The British Army, information management and the First World War revolution in military affairs

Information Management (IM) – the systematic ordering, processing and channelling of information within organisations – forms a critical component of modern military command and control systems. As a subject of scholarly enquiry, however, the history of military IM has been relatively poorly served. Employing new and under-utilised archival sources, this article takes the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of the First World War as its case study and assesses the extent to which its IM system contributed to the emergence of the modern battlefield in 1918. It argues that the demands of fighting a modern war resulted in a general, but not universal, improvement in the BEF’s IM techniques, which in turn laid the groundwork, albeit in embryonic form, for the IM systems of modern armies. KEY WORDS: British Army, Information Management, First World War, Revolution in Military Affairs, Adaptatio

Using Laboratory Validation to Identify and Establish Limits to the Reliability of Probabilistic Genotyping Systems

Probabilistic genotyping systems endeavor to aid human analysts in the interpretation of complex DNA mixtures. Laboratories use these complicated programs to attach statistical weights to results from evidence samples that cannot be confirmed by analysts using manual/conventional approaches. Before relying on these systems in case work, it is essential that the software be subjected to rigorous internal validation that establishes the limits of their reliability. Complex mixtures encountered in casework often have attributes that make interpretation challenging, including low template levels, unknown/high number of contributors, high levels of allele sharing, differential degradation, and so forth. Each laboratory’s internal validation should critically evaluate its performance using the system on samples that mimic or exceed the complexity with respect to these potential attributes, both individually and collectively of those encountered in the laboratory’s casework. The results of carefully designed internal validation experiments must not only demonstrate a system’s utility but also clearly establish and articulate the limits of reliability for use in casework

Appendix A. Functional classification of bird species found in nine exclosure sites.

Functional classification of bird species found in nine exclosure sites