Stephanie Young

The Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform asked the RAND Corporation for an independent analysis of PPBE-like functions in selected countries and non-Department of Defense federal agencies. This executive summary distills key insights from nine case studies of budgeting processes across comparative organizations, as detailed in three companion volumes.

The Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform asked RAND for an independent analysis of PPBE-like functions in selected countries and other U.S. federal agencies comparable to the U.S. Department of Defense. This executive summary distills key insights from seven case studies of budgeting processes, as detailed in two companion volumes, and compiles findings from all 16 case studies in the seven-volume series.

Part of a wider body of RAND research into prospective reforms of the U.S. Department of Defense's planning, programming, budgeting, and execution (PPBE) processes, this report highlights the role that allied PPBE-like mechanisms play in enabling or frustrating collaboration across the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization amid a deteriorating threat environment.

This report adds two case studies of planning, programming, budgeting, and execution (PPBE) functions-in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and in the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration-to those of other U.S. federal government agencies presented in Volume 3, offering further insights for improving the U.S. Department of Defense's PPBE processes.

The Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform asked RAND to provide an independent analysis of PPBE-like functions in selected countries and federal agencies. In this report-Volume 5 in a seven-volume set of case studies-RAND researchers analyze the defense budgeting processes of five additional allied and partner nations: France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and Sweden.

The Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform asked the RAND Corporation for an independent analysis of PPBE-like functions in selected countries and other federal agencies. In this volume, RAND researchers conduct case studies of the defense budgeting processes of China and Russia.

The Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform asked the RAND Corporation for an independent analysis of PPBE-like functions in selected countries and other federal agencies. In this second volume of four reports on this subject, RAND researchers conducted case studies of the defense budgeting processes of Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

This report, part of a four-volume set, presents case studies of planning, programming, budgeting, and execution (PPBE) functions in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to provide insights for improving the U.S. Department of Defense's PPBE processes.

RAND Corporation researchers developed an approach for analyzing social media data to derive insights about chemical incidents and conducted a proof of concept of that approach by applying it to the case of chemical weapons use in Syria (2017?2018). The procedure, a four-step process, showed promise. They recommend that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency initiate three activities to further the development of the procedure.

What would you risk to change the recipe of your life? Seventeen-year-old J'aime McWilliams is a wannabe cook with zero kitchen skills and chef dreams that are bigger than her food pantry ingredients. Food scarcity is real for her; she lives each day not knowing where her next meal is going to come from. After the death of J'aime's chronically ill mom, and running from debt collectors, her dad drags her from Chicago to Hannaville, Missouri. It's a tiny rural town with a new casino, and they both snag jobs at the Silver Dollar Casino Buffet. J'aime is just a server, so she practices her cooking skills at home. When she burns through her last saucepan, J'aime realizes her chef fantasy requires real chef training. She spots the fierce chopping techniques of eighteen-year-old Robert Rios. Robert's family owns a popular restaurant, but he secretly longs to run his own food truck. Hiding out in an abandoned Home EC room, they invent new recipes, fueling their desire for food (and each other). To make their chef dreams come true, J'aime suggests they enter a Food Network contest. Taking this step together stirs up chaos and consequences for her and for Robert. J'aime must face hard truths about her family and learn that no matter what life dishes up, we all have the inner-strength to keep our hearts full. Proceeds from Kitchen of My Heart are donated to national food banks.

Wanna know the real reason Pluto isn’t a planet anymore? Bandit is a pup on Earth who leaves his family to join the secret order of the Star Beasts – cosmic creatures sworn to protect Earth and spread goodness throughout the universe. Only thing is, he's having trouble fitting in. But when powerful relics are suddenly stolen, the Star Beasts must band together to find the deadly galactic fossils before Pluto’s evil emperor, Khaos Krill – he wants to build the Novataur, an ancient monster that could wipe out all of Earth’s species! Captain Bandit leads the crew on a kick-asteroid space race to collect all the relics. Flashtista, the warrior turtle, Clio, the goldfish historian, Karma, the healing tiger, Pep, the techie iguana, and the rest of Star Beasts risk their lives to learn that true family is never really lost and that protecting love is the greatest duty of all.

Russia has historically succeeded in using various hostile measures to sow disorder, weaken democratic institutions, and undermine Western alliances. However, it also has a long track record of strategic shortfalls and even ineptitude. Exploring opportunities to deter, prevent, and counter Russian hostile behavior will benefit NATO and other Western powers in the so-called gray zone short of war, as well as in a conventional warfare scenario.

A book of unruly love poems about complicated sexuality, precarity, and kinship Working from the sticky interface of property and sex, Stephanie Young takes up the question of passing when narrow definitions of family on offer by the law and capitalist social relations leave out so much. With a cast of characters that includes lovers and exes, Troilus and Cressida, Van Morrison and the Grateful Dead, Steph Curry and Andre Iguodala, Pat Parker and Judy Grahn, the orca Tilikum and his captors, Pet Sounds is at once a book of confessional economics, music criticism disguised as poetry, and a complicated coming out story. These poems pulse with the pleasures and grief of making a home inside structures that don’t fit—on land whose value climbs ever upward in the frenzy of speculation. 2020 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER

Popular culture surrounds us every day. Pursuing Popular Culture assists instructors by providing both a rich blend of new and relevant popular culture artifacts that appeals to diverse students and the analytical tools needed to understand these artifacts. It explains theoretical approaches and makes clear how these can be applied to better understand popular culture. Finally, the book provides straightforward approaches that allow students to think, talk, and write critically about popular culture.Pursuing Popular Culture includestextual analysis and representation, production and media technologies, audience engagements, and presenting research.specific instructions in major methodological approaches and references to additional quality materials.how to choose targets for analysis, write research questions, and select methods that will help them to answer those questions.Instructions to help students learn how to develop their own explanatory frameworks and/or choose existing theories to make sense of their analyses.Award Winner for Best Book for Use in the Classroom by Midwest Popular Culture Association

The Cooperative Biological Engagement Program partners with about 20 countries in different regions around the world and works with them to address diverse threats to international security. This report describes a project to develop a comprehensive evaluation framework and recommends metrics for assessing and communicating progress toward the program s goals."

The swift adoption of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) and their increasing use in the field have exceeded the capacity of the training infrastructure to sustain training on these systems over the long term. This report develops a general concept for training military forces in employment of UASs and a framework for addressing the training requirements and discusses the limits of existing infrastructure in supporting UAS training.