Andrew Cowell

This study presents an assessment of multiple approaches to determine the home and/or other important locations to a Twitter user. In this study, we present a unique approach to the problem of geotagged data sparsity in social media when performing geoinferencing tasks. Given the sparsity of explicitly geotagged Twitter data, the ability to perform accurate and reliable user geolocation from a limited number of geotagged posts has proven to be quite useful. In our survey, we have achieved… Show more

This study presents an assessment of multiple approaches to determine the home and/or other important locations to a Twitter user. In this study, we present a unique approach to the problem of geotagged data sparsity in social media when performing geoinferencing tasks. Given the sparsity of explicitly geotagged Twitter data, the ability to perform accurate and reliable user geolocation from a limited number of geotagged posts has proven to be quite useful. In our survey, we have achieved accuracy rates of over 86% in matching Twitter user profile locations with their inferred home locations derived from geotagged posts. Show less

Analysts who use predictive analytics methods need actionable evidence to support their models and simulations. Commonly, this evidence is distilled from large data sets with significant amount of culling and searching through a variety of sources including traditional and social media. The time/cost effectiveness and quality of the evidence marshaling process can be greatly enhanced by combining component technologies that support directed content harvesting, automated semantic annotation, and… Show more

Analysts who use predictive analytics methods need actionable evidence to support their models and simulations. Commonly, this evidence is distilled from large data sets with significant amount of culling and searching through a variety of sources including traditional and social media. The time/cost effectiveness and quality of the evidence marshaling process can be greatly enhanced by combining component technologies that support directed content harvesting, automated semantic annotation, and content analysis within a collaborative environment, with a functional interface to models and simulations. Existing evidence extraction tools provide some, but not all, the critical components that would empower such an integrated knowledge management environment. This paper describes a novel evidence marshaling solution that significantly advances the state of the art. Its embodiment, the Knowledge Encapsulation Framework (KEF), offers a suite of semi-automated and configurable content harvesting, vetting, annotation and analysis capabilities within a wiki-enabled and user-friendly visual interface that supports collaborative work across distributed teams of analysts. After a summarization of related work, our motivation, and the technical implementation of KEF, we will explore the model for using KEF and results of our research. Show less

Intelligence analysts are bombarded with enormous volumes of imagery, which they must visually filter through to identify relevant areas of interest. Interpretation of such data is subject to error due to (1) large data volumes, implying the need for faster and more effective processing, and (2) misinterpretation, implying the need for enhanced analyst/system effectiveness. This paper outlines the Revolutionary Accelerated Processing Image Detection (RAPID) System, designed to significantly… Show more

Intelligence analysts are bombarded with enormous volumes of imagery, which they must visually filter through to identify relevant areas of interest. Interpretation of such data is subject to error due to (1) large data volumes, implying the need for faster and more effective processing, and (2) misinterpretation, implying the need for enhanced analyst/system effectiveness. This paper outlines the Revolutionary Accelerated Processing Image Detection (RAPID) System, designed to significantly improve data throughput and interpretation by incorporating advancing neurophysiological technology to monitor processes associated with detection and identification of relevant target stimuli in a non-invasive and temporally precise manner. Specifically, this work includes the development of innovative electroencephalographic (EEG) and eye tracking technologies to detect and flag areas of interest, potentially without an analyst’s conscious intervention or motor responses, while detecting and
mitigating problems with tacit knowledge, such as anchoring bias in real-time to reduce the possibility of human error. Show less

The Knowledge Associates for Novel Intelligence (KANI) project is developing a system of automated “associates” to actively support and participate in the information analysis task. The primary goal of KANI is to use automatically extracted information in a reasoning system that draws on the strengths of both a human analyst and automated reasoning. The interface between the two agents is a key element in achieving this goal. The KANI interface seeks to support a visual dialogue with… Show more

The Knowledge Associates for Novel Intelligence (KANI) project is developing a system of automated “associates” to actively support and participate in the information analysis task. The primary goal of KANI is to use automatically extracted information in a reasoning system that draws on the strengths of both a human analyst and automated reasoning. The interface between the two agents is a key element in achieving this goal. The KANI interface seeks to support a visual dialogue with mixed-initiative manipulation of information and reasoning components. The interface must achieve mutual understanding between the analyst and KANI of the other's actions. Toward this mutual understanding, KANI allows the analyst to work at multiple levels of abstraction over the reasoning process, links the information presented across these levels to make use of interaction context, and provides querying facilities to allow exploration and explanation. Show less