Modeling current and emerging threats in the airport domain through adversarial risk analysis

Airports are critical infrastructures entailing intense human, commercial and economic activity. As such, they are preferred targets for criminal and terrorist groups, who are attracted by the promisingly high revenues they might get from an attack. Every year, airport authorities worldwide have to face, with limited resources, attacks arising from different adversaries. There are several sensible areas within an airport organization that are especially vulnerable to the terrorist threat, including, among others: (1) those related to human lives (of passengers or staff); (2) airport infrastructure (airport perimeter, main terminal, Air Traffic Control Tower, runways, hangars, etc.); (3) aircrafts and other ground vehicles; and (4) IT systems and services. Besides the more traditional ones, we are particularly concerned with attacks launched against the last type of targets, an emerging and increasingly worrisome threat. Specifically, we analyze the impact of cyber-attacks launched by organized groups whose main goal is to take hold of airport operations. In some cases, in order to have more chances to achieve their purpose (and take advantage of its eventual success), cyber attackers may be backed up by a terrorist group who will try to interfere with the Air Traffic Management network. In this paper, we aim at supporting airport authorities in their fight against both threats, by devising a security allocation plan. We provide an adversarial risk analysis model to address the problem, and apply it to obtain the optimal portfolio of preventive measures in an illustrative case study. The model is open to extensions, as e.g. larger and more complex technical infrastructures, new threats, or additional recovery measures deployed by different defensive agents.     

Interesting times: European criminal markets in 2015

Contemporary policing and the control of organized crime increasingly involve priority setting and planning. Criminal policymakers no longer focus on repressive aspects of organized crime, but want to be informed about coming challenges and threats in order to take appropriate preventive action. For that reason, there is a growing demand to change the traditional assessments of organized crime into analyses that include more prospective elements about current and potential future organized crime situations to identify specific risks or threats to society. Given the high degree of uncertainty that characterizes our understanding of organized crime, we suggest that scenario thinking can contribute to the strategic planning process of public and private security actors. We intend to advance this claim by means of an application of this technique to the organized crime involvement in criminal markets in Europe.     

Building the future: Undertaking proactive strategy for national outlook

Future studies should provide the means to forecast potential crisis in order to avoid them or limit their effects [Masini, E. 2006, Rethinking futures studies, Futures 38, 1158-1168]. Recognizing and realizing the future events from past up to the present have been the main concern of the rulers and policy makers from the very beginning of civilization. Future studies are a decisive part of the public decision process which plays a very distinctive role in the desirable future of a society. The role of elites in future studies and scenario building is notable; they design national policies and strategies and have a significant impact in general public. Although future cannot be foretold by anyone, the interactions of advanced nations seem to be counter productive; they try to depict the futures. In this case, the futures are built, not predicted. The interactions of two or more systems at the level of international relations have been discussed in this paper. The imaginations of general public toward the futures are given in each society by using these analogies: railroad, river, sea and game. Therefore, the intervention of advanced nations may confront passive, harmonic, active, proactive and chaotic reaction in the other nations. We have discussed that undertaking proactive strategy is the best way to design national perspective.     

Proactive intelligence

The traditional role of intelligence services has entered into a period of crisis. For decades the main objective of the intelligence system has been (and still is) to detect the moment at which a potential risk becomes a genuine threat and to act when this transition occurs. The logic of this system is based on the same conception that dominated futures studies in its early times: the predictive approach. Essentially, this approach postulates that it is possible to predict the future if you have enough high-quality information; the equivalent to this in intelligence terms would be that you can predict a threat if you have enough privileged information.This approach has been successful for some time, but the changes that the world has undergone in recent years have rendered it obsolete. Globalization, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the emergence of new forms of terrorism are forcing intelligence services to develop new methods to keep pace. The doctrine of pre-emptive attacks could be considered an initial move in this direction, but this paper, which is the preliminary version of a forthcoming dissertation, will argue that a far more profound change is required. In short, the current demand is for a new kind of intelligence that has a far more transversal perspective, a systemic mode of operation and an anticipatory approach to risks and threats: proactive intelligence.     

Alternative futures: AmI scenarios and Minority Report

In the last few decades, scenarios have provided a way of analysing the implications of alternative futures, especially as they might be impacted by new technologies. This has been no less true of ambient intelligence (AmI), which may be embedded everywhere in the not so distant future. Most of the scenarios developed by AmI enthusiasts have been rather ‘sunny’, showing how the new technologies promise to make our lives more efficient, enjoyable, productive, enriching. A European project, called Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence (SWAMI), deliberately developed ‘dark scenarios’ to highlight the threats to privacy, identity, trust, security and inclusiveness posed by the new technologies. The SWAMI consortium also developed a methodological structure for deconstructing and analysing the dark scenarios. This paper takes that approach a step further by applying it to a cultural artefact, partly to test the validity, utility, applicability of the SWAMI methodology to a scenario not constructed by the consortium and partly to show how some cultural artefacts can be regarded as scenarios in their own right as well as warnings about future technologies. The cultural artefact chosen here was the Steven Spielberg film Minority Report, because it features so many AmI technologies and draws attention to the issues that have been the focus of the SWAMI project.     

Using scenarios to explore UK upland futures

Uplands around the world are facing significant social, economic and environmental changes, and decision-makers need to better understand what the future may hold if they are to adapt and maintain upland goods and services. This paper draws together all major research comprising eight studies that have used scenarios to describe possible futures for UK uplands. The paper evaluates which scenarios are perceived by stakeholders to be most likely and desirable, and assesses the benefits and drawbacks of the scenario methods used in UK uplands to date. Stakeholders agreed that the most desirable and likely scenario would be a continuation of hill farming (albeit at reduced levels) based on cross-compliance with environmental measures. The least desirable scenario is a withdrawal of government financial support for hill farming. Although this was deemed by stakeholders to be the least likely scenario, the loss of government support warrants close attention due to its potential implications for the local economy. Stakeholders noted that the environmental implications of this scenario are much less clear-cut. As such, there is an urgent need to understand the full implications of this scenario, so that upland stakeholders can adequately prepare, and policy-makers can better evaluate the likely implications of different policy options. The paper concludes that in future, upland scenario research needs to: (1) better integrate in-depth and representative participation from stakeholders during both scenario development and evaluation; and (2) make more effective use of visualisation techniques and simulation models.     

Food Security Challenge of Climate Change: An Analysis for Policy Selection

Food security and the ability to meet this fundamental need is without a doubt an important objective to all nations. This study deals with climate change adaptation and its costs-benefits with an empirical analysis optimizing food security related adaptation strategy over a 50-year time frame. An Empirical Dynamic Commutable General Equilibrium Model for Climate and the Economy (EDCGECE) is applied to describe the potential effects of climate change on food security and examine the implications of future strategies for Malaysia. Specifically, this study considers the potential effects of climate change on food security and explores the prioritizing of mitigation options. Different scenarios show a baseline scenario without adaptation action followed by introduction of adaptation actions. The analysis reveals important contrasts from baseline to future options over time. The results indicate that food sustainability gap in Malaysia is about 30–35% below the national targets in 2015 (baseline) and the gap is rising over time due to climatic effects in agriculture. However, applying different levels of adaptation actions, (e.g. 5–20%) food security gaps are reduced over time considerably. The projected adaptation strategies applied in this study would be effective and helpful to support sustainable food security related strategies in Malaysia.     

Whether the weather: comments on ‘An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security’

In February 2004, the Department of Defense released ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Written by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall of consulting firm Global Business Network, the study outlined a possible future with climatic conditions similar to those 8200 years ago and speculated on implications related to the subsequent availability of food, water, and energy. As a result of media coverage about the report, which notably included misconceptions about the study's intents, the document may have become too politically controversial for defense planners to engage at the present time and it has apparently not been widely distributed within the administration's national security personnel. Regardless of the document's status within the Pentagon, it is of interest to many who are actively involved in discussions about the future. Broadly, as with any scenario-based undertaking, there are questions about how the vision of the future has been crafted and, subsequently, how it may best be used to inform a decision-making process. More narrowly, this particular scenario is also significant for on-going debates about the role of environmental factors in matters of national security. This paper distinguishes between natural events and human actions to consider some strengths and weaknesses of Schwartz and Randall's text. It also makes recommendations to improve future efforts to understand the relationships between climate change and national security.     

专业合作社:粮食产业化经营的现实选择

小生产和大市场的矛盾严重威胁着我国的粮食安全,要保证粮食安全就必须加快粮食产业化经营的步伐,而龙头企业加农户的模式,虽然在一定程度上实现了粮食生产资源的优化配置,却难以真正实现企业和农民之间风险共担、利益共享的局面。解决的途径就是走合作社的道路,在政府的扶助下,建立粮食合作社。     

Die Auswirkungen der steigenden Lebenserwartung auf die Prävalenz der Pflegebedürftigkeit in Deutschland

As a consequence of population ageing the number of persons in need of care will rise considerably in the decades to come. While the rise per se is uncontroversial a still open question is whether the increase in longevity will raise or lower the age-specific prevalence of long term care. As there are both empirical studies finding an increase or a decrease of prevalence as life expectancy increases, most existing projections of the number of persons in need of care are based on the assumption of constant age-specific prevalence rates. While this question cannot be answered ultimately from the current point of view, this paper gives some guidance on the range of the future increase in cases. To this end we first analyze the interplay of changes in mortality, incidence and prevalence within a flow figure model. This approach allows for a better understanding of the conditions which must be met for an increase or a decline of the prevalence of care in the future. Based on German data we then adapt a scenario approach to analyze the model's quantitative implications for the prevalence of care and the number of nursing cases in the future. Our results indicate that the number of nursing cases will range between 2,6?m and 7?m persons in the year 2060. Nonetheless, based on the existing empirical findings for Germany and other industrialized countries, a doubling on 4?m persons in need of care seems to be the most realistic scenario.     

Scenarios and the art of worldmaking

In this exploratory paper we propose ‘worldmaking’ as a framework for pluralistic, imaginative scenario development. Our points of departure are the need in scenario practice to embrace uncertainty, discomfort and knowledge gaps, and the connected need to capture and make productive fundamental plurality among understandings of the future. To help respond to these needs, we introduce what Nelson Goodman calls worldmaking. It holds that there is no singular, objective world (or “real reality”), and instead that worlds are multiple, constructed through creative processes instead of given, and always in the process of becoming. We then explore how worldmaking can operationalise discordant pluralism in scenario practice by allowing participants to approach not only the future but also the present in a constructivist and pluralistic fashion; and by extending pluralism to ontological domains. Building on this, we investigate how scenario worldmaking could lead to more imaginative scenarios: worldmaking is framed as a fully creative process which gives participants ontological agency, and it helps make contrasts, tensions and complementarities between worlds productive. We go on to propose questions that can be used to operationalize scenario worldmaking, and conclude with the expected potential and limitations the approach, as well as suggestions for practical experimentation.     

Use of explorative scenarios in environmental policy-making—Evaluation of policy instruments for management of land, water and the built environment

In order to achieve the Swedish Environmental Quality Objectives (EQOs), three action strategies have been adopted by the Swedish parliament. The strategy addressed in this paper deals with the management of land, water and the built environment. The paper reports on a project involving authorities and researchers in which policy measures required for achieving relevant targets for the strategy were gathered, structured and analysed regarding their potential assuming alternative futures. Measures with proposed policy instruments were qualitatively evaluated against one business as usual scenario and four explorative scenarios varying along two dimensions; level of governance and level of embeddedness. The results show a heavy predominance of administrative policy instruments. This policy strategy depends on a future development where such policy instruments are accepted. In order to achieve the EQOs regardless of future developments, more robust packages of measures including a larger variation in policy instruments need to be developed.     

Exploring the interaction between technology and morality in the field of genetic susceptibility testing: A scenario study

With the rise of genomics promises and concerns have emerged about future possibilities for screening of genetic susceptibilities to common diseases in the population. In this article we start from the assumption that for a better understanding of the future ethical implications of genetic susceptibility screening we need to address the interaction between technological and moral developments in society. We introduce a techno-ethical scenario approach and show how it may help us to explore more systematically potential future interactions between technological and moral developments in the field of genetic susceptibility screening. The first step is a historical account of population screening, focussing on the ways in which emerging practices of (genetic) screening have been mediated by an evolving moral landscape in our society. Based on this history we present a techno-ethical scenario of the future, showing how technological developments may shape conditions in our society in which the introduction and use of genetic susceptibility tests more and more become a matter of private decisions, reinforcing claims to individual self-determination as a deeply rooted value in the moral landscape of our society.     

Hunting humans: A future for tourism in 2200

This paper offers a future scenario to expose the potential engagement of tourism in the year 2200. Taking a socio-constructionist approach to research and through the analysis of secondary data, it explores current issues and debates concerned with the environment, disasters and depletion of natural resources; social context including movies and entertainment, the media and technology, the evolution of the theme park and cultural transmission; and economical realities, covering poverty vs. world elite and global culture, all of which are seen as drivers of the potential future tourism market. In so doing, it presents a narrative (scenario), provoking the notion that in the year 2200 death and hunting humans will form part of the tourism entertainment industry and a practice carried out by the wealthy-elite, a view backed with substance. It argues, that as a result of past and current engagements with murder, death and human atrocities, and significantly our relationship with death, humans will gradually become more accustomed to death as a form of spectacle, influenced by current entertainment, movies and the media. Death as entertainment by form of detachment (emotionally and physically) will further influence the future fun aspect of hunting humans. Significantly, changes in our natural environment will lead to great challenges, lack of water, depleted food resources and greater disparity between the wealthy and impoverished; all of which will drive the change in our humanly existence. This papers aims to provide a provocative account of the ‘potential future meaning of tourism’, through the application of current knowledge, and significantly, it is our relationship with death and violence that are central, death and violence are becoming diluted and thus, will be a source of future entertainment and a tourism activity – in less humans can reach a level of transcendence that has never been present, to transcend the culture they have created, one that has always witnessed violence as a means to survival. If violence can be detached then we will be presented with a ‘wild card’, a future that is truly out of this world.     

Choosing diverse sets of plausible scenarios in multidimensional exploratory futures techniques

Morphological analysis allows any number of dimensions to be retained when framing future conditions, and techniques within morphological analysis determine which combinations of those dimensions represent plausible futures. However, even a relatively low number of dimensions in future conditions can lead to hundreds or even thousands of plausible future scenarios. Creating highly diverse but conceivable visions of the future in which to explore decision-making, exploratory futures techniques rely on the selection of a small number of plausible scenarios from the larger set. In this paper we describe a new method for finding maximally diverse sets containing a small number of plausible scenarios from a multi-dimensional morphological analysis. It is based on a mathematical optimization of diversity that is robust to the uncertainty in the framing of future factors and states and in what stakeholders might consider diverse combinations of those factors and states. We also describe implementation of the method as a software tool and its performance in recent exploratory scenario development by CGIAR and partners for regional environmental change, food security and livelihoods.     

Airport futures: Towards a critique of the aerotropolis model

It is predicted that the twenty-first century will be dominated by air transport, both for domestic and international carriage of passengers and cargo. Thus the airport, as a driver of regional growth, is expected to become more than merely a regional gateway. Rather, it will function as city in itself, with living spaces for workers and their families, factories relying on airborne inputs and service industries located around the airport, with major road and rail infrastructure connected to it. However, the ‘aerotropolis’, as this hub for industry and driver of economic development has been called, has not yet been critiqued adequately, especially from a long-term public policy and planning perspective. This article raises concerns about three different dimensions to the aerotropolis regarding its long-term sustainability, viz., energy provision, the security of critical infrastructure and export pathways. In particular, this article argues that air transport will not replace existing components of international economic development. The authors contend that the three dimensions need to be explored in order to arrive at a more balanced view of the aerotropolis and its place in an increasingly complex global future.     

The critical role of history in scenario thinking: Augmenting causal analysis within the intuitive logics scenario development methodology

The historian Eric Hobsbawm stated that ‘The safest empirical generalization about history is still that nobody heeds its obvious lessons much’. Whether at a macroeconomic level or within individual organisations there are numerous examples of this, such as the economic crash of 2008, the causes of which had many parallels with those that caused the great depression 80 years previously. On the other hand however, overly-relying on the past as a guide to the future has its own obvious dangers—not least that important future events may have no past precedent. As such, the present paper firstly provides a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using the past as a guide to the future. It then examines the role of history in scenario work, arguing that history should receive greater emphasis as part of the scenario planning process. We suggest changes to the standard Intuitive Logics (IL) approach to scenario planning which would render learning from history a more central component of the scenario process, in contrast to its current peripheral role. Rather than diminishing scenario planning’s ability to facilitate a consideration of how the future may differ from the past, we show how a greater emphasis on history can enhance consideration of the causality of future change. An adapted IL that has more emphasis on historical analysis can augment scenario planning’s effectiveness as a tool for consideration of the future.     

解决贷款担保权益转让难题的要素

长期以来,因贷款担保权益转让手续繁琐、可操作性较差等原因,市场趋于回避担保类贷款的转让交易,客观上限制了贷款转让交易的活跃度。《贷款转让交易主协议（2010年版）》本着稳妥务实、尊重合同自由的原则,允许当事人在遵守法律及合同规定的基础上,协商确定担保权益转让手续的合理措施,较好解决了担保权益转让的难题。最后,文章结合实务提示了办理贷款担保权益转让手续的注意事项。     

Endowing cognitive mapping with computational properties for strategic analysis

A number of cognitive, causal mapping and simulation techniques exist for dealing with the growing importance of environmental uncertainty. After briefly commenting on some of the more salient extant approaches, this paper offers a new one for consideration by the scenario planning community. Comprehensive Situation Mapping (CSM) is a powerful analytical tool combined with a process for framing and debating strategic situations. The CSM approach combines the problem framing features of causal mapping with a dialectical inquiry process patterned after Churchman's. Like the better approaches to planning through cognitive mapping, it facilitates the “backward analysis” of the underlying strategic assumptions. Its novelty is that it also allows the “forward analysis” of a situation by computing the potential change scenarios. Initially developed for manual application, the principles of CSM were originally tested in appropriate case studies. The contribution of the present paper is to present its theory and point out that its future potential is even greater: in concluding we indicate that, by using recent distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) technology, a fully computerized and interactive prototype is now being set up for commercial applications.     

Creating the future: Goal-oriented Scenario Planning

Do current scenario planning techniques ignore an organizations ability to create its future? Social constructionists and organizational theorists have indicated that the future of an organization can be enacted by its constituents. Yet it is apparent that scenario planning techniques, used by organizations to plan for their future, tend to emphasize a future that the organization must react to instead of create. By emphasizing a future that the organizations must react to, it may ignore and completely miss the opportunity it has to create or enact the future it wants to have.Scenario planning, however, can evolve to support a creative foresight and approach to the future by recognizing the power behind enactment theory and applying a goal-oriented approach to the scenario planning process. Using goal-oriented scenario planning an organization can match the world it wants with the world it expects to see.