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Tne Role of Ontologies in Military Collaboration

Barry Smith

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General James Gavin, On to Berlin: Battles of an Airborne Commander 1943-1946

for success of the D-Day invasion‘one of our most critical needs was to standardize the operating practices of our forces. … even simple terminology had to be agreed upon. … British flew in what they called “bomber stream” formations, We preferred troop-carrier group formations of 36 planes that flew in a V ... We referred to landing area as the “jump area,” the British called it “drop zone,” …’

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Berlin, MD

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Current state

• DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Publication 1-02)

• New military dictionaries and terminology artifacts continue to be developed

• Dominant ethos: Library Science (all terminologies are equal), Lexicography (logical consistency of definitions is not important)

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Goals of Doctrinal Documents• Advance consistency in communications• Facilitate consistent interpretation of commands• Compile lessons learned (outcomes assess ment)• Provide controlled vocabularies for official reporting• Enhance discoverability and analysis of dataDoctrine facilitates thinking through problems – allows joined-up planning because planners use the same terminology • Having this terminology and a corresponding set of

options drilled into the minds of planners removes many areas from the need for second thoughts

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Ontology(ies) that enables interoperability among members of an Operations Center and other warfighters.

Problems of Doctrinal Documents

• Little aid to computation• Developed independently in divergent and non-

principled ways• Low possibility of aggregation causing failures

of data integration initiatives• New approaches needed that can enable

computational discovery, retrieval, integration and processing of data

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Informatics for Doctrine

http://ncor.buffalo.edu/plan-ontology

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Doctrine for Informatics

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DoctrineOrganizationTrainingMaterielLeadershipPersonnelFacilities

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DOTMLPF

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Doctrine: the way we fight, e.g., emphasizing maneuver warfare combined air-ground campaigns.Organization: how we organize to fight; divisions, air wings, Marine-Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs), etc.Training: how we prepare to fight tactically; basic training to advanced individual training, various types of unit training, joint exercises, etc.Materiel: all the “stuff” necessary to equip our forces, that is, weapons, spares, etc. so they can operate effectively.Leadership and education: how we prepare our leaders to lead the fight from squad leader to 4-star general/admiral; professional development.Personnel: availability of qualified people for peacetime, wartime, and various contingency operationsFacilities: real property; installations and industrial facilities (e.g. government owned ammunition production facilities) that support our forces.

DOTMLPF

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Doctrine: the way we fightOrganization: how we organize to fightTraining: how we prepare to fightMateriel: all the “stuff” necessaryLeadership and education: how we prepare our leaders to lead the fight Personnel: availability of qualified peopleFacilities: real property; installations and industrial facilities

How can DOTMLPF be applied to military informatics?

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Doctrine: how does software contribute to the way we fightOrganization: how are informatics personnel organized in relation to military units? Training: how are informatics personnel trained? Materiel: all the “stuff” necessary to equip our forces, that is, weapons, spares, etc. so they can operate effectively.Leadership and education: how we prepare our leaders to lead the fight from squad leader to 4-star general/admiral; professional development.Personnel: availability of qualified people for peacetime, wartime, and various contingency operationsFacilities: real property; installations and industrial facilities (e.g. government owned ammunition production facilities) that support our forces.

Ideas towards Joint Doctrine for Military Informatics

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Joint Doctrine contains the controlled vocabulary, lexicon, and nomenclature for

• Equipment (Vehicles, Weapons, Target Roles, etc...)• Events (Operations, Planning Events, Targeting

Events, Intelligence Events – e.g. Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace –, etc.

• Military Units/Organizations

What is needed is an analogous type of standardization for Information Artifacts (Reports, Assessments, Estimates, Target Lists, Matrices, Templates, Images, Maps, etc.)

DoD Instruction 8320.02, August 5, 2013 Sharing Data, Information, and Information Technology (IT) Services in the Department of Defense

• requires that ‘all salient metadata be discoverable, searchable, and retrievable’ through use of the DSE

• Even if all authoritative sources are registered at DSE, it does not achieve its goal because– Heterogeneous definitions and descriptions– No benefits of inferencing and of rapid introduction

and definition of new terms• IAO will go some way to solving these problems

through semantic tagging 16