Meta-Uncertainty and Its Implications for Military Communications
Abstract:
Information sharing has always been crucial to military operations. This paper considers what explanatory content should be included to empower better decision making. The paper explores the concept of meta-uncertainty, this being produced in the absence of explanatory content. The paper uses two scenarios to explore the consequences of omitting the explanation. In the scenarios, Bayesian Networks are used to model inference under uncertainty. The scenarios indicate that meta-uncertainty can negatively affect decisions. A method of coping with meta-uncertainty is suggested, this being the probabilistic modelling of possible interpretations of the shared information.
AUTHORS
Atlantic Research Centre Defence Research and Development Canada Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Canada
Tim R. Hammond has worked for seventeen years in the Maritime Decision Support Section at Defence R&D Canada – Atlantic Research Centre. He has an MSc in Statistics from McGill University and a PhD in Fisheries Management from the University of Washington His most recent work is in support of mission planning, mine countermeasures, and information warfare.
Defence Research and Development Canada – Atlantic Research Center
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Anthony W. Isenor is a scientist in the Maritime Decision Support Section at Defence R&D Canada – Atlantic Research Centre. He has an MSc in Physical Oceanography from Dalhousie University. He has led projects dealing with technologies for trusted Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), situational information for enabling awareness of northern approaches to Canada, is past member of the NATO research group on Semantic Interoperability (for example, IST-075) and current member of NATO IST-168 researching adaptive information processing and distribution to support military command and control. He has extensive experience with vocabularies, geospatial information, information exchange models, maritime domain awareness, and the management of maritime information.
Published In
Journal of Information Warfare
The definitive publication for the best and latest research and analysis on information warfare, information operations, and cyber crime. Available in traditional hard copy or online.
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