Leadership Development Strategies for Sustaining Organization Performance Through the Upper Echelon Theory

Organizational leaders within the Department of the Army in the Military District of Washington frequently experience turnover that necessitates a new leader\u27s transition into a position. These new leaders sometimes experience challenges in successfully transitioning into the organization to maintain the continuity of operations. Grounded in the upper echelon theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry was to explore strategies senior leaders use to transition new subordinate leaders into their organization successfully. The participants included eight military and civilian leaders with more than eight years of knowledge and experience in employing effective strategies for developing midlevel managers. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and information in the public domain. Through thematic analysis, five themes emerged: (a) being knowledgeable of the organization during change, (b) employing effective communication skills, (c) being a flexible and adaptive leader, (d) employing measures of performance, and (e) formal and informal leader development. A key recommendation is for senior leaders to assess the performance of midlevel managers experiencing challenges with leading to identify areas needing tailored development. The implications for positive social change have the potential to enhance the organization\u27s internal culture and extend a positive influence on the broader society

Independent Orbiter Assessment (IOA): Assessment of the Electrical Power Distribution and Control/Electrical Power Generation (EPD and C/EPG) FMEA/CIL

The results of the Independent Orbiter Assessment (IOA) of the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Critical Items List (CIL) are presented. The IOA effort first completed an analysis of the Electrical Power Distribution and Control/Electrical Power Generation (EPD and C/EPG) hardware, generating draft failure modes and potential critical items. To preserve independence, this analysis was accomplished without reliance upon the results contained within the NASA FMEA/CIL documentation. The IOA results were then compared to the NASA FMEA/CIL baseline with proposed Post 51-L updates included. A resolution of each discrepancy from the comparison was provided through additional analysis as required. The results of that comparison is documented for the Orbiter EPD and C/EPG hardware. The IOA product for the EPD and C/EPG analysis consisted of 263 failure mode worksheets that resulted in 42 potential critical items being identified. Comparison was made to the NASA baseline which consisted of 211 FMEA and 47 CIL items

Canceling Difficult Cancellation: An Analysis of Recent Regulatory Efforts to Make Canceling Subscriptions Easier

The subscription-based economy is on the rise, and so are complaints of difficult cancellations. Companies utilize coercive and exploitative techniques, known as “dark patterns,” to trap consumers in subscription-based services. One notorious “dark pattern” is the “click-to-subscribe, call-to-cancel” scheme, whereby individuals can sign up online. But, when it comes time to cancel, many consumers often find themselves waiting on hold for hours. In the interest of consumer welfare, subscription-based services should be as easy to cancel as they are to sign up for. Accordingly, this Note discusses the merits of recent crackdowns on cancellation barriers, including the Federal Trade Commission’s October 2021 policy enforcement statement. Ultimately, this Note advocates for increased federal and state regulation to protect consumers from harmful cancellation barriers

Advancing Hardware Security Using Polymorphic and Stochastic Spin-Hall Effect Devices

Protecting intellectual property (IP) in electronic circuits has become a serious challenge in recent years. Logic locking/encryption and layout camouflaging are two prominent techniques for IP protection. Most existing approaches, however, particularly those focused on CMOS integration, incur excessive design overheads resulting from their need for additional circuit structures or device-level modifications. This work leverages the innate polymorphism of an emerging spin-based device, called the giant spin-Hall effect (GSHE) switch, to simultaneously enable locking and camouflaging within a single instance. Using the GSHE switch, we propose a powerful primitive that enables cloaking all the 16 Boolean functions possible for two inputs. We conduct a comprehensive study using state-of-the-art Boolean satisfiability (SAT) attacks to demonstrate the superior resilience of the proposed primitive in comparison to several others in the literature. While we tailor the primitive for deterministic computation, it can readily support stochastic computation; we argue that stochastic behavior can break most, if not all, existing SAT attacks. Finally, we discuss the resilience of the primitive against various side-channel attacks as well as invasive monitoring at runtime, which are arguably even more concerning threats than SAT attacks.Comment: Published in Proc. Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) 201

Constitutional Law - Procedural Due Process - Fifth Amendment Right to Grand Jury

The United States Supreme Court held that a Caucasian criminal defendant has standing to raise Equal Protection and Due Process claims based upon the racially discriminatory exclusion of non-Caucasians from serving as his or her grand jury foreperson. Campbell v. Louisiana, 118 S. Ct. 1419 (1998)

Re-Visioning Violence: How Black Youth Advance Critical Understandings of Violence in Climates of Criminalization

While Black youth are often framed as the perpetrators of violence in the mainstream media and other sites, they are rarely consulted for their views on violence. This dissertation examines how Black youth and other young people of color have used hip hop music and community organizing to publicly articulate their analysis of violence and shape public discourses, ideologies and policies. The project is principally framed by Black feminist theory and Critical Race Theory, and uses discourse analysis, cultural criticism, and historical analysis as its primary methods of analysis. I examine hip hop lyrics and materials produced during community organizing campaigns, alongside a range of sources that reflect dominant frameworks on youth and violence such as television programs and sociological scholarship. This study argues firstly, that there is a discourse of "youth violence"; secondly, that this discourse is central to the criminalization of young people of color; and thirdly, that criminalization facilitates epistemic violence, harm and injury that results from the production of hegemonic knowledge. Finally, I draw on youths' perspectives and social change practices to theorize the concept of epistemic resistance, and show how youth have engaged in epistemic resistance in various ways. Youth have used hip hop music to redefine what counts as violence, who is involved in violence, and why violence among youth occurs; conducted participatory action research projects to influence and change the content of mainstream media; and developed and promoted the discourse of a "war on youth" in organizing campaigns that challenge punitive policy proposals introduced as solutions to "youth violence." This dissertation provides a re-theorized framing of and knowledge about the intellect and agency of marginalized youth. It also provides youth studies scholars with conceptual and methodological approaches for future scholarship on youth, violence, and safety. Lastly, this dissertation informs urban youth policy and grassroots organizing for transformative justice, a vision and practice of attaining safety and justice through personal and social transformation, rather than reliance on the criminal legal system