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DoD News: Bob Work Visits Romania for Ballistic Missile Defense Site Launch
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DoD News: Bob Work Visits Romania for Ballistic Missile Defense Site Launch


Robert Work
Bob Work

Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work has visited Romania to meet with government officials and attend the inauguration of a land-based ballistic missile defense facility at Deveselu on Thursday, DoD News reported Wednesday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes Work met with Romanian officials such as President Klaus Iohannis, Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos, Defense Minister Mihnea Motoc and Foreign Affairs Minister Lazar Comanescu to discuss the Aegis Ashore site among other security topics.

Frank Rose, deputy assistant secretary of state for defense policy and verification operations, said the site aims to build up NATO’s defenses against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles deployed from outside the Euro-Atlantic area, according to DoD News.

NATO missile defense system’s ballistic missile defense tracking radar is based in Turkey while the command-and-control center is run in Germany.

Work will also take part in a groundbreaking ceremony in Redzikowo, Poland that hosts an Aegis Ashore site scheduled to begin operations by 2018, the report said.

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US Army Begins Test for Sense-and-Avoid Radar System; John Innes Comments
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US Army Begins Test for Sense-and-Avoid Radar System; John Innes Comments


IkhanaUASThe U.S. Army has tested a radar-based system for unmanned aerial vehicles at at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah as part of an effort to help military operators fly UAS in civilian airspace.

The Army’s project manager of unmanned aircraft systems led the testing and two Gray Eagles were positioned on a collision course to assess the ground-based sense-and-avoid system and maintain its skills, the Army said Tuesday.

“Today, there is a growing list of UAS units in the states, returned from combat deployments, that need to safely maintain their skills,” test lead John Innes said.

The new system provides a traffic display of other aircraft near the unmanned craft and notifies the operator of potential danger.

A human ground based operator tracked the system health, warnings and aircraft positions through the traffic display and alerted the aircraft operator to potential hazards during the exercise.

Operators will conduct the last phase of tests for GBSAA in the fal as the Army expects changes within the system due to ongoing development efforts, Innes said.

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Education Dept Seeks New Deputy CIO
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Education Dept Seeks New Deputy CIO


JobAdThe Education Department has announced a job opening for a new deputy chief information officer who will be responsible for information technology acquisition and information resources management efforts.

The deputy CIO will also advise department executives and agency officials in the planning and implementation of IT programs, a USAJobs notice stated Monday.

The Career Senior Executive Service position will be based in Washington and the person selected will serve a probationary period of one year.

The Education Department also requires the appointee to have an Executive Core Qualifications certification from the Office of Personnel Management’s qualifications review board.

Responsibilities for the job include development of strategic plans for IT practices within the department, IT security policy implementation, organizational framework management and analysis of regulations and policies related to IT.

The deputy CIO will also help the CIO review and schedule the work products of subordinates, identify training needs, screen candidates for positions, reassign employees and resolve complaints from employees.

Individuals can send in their applications through May 31.

OpenTheBooks: DoD Has Transferred $2B in Surplus Military Gear to Local Police Depts Since 2006
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OpenTheBooks: DoD Has Transferred $2B in Surplus Military Gear to Local Police Depts Since 2006


military in trainingOpenTheBooks, a watchdog group that monitors government spending activities, has found that the Defense Department has transferred approximately $2.2 billion in surplus military equipment to local police departments across the U.S. since 2006.

Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks, wrote in an opinion piece for Forbes published Tuesday the organization also found that law enforcement agencies in Arizona, California, Florida, Texas and Tennessee received a majority of the 1.5 million weapons-related items from DoD.

Shipped items include helicopters, airplanes, armored trucks, cars, M16 and M14 rifles, bayonets, pistols, shotguns, night vision gears, binoculars, mine detectors and other weaponry types, he noted.

Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department acquired 500 M16 rifles and Andrzejewski expects the DC Metro Transit police to get 134.5 pounds of C4, TNT, potassium chlorate, plastic explosive and other explosives over the next nine years.

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Federal News Radio: DHS Updates Information Network’s Identity Mgmt System
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Federal News Radio: DHS Updates Information Network’s Identity Mgmt System


US department of homeland securityThe Department of Homeland Security has updated the Homeland Security Information Network‘s identity management system to consider user attributes and job function, Federal News Radio reported Tuesday.

Nicole Ogrysko writes that Donna Roy, executive director of DHS’ information sharing environment office, told an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association event that the network will now look at additional factors to determine user access.

Luke McCormack, DHS chief information officer, added that the department also looks to move HSIN to the cloud and provide a “deeper experience” for its users through cross-agency functions.

“As we lower our costs moving into this new technology, we can re-deploy those dollars into more functionality and capability and it allows us to scale, just from a volume standpoint [and] from a usage standpoint,” he said, according to the report.

HSIN connects over 18,000 law enforcement departments along with 60,000 first responder agencies and 78 fusion centers, Ogrysko reports.

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Sylvia Burwell: HHS Challenge to Help Develop New Medical Bill Design
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Sylvia Burwell: HHS Challenge to Help Develop New Medical Bill Design


Sylvia Burwell
Sylvia Burwell

The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a challenge to solicit designs and approaches that will work to address concerns from patients about the clarity of medical bills.

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell spoke at the Health Datapalooza conference regarding the “A Bill You Can Understand” design challenge, which seeks to boost patient experience in the medical billing process, the agency said Monday.

Burwell said the challenge works to build on HHS efforts to help patients manage their own healthcare and create a new medical bill that will “simplify” the billing process in a way that is understandable to patients, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies.

AARP and Mad Pow have worked with HHS to administer the challenge and work to draw attention to the impact of medical billing to patients, HHS said.

Two winners — selected for the bill design and for a transformational approach to the medical billing system — will be featured on the challenge website and win $5,000 each as well as an opportunity to feature the designs at the Health 2.0 Annual Fall Conference in September.

The challenge is open until Aug. 10 and the winners will be announced in September.

Cambia Health Solutions, Geisinger Health System, INTEGRIS Health, The MetroHealth System, Providence Health & Services and the University of Utah Health Care have also committed to test or implement the winning designs for their patients, HHS added.

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NIH Selects UW-Madison’s Patricia Brennan as Director of National Library of Medicine
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NIH Selects UW-Madison’s Patricia Brennan as Director of National Library of Medicine


Patricia Flatley Brennan
Patricia Brennan

Patricia Flatley Brennan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, has been appointed by National Institutes of Heath Director Francis Collins as the new director of the National Library of Medicine effective August.

“Patti brings her incredible experience of having cared for patients as a practicing nurse, improved the lives of home-bound patients by developing innovative information systems and services designed to increase their independence, and pursued cutting-edge research in data visualization and virtual reality,” Collins said in a release issued Wednesday.

Brennan was the Lillian L. Moehlman Bascom Professor at UW-Madison, the lead of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery’s living environments laboratory and a former American Medical Informatics Association president.

She has previously worked on the development of patient information systems such as HeartCare, an online information and communication service designed to support home-based cardiac patients, and ComputerLink, an electronic network that seeks to facilitate self-care for outpatients.

“This combination of skills makes her ideally suited to lead the NLM in the era of precision medicine,” added Collins.

NLM is the world’s largest biomedical library that maintains a range of print and electronic information, as well as supports and conducts biomedical and health informatics technology research, development, and training.

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Ashton Carter: DoD to Establish New Defense Innovation Outpost in Boston
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Ashton Carter: DoD to Establish New Defense Innovation Outpost in Boston


InnovationLightBulbThe Defense Department plans to open a second outreach office for its Defense Innovation Unit Experimental in Boston, less than a year after launching the organization in California’s Silicon Valley area, DoD News reported Wednesday.

Jim Garamone writes Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced the plan during his visit Tuesday at the DIUx headquarters in Mountain View, California, and introduced Raj Shah, a technology industry veteran and a U.S. Air Force reserve F-16 fighter pilot, as managing partner of DIUx.

He added DoD requested about $30 million in funds as part of its fiscal 2017 budget proposal to invest in emerging commercial technologies that can help military agencies perform missions.

In an interview with CNBC correspondent Josh Lipton, he said the DIUx expansion initiative is part of DoD’s efforts to increase partnership between the department and technology companies.

“We’ve got to be the best because we’re protecting the greatest country on earth, and the wonderful people and all of the civilization that we all stand for has to be defended,” he told Lipton.

NOAA Updates Global Forecast System to Process 4-D Weather Data, Provide Hourly Updates; Louis Uccellini Comments
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NOAA Updates Global Forecast System to Process 4-D Weather Data, Provide Hourly Updates; Louis Uccellini Comments


NOAALogoThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has updated the Global Forecast System in an effort to process four-dimensional weather data and provide hourly updates on weather conditions.

NOAA said Wednesday the update was made through the use of supercomputers that the agency acquired early this year.

“The GFS is the foundation for all of our weather and climate models, so today’s upgrade will add skill across all NOAA’s forecast mission areas, including hurricanes and other high-impact weather,” said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service at NOAA.

The agency noted that the update to the GFS sought to increase the model grid resolution to 13 kilometers and use a vast number of earth observations from the Joint Polar Satellite System and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – R platform.

GOES-R is designed to generate weather pattern images every half a minute and is slated for launch later this year, according to NOAA.

House Appropriations Committee’s FY 2017 Defense Policy Bill to Authorize $517B in Discretionary Funds
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House Appropriations Committee’s FY 2017 Defense Policy Bill to Authorize $517B in Discretionary Funds


BudgetThe House Appropriations Committee’s defense subpanel has introduced a bill that would authorize $517.1 billion in discretionary spending and $58.6 billion in overseas contingency operations funds for fiscal year 2017.

The committee said Tuesday the FY 2017 defense policy bill reflects a $3 billion increase from the enacted FY 2016 discretionary funding and would move approximately $15.7 billion from the OCO budget to the Defense Department’s base funding.

The OCO-backed base budget are “targeted to requirements identified by the services – readiness efforts, infrastructure, and equipment recapitalization and modernization, such as additional flying and steaming hours, training time, and facilities and aircraft repairs,” the committee said.

The defense policy bill would allocate $120.8 billion in total budget to purchase new weapons systems and other equipment in support of military readiness efforts.

The proposed equipment procurement budget includes $21.6 billion in funds for the procurement of 15 ships for the U.S. Navy, $8.3 billion for 74 F-35 fighter jets, $2.8 billion for 15 KC-46 tanker aircraft, $1.35 billion for 16 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet planes and $1.8 billion for 11 P-8A Poseidon aircraft.

The committee’s proposed bill also includes the following appropriations:

  • $132.6 billion for service personnel and salary
  • $209.2 billion for operations and maintenance
  • $70.8 billion for research and development efforts
  • $34 billion for the Defense Health Program and military family initiatives

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