CASE STUDIES

A Net-Centric Data Strategy for the United States Air Force

MetaCORE Photo courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.

The Problem

The past few decades have been marked by accelerated change in the challenges faced by the United States military. From conventional military operations, to humanitarian relief, to fighting asymmetric adversaries, to training foreign fighters, the U.S. military has been required not only to expand and adapt its capabilities, but to do so in a manner that is flexible enough to incorporate future needs.

One key factor enabling this new approach is the DoD Net-Centric Strategy. This strategy is not simply about technology. It is an emerging operationalized theory which concerns the role of information products in winning conflicts and establishing security. Toward this end, network technology has brought together vast sources of previously unconnected information; but it has also presented new challenges in how to effectively use such an overwhelming volume of information. The traditional information process of “Task, Process, Exploit, and Disseminate“ has resulted in a large amount of information being provided to only a small number of people. In order to ensure that operators, as well as intelligence analysts, receive robust and timely information targeted to their specific needs, the Air Force has been migrating toward a “Task, Process, Post, and Use“ (TPPU) approach.

The adoption of a Publish/Subscribe Service Oriented Architecture has provided the necessary flexibility to incrementally add services for making this transition, but access and flexibility are only the first steps in utilizing information effectively. The next, and perhaps more important, step is to provide services that help stakeholders create, structure, filter, retrieve, and discover information quickly and intuitively.

The Solution

Aptima is developing MetaCORE (Metadata automated Categorization and Optimized Relevance Exploration), a highly automated approach to organizing and “making sense“ of large volumes of data. The concept of metadata has been an intuitive part of information system design since the dawn of published materials. For example, libraries use card catalogues to index by authors and subjects; individuals use file folders to group files related to projects and topics; and IT professionals use databases to provide structured repositories of enterprise information. A great deal of progress has been made on the front of standardizing metadata and developing enabling technologies, yet the challenge of creating and maintaining metadata has prevented the full realization of its role in the Net-Centric Data Strategy. MetaCORE will be a Service Oriented Application (SOA) that can automatically populate a repository with standardized metadata processed from new and legacy information products.

Background Research – Aptima partnered with Blue Force, a consulting services company with in-depth operational experience within the DoD, to identify the challenges and problems faced by Air Force data asset producers and consumers. This information is being used to develop a “challenge problem“ and “task flow“ from an open source data set that will be used to guide the solution development.

Automating Metadata Creation – Aptima has utilized the cutting edge technologies of Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA) and Probabilistic Support Vector Machines (PSVM) to automate the process of assigning metadata. This approach enables MetaCORE to quickly populate the fields of standardized metadata formats such as the Defense Discovery Metadata Specification (DDMS) for both new and legacy data assets.

Advanced Metadata Management – Aptima is developing tools to assist knowledge managers with the arduous task of maintaining metadata so that is up to date with the latest standards. These tools will also assist managers with converting entire legacy data assets to the most current format.

Metadata Powered Applications – There are already a number of search and navigation utilities that utilize metadata. Aptima will ensure compliance with these applications while seeking to develop additional capabilities that are powered by metadata, including faceted browsing, mapping, timeline, and automated information updates through feeds.

The Results

MetaCORE will make it possible to automatically provide different stakeholders with the means to create, structure, filter, retrieve, and discover the relevant and timely information required by the TPPU approach. It will provide the Air Force and other communities of interest with a powerful tool for meeting the Net-Centric data strategy by enabling users to quickly convert legacy data assets to the modern metadata information model. MetaCORE will also provide intuitive applications for populating new data assets and for quickly navigating, searching, and sharing mission-critical information.