INQUEST: A prototype intelligence tool

Military intelligence analysis is the process of sifting and sorting information to identify, isolate, and interpret significant items of interest. It is based on an intelligence analyst's judgment and knowledge in a number of areas including military operations, organizations, military equipment and weapons, geography, politics, economics, sociology, and history. There are a number of areas in which intelligence analysis is performed, one area is the retrieval of database information in order to analyze a situation or event.The analysis of data from intelligence databases is based on the pertinence, reliability, and accuracy of both the query and retrieved data. Pertinence indicates the importance of retrieved data to a particular problem and its use to support a hypothesis or to perform an assessment. Reliability is the faith in the source of retrieved data and is based on the potential for corroboratation of that data. The accuracy of retrieved data is important because of the conclusions that may be drawn from the analysis of the original data. These three factors: pertinence, reliability, and accuracy, are important because they directly influence the validity of data analysis. The intelligence data analysis process consists of interpretation of data based upon correlation of information to a situation or problem. This information is organized as: who, what, where, and when. “Who” is someone or an organization, “what” is a piece of equipment, “where” is a location or place, and “when” is a date or time of an event. These four types of information can be extracted from a question or situation of interest to an intelligence analyst. From this information, specific queries can be developed in order to retrieve data from ???