Netwar Revisited: The Fight for the Future Continues

This work continues to develop the 'netwar' concept that the authors introduced in 1993 and have expanded upon in their various RAND and other writings ever since. Deeper understanding of the nature, strengths and vulnerabilities of networks will prove useful in combating terrorism and transnational crime, but also in understanding militant social activism, both of the violently disruptive sort and that which aims at fostering the rise of a global civil society. This essay also assesses recent US performance in the terror war, and concludes by raising concerns over the possible rise of a new form of network-based fascism.     

Dominating sets for rectilinear center location problems with polyhedral barriers

In planar location problems with barriers one considers regions which are forbidden for the siting of new facilities as well as for trespassing. These problems are important since they model various actual applications. The resulting mathematical models have a nonconvex objective function and are therefore difficult to tackle using standard methods of location theory even in the case of simple barrier shapes and distance functions. For the case of center objectives with barrier distances obtained from the rectilinear or Manhattan metric, it is shown that the problem can be solved in polynomial time by identifying a dominating set. The resulting genuinely polynomial algorithm can be combined with bound computations which are derived from solving closely connected restricted location and network location problems. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 49: 647–665, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/nav.10038     

Confidence coefficient of approximate two-sided confidence intervals for the binomial probability

The confidence coefficient of a two-sided confidence interval for the binomial parameter p is the infimum of the coverage probability of the interval as p ranges between 0 and 1. The confidence coefficients for five different approximate confidence intervals are computed and compared to the confidence coefficient for the two-sided Clopper-Pearson confidence interval. Pratt's approximation method [10] yields virtually the same confidence coefficients as the Clopper-Pearson interval, and is easily computed without resorting to interative methods.     

An error components model of cost overruns and schedule slip on army R&D programs

What has been causing cost overruns and schedule slippages in Army major weapon-system R&D programs during the past ten years? This article addresses this question with emphasis on the effectiveness of an Army acquisition strategy entitled Total Risk Assessing Cost Estimating (TRACE). An empirical study employed a questionnaire and interviews with key personnel from all of the major Army Program Management Offices involved with R&D. The major research question was the following: What explanatory variables have been affecting R&D cost overruns and development time? This includes an evaluation of TRACE as a potential explanatory variable. Data was collected and analyzed using an error components multiple regression model. The major explanatory variables that appeared to explain cost overruns were technological risk of the program, education and experience of key program management office personnel, and the degree of “buy in” by the prime contractor. Strong statistical results indicate that TRACE is having little or no effect on cost overruns. In the case of development time, the major explanatory variables were seen to be technological risk of the program, testing, TRACE, education, and length of the R&D contract.     

A simulation study of the efficiency of empirical Bayes' estimators of multiple correlated probability vectors

Empirical Bayes' methods had been used by Brier, Zacks, and Marlow [1] for estimating performance characteristic vectors of success probabilities. The problem is that of estimating k-dimensional success probabilities of dependent binomial random variables, which are highly correlated. The present study reinforces the results of the previous one by showing, via simulations, that the relative efficiency of the empirical Bayes estimators, compared to the Stein-type and to the maximum-likelihood ones, is very high. This holds even if the success proportions are based on a small number of trials. We study the case of equicorrelation structure with positive correlations.     

Health Insurance,Health Conditions,and Veteran Health Care Utilization

Abstract

The utilization of health care services by veterans has received much attention in recent years. However, the impact of the large array of factors affecting the veterans’ demand for health care services remains understudied. These factors include individual socio-demographic and economic characteristics, the availability of various sources of health insurance, and the prevalence of medical conditions. We use public data to analyze how veterans’ utilization of health care services varies with these factors. We also analyze how the reliance on VA services varies when alternative sources of health insurance are available to veterans. Based on the estimated relationships, we use a micro-simulation model to forecast future health care utilization, both inside and outside of VA.     

The long term effects of an aging fleet on operational availability and cost: evidence from the U.S. coast guard

This paper empirically examines whether the aging of a fleet affects operational availability and operating cost using a unique data-set on the 117 47-foot Motor Lifeboats (MLBs) of the United States Coast Guard (USCG). Procured from 1997 to 2003, the 47-foot MLB is the standard lifeboat of the USCG and all 117 MLBs remain in service. The aging of the MLB fleet has resulted in higher annual operating costs and lower operational availability, although the nature of this relationship remains unclear. Our estimation strategy utilizes an error components estimator to examine these issues. We employ three variants of the dependent variables (i.e. the standard logarithmic transformation as is most commonly seen in the literature, inverse hyperbolic sine [IHS], and level outcomes). The point estimates from the standard logarithmic model finds operational availability for the MLBs decreases at a rate between 0.83 and 1.8% per year and cost increases at a rate between 0.33 and 7.81% per year. Similar effects are shown with the IHS and level outcome specifications. In terms of nonlinearity effects, we find the most pronounced changes in operational availability and cost occur for MLBs aged 15 years or more (in comparison to younger MLBs).     

Use it or lose it: On the incentives to spend annual defence operating budgets

In most western countries, there is a strong incentive for defence department budget-holders to expend all of the funds they are authorized to spend in a fiscal year. In this paper, we question whether this emphasis makes sense. We develop a model of a defence department’s operating expenditure assuming a fixed level of funding for a year and uncertain costs. The results of the model suggest that the incentive for departmental managers to expend all authorized funds is inefficient. We explore the implications of the model for the Department of National Defence (DND) in Canada in light of the recent criticism of DND lapsed funding by the Auditor-General of Canada.