As someone said to me a little earlier today, I'm going to rattle a cage a bit. So I guess that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to talk to you about the use and abuse of culture. And I'm going to be fairly critical of the way these terms are used. The terms culture and particularly safety culture are very widely used by safety professionals and in business circles. And I'm very familiar with that term being a sociologist because culture is our bread and butter in sociology and in anthropology. It's been sort of the core concept in those disciplines for 100 years or more. But safety culture is very much a Johnny Come Lately. It's a new concept, really appeared on the scene late last century. It is very much a Johnny Come Lately and it's one of the most misused and abused of all these terms. Now I'm not the first to make that point. I think in the year 2000 there was a safety journal editorial that made the point that it was called culture's confusions and the author made the point that there is no agreement, confusion reigns about the meaning of these terms in safety and business circles. And nothing has changed. There continues to be nearly 20 years later. I like to use the term fog. I think that safety culture is a bit like a fog that comes down and eyes glares over and meaning disappears from the conversation when we start to use these terms. Okay, so I'm going to advance five propositions. The first one will be about six propositions. The first five will be about culture. Only the last will be about safety culture because most of the focus needs to be on the concept of culture itself. So the first question I want to raise is this. Is culture a characteristic of individuals or a characteristic of groups? When management seeks to change culture, what are they trying to do? They're actually trying to change the terms you hear are things like mindset. They're trying to change the mindsets of individuals. They're trying to change core personal values. This is the language that we hear about. So core personal values, mindset, clearly in the minds of these managers who are advocating cultural change, they see culture as a matter of individual values, individual characteristics. So here's the safety manager of one large company. He says safety performance has been achieved through our unwavering commitment and dedication from all levels in the organization to create a safety culture which is genuinely accepted by employees and contractors as one of their primary core personal values. We went on the aim is to create a mindset that no level of injury is acceptable. If that is the approach you have to culture, how do you achieve it via education clearly? If you're trying to change people's values and attitudes, some kind of educational process is what is required. And the implicit assumption here is that culture is the characteristic of individuals. That stands in stark contrast with the views of social scientists for whom culture is a characteristic of a group. And if it's a characteristic of a group, we must always specify which group we are talking about. When people talk about culture, you must ask, well, what the culture of whom? The culture of what group you're talking about here? Is it the work group? Is it the organization? Is it the corporation? The point is that each of these has its own culture. They may overlap, but they're not necessarily the same. And we need to understand that fact because that helps us to understand a lot of the complexity we see in subcultures within organizations. So let me draw out the implication of this notion or the implication of this distinction I'm making because there are some significant implications of the distinction. If culture is a characteristic of individuals, it means that individuals can take it from one group to another. If it's a characteristic of it like personality, a relatively invariant characteristic of an individual, then we can take it from one group to another. So here is another spokesman saying this. Real commitment is trying to inculcate a safety culture in his people. Real commitment to safety can't be turned on at the entrance gate at the start of the day and left behind at the gate on the way home. Safety and well-being of fellow employees is extended beyond the workplace in this company. A true commitment to safe behavior is developed by promoting safety. It's a full-time 24-hour attitude both on and off the job. And that whole focus depends upon the assumption that culture and safety culture is the characteristic of individuals. But if culture is the characteristic of a group, it's a group property, then the attitudes to safety may indeed change when we pass through the factory gate. One thing on one side of the gate, because we're in one group on one side of the gate, we may be in quite a different group on the other side of the gate. When we pass through the gate, the next thing we may do is go and join our friends in the Motorcycle Club or the Hang Gliding Club in which the attitudes to risk will be totally different from the attitudes to risk which are encouraged within the workplace. And in that external peer group, the culture there is quite different from the culture in the workplace. And the individual can move perfectly happy without even realizing what they're doing from one set of attitudes towards safety which are appropriate in the workplace to another set of attitudes which are appropriate in the Hang Gliding Club or the Motorcycle Club, where the aim of many people is to go as close to the edge as you can because that way you are demonstrating your skill. And for people who fall over the edge, the usual view is they were careless or they were silly, but it won't happen to me because I go as close to the edge as I can and I'm skillful so I stay on the right side of that edge. So the attitude to risk in that kind of context may well be absolutely different from the attitude in the workplace. So that's the proposition. The first proposition I want to recommend to you. The culture is the characteristic of a group, not an individual. And talk of culture must always specify the relevant group. If it doesn't, it's incomplete. You really haven't said very much until you specify which group it is you're talking about. The second proposition concerns the influence of national cultures. A nation is the group here, the relevant group is the nation, so we can talk about a national culture. There will be certain attitudes and values and behaviours which are characteristics of nations. Companies often complain, I hear them complaining quite bitterly, that they're fighting with a national culture which is overriding their own attempt to create a culture of safety within their organisation. That the national culture is more powerful than the organisational culture that they are trying to promote. So I hear for example big companies working in both Australia and P&G talking about Australian workers have a certain attitude to culture to rules and procedures which is one of resistance and they're not willing to comply with things unless they see the point. Whereas the workers in P&G will do whatever they are told and this they see as a demonstration of difference in national culture. Now I'm a bit sceptical of that analysis because I suspect there's another issue here and that is the extent to which those workers are vulnerable in their jobs and I think that a worker in P&G working for a big company is probably a lot more vulnerable than a worker in Australia is and so that may well account for those differences. But nevertheless let's assume there are these national differences. Now what I want to say to you is that there are some careful studies, good studies done by psychologists which demonstrate that organisational cultures can override national cultures if the organisation so wishes, if they put the energy into it. The conclusion of one of these studies was that perceived management commitment to safety exerts more of an impact on workforce behaviour and subsequent accident rates than do fundamental national values. I reiterate that was a careful study which over a lot of people looking at variations between national cultures and also variations between organisational cultures and it came to that conclusion that the organisational culture perceived commitment to safety is more important than national culture in determining their behaviours of individuals. And when you think about it, there are some examples which demonstrate the point fairly convincingly. Talking to a big multinational oil company some years ago they were about to build a very large vessel in a Korean shipyard and they were concerned that the fatality rate in Korean shipyards was very high and from their point of view quite unacceptably high and they tended to see this as a feature of Korean culture, national culture as opposed to the European, this was Shell actually, Shell's culture in the national context in which other European contexts in which Shell operates would not have accepted that high rates, high fatality rates which were apparently accepted in the Korean shipyards. And the question was how are we going to deal with this presumed national culture in Korea? Well to their credit they didn't accept that this was somehow or other something that was inevitable, inevitable. They said we are not going to accept that, we are going to demand that, and this was part of the contract that if anybody is killed in the shipyard that the senior manager in that area will be sacked immediately and the first time this happened that first manager was sacked immediately and the safety behaviour in that shipyard just changed like that, just like that. Because Shell had put in place a really powerful mechanism to ensure that it got the safe behaviour that it wanted. It was not intimidated by the notion of national culture. I don't believe in national, I mean I don't think, in fact this is an aspect of national culture, it's more an aspect of the level of economic development of countries because that same behaviour was very prevalent in the UK in the 19th century. So it's about where you are in terms of your economic development. But organisations, corporations can if they wish and if they put the energy into it and make the commitment they can create the cultures they want. So this is the next proposition then that organisations have it within their power to ensure that organisational cultures override national cultures. There's an interesting corollary here where sometimes the question is asked how long does it take to change a culture? And I was at a conference a little while ago where a very eminent speaker said oh it's hard to change the culture of a big organisation, it takes five to seven years. And I thought that's just nonsense. The fact of the matter is as soon as the behaviour of a top manager changes and there are consequences the culture begins to change. It's very quick, it's actually very quick if the people at the top mean it. They have to mean it. So I mean you don't get, you don't change the whole culture of the organisation overnight but there's a process that starts which is a rapid process. It takes place quickly. Okay, now the next one I want to talk about is the definition of culture. And of course there are numerous meanings of culture. In anthropology the term refers to the meanings which people attach to artefacts. That's a standard kind of definition in anthropology and often in sociology. Now within organisational context that's not as relevant. There are other kinds of meanings which we use. They divide roughly into two main approaches. Those which emphasise values and norms of groups. We're always talking about groups. The ideational elements if you like and on the other hand the practices, the things that people do, the organisational practices. And most definitions will emphasise one or the other. These are not contradictory definitions but there is a question about which of these definitions is useful to emphasise. And my view is that the most useful to emphasise is the way we do things around here. Now I realise that's a simplistic, well some might think it's simplistic definition but I actually think it's a very sophisticated definition which does incorporate most of what we need to think about when we're talking about cultures. So it's the practices. Now why do I say it's sophisticated? Well first of all around here, that's a reference to a group. Around here means it's vague but it's saying we need to think about well what is around here mean, is it the work group, the peer group, and what is, it could even be the nation. So there is a reference to the group involved or implied in that definition. That's the first point of sophistication about that definition. The second thing is it's collective, it's what we do. This is not about individual practices, it's the practices of the group. There's a collectivity involved here. And the third interesting thing is that there is a value element to that expression. Now I don't know what you think about this but when someone says this is the way we do things around here, can you hear a kind of normative statement this is the way we ought to do things? That's implied in that isn't it? If anyone says this is the way we do things, what you're hearing is not only do we do it this way but we ought to do it. So that's the normative element coming in there, the value element, the psychological element if you like. So that definition incorporates all its importance in my view in culture and it's a very helpful definition to think about partly because it helps us get away from the waffle, it helps us say alright what is culture, it's what we're doing around here, it's the practices, the collective practices. I've seen people say put up models and fancy models saying here is organizational practices here and that leads to a culture and I say no no no, the organizational practices are the culture. At the moment you say they lead to a culture you're asking well what is this culture and what is this thing? It becomes very nebulous. No the culture is the organizational practices, what we collectively do around here. So the normative element, this is the right way, this is the accepted way that we do things around here. How do we know that there is that normative component by the reaction? If there is because it's the reaction which demonstrates that this is a required behavior. I remember going to walk in being in a large headquarters of a large organization a few years ago and I was walking down a staircase and I had a bag in each hand and I certainly therefore wasn't holding the handrail and one of the managers who I was with said oh look would you like me to hold one of your bags as we go down here so you can hold the handrail? So I said thanks. So that was a reaction to my non-compliance with that company rule as you know most big companies stick rigidly to that rule and other similar sometimes trivial rules when they should be focused on more serious things. But it was rigidly adhering to that rule. I knew this was a rule because there had been a reaction to my non-compliance. It wasn't a punitive reaction but it was a reaction that made me realize that I better do the right thing around here. This is the way they do things around here. On the other hand on my campus the ANU there are signs saying in the pedestrianized areas cyclists must dismount. Well cyclists never dismount. And there are never any consequences. So what we say then is despite the university rules and the university's belief about what ought to be the case is not part of the culture because it's not part of the way things are done around my campus. I think there's another reason for preferring a definition which focuses on practices rather than trying to talk about mindset or values or those ideational components. And that is this. If you're really going to focus on practices they can be seen, observed and changed for. Management can seek to change those practices whereas values are much harder to change. Harder to see, identify, harder to change. Let me read to you the words of an organizational anthropologist who says this. Changing collective values of adult people in an intended direction is extremely difficult if not impossible. Values do change but not according to someone's master plan. Collective practices however depend on organizational characteristics like structures and systems and can be influenced in more or less predictable ways by changing those structures and systems. So this is a reason, a practical reason for focusing on practices rather than values. And I need to make the point that these two things are complementary that it's not about focusing on practices and ignoring values they go inextricably hand in hand and let me tell you why it is because there's a fundamental human characteristic that we don't like our behavior to be out of alignment with our values. We'll tolerate it to varying degrees but on the whole we like our behavior to be in alignment with our beliefs and our values. Psychologists call that cognitive dissonance. We don't like things to be inconsistent, our values to be inconsistent with our behavior. So the interesting thing then is that if you change the behavior and it's no longer consistent with the previous values of that person, those values will shift over time and come into alignment with the new behavior. So I'll give you a specific example that always strikes me as a powerful one. Many years ago now when seat belts were introduced people simply didn't wear them and so it was not necessary. From their point of view, safety didn't really require the wearing of a seat belt. That was their mindset, their attitudes, their values. However, then the seat belts make compulsory and people you started to get fine for not wearing your seat belt so of course you buckle up and then after a while that becomes the habit and becomes the way we do things around here is we buckle up the ultimate reason we do this is because if we don't we might get fined but now we're now faced with a situation we're routinely buckling up but we previously thought this was not necessary so now our values start to change our beliefs start to change this is probably a good idea that really it's going to save lives if we buckle up in this way. So that's an example of the way you change the behavior and then the values change, the thought processes will change and it's interesting this routine behavior so accepted that if you take off without your seat belt not only will your car beep at you but if you get over that fact you're likely to feel a little unsafe there's a strange feeling there's something not quite right here and you're likely psychologists have done some interesting work on that for a short period you're going to drive more safely and more carefully because your seat belt is up and therefore you're at greater risk. That doesn't last for very long but it's a demonstration of how this attitude now that wearing the seat belt is appropriate safe behavior that idea is now ingrained in our thinking. Okay so let's move on to the next proposition I want to talk about description versus explanation versus culture as explanation I think it's really important to think a bit conceptually about culture if we consider an idea that the idea of a culture of casual compliance I've often come across this phrase or something like when people are explaining an accident they say oh this organization had a culture of casual compliance now that's the best way to think of that is as a descriptive statement not an explanatory statement it's a descriptive statement and it's a statement that people feel no particular need to comply around here they comply with rules when they find it convenient to do so and not otherwise so that's I think a useful way in which we can talk about think of culture as a description now we can also treat it as an explanation what? an explanation for individual level behavior if if culture around here is that when we do work at heights we don't actually wear the appropriate safety harness then if I as a new worker say oh shouldn't we be wearing a harness when I go up there and I get poo pooed by my fellows then I will feel constrained not to wear that safety harness in the appropriate way so in that case the culture of that workplace does become an explanation for why I as a new worker adopt that behavior because cultures have this coercive, this normative effect on individuals it becomes an explanation then for my behavior so it's useful if you're trying to explain the behavior of an individual but if we want to go back a step and think about culture as a description of the collective behavior of the group it is a useful a useful description because it collects together into one category a set of behaviors which then you can start to say why is it that people are not complying in the other circumstance and so that in itself invites a higher level of understanding it invites a quest to explain why it is that we have this culture of casual compliance and as soon as you ask that why question you get into very useful kinds of explanatory factors like lack of supervision or incentive systems that are encouraging people to take shortcuts or the fact that the procedures themselves are very difficult to comply with their poor procedures and these are really useful explanations we can do something about it we can really do something about that on the other hand if we treat it as an explanation of individual behavior I'm saying this person didn't wear their seat belt because there's a culture in this group of not wearing their seat belt that then works against explanation this becomes a strategy for blaming all the people involved as soon as you start to blame people interestingly the quest to understand and explain goes out the window I'm not sure why that is it seems to be a fundamental psychological fact that if we can pin blame on somebody our quest to understand disappears so it's not very useful it's not a very useful strategy to say okay we're going to use culture as an explanation for this individual behavior because we identify a failure of the culture at the level of culture at the end of story it must not be the end of the story that's the point where we begin where we begin our explanation I think the proposition I want to leave you with at this point is this one that in the organizational context it's usually better to treat culture as a description of group behavior because that invites the why question why are they behaving in this way rather than as an explanation for individual behavior because that stifles the why question it terminates the the five why process which we should be adopting okay now the next thing I want to talk about is the sources of organizational culture then if we accept that we want to understand why this culture exists as it does what are some of the sources factors that give rise to the culture that we observe and the first one is structure the structure of the organization now I'm going to give you an example of how organizational structure creates culture in a different context not safety, not immediately about safety anyway and it's the culture of railways that one of the very powerful elements of the culture of railways is a powerful commitment to on time running to ensure equality trains are supposed to hit their targets within within three minutes so this is a very powerful culture that operates in most railway environments and what that often means is that trains are traveling faster than they should be they're traveling undangerously fast and in order to comply with that culture of on time running and the reason I'm interested in this is to go to New South Wales identify this culture of punctuality of on time running as one of the causal factors leading to that accident because the driver was speeding in order to catch up time so the question is how is that culture of on time running created now it's not just a mindset I've made this point so it's a set of practices it's a detailed monitoring there are sanctions against drivers who fail to meet schedules one driver at the inquiry described how when he, if he arrived late he was subject to quite intimidating questioning questions he would get from his supervisor were something like this you lost time son where, speak up, speak clearly in other words he'd done the wrong thing and he was being criticised for this and possibly punished for it and if his reason was not satisfactory he would have had to go to the factory a more senior manager spoke to the driver and extreme cases there would be a fine or suspension for the day all of that involves a massive organisational apparatus large numbers of people whose job it is to ensure that the trains run on time the figures are assembled twice a day and presented to the top management of the train company twice a day in relation to the morning peak hour and the afternoon peak hour so that's the first point it's your sense of how closely they are scrutinising the data the systems that they have to ensure that their trains run on time a massive organisational apparatus so that's a very clear example in the way a structure, an organisational structure will create a culture the culture of on time running okay so that's the first point the structure of an organisation will create the culture within the organisation culture and structure are somehow independent factors that have to be dealt with have to be balanced in some way what I'm putting to Israel a different proposition that the culture is actually created by the structure you get the structure right you resource it right and you'll get the culture you want so how you resolve that divergence of opinion maybe is up to you but there are different perspectives on these things okay so this but now the second interesting approach to how you create the culture is leadership leadership is often suggested as the way we approach create the culture we want and at the shine an organisational psychologist makes this point leaders create cultures and administrators live within this particular quote as a provocative sarcastic quote if you're happy to be a manager fine you live within the culture but if you're a leader you'll recognise you have the capacity to change it and how do leaders change cultures they create and change cultures by what they systematically pay attention to this means anything from what they notice and comment on to what they measure control reward and what they do with think about on time running how did those managers create that culture of on time running by measuring controlling and rewarding the behaviour they wanted so in other words these two approaches I'm talking about structure and leadership are actually consistent with each other what we have is the leaders if they want to create a certain culture of rewards and measurement and control and so on which will generate the culture that they want and once we understand if we see that as a causal connection a structure that corrects the organisational culture we can then go a step further and ask where does that organisational structure come from why are the leaders setting up that kind of structure and we'll often find that we need to go outside the organisation to understand why it has the structure and that it has in the case of railways why are they so concerned about punctuality there are enormous pressure exerted on them from outside the organisation there are various political and public channels to run on time and indeed there are regulators who may even penalise them for failure to run on time so the proposition I want to suggest to you and I'm going to read it slowly so that we can really think about it organisational cultures depend on the structures that organisations put in place to achieve important outcomes these structures reflect the priorities of top leaders the priorities of leaders in turn may depend on factors outside the organisation such as regulatory pressure and public opinion or shareholder pressure market pressure these are the best known examples of external pressure which will dictate the kind of structures that many organisations put in place now finally a few words about safety culture let me start with the definition which is widely quoted when anyone starts to think about safety culture this is probably the most widely quoted definition which then is immediately ignored let me explain what I mean here is the definition from the I think I have it here the International Atomic Energy Agency this was created after the Chernobyl nuclear accident where safety culture became quite a significant concept and idea and the agency produced this definition safety culture is that assembly of characteristics and attitudes which establishes that as an overriding priority nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance and obviously it is in the context of the nuclear accident but it is where safety is as an overriding priority is given an overriding priority then we can speak of a safety culture it is only when the organisation gives that as an overriding priority that we can speak of a safety culture now for most organisations safety is not an overriding priority many people will make the point that it cannot be otherwise the organisation would be out of business but for most organisations which are not strictly in business like aspects of the military and some other activities where their primary goal is not business that they can make a commitment to safety as an overriding priority at least in peacetime so for most organisations safety is not an overriding priority it follows that most organisations do not have a safety culture I hope you understand that as a matter of logic most organisations do not have a safety culture I remember hearing Judith Hackett making this very point at a previous conference that I went to that very few organisations can really claim that they have a safety culture in the sense that it is a culture where safety is the overriding priority yet people will give you that definition and immediately ignore it because they are talking about all organisations having a safety culture it may be a good safety culture or a bad safety culture or an indeterminate safety culture but when you listen to people talking they are assuming that all organisations have a safety culture now I don't know, as an academic I just can't stand that kind of inconsistency it just blows me away I just get really irritated by it but that's my particular cross to bear I guess one of many problems associated with the concept of safety culture here is how one review of the concept described the situation there is no agreed definition on the term safety culture and no definitive model of safety culture the literature is large, diverse, fragmented confusing and ambiguous there is little evidence supporting a relationship between safety culture and safety performance in a practical sense it is fruitless to continue to attempt to define safety culture rather than trying to change something as nebulous as safety culture the focus should shift to changing the organisational and management practices that have an immediate and direct impact on workplace safety now to which I say wow if I were a safety practitioner I would breathe a sigh of relief I can ditch this concept of safety culture and get on with what's important it's the practices in this organisation I don't need to worry about whether I call this culture or safety culture or I don't need any other language to deal with this I can get straight on to the issue of focusing on the organisational practices and getting them getting them right let me give you a practical example of what all this means I was studying BP, Texas City a big accident that BP had had a culture change program just a few months before the accident they were trying to change their safety culture in a particular way for those of you who know this language they were trying to encourage BP to be a high reliability organisation don't worry about that if you don't know what that's referenced to but what they were trying to do is to get people to be sensitive to warning signs and weak signals of the danger might lie ahead those words are in quotation marks because this is what they were actually trying the language they were using and people they went through workshops and people got pretty good at identifying warning signs and weak signals of danger lying ahead and started to report these things as they were supposed to but the problem was the organisation did nothing with the reports because it had not allocated any additional resources to respond to those reports and so people became rapidly very disillusioned with that whole approach the problem was there were no practices to match what they were trying to teach their workforce so that's what we need to get right, we need to focus on those practices in this case what do we do how do we respond to reports which our workforce provides to us think about these terms safety culture, organisational culture workplace culture, peer group culture aviation culture which is the odd one out I'm going to suggest to you well any suggestions as to which is the odd one out aviation aviation, any other suggestions well for me the I mean I can see why you say aviation but for me the one that's the odd one out is safety culture why because all the others are a reference to the group aviation is a reference to the aviation industries in that sense it's a group but safety culture is the only one that doesn't give a reference to a group, safety is an adjective and so immediately begin to see there's something funny about this concept but I've got to the point where I I've really abandoned the term all together when I wrote a book some years ago called safety culture and risk with a comma after safety as you can see on the screen even then that was 10 years ago I was disturbed about the concept but now I think if I had my way I would ban it from the English language so I'll just say that doesn't mean to say we need to I mean you can replace it very often you can just replace it with safety why don't we just say safety or the concept I like is operational excellence we can advocate a culture of operational excellence that's a much more powerful concept for me than a culture of safety so I'm not abandoning I think it's good to have language that we can use we need to get the right language so thank you very much


Hello everyone, welcome back to another Premiere Pro tutorial. In this one, I'm going to show you how to take a widescreen video, or a landscape video, or a 19 by 6 video, depending on how you want to call it, and how to make it a vertical video for TikTok, and make sure that the subject that you're looking at, or whatever you have that you're focusing on, is always in focus in the video. Let me show you what I'm talking about here. I've got, here's the raw footage. I've got this Puppardog here on the left side, just giving her. It's going to see his mommy. And you'll see here that at this point, the dog is in the left side of the video, and that would be out of focus, or out of frame, because vertical just takes the middle section. And then at this point, it's in the right side, and it would be out of frame. Fine. How did I do this on the right side here? I hit spacebar, and you'll see here that this is TikTok and Instagram friendly, and the dog is always in focus the whole way through. There we go. Right up until jumping into its mommy's arms. Let me show you how I did it. It's very, very simple. Okay. Now that you know that what I'm talking about, let's drag and drop some footage into the timeline like I've got here. If I scan through it, there's the puppy dog, and it's about to do its thing. But it's going to be out of focus if I go and just change the settings. So what you want to do is I'm just going to actually start it from here, a little bit easier to see. Okay. Good.  When you do that, you get some options. So one you really want to watch for is target aspect ratio. Change this to 916, vertical 916. Okay. When you do that, you also get motion tracking. You can do any of these three settings. I prefer slower motion. I find that does a better job, but you can experiment with either of them, and then just leave it on dope nest clips because that doesn't do too much. Now when I hit create, you're going to notice here that it doesn't look quite right yet, but it's just doing some thinking after a few seconds. It's now done it so that it's in vertical. So this is a TikTok friendly video. The dog or whatever object that you're trying to focus on is in focus the whole time, and that is how you do it.  And you've got yourself a brand new perfectly set up video. Thanks for watching. Ton more stuff coming up. Stay tuned.


Hey, hey, hey doesn't shave at the keto pro here right on we're gonna talk about media MCT 1 4 3 median chain fatty acids This is a really cool product. This was formulated by one of the top brain doctors really big into the age decline and preventing age decline of the brain and how to get the high quality nutrients to the brain and It's really cool. Now if you're just watching this for the first time Just catching this video go up to the top and grab the link around keto Nat keto Nat is that foundational product This is a support to that still awesome product love it use it every single day So what is it? Well first off is MCT 1 4 3. What does that mean? 1 4 3 means I love you back in the old pager days. That's kind of before my time a little bit So 1 4 3 I for 1 4 love 3 you the letters right 1 4 3 I love you and if the story behind this is really special and it has to do with the lady a doctor that is Committed to finding a formulation for her husband that was going through some challenges and so what's in it? It's in who should use it? Well, it's median chain fatty acids but it's formulated in a very specific way with a combination of coconut oil and Coaline which is really good for brain everything is targeted for enhancing brain and cognition There's some really good science from Dr. Steven Cunean about brain health after we get a little older What happens to our brain and how ketones are really vital for providing this energy? So if you're right now above the age of 30 and go on my my focus is off and forgetful in the room I don't have that sharpness. I don't I'm like I don't know if my mind's working as well as it should You got to try this but you want to do something you want to add it to this not you don't have to add them together But meaning have this in the morning always start with your ketone at And they said if you if you don't know a lot about ketone that definitely check the link above And that's the foundational product and then you can start adding this in you can actually add it to your ketone We added to smoothies for our kids low-carb smoothies we make we added to you can cook with it You can make eggs with it you get added on top of salads I sometimes just put it in my mouth and I just squish it around and Because coconut oil has a lot of antiviral effects to it. So it's super super super universal people even put it on their skin It's an amazing support product. I highly recommend it You might have it once a day a one-serving today two-serving day You can split up and do small servings and it's a great tool this to help improve cognition is even a little bit more So y'all if you don't have this get it start implementing into your in your routine and whoever invited you to follow this If you don't know how to get it get back to them and they'll hook you up They'll get you set up and remember it's a support to the amazing ketone ad That's what it's designed for and so and if you're following me and you have questions Hit me up. Remember we're a huge team. We want to help each other out So make sure you get back to whoever invited you and or reach out to me And I'll get you all set up or whoever invited you. I'll help you find that person. So y'all I Love you. Cheers You


Malayalam is not just a language, it is a culture, culture, it is history, it is respect, it is all these things. I went and any Indian person who says one language, one history, one culture does not understand India. Because there are many many histories in India, many languages in India, many religions in India, many ideas in India that are all helping build this country. To impose one idea, one language, one leader of this country is an insult to every single individual. There are millions of leaders in India in every sphere of life. They make this country great. They want to get rid of the constitution, they want to get rid of the democratic process, so they can crush all other ideas. Why should Kerala be ruled from Kerala? Kerala should be ruled from here, from the streets, from the villages of Kerala. In fact that is what the people of Kerala have taught India, that the closer the government is to the grass roots, the closer the government is to the people, the more effective. When you give education to the people directly, you let them make choices, they will make the right choices. How does Delhi know what a school in Kerala should be about? How does Delhi know what the people of Kerala want? So this is the ideology, brother, brother, brother, this is the, he is okay. What has happened? Are you okay? So that is the fight that is taking place at the national level. There is no need for Indian people to disrespect each other. The country can be great only if it is united and working together. There are also local issues in Vayananth. People are struggling here for two or three big reasons. Human-animal conflict. I recently went and saw the family of a person who was killed by an elephant. Night travel ban and also the medical college. Now I don't understand why it is so difficult for the state government to deliver a medical college to Vayananth. This is not a political issue. This is not an issue where one party should be fighting the other party, this is the people's issue. There is no ideology over here. You ask any LDF worker in Vayananth whether there should be a medical college, you will say yes. You ask the same question to any UDF worker, you will also say yes. I have written letters to the chief minister and I don't understand why they just don't do it. It just delays and delays and delays. One excuse after the other excuse after the third excuse. I think the UDF will have to come to power in Kerala before this medical college is done. The night travel ban and the human-animal conflict is a complicated issue. We are absolutely committed to making sure that these two issues are resolved. I am not going to stop until these two issues are resolved. The problem is that we don't have a government in Delhi right now and we don't have a government in Kerala. These are the issues that we are fighting for. I am really thankful for the love and affection that the people of Vayananth have given me from the day I arrived here. My relationship with the people of Vayananth is a loving and affectionate relationship. It is like you are like my family. So in the family there are people who might have different political ideas. I am sure there are some people here from the LDF and many people from the UDF. For me you are all my family members. If I meet a person I might say I don't agree with your ideology. I will discuss why our ideology is better than yours.  And if I talk to you I will always talk to you with respect. Because you are also my family member. So thank you very much once again. I look forward to seeing you again soon. Also all the UDF workers who are working really hard in the election, all the UDF leaders. I would like to thank you very much.


Hello everyone. In the previous lecture of nuclear reactions, we discussed the energetics of nuclear reactions. We discussed the Q value, the threshold for a nuclear reaction, whether it is for a charge-parking reaction or interdenture reaction. So, though the energetics, the feasibility of the reaction was studied in that part. In this lecture, I will be talking about the cross-section for the nuclear reaction, how to determine the probability of a nuclear reaction and what are the different types of reactions that take place when you use neutron and charge particle as subtypes. So, let us talk about the cross-section. The cross-section which we denote as sigma is a measure of the probability of occurrence of a nuclear reaction. So, that is the point to note that how, what is the probability of occurrence of a nuclear reaction which will be represented by sigma. Now, to talk in very simple terms, it is the cross-sectional area that the target nucleus will offer with the projectile. It is a very simplistic way of telling the cross-section. In fact, from that only the cross-section derives its units of one bond is 10 power minus 24 centimeter square. So, the nuclear dimensions are of the order of Fermi's 10 power minus 13 centimeter and so, the R0, the radius constant is 1.4 10 power minus 13 centimeter and the radii of nuclei will be R0 raised to one-third. So, that will be about 10 to the power minus 12 and so on. So, accordingly that nuclear area, the cross-section of a nucleus, if you just cut the cross-section, the circle pi r square will be of the order of 10 to the power minus 24 centimeter square and the unit of cross-section that is why it is called as a bond, when bond is 10 power minus 24 centimeter. So, it is a very simple way of telling the cross-section. There are many more things which will come in actually defining the cross-section of a nuclear reaction as we go along. So, how do we use the nuclear reaction, cross-section in the nuclear reactions when we want to write the rate of a reaction? So, depending upon whether we are doing neutron induced reaction or charge particle induced reactions, the terms that come into the formulation of a nuclear reaction rate will be slightly different which will I try to highlight here. So, the rate of a reaction for neutron induced reaction is called n sigma phi, where n is the number of target atoms per centimeter cube. In fact, actually it is not that way, it is total number of target atoms. n is the total number of target atoms because in case of reactor neutron, suppose you have a reactor neutron, in that target is exposed. So, all the atoms in the target are exposed to neutrons. And so, n sigma phi, n is the number of target atoms, sigma is the cross-section. So, we need the sigma square, the temperature square and phi is the flux. So, how many neutrons are going through a unit area per second, that will define the phi. So, n into sigma into phi flux is the rate of a reaction, that is the rate at which, so if you see here, the units will match atoms into centimeter square into neutrons per centimeter square per second. So, it will be centimeter square into square, it will be atoms per second. So, this many atoms are formed per second, that is the rate at which the reaction takes place. In the case of charge particle induced reaction, the charge particle induced reaction will be having sort of a now, if you have a target, if you do not have a sea of charge particle, but it will have a beam, it will bombard that target. So, the in the target only small area is exposed to the beam. And therefore, the number of target atoms is not defined quote number of atoms, but it is the target atoms per centimeter square, unit area, how many atoms are present in the target. Sigma is the cross-section and now beam, the target, whatever is following of the beam and the target is now not per centimeter square per second, but it is the number of particles falling on the target per second. So, there is a slight change in the units of flux or the particle intensity. In the case of neutron, it was flux, neutrons per centimeter square per second. In the case of part charge particle, it is the particles per second. So, both the units, both the reaction rates ultimately will come over to be atoms per second. You can see here n sigma i will be number of atoms per centimeter square into centimeter square into particle per second. It will be again atoms per second. In both the cases, whatever way the units of target atoms and the flux or the intensity, we always end up with the n sigma phi or n sigma is rate of the reaction. Now, as I mentioned that the cross-sectional area offered by the nucleus target nucleus projectile is a very simplistic way of defining the projection. Essentially, if you see when the projectile hits the target, depending upon the distance from the center of the target nucleus, there will be different angular momentum involved. So, in actually, when you define the nuclear reactions, we have particles carrying certain amount of angular momentum. That angular momentum will be defined in terms of the r into p, where r is the distance, radial distance from the target center. Let us say this is the target center and this is the projectile going. So, this is like the r.  So, b is called the impact parameter and p is the momentum of the particle. So, r cross p is the angular momentum. r into linear momentum is called the angular momentum and angular momentum is a quantity in nuclear reactions, which dictates the different types of mechanisms of the nuclear reaction. So, p, the distance, the vertical distance from the target center to the wave at which the projectile is coming will call as the impact parameter and this impact parameter essentially is the r into sin theta. So, this is like, if it is here, then this is the r and this is theta. So, this is the r sin theta is the impact, the vertical distance of target center to the distance of the projectile from the center. Now, the angular, the linear momentum can be written in terms of the de Broglie wavelength h cross by lambda cross, where lambda cross the reduced wavelength of the projectile and the angular momentum can be written as lh cross. So, essentially angular momentum in terms of linear momentum can be now written as lh cross equal to bh cross by lambda cross and so, the impact parameter b equal to l into lambda cross. So, this impact parameter b essentially is a classical quantity at what distance from the target center the projectile will hit the target center, where it will hit the target, that will be the impact parameter and l is the how much of the angular momentum projectile will bring in the units of lambda cross. So, essentially the classical you can see the b can take any value and so, the angular momentum can take a continuous values. But then you know that the angular momentum is quantized in quantum systems and so, quantum mechanically certain values of b will correspond to one value of n. So, l can vary from 0, 1, 2 and so on h cross. So, you try to have a correlation between the continuously varying impact parameter and the discrete values of l which I had tried to explain using this. So, this is suppose this is the target nucleus here cross section of the target and if that projectile hits at the center within this radius that is the radius of one lambda cross that we will call l value equal to 0, we call it a S wave particle. If it is within the next one l lambda cross l equal to 1, l equal to 2, l equal to 3 and so. So, depending upon at what distance the projectile is hitting the target dps from the center we can bring in different amount of angular momentum and the one which is at the maximum of the target radius will be the l max. So, let us now try to calculate the cross section for a particular l value. So, it is like the annular area of this annulus. So, from 0 to l equal to 1 we will say l equal to l equal to 1 lambda, 0 lambda to 1 lambda to 2 lambda that is l equal to 1. So, this is what I try to calculate here the angular momentum dependent cross section sigma l. So, for a particular concentric ring the sigma l will be area of the outer circle upon area of the minus one upon area of the inner circle.   So, it will be pi lambda cross square 2l.  So, there is a transmission coefficient even for the neutron there is a change in potential and hence there is a transmission coefficient factor that is called that is defined in terms of the transmission coefficient. T l is called the transmission coefficients of l particular l value. So, now, this is the actual definition of the cross section lambda sigma l equal to pi lambda cross square 2l plus 1 d l. So, let us now try to see for the total reaction cross section will be the sum of the angular momentum dependent cross section for all l values up to l max. So, l max will be r by lambda cross. So, we can sum the. So, the reaction cross section sigma r will be pi lambda cross square sum over all the 2l plus 1 values 2l plus 1 is for 1 l value. So, sum over sigma of 2l plus 1. Let us forget about the t l value for the for the moment and so, we can write it as summation over 2l and summation over n 0 to l max will be l max plus 1. So, when you say 0 to l max. So, when we sum 1 that many times we become l max plus 1. When you sum l over this one you will get 2 into summation of l. So, now, you can write this as pi lambda cross square summation of l will be n n plus 1 by 2. So, it will be 2 2 is outside l max into l max plus 1 by 2 plus l max plus 1. And so, now you can you can see l max is square plus 2l max plus 1.   So, it will become r pi lambda cross square l by lambda cross plus 1.  You will have pi r plus lambda cross square. So, sigma r since and is pi r plus lambda cross square by summing over the sigma l values from 0 to l max. Now, let us discuss these cross sections for neutrons and charge particles separately because the cross section varies in a different fashion for neuter particles like neutrons and the charge particles. So, just now we saw sigma was in the thing, but pi r plus lambda cross square. So, for the case of neutrons sigma n can be as well written as pi r plus lambda cross square r plus lambda cross square. So, here the rate of the reaction then will be in terms of n sigma phi where n is the number of target atoms for neutrons, phi is the flux in terms of neutrons per centimeter square. Now, let us go a little bit deep into the how the neutrons are captured by the nucleus. See for a neutron induced reaction which are always exoergic. Exoergic means whenever a neutron is captured by a nucleus energy is released equivalent to the binding energy of neutron in that nucleus. So, neutron plus target nucleus has higher mass compared to the the compound will that will be formed. So, suppose you write this is the energy term. So, this is the mass of the neutron neutron plus target and this is the mass of the nucleus that is formed. For example, if you say neutron plus 59 cobalt then this is 60 cobalt needs a ground state. So, when the neutron is captured by cobalt 60 this much energy is the binding energy that is released and so, this cobalt 60 will be excited with this much energy of the rock 7 to 8 MeV and this excited nucleus then can emit by gamma rate or it can have other channels also. So, neutron induced reactions particularly the neutron capture reactions when a neutron is captured by a nucleus they are always exoergic and the energy released is equivalent to the binding energy of neutron in that nucleus. The cross section for such reactions neutron induced reactions you can see here sigma n is decreasing with the increasing energy of neutron in fact it is called the 1 by V where V is the velocity of neutron. So, neutron induced reaction cross sections the low energy neutrons are having highest cross section I will I will be explaining this very soon and at fact and intermediate energy there are resonances these resonances correspond to the nucleus populated in certain discrete energy states. So, this is like a resonance when the neutron energy is such that the nucleus component population certain energy level then you would get a jump in the cross section when it is somewhere here where there is no level cross section will not be that much high. So, now the high this cross section is falling with the increasing energy of neutron at low energy the neutron wavelengths wavelength of the neutron is lambda cross is much larger than the nuclear radius you know that neutrons are used for neutron diffraction studies where the neutron diffraction means the crystals dimensions of the auto angstroms. So, a low energy neutron thermal neutron will have the wavelength of the order of dimensions of the atoms. So, this is much larger than nuclear dimensions and therefore, you will find that the as the energy of the neutron is increasing wavelength is decreasing and so, the cross section is also decreasing to put it in a very simple way. So, for low energy neutrons in fact, the the now you can see here this is the target nucleus then l equal to 0 because host wavelength itself is more than the dimension of the nucleus and so, you will have mostly 0 wave as wave neutrons. So, process can be written as pi lambda cross square t0 l equal to 0 and as the energy of neutron increases lambda cross the reduced wavelength decreases therefore, the cross section is decreasing the energy of neutron. So, what are the different types of reactions that can occur with the neutrons most important reaction that takes place is called the neutron capture or it is called the radiative capture. Radiative capture means when the neutron is captured neutron is captured by a nucleus that the nucleus that is formed compound nucleus will emit gamma rays. So, that is the radiation gamma radiation and so, neutron capture followed by emission of gamma rays is called radiative capture and this kind of reactions are most common with thermal neutrons. And as you will always see that when you add a neutron to a stable nucleus we are increasing the neutron to proton ratio and therefore, most of the products of n gamma reactions are beta minus active because we are producing a neutron rich isotope. For example, 197 gold n gamma 198 gold and this 198 gold will be beta minus active to 2 decay to 198 mercury. So, with the heavier nuclei like cobalt, gold, uranium, tin, lead the n gamma is the most common reaction, but when it comes to low z target nuclei sulfur, silicon, magnesium then you will find the reactions where charge particles are emitted with LP reaction neutron capture followed by proton emission, neutron capture followed by alpha emission. So, these kinds of reactions are possible with the low z target nuclei because the coulomb barrier for emission of protons and alpha are not very high. Whereas for heavy nuclei, the coulomb barrier for emission of alpha and protons are quite high and so, such heavy nuclei do not undergo n gamma type reaction, but the light nuclei can undergo n gamma type this n alpha and NP type of reactions. When you go to still heavier elements like actinides then the thermal neutrons can induce even fission because fission barriers are low for actinides and so upon capture of a neutron like 235 uranium even thermal neutrons can induce fission in the heavy nuclei. Now, when you see depending upon the energy the type of reaction that take place with neutrons, neutrons are classified into thermal neutrons having energy less than 0.5 electron volt, epithermal neutrons, epithermal means the a region where no the it is slightly higher than thermal and there are resistances in the cross sections as a function of energy of neutron 0.5 electron volt to about KV and then more than 1 KV are called the last neutrons. So, you can see here that thermal neutrons are most reactive and this classification actually has come from cadmium. The cadmium is absorbing all the thermal neutrons. So, if you wrap a sample with the cadmium file all thermal neutrons are captured and then the sample will not see the thermal neutrons. So, then from that the specification has come that if it is less than 0.5 EV then the energy that is called as the thermal neutrons. So, we classify it into two, three zones low energy zone where it is 1 by V law the resonance region and the half neutron energy region. Thus, we explain why cross section 40 Newton interaction follows 1 by V if you recall we said 1 by V law and then the resonances. So, we try to explain using the transmission of neutron through the potential well. The cross section for the neutron total perception is pi after lambda cross square and for low energy neutrons we said that lambda cross is much larger than the radius of the nucleus. So, you can actually set up an equation for transmission of the neutron. Neutron is like a wave and going to hit the nuclear potential of the nucleus. So, at initially the you have a plane wave it is to ikx and once it is captured the energy of neutron is much higher. So, the inside the nucleus is called e raised to i capital Kx. So, there is a wave number of the neutron is changing from small k to capital K as it is transmitted through the potential well and the transmission coefficient is written as transmitted flux upon the incident flux. So, general scattering theory of neutron actually can be used to find out the transmission coefficient and this transmission coefficient can be in fact, if you solve this scattering equation for the S wave neutrons because the for low energy neutrons the angular momentum is 0. It can be written as 4 small k capital K upon small k plus capital K square and since capital K is much larger than small k. So, inside the nucleus neutron energies are almost 20 30 MeV and outside it will be thermal neutron. So, you can neglect the small k inside the nucleus. So, this small k can be neglected the spectrum of capital K and so, it becomes sigma n pi lambda cross square 1 k will cancel. So, small k upon capital K and this small k nothing, but 1 to velocity. So, k is actually proportional to velocity lambda cross square proportional to 1 by V square lambda cross h cross by MeV and so, it becomes net result is 1 by. That explains the sigma neutron varying as 1 by V at low energy neutrons from the transmission coefficient. Then for the resonance region, Breit and Wigner gave a formula for resonances for N gamma reaction which is in terms of pi lambda cross square the spin of the compound nucleus the neutron is half spin 2 N plus 2 S 2 into a neutron spin plus 1 and the spin of the target nucleus 2 I a plus 1 they with width for the neutron decay to gamma decay plus upon resonance energy epsilon 0 minus epsilon minus epsilon 0 these are the energies and the gamma by 2 gamma is nothing, but you know gamma n plus gamma. So, these are the gamma actually they are the if you see the nucleus the certain level have their widths that levels are called gamma for neutron decay and gamma for gamma decay there are the widths of the nuke levels. So, the resonance formula essentially is quite accurately predicts the projections for the new resonances for neutron induced reactions. So, we will not go into details, but I thought it is good to tell them tell you that the resonances also can be explained by Breit Wigner formula and the 1 by V also can be explained by the transmission coefficient problem. Now, let us come to the charge particle induced reaction the scenario is different in the case of charge particles because there is a coulomb well here and so, you try to consider a charge particle coming to a target nucleus. So, there will be a different types of potentials playing it play one in the nuclear potential which is attractive at short distances and there is a coulomb potential which is repulsive all over. So, when the projectile is coming close to the target nucleus it will experience the coulomb repulsion of the target nucleus which starts becoming positive at a longer distance and as it is coming closer it will experience the attractive potential to nucleus potential. So, the sum total of the repulsive and the attractive potential will be this dashed line and this shows a barrier which is called as the fusion barrier. So, for the light charge particle like proton and alpha mostly we can say the coulomb barrier this can be called as a coulomb barrier, but when you take heavy ions into picture then the nuclear potential becomes significant and so, we call it fusion barrier. So, right now we will use this as a coulomb barrier. So, this is the barrier the projectile has to cross. So, now you see at from infinity a charge particle is coming and as it is coming down it is momentum. So, this is the centromass energy momentum is decreasing and at contact you know the momentum may become 0. So, this is what I try to show here at a distance of project approach the momentum is root 2 mu ECM minus BC. At infinity it is 2 mu ECM, but when it is coming close to the target nucleus the coulomb barrier will start getting felt and so, it becomes 2 mu ECM minus BC. You can take that 2 mu ECM square root the power half outside. So, you are left with 1 minus BC upon ECM to the power half. So, this is the momentum at infinity and this is the momentum at contact. The angular momentum at infinity at contact has to be conserved and you take the help of this formalism to calculate l max at contact r into mu 2 mu ECM 1 minus BC upon ECM. So, this is r into p r cross p is the angular momentum. So, I have replaced this momentum linear momentum at contact with l max equal to r into that momentum.  So, you can say pi lambda cross square l max square 1 can be neglected with respect to l max. So, now, pi lambda cross square sigma r equal to l max can be written as r by lambda cross or r p by h cross. This p is nothing, but the momentum at infinity momentum of contact. So, momentum at infinity into the 1 minus BC upon ECM and this is nothing, but the 1 by lambda cross square momentum at infinity. So, this will cancel with this. So, you are left with pi r square 1 minus EC upon ECM. So, the cross section for chart particle induced reaction you can see here with ECM as the energy of the projectile is decreasing it will go up like this. So, this is the BC. Beyond below BC the cross section is 0 and above BC the cross section will increase with increasing energy of the central mass. So, this is what with the cross section for chart particle induced reactions are increasing beyond BC process for neutral reaction decrease at 1 by V then absolute momentum increases. So, the chart particle induced reactions typically know when the projectile is coming it can bombard with target for the compound nucleus and let us try to see what are the exact synergies of the compound nucleus. So, you calculate Q value mass of alpha mass of niobium 93 mass of it is this niobium 97 this will be plus 2.437 MeV and you can calculate the coulomb barrier by 1.4382 z1, z2 1 r0 a raise to 1 third a1, 1 third plus b2, 1 third you can substitute to get 14.05 MeV. So, let us try to calculate what is the minimum energy of the alpha that will be inducing the reaction or the threshold for the coulomb barrier. So, this is the energy available in the central mass it will be into mass ratio 97 upon 93 compound nucleus upon target. So, alpha particle should have 14.65 MeV energy to induce this reaction this is the threshold for coulomb barrier. Let us take a case of 30 MeV alpha particle which is higher than the coulomb barrier. So, in such a case exact energy of the compound nucleus will be ECM plus Q, ECM plus 30 MeV alpha ECM into 93 by 97 plus Q value will be 31.2 MeV exact synergies. So, the compound nucleus 9 to 7 form a technician will be formed with an exact energy of 30 MeV and then this exacted compound nucleus can emit neutrons, protons, gamma rays depending upon the emission barriers and the angular momentum states ability. So, charged particle induced reactions a hot excited compound nucleus can emit then gamma ray, neutron, proton there is a competition between emission of different types of particles. So, now you can have proton induced reactions like oxon 18, PN, chlorine 18, cadmium 111 PN, indium 111. So, these are the reactions used to produce useful isotopes like chlorine 18 or propogeton emitter indium 111 in nuclear medicine zinc 658, P2N, P3N, P3N if there are some of the useful isotopes how they are produced proton in bombardable target and that compound nucleus emitting neutrons. Neutron induced reactions you can have Dp, D alpha, Dn and alpha induced reactions you can have alpha 2N, alpha 3N and alpha 4N types of reactions. So, these are the kinds of reactions that can happen with the charged particles. The charged particles forming a compound nucleus and the compound nucleus can emit neutrons, protons, alpha depending upon the exact energy and the available emission barriers for different particles. So, I will stop here and then discuss next in the next lecture how to determine the cross-sectionist experiment. Thank you.