BNet.News
In This Issue: May/June 2006 
•   BNet.Builder Used in Information Warfare Tool
•   Reminder: Upcoming UAI 2006 Conference
•   BNet.Builder User Tip: Network Name and Description
•   Publicize Your Belief Network Success Story
•   BNet.EngineKit User Tip: Network Name and Description
BNet.Builder Used in Information Warfare Tool
Charles River Analytics recently completed a project using BNet.Builder as a tool to improve the effectiveness of Information Warfare operations. John T. Langton, the technical lead of the project at Charles River Analytics, described how BNet was used in Commander’s Decision Aids for Predictive Battle-space Awareness (CDA4PBA) “to inform commanders in the field when enemy troops deviate from their perceived plan.”

Langton explained a situation in which a commander believes an enemy is at location A and moving towards location B. When intelligence comes in indicating that the enemy is moving towards location C, this information is fed into BNet.Builder, which then notifies the commander of the change.

Charles River Analytics, Inc. designed IWE in a subcontract for SRA, a leading provider in technology and strategic consulting services and solutions.

To learn more about BNet.Builder, click here.

BNET
BNet.Builder User Tip: Network Name and Description
The Network Properties window in BNet.Builder allows you to provide a textual name and description for a Bayesian network. The network name is usually a short string that briefly describes the network or is meaningful in some way. The network description can include an unlimited length of text for you to provide information to describe your network.

To view or edit a network's name and description:
1. Open the Network Properties window. You can do this in one of three ways:
- Select the Network Properties item from the Window menu.
- Right-click in the background and select the Network Properties item.
- Use the Ctrl+5 keyboard shortcut.
2. When the Network Properties window opens, click the General tab at the bottom of the window
3. Type text into the Name or Description text areas.

The network name and description will be saved to the file so you'll be able to reuse it at another time.

Network Properties
BNet.EngineKit User Tip: Network Name and Description
You can use the BNet.EngineKit API to set a network's name and description as a String object. Follow the example shown in this code sample in order to change the name and description:

BayesianNetwork network = ...;
String oldName = network.getName();
String newName = "New network name";
network.setName(newName);
String oldDescription = network.getDescription();
String newDescription = "This is the new description for the network";
network.setDescription(newDescription);

Note: You can also register your own implementation of the PropertyChangeListener interface with a BayesianNetwork object. Its propertyChanged method is called whenever the network's name or description is changed. You can use the public NAME_PROPERTY and DESCRIPTION_PROPERTY fields of the BayesianNetwork class to determine which property has changed.

To learn more about EngineKit, click here

Reminder: Upcoming UAI 2006 Conference
The 22nd Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI 2006) will take place from July 13th - July 16th, 2006, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Scientists from Charles River Analytics will be presenting papers and will be available to answer questions about BNet.Builder and BNet.EngineKit.

To learn more about the conference, click here.

Publicize Your Belief Network Success Story
Want to show off your applications of belief networks to others using them in their research? Send us your success stories. We would like to include at least one in each edition of BNet.News.

To send us your story, please contact lcordeiro@cra.com or zcox@cra.com.

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