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"Psycholinguistic analysis of Chinese-language social media can help provide insight into the attitudes of Twitter and Sina Weibo users toward local government, national government, and Western companies. Because the issue of food safety engages important themes in Chinese domestic politics---including the watchdog role of the press and the challenges of effective oversight in an authoritarian system -- this analysis focused on social media content discussing the July 2014 "Husi incident," a food safety scandal involving expired meat in McDonalds and KFC. Results suggested that Chinese-language social media users expressed more anger and sadness--but also used more words indicating positive emotions or feelings of kinship -- when discussing the national government than when discussing the local government. Discussions on openly accessible Chinese microblogging platforms may thus offer an avenue through which to gauge public opinion on issues of domestic politics, although their value may wane as a result of government attempts to curb the use of social media to mobilize individuals online into organized, politically motivated groups offline. This exploration of Chinese-language social media regarding food safety traces a preliminary road map to conduct such analysis, including a methodology for analyzing Chinese-language social media as well as a discussion of the promises and limitations of social media analysis in this unique context"--Publisher's description

Social media --- Online social networks --- Public opinion --- Food --- Food contamination --- Food security --- Food supply --- Psychological aspects. --- Safety measures --- Government policy

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This applied research project provides the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing (SSC) Performance Accountability Council Program Management Office (PAC PMO) with an examination of how U.S. government vetting processes and procedures could be enhanced by application of mobile technologies and platforms. The research team identified key mobile platform and security factors to consider when communicating with and screening candidates within the SSC process. This report also describes relevant private-sector practices on talent acquisition, applicant tracking systems, screening methods, and communication strategies with candidates prior to the onboarding process. The RAND research team performed the following tasks for the PAC PMO: (1) categorize emerging mobile technology platforms according to SSC process relevance and ability to assist government vetting of personnel; (2) illustrate relevant practices and lessons learned for integrating security applications with mobile platforms; and (3) provide recommendations on how best to incorporate potentially useful private-sector screening practices to create efficiency within initial stages of the SSC process.

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This report offers a framework for defining civic infrastructure and presents some measures that provide information to help monitor civic infrastructure across the United States, in individual states, in communities, and across diverse populations. The authors specifically define civic infrastructure as the places, policies, programs, and practices that undergird strong communities and foster civic engagement. The framework categorizes these places, policies, programs, and practices in terms of three inputs: (1) democratic governance, (2) civic education, and (3) civic spaces. The authors also consider how these inputs are related to a set of intertwined outputs: (1) civic literacy, (2) civic identity, and (3) civic engagement. They then identify a set of existing measures across a range of data sources that provide information about the status of these inputs and outputs in the United States. This research has some implications for research, policy, and practice. First, more research is needed to test and confirm the definition, framework, and measures in this report. Second, federal and state policies could increase collection and availability of measures. Lastly, this research suggests considerable variation across states and communities in regard to rights and access to many aspects of civic infrastructure framework - from democratic governance, civic education, and civic spaces to the outputs of civic literacy, identity, and engagement. For that reason, this work implies the urgent need for more efforts to measure equitable access to and participation in aspects of civic infrastructure, both to monitor the health of democracy and to determine ways of improving it.

Political participation --- Civics --- Democracy --- Digital divide --- Media literacy --- Study and teaching

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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant impact on a wide variety of risk behaviors and indicators that are considered during security, suitability, and credentialing investigations and adjudications. Given that the U.S. government personnel vetting process is focused on detecting risk and assessing an individual for their trustworthiness, such changes in behavior related to the COVID-19 pandemic have the potential to affect decisionmaking and adjudication regarding what constitutes risky behavior for the purposes of personnel vetting. This is particularly important when considering the risk an individual might present if granted a security clearance and access to classified information. In this report, the authors abstracted adjudicative factors likely to have been affected by the pandemic or pandemic-specific circumstances from pertinent personnel vetting documents and organized them into categories, including financial hardship and unemployment, alcohol abuse or misuse, drug and substance abuse or misuse, mental and emotional health and well-being, and changes or increases in remote or virtual work. They then conducted an academic literature and open-source data search to explore how these risk factors might have been affected by the pandemic and interviewed subject-matter and field experts to further understand how changes in these risk behaviors might affect the adjudication process. Potential action areas where the vetting processes could be adapted include monitoring risk behavior changes as social conditions change, assessing fairness to applicants, developing or formalizing mitigation actions, and addressing vetting workforce challenges during a pandemic or similar event.

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This report is one of a series designed to support Air Force leaders in promoting resilience among its Airmen, civilian employees, and Air Force families. It examines the relationship between spiritual fitness and resilience, using key constructs found in the scientific literature: a spiritual worldview, personal religious or spiritual practices, support from a spiritual community, and spiritual coping. The literature shows that possessing a sense of meaning and purpose in life is strongly positively related to quality of life and improved health and functioning. The authors find that diverse types of spiritual interventions are linked to improved resilience and well-being. These interventions focus mainly on the individual, but some address the military unit, the family, and the community.--

Resilience (Personality trait) --- Families of military personnel --- Social Sciences --- Psychology --- Religious life --- Military families --- Human resilience --- Resiliency (Personality trait) --- Families --- Soldiers --- Personality --- United States. --- Airmen --- Religious life. --- Civilian employees --- AF (Air force) --- Air Force (U.S.) --- U.S.A.F. (Air force) --- United States Air Force --- US Air Force --- USAF (Air force)