Proceedings of the 2004 ONR Decision-Support Workshop Series: Interoperability

In August of 1998 the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), approached Dr. Phillip Abraham of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with the proposal for an annual workshop focusing on emerging concepts in decision-support systems for military applications. The proposal was considered timely by the ONR Logistics Program Office for at least two reasons. First, rapid advances in information systems technology over the past decade had produced distributed collaborative computer-assistance capabilities with profound potential for providing meaningful support to military decision makers. Indeed, some systems based on these new capabilities such as the Integrated Marine Multi-Agent Command and Control System (IMMACCS) and the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES) had already reached the field-testing and final product stages, respectively. Second, over the past two decades the US Navy and Marine Corps had been increasingly challenged by missions demanding the rapid deployment of forces into hostile or devastate dterritories with minimum or non-existent indigenous support capabilities. Under these conditions Marine Corps forces had to rely mostly, if not entirely, on sea-based support and sustainment operations. Particularly today, operational strategies such as Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS) and Sea To Objective Maneuver (STOM) are very much in need of intelligent, near real-time and adaptive decision-support tools to assist military commanders and their staff under conditions of rapid change and overwhelming data loads. In the light of these developments the Logistics Program Office of ONR considered it timely to provide an annual forum for the interchange of ideas, needs and concepts that would address the decision-support requirements and opportunities in combined Navy and Marine Corps sea-based warfare and humanitarian relief operations. The first ONR Workshop was held April 20-22, 1999 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, California. It focused on advances in technology with particular emphasis on an emerging family of powerful computer-based tools, and concluded that the most able members of this family of tools appear to be computer-based agents that are capable of communicating within a virtual environment of the real world. From 2001 onward the venue of the Workshop moved from the West Coast to Washington, and in 2003 the sponsorship was taken over by ONR’s Littoral Combat/Power Projection (FNC) Program Office (Program Manager: Mr. Barry Blumenthal). Themes and keynote speakers of past Workshops have included: 1999: ‘Collaborative Decision Making Tools’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); LtGen Paul Van Riper (USMC Ret.);Radm Leland Kollmorgen (USN Ret.); and, Dr. Gary Klein (KleinAssociates) 2000: ‘The Human-Computer Partnership in Decision-Support’ Dr. Ronald DeMarco (Associate Technical Director, ONR); Radm CharlesMunns; Col Robert Schmidle; and, Col Ray Cole (USMC Ret.) 2001: ‘Continuing the Revolution in Military Affairs’ Mr. Andrew Marshall (Director, Office of Net Assessment, OSD); and,Radm Jay M. Cohen (Chief of Naval Research, ONR) 2002: ‘Transformation ... ’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); and, Steve Cooper (CIO, Office ofHomeland Security) 2003: ‘Developing the New Infostructure’ Richard P. Lee (Assistant Deputy Under Secretary, OSD); and, MichaelO’Neil (Boeing) 2004: ‘Interoperability’ MajGen Bradley M. Lott (USMC), Deputy Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command; Donald Diggs, Director, C2 Policy, OASD (NII

Service-oriented design of environmental information systems

Service-orientation has an increasing impact upon the design process and the architecture of environmental information systems. This thesis specifies the SERVUS design methodology for geospatial applications based upon standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium. SERVUS guides the system architect to rephrase use case requirements as a network of semantically-annotated requested resources and to iteratively match them with offered resources that mirror the capabilities of existing services

AI-AUGMENTED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS: APPLICATION IN MARITIME DECISION MAKING UNDER CONDITIONS OF METOC UNCERTAINTY

The ability for a human to overlay information from disparate sensor systems or remote databases into a common operational picture can enhance rapid decision making and implementation in a complex environment. This thesis focuses on operational uncertainty as a function of meteorological and oceanographic (METOC) effects on maritime route planning. Using an existing decision support system (DSS) with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms developed by New Jersey Institute of Technology and University of Connecticut, cognitive load and time to decision were assessed for users of an AI-augmented DSS, accounting for METOC conditions and their effects, and users of a baseline, 'as is,' DSS system. Scenario uncertainty for the user was presented in the relative number of Pareto-optimal routes from two locations. Key results were (a) users of an AI-augmented DSS with a simplified interface completed assigned tasks in significantly less time than users of an information-dense, complex-interface AI-augmented DSS; (b) users of simplified, AI-augmented DSS arrived at decisions with lower cognitive load than baseline DSS and complex-interface AI-augmented DSS users; and (c) users relied mainly on quantitative data presented in tabular form to make route decisions. The differences found in user performance and cognitive load between levels of AI augmentation and interface complexity serve as a starting point for further exploration into maximizing the potential of human-machine teaming.Office of Naval ResearchMajor, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. distribution is unlimite

PACE Technical Report Series, Volume 5: Mission Formulation Studies

This chapter summarizes the mission architecture for the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, ranging from its scientific rationale to the history of its realized conception to itspresent-day organization and management. This volume in the PACE Technical Report series focuses ontrade studies that informed the formulation of the mission in its pre-Phase A (2014-2016; pre-formulation:define a viable and affordable concept) and Phase A (2016-2017; concept and technology development).With that in mind, this chapter serves to introduce the mission by providing: a brief summary of thescience drivers for the mission; a history of the direction of the mission to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC); a synopsis of the mission's and instruments' management and development structures; and a brief description of the primary components and elements that form the foundation ofthe mission, encompassing the major mission segments (space, ground, and science data processing) and their roles in integration, testing, and operations

Compilation of thesis abstracts, September 2009

NPS Class of September 2009This quarter’s Compilation of Abstracts summarizes cutting-edge, security-related research conducted by NPS students and presented as theses, dissertations, and capstone reports. Each expands knowledge in its field.http://archive.org/details/compilationofsis109452751

2015 Oil Observing Tools: A Workshop Report

Since 2010, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have provided satellite-based pollution surveillance in United States waters to regulatory agencies such as the United States Coast Guard (USCG). These technologies provide agencies with useful information regarding possible oil discharges. Unfortunately, there has been confusion as to how to interpret the images collected by these satellites and other aerial platforms, which can generate misunderstandings during spill events. Remote sensor packages on aircraft and satellites have advantages and disadvantages vis-à-vis human observers, because they do not “see” features or surface oil the same way. In order to improve observation capabilities during oil spills, applicable technologies must be identified, and then evaluated with respect to their advantages and disadvantages for the incident. In addition, differences between sensors (e.g., visual, IR, multispectral sensors, radar) and platform packages (e.g., manned/unmanned aircraft, satellites) must be understood so that reasonable approaches can be made if applicable and then any data must be correctly interpreted for decision support. NOAA convened an Oil Observing Tools Workshop to focus on the above actions and identify training gaps for oil spill observers and remote sensing interpretation to improve future oil surveillance, observation, and mapping during spills. The Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) assisted NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (ORR) with this effort. The workshop was held on October 20-22, 2015 at NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center in Mobile, AL. The expected outcome of the workshop was an improved understanding, and greater use of technology to map and assess oil slicks during actual spill events. Specific workshop objectives included: •Identify new developments in oil observing technologies useful for real-time (or near real-time) mapping of spilled oil during emergency events. •Identify merits and limitations of current technologies and their usefulness to emergency response mapping of oil and reliable prediction of oil surface transport and trajectory forecasts.Current technologies include: the traditional human aerial observer, unmanned aircraft surveillance systems, aircraft with specialized senor packages, and satellite earth observing systems. •Assess training needs for visual observation (human observers with cameras) and sensor technologies (including satellites) to build skills and enhance proper interpretation for decision support during actual events

Geoinformatics in Citizen Science

The book features contributions that report original research in the theoretical, technological, and social aspects of geoinformation methods, as applied to supporting citizen science. Specifically, the book focuses on the technological aspects of the field and their application toward the recruitment of volunteers and the collection, management, and analysis of geotagged information to support volunteer involvement in scientific projects. Internationally renowned research groups share research in three areas: First, the key methods of geoinformatics within citizen science initiatives to support scientists in discovering new knowledge in specific application domains or in performing relevant activities, such as reliable geodata filtering, management, analysis, synthesis, sharing, and visualization; second, the critical aspects of citizen science initiatives that call for emerging or novel approaches of geoinformatics to acquire and handle geoinformation; and third, novel geoinformatics research that could serve in support of citizen science

A patient agent controlled customized blockchain based framework for internet of things

Although Blockchain implementations have emerged as revolutionary technologies for various industrial applications including cryptocurrencies, they have not been widely deployed to store data streaming from sensors to remote servers in architectures known as Internet of Things. New Blockchain for the Internet of Things models promise secure solutions for eHealth, smart cities, and other applications. These models pave the way for continuous monitoring of patient’s physiological signs with wearable sensors to augment traditional medical practice without recourse to storing data with a trusted authority. However, existing Blockchain algorithms cannot accommodate the huge volumes, security, and privacy requirements of health data. In this thesis, our first contribution is an End-to-End secure eHealth architecture that introduces an intelligent Patient Centric Agent. The Patient Centric Agent executing on dedicated hardware manages the storage and access of streams of sensors generated health data, into a customized Blockchain and other less secure repositories. As IoT devices cannot host Blockchain technology due to their limited memory, power, and computational resources, the Patient Centric Agent coordinates and communicates with a private customized Blockchain on behalf of the wearable devices. While the adoption of a Patient Centric Agent offers solutions for addressing continuous monitoring of patients’ health, dealing with storage, data privacy and network security issues, the architecture is vulnerable to Denial of Services(DoS) and single point of failure attacks. To address this issue, we advance a second contribution; a decentralised eHealth system in which the Patient Centric Agent is replicated at three levels: Sensing Layer, NEAR Processing Layer and FAR Processing Layer. The functionalities of the Patient Centric Agent are customized to manage the tasks of the three levels. Simulations confirm protection of the architecture against DoS attacks. Few patients require all their health data to be stored in Blockchain repositories but instead need to select an appropriate storage medium for each chunk of data by matching their personal needs and preferences with features of candidate storage mediums. Motivated by this context, we advance third contribution; a recommendation model for health data storage that can accommodate patient preferences and make storage decisions rapidly, in real-time, even with streamed data. The mapping between health data features and characteristics of each repository is learned using machine learning. The Blockchain’s capacity to make transactions and store records without central oversight enables its application for IoT networks outside health such as underwater IoT networks where the unattended nature of the nodes threatens their security and privacy. However, underwater IoT differs from ground IoT as acoustics signals are the communication media leading to high propagation delays, high error rates exacerbated by turbulent water currents. Our fourth contribution is a customized Blockchain leveraged framework with the model of Patient-Centric Agent renamed as Smart Agent for securely monitoring underwater IoT. Finally, the smart Agent has been investigated in developing an IoT smart home or cities monitoring framework. The key algorithms underpinning to each contribution have been implemented and analysed using simulators.Doctor of Philosoph