Software Agents as Facilitators of Coherent Coalition Operations

The University of Edinburgh and research sponsors are authorised to reproduce and distribute reprints and on-line copies for their purposes notwithstanding any copyright annotation hereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are the author’s and shouldn’t be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of other parties.Software agents can be viewed as semi-autonomous entities which help people cope with the complexities of working collaboratively in a distributed information environment. This paper describes the research that DERA is carrying out into Software Agents for use in Command Systems and the collaborative work with the 16 partners of an international Coalition Agents Experiment. Specifically, the paper aims to show that using software agent-based C2 frameworks is a useful way of dealing with the complexity of real-world problems such as supporting agile and robust Coalition operations and enabling interoperability between legacy or previously incompatible systems. In addition, Agent-enabled 'grids' can be used to rapidly integrate a wide variety of agents and infrastructures, with domain management services structuring agent relationships, limiting their behaviours and enforcing Coalition policies

Reinvigorating Maneuver Warfare: An Organizational Learning Analysis of A Failed Strategic Initiative

ABSTRACT Reinvigorating Maneuver Warfare: An Organizational Learning Analysis of a Failed Strategic Initiative. by BP McCoy March 2020 Chair: Richard Baskerville Major Academic Unit: Executive Doctorate in Business The world is a dynamic and turbulent place. Organizations of all types regularly face the dual challenge of learning from the emerging realities of their environment and using that knowledge to accurately adapt to remain competitive. Often, the changes required to remain competitive demand a significant and irretrievable strategic investment of resources and changes in the status quo of how the organization will function going forward. Such strategic changes are often communicated in the form of mission or vision statements, campaign plans, or philosophies. Considering the resources committed and the opportunity costs involved, strategic initiatives must be implemented with care and precision to succeed, as a failed implementation could pose an existential threat to the organization. This case study examines one organization\u27s attempt and failure to sufficiently implement a strategic initiative. This study may be tailored and applied to any organization seeking the adaptive change necessary to succeed in the dynamic and contested environments of business or conflict. The study format is a cross-sectional single case study informed by the Theory of Action. The results of this study revealed five explanatory frames which serve to describe and explain the dynamics of the organization, and they illuminate the influence Model I single-loop and Model II double-loop organizational learning systems have on the implementation of a strategic initiative. Captured within the explanatory frames was the discovery of a surprising anomaly, namely the presence of a sub rosa clan. The sub rosa clan’s Model I behavioral control produced a bête noires[1] effect that countered the senior management’s Model II learning efforts, sustained the status quo, and sunk the strategic initiative. This study contributes to the organizational learning, maneuver warfare, and control theory literature streams and offers managers potential corrective interventions that may be applied proactively and preemptively to enable the successful implementation of a strategic initiative. Keywords: Organizational Learning, Theory of Action, Single-loop learning, Double-loop learning, Clans, Maneuver Warfare, Mission Command. [1] French; the literal translation is “black beast.” A bête noires is avoided by others. It may be a thing that is particularly dreadful

The Impact of Automated Cognitive Assistants on Situational Awareness in the Brigade Combat Team

This research investigated the impact of automated cognitive assistants, specifically, the Personalized Assistant that Learns (PAL), on situational awareness, efficiency and effectiveness of decision making in the brigade combat team. PAL was recently commissioned by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to enhance decision making with the Command Post of the Future (CPOF). This is the first study to investigate PAL's effectiveness. Previous literature has indicated that automated cognitive assistants can reduce cognitive load and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of decision-making. This is consistent with constructivist theories that assume that relegating repetitive tasks to an assistant allows decision makers to focus on the most critical issues. This is particularly true in those conditions where the environment is in continuous flux and the decision makers must remain cognizant of changing situations. To investigate PAL'S influence on situational awareness, two groups of military officers comprising a convenience sample were placed into two groups representing brigade combat teams. Before tests were administered, each team was trained on the cognitive assistants and given a hands-on examination to measure competency in PAL and CPOF. All subjects participated in one trial with PAL-enhanced CPOF and one trial with CPOF alone. Self-assessments of situational awareness were administered which included sub-scales on: task management, information management, decision support, and appreciation of the environment, visualization and trust. Speed and quality of decision-making were also measured. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to compare PAL and CPOF only on situational awareness. In the repeated measures ANOVA, the overall difference on self-report of situational awareness approachedthe .05 level with PAL (M = 1.85, SD = 0.46) and CPOF (M = 2.06, SD = 0.57; F(1,10) = 4.61, p = .057), with the lower score indicating higher approval. There was a significant difference on the decision support category of situational awareness in the second trial using both PAL and CPOF (M = 2.21, SD = 0.59; rated higher than the first trial (M = 2.53, SD = 0.49; F(1,10) = 5.06, p = .048). The following differences were not significant but the means all favored PAL over CPOF: quality of decision making products PAL (M = 2.89, SD = 0.75); CPOF (M = 2.53, SD = 0.83), speed of submission in minutes PAL (M = 9:13, SD = 3:15); CPOF (M = 10:00, SD = 5:53), and Situational Awareness quizzes PAL (M = 67.03, SD = 7.15); CPOF (M = 59.24, SD = 8.23). While comparisons of PAL and CPOF were not significant, results indicate that the PAL automated cognitive assistant has promise in improving the situational awareness and efficiency of military leaders in complex decision making. The findings demonstrate that as military officers grow more accustomed to using these analytical systems, both PAL and CPOF, they rate their support in decision making higher. This initial study of PAL was conducted with a convenience sample of 12 military officers. Further studies are warranted to investigate the benefits of automated cognitive assistant on an array of factors that influence decision-making across conditions and audiences

The Effects of Group Size on Student Learning, Student Contributions, \Mental Effort, and Group Outcomes for Middle-Aged Adults Working in an Ill-Structured Problem-Solving Environment

Group work has become increasingly important within adult education as educators strive to present students with problems and processes that they encounter in their professional lives. In many work environments, individuals are expected to function as a part of a team to solve complex problems. Consequently, there has been a shift towards teaching students how to solve problems as part of a group rather than individually. An important question becomes What size group maximizes students learning? This study compared student learning, student participation levels, and mental effort for middle-aged, professional students in large (six students) and small groups (three students) while working in a collaborative, ill-structured problem solving environment to determine if group size impacted student performance. This study found that there was no significant difference in learning, participation, and mental effort between large and small groups. It also confirmed earlier research demonstrating that group product scores, even when adjusted for student participation, did not predict individual student learning. A multiple regression was used to determine if group size, participation, mental effort or group scores could be used to predict individual student learning. The study showed that for middle-aged professional students, group size, mental effort, participation, or group quality were not effective predictors of student learning

IMMACCS: A Multi-Agent Decision-Support System

This report describes work performed by the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center for the US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL), on the IMMACCS experimental decision-support system. IMMACCS (Integrated Marine Multi-Agent Command and Control System) incorporates three fundamental concepts that distinguish it from existing (i.e., legacy) command and control applications. First, it is a collaborative system in which computer-based agents assist human operators by monitoring, analyzing, and reasoning about events in near real-time. Second, IMMACCS includes an ontological model of the battlespace that represents the behavioral characteristics and relationships among real world entities such as friendly and enemy assets, infrastructure objects (e.g., buildings, roads, and rivers), and abstract notions. This object model provides the essential common language that binds all IMMACCS components into an integrated and adaptive decision-support system. Third, IMMACCS provides no ready made solutions that may not be applicable to the problems that will occur in the real world. Instead, the agents represent a powerful set of tools that together with the human operators can adjust themselves to the problem situations that cannot be predicted in advance. In this respect, IMMACCS is an adaptive command and control system that supports planning, execution and training functions concurrently. The report describes the nature and functional requirements of military command and control, the architectural features of IMMACCS that are designed to support these operational requirements, the capabilities of the tools (i.e., agents) that IMMACCS offers its users, and the manner in which these tools can be applied. Finally, the performance of IMMACCS during the Urban Warrior Advanced Warfighting Experiment held in California in March, 1999, is discussed from an operational viewpoint

Air Force Inspection System: An Application For System-Of-Systems (SOS) Engineering

The Air Combat Command (ACC) Inspector General (IG) assesses the operational readiness and combat effectiveness of units by evaluating individual wings. Today\u27s conflicts; however, are waged as a joint force. The Joint Forces Commander (JFC) leverages the resources of the entire military complex to achieve strategic objectives. The synergistic effects, created by the integration of individual weapon systems, produce greater results than the individual components. Evaluating wings outside the joint System of Systems (SoS) architecture does not provide a true assessment of combat readiness. Using a case study method, this research examines the idea of integrating a joint SoS architecture with the ACC/IG inspection system. First, this study assesses the current nature of military operations and the risks associated with joint operations. Next, it defines several joint attributes to enhance the ACC/IG inspection checklist. Further, it outlines several joint exercises as areas for implement a joint inspection system. Finally, this study explores limitations and counter arguments to adopting a joint SoS into the inspection system. Based on this analysis, the ACC/IG should assess units through a larger system-ofsystem framework, which offers the possibility to reduce integration risks prior to deployment, and provide a better assessment of wing readines

How Decision Makers Learn to Choose Organizational Performance Measures

This study, framed by decision making, program theory, and performance measurement theory, explored the knowledge and experience that enable decision makers to identify organizational performance measures. It used a mixed method, exploratory sequential research design to discover the experience, knowledge, and skills (EKS) senior decision makers felt were important in learning to choose organizational performance measures. From the analyzed interviews, a survey was designed to measure the importance of the EKS characteristics. Qualitative analysis identified 55 life, work, or educational experience; knowledge; or skill characteristics and 23 effective measure characteristics. Regression analysis and PCA were used to extract 6 components. One-way ANOVA found no significant differences in these factors between gender groups, age groups, and process complexity levels, but found differences for decision-making tenure. MANOVA found no significant differences by the same dimensions. The limited sample size and high number of variables confounded component extraction. Further research with a suitable sample size is required before findings can be generalized

Improving Diversity And Inclusion Increasing Multiethnic Presence Within Religious Organizations

The program is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion within a religious organization by increasing the participation of individuals from various ethnic backgrounds. The validity of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u27s statement regarding the most segregated time in Christian America being Sunday mornings will be evaluated through observation, exploration, and scholarly articles. The Fort Leonard Wood Protestant Women of the Chapel will serve as a framework for program design and implementation. The program serves to boost the presence of multiethnic members and leaders by 10% and 5%, respectively. This program will adhere to a logic model that will include five (5) objectives, outputs, and outcomes that showcase the considerable advantages of participating in the proposed service