2011-2012 Assessment of the Army Research Laboratory (2013) / Chapter Skim
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2 Computational and Information Sciences Directorate and Network Science Enterprise
2 Computational and Information Sciences Directorate and Network Science Enterprise
Pages 18-43
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From page 18... ...
Separate sections are devoted to the Battlefield Environment Division and to the Computational Sciences Division, the remaining two divisions of CISD, which have considerably less involvement in the Network Science Enterprise. Discussions and recommendations on opportunities and challenges, and on the overall technical quality of the work, are presented in the respective sections, including the network science section.
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From page 19... ...
COMPUTATIONAL AND INFORMATION SCIENCES DIRECTORATE Changes Since the Previous Review During this period, a new director took the helm of CISD, and a new chief took the helm of the Computational Sciences Division. These leadership changes have benefited the respective organizations by injecting continuity and stability and have led to sharper focus of the research vision and activities.
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From page 20... ...
For Raman spectroscopy, current work provides a novel method for trapping individual particles using a new cylindrical (Bessel) beam-focusing geometry that provides a hollow optical ellipsoidal intensity chamber containing particles through photophoretic forces.
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From page 21... ...
To be successful, this work has to assimilate, in addition to traditional sources of weather data, a variety of atmospheric observations collected by disparate sensors on the battlefield, and it has to be able to identify and reject unreliable data. BED researchers are investigating ways to exploit satellite data that could provide models with soil-moisture measurements, which would be valuable for improving the accuracy of land-surface flux calculations and atmospheric boundary layer conditions.
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From page 22... ...
system has already demonstrated record power-combining at the multi-kilowatt level, including active servo control of the transmitter for some degree of atmospheric turbulence correction using element phase and beam tilt adjustment, with elaborate optimization of servo control to counter transit-timeinduced loop delays. The team's several hardware approaches demonstrated scalability, both in element power and number of elements, which has the potential to take the solution to weapons-level powers.
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From page 23... ...
This work provides a good example of how BED is identifying special Army needs, in this case stemming from boundary layer turbulence, that require hardware solutions that cannot simply be adopted from existing astronomy or high-altitude surveillance solutions. These turbulent imaging and beam transmission experiments, as well as the theoretical studies of image turbulence and hardware solutions (see the section "Turbulence Propagation Theory and Effects," above)
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From page 24... ...
Model development should proceed in parallel with a verification process, and the model should be designed to be easily upgraded as advances are made in the WRF model by the wider meteorological community. Some aspects of this work parallel efforts to adapt the WRF to modeling small-scale effects in the urban boundary layer; the CMD-P2 developers should carefully monitor these parallel efforts.
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From page 25... ...
Emerging and future advances in computational science will expand the applicability and utility of HPC to ARL and other Army research. Many of the ARL projects involve models of some form.
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From page 26... ...
CSD's research component has three major thrusts. Simulation science leverages existing CSD and ARL strengths along strategic areas of opportunity and impact including multiscale modeling (aligned with the computational materials science initiative)
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From page 27... ...
A journal publication based on this work is still in preparation; only conference papers have been published thus far. CSD's simulation of defects and dislocation dynamics project, which is part of the simulation science research thrust, focuses on computational simulation of defects and dislocations to enable the design of electronic materials of Army relevance.
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From page 28... ...
In general, repeating work is a suboptimal use of scarce resources. The division's real-time radio frequency propagation path loss project focuses on performing general purpose computing on graphics processing units to model path loss in radio frequency propagation, with a goal of modeling 5,000 devices in real time.
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From page 29... ...
NETWORK SCIENCE ENTERPRISE Introduction This section discusses the activities of the network science program in ARL and the Information Sciences Division and Network Sciences Division of CISD. The Network Science Enterprise is beginning to take shape.
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From page 30... ...
This is the vision of the Network Science Enterprise. The challenges of such combination are large.
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From page 31... ...
Missing from the research component of this work is a sufficient descriptive framework, for example, a theoretical mapping from thermal visual space to physical space, calibrated with experiments, and with an underlay of causal explanations. This framework might start with investigating the mapping of a library of facial elements (for example, noses and eyes)
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From page 32... ...
Because the concept of information transmission embedded in illumination systems is not new, the team should garner feedback from Army customers to evaluate system efficacy in one or more specific Army applications before advancing the basic research.
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From page 33... ...
The best examples presented tended to have their focus in a single genre or, in exceptional cases, a combination of two genres. As the network science enterprise develops and matures, it will be increasingly important to identify compelling
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From page 34... ...
Cross-Organizational Research One of the laudable goals of the Network Science Enterprise is to combine the diverse disciplinary strengths from multiple directorates -- in this case, CISD, HRED, and SEDD -- to tackle a large problem with potential significant impact. This has yet to happen on any significant scale in the research and technical activities of the enterprise.
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From page 35... ...
How to provide effective support for distributed decision making in such environments constitutes a unique niche for ARL research. In social-cognitive research more focus should be directed at understanding the variables that determine the right outcomes of effective decision making by untethered teams of soldiers.
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From page 36... ...
This effort has brought together theory, algorithms, and systems, and it has roots in several disciplines, including computer science, mathematics, statistics, and operations research. Machine learning, together with data mining, knowledge discovery, and social network analysis, which were until quite recently obscure branches of artificial intelligence and statistics, are now flourishing within the framework of "big data." The solutions are no longer static, and the data populating the databases are derived by and drive sophisticated analytic algorithms.
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From page 37... ...
The first criterion asks whether the scientific quality of the research is of comparable technical quality to that executed in leading federal, university, and/or industrial laboratories both nationally and internationally. The answer is generally affirmative for the network science program and for the two divisions in CISD that are intimately involved in the program, the Information Sciences Division and the Network Sciences Division.
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From page 38... ...
, that the ARL program should better understand and embrace. In areas such as "big data," including data mining and anomaly detection, machine learning has taken on a large, even dominant, role.
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From page 39... ...
COMMON THEMES The following two sections discuss common themes that cut across the Network Science Enterprise and CISD. Opportunities and Challenges Cloud Computing Research The investment in cloud computing research in CISD, and generally in ARL, appears small.
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From page 40... ...
It is essential for ARL to be equal partners in all dimensions of any research collaboration to extract full value. ARL Researchers' Interactions with the External Technical Community ARL management and staff members have already taken to heart prior ARLTAB recommendations for proactive engagement in the technical community, especially outside the Army and DoD.
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From page 41... ...
ARL should consider two models for extracting top value from the university collaborations, and these are not mutually exclusive. In the first model, ARL researchers are
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From page 42... ...
Another noteworthy case is the under-staffing of the Information Sciences Division (ISD)
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From page 43... ...
COMPUTATIONAL AND INFORMATION SCIENCES DIRECTORATE AND NETWORK SCIENCE ENTERPRISE 43 The CISD management and research teams continue to be responsive to ARLTAB's recommendations. CISD has made significant changes in strategies and research processes that alleviate problems on which the ARLTAB commented in the past.
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