 Conference Program
September 15, 2008
08:00-08:50 Registration / Continental Breakfast
08:50-09:00 Welcome, V.S. Subrahmanian
09:00-10:00 Keynote Address - John Salerno, US
Air Force Research Lab:
“Social Modeling: It’s About Time”
10:00-10:30 Corey
Lofdahl, BAE Systems: “Synthesizing Information
for Senior Policy Makers
using Simulation:
Working an EBO problem with system dynamics”
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-11:30 Aaron
Mannes, Mary Michael, Amy Pate, Amy Sliva, V.S. Subrahmanian, and
Jonathan Wilkenfeld:
“Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents: A Case Study
with Hamas”
11:30-12:00 Rebecca
Grier, Bruce Skarin, Alexander Lubyansky,
and Lawrence Wolpert:
“SCIPR: A Computational Model to Simulate Cultural Identities for
Predicting
Reactions to
Events”
12:00-12:30 Myriam Abramson, US Naval Research Lab: ”Coalition Formation of Cognitive
Agents”
12:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 Invited
lecture - Roy Lindelauf,
Netherlands
National Defense
Academy:
“On the Optimal Distribution of Risk and
Information Exchange in Star Networks”
14:30-15:00 Nitin Agarwal, Huan
Liu, John Salerno, and Sanjay Sundarajan:
“Understanding
Group Interaction
in Blogosphere: A Case Study”
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
15:30-16:30 Invited
lecture - Dana Nau,
University
of Maryland
16:30-17:00 Ronald Yager:
“Adversarial Modeling Using Granular Computing”
17:00-17:30 Colleen
Phillips, John Crosscope, and Norman Geddes:
“Bayesian Modeling using
Belief Nets of
Perceived Threat Levels Affected by Strategemical
Behavior Patterns”
September
16, 2008
08:00-09:00 Continental
Breakfast
09:00-10:00 Keynote
lecture - Rohan Gunaratna,
Nanyang
Technical University:
“Radicalizing
the Next Wave: Al-Qaeda’s Spider Web”
10:00-10:30 Kurt
Rohloff and Victor Asal:
“The Identification of Sequential Patterns Preceding
the Occurrence of
Political Events of Interest”
10:30-11:00 John
Dickerson, Maria Vanina Martinez, Diego Reforgiato, and V.S. Subrahmanian:
“CIG: Cultural Island
and Games”
11:00-11:30 Shuyuan Mary Ho: “A Framework of Coordinated Defense”
11:30-12:00 Shade
Shutters and Bethany Cutts: “A Simulation Model
of Cultural Consensus
and Persistent
Conflict”
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:00 Invited
talk - Amy Sliva, University of Maryland:
“Predicting changes in terror
group behaviors”
14:00-14:30 Ryan
Carr, Eric Raboin, Austin Parker, and Dana Nau: ”When Innovation Matters:
An Analysis of
Innovation in a Social Learning Game”
14:30-15:00 David L. Sallach: “Culture, Networks and
Actors: Social Theory and Model Design”
15:00-15:30 Coffee Break
15:30-17:00 Panel Discussion: "Next Steps in Computational Cultural Modeling" with
Mark Hoffman, Lockheed Martin; Lucy Resnyanski, DSTO-Austrailia; Ron
Keesing, SAIC; and V.S. Subrahmanian, University of Maryland."
Keynote Speakers
- John Salerno, US Air Force Rome
Labs
- Roy Lindelauf, Netherlands National
Defense Academy
- Rohn Gunaratna,
Nanyang
Technological University (author of “Inside Al
Qaeda”)
- Amy Sliva, University of Maryland
- Dana Nau, University of Maryland
Talk Abstracts and Speaker Bios
“Social Modeling – It’s about
time” by John Salerno
“Winning the hearts and minds” of the people has
always been a key strategy of any military operation. But how successful have past military
endeavors been in achieving this strategy? Or, have they simply contained
people through a show of force? An
example that we quickly forget dates back to 1775 when there was a great
military force; well trained and believed to be invincible. But contrary to all beliefs they were
defeated. Not by a greater force but
by one with a greater will. There have
been many wars fought before that time, and many since, but to this day we
still do not fully understand this ever so powerful force. For it is people that we are at war, not
critical infrastructure, not resources or money, and yet we have done little
in the way of understanding what is important to people, their values and how
they interact with others. This
understanding is becoming even more crucial as we move from force on force
operations to asymmetric and from nation-state building to humanitarian
relief. In this talk I will attempt to
motivate the need for inclusion of research in what and how people think and
act in various situations, thus providing our nation with a strategy that is
militarily more economical (less casualties, no fratricide, less troop
deployments, etc.) and politically more viable (no wholesale destruction of
nations, rule of law, etc.)
Short Bio:
John Salerno has performed research as part of the Air Force Research
Laboratory (AFRL) for the past 29 years where he has been involved in many
diverse activities. His current
responsibilities include Problem Lead for HQ AFRL Focus Long Term Challenges
(FLTC), Predicting Adversary Behaviors and technical lead for two major
initiatives: the National Operational Environment Model (a holistic
regional/national level model) and the Continuous Predictive Battlespace (model of the adversary). Dr. Salerno began his career in AFRL’s Communications Division where he led a number of
research efforts in both voice and data communications networks. In 1989, he moved from the Communications
Division to the Intelligence and Exploitation Division. Since then he has been involved in research
in distributed heterogeneous data access architectures, web interfaces, and
in the further definition and implementation of information fusion to various
application areas. He has designed,
built and fielded a number of operational systems for the Intelligence
Community. John holds two US
patents and has over 50 publications.
He was awarded a PhD from Binghamton
University (Computer Science), a
MSEE from Syracuse University, BA’s (Mathematics and Physics) from
SUNY at Potsdam and an AAS (Mathematics) from Mohawk Valley Community College.
In 2005, Dr. Salerno became an AFRL Fellow.
“Radicalizing the Next Wave: al
Qaeda’s Spider Web” by Rohan Gunaratna
Al Qaeda
is a multinational organization with a global vision and a mission. In the
guise of fighting for the faith and the faithful, al Qaeda’s greatest
strength is in its ability and willingness to reach out to the global Muslim
community. The key strength of al-Qaeda has been the ability of its
leadership to understand both the importance of and the power of modern
communication. Although puritanical in its beliefs, to advance its aims
and objectives, al Qaeda uses the Internet, computers and other
modern tools much more effectively than governments.
After al
Qaeda retreated from Afghanistan
to tribal Pakistan
in early 2002, al-Qaeda has invested more in information operations rather
than kinetic operations. al Qaeda’s Information
Committee has become the most active of the key committees. After
relocated to tribal Pakistan
had the al Qaeda leadership not done so, Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri would have
been forgotten by the rest of the world. After its training and operational
infrastructure was dismantled in Afghanistan, al Qaeda remained
relevant only by periodically communicating to the outside world. The head of
al-Qaeda’s Information Committee, Muhammad Abaytah
alias Abd al-Rahman al-Maghrebi, is the son-in-law of Dr. Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al Qaeda. Born
and raised in Morocco, Abd al-Rahman left to study
software programming in the German city of Cologne in 1996. After qualifying as
a computer engineer, Abd al-Rahman left for Afghanistan
in 1999, where he trained at the al-Faruq camp near
Kandahar.
Despite being the
world’s most hunted terrorist group, al Qaeda is able to wage an
inter-generational fight because of its extensive use of modern communication
especially the Internet. After its training camps were dismantled in Afghanistan,
al Qaeda placed its ideological and operational content on the Internet.
As a force multiplier, the Internet has enabled al Qaeda to communicate
effectively to a cross section of society - the old and young, men and
women, educated and the illiterate, rich and poor. In addition to
facilitating communication with the group and its networks, the al Qaeda
spider web brings graphic scenes of battles, spectacular and bloody bombings,
periodic pronouncements and repetitive messaging,
including explicit threats are brought to life. This paper will discuss the
increasing use of the Internet by al Qaeda and propose measures to
contain its influence in the cyber domain.
Short Bio:
Rohan
Gunaratna is Head, International Centre for
Political Violence and Terrorism Research, Singapore
and Senior Fellow, Fletcher School of
Law and Diplomacy's Jebsen Centre for Counter-Terrorism
Studies, Boston.
He also holds several honorary appointments including as Senior Fellow,
National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, Oklahoma; Member
of the Advisory Council, Institute for Counter Terrorism, Israel; and Member,
Steering Committee, George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy
Institute.
He holds a Masters in International Peace Studies from the Joan B.
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame,
U.S., where he was Hesburgh Scholar and a doctorate
in International Relations from the University of St Andrews where he
worked under Professor Bruce Hoffman on a three year British Chevening Scholarship.
Gunaratna
is the author of 12 books including “Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of
Terror,” published by Columbia University Press, an international bestseller.
His latest book published in November 2006 entitled ‘Countering Terrorism:
Can We Meet the Threat of Global Violence?’ was co-authored with Michael
Chandler, former Chairman of the UN Taliban and Al-Qaeda Monitoring Group. He
also serves on the editorial boards of "Studies in Conflict and
Terrorism" and "Terrorism and Political Violence," the
leading counter-terrorism academic journals.
Gunaratna has over
25 years of academic, policy, and operational experience in counter
terrorism. He led the specialist team that designed and built the UN
database on the mobility, weapons and finance of Al Qaeda, Taliban and their
Entities. Invited to testify before the 9-11 Commission, he
debriefed detainees in Asia and the Middle East including in Iraq. A
litigation consultant to the United States Justice Department, he served
as the U.S.
expert in the Jose Padilla trial.
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