The U.S. military does not believe its soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines should be engaged in combat with adversaries on a "level playing field." Our combat individuals enter engagements to win. To that end, the United States has used its technical prowess and industrial capability to develop decisive weapons that overmatch those of potential enemies. In its current engagement-what has been identified as an "era of persistent conflict"- the nation's most important weapon is the dismounted soldier operating in small units. Today's soldier must be prepared to contend with both regular and irregular adversaries. Results in Iraq and Afghanistan show that, while the U.S. soldier is a formidable fighter, the contemporary suite of equipment and support does not afford the same high degree of overmatch capability exhibited by large weapons platforms-yet it is the soldier who ultimately will play the decisive role in restoring stability. Making the Soldier Decisive on Future Battlefields establishes the technical requirements for overmatch capability for dismounted soldiers operating individually or in small units. It prescribes technological and organizational capabilities needed to make the dismounted soldier a decisive weapon in a changing, uncertain, and complex future environment and provides the Army with 15 recommendations on how to focus its efforts to enable the soldier and tactical small unit (TSU) to achieve overmatch.

Effectiveness measures provide decision makers feedback on the impact of deliberate actions and affect critical issues such as allocation of scarce resources, as well as whether to maintain or change existing strategy. Currently, however, there is no formal foundation for formulating effectiveness measures. This research presents a new framework for effectiveness measurement from both a theoretical and practical view. First, accepted effects-based principles, as well as fundamental measurement concepts are combined into a general, domain independent, effectiveness measurement methodology. This is accomplished by defining effectiveness measurement as the difference, or conceptual distance from a given system state to some reference system state (e.g. desired end-state). Then, by developing system attribute measures such that they yield a system state-space that can be characterized as a metric space, differences in system states relative to the reference state can be gauged over time, yielding a generalized, axiomatic definition of effectiveness measurement. The effectiveness measurement framework is then extended to mitigate the influence of measurement error and uncertainty by employing Kalman filtering techniques. Finally, the pragmatic nature of the approach is illustrated by measuring the effectiveness of a notional, security force response strategy in a scenario involving a terrorist attack on a United States Air Force base.

This User’s Guide is a resource for investigators and stakeholders who develop and review observational comparative effectiveness research protocols. It explains how to (1) identify key considerations and best practices for research design; (2) build a protocol based on these standards and best practices; and (3) judge the adequacy and completeness of a protocol. Eleven chapters cover all aspects of research design, including: developing study objectives, defining and refining study questions, addressing the heterogeneity of treatment effect, characterizing exposure, selecting a comparator, defining and measuring outcomes, and identifying optimal data sources. Checklists of guidance and key considerations for protocols are provided at the end of each chapter. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews. More more information, please consult the Agency website: www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov)

This document reports on a small set of information-age measures of effectiveness (MOEs) for the Army, developed in an attempt to spark the creation of more measures. The research shows that development of MOEs is feasible, not only for combat operations but for stability operations too.

In recent years there have been increasing efforts to use accountability systems based on large-scale tests of students as a mechanism for improving student achievement. The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a prominent example of such an effort, but it is only the continuation of a steady trend toward greater test-based accountability in education that has been going on for decades. Over time, such accountability systems included ever-stronger incentives to motivate school administrators, teachers, and students to perform better. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education reviews and synthesizes relevant research from economics, psychology, education, and related fields about how incentives work in educational accountability systems. The book helps identify circumstances in which test-based incentives may have a positive or a negative impact on student learning and offers recommendations for how to improve current test-based accountability policies. The most important directions for further research are also highlighted. For the first time, research and theory on incentives from the fields of economics, psychology, and educational measurement have all been pulled together and synthesized. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education will inform people about the motivation of educators and students and inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems. Education researchers, K-12 school administrators and teachers, as well as graduate students studying education policy and educational measurement will use this book to learn more about the motivation of educators and students. Education policy makers at all levels of government will rely on this book to inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems.

The nation's physical infrastructure facilitates movement of people and goods; provides safe water; provides energy when and where needed; removes wastes; enables rapid communications; and generally supports our economy and quality of life. Developing a framework for guiding attempts at measuring the performance of infrastructure systems and grappling with the concept of defining good performance are the major themes of this book. Focusing on urban regions, within a context of national policy, the volume provides the basis for further in-depth analysis and application at the local, regional, state, and national levels.

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) helps defend the United States and its interests by organizing, training, and equipping forces for operations in and through three distinct domains-air, space, and cyberspace. The Air Force concisely expresses its vision as "Global Vigilance, Global Reach, and Global Power for America." Operations within each of these domains are dynamic, take place over large distances, occur over different operational timelines, and cannot be routinely seen or recorded, making it difficult for Airmen, national decision makers, and the American People to visualize and comprehend the full scope of Air Force operations. As a result, the Air Force faces increasing difficulty in succinctly and effectively communicating the complexity, dynamic range, and strategic importance of its mission to Airmen and to the American people. To address this concern, the Chief of Staff of the USAF requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convene a workshop to explore options on how the Air Force can effectively communicate the strategic importance of the Service, its mission, and the role it plays in the defense of the United States. Participants worked to address the issues that a diverse workforce encompassing a myriad of backgrounds, education, and increasingly diverse current mission sets drives the requirement for a new communication strategy. The demographics of today's Air Force creates both a unique opportunity and a distinct challenge to Air Force leadership as it struggles to communicate its vision and strategy effectively across several micro-cultures within the organization and to the general public. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.