How to Do Things With Words

Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts

The development of cognitive science is one of the most remarkable and fascinating intellectual achievements of the modern era. The quest to understand the mind is as old as recorded human thought; but the progress of modern science has offered new methods and techniques which have revolutionized this enquiry. Oxford University Press now presents a masterful history of cognitive science, told by one of its most eminent practitioners. Cognitive science is the project of understanding the mind by modeling its workings. Psychology is its heart, but it draws together various adjoining fields of research, including artificial intelligence; neuroscientific study of the brain; philosophical investigation of mind, language, logic, and understanding; computational work on logic and reasoning; linguistic research on grammar, semantics, and communication; and anthropological explorations of human similarities and differences. Each discipline, in its own way, asks what the mind is, what it does, how it works, how it developed - how it is even possible. The key distinguishing characteristic of cognitive science, Boden suggests, compared with older ways of thinking about the mind, is the notion of understanding the mind as a kind of machine. She traces the origins of cognitive science back to Descartes's revolutionary ideas, and follows the story through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the pioneers of psychology and computing appear. Then she guides the reader through the complex interlinked paths along which the study of the mind developed in the twentieth century. Cognitive science, in Boden's broad conception, covers a wide range of aspects of mind: not just 'cognition' in the sense of knowledge or reasoning, but emotion, personality, social communication, and even action. In each area of investigation, Boden introduces the key ideas and the people who developed them. No one else could tell this story as Boden can: she has been an active participant in cognitive science since the 1960s, and has known many of the key figures personally. Her narrative is written in a lively, swift-moving style, enriched by the personal touch of someone who knows the story at first hand. Her history looks forward as well as back: it is her conviction that cognitive science today--and tomorrow--cannot be properly understood without a historical perspective. Mind as Machine will be a rich resource for anyone working on the mind, in any academic discipline, who wants to know how our understanding of our mental activities and capacities has developed.

Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science

Anyone who watches the television news has seen images of firefighters rescuing people from burning buildings and paramedics treating bombing victims. How do these individuals make the split-second decisions that save lives? Most studies of decision making, based on artificial tasks assigned in laboratory settings, view people as biased and unskilled. Gary Klein is one of the developers of the naturalistic decision-making approach, which views people as inherently skilled and experienced. Since 1985, Klein has conducted fieldwork to find out how people tackle challenges in difficult, nonroutine situations. Sources of Power is based on observations of humans acting under such real-life constraints as time pressure, high stakes, personal responsibility, and shifting conditions. In addition to providing information that can be used by professionals in management, psychology, engineering, and other fields, the book presents an overview of the research approach of naturalistic decision making and expands our knowledge of the strengths people bring to difficult tasks.

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

: In modeling and simulation (MS past Department of Defense (DoD) efforts to achieve it have had distinctly mixed success despite the many technological developments that have occurred over the past 5 to 10 years. In reviewing this situation, we have sought to identify key elements for defining a path to future success.

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG101.pdf

Improving the Composability of Department of Defense Models and Simulations

https://netlab.gmu.edu/pubs/DS-GRID04-10-slides.pdf

Using Web services to integrate heterogeneous simulations in a grid environment

The objective of Battle Management Language (BML) is to define an unambiguous language to describe a commander’s intent, to be understood by both live forces and automated systems, for simulated and realworld operations. The resulting language is intended to be applicable not only to simulation systems, but also to operational command and control systems, and robotic systems. Within the last three years, multiple papers presented at the Simulation Interoperability Workshops (SIW) have dealt with the need for, and initial work in, Modeling & Simulation (M&S) to Command and Control (C2) Interoperability based on the use of unambiguous mission and task definitions. During the Spring 2004 SIW, a meeting of subject matter experts determined that a detailed evaluation of BML efforts at a Coalition level is necessary and subsequently drafted Terms of Reference (TOR) for a Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) Study Group. The TOR for the Coalition BML (C-BML) Study Group was accepted by the SISO Standards Activity Committee and identifies the following tasks: • The Study Group shall conduct a Survey comprising as many international contributions applicable to the Coalition BML effort as possible. • The Study Group shall develop a plan for how these various efforts can contribute to a common Coalition BML specification within a methodological framework. • The Study Group shall formulate a set of Recommendations for a Coalition BML Product Development Group (PDG). The Coalition BML Study Group was subsequently formed in September 2004 to address these tasks. The Study Group has conducted a number of face-to-face and teleconference meetings through the year since the Fall 2004 SIW, involving a membership of over 100 persons from 11 different countries. This paper is an executive summary of the full Study Group Final Report. As the Study Group concludes, it recommends that a PDG be formed. The C-BML Study Group has worked closely with the Military Scenario Definition Language (MSDL) Study Group to coordinate both PDG proposals to ensure a consistent set of standards for initialization, tasking and reporting.

/pdf/coalition-battle-management-language-c-bml-study-group-final-3j0yx0a81s.pdf

Coalition Battle Management Language (C-BML) Study Group Final Report

The distributed information technologies collectively known as Web services recently have demonstrated powerful capabilities for scalable interoperation of heterogeneous software across a wide variety of networked platforms. This approach supports a rapid integration cycle and shows promise for ultimately supporting automatic composability of services using discovery via registries. This paper presents a rationale for extending Web services to distributed simulation environments, including the High Level Architecture (HLA), together with a description and examples of the integration methodology used to develop significant prototype implementations. A logical next step is combining the power of Grid computing with Web services to facilitate rapid integration in a demanding computation and database access environment. This combination, which has been called Grid services, is an emerging research area with challenging problems to be faced in bringing Web services and Grid computing together effectively.

/pdf/using-web-services-to-integrate-heterogeneous-simulations-in-3y7ou0msp7.pdf

Using Web Services to Integrate Heterogeneous Simulations in a Grid Environment

: Battle Management Language (BML) is being developed as an unambiguous language to command and control forces and equipment conducting military operations and to provide for situational awareness and a shared common operational picture. BML is being designed as a standard representation of a "digitized commander's intent" to be used for real troops, for simulated troops, and for future robotic forces. A US Army BML prototype was used in the UK to analyze the applicability of these concepts to UK doctrine. A French Army BML has also been prototypically implemented in France, independently from - but well aware of - the US prototype. A study group on coalition applicability of such concepts has been initiated. Three views are necessary to describe BML: (1) A Doctrine View -- BML must be aligned to doctrine; (2) A Representation View -- BML must model these aspects in a way that can be interpreted and processed by the underlying heterogeneous information technology systems of the coalition; (3) A Protocol View - BML must specify the underlying protocols for transferring BML information between the participating systems. This paper will give an introduction to BML for the study group members, will show the areas already being worked on, and will present the initial scope of the work to be done.

Coalition Battle Management Language

/pdf/command-and-control-lexical-grammar-c2lg-specification-5s2dtch5bs.pdf

Michael R. Hieb

Papers

Using Web services to integrate heterogeneous simulations in a grid environment

Coalition Battle Management Language (C-BML) Study Group Final Report

Using Web Services to Integrate Heterogeneous Simulations in a Grid Environment

Coalition Battle Management Language

Command and Control Lexical Grammar (C2LG) Specification