Aaron Kofner

Airmen, their families, and Air Force civilian employees face a range of personal and work-related challenges. To assist Air Force leaders and service providers in identifying the needs of their communities and prioritizing efforts to address them, the Air Force sponsored the 2017 Air Force Community Feedback Tool--a self-reported needs assessment of Air Force community members. This report synthesizes results and draws lessons from the findings.

Evaluating efforts to prevent violent extremism can be challenging. The RAND Program Evaluation Toolkit for Countering Violent Extremism uses checklists, worksheets, and templates to help program staff design an evaluation that is appropriate for their program type, resources, and expertise and offers guidance on analyzing the resulting data to inform improvements.

Flood insurance payments can help households and businesses recover from an event and get the economy moving again. Premiums can also provide appropriate incentives to avoid or mitigate risk. This report examines dimensions of the changing flood insurance environment in New York City and explores the consequences for the city s residents and businesses."

Business improvement districts (BIDs) collect assessments and invest in local service provisions and activities, such as place promotion, street cleaning, and public safety. Such activities can help reduce crime and youth violence by increasing informal social control, reducing signs of disorder and blight, improving order maintenance, and enriching job opportunities. This report examines BIDs' impact on crime and youth violence in Los Angeles.

Determines whether gender differences exist in federal research grant awards and funding. On the request of the National Science Foundation (NSF), this report analyzes administrative data from fiscal years 2001 through 2003, describing the outcomes of grant applications submitted by women versus men to federal agencies. The report focuses on three federal agencies: the Department of Health and Human Services, in particular, the National Institutes of Health; the NSF; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Is U.S. high-technology manufacturing at risk? In response to the concern that an increasing amount of high-technology manufacturing formerly performed in the United States is now being done overseas, the Office of Science and Technology Policy asked the Rand Corporation to provide analytic support to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The support included a description of past and current trends of U.S. high-tech manufacturing, a theoretical and empirical economic analysis of traditional and high-tech manufacturing, and an analysis of U.S. research and development statistics and of trends in choices of academic disciplines.

Federal government operates several large-scale research facilities that enable scientific inquiry in a range of fields. This study was designed to help the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to address issues surrounding the planning, operation and management of selected facilities.