Lashon B. Booker

Cognitive Assistance in Government and Public Sector Applications

The Cognitive Assistance in Government and Public Sector symposium was held in Arlington, VA, USA, from November 12–14, 2015 as part of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Fall Symposium Series. The goal of this symposium was to present the state of cognitive assistance projects and to identify the opportunities and challenges of creating Cognitive Assistance (Cog) systems with an emphasis on the challenges and opportunities presented by Government and public sector applications. We hoped the outcome from the symposium could be used to scope a research agenda based on gaps in current capabilities.

Using Topic Analysis to Compute Identity Group Attributes

Preliminary experiments are described on modeling social group phenomena that appear to address limitations of social network analysis. Attributes that describe groups independently of any specific members are derived from publication data in a field of science. These attributes appear to explain observed phenomena of group effects on individual behavior without the need for the individual to have a network relationship to any member of the group. The implications of theseresults are discussed.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Advances in Genetic Algorithms - Research Trends and Perspectives

More than 20 years ago, John Holland published the bookAdaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems (Holland, 1975) describing a general framework for understanding the mechanisms responsible for adaptive change in a variety of systems over a broad range of timescales. Over the years, as Holland continued to develop his ideas and published other books and papers building on his basic framework, the influence of Holland’s ideas has steadily grown. Today, John Holland is regarded in many circles as a visionary whose insights address critical issues relevant to scientific inquiries in fields as diverse as economics, immunology, cognitive science, and ecology (Booker et al., 1999). His research has also provided much of the intellectual foundation for the new science of complexity (Holland 1995, 1998).

A brief review of the command forces (CFOR) program

The command forces (CFOR) program is implementing a new aspect of warfare simulation: explicit modeling of command and control. The program presents several aspects: a concept of operations where command and control nodes populate the battlespace in the same manner as weapons systems; an architecture where software simulation of command and control interacts with the battlefield through a set of common services; a software design for the services that forms an infrastructure that integrates with underlying semi-automated forces simulation; a mechanism that facilitates automated integration of real world C2 systems with simulations; and an implementation plan that integrates the efforts of multiple developers to produce a functioning multi-service command forces simulation. The CFOR program has passed through the concept and planning phases and is being implemented. Lessons learned from progress to date are presented along with a plan for further development and integration.