************************************************************ DSS News D. J. Power, Editor April 27, 2003 -- Vol. 4, No. 9 A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM ************************************************************ Call for Papers: Special issue of DSS Journal on Web-based Decision Support. Contact bhargava@computer.org, power@uni.edu or daewons@psu.edu ************************************************************ Featured: * Ask Dan! - Report from Minnowbrook * What's New at DSSResources.COM * DSS News Releases ************************************************************ DSS News has approximately 900 subscribers from 50 countries. Please forward this newsletter to people interested in DSS. ************************************************************ Ask Dan! Report from Minnowbrook by Dan Power From April 15-18, 2003 I had the opportunity to attend the Information Institute Decision Science Workshop at the Minnowbrook Adirondeck Conference Center in New York. The Information Institute is a virtual, collaborative research environment concentrating on Information Science and Technology. The Information Institute consists of universities allied with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Information Directorate at the Rome, NY research site and at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base research site, Dayton, OH. The Information Directorate is the Air Force Research Laboratory component responsible for command, control, communication, computers and intelligence (C4I) research and development. Jerry Dussault, the workshop coordinator, gave me permission to report about the workshop. Thirty two attendees converged on Minnowbrook Lodge Tuesday morning. Most of the attendees were from the Air Force Research Lab Information Directorate, but nine attendees were from contractor organizations and universities. The intent of the workshop was to identify potential research and development investment opportunities that could help in predicting the behaviors of individuals and military organizations to support Predictive Battlespace Awareness (PBA) and Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) decision making. The emphasis was on exploring advanced applications of modeling and simulation for decision support. We met in three working groups to brainstorm and discuss R&D needs in the 3-10 year time frame. Our Wednesday workgroups focused on different, but related topics associated with behavioral modeling and using simulation and visualization technologies in battlespace planning and management. On Thursday, all 3 working groups focused on Course of Action (COA) development, analysis and selection processes. We tried to identify approaches to achieve desired capabilities, technical challeges and R&D needs. Each group had a slightly different perspective on Course of Action decision support. Groups explored a variety of topics including "constraint-aware" continuous course of action planning, team decision making aids, intelligent critics, an automated approach for generating COAs, computerized elicitation of values, aggregation of data and situation awareness, modeling and simulation relevant to Effects-Based Operations (EBO) and PBA, and model validation issues. Most of the workshop discussion was on model-driven DSS for planning, but the group seemed to agree that the next generation decision support user interface for COA planning should be the same as the operational data-driven decision support user interface for COA monitoring and control. Some discussion of using knowledge and document-driven decision support for COA planning also occurred. The workshop built on ongoing efforts to map the "way ahead" for advanced, next generation decision support for Joint Task Force Commander and/or Joint Force Air Component Commander decision making. Over the past 20 years, many decision support tools have been built to support operations and planning decision making in the various services, including tools for air campaign plan development and for critiquing air campaign plans. It appears that the next generation of decision support will need to improve the efficiency of decision making and planning, provide more task visualization, and increase the integration of decision and planning activities with real-time data from many diverse sources. The workshop was a positive experience and I want to thank John Graniero, Director of the Information Institute, for inviting me. Both John and Nort Fowler, Chief Scientist of AFRL/IF, attended the workshop and helped me understand acronyms like COA, PBA and EBO. Overall, I met many great folks at Minnowbrook. Thanks. DSS News readers are encouraged to suggest specific research directions or technical approaches that need to be pursued to develop next generation Battlespace Decision Support. Faculty and contractors interested in this research area are encouraged to visit the website of the Information Institute of the AFRL Information Directorate at http://www.rl.af.mil/rrs/Info_Inst/. For 10 weeks this coming summer, I will be working as a Visiting Faculty Researcher with the Information Institute at Wright Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, OH. The current plan is to publish DSS News on schedule every 2 weeks. My Ask Dan! columns may focus more on modeling and simulation for planning and on computerized elicitation of values in an effort to build on my summer research, but feel free to send other questions that would be of general interest. This summer I'm also planning a quick trip to Ustron, Poland for the International Society for Decision Support Systems (http://spock.ae.katowice.pl/isdss/) conference July 13-16 and a 2 day visit to Tampa, FL. for AMCIS 2003 (www.amcis2003.org) on August 4-6. ************************************************************ Subscribe to DSSResources.COM. One month $10, six months $25. Visit http://dssresources.com/subscriber/subscriber.html ************************************************************ What's New at DSSResources.COM 04/25/2003 Posted Marco, D., "IT Portfolio Management". Check the articles page. ************************************************************ DSS News Releases - April 14 to April 24, 2003 04/24/2003 Crystal Decisions delivers enterprise reporting and analysis for Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003. 04/23/2003 J.D. Edwards introduces new business modeling tool for manufacturers and distributors; supply chain business modeler reduces implementation and integration time. 04/22/2003 Comshare(R) and Business Objects partner to deliver integrated performance management solutions. 04/22/2003 Honeywell installs AXCESS I.D. technology for military base entry to provide real time personnel and vehicle I.D. while vehicle is moving. 04/22/2003 Appian and U.S. Army win DCI's 'Portal Excellence' award. 04/22/2003 Kubi software ships Kubi client; delivers on the promise of collaboration. 04/21/2003 SGI delivers the lowest-priced advanced visualization solution. 04/21/2003 New York City Department of Education cuts invoice processing time by 75 percent, gains big savings with Esker DeliveryWare platform. 04/21/2003 OGC releases request for comment for proposed location services specification. 04/21/2003 MetLife develops web-based life insurance benchmarking tool for employers. 04/18/2003 Timberline introduces bid management software. 04/17/2003 Dubai Municipality Roads Department selects IMEL and GCWare to implement Intergraph's IntelliWhere Technology in traffic navigation system. 04/16/2003 Realization Technologies customers featured at first annual Constraints Management User Conference. 04/15/2003 Sun Fire 15K System Running Oracle9i Delivers World's Fastest Single System TPC Data Warehouse Result on TPC-H Benchmark. 04/15/2003 Comcast selects MicroStrategy BI Platform to improve efficiency & productivity by reporting on internal operations. 04/15/2003 Terminal Railroad Association deploys RailConnect(R) from RMI. 04/15/2003 Defense Week sponsors conference to explore the Pentagon's requirements and acquisition plans for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the urban environment. 04/15/2003 Comshare announces the publication of "The Strategy Gap", on leveraging technology. 04/14/2003 Experian and PredictiveMetrics introduce small business lease decision score. 04/14/2003 Physical and cyber security leaders collaborate to promote industry-wide security management. 04/14/2003 Expanded scope of exhibit amplifies conference focus on real-world geospatial solutions at Intergraph's GeoSpatial World 2003. 04/14/2003 Sybase opens mobile development to PowerBuilder community. DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2003 by D. J. Power. Please send your questions to daniel.power@dssresources.com. |