Archive | Technology | Armed with Science

Crowdsourcing and Collaborative Tools in Virtual Online Disaster Relief Scenarios

Filed under Technology by Carla Voorhees on April 20, 2011 at 10:30 am {no comments}

By Dr. Linton Wells II and Khalil Ali

TIDES is a Department of Defense knowledge-sharing research project at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy, located at the National Defense University (NDU). TIDES focuses on low-cost, innovative solutions to provide sustainable support to populations under stress; post-disaster, post-war, impoverished, domestic and foreign. The TIDES project leverages a global network of distributed talent in order to find integrated solutions, sustained through the private sector.

X24 Europe Logo

Last month, TIDES (Transformative Innovation for Development and Emergency Support) participated in Exercise 24 Europe (X24EUR), a virtual online disaster relief scenario that leveraged social media, crowdsourcing, and collaborative tools in an innovative cloud computing environment. The event took place from March 29th-March 31st and was co-lead by San Diego State University’s Immersive Visualization Center and the United States European Command, and supported by an array of public/private organizations.

X24EUR was based on a hypothetical earthquake in the Balkans followed by a tsunami in the Adriatic Sea that produced significant damage to infrastructure on shore. The purpose of X24EUR was to demonstrate the use of cost effective web tools to gather and share information, establish relationships between European partner nations, and address the activities of international organizations during the first 180 days after a natural disaster.

The X24 series of robust, virtual, online experiments builds on an outstanding lineage. It draws from the exceptional success of the GOLDEN PHOENIX collaborative events held in the San Diego area through 2008. They showed the power not only of collaboration, both real and virtual, but also of broad inclusion. During the last GOLDEN PHOENIX over 140 separate organizations participated–public-private, whole-of-government, trans-national.
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From Shoes to Software, Benchmarking Helps Organizations Find the “Right Fit”

Filed under STEM, Technology by John Ohab on April 13, 2011 at 2:16 pm {no comments}

This blog post was shared with us by the Data & Analysis Center for Software (DACS). It is the 15th entry in our 22-part series produced by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).

In the early 80s, Xerox began experiencing fierce competition from both U.S. and Japanese competitors. New entrants from overseas were rapidly gaining market share. David Kearns, then CEO, stepped up and began a corporate push for lower manufacturing cost, and increased quality control. His program, known as “Leadership Through Quality” not only helped turn Xerox around, but it also gave birth to what we know as modern-day “benchmarking.”

But what exactly is benchmarking?

Benchmarking is a process for finding the world-class standards for a product, service, or system and then adjusting one’s own products, services, and systems to exceed those standards. When properly applied, benchmarking can force an organization to take a hard look at its own performance compared to that of its peers. It forces an organization to look at best practices within their particular industry and determine whether there is room for internal organizational improvement.

Today, we often hear the term benchmarking in the information technology and software industry, but oddly enough, its roots can be traced to the shoemaking industry. In the nineteenth century, cobblers would measure a client’s feet for handmade shoes. The cobbler would place a client’s foot on a “bench” and “mark” it out to make the pattern for the shoes. This pattern became a reference point for the cobbler and helped ensure a better fit. From benchmarking shoes to benchmarking software, this process has helped improve countless organizations.

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Digital Forensics Challenge: Collect Your Bonus Points

Filed under Challenge, STEM, Technology by John Ohab on April 8, 2011 at 4:17 pm {no comments}

Attention DC3 Digital Forensics Challenge participants! There are less than 30 days left to receive 20 percent Bonus Points on all submissions.

With the DC3 Challenge’s new Bonus Points System, the solution submitted for each exercise (e.g. 101, 204, 302, etc.) is eligible for the bonus award based on the time it is submitted. Remember, the team’s initial submission is the FINAL submission for that specific exercise. Get your submissions in by May 1 to quality for the Bonus Points.

The DC3 Digital Forensics Challenge is a public, online, and international Challenge held annually by the Department of Defense (DoD) Cyber Crime Center (DC3). The Challenge is a call to the digital forensics community to pioneer new investigative tools, techniques, and methodologies. It encourages innovation from a broad range of individuals, teams, and institutions to provide technical solutions for computer forensic examiners in the lab as well as in the field. The Challenge ends November 2, 2011!

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DARPA Works to Build Computers Inspired by Human Brain

Filed under Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, STEM, Technology by John Ohab on April 8, 2011 at 10:59 am {no comments}

Today’s warfighters possess the ability to meet the dynamic demands of the battlefield by relying on their knowledge and training to make the right decisions in demanding complex situations. In contrast, unmanned systems and electronic devices, while able to collect and process information, are limited in their efficiency and flexibility, and current computer systems can only process information according to their programming.

What if warfighters could access an entirely new class of electronic systems that can meet the demands of dynamic environments?

DARPA’s Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) program aims to fundamentally alter conventional designs by developing biological-scale neuromorphic electronic systems that mimic important functions of a human brain. Applications for neuromorphic electronics include robotic and manned systems, and sensory and integration applications such as image processing.

The goal of SyNAPSE is to create electronic systems, inspired by the human brain, that can understand, adapt, and respond to information in fundamentally different ways than traditional computers. While current computers are organized into distinct processor and memory units that function in accordance with their programming, the brain is organized as an intimate and distributed web of very simple processors (neurons) and memory (synapses) that spontaneously communicate and learn their functions.

Using knowledge of the brain’s organization as a platform, SyNAPSE is developing integrated circuits with high densities of electronic devices and integrated communication networks that approximate the function and connectivity of neurons and synapses. This program has also developed tools to support this specific area of hardware development such as circuit design tools, large-scale computer simulations of hardware function, and virtual training environments that can test and benchmark these systems.

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DARPA: Can You Outsmart an Enemy Submarine Commander?

Filed under Education & Culture, Technology by John Ohab on April 5, 2011 at 6:21 pm {3 comments}

Can you best an enemy submarine commander so he can’t escape into the ocean depths?

If you think you can, you are invited to put yourself into the virtual driver’s seat of one of several Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) configurations and show the world how you can use its capabilities to follow an enemy submarine.

DARPA’s ACTUV program is developing a fundamentally new tool for the Navy’s ASW toolkit and seeks your help to explore how best to use this tool to track quiet submarines. Before autonomous software is developed for ACTUV’s computers, DARPA needs to determine what approaches and methods are most effective. To gather information from a broad spectrum of users, ACTUV has been integrated into the Dangerous Waters^TM game. DARPA is offering this new ACTUV Tactics Simulator for free public download.

This software has been written to simulate actual evasion techniques used by submarines, challenging each player to track them successfully. Your tracking vessel is not the only ship at sea, so you’ll need to safely navigate among commercial shipping traffic as you attempt to track the submarine, whose driver has some tricks up his sleeve.

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SENDSim: A New Platform for Understanding Behavior in Cyberspace

Filed under Cyber Security, Social Sciences, STEM, Technology, Videos by John Ohab on April 4, 2011 at 9:40 am {no comments}

By Carl Hunt, Greg Amis and Rick Raines

As reported in Armed with Science last October, DoD’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) has been working with the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology’s Center for Cyberspace Research (CCR) on a project called, “Science Enhanced Networked Domains and Secure Social Spaces” (SENDS). The main mission of SENDS is to examine operational and security challenges the United States faces in the use of cyberspace within the global environment. The focus of these examinations is both broad and innovative. RRTO and CCR have supported this project since late 2009.

SENDS partner Icosystem Corporation is delivering a major component of the SENDS Project: a modeling and simulation platform to understand the behaviors of network users and information technologies as they interact within cyberspace. These simulations help visualize the interdependencies that arise with the convergence of these two sources of vulnerability. As the SENDS Project progresses, we’ve been covering developments in the new SENDS website but now that we are within four months of concluding the Pilot, we want to share the status of this task as a preview.

We call the simulation environment for the SENDS Project SENDSim. In brief, SENDSim is an agent-based simulation and experimentation environment designed to help experts better understand cyberspace security challenges by providing a platform for understanding threats, evaluating solutions, and communicating the benefits of a principled security plan to non-technical decision makers. (more…)

Unlocking Research on Nuclear and Radiological Threats

Filed under Physical Sciences, Technology by John Ohab on March 30, 2011 at 2:14 pm {no comments}

This blog post was shared with us by the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense Information Analysis Center (CBRNIAC). It is the 13th entry in our 22-part series produced by the Defense Technical Information Center.

The Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) history of the United States exists in sealed documents and gated buildings. Part of The Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense Information Analysis Center’s (CBRNIAC) goal is cataloging historical CBRN research for future use. Although most people are not familiar with the exact studies that occur at CBRN labs, you may be familiar with some of the sites.

Einstein buffs may be aware of the famed Trinity site, home to the first nuclear explosion. Other sites, like the One-Million-Liter Test Sphere, played a major role in biodefense experimentation during the Cold War. Or perhaps you’re familiar with the Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission Line Aircraft Simulator, which was used to test aircraft against electromagnetic pulses to simulate nuclear detonations.

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Want $20K? Design a System for Sensing People at a Distance

Filed under Challenge, STEM, Technology by John Ohab on March 29, 2011 at 10:19 am {one comment}

Interested in winning money for solving some of the U.S. Air Force’s toughest challenges?

The U.S. Air Force Research Lab and the Wright Brothers Institute have launched the Open Innovation Pavilion, an online innovation marketplace where more than a quarter million of the world’s brightest minds solve tough problems for cash awards. This week, we’ll run through each of the ongoing challenges, which feature more than $100,000 in prizes. Hey, count me in!

First up: Remote Human Demographic Characterization.

The Air Force Research Lab is offering up to $20,000 for a system that can determine approximate age (adult, teen, child) and gender of small groups of people at a distance. You, the Solver, will propose a system and make suggestions for a potential hardware configuration that meets the requirements and justify it with arguments and relevant references. Evidence that the proposed system will work (from previous applications, existing data, literature, etc.) will be very important. The proposal will be evaluated on a theoretical basis considering the current state of the art knowledge.

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