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Project acronym 3DICE
Project 3D Interstellar Chemo-physical Evolution
Researcher (PI) Valentine Wakelam
Host Institution (HI) CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
Summary At the end of their life, stars spread their inner material into the diffuse interstellar medium. This diffuse medium gets locally denser and form dark clouds (also called dense or molecular clouds) whose innermost part is shielded from the external UV field by the dust, allowing for molecules to grow and get more complex. Gravitational collapse occurs inside these dense clouds, forming protostars and their surrounding disks, and eventually planetary systems like (or unlike) our solar system. The formation and evolution of molecules, minerals, ices and organics from the diffuse medium to planetary bodies, their alteration or preservation throughout this cosmic chemical history set the initial conditions for building planets, atmospheres and possibly the first bricks of life. The current view of interstellar chemistry is based on fragmental works on key steps of the sequence that are observed. The objective of this proposal is to follow the fractionation of the elements between the gas-phase and the interstellar grains, from the most diffuse medium to protoplanetary disks, in order to constrain the chemical composition of the material in which planets are formed. The potential outcome of this project is to get a consistent and more accurate description of the chemical evolution of interstellar matter. To achieve this objective, I will improve our chemical model by adding new processes on grain surfaces relevant under the diffuse medium conditions. This upgraded gas-grain model will be coupled to 3D dynamical models of the formation of dense clouds from diffuse medium and of protoplanetary disks from dense clouds. The computed chemical composition will also be used with 3D radiative transfer codes to study the chemical tracers of the physics of protoplanetary disk formation. The robustness of the model predictions will be studied with sensitivity analyses. Finally, model results will be confronted to observations to address some of the current challenges.
At the end of their life, stars spread their inner material into the diffuse interstellar medium. This diffuse medium gets locally denser and form dark clouds (also called dense or molecular clouds) whose innermost part is shielded from the external UV field by the dust, allowing for molecules to grow and get more complex. Gravitational collapse occurs inside these dense clouds, forming protostars and their surrounding disks, and eventually planetary systems like (or unlike) our solar system. The formation and evolution of molecules, minerals, ices and organics from the diffuse medium to planetary bodies, their alteration or preservation throughout this cosmic chemical history set the initial conditions for building planets, atmospheres and possibly the first bricks of life. The current view of interstellar chemistry is based on fragmental works on key steps of the sequence that are observed. The objective of this proposal is to follow the fractionation of the elements between the gas-phase and the interstellar grains, from the most diffuse medium to protoplanetary disks, in order to constrain the chemical composition of the material in which planets are formed. The potential outcome of this project is to get a consistent and more accurate description of the chemical evolution of interstellar matter. To achieve this objective, I will improve our chemical model by adding new processes on grain surfaces relevant under the diffuse medium conditions. This upgraded gas-grain model will be coupled to 3D dynamical models of the formation of dense clouds from diffuse medium and of protoplanetary disks from dense clouds. The computed chemical composition will also be used with 3D radiative transfer codes to study the chemical tracers of the physics of protoplanetary disk formation. The robustness of the model predictions will be studied with sensitivity analyses. Finally, model results will be confronted to observations to address some of the current challenges.
Project acronym AEROSOL
Project Astrochemistry of old stars:direct probing of unique chemical laboratories
Researcher (PI) Leen Katrien Els Decin
Host Institution (HI) KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Summary The gas and dust in the interstellar medium (ISM) drive the chemical evolution of galaxies, the formation of stars and planets, and the synthesis of complex prebiotic molecules. The prime birth places for this interstellar material are the winds of evolved (super)giant stars. These winds are unique chemical laboratories, in which a large variety of gas and dust species radially expand away from the star. Recent progress on the observations of these winds has been impressive thanks to Herschel and ALMA. The next challenge is to unravel the wealth of chemical information contained in these data. This is an ambitious task since (1) a plethora of physical and chemical processes interact in a complex way, (2) laboratory data to interpret these interactions are lacking, and (3) theoretical tools to analyse the data do not meet current needs. To boost the knowledge of the physics and chemistry characterizing these winds, I propose a world-leading multi-disciplinary project combining (1) high-quality data, (2) novel theoretical wind models, and (3) targeted laboratory experiments. The aim is to pinpoint the dominant chemical pathways, unravel the transition from gas-phase to dust species, elucidate the role of clumps on the overall wind structure, and study the reciprocal effect between various dynamical and chemical phenomena. Now is the right time for this ambitious project thanks to the availability of (1) high-quality multi-wavelength data, including ALMA and Herschel data of the PI, (2) supercomputers enabling a homogeneous analysis of the data using sophisticated theoretical wind models, and (3) novel laboratory equipment to measure the gas-phase reaction rates of key species. This project will have far-reaching impact on (1) the field of evolved stars, (2) the understanding of the chemical lifecycle of the ISM, (3) chemical studies of dynamically more complex systems, such as exoplanets, protostars, supernovae etc., and (4) it will guide new instrument development.
The gas and dust in the interstellar medium (ISM) drive the chemical evolution of galaxies, the formation of stars and planets, and the synthesis of complex prebiotic molecules. The prime birth places for this interstellar material are the winds of evolved (super)giant stars. These winds are unique chemical laboratories, in which a large variety of gas and dust species radially expand away from the star. Recent progress on the observations of these winds has been impressive thanks to Herschel and ALMA. The next challenge is to unravel the wealth of chemical information contained in these data. This is an ambitious task since (1) a plethora of physical and chemical processes interact in a complex way, (2) laboratory data to interpret these interactions are lacking, and (3) theoretical tools to analyse the data do not meet current needs. To boost the knowledge of the physics and chemistry characterizing these winds, I propose a world-leading multi-disciplinary project combining (1) high-quality data, (2) novel theoretical wind models, and (3) targeted laboratory experiments. The aim is to pinpoint the dominant chemical pathways, unravel the transition from gas-phase to dust species, elucidate the role of clumps on the overall wind structure, and study the reciprocal effect between various dynamical and chemical phenomena. Now is the right time for this ambitious project thanks to the availability of (1) high-quality multi-wavelength data, including ALMA and Herschel data of the PI, (2) supercomputers enabling a homogeneous analysis of the data using sophisticated theoretical wind models, and (3) novel laboratory equipment to measure the gas-phase reaction rates of key species. This project will have far-reaching impact on (1) the field of evolved stars, (2) the understanding of the chemical lifecycle of the ISM, (3) chemical studies of dynamically more complex systems, such as exoplanets, protostars, supernovae etc., and (4) it will guide new instrument development.
Project acronym BACCO
Project Bias and Clustering Calculations Optimised: Maximising discovery with galaxy surveys
Researcher (PI) Raúl Esteban ANGULO de la Fuente
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACION CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS DE FISICA DEL COSMOS DE ARAGON
Summary A new generation of galaxy surveys will soon start measuring the spatial distribution of millions of galaxies over a broad range of redshifts, offering an imminent opportunity to discover new physics. A detailed comparison of these measurements with theoretical models of galaxy clustering may reveal a new fundamental particle, a breakdown of General Relativity, or a hint on the nature of cosmic acceleration. Despite a large progress in the analytic treatment of structure formation in recent years, traditional clustering models still suffer from large uncertainties. This limits cosmological analyses to a very restricted range of scales and statistics, which will be one of the main obstacles to reach a comprehensive exploitation of future surveys. Here I propose to develop a novel simulation--based approach to predict galaxy clustering. Combining recent advances in computational cosmology, from cosmological N--body calculations to physically-motivated galaxy formation models, I will develop a unified framework to directly predict the position and velocity of individual dark matter structures and galaxies as function of cosmological and astrophysical parameters. In this formulation, galaxy clustering will be a prediction of a set of physical assumptions in a given cosmological setting. The new theoretical framework will be flexible, accurate and fast: it will provide predictions for any clustering statistic, down to scales 100 times smaller than in state-of-the-art perturbation--theory--based models, and in less than 1 minute of CPU time. These advances will enable major improvements in future cosmological constraints, which will significantly increase the overall power of future surveys maximising our potential to discover new physics.
A new generation of galaxy surveys will soon start measuring the spatial distribution of millions of galaxies over a broad range of redshifts, offering an imminent opportunity to discover new physics. A detailed comparison of these measurements with theoretical models of galaxy clustering may reveal a new fundamental particle, a breakdown of General Relativity, or a hint on the nature of cosmic acceleration. Despite a large progress in the analytic treatment of structure formation in recent years, traditional clustering models still suffer from large uncertainties. This limits cosmological analyses to a very restricted range of scales and statistics, which will be one of the main obstacles to reach a comprehensive exploitation of future surveys. Here I propose to develop a novel simulation--based approach to predict galaxy clustering. Combining recent advances in computational cosmology, from cosmological N--body calculations to physically-motivated galaxy formation models, I will develop a unified framework to directly predict the position and velocity of individual dark matter structures and galaxies as function of cosmological and astrophysical parameters. In this formulation, galaxy clustering will be a prediction of a set of physical assumptions in a given cosmological setting. The new theoretical framework will be flexible, accurate and fast: it will provide predictions for any clustering statistic, down to scales 100 times smaller than in state-of-the-art perturbation--theory--based models, and in less than 1 minute of CPU time. These advances will enable major improvements in future cosmological constraints, which will significantly increase the overall power of future surveys maximising our potential to discover new physics.
Project acronym BLACK
Project The formation and evolution of massive black holes
Researcher (PI) Marta Volonteri
Summary "Massive black holes (MBHs) weighing million solar masses and above inhabit the centers of today's galaxies, weighing about a thousandth of the host bulge mass. MBHs also powered quasars known to exist just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Owing to observational breakthroughs and remarkable advancements in theoretical models, we do now that MBHs are out there and evolved with their hosts, but we do not know how they got there nor how, and when, the connection between MBHs and hosts was established. To have a full view of MBH formation and growth we have to look at the global process where galaxies form, as determined by the large-scale structure, on Mpc scales. On the other hand, the region where MBHs dominate the dynamics of gas and stars, and accretion occurs, is merely pc-scale. To study the formation of MBHs and their fuelling we must bridge from Mpc to pc scale in order to follow how galaxies influence MBHs and how in turn MBHs influence galaxies. BLACK aims to connect the cosmic context to the nuclear region where MBHs reside, and to study MBH formation, feeding and feedback on their hosts through a multi-scale approach following the thread of MBHs from cosmological, to galactic, to nuclear scales. Analytical work guides and tests numerical simulations, allowing us to probe a wide dynamical range. Our theoretical work will be crucial for planning and interpreting current and future observations. Today and in the near future facilities at wavelengths spanning from radio to X-ray will widen and deepen our view of the Universe, making this an ideal time for this line of research."
"Massive black holes (MBHs) weighing million solar masses and above inhabit the centers of today's galaxies, weighing about a thousandth of the host bulge mass. MBHs also powered quasars known to exist just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Owing to observational breakthroughs and remarkable advancements in theoretical models, we do now that MBHs are out there and evolved with their hosts, but we do not know how they got there nor how, and when, the connection between MBHs and hosts was established. To have a full view of MBH formation and growth we have to look at the global process where galaxies form, as determined by the large-scale structure, on Mpc scales. On the other hand, the region where MBHs dominate the dynamics of gas and stars, and accretion occurs, is merely pc-scale. To study the formation of MBHs and their fuelling we must bridge from Mpc to pc scale in order to follow how galaxies influence MBHs and how in turn MBHs influence galaxies. BLACK aims to connect the cosmic context to the nuclear region where MBHs reside, and to study MBH formation, feeding and feedback on their hosts through a multi-scale approach following the thread of MBHs from cosmological, to galactic, to nuclear scales. Analytical work guides and tests numerical simulations, allowing us to probe a wide dynamical range. Our theoretical work will be crucial for planning and interpreting current and future observations. Today and in the near future facilities at wavelengths spanning from radio to X-ray will widen and deepen our view of the Universe, making this an ideal time for this line of research."
Project acronym ByoPiC
Project The Baryon Picture of the Cosmos
Researcher (PI) nabila AGHANIM
Summary The cosmological paradigm of structure formation is both extremely successful and plagued by many enigmas. Not only the nature of the main matter component, dark matter, shaping the structure skeleton in the form of a cosmic web, is mysterious; but also half of the ordinary matter (i.e. baryons) at late times of the cosmic history, remains unobserved, or hidden! ByoPiC focuses on this key and currently unresolved issue in astrophysics and cosmology: Where and how are half of the baryons hidden at late times? ByoPiC will answer that central question by detecting, mapping, and assessing the physical properties of hot ionised baryons at large cosmic scales and at late times. This will give a completely new picture of the cosmic web, added to its standard tracers, i.e. galaxies made of cold and dense baryons. To this end, ByoPiC will perform the first statistically consistent, joint analysis of complementary multiwavelength data: Planck observations tracing hot, ionised baryons via the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, optimally combined with optical and near infrared galaxy surveys as tracers of cold baryons. This joint analysis will rely on innovative statistical tools to recover all the (cross)information contained in these data in order to detect most of the hidden baryons in cosmic web elements such as (super)clusters and filaments. These newly detected elements will then be assembled to reconstruct the cosmic web as traced by both hot ionised baryons and galaxies. Thanks to that, ByoPiC will perform the most complete and detailed assessment of the census and contribution of hot ionised baryons to the total baryon budget, and identify the main physical processes driving their evolution in the cosmic web. Catalogues of new (super)clusters and filaments, and innovative tools, will be key deliverable products, allowing for an optimal preparation of future surveys.
The cosmological paradigm of structure formation is both extremely successful and plagued by many enigmas. Not only the nature of the main matter component, dark matter, shaping the structure skeleton in the form of a cosmic web, is mysterious; but also half of the ordinary matter (i.e. baryons) at late times of the cosmic history, remains unobserved, or hidden! ByoPiC focuses on this key and currently unresolved issue in astrophysics and cosmology: Where and how are half of the baryons hidden at late times? ByoPiC will answer that central question by detecting, mapping, and assessing the physical properties of hot ionised baryons at large cosmic scales and at late times. This will give a completely new picture of the cosmic web, added to its standard tracers, i.e. galaxies made of cold and dense baryons. To this end, ByoPiC will perform the first statistically consistent, joint analysis of complementary multiwavelength data: Planck observations tracing hot, ionised baryons via the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, optimally combined with optical and near infrared galaxy surveys as tracers of cold baryons. This joint analysis will rely on innovative statistical tools to recover all the (cross)information contained in these data in order to detect most of the hidden baryons in cosmic web elements such as (super)clusters and filaments. These newly detected elements will then be assembled to reconstruct the cosmic web as traced by both hot ionised baryons and galaxies. Thanks to that, ByoPiC will perform the most complete and detailed assessment of the census and contribution of hot ionised baryons to the total baryon budget, and identify the main physical processes driving their evolution in the cosmic web. Catalogues of new (super)clusters and filaments, and innovative tools, will be key deliverable products, allowing for an optimal preparation of future surveys.
Project acronym CALENDS
Project Clusters And LENsing of Distant Sources
Researcher (PI) Johan Pierre Richard
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE LYON 1 CLAUDE BERNARD
Summary Some of the primary questions in extragalactic astronomy concern the formation and evolution of galaxies in the distant Universe. In particular, little is known about the less luminous (and therefore less massive) galaxy populations, which are currently missed from large observing surveys and could contribute significantly to the overall star formation happening at early times. One way to overcome the current observing limitations prior to the arrival of the future James Webb Space Telescope or the European Extremely Large Telescopes is to use the natural magnification of strong lensing clusters to look at distant sources with an improved sensitivity and resolution. The aim of CALENDS is to build and study in great details a large sample of accurately-modelled, strongly lensed galaxies at high redshift (1<z<5) selected in the fields of massive clusters, and compare them with the more luminous or lower redshift populations. We will develop novel techniques in this process, in order to improve the accuracy of strong-lensing models and precisely determine the mass content of these clusters. By performing a systematic modelling of the cluster sample we will look into the relative distribution of baryons and dark matter as well as the amount of substructure in cluster cores. Regarding the population of lensed galaxies, we will study their global properties through a multiwavelength analysis covering the optical to millimeter domains, including spectroscopic information from MUSE and KMOS on the VLT, and ALMA. We will look for scaling relations between the stellar, gas and dust parameters, and compare them with known relations for lower redshift and more massive galaxy samples. For the most extended sources, we will be able to spatially resolve their inner properties, and compare the results of individual regions with predictions from simulations. We will look into key physical processes: star formation, gas accretion, inflows and outflows, in these distant sources.
Some of the primary questions in extragalactic astronomy concern the formation and evolution of galaxies in the distant Universe. In particular, little is known about the less luminous (and therefore less massive) galaxy populations, which are currently missed from large observing surveys and could contribute significantly to the overall star formation happening at early times. One way to overcome the current observing limitations prior to the arrival of the future James Webb Space Telescope or the European Extremely Large Telescopes is to use the natural magnification of strong lensing clusters to look at distant sources with an improved sensitivity and resolution. The aim of CALENDS is to build and study in great details a large sample of accurately-modelled, strongly lensed galaxies at high redshift (1<z<5) selected in the fields of massive clusters, and compare them with the more luminous or lower redshift populations. We will develop novel techniques in this process, in order to improve the accuracy of strong-lensing models and precisely determine the mass content of these clusters. By performing a systematic modelling of the cluster sample we will look into the relative distribution of baryons and dark matter as well as the amount of substructure in cluster cores. Regarding the population of lensed galaxies, we will study their global properties through a multiwavelength analysis covering the optical to millimeter domains, including spectroscopic information from MUSE and KMOS on the VLT, and ALMA. We will look for scaling relations between the stellar, gas and dust parameters, and compare them with known relations for lower redshift and more massive galaxy samples. For the most extended sources, we will be able to spatially resolve their inner properties, and compare the results of individual regions with predictions from simulations. We will look into key physical processes: star formation, gas accretion, inflows and outflows, in these distant sources.
Project acronym CAMAP
Project CAMAP: Computer Aided Modeling for Astrophysical Plasmas
Researcher (PI) Miguel-Ángel Aloy-Torás
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA
Summary This project will be aimed at obtaining a deeper insight into the physical processes taking place in astrophysical magnetized plasmas. To study these scenarios I will employ different numerical codes as virtual tools that enable me to experiment on computers (virtual labs) with distinct initial and boundary conditions. Among the kind of sources I am interested to consider, I outline the following: Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), extragalactic jets from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), magnetars and collapsing stellar cores. A number of important questions are still open regarding the fundamental properties of these astrophysical sources (e.g., collimation, acceleration mechanism, composition, high-energy emission, gravitational wave signature). Additionally, there are analytical issues on the formalism in relativistic dynamics not resolved yet, e.g., the covariant extension of resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). All these problems are so complex that only a computational approach is feasible. I plan to study them by means of relativistic and Newtonian MHD numerical simulations. A principal focus of the project will be to assess the relevance of magnetic fields in the generation, collimation and ulterior propagation of relativistic jets from the GRB progenitors and from AGNs. More generally, I will pursue the goal of understanding the process of amplification of seed magnetic fields until they become dynamically relevant, e.g., using semi-global and local simulations of representative boxes of collapsed stellar cores. A big emphasis will be put on including all the relevant microphysics (e.g. neutrino physics), non-ideal effects (particularly, reconnection physics) and energy transport due to neutrinos and photons to account for the relevant processes in the former systems. A milestone of this project will be to end up with a numerical tool that enables us to deal with General Relativistic Radiation Magnetohydrodynamics problems in Astrophysics.
This project will be aimed at obtaining a deeper insight into the physical processes taking place in astrophysical magnetized plasmas. To study these scenarios I will employ different numerical codes as virtual tools that enable me to experiment on computers (virtual labs) with distinct initial and boundary conditions. Among the kind of sources I am interested to consider, I outline the following: Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), extragalactic jets from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), magnetars and collapsing stellar cores. A number of important questions are still open regarding the fundamental properties of these astrophysical sources (e.g., collimation, acceleration mechanism, composition, high-energy emission, gravitational wave signature). Additionally, there are analytical issues on the formalism in relativistic dynamics not resolved yet, e.g., the covariant extension of resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). All these problems are so complex that only a computational approach is feasible. I plan to study them by means of relativistic and Newtonian MHD numerical simulations. A principal focus of the project will be to assess the relevance of magnetic fields in the generation, collimation and ulterior propagation of relativistic jets from the GRB progenitors and from AGNs. More generally, I will pursue the goal of understanding the process of amplification of seed magnetic fields until they become dynamically relevant, e.g., using semi-global and local simulations of representative boxes of collapsed stellar cores. A big emphasis will be put on including all the relevant microphysics (e.g. neutrino physics), non-ideal effects (particularly, reconnection physics) and energy transport due to neutrinos and photons to account for the relevant processes in the former systems. A milestone of this project will be to end up with a numerical tool that enables us to deal with General Relativistic Radiation Magnetohydrodynamics problems in Astrophysics.
Project acronym CEMYSS
Project Cosmochemical Exploration of the first two Million Years of the Solar System
Researcher (PI) Marc Chaussidon
Summary One of the major outcomes of recent studies on the formation of the Solar System is the reconnaissance of the fundamental importance of processes which took place during the first 10 thousands to 2 or 3 millions years of the lifetime of the Sun and its accretion disk. Astrophysical observations in the optical to infrared wavelengths of circumstellar disks around young stars have shown the existence in the inner disk of high-temperature processing of the dust. X-ray observations of T-Tauri stars revealed that they exhibit X-ray flare enhancements by several orders of magnitude. The work we have performed over the last years on the isotopic analysis of either solar wind trapped in lunar soils or of Ca-, Al-rich inclusions and chondrules from primitive chondrites, has allowed us to link some of these astrophysical observations around young stars with processes, such as irradiation by energetic particles and UV light, which took place around the T-Tauri Sun. The aim of this project is to make decisive progress in our understanding of the early solar system though the development of in situ high-precision isotopic measurements by ion microprobe in extra-terrestrial matter. The project will be focused on the exploration of the variations in the isotopic composition of O and Mg and in the concentration of short-lived radioactive nuclides, such as 26Al and 10Be, with half-lives shorter than 1.5 millions years. A special emphasis will be put on the search for nuclides with very short half-lives such as 32Si (650 years) and 14C (5730 years), nuclides which have never been discovered yet in meteorites. These new data will bring critical information on, for instance, the astrophysical context for the formation of the Sun and the first solids in the accretion disk, or the timing and the processes by which protoplanets were formed and destroyed close to the Sun during the first 2 million years of the lifetime of the Solar System.
One of the major outcomes of recent studies on the formation of the Solar System is the reconnaissance of the fundamental importance of processes which took place during the first 10 thousands to 2 or 3 millions years of the lifetime of the Sun and its accretion disk. Astrophysical observations in the optical to infrared wavelengths of circumstellar disks around young stars have shown the existence in the inner disk of high-temperature processing of the dust. X-ray observations of T-Tauri stars revealed that they exhibit X-ray flare enhancements by several orders of magnitude. The work we have performed over the last years on the isotopic analysis of either solar wind trapped in lunar soils or of Ca-, Al-rich inclusions and chondrules from primitive chondrites, has allowed us to link some of these astrophysical observations around young stars with processes, such as irradiation by energetic particles and UV light, which took place around the T-Tauri Sun. The aim of this project is to make decisive progress in our understanding of the early solar system though the development of in situ high-precision isotopic measurements by ion microprobe in extra-terrestrial matter. The project will be focused on the exploration of the variations in the isotopic composition of O and Mg and in the concentration of short-lived radioactive nuclides, such as 26Al and 10Be, with half-lives shorter than 1.5 millions years. A special emphasis will be put on the search for nuclides with very short half-lives such as 32Si (650 years) and 14C (5730 years), nuclides which have never been discovered yet in meteorites. These new data will bring critical information on, for instance, the astrophysical context for the formation of the Sun and the first solids in the accretion disk, or the timing and the processes by which protoplanets were formed and destroyed close to the Sun during the first 2 million years of the lifetime of the Solar System.
Project acronym COLLEXISM
Project Collisional excitation of interstellar molecules: towards reactive systems
Researcher (PI) François LIQUE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE LE HAVRE NORMANDIE
Summary Accurate determination of physical conditions of interstellar molecular clouds is a crucial step to better understand the life cycle of the interstellar matter and particularly the formation of stars and planets as well as the synthesis of organic molecules that may lead to emergence of life in the universe. A key parameter for the determination of these conditions from interstellar spectra is the calculation of accurate collisional rate coefficients of interstellar molecules with the most abundant species (H, He, H2 and e-). Whereas the knowledge of collisional processes has reached a certain level of maturity for collisions involving non-reactive molecules, very few reliable data exist for collisions involving reactive radicals and ions. The computation of such data is a real challenge since inelastic and reactive processes compete during collisions. In this project, we plan to overcome this complex problem and to provide collisional data for these radicals and ions in order to derive as much information as possible from the molecular spectra collected by current telescopes. As it is hardly possible to consider both collisional and reactive processes simultaneously, we will set up a new methodology based on quantum approach that allows obtaining accurate data. We will focus on molecular hydrides that are good candidates because of both their astrophysical importance and their quantum accessibility. We will carry out the determination of interaction potentials using quantum chemistry ab initio methods while the treatment of the dynamics of the nuclei will primarily be done using quantum time-independent reactive and non-reactive approaches. When exact quantum calculations will not be usable, innovative statistical quantum mechanical methods will also be explored. The new data will then be used in radiative transfer models and the predictions will be finally compared to observations in order to derive the abundances of reactive radicals with unprecedented accuracy.
Accurate determination of physical conditions of interstellar molecular clouds is a crucial step to better understand the life cycle of the interstellar matter and particularly the formation of stars and planets as well as the synthesis of organic molecules that may lead to emergence of life in the universe. A key parameter for the determination of these conditions from interstellar spectra is the calculation of accurate collisional rate coefficients of interstellar molecules with the most abundant species (H, He, H2 and e-). Whereas the knowledge of collisional processes has reached a certain level of maturity for collisions involving non-reactive molecules, very few reliable data exist for collisions involving reactive radicals and ions. The computation of such data is a real challenge since inelastic and reactive processes compete during collisions. In this project, we plan to overcome this complex problem and to provide collisional data for these radicals and ions in order to derive as much information as possible from the molecular spectra collected by current telescopes. As it is hardly possible to consider both collisional and reactive processes simultaneously, we will set up a new methodology based on quantum approach that allows obtaining accurate data. We will focus on molecular hydrides that are good candidates because of both their astrophysical importance and their quantum accessibility. We will carry out the determination of interaction potentials using quantum chemistry ab initio methods while the treatment of the dynamics of the nuclei will primarily be done using quantum time-independent reactive and non-reactive approaches. When exact quantum calculations will not be usable, innovative statistical quantum mechanical methods will also be explored. The new data will then be used in radiative transfer models and the predictions will be finally compared to observations in order to derive the abundances of reactive radicals with unprecedented accuracy.
Project acronym CONCERTO
Project Intensity mapping of the atomic carbon CII line: the promise of a new observational probe of dusty star-formation in post-reionization and reionization epoch
Researcher (PI) Guilaine LAGACHE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE D'AIX MARSEILLE
Summary I propose for funding to construct a spectrometer to map in 3-D the intensity due to line emission, a technique known as Intensity Mapping. Instead of detecting individual galaxies, this emerging technique measures signal fluctuations produced by the combined emission of the galaxy population on large regions of the sky in a wide frequency (i.e. redshift) band, and thus increases sensitivity to faint sources. Capitalizing on a recent technology breakthrough, our intensity mapping experiment will measure the 3-D fluctuations of the [CII] line at redshifts 4.5<z<8.5. [CII] is one of the most valuable star formation tracers at high redshift. My project will answer the outstanding questions of whether dusty star-formation contributes to early galaxy evolution, and whether dusty galaxies play an important role in shaping cosmic reionization. My team will first build, test, and finally install the instrument on the APEX antenna following an agreement with APEX partners. The spectrometer will be based on the state-of-the-art development of new arrays in the millimeter using Kinetic Inductance Detectors. Spectra (200-360 GHz) will be obtained by a fast Martin-Puplett interferometer. Then, we will observe with CONCERTO a few square degrees and offer a straight forward alternative for probing star formation and dust build-up in the early Universe. Finally, CONCERTO will set to music the various cosmic evolution probes. Cross-correlation of the signals will be used in particular to capture the topology of the end of reionization era. CONCERTO will be one of two instruments in the world to perform intensity mapping of the [CII] line in the short term. The novel methodology is extremely promising as it targets an unexplored observable touching on some of the fundamental processes building the early universe. In the flourishing of new ideas in the intensity-mapping field, CONCERTO lies at the forefront.
I propose for funding to construct a spectrometer to map in 3-D the intensity due to line emission, a technique known as Intensity Mapping. Instead of detecting individual galaxies, this emerging technique measures signal fluctuations produced by the combined emission of the galaxy population on large regions of the sky in a wide frequency (i.e. redshift) band, and thus increases sensitivity to faint sources. Capitalizing on a recent technology breakthrough, our intensity mapping experiment will measure the 3-D fluctuations of the [CII] line at redshifts 4.5<z<8.5. [CII] is one of the most valuable star formation tracers at high redshift. My project will answer the outstanding questions of whether dusty star-formation contributes to early galaxy evolution, and whether dusty galaxies play an important role in shaping cosmic reionization. My team will first build, test, and finally install the instrument on the APEX antenna following an agreement with APEX partners. The spectrometer will be based on the state-of-the-art development of new arrays in the millimeter using Kinetic Inductance Detectors. Spectra (200-360 GHz) will be obtained by a fast Martin-Puplett interferometer. Then, we will observe with CONCERTO a few square degrees and offer a straight forward alternative for probing star formation and dust build-up in the early Universe. Finally, CONCERTO will set to music the various cosmic evolution probes. Cross-correlation of the signals will be used in particular to capture the topology of the end of reionization era. CONCERTO will be one of two instruments in the world to perform intensity mapping of the [CII] line in the short term. The novel methodology is extremely promising as it targets an unexplored observable touching on some of the fundamental processes building the early universe. In the flourishing of new ideas in the intensity-mapping field, CONCERTO lies at the forefront.


text:
Q: Answer a phone call on the browser with Twilio I am looking to answer a call through a worker on my browser.
On my workers, I have the following
{"contact_uri":"client:Peter"}

On my incoming call method, a task successfully created and get into the queue
twiml = Twilio::TwiML::VoiceResponse.new do |response|
  response.say(message: message)
  response.enqueue workflowSid: 'sid'
end
render xml: twiml.to_xml

Then on my front end code, a reservation.created event is been fired.
worker = new Twilio.TaskRouter.Worker(data.token)
worker.on 'reservation.created', (reservation) ->
  reservation.dequeue()

But the reservation.dequeue() is not initializing a call to my browser, I am still getting the Twilio default waiting sound and no other response.

A: Your code is fine as far as I can see but the main issue here is that you do not have Twilio client defined. If you are going to send those calls to browser than you need to setup a Twilio Client, you must also set up the devices. You can find more information on Twilio Client documentation.
After generating a Twilio Client Token You can connect to Twilio i.e.

device = new Twilio.Device(data.token, {
                closeProtection: true,
               debug: true,
                // Set Opus as our preferred codec. Opus generally performs better, requiring less bandwidth and
                // providing better audio quality in restrained network conditions. Opus will be default in 2.0.
                codecPreferences: ["opus", "pcmu"],
                // Use fake DTMF tones client-side. Real tones are still sent to the other end of the call,
                // but the client-side DTMF tones are fake. This prevents the local mic capturing the DTMF tone
                // a second time and sending the tone twice. This will be default in 2.0.
                fakeLocalDTMF: true,
                // Use `enableRingingState` to enable the device to emit the `ringing`
                // state. The TwiML backend also needs to have the attribute
                // `answerOnBridge` also set to true in the `Dial` verb. This option
                // changes the behavior of the SDK to consider a call `ringing` starting
                // from the connection to the TwiML backend to when the recipient of
                // the `Dial` verb answers.
                enableRingingState: true
            });
            // Incoming call to.
             device.on('incoming', function (conn) {
             //This will automatically accept the call, bind it with a button to enhance it
                        conn.accept();
                });

For more information on this go to Twilio Docs

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Tactical Drawings was recommended to our group. I personally found JK to be extremely easy to work with, but more importantly very professional and delivered what he promised. Outstanding work. Our team consists of current and former Special Operations members from both the Military and Law Enforcement. So our species which is probably no different than yours, appreciates someone who delivers first time every time. JK is a professional and we will use him again.


Please see our tutorials and FAQ before posting.
Corecell M is sold in 2x4 or 4x8 sheets. A 2x4 panel is 1/4th the size of the full size panels..
When you see the price at $63.01 for the 2x4, if you bought 4 of those; price would be about $252 dollars for the equivalent 4x8 panel which is sold for $225 a panel.
Noah's pricing on the internet is very confusing.
Man, what a brain fart I had when writing the initial post - I got it in my head that the cut stuff is half-sheets when they are (as you point out) in fact quarter-sheets.
Totally okay. Talk about making mistakes...lots of conversions done by me.
Corecell requires wetout or you'll starve the glass-just like plywood. The rate is 0.64kg per cubic meter. I wanted it in ounces per yard. I converted 2.2 pounds per kg...my old friend said the part seems dry about 8 times. Finally checked the math and found the error.
I knew what you did right away. All the best; you passed the first failure test.
I'm thinking about building an ultra low version of the FS14_LS. It would end up more like the SK14 or a giant SUP with an outboard and be completely foam filled with no hatches, etc.
Don't without getting specs from the designer (that's me). There is much more to it than just substituting plywood for foam.
I'm going to start a new thread for design in the appropriate section.


I absolutely love picture books. I love the silly ones and the sweet ones. I love the rhyming ones and the ones that make up words. I love the illustrations and the messages. But the kinds of picture books I love most are the ones that make children laugh, the ones that introduce them to the possibilities in life and the kind of person they should strive to be, and the ones that are really adult books in disguise. I promise posts recommending some of my favorites of the funny ones and the ones offering possibilities. Today, in honor of "booksgiving," I have prepared a list of picture books that I love which are certainly written for children but are maybe for adults every bit as much (or more). They will be in alphabetical order by the title because I couldn't possibly put them in some order of favorites…and by author just seemed too predictable from a former librarian.
If you would like a brief description and reviews of these books, go to the link below for the list I created for these books (and a few more) on goodreads.com.
You can also look at an earlier list I made that includes some picture book biographies.


text:
An Itch To Scratch…
Does Pioneer's new DDJ-S1 Itch controller cut the mustard?
Gregory Paratore
The DJing market has defiantly changed over the last few years and options for the budding blender are vast. With this in mind, manufacturers have to stay in touch with all these new advances or find themselves not being relevant in today's new world. Pioneer have made the jump into the controller market with two dedicated controllers — one for Native Instruments' Traktor, and the other for Serato's Itch DJing platform. In this review, we are going to scratch the surface of their DDJ-S1 Itch controller and see whether it can cut the mustard.
For years, Pioneer has been spearheading and subsequently leading the CDJ market, becoming the industry standard in CDJ decks. It is fair to say that Pioneer had a vested interest in keeping the DJ world hardware-based. However, in recent times, they have started to make strides into the swelling laptop DJ market, with their Rekordbox software and its integration with the new CDJ range. The next step was always going to have to be self-contained hardware controllers for the leading DJ software companies. Enter DDJ-S1, the new controller for Serato's increasingly lauded Itch software.
Liberating Experience
The DDJ-S1 is set up to mimic the industry-trusted Pioneer CDJ series. Two CDJ-style control panels flank a two-channel mixer with dual effect banks, three-band EQ and adjustable curve crossfader. The device is elevated by two removable feet that allow the DJ's laptop to be docked underneath the controller, so only the screen protrudes. This is testament to the Pioneer hardware ethic that all of the common functions from the software can be controlled without using the mouse or keyboard, which is a liberating experience for the DJ.
As with all Pioneer kit, the interface is simple, intuitive and easy to use. On the simplest level, anyone who is familiar with Pioneer kit could jump on here and get to grips with things pretty quickly. Each 'CDJ' section contains the same platter you would find on the CDJ-400, five hot cue triggers that handily illuminate when allocated to a cue point in the software, plus the standard navigation buttons found throughout the CDJ range, keeping that Pioneer feel of continuity.
Newer additions include a nifty needle-search ribbon, which can be used to skip through an entire track with the swipe of a finger. This is very useful for auditioning tracks quickly. Below the ribbon is an LED indicating how far through the track you are — this is another neat visual indicator on the controller that avoids the necessity to glance at the laptop screen.
Another newer feature which some older CDJ users may not be familiar with is the 'slip' function. When slip mode is activated, the track will snap back into place after any platter movement, loop or cue juggling — as if you had never made the change. This allows for mid-mix backspins or single beat loops that don't affect the position of the track — very cool indeed.
Pioneer's loop functionality is — along with the virtual scratch — one of the features that make their kit sing. And on the DDJ-S1, the loops are better than ever. The ubiquitous yellows lights for 'in' and 'out' remain, but are joined by a user-friendly dial that changes the auto-loop length in the software and is depressed to enter or exit the loop. This allows the DJ to cut super-sharp, perfectly-locked loops instantly and mid-mix, taking some of the stress out of live remixing.
The mixer section is equally straightforward. A standard two-channel mixer with three-band EQ (which is customisable within the software) and an adjustable curve crossfader sit between two banks of effects, which can be individually allocated to deck A, deck B, the master output or even the mic input. They can also be chained, allowing some pretty neat results, like the classic delay/reverb or filter/echo combinations.
The clearest nod to the mobile DJ who wants an all-in-one solution for mobile work or the small clubs market is the dual mic inputs, with included talk-over functionality and EQ. The mic and aux channels will also run in the event of your computer crashing — this is a nice safety feature that means the dreaded laptop crash needn't result in silence and the abuse of a baying crowd.
The one point of contention that is rearing its ugly head seems to be the price of the unit. At £1,099, it is far from cheap. Though Pioneer kit has always been at the top-end of the market for price, the quality has always shone through, and the DDJ-S1 will be no exception. In comparable terms, this unit sidesteps the need to own CDJs, a mixer and an EFX – which puts the cost into context nicely.
Although perhaps best suited to mobile DJs who love the feel and reliability of Pioneer kit, the functions in the software and the tactile control offered by the DDJ-S1 mean that the possibilities for creative DJing are pretty limitless. What you have here is a serious controller for a piece of software that is growing in popularity all the time.
Price £1099.00
Contact pioneerdj.eu
Ease of Use 9.0
Sound Quality 8.0
Hype Probably one of the better Itch controllers on the market, with the recognised Pioneer build quality
Gripe Hefty price tag may put a few DJs off
Conclusion A well-executed controller with innovative features and superb integration with Itch.
Copyright Thrust Publishing Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.djmag.com as the source.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Heavy Breakfast. Start a drive to nainital 60 Kms from ramnagar en-route Corbett Fall and Jim Corbett House are sightseeing. Back in the Evening to resort. Tea, Campfire followed with Dinner and overnight to bed.
Wake up at leisure Breakfast. depart for onward destination.


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text:
How do you market to a new generation of virtual hermits?
A new survey out of London from global market research leader TNS (a Peppercom client) shows that teenage boys, aged 12 to 18, are spending record amounts of pocket money on computer games. In fact, fully one-third of the average British boy's chump change now goes to purchasing the 'Grand Theft Autos' of the world (note: teenage girls in Britain have little interest in computer games, opting instead to shell out their moola on music).
While there are many disturbing elements to these findings, what troubles me is the parallel trend acompanying the money spend: teenage boys are spending inordinate amounts of time online, whether it's playing video games, surfing MySpace or doing god knows what else. As a result, they're literally not interacting with the world at large and gaining the requisite social skills they'll need to succeed later in life.
Such a scenario is fine if the lads all aim to work in isolated cubes sorting through some kind of research. But, I can't imagine any positive outcome for game-playing zealots in the business world of tomorrow. Futurist Watts Wacker has researched teens and pre-teens and says many of them count 'virtual' friends as among their closest buddies. Our youth are deeply engrossed in conversations with people they've most likely never met, and confiding their most intimate secrets to literal strangers. What would Dr. Phil say?
To me, it's a mind-boggling trend that not only has significant implications for the day-to-day social interactions of the next quarter-century, but for marketers as well. How will traditonal approaches possibly resonate with the Grand Theft Auto crowd when they don't send or receive information the way we do?
It seems to me the best answer will be to market via relationships built on trust. Reaching and having a dialogue with a future consumer's 'circle of influencers' will become even more important than ever. Marketers will be forced to figure out totallly different ways to not only break through the clutter, but to connect with a guy who grew up choosing his friends and entertainment from in front of a keyboard. And, a guy who, sad to say, spent one-third of his discretionary income on video games. Yuck. Whatever happened to whiffle ball, stickball and bubble gum cards?"
This entry was posted in Marketing by RepMan. Bookmark the permalink.
5 thoughts on "How do you market to a new generation of virtual hermits?"
Jimmy on June 29, 2006 at 10:20 am said:
Excellent point, Beth. Maybe I should have called PCOM to say as much as opposed to posting this response? HA!
Beth on June 28, 2006 at 5:50 pm said:
I think what will likely happen is that tomorrow's workplace will become more and more virtual in itself. It's already starting. Everytime we send an IM instead of picking up the phone, or an email instead of walking over to someone's desk, or even the fact that these topics are being discussed on a blog shows that this shift is already beginning.
steven cody on June 28, 2006 at 5:35 pm said:
Excellent points, Andrew and Jimbo. While I'm sure the smart marketers will figure out how to reach these isolated target markets, I do worry about about the social implications of kids losing themselves in the virtual reality of the computer. How will they learn the necessary social skills to interact and succeed in tomorrow's workplace? It's a real problem that few, if any, educators, politicians or business leaders are discussing, much less suggesting solutions….
Jimmy on June 27, 2006 at 2:59 pm said:
I don't think it will be all that hard for marketers to do though (breaking through the clutter and reaching their targets who are no online).
Sure, you will have your stick-in-muds like the lady from Diet Coke, but others are catching on to this. Marketers who aren't already searching for new ways to deliver their messages better be searching for new jobs…
Andrew on June 27, 2006 at 12:55 pm said:
This trend definitely has implications for marketers, Rep. In fact, many gurus are already discussing "Avatar-based Marketing" (engaging audiences in virtual worlds like Second Life). Last week there was a virtual conference held in Second Life titled: "What is the future of real companies marketing to Second Life Avatars?" It was hosted by a senior editor at Harvard Business Review and a bunch of marketing and PRos where in "attendance." You're absolutely right..in the virtual space, it's all about building relationships and creating content that adds value. Some companies like American Apparel and Amazon are already getting involved in this.
For anyone that is not familiar with Second Life, I recommend that you check out the May 1st BusinessWeek cover story about it.
This is not just some geeky trend that's going to die out. Virtual worlds like Second Life are growing because they offer the ability for people to network and earn real money. Some Second Lifers have even quit their day jobs because they are earning enough money in their virtual life. Crazy, but true!


text:
American Democracy
as a Legitimating Device
excerpted from the book
The Democratic Facade
by Daniel Hellinger and Dennis R. Judd Brooks
Cole Publishing Company, 1991, paper
American Democracy as a Legitimating Device
The Oldest Democracy
Thomas Jefferson, 1786
" ... a little rebellion now and then is a good thing....It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government....God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
From the early nineteenth century to the present, school textbooks have functioned as catechisms to teach a civic religion whose central article of faith is that America's government is the most perfectly functioning democracy humans have thus far devised.
In colonial America the top 20 percent of wealthholders owned 68 percent of total assets, and inequality in wealth distribution was about the same in New England as in the slave-holding South. In 1771, the top 10 percent of Boston's population held 63 percent of the wealth-and the lowest three-tenths held less than one-tenth of one percent of taxable assets. On the frontier, in contrast to the cities, a considerable equality prevailed, but this was because almost no wealthy people were living there.
The founders were an aristocratic group; several of them were the richest individuals in all the colonies. The merchant and landowning elites gathered in Philadelphia were keenly aware of the threats that faced them. Many white Americans had been brought, often forcibly, to the British colonies as indentured servants (three out of four persons in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia at the time of the Revolution). They had filled the ranks of the revolutionary armies, risked their lives, and were armed. For elites, it was urgent that a new government be founded that would elicit a widespread sense of legitimacy. Democratic symbols were crucial for accomplishing this purpose. But it was equally important to the founders that their own wealth and political power be preserved. This is not to say that most of the founders were antidemocratic per se, or that they were cynical about the limited democracy they were creating. They were, however, unable to distinguish the preservation of their own property from the establishment of democratic principles. Thus it should occasion little surprise that, as Charles Beard observed, "The overwhelming majority...were to a greater or less extent economic beneficiaries from the adoption of the Constitution."
Elites and Their Strategies
Elites in every society employ strategies to keep themselves in power, but it IS not necessary to think that they must, or ordinarily do, engage in conspiracies for this purpose. At times, of course, elite groups do act conspiratorially: The founders did so when they drafted the Constitution and plotted to get it ratified; Richard Nixon and his advisors did so in the 1972 presidential campaign (but then all election campaigns are partially, by their nature, conspiratorial). Corporations constantly engage m conspiracies; the term accurately describes a strategic plan or a product advertising campaign. But it is usually more accurate to consider the political strategies employed by elites as instinctive responses to threats to their political power and economic privilege rather than as conspiracies. It would be illogical to expect elites not to try to maintain their position in society. And it also would make little sense to believe that elites would respond to threats to their power in completely chaotic, ineffectual fashion. Elites share common interests, and they likewise share perceptions about how to respond when these interests are threatened.
The composition of elites has changed markedly during the nation's history reflecting changes in the American economy and social structure. Consequently, the challenges to elites' autonomy and power, and the political options available to them have changed. In the past two hundred years three elite "constellations" have dominated the U.S. economy and polity. The constitution of 1789 constituted a compromise between merchant elites in New England, who derived their wealth from banking, trade, and land speculation, and the owners of large estates in the South whose wealth depended on a slave economy based on agricultural products-principally cotton, rice, and tobacco-that were traded on the world market. The delicate balance struck among the elite factions involved, among other things, an agreement by the merchant elites to count slaves in calculating representation in Congress (the three-fifths compromise), and an agreement not to abolish the international slave trade until 1808. Westward expansion eventually strained the compromise to the breaking point, at which point Southern elites tried to secede from the union
By the 1870s, a new class of industrial capitalists consolidated their grip on economic and political institutions. The Industrial Revolution fundamentally transformed the nation's social composition and economic structure. Soon after the Civil War, the value added from industry exceeded that of commerce and agriculture. The nature of business organizations also changed. By the late nineteenth century, corporations accounted for 60 percent of value in manufacturing. In 1896, twelve firms were valued at more than $10 million, but by 1903 fifty of them were worth more than $50 million. The giant corporations that formed between 1896 and 1905 included (among others) U.S. Steel (now USX), International Harvester, General Electric, and American Telephone and Telegraph. These firms concentrated legal expertise, accountants, a growing army of white-collar workers, and finance capital into huge enterprises.
Over the past half century, another elite "constellation" has replaced the industrial capitalists. The idea of the "postindustrial" economy describes several phenomena: Individual wealthy industrialists have been replaced by professional managers and executives who run far-flung multinational corporations, though some families still control great wealth and institutional power, such as the du Ponts in Delaware and the Bushes and Danforths in Missouri. Families in the top 10 percent income bracket own 72 percent of all stock holdings and 65 percent of all bonds; the top 2 percent of families own 50 percent of stocks and 39 percent of bonds.
Corporate institutions control an overwhelming proportion of America's productive, financial, intellectual, and governmental resources. The executives of the one hundred largest industrial corporations controlled 58 percent of all industrial assets in 1984, and the fifty largest banks held half of all banking assets. The three television networks produced 90 percent of television news, and the fifty richest foundations presided over 40 percent of all foundation assets. The 7,300 persons holding the top positions in the institutions of the economy, government, and private foundations and in research and higher education institutions were in a position to make the key decisions about "war and peace, wages and prices, consumption and investment, employment and production, law and justice, taxes and benefits, education and learning, health and welfare, advertising and communication, life and leisure." A few hundred individuals with leverage in the largest private and public institutions make the decisions that decide the well-being and life chances of all Americans.
All of the elite constellations that have dominated American life have been confronted with challenges, and in response they have employed a variety of strategies to maintain their political control. From time to time they have resorted to repression. The application of repression however, is costly and full of risk The brushfires of rebellion must be constantly put out. Intrigues and divisions within the ranks of the rulers are more or less built into repressive regimes, and thus they are frequently short lived. It is far preferable for elites to find a way to elicit the voluntary acquiescence, loyalty, or, if possible, positive support of groups that are not in power. America's elites have always attended closely to the processes that nurture and build legitimacy, and they have been remarkably successful. Otherwise, repression would have been more frequent and more violent than it has been in our national history.
For elites, it is imperative that citizens embrace their rule as necessary and just. In a polity with democratic political processes, legitimation is necessarily based on the idea of the consent of the governed (as opposed, for example, to the "divine right of kings"). Therefore, elites must ensure that the institutions of socialization carry the message that the government in power represents "the people." Schools, media institutions, and elections themselves have been crucial socializing mechanisms organized and run by America's elites.
Despite the application of huge political and economic resources to the institutions of legitimation, America's elites have evinced a chronic anxiety about their position. Therefore, they have employed a panoply of strategies to manipulate democratic processes. They have successfully controlled the composition of the electorate and restricted political discourse, with the consequences that elections concern "safe" political issues and voters are able to decide only between candidates who represent elite preferences.
Since the Second World War, elites have invented a new set of strategies to supplement and amplify the effect of those inherited from the past. Whereas elites historically resorted to tinkering with the electoral system to keep it operating within narrowly circumscribed limits, in the past decades they have taken decisive steps to insulate government policy making from elections altogether. Government officials now possess an unprecedented capacity to manipulate information and shape public opinion, both at election time and in the periods between. The presidency and the executive agencies have vastly expanded their ability to define and control the public agenda, with profound effects. Most domestic policy is now made within the confines of hidden "subgovernments" made up of congressional career incumbents, key executive branch agencies, and relevant industries and corporate lobbyists. In a sense, government policy has become privatized, a state of affairs that has proceeded even further in foreign policy making than in domestic policy. Postwar foreign policy has been moved behind an impenetrable Veil of secrecy and deception insulated almost completely from democratic processes.
Repression As a Political Strategy
The fact that repression is always available to elites, even as a last resort, exerts a powerful influence on the political activity of ordinary citizens. From time to time it has flared to ominous levels, rising during wars and periods of popular discontent receding into the background when elites have felt more secure. When other strategies have proven insufficient, repression has always been readily available, and elites have made much more liberal use of it in American history than the mainstream textbooks will ever reveal. Coercion and the threats of force against political enemies were used as instruments for keeping elites in power even before the Constitution was drafted. During the American Revolution, the estimated one-third of the population that opposed the revolt faced retribution from supporters of independence. Those who sided with the British faced confiscation of their property and physical violence including Iynching, and they either fled to Canada or retreated into silence. In the eighty years between independence and the Civil War, slavery laws were enforced Native Americans were annihilated, and labor organizers were fired, harassed, and sometimes murdered. Today these events normally are treated as unfortunate episodes that have little or no connection to the present. Never would a term like genocide be introduced in a school textbook, regardless of the appropriateness of the term as applied to the experience of indigenous Americans. To use such an expression would be to raise troubling thoughts about America's identity and obligation to the victims better to treat such events as sidebars in a history whose main plot involves the extension and consolidation of freedom and democracy for all.
Likewise, episodes of repression of workers are represented in official history as unusual deviations from a democratic heritage. Of course, such an interpretation ignores the inconvenient fact that America's history of violence against workers is , one of the bloodiest among Western nations. Between 1880 and l900, there were ,' almost 23,000 strikes in the United States, and even more over the next several ~ decades. Repeatedly, federal troops, state militias, and hired thugs were used to break strikes. In 1877, railroad workers across the country called a strike rather than accept a second 10 percent cut in wages imposed within an eight-month period. The national and state governments mobilized 60,000 troops against the workers; in less than two weeks, almost one hundred strikers were killed. A few years later, in 1886, a national strike for an eight-hour day led to a police massacre of union organizers in Chicago, then prosecution, trial, and death sentences for several unionists. In the Homestead, Pennsylvania, strike against Carnegie Steel in 1892, a gun battle broke out between Pinkerton agents and strikers in which nine workers and seven agents died. Ten thousand state militia were mobilized. Two years later, during the Pullman railroad strike, state militias were sent against workers in seven states and federal troops poured into Chicago and Pullman, Illinois. Thirty-four strikers were killed. In 1914, in a dawn massacre near the coal fields at Ludlow, Colorado, state militia soldiers fired into the tents of striking workers and their families and killed twenty-six men, women, and children.
The government also targeted political radicals in the labor movement without waiting for strikes. Workers who joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were singled out for furious repression. In the years before the First World War, vigilante mobs organized by corporations and state politicians attacked IWW members ("Wobblies") all across the country. The level of repression escalated when the United States entered the war. Congress used the war as a pretext for passing the Espionage Act of 1917, which was nominally aimed at spying activities. Relying on this legislation, the government sent more than 900 people to prison in one year for their political views, including the entire leadership of all the socialist organizations in the United States, as well as hundreds of labor union leaders. The states and the federal government worked with employers to ferret out "traitors." In 1917, the Department of Justice founded the American Protective League; within a year there were local chapters in six hundred towns and cities. The Post Office Department refused to handle magazines and newspapers it considered politically unacceptable. The repression continued for years after the war had ended. In 1920, raids coordinated by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer rounded up hundreds of Wobblies. Government agents ransacked IWW offices and confiscated or destroyed their records. In scores of trials, some lasting only a few minutes, defendants were tried en masse and convicted for conspiracy, treason, and other "crimes." After midnight raids and secret deportation hearings, the federal government deported more than 4,000 people in less than a year. There is little question that a well-orchestrated government repression from 1915 to 1920 effectively destroyed the socialist movement and almost eradicated militant labor leadership in the United States.
World War II provided the pretext for a new wave of restrictions on civil liberties. Hundreds of pacifists were jailed for their political beliefs. Newspapers and movies were censored. Over I00,000 Japanese-American citizens were rounded up and interned in detention camps sprinkled throughout the western states. In the years after the war, congressional committees, federal agencies, state governments, and private employers hounded thousands of citizens in search of the "enemy within." The litmus test for disloyalty was defined as previous membership in any of several dozen civil rights, union, or left-of-center organizations that had flourished in the 1930s-or family or friendship connections to suspected individuals. In less than five years, the American left was decimated.
During the civil rights campaigns of the l950s and 1960s, FBI agents infiltrated civil rights organizations and harassed and intimidated activists. All groups identified as "leftist" were similarly targeted. During the 1960s, for example, at least 10 percent of all members of the Socialist Workers' Party and about 8 percent of the Young Socialist Alliance actually were FBI informants. The FBI's activities continued until the late 1980s, possibly ceasing in 1988 as a result of a federal court injunction (though, more plausibly, these activities continue but have become, once again, wrapped in a cloak of secrecy). The FBI infiltrated meetings, photographed people attending demonstrations; searched the household garbage of individuals working for peace in Central America; ran checks on license plates of cars parked near meetings and demonstrations; confiscated personal notes and books from people returning from visits to Latin America; and interviewed family members, landlords and employers. The investigation embraced dozens of organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the American Federation of Teachers.
Repression and threats of repression remain important guarantors of elite rule and governmental power. Too much or too blatant a use of violence, however, may provoke protest and opposition from elites more willing to accommodate change more committed to democratic ideals, or fearful of the backlash that frequent resort to violence might generate. Such a backlash occurred in the early 1960s, when state and local law enforcement authorities brutalized civil rights marchers in the South and again in 1968, when Chicago police went on a rampage against demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention. Repression has helped to preserve elites and governments in power in America because it has been applied selectively within the context of a political system that is widely regarded as legitimate.
Legitimacy and the Democratic Facade
Strategies for creating a popular sense of legitimacy have been far more important to America's elites than have strategies of repression. However, legitimation through a democratic ideal of rule "by the people" has often posed serious problems for elites because populist groups have repeatedly tried to use the electoral system to change the political balance of power. When confronted with such threats elites have adjusted the rules of the game: They have expanded or reduced the size of the electorate, pushed for new campaign and election laws, and regulated the political parties. Invariably, reforms have been justified as necessary for improving democratic processes. Elites have expended a great deal of energy to fine-tune the day-to-day rules and procedures of the political system to protect their interests. If they are so troublesome to elites as to require constant tinkering, why have democratic processes been tolerated at all?
The delegates who convened in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 agreed that there was an urgent need for a central government strong enough to contain popular discontent and protect property. Though it was not clear to all of them that democratic symbols were the answer, they faced the problem of creating a new government that would not soon be overturned. The landowner and merchant elites had just enlisted farmers and workers to overthrow British rule. The citizenry was now well armed and, as was so convincingly shown by Shays' Rebellion, it was capable of challenging the indigenous aristocracy. The Constitution was a brilliant solution to a practical problem. It legitimated aristocratic control by articulating a language of democratic participation.
The idea of democracy is immensely powerful. The measure of its symbolic value can be seen everywhere in the world: in the habit of dictators who hold rigged elections to prove their popularity (e.g., Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines), in the one-party elections that prevailed until recently in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, in the U.S. State Department's routine application of the label "democratic" to authoritarian regimes and military juntas that happen to be allied with the United States. The idea of democracy is irresistible. It would be odd indeed-even perhaps impossible-for American politics to proceed without the manipulation of the symbols of democracy by all who take part in it. These symbols are essential to elites as a means for preserving their political hegemony.
The term hegemony comes from the Greek word hegeisthai, meaning to guide. To speak of the hegemony of the elites means to speak of their capacity to "guide," in particular to have the rest of us accept as "common sense" that the economic and political system that perpetuates their rule is the best and most just. This production and reproduction of what people come to think of as truth and common sense is not carried out through some grand, well-organized conspiracy, but by a variety of institutions, controlled by elites, that specialize in the production and distribution of ideas.
Political socialization takes place in a wide variety of settings, including the family, workplace, and church. But there are three principal arenas used by elites for the express purpose of political communication and socialization. The first arena is comprised of the institutions presiding over the process of schooling. These institutions assume the crucial task of inculcating in each new generation apolitical ideology that legitimates the state. This is accomplished in a straightforward, expensive, overt, meticulously organized manner: approved curricula, civics and history courses, textbooks, class discussions, and exams. By the age of eighteen, an American student has run an impressive gauntlet of political indoctrination. Schools have been regarded by elites as essential institutions for teaching Americans that their democracy is the "one best" system and that capitalism is essential for its success. Every generation of schoolchildren has been taught loyalty to the flag and the nation. More specifically, for most of our national history a great deal of energy has been expended to teach schoolchildren that America is governed by "We, the people," that all groups can easily assimilate into American life (if they want to), that Americans are prosperous and free, and that America is the beacon of freedom for all the world.
A second crucial arena of socialization is made up of institutions of the mass media. Americans are literally bombarded by images and words carried by the electronic media. Because most of our information, ideas, and opinions are derived from these media sources, the mass media industry has become a principal arbiter and interpreter of mass culture and political opinion. A survey conducted by the Roper Organization in l 983 asked Americans what appliance they enjoyed owning the most. More than half of the respondents mentioned their television sets. Which activity did they enjoy or look forward to during a day? Nearly one-third answered, "Watching television." The average American is exposed to l,000 commercial messages each day-about l90 on television alone. Per capita media consumption in the United States exceeds that of almost every other nation on earth.
How do Americans cope with this information flood tide and what role do media play in shaping political behavior? The question is not easy to answer because there is a key difference between exposure and consumption. People screen information. On average, people read only about half the stories they notice in a newspaper, and many of these only partially. They read less than one-fifth of the stories in full. Similarly, of the fifteen to eighteen stories reported in a typical television newscast, viewers retain only one "sufficiently well so that it can be recalled in any fashion shortly afterwards." But the details are less important than the abstract messages. The media sustain and reinforce cultural values and political beliefs. Media institutions are pivotal for socializing mass publics into accepting sanctioned versions of political and economic reality.
Electoral processes make up a third crucial arena used by elites for political indoctrination and communication. Campaigns and elections have become elaborate pageants experienced by most citizens vicariously through television. The "key linkage now in American democracy is the spectacular presentations of the electronic media," which mediates national politics and culture as "sound bites and film clips on the screen." 5 As a result of this development, a lucrative industry of media consultants, pollsters, advertising agencies, and professional campaign managers has evolved, skilled at applying the techniques of persuasion borrowed from product advertising and applied to political campaigning. In the United States elections do not mainly serve the purpose of allowing voters to choose their political leaders. Rather, they are invested with the crucial legitimating symbols of democratic rule. They provide ritualized opportunities for people to participate, as individuals and as members of a collective citizenry, in the political process. When people vote, they reaffirm their belief that the political system listens to their voice.
Manipulating Democratic Processes
If socialization were a perfectly efficient process, elites would comfortably allow democratic processes faithfully to represent popular preferences about leadership and public policies because all political expression would be entirely predictable. Dissent would be literally unimaginable. However, as evidenced by the political turbulence that has characterized U.S. history, the values, opinions, and actions of ordinary people have been far from predictable. Populist movements have repeatedly been mobilized to challenge ruling elites, and in each historical period elites have responded to these challenges by taking steps to ensure that the political system cannot be used to upset existing social, economic, and political relationships In short, democratic processes have been rigged to produce acceptable outcomes.
The Constitution can be regarded as the new nation's first successful attempt to rig the rules of government and democratic participation in favor of elites. Having won the war for independence, the creditors, merchants, and landowners now faced serious threats. State taxes imposed to pay the debts incurred to fight the war were resented by farmers and workers. In New England, farm foreclosures were common and the courts made matters worse by frequently jailing farmers who could not pay their debts. Between 1784 and 1786, almost one-third of the farmers in one Massachusetts county had been hauled into court to force them to pay their debts as well as the new taxes imposed by the Massachusetts government. Shays' Rebellion was a reaction to these conditions.
Had the delegates to the Constitutional Convention been representative of the people instead of the merchants, bankers, and plantation owners who composed it in secrecy in 1787, a much more democratic document would have emerged. In 1776, for example, backwoods farmers, laborers, artisans, and small tradesmen had taken control of Philadelphia and drafted a constitution that extended popular control to an extent "beyond any American government before or since." It created a single-house legislature and a weak executive (composed of twelve elected members of a Supreme Executive Council). Representatives had to stand for election every year before an electorate made up of anyone, propertied or not, who paid taxes. Compared to this plan, the Constitution should be regarded as a conservative, even counterrevolutionary document.
American history and civics texts reflexively praise the ingenious structure of the government that the Founders produced, yet the result was hardly democratic. Only the members of the House of Representatives were directly elected by the people. With each legislator representing a small geographic constituency, an effective check was placed against what James Madison called the "sudden passions and impulses" of the mass electorate. Senators were chosen by the states. Electors who chose the President were selected by state legislatures. Aside from the checks on popular democracy written into the Constitution, electoral participation was strictly controlled. From the constitutional period to the late 1820s, the states imposed property restrictions that limited the number of eligible voters, which had the effect of excluding from the electorate riffraff like Daniel Shays and his ilk.
Jacksonian democracy, which resulted in the dropping of property restrictions and the vast expansion of the electorate, eventually presented problems to a new generation of elites. By the last decades of the nineteenth century, giant industrial corporations dominated the economy. After the 1860s, an agrarian and labor rebellion against the new capitalists waxed and waned, keeping time with economic cycles. The Democratic party channeled protests against "big money" into the electoral arena by constructing a fragile coalition of midwestern farmers, southern white populists and laborers. In the presidential campaign of 1896, William Jennings Bryan led the Democrats in a campaign against the "money interests" symbolized by such financiers and industrialists as Andrew Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, James Fisk, and J. P. Morgan. The Democratic platform advocated a reduction of tariffs to force eastern businesses to lower prices and compete with imported goods. Bryan called for a paper currency backed by silver as well as gold that would, it was presumed, benefit indebted farmers and small businessmen. The Democrats also proposed a graduated income tax, a government takeover of land grants previously given to the railroads and public ownership of telegraphs and telephones. In the campaign of l900, when he was once again the Democratic nominee, Bryan assailed trusts and monopolies, urged the direct election of senators, opposed court injunctions against strikes, and favored the creation of a Department of Labor.
Elites in the South reacted to populism by disenfranchising much of the t electorate. The South's defeat in the Civil War had given blacks the vote, but by the early years of the twentieth century voter registration laws, literacy requirements, and poll taxes had effectively taken it away. Working-class and poor whites were discouraged from voting by these same reforms. In the North, voter registration and other reforms adopted during the Progressive Era reduced voting participation by foreign immigrants and by people on the lower end of the social scale. The consequences of these reforms are still felt; compared to other democratic nations, voter turnout in the United States is abnormally low. Proposals to increase electoral participation by easing voter registration requirements still meet with resistance from political elites.
Elites also have successfully managed democracy by manipulating voter choice and political debate. Political scientists have often blamed the objects of this manipulation-the voters-for the sorry state of political discourse in American politics... voters are quite adept at linking their votes to issues they consider important-despite being presented with very little concrete information in campaigns, which in any case are conducted within very restricted ideological confines.
... campaigning has become a significant growth sector of the American economy, and its ostensibly public function-to give the electorate a choice among candidates-has substantially been eclipsed. Elections have been privatized. Candidates employ a campaign industry of consultants, pollsters, and media specialists. The escalating cost of these kinds of campaigns have cast wealthy individuals and corporate interests as arbiters of the electoral process. By their contributions they winnow out candidates in the "hidden primary" that precedes the official nomination primary contests. Favored candidates who survive this stage then use money to buy the powerful technologies of modern campaigning. Thus election campaigns have been made a straightforward extension of corporate America, a growth sector of the capitalist economy.
Historically, the political parties served as mechanisms for mediating political competition among elites and for facilitating political communication between elites and the mass electorate. The parties also engaged in coalition building on behalf of political candidates and political agendas... the political parties have been eclipsed as the gatekeepers of the electoral process by professional campaign specialists and financial contributors. The fact that parties no longer serve their historic functions means that elections have been reduced to media-managed passion plays for the voters by professional campaign specialists and financial contributors.
Insulating Government from Accountability
... America's policy-making institutions have become remarkably isolated from electoral decisions. Presidential power has expanded partly because the presidency has become the center (or object) of a continuous, sophisticated image-making industry. Presidents do not now campaign only for election and reelection. Pollsters and image makers work full time between elections to sell presidential policies to the public. No other institution has such a capacity for organizing such a well-organized, sustained public relations campaign. When selling policy does not work, presidents are able to insulate themselves from public accountability through covert, ad hoc agencies and groups that define and implement policies without the consent or knowledge of Congress, the courts, or the public. Since the Second World War, there has been a tendency for all presidents to expand their power in this way by exaggerating threats to national security.
Congress also has become remarkably insulated from electoral decisions, an outcome of the fact that elections have become less and less competitive. More than half of the representatives in the House elected in 1870 were serving their first term. By 1900, only about one-third were newly elected, and this proportion fell to about 15 percent by the 1970s. In the 1986 congressional elections, 98 percent of incumbents who ran were reelected, and 99 percent were returned in 1988. Most representatives and senators have served for several terms, a fact that is virtually institutionalized in an era of high-cost media campaigns, when incumbency confers a decisive advantage in fundraising. Congressional representatives and senators derive most of their campaign funds from political action committees (PACs) representing corporations and large interest groups; and they spend their money on expensive media campaigns. Senators and congressional representatives have become accustomed to conducting much of their business outside the public's scrutiny, through hidden subgovernments in which they can more or less continuously negotiate with executive agencies and corporate and interest-group lobbyists.
Elites and the Democratic Ideal
Except as a device for legitimating their control, elites in the United States have little attachment to democracy. At first blush, this assertion may seem indefensible. There are no cases in which these elites have abrogated democracy through resort to a coup d'etat. The Constitution has never been suspended (though during the Civil War and the Second World War some of its provisions were ignored). It would appear that America's elites have convincingly demonstrated their support for democratic processes; they seem to have met a two-hundred-year loyalty test.
Actually, however, on many occasions America's elites have demonstrated a distrust and disdain for democracy to the point where they have been willing to destroy it when it seemed inimical to their interests-that is, when it threatened their political hegemony and control over wealth-producing institutions... In its self-proclaimed sphere of influence, the Caribbean and Latin America, the United States has repeatedly destroyed democracy and protected repressive regimes. Democracies based on mass participation have consistently been opposed, often violently, by U.S. political and corporate elites. Conversely, political systems pasted over with a transparent patina of democracy have been both supported and sponsored. These ostensible democracies are often as far removed from popular influence as are the military dictatorships that they often replace, but they are enthusiastically embraced as "democratic" by U.S. foreign policy elites. These cynical manipulations of democratic symbols can be used as a mirror that faithfully reflects the ideal of democracy embraced by America's elites. They tolerate democratic processes only if these processes pose no significant danger to their autonomy and political hegemony.
Must Democracy in America Be a Facade?
In his textbook written for college students enrolled in courses on American government, the political scientist Robert Dahl suggested several principles that may be used to judge whether a political system is genuinely democratic. He asserted that every citizen must have "unimpaired opportunities" to formulate political preferences. For these opportunities to exist, a formal educational process and a communications (media) system must present significant political alternatives so that citizens can make informed judgments by engaging in lively political debate. Second according to Dahl, citizens must be able to express their preferences. This takes place in the voting booth but also in other contexts, such as demonstrations and associational activities. And third, citizens must have their expressed preferences "weighed in the conduct of government." Electoral procedures must provide access to alternative sources of information and genuine competition among candidates. Incumbent officeholders must always be at risk of replacement when citizens preferences are at variance from their own
Citizens in the United States have neither an education system nor a media system that provides "unimpaired opportunities" for them to formulate and signify preferences. Neither liberal/conservative nor the Democratic/Republican spectrum of alternatives is sufficiently broad today to merit much confidence that competition among leaders for votes provides either meaningful political debate or a mechanism for mass influence over government. The decay of political parties and their replacement by a private-sector campaign industry has transformed elections into exercises in electronic advertising and information management. And, in any case, most of the government institutions that make both domestic and foreign policy now operate outside and beyond the reach of electoral politics.
The American political system amounts to a democratic facade. It is important 3 to note that this label should not be equated with dictatorship or the kind of authoritarian government in which participation is prohibited, governmental power is concentrated into one institution or person, and only a few people are allowed a political voice. The American system does respond to well-funded and highly organized mass-membership interest groups. When energetic social movements emerge, whether or not they are encouraged by some elite sectors, they can wrest important concessions. In some circumstances, elections have taken on considerable significance. But recent national elections have become little more than symbolic exercises. They function mainly as mechanisms for conferring legitimacy on the elites that "win."
This situation need not persist. American politics is not and never has been quiescent. Beyond the world of the textbooks, American history is the story of political struggles. The symbols of democracy manipulated by elites inspire ordinary people to work for political change. The most significant reforms in our time would open up the political system so that democracy would not only legitimate government, but also keep it accountable.
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