Drawing upon data from the Deployment Life Study, this article examines whether female military spouses (SPs) are disadvantaged relative to matched civilian peers in terms of hours worked and earnings, paying particular attention to gaps among the highest educated women. Female SPs do earn less than comparable civilian peers in terms of raw dollars and percentage earnings. Moreover, military wives who are part of the labor force work as many hours as their civilian counterparts, but still earn significantly less for that work. Contrary to predictions, the most educated SPs are not disproportionately affected compared to spouses with less education. These results suggest that SPs at all education levels could benefit from employment assistance; in particular, women already participating in the labor force may benefit from support in finding higher paying jobs.

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The transition from military service to the civilian world can be very challenging, particularly for young veterans with no prior civilian work experience and those with injuries or disabilities. As part of their duty to care for the men and women who have served the country in uniform-as well as to promote strong member recruitment in the futurethe U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs seek to monitor and improve the education and employment opportunities and the health and well-being of military veterans and reservists. Over the past decade, RAND has proactively pursued a program of research addressing veterans' transitions to the civilian labor market. This document compiles RAND's body of work on this topic and highlights the breadth of topics RAND has studied. It distills more than a decade's worth of research on many facets of veteran life into a set of ten questions and answers gleaned from this work.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RR1282Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © Copyright 2016 RAND CorporationR® is a registered trademark.iii PrefaceThe Director, Total Force Planning & Requirements, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and Readiness (OUSD [P&R]), asked the RAND Corporation to undertake a study titled "Facilitating Military-to-Civilian Conversions." The objective of this research project was to identify the primary impediments to converting military positions to government civilian positions and to recommend changes to statutes, policies, and/or business practices that would facilitate these conversions. The project also examined past experiences with converting military positions and the research literature to identify lessons that could be used to inform future efforts. The RAND team identified a number of opportunities for improving both policies and business practices in order to facilitate military-to-civilian conversions and motivate greater use of this force management tool, should that be the department's goal.This research should be of interest to Department of Defense personnel involved with manpower planning, civilianization, and managing the trade-offs between military and civilian personnel. It should also be of interest to the makers of laws and policies that govern performance of work by military service members, civilian personnel, and contractors. The research was sponsored by OUSD(P&R) and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the United Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.For more information on the RAND Forces and Resources Policy Center, see www.rand.org/nsrd/ndri/centers/frp or contact the director (...

Tumor cells of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) are highly sensitive to the blockade of DNA single-strand break repair via the inhibition of the poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP) family of nuclear proteins. Niraparib is a highly selective PARP inhibitor, with activity against PARP-1/2 DNA-repair polymerases, and the Resolution HRD assay is being developed as a companion diagnostic for niraparib. Detection of HRD in cell free DNA (cfDNA) isolated from blood is minimally invasive and is of special benefit to mCRPC patients, many without accessible lesions. The Resolution HRD assay identifies patients with substitutions, insertions, deletions, and homozygous deletions of the ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, BRIP1, CDK12 (except homozygous deletions), CHEK2, FANCA, HDAC2, and PALB2 genes by targeted NGS sequencing of cfDNA isolated from plasma. Analytical performance of the Resolution HRD assay was validated using cfDNA from mCRPC patient plasma, cfDNA from healthy donor plasma, and contrived samples with a wide spectrum of technically challenging genetic aberrations along with CRISPR-engineered human cell lines with ATM and BRCA2 gene deletions. The LOD95 was established for substitutions, insertions, deletions, and homozygous deletions for genes represented in the HRD panel with variant types including complex indels, long indels, and challenging genomic settings including homopolymeric and GC-rich regions. mCRPC specimens were used to confirm an acceptable level of precision near 1X LOD and 2-3X LOD concentrations for all 4 variant types. No false-positives were detected in any samples from healthy donors. Resolution HRD has been validated to give consistent results across the 15-30 ng input range. Studies to confirm accuracy of the Resolution HRD test results using a validated orthogonal method will be presented. The Resolution HRD assay offers highly sensitive, specific, and robust test results, and meets analytical requirements for clinical applications. It is intended as a companion diagnostic to niraparib in combination with abiraterone acetate plus prednisone (AAP) for the treatment of mCRPC patients. Citation Format: Julia Pollak, Kristy Potts, PuiYee Chan, Chen-Hsun Tsai, Angela Liao, Carly Garrison, Taylor Brown, Paul Stull, Zhen Li, Christine Baker, Kavita Garg, Ira Pekker, Michael Farabaugh, Michael Gormley, Lesley Farrington, Katherine Bell, Usha Singh. Analytical validation of the Resolution HRD plasma assay used to identify mCRPC patients with mutations, including homozygous deletions, in DNA repair genes as a companion diagnostic for niraparib [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 52.