AN ANALYSIS OF THE MARINE CORPS AVIATION TRAINING SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS LIFE CYCLE

This capstone applied project examines the suitability of the current requirements life cycle for Marine Corps aviation training systems, including new programs and upgrades. Methodology includes a comprehensive review of existing policies and processes as well as interviews with key stakeholders. Analysis has identified weaknesses in the areas of training-focused requirements generation as well as portfolio management across Marine Corps training system programs. Recommendations include integrating modeling and simulation (M&S) expertise into the Training Management Process (TMP) and full implementation of Training Systems Certification (TSC) and Systematic Team Assessment of Readiness Training (START) tools to improve requirement relevancy to training needs as well as improved portfolio management for Marine Corps training systems led by Marine Corps Training and Education Command (TECOM). This capstone applied project concludes with recommendations for further study related to these matters.Major, United States Marine CorpsMajor, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Design and Emergence of a Pedagogical Online InfoSec Laboratory as an Ensemble Artefact

Information security (InfoSec) education becomes increasingly important. Building hands-on capabilities to tackle challenges is a precondition to mitigate and eliminate cyber threats. Existing studies, however, show that the field lacks pedagogically founded information security laboratories that can be used flexibly to educate both on-campus and online learners. To address this issue, this paper reports on an online InfoSec laboratory. Development of the laboratory follows an action design research approach. For this purpose, initial design principles were used that are derived from the existing pedagogical theories such as Conversational Framework, Constructive Alignment, and Personalized System of Instruction, literature reviews and empirical data. Through iterative cycles of building, intervention, and evaluation of an InfoSec laboratory, and side-by-side critical reflections, this study refines the conceptual model of an online InfoSec laboratory and initial design principles and provides general guidelines on the process of establishing a pedagogically underpinned online InfoSec laboratory for hands-on exercises. This study contributes by serving two major purposes. First, this study proposes a conceptual model of an online InfoSec laboratory that comprises important entities: Laboratory Infrastructure, Exercise (document), Exercise Processing and Management Interface (EPI), and Concrete Exercise Interface. Secondly, the research proposes design principles for implementing a conceptual model of an online InfoSec laboratory in different educational contexts

Planning and Design Considerations for Computer Supported Collaboration Spaces

Architects have long been aware of the need to design for the behaviors a space is meant to support. However, neither the seminal works on architectural programming or collaborative engineering address the linkages between physical environment design and collaborative work practice. This paper posits that the design of collaboration environments should stand as a third pillar of collaboration engineering, suggests four ways in which physical environment design and collaboration engineering might mutually inform the other, and specifies several dimensions of physical environment affordance collaboration engineers might consider when developing requirements for collaboration space

Use of a Telerehabilitation Delivery System for Fall Risk Screening

Problem: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that falls are the “leading cause of injury death and the most common cause of nonfatal injuries and hospital admission for trauma among people ages 65 and older.”1 Falls can have significant economic consequences to the individual and payer sources. To address these consequences, telerehabilitation was hypothesized to be a suitable supplement for fall screening efforts. Several sources concluded that support for synchronous telerehab was underdeveloped in the literature. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the acceptability, feasibility, reliability, and validity of telehealth-delivered fall screening among community-dwelling older adults. Procedures: This investigation implemented an experimental, quantitative, cross-sectional design employing both pretest-posttest control group and quasi-experimental static group comparisons using non-probability sampling. This study assembled a panel of experts to provide content validation for a survey tool developed to quantify an older adult’s behavioral intension to use and attitudes towards a telerehabilitation delivery system. Seven fall screening tools were investigated for agreement among remote and face-to-face raters, and for comparison with the face-to-face reference standard (Mini-BEST). Results: All three null hypotheses were rejected. Results indicate that a telerehabilitation delivery system is a reliable and valid method of screening and determining fall risk in community-dwelling older adults. This study produced a content validated, internally consistent survey instrument designed to determine attitudes and beliefs about telerehabilitation. An experimental design was able to demonstrate a positive significant change in 4 of 7 survey constructs among the intervention group after exposure to telerehabilitation as compared to post-test controls. Overall, no significant difference was calculated between face-to-face or telerehab raters, and both environments produced equivalency with scoring, fall risk classification, and ability to discern fallers from non-fallers. Results from the telerehab STEADI fall risk conclusions were calculated to be concurrently valid with the face-to-face reference standard screening tool, the Mini-BEST. Conclusions: This investigation expanded the array of remote healthcare delivery options for clinicians and clients. Further investigation in residential and community settings are recommended

Education and outreach activities within the biological weapons convention

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tinyLTE: Lightweight, Ad-Hoc Deployable Cellular Network for Vehicular Communication

The application of LTE technology has evolved from infrastructure-based deployments in licensed bands to new use cases covering ad hoc, device-to-device communications and unlicensed band operation. Vehicular communication is an emerging field of particular interest for LTE, covering in our understanding both automotive (cars) as well as unmanned aerial vehicles. Existing commercial equipment is designed for infrastructure making it unsuitable for vehicular applications requiring low weight and unlicensed band support (e.g. 5.9 GHz ITS-band). In this work, we present tinyLTE, a system design which provides fully autonomous, multi-purpose and ultra-compact LTE cells by utilizing existing open source eNB and EPC implementations. Due to its small form factor and low weight, the tinyLTE system enables mobile deployment on board of cars and drones as well as smooth integration with existing roadside infrastructure. Additionally, the standalone design allows for systems to be chained in a multi-hop configuration. The paper describes the lean and low-cost design concept and implementation followed by a performance evaluation for single and two-hop configurations at 5.9 GHz. The results from both lab and field experiments validate the feasibility of the tinyLTE approach and demonstrate its potential to even support real-time vehicular applications (e.g. with a lowest average end-to-end latency of around 7 ms in the lab experiment)

A Multi-Agent Architecture for An Intelligent Web-Based Educational System

An intelligent educational system must constitute an adaptive system built on multi-agent system architecture. The multi-agent architecture component provides self-organization, self-direction, and other control functionalities that are crucially important for an educational system. On the other hand, the adaptiveness of the system is necessary to provide customization, diversification, and interactional functionalities. Therefore, an educational system architecture that integrates multi-agent functionality [50] with adaptiveness can offer the learner the required independent learning experience. An educational system architecture is a complex structure with an intricate hierarchal organization where the functional components of the system undergo sophisticated and unpredictable internal interactions to perform its function. Hence, the system architecture must constitute adaptive and autonomous agents differentiated according to their functions, called multi-agent systems (MASs). The research paper proposes an adaptive hierarchal multi-agent educational system (AHMAES) [51] as an alternative to the traditional education delivery method. The document explains the various architectural characteristics of an adaptive multi-agent educational system and critically analyzes the system’s factors for software quality attributes

Operational strategy for K-12 schools through phased prevention

Updated Apr. 23, 2021Essential Elements of Safe K\u201312 School Operations for In-Person Learning -- Health Equity Considerations -- Prevention Strategies to Reduce Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Schools -- Indicators of Community Transmission -- Phased Prevention -- Additional COVID-19 Prevention Strategies in Schools -- Testing --- Vaccination for Teachers and School Staff.2021951

Operational strategy for K-12 schools through phased prevention

Updated May 15, 2021IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR SCHOOLSCDC recommends schools continue to use the current COVID-19 prevention strategies for the 2020-2021 school year.Key Points1. Evidence suggests that many K-12 schools that have strictly implemented prevention strategies have been able to safely open for in-person instruction and remain open.2. CDC\u2019s K-12 operational strategy presents a pathway for schools to provide in-person instruction safely through consistent use of prevention strategies, including universal and correct use of masks and physical distancing.3. All schools should implement and layer prevention strategies and should prioritize universal and correct use of masks and physical distancing.4. Testing to identify individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination for teachers and staff provide additional layers of COVID-19 protection in schools.Essential Elements of Safe K\u201312 School Operations for In-Person Learning -- Health Equity Considerations -- Prevention Strategies to Reduce Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Schools -- Cleaning and maintaining healthy facilities -- Fully Vaccinated -- Indicators of Community Transmission -- Phased Prevention -- Additional COVID-19 Prevention Strategies in Schools -- Testing -- Vaccination for Teachers and School Staff.2021965

SHARKS: Smart Hacking Approaches for RisK Scanning in Internet-of-Things and Cyber-Physical Systems based on Machine Learning

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices are increasingly being deployed across multiple functionalities, ranging from healthcare devices and wearables to critical infrastructures, e.g., nuclear power plants, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, and smart homes. These devices are inherently not secure across their comprehensive software, hardware, and network stacks, thus presenting a large attack surface that can be exploited by hackers. In this article, we present an innovative technique for detecting unknown system vulnerabilities, managing these vulnerabilities, and improving incident response when such vulnerabilities are exploited. The novelty of this approach lies in extracting intelligence from known real-world CPS/IoT attacks, representing them in the form of regular expressions, and employing machine learning (ML) techniques on this ensemble of regular expressions to generate new attack vectors and security vulnerabilities. Our results show that 10 new attack vectors and 122 new vulnerability exploits can be successfully generated that have the potential to exploit a CPS or an IoT ecosystem. The ML methodology achieves an accuracy of 97.4% and enables us to predict these attacks efficiently with an 87.2% reduction in the search space. We demonstrate the application of our method to the hacking of the in-vehicle network of a connected car. To defend against the known attacks and possible novel exploits, we discuss a defense-in-depth mechanism for various classes of attacks and the classification of data targeted by such attacks. This defense mechanism optimizes the cost of security measures based on the sensitivity of the protected resource, thus incentivizing its adoption in real-world CPS/IoT by cybersecurity practitioners.Comment: This article has been accepted in IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing. 17 pages, 12 figures, IEEE copyrigh