The Role of Transportation in Campus Emergency Planning, MTI Report 08-06

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina created the greatest natural disaster in American history. The states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama sustained significant damage, including 31 colleges and universities. Other institutions of higher education, most notably Louisiana State University (LSU), became resources to the disaster area. This is just one of the many examples of disaster impacts on institutions of higher education. The Federal Department of Homeland Security, under Homeland Security Presidential Directive–5, requires all public agencies that want to receive federal preparedness assistance to comply with the National Incident Management System (NIMS), which includes the creation of an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP). Universities, which may be victims or resources during disasters, must write NIMS–compliant emergency plans. While most university emergency plans address public safety and logistics management, few adequately address the transportation aspects of disaster response and recovery. This MTI report describes the value of integrating transportation infrastructure into the campus emergency plan, including planning for helicopter operations. It offers a list of materials that can be used to educate and inform campus leadership on campus emergency impacts, including books about the Katrina response by LSU and Tulane Hospital, contained in the report´s bibliography. It provides a complete set of Emergency Operations Plan checklists and organization charts updated to acknowledge lessons learned from Katrina, 9/11 and other wide–scale emergencies. Campus emergency planners can quickly update their existing emergency management documents by integrating selected annexes and elements, or create new NIMS–compliant plans by adapting the complete set of annexes to their university´s structures

Security Guards and Counter-terrorism: Tourism and Gaps in Terrorism Prevention

Organisation operating in the tourism industry are high priority targets for terrorists. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks tourism destinations, hotels and modes of public transportation have regularly been targeted by terrorists seeking to convey their violent message. As such, leaders and managers in the tourism industry carefully plan their security and counter-terrorism responses, often involving the hiring of security guards. It is here that I believe a significant gap in counter-terrorism preparedness exists. I argue that protecting tourism destinations is only possible if consideration is given the effectiveness of security guards and understanding that their well-being will impact upon their ability to deliver security. I want to draw attention to the often ignored social role of security guards. On 9/11, 42 security guards died whilst helping save the lives of thousands. They performed their jobs admirably, despite being low-paid, under-appreciated workers. In this paper I explore the social role of security guards in the context of tourism security. By drawing on representations of security guards in popular culture and reports on the state of the security guard industry. I argue that the lack of attention on the quality and well-being of guards is a significant black-spot in tourism security and terrorism preparedness

Individual Risk and Intergenerational Risk Sharing in an Investment-Based Social Security Program

This paper examines the risk aspects of a fully phased-in investment-based defined contribution Social Security plan. Individuals save a fraction of wages in a Personal Retirement Account (PRA) invested in a 60:40 equity-debt mix and receive a similarly invested variable annuity from age 67. The value of the portfolio follows a random walk with historic (1946-1995) mean log real return of 5.5 percent and standard deviation of 12.5 percent. We study 10,000 stochastic distributions of this process for the 80 year experience from 1998 to 2077. With a nonstochastic 5.5 percent rate of return, individuals could purchase the future benefits promised in the current Social Security law (the benchmark' level of benefits) by saving 3.1 percent of earnings, just one-sixth of the payroll tax that Social Security actuaries project will be needed in the paygo system. A higher saving rate provides a cushion' that reduces the risk of unacceptably low benefits. For example, saving 6 percent implies a median annuity at age 67 or 2.1 times the benchmark benefits and only a 17 percent chance that the annuity is less than the benchmark. In 95 percent of the potential investment experience the annuity exceeds 61 percent of the benchmark benefit. With a 9 percent saving rate (half of the tax rate required in a pay- as-you-go system), there is only a 6 percent chance that the annuity is less than the benchmark and in 95 percent of the potential investment experience the annuity exceeds 92 percent of the benchmark benefit. We also study a modified plan in which retirees face no risk of receiveing less than the benchmark benefit because the government provides a conditional pension transfer to any retiree whose annuity is less in any year than the benchmark level of benefits. With a six percent saving rate, a conditional transfer is required in only about 40 percent of the simulations. The expected value of the transfers is substantially less than the expected incremental corporate tax revenue that results from the Personal Retirement Account saving. Additional tax revenue is needed in fewer than one percent of the simulations. In short, a pure defined contribution plan, with a saving rate equal to one third of the long-run projected payroll tax, invested in a 60:40 equity-debt Personal Retirement Account could provide a retirement annuity that is likely to be substantially more than the benchmark benefit while exposing the retiree to relatively little risk that the annuity will be less than the benchmark. Even this risk can be completely eliminated by a conditional guarantee plan that imposed only a very small risk on future taxpayers.

Towards a Catalogue of Reusable Security Requirements, Vulnerabilities and Threats

Organizations are giving more importance to secure their systems due to the increasing number of cyber-attacks and inherent complexity. The aim of our work is help organizations plan and consider these security concerns from the very beginning, since the requirements and design phases, and not just later in the implementation or deployment phases. Consider security-by-design and security-by-default principles are good approaches to avoid rework costs or to mitigate security flaws. However, there is not yet a suitable approach to specify security requirements in a rigorous and systematic way. In this paper we propose an approach that allows the definition and specification of security-specific concerns like security requirements but also vulnerabilities, risks or threats. We discuss this approach based on two key parts: First, we introduce the RSLingo RSL language, that is a rigorous requirements specification language, and discuss how it is extended to support such security-specific concepts. Second, we claim the relevance for a catalogue of reusable security-specific specifications and then we show concrete examples of defining and using such specifications. The proposed catalogue can be easily used and extended by the community and involves currently 52 goals, 12 vulnerabilities and 31 risks; these concerns are defined into 9 packages each one representing a distinct asset

Intranet Design Strategies

The intranets have been deployed extensively in large and small-scale organizations. It has grown rapidly by offering features like collaborative communication channels, easing the business processes etc. Typically organizations faced difficulties but they are prevalent while implementation. But the organizations lack clear strategies in designing intranet. It leads to loss on investment, time and productivity, a complete intranet failure. Previous studies mainly focused on management, security and usage etc. This paper presents 9 design strategies for intranet addressing system oriented plan that can be applied in real-time to achieve improvement in organizational performance

Challenges And Handling Of Indonesian Food Security In 2035

Abstract. Indonesia, which is famous for being an agrarian country, still cannot be separated from food problems in its own country. National food security still has various problems, problems and challenges to achieve food security. Indonesia has multidimensional problems, covering economic, social, political, environmental aspect and what is equally important is population growth. The world population will increase which is estimated to reach 9 billion souls in 2050 ( NGI, Januari 2011 edition ) while for projected population of Indonesia in 2020 has reached 270 million people ( Hasil Survey Antar Sensus, 2015 ). Population growth has resulted in the emergence of problems regarding food needs on how to meet food needs. National food security is changing rapidly due to population growth, damaged agricultural infrastructure, a decrease in the number of farm households, to the process of structural transformation that is not working as it should. Therefore this paper tries to analyze the condition of Indonesia’s food security and to realize sustainable food security in Indonesia in the future until 2035 which feels increasingly severe. This can be seen from the aspects of needs and availability, and then its adequacy. So, it can prepare from the beginning the grand strategy plan that will be used in dealing with various possibilities that will accu

Individual Risk in an Investment-Based Social Security System

This paper examines the risk aspects of an investment-based defined contribution Social Security plan. We focus on the risk after the plan is fully phased in. Individuals deposit a fraction of wages to a Personal Retirement Account (PRA), invest these funds in a 60:40 equity-debt mix, and in a similarly invested annuity at age 67. The value of the assets follows a random walk with mean and variance of a 60:40 equity-debt portfolio over the period 1946-95, a mean log return of 5.5 percent (net of administrative costs of 0.4 percent) and a standard deviation of 12.5 percent. We study he stochastic distributions of this process by doing 10,000 simulations of the 80-year experience of the cohort that reached age 21 in 1998. The resulting annuities are compared to the future defined benefits specified in current law (the benchmark' benefits). With no uncertainty, a 5.5 percent log return would permit the benchmark benefits to be purchased with PRA deposits of 3.1 percent of payroll, only one-sixth of the pay-as-you-go tax needed for the benchmark benefits. Saving a higher share of wages provides a cushion' that protects the individual from the risk of an unacceptably low level of benefits. For example, PRA deposits of 6 percent of wages reduces the probability that the benefits are less than the benchmark to 0.17 and the probability that they are less than 61 percent of the benchmark to 0.05. PRA deposits of 9 percent of wages (half of the tax rate required in a pay-as-you-go system) would substantially reduce these risks. This pure investment-based plan is an extreme case. The investment risk can be reduced further by using a mixed system that combines pay-as-you-go and investment-based components or that makes intergenerational transfers conditional on the performance of stock and bond prices.