Military
and Emergency Management
Situation
Extreme
events are large-scale incidents that risk major loss
of life, property, and the general well being of our
citizens. These events include domestic acts of terrorism,
major natural disasters, and manmade accidents of significant
consequences. Such incidents necessitate precise action
coordination between military, federal, state, and local
agencies, many of which may not interact on a regular
basis, to effectively perform seamless crisis and consequence
management.
Military,
Emergency Response, Emergency Management, and Government
Leaders recognize the need for an information system
that will facilitate a quick response to an incident
of this level and manage assets effectively. It is also
well known within this community that the system in
place is insufficient to meet the needs of an extreme
event.
Increased
terrorist activity in this country has brought the need
for the development of interoperable communications
to the forefront. The proliferation of nuclear, biological,
or chemical (NBC) weapons and their means of delivery
is not a hypothetical threat. More than 25 countries
have - or may be developing - NBC weapons along with
the means to deliver them. In addition to terrorism,
the threat of military use of nuclear biological or
chemical weapons on a domestic target cannot be dismissed
as fantasy. It is an issue of immediate concern that
chaos would surely ensue with the inadequate system
in place today.
Business
Solution
To
address this urgent situation, a coalition of military,
government, non-profit, and industry agencies has sponsored
the development of a large-scale coordinated National
Inter-Agency Response System. The mission of the Xtreme
Information Infrastructure project is to provide an
information infrastructure to broker data and information
quickly enough to influence and minimize loss in a life-or-death
extreme event. The XII Intelligent Data Fusion System
resolves the problems of heterogeneous databases by
utilizing commercial off the shelf (COTS) technology
to provide a service layer that isolates the rigidity
of legacy data applications from dynamic changes in
real-world environments. Modules in the XII Intelligent
Data Fusion System gather data from myriad collection
of dispersed sources and intelligently transforms the
heterogeneous databases, stovepipe applications, sensor-based
subsystems and simulations, unstructured data, semantic
content, into virtual knowledge bases.
XII
Proof of Concept Project
The
XII Proof of Concept project demonstrated the approach
and methodology for the integration and intelligent
fusion of the disparate domains by developing a fully
scaleable Proof of Concept information system. The XII
Proof of Concept full demonstration took place at Hanscom
Air Force Base in Boston, Massachusetts.
Participants
An
oversight panel was be headed by the National Institute
for Urban Search and Rescue ("NI/USR") and
included a representative of USAF Force Protection as
the sponsoring user organization, a representative of
Ink2Web Technologies/Optimus Consulting Group as the
development organization, and a representative from
the USAF as the technology transition organization.
Representation from other "user" commands
include the National Emergency Response Association
("NEMA"), the Federal Emergency Response Agency
("FEMA"), and the US Marine Corp.
Ink2Web
Technologies' principals were the lead development organization
and executive agent for day-to-day management of the
XII Proof of Concept Project. Ink2Web Technologies managed
the day to day project activities and project coordination
services.
Other
participants included the Defense Information Systems
Agency ("DISA"), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
("JPL"), the Northern Parallel Architecture
Center ("NPAC"), MANTECH Systems Engineering
Corporation, Sequent, Oracle, IBM, and Essential Technologies.
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