TACTIC-D II: Techniques to Adjust Computational Trends Involving Changing Data

The US Navy recognizes the potential for “big data” to facilitate force readiness. However, the analysis of such data presents numerous challenges, among them, (1) the evolving nature of Navy tactics, hindering apples-to-apples comparisons; (2) the presence of many interdependent platforms, making data complex; and (3) presenting analyses to humans, making understandability important. Aptima’s approach to the topic Techniques to Adjust Computational Trends Involving Changing Data (TACTIC-D) is a big data analytics solution that utilizes training and qualifications data to discover training opportunities that will enhance force readiness. Our solution leverages understanding of the relationships between performance measures and assessments to maintain relevance in a changing tactical environment. Probabilistic graphical models and automated machine learning are proposed as ways to represent these relationships, facilitating detection and understanding of changing tactical behaviors. Our solution can adapt to changing data, enabling associated analytics to scale from one to many platforms, thus offering a service-wide solution. Advanced data visualizations make the results of mathematical modeling comprehensible, facilitating identification of opportunities for training interventions and helping key decisionmakers understand the source of variability in their data.