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DSS News
D. J. Power, Editor
April 27, 2003 -- Vol. 4, No. 9
A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
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Call for Papers: Special issue of DSS Journal on Web-based
Decision Support. Contact bhargava@computer.org, power@uni.edu
or daewons@psu.edu
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Featured:
* Ask Dan! - Report from Minnowbrook
* What's New at DSSResources.COM
* DSS News Releases
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DSS News has approximately 900 subscribers from 50 countries.
Please forward this newsletter to people interested in DSS.
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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.
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What's New at DSSResources.COM
04/25/2003 Posted Marco, D., "IT Portfolio Management".
Check the articles page.
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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.
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