Geospatial Abduction: Principles and Practice

185 Pages·2011·3.08 MB·English

by  Paulo Shakarian

Geospatial Abduction

Paulo Shakarian • V.S. Subrahmanian
Geospatial Abduction
Principles and Practice
Foreword by Charles P. Otstott
Paulo Shakarian V.S. Subrahmanian
Kings Valley Drive University of Maryland - College Park
20721 Bowie Maryland Potomac Maryland
USA USA
[email protected] [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4614-1793-4 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-1794-1
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-1794-1
Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011938690
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
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Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Toourwives,JanaandMary

Foreword
Increasingly,USforces,multinationalcoalitiontroops,andUNpeacekeepingforces
worldwide are coming under asymmetric attacks including Improvised Explosive
Device (IED) attacks. These attacks are carried out by adversaries who are out-
matched in conventional military capabilities by opposing forces. However, such
adversariestakeadvantageoftheirdeepknowledgeofthelocalterrain,ethno-social
makeupoftheareasinwhichtheyoperate,andknowledgeoflocalhistoryandcul-
ture,tolaunchsuccessfulIEDattacks.
This book is the first in the field of geospatial abduction—a mathematical and
computationaltechniqueinventedbytheauthorstosolveavarietyofproblemsin-
cludinglocatingweaponscachesthatsupportIEDattacks,identifyinghabitatsthat
support hosts of disease-carrying viruses, identifying illegal drug labs and/or drug
distribution centers, and solving problems related to locations of burglars and/or
serialkillers.Anyonewithaninterestinperforminggeospatialinferencesandana-
lyticsinvolvingtheseandotherapplicationswhereoneneedstoidentifylocations
basedonafewobservedclues,wouldfindthisbookinvaluable.
CollegePark,MD,August2011 CharlesP.Otstott
LieutenantGeneralUSArmy(Ret.)
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Preface
There are numerous applications in which we make observations about events in
time and space, and where we wish to infer one or more other locations that are
causally related to the observations we made. Such applications span a number of
fields and include finding habitats of hosts of disease carrying viruses (epidemiol-
ogy),identifyinglocationswhereelusiveanimalssuchastigersandleopardsmight
live (wildlife conservation), identifying locations of illegal drug labs and distribu-
tion centers (criminology), and identifying the locations of weapons caches that
facilitateimprovisedexplosivedevice(IED)attacksonsoldiersorcivilians.
Thisbookdescribesthetechniqueofgeospatialabductioninwhichwecanuse
knowledgeaboutthelocationsofobservations,aswellascertainapplicationspecific
properties, to make the types of inferences needed to enable applications such as
thoselistedabove.
Thebookisintendedasaresearchmonographonthisemergingnewfield.The
book provides a detailed technical definition of many forms of geospatial abduc-
tion, as well as many different theoretical results, as well as exact algorithms and
approximationalgorithmsandheuristicstosolvegeospatialabductionproblems.In
order to facilitate readability, a number of examples are used throughout the book
to illustrate basic concepts and algorithms. Moreover, we discuss in detail, a spe-
cificapplicationtofindingweaponscachesthatterroristgroupsusetolaunchIED
attacks.
The intended audience includes faculty and graduate students in not only com-
puter science, but any field (e.g., geography, epidemiology, wildlife conservation,
criminology)whereweneedtomakeintelligentinferencesfromobservationaldata,
together with application-specific information. Military planners and analysts, as
wellaslawenforcementofficialswillalsofindpartsofthebooktobeofinterest.
The authors are indebted to many people who either were involved in some of
ourresearchorwhofacilitatedtheworkinoneofmanyways.
First, both authors would like to thank their wives—Jana Shakarian and Mary
Andrews—fortheirconstantloveandsupport.
Second,theauthorswouldliketothankJohnDickersonforservingasaco-author
ofChapter4.
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