Energy Resilience Impact of Supply Chain Network Disruption to Military Microgrids

The ability to provide uninterrupted power to military installations is paramount in executing a country’s national defense strategy. Microgrid architectures increase installation energy resilience through redundant local generation sources and the capability for grid independence. However, deliberate attacks from near-peer competitors can disrupt the associated supply chain network, thereby affecting mission critical loads. Utilizing an integrated discrete-time Markov chain and dynamic Bayesian network approach, we investigate disruption propagation throughout a supply chain network and quantify its mission impact on an islanded microgrid. We propose a novel methodology and an associated metric we term “energy resilience impact” to identify and address supply chain disruption risks to energy security. The proposed methodology addresses a gap in the literature and practice where it is assumed supply chains will not be disrupted during incidents involving microgrids. A case study of a fictional military installation is presented to demonstrate how installation energy managers can adopt this methodology for the design and improvement of military microgrids. The fictional case study shows how supply chain disruptions can impact the ability of a microgrid to successfully supply electricity to critical loads throughout an islanding event.

COVID-19: On the Disparity in Outcomes Between Military and Civilian Populations

ABSTRACT Introduction The CoronaVirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic remains a formidable threat to populations around the world. The U.S. Military, in particular, represents a unique and distinguishable subset of the population, primarily due to the age and gender of active duty personnel. Current investigations have focused on health outcome forecasts for civilian populations, making them of limited value for military planning. Materials and Methods We have developed and applied an age-structured susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered, or dead compartmental model for both civilian and military populations, driven by estimates of the time-dependent reproduction number, R(t), which can be both fit to available data and also forecast future cases, intensive care unit (ICU) patients, and deaths. Results We show that the expected health outcomes for active duty military populations are substantially different than for civilian populations of the same size. Specifically, while the number of cases is not expected to differ dramatically, severity, both in terms of ICU burdens and deaths, is substantially lower. Conclusions Our results confirm that the burden placed on military health centers will be substantially lower than that for equivalent-sized civilian populations. More practically, the tool we have developed to investigate this (https://q.predsci.com/covid19/) can be used by military health planners to estimate the resources needed in particular locations based on current estimates of the transmission profiles of COVID-19 within the surrounding civilian population in which the military installation is embedded. As this tool continues to be developed, it can be used to assess the likely impact of different intervention strategies, as well as vaccine policies; both for the current pandemic as well as future ones.

Delineating Conservation Areas for Cohabiting Species: An Example of Vernal Pond Conservation From Fort Stewart in Georgia, United States

Military installations are valuable in global biodiversity conservation as they secure representative ecosystems from land conversion and protect many threatened or endangered species. Selecting suitable areas for biodiversity conservation within military installations is a challenging problem as this must not impede military training activities. The issue gets more complicated when considering multiple cohabiting species in a metacommunity with species dependency. In this paper, we present an example for the conservation of two cohabiting species, Gopher Tortoise (GT) and Gopher Frog (GF), located within the boundaries of a military installation, Fort Stewart, Georgia, United States. The GF depends on both locations of GT habitat (burrows) and ephemeral vernal ponds (for breeding). We develop a model that identifies the cost-efficient areas for the conservation of these two species while taking into account the dependency of GF on GT burrows. The model selects a specified number of conservation areas for the two species, where each GF conservation area covers an adequate number of vernal ponds for the GFs to accommodate their reproduction, and each GT conservation area provides adequate habitat quality to sustain a viable GT population. The model also requires each GF site to be located close to GT sites so that the GFs could find refuge after they leave the water. We use the total distance of selected sites to the main roads in the military installation as a proxy for the conservation cost. We achieve contiguity of each conservation area by selecting sites that are adjacent to a central site of the conservation area to ensure undisrupted travel for both the GFs and the GTs. Using the model, we generated alternative configurations of conservation areas that could be considered by the land managers of Fort Stewart. Our methods are general and can be applied to other reserve site selection and land management problems with cohabiting interrelated species.

Relational analysis in soundscape preservation

Given the musical origins of soundscape studies, soundscape preservation might suggest the need to protect specific features-such as prominent soundmarks or long-standing natural sounds-to maintain a sonic environment's composition. However, the identification of a soundscape primarily by its discrete elements misses the importance of relational longevity. A relational lens of identification can distinguish a soundscape's effects on visitors rather than simply the presence of specific components, placing human perception candidly at the center of consideration. For instance, an urban courtyard might no longer echo with hand-drawn carts from the street, yet visitors continue to experience a distanced connection with evolving traffic sounds - here the sonic-spatial relationship persists rather than sonic elements being frozen in time. This paper will discuss longevity in the relationships connecting use, architectural space, and sonic character. The discussion draws from architectural analysis, soundwalking, and psychoacoustic research in exploring soundscape preservation within the orbit of heritage conservation more broadly. Case studies focus on a variety of historic contexts, including a military installation, medieval church, and factory landscape, highlighting the limitations of a compositional soundscape reading, the fundamental role of transit through a soundscape for visitors, and the potentials for relational analysis in soundscape preservation efforts.

Monks across the desert. Hermitic life in Christian Petra

Monks across the desert. Hermitic life in Christian Petra A new interpretation of the pre-Crusader phase of the site follows from the identification of a pre-Crusader rock-cut chapel. In particular, in early mediaeval time, a monastic community at al-Wu’ayra and a number of hermitic cells surrounding a central fortified coenobium preceded the later military castle keep. The Crusaders profited by the presence of a Christian fortified settlement, easy to transform into a military installation by a simple addition of a number of buildings, which are identifiable by a chrono-typology of building techniques.The new program of research which started in 2017 aims at registering, surveying, and studying various hermitic installations around the perimeter of the town in order to contextualize this early medieval phase of al-Wu’ayrain the topography of Petra and contribute to the knowledge of a ‘minor’and underestimated aspect of the town in early Christian time. In fact, these monastic-hermitic settlements located in segregated spots of the peri-urbanarea, surviving the abandonment of the major churches of the town, can help to understand in a more realistic way the articulated forms of Christian presence and its duration until the late 19th century.

Adaptación cristiana de las defensas de la Alcazaba de Almería durante el siglo XVI

Christian adaptation of the defences of the Alcazaba of Almeria during the sixteenth centuryAfter the capitulation of the nasrid city of Almería (1489), the new Castilian administration was able to verify the state of ruin of its defences due to the earthquake of 1487, ordering the rapid construction of a castle on the highest point of the battered hispano-muslim Alcazaba. Between 1490 and 1502 the castle was built, incorporating in its design the most effective systems of the time to repel an attack with gunpowder. The typological references of this military installation correspond to the School of Valladolid; with a long tradition in the construction of castles. In parallel with the completion of these works, the Catholic Monarchs ordered in 1501 to armor the defence of the coasts of the Kingdom of Granada, articulating and extending the medieval system of watchtowers scattered along the coast, to counteract the fragility of the annexed territories, the mestizaje of its people, and the proximity of Africa. Thus concluded the works in the Castle, the works were centred in the repair of the walls of the city, action that will extend to the fences of the Alcazaba (1526). Towards 1547, attacks by turkish and berber pirates followed one another on the Almeria coast in the face of the defencelessness of the population. These incursions led to concern about the proper conservation of military installations. As a consequence of this, the old Alcazaba was adapted to the distant war offered by the use of gunpowder. The first interventions were designed by Luis de Machuca, architect of the Palace of Carlos V in the Alhambra. This accommodation included the construction of the bastions of the Campana (1550) and the repair of the doors of Justice and the Guard (1565), completing the program due to the proximity of the War with the Moriscos, with the construction of the bastions of the San Matías and Espolón (1568).

The association between nutrition and behavioural health in a US Army population

Objective:The relationship between nutrition and behavioural health (BH) outcomes has been established in the literature. However, the relationship between nutrition and anxiety is unclear. Furthermore, the relationship between nutrition and BH outcomes has not been examined in a US Army Soldier population. This study sought to understand the relationship between Soldiers’ nutritional intake and anxiety as well as depression.Design:This cross-sectional study utilised multivariable logistic regression analyses to examine the relationship between nutritional intake and BH outcomes.Setting:The study utilised data collected in 2018 during a BH epidemiological consultation conducted at one Army installation.Participants:Participants were 7043 US Army Soldiers at one Army installation.Results:Of the Soldiers completing the survey, 12 % (n 812) screened positive for anxiety and 11 % (n 774) for depression. The adjusted odds of anxiety were significantly higher among Soldiers who reported low fruit intake compared with Soldiers who reported high fruit intake (adjusted OR (AOR) 1·36; 95 % CI 1·04, 1·79). The adjusted odds of depression were higher for Soldiers who reported low fruit intake (AOR 1·35; 95 % CI 1·01, 1·79) and/or low green vegetable intake (AOR 1·37; 95 % CI 1·02, 1·83). Lastly, the adjusted odds of depression were lower for Soldiers who reported low sugary drink intake (AOR 0·62; 95 % CI 0·48, 0·81).Conclusions:This study is the first to examine the important connection between nutritional intake and anxiety and depression at a US military installation. The information learned from this study has implications for enhancing Soldiers’ nutritional knowledge and BH, ultimately improving Soldiers’ health and medical readiness.

Soft Release Translocation of Texas Horned Lizards (Phrynosoma cornutum) on an Urban Military Installation in Oklahoma, United States

Wildlife translocation is an often-used technique to augment populations or remove animals from harm’s way. Unfortunately, many translocation efforts fail to meet their goals for myriad reasons, particularly because translocated animals make large, erratic movements after release, which can result in high mortality rates. Soft release, holding animals in acclimation pens for some period of time at the recipient site before release, has been proposed as a technique to reduce these large movements and increase the survival of translocated animals. Here, we compared the survival and movement patterns of soft-released Texas horned lizards (Phrynosoma cornutum) with resident lizards, as well as hard-released lizards from a prior study. Juvenile lizards that were soft-released had high survival rates similar to resident lizards, despite still moving more frequently and occupying larger home ranges than residents. Conversely, soft-released adult lizards had survival rates similar to those that were hard-released, and much lower rates than resident adults. Curiously, soft-released adults did not have significantly higher movement rates or home range sizes than residents. Our results suggest that caution should be used before adult Texas horned lizards are translocated. However, juveniles responded well to soft release, and future research should explore whether they are more resilient to translocation in general, or if soft release provided a specific survival advantage. Contrary to our predictions, the survival of translocated animals was not related to their post-release movement patterns, and the mechanism underlying the observed survival patterns is unclear.