With the launch of the RAHS system, RAHS Experimentation Centre (REC) was officially inaugurated on 16 October 2007 by Mr. Peter Ho Hak Ean (Head of Civil Service and Permanent Secretary for National Security & Intelligence Coordination) and Mr. Richard Lim Cherng Yih (Chief Executive of Defence Science & Technology Agency).

Funded by National Security Coordination Centre and managed by Defence Science & Technology Agency, REC is commissioned to develop and explore novel concepts and technologies that can enhance the capabilities of the RAHS system. REC provides a unique platform for case studies, experimentation and collaboration with local and overseas government agencies, academic institutions and private industries. In addition, the centre aims to be a vibrant nurturing ground for RAHS experts and practitioners to translate concepts and technologies into reality.

>> Areas of Interest

We are interested in any leading edge concepts or technologies that demonstrate immense potential for application in risk assessment and horizon scanning (link to RAHS overview page). If you have something to share, we want to hear from you!

Following is a list of a few of our interest areas:

There are generally two lines of definition for social computing. The primary one is about leveraging on social behavior to support computation (e.g. tag clouds, “customers who bought X also bought…” feature on Amazon); the secondary one is about making use of computation to support social interactions and information exchanges (e.g. blogs, wikis, instant messengers).

In this post-911 era, encouraging different agencies to share information and work together is of paramount importance. If inter-agency collaboration is well supported by technology, collective wisdom can be accrued for risk assessment and horizon scanning purposes.

Modeling and simulation is an imitation of life. Just like how Craig Reynolds demonstrated emergence and emergent behavior of birds flocking with his simulation program, Boids, back in 1986, REC believes that the future, if modeled, simulated and studied carefully, can be better prepared for, especially after the analysts are sensitized to the possible futures. Models, be it computational or not, also lend themselves as a valuable knowledge management tool as they capture the mental models, beliefs and assumptions of their makers.

Analysts have to plough through volumes of articles during their course of their work. Computational linguistics and computational semantics can play a part to help “understand” and “process” incoming information such that analysts can be more effective in searching, filtering and retrieving information. Enabling the information foraging processes that are prevalent in the early stages of the analysts’ work will allow more time for sensemaking and analysis brainwork.

RAHS v1.0 does not handle structured data. However, structured data offers a rich source of information for risk assessment and horizon scanning. A strategic threat, in all its early developmental stages, has weak signals that manifest themselves as some trends or anomalies. Novel data mining techniques (e.g. time-spatial analysis, pattern/anomaly detection) and other data analysis techniques (e.g. network analysis) have demonstrated potential to detect these trends and anomalies, and thus are considered to be useful for risk assessment and horizon scanning.

Information visualization technologies produce visual representations of abstract data (e.g. output from computational linguistics and data mining) to augment analysts’ perception and cognition, helping them to gain insights about the internal structure of the data. It is also vital that the various surveillance analysts, managers and decision makers in the business of risk assessment and horizon scanning are presented with the appropriate level of visual overviews or details.

>> Experimentation

We conduct experimentation in REC to seed novel concepts and technologies in operational contexts with real analysts to determine the utility in risk assessment and horizon scanning.

A series of limited objective experimentation was conducted with MINDEF Future Systems Directorate, Horizon Scanning Centre, United States Joint Forces Command, and North Atlantic Treaty Organization to examine the impact of introducing several information processing and visualization capabilities upon the functional and cognitive processes supporting decision making in the maritime domain. The series was completed with a high-key experiment conducted on 23 - 30 August 2007, at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego, California. The experiment involved maritime analysts from Republic of Singapore Navy and United States Navy Second Fleet, who were tasked to identify vessels of interest amongst a mix of live and simulated information feed.

REC hosted FOI for a limited objective experimentation on RAHS and Impactorium. RAHS provides a rich data source with automated robot trawlers and uploads from the RAHS user network; Impactorium is a visualization tool that relies on Bayesian networks to help analysts track pre-event indicators. A mash of the RAHS’s service oriented architecture and Impactorium web service meant that information flow into RAHS could be displayed in Impactorium real-time.

Findings suggest that users were better able to keep track of information in their environment. This enabled them to arrive at a conclusion through an objective evaluation of each event. In addition, the simple workflows encouraged efficiency. Instead of copying relevant information from the reports to separate Microsoft Word documents, they were able to immediately refer to Impactorium for a list of the tagged reports and their impact on the situation. The user was also able to use the tool to check his mental models against the current collaborative situational picture and determine the accuracy of his judgements.

>> Case Studies

REC conducted case studies with agencies to induct them into the RAHS concepts and technologies. In a typical case study, the agency would present a complex problem and we would work closely with them to strategize how RAHS can help to solve the problem. The Horizon Scanning Centre will be conducting future case studies.

REC conducted a case study with the Risk Analysis Branch of the Communicable Diseases Division and the Contingency & Scenario Planning Branch of the Operations Readiness Control Division in Ministry of Health from July 07 to November 07. The purpose of the case study is to study the possible future scenarios about the importation of Avian Influenza into Singapore. A system map on the Avian Influenza situation was built such that analysts are able to assess the threat level of outbreaks occurring in the region.

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