PERFORMANCE OF RANDOM SURVIVAL FORESTS WITH TIME-VARYING COVARIATES IN PREDICTION OF U.S. ARMY ENLISTED ATTRITION COMPARED TO TRADITIONAL MANPOWER ANALYSIS METHODS

The importance of identifying qualified candidates and properly forecasting future manpower strength will always be critical to military recruiting and organization. The ability to assess the cross-section of covariates of a cohort of enlistees and forecast manpower strength would allow for improved planning and allocation decisions. We leverage an innovative method of survival analysis—random survival forests (RSF) with time-varying covariates (T-VC)—to predict Army first-term post-Initial Entry Training attrition rates. Using random survival forests with time-varying covariates (TV-RSF) is an emerging method of survival analysis that has not been used in a military manpower setting. Using a Brier Score we compare TV-RSF with three other methods. We illustrate that using a single tree rather than the computationally intensive TV-RSF may suffice for predicting future year attrition. We also illustrate that TV-RSFs outperform traditional classification methods (logistic regression, random forests) that only account for yearly changes in T-VCs.Ensign, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Links Between Social Support, Thwarted Belongingness, and Suicide Ideation among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College Students

Emerging adults with a lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) identity are at greater risk for engaging in suicide-related behaviors. This disparity highlights a need to elucidate specific risk and protective factors associated with suicide-related behaviors among LGB youth, which could be utilized as targets for suicide prevention efforts in this population. Informed by the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide, the present study hypothesized that social support would be indirectly associated with decreased suicide ideation via lower thwarted belongingness. A sample of 50 emerging adults (62.0% male, 70.0% Hispanic) who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, questioning, or “other” orientation, with a mean age of 20.84 years (SD = 3.30 years), completed self-report assessments. Results indicated that support from both family and the LGB community were associated with lower thwarted belongingness over and above the effects of age, sex, and depressive symptoms. Indirect effects models also indicated that both family and LGB community support were associated with suicide ideation via thwarted belongingness. The results of the present study suggest that family and LGB community support may represent specific targets for reducing thwarted belongingness that could be leveraged in suicide prevention efforts for LGB emerging adults

Creation and detection of hardware trojans using non-invasive off-the-shelf technologies

As a result of the globalisation of the semiconductor design and fabrication processes, integrated circuits are becoming increasingly vulnerable to malicious attacks. The most concerning threats are hardware trojans. A hardware trojan is a malicious inclusion or alteration to the existing design of an integrated circuit, with the possible effects ranging from leakage of sensitive information to the complete destruction of the integrated circuit itself. While the majority of existing detection schemes focus on test-time, they all require expensive methodologies to detect hardware trojans. Off-the-shelf approaches have often been overlooked due to limited hardware resources and detection accuracy. With the advances in technologies and the democratisation of open-source hardware, however, these tools enable the detection of hardware trojans at reduced costs during or after production. In this manuscript, a hardware trojan is created and emulated on a consumer FPGA board. The experiments to detect the trojan in a dormant and active state are made using off-the-shelf technologies taking advantage of different techniques such as Power Analysis Reports, Side Channel Analysis and Thermal Measurements. Furthermore, multiple attempts to detect the trojan are demonstrated and benchmarked. Our simulations result in a state-of-the-art methodology to accurately detect the trojan in both dormant and active states using off-the-shelf hardwar

Designing Reasonable Accomodations through Co-Worker Participation: Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Confidentiality Provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, public accommodations, transportation, communication, and services provided by state and local government. Title I of the ADA addresses employment discrimination against people with disabilities. Among other things, the ADA prohibits an employer from rejecting an applicant solely because of the need to provide that applicant with a reasonable accommodation. At the same time, the ADA requires that an employer maintain confidentiality about the applicant or employee\u27s medical condition or medical history obtained during acceptable inquiries, including those inquiries needed to design appropriate accommodations