A Guide to Disability Statistics from the 2000 Decennial Census

This User Guide addresses disability data available in the 2000 Decennial Census. A decennial census of the United States is conducted every ten years to provide statistics at the national, state, and local levels. The short form of the decennial census collects basic demographic data from five out of six households, and the long form collects the same basic demographic data, plus social and economic data from the remaining one in six households. Data are also collected from group quarters (GQ), which include individuals living in institutions, a population that is rarely included in surveys. The primary purpose of the demographic data is to draw Congressional districts. The social and economic data from the long form is especially valuable because it provides social and economic statistics for small geographic areas (such as counties, towns, and Congressional districts) that are estimated in a uniform manner across the United States. The Census 2000 long form included six questions that are used to identify the population with disabilities. These data can be extremely useful to disability policymakers, disability service providers, and the disability advocacy community. This User Guide discusses the variety of information on disability, demographic characteristics, employment, and economic well-being available from Census 2000 long form data

Entering the Dragon’s Lair: Chinese Antiaccess Strategies andTheir Implications for the United States,

This study has already attracted wide- spread attention from the policy com- munity and media, for good reason. The U.S. military appears poised to face challenges to its ability to maintain access to a variety of regional littoral areas, such as in the Persian Gulf. It is time for American planners to view the rising antiaccess challenge as part of a global problem that may require significant restructuring of U.S. platforms, deployment, diplomacy, and even, in a worst case, strategy and tactics

Using Graph Databases to Address Network Complexity Problems that can Hinder Security Incident Response

The network complexity problem within computer security incident response is an issue pertaining to the complexity of a computer network as it grows in both size and scale. The larger the computer network grows, the more difficult reconnaissance becomes, which is necessary to execute correction and prevention measures that address issues that arise during security incident response. Leveraging graph databases can help solve problems present in relational databases with large, tree-like structures, like those present in computer networks, and along with solving those problems adds flexibility that is needed due to the mutability of computer networks. This paper focuses on using graph databases to discover the blast radius of day zero vulnerabilities on the fly by using the properties of graph databases to find intuitive infection vectors that may be present during a day zero vulnerability. Additionally, options for visualizing security data in ways that make the data more actionable will be explored

A VHDL design for hardware assistance of fractal image compression

Fractal image compression schemes have several unusual and useful attributes, including resolution independence, high compression ratios, good image quality, and rapid decompression. Despite this, one major difficulty has prevented their widespread adoption: the extremely high computational complexity of compression. Fractal image compression algorithms represent an image as a series of contractive transformations, each of which maps a large domain block to a smaller range block. Given only this set of transformations, it is possible to reconstruct an approximation of the original image by iteratively applying the transformations to an arbitrary image. Compression consists of partitioning the image into range blocks and finding a suitable transformation of a domain block to represent each one. This search for transformations must generally be done using a brute force approach, comparing successive domain blocks until a suitable match is found. Some algorithmic improvements have been found, but none are adequate to reduce the required compression time to something reasonable for many uses. This thesis presents a new ASIC design which performs a large number of the required comparisons in parallel, yielding a substantial speedup over a program on a general-purpose computer system. This ASIC is designed in VHDL, which may be synthesized to many different target architectures. The design has considerable flexibility which makes it applicable to different images and applications. The design is based around a pipeline of units that each compare one range block with a series of domain blocks which are fed through the pipeline. Comparisons are made to minimize the mean square error (MSE) of a transform given a linear mapping of the intensity values. This is, by far, the most common minimization strategy used in the literature. The speedup provided by this design is estimated to be about 1,000 times for 256 x 256 images divided into 8x8 blocks over a sequential processor given similar implementation technologies

Japan’s Sea Lane Security, 1940–2004: A Matter of Life and Death?

As the first English-language analysis of its kind, Graham’s comprehensive case study fills a critical gap in the literature concerning the maritime dimension of Japanese national security. This is an exciting issue at a dynamic time: in October 2004, Japan’s Maritime Self- Defense Force (MSDF) and coast guard led Northeast Asia’s first Proliferation Security Initiative exercise. In the In- dian Ocean, the MSDF is currently fuel- ling allied vessels to support operations in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Japan is struggling to assert control over its ex- clusive economic zones, the boundaries of which are increasingly contested by China and South Korea

Selecting and Hiring Engineers at the ABC Plant

Hiring is one of the most important duties of a manager, especially within an engineering or technical organization. Beyond the obvious reasons for selecting the proper candidate for the job, the gravity of the hiring process lies in the fact that a mistake in this area is often costly and not easily corrected. Mistakes tend to be even more costly for the ABC Plant. All positions require the ability to obtain and maintain a government security clearance. The duration of investigative activities for initial security clearances range from 3 to 6 months from initiation to completion. During this time period, and depending on their work assignment, the effectiveness of the newly hired engineer is often impeded by their lack of a security clearance. They are unable to access critical information and locations in the facility to perform their intended job function. This cost of hiring new engineers is incurred by the organization on top of the inefficiencies typical of new employee that is learning their role in a new position. If they are unable to acquire or maintain their security clearance, the engineer is not a viable option for employment and the selection and hiring process must start over again at the expense to the ABC Plant. The hiring process at the ABC Plant is generally sound, but there is room for improvement. Senior Management and Human Resources at the ABC Plant should consider increasing the amount of training around the hiring process so that Technical Managers are more confident in their ability to select the best candidate for the position. The ABC Plant needs to have an increased emphasis on the behavior of leadership impact and making a positive impact on other engineers in the organization when they screen candidates during the hiring process. In addition, the company could benefit from encouraging the existing staff to increase their leadership potential by leading small projects or becoming a mentor for a less experienced engineer. Finally, the culture at the ABC Plant is unique compared to other engineering firms. Candidates should be made aware of the mission of the facility as a manufacturer of components as opposed to design. Designs are created and controlled by a separate entity from the ABC Plant and an engineer that desires control over all aspects of the engineering process may not be a good fit for the organization

America’s Security Role in the South China Sea

Allow me to share my assessment of the current situation in the South China Sea, followed by my recommendations concerning how the U.S. government should understand the situation and how it may best work to address it