Reliability demonstration for safety-critical systems

This paper suggests a new model for reliability demonstration of safety-critical systems, based on the TRW Software Reliability Theory. The paper describes the model; the test equipment required and test strategies based on the various constraints occurring during software development. The paper also compares a new testing method, Single Risk Sequential Testing (SRST), with the standard Probability Ratio Sequential Testing method (PRST), and concludes that: • SRST provides higher chances of success than PRST • SRST takes less time to complete than PRST • SRST satisfies the consumer risk criterion, whereas PRST provides a much smaller consumer risk than the requirement

A Good Start: Two-Year Effects of a Freshmen Learning Community Program at Kingsborough Community College

Freshmen in a "learning community" at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY, moved more quickly through developmental English requirements, took and passed more courses, and earned more credits in their first semester than students in a control group. Two years later, they were also somewhat more likely to be enrolled in college

Four Strategies to Overcome Barriers to Employment: An Introduction to the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project

This demonstration is evaluating four diverse strategies designed to improve employment and other outcomes for people who face serious barriers to employment: a comprehensive employment program for former prisoners, a two-generation Head Start program that provides enhanced services and training to parents, two alternative employment strategies for long-term welfare recipients, and intensive telephonic care management for Medicaid recipients who are experiencing depression

UAV as a Reliable Wingman: A Flight Demonstration

In this brief, we present the results from a flight experiment demonstrating two significant advances in software enabled control: optimization-based control using real-time trajectory generation and logical programming environments for formal analysis of control software. Our demonstration platform consisted of a human-piloted F-15 jet flying together with an autonomous T-33 jet. We describe the behavior of the system in two scenarios. In the first, nominal state communications were present and the autonomous aircraft maintained formation as the human pilot flew maneuvers. In the second, we imposed the loss of high-rate communications and demonstrated an autonomous safe “lost wingman” procedure to increase separation and reacquire contact. The flight demonstration included both a nominal formation flight component and an execution of the lost wingman scenario

Toward Reduced Poverty Across Generations: Early Findings from New York City's Conditional Cash Transfer Program

In 2007, New York City launched Opportunity NYC -- Family Rewards, an experimental, privately funded, conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to help families break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. CCT programs offer cash assistance to reduce immediate hardship and poverty but condition this assistance -- or cash transfers -- on families' efforts to improve their "human capital" (typically, children's educational achievement and family health) in the hope of reducing their poverty over the longer term. Such programs have grown rapidly across lower- and middle-income countries, and evaluations have found some important successes. Family Rewards is the first comprehensive CCT program in a developed country.Aimed at low-income families in six of New York City's highest-poverty communities, Family Rewards ties cash rewards to a pre-specified set of activities and outcomes in the areas of children's education, family preventive health care, and parents' employment. The program is available to 2,400 families for three years. Inspired by Mexico's pioneering Oportunidades program, Family Rewards' program effects are being measured via a randomized control trial.The Family Rewards demonstration is one of 40 initiatives sponsored by New York City's Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), a unit within the Office of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that is responsible for testing innovative strategies to reduce the number of New Yorkers who are living in poverty. Two national, New York-based nonprofit organizations -- MDRC, a nonpartisan social policy research firm, and Seedco, a workforce and economic development organization -- worked in close partnership with CEO to design the demonstration. Seedco, together with a small network of local community-based organizations, is operating Family Rewards, and MDRC is conducting the evaluation and managing the overall demonstration. A consortium of private funders is supporting the project.1This report presents the initial findings from an ongoing and comprehensive evaluation of Family Rewards. It examines the program's implementation in the field and families' responses to it during the first two of its three years of operations. This evaluation period, beginning in September 2007 and ending in August 2009, encompasses a start-up phase as well as a stage when the program was beginning to mature. The report also presents early findings on the program's effects, or "impacts," on a wide range of outcome measures. For some measures, the results cover only the first program year, while for others they also cover part or all of the second year. No data are available yet on the third year. The evaluation findings are based on analyses of a wide variety of administrative records data, responses to a survey of parents that was administered about 18 months after random assignment, and qualitative in-depth interviews with program staff and families.Overall, this study shows that, despite an extraordinarily rapid start-up and early challenges, the program was operating largely as intended by its second year. Although many families struggled with the complexity of the program, most were substantially engaged with it and received a large amount of money for meeting the conditions it established. During the period covered by the report, Family Rewards reduced current poverty (its main short-term goal) and produced a range of effects on a variety of outcomes across all three program domains (children's education, family health care, and parents' work and training)

Moving from Jobs to Careers: Engaging Low-Wage Workers in Career Advancement

The Work Advancement and Support Center (WASC) demonstration offers a new approach to helping low-wage and dislocated workers advance by increasing their wages or work hours, upgrading their skills, or finding better jobs. At the same time, these workers are encouraged to augment and stabilize their income by making the most of available work supports, such as food stamps, public health insurance, subsidized child care, and tax credits. This report presents preliminary information on the effectiveness of strategies that were used to attract people to the WASC program and engage them in services

Can Teacher Training in Classroom Management Make a Difference for Children's Experiences in Preschool? A Preview of Findings from the Foundations of Learning Demonstration

Early evaluation results from Newark, NJ, show that Foundations of Learning improved teachers' classroom management and productivity, reduced children's conflict with peers, and engaged students in the learning tasks of preschool. The intervention was implemented in Head Start programs, community-based child care centers, and public schools

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation: Activity on Many Fronts

Provides an overview of the Innovation Center's organization, differences from CMS's traditional demonstration authority, payment and delivery reform initiatives, and first-year efforts to solicit and promote new ideas and collaborate with other payers