Border Security: Understanding Threats at U.S. Borders

[Excerpt] The United States confronts a wide array of threats at U.S. borders, ranging from terrorists who may have weapons of mass destruction, to transnational criminals smuggling drugs or counterfeit goods, to unauthorized migrants intending to live and work in the United States. Given this diversity of threats, how may Congress and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set border security priorities and allocate scarce enforcement resources? In general, DHS’s answer to this question is organized around risk management, a process that involves risk assessment and the allocation of resources based on a cost-benefit analysis. This report focuses on the first part of this process by identifying border threats and describing a framework for understanding risks at U.S. borders. DHS employs models to classify threats as relatively high- or low-risk for certain planning and budgeting exercises and to implement certain border security programs. Members of Congress may wish to use similar models to evaluate the costs and benefits of potential border security policies and to allocate border enforcement resources. This report discusses some of the issues involved in modeling border-related threats

Trafficking in Persons: U.S. Policy and Issues for Congress

[Excerpt] This report focuses on international and domestic human trafficking and U.S. policy responses, with particular emphasis on the TVPA and its subsequent reauthorizations. The report begins with a description of key TIP-related definitions and an overview of the human trafficking problem. It follows with an overview of major foreign policy responses to international human trafficking. The report then focuses on responses to trafficking into and within the United States, examining relief for trafficking victims in the United States and discussing U.S. law enforcement efforts to combat domestic trafficking. The report concludes with an overview of current anti-trafficking legislation and an analysis of policy issues

Human Trafficking and Terrorism: Utilizing National Security Resources to Prevent Human Trafficking in the Islamic State

This is a report of a Master’s thesis done in behalf of the local network in Stockholm, under Fortum Distribution AB. The thesis was to conduct a review of a distribution station named Fs Myrängen located in Täby. A model was created for the 11 kV network linked to the secondary side of Fs Myrängen. Based on this model and using symmetrical components, theoretical fault currents (short circuit and ground fault) could be calculated. The results of these fault currents are used to investigate and develop new settings for relay protection and ground equipment in the station. The results of the calculated fault currents were also used to investigate unwanted voltages that occurs for grounded parts due to earth faults. The value of these unwanted voltages was then compared to heavy current regulations developed by the Electrical Safety Authority in Sweden. Another element of the work was to create a rehabilitation plan for the structure on the 11 kV side of Fs Myrängen, the main goal regarding the rehabilitation plan was to investigate the advantages and disadvantages that exist at a possible transition to numerical protection relays. This was done by making a market overview of the different types of numerical protection relays and compare these with the existing analog protective device in Fs Myrängen. The study showed that protective relay settings should be revised according to the recommendations in the report, ground equipment should be replaced with a self-regulating type, transformers should be replaced due to age and capacity limitations. Regarding a switch to numerical protection relays the type REF615 from ABB was recommended, in that case the control board in the station should be replaced to a station computer. Furthermore should current transformers be replaced to recive a desired sensitivity regarding detection of ground faults. The report also showed that Fs Myrängen meets the regulations of unwanted voltages over grounded parts in distribution stations due to earth faults.Detta är en rapport av ett examensarbete utfört i uppdrag av lokalnät Stockholm under Fortum Distribution AB. Examensarbetet gick ut på att göra en översyn av en fördelningsstation vid namn Fs Myrängen som är belägen i Täby. En modell skapades av 11 kV nätet kopplat till Fs Myrängen, utifrån denna modell samt med hjälp av symmetriska komponenter beräknades teoretiska felströmmar både för kortslutning och jordslutning. Resultaten av dessa felströmmar användes för att utreda och ta fram inställningar på reläskydd och nollpunktsutrustning i stationen. Resultaten på framräknade jordfelsströmmar användes även för att utreda vilken spänningssättning som uppstår vid jordfel, i de nätstationer som matas av Fs Myrängen. Spänningssättningen på nätstationerna jämfördes sedan med de starkströmsföreskrifter som är framtagna av elsäkerhetsverket. Ett annat moment i arbetet var att skapa en upprustningsplan för skyddsanordningen på 11 kV sidan i Fs Myrängen, huvudmålet för den biten var att utreda vilka fördelar och nackdelar som finns vid en eventuell övergång till numeriska skydd. Detta gjordes genom att göra en marknadsöversikt över olika typer av numeriska reläskydd, samt jämföra dessa med den befintliga skyddsanordningen i Myrängen som är av analog typ. Studien visade att reläskyddsinställningar bör ses över enligt rekommendationer i rapporten, nollpunktsutrustningen bör bytas ut till självreglerande typ, transformatorerna bör bytas ut p.g.a. ålder och kapacitetsbegränsning. Gällande skyddsanordningen rekommenderas en övergång till numeriska skydd av typen REF615, och i samband med detta byta ut den befintliga kontrolltavlan i stationen till en stationsdator. Vidare bör även strömtransformatorer för jordfelsskydden bytas ut för att uppnå önskad känslighet gällande detektering av jordfel. För spänningssättning av nätstationer vid jordfel, visar resultaten att stationen uppfyller kraven enligt starkströmsföreskrifterna från elsäkerhetsverket

Crime scripting: A systematic review

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.More than two decades after the publication of Cornish’s seminal work about the script-theoretic approach to crime analysis, this article examines how the concept has been applied in our community. The study provides evidence confirming that the approach is increasingly popular; and takes stock of crime scripting practices through a systematic review of over one hundred scripts published between 1994 and 2018. The results offer the first comprehensive picture of this approach, and highlights new directions for those interested in using data from cyber-systems and the Internet of Things to develop effective situational crime prevention measures

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

The logic of the violence in the civil war: the armed conflict in Colombia

This paper proposes a reading of the armed conflict from an evolutionary design that takes into account the Logic of Violence in the Civil War. Their aim is to assess the dynamics of conflict and changes from its author's scientific output. A context of conflicts that includes new expressions of violence and the relative failure of the paramilitary reintegration involves using new analytical models (argumentation, game theory and inconsistent information). The recent evolution of emerging gangs and their expansion into areas that were paramilitary camps requires monitoring not only of the government and the authorities, but those investigating the conflict in the present tense. The author provides heuristic research support from Schelling’s theory of strategy, Nozick’s agencies and the protection, and Gambetta’s recent contributions to the relationship between organized crime and drug cartels.Civil_war, Colombia, armed conflict, strategic_theory, Gambetta, Nozick, Schelling