Semantic and social networks comparison for the Haiti earthquake relief operations from APAN data sources using lexical link analysis (LLA)

Abstract

The Haiti earthquake relief effort in 2010 involved numerous civil and military organizations engaged in vigorous relief operations, exemplifying rapid deployment of logistics, transport, security and medical supplies. Yet, to determine the eeffectiveness of these operations, and to understand how these various organizations collaborated, and eventually how to improve the future overall effectiveness of these operations, requires sifting through large volumes of communications and determining a methodology so that analysts may understand how to gain understanding and analyze such data. We have been leveraging "Lexical link analysis" (LLA) as one means to achieve "System Self-awareness" (SSA), and develop this as a methodology to analyze large text-based data sets, such as the interagency collaborations and problem solving processes using documents obtained from traditional communication platforms as well as new social media. Last year, we reported using LLA to analyze open source data sources of the Haiti relief operations. This year, we will report on the analysis applied to the APAN (the All Partners Access Network) forum discussion data from the relief effort.