Measures of effectiveness in logistics

This report examines measures of effectiveness in naval logistics. Logistics is a warfare support function and it is most desirable to be able to relate resources committed for logistics capabilities to warfare outcomes. In general this cannot be done. Examples of the sorts of measures of effectiveness used in acquisition logistics and in in-service support are given. Battle group logistics, a part of operational logistics, is examined not so much from the viewpoint of measures of effectiveness as from the viewpoint of tactically meaningful measures of logistics resources. Keywords: Sustainability, Planning models, Replenishment time, Time off station, Minimum levels. (KR)Prepared in conjunction with research conducted for the Navy Logistics Research and Development Program and funded by the Naval Postgraduate Schoolhttp://archive.org/details/measuresofeffect00schrO&MN - Direct FundingApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Measuring and Improving the Effectiveness of High School Teachers

Discusses the need to invest in multiple methods to measure a teacher's effectiveness, as well as in high-quality evaluations and career development to improve it. Describes "value-added" analysis, its limitations, and other measures of effectiveness

Measures of effectiveness and C3 testbed experiments

Caption title.Includes bibliographical references (leaf [14]).Research partially supported by the French Delegation Generale pour l'Armement. Research partially supported by the Joint Directors of Laboratories through the Office of Naval Research. N00014-85-K-0782by Philippe J.F. Martin, Alexander H. Levis

Waveform libraries: Measures of effectiveness for radar scheduling

Our goal was to provide an overview of a circle of emerging ideas in the area of waveform scheduling for active radar. Principled scheduling of waveforms in radar and other active sensing modalities is motivated by the nonexistence of any single waveform that is ideal for all situations encountered in typical operational scenarios. This raises the possibility of achieving operationally significant performance gains through closed-loop waveform scheduling. In principle, the waveform transmitted in each epoch should be optimized with respect to a metric of desired performance using all information available from prior measurements in conjunction with models of scenario dynamics. In practice, the operational tempo of the system may preclude such on-the-fly waveform design, though further research into fast adaption of waveforms could possibly attenuate such obstacles in the future. The focus in this article has been on the use of predesigned libraries of waveforms from which the scheduler can select in lieu of undertaking a real-time design. Despite promising results, such as the performance gains shown in the tracking example presented here, many challenges remain to be addressed to bring the power of waveform scheduling to the level of maturity needed to manifest major impact as a standard component of civilian and military radar systems.Douglas Cochran, Sofia Suvorova, Stephen D. Howard and Bill Mora

Measures of effectiveness for data fusion based on information entropy

This thesis is concerned with measuring and predicting the performance and effectiveness of a data fusion process. Its central proposition is that information entropy may be used to quantify concisely the effectiveness of the process. The personal and original contribution to that subject which is contained in this thesis is summarised as follows: The mixture of performance behaviours that occur in a data fusion system are described and modelled as the states of an ergodic Markov process. An new analytic approach to combining the entropy of discrete and continuous information is defined. A new simple and accurate model of data association performance is proposed. A new model is proposed for the propagation of information entropy in an minimum mean square combination of track estimates. A new model is proposed for the propagation of the information entropy of object classification belief as new observations are incorporated in a recursive Bayesian classifier. A new model to quantify the information entropy of the penalty of ignorance is proposed. New formulations of the steady state solution of the matrix Riccati equation to model tracker performance are proposed

Strategies for Identifying and Selecting Performance Measures of Effectiveness for Nonprofit Organizations

There is a growing demand for accountability of nonprofit organizations, and nonprofit business leaders are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate operational effectiveness. The problem is that some business leaders of nonprofit organizations lack strategies for identifying and selecting actionable performance measures of operational effectiveness. Using the plan-do-study-act conceptual framework, this single case study of a nonprofit organization located in the mid-Atlantic region of United States was conducted to explore strategies that 3 of its business leaders used to identify and select actionable performance measures of operational effectiveness. Using thematic analysis of data collected from semistructured interviews, documents, and public sources, emergent themes included: (a) usefulness of measures, (b) customer experience, and (c) workforce education. The findings of this study may have implications for social change by helping nonprofit business leaders achieve consensus on measures of effectiveness beyond financial measures. Additionally, the findings could support the usefulness of transparency in reporting performance outcomes, encourage a shift in focus from program spending and ratios to effectiveness, and prompt external stakeholders to expect performance measures that demonstrate effectiveness in nonprofit program operations

RATES OF RETURN TO TERTIARY EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

South African research has found tertiary education to have the highest rate of return amongst levels of education. Measures of effectiveness of the large allocation by government are a crucial area of study relatively untapped. Income levels relative to level of education were found to have significant correlation with probability of entering into an income bracket of above R8 000 being 2.3 times higher with a tertiary degree. A sample of Rhodes University NSFAS funded students, analysed within the framework of a cost benefit equation, indicated the positive effect of government funding on rates of return.Public Economics,

Measures of effectiveness in medical research: reporting both absolute and relative measures

Biomedical research, especially pharmaceutical research, has been criticised for engaging in practices that lead to over-estimations of the effectiveness of medical treatments. A central issue concerns the reporting of absolute and relative measures of medical effectiveness. In this paper we critically examine proposals made by Jacob Stegenga to (a) give priority to the reporting of absolute measures over relative measures, and (b) downgrade the measures of effectiveness (effect sizes) of the treatments tested in clinical trials (Stegenga, 2015a). After exposing significant flaws in a central case study used by Stegenga to bolster his first proposal (a), we go on to argue that neither of these proposals is defensible (a or b). We defend the practice, in line with the New England Journal of Medicine, of reporting both absolute and relative measures whenever feasible