Human factors in X-ray image inspection of passenger Baggage – Basic and applied perspectives

The X-ray image inspection of passenger baggage contributes substantially to aviation security and is best understood as a search and decision task: Trained security officers – so called screeners – search the images for threats among many harmless everyday objects, but the recognition of objects in X-ray images and therefore the decision between threats and harmless objects can be difficult. Because performance in this task depends on often difficult recognition, it is not clear to what extent basic research on visual search can be generalized to X-ray image inspection. Manuscript 1 of this thesis investigated whether X-ray image inspection and a traditional visual search task depend on the same visual-cognitive abilities. The results indicate that traditional visual search tasks and X-ray image inspection depend on different aspects of common visual-cognitive abilities. Another gap between basic research on visual search and applied research on X-ray image inspection is that the former is typically conducted with students and the latter with professional screeners. Therefore, these two populations were compared, revealing that professionals performed better in X-ray image inspection, but not the visual search task. However, there was no difference between students and professionals regarding the importance of the visual-cognitive abilities for either task. Because there is some freedom in the decision whether a suspicious object should be declared as a threat or as harmless, the results of X-ray image inspection in terms of hit and false alarm rate depend on the screeners’ response tendency. Manuscript 2 evaluated whether three commonly used detection measures – ${d}'$, ${A}'$, and ${d}_{a}$ – are a valid representation of detection performance that is independent from response tendency. The results were consistently in favor of da with a slope parameter of around 0.6. In Manuscript 3 it was further shown that screeners can change their response tendency to increase the detection of novel threats. Also, screeners with a high ability to recognize everyday objects detected more novel threats when their response tendency was manipulated. The thesis further addressed changes that screeners face due to technological developments. Manuscript 4 showed that screeners can inspect X-ray images for one hour straight without a decrease in performance under conditions of remote cabin baggage screening, which means that X-ray image inspection is performed in a quiet room remote from the checkpoint. These screeners did not show a lower performance, but reported more distress, compared to screeners who took a 10 min break after every 20 min of screening. Manuscript 5 evaluated detection systems for cabin baggage screening (EDSCB). EDSCB only increased the detection of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) for inexperienced screeners if alarms by the EDSCB were indicated on the image and the screeners had to decide whether a threat was present or not. The detection of mere explosives, which lack the triggering device of IEDs, was only increased if the screeners could not decide against an alarm by the EDSCB. Manuscript 6 used discrete event simulation to evaluate how EDSCB impacts the throughput of passenger baggage screening. Throughput decreased with increasing false alarm rate of the EDSCB. However, fast alarm resolution processes and screeners with a low false alarm rate increased throughput. Taken together, the present findings contribute to understanding X-ray image inspection as a task with a search and decision component. The findings provide insights into basic aspects like the required visual-cognitive abilities and valid measures of detection performance, but also into applied research questions like for how long X-ray image inspection can be performed and how automation can assist with the detection of explosives

Application of signal detection theory to the recognition of objects in colour-encoded x-ray images

Aviation security personnel encounter problems when interpreting x-ray images of hand luggage. This research seeks to determine whether the performance of the human operator can be improved, in terms of both reliability and accuracy, through the employment of a novel multiple-view x-ray imaging technique. Thus, a series of experiments were undertaken with the aim of providing evidence for the feasibility of using KDEX displays to aid in the recognition of threatening objects in airport carry-on luggage; and furthermore demonstrate the real-world value of this technique. This thesis describes experiments comparing how introducing depth information affects the performance of aviation security personnel attempting to detect various weapons in x-ray images of hand luggage. Specifically, multiple 2-dimensional (2D) x-ray luggage scans were acquired and processed to create the perception of 3-dimensionality (3D) in kinetic displays. These results were compared with weapon detection in standard static 2D scans of the same luggage. Threatening objects hidden in this luggage were more readily detected in kinetic 3-dimensional images than in the standard images. Initial results were obtained using greyscale images and limited to various types of knives. Subsequent experiments evolved to primarily use pseudo-colour x-ray images

AIRPORT SECURITY DETECTION C HECK WHAT ARE THE REAL LIMITS?

This article deals with one part of the ongoing project of the Air transport department of the University College of Business in Prague. This project aims to apply modern trends and knowledge in the process of detection checks at airports and thus to modify the screening sites on the basis of this knowledge. Partial goals of the project are behavioural detection and working environment. The text of the article itself deals with the boundary conditions of the project - about limits. These limits mainly concern the absence of the necessary legislative base in the EU. The aim of this article is to highlight important and rigorous marginal conditions in this area that do not allow innovative approaches to most scientific and other projects. That is why the project team of aimed at one of the outputs of the project also proposal for the direction of research activities in this sphere of civil aviation protection against unlawful acts. This article deals with this recommendation

Usability in Public Services and Border Control: New Technologies and Challenges for People with Disability

As new security technologies are introduced in public services, such as border control and mass transportation systems, their accessibility for the disabled needs to be evaluated. A large part of the population is directly or indirectly concerned with disability of permanent or temporary nature. This report starts with a brief overview of the scale of disability and associated challenges and puts them in the context of the public policy on disability. In particular it highlights two existing policies: the EU Transport Regulation on the Disabled Air Passengers and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, both of which are of relevance to mass transportation. The report then analyses the usability challenges in public services and border control, including the issues of accessibility, safety and communication. These need to be addressed in future policy proposals. Technical support to the present and future policies related to disability complying public services is seen as a potentially important role for JRC. This is illustrated through a review of relevant JRC projects: VOICE, SESAMONET and Secure Airport. New technologies in public services can be viewed by the disabled from two perspectives: assistive technologies and neutral technologies. The assistive communication technologies were adopted in projects VOICE and SESAMONET to improve accessibility in public services. On the other hand, the use of biometric identification in airports and border control is to enhance security for all and therefore it is assumed to be neutral, with respect to disability. This assumption was investigated in the Secure Airport project.JRC.G.6-Security technology assessmen

A Step toward Ending Long Airport Security Lines: The Modified Boarding Pass

Anyone who has traveled by air has most likely experienced long airport security lines. Yet not much is known about its cause because few have considered if passengers have created this problem for themselves. The present study attempts to fill this research gap by suggesting that when passengers are not well-prepared for security screening, they delay the process by making mistakes and not complying with procedures. This lack of preparedness can be attributed to several shortcomings of security signposts. This study proposes the use of a modified boarding pass as an alternative form of signage to help passengers better prepare for security screening. In a recall evaluation of the items to remove prior to security screening, the combination of the modified boarding pass and security signposts led to greater recall than when either stimuli were used alone. In an airport survey to gather public sentiment, three-quarters of the respondents saw value in the idea of the modified boarding pass. Although the majority of the respondents were receptive to it becoming an option for future travel, many also felt that the modified boarding pass would be more useful than security signposts or announcements at conveying helpful security screening information

Comparison of Detection Competency Between Cruise Security Personnel Using Simulation Tutoring Software

Transportation security threats are constantly changing. Training transportation security personnel to identify these changing threats is vital to the safety of travelers aboard transportation vessels. Although many studies about detection competency and training of screeners at airports have been conducted, a gap in the research literature exists about training security practice in the cruise ship industry. Currently, not all cruise companies require their security employees to use screening tutoring software as part of their onboard training. In an orientation program, a maritime corporation implemented online screening simulation tutoring to train and an assessment tool to measure the detection competency of newly hired security personnel. Guided by Green and Swets signal detection theory, the purpose of this study was to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in the posttraining threat detection competency between security personnel who used the screening tutoring software and those who did not, controlling for pretraining competency. A quantitative comparative research design using archival data was conducted. The difference in posttraining detection competency of a census of 89 trainees, 49 who used and 40 who did not use the simulation, was tested using one-way ANCOVA. Findings indicated that, after controlling for pretraining competency, security personnel who used the screening tutoring software had significantly higher posttraining threat detection competency than personnel who did not use the simulation tutoring software (p \u3c .05). Training maritime security personnel to have higher threat detection competency has the potential to create increased security aboard cruise vessels thus promoting positive social change within the maritime industry and community over time

The ATM approach ("ask 'em, tell 'em, make 'em"): Compliance-seeking at the security checkpoints of a federal government site.

Recent terrorist attacks in the United States have increased public concern with security screeners, yet research does not exist of communication at security checkpoints. The goals of this study are: (1) to initiate social science study of private police communication; (2) to add to the sparse naturalistic studies of policing from the communication perspective; (3) to examine compliance-seeking at the security check; and (4) conduct a discursive analysis of the everyday activities of officers during the security check at a federal government multi-building site in the Northeast U.S. The first four chapters are: (1) a short history of public and private policing; (2) instances of compliance-like exchanges extracted from 1960s/1970s policing ethnographies, one private police account, and news stories of security and SAS encounters at airports; (3) method of several months' observation, audio-taping, recording detailed field notes, and interviews of officers; (4) narrative account of typical work days at Government Buildings for both a public and private police officer. I follow Goffman's (1961) conceptualization of encounters; Hymes' (1974) ethnography of communication; Searle's (1969) speech act theory; Etizioni's (1961) concepts of normative, and social power; and Philipsen's (1975) concept of counter incidents all inform my analysis of preferred communication modes: politeness and acknowledgement, face needs and verbal immediacy after directives and reproaches; politeness as the normative power use through respectful address; speech acts and repetition; officer local knowledge and tacit knowledge. In sum the officer who subscribes to "being the bigger person" at Government Buildings employs, language that is generally polite (acknowledgements), treats others with respect (politeness) when possible and teaches (reproaches) when necessary, is warm but professionally distant (immediacy), and completes the job with efficiency (directives). I found a range of compliance (derived from on-site interactions or as-told-to examples): compliance that is complete, limited, limited with objection, passive-resistant, eventual with protest, non-compliance or avoidance, over- or distracted. Future research should be based in actual interaction, consider specific relationships within the larger organizational and cultural contexts, examine emotion management of self and others, look at the whole picture of nonverbal/verbal social influence, and study humor in compliance-seeking

Social work with airports passengers

Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically