The Army Research Institute is working to develop a tool that will help guide recruits toward their most compatible military occupation specialty in a push to help soldiers enjoy their work and stay in service beyond one enlistment.

The U.S. Army said Monday Cristina Kirkendall, an Army Research Institute psychologist, and Christopher Nye, an assistant professor at Michigan State University, will use data gathered from 1,000 basic combat training soldiers surveyed in October to develop the Adaptive Vocational Interest Diagnostic.

“A lot of soldiers don’t have information about a job before they enlist… They pick a job based on either the bonuses or what the recruiter said they should choose, or whatever it may be. And, that might just not be the best place for them,” said Kirkendall.

Kirkendall noted that it will take three to four years to implement AVID and it will not replace current testing methods such as the cognitive Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, which is used to determine soldiers’ job eligibility.

Nye added that researchers have also started to develop the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System to gather information on non-cognitive characteristics.

National Governors Association Chairman Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and Vice Chair Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) have issued a joint statement to show their confidence in the security of state- and local-level election systems.

The governors said Friday that the NGA collaborates with state officials, election administrators and cybersecurity professionals to protect the electoral process from disruption and compromise.

“Those partnerships and our close study of any potential problems have reinforced our certainty that this election will fully and accurately reflect the choices voters make,” the governors added.

NGA convened state, federal and private sector experts nationwide to discuss the privacy of voter data and the integrity of computer-based voting system during a cybersecurity summit in Boston.

The summit led to a conclusion that the U.S.’ voting system is decentralized and that potential vulnerabilities are known to election officials, McAuliffe and Sandoval noted.

NGA also issued a summary of security measures that recommend a backup for registration data and electronic poll books in the form of paper copies and compact discs.

The U.S. Digital Service has introduced an application prototype designed to help citizens apply for multiple benefits through a single portal, the Government Technology magazine reported Wednesday.

Ben Miller writes Mollie Ruskin, a designer at USDS, and Ryan Burke, a senior policy adviser to President Barack Obama and director of the TechHire initiative, launched the alpha version of the app at the Code for Summit held Wednesday in California.

The prototype site is a template designed to help local government benefits administrators tailor their enrollment apps for benefits processing based on their requirements and does not share or store personal information.

The app prototype version seeks to help users apply for healthcare coverage, such as Medicaid and health insurance, as well as food assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Ruskin and Burke have also sought feedback on the app during the event, according to the report.

Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue have called on businesses to use information and resources from DHS and the Chamber to support cyber, economic and national security programs.

Johnson and Donohue wrote in a joint guest post published Thursday on The Hill that the Chamber and DHS work together to promote safe cybersecurity practices among businesses from all sectors across the U.S.

They said businesses should adopt principles outlined in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework and participate in DHS’s information sharing efforts such as the Automated Indicator Sharing program.

Business leaders should also regard cybersecurity as a valuable investment and add cybersecurity into risk management plans while employees should take responsibility for online actions and safety, Johnson and Donohue added.

Johnson and Donohue also urged Congress to take further measures to help DHS address growing cyber threats as well as potential large-scale, physical consequences of cyberattacks.

NASA has combined its reconfigurable flight computing platform with a Navigator-built GPS flight receiver to develop new technology as part of efforts to address future deep space navigational challenges and demonstrate X-ray communications capacities in space.

The agency said Friday it will deploy two Navcube units to the International Space Station in 2018 as one of several experiments on an external pallet to demonstrate navigation and processing capacity as well as aim to provide timing data for an X-ray communications experiment.

“Because we added the ability to process modernized GPS signals, NavCube has the potential to significantly enhance performance at low, and especially, high altitudes, potentially even to the area of space near the moon and lunar orbits,” said Luke Winternitz, chief architect at Navigator.

“We knew that processing speed from SpaceCube and the tracking capability of Navigator could be a powerful combination… The next task was to figure out how to make it … more flexible mission applications,” said Barry Geldzahler, chief scientist for NASA’s Space Communication and Navigation program.

NavCube will also provide a Modulated X-ray Source that generates X-ray pulses to support the XCOM demonstration which covers one part of the Neutron-star Interior Composition Explorer mission.