SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS METHODS IN INTELLIGENCE
Speakers: Emily Keefe and Rhys Williams
Date:  Thursday 11th May 2006 at 14:30

• The programme for the afternoon is a presentation followed by a Q&A discussion period.

JOINT MEETING OF SORG & DEFENCE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP
Theme - "New Directions in Defence OR at Dstl"
Date: 8th February 2006, 12.30 - 17.00

• Please note that those wishing to attend need to inform Jan Hutchings on 01252 45 6595, jhutchings@dstl.gov.uk, giving the following details: First and last names, Nationality, Who they work for / are affiliated or study with Contact telephone number, so they can be entered onto the Dstl visitors booking system

METAMODELLING
Wednesday 19th October 2005, at 14:30
Whittle lecture theatre, A4 building, Qinetiq, Farnborough
Speakers :
Ken McNaught , RMCS, The Defence Academy, Shrivenham - Developing A Metamodel of a Combat Simulation using techniques based on fitting inputs to outputs.
Prof James Moffat , Dstl, Farnborough - An Alternative Theory based approach to Metamodelling

The Twenty second International Symposium on
MILITARY OPERATIONAL RESEARCH (22 ISMOR)
tuesday 30th August – Friday 2nd September 2005
Norton Manor, Sutton Scotney, Hampshire, UK 

• Announcement and Call for Papers
  ISMOR is an annual conference held in the UK. This year we are seeking papers on recent advances in all aspects of military operational research, both theoretical and practical.

• The Tenth Annual Meeting of the Cornwallis Group will be held at the Royal Military College (RMC), Kingston, Ontario, Canada with the continued involvement of the Canadian Pearson Peacekeeping Centre (PPC). This call for papers invites the submission of abstracts of papers to the Program Committee on the general topic of Analysis for New and Emerging Conflicts with concentration on understanding the nature of those challenges, fostering and measuring the effectiveness of interagency coordination, and the role of integrated civil-military responses to those challenges.
• The meeting will also involve the Canadian Department of National Defense, which is particularly interested in measures of effectiveness for civil-military cooperation in the broadest sense, and will sponsor a small number of papers presenting, reviewing, or comparing analytical tools that might be used to assess effectiveness of stabilisation operations, peace support, and CIMIC, including but not limited to: Econometrics, input/output analysis; Sampling, surveying, questionnaires, and opinion polls; Course-of-action selection models; Technological solutions or aids for measuring effectiveness; Modeling and simulation to assist in planning and measuring effectiveness; Review of implications and deductions for measuring effectiveness of CIMIC, or the operational objectives to which it contributes.

OPERATIONAL RESEARCH IN SUPPORT OF FRONT LINE COMMANDERS
Thursday 18th November 2004 at 10:00
Whittle Lecture Theatre, Farnborough, Hampshire.

• On the morning of 18th November 2004, a large audience of fifty five people attended the Defence Study Group open meeting at Dstl Farnborough to see Operational Research return to its roots. Two presentations were given relating to the application of Operational Research in supporting high level operational commanders in the field. The focus of the talks was recent support to the operations in Iraq. The first talk focused on Air Operations (presentation available) , and the second on Land Operations (presentation available).

The 21st International Symposium on Military Operational Research (21 ISMOR)
NORTON MANOR, Sutton Scotney, Hampshire, UK
31 August – 3 September 2004

• ISMOR is an annual conference held in the UK. This year we are seeking papers on recent advances in all aspects of military operational research, both theoretical and practical. However, we propose to focus especially on two themes:
  Interacting with the Decision Maker
  Use and abuse of simple models
• Papers on the first of these themes will be followed by parallel syndicate sessions and report back to the plenary session.

The Role of OA in Experimentation
Thursday 10th June 2004 at 14:15

• A meeting to explore the relationship between Operational Analysis and experimentation, with an opportunity to visit the BAE SYSTEMS Battlespace Management Evaluation Centre. The programme for the afternoon was:
• 14:15 Welcome and Introductions Noel Corrigan
• 14:30 MoD requirement for analysis and experimentation David Ferbrache; D Analysis Experimentation & Simulation The presentation can be viewed here
• 15:00 Satisfying the requirement George Pickburn; Dstl. The presentation can be viewed here
• 15:30 Delivering evidenced options through experimentation and analysis Paul Blackford; NITEworks The presentation can be viewed here
• 16:00 Visit to the BME Centre in Brennan House

20th International Symposium on Military Operational Research (20 ISMOR 2003)
Monday 25 August- FRIDAY 29 AUGUST

• ISMOR is an annual conference held in the UK. We propose to focus especially on two themes:
  • Data for studies and best practice in its acquisition/application
  • Measures of effectiveness for new and emerging areas of operations (eg information dominance and operations other than war (OOTW))
• Since this is the 20th anniversary of ISMOR we are also including a session reviewing the development of OR since ISMOR's inception, with invited speakers identifying papers presented at previous ISMORs, which are now recognised as important landmarks.
• Outline Programme
  • Tuesday Data for studies and best practice
    Introduced by a specially commissioned paper
  • Wednesday General papers
  • Thursday Measures of effectiveness for new and emerging areas.
    General papers by new OR scientists
  • Friday am: 20th anniversary of ISMOR session
    The development of OR since its inception
• Poster Session - Following last year's successful launch, there will again be a poster session in order to broaden participation in ISMOR, particularly by analysts in the early years of their careers, and to provide further networking opportunities for delegates.
• The symposium will again be held at Eynsham Hall near Oxford. Eynsham Hall is a large country house set in a landscaped park with a fine formal garden. We shall have exclusive use of the main house, comprising the conference room, dining rooms, syndicate rooms, bar and lounges. All accommodation is en-suite with telephones and TV and there is a gym, indoor swimming pool, fitness suite and squash court. A limited number of double rooms are available.

• A joint meeting providing an opportunity to share best practice in, and multiple perspectives on, the application of High Level Architecture to simulation projects. The High Level Architecture has been with us now for several years. This distributed simulation standard and technology has been used in many different ways to create federations of interoperable federates that are used in many areas of defence. Various opinions on the usability of this technology exist, particularly with respect to the use of the DMSO RTI. What is currently emerging from this are various patterns of use, best practice strategies that facilitate the use of the High-Level Architecture's elements (the Object Model Template and the Runtime Infrastructure). This joint meeting between the Defence Study Group and the Simulation Study Group represents the opportunity to discuss contemporary best practice issues from the perspective of different applications, and will be of interest to both experts and novices in the field. Currently we have four speakers lined up to provide defence and non-defence perspectives in the morning session, with discussion and debate following on after lunch. The aim of this session will be to distill and capture the current perceived best practice. Lunch and refreshments will be provided

Military Requirements - the role of OA in their identification and fulfillment
Terry Hooper (Dstl PCS), Ron Smith, (BAE SYSTEMS)
Tuesday 29th April 2003 at 14:00 for 14:30, Whittle Lecture Theatre, Farnborough

• Much emphasis is placed on the role of OA in the MoD procurement process, from the identification of capability gaps and mission needs through the generation of user requirements to the definition of the system requirement and beyond. To discuss aspects of this process, this session will be a two handed presentation giving different (MoD and Industry) personal perspectives on the role of OA in specifying and fulfilling requirement

• There is an increasing use of MCDA techniques for complex decisions. Potential problems arise when experts create models which are later to be used by non-expert decision makers.
• This subject was first raised by Graham in article in Insight April 2001. In February 2002 there was a workshop attended by a wide spectrum of analysts, facilitators and user managers.
• We will present the results of these new thoughts, explain the pitfalls and suggest some of the "remedies".

Observations on the value of OA in Design
Ron Smith (BAE SYSTEMS),
Wednesday 6th November 2002

• Much emphasis is placed on the role of OA in the MoD procurement process, and OA also has a significant role in technical research, and design. Ron Smith will provide a personal view based on his experiences as a customer for such OA, and how it has been of use (or not!) on a wide range of projects.
• Ron Smith has extensive experience in this area, having worked for many years at Westland helicopters, ending as the Head of Future Projects. He then moved to BAe (latterly BAE SYSTEMS) where he has played a key role in a number of air, land (and maritime) projects. This has given Ron a broad perspective on the application and influence of OA in support of conceptual design.

The Defence Study Group is the co-sponsor of the
Nineteenth International Symposium on Military Operational Research
27 August - 30 August 2002

This is a jointly promoted seminar by "Process of OR" and "Defence" subgroups
RIGOUR - The story so far
Graham Mathieson, DSTL, Colin Simmons , Krysalis Ltd

• There is an increasing use of MCDA techniques for complex decisions. Potential problems arise when experts create models which are later to used by non-expert decision makers.
• This subject was first raised by Graham in article in Insight April 2001.
• In February 2002 there was a workshop attended by a wide spectrum of analysts, facilitators and user managers.
• We will present the results of these new thoughts, explain the pitfalls and suggest some of the "remedies".

• On Tuesday 19 February 2002, an open workshop on the modelling of Operations Other than War/Peacekeeping Operations was held at Dstl Farnborough by the Defence Study Group. This was attended by about 60 people from across the industry and government spectrum.
• A presentation was given by Peter Bailey of Dstl on the new simulation model DIAMOND, which is a campaign level Command and Control led agent simulation model of peacekeeping operations. The presentation can be viewed here
• This was followed by a presentation from Steve Curram, HVR-CSL, on the representation of plausible behaviour in the modelling of peacekeeping operations. The presentation can be viewed here
• Following the presentations, there was a lively discussion. During the discussion, Dr Uwe Dompke (who was attending from the NATO Command Control and Consultation Agency (NC3A) in the Hague) described the new model developments underway at NC3A.

• Prof. Smith will talk on Bayesian decision making, how it is captured by the mathematics of catastrophe surface, and the evolution of these ideas into the context of game theory. The work is highly relevant to current research on the representation of military command and control processes. This is a joint meeting of the Defence Study Group and the Dstl Analytical development team

To be preceded by the AGM including the election of officers
Simple what-if analysis using meta-models
John Walton,
Wednesday 9th May, 2001

• A brief history of meta modelling, with a detailed case study.

Workshop on OA techniques for the future (download the report)
22nd September 2001, The Whittle Lecture Theatre, Farnborough

• The DSG is organising a workshop on potential analysis techniques for the future and their use in defence applications. This workshop follows on from two earlier successful meetings of the Group ("Innovation in OA modelling" and "Two faces of soft OR and its application to defence OA"). Attendance at the workshop is by invitation only. However, the morning will be devoted to a series of briefings to position the workshop.
• Speakers include: Dr Gwyn Prins, Dr Peter Bennet, Prof. John Mingers, Dr Steve Cropper, Mr John Hough and Mr Jeremy Clutterbuck