Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428982914
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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Author: Rebecca Slayton
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262019442
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
How differing assessments of risk by physicists and computer scientists have influenced public debate over nuclear defense. In a rapidly changing world, we rely upon experts to assess the promise and risks of new technology. But how do these experts make sense of a highly uncertain future? In Arguments that Count, Rebecca Slayton offers an important new perspective. Drawing on new historical documents and interviews as well as perspectives in science and technology studies, she provides an original account of how scientists came to terms with the unprecedented threat of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). She compares how two different professional communities—physicists and computer scientists—constructed arguments about the risks of missile defense, and how these arguments changed over time. Slayton shows that our understanding of technological risks is shaped by disciplinary repertoires—the codified knowledge and mathematical rules that experts use to frame new challenges. And, significantly, a new repertoire can bring long-neglected risks into clear view. In the 1950s, scientists recognized that high-speed computers would be needed to cope with the unprecedented speed of ICBMs. But the nation's elite science advisors had no way to analyze the risks of computers so used physics to assess what they could: radar and missile performance. Only decades later, after establishing computing as a science, were advisors able to analyze authoritatively the risks associated with complex software—most notably, the risk of a catastrophic failure. As we continue to confront new threats, including that of cyber attack, Slayton offers valuable insight into how different kinds of expertise can limit or expand our capacity to address novel technological risks.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309156467
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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In the military, information technology (IT) has enabled profound advances in weapons systems and the management and operation of the defense enterprise. A significant portion of the Department of Defense (DOD) budget is spent on capabilities acquired as commercial IT commodities, developmental IT systems that support a broad range of warfighting and functional applications, and IT components embedded in weapons systems. The ability of the DOD and its industrial partners to harness and apply IT for warfighting, command and control and communications, logistics, and transportation has contributed enormously to fielding the world's best defense force. However, despite the DOD's decades of success in leveraging IT across the defense enterprise, the acquisition of IT systems continues to be burdened with serious problems. To address these issues, the National Research Council assembled a group of IT systems acquisition and T&E experts, commercial software developers, software engineers, computer scientists and other academic researchers. The group evaluated applicable legislative requirements, examined the processes and capabilities of the commercial IT sector, analyzed DOD's concepts for systems engineering and testing in virtual environments, and examined the DOD acquisition environment. The present volume summarizes this analysis and also includes recommendations on how to improve the acquisition, systems engineering, and T&E processes to achieve the DOD's network-centric goals.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309163277
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Critical Code contemplates Department of Defense (DoD) needs and priorities for software research and suggests a research agenda and related actions. Building on two prior booksâ€"Summary of a Workshop on Software Intensive Systems and Uncertainty at Scale and Preliminary Observations on DoD Software Research Needs and Prioritiesâ€"the present volume assesses the nature of the national investment in software research and, in particular, considers ways to revitalize the knowledge base needed to design, produce, and employ software-intensive systems for tomorrow's defense needs. Critical Code discusses four sets of questions: To what extent is software capability significant for the DoD? Is it becoming more or less significant and strategic in systems development? Will the advances in software producibility needed by the DoD emerge unaided from industry at a pace sufficient to meet evolving defense requirements? What are the opportunities for the DoD to make more effective use of emerging technology to improve software capability and software producibility? In which technology areas should the DoD invest in research to advance defense software capability and producibility?

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309313686
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
The development and application of technology has been an essential part of U.S. airpower, leading to a century of air supremacy. But that developmental path has rarely been straight, and it has never been smooth. Only the extraordinary efforts of exceptional leadership - in the Air Forces and the wider Department of Defense, in science and in industry - have made the triumphs of military airpower possible. Development Planning provides recommendations to improve development planning for near-term acquisition projects, concepts not quite ready for acquisition, corporate strategic plans, and training of acquisition personnel. This report reviews past uses of development planning by the Air Force, and offers an organizational construct that will help the Air Force across its core functions. Developmental planning, used properly by experienced practitioners, can provide the Air Force leadership with a tool to answer the critical question, Over the next 20 years in 5-year increments, what capability gaps will the Air Force have that must be filled? Development planning will also provide for development of the workforce skills needed to think strategically and to defectively define and close the capability gap. This report describes what development planning could be and should be for the Air Force.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Administrative law
Languages : en
Pages : 1244

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Author: Howard Eisner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0471456322
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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The Authoritative Principles for Successfully Integrating Systems Engineering with Project Management Essentials of Project and Systems Engineering Management outlines key project management concepts and demonstrates how to apply them to the systems engineering process in order to optimize product design and development. Presented in a practical treatment that enables managers and engineers to understand and implement the basics quickly, this updated Second Edition also provides information on industry trends and standards that guide and facilitate project management and systems engineering implementation. Along with scores of real-world examples, this revised edition includes new and expanded material on: Project manager attributes, leadership, integrated product teams, elements of systems engineering, and corporate interactions Systems engineering management problems and issues, errors in systems, and standards advocated by professional groups such as the Electronic Industries Association (EIA) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fixed price contracting, systems integration, software cost estimating, life cycle cost relationships, systems architecting, system disposal, and system acquisition Risk analysis, verification and validation, and capability maturity models Essentials of Project and Systems Engineering Management, Second Edition is the ideal, single-source reference for professional technical and engineering managers in aerospace, communications, information technology, and computer-related industries, their engineering staffs, technical and R&D personnel, as well as students in these areas.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309055970
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
The Ada programming language was created by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) nearly two decades ago to provide a general-purpose programming language for defense and commercial use, but has evolved into a niche solution for safety-critical systems, primarily in defense applications. Ada and Beyond presents an approach for the DOD to move beyond the debate over its policy that requires the use of Ada for all new software development. It describes the importance of the software engineering process and recommends to DOD mechanisms for more effective review of software development and improved collection of data on software project outcomes. The volume also analyzes the technical, empirical, and business cases for using Ada and other programming languages, makes recommendations regarding the appropriate conditions under which DOD should continue to require the use of Ada, and details activities that require funding by DOD in order for Ada to remain a viable programming language.

Author: United States. Defense Science Board. Task Force on Defense Acquisition Reform (Phase II)
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428982892
Category : Aircraft industry
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Author: United States. Defense Science Board. Task Force on Globalization and Security
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428981217
Category : Globalization
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Globalization-the integration of the political, economic and cultural activities of geographically and/or nationally separated peoples-is not a discernible event or challenge, is not new, but it is accelerating. More importantly, globalization is largely irresistible. Thus, globalization is not a policy option, but a fact to which policymakers must adapt. Globalization has accelerated as a result of many positive factors, the most notable of which include: the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War; the spread of capitalism and free trade; more rapid and global capital flows and more liberal financial markets; the liberalization of communications; international academic and scientific collaboration; and faster and more efficient forms of transportation. At the core of accelerated global integration-at once its principal cause and consequence-is the information revolution, which is knocking down once-formidable barriers of physical distance, blurring national boundaries and creating cross-border communities of all types.