Measuring the Risk of Shortfalls in Air Force Capabilities

The U.S. Air Force seeks to measure and prioritize risk as part of its Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment (CRRA) process. The goal of the CRRA is to identify capability shortfalls, and the risks associated with those shortfalls, to influence future systems acquisition. Many fields, including engineering, medicine and finance, seek to model and measure risks. This research utilizes various risk measurement approaches to propose appropriate risk measures for a military context. Specifically, risk is modeled as a non-negative random variable of severity. Four measures are examined: simple expectation, a risk-value measure, tail conditional expectation, and distorted expectation. Risk measures are subsequently used to weight the objective function coefficients in a system acquisition knapsack problem

The Geo-Economic and Geo-Energy Pillar of Power as a Geopolitical Decision Making Factor within the Dynamics of the Southeastern Europe Geopolitical Complex

The “geopolitical complex” of Southeastern Europe, as a sub-system of the Europe-Asia-Middle East system, highlights its geo-economic dimension since the discovery of hydrocarbons in this geographical area has become a major geopolitical factor, resulting to competitions, conflicts, and strategic alliances among different actors/players. In this context, the particular space and time play an essential role, since the decision-making process has become a vital determinant of the necessary geostrategic synthesis under conditions of uncertainty and risk. This article approaches the subject under consideration by applying quantitative decision-making methods under uncertainty and/or limited uncertainty (risk) conditions by actors/players of the region; it examines the choice of alternative strategies that highlight not only the maximization of the actors’ geopolitical benefits but also provides added value to already formed strategic alliances. It also attempts to answer the question of how the construction of an LNG terminal can generate multiple benefits from its location and operation by presenting a theoretical model

Portmerion, Proportion and Perspective

The holiday village of Portmerion was created by Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis (1883 1978) over a period of fifty-one years, starting in 1926. It was grade II listed in 1971. However, Portmerion has become a part of western popular culture rather than of mainstream architectural history. Its use as the setting for the cult 1967 television series “The Prisoner” ensures continued worldwide interest and a constant stream of visitors. Williams Ellis’ design methods were empirical, initial designs being adjusted by eye on site in close collaboration with trusted builders. This paper analyses the development of Portmerion as a gesamtkunstwerk; considering the experience of movement through the village as a dynamic composition of shifting vistas, focussing the visitor on a series of constructed views. Through this analysis, Portmerion is revealed as both a manifestation of the architecture of pleasure and an exercise in the pleasure of architecture

Scenario Planning for Organizational Adaptability: The Lived Experiences of Executives

Organizational adaptability is critical to organizational survival, and executive leadership\u27s inability to adapt to extreme disruptive complex events threatens survival. Scenario planning is one means of adapting to extreme disruptive complex events. In this qualitative interpretive phenomenological study, 20 executives who had lived experience with extreme disruptive complex events and applied scenario planning to help adapt participated in phenomenological interviews to share their experiences related to the application of scenario planning as a means adaptation to extreme disruptive complex events. Participants were from a single large organization with executives distributed throughout the United States and executives from 10 state agencies located within a single state. Using the thematic analysis process, 14 themes emerged. The themes included knowing the difference between adaptation and response, not being afraid to tackle difficult questions, scenario planning is never over because the environment constantly changes, the true measures of scenario planning value are the benefits achieved via the planning exercise versus the business application, and participation should be individuals who can or could have a direct influence on adaptation and do not get bogged down in structured and/or rigid processes, methods, or tools because while useful, they are not required to be successful. The implications for positive social change include the ability for organizations to reduce economic injury and the compound effects of disruption including the social impacts of business injury, disruption, recovery, job loss, and reduced revenue on communities and local economies

Pattern Discrimination

Algorithmic identity politics reinstate old forms of social segregation - in a digital world, identity politics is pattern discrimination. It is by recognizing patterns in input data that Artificial Intelligence algorithms create bias and practice racial exclusions thereby inscribing power relations into media. How can we filter information out of data without reinserting racist, sexist, and classist beliefs

DOD Mission Engineering and Integration Explorative-Exploitative Architecture for Technology Innovation

The ability of U.S. Department of Defense to achieve timely innovation in support of U.S. National Defense and Military Strategies continues to increase in significance. The growing challenges in U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) technological innovation in a context of global security and rapid pace of global competitiveness continue to reveal many shortcomings in current weapon systems development and acquisition practice. As the pace of technological innovation is accelerating, the DoD faces the challenge that the same disruptive technological advances are also being made available to or developed by its adversaries. Based on literature review, no innovation system theory exists that accounts for organization interaction with the environment given socio-economic objectives and associated missions, including a less closed-system approach to interactions across the private and public sector boundaries. The Mission Engineering Explorative-Exploitative Architecture for Innovation expands Bennan & Tushman’s (2003) and O’Reilly & Tushman (1996) explorative-exploitative theory from a process management, innovation behavior, and private firm’s performance within the context of environmental technological change. A System Theory framework based qualitative content analyzes the innovation and Department of Defense dataset and produced a set of initial seed-categories. These seed-categories were interpreted resulting in architectural views and associated propositions. The resulting architecture contributions are propositional definitions for Mission Engineering and Integration Management functions in the context of military missions and complex situations including constructs for identifying socio-technical misalignments as basis for understanding and identifying technological innovation opportunities and associated partnerships