Digital Commons Network^™

Methodology For Integrating The Scenario Databases Of Simulation Systems, Emilia M. Colonese

Theses and Dissertations

The use of many different simulation systems by the United States Department of Defense has resulted in many different scenario data representations contained in heterogeneous databases. These heterogeneous databases all represent the same data concept, but have different semantics due to intrinsic variations among the data models. In this research, I describe a unified scenario database to allow interoperability and reuse of the scenario data components while avoiding the problems of data redundancy. Using the object oriented approach, the data and schema of the scenario databases, represented in an object oriented model, are integrated into a global database also represented …

Proceedings Of The 1999 Onr Decision-Support Workshop Series: A Decision-Making Tools Workshop, Collaborative Agent Design Research Center

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The rationale of the Workshop rests on some very simple observations. It is well known that every situation encountered by individuals and organizations demands an appropriate response. The choice of such a response from among a multitude of options is the decision-making process. Simple situations that give rise to a small number of options allow the decision maker to decide on a course of action without great effort. This state of affairs changes dramatically when the situations are complex and involve a large number of factors. In this case, an extensive field of options is engendered that makes it impossible …

A Modeling And Simulation Approach To Analyze The Workload Associated With The Growth Of Network Router Access Control Lists, Douglas R. Lomsdalen

Theses and Dissertations

Organizations can no longer isolate their networks from the rest of the world and still remain competitive. An organization willing to compete in the world market must take the necessary precautions to protect its network, the systems located on those networks, and its mission critical data. There are performance issues associated with the use of access control lists (ACL); however, if ACLs are implemented properly and periodically reviewed, a secure network can be attained. This research attempts to determine how the growth of an ACL affects packet flow and router CPU consumption, and also identify the specific length of an …

A Constructive Induction Approach To Computer Immunology, Kelley J. Cardinale, Hugh M. O'Donnell

Theses and Dissertations

With the increasing birth rate of new viruses and the rise in interconnectivity and interoperability among computers, the burden of detecting and destroying computer viruses is severe. This research integrated four domains: computer virus detection, human immunology, computer immunology and an automated form of machine learning called constructive induction. First, a Computer Health System, based on the public health system, was defined to improve the 'global' approach to computer virus protection. Second, a computer immune model, based on the human immune system, was defined to improve the 'local' approach to virus detection. Third, the detection component of this computer immune …

Analysis Of Usaf Battlelabs' Communication Infrastructure Over Various Protocols, Rocky A. Favorito, David M. Mcillece

Theses and Dissertations

As a result of the doctrines exposed in the Air Force's "Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force," the concept of a "Battlelab" was devised to support and develop the key warfighting capabilities needed in the next century. Although geographically separated, these labs must have the capability to exchange information with each other in a "Virtual Battlelab Environment" (VBE). Although many types of data will be exchanged, only variable-bit-rate (VBR) video and distributed interactive simulation (DIS) traffic are modeled in the VBE. The research described in this thesis utilizes a systems engineering approach to investigate the performance …

Using Webhla To Integrate Hpc Fms Modules With Web/Commodity Based Distributed Object Technologies Of Corba, Java, Com And Xml, Geoffrey C. Fox, Wojtek Furmanski, Ganesh Krishnamurthy, Hasan T. Ozdemir, Zeynep Odcikin-Ozdemir, Tom A. Pulikal, Krishnan Rangarajan, Ankur Sood

Northeast Parallel Architecture Center

HLA standards for interoperability between various DoD Modeling and Simulation paradigms are being enforced in parallel with the rapid onset of new Object Web / Commodity standards for distributed objects and componentware, emergent at the crossroads of CORBA, COM, Java, and XML technologies. WebHLA explores synergies between and integrates both trends by offering Object Web based implementation of the HLA framework. Our goal is to deliver a uniform platform that facilitates conversion of legacy codes to and development of new codes in compliance with HLA, HPC and Object Web standards. We outline here the overall design of WebHLA, we summarize …

A Resource Allocation Mechanism Based On Cost Function Synthesis In Complex Systems, Carlos C. Amaro

Dissertations

While the management of resources in computer systems can greatly impact the usefulness and integrity of the system, finding an optimal solution to the management problem is unfortunately NP hard. Adding to the complexity, today's 'modern' systems - such as in multimedia, medical, and military systems - may be, and often are, comprised of interacting real and non-real-time components. In addition, these systems can be driven by a host of non-functional objectives – often differing not only in nature, importance, and form, but also in dimensional units and range, and themselves interacting in complex ways. We refer to systems exhibiting …

Collaborative Decision Support Systems For Facility Management, Arthur J. Chapman, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Agent-based collaborative decision support is a methodology of utilizing domain specific intelligent systems, interacting in a common environment, to partner with one or more human decision makers to reach a consensus solution to a complex problem. An example is the recently developed Collaborative Infrastructure Assessment Tool (CIAT) that provides a collaborative planning facility management tool in support of military pier and port management. This methodology is applicable to many similar dynamic facility management problems where the complexity of issues and the number of decision makers result in the need for domain specific agents, a common view of the data, and …

Trends. Injustice Through Justice Within The Ins And The Fbi: Fertile Territory For Information, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the quest for justice, in which policymakers, legislators, and those who seek to influence them sometimes seek to effect mandatory sequences of adjudicative procedure upon allegations of misbehavior.

Integrating Security Into The Curriculum, Cynthia E. Irvine, Shiu-Kai Chin, Deborah Frincke

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

The number of skilled practitioners of computer security who are able to address the complexities of modern technology and are familiar with successful approaches to system security is very small. People want security but are faced with two difficulties. First, they do not know how to achieve it in the context of their enterprises. They may not even know of a way to translate organizational procedures into policies, much less implement a set of mechanisms to enforce those policies. Second, they have no way of knowing whether their chosen mechanisms are effective. The recent US Presidential Commission on Critical Infrastructure …

Aegis Data Analysis And Reduction (Adar) In Support Of The Aegis Weapon System (Aws), June Bullard Gaines

Theses and Dissertations

The AEGIS Weapons System (AWS), part of the AEGIS Combat System (ACS), is an integral part of the defense system on U.S. Navy AEGIS-class ships. AEGIS Data Analysis and Reduction (ADAR) has been developed to assist in the evaluation of the AWS data. ADAR, along with the AWS and ACS, has evolved through the years to accommodate advances in technology and computer programming languages. Additionally, ADAR has evolved so that users located at sites other than the Naval Surface Warfare System Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), Dahlgren, Virginia, can reduce tactical system data and perform data analysis using the reduced data.

This …

A Representational Approach To Knowledge And Multiple Skill Levels For Broad Classes Of Computer Generated Forces, Larry J. Hutson

Theses and Dissertations

Current computer generated forces (CGFs) in the 'synthetic battlespace', a training arena used by the military, exhibit several deficiencies. Human actors within the battlespace rapidly identify these CGFs and defeat them using unrealistic and potentially fatal tactics, reducing the overall effectiveness of this training arena. Simulators attached to the synthetic battlespace host local threat systems, leading to training inconsistencies when different simulators display the same threat at different levels of fidelity. Finally, current CGFs are engineered 'from the ground up', often without exploiting commonalities with other existing CGFs, increasing development (and ultimately training) costs. This thesis addresses these issues by …

A Modeling And Simulation Approach To Characterize Network Layer Internet Survivability, Leif S. King

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force Core Competency of Information Superiority will be achieved in an age of decreasing AF manpower and corporate expertise. Increased AF reliance on COTS solutions, coupled with nearly ubiquitous points of entry to communication networks, create unique challenges in maintaining the Information Superiority edge. The protection of the internet is part of this equation. The internet supports the daily business traffic of the Air Force. Personnel, finance, and supply data flow through its routers. Controlling an adversary's access to our information systems, either the data, or the hardware and software that control the data and transform it into …

Human-Computer Partnership In Decision-Support Systems: Some Design Guidelines, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The design of useful human-computer collaborative decision-support systems requires some understanding of the behavioral and organizational characteristics of human problem solving practices. This paper identifies the principal areas in which computer-based decision making assistance is particularly attractive and critically examines several human problem solving traits that may not be appropriate for direct emulation in the computer-assisted environment. In particular, the author examines the manner in which emotions and hierarchical leadership structures could unnecessarily inhibit the realization of the full potential of a human-computer partnership. Finally, a number of guiding principles are proposed for the design of computer-based decision-support systems.

Computer Vulnerability Analysis: Thesis Proposal, Ivan Krsul

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

A Toolset For The Reengineering Of Complex Computer Systems, Franz J. Kurfess, Mrinalini Lankala, Ashok Vantipalli, Lonnie R. Welch

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This paper describes a set of tools for the reengineering of computer-based systems, in particular software. The toolset is based on an abstract intermediate representation (IR) which incorporates the system software architecture at five level of granularity: program level, task level, package/object instance level, subprogram level and statement level. The toolset provides a graphical user interface that allows various views of a software architecture, including call graph, rendezvous graph, call-rendezvous graph, call-data-rendezvous graph, control flow graph and dependence graphs. The information captured by the toolset is useful in software structure, flow and interaction analysis, tasks commonly performed manually during maintenance …

Just Which Reality Do You Mean? Users' Experiences Of Virtual Spaces, Woodrow Heath Pollack

Senior Scholar Papers

Virtual Reality is a relatively new technology in the relatively young field of computer science. The design of Virtual Reality has only recently come into discussion, as well as the implications for this sort of design. I hope to determine how a user can work most efficiently and accurately in a Virtual World. By studying this, I hope to help in the standardization of Virtual Reality design.

Evolutionary Computation Applied To Adaptive Information Filtering, Daniel R. Tauritz, Ida G. Sprinkhuizen-Kuyper, Joost N. Kok

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Information Filtering is concerned with filtering data streams in such a way as to leave only pertinent data (information) to be perused. When the data streams are produced in a changing environment the filtering has to adapt too in order to remain effective. Adaptive Information Filtering is concerned with filtering in changing environments. The changes may occur both on the transmission side (the nature of the streams can change), and on the reception side (the interest of a user can change). Weighted trigram analysis is a quick and flexible technique for describing the contents of a document. A novel application …

Reverse Engineering Of Computer-Based Navy Systems, Lonnie R. Welch, Guohui Yu, Binoy Ravindran, Franz J. Kurfess, Jorge Henriques, Mark Wilson, Antonio L. Samuel, Michael W. Masters

Computer Science and Software Engineering

The financial pressure to meet the need for change in computer-based systems through evolution rather than through revolution has spawned the discipline of reengineering. One driving factor of reengineering is that it is increasingly becoming the case that enhanced requirements placed on computer-based systems are overstressing the processing resources of the systems. Thus, the distribution of processing load over highly parallel and distributed hardware architectures has become part of the reengineering process for computer-based Navy systems.

This paper presents an intermediate representation (IR) for capturing features of computer-based systems to enable reengineering for concurrency. A novel feature of the IR …

A Specialization Toolkit To Increase The Diversity Of Operating Systems, Calton Pu, Andrew P. Black, Crispin Cowan, Jonathan Walpole, Charles Consel

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Virus and worm attacks that exploit system implementation details can be countered with a diversified set of implementations. Furthermore, immune systems show that attacks from previously unknown organisms require effective dynamic response. In the Synthetix project, we have been developing a specialization toolkit to improve the performance of operating system kernels. The toolkit helps programmers generate and manage diverse specialized implementations of software modules. The Tempo-C specializer tool generates different versions for both compile-time and run-time specialization. We are now adapting the toolkit to improve operating system survivability against implementations attacks.

Collaborative Workspaces Within Distributed Virtual Environments, William D. Wells

Theses and Dissertations

In warfare, be it a training simulation or actual combat, a commander's time is one of the most valuable and fleeting resources of a military unit. Thus, it is natural for a unit to have a plethora of personnel to analyze and filter information to the decision-maker. This dynamic exchange of ideas between analyst and commander is currently not available within the distributed interactive simulation (DIS) community. This lack of exchange limits the usefulness of the DIS experience to the commander and his troops. This thesis addresses the commander's isolation problem through the integration of a collaborative workspace within AFIT's …

Requirements, Design, And Development Of A Rapidly Reconfigurable, Photo-Realistic, Virtual Cockpit Prototype, Terry A. Adams

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force uses aircraft flight simulators for pilot training and mission rehearsal. They use a variety of simulators for this task ranging with prices ranging from $400,000 to $30,000,000. These simulators have specialized hardware that restricts reuse of their components and increases maintenance costs. Air Education and Training Command wants to reduce simulators cost and improve availability to the operational commands by supporting research in virtual reality flight simulators. This thesis looks at the development of a reconfigurable virtual cockpit in a distributed virtual environment that can be used for different aircraft as well as training scenarios. …

A Specific Network Link And Path Likelihood Prediction Tool, Gary K. Moy

Theses and Dissertations

Communications have always been a crucial part of any military operation. As the pace of warfare and the technological complexity of weaponry have increased, so has the need for rapid information to assess battlefield conditions. Message passing across a network of communication nodes allowed commanders to communicate with their forces. It is clear that an accurate prediction of communication usage through a network will provide commanders with useful intelligence of friendly and unfriendly activities. Providing a specific network link and path likelihood prediction tool gives strategic military commanders additional intelligence information and enables them to manage their limited resources more …

Survivability Analysis Of The Iridium Low Earth Orbit Satellite Network, Douglas K. Stenger

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis evaluates the survivability of the proposed Iridium Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite Network. In addition to the complete Iridium constellation, three degraded Iridium constellations are analyzed. This analysis occurs via the use of simulation models, which are developed to use three dynamic routing algorithms over three loading levels. The Iridium network models use a common set of operating assumptions and system environments. The constellation survivability was determined by comparing packet rejection rates, hop' counts, and average end to end delay performance between the various network scenarios. It was concluded that, based on the established scenarios, the proposed Iridium …

Development Of A Standard Set Of Indicators And Metrics For Artificial Intelligence (Ai) And Expert System (Es) Software Development Efforts, Derek F. Cossey

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to identify a standard set of indicators and metrics that can be used by program managers to improve their abilities to direct development efforts involving Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Expert Systems (ES). This research addresses two objectives. The first objective is to identify an appropriate set of software indicators and metrics to be used by government program offices for the management of development efforts involving software systems for AI and ES. The second objective is to demonstrate how the resources of the National Software Data and Information Repository (NSDIR) can be used in order …

Identifying And Exploiting Concurrency In Object-Based Real-Time Systems, Guohui Yu

Dissertations

The use of object-based mechanisms, i.e., abstract data types (ADTs), for constructing software systems can help to decrease development costs, increase understandability and increase maintainability. However, execution efficiency may be sacrificed due to the large number of procedure calls, and due to contention for shared ADTs in concurrent systems. Such inefficiencies are a concern in real-time applications that have stringent timing requirements. To address these issues, the potentially inefficient procedure calls are turned into a source of concurrency via asynchronous procedure calls (ARPCs), and contention for shared ADTS is reduced via ADT cloning. A framework for concurrency analysis in object-based …

Artificially Intelligent Air Combat Simulation Agents, Daniel E. Gisselquist

Theses and Dissertations

The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), in an effort to improve military simulations, has proposed a standard for Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS). This network protocol will allow dissimilar applications to communicate simulation information. In the field of air combat, this will allow pilots in remote simulators to fly in a common simulation. The success of this standard is dependent on applications being able to work within that standard, as well as a large variety of Computer Generated Forces (CGFs) to complement interactive forces. CGFs are needed to help simulate the large combat scenarios that can only occur in wartime. By …

Analytic Performance Models For Parallel Discrete Event Battlefield Simulation With Conservative Synchronization, James B. Hiller

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the development and use of analytic models for performance analysis of parallel discrete event battlefield simulation using conservative synchronization. A simulation architecture with layered application, simulation, and host machine services provided the model development basis. Simulation entities were modeled with set-theoretic definitions. Deterministic performance models using these definitions were developed for event prediction, scheduling, and execution in sequential battlefield simulation. The sequential model was expanded to include relative bounds for overhead factors introduced when the simulation is spatially decomposed for a parallel distributed memory machine. Comparison of sequential and parallel models instantiated for a simulation with uniform …

Survey And Implementation Of Commercial Manual Controllers For A Generic Telerobotics Architecture, Thomas E. Deeter

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine an input device for the Air Force's generic telerobotics architecture for large aircraft maintenance and repair. One area of concern is the human to machine interface, more specifically, which manual controller should be used for the specified tasks in this architecture. We mailed a survey to 68 companies in order to compile a list of possible input devices that the telerobotics architecture could use. 32 companies responded which gave me enough data to generate a list that described the physical traits of the input devices. We then divided the required tasks into …

Improving Intrusion Detection In Unix-Based Networks, David R. Landry

Theses and Dissertations

Computer security has not kept pace with the rapid growth of networked systems. Through its connection to the Internet, the Department of Defense is vulnerable to computer-based attacks. Current intrusion detection systems are still unproven, too complicated, or too costly for most system security officers to implement. The attack methods used by system intruders are known and can be represented as groups of commands called attack signatures. This thesis investigates methods for detecting intruders by monitoring command usage. Testing was conducted in both controlled and uncontrolled circumstances. With controlled testing, it was shown that 7 of the 11 signatures could …