In the opponent's shoes: increasing the behavioral validity of attackers' judgments in counterterrorism models

A key objective for policymakers and analysts dealing with terrorist threats is trying to predict the actions that malicious agents may take. A recent trend in counterterrorism risk analysis is to model the terrorists' judgments, as these will guide their choices of such actions. The standard assumptions in most of these models are that terrorists are fully rational, following all the normative desiderata required for rational choices, such as having a set of constant and ordered preferences, being able to perform a cost-benefit analysis of their alternatives, among many others. However, are such assumptions reasonable from a behavioral perspective? In this article, we analyze the types of assumptions made across various counterterrorism analytical models that represent malicious agents' judgments and discuss their suitability from a descriptive point of view. We then suggest how some of these assumptions could be modified to describe terrorists' preferences more accurately, by drawing knowledge from the fields of behavioral decision research, politics, philosophy of choice, public choice, and conflict management in terrorism. Such insight, we hope, might help make the assumptions of these models more behaviorally valid for counterterrorism risk analysis

Goldstone Bosons in the Appelquist-Terning ETC Model

It is demonstrated that the extended technicolor model proposed recently by Appelquist and Terning has pair of potentially light $U(1)$ Goldstone bosons coupling to ordinary matter with strength $2m_f\over F_{\pi}$, where $m_f$ is the mass of the fermion and F_{\pi} \approx 125\,\GeV. These Goldstone bosons could get a mass if the spontaneously broken $U(1)$ symmetries are also explicitly broken, by physics beyond that specified in the model. An attempt to break these symmetries by embedding the model into a larger gauge group seems to be inadequate. The problem is because there are too many representations and there is a mismatch between the number of condensates and the number of gauge symmetries broken.Comment: 14 pages, uses harvmac, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Technipion contribution to b→sγ b\to s\gamma

We show that the present limit on the inclusive decay $b\rightarrow s\gamma$ provides strong constraints on Technicolor models. In particular, small values of $F_\pi$ and the mass of charged octet and singlet technipions are excluded, assuming the most natural form of the technipion coupling to the ordinary quarks.Comment: 7 pages, uses harvmac.tex, 5 figures (as uuencoded PostScript file) include

Evaluation of Mucociliary Clearance by Three Dimension Micro-CT-SPECT in Guinea Pig: Role of Bitter Taste Agonists

Different image techniques have been used to analyze mucociliary clearance (MCC) in humans, but current small animal MCC analysis using in vivo imaging has not been well defined. Bitter taste receptor (T2R) agonists increase ciliary beat frequency (CBF) and cause bronchodilation but their effects in vivo are not well understood. This work analyzes in vivo nasal and bronchial MCC in guinea pig animals using three dimension (3D) micro-CT-SPECT images and evaluates the effect of T2R agonists. Intranasal macroaggreggates of albumin-Technetium 99 metastable (MAA-Tc99m) and lung nebulized Tc99m albumin nanocolloids were used to analyze the effect of T2R agonists on nasal and bronchial MCC respectively, using 3D micro-CT-SPECT in guinea pig. MAA-Tc99m showed a nasal mucociliary transport rate of 0.36 mm/min that was increased in presence of T2R agonist to 0.66 mm/min. Tc99m albumin nanocolloids were homogeneously distributed in the lung of guinea pig and cleared with time-dependence through the bronchi and trachea of guinea pig. T2R agonist increased bronchial MCC of Tc99m albumin nanocolloids. T2R agonists increased CBF in human nasal ciliated cells in vitro and induced bronchodilation in human bronchi ex vivo. In summary, T2R agonists increase MCC in vivo as assessed by 3D micro-CT-SPECT analysis