Comparison of data development tools for populating cognitive models in social simulation

Download
Author
McKaughan, Daniel C.
Date
2011-09Advisor
Darken, Christian
Second Reader
Alt, Jonathan
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The United States is engaged in a new type of warfare. Defeating the enemy is now predicated on winning over local populations. To win these groups, commanders need to know what responses to expect for various operations in particular locations. Social simulations are a promising means of modeling these reactions, and there are several current methods used to populate these simulations with agents representative of a specific society. These methods, however, often require the input of subject matter experts and are costly in price and time. This thesis examines the simplification and automation of the agent instantiation process by conducting a usability study of two data development tools currently under consideration by the U.S. Army and TRAC-MTRY. The tools, a survey data case file generator developed at TRAC-MTRY and a text analysis tool (STANLEY) developed by Sandia National Laboratory, were examined in separate manners, and the results were encouraging. The survey tool was tested to validate in a practical manner its generated case files with respect to simulation output and real-world surveys. STANLEY was evaluated by scoring sentiment in a document corpus and attempting to correlate those scores to a real world issue. Results of the study indicate that the survey data tool generated case files of adequate quality to instantiate social simulations, potentially minimizing SME requirements and costs. Technical limitations precluded STANLEY from returning enough data for sufficient correlation comparison, although the results indicate the tool has potential.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Development of a suitable survey instrument to identify causes behind high turnover rates within the 0301 series in the Communications-Electronics Command
Orjih, Antonia U.; Fleuranges, Shamika M. (Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School, 2017-09);Our joint applied project produced a survey instrument to measure the perception of managers and provisioner subject-matter expert (SME) trainers in receiving cause-and-effect evidence for high turnover rates in the 0301 ... -
EVOLUTIONARY/INCREMENTAL ACQUISITION
Gress, Patrick M.; Kohtz, Shane A.; Noll, Christopher J. (Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School, 2018-06);The purpose of this project is to answer a Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Acquisition Research Program–sponsored thesis’ primary research question: How difficult is it to develop a successful incremental acquisition ... -
Recent trends in management gaming: a comparative survey of management gaming practices in American collegiate schools of business in 1962 and 1974.
Strauss, Lance Jay (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 1974-06);Through a survey of 89 collegiate schools of business, 197^ usage of management gaming in both undergraduate and graduate curriculums was determined and compared to the results of a similar survey of 107 schools of ...