On effectiveness of wiretap programs in mapping social networks

Snowball sampling methods are known to be a biased toward highly connected actors and consequently produce core-periphery networks when these may not necessarily be present. This leads to a biased perception of the underlying network which can have negative policy consequences, as in the identification of terrorist networks. When snowball sampling is used, the potential overload of the information collection system is a distinct problem due to the exponential growth of the number of suspects to be monitored. In this paper, we focus on evaluating the effectiveness of a wiretapping program in terms of its ability to map the rapidly evolving networks within a covert organization. By running a series of simulation-based experiments, we are able to evaluate a broad spectrum of information gathering regimes based on a consistent set of criteria. We conclude by proposing a set of information gathering programs that achieve higher effectiveness then snowball sampling, and at a lower cost. Maksim Tsvetovat is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Social Complexity and department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. He received his Ph.D. from the Computation, Organizations and Society program in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. His dissertation was centered on use of artificial intelligence techniques such as planning and semantic reasoning as a means of studying behavior and evolution of complex social networks, such as these of terrorist organizations. He received a Master of Science degree from University of Minnesota with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence and design of Multi-Agent Systems, and has also extensively studied organization theory and social science research methods. His research is centered on building high-fidelity simulations of social and organizational systems using concepts from distributed artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. Other projects focus on social network analysis for mapping of internal corporate networks or study of covert and terrorist orgnaizations. Maksim’s vita and publications can be found on Kathleen M. Carley is a professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and the director of the center for Compuational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS) which has over 25 members, both students and research staff. Her research combines cognitive science, social networks and computer science to address complex social and organizational problems. Her specific research areas are dynamic network analysis, computational social and organization theory, adaptation and evolution, text mining, and the impact of telecommunication technologies and policy on communication, information diffusion, disease contagion and response within and among groups particularly in disaster or crisis situations. She and her lab have developed infrastructure tools for analyzing large scale dynamic networks and various multi-agent simulation systems. The infrastructure tools include ORA, a statistical toolkit for analyzing and visualizing multi-dimensional networks. ORA results are organized into reports that meet various needs such as the management report, the mental model report, and the intelligence report. Another tool is AutoMap, a text-mining systems for extracting semantic networks from texts and then cross-classifying them using an organizational ontology into the underlying social, knowledge, resource and task networks. Her simulation models meld multi-agent technology with network dynamics and empirical data. Three of the large-scale multi-agent network models she and the CASOS group have developed in the counter-terrorism area are: BioWar a city-scale dynamic-network agent-based model for understanding the spread of disease and illness due to natural epidemics, chemical spills, and weaponized biological attacks; DyNet a model of the change in covert networks, naturally and in response to attacks, under varying levels of information uncertainty; and RTE a model for examining state failure and the escalation of conflict at the city, state, nation, and international as changes occur within and among red, blue, and green forces. She is the founding co-editor with Al. Wallace of the journal Computational Organization Theory and has co-edited several books and written over 100 articles in the computational organizations and dynamic network area. Her publications can be found at: http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/bios/carley/publications.php     

数字全息图变频采样研究

根据Whittaker-Shannon抽样定理,对菲涅耳全息图进行变频率采样,保证整个全息图各部分采样频率为该处相应空间频率的两倍,从而完全消除数字全息图由于采样冗余而带来全息图的信息冗余.并且,对变频采样后的全息图进行线性插值恢复即可获得良好的再现像质.实验和理论均证明了该方法的有效性和可行性,为全息图的信息存贮与传输提出一条新的思路.     

MORPHOLOGY OF BLACK CARBON AEROSOLS AND UBIQUITY OF 50-NANOMETER BLACK CARBON AEROSOLS IN THE ATMOSPHERE

Different-sized aerosols were collected by an Andersen air sampler to observe the detailed morphology of the black carbon （BC） aerosols which were separated chemically from the other accompanying aerosols, using a Scanning Electron Microscope equipped with an Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometer （SEM-EDX）. The results indicate that most BC aerosols are spherical particles of about 50 nm in diameter and with a homogeneous surface. Results also show that these particles aggregate with other aerosols or with themselves to form larger agglomerates in the micrometer range. The shape of these 50-nm BC spherical particles was found to be very similar to that of BC particles released from petroleum-powered vehicular internal combustion engines. These spherical BC particles were shown to be different from the previously reported fullerenes found using Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry （MALDI-TOF-MS）.     

Estimating Sampling Errors in REA Survey: A Model Approach for the Synthetic Presentation of Results for Main Variables Involved in Economic Analysis

A new sample business survey for agriculture, the REA survey, and a project of integration with the FADN network (RICA in Italy) have significantly changed the production of statistical information nowadays available with reference to the agricultural sector. On the basis of this relevant information, new economic analyses are being developed on farms’ performance, agricultural households’ income and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In this paper the authors estimate the relationship between the levels of variables of interest and their sampling errors using models in order to improve the accessibility of the information on estimates accuracy to the final users (agricultural analysts, policy makers). The paper is the result of a joint research of the three authors. Sections 1–3 and 6 by Pizzoli, Sects. 4 and 5 by Rondinelli, Sect. 7 by Filiberti, conclusions joint to the three authors.     

Approximation of signals from local averages

This work is concerned with approximation of a signal from local averages. It improves a result of Butzer and Lei [P.L. Butzer, J. Lei, Approximation of signals using measured sampled values and error analysis, Commun. Appl. Anal. 4 (2000) 245–255].     

软门限去噪法在X射线能谱分析中的应用

从函数空间的剖分和理想滤波器组的角度分析了多分辨率信号的分解与重构，提出了一种X射线能谱去噪的方法，即应用Mallat算法对谱信号进行小波分解，然后应用一个非线性软门限函数在小波域内将噪声抑制和消除，最后重构得到去噪后的能谱。该方法明显改善了能谱定量分析的结果。     

Cyclic BSEC of block size 3

Balanced sampling plans excluding contiguous units (or BSEC) were first introduced by Hedayat, Rao and Stufken in 1988. In this note, we discuss constructions of these designs having cyclic automorphisms. We use Langford sequences to construct all possible cyclic BSEC (or CBSEC) with block size 3 and λ = 1,2, which establishes the necessary and sufficient conditions for such designs. Some constructions of the balanced sampling plan avoiding adjacent units, a generalization of BSEC, are also given for fixed λ.     

Marcinkiewicz–Zygmund inequalities

We study a generalization of the classical Marcinkiewicz–Zygmund inequalities. We relate this problem to the sampling sequences in the Paley–Wiener space and by using this analogy we give sharp necessary and sufficient computable conditions for a family of points to satisfy the Marcinkiewicz–Zygmund inequalities.     

Vapor-particle partitioning of hydrocarbons in Western Mediterranean urban and marine atmospheres

An analytical procedure is described for a comprehensive determination of the composition of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, based on: (a) aerosol filtration and subsequent adsorption of the vapor phase onto active charcoal and polyurethane foam; (b) GPC and HPLC fractionation of the extracts, and (c) analysis of the fractions by GC-MS under EI and NICI modes. Special emphasis is placed onn-alkanes, PAHs and their oxygenated derivatives.The characterization of samples collected in a coastal urban area (Barcelona city), and far away over the Western Mediterranean, at sea level and at 1100 m of altitude, revealed significant changes in the aerosol composition, mainly attributed to initial vapor-particle partitioning processes, influenced by ambient temperature variations, and to others taking place during long-range atmospheric transport, related with the different compound photoreactivities and with an unexplained source-decoupling phenomenon.     

On-line testing of gas chromatographic columns with a programmable computing integrator

Summary A program is described which calculates the number of effective plates and the coating efficiency over the entire range of a test chromatogram. The peak widths at half height are derived by assuming a Gaussian peak shape. The interpolated peak width at k=4 is used for computing a standardized number of effective plates. Plate height, column permeability, overall performance and a novel parameter called sampling efficiency are calculated from 5 other figures — i. e. carrier gas code, pressure drop, column length, column temperature and particle size.Dedicated to Dr. Leslie S. Ettre for his 60th birthday.