Defense Organization Research Articles

Verification, validation, and accreditation for models and simulations in the Australian defence context: a review

Building simulation models that are valid and credible is an enduring challenge in the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO) context. Establishing validity and credibility can be achieved through the rigorous use of appropriate Verification, Validation, and Accreditation (VVA) processes. Such processes are well-known in modeling and simulation (M&S) practice. However, these are generally not applied within the ADO, typically due to resourcing concerns and a lack of authoritative guidance. Even if there are any, due to security concerns and commercial reasons, the application of M&S within ADO is generally not published in open-access platforms. Depending on where in the M&S life-cycle VVA is started, it may also serve a secondary aim of risk reduction, assisting in the early discovery of possible problems or mistakes. This research reviews current VVA practices from academic literature and recommends processes that are appropriate for application to combat simulation tools within the ADO context. A scoping review has been conducted to gather insight into current VVA practice in the M&S community. The results of this review are presented in the form of charting relevant characteristics from selected references. The scoping review shows that executable validation of simulation results against referent data sourced from physical experiments is the most prevalent form of VVA, with referent data from comparative models being a prevalent alternative. Furthermore, there is evident reliance on graphical comparison of data; this could be enhanced with objective data comparators, such as aggregate error measures or statistical techniques. Finally, there is an evident gap in VVA references from Australia, which could be addressed through the propagation and reporting of prevalent VVA practices within the ADO context.

Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for measuring efficiency in the defense sector

The way to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending, which is a top priority for any government in any country, implies the introduction of Performance-Based Budgeting (PBB). One of the more advanced government-wide performance budgeting systems that uses performance information systematically in the preparation of the government budget is program budgeting. It is important to keep in mind that without systematic development and use of program performance information and adequate and effective performance indicators, program budgeting in the defense sector does not make sense as a tool to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the defense resource management process. Only by defining and tracking success can it be known if the defense organizations and units perform efficiently and effectively. In this article, data envelopment analysis (DEA) was considered as an excellent mathematical programming tool that can be used to measure, evaluate, and analyze the efficiency of the defense organizations, in particular of the infantry battalions of the infantry brigades under the Eastern and Western Commands of the Georgian Defense Forces (GDF), on the delivery of readiness. A sample DEA model was proposed to measure the efficiency of the abovementioned units. Some recommendations to facilitate the use of the DEA and other statistical tools to measure and evaluate the performance of the GDF units were also proposed.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL STRATEGY AND PUBLIC POLICY OF STATE DEFENCE AWARENESS MANAGEMENT ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE OF THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE MEDIATED BY STRATEGIC CHANGE MANAGEMENT

State Defence awarenessis is the collective awareness of the Indonesian nation that is needed by the state to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national safety in the face of every threat. The aim of the research is to analyze influence variable social strategy and public policy in the State Defence Awareness Management of organization performance of the Ministry of Defense mediated by strategic change management. This study uses quantitative approach with study expanatory. Data analysis using Structural Equation Model (SEM) with using Smart PLS 3.0 for analyze connection or influence variable dependent with variable independent. Research results show that by general there is influence direct social strategy and public policy on organizational performance, as well as there is influence direct strategic change management towards organizational performance as well as there is influence non direct social strategy and public policy to organizational performance mediated by strategic change management. Implication theoretical from this study is strategic change management as mediating social strategic and public policy able for increase organizational performance Ministry of Defense in implementation coaching State Defence Awareness Management. While implication strategic from this study is the strategy, policy, and management changes in the State Defence Awareness Management is very influential to performance Ministry of Defense organization, so that need enhancement every dimension to increase trust public as well as faithfulness every source power involved in implementation coaching State Defence Awareness Management.

PAKTA WARSAWA : LATAR BELAKANG, SEJARAH, DAN HEGEMONI UNI SOVIET

National security is an ability to protect the country's essential values against threats from outside and from within the country. The concept of a country's national security is influenced by the country's historical background. For realists, security is about the survival of the state. For the majority of countries that are unable to guarantee the security of their own country with their military power, the balance of powerfor maintaining security stability in international relations. Protection of domestic security conditions requires the country to ensure the integrity of its territory. After the formation of NATO in 1949, The Soviet Union initiated a defense organization together with its neighbors. That meeting giveresult in the Pact of Mutual Assistance and Unified Command (PMAUC) or better known as the Warsaw Pact and consisted of Eastern Bloc countries or East European communists. This defense pact was formed to counter the power of NATO and protect the security of the Soviet Union and its member states from outside attacks. In particular, the formation of this defense alliance was triggered by the inclusion of West Germany in NATO membership

Toward a balanced framework for innovation assessment in public and mission-oriented organizations: evidence from defense industries

Due to the different nature of defense organizations as public and mission-oriented organizations, innovation in this context deals with special drivers, requirements, and considerations. Therefore, this paper uses a mixed research strategy (thematic analysis and interpretive structural modeling) to design a balanced framework for the assessment of innovation in defense organizations in Iran. This framework includes two categories of dimensions: (1) Enablers (strategic analysis based on defense doctrine; portfolio analysis of defense products and technologies; networking and development of technological collaborations; redesign of institutions, processes, and human capital development; and resource, infrastructure, and capacity management) and (2) Results (results of human capital; results of the network of defense partners; results of customers and the armed forces; performance results of defense innovations; financial and mission results; results of society and national security). The main feature of this framework is that it includes enablers and results of innovations, qualitative and quantitative dimensions, technological (product and process) and organizational innovations (human capital, internal and external relationships, and networking and collaborations), incremental and radical innovations, and eventually social, environmental, technical, and economic considerations of defense innovations simultaneously.

Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese Exclusion and Incarceration by Rachel Schreiber (review)

Reviewed by: Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese Exclusion and Incarceration by Rachel Schreiber Paul C. Mishler (bio) Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese Exclusion and Incarceration. By Rachel Schreiber. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2022. xi + 215 pp. This biography of Elaine Black Yoneda joins many other studies of radical activists that have explored individual lives rather than organizational histories or studies of radical ideologies. The author, Rachel Schreiber, is a dean at the Parsons School of Design in New York, and her earlier work was in art history, especially printmaking in the radical movement in the United States. She "discovered" Elaine Black Yoneda when she was asked to curate a historical exhibition on Jewish life in California. In her introduction Schreiber details the multiple tendencies in the writing of history that she draws on to produce this portrait of a remarkable woman. She names the "new biography" as a way to flesh out the lived experiences of individuals who may figure in organizational or social histories, but only as types. Then she talks about the contributions of women's history and the ways it has offered us a historical perspective that highlights both gender inequality and oppression and can bring to life the experiences of women who have been neglected previously. Finally, she draws on the multi-ethnic history of California and details her subject's position at the intersection of these three narrative traditions. It is a marvelous book not only because it brings to a larger audience the life of Elaine Black Yoneda and grounds it in clear writing and broad knowledge of the kinds of historical explorations that have informed her research. Importantly, it can also be read by someone who knows little about the scholarly literature on, for example, left-wing Jewish immigrants and their families. Similarly, Schreiber's discussions of class and ethnicity in California during the first half of the twentieth century; issues around anti-Japanese war-time incarceration; and complicated debates within the Japanese and Japanese American community are all done so well that any reader will understand the multiple strands of history that informed Elaine Black Yoneda's life. It is both supremely well-researched and scholarly and accessible. Elaine Black Yoneda was a significant figure in the Communist Party in California. She was born in 1906 to immigrant Jewish radicals in New York City. Her father became quite successful as the owner of dry-goods store in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, where she grew up. While her parents were Communists themselves, their daughter initially showed little interest in radical politics. She was, by her own account, more interested in expensive dresses and fancy restaurants, an early iteration of what has become known as a "valley girl." Elaine Black's life changed when she was arrested by accident at a workers' demonstration and was outraged by the police brutality she [End Page 416] witnessed. As a result, she attended the March 6, 1930, demonstration that had been organized by the Community Party, in response to the crisis caused by the onset of the Great Depression. She became an activist for the International Labor Defense (ILD), the CPUSA legal defense organization, quickly becoming a leader of the ILD in California. It was in this capacity that Elaine Black met Karl Yoneda, a Japanese American Communist. She was delivering bail money after Karl and others had been arrested at a workers' demonstration. It was "love at first sight" for both of them. The high point of this period in her life is when she became the only woman on the Executive Committee of the 1934 San Francisco General Strike representing the ILD. The second period of Elaine's life was after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. As the United States moved toward war with Japan, Japanese and Japanese Americans were told to leave the West Coast because they were all deemed security risks. They were forced from their homes and jobs and resettled in barren camps away from the West Coast. Karl was sent to Manzanar War Relocation Camp in eastern California near the Nevada border. Elaine decided that she, along with...

COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine Conflict : Emergence of India as a Global Leader

India’s foreign policy has four clearly-stated principles that have been practised over the past seven years, namely, taking care of national trade and security interests (including using aggressive defence if needed), helping its citizens in foreign countries, taking care of partner countries, and continuing to participate in global governance organizations and institutions while maintaining its non-aligned stand. India over the last seven years has initiated various foreign policy strategies: Act East policy, Sagar (trans-ocean) outlook, Gulf engagement and Central Asia strategies that have focussed on resource use, humanitarian aid, and defence. Greater investment in defence strategies can be done through strengthening national defence, providing maritime security with India’s neighbours in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, and restructuring the defence organization. As a irst responder, India takes on a leadership role for its partner countries that are in need of disaster management. Over the last few years, India has taken on the leadership of the global south and engaged with the United Nations as a temporary member.

Migrating through the Corridor of Death: The Making of a Complex Humanitarian Crisis

Drawing on the concept of a “complex humanitarian crisis,” this paper describes how outflows of migrants from Central America were transformed into such a crisis by intransigent immigration and border policies enacted in both Mexico and the United States. We describe the origins of the migration in U.S. Cold War interventions that created many thousands of displaced people fleeing violence and economic degradation in the region, leading to a sustained process of undocumented migration to the United States. Owing to rising levels of gang violence and weather events associated with climate change, the number of people seeking to escape threats in Central America has multiplied and unauthorized migration through Mexico toward the United States has increased. However, the securitization of migration in both Mexico and the United States has blocked these migrants from exercising their right to petition for asylum, creating a growing backlog of migrants who are subject to human rights violations and predations both by criminals and government authorities, leading migrants to label Mexican routes northward as a “corridor of death.” We draw on data from annual reports of Mexico's Red de Documentación de las Organizaciones Defensoras de Migrantes (Network for the Documentation of Migrant Defense Organizations) to construct a statistical profile of transit migrants and the threats they face as reported by humanitarian actors in Mexico. These reports allow us to better understand the practical realities of the “complex humanitarian crisis” facing undocumented migrants, both as unauthorized border crossers and as transit migrants moving between the southern frontiers of Mexico and the United States. Policy Recommendations Policy makers need to address: Governments must recognize that the humanitarian crisis facing migrants is not confined to border regions but unfolds at places of both origin and destination as well as within extended geographies of transit in-between. The current refugee protection regime and asylum system are ill-matched to the needs and vulnerabilities of today's migrants. In an era of rapid climate change, rising state failures, and escalating violence, people are not moving so much to advance economically as to escape a growing array of threats not covered by the 1951 Refugee Convention, which needs to be updated. Developed nations must honor rather than elide their obligations under international law to accept asylum applicants and fairly adjudicate their cases, Since a large fraction of the Central Americans arriving at the southern US border have relatives in the United States, creating a pathway to legal status for unauthorized US residents would relieve a lot of the pressure on the asylum system by enabling authorities to release applicants to the support and care of legally resident relatives rather than placing them in an overburdened detention system. Governments need to scale back the securitization and criminalization of migration, which have made human mobility an increasingly precarious and risk-filled activity that contributes to rather than forestalls the proliferation of crime and violence. Human rights and humanitarian agencies need to revisit their missions to derive new ways of working conjointly and in parallel with each other and with governments to better understand and meet the needs of migrants in the 21st century.

Multipolar Security Cooperation Planning: A Multiobjective, Adversarial-Risk-Analysis Approach

In an increasingly competitive environment, defense organizations are met with more difficult decisions than in years past. This problem is especially apparent in security cooperation, that is, defense diplomacy, conducted by the United States. Both the United States and its competitors offer military assistance to third-party nations who, in turn, select an offer based on their own self-interest. Unfortunately, current security cooperation planning practices adopt an ad hoc approach to such problems. Therefore, we set forth herein a decision-analytic-planning framework by (1) provisioning a generic utility model for security cooperation planning applicable to myriad stakeholders and (2) developing a Bayesian solution that allows the stakeholder to select an action that maximizes their expected utility. This combination of value-focused thinking and adversarial risk analysis improves upon standard U.S. defense practices; it tractably encodes planning assumptions and more comprehensively considers the relevant uncertainties. The efficacy of this planning approach is illustrated on a notional U.S. Air Force case study in which a host nation must choose between security assistance from the United States or a competing nation. Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [Grant DMS-1638521] and Air Force Office of Scientific Research [Grant 21RT0867].

Learning the lessons of COVID-19: homeland resilience in the United Kingdom - is it now time for both a dedicated civil defense organization and a paramilitary force?

ABSTRACT The United Kingdom’s homeland resilience capacity is poor. The COVID-19 pandemic proved this. Back in 2019, the UK had been labeled as the best prepared country in the world for a pandemic. And yet, by 2020, and once COVID-19 had struck, the UK became “unequivocally” the hardest hit country in Europe – particularly in terms of excess mortality. In this article it is argued that the UK’s continental neighbors coped better than the UK because they had better homeland resilience capacity. This was provided by their having civil defense organizations, paramilitary forces and militaries which are specifically designed to contribute to homeland emergencies. The UK, in contrast and almost uniquely in the world, lacks both civil defense and paramilitary bodies and, moreover, it has armed forces that are not actually structured to provide help in domestic emergencies. Given the problems highlighted during COVID-19, is it now time for the UK to set up its own bodies specifically tasked with alleviating domestic emergencies? This article explores this question by comparing the UK’s pandemic response with that of Spain – a country which, according to all available data, should have performed worse than the UK. But it did not. Why?

The Challenge of Ethical Interoperability

Defense organizations are increasingly developing ethical principles to guide the design, development, and use of responsible AI, most notably for defense, security, and intelligence uses. While these principles have the potential to lead to more ethical and responsible uses of AI, they also create a novel issue that we term the challenge of ethical interoperability. In particular, we start with the observation that the frequent necessity for collaboration between defense organizations results in their possible need to use one another’s AI systems, either directly or indirectly. In such cases, the AI system presumably satisfies the originator organization’s ethical principles, but the adopting organization should only use it if it also satisfies their AI principles. One might naturally consider using the operating characteristics of the AI system to establish ethical interoperability, as those parallel the features used for technical interoperability. However, we argue that if the operating characteristics are sufficient to enable such assurance, then they will be too detailed to be disclosed. Instead, we propose a system of self-certification that provides adopting organizations with assurances that a system satisfies their ethical AI principles. We argue that our proposed framework properly aligns incentives to ensure ethical interoperability between defense organizations. Moreover, although this challenge is particularly salient for defense organizations, ethical interoperability must also be addressed in non-defense settings by organizations that have developed ethical AI principles.

The assessment of defense information systems complexity: An addition to genetic taxonomy approach

Defense organizations, like the ministry of defense, the armed forces, the general staff of the armed forces, the army, the navy, or the air force units, use a specific business technology. What makes their business technology specific is a predictable changeability of their business processes. Namely, these organizations function in more than one state, each having its own business processes. An organization transits from one state to another in a predictable manner, thus changing its business processes. This kind of business technology is not exclusively restricted to defense organizations, as it also applies to police as well as crisis management organizations. In order to develop information systems (IS) supporting these organizations properly, the complexity of their future IS should be assessed first. This assessment can be performed by relying on existing genetic taxonomies, i.e., by situating the planned defense IS inside the IS genetic taxonomy space, with regard of relevant characteristics of organizational processes supported by the IS. A behavioral dimension described in this paper addresses the dynamics of states defense systems operate in, offering to contribute to the understanding of defense systems’ response to changes in dynamic ecosystems, assisting thereby researchers and practitioners in describing dynamic properties of investigated systems.

Contextualizing Physical Data in Professional Handball: Using Local Positioning Systems to Automatically Define Defensive Organizations.

In handball, the way the team organizes itself in defense can greatly impact the player’s activity and displacement during the play, therefore impacting the match demands. This paper aims (1) to develop an automatic tool to detect and classify the defensive organization of the team based on the local positioning system data and check its classification quality, and (2) to quantify the match demands per defensive organization, i.e., defining a somehow cost of specific defensive organizations. For this study, LPS positional data (X and Y location) of players from a team in the Spanish League were analyzed during 25 games. The algorithm quantified the physical demands of the game (distance stand, walk, jog, run and sprint) broken down by player role and by specific defensive organizations, which were automatically detected from the raw data. Results show that the different attacking and defending phases of a game can be automatically detected with high accuracy, the defensive organization can be classified between 1–5, 0–6, 2–4, and 3–3. Interestingly, due to the highly adaptive nature of handball, differences were found between what was the intended defensive organization at a start of a phase and the actual organization that can be observed during the full defensive phase, which consequently impacts the physical demands of the game. From there, quantifying for each player role the cost of each specific defensive organization is the first step into optimizing the use of the players in the team and their recovery time, but also at the team level, it allows to balance the cost (i.e., physical demand) and the benefit (i.e., the outcome of the defensive phase) of each type of defensive organization.

Formation of ICT competencies of a future mathematics teacher when teaching stochastics in the context of digital transformation of education

The inclusion of the author’s course of studying the functionality of the “Electronic Perm Educational System” (EPES) in the university training of a pedagogical sphere specialist contributes to the development of the ability to work in a digital environment in basic and additional education. The teaching of this course is focused on the use of technologies related to the implementation of educational engineering, which has now gone beyond the scope of technical specialties and has spread to the field of training specialists in the field of pedagogical design, design of educational programs and trajectories. Particular attention in this course is paid to the formation of ICT competencies of future teachers in the development of digital products in the process of studying specialized disciplines and elective courses, in particular, such as “Probability theory and mathematical statistics”, “Electronic Perm Educational System”, implemented on the basis of competence oriented, design and engineering approaches. The possibility of accumulation of these approaches in the work of student design workshops in the EPES Library cluster is demonstrated. As a result of the activities of such workshops, a digital educational product (DEP) is supposed to be needed in real learning practice and has prospects for further use by the student already in the role of a teacher after graduation: a lesson script, an electronic test or other educational content. Special tasks for students are characterized, aimed at developing and diagnosing the ICT competence of future mathematics teachers at the Perm Pedagogical University. Usually, the solving of the task includes the following stages: development of annotations, creation of a passport and subject content of the DEP, organization of approbation, presentation, defense and publication of the developed materials in EPES. The description of diagnostics of ICT competence of a future mathematics teacher in three of its components is given: general user, general pedagogical and subject-pedagogical.

Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science: The Victoria Institute, 1865-1939, by Stuart Mathieson

Reviewed by: Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science: The Victoria Institute, 1865–1939 by Stuart Mathieson Martin Hewitt (bio) Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science: The Victoria Institute, 1865–1939, by Stuart Mathieson; pp. xi + 171. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020, £96.00, $160.00, $41.60 ebook. It is probably too much to say that we urgently needed a full-length study of the Victoria Institute. The brainchild of an obscure civil servant with some dubious ideas about Newtonian physics, a defensive organization out of step with all but a marginalized evangelical fringe, and largely ridiculed by the establishment, its scholarly neglect is understandable. And yet this organization—which appropriated Queen Victoria's name, has survived from 1865 to the present day, and which, at its nineteenth-century peak, could claim more than a thousand members across the UK and beyond (including some prominent scientists and religious writers), and which published a substantial volume of annual Transactions (1867–1957)—certainly deserves more attention than it has hitherto attracted. After all, a proper historical understanding should encompass the losers as well as the winners. Stuart Mathieson's Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science: The Victoria Institute, 1865–1939 partly rectifies this neglect, but remains something of a missed opportunity. Bookending his analysis with an account of the Institute's establishment and early years, then turning to its twentieth-century decline and reorientation, Mathieson explores four broad areas: natural theology, the higher criticism, geology and deep time, and Darwinism. This approach effectively brings out some consistent themes: evolutionary skepticism and a certain biblical literalism, of course, but also and perhaps most significantly the persistent attempt to deploy a version of Baconian inductivism as a methodological prophylactic to so-called speculative deductive science and the -isms that followed in its wake, not least materialism and atheism. But his reliance on the serial discussion of a small selection of the papers presented and the discussions that followed produces a rather narrow and bloodless account of the institution's significance. There is too much summary and not enough synthesis here. To be fair, Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science does not disguise its limited ambitions, claiming only to "investigate the debates around religion and science at the influential Victoria Institute" (i). And in the absence of any institutional archive before 1909, heavy reliance on the published Transactions is understandable. But the internalist focus leaves little opportunity for exploring the influence of the Institute. The book might have examined not only how the Institute was treated by outsiders, but also the place it [End Page 347] occupied within the broader activities of its leading participants. Other sources could have been consulted but are surprisingly underused. Despite one reference to the papers of George Gabriel Stokes, who was president of the Institute from 1885 to 1903, his surviving correspondence with the Institute's secretaries is not exploited. And although the Institute shares the general fate of nineteenth-century intellectual associations in that newspaper coverage concentrated almost exclusively on the content of papers presented, there are scattered descriptions of the Institute's meetings that would have enriched Mathieson's account. C. M. Davies's portrayal in Heterodox London (1874), for example, reveals that the papers were preprinted and handed to members at the door as well as circulated for comment by correspondence, a feature which merits more attention. lyttelton Stewart Forbes Winslow's Recollections of Forty Years (1910), moreover, portrays cadaverous men with long white hair braving the elements to hear anti-Darwinian diatribes, thus reinforcing one of the Institute's fundamental characteristics: its membership, as well as being predominantly Anglican, was significantly skewed by age. In the Ph.D. thesis on which the book is very closely based, Mathieson provides an illuminating study of the sociology of the Institute's membership and leadership that is, inexplicably, omitted here. As Mathieson emphasizes, the travel and evolution of ideas matter. But this necessarily involves the networks of texts, people, and institutions in which these ideas are produced and disseminated. A few of the dramatis personae of the Institute's history are fleshed out, including James Reddie and F. W. H. Petrie, its two Victorian secretaries, and its...

Patterns and trends among physicians-in-training named in civil legal cases: a retrospective analysis of Canadian Medical Protective Association data from 1993 to 2017.

Background:Medico-legal data show opportunities to improve safe medical care; little is published on the experience of physiciansin-training with medical malpractice. The purpose of this study was to examine closed civil legal cases involving physicians-in-training over time and provide novel insights on case and physicians characteristics.Methods:We conducted a retrospective descriptive study of closed civil legal cases at the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA), a mutual medico-legal defence organization for more than 105 000 physicians, representing an estimated 95% of physicians in Canada. Eligible cases involved at least 1 physician-in-training and were closed between 1993 and 2017 (for time trends) or 2008 and 2017 (for descriptive analyses). We analyzed case rates over time using Poisson regression and the annualized change rate. Descriptive analyses addressed case duration, medico-legal outcome and patient harm. We explored physician specialties and practice characteristics in a subset of cases.Results:Over a 25-year period (1993–2017), 4921 physicians-in-training were named in 2951 closed civil legal cases, and case rates decreased significantly (β = −0.04, 95% confidence interval −0.05 to −0.03, where β was the 1-year difference in log case rates). The annualized change rate was −1.1% per year. Between 2008 and 2017, 1901 (4.1%) of 45 967 physicians-in-training were named in 1107 civil legal cases. Cases with physicians-in-training generally involved more severe patient harm than cases without physicians-in-training. In a subgroup with available information (n = 951), surgical specialties were named most often (n = 531, 55.8%).Interpretation:The rate of civil legal cases involving physicians-in-training has diminished over time, but more recent cases featured severe patient harm and death. Efforts to promote patient safety may enhance medical care and reduce the frequency and severity of malpractice issues for physicians-in-training.

Assessing Information Security Continuous Monitoring in the Federal Government

To confront the relentless and increasingly sophisticated cyber assaults from cybercriminals, nation-state actors, and other adversaries, the U.S. Federal Government must have mechanisms to reduce or eliminate compromise and debilitating consequences. Information Security Continuous Monitoring (ISCM) leverages technology to rapidly detect, analyze, and prioritize vulnerabilities and threats and deliver a data-driven, risk-based approach to cybersecurity. Although monitoring information system security became a requirement for government agencies over 20 years ago and billions of dollars are being spent annually for cybersecurity, ISCM remains at a low maturity level across the Federal Government. This research framework presented is part of ongoing doctoral research. The research seeks to identify the challenges achieving an effective ISCM program and inform measures needed to optimize ISCM. The research involves conducting an ISCM Program Assessment in a Department of Defense (DoD) organization using the recently published National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) ISCM Assessment (ISCMA) methodology and the companion assessment tool ISCMAx. An ISCM doctrine placement is presented, derived from the NIST ISCM assessment elements, to more clearly articulate and visualize the doctrine of a well-designed and well-implemented ISCM program. This research will also contribute to the knowledge base for assessing ISCM in the Federal government and the functionality of the ISCMAx tool.

Multidimensional ground reaction forces and moments from wearable sensor accelerations via deep learning

Introduction: Military task performance is dependent upon the coherent and effective collaboration of its component parts. These are comprised of individuals working in coordinated teams performing tasks that are naturally variable and have physical and cognitive elements, the relative contribution being dependent upon the task. Furthermore, the battlefield is non-linear, and dynamic with human, task, environmental and informational constraints. Complexity is added to team performance assessment by the fact that there is considerable redundancy within military teams. This redundancy is critical and affords the ability for team performance to be protected even when individual performance is degraded by fatigue. The purpose of this work is to propose a conceptual framework for the assessment of military team dynamics, based upon analytical models used in sport in addition to emergent sensor technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Methods: A review of the scientific literature and the developments in team performance assessment, AI and emerging sensor technologies was conducted to inform a conceptual framework designed to assess team dynamics and redundancy in the presence of individual fatigue. Results: Current assessment of team dynamics during mission-critical tasks, the contribution of each individual, and the emergent team behaviours whilst subject to fatigue are typically limited to subjective ratings and post-activity reports. Indeed, there seems to be an institutional belief that the military already assess teams effectively and retrospective After Action Review is key to this success. As such, the ability to reliably monitor and objectively assess military team dynamics and redundancy remains a challenge. In addition, despite advancements in technology, the opportunity to conduct real-time or near real-time observations with which to provide rapid insights is yet to be taken up by the military. Discussion/conclusions: Improvements in analytical methods, sensor technologies, and the maturity of AI tools provide the opportunity to progress from simply describing individual and team performance to understanding the team dynamics by the integration of novel sensors and AI-assisted analytical tools. Devices to rapidly acquire and process data continue to evolve along with wearable, and stand-off sensors and AI-assisted tools. A peer-reviewed, conceptual, interdisciplinary framework for objectively assessing team dynamics is proposed. With careful collaboration, we suggest that the potential to enhance the understanding of team dynamics and redundancy is boundless. Notwithstanding, it is critical that defence organisations have an endorsed strategy for the acceptance and implementation of such analytical tools that would provide a clear operational benefit.

Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio

Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio

Video Streaming Adaptive QoS Routing with Resource Reservation (VQoSRR) Model for SDN Networks

Video streaming has become extremely widespread, especially with the growing number of users and the spread of mobile devices, along with the increase in the availability and diversity of multimedia applications and communication technologies. Real-time video communication requires awareness of the quality of experience (QoE) to provide customers with a satisfactory service, for example, in smart cities that use video surveillance systems. The quality of service (QoS) is dependent on network performance, which directly affects the QoE. However, reliance on traditional network infrastructure and routing protocols cannot assure QoS. The emergence of software defined networks (SDN) may eliminate current network limitations. Due to SDN’s global view and programmability characteristics, such capabilities could help in providing an automated QoS control and management. This paper introduces video streaming adaptive QoS-based routing and resource reservation (VQoSRR), which gives SDN networks the ability to meet video demands and enhance user experience over best effort networks, such as the ones required for video surveillance in smart cities. In order to implement QoS-based routing (QBR), we developed algorithms for calculating routing, installing routing paths in the forwarding devices, and shifting traffic to an alternative path when QoE is violated. As well, we used queuing mechanisms to allocate resources based on the QoE requirements of video streaming. Our results indicate that resource reservation mechanisms combined with QoS-based routing enable effective control over routes and resources. Our framework guarantees the video quality as well. This technique of using video streaming would improve the tools and applications used for smart cities such as surveillance systems for hospitals and civil defense organizations.