Resource recovery models for regional planning and policy evaluation
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The feasibility of applying a particular conception of technology and social change to specific examples of technological development was investigated. The social and economic effects of improved airport capabilities on rural communities were examined. Factors which led to the successful implementation of a plan to construct sixty small airports in Ohio are explored and implications derived for forming public policies, evaluating air transportation development, and assessing technology.
This paper proposes a cyber security modeling and simulation roadmap to enhance mission assurance governance and establish risk reduction processes within constrained budgets. The term mission assurance stems from risk management work by Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute in the late 19905. By 2010, the Defense Information Systems Agency revised its cyber strategy and established the Program Executive Officer-Mission Assurance. This highlights a shift from simply protecting data to balancing risk and begins a necessary dialogue to establish a cyber security roadmap. The Military Operations Research Society has recommended a cyber community of practice, recognizing there are too few professionals having both cyber and analytic experience. The authors characterize the limited body of knowledge in this symbiotic relationship. This paper identifies operational and research requirements for mission assurance M&S supporting defense and homeland security. M&S techniques are needed for enterprise oversight of cyber investments, test and evaluation, policy, training, and analysis.
Evaluation of NASA patent policies
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Following an initial mapping of a problem onto a multiprocessor machine or computer network, system performance often deteriorates with time. In order to maintain high performance, it may be necessary to remap the problem. The decision to remap must take into account measurements of performance deterioration, the cost of remapping, and the estimated benefits achieved by remapping. We examine the tradeoff between the costs and the benefits of remapping two qualitatively different kinds of problems. One problem assumes that performance deteriorates gradually, the other assumes that performance deteriorates suddenly. We consider a variety of policies for governing when to remap. In order to evaluate these policies, statistical models of problem behaviors are developed. Simulation results are presented which compare simple policies with computationally expensive optimal decision policies; these results demonstrate that for each problem type, the proposed simple policies are effective and robust.
An economic evaluation and planning procedure which assesses the effects of various policies on fixed satellite business ventures is described. The procedure is based on a stochastic financial simulation model, the Domsat II, which evaluates spacecraft reliability, market performance, and cost uncertainties. The application of the Domsat II model to the assessment of NASA's ion thrusters for on-orbit propulsion and GaAs solar cell technology is discussed. The effects of insurance rates and the self-insurance option on the financial performance of communication satellite business ventures are investigated. The selection of a transportation system for placing the satellites into GEO is analyzed.
The principal NASA metrication activities for FY 1989 were a revision of NASA metric policy and evaluation of the impact of using the metric system of measurement for the design and construction of the Space Station Freedom. Additional studies provided a basis for focusing follow-on activity. In FY 1990, emphasis will shift to implementation of metric policy and development of a long-range metrication plan. The report which follows addresses Policy Development, Planning and Program Evaluation, and Supporting Activities for the past and coming year.
This study analyzes the operation and evaluates the expected performance of a proposed automatic guideway transit system which uses low-speed Automated Mixed Traffic Vehicles (AMTV's). Vehicle scheduling and headway control policies are evaluated with a transit system simulation model. The effect of mixed-traffic interference on the average vehicle speed is examined with a vehicle-pedestrian interface model. Control parameters regulating vehicle speed are evaluated for safe stopping and passenger comfort.
Today's advanced network management systems can automate many aspects of the tactical networking operations within a military domain. However, automation of joint and coalition tactical networking across multiple domains remains challenging. Due to potentially conflicting goals and priorities, human agreement is often required before implementation into the network operations. This is further complicated by incompatible network management systems and security policies, rendering it difficult to implement automatic network management, thus requiring manual human intervention to the communication protocols used at various network routers and endpoints. This process of manual human intervention is tedious, error-prone, and slow. In order to facilitate a better solution, we are pursuing a technology which makes network management automated, reliable, and fast. Automating the negotiation of the common network communication parameters between different parties is the subject of this paper. We present the technology that enables inter-force dynamic communication resource negotiations to enable ad-hoc inter-operation in the field between force domains, without pre-planning. It also will enable a dynamic response to changing conditions within the area of operations. Our solution enables the rapid blending of intra-domain policies so that the forces involved are able to inter-operate effectively without overwhelming each other's networks with in-appropriate or un-warranted traffic. It will evaluate the policy rules and configuration data for each of the domains, then generate a compatible inter-domain policy and configuration that will update the gateway systems between the two domains.
The specific goal of the NSF geothermal program is the rapid development by industry of the nation's geothermal resources that can be demonstrated to be commercially, environmentally and socially acceptable as alternate energy sources. NSF, as the lead agency for the federal geothermal energy research program, is expediting a program which encompasses the objectives necessary for significant utilization. These include: acceleration of exploration and assessment methods to identify commercial geothermal resources; development of innovative and improved technology to achieve economic feasibility; evaluation of policy options to resolve environmental, legal, and institutional problems; and support of experimental research facilities for each type of geothermal resource. Specific projects in each of these four objective areas are part of the NSF program for fiscal year 1975.
The operation and the expected performance of a proposed automatic guideway transit system which uses low speed automated mixed traffic vehicles (AMTVs) were analyzed. Vehicle scheduling and headway control policies were evaluated with a transit system simulation model. The effect of mixed traffic interference on the average vehicle speed was examined with a vehicle pedestrian interface model. Control parameters regulating vehicle speed were evaluated for safe stopping and passenger comfort. Some preliminary data on the cost and operation of an experimental AMTV system are included. These data were the result of a separate task conducted at JPL, and were included as background information.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently being used for business-oriented, money-making applications, such as medical diagnosis, computer system configuration, and geological exploration. The present paper has the objective to assess new AI tools and techniques which will be available to assist aerospace managers in the accomplishment of their tasks. A study conducted by Brown and Cheeseman (1983) indicates that AI will be employed in all traditional management areas, taking into account goal setting, decision making, policy formulation, evaluation, planning, budgeting, auditing, personnel management, training, legal affairs, and procurement. Artificial intelligence/expert systems are discussed, giving attention to the three primary areas concerned with intelligent robots, natural language interfaces, and expert systems. Aspects of information retrieval are also considered along with the decision support system, and expert systems for project planning and scheduling.
The importance of corporate involvement in the decision making process for business related air travel is being increasingly recognised in the literature. Business travellers consume air services (i.e. they take airline flights), however; they may not be the principal decision-maker in the purchase. Also it is the organization that employs the traveller that incurs die cost for air travel. Consequently this research addresses the relationship between the traveller and the employing organisation in the purchase of air travel. In this paper traveller opinions on their corporate travel policy are evaluated using a Likert summated rating scale. The benefits sought, by the traveller, from the air service are also investigated and these benefits are used to segment the short haul business air travel market in the EU. Changes in the market for short haul business travel since the full liberalisation of the aviation market in-the EU are evaluated by comparing the data to an earlier study of similar travellers in 1992.
The importance of corporate involvement in the decision making process for business related air travel is being increasingly recognized in the literature. Business travellers consume air services (i.e. they take airline flights), however; they may not be the principal decision-maker in the purchase, Also it is the organization that employs the traveller that incurs the cost for air travel, Consequently this research addresses the relationship between the traveller and the employing organization in the purchase of air travel. In this paper traveller opinions on their corporate travel policy are evaluated using a Likert summated rating scale. The benefits sought, by the traveller, from the air service are also investigated and these benefits are used to segment the short haul business air travel market in the EU. Changes in the market for short haul business travel since the full liberalisation of the aviation market in the EU are evaluated by comparing the data to an earlier study of similar travellers in 1992.
Multi-Reward Proximal Policy Optimization, a multi-objective deep reinforcement learning algorithm, is used to examine the design space of low-thrust trajectories for a SmallSat transferring between two libration point orbits in the Earth-Moon system. Using Multi-Reward Proximal Policy Optimization, multiple policies are simultaneously and efficiently trained on three distinct trajectory design scenarios. Each policy is trained to create a unique control scheme based on the trajectory design scenario and assigned reward function: a unique combination of weights scaling competing objectives that guide the spacecraft to the target mission orbit, incentivize faster flight times, and penalize propellant mass usage. Then, the policies are evaluated on the same set of perturbed initial conditions in each scenario to generate the propellant mass usages, flight times, and state discontinuities from a reference trajectory for each control scheme. This solution space of low-thrust trajectories for a SmallSat is used to examine the multi-objective trade space for the trajectory design scenario. By autonomously constructing the solution space, insights into the required propellant mass, flight time, and transfer geometry are rapidly achieved.
Multi-Reward Proximal Policy Optimization, a multi-objective deep reinforcement learning algorithm, is used to examine the design space of low-thrust trajectories for a SmallSat transferring between two libration point orbits in the Earth- Moon system. Using Multi-Reward Proximal Policy Optimiza- tion, multiple policies are simultaneously and efficiently trained on three distinct trajectory design scenarios. Each policy is trained to create a unique control scheme based on the trajectory design scenario and assigned reward function: a unique combination of weights scaling competing objectives that guide the spacecraft to the target mission orbit, incentivize faster flight times, and penalize propellant mass usage. Then, the policies are evaluated on the same set of perturbed initial conditions in each scenario to generate the propellant mass usages, flight times, and state discontinuities from a reference trajectory for each control scheme. This solution space of low-thrust trajectories for a SmallSat is used to examine the multi-objective trade space for the trajectory design scenario. By autonomously constructing the solution space, insights into the required propellant mass, flight time, and transfer geometry are rapidly achieved.
Anthropogenic aerosol emissions are expected to change rapidly over the coming decades, driving strong, spatially complex trends in temperature, hydroclimate, and extreme events both near and far from emission sources. Under-resourced, highly populated regions often bear the brunt of aerosols' climate and air quality effects, amplifying risk through heightened exposure and vulnerability. However, many policy-facing evaluations of near-term climate risk, including those in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report, underrepresent aerosols' complex and regionally diverse climate effects, reducing them to a globally averaged offset to greenhouse gas warming. We argue that this constitutes a major missing element in society's ability to prepare for future climate change. We outline a pathway towards progress and call for greater interaction between the aerosol research, impact modeling, scenario development, and risk assessment communities.