PACFEST 2004 : enabling technologies for maritime security in the Pacific region.

In October of 2003 experts involved in various aspects of homeland security from the Pacific region met to engage in a free-wheeling discussion and brainstorming (a 'fest') on the role that technology could play in winning the war on terrorism in the Pacific region. The result was a concise and relatively thorough definition of the terrorism problem in the Pacific region, emphasizing the issues unique to Island nations in the Pacific setting, along with an action plan for developing working demonstrations of advanced technological solutions to these issues. Since PacFest 2003, the maritime dimensions of the international security environment have garnered increased attention and interest. To this end, PacFest 2004 sought to identify gaps and enabling technologies for maritime domain awareness and responsive decision-making in the Asia-Pacific region. The PacFest 2004 participants concluded that the technologies and basic information building blocks exist to create a system that would enable the Pacific region government and private organizations to effectively collaborate and share their capabilities and information concerning maritime security. The proposed solution summarized in this report integrates national environments in real time, thereby enabling effective prevention and first response to natural and terrorist induced disasters through better use of national and regional investments in people, infrastructure, systems, processes and standards

PACFEST : enabling technologies in the war on terrorism in the Pacific region.

On October 22-24, 2003, about 40 experts involved in various aspects of homeland security from the United States and four other Pacific region countries meet in Kihei, Hawaii to engage in a free-wheeling discussion and brainstorm (a 'fest') of the role that technology could play in winning the war on terrorism in the Pacific region. The result of this exercise is a concise and relatively thorough definition of the terrorism problem in the Pacific region, emphasizing the issues unique to Island nations in the Pacific setting, along with an action plan for developing working demonstrators of advanced technological solutions to these issues. In this approach, the participants were asked to view the problem and their potential solutions from multiple perspectives, and then to identify barriers (especially social and policy barriers) to any proposed technological solution. The final step was to create a roadmap for further action. This roadmap includes plans to: (1) create a conceptual monitoring and tracking system for people and things moving around the region that would be 'scale free', and develop a simple concept demonstrator; (2) pursue the development of a system to improve local terrorism context information, perhaps through the creation of an information clearinghouse for Pacific law enforcement; (3) explore the implementation of a Hawaii based pilot system to explore hypothetical terrorist scenarios and the development of fusion and analysis tools to work with this data (Sandia); and (4) share information concerning the numerous activities ongoing at various organizations around the understanding and modeling of terrorist behavior

The Use of Benefit-Cost Analysis for Evaluation of Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering Decisions

This report provides an overview of benefit-cost analysis (BCA); an application of benefit-cost analysis to the performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) framework; consideration of critical issues in using benefit-cost analysis for PBEE; and a discussion of issues, criticism, and limitations of benefit-cost analysis. Our objective is to provide an understanding of the economic dimensions of PEER’s framework equation. A focus on economic evaluation will broaden the framework so that facility damage in earthquakes can be related to functionality, business interruption and revenue loss, and to repair costs. Such an analysis needs to consider issues such as the time value of money, uncertainty, and the perspectives of different stakeholders. The application of BCA to PBEE has produced a number of important findings. First, an example is developed that illustrates the way in which performance criteria can be operationalized in an economic context. Next, a number of benefit categories are identified (cost of emergency response and loss of long-term revenue) that have not been previously considered in studies of seismic mitigation decision making. Additionally, several critical issues are examined, most notably multiple stakeholders and uncertainty, that need to be considered when carrying out a benefit-cost analysis in a performance-based engineering context. Throughout the report, particular attention is paid to issues of concern to PEER researchers and the seismic-mitigation community, most notably, the differences between BCA and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA). These differences are extensively discussed and illustrated. Finally the ways in which the value of human life can be economically evaluated are examined