A Dynamic Network Approach to the Assessment of Terrorist Groups and the Impact of Alternative Courses of Action

Abstract

Dynamic network analysis (DNA) is an emergent field centered on the collection, analysis, understanding and prediction of dynamic relations among various entities such as actors, events and resources and the impact of such dynamics on individual and group behaviour. DNA facilitates reasoning about terrorist groups as complex dynamic networked systems that evolve over time. An interoperable DNA toolchain for collecting data on, assessing the network of, and forecasting changes in that network is presented. The use of these DNA tools to asses a terrorist group is then demonstrated using open source data. Key techniques are demonstrated using a dataset collected on terror networks. Techniques demonstrated include those for identification of an actor's sphere of influence, emergent leaders, and paths among critical actors, and metrics for assessing the potential immediate and near term impact of various courses of action.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA477116

Entities

People

  • Kathleen Carley

Organizations

  • Carnegie Mellon University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Command And Control
  • Computer Science
  • Data Science
  • Data Sets
  • Databases
  • Information Science
  • Intervention
  • Language
  • Link Analysis
  • Machine Learning
  • Network Science
  • Simulations
  • Social Networks
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Terrorists

Readers

  • Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.