2 research outputs found
Understanding Terrorist Organizations with a Dynamic Model
Terrorist organizations change over time because of processes such as
recruitment and training as well as counter-terrorism (CT) measures, but the
effects of these processes are typically studied qualitatively and in
separation from each other. Seeking a more quantitative and integrated
understanding, we constructed a simple dynamic model where equations describe
how these processes change an organization's membership. Analysis of the model
yields a number of intuitive as well as novel findings. Most importantly it
becomes possible to predict whether counter-terrorism measures would be
sufficient to defeat the organization. Furthermore, we can prove in general
that an organization would collapse if its strength and its pool of foot
soldiers decline simultaneously. In contrast, a simultaneous decline in its
strength and its pool of leaders is often insufficient and short-termed. These
results and other like them demonstrate the great potential of dynamic models
for informing terrorism scholarship and counter-terrorism policy making.Comment: To appear as Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science v2:
vectorized 4 figures, fixed two typos, more detailed bibliograph
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Laser speckle effects on hard target differential absorption lidar
Reflection of laser light from a diffuse surface exhibits a complex interference pattern known as laser speckle. Measurement of the reflected intensity from remote targets, common to ``hard-target`` differential absorption lidar (DIAL) requires consideration of the statistical properties of the reflected light. The authors have explored the effects of laser speckle on the noise statistics for CO{sub 2} DIAL. For an ensemble of independent speckle patterns it is predicted that the variance for the measured intensity is inversely proportional to the number of speckle measured. They have used a rotating drum target to obtain a large number of independent speckle and have measured the predicted decrease in the variance after correlations due to system drifts were accounted for. Measurements have been made using both circular and linear polarized light. These measurements show a slight improvement in return signal statistics when circular polarization is used. The authors have conducted experiments at close range to isolate speckle phenomena from other phenomena, such as atmospheric turbulence and platform motion thus allowing them to gain a full understanding of speckle. They have also studied how to remove correlation in the data due to albedo inhomogeneities producing a more statistically independent ensemble of speckle patterns. They find that some types of correlation are difficult to remove from the data