SBIR-STTR Award

ASCRIBE
Award last edited on: 10/23/2018

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
DOD : Navy
Total Award Amount
$69,960
Award Phase
1
Solicitation Topic Code
N091-076
Principal Investigator
Laura Hitt

Company Information

DeUmbra Inc (AKA: 21st Century Technologies Inc~21CT Inc~21 CT Inc)

6500 River Place Boulevard Bldg 3
Austin, TX 78730
   (512) 682-4700
   N/A
   www.deumbra.com
Location: Single
Congr. District: 10
County: Travis

Phase I

Contract Number: N00014-09-M-0200
Start Date: 5/18/2009    Completed: 3/18/2010
Phase I year
2009
Phase I Amount
$69,960
Asymmetric actors and the networks in which they operate are prominent components in the modern battlespace. While the United States has developed sophisticated data gathering capabilities and recent technological innovations have led to improved information fusion, massive volumes of data remain unused or under-used because the data cannot be converted into the information that the warfighter needs. Consequently, situational awareness is impaired, many individuals and networks are not understood, and warfighters are often forced to “fly blind” over the human terrain. To address this gap, 21st Century Technologies (21CT) proposes ASCRIBE – Adapting SNA Computations and Relevant Intelligence for Behavior Extrapolation. ASCRIBE will marry the computational science capable of producing high-level mathematical models of human activity with the social science that allows the creation of behavioral models of individual people and networks. ASCRIBE leverages 21CT’s extensive experience in processing, refining and fusing intelligence data on asymmetric actors and networks. For the ASCRIBE project, we have partnered with Professor Sean Everton, of the Naval Postgraduate School, who is a social scientist specializing in the study of dark networks and asymmetric threat actors. ASCRIBE will research and ultimately realize technology that fills a critical gap in our ability to exploit intelligence data

Benefit:
When fully realized, ASCRIBE will function in two roles: 1) Operating as a force multiplier, ASCRIBE will fill a critical gap that will enable raw sensor data to be refined into high-level behavioral attributes. In this way, ASCRIBE will allow far more individuals and networks to be understood than is possible today. 2) Acting as an intel information monitor, ASCRIBE will be capable of detecting inconsistencies between the observed activity and predicted behavior for the same individuals and networks. 21CTs partner, Professor Sean Everton of the Naval Postgraduate School will fill a vital role, identifying behavior attributes representative of the asymmetric warfare domain, evaluating our success, and participating in the development of inverse mapping algorithms that predict the human activity nominally associated with a priori behavior attributes. Phase I of ASCRIBE will address the critical research issues faced by this technology, culminating in a combination of software, experimental results, and analytical results and theory that collectively form a proof of concept. Thus, at the conclusion of Phase I, significant technical risk will have been retired from the project. 21CT also anticipates a successful Phase II resulting in a proof of concept ASCRIBE capability realized as a service within a broader SOA. Technical maturity should reach TRL 5 by the completion of the Phase II base contract due in large measure to the existing body of work and solid technical foundation 21CT has for this capability. During Phase II, we will seek technology transition partners within DoD to which ASCRIBE technology could be transferred. During the Phase II option and Phase III periods, we envision fully developing a system prototype for ASCRIBE, testing that system using operational data, and evaluating that system against the operational requirements of the transition partner(s). We believe that ASCRIBE has very high likelihood of successful technology transition. An operational ASCRIBE technology will greatly expand the utility and applicability of COMINT, OSINT and other sources of information (e.g., census and similar data). ASCRIBE will dramatically improve situational awareness and will provide critical insight for influence operations and when identifying key individuals, networks of interest.

Keywords:
Persona, Computational And Social Science, Feature Space, Human Behavior Modeling, Taxonomy Of Behavior Attributes, Predicting Response To Stimulus, S

Phase II

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: 00/00/00    Completed: 00/00/00
Phase II year
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Phase II Amount
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