Call for Participation 2005 AAAI Spring Symposium on AI Technologies for Homeland Security

After 9-11, preempting terrorist acts and providing for the security of citizens at home and abroad has become a top priority for the United States and many other nations around the globe. To achieve this, an overwhelming amount of information needs to be absorbed, processed, interpreted and analyzed in a timely fashion. Various AI technologies can be of great utility in addressing this challenge. For instance, multi-agent systems can support information sharing and collaboration among analysts, data mining techniques can discover and extract hidden patterns about terrorist activities buried in large data stores, social network analysis can help assess and predict terrorist intentions and behaviors, and knowledge representations and ontologies can facilitate information fusion, knowledge sharing and semantic understanding.

However, using AI technologies to provide for the security of citizens and the homeland raises many complex issues, for example: • Can AI technologies augment the ability of human analysts to objectively analyze large quantities of complex, oftentimes ambiguous or contradictory data while simultaneously reducing the impact of their personal biases? • Can AI technologies be used to enhance collaboration between human and robots in service of homeland security? • Can AI technologies facilitate information/knowledge sharing and semantic understanding while avoiding cognitive overload? • Can AI technologies be used in information sharing and data mining applications to improve security while yet also enhancing the privacy of citizens?

The purpose of this symposium is to provide a forum for discussing these and other issues related to AI for homeland security. The symposium will include one or more invited talks and multiple sessions. The invited talks will provide an overview about homeland security problems for which AI techniques and technologies can provide added value. The invited talks will be followed by multiple sessions, each of which focuses on a particular issue. Each session will consist of presentations (oral or poster) and conclude with a discussion facilitated by a moderator. The outcome of the discussion may range from a collection of ideas and/or technologies for addressing certain issues to a summary of arguments that support or reject a research hypothesis.

Submission Information

Potential participants should submit an extended abstract (2-4 pages) to AI4HS@ist.psu.edu. The extended abstract should clearly identify on the first page a known or perhaps a likely future homeland security issue it aims to address. Authors are encouraged to use one of the four issues listed above, whenever they are applicable. Further information (e.g., an extended issue list) about the symposium can be found at http://ai4hs.ist.psu.edu.