Disrupting Illicit Supply Networks: New Applications of Operations Research and Data Analytics to End Modern Slavery

Report from a 2017 National Science Foundation workshop on promising research directions for applications of operations research and data analytics toward the disruption of illicit supply networks like human trafficking. The workshop was funded by the NSF’s Operations Engineering (ENG) and the Law & Social Sciences Program (SBE) under grant # CMMI-1726895. The report addresses the opportunity to apply advances from the fields of operations research, management science, analytics, machine learning, and data science toward the development of disruptive interventions against illicit networks. Such an extension of the current research agenda for trafficking would move understanding of such dynamic systems from descriptive characterization and predictive estimation toward improved dynamic operational control.Bureau of Business Researc

Why we need to establish international political psychology

A combination of Psychology with International Relations yields important results and ideas for improving the international world. This chapter proposes to establish International Political Psychology as a discipline with the purpose of harvesting ideas, theories and concepts that derive out of a combination of the above disciplines

The changing dynamics of security in an enlarged European Union. Challenge Paper No. 12, 24 October 2008

The relation between liberty and security has been highly contestable over the past 10 years in the EU integration process. With the expansion of the EU’s powers into domains falling within the scope of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, liberty and its relation to security has brought a new range of issues, struggles and debates. Acts of political violence labelled as ‘terrorism’ and human mobility at the European and international levels have justified the construction of these phenomena as threats to the security and safety of the nation state. They have legitimised the development of normative responses that go beyond traditional configurations and raise fundamental dilemmas for the security and liberty of the individual. This paper assesses the ways in which the notions and perceptions of security and insecurity in the EU have evolved as political values and legal/policy goals, and how they are being transformed. It aims at synthesising the results of the research conducted since 2004 by the Justice and Home Affairs Section of CEPS through the CHALLENGE project (Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security). The research has been premised upon one basic, but determining question: To what extent has the evolution of the international context altered the dynamics of liberty and security in the EU

Public Security vs. Private Self-Protection: Optimal Taxation and the Social Dynamics of Fear

In this paper, we develop a simple model of social dynamics governing the evolution of strategic self-protection choices of boundedly rational potential victims facing the threat of prospective offenders in a large population with random matching. We prove that individual (and socially transmitted) fear of exposure to criminal threats may actually condition choices even in the face of objective evidence of declining crime rates, and thereby cause the eventual selection of Pareto inefficient equilibria with self-protection. We also show that a suitable strategy of provision of public security financed through discriminatory taxation of self-protective expenses may actually overcome this problem, and drive the social dynamics toward the efficient no protection equilibrium. In our model, we do not obtain, as in Cressman et al. (1998), a crowding-out result such that the net impact of public spending on the actual social dynamics is neutral and the economy keeps on cycling between phases of high and low criminal activity with varying levels of self-protection; quite to the contrary, it can be extremely effective in implementing the social optimum, in that it acts primarily on the intangible dimension, that is, on the social dynamics of fear. We claim that this kind of result calls for more interdisciplinary research on the socio-psycho-economic determinants of fear of crime, and for consequent advances in modelling approaches and techniques.Self-Protection, Fear of Crime, Cultural Selection Dynamics, Replicator Dynamics

NCITE Annual Report 2022-2023

This report outlines the achievements of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center in accordance with the Grant Award #20STTPC00001-03 for Budget Year 3, which ran July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023

NEW ASPECTS OF RUSSIAN NATIONAL SECURITY SYSTEM IN THE CONDITIONS OF PEACEFUL WAR

Abstract Purpose: The aim of the present article is to identify new dangers and threats posed by the state of peaceful war, which is inherent in the information network society, as well as corresponding to these threats’ new aspects of Russia's national security. Methodology: As research methodology we use an interdisciplinary research strategy, a topological approach, a synergy paradigm, the concept of the Internet of things, the theory of cultural-historical psychology, the concept of positive construction of social reality, propositions of quantum sociology, the concept of “peaceful war” (“hybrid war”, “multidimensional war”), strategies and methods for implementing the systemic nature of Russia's national security. Result: The result is that new aspects of Russia's national security, connected with the “peaceful war”, peculiarities of the impact of new information and communication technologies (ICT) and the Internet of Things as a global computing system (network of networks) on human consciousness, giving specific features to the system of security, and, first of all, its information, psychological, military, cultural and educational components, are shown for the first time. Applications: The application of interdisciplinary, topological and synergistic approaches makes it possible to find out the peculiarities of the impact of ICT and Internet of Things on human consciousness, which functions in accordance with the Mobius band metaphor. Novelty/Originality: The scientific novelty consists in an attempt to apply the concept of “peaceful war”, encompassing all spheres of public life, in order to develop an adequate system for ensuring Russia's national security

Epistemic policy networks in the European Union’s CBRN risk mitigation policy

This paper offers insights into an innovative and currently flagship approach of the European Union (EU) to the mitigation of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) risks. Building on its long-time experience in the CBRN field, the EU has incorporated methods familiar to the students of international security governance: it is establishing regional networks of experts and expertise. CBRN Centers of Excellence, as they are officially called, aim to contribute to the security and safety culture in different parts of Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia, and South East Europe, in the broadly construed CBRN area. These regional networks represent a modern form of security cooperation, which can be conceptualized as an epistemic policy networks approach. It offers flexibility to the participating states, which have different incentives to get involved. At the same, however, the paper identifies potential limitations and challenges of epistemic policy networks in this form

Social Entrepreneurship Collaboratory: (SE Lab): A University Incubator for a Rising Generation of Leading Social Entrepreneurs

How can universities help create, develop and sustain a rising generation of social entrepreneurs and their ideas? What new forms of learning environments successfully integrate theory and practice? What conditions best support university students interested in studying, participating in, creating and developing social change organizations, thinking through their ideas, and connecting with their inspiration? What is the intellectual content and the rationale for a curriculum addressing this at a university

Urban anxieties in times of terrorism

Urban anxieties are often linked to the perception that certain parts of the cities are off limit, with potential danger lurking on the streets or behind the closed doors. People are however not anxious about environmental dangers, but mostly about the behaviour of other people in public spaces. The paper reflects on how in times of terrorism the question about dangerous individuals more and more focuses on the inside of the human body – the gene and the brain. In this search to map danger, there is a similarity between the social mapping of danger in urban spaces and the biological mapping of it inside the human body. In both cases, danger is perceives as being hidden, opaque, and ungraspable. Behind the desire to clearly map urban danger and to find clear explanation of human dangerousness in the body is the desire to impose new forms of social control. The paper concludes that neuro-architecture and neuro-urbanism also succumb to the desire to find ever new forms of mastery and control of human subjectivity

Competence Development For The Competitive Specialist Education

The article is devoted to the study of the ways of special courses for training in foreign languages development. The attention is drawn primarily for English language courses, for the future specialists in tourism, service and hospitality sphere. In addition to the competences connected with the development of professional knowledge and skills, the knowledge of foreign language is undoubtedly having paramount value for future graduates. Modern methods and forms of education not always allow reaching the demanded level for fast communication with foreign experts in this area and to provide services to foreign guests. Introduction of new programs, forms and methods of training will make development of colloquial skills of a foreign language during the limited time period of time possible and will increase competitiveness of future specialists, our graduates, in labor market