Librería Portfolio

This unique book on intelligence analysis covers several vital but often overlooked topics. It teaches the evidential and inferential issues involved in ´connecting the dots´ to draw defensible and persuasive conclusions from masses of evidence: from observations we make, or questions we ask, we generate alternative hypotheses as explanations or answers; we make use of our hypotheses to generate new lines of inquiry and discover new evidence; and we test the hypotheses with the discovered evidence. To facilitate understanding of these issues and enable the performance of complex analyses, the book introduces an intelligent analytical tool, called Disciple-CD. Readers will practice with Disciple-CD and learn how to formulate hypotheses; develop arguments that reduce complex hypotheses to simpler ones; collect evidence to evaluate the simplest hypotheses; and assess the relevance and the believability of evidence, which combine in complex ways to determine its inferential force and the probabilities of the hypotheses.

Covers several vital topics that are overlooked in other works
Follows a hands-on approach to learning intelligence analysis
Provides an advanced analytical tool, Disciple-CD, for complex evidence-based hypothesis analysis



Table of Contents
1. Intelligence analysis: ´connecting the dots´
2. Marshaling thoughts and evidence for imaginative analysis
3. Disciple-CD: a cognitive assistant for connecting the dots
4. Evidence
5. Divide and conquer: a necessary approach to complex analysis
6. Assessing the believability of evidence
7. Chains of custody
8. Recurrent substance-blind combinations of evidence
9. Major sources of uncertainty in masses of evidence
10. Assessing and reporting uncertainty: some alternative methods
11. Analytic bias
12. Learning and reusing analytic expertise: beyond Disciple-CD.