Defense Technical Information Center

Rationale: Public health and preventive medicine (PHPM) has been recognized internationally as a physician specialty, but national parallels and differences exist between training contexts. This paper reviews PHPM training and employment in Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the USA.Methods: Information gathered from relevant accreditation bodies and literature searches was used to create descriptive profiles of national training demographics and structure and a narrative outlining trends and challenges facing the specialty.Results: Notable similarities and differences exist between national contexts. Key themes were differences in training strategies and practice scope, specialty stakeholders, certification structure, and funding. Recognition challenges faced the specialty across all six countries. Other challenges included unclear competencies and training strategies and a need for PHPM specialists to highlight their role in combating population health threats. Additional differences existed between comparator countries on the structure of training, funding sources for training programs, availability of training posts, and linkages with other physician specialties.Conclusion: Highlighting these themes is a first step to fostering training collaborations between PHPM specialist physicians to augment transnational action on global public health challenges and also supports PHPM physician educators with innovative solutions from abroad that might address domestic specialty challenges.

The National Science and Technology Council, within the Executive Office of the President, established the Pandemic Prediction and Forecasting Science and Technology Working Group in 2013 to advance US Government epidemic prediction and forecasting capabilities. Working Group leaders will provide an overview of activities, and seek feedback on the Working Group direction from the ISDS community.

Abstract : The US Army RDECOM CERDEC Night Vision & Electronic Sensors Directorate has a dynamic applied research program in sensor fusion for a wide variety of defense & defense related applications. This paper provides an overview of the on going research at NVESD related to fusing a mixture of active and passive sensors for countermine, dismounted & mounted soldiers, aviation and unattended ground sensor applications. Highlighted are new techniques in image registration and sensor fusion ion that enable the detection of moving vehicles with a network of image and acoustic sensors. A set of experiments was designed and conducted using a variety of vehicles and scenarios. The incremental value (in terms of error probability) added to the acoustic information by the image sensors (visible and infrared wavelength cameras) is assessed in combination with the fusion techniques themselves. The approach specifically accounts for the effects of location, speed, weather, and background (acoustic, visible, and infrared). Sensor fusion for detection and classification is preformed at both the sensor level and the feature level providing a basis for making tradeoffs between performance desired and resources required. Several classifier types are examined (parametric, nonparametric, learning). The combination of their decisions is used to make the final decision. Keywords: Tracking, fusion, sensor fusion, vehicle detection, detection, location.

This symposium addresses the complications encountered by medical planners when confronted by the use or threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction. The types of chemical warfare agents (CWA), their principal target organs, and physiological effects are discussed. We have reviewed the use of CWA in 20th century warfare and otherwise with emphasis on five cases: (1) use of sulfur mustard during World War I; (2) use by Italy against Ethiopia; (3) use in the Sino-Japanese War; (4) relatively well-studied use in the Iran-Iraq conflict; and (5) the use of sarin in the Tokyo subway terrorist incident. We reviewed the additional physiological and psychological consequences of their use and threat of use. Results from training and simulation are discussed. Finally, we present our conclusions derived from the analysis of these historical situations.

Turban, Sanders, Frances, and Osburn (1989) provided a two-step procedure for selecting a replacement for a current personnel test without an expensive validation study.The two steps are confirmatory factor analysis and impact analysis.It is possible to apply the two-step procedure and find that the replacement test is not acceptable.We provide an example of just such a negative outcome that was salvaged by the extra step of equipercentile equating.This step, added to Turban et al., required no additional investment other than an equating analysis on the extant data.

This report is the first step of a program with three explicit goals: (1) to illustrate and test the framework of Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) for use in military systems analysis and design; (2) to generate a database that will be useful for designers and managers working on the development of UCAVs for use in the SEAD mission; and (3) to develop interfaces for UCAVs. These goals are tightly coupled in that the usefulness of the database and the ability to develop effective interfaces and user-aiding concepts will be the true test of the CSE framework. The report is most relevant to the second goal. It provides a CSE framework for interpreting and organizing data generated from cognitive task analyses of the SEAD mission. The CSE framework is unique in that it develops a holistic approach to human-socio-technical systems. It explicitly considers factors in design analysis that go beyond the technology boundaries of a system to reveal important constraints for proper consideration in the process of synthesizing a design concept. The report illustrates initial benefits of this form of system analysis.

Abstract The use of computer prototypes in industry and defense programs has exploded to become a significant tool used in all aspects of the systems engineering and development processes. Carried along with the electronics revolution, virtual prototypes are becoming more capable, accurate, understood and accepted. Now the logistician, decision maker and end‐user are finding valuable integration of engineering simulation with applications and operational procedures.The US military's program is developing a global network that allows for the modeling of integrated computer prototypes where one complete system, and sometimes complete military units of multiple and dissimilar systems, can be computer simulated long before formal design. Never expecting to combine war games with virtual prototyping, the easy variability obtained from computers allows for feedback to doctrine developers as well as the system builders that dramatically improves the requirements.Examples across industry prove virtual prototypes are showing greater returns on investment than ever expected. These savings empower better capabilities, open up new opportunities, and provide a better product sooner.

Statistical signal processing functions such as signal detection, estimation, and identification play a key role in the development of effective communications, radar, and sonar systems.For example, advanced statistical methods are emerging as being particularly important in digital communications systems operating in channels corrupted by interference from such phenomena as multiple-access noise, intentional jamming, and impulsive noise sources.Conventional demodulation methods, such as coherent matched filtering, often suffer serious performance degradation when subjected to interference of these types; however, this degradation can frequently be eliminated through the use of more sophisticated signal processing techniques.A central issue in the design of effective signal processing procedures for systems operating in channels such as those noted above is that of channel identification.Although certain aspects of channel identification have been studied extensively, one area in which there is a pressing need for further research is that of identification of impulsive channels.Communication systems are seldom interfered with by white Gaussian noise alone, yet receiving systems in general use are those which are optimum for white Gaussian noise.The man-made electromagnetic environment, and much of the natural one, is basically "impulsive," i.e., it has a highly structured form characterized by significant probabilities of large interference levels.In addition to the man-made electromagnetic environment, there are many other different, common and widely-used communications and remote-sensing type channels where impulsive noise dominates, e.g., extra-low-frequency (ELF) channels, urban radio networks, underwater acoustic channels, and telephone line channels.This is in contrast to the Gaussian noise processes inherent in transmitting and receiving elements.Since the conventional receivers are effectively linear, the impulsive character of the interference can drastically the performance of conventional systems.Furthermore, since it has been well-established that the performance of communications, radar, and sonar systems can be greatly enhanced if the true statistics of the channel are known and exploited, the problem of identification of impulsive noise channels is important in the development of systems that can approach the performance limits set by such channels.This research project is concerned with the design and development of new nonlinear algorithms for identification of nongaussian noise processes and for reception of signals corrupted by nongaussian noise.In particular, the overall objectives of this research project are: (i) the development of suitable

The development, features, and preliminary test results of artificial intelligence (AI) based network management support systems for the Defense Switched Network (DSN) are described. These systems use neural network and expert system technology packaged into workstations, each providing a user-friendly interface and graphical displays. The systems are designed to diagnose anomalies and network stress conditions based on real-time network traffic and switch status reports and recommend appropriate network controls to the DSN controller. >