We now come to the specific articles that form the bulk of this constitutional document. These are articles through which a government is authorized to exist. The written provisions address how the various elements of government will receive power from we the people, and are both specified authorities and denied actions beyond stated limitations. These articles set a government in order, setting duties upon its parts to fulfill stated purposes in the larger agreement. This new government is also to function within the self-governing purposes documented in the preamble. These are the source of the agreement that brings it into existence. Of specific note, this article is not some separate authorization providing absolute powers and suggesting limitations upon a ruling group of government leaders. That is not the written intent, nor the expressed will of the people in whose name this document is signed. I would not have to mention this except for the common challenges to citizen ownership of this nation through government actions. It is further challenged by the use of internal processes that interfere with or even deny representation to we the people. Part of the purpose of this course is to empower future citizens to more perfectly govern themselves, to have a common base of knowledge in our founding document so that they can come to union in assuring the legal government of the United States effectively serves its people in accord with its constituting instrument. The first article of our agreement is focused on initiating, empowering, and limiting a legislative body within this new government, and this body is given legislative purposes in accord with the agreement of we the people. The purpose for there being a legislature is to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The provisions within this article must be seen as our means to meet our public purpose in having legislature the purpose of we the people in coming to agreement. As this is presented, ask yourself if you can honestly say that you are agreed as part of the people of the United States upon the provisions of this article. That is more than your personal approval. It is general agreement that includes your friends and classmates. Section 1 assigns all legislative powers to two houses of Congress. The term legislation addresses the passing or enabling of laws. Laws are instructions or directions by government that are to be honored by people or that pursue the legal purposes of government. This has to start with the common law as a source of legislation. It is acceptance of the laws that forbid common law crimes and misdemeanors. It includes general acceptance of tort law forbidding us to injure one another, and it includes institution of justice, such as through courts and police. It includes having all these serve us. It also includes common law support for business, the laws of contract and agency. Legislative power is also limited in that it cannot otherwise do what people cannot do on their own. It has to first recognize our authority to do things as citizens before we can do things in our name. Our government, as created and empowered under the authority of this document, has only the powers and authorities we can delegate to it. One immediate and ongoing violation of these principles is seen in the passage of laws that hold people accountable, even though the laws are written to be unclear in effect, or so complicated and involved that we, the people, are not expected to understand their provisions. Consider our tax code now thousands of pages in length. Do our congressmen read and understand all the details in such a massive code? Are each of us expected to read and understand it? What chance is there that this tax code could represent your purposes in operating our government? Here is the guiding principle. If it does not represent you as a sovereign citizen, it is not going to represent you as a part of we the people. We have drifted a long way from having a government that represents a sovereign people. Authority to legislate is not granted to see to government-determined purposes, only to see to the agreed purposes of we the people. Section 2 addresses the House of Representatives as a body that is to intentionally represent the people of the several states. Being apportioned by the number of people being represented is an intentional effort to assure equality among those who are to be members of this body. This subject was equal representation of citizens as individuals. We have an immediate challenge to any procedures, practices, or laws that would give one member of the House of Representatives more or greater representational effect than any other. Granting more effect to senior members, those who have longevity in their membership, is a probable error, as is granting special representational effect to a speaker of the House. Neither should committee assignment be any sort of limit on the activities of a representative in saying to the interests of the citizens they represent. Such assignment can set the duties upon various members of the House for taking an active role in committee actions, but cannot legally establish additional representational duties or limits. This becomes a major challenge when the House as a body makes a representational decision on behalf of all the people by voting majority. That permits a majority of represented citizens to act over the objection of a large minority, denying the very purpose of unity. While this was at the time of the original signing well within the common vision of how English government was to operate, its functional override of the representation of citizens has had challenging consequences. This is perhaps most clear in spending decisions, where the one representative who addresses a citizen is unable to represent them in spending what has been collected from that citizen to operate government. This has resulted in legislation to expend government resources serving some few areas of the nation, without hearing the voice of those citizen owners who provide the funding. It has resulted in spending resources to support a department of education that delivers no value to the public. When originally encountered, this may seem a challenge, but consider what value you receive from this organization. If you do not receive some product of its effort that you value as a citizen, then neither do you receive it as a member of the public. Again, funding such government efforts would not have been a challenge at the founding of the nation, because they would have been considered normal government behavior in the English system of law. These challenges have developed as the nation has grown. The institutionalizing of the representative bodies with professional politician leaders coming into what had been initiated as citizen representatives has shifted emphasis from representation to security and public employment. The institutionalizing of political parties is another major influence that has grown into an effective government business. Protecting the continuation of political leaders in office has become a political industry, and that is a challenge of having non-citizen political parties being given a voice in the House of Representatives that is only supposed to represent citizens. As will be examined under the Common Law Foundation for Agency, the political party is not the agent of the people who adhere to its general party platforms. It is the elected leadership that is supposed to represent citizens in the House of Representatives. For perspective, the methodology in this section of Article 1 addresses what was a good and effective means for collecting and presenting the votes of citizens as to elections. It describes a process for a citizen's election of those who will represent them. It provides a reasonable means, and probably as good a means as was unavailable, for assuring that the members of the House of Representatives actually would strive to represent their constituents. We have the technology and methodology to do a much more effective election effort, but that would require an amendment to this constitutional agreement. A well-designed change could give citizens greater voice, greater ability to steer and direct their representatives. But again, such changes would not serve the interests of non-citizens who have come into influence, nor would it support longevity in the public employment within the current political system. Accordingly, the now awkward election system is still in place. It will probably continue until the people change it into something that better serves the population of self-governing citizens. The specific address of impeachment in this section is significant, in the sense of going to the purpose of representation. Even as the writing in this section includes legislation, it also includes prosecutorial duties for managing the larger function of government. As the most representative body within this government, the House of Representatives is given the duty to watch internal operation of government and to take official action in prosecuting any government officers who would challenge the purpose stated in our constituting agreement. By its ordering in this section, impeachment is made a fundamental purpose, even as legislation is a fundamental purpose. It is not some special power as in managing our monetary system, but is a fundamental duty to be performed on behalf of we the people in fulfillment of the purposes set in the preamble. Section 3 addresses the existence and membership of a Senate, a House of State representatives. Again, in the environment in which this constitutional agreement was signed, it contains a certain amount of confusion as to the status of the colonial governments. The people of this revolution did not fully accept them as sovereign bodies, and yet they were functioning as central governments for public services and their recognized territories, giving them a voice in the Senate through representatives actually made these state government bodies stronger, giving them greater official recognition. The potency of the state governments must be understood in the context of this making a provision of an agreement where government powers are delegated from sovereign citizens. It recognizes that these same citizens are also to be the owners of their state governments. This second House of Congress is to represent people in territories recognized as states. It does not give voice to the states as subordinate feudal barons under sovereign United States. It gives voice to the people in recognized internal territories, providing for their representation as a collection of people with common territorial interests. Of special concern is the election of representatives by the legislatures of the states rather than directly by the people. This was a simple, effective, and appropriate way to address the process of election and relied upon the representative nature of the state legislature to assure the representation of the people of the state. It was too simple. I did not provide a good means for political corporate bodies such as political parties to have influence on these representatives. They would answer directly to the legislatures that selected them. And so this method of election has been challenged and changed into something closer to that use to elect members of the House of Representatives. This will be further discussed in the Articles of Amendment. Once again, we have a second specified purpose for this body of Congress. This time it is for trials of impeachment. The Senate is addressed as the people's agent for handling internal misconduct in office. The Senate is, by trial, given the power to remove public officers from their offices where they abuse its privileges and powers. By its placement in this section, the trial of impeachment is every bit as much within the function of the Senate as the passage of laws. The fourth section of this article addresses two authority relationships. The first is the authority to establish the method for voting for members of Congress. The basic process is to be set by the former colonial legislators. They are to arrange for proper representation of their people. To this, the new Congress is given the power of voting regulation. They can also set voting requirements and can regulate the process for the benefit of the larger people of the United States. Their efforts are to address national consistency in voting process. Where the Congress has granted regulatory authority to do more than this, there is no indication of any purpose in assuming authority over the people in the state territories. The second provision requires Congress to meet. It cannot excuse itself from meeting, but it is granted authority to set a schedule for its meetings through the legislative process. In summation, we have an extremely well-considered establishment of Congress that is written into our constituting agreement. For your consideration, this is now the basis for our agreement as citizens of the United States. While it can be changed, it is not subject to change because something is better. It is subject to change when we the people can come together to do it. For now, this is our written agreement. Is it good enough so that you can accept it as a basis for continuing the government that it sets in place? I'm not asking about whether you can accept the modern government that is in place, but the government that the founding fathers envisioned when they wrote and signed this agreement.


Spectral data coming straight from the lab can have many artifacts. It can often be noisy, we can have baseline variation, scattering and so on. In short, there are many problems we need to solve before the analysis. This is why we need preprocessing. We will use deliver data from the datasets widget. Open datasets, type liver in the filter, select the data and press send data. First, let us observe the data in the spectra widget. Here, we see a subset of the spectra, colored by the predefined label. The data looks nice, but let's see how it can be better prepared for the analysis. Add the preprocess spectra widget to the canvas and connect it to file. Now, all the data is sent for preprocessing. In the top right corner, you see the original data. In the lower right corner, you see the effect of the preprocessing. You might wonder why we see so few curves here. This is for efficiency. You can increase the number of the displayed curves in the bottom left corner. But let us keep 3 for now. Let us add a preprocessor from the top left menu. Say baseline correction. You immediately see the effect on the right. Now the spectra in the bottom are better aligned. We will add a couple more preprocessors to create a simple preprocessing pipeline. Say normalize spectra. We will use area normalization with the closest value. We can drag the red line to select the X value at which all the spectra will be normalized. Look at the effect in the bottom plot. To observe the effects of just one preprocessing step, I can click on the triangle next to the preprocessor and see how the plot changes. Finally, we will use the Savitsky-Golei filter to calculate second derivatives. This is a commonly used procedure to accurately find peak positions or remove low-order data variation, such as baselines. The result looks completely different from the input data. You can also reorder preprocessors to explore and tune their effect on the final result. Be careful, as the order can be quite important and can affect the final result of the analysis. To see the final output, you can click the final preview button. This shows the original data at the top and the final data with all the preprocessing steps applied at the bottom. Of course, there are multiple options in each preprocessor and we encourage you to explore their effect as well as try other methods. You can also read help for more detailed information and examples.  Now, we can observe our preprocessed data in the spectra widget and use it for further analysis. Today we have learned how to apply the preprocessors to the data and how to visually explore their effect in the preprocessed spectra widget. Now, you are ready for the analysis. In the next video, we will show you how to do the PCA transformation for spectroscopy.


Kaila Farley, cornerback. Cancer has affected my life by taking my mother from me. You know, it's a sickness and disease that came into my household and, you know, affected really the most dearest person, the most innocent person in our household, so it's just, it's been no fun. I feel like she fought and beat cancer for two, three years of chemotherapy, and then she had like a period of cancer-free for maybe like a year or two before it eventually had, came back in and she was diagnosed that it had spread to her bones, had came back into her bones. It's extremely valuable to get checked for cancer and other sicknesses because in my case with my mother, her early detection truly added years to her life and gave me the opportunity to experience life and love on her through my middle school years in high school and even into early college, so it's extremely important to get checked for cancer. My advice for someone who is going through cancer or even knows a loved one who is battling through it would be to bring in your close support system and to, you know, love on your loved ones and make sure that they know your presence and your love is there and it's heartfelt, and if you are religious, whatever religion you are, it's important to, you know, draw near to that faith and, you know, trust and believe on it. I feel like cancer brings out a different, it did in me a different mindset. It definitely humbled me and it gave me a new perspective on life and, you know, from that point on I just try to cherish every moment I have with my loved ones and even with myself and good health.


أعود بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على سيدنا ونبينا محمد وأهل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين اللهم صل على محمد وآل محمد قال تعالى في كتابه الكريم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم وإذا سألك عباد عني فإني قريب وجيب دعوة الدعي إذا دعان The night tonight we will be talking about the topic of supplications and prayers The holy month of Ramadhan has multiple advantages One of them is our prayers will be answered They have been guaranteed by the prophet بسبة أقنهم Where he has said دعاءكم فيه مستجاب during the month of Ramadhan When you ask the Almighty for something You will be rewarded back for that thing that you have asked The question is that what should we ask and how should we ask Prior to that we should look at the abundance and treasures of the prayers and supplications That we are left with by our infallible imams The members of Ahlul Bayt عليهم السلام One beautiful quality of Ahlul Bayt عليهم السلام That they have left treasures of beautiful, elegant And eloquent prayers and supplications for us their followers to take In fact, those prayers, those eloquent words of prayers and supplications Are very much indicative of their infallibility You would recognize that hardly anyone can use those eloquent And beautiful words that our imams use when they have prayers with Allah As it is called whisper the prayers or monologues In Arabic they are called monajat or دعاء When you look at those beautiful words of a prayer You will understand the value and the stature of Ahlul Bayt عليهم السلام Because they are unrivaled by anyone else with such eloquency With such deep meaning of the prayers that they will say The scholars use those words of a prayer as a testimonial To the fact that our imams are infallible Now when you look at those prayers and supplications You will see that they have two fundamental features Number one is that the prayers of Ahlul Bayt عليهم السلام Has the collective sense of responsibility Meaning that the imams عليهم السلام When they narrate and recite their prayers They are socially responsible They are putting themselves in our own positions As if we are the ones talking to Allah سبحانه وتعالى They teach us the way that they teach us They embody themselves as sinners As normal regular wrong doer people Who have been finding themselves very in remorse And sorry therefore they speak with the Almighty Allah سبحانه وتعالى With guilt That means that they place themselves in our shoes They embody our own positions when they talk to Allah سبحانه وتعالى In their prayers you will see that our imams And their prayers are significant others They do the prayers for the sake of the humanity For us to learn from them and imitate them For example When you look at عليهم عليهم السلام When he says that لا إله إلا أنت سبحانك ظلمت نفسي وتجرأت بجهلي Oh my lord be glorified you I have incurred injustice against myself The Imam is infallible He does not commit any wrongdoing He does not incur injustice against himself Rather he speaks in our behalf He positioning himself in our positions He speaks with our own words As if the same thing that happens with a mother You see sometimes the mother or the father Are agonized by the child's pains For example of the son or daughter Fail in their school They do not answer well their test The ones who are more agonized than the children Are the parents Why? Because of their passion toward the children Because of the love toward the children Sometimes when the child is inflected with a disease A congenital disease And he is paralyzed You see the agony in the face of the mother The mother suffers more than the child Why? Because of the love that the mother has toward the child The significant other, this little child In the eyes of his or her mother And therefore you see the care of the mother Far away beyond the care of the child to himself The understanding of the child to himself Maybe the child is oblivious about his own disorder He does not recognize his illness Therefore he is indifferent Or a child that flanks the class Flanks the subject He is oblivious, he is careless And the father Due to their passion toward the child They feel very agonized The same thing with our imams They feel our own pain Therefore they put themselves in our positions When they talk to their Lord You see for example This concept is demonstrated In the day of Ashura When Imam Al-Hussein عليه السلام To weep and cry His sister would ask him Why would you cry, oh my brother He would say I am crying for 30,000 soldiers Who will be going to hell because of me Look at the passion The love that Imam عليه السلام had Even toward his enemy That passion is inclusive Is unconditional And he would say About Imam زين العابدين عليه السلام This equality of a prayer Is vividly demonstrated In صحيفة السجادية The Psalms of Islam That has been composed By Ali ibn al-Hussein زين العابدين عليه السلام You see the Imam has composed This narrative The book, the صحيفة السجادية After the tragedy of Karbala The prayers are always toward others Nothing for himself He prays for his parents He prays for his relatives He prays for the neighbor He prays for the regular Muslim citizens He also prays for the coast guards The coast guard at his time Were the ones who belonged to Bani Umayyah And many of those soldiers And coast guards They have been involved In the massacre of Karbala In the tragedy of Karbala Yet the Imam عليه السلام Show us tolerance Teach us tolerance He prays for them He says He prays for those coast guards Those who go Defend the territory Of the Islamic nation Or he teaches his tolerance The tolerance The genuine tolerance of Islam That exists in the Islamic teachings And fundamentals Through the dua Of Makarim al-Akhlaq He says Give me the ability The capability That I will return The one who has cheated me With advice I give him The true advice The true statement وأجزي من هجرني بالبر Or I reward someone Who has abandoned me Who has neglected me With good things That I do good Toward good things That I do good Toward that person وأثيب من حرمني بالبذر And I give back The one who has deprived me From his giving But in return Give me the ability That I return good Toward him وأن أكافئ من قطعني بالصلاة Someone who severs his ties Severs his ties with me I reconnect with him وأخالف من اختاب إلى حسن الذكر And someone who gossips about me Who does backbiting against me Help me oh God That I mention him in a good term And then he says وأن أشكر الحسنة Someone who does good to me Enable me that I thank him وأن I appreciate him واغضني عن السيئة While I turn a blind eye Against whoever does bad things And misbehaves against me This is how علي بن الحسين Teach us Teach the society To be a tolerant society Toward each other Toward others And this is what we need nowadays In this world that we live in today Brothers and sisters The second feature Of the words of the Imam عليه السلام During their prayers Is that their prayers And their words and sayings Are very heart penetrating They penetrate the souls They diffuse and deep inside Our spirits They shake us from fundamentals You will see that our hearts Are changed upon listening To their words This is a capability That only our imams have Only the infallible have Unlike many of our discourse Unlike the discourse Of many scholars And knowledgeables And scientists The scholars The speakers Me and alike We speak To the ears And eyes Of the audience and the viewers But the imams When they talk They talk to the hearts Of the viewers They penetrate the hearts And they manipulate The hearts and the spirits Of their audience The similar ability God has given it to Shaytan Devil, Iblis Iblis also manipulate The hearts of people He whispers in the spirit And hearts of people But on the negative side As Allah سبحانه وتعالى Says من شر الوسوس الخناس الذي يوسوس في صدور الناس Shaytan has the capability To whisper inside My spirit and soul Inside your spirit and soul And become manipulative Manipulate our hearts The opposite effect Is giving to our infallibles The imams The prophets The Quran itself Has the ability To penetrate the hearts The Almighty Allah Speaks of the quality of Quran He says that وإذا سمعوا إلى ما انزل إلى الرسول وإذا سمعوا ما انزل إلى الرسول ترى أعينهم تفيضوا من الدمع من ما عرفوا من الحق When they hear And listen To the words of Quran You see that their eyes Become full of tears Meaning that their heart Have changed So drastically That their eyes Become full of tears And they become tearful When they listen To those words Of Quran The same thing with the words Of imams The infallibles We have a narration That says كلامكم نور Your words Are ray of light الإمام الرضة عليه السلام Tells his companions He says رحم الله و عبدا رحم الله و عبدا أحيا أمرنا May God bless that servant Who appraise us Who make our affair Very public Bring it to public Then someone asks How does he do that He says يتعلم علومنا He learns our knowledge و يُعلموها الناس Then he teaches them to people فإن الناس لو علمو محاسن كلامنا لتبعونا If they hear The beauty of our words They follow us They spontaneously follow us My advice to everybody To our dear viewers Instead of going into deep debate About the truth of our religion And our faith To change the opposing party If you just mention Some words of prayers Of our imams You see that their hearts Will be transformed Will be changed 180 degrees Why? Because their words Are hearts penetrating They change The hearts of people We will come back After this اللهم إني يسألك باسمك يا جليل يا جميل يا وكيل يا كفيل يا جليل يا كبيل يا مديل يا منيل يا مقيل يا محي سبحانك يا لا هل لا لا خلصنا من النار يا دليل المتحير يا غياث يا المستغيثين يا صريخا المستسرخين يا جارا المستجيري يا أمانا الخار يا عونا المؤمنين رحما المساكين يا ملجأ العاصير جيبا دعوة المضطر سبحانك يا خلصنا من النار يا ذا الجود والأحسان يا ذا الفضلي والامتنان يا ذا الأمن والأمان يا ذا القدس والسبحان يا ذا الحكمة والبيان يا ذا رحمتي واللضواء يا ذا الحجتي والبرها يا ذا العظمتي والصلطان يا ذا رأفتي والمستعان العفوي والوفراء سبحانك يا خلصنا من النار ومشاكس ومشاكس ومشاكس ومشاكس اللا حفظين وتم يفكد في تغلق والبنان وشاكس والفضلي والبنان والبنان والبنان والبنان والبنان يا منيل، يا مقيل، يا محيل. Oh Allah, verily I besiege thee in thy name, oh the glorious, the virtuous, the protector, the patron, the guide, the guarantor, bestower of wealth, bestower of blessings, bestower of strength, acceptor of repentance. Praise to be thee. The word guarantor and the word protector and patron. يا كفيلو، يا دليل. In today's advanced countries, world, you see that they have insurance for everything. If you buy a car, you have to have an insurance. If you buy a new home and you want to do more good, you have to have a new insurance. If you are an employee, you have to have health insurance. If you are an employer, you have to have work income insurance. If you are a professional, you need to have insurance against your practice. Insurance means that it will protect you and it will guarantee your work, that nothing goes wrong to your work. If someone sues you, if something goes wrong, then the insurance will pay for the damages. Now in our daily activities, when we want to do good things, sometimes those good things are very difficult. Very difficult to achieve. They are humongous. Sometimes they are dangerous. They are out of reach. How do we do them? We rely on Allah سبحانه وتعالى. He's the one who will ensure those good works. He would say, do your work and do not be afraid. I am the one who will fix your troubles. I am the one who will pay for your damages. I am the one who will make sure that you will succeed if you do those actions. For example, the Almighty Allah سبحانه وتعالى says Those people who struggle for our cause, for the cause of God, putting God in their eyes and thinking about nothing but the Lord and what brings satisfaction to him and his cause, those people will be succeeding. Those people will see success. And he's the one who will ensure them. He's the one who will protect them from any trouble, from any litigation, from any mistakes. Once you believe that what you have done guarantees God's satisfaction, then you have to come at peace with it. You have to do it because you should realize and you should be assured that Allah سبحانه وتعالى would not let you down. He will make you succeed. والذين جاهدوا فينا. Those who struggle in our ways, they will be succeeding. Some people think that struggle here. Jihad means that you grab a weapon, arm and fight. But that's not the only one. What's in reality is anything that you struggle for, anything that has and guaranteed God's acceptance and satisfaction. Whatever step, whatever effort you do in that way is considered to be struggle, is considered to be Jihad. Why? Because you are doing it for the sake of the Almighty. Now he has guaranteed that you will be succeeding. So here in this du'a, when you say You are the one who will guide me. I don't know my path, but I depend on you and take my path. You will take me to the right destination. And you are my guarantor. You are my insurer. You are the one who will insure my work. Why? Because I am doing this all for your sake. I am doing this all for your cause. This is segment number 13. And then we have segment number 14. The theme of segment number 14 is to seek refuge where it says أمان الخائفين يا عون المؤمنين يا رحم المساكين يا ملجأ العصين يا غافر المتنبين يا مجيبة دعوة المضطرين قايد of the waylade رسكور of those who appeal helper of those who call either of those who call shelter of the fearful سكور of the faithful merciful to the indigent refuge for the disobedient forgiver of the sinner responder to the supplicant These are the words that we seek refuge when we are in trouble we use them in order to seek closeness to Allah سبحانه و تعالى The word that says يا دليل المتحييرين يا غياث المستغيثين Sometimes many people seek refuge to entities other than God For example, during the time of colonial powers like the British mandates or French mandates the colonized nation was totally dependent on the colonial power if they wanted wealth they would look at them if they want power they would look at them if they want order an organization and facilities they would look at the colonial power even after the colonial era still there are countries nations and states that heavily depend on others for everything if they want strength military strength and power they take refuge in them if they want financial support they take refuge on them if they want security they rely on them but how many of them always have kept their promises not many they let them down in their desperate moments when they really need them they let them down in Vietnam they were some certain agents and emissaries who were fighting on behalf of the colonial powers and on behalf of the United States Army but when the United States Army decided to withdraw they abandoned all their agents they were seeking refuge but they abandoned them the only entity that promises and keep his promise true is the Almighty when we seek refuge and seek his guidance and take refuge to him he would never let us down this is number 14 and the number 15 and the last one is that when we ask for more bounties and benefits الله سبحانه وتعالى has given us plenty of bounties and benefits and mercies should we say this is enough or we should continue asking no the Hadith the narrations the verses all encourage us to ask for more وسأل الله من فضله so this segment says ياذ الجود والإحسان ياذ الفضل والإمتنان ياذ الأمن والأمان ياذ القدس والسبحان ياذ الحكمة والبيان ياذ الرحمة والرضوان ياذ الحجة والبرهان ياذ العظمة والسلطان ياذ الرأفة والمستعان ياذ العفوي والغفران أو مساعدة والتعباض والوصول كله المساعدة والمظوات المساعدة والمروض كبيرة المساعدة والمعوش والمقابل المساعدة واللوض وال—ié المساعدة وال—قد—ن— and sovereignty المسيح المسيس وال—حفظ andification المسيح وردن and forgiveness فالأميتي يجب أن تساعدنا إذا كنت أردت تحقيقية وإذا كنت أردت أن تساعد أشخاص أكثر وإذا كنت أردت أشخاص أكثر من أن تساعدك تساعد أشخاص أكثر من أن تساعدك وسأل الله من فضلك أيضاً أن الله سبحانه وتعالى is the most generous entity لا تقول أنك لا تساعد كما تستطيع تساعد كما تستطيع أيضاً أنك سترى أن الله سبحانه وتعالى always respond to that والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته أيضاً أن الله سبحانه وتعالى is the most generous entity whom Allah has given power to act against his passions so that his inner side is submerged in grief and the outer side is covered with fear the lamp of guidance is burning in his heart he has provided entertainment for the day that is to befall him he regards what is distant to be near himself and takes the heart to be light he looks and perceives he remembers and enhances the tempo of his actions he drinks sweet water to whose source his way has been made easy so he drinks to satisfaction and takes the level path he has put off the clothes of desires and got rid of worries except the worry peculiar to him he is saved from misguidance from the company of people who follow their passions he has become the key in the doors of guidance and the lock for the doors of destruction he has seen his way and is walking on it he knows his pillar of guidance and has crossed over his deep water he has got hold of the most reliable supports and the strongest rules he is on that level of conviction which is like the brightness of the sun he has set himself for Allah and glorified for the performance of the most sublime acts of facing all that befalls him and taking every step needed for it he is a lamp in darkness he is the speller of all blindness he is the obstacle the mover of complexities and a guide in vast deserts when he speaks he makes you understand whereas when he remains silent when it is safe to do so he did everything only for Allah and so Allah also made him his own and consequently he is among the minds of his faith and the stakes in his birth he has enjoyed upon himself to follow justice the first step of his justice is the rejection of desires from his heart he describes right and acts according to it there is no good which he has not aimed at or any likely place of virtue to which he has not proceeded he has placed his brains in the hands of the Quran therefore the Quran is his guide and leader he gets down when the Quran puts down its weight and settles where the Quran settles down


Hello. It's only four combinations. So eventually this works. Welcome to my talk. I'm heading. I'm going to talk about this new queuing subsystem, which is not entirely committed right now. So lots of the stuff you're going to see here is actually not on the tree yet. And good news first. I'm not trying to fit 80 slides this time. So when we're talking about queuing, we are obviously talking about queues. So what queues are we talking about? Queues are really simple. They are temporary storage for packets all over the stack. A queue is usually nothing more but just the chain of embuffs using the embuff next pointers in the embuff structure. We are going to come to this in a little bit. And traditionally, they've always been processed in a 5.0 manner. The first packet that was queued was the first one to be dequeued at a later time. Quick recap how packet travels to the stack. The network interface card, when it receives a packet, interrupts. The interrupt handler gets the packet of the DMA rings of the network interface card, puts it into the IP interrupt queue. Of course, we are ignoring IPv6 here. And afterwards, schedules a soft interrupt. That's basically just a flag that's being checked before the kernel would return to userland and then act based on that. The soft interrupt subsystem calls IP inter to dequeue those packets, which in turn gives it to IP input, which processes them one by one, in the case of a forwarded packet, which is what I usually care about. We end up in IP forward. And eventually, we are in IP output. It gets put into the queue of the outgoing, on the nick for the outgoing connection. And well, there's, of course, the completion interrupt and everything, but we don't care about that here. For the typical and simple case, we are dealing with two queues. I said this is forwarded. No encapsulation, no IPsec, no tonnels, no IPv6. What else? No we either, no bridges. So for these, the simple case, the typical forwarded packets, two queues, there's the aforementioned IP inter queue, and there are the queues on the nicks for the outbound direction. And if queue is actually pretty damn simple, you have the hat of the queue, just a pointer to the hat embuff. You have a pointer to the tail. This, of course, is kind of an optimization, because if you want to queue a new packet, it has to go to the end, right? So walking the entire chain to find out which ones last, and then n queue is kind of expensive, so it's much cheaper to keep the extra pointer. You have a variable holding the current length. You have a variable holding the maximum allowed length. A counter for how many packets have been dropped.  Basically, when we notice we're congested, I spare you the details how we do so. We set a flag, which makes certain subsystems skip expensive parts of the work, namely PF stops doing roots at evaluation standard, only handles established connections. When we're congested, we're dropping packets anyway. This is just a more selective dropping. But this is not the topic of this talk.  There's priority queuing. Priority queuing is used to lower the latency for important packets. Of course, it also has an effect when you have to start dropping packets, because then you are dropping the lower priority ones first. Priority queuing is really just changing the order in which we take the packets off the queue, nothing else. And obviously, this really only makes a difference when the machine or the link behind the machine is overloaded, or very close to being overloaded. If there's plenty of CPU power and plenty of bandwidth available, we are going to end up with like two or three or 15 packets in the queue and can process them very fast. So reordering does not really make a difference there. There's one thing to keep in mind that's very important. You must never, ever reorder packets that belong to a single TCP stream. Of course, TCP doesn't like reordering, right? The other queuing method we care about is bandwidth shaping. So you have your nice gigabyte link, and your uplink is only a couple of megabits, and you're giving bandwidth to your neighbor or a customer or whatever. You don't want to use up all your bandwidth, right? So some kind of limitation or limit the bandwidth you use for downloading or pouring so your SSH sessions still work. Actually, I'd use prior queuing for that. Bandwidth shaping obviously is more complicated than prior queuing. There, we actually have to measure the bandwidth certain classes of packets take up, which also implies that we have to classify packets. And if we are reaching the bandwidth limit for that class of packet, we have to delay them, which in turn means leaving them in the queues for a little bit longer. The classification, that's the decision how we queue a packet. The actual queuing is a separate step from the classification. Classification just means we mark the packet somehow, details later. What we really do is write the priority value or QID. The QIDs are invisible to the user into the Ambov packet header. And this being open VST, of course we use PF to classify. Not just because we love PF, but also because it just does not make sense to re-implement the same thing over and over again. The actual preservation of shaping, obviously has to happen when we dequeue packets. We have to put the packets into the right queue or sub queue at n queue time. We have to process them in the right order and at the right timing for bandwidth shaping at dequeue time. And obviously this can only happen about the IF queues because otherwise we just have a packet of flight and no way to store it somewhere, right? Priorization is being useful on any queue, no matter where it is, because as said, this just changes order and lowers latency. The bandwidth shaping also pretty obviously is only useful on the outbound queue. If you're doing bandwidth shaping on the IP inner queue, this is kind of useless, so we put the packets into another queue afterwards, but they're being delayed or sent out immediately again, right? Oh yes, and at the IP inner queue we don't know the interface speed yet, so we have no idea whether that link is congested or not. Priority queuing is something we pretty much always want. There's always a certain type of traffic or certain types of packets you don't want to lose, even if you're under severe load. You don't want to lose carb announcements. If you lose carb announcements, your backup host will think that the master is that and take over and suddenly you have a master-master situation, a split-brain situation, where they both think that they are the only master and have to process traffic, which leads to duplicated packets, that leads to all kinds of interesting problems. And obviously the same is true for the spanning tree announcements. Another kind of typical case is somebody, again, downloading way too much porn and you cannot SSH into your router to fix this.  Priority queuing happens to be everywhere. If you look around, the VLAN header has a priority field. Oh, surprise, it's eight different values, 0 to 7. Better switches, pretty much any switch these days, I think. I'm not familiar with the home switches, so don't ask me about those, but priority queuing basically is everywhere. All the better ones have four or eight queues, typically eight, four is the older ones. They have built-in classifiers, but they are extremely simple and usually not good enough. And many of the high-end network interface cards these days have multiple send queues. So you can use the hardware to split those apart and don't have to do it yourself. I don't think we support that in any driver yet. The hardware makers usually sell this as a virtualization thing. So each guest could have a separate queue, which doesn't make too much sense, but that's a different topic. If you can put the virtualization David on it, that's better, right? So we already have bandwidth shaping and priority queuing in the form of odd queue. Odd queue is a research project by Kenjiro Cho. He did that around 2000. This is, as I said, a research project because bandwidth shaping and priority queuing were kind of new back then. His goal was to investigate different queuing methods. He called the schedule as back then because as I said, there was no experience with those. It was originally developed outside the OpenBSD tree. It was his thesis at the university. And since this was, as I said, a research thing and used to figure out which schedule works best, it's highly modular and pluggable, which also means that there's a considerable overhead, considerable complexity that we typically don't want to deal with for production stuff, right? It's okay for research, but not for production. How does it work? It replaced the IFQ strike that I showed earlier with an IF odd queue. It adds new N and D queuing functions that do the actual bandwidth shaping or priority queuing. And our infamous IF.h macros have to exist in two versions, one for IF queues and one for IF odd queue. And this is the third one, by the way. That's another topic. Whenever I worked on IF.h for too long, I have to ask for new brace keys for my laptops. Odd queue has to be enabled explicitly per interface. As I mentioned, the N and D queuing functions are being replaced. The traffic classification and configuration are originally happened with odd queues own classifier and scheduler, which was barely usable if you could read the documentation in Japanese. Otherwise, it would have been a mess. So, Kenjiro and myself merged odd queue and PF to use PF as a classifier in 2003, which also leads to the interesting situation that I'm replacing my old work here. After the merge, the simplified odd queue had one priority scheduler and two different bandwidth shaping ones. We initially had CBQ, that's class-based queuing, and later added HFSC, which is Hierarchical Fair Service Curves, which I'm going to explain a little bit later. Problems. Haddock doesn't only come from Schnaps.  It's a Japanese manual saying Schnaps. I keep being surprised which German word spread around the world. And we're going to have Schnaps later. So, it uses the separation between the IF queue struct and the FOQ struct has quite some drawbacks. This means that each and every Navigate Fiskart driver had to be adjusted to be converted to our queue. And it also means that lots of support functions macros had to exist in both versions. And as a side effect, the queues that didn't happen to be in the Navigate Fiskart drivers are not and were not all queue capable, which is of questionable use. But anyway, the configuration for all queue, as I mentioned before, was drastically simplified by putting the configuration part into PF, but it was still kind of complex. Most of you use PF, right? So, who's using all queue here? That's quite a few. Who's using HFSC? Wow, two! That's more than I expected. That's way more than I expected. Basically, even with the simplified one, it's still too hard. Partially, because one of the decisions we slash I took in 2003 was wrong. So, very hard to use. Comes down to that. The other issue is there's too much overhead. All the abstraction and pluggable and modularization brings a lot of code that has to run, and of course, there is a cost to it. This leads to, if you just enable or queue an interface without doing any classification or any actual queuing, you lose about 10% of performance, and I don't think that's acceptable. To give you an idea about the queue size, for itself, it's 9,000 lines of code, and the diff to remove it is more than 12,000. So, the new simple priority queue. The idea is it should be extremely simple, because seriously, priority queuing is not rocket science, right? You're just the same priority levels. It should have very, very, very low overhead, and due to that, we want it to be always on. Of course, as I mentioned before, we always want to prioritize certain classes of traffic, like the carbon announcements. To do that, I modified struct IFQ and the NQ and DQ macros, and about a handful of help-up functions that we don't care about here. And instead of having one queue head in the struct, we simply have eight. And the priority value is in the packet header amp-off. So, instead of having one head and one tail, we have an array of eight. That's the entire change. The NQ function just takes the priority value as a number from the packet header and use that as an array index, which of course means we have to verify this is in bounds before queueing. And the DQ function just loops over them. So, that's simple, and that's cheap. There is no configuration for that possible, because it's not required. PF is still used for classification in a very, very, very simple way. You just do a set prior to a number between zero and seven on matching packets. The priority field in this packet header is inherited from the VLAN header if it's coming in on a VLAN interface. And carb and spending tree announcements, the BPDUs, are being prioritized by default. You don't have to do anything but. And as mentioned, you cannot turn off the priority queue. We don't believe in buttons. That being nice and that being in tree, we still need a way to do bandwidth shaping. There is no need to have multiple schedulers. The fact that we had multiple ones was due to the research part. We only need one. And HFSC is the most flexible one. It was pretty unusable because of the hard configuration, but the actual algorithm is the nicest of all of them. You can express CVQ entirely in it and it's also more precise than CVQ. Like the resolution is a bit better. The configuration, I keep writing on the point, the configuration getting that straightforward and easy, that was the big challenge.  HFSC stands for Hierarchical Fair Service Queues, as a Curse. There's a typo in my slides. A service curve consists of a bandwidth, a burst time, and a second bandwidth. So for the first d milliseconds, like the time, the burst time, for the burst time, the queue or the curve, the packets matching that criteria get the burst bandwidth and afterwards, they get the regular bandwidth. And of course, the burst time and the bandwidth are optional, then it gets the regular bandwidth all the time. Each HFSC queue consists of three of these service curves. There's one controlling the minimum assigned bandwidth. This is often referred to as the real time, sorry, the real time service curve. The second is the target bandwidth, like if all the queues are overloaded for a long time, that's the bandwidth share that they'll get. And the third is the maximum that this queue will ever get. Which in practice means that you get some bandwidth between min and max and we try to give you the share that's defined by the middle one, the target bandwidth. And so just like the CVQ scheduler, HFSC has a tree of queues, so it's hierarchical, like the name implies. Each queue has a parent, except for the root queue, of course. There's one root queue per interface, it's not a global one. And HFSC always operates with borrowing, so each queue can borrow bandwidth from its parent if that has bare bandwidth, up until it hits its maximum service curve if it has one. So the plan, it's not a five-year plan this time. The plan was to use the existing core HFSC algorithm, including the code with a few cleanups, remove all the old queue grew, and the three big parts to work on. PFQTL, especially the parser, as said, getting the configuration right is the big challenge. The PF parts from the LQTLs down to setting up the actual queues on the engines and the classification as in marking the packets. And then of course we have to hook the actual engine into the N and T queuing macros functions. Hoking HFSC in isn't all that hard to be again modify our struct if queue. We're not introducing yet another IFQ variant. We are modifying the one by adding a pointer to HFSC specific stuff and a pointer to the token bucket regulator specific stuff that I'll come back to a little bit later. If we're not operating HFSC on that interface, that is simply a null pointer. The token bucket regulator or TBR controls how many packets get dequeued when, like at which point in time. It does not do any bandwidth measurements itself. That's the job that HFSC fulfills. And the dequeue functions simply look at that pointer. Null pointer, call the classic dequeuing functions. If there is a pointer, call the HFSC specific functions. Oops, I was here. Yes, the configuration again. As mentioned, the first attempt in 2003 failed. The, what we want, the common cases, the common use cases should be as simple and straightforward as possible. And the more complex ones should still be possible, they should still work, and they should still be readable. Working the syntax out, talk a bunch of developers sitting in your cave, this is not going to work out. In that, I totally believe in a white board or a piece of paper with no computer at all. Beers optional, that helps. Oh, you can't read this again. This is an awesome piece from Japan. It says, beer communication, beer presentation for you. I love jinglish. So, the queue setup and classification still happens in PF. There was a little bit of detail whether the queue setup actually belongs in PF, because that's kind of iffy, but using something yet separate is kind of strange too. So we opted for still keeping that part in PF. The classification does not change at all. It remains at what it is. You match on packets by some criteria and set queue, queue name. If a queue, by that name, as said, you can do this any time. You can do this on the inbound side. By the time the packet hits the outbound, outbound interface, the outbound queueing, if there is a queue by that name, we'll use it. If it's not there, we'll just use the default queue. So, that's the new syntax. Worked out with a white board and lots of beer. You define a root queue. Root queue is simply a queue that does not have a parent. It sits on a specific interface and it has some bandwidth. The children refer to their parent. That's exactly the opposite from the way you all queued it, where the parent listed the children that you had to specify afterwards. And why did I have the third one there? One, that's why. One of the queues has to be marked as default queue. So all packets that hit that interface, that do not have a queue marker, a queue ID assigned to them, or an invalid one is in the queue that does not exist on that interface, go to the default queue. You can limit the length that queue can take, like the maximum number of packets in that queue, just giving it a queue limit. You can specify burst time and burst bandwidth. So here it gets 100 emits on average, but for 100 milliseconds, it's allowed to use up 250 megabits. You can apply the minimum and maximum bandwidths, that's here, that has a maximum of 50 megabits, but is allowed to burst for 100 megabits for 50 milliseconds as it's maximum, but on average it only gets 30. Can I get? Basically, no, it's not basically when it's idle. It's not the zero queue length, but it's pretty much like that. If it's idle, that figuring that out is not as simple as looking at the queue length. But basically it's that. Once you go back to idle, you're allowed to burst again. But can you? I'm coming back to this in a little bit. So, and as I said, the queue assignment remains simple. You just do set queue foo. The nice trick we have for prioritizing empty TCPX, that's TCPX without payload. That's important, without payload, because otherwise this could be abused. And packets marked with type of service low delay. You can specify two queues. In this case, all normal packets will go to the queue foo and the empty TCPX and the low delay packets will go to the queue bar. Daniel Hartmeyer figured this out almost 10 years ago. On a DSL line, a typical DSL line where your uplink is much slower than your downlink. When he was running a big download and tried to do interactive SSH work at the same time, the SSH session would lack like mad, even if he prioritized the SSH packets. Why? Because the TCPX for his download were clogging up his tiny bandwidth, a tiny uplink bandwidth. So this one takes down the interactive traffic and two slows down the download. If you prioritize those TCPX, your download continues to be fast. This basically does not interfere with your regular uplink use because those packets are tiny. That's what this is for. And fortunately, SSH for interactive work, it marks the packets as low delay. And if you're doing bulk transfers, like SCP, it marks them as not normal, what's the other? It's not throughput. Well, there's another term internally. I keep forgetting that. Whatever. Basically meaning this is a bulk download. So status and outlook. The simple priority queue is committed. It even was in 5.1, but the syntax wasn't final. I changed this after 5.1. The syntax you find in 5.2, which is about to be released any day, which is about to be released any day, has the final syntax. Final as in for the current five year plan, it's final. The bandwidth, five years from 5.2 on for five years, this is the final. I'm not saying kind of solution here. The bandwidth shaper basically works on this laptop. So don't steal it. I have backups.  I started doing SMTP backups. Basically, I go to the directory where I'm working in to CVS diff and pipe this into mail. This to a random developer with a subject you are back up. It works perfectly fine. This is crowd computing. So the status, the root queue is totally weird. It basically doesn't work. And neither Kanjero who did the research in that area, nor me really understand why yet. The children work fine. So revisiting what all queue was doing. The root queue in all queue was hidden. When you did the all queue on interface foo, well, that's bad. If you did all queue on EM zero, there always was a root underscore EM zero queue. But this was invisible. So there was no traffic assigned to it ever. So I kind of think we might go for the same idea and have an invisible implicit root queue and be done with it. But well, we'll try to figure this out a little bit more. This decision has not been taken yet. This is almost the showstopper right now. That's the outlook for tonight, almost. The ability to watch the queuing in action is written and works. So that's pfqlo-vvsq. Of course, there is no documentation but this presentation yet. There are several consistency checks missing. So you can easily have a hundred embedded interface and a hundred embedded root queue and children distribute it, like children summing up to 10 gigabits. Of course, the algorithm will not do what you expect in that case. So yeah, there needs to be some checking. The performance should be much better than all queue. I have not actually met with this yet, but I know it is. One of the biggest costs, surprisingly, is the constant calls to micro-uptime. Like, obviously, HFACC is very good timing, like high resolution timing. And reading high resolution timers is surprisingly expensive. I will not attack this before I commit this. This is not a change to the current situation. That's kind of a self-contained problem. We're looking for solutions to that. This is probably going to be a solution that is more generic and not just affecting the queuing. I still want to get this ready for 5.3, but since I ran into these problems with the root queue, ugh, might get tough. So it might be in 5.4. No surprise that the current five-year plan doesn't work out exactly. For the transition from all queue to the new system, I want to leave them in in parallel for some time, so they don't have to do the transition to the new one immediately when you do the release upgrade. But unfortunately, some keywords clash. And I don't want to use really bad keywords for the new subsystem, just to maintain compatibility with the old one. So we have to rename some of the keywords that all queue is using right now. Foremost, this is the queue keyword. So if you want to continue using all queue for a release or two, you have to change your queue definitions to old queue. Pardon? Old queue. Are you trying to resurrect the switch pf to German diff?  The idea, of course, is to get rid of all queue eventually. Of course, having those systems in there in parallel just makes certain areas of the network stack very hard to follow, especially once again, IF.h. And once we got rid of all queue, there's so much cleanup possible in IF.h. And then it might be understandable by more models and I might be able to work in there without wearing out my brace keys all the time. Any questions? Cueing without configuration is the question, basically. This probably comes down to some form of fair sharing algorithm. I didn't, leave me alone with a buffer bloat. Somebody good, no, I'm not saying this here. I'm not into that. I don't see the point, to be honest. I do think you want to do priority queueing all the time, as said, to prioritize some important stuff. If you want to do any bandwidth shaping, you should do so explicitly. And last but not least, all this queueing stuff is only really effective if you're short of resources, be it CPU or be it bandwidth. As long as you have plenty of bandwidth and plenty of CPU or system resources available, it just doesn't matter, right? Because you're sending out everything pretty fast anyway. The delay is going to be in the network, not in your machine and the directly connected section of the network. The point there being is that, the idea is that if a packet has been queued up for let's say 100 milliseconds, it's better to throw away some packets at the front of the queue. That's right. Instead of the back of the queue, simply to get the signaling, packet loss is a signal to TCP to get that faster on the whole round trip. So that's basically red on steroids. Well, yes, and it's computationally, it's much simpler than red, so you don't have to scan the cables and so on, yes. I left, red is random early detection. That's basically the queuing system tries to figure out early that it's about to run its queues full and early kind of randomly dropping certain packets so TCP scales back. And I have commented out all the red bits for now, because that differs way too big already. I want to keep this in manageable pieces. I failed on this part, but if I put the red in right now, it's going to be total nightmare. So we might opt for not going for red, but implementing that. I have not really spent time on that yet, so I don't know. You should have a look at it because it's... Sounds interesting, yeah. Yeah, and also the logic is not at the end queue time, but at the dequeue time. So the dequeuer towards interface will start dropping some packets if they're in there too long. So you simply timestamp it, the moment you put it into the queue. Oh, timestamping is expensive. Well, you can use TSC or something like that. You don't have to convince me anymore. You got me when you said it's simpler. That means less work for me. Awesome. Awesome. Peter keeps picking up my groundwork and polish it to the point where it's really usable by the vast majority of users. And I really like that. Thank you then.


Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the academic convocation of the U.S. Naval War College. We are pleased to welcome a total of 546 students from our armed service, civilian employees of the federal government and military officers from around the globe. Please remain seated for the academic procession led by the Marshall University professor, Milan Vago and Dr. Phil Hahn, Dean of Academics. Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the arrival of the official party, honors for General Lori J. Robinson and remain standing for our national anthem and the invocation. The national anthem will be sung by musician third class Christina Villalva from the Navy Band Northeast. I've been Em Todd Chaplin at the Naval Leadership and Ethics Center, we'll deliver the invocation. Let us pray. Almighty God, we ask your blessing on this Naval War College academic year we begin in earnest today. In this increasingly complex and continually evolving international environment we dare not rest on the past but must build on its firm foundation and so we ask your favor in this our endeavor. For our students, grant them wisdom, insight and humility sharpen their minds through the rigors of study and new ideas, temper their experience and insight on the anvil of reflection and critique and refine their critical reasoning through the crucible of academic discourse, debate and discussion. Reawaken in them the love of country, devotion to duty and the wholehearted pursuit of truth that motivated them to a life of self discipline and sacrifice. Enable them to successfully navigate the challenges of balancing their professional duties with family and personal responsibilities that this might be a year of growth not only intellectually but physically, spiritually and relationally. Likewise empower the faculty and staff in their tasks to instruct, challenge and demand more of these students that they might prepare them fully equipped and ready for the task ahead. And finally we pray that you would use this ceremony to stir in each of us a renewed desire to engage the challenges that lie ahead and affirm commitment to fulfill our role in serving the cause of security, prosperity and peace for all. Looking forward to the day when your truth, justice and righteousness shall reign forever. Amen. Please be seated. On the stage this afternoon are Captain Edmund Hernandez, Chair, Joint Military Operations Department, Professor Michael Pavavec, Chair, Strategy and Policy Department, Professor David Cooper, Chair, National Security Affairs Department, Professor Woldemann, Dean, College of Distance Education, Rhea Admiral retired Margaret Klein, Dean of Leadership and Ethics, Professor Tom Calora, Dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, Rhea Admiral retired Jamie Kelly, Dean of the College of Maritime Operational Warfare, Professor Thomas Mangle, Dean of International Programs and Maritime Security Cooperation, Professor Phil Han, Dean of Academics, Professor Lewis Duncan, Provost, United States Naval War College, General Lori J. Robinson, Commander, U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, Rhea Admiral Jeffrey A. Harley, President of the United States Naval War College, will members of the Naval Command College and College of Naval Warfare please rise? Senior class. Captain Todd Libby will present the 48 nations represented in our Naval Command College. Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, South Tamei and Principe, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom. They will be joined in class by members of our College of Naval Warfare, which includes students from the United States Air Force, Air National Guard, Army, Army National Guard, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, and civilians representing Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Senior Leadership Development Program, Department of Homeland Security, Department of the United States Army, Military CLEF Command, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, US Agency for International Development, US Department of State, US Special Operations Command, please be seated. Will the members of the Naval Staff College and College of Naval Command and Staff please rise? Captain Todd Libby, Director of Naval Staff College, will present the 49 nations represented in our Naval Staff College. Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Estonia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Romania, St. Kitt's and Nevis, St. Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United States of America and Vietnam. They will be joined in class by members of our College of Naval Command and Staff, which includes students from the United States Air Force, Army, Army National Guard, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, and civilians representing Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Contract Management Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of the U.S. Army, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Marshall Service, U.S. Special Operations Command. Please be seated. October 6th, 1884, Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler signed General Order 325, which began by stating. A college is hereby established for an advanced course of professional study for naval officers to be known as the Naval War College. The principal building on Coaster's Harbor Island, Newport, Rhode Island, will be assigned to its use and is hereby transferred with the surrounding structures and the grounds immediately adjacent to the custody and control of the Bureau of Navigation for that purpose. The college will be under the immediate charge of an officer of the Navy, not below the grade of commander, to be known as the president of the Naval War College. He will be assisted in the performance of his duties by a faculty. A course of instruction embracing the higher branches of professional study will be arranged by a board, consisting of all members of the faculty and including the president who will be the presiding officer of the board. The course of instruction will be open to all officers above the grade of Naval Cadet. Commodore Stephen B. Loos has been assigned to duty as president of the college. It's been 133 years since that order establishing the Naval War College was issued. In that time, the college has adhered remarkably to the basic mission and core values and vision. Here to share with you a brief history of the U.S. Naval War College as Professor Stanley Carpenter, U.S. Naval War College Command Historian. The Naval War College owes its creation to the vision and persistence of one man, Stephen B. Loos. Almost a century and a half ago, Lieutenant Loos was assigned to the Naval Academy faculty. There, he realized that his branch of the service was not providing training or education in key professional areas. The Naval Academy had no text for seamen ships, so Loos wrote it. And it stood as the U.S. Navy standard for 40 years. As he rose in rank and widened his experience through the command of seven different ships in peace and in war, under sail and under steam, Stephen Loos saw other inadequacies in the Navy's professional preparation for its officers and men. As a commander of a fleet division, he saw that there was neither a procedure to exercise naval tactics, nor a unit assigned to examine experimental tactical ideas. So he created both. At the same time, he saw that there was no preparatory training for enlisted recruits, and he established the U.S. Navy's first recruit training station in Newport on Coasters Harbor Island in 1883. Then when he rose to rear admiral, commander of the North Atlantic Squadron, the U.S. Navy's most senior active duty billet, Loos turned to implement a long-standing goal. Since his combat service in the 1860s, he'd realized that there was no place in the Navy to study the most important and the central issue for a professional officer in the armed forces, war. His age, like ours, was a time of rapidly changing technology. Then as now, the main focus of professional life was on technology and science, on metallurgy, on applications of electricity, on the chemistry and physics of weapons, and a host of related matters. Loos fully recognized and appreciated the importance of all these matters as fundamental to success in modern warfare, but he saw more clearly than others that these were only the means for success in solving a broader problem that most officers ignored, the issue of war itself. As Loos repeatedly pointed out, war is the central issue around which the profession of arms exists, and there was no existing institution where a naval officer could study it. Thus, Steven Loos persuaded a reluctant Navy department to establish the Naval War College in October 1884, making the name of the institution into a constant daily reminder to students and faculty as to the purpose and focus of its work. In creating the college's first faculty and curriculum, Loos established the approach that has been repeatedly renewed, refined, and reaffirmed over more than a century in seeking to understand war in its broadest dimensions. It is a major area of study, but one that few undertake then or now, and it requires original research and new thinking to understand how wars begin, how wars are fought, how wars end, and how wars can be prevented. The highest aspects of this professional subject involve understanding governmental management, finance, decision-making, logistics, campaign planning, tactics, international relations, and grand strategy. The analytical tools for such study lay in approaches with which most naval officers of his time were unfamiliar. The social sciences and politics, naval officers of his time were unfamiliar with management, international law, as well as a understanding of the roles of other services and their approaches to war. To the study of these matters, Loos added a new tool for broad analysis, wargaming. Then in its infancy, Loos foresaw that the college's game boards could become the key tool that linked the broad analysis of political military issues with the burgeoning developments in current and future naval technologies. So he empowered Lieutenant William McCarty Little to innovate and develop this area. With Loos' concept for the college's focus, the Naval War College began to make a wide range of contributions that has earned it a widespread reputation during the more than a century and a quarter that has followed. The student body gradually widened. Soon the college had its first students from foreign navies, officers from Sweden in 1894, and Denmark in 1895. Most famously, of all the college's contributions, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan's lectures on naval history provided the basis that created an understanding of naval strategy, eventually published in book form behind influence naval thinking around the globe. Captain Charles Stockton published the first attempt to write a code of international law for naval operations, and within a decade it became the focus for international discussions and a basis for the modern law of naval warfare. Meanwhile, the college was making other contributions. Officers here played a key part in creating the country's first contingency plans for war, some of which were used in the Spanish American War in 1898. Also in the early years of the 20th century, the Naval War College was the principal engine behind the creation of operational naval doctrine and the innovation of an operational staff to support flag officers at sea. In addition, the college was the wellspring for the long-term movement that eventually led to the creation of a chief of naval operations in 1915 to advise government leaders and give the Navy professional uniform leadership. Following the First World War, Naval War College students and faculty looked critically at naval operations and in light of the arms limitations treaties began to think innovatively about the future operational uses for submarines, aircraft and amphibious forces. Continuing through the 1930s, they made significant contributions to the development of war plan orange that came to be used in the Second World War. As Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz later recalled, the Naval War College had examined so many different possible scenarios and possible courses of action for a war in the Pacific that he and his colleagues were surprised only by Japan's employment of Kamikaze aircraft. Admiral Rayman Spruance, the victor at the Battle of Midway, returned to the Naval War College for his fourth tour of duty here in 1946 and established the college's direction as it entered the Cold War era. During that period, much thought was devoted to the issues of nuclear weapons and multinational cooperation. More recently, the college contributed substantially to some of the thinking behind the maritime strategy of the 1980s and the conduct of the Gulf War in 1990-91 as it did in helping to create the maritime strategy for the 21st century in 2007 and the updated version in 2015. As entering students here at the Naval War College today, you now become part of this lineage. It is a heritage that stands as a personal challenge to each and every one of us, both to those of you who are coming to the college today for the first time and to those of us who have spent decades here. In 1903, Admiral Luce returned to the college and addressed the student body much as we are doing today. His words in 1903 ring as true today as they did more than a century ago. But rather than me tell you this, I believe I see Admiral Luce himself approaching. Mr. President, distinguished guests, brothers and sisters in arms, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great honor to speak to you today and one that I highly appreciate. If you would permit me, I would like to say something about the aims and objects of this college. Although called a college, this institution differs from all other seats of learning. The moment's consideration will show why this must be so. As its name implies, principal object of the college is the study of the science and art of war. Now, war is a very large and comprehensive subject and it would be the height of presumption on the part of the college to undertake, to teach officers of mature years, any branch, whatever of their profession, even the most elementary. All that the college can do, all that it professes to do is to invite officers to come to it and to offer them every facility pursuing the study of the highest branches of their profession. All here, faculty and class alike occupy the same plane without distinction of age, rank, or assumption of superior attainments. All are pursuing one and the same end, the advancement of their profession. We speak habitually of the science and art of war. As a science, it recognizes certain general principles which are just as applicable today as they were in the time of the Great Athenian Admiral Themistocles. A strict adherence to those principles has not always ensured victory. It is true. But a violation of them, either through ignorance or neglect, has almost invariably led to defeat. Military writers have been careful to warn us that although war in its most extended sense may be called a science, yet it is not an exact science. As an art, war is governed by rules which vary from age to age. Art, it has been well said, may be learned, but it cannot be taught. This is particularly true of the art of war. It cannot be taught, accepting insofar as one may teach oneself and it is to offer every officer the opportunity of teaching himself the college doors are open. That war is the best school of war is one of those dangerous and delusive sayings that contain just enough truth to secure currency. He who waits for war to learn his profession often acquired his knowledge at a frightful cost of human life. Change, continual unremitting change is the law of the universe. Stagnation means atrophy and death. It is not enough for us to keep abreast of the times. This college must be in the very front rank of the advanced guard of progress. To obtain some perception, however dim of the future, we must study the past. This teaches us that the civilization we now enjoy was brought about by war. The proud position we as a nation now occupy was rendered possible only by wars and future problems in the destiny of man will be worked out through the instrumentality of the sword. There is no escaping it. We are no apologists for war. Heaven forbid, we simply regard it from a common sense point of view as one of the many evils that flesh is heir to. War is a dreadful scourge, we all admit. It is a relic of barbarism. We admit everything that can be said against war, but after all has been said, no student of history, however superficial can deny that through that same dreadful scourge, ultimate good has been brought about. It has been so in the past and as far as human discernment can go, it will be so in the future. However, war may in certain instances be averted, but mark this well. It may be averted in one way and one way only, and that way is to be fully prepared for it. That is the meaning of this college. It is an instrumentality for the prevention of war by being prepared for it. To be prepared for war is the role of the naval strategist. To be in the right place at the right time and with adequate force means success by checkmating your adversary in the first few moves. Campaigns have been won without firing a shot, simply by skillful strategic movements. It is the business of this college to study all the various problems of war as they may affect this country. Now it is quite unnecessary to explain to such an audience as I have the honor of addressing that the college itself has no power whatsoever to act, nor authority to formulate naval policy. Its aim is simply to invite officers to meet together, to discuss questions pertaining to the highest branches of their profession and enable each one, according to his own inclinations, to prepare himself for the highest and most responsible duties that can devolve upon a naval officer. One thing must be borne in mind. At the firing of the first gun proclaiming war, the so-called inspiration of genius may be trusted only when it is the result of long and careful study and reflection. If attendance here will serve in any degree to broaden an officer's views, extend his mental horizon on national and international questions and give him a just appreciation of the great variety and extent of requirements of his profession, this college will not have existed in vain. Thank you and good day. Ladies and gentlemen, the 56th President of the United States Naval War Cards, we're Admiral Jeffrey A. Harley. Good afternoon everyone. Admiral Hogg, General Robinson, General Robinson. Our distinguished chairs and deans, Admiral Takei, Admiral Verma, our university professor, Dr. Vago, distinguished faculty and you, all of our students. Welcome to the convocation ceremony for the U.S. Naval War College's class of 2018. The term convocation is defined as a ceremonial assembly of members of a college or university and we follow this tradition of a convocation because this ceremony serves as public recognition that something very special is about to begin and each of us has arrived at this point by very different paths. The diversity of nations and organizations in this great hall provide evidence of the scores of military services, interagency partners and homes of national origin within this unique group. The cultural, religious and ethnic diversity of this gathering is also simply unmatched on any campus in the land and yet from such diversity will rise one entity, a company of scholars with common goals and a common purpose. Our service to our nations is a noble calling and so is the search for knowledge. Martin Luther King once observed, the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education. We of course couldn't agree more and the main battery of this institution as it has been for 133 years is its education mission and we are committed to providing the best possible environment in which learning can occur. Our talented and dedicated faculty will provide guidance and mentorship as each of you delves into the carefully crafted curriculum. You'll be exposed to many new concepts and new ways to look at old problems as you complete the demanding but rewarding academic program and I'll ask each of you to raise your sights well beyond the platform or tactical level and try to focus on the elusive image of what may be. For it is the men and women with the greatest vision that will lead their services and nations into the future. Thank you very much. For the remaining time we have this afternoon, I want to recognize excellence, excellence in our faculty and by one of our most distinguished alumni. Professors Roryg and Erickson, please come forward. Professor Roryg, please join us on stage. President of US Naval War College takes pleasure in presenting Terence J. Roryg with the National War College Civilian Faculty Teaching Excellence Award in recognition of excellence in teaching and sustained contributions to the intellectual development of the students at US Naval War College. Signed 14 August 2017, Jeffrey A. Harley, President US Naval War College. Professor Erickson, please join us on stage. The President US Naval War College takes pleasure in presenting Andrew S. Erickson with the Naval War College Civilian Faculty Research Excellence Award in recognition of excellence in the highest quality of achievement through research on behalf of the Naval War College. Signed 14 August 2017, Jeffrey A. Harley, President US Naval War College. A third award for service excellence will be presented to Professor David P. Pilati who is not able to be here today. His certificate will be presented at a future ceremony. So we've recognized these three professors for their extraordinary accomplishments, but our students will soon learn that all of our faculty are simply superb. I ask now for a final round of applause for our award winners and for our gifted and talented faculty. So today marks the 22nd time that the Naval War College has presented its Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award since the award was first presented in 1996. It recognizes the accomplishments of our most distinguished graduates who relied upon their war college experience as they assumed positions of senior leadership and national prominence. These alumni serve as an inspirational role model for current and future students. The award was first presented in 1996 to our alumnus, the late General John Shalikashvili, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Your program includes a complete list of the others recognized over the years, but we are now honored to present the 2017 award to a truly inspirational leader, General Lori Robinson, United States Air Force, the Commander North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command. General Robinson, will you join me to be recognized as the recipient of this year's Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award? President US Naval War College takes pleasure in presenting this certificate to General Lori J. Robinson, US Air Force. In recognition for her exceptional service to the nation, the Department of Defense and the US Naval War College, she is hereby designated as the year 2017 recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award. This award recognizes the recipient's unparalleled dedication to duty, unwavering sense of personal and professional integrity and her insatiable intellectual curiosity. These traits, which form a bedrock upon which the US Naval War College was established over a century ago, has been instrumental in enabling this distinguished graduate to set a standard of excellence which all future graduates should strive to achieve. Awarded the 14th day of August, 2017. General Robinson, the podium is yours. Thank you so much. I'll do this.  You have no idea about the adventure that's in front of you.  So the art of the possible is incredible. I remember, I remember when I found out I was coming here to the College of Naval Command and Staff Junior class. I remember I was deployed to Turkey doing Operation Northern Watch and in the Air Force we kind of did a bulk release of school and so I had due diligently taken my Air Command and Staff and Resident by distance. You know, I took it with me to Turkey. I was like, okay, I'll start doing this but I'll figure out what's happening and so when the list came out and they said, no, ma'am, you're not on the list, I was like, okay, so I took the vinyl off the books and said, I better, you know, right, those of us know, I better start reading this from afar. And about an hour later, I got a call and the call was congratulations, Captain, you get to go to the College of Naval Command and Staff and I was like, all right, I will tell you, I put the books in the trash. I did. I'm such a due diligent student and I was beside myself and somebody said to me, why did you want to go to Newport? And I said, of course, this is a very esoterical, well thought out analytical response because I could wear civilian clothes.  I am proud to, our service currently has the Committee on the Chief's Trophy. Thank you very much. Come on, airman. But, and I had the privilege as a captain to work with different nations, to work with interagency folks, to have the opportunity to work with all the different services at the tactical level. What I learned here, the opportunity and the things that I learned while I was here was to stretch my brain. So strategy and policy, my very first paper, I had to write on something that had to do with the Revolutionary War and something that the French did with the Revolutionary War.  Right?  Sound familiar faculty, right? So I'm pretty proud of myself. So I'm thesis, three main points, sub points, bring my outline in and the professor said to me, and I'm glad I don't remember the name, but the professor said to me, I'm sorry, Lori, what war would you be talking about? Because it's certainly not the Revolutionary War. He goes, come back in a week and do it over. I remember going back to my cubicle and I shared a room that overlooked the water with another, a dear friend of mine, another airman. And I said, okay, if we don't get a beer better, do you still get the masters? I'm just curious about this. I have to tell you the time here to sit and think, to learn from our coalition and our friends, to learn from the interagency, to learn from the other services, not just what we do day in and day out, but our culture, how we think, how we live, why we say the things we say, what we do, and to apply it to the art of war, to understand the science, to understand the art, and bring it all together in a place where you don't have to make a decision in five minutes, where you don't have to figure out what exactly needs to happen that next moment, where you're not getting a call from the Secretary of Defense asking Lori how are things working? The opportunity to stretch your brain, to sit back and ponder all that we do each and every day that we take for granted, but to sit back and think, spend some time with each other, spend some time with your family, take advantage of everything that you get to do each and every day.  Tony and I, when we first sat down next to each other in our first meeting with the Secretary of Defense, we looked at each other and said, can you believe we're sitting here? And he goes, no, Lori, not after all the parties you held, no. Your friendships, the knowledge, the time, the venue, the faculty is incredible, open your mind. While we all know we bring things to anything that the President and our nation asks of us and our nations ask of us, we can always learn more, we can always teach more and we can always give more. So to each of you, I say congratulations.  Because I will tell you what you learn about yourself, about each other, about what we do every day, will be far surpassed than a paper.  Thank you, General, for those truly inspiring words. A couple more thank yous, if I might. That would be to our Provost and our Vice President for their leadership of our extraordinary staff and faculty. Also like to recognize the presence of the Naval War College Foundation who gives us an extraordinary margin of excellence in all of the things that we do. And the last convocation for Admiral Jamie Kelly, who's inspirational service to this college for many years now, in particularly teaching the leadership and the war fighting courses that we have here has been a great blessing for my friend and my mentor, congratulations Admiral. My final task today and the bestest part ever as the 56th President of the U.S. Naval War College is to formally convene the class of 2018. I hereby convene the class of 2018, congratulations. So we'll now begin our collective journey of discovery. Thank you all for being here today.  Please rise for the benediction. Let us pray. Eternal Father, strong to save, whose arm has bound the restless wave. For these students, a new voyage is now underway, a challenging and rigorous academic year. In the days ahead, grant them self-awareness, humility and moral courage as they are challenged by new ideas, increased levels of complexity and the inherent demands of greater responsibility. Enable them to balance the academic demands of family and personal growth, for their families may this be a year of new friendships, bonding experiences and memories that last a lifetime. Grant them such a spirit of collaboration, understanding and dedication to serve humanity. Be present in readings, examinations, papers and discussions that the lessons learned here would impact not only those presents but through their lived out leadership that influenced their commands, communities and countries and speeded about that day when all partake of the fruit of liberty, justice and freedom for all. Amen. Please remain standing for the departure of the official party. This concludes our ceremony. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. I ask all faculty members to proceed to Covert Plaza for their picture. Thank you.


Imam Hussein Media Group is participating in the 17th annual Shia Convention, one of the largest Shia conferences in America. In the state of Virginia, Shia waves correspondence said that the Universal Muslim Association of America, UMAA, is holding the 17th annual convention from July 5 to 7 under the title Imam Sadiq alaihi salam, the spiritual father of modern science. He added that the media group will participate in the convention as the largest independent Shia media group and will have a special stand at the exhibition to be held on the sidelines of the event through which the group's achievements will be displayed as well as programs and plans for the future. He added that the group invites all its fans and viewers from around the world to attend the convention and visit its stand in the exhibition and calls for their materialistic and moral support for the group to continue its work and spreading the teachings of the Ahlulbayt Peace be upon them.