A Window of Opportunity for Aceh, Indonesia Post-Tsunami: Historic Continuity, Current Points of Interest, and a Pattern. Output of the Cultural Simulation Model
Abstract
This document is a consolidation of activity from the current and historic news flow as understood by IndaSea's Cultural Simulation Model (CSM) for the Situation in Aceh, Indonesia. The CSM uses news filtering, a knowledge acquisition and contextual memory method, which we refer to as a Cultural Construct, as well as interaction by modelers, subject matter experts (SMEs), and IndaSea Cultural Analysts as the basis for its output. A Cultural Analyst is someone trained in some aspect of human behavior and able to structure that information in the CSM. The Cultural Construct is not limited in the type of data it can use to represent human behavior including language, actions, personality traits, abstract concepts and the like. In its current iteration the Cultural Construct was tailored to focus on Goals and Threats for each of the participating Actors and for the interaction between Actors in Aceh. For the purpose of this paper, an Actor is defined as a subset of the Cultural Construct representing a particular entity that can be a person, group, concept or culture, particularly as it relates to a social Situation. Some examples of Actors in this case are the Achenese people, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the Indonesian Government, the Indonesian Military (TNI), and NGOs. Each Actor's cultural point of view is represented in the model. The cultural point of view includes how each Actor sees, defines, and responds to a Situation; in essence it is how they perceive and interact with the world. Currently, the CSM Cultural Construct is comprised of 3400 statements gleaned from literature, news and subject matter experts that are linked and interwoven to form a data mesh to represent the historical and current state of affairs in Indonesia. The statements and concepts describe the behavior and interaction of the 50 Actors that are in the CSM, including the subset of Actors used in the preparation of this Aceh report.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA456976