ABSTRACT. Over the past century military technology has advanced at an unparalleled rate resulting in the creation of three distinct operational domains: Air, Space, and Cyberspace. Not only have new domains been created, but there are an unimaginable number of different assets and capabilities in each domain for commanders to choose from to accomplish their mission. Modern militaries need to operate in all of these domains, and be able to synergize assets and capabilities from different domains to create desired effects in order to accomplish the mission. A key issue faced by multi-domain planners is the lack of capability transparency; assets in domains like Space and Cyberspace are not likely owned by the planner’s organization, so the planner may not even know they are available for use. Then there are additional considerations unique to each domain that need to be taken into account, such as the possible loss of an intelligence source when a cyber capability is used offensively. As we examine solutions for multi-domain command and control we must also look at what approval authority level is appropriate for any given asset/capability. This paper examines these problems facing multi-domain command and control and proffers a technical solution that gives planners the full picture of all the assets and capabilities available to them, and allows them to see what effects they can create by combining assets together. The solution incorporates design considerations from retired Air Force senior leaders and provides a framework for future advancement in multi-domain command and control.

ABSTRACT. The ubiquitous nature of information in modern warfare has increased interest by the naval community in understanding the concept of Information Warfare (IW). While the control of information has long been a significant supporting activity, the aim of this paper is to explore Maritime Information activities as they relate to a “warfare” area; that is, equivalent to the other warfare areas such as surface, above and underwater warfare. In particular, the paper examines what it means to be a warfare area with emphasis on the maritime domain. As part of this discussion we propose Narrative Dominance as an over-arching warfare concept that provides the framework within which information warfare exists.

ABSTRACT. The future operating environment is becoming ever more complex as the number of significant threats, and the range of influencing and collaborating actors, continue to increase in quantity and diversity. This will be challenging for leadership, especially given the need for increasing collaboration with both allies and governmental and non-governmental organisations. Future threats and operations will also no longer be constrained to the physical domain, but will include cyber and information. Therefore, our collective understanding, planning and execution approaches need to recognise and cope with the often subtle and ambiguous interplay across these domains, especially given the growing tendency to challenge national political will through cyber and information capabilities. The first theme in this paper will describe some of the UK’s emerging thinking on these topics, including the need for a new conceptualisation of C2, and also on how defence should develop and sustain its future C2 capability, such that it is primed to be able to respond effectively to a wide range of contingent operations. A second theme will revisit prior ideas on Effects Based Operations and the Comprehensive Approach, which in the UK is presently being referred to as the Full Spectrum Approach. Paraphrasing the idea, it is the means to effectively exploit all levers of influence across government and wider. The paper will thus discuss current ideas for how a Full Spectrum Approach and Future Joint Command and Control both impact on each other and what this means for future research and development of both.

ABSTRACT. A Command and Control (C2) mission implies a hierarchical structure wherein a decision maker determines the actions of the units below to accomplish a single or multiple missions. It is critical for the C2 decision maker to have the necessary information to quantitatively and qualitatively support the decision making process in both the tactical and strategic environments. In the era of Big Data, the volume of incoming data from the field of operations is not amenable to human analysts to provide real time decision aid support. The challenge is to be able to make well-informed decisions while warfighters are inundated with information from various data sources. In this paper, we identify the challenges with big data decision analysis, and introduce tools for the decision making process required by the warfighters; we use Condition Based Maintenance to illustrate the need for effective C2 decision making through big data and analytics.

ABSTRACT. The fragmentation of the global network progresses towards a formation of national segments of cyberspace walled with ‘digital borders’. A number of nations aim to strengthen their sovereignty over the internet by closing their national networks. Russia and China are so far the most powerful nations to implement the closing process. The existing formats for internet governance are becoming outdated, which is followed by an unavoidable threat towards the remaining open-network society – there is no clear line between the concepts of war and peace in cyberspace. In this paper we intend to show how ‘digital sovereignty’ could be technically structured, what kind of policies it requires and how it would affect future cyber battlefields. ‘Digital sovereignty’ combined with the ambiguity of conflict creates an asymmetry that can be exploited and used for shaping the cyber domain into a future battlefield with ‘asymmetric frontlines’. We claim that the conventional understanding of asymmetry in cyberspace that is based on the problem of attribution will be outdated. Our analysis demonstrates how space and time variables form a base for asymmetry in the cyber battlefield of the future. By studying, on the one hand, the creation of asymmetry and on the other its effects on the freedom of action, decision-making and situation awareness of the belligerents, we analyze the creation and dynamics of ‘cyber asymmetry’. The overall aim of this paper is to consider what a future cyber battlefield will look like and to improve cyber situation awareness related to the closing process.

ABSTRACT. The evolution of the Next Generation Network Technologies such as the Fourth Generation (4G) and Fifth Generation (5G), have made them an adoption option in Command and Control (C2) tactical deployments for wireless communication network access. Features promised by 5G (low latency, high mobility, ubiquitous coverage area) will be enablers of services and capabilities such as Machine to Machine (M2M) communication, Internet of Things (IoT), sensory networks, self-healing networks, flexible spectrum management, massive machine communications, mission critical operations. These services and capabilities present opportunities for C2 such as granular monitoring of nodes (e.g. monitoring troop heart rate), convoy vehicle communication, realistic training through simulations, sensor driven environment. This paper presents results of experimenting with a LTE system in providing broadband area coverage for C2 deployment environments (bushveld, inner city and maritime) for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). Multimedia services (voice, video, and data) and distance were used as performance measure metrics. Using a 400 MHz portable LTE system, a 10 km and 11 km radii coverage area was achieved in Line of Sight (LOS) for bushveld and maritime, respectively. While an 8 km radius was achieved in inner city urban environment with Non-LOS. The opportunities and the challenges of adopting these network technologies (4G and beyond) are also discussed, including the envisioned C2 deployments over 5G.

ABSTRACT. The threat environment in the Cyber Arena has a significant impact on the strategic, operational, and tactical success of Command and Control (C2) of forces. To enhance mission success and reduce risk, Mission Partners must develop options and capabilities to share information in the Cyber arena that enhance all Mission Partner’s understanding of the Cyber threat. Each Mission Partner has their own Cyber strategy to address their Cyber environment. Alignment and integration of these strategies will help address the challenges of managing our cyber defenses so that we can ensure the C2 of our forces. Applying and evolving a framework approach that was discussed in the 19th ICCRTS, paper (003) demonstrates the importance of comprehending each mission partner’s Cyber efforts, whether from Special Operations and Conventional Forces, or a Ministry, Department, Bureau, or Agency to better understand all Cyber threats and Cyber defense issues. To accomplish this, we must look at the following four principles: Common vision, goals and objectives for the mission, Common understanding of the situation, Coordination of efforts to ensure coherency, and Common measures of progress to allow the ability to change course or direction as needed. We must analyze Mission Partner’s Cyber approaches, best practices, and lessons learned to identify common goals, areas of interest, capabilities, and common categories of effort to address common focus areas. A framework methodology will continue to directly impact the way C2 is conducted both today and in the future.

ABSTRACT. For supporting distributed network-centric operations, the development of a cloud-based experimentation framework has continued to be explored and further developed. The overall objective of the experimentation framework focuses on developing reliable, robust, and resilient tactical-ISR communications and networking support capabilities that can be trusted to operate within a variety of adverse conditions. Thus, a cloud-computing oriented virtual-networking experimentation framework is being further explored and developed for supporting ongoing model-based system-of-systems engineering (MBSE/SOSE) and experimentation support capabilities.

Current work focuses on the utilization of an autonomic-computing framework (e.g. Rainbow) for developing and assessing a variety of model-based adaptation (e.g. self-healing) strategies that incorporate probes, decision logic, and effectors, as defined within such frameworks. Such strategies enable wireless (i.e. RF line-of-sight) data-links to adapt to adverse conditions that may impact the ability to meet information exchange requirements for respective net-centric distributed operations.

Within the context of an autonomic computing infrastructure (e.g. Rainbow), the work discussed in this paper concurrently addresses the need for extending and augmenting such adaptive frameworks to include model-based integration of emerging standardized architectures, open source resources, and their respective source-level build capabilities. For example, the work described herein focuses on how a growing assortment of commercial-off-the-shelf and government-off-the shelf (COTS/GOTS) and free open-source software (FOSS) resources, which includes the Rainbow framework, can interoperability support content delivery/distribution networking (CDN) requirements within the context of emerging methodologies and associated standards.

ABSTRACT. This paper describes how the emerging C2-to-Simulation (C2SIM) interoperability standard is being extended to support planning of real-world missions, and to support the operational decisions necessary during the execution of that mission. In order to support this, C2SIM will need to provide the interface with operational C2 systems, and enable the C2 and Simulation systems to be initialised from operational information feeds.

This work will inform the requirements that will need to be met to allow C2SIM to be used in support of operational decision making. This will be achieved through enabling the integration of contemporary real-time feeds to initialise a faster than real-time (FTRT) simulation. The aim is to reduce the command burden of a Joint Force Headquarters.

It will highlight the work done so far in using Coalition Battle Management Language and Military Scenario Description Language to prove the concept of using C2 systems interacting with FTRT simulation for the purposes of mission planning and courses-of-action analysis. The paper provides an update of the progress made towards prototyping a C2SIM system that will support mission planning and also aid decisions during operations, and it will discuss the challenges that remain.

To ensure exploitation, the steps towards the prototype system will include: assessing candidate FTRT simulations; investigation of the immersion of military operators in a C2SIM experimental environment to assess the feasibility and benefits of supporting mission planning and operational decisions in this way; and to prototype and test a candidate C2SIM environment to inform requirements for capability development.

ABSTRACT. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has formed Modeling and Simulation (M&S) Groups (MSG) to investigate how M&S can enhance NATO’s mission accomplishment. The recently formed MSG-145, Operationalization of Standardized C2- Simulation Interoperability (C2SIM), is maturing the efforts of the MSG-085 and 048 from an academic study into an operational capability.

The results of the MSG-085 effort provided a C2SIM system architecture. This must be matured to address extended use cases that demonstrate how individual nations use C2SIM as a capability to utilize their national C2 and simulation systems during planning within a coalition military force. This existing system architecture must meet operational requirements driven from an operational scenario.

This paper provides a method for MSG efforts to leverage current C2SIM system architecture to derive an integrated scenario to support the wide ranging use cases under development by MSG-145. Leveraging existing artifacts ensures that the resultant scenario presents an appropriately robust operational environment for development of the MSG-145 systems architecture. The scenario will meet established scenario development guidelines and support mission thread requirements for testing.

ABSTRACT. The likelihood that Unmanned Autonomous Systems (UAxS) will be employed in the modern battlefield is increasingly high. For this reason this kind of assets must be considered for military capability development, training and operations. Modeling and Simulation (M&S) for military application is seeing the development of the C2Sim language to enable standards-based interoperability between Command and Control (C2) systems and simulators, easing the initialization of scenarios and the exchange of orders and reports, through a synthesis of the Military Scenario Definition Language (MSDL) and Coalition Battle Management Language (C-BML). A core of the Data Model has been already developed. Nevertheless more efforts have to be put in extending the language to incorporate more functional areas, among them the use of UAxS. This paper illustrates the process followed to develop a conceptual scenario involving UAxS in accordance to the SISO guidelines to identify gaps within the C2Sim language with respect to UAxS. In addition, the paper makes recommendations for C2Sim extensions to add UAxS relevant missing elements or structures in the Data Model. In order to test an instance of the conceptual scenario, involving an Unmanned Autonomous Aerial Vehicles (UAaVs) swarm and a unit of Unmanned Autonomous Ground Vehicles (UAgVs), exchanging orders and feedbacks with C2 systems, an architecture of M&S tools composed by a federation of simulators and C2 systems is under development.

ABSTRACT. Enterprise Level Security (ELS) is an approach to automatically provide access and privilege to all entities within an enterprise. Access controls are established by data and service owners, and claims for access and privilege are issued to authenticated users based on their enterprise attributes and the context in which they operate. This framework was developed for DoD information systems, but is intended for use with weapon systems, communication systems, vehicles, and other systems in the field. For these field operations, normal command and control may break down due to adverse conditions or events. For example, a unit may be under fire and need to establish a communication link to call for backup, but the officer authorized to establish communication links is wounded or otherwise unavailable. In a weak security environment, the unit under fire would simply break rank and make the call for backup. However, with the strong security provided by ELS, such actions would be subject to proper authentication and authorization, making these workarounds impossible. The strong and extensive security guarantees that ELS provides are still desirable, but a method of privilege “escalation with accountability” is needed to allow users to take the initiative to modify the normal ELS access controls when conditions dictate that established access controls should be modified. This paper discusses the issue of escalation, possible methods to enable escalation and de-escalation of privileges within ELS, ways to set limits, overcome “under duress” events and encourage appropriate use, and methods to monitor and respond to such incidents.

ABSTRACT. Information sharing among coalition partners must balance the benefits that can accrue from improved coordination with the risks of releasing information that ideally would be kept private. We consider how advanced privacy technologies can enable improved information sharing among coalition partners by both providing increased control over how information is used or released, and enabling principled characterizations of the impact of individual and cumulative sharing activities. We describe this work in the context of a humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) scenario, showing how the technologies can enable significantly increased and informed sharing.

ABSTRACT. Advances in technology have exponentially increased the information and data at our fingertips. While there are many benefits of such access, a tradeoff is that information seekers can be overwhelmed by the vast sea of information at their disposal. Challenges multiply when information seekers operate as part of a team where there are differences in knowledge, information access, and decision-making responsibilities. Coalition operations are examples of such situations, involving decisions that impact a complicated network of different countries and actors. Proactive decision support (PDS) tools have the potential to make more manageable the tasks of selecting, verifying, compiling, and analyzing relevant information, so that good decisions can be made more efficiently. Effective PDS requires a system that “understands” and adapts to the context in which information seeking and decision-making occur. Context includes aspects of the physical environment within which the technology and user are embedded, and the cognitive or mission objectives of users. We argue that for teams, PDS context must also include a collection of team member and team dynamic variables such as shared and differential tasks, requirements, knowledge, and expertise. Collectively, these variables can be conceptualized as transactive memory (TM). We describe how PDS that incorporates TM variables as a form of context can facilitate and streamline validation and communication of information among team members, which is crucial for realizing the potential benefits of PDS for coalition operations. We discuss considerations for implementing TM variables into PDS tools and key research and development questions to be addressed.

ABSTRACT. Human society is in the period of accelerated development of the information revolution. It not only affects people's life extensively, but also constantly updates our understanding and understanding of the mode of operation in the information age. The ability to carry out effective information integration and provide intelligent information services, has become a joint combat process to obtain the command and control of the agile advantage of the support base. Based on this, this paper proposes a semantic-based information integration framework of agile command and control, which includes two parts: basic module and semantic analysis engine. The basic idea is to change the semantic relation from the pursuit of comprehensive information reasoning to the attention data, the idea of information retrieval into knowledge retrieval, relying on the information integration framework to tap the command information system implied in a variety of rich semantic relations, in order to carry out a higher level of information integration and provide more intelligent knowledge retrieval, and thus agile Command and control.

ABSTRACT. As current and future operations integrate soldiers from multiple nations, information that supports short term and long term teaming is critical. Among coalition forces it is important to maintain unity of effort, to plan concurrently, and to make adjustment in sync ensuring operations are carried out successfully. Combatant commanders have many responsibilities including ensuring the capability and capacity of the forces with partnering nations. However, in multinational operations there is the added need to consider differences in organization, doctrine, terminology, and objectives. This can be achieved through knowledge capturing, information sharing, and training. Additionally, giving commanders required information with explanation, linking knowledge and uncertainty can improve teamed operations in complex and dynamic environments. The Data Analyzer was initially designed for data analysis of training software previously developed at the Army Research Laboratory. Now that this training software is being used by US and coalition partners, the Data Analyzer has been expanded as a platform for wider analysis and knowledge capturing.

The Data Analyzer provides commanders with the ability to view data capturing detailed experiential knowledge and find trends in tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) employed within their units and within different coalition partners. This information from the analyzer provides the joint forces with similarities and differences highlighted that aid in joint engagement preparation and insights into actions that can impact joint mission TTPs. We present the Data Analyzer software and use case scenarios illustrating utilizing this approach in supporting knowledge capturing, information sharing, and decision making for multinational operations.

ABSTRACT. For the past five years, a team led by personnel from the Army Research Laboratory has provided Human-Systems Integration (HSI) support to the Army’s Brigade Modernization Command for the Network Integration Evaluations (NIEs). The NIEs are a series of semiannual, brigade-level exercises intended to integrate and mature the Army’s tactical network in an operational context. The broad scope of the NIEs permits human performance effects and HSI issues to be assessed at the individual Soldier-system level, as well as at the system-of-systems and unit levels. In this respect, network-enabled command posts (CPs) are treated as complex sociotechnical systems embedded within a unit context. The initial focus of ARL’s HSI support was the cognitive load associated with network-enabled mission command. Cognitive load is defined as the aggregate mental load placed on multi-echelon commanders and key battle staff personnel by an increasingly complex mission command work setting. Observations concerning the impact and sources of extraneous cognitive load in modernizing CPs are presented and discussed, along with concrete recommendations for cognitive load mitigation. Another important result of these multilevel HSI assessments was perspectives and recommendations concerning the doctrine, organization, training, leadership and education, and personnel (DOTLP) modifications necessary to make effective use of the technologies underpinning network-enabled operations. Previous force modernization work along with results from the current effort suggest that robust DOTLP adaptations are on a par with materiel as contributors to enhanced mission command performance and unit effectiveness. Unfortunately, DOTLP developments and modifications often take a back seat to equipment concerns.

ABSTRACT. Building and strengthening international partnerships remains an imperative for the United States Navy. A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower highlights the importance of partnerships to deter conflict, protect the maritime commons, promote stability, provide humanitarian assistance, and respond to aggression. The Chief of Naval Operations' Design for Maintaining Maritime Security (DMMS) explicitly identifies expanding and strengthening our networks of partners as one of its four lines of efforts. Per the DMMS, information sharing and interoperability initiatives will help deepen operational relationships with allies and partners.

For the US Navy's laboratory community, contributing to this important CNO priority takes the form of meaningful exchanges between its scientists and engineers and those of international partners and allies. Robust cooperation and information sharing at the earliest levels of development can help pay dividends by addressing interoperability issues at an earlier stage of technical development. Information Exchange Program (IEP) Agreements under the auspices of the Navy International Programs Office provides an avenue to engage international partners in a reciprocal exchange of research and development information.

This paper will highlight and describe the Information Exchange Agreement in C4 technology, highlighting specific examples of how these have facilitated cooperation and collaboration with multiple international partners, and how these align and support the US Navy's priority to enhance partnerships to meet present and future security challenges.

ABSTRACT. The representation of the operational environment is crucial in all military operations because it is a necessity for the command and control (C2) function that provides the operation with direction and coordination. The representation, typically in the form of a common operational picture (COP), is considered the key element for establishing situation awareness and understanding to the commander and his/her staff. This article begins by presenting a theoretical overview of the COP concept. Thereafter, empirical support is given that officers conceptualize the COP differently, relating it to different stages of the C2 process and referring to the COP as sometimes an artifact and sometimes a mental state or a product in the human mind. For example, some officers may focus on the representation of the current operational environment; others may focus on representations of courses of actions whereas others may focus on future planned events. This may cause severe misunderstanding when officers use the COP concept in communication. This article provides a proposition to make the COP concept more specific – connecting the different stages in the C2 process to specific instantiations of the COP. Moreover, regardless of which stage in the C2 process the instantiations of the COP is related to, it has to be adapted to that specific stage to be a powerful enabler. This article concludes by suggesting a new concept, the Prepared Common Operational Picture (PCOP).

ABSTRACT. One of the most rapidly growing areas of innovative technology adoption in modern military organizations involves unmanned systems. The U.S. military’s use of these cutting-edge technologies is not only changing the face of modern warfare, but is also altering the process of command and control in combat operations. These systems are evolving rapidly to deliver enhanced capability to the warfighter and seemed poised to deliver the next “revolution in military affairs.” However, there are increasing concerns regarding the degree of autonomy armed unmanned systems should have. Until these issues are addressed, military unmanned systems may not reach their full potential.

As military unmanned systems have become more autonomous, concerns have surfaced regarding a potential “dark side” of having future armed autonomous or semi-autonomous systems make life-or-death decisions. Ethical concerns regarding to potential employment of armed autonomous or semi-autonomous systems are being raised in national and international media. Some ask: “Can we control our unmanned systems?”

While the DoD has issued guidance regarding operator control of autonomous vehicles, rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have exacerbated concerns that the military might lose control of armed autonomous or semi-autonomous systems. The challenge for autonomous systems designers is to provide the military not with completely autonomous systems but with systems with augmented intelligence that provide the operator with enhanced warfighting effectiveness. Harnessing AI to provide warfighters with unmanned systems with augmented intelligence—vice fully autonomous vehicles—may hold the key to overcoming ethical concerns that limit the potential of military autonomous systems.

ABSTRACT. A significant need exists to explore the application of recent technical advancements within Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs) to address coordinated collaborative behaviors to tackle non-trivial challenges. Autonomous agents in swarms, applied to search is one such challenge, which although well studied, remains fertile ground to explore novel strategies. In this paper we revisit the search problem by first outlining a self organizing software framework grounded in emergent behavior-based design under the constraint of communication. We outline our work in progress in the form of an initial specification of the problem space along with an adaptable probabilistic finite state machine model. A top-down methodology is employed to analyze and guide the emergent quality of the desired behavior for representation within the model.

ABSTRACT. The use of military unmanned systems (UxS) is already creating strategic, operational, and tactical possibilities that did not exist a decade ago. One of the most cutting-edge—and challenging—aspects of autonomous systems is having systems that operate in different domains, that is having Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs), and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), work together as a heterogeneous whole. As autonomous systems become more important to military operators, the issue of command and control (C2) of cross-domain unmanned Vehicles (UxVs) will become more important. Today, while the performance of UxVs in all domains has improved dramatically, the C2 issues of controlling UxVs in multiple domains simultaneously remains an area requiring additional research, modeling and simulation, and operational testing. This paper will present the results of operational testing of cross-domain UxVs in The Technical Cooperation Program (five-eyes) Hell Bay 4 experiment during NATO Exercise Unmanned Warrior 2016 at the British Underwater Test & Evaluation Centre (BUTEC). The primary objectives of this experiment focused on cooperative teaming of a UAV with UUVs to demonstrate extended range C2 of remotely deployed UUVs in a contested littoral environment. This paper will report on the objectives outlined in the Command and Control (C2) of Cross-Domain Unmanned Vehicles (UxVs) section of the Trial Plan.

ABSTRACT. Military command and control refers to dominating by reason of location. Gathering and analyzing data from multiple aspects is important to achieving dominance in the environment in which the operation will be conducted. High level understanding of the battlefield conducted in Command Intelligence Centers (CICS) is made with maps and images but also with information presented in plots, charts, and graphs. Graphs display data as imagery to convey a particular interpretation of that data as information. Treating graphs as images we use visual saliency models to try and predict where people will look in a graph. Modeling graphs in this way, we aim to better understand the interplay between memorability and comprehension in graphs and other information graphics. This work is an initial step in the development of computational models that can accurately predict the salience, memorability, and clarity of information graphs. Throughout this paper we utilize the Massachusetts Visualization dataset for the ground truth values of where people look when looking at information graphics. Using this dataset, we analyze the predictive accuracy of three different saliency models when people look at information graphics.

ABSTRACT. Sensemaking is the cognitive process of extracting information, creating schemata from knowledge, making decisions from those schemata, and inferring conclusions. Human analysts are essential to exploring and quantifying this process, but they are limited by their inability to process the volume, variety, velocity, and veracity of data. Visualization tools are essential for helping this human-computer interaction. For example, analytical tools that use graphical link-node visualization can help sift through vast amounts of information. However, assisting the analyst in making connections with visual tools can be challenging if the information is not presented in an intuitive manner.

Experimentally, it has been shown that analysts increase the number of hypotheses formed if they use visual analytic capabilities. Exploring multiple perspectives could increase the diversity of those hypotheses, potentially minimizing cognitive biases. In this paper, we discuss preliminary research results that indicate an improvement in sensemaking over the traditional link-node visualization tools by incorporating an annotation enhancement that differentiates links connecting nodes. This enhancement assists by providing a visual cue, which represents the perceived value of reported information. We conclude that this improved sensemaking occurs because of the removal of the limitations of mentally consolidating, weighing, and highlighting data. This study aims to investigate whether line thickness can be used as a valid representation of VoI.

ABSTRACT. Future Operational Environments (OEs) for Command and Control (C2) will be defined through increasing complexity of battlefield assets, their diversity, and their interactions. For Opposing Forces (OPFOR), tactics, techniques, and procedures may be carried out in environments rich in neutral (CIV) assets, as commonly reflected in Asymmetric Warfare scenarios. Growth in available battlefield information and source variety can place strain on both the attention and cognitive load of battlefield personnel. Approaches for calculating Value of Information (VoI) of Information Objects represent a growing focus area for C4ISR research.

For military personnel, novel methods are becoming necessary to facilitate review of VoI assessments. From the perspective of Human-Information Interaction, advances in tools for VoI assessment review stand to improve personnel understanding of prioritization strategies, as well as enable fine-tuning of VoI calculation inputs (e.g., user preferences) to achieve desirable content prioritizations.

This work investigates Knowledge Graphs as a representation medium for mission-centric VoI assessments. Through representation of content in triple form (), Knowledge Graphs can facilitate both integration of knowledge structures and relationship-centric querying by personnel. To facilitate structuring of Knowledge Graph content, a modular ontology termed Mission-VoI is proposed for capturing details on mission history, user content delivery preferences, and VoI reports for individual Information Objects.

To help illustrate the usage of Mission-VoI within Knowledge Graphs, sample encodings are provided around a simple battlefield information management scenario. Following from this, discussion of Knowledge Graph querying use cases is provided, along with a review of envisioned follow-on HII research.

ABSTRACT. We describe research on understanding group mutability in the behaviour of external groups, and how interventions by coalition forces may affect the behaviour in terms of controlling hostile groups and encouraging friendly groups. We explore how emotion may influence the behaviour of individuals by affecting the type of reasoning that they undertake, encouraging "uncritical" rather than "critical" thinking. We describe a computational framework holding a cognitive model of an individual operating within a group context, inspired by theories from social science. Individuals relate to in-groups and out-groups and have beliefs that are associated with emotions. Cognitive Appraisal Theory is used to evaluate incoming memes "pronounced" by external speakers, appraising the effects of the memes on an individual's self-esteem taking account of their group relationships as indicated by social identity theory, and leading to an emotion in the individual. Appraisal is followed by a process of coping that seeks to handle the effects by either performing problem-focussed (critical) or emotion-focussed (uncritical) thinking, according to the current emotional state of the individual. This model is implemented within a Cognitive Architecture (SOAR) as a set of reasoning processes that handle beliefs and emotion. The model is integrated into a multi-agent simulation tool (Repast Simphony) allowing the simulation of populations of individuals interacting and spreading rumours, or memes, together with interventions. We describe how this framework could be used to construct experiments to explore how different situations lead to group mutability and behaviour, together with the effects of interventions by coalition forces.

ABSTRACT. On-line multi-user virtual worlds have been used to create collaboration environments and shared virtual spaces to allow distributed teams to train, exercise or work together. Platforms such as Linden Lab's Second Life or the open source community's OpenSimulator have been used to provide easily accessed facilities in which users are represented by avatars in a space designed to support their collaboration and sharing of resources. The creation of a suitable virtual space allows users wherever they are located to be brought together into a shared visualisation of an "operations centre". This may be joined with real operations centre(s) to integrate a distributed team to allow them to more effectively address the task or operations they are engaged in. Such environments are particularly well suited to training and exercises, but can also be used for real events when distributed teams are involved.

The paper describes the "Open Virtual Collaborative Environment" (OpenVCE) and its facilities, and how the resources have been made widely available as a basis for creating customised environments and used for multi-national and multi-agency team collaboration facilities especially where teams are geographically distributed.

ABSTRACT. Command and Control (C2) aspects of military operations, though very complex, knowledge intensive and usually time bounded, tend to be carried out with limited use of command and decision support tools. While there have been isolated successes such as the Dynamic Analysis and Replanning Tool used during operation Desert Shield, routine adoption of knowledge systems have remained low. The problem is not with the availability of technology, as defence (both Governments and Industries) have invested significant effort in tool development over the years. This paper will discuss findings from an earlier study, which investigated factors that may be contributing to the lack of exploitation of knowledge systems, and present insights from recent experience working in a standing joint force headquarters. The paper will conclude with an agenda for future research that contributes to our understanding of how best to improve technology adoption.