Carolyn Wong

Describes the adaptation of an R&D portfolio management decision framework developed by RAND to support R&D decisionmaking by the Office of Naval Research. 450-character abstract: Describes the adaptation of an R&D portfolio management decision framework developed by the RAND Corporation to support R&D decisionmaking by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the demonstration of its use by means of a case study evaluation of 20 sample ONR applied-research projects. It allows identification of R&D projects with high-value capabilities but formidable technical or fielcling problems yet to be solved-projects for which management attention may have the greatest leverage.

The authors investigate whether the tenure of program managers contributes to Nunn-McCurdy breaches. They also examine the existing decentralized systems used to track cost growth to determine whether additional guidance and control are needed to make acquisition category II programs performance more transparent. Finally, they investigate whether key assumptions, so-called framing assumptions, could be useful risk management tools.

Hmong American immigrants first came to the United States as refugees of the Vietnam War. Forty years on, they have made a notable impact in American political life. They have voter participation rates higher than most other Asian American ethnic groups, and they have won seats in local and state legislative bodies. Yet the average level of education among Hmong Americans still lags behind that of the general U.S. population and high rates of poverty persist in their community, highlighting a curious disparity across the typical benchmarks of immigrant incorporation. Carolyn Wong analyzes how the Hmong came to pursue politics as a key path to advancement and inclusion in the United States. Drawing on interviews with community leaders, refugees, and the second-generation children of immigrants, Wong shows that intergenerational mechanisms of social voting underlie the political participation of Hmong Americans. Younger Hmong Americans engage older community residents in grassroots elections and conversation about public affairs. And in turn, within families and communities, elders often transmit stories that draw connections between ancient Hmong aspirations for freedom and contemporary American egalitarian projects.

A geospatial software tool-evaluation study conducted for the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) assessed 14 recent NIJ-funded tool developments. The study integrates input from tool developers and users with RAND s independent assessments. The authors found that 12 developments resulted in fully functional tools and make five recommendations that will enable NIJ to maximize benefits to the law enforcement community from future developments."

The Department of Defense (DoD) has developed new sensor technologies to support U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; these technologies are potentially useful for counterdrug operations along the southern U.S. border, but there are legal questions regarding how they may be used and how sensor information may be shared between federal agencies in domestic operations. This report examines federal law and DoD policy to answer these questions.

This report presents an approach and framework for determining what parties have authority to issue interoperability policy, the legal and policy origins and implementation paths of the authority, and the extent of the authority. The approach includes rigorous analysis by researchers to identify pertinent authorities in federal law and a means to facilitate discovery of roles and responsibilities in Department of Defense and Service policies.

The authors present a framework and methodology to identify the roles and responsibilities of those implementing Department of Defense policies and also potential conflicts, ambiguities, gaps, inconsistencies, and redundancies in those policies. They introduce a new software tool that automates one step of the methodology--EPIC--and demonstrate its use with three case studies to illustrate the technique and also the tool's flexibility.

The roles and responsibilities of defense acquisition officers and chief information officers are governed both by U.S. laws and by Department of Defense (DoD) policy. The authors identify policy governing the design, acquisition, and integration of information technology (IT) and national security systems (NSS) that could lead to potential conflicts among these executives when they exercise their duties in the defense acquisition system, and suggest changes to DoD policy that can resolve these conflicts.

The challenge of securing U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) information systems has grown significantly. A new approach to information assurance certification and accreditation (IA C&A) is needed to effectively extend the IA C&A process to aggregations of systems and improve their security. An examination of current policy shows that a number of changes could enable the IA C&A of aggregations of DoD information systems on a common platform.

Because test scores that are part of its enlisted promotion system are not standardized, the U.S. Air Force emphasizes longevity and test-taking ability differently and randomly across and within specialties. Random emphasis implies that the Air Force cannot be sure it promotes individuals with the highest potential. The authors discuss a range of predictable outcomes the Air Force could achieve by adopting various standardization strategies.This book examines the practice of not standardizing the test scores that are part of the U.S. Air Force enlisted promotion system and discusses possible standardization strategies.

This study looked at how funding instability affects Army acquisition programs. Most funding instability was found to stem from events external to the Army or ambitious Army-set technical goals. Funding instability's effects took the form of schedule slips, cost increases, and to a lesser degree, technical compromises. No significant association was found between funding instability and the adverse effects of program cost growth and schedule slippage.

In every decade since passage of the Hart Cellar Act of 1965, Congress has faced conflicting pressures: to restrict legal immigration and to provide employers with unregulated access to migrant labor. Lobbying for Inclusion shows that in these debates immigrant rights groups advocated a surprisingly moderate course of action: expansionism was tempered by a politics of inclusion. Rights advocates supported generous family unification policies, for example, but they opposed proposals that would admit large numbers of guest workers without providing a clear path to citizenship. As leaders of pro-immigrant coalitions, Latino and Asian American rights advocates were highly effective in influencing immigration lawmakers even before their constituencies gained political clout in the voting booth. Success depended on casting rights demands in universalistic terms, while leveraging their standing as representatives of growing minority populations.