Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate: Developing Technology to Protect America

In response to a congressional mandate and in consultation with Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), the National Academy conducted a review of S&T's effectiveness and efficiency in addressing homeland security needs. This review included a particular focus that identified any unnecessary duplication of effort, and opportunity costs arising from an emphasis on homeland security-related research. Under the direction of the National Academy Panel, the study team reviewed a wide variety of documents related to S&T and homeland security-related research in general. The team also conducted interviews with more than 200 individuals, including S&T officials and staff, officials from other DHS component agencies, other federal agencies engaged in homeland security-related research, and experts from outside government in science policy, homeland security-related research and other scientific fields.Key FindingsThe results of this effort indicated that S&T faces a significant challenge in marshaling the resources of multiple federal agencies to work together to develop a homeland security-related strategic plan for all agencies. Yet the importance of this role should not be underestimated. The very process of working across agencies to develop and align the federal homeland security research enterprise around a forward-focused plan is critical to ensuring that future efforts support a common vision and goals, and that the metrics by which to measure national progress, and make changes as needed, are in place

METHODOLOGY FOR MODELING COST AND SCHEDULE RISK ASSOCIATED WITH RESOURCE DECISIONS INVOLVING THE U.S. ARMY'S MODERNIZATION EFFORTS FOR 2035

Prioritization decisions using the Army Modernization and Analysis (AMA)-developed Trade-Space Decision Exploration System (TRADES) does not address programmatic variance related to cost and schedule growth. This study offers an improved methodology for modeling cost risk by employing sound cost estimation principles, distribution fitting, Monte Carlo simulations, and cost/benefit analysis to assist strategic decision makers and the acquisitions community. To that end, this approach follows a five-step methodology that (1) collects and screens cost data from the Cost Assessment Database Enterprise (CADE), (2) determines normalized cost growth factors, (3) identifies and constructs the appropriate distributions for modeling, (4) simulates cost variance among the entire program portfolio, and (5) recommends the necessary contingency cash reserve quantity associated with a decision maker’s confidence level. The result is a credible, repeatable, and effectual cost estimating methodology that promotes commodity-based models for predicting cost growth and measuring risk.Major, United States ArmyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

An integrative review of project portfolio management literature: Thematic findings on sustainability mindset, assessment, and integration

Sustainability integration in project portfolio management helps shape strategic, organizational, and project-based contexts. The authors conducted a structured literature review from 2000 to 2021 and developed a novel integrative framework presenting a holistic view highlighting three substantive research themes: sustainability mindset, sustainability assessment, and sustainability integration in project portfolio processes. Noteworthy progress has been made at the strategic and portfolio levels toward framing a sustainability mindset (definition, values, and principles) and developing frameworks/tools for sustainability assessment and project portfolio selection. However, areas for more research include integrating sustainability into project portfolio processes, reporting, and organizational learning for portfolio improvement

IT Project Selection in an Agile Organisation

Organisations face a persistent challenge in achieving sustained competitive advantage in the rapidly changing business landscape. Organisational agility (OA), enabled by information technology (IT), offers hope. However, organisations that pursue agility encounter incompatibility with IT project selection (ITPS), where projects are selected and funded before implementation. Existing literature highlights the dual capability of ITPS to enable and disable agility, underscoring its continued importance for agile organisations. To tackle the incompatibility between ITPS and OA, this study presents a case study conducted at Infrastructure Co, an agile organisation that actively undertakes ITPS. Findings show the need for a redesign of traditional ITPS governance to facilitate agility. Infrastructure Co achieved this by delegating and decentralising ITPS processes and decisions away from the enterprise-project-management-office into projects. This study contributes by presenting revelatory empirical findings, addressing this important new research question

Innovative Strategies for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Student Assessment and Examination - Special Focus on Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka

Assessment of student learning outcomes (ASLO) is one of the key activities in teaching and learning. It serves as the source of information in determining the quality of education at the classroom and national levels. Results from any assessment have an influence on decision making, on policy development related to improving individual student achievement, and to ensure the equity and quality of an education system. ASLO provides teachers and school heads with information for making decisions regarding a students’ progress. The information allows teachers and school heads to understand a students’ performance better. This report reviews ASLO in three South Asian countries—Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka—with a focus on public examinations, national assessment, school-based assessment, and classroom assessment practiced in these countries

Technology Decisions Under Architectural Uncertainty: Informing Investment Decisions Through Tradespace Exploration

Although NASA has yet to choose an architecture for human spaceflight beyond Earth orbit, they must pursue near-term investment in the enabling technologies that will be required for these future systems. Given this architectural uncertainty, it is difficult to define the value proposition of technology investments. This paper proposes a method for evaluating technology across a tradespace defined by architectural decisions. Main effects analysis is taken from design of experiments to quantify the influence that a technology has on the system being considered. This analysis also identifies couplings between technologies that are mutually exclusive or mutually beneficial. This method is applied to the architecture tradespace of transportation for future human exploration at Mars with a set of possible propellant, propulsion, and aerobraking technologies. The paper demonstrates that the evaluation of technologies against an individual reference architecture is flawed when the range of architectures being pursued remains diverse. Furthermore, it is shown that comparisons between fuzzy Pareto optimal architectures and heavily dominated architectures will distort the evaluated benefit of a technology. The resulting tradespace can be structured as the sequence in which technology decisions should be made, in order of their impact on the tradespace and their coupling to other decisions.United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Grant

Evaluating microgrid effectiveness in transitioning energy portfolios

Microgrid energy systems have emerged as a potential solution to rising greenhouse gas emissions from dependence on fossil fuels. This research provides a framework for evaluating the utility of microgrids. Three key findings are presented: use of a state-of-the-art matrix (SAM) analysis to identify gaps in key research areas that inhibit wide-spread microgrid adoption, development of a system dynamics (SD) model, and a cost benefit analysis case study to evaluate microgrid feasibility in partially meeting the energy demand of a building. Governments play a central role in developing clean energy strategies. A SAM was developed to determine if key microgrid barriers to adoption defined by a state government were being addressed. The results of the study suggest that environmental and sustainability benefits had not been sufficiently addressed. Using the SAM findings, an SD model was used to evaluate the environmental and sustainability benefits of transitioning a state\u27s residential electricity portfolio. The SD model outputs suggest that fossil fuel depletion and greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced, but the financial investment would be significant. Lastly, a cost benefit analysis was conducted on a microgrid partially meeting the energy demand of a university campus building. The results demonstrated that selection of a proper discount factor and recognition of useful life are critical success factors for microgrid energy projects. Collectively, these findings provide the engineering manager with a method to evaluate the feasibility of proposed microgrid projects, the city planner with the system-level implications of a large-scale energy transition project, and the policy maker with the necessary information to develop policies that promote a clean energy future --Abstract, page iv

Stochastic modeling of responsiveness, schedule risk and obsolescence of space systems, and implications for design choices

The U.S Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration continue to face common challenges in the development and acquisition of their space systems. In particular, space programs repeatedly experience significant schedule slippages, and spacecraft are often delivered on-orbit several months, sometimes years, after the initially planned delivery date. The repeated pattern of these schedule slippages suggests deep-seated flaws in managing spacecraft delivery and schedule risk, and an inadequate understanding of the drivers of schedule slippages. Furthermore, due to their long development time and physical inaccessibility after launch, space systems are exposed to a particular and acute risk of obsolescence, resulting in loss of value or competitive advantage over time. The perception of this particular risk has driven some government agencies to promote design choices that may ultimately be contributing to these schedule slippages, and jeopardizing what is increasingly recognized as critical, namely space responsiveness. The overall research objective of this work is twofold: (1) to identify and develop a thorough understanding of the fundamental causes of the risk of schedule slippage and obsolescence of space systems; and in so doing, (2) to guide spacecraft design choices that would result in better control of spacecraft delivery schedule and mitigate the impact of these "temporal risks" (schedule and obsolescence risks). To lay the groundwork for this thesis, first, the levers of responsiveness, or means to influence schedule slippage and impact space responsiveness are identified and analyzed, including design, organizational, and launch levers. Second, a multidisciplinary review of obsolescence is conducted, and main drivers of system obsolescence are identified. This thesis then adapts the concept of a technology portfolio from the macro- or company level to the micro-level of a single complex engineering system, and it analyzes a space system as a portfolio of technologies and instruments, each technology with its distinct stochastic maturation path and exposure to obsolescence. The selection of the spacecraft portfolio is captured by parameters such as the number of instruments, the initial technology maturity of each technology/instrument, the resulting heterogeneity of the technology maturity of the whole system, and the spacecraft design lifetime. Building on the abstraction of a spacecraft as a portfolio of technologies, this thesis then develops a stochastic framework that provides a powerful capability to simultaneously explore the impact of design decisions on spacecraft schedule, on-orbit obsolescence, and cumulative utility delivered by the spacecraft. Specifically, this thesis shows how the choice of the portfolio size and the instruments Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) impact the Mean-Time-To-Delivery (MTTD) of the spacecraft and mitigate (or exacerbate) schedule risk. This work also demonstrates that specific combinations/choices of the spacecraft design lifetime and the TRLs can reduce the risk of on-orbit obsolescence. This thesis then advocates for a paradigm shift towards a calendar-based design mindset, in which the delivery time of the spacecraft is accounted for, as opposed to the traditional clock-based design mindset. The calendar-based paradigm is shown to lead to different design choices, which are more likely to prevent schedule slippage and/or enhance responsiveness and ultimately result in a larger cumulative utility delivered. Finally, missions scenarios are presented to illustrate how the framework and analyses here proposed can help identify system design choices that satisfy various mission objectives and constraints (temporal as well as utility-based).PhDCommittee Chair: Saleh Joseph; Committee Member: Brown Owen; Committee Member: Erwin R. Scott; Committee Member: Feron Eric; Committee Member: Mavris Dimitr