Speaker:   Dr. Ernest Page, Mitre Corp.

Title:     The ALSP Joint Training Confederation: A Case Study of 
           Federation Testing and VV&A

Abstract: The Aggregate Level Simulation Protocol (ALSP) resulted from
a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) effort to
identify mechanisms suitable to facilitate the integration and
interoperation of existing (so-called "legacy") constructive training
simulations.  The Joint Training Confederation (JTC) -- the primary
application of ALSP -- has evolved from two models in 1992 to twelve
in 1997 and supports several large-scale command post exercises (CPXs)
each year, including the annual Ulchi Focus Lens, Prairie Warrior and
Unified Endeavor exercises.  Along with the Distributed Interactive
Simulation (DIS) protocol efforts, the ALSP JTC serves as a key
progenitor of the High Level Architecture (HLA).  This talk highlights
the testing approach used within the JTC and places it within the
broader verification, validation and accreditation (VV&A) framework.
The challenges presented by federation testing -- some fundamental,
others practical and programmatic -- are discussed.

Bio:  Ernest H. Page is is a Lead Scientist in modeling and simulation
at The MITRE Corporation where he is currently working on the
Aggregate Level Simulation Protocol (ALSP) program and is the
Principal Investigator for a MITRE Sponsored Research project on
web-based simulation.  He received the Ph.D., M.S. and B.S. degrees in
Computer Science from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University in 1994, 1990 and 1988 respectively.  He is active within
the U.S. DoD modeling and simulation community, serving on the Defense
Modeling and Simulation Office (DMSO) Verification, Validation and
Accreditation Technology Working Group (1996 -) and on the Testing
(1995, 1996),Interface Specification  (1995) and Time Management
(1996) Working Groups within the DMSO High Level Architecture (HLA)
initiative.  He has also served on the Planning and Review Panel for
the Simulation Interoperability Workshops (1997).  Dr. Page has served
as the Secretary/Treasurer (1995-1997) for the Association for
Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Simulation
(SIGSIM) and currently holds the position of  Vice Chair. He is on the
Program Committees for the 1998 SCS International Conference on
Web-Based Modeling and Simulation and the 1998 SPIE AeroSense
Symposium Technical Conference on Web-Based Simulation. His research
interests include discrete event simulation, parallel and distributed
systems, and software engineering.  He is a member of ACM, SIGSIM,
IEEE CS and Upsilon Pi Epsilon.