Generating Opportunity from Uncertainty

Learning to deal with uncertainty makes organizations more robust. Leaders can take steps to help their organizations take advantage uncertainty. When continued success transitions from informed decision to luck, small differences in the ability of organizations to handle uncertainty can have a large impact. An example from military history is used to outline current day lessons for military and business leaders

Academic Recognition of Military Experience in STEM Education

Recent calls for increases in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education attainment and veterans' education success have created a platform for examining how veterans with military experience in STEM fields can more efficiently complete postsecondary education and training.The American Council on Education (ACE) military evaluation program provides credit recommendations for military courses that align servicemembers' training with postsecondary curricula and competencies. These recommendations,if accepted as transfer credit, can decrease the time it takes servicemembers and veterans to complete STEM certificates and degrees.Numerous challenges exist in considering military credit recommendations for postsecondary courses and degrees. The process is complex, requiring an acute understanding of military transcripts and the resources and tools available to assist institutions of higher education in awarding credit for military training. Additionally, misinformation and lack of awareness regarding the content, scope, and rigor of the ACE review process and resulting credit recommendations create resistance to awarding credit.Successfully increasing acceptance of military credit recommendations at institutions of higher education can be achievedthrough public-private partnerships between colleges and universities, federal agencies, workforce development experts, and other key stakeholders using available resources and tools to build degree pathways that accurately map military training to STEM courses.An education campaign about the ACE review process and the value of the resulting credit recommendations will also help eliminate the stigma surrounding credit awarded for prior learning, and boost support among leaders and institutions for increased acceptance of military credit recommendations. This approach will lead to the developmentof best practices and, ultimately, increases in both STEM attainment and veterans' education success

The Thayer Method: Student Active Learning with Positive Results

Graduation from West Point requires successful completion of four courses in the mathematical sciences. These core mathematics courses include topics in discrete dynamical systems, differential and integral calculus (single variable and multivariable), differential equations, linear algebra, probability, and statistics. The instructional system employed throughout the core is the Thayer Method, named for Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, the Father of the Military Academy. In the Thayer Method, traces of cooperative education and discovery learning are evident. It is quintessential active learning. The West Point catalyst is the fundamental principle that cadets are responsible for their own education

\u3cem\u3eUnited States v. Hodges\u3c/em\u3e: Treason, Jury Trials, and the War of 1812

In August 1814 a number of British soldiers were arrested as stragglers or deserters in the town of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Upon learning of the soldiers’ absences the British military took local physician, Dr. William Beanes, and two other residents into custody and threatened to burn Upper Marlboro if the British soldiers were not returned. John Hodges, a local attorney, arranged the soldiers’ return to the British military. For this, Hodges was charged with high treason for “adhering to [the] enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” The resulting jury trial was presided over by Justice Gabriel Duvall, a Supreme Court Justice and Prince Georges County native, and highlights how the crime of treason was viewed in early American culture and the role of the jury as deciders of the facts and the law in early American jurisprudence. Contextually, Hodges’ trial took place against the backdrop of the War of 1812 and was informed by the 1807 treason trial of Aaron Burr

Thirty Years of Machine Learning: The Road to Pareto-Optimal Wireless Networks

Future wireless networks have a substantial potential in terms of supporting a broad range of complex compelling applications both in military and civilian fields, where the users are able to enjoy high-rate, low-latency, low-cost and reliable information services. Achieving this ambitious goal requires new radio techniques for adaptive learning and intelligent decision making because of the complex heterogeneous nature of the network structures and wireless services. Machine learning (ML) algorithms have great success in supporting big data analytics, efficient parameter estimation and interactive decision making. Hence, in this article, we review the thirty-year history of ML by elaborating on supervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning and deep learning. Furthermore, we investigate their employment in the compelling applications of wireless networks, including heterogeneous networks (HetNets), cognitive radios (CR), Internet of things (IoT), machine to machine networks (M2M), and so on. This article aims for assisting the readers in clarifying the motivation and methodology of the various ML algorithms, so as to invoke them for hitherto unexplored services as well as scenarios of future wireless networks.Comment: 46 pages, 22 fig

Help seeking in the New Zealand Defence Force using the Theory of Planned Behaviour : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Mental health is of utmost importance in military settings due to the demanding and often dangerous nature of the work involved. However, military personnel are disproportionately deterred from seeking mental health help when the need arises. Perceived stigma and structural barriers to help seeking have been widely researched in military settings, however, results are often mixed. The current study examined the traditional stigma and structural barriers help seeking model alongside an alternative model of the Theory of Planned Behaviour to explain help seeking behaviour. A cross-sectional study design surveying 2633 enlisted New Zealand Defence Force Personnel was carried out. Within the two models, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, stigma, and structural barriers were assessed as predictors of intentions to seek professional help for mental health problems. The Theory of Planned Behaviour model accounted for 26% of total variance in help seeking intentions, while the traditional model only accounted for 7%. Additionally, the Theory of Planned Behaviour model showed potential for its capacity to include stigma and structural barriers as antecedents to its core predictors, with stigma being partially mediated by attitudes, and structural barriers being fully mediated by perceived behavioural control. Additional group level measures were also considered in relation to help seeking intentions which highlighted at risk groups. A common theme arose across these groups of less chances for both formal and informal learning opportunities about mental health help seeking in the defence force. Using these group level differences, recommendations for how the Theory of Planned Behaviour can be utilized to increase mental health learning experiences for the New Zealand Defence Force personnel are made. Specifically, the potential efficacy of incorporating the sharing of highly ranked personnel’s positive experiences of help seeking early on in new recruits training

Schooling and youth mortality: learning from a mass military exemption

We examine the relationship between education and mortality in a young population of Italian males. In 1981 several cohorts of young men from specific southern towns were unexpectedly exempted from compulsory military service after a major quake hit the region. Comparisons of exempt cohorts from least damaged towns on the border of the quake region with similar ones from neighbouring non-exempt towns just outside the region show that, by 1991, the cohorts exempted while still in high school display significantly higher graduation rates. The probability of dying over the decade 1991-2001 was also significantly lower. Several robustness checks confirm that the findings do not reflect omitted quake-related confounding factors, such as the ensuing compensatory interventions. Moreover, cohorts exempted soon after high school age do not display higher schooling or lower mortality rates, thus excluding that the main findings reflect direct effects of military service on subsequent mortality rather than a causal effect of schooling. We conclude that increasing the proportion of high school graduates by 1 percentage point leads to 0.1-0.2 percentage points lower mortality rates between the ages of 25 and 35.education, mortality, health, schooling, human capital