An instinct for detection: psychological perspectives on CCTV surveillance

The aim of this article is to inform and stimulate a proactive, multidisciplinary approach to research and development in surveillance-based detective work. In this article we review some of the key psychological issues and phenomena that practitioners should be aware of. We look at how human performance can be explained with reference to our biological and evolutionary legacy. We show how critical viewing conditions can be in determining whether observers detect or overlook criminal activity in video material. We examine situations where performance can be surprisingly poor, and cover situations where, even once confronted with evidence of these detection deficits, observers still underestimate their susceptibility to them. Finally we explain why the emergence of these relatively recent research themes presents an opportunity for police and law enforcement agencies to set a new, multidisciplinary research agenda focused on relevant and pressing issues of national and international importance

Detect the unexpected: a science for surveillance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline a strategy for research development focused on addressing the neglected role of visual perception in real life tasks such as policing surveillance and command and control settings. Approach – The scale of surveillance task in modern control room is expanding as technology increases input capacity at an accelerating rate. The authors review recent literature highlighting the difficulties that apply to modern surveillance and give examples of how poor detection of the unexpected can be, and how surprising this deficit can be. Perceptual phenomena such as change blindness are linked to the perceptual processes undertaken by law-enforcement personnel. Findings – A scientific programme is outlined for how detection deficits can best be addressed in the context of a multidisciplinary collaborative agenda between researchers and practitioners. The development of a cognitive research field specifically examining the occurrence of perceptual “failures” provides an opportunity for policing agencies to relate laboratory findings in psychology to their own fields of day-to-day enquiry. Originality/value – The paper shows, with examples, where interdisciplinary research may best be focussed on evaluating practical solutions and on generating useable guidelines on procedure and practice. It also argues that these processes should be investigated in real and simulated context-specific studies to confirm the validity of the findings in these new applied scenarios

Factors Affecting Prices Received by South Dakota Egg Producers : A Pilot Study

South Dakota egg producers have long been faced with the fact that they receive the lowest average prices per dozen of any state, with the exception of North Dakota. The average price received by South Dakota egg producers from 1950 through 1952 was 31.2 cents per dozen as compared with a national average of 41.9 cents per dozen for the same period. It is the role of this pilot study at the producer level to (1) determine the effect of management (production and handling) and marketing practices on prices received by South Dakota egg producers, (2) compare average prices of eggs sold on a non-graded basis with those sold on a graded basis to determine the economic feasibility of marketing eggs on a graded basis, and (3) recommend areas of further research

USE OF INHALANT ANESTHETICS IN THREE SNAKE SPECIES

Different snake species respond differently to various anesthetic agents. Hence, an anesthetic procedure developed for one species cannot necessarily be safely transferred to another species. The goal of this paper is to summarize our experience using inhalant anesthetics on three snake species, including both procedures that were successful and those we found to be less satisfactory. We found isoflurane delivered with a precision vaporizer to be the best agent to anesthetize black rat snakes (Elaphe o. obsoleta). Sex and mass did not seem to affect induction times in black rat snakes, but larger female rat snakes recovered faster from anesthesia than smaller females. Halothane delivered in the open method provided consistent anesthesia in northern water snakes (Nerodia s. sipedon), although it caused some mortality and should not be used on debilitated patients. Halothane delivered with a precision vaporizer may be used to anesthetize eastern massasauga rattlesnakes (Sistrurus c. catenatus). However, care must be taken to prevent mortality resulting from anesthetic overdose. Sex and mass had no effect on induction and recovery times in the rattlesnakes, but stressed animals require longer induction and recovery times

Underground mining of aggregates. Main report

This report examines the economic feasibility of underground mining for crushed rock aggregates in the UK, but particularly in the London, South East and East of England regions (the South East area of England). These regions import substantial volumes of crushed rock, primarily from the East Midlands and South West regions, requiring relatively long transport distances to market for this bulk commodity. A key part of the research was to determine whether or not aggregate could be produced and delivered to a local market from an underground aggregates operation at a cost comparable with that for production and transport of the commodity from traditional surface quarries located further afield. In essence the investigation asked – could the reduced transport costs compensate for the higher production costs underground so that underground crushed rock aggregates producers can compete with the established Leicestershire and Somerset surface quarries exporting to the South East? Work Programme The research effort involved establishing and verifying cost models for aggregates production, stone processing (sizing and sorting), haulage of product to market, environmental impact mitigation, health and safety, decommissioning and restoration. Another major element of the work was the re-examination of the BGS exploratory borehole and geophysical databases to identify potential areas of crushed rock aggregates resource at depth in the South East area of England. Land use pressure is typically higher in this area of England than elsewhere so another major part of the research was the identification of potential concurrent uses of land around the surface facilities of underground aggregates mines. The value, development costs for specific developments and determination of yields expected, from these uses were estimated. These were also used to investigate potential economic benefits associated with after uses of remediated surface land above potential underground aggregates mines and also for the new underground space that would be created. Key technical issues such as subsidence within relatively heavily populated areas of the South East area of England were also addressed. Economic Results The discounted cost of aggregate delivered at a discount rate of 10% was the metric used to appraise the options. This is the price of aggregate that leads to a zero net present value of project cash flows realised over the aggregates project life. The results show that the discounted costs of aggregate delivered to a local South East area of England market from an underground mine producing 3.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of crushed rock aggregates, are in the range of £13.03 per tonne to £13.93 per tonne for the top six prospect locations. These are greater than the corresponding cost for a “reference” quarry in Leicestershire producing 3.5 MTPA (£10.95 per tonne), but lower than a “reference” quarry in Leicestershire producing 1.25 MTPA (£16.48 per tonne). These figures indicate that underground crushed rock aggregate mines located within the South East area of England may be able to compete for a share in the overall market by replacing / displacing aggregate imported from the quarries in Leicestershire and Somerset producing around or less than 1.25 MTPA. The surprise in these figures is not really that the more remote surface quarry has a lower discounted cost of aggregate delivered, but that the values for the quarry and underground mine are so close. The capital intensity for the development of underground aggregates mines was found to be higher than that required for surface quarries of comparable scale, by a factor ranging from 1.33 to 1.65 and thus may represent a disincentive for aggregates operators. Carbon Emissions The total carbon emissions of the ‘reference’ 3.5 MTPA quarry in Leicestershire were estimated at 9.28 kg CO2/tonne aggregate delivered and this is to be compared with carbon emissions for the 150 metre deep underground mines serving the local market which were estimated at 9.31 kg CO2/tonne delivered for a Bletchley prospect using an adit to access the sub-surface and 14.25 kg CO2/tonne delivered for a prospect based on the Chitty bore hole using a shaft. Depth of the mine is a key factor in determination of the relative carbon emissions from each of the underground mining operations considered as electricity consumption for ventilation, pumping and winding is proportional to depth. Recommendations The current research generated seven principal recommendations which are discussed in detail in the concluding section of the report. These are: Appraise policy incentives for underground aggregates mining. Conduct an industry-wide consultation on findings from the current research. Obtain public and stakeholder opinion on new uses for underground space. Conduct research to reducing the energy intensity of mine services. Develop a deep level aggregates-specific drilling campaign. Investigate underground aggregates mines developed from existing surface quarries. Investigate underground aggregates as co-products of industrial minerals mining

State-space solutions to the dynamic magnetoencephalography inverse problem using high performance computing

Determining the magnitude and location of neural sources within the brain that are responsible for generating magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals measured on the surface of the head is a challenging problem in functional neuroimaging. The number of potential sources within the brain exceeds by an order of magnitude the number of recording sites. As a consequence, the estimates for the magnitude and location of the neural sources will be ill-conditioned because of the underdetermined nature of the problem. One well-known technique designed to address this imbalance is the minimum norm estimator (MNE). This approach imposes an $L^2$ regularization constraint that serves to stabilize and condition the source parameter estimates. However, these classes of regularizer are static in time and do not consider the temporal constraints inherent to the biophysics of the MEG experiment. In this paper we propose a dynamic state-space model that accounts for both spatial and temporal correlations within and across candidate intracortical sources. In our model, the observation model is derived from the steady-state solution to Maxwell's equations while the latent model representing neural dynamics is given by a random walk process.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOAS483 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org