HASSAN (Dr.) Dept, of Chemistry, American University,
Washington DC 20016-8014 (EF)
Winter 2006
82
ENDO, BURTON Y. (Dr.) 1010 Jigger Court, Annapolis MD 21401-6886
(EF)
ETTER, PAUL C. (Mr.) 16609 Bethayres Road, Rockville MD 20855-
2043 (F)
FAULKNER, JOSEPH A (Mr ) 2 Bay Drive, Lewes DE 19958 (F)
FAUST, WILLIAM R. (Dr.) 2940 Karen Dr, Chesapeake Beach MD
20732-3845 (F)
FAY, ROBERT E. (Dr.) 7252 Greentree Rd, Bethesda MD 20817 (F)
FINKELSTEIN, ROBERT (Dr.) 1 1424 Palatine Drive, Potomac MD
20854-1451 (M)
FLOURNOY, NANCY (Dr.) 3 1 05 Trailside Dr., Columbia MO 65203-
5817(F)
FOCKLER, HERBERT H. (Mr.) 10710 Lorain Avenue, Silver Spring MD
20901 (EF)
FORZIATI, ALPHONSE F. (Dr.) 65 Heritage Dr, Unit 6, Cleveland GA
30528 (EF)
FRANKLIN, JUDE E. (Dr.) 7616 Carteret Road, Bethesda MD 20817-
2021 (F)
FREEMAN, ERNEST R. (Mr.) 5357 Strathmore Avenue, Kensington MD
20895-1160 (EF)
FREEMAN, HARVEY 1 1 South Eutaw, Apt 1302, Baltimore MD 21201
(F)
GAUNAURD, GUILLERMO C. (Dr.) 4807 Macon Road, Rockville MD
20852-2348 (F)
GEBBIE, KATHARINE B. (Dr.) Physics Laboratory, National Institute of
Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, MS 8400, Gaithersburg
MD 20899-8400 (F)
GIBBON, JOROME (Mr.) 311 Pennsylvania Avenue, Falls Church VA
22046 (F)
GIBBONS, JOHN H. (Dr.) Resource Strategies, P.0 Box 379, The Plains
VA 20198 (F)
GIBSON, DOUGLAS 963 1 Boyett Ct, Fairfax VA 22032 (M)
GIFFORD, PROSSER (Dr.) 540 N. St. SW59 Penzance Rd, Woods Hole
MA 02543 (F)
GLASER, HAROLD (Dr.) 1902 Berryman Street, Berkeley CA 94709-
1919 (EF)
GLAZE, JOHN (Mr.) 658 E St., S.E., Washington DC 20003 (F)
GLUCKMAN, ALBERT G. (Mr.) Institute for Physical Science and
Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (EF)
GOOD ALL, JANE (Dr.) The Jane Goodall Institute, 4245 Fairfax Dr Ste
600, Arlington VA 22203-1698 (F)
Washington Academy of Sciences
83
GORDON, NANCY M Associate Director for Demographic Programs,
US Census Bureau, Washington DC 20233 (F)
GOULD, RICHARD G. Telecommunications Systems, 3643 Upton
Street, NW, Washington DC 20008 (F)
GRAY, JOHN E. (Mr.) PO Box 489, Dahlgren VA 22448-0489 (M)
GRAY, MARY (Professor) Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and
Computer Science, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue
NW, Washington DC 20016 (F)
GREENOUGH, M. L. (Mr.) Greenough Data Assoc., 616 Aster Blvd.,
Rockville MD 20850 (EF)
GUDE, GILBERT (The Honorable) 541 1 Duvall Drive, Bethesda MD
20816-1871 (F)
GUPTA, PRADEEP KUMAR (Dr.) 8301 Arlington Blvd. #405, Fairfax
VA 22182 (F)
GUTERMUTH, PAUL-GEORG (Dr.) IM Wingert 28, 53604 Bad Honnef
, Germany (EF)
HACK, HARVEY (Dr.) Ocean Systems, Northrop Grumman Corp., POP
Box 1488, MS 9105, Annapolis MD 21404 (F)
HACSKAYLO, EDWARD (Dr.) 7949 N Sendero Uno, Tucson AZ
85704-2066 (EF)
HAIG, SJ, FRANK R. (Rev.) Loyola College, 4501 North Charles St,
Baltimore MD 21210 (F)
HANEL, RUDOLPH A. (Dr.) 3881 Bridle Pass, Ann Arbor MI 481 OS-
2264 (EF)
HAYNES, ELIZABETH D (Mrs.) 7418 Spring Village Dr., Apt CS 422,
Springfield VA 22150-4931 (M)
HAZAN, PAUL 14528 Chesterfield Rd, Rockville MD 20853 (F)
HEANEY, JAMES B 6 Olive Ct, Greenbelt MD 20770 (M)
HERBST, ROBERT L. (Mr.) 4109 Wynnwood Drive, Annadale VA
22003 (LF)
HEYER, W. RONALD (Dr.) MRC 162, PO Box 37012, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington DC 20013-7012 (F)
HIBBS, EUTHYMIA D (Dr.) 7302 Durbin Terrace, Bethesda MD 20817
(M)
HILL, Christopher T. (Dr.) George Mason Univ. Original Bldg. Rm. 236,
Mail Stop 3B1, 3401 Fairfax Dr. Arlington, VA 22030
HERSHON, Bob (Mr.) Directorate for Human Resources Programs,
AAAS, 1200 New York Ave. NW Washington, DC 20005
HOFFELD, J. TERRELL (Dr.) 11307 Ashley Drive, Rockville MD
20852-2403 (F)
Winter 2006
84
HOLLAND, PH D., MARK A. 201 Oakdale Rd., Salisbury MD 21801
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