Year
1994
Abstract
Stange Associates' work on this project is being performed on a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract with the Department of Energy. Our June 1993, Phase I proposal (resulting in a contract awarded in October 1993) responded to a DOE request to provide solutions to a need to process text, graphics, map and photo information in support of IAEA Special Inspections. Since the contract was not with the IAEA, we could not interact with the Agency directly. We pursued sources of information about the IAEA within the Department of Energy instead. For this reason, our work has resulted not in an answer to a specific IAEA need, but a range of answers to an entire spectrum of situations. Since the SBIR program is about building commercial business as well as providing the government with a product, the broad, parametric approach we've had to take to the imaging and intelligence data handling problem hasn't been wasteful. Many contractors in the imaging and storage-and-retrieval business are Value Added Resellers (VARs), that is, they put together and resell systems from components sold by Original Equipment Manufacturers. Because VARs deal in volume, their best business is done in selling the same system to many customers. It is clear to us, however, that the intimate relationship between the intelligence analyst and a (comprehensively) supporting data system cannot be most effectively supported by the products of a cookie-cutter industry. Our approach is to explore how image and text storage and retrieval systems can be best adapted to support the work environment. And for our purposes, the given starting point for a typical work environment is whatever happens in the IAEA Safeguards arena.