An Ignoble Experiment

2. Congressional leaders warn of resurgent jihadists

Airport security X-ray screeners are trained to spot dangerous objects in luggage--but a new study finds that humans doing image-based item recognition tend to overlook unusual items, letting them slip by.

Two brain scientists from Duke University downloaded data from a smartphone game called Airport Scanner that simulates a Transportation Security Administration airport security checkpoint, challenging players to find hidden prohibited items in X-ray scan-like images of bags.

The game data has the advantage of letting researchers compare the percentage of spotted items to the number of actual prohibited items--something that in the real world would be hard to collect, to say the least. The researchers, Stephen Mitroff and Adam Biggs, focused their analysis on "elite" players of the game, meaning they had already been exposed to examples of the game's total of 78 potential illegal items, such as large bottles of water, guns, or sticks of dynamite.

What they found, based on more than 20 million examples, is that ultra-rare prohibited items--30 of the total items, which showed up less than .15 percent of the time in the game--were detected only 27 percent of the time.

The ultra-rare-item effect (as Mitroff and Biggs dub it) isn't linear, however--items that appeared more than 1 percent of the time had a 92 percent detection rate.

"This isn't a matter of overall vigilance or how frequently players responded, since half of the searches had a to-be-found item present," Mitroff said in a university release.

"This effect is about being able to detect specific items and how likely you are to miss them when they occur infrequently."

In a paper (sub. req.) detailing their findings, the scientists say they ruled out other possible reasons for an item slipping by, including the visual salience of a prohibited item.

As a result, airport screeners may be conditioned to find more ordinary and run-of-the-mill prohibited items such as pocket knives or incorrectly packed prescription medications as opposed to a gun in a carry-on bag, since they see guns very rarely.

Previous research cited in the paper suggests that the ultra-rare-item effect could be mitigated by providing image searchers with a burst of typically low-prevalence items. That's thought "to 'reset' the searchers' criterion to a more effective state," they say.

For more:
- read a Duke press release on the study results

Read more about: TSA, airport security
back to top

This week's sponsor is Accunet.
	Building a Scalable Big Data Infrastructure Download this complimentary whitepaper about how the Accunet Solutions team architected a new infrastructure for the National Cancer Institute's Frederick National Laboratory.

By Zach Rausnitz

Comment |

3. Radioactive material thieves in Mexico likely unwitting - UPDATED

Leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees say they're concerned that jihadist groups are gaining new strength, partly due to the conflict in Syria.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on CNN's "State of the Union" Dec. 1 that she believes Americans are in more danger from terrorism than they were a year or two ago. Terrorism fatalities have risen globally, she said, while bombs have become more difficult to detect.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich), who appeared alongside Feinstein, agreed. "More groups that operated independently of al Qaeda have now joined al Qaeda around the world," he said. In Syria, al Qaeda affiliates and sympathizers have pooled together, many coming from Western countries.

Some of their supporters are Americans. In November, the FBI charged Basit Javed Sheikh, a U.S. permanent resident, with attempting to provide material support to Jabhat al-Nusrah, a militant group in Syria aligned with al Qaeda.

"You see these groups spread a web of connections," Feinstein said. "This includes North Africa, it includes the Middle East, it includes other areas as well."

The Obama administration has for several years characterized al Qaeda is being in disarray. While that appears to be true for the core group, its network of affiliates has made gains in Syria and elsewhere.

The leader of al Qaeda central, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has encouraged foreign fighters to travel to Syria and establish a "jihadist Islamic state," the Congressional Research Service said in a September report (.pdf).

Estimates of the number of volunteers entering the country to join that cause have ranged from the hundreds to the low thousands.

For more:
- go to the transcript for CNN's "State of the Union" from Dec. 1

Read more about: FBI, counterterrorism
back to top

By Zach Rausnitz

Comment |

4. Diversity leadership practices for the Coast Guard

*Update appended

Whoever stole a truck carrying radioactive material in Mexico Dec. 2 probably did not know what was inside, said experts on terrorism and smuggling from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

Gary Ackerman, the head of START's unconventional weapons research program, said in an interview that there was only a remote possibility that someone stole the truck in order to create a dirty bomb. Mexico has a high rate of vehicle theft and few of the kind of ideologically motivated groups that would want to obtain radioactive material.

Organized crime in Mexico generally revolves around the drug trade and is motivated by profit. The level of attention that comes with the theft of radioactive material would bring unnecessary risk, noted Michelle Jacome, a researcher at START.

The International Atomic Energy Agency warned the public Dec. 4 about the theft of the truck, which was transporting cobalt-60 from a hospital where it was used in medical treatments to a radioactive waste facility.

Radioactive material is a public health threat even if it never falls into the hands of someone with malicious intent.

In Goiania, Brazil, in 1987, two individuals in search of scrap removed a machine from an abandoned and partly demolished radiotherapy clinic. The machine contained radioactive cesium-137.

They dismantled the machine, rupturing the capsule containing the cesium-137 and releasing it into the environment. They then sold the machine to a junkyard owner who noticed that the material inside glowed in the dark. Friends and relatives came to observe the material, some even smearing it on their skin.

The exposure caused four deaths, and at least 249 people were contaminated.

A similar episode, involving radioactive materials that was accidentally mixed into scrap metal, occurred in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in 1983.

Brandon Behlendorf, another START researcher, said that even if a terrorist group wanted to smuggle the cobalt-60 from the stolen truck into the United States, it would be extremely difficult.

The casing that contains the cobalt-60 appears to weighs about 5,000 pounds, he said. Ultralight aircraft, which criminals use to smuggle drugs across the southwestern border, can't carry a payload heavier than about 250 pounds, Behlendorf said. The casing is also far too large to fit into the small entrances and exits of cross-border tunnels.

That means it would likely have to be smuggled in a shipping container or commercial truck through an official port of entry, where sensors for radioactive materials would detect it.

The casing is made up almost entirely of shielding material--the cobalt-60 itself might comprise only 1 percent of the total container, Behlendorf said. Theoretically, someone could transfer it into a smaller container, but that would require sophisticated equipment and techniques.

Behlendorf cautioned against speculating about whether someone might use the material in a dirty bomb.

"We need to wait for more information to really start going down that pathway," he said.

UPDATE 12/5/2013 8:35 a.m.: The stolen radioactive material and truck have been found, the IAEA announced Dec. 5. The cobalt-60 had been removed from its protective shielding, but there is no sign yet that the area nearby was contaminated. The thieves have not been found, and Mexican hospitals are on alert to look for anyone with symptoms of radiation exposure. "Mexican authorities and the IAEA believe the general public is safe and will remain safe," the announcement says.

For more:
- go to the IAEA announcement
- download the IAEA's report about the accident in Brazil in 1987 (.pdf)

By David Perera

Comment |

5. House passes trio of TSA bills

There are ways a diversifying Coast Guard can avoid the negative consequences on group dynamics such as interpersonal conflict and personnel turnover that diversity can cause, writes Cmdr. Laura Collins, currently a Coast Guard fellow at the Rand Corporation.

The Coast Guard has proactively increased recruiting outreach to minority populations as the American population itself grows more diverse, with minorities now constituting 26 percent of the active duty Coast Guard demographic. At the turn of the century, only 17 percent of active duty personnel were minorities, Collins notes in a November report published by the think tank. The percentage of women has also grown, now at 15 percent versus 10 percent in 2000.

Academic studies have shown that diversity can have positive and negative consequences. Diversity can catalyze increased innovation and creativity, but it can also increase interpersonal conflict and turnover, Collins writes.

"Translating a diverse recruited talent pool into USCG mission effectiveness at the unit level may be challenging," she notes.

Leadership behavior can have tangible outcomes on the performance of diverse groups, Collins says, suggesting a number of practices the Coast Guard could cultivate.

For one thing, teams can effectively exploit their diversity to improve performance if members understand that the diversity adds insight and new skills to the entire group, "rather than simply serving to ensure social justice and eliminate discrimination." Coast Guard training should encourage leaders to see diversity as a valuable asset and to demonstrate that belief by among other things, openly seeking the opinions of a broadly diverse group before reaching a decision.

Transformational leaders--those who align individual and team goals and cultivate a collective optimism--already avoid a tendency to categorize diverse teams into homogenous subgroups, Collins writes. "Leaders who employ visionary behaviors, provide an inspiring sense of purpose...are preferred by educationally and age-diverse teams, and positively influence performance."

When diverse perspectives, novel thought and wide ranges of work styles are encouraged, that creates a supportive environment for diversity. If that environment is lacking--if minority groups don't feel supported, regardless of the perceptions of their white colleagues--then overall team performance can degrade. "Leaders could incorporate a collective 'one for all, all for one' outlook into daily contact, such as all-hands meetings and plan-of-the-day publications," she says.

However, culturally diverse groups may experience more conflict when they undertake complex tasks, Collins writes.

"Leaders should be mindful of this dynamic and offer early solutions to assist with conflict resolution. Further, they should strive to keep teams highly motivated; this, combined with instilled pro-diversity beliefs, may help prevent negative group consequence."

When members share an overriding collective identity--such as Coast Guardsman--that can also lead to higher levels of performance in diverse groups. At the team level, the reward system should emphasize team accomplishment, and leaders should avoid creating situations where homogenous subgroups can coalesce, she says.

For more:
- download Collins's report, "Managing Diverse Work Groups in the U.S. Coast Guard for Mission Effectiveness" (.pdf)

Read more about: Coast Guard, Rand Corp.
back to top

By Zach Rausnitz

Comment |