• Articulate a research agenda in the statistical and applied mathematical sciences, including the decision
  sciences, that can yield genuine impact on basic issues in national defense and homeland security (NDHS),
  including counterterrorism.
  
• Explore a potential SAMSI program in national defense and homeland security.
  

The workshop will produce a white paper sketching approaches to several research problems relevant to NDHS, which will be shared with the community. The research will address problem areas in NDHS
presented at the workshop by those who own them—federal agencies such as the CDC, DARPA, and the Department of Defense. Each research path will be crafted by a working group of five or six people. The white paper will:

• Energize and lead the statistical and applied mathematical sciences communities in responding to calls for proposals addressing problems in NDHS.
  
• Define potential foci and identify potential leaders for a SAMSI program in NDHS, during the year 2005-06.

The workshop will be held at the NISS/SAMSI building in Research Triangle Park, NC.

The research in the white paper will be cross-disciplinary, and much of it will be addressable only by multi-institution teams of researchers. Some of the research needed to address problems in NDHS is technology- oriented (for example, development of sensors or biometric identification devices), but it is clear that data (statistical sciences), models (applied mathematics) and decisions (decision sciences) are essential components of the effort. These components interact in both obvious and subtle ways, some of which are just beginning to be understood, and which fit precisely the mission of SAMSI.

The workshop will create a core of researchers who will catalyze broader community participation to prepare proposals responding the NDHS needs discussed at the workshop. In order to maximize career impact on the participants, one member of each working group will be a "new researcher" within six years of having received the Ph.D. These individuals will develop contacts that they might not have otherwise, and will be placed on a trajectory to lead long-run engagement of the statistical and applied mathematical sciences in problems of NDHS.

Scientific Foci

Potential problems to be raised at the workshop include:

• Biosurveillance and early detection of disease outbreaks
  
• Human identification, including identification at a distance, biometric identification and associated issues of privacy.
  
• Metrics; modeling and simulation; information security and information assurance
  
• Information security and privacy; biological assessment and warning; individual behavior and link analysis; critical
  infrastructure, including communications, electrical power, transportation and water supply.
  
• Integrating information, especially unstructured data, such as text, images, audio and video, from disparate sources.

While it is premature to identify specific research issues in the statistical and applied mathematical sciences that will emerge in response to the problem areas, some underlying themes seem clear:

• Data mining, especially for various forms of unstructured data—text, images, audio and video. Beyond obvious issues of scale, one particular challenge will be to identify and search for time-dependent
  patterns associated with terrorism.
  
• Detection of extremely rare events, for which existing theory and methodology do not seem to be adequate. Control of false positives is a central concern.
  
• Confidentiality and privacy, which permeate analyses of data concerning individuals, the overwhelming majority of whom are not terrorists. Both new forms of data, such as images, and new forms of "dissemination" (for example, sharing of data among federal agencies and incremental examination of suspicious data) must be accommodated.
  
• Modeling and prediction, which are needed both to assess threats, but perhaps ultimately more important, to evaluate costly and potentially ineffective interventions before implementing them. Modeling of individual behavior and links among individuals is especially necessary.
  
• Costs and benefits, which must be part of both the scientific agenda and the public conversation about NDHS. Decision-making regarding NDHS is complex and rife with uncertainty, and will require new tools to support effective decisions.
  

Strikingly, these themes all involve strong interplay among the statistical and applied mathematical sciences, because data, models and decisions are central to each. The evaluation of a potential SAMSI program in NDHS will pay particular attention to these themes, which would define the theory/methodology emphases of the program.

Tentative Program

Thursday, April 1

Friday, April 2

Organizing Committee

David Banks (Duke University), Christopher K. R. T. Jones (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Co-Chair), Alan F. Karr (NISS; Chair), Sallie Keller-McNulty (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Jon Kettenring (formerly Telcordia Technologies)

Registration

To apply to attend the workshop, use the on-line application form. Space at the workshop is limited.

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