This text reviews the fundamental theory and latest methods for including contextual information in fusion process design and implementation. Chapters are contributed by the foremost international experts, spanning numerous developments and applications. The book highlights high- and low-level information fusion problems, performance evaluation under highly demanding conditions, and design principles. A particular focus is placed on approaches that integrate research from different communities, emphasizing the benefit of combining different techniques to overcome the limitations of a single perspective. Features: introduces the terminology and core elements in information fusion and context; presents key themes for context-enhanced information fusion; discusses design issues in developing context-aware fusion systems; provides mathematical grounds for modeling the contextual influences in representative fusion problems; describes the fusion of hard and soft data; reviews a diverse range of applications.

This book presents a contemporary view of the role of information quality in information fusion and decision making, and provides a formal foundation and the implementation strategies required for dealing with insufficient information quality in building fusion systems for decision making. Information fusion is the process of gathering, processing, and combining large amounts of information from multiple and diverse sources, including physical sensors to human intelligence reports and social media. That data and information may be unreliable, of low fidelity, insufficient resolution, contradictory, fake and/or redundant. Sources may provide unverified reports obtained from other sources resulting in correlations and biases. The success of the fusion processing depends on how well knowledge produced by the processing chain represents reality, which in turn depends on how adequate data are, how good and adequate are the models used, and how accurate, appropriate or applicable prior and contextual knowledge is. By offering contributions by leading experts, this book provides an unparalleled understanding of the problem of information quality in information fusion and decision-making for researchers and professionals in the field.

The sheer quantity of widely diverse data which now results from multiple sources presents a problem for decision-makers and analysts, who are finding it impossible to cope with the ever-increasing flow of material. This has potentially serious consequences for the quality of decisions and operational processes in areas such as counterterrorism and security. This book presents the papers delivered at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) 'Meeting Security Challenges through Data Analytics and Decision Support’, held in Aghveran, Armenia, in June 2015. The aim of the conference was to promote and enhance cooperation and dialogue between NATO and Partner countries on the subject of effective decision support for security applications. The attendance of many leading scientists from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines provided the opportunity to improve mutual understanding, as well as cognizance of the specific requirements and issues of Cyber Physical Social Systems (CPPS) and the technical advances pertinent to all collaborative human-centric information support systems in a variety of applications. The book is divided into 3 sections: counter terrorism: methodology and applications; maritime and border security; and cyber security, and will be of interest to all those involved in decision-making processes based on the analysis of big data.

Military organizations around the world are normally huge producers and consumers of data. Accordingly, they stand to gain from the many benefits associated with data analytics. However, for leaders in defense organizations—either government or industry—accessible use cases are not always available. This book presents a diverse collection of cases that explore the realm of possibilities in military data analytics. These use cases explore such topics as: Context for maritime situation awareness Data analytics for electric power and energy applications Environmental data analytics in military operations Data analytics and training effectiveness evaluation Harnessing single board computers for military data analytics Analytics for military training in virtual reality environments A chapter on using single board computers explores their application in a variety of domains, including wireless sensor networks, unmanned vehicles, and cluster computing. The investigation into a process for extracting and codifying expert knowledge provides a practical and useful model for soldiers that can support diagnostics, decision making, analysis of alternatives, and myriad other analytical processes. Data analytics is seen as having a role in military learning, and a chapter in the book describes the ongoing work with the United States Army Research Laboratory to apply data analytics techniques to the design of courses, evaluation of individual and group performances, and the ability to tailor the learning experience to achieve optimal learning outcomes in a minimum amount of time. Another chapter discusses how virtual reality and analytics are transforming training of military personnel. Virtual reality and analytics are also transforming monitoring, decision making, readiness, and operations. Military Applications of Data Analytics brings together a collection of technical and application-oriented use cases. It enables decision makers and technologists to make connections between data analytics and such fields as virtual reality and cognitive science that are driving military organizations around the world forward.

The book emphasizes a contemporary view on the role of higher level fusion in designing crisis management systems, and provide the formal foundations, architecture and implementation strategies required for building dynamic current and future situational pictures, challenges of, and the state of the art computational approaches to designing such processes. This book integrates recent advances in decision theory with those in fusion methodology to define an end-to-end framework for decision support in crisis management. The text discusses modern fusion and decision support methods for dealing with heterogeneous and often unreliable, low fidelity, contradictory, and redundant data and information, as well as rare, unknown, unconventional or even unimaginable critical situations. Also the book examines the role of context in situation management, cognitive aspects of decision making and situation management, approaches to domain representation, visualization, as well as the role and exploitation of the social media. The editors include examples and case studies from the field of disaster management.

The Handbook of Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems establishes an authoritative reference of DDDAS, pioneered by Dr. Darema and the co-authors for researchers and practitioners developing DDDAS technologies. Beginning with general concepts and history of the paradigm, the text provides 32 chapters by leading experts in ten application areas to enable an accurate understanding, analysis, and control of complex systems; be they natural, engineered, or societal: The authors explain how DDDAS unifies the computational and instrumentation aspects of an application system, extends the notion of Smart Computing to span from the high-end to the real-time data acquisition and control, and manages Big Data exploitation with high-dimensional model coordination. The Dynamically Data Driven Applications Systems (DDDAS) paradigm inspired research regarding the prediction of severe storms. Specifically, the DDDAS concept allows atmospheric observing systems, computer forecast models, and cyberinfrastructure to dynamically configure themselves in optimal ways in direct response to current or anticipated weather conditions. In so doing, all resources are used in an optimal manner to maximize the quality and timeliness of information they provide. Kelvin Droegemeier, Regents’ Professor of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma; former Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy We may well be entering the golden age of data science, as society in general has come to appreciate the possibilities for organizational strategies that harness massive streams of data. The challenges and opportunities are even greater when the data or the underlying system are dynamic - and DDDAS is the time-tested paradigm for realizing this potential. Sangtae Kim, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University

Many current AI and machine learning algorithms and data and information fusion processes attempt in software to estimate situations in our complex world of nested feedback loops. Such algorithms and processes must gracefully and efficiently adapt to technical challenges such as data quality induced by these loops, and interdependencies that vary in complexity, space, and time. To realize effective and efficient designs of computational systems, a Systems Engineering perspective may provide a framework for identifying the interrelationships and patterns of change between components rather than static snapshots. We must study cascading interdependencies through this perspective to understand their behavior and to successfully adopt complex system-of-systems in society. This book derives in part from the presentations given at the AAAI 2021 Spring Symposium session on Leveraging Systems Engineering to Realize Synergistic AI / Machine Learning Capabilities. Its 16 chapters offer an emphasis on pragmatic aspects and address topics in systems engineering; AI, machine learning, and reasoning; data and information fusion; intelligent systems; autonomous systems; interdependence and teamwork; human-computer interaction; trust; and resilience.