Strategy at the crossroads: The case of the navy hospital ships

We examine the state of knowledge in the defense literature on the use of military medical humanitarian assistance missions and examine their implications for navy hospital ships. As humanitarian assistance missions grow in importance for combatant commanders, deployed forces, senior government leaders and the international community, it becomes more important to determine desired outcomes and to set clear priorities for hospital ship use. Only when this is done can activities that promote achievement of policy goals be selected. While traditional hospital ship missions focus on combat support and training, successful humanitarian assistance campaigns typically address improving security and stability in a region, attitudes towards Americans and the West, and health and welfare conditions of local populations. We argue that well-crafted and communicated goals and priorities for the use of hospital ships are essential if the ships are to achieve desired policy outcomes.humanitarian assistance; military medicine; strategic planning

Assessing the Impact of Global Price Interdependencies in a Global Pricing Strategy

Documented launch delays and the ensuing debate over their underlying causes have focused on assessment from the individual country's perspective. Seen in a larger game theoretical framework this may cause problems, because although the countries see an individual game, the pharmaceutical firm sees a repeated linked game. The links are due to external reference pricing and parallel trade. Behaviours that are optimal in the single, individual game (for either the country or the pharmaceutical firm) may no longer be optimal when considering the global repeated game. A theoretical mixed integer linear model of the firm's launch and pricing decisions is presented along with examples wherein international price dependencies most likely played a role. This model can help countries understand the implication of their external reference pricing policies on the global repeated pricing game. Understanding the behaviour of the pharmaceutical firm in this global context aids countries in designing policies to maximize the welfare of their citizens

READ @your library Francois Melese & Anke Richter (poster)

A project of the Dudley Knox Library at the Naval Postgraduate School

Data compilation and evaluation for U(IV) and U(VI) for the Thermodynamic Reference Database THEREDA

THEREDA (Thermodynamic Reference Database) is a collaborative project, which has been addressed this challenge. The partners are Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT-INE), Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit Braunschweig mbH (GRS), TU Bergakademie Freiberg (TUBAF) and AF-Consult Switzerland AG (Baden, Switzerland). The aim of the project is the establishment of a consistent and quality assured database for all safety relevant elements, temperature and pressure ranges, with its focus on saline systems. This implied the use of the Pitzer approach to compute activity coefficients suitable for such conditions. Data access is possible via commonly available internet browsers under the address http://www.thereda.de. One part of the project - the data collection and evaluation for uranium – was a task of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. The aquatic chemistry and thermodynamics of U(VI) and U(IV) is of great importance for geochemical modelling in repository-relevant systems. The OECD/NEA Thermochemical Database (NEA TDB) compilation is the major source for thermodynamic data of the aqueous and solid uranium species, even though this data selection does not utilize the Pitzer model for the ionic strength effect correction. As a result of the very stringent quality demands, the NEA TDB is rather restrictive and therefore incomplete for extensive modelling calculations of real systems. Therefore, the THEREDA compilation includes additional thermodynamic data of solid secondary phases formed in the waste material, the backfill and the host rock, though falling into quality assessment (QA) categories of lower accuracy. The data review process prefers log K values from solubility experiments (if available) to those calculated from thermochemical data

Anke Richter reflects on the impact of public health research published in Homeland Security Affairs over the years.

The article record may be found at https://www.hsaj.org/articles/17448Sponsored the U. S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA, CHDS is part of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)

Zahnflächenspezifische Arealbeimpfung handelsüblicher Chair-side-Tests zum Nachweis von Mutans-Streptokokken und Laktobazillen

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde der zahnflächenspezifische Keimnachweis von Mutans-Streptokokken und Laktobazillen auf den handelsüblichen Kultursystemen Dentocult® SM und LB (Orion Diagnostica, Espoo Finnland) und CRT® bacteria (Ivoclar Vivadent GmbH, Schaan, Liechtenstein) untersucht. Dazu erfolgte zunächst eine In-vitro-Untersuchung mit Referenzstämmen, den o. g. Kultursystemen, ihren adäquaten Kulturmedien und verschiedenen Impfmethoden. Im Anschluss daran wurde das Pinselverfahren in einer klinischen Pilotstudie erprobt. Untersucht wurde die Plaque aus den Okklusalflächen der Sechs-Jahr-Molaren von Kindern im Alter von 6-7 Jahren. Die Kultursysteme erwiesen sich als sehr gut für den flächenspezifischen Keimnachweis geeignet

Beyond Paper and Plastic: A Meta-Model for Credential Use and Governance

ID cards, public transport tickets, and diplomas are examples of credentials that society has established as a means to provide trustworthy information to others. In the digital world, the emergence of self-sovereign identity as a new paradigm for the management of digital credentials aims to narrow the conceptual gap between digital and physical credentials. The ongoing digital transformation in the public sector requires dealing with a large variety of credentials in different forms systematically. However, there is still currently no generic conceptual model of credentials in the Information Systems (IS) discipline. We employ design science research to develop a unified meta-model on credentials, their use, and their governance. Our results contribute to research through an empirically grounded conceptualization of credentials and provide practitioners with a common basis to capture, analyze, and design the handling of credentials in real-world scenarios

Denn wir wissen nicht, was sie tun... Portfolios zur Dokumentation von Kompetenzen in einem weiterbildenden Masterstudiengang

Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird am Beispiel eines internetgestützten, weiterbildenden Studiengangs gezeigt, wie die Portfoliomethode als kompetenzbasierte Prüfungsleistung in ein Blended Learning Design integriert werden kann. Im Rahmen einer qualitativen Analyse von Projektportfolios wird untersucht, wie Studierende über ihren Kompetenzentwicklungsprozess reflektieren und welche Kompetenzen auf diese Weise dokumentiert werden