Ontology of Military Planning and Operations Assessment

Tutorial organized as part of the 2014 Semantic Technologies for Intelligence, Defense, and Security (STIDS) Conference

• Date: November 18, 2014
• Time: 13:00 - 18:00
• Venue: Dewberry Hall, Johnson Center, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030

The background of this tutorial is a US Air Force Research Laboratory initiative to transform Air Force planning and operations assessment from a disjointed static approach based on paper documents into a unified dynamic approach based on a computational 'living plan'. Part of this initiative will rest on the development of an ontology of plans and of military operations, viewing the latter as forming a three-stage cycle of plan specification, plan execution, and post-execution review. This cycle is seen as continuously unfolding on the strategic, operational and tactical levels – hence 'living plan' – and a special role is played by the issue of coordinating collaborative agency across large organizations. The tutorial will deal with issues such as the following:

The ontology of shared agency across large organizations, including the role of command and control and planning doctrine

Assessing assessments: how can we build feedback mechanisms into the planning and outcomes assessment process in order to ensure improvement over time?

From tactical to strategic: how can we create computational environments that will take account of single- and multi-level collaborative agency?

Kinetic sensors, video and HUMINT: how do we take account of multi-channel information?

Schedule

13:00 Erik Thomsen

Review of existing military planning and operations assessment regimes

Identification of resulting problems

Gap assessment

Need: Ontology for Smart Information Grids for multi-level planning agencies

13:45 Barry Smith

Review of the history of approaches to military planning and operations assessment

Role of doctrine

Document control ontology

Role of speech-act theory and document-act theory

Plans vs Plan specifications

14:30 Break

14:45 Barry Smith Introduction to the ontology of plans and of operations assessment rooted in the Information Artifact Ontology

15:30 Erik Thomsen

Realizing a computational framework for the living plan

Modules:

Situational Awareness

Plan Preparation

Plan Execution

Plan Evaluation and Operations Assessment

The underlying multidimensional information system

Data ingestion

Sensors

Text

16:15 Break

16:30 ET, BS and tutorial participants

Exploratory session to allow critical review, presentation of alternative approaches, identification of potential secondary uses

Background

Joint Operation Planning Command and Control of Joint Air Operations (JP 3.30) Joint Doctrine for Command and Control Warfare (JP 3.13.1)

Faculty

Erik Thomsen is Senior Scientist - Cognitive Systems at Charles River Analytics in Boston, MA. He has over 20 years experience creating analytical software and business applications with an emphasis on intelligent systems and socio-economic and environmental models. He is also the author of multiple publications on data integration and fusion, semantic technologies, visualization, pattern recognition, foundations of logic, language and mathematics, and of the influential textbook OLAP: Building Multidimensional Information Systems (Wiley, 2nd edition).

Barry Smith, founder of the Ontology for the Intelligence Community (now STIDS) conference series, is an internationally recognized leader in the field of ontology and semantic technology. He is Professor of Philosophy, Biomedical Informatics, Neurology, and Computer Science and Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Director of the National Center for Ontological Research.