A few months ago, in April 2011, the Workshop on Semantic Graph Database Search Patterns has taken place in Seattle, Washington, USA. One of the case studies presented at the workshop was Application of Semantic Graph Database Search Patterns in Law Enforcement (excerpt from the workshop’s report):

This data has ≈ 100K elements/records about people, places, and events, and on the order of millions of relationships between records. It is in relational form,
but with a rudimentary triple-based ontology.

Major features of the dataset include:

• Gang activity, sex offenders, burglary, etc.
• Roles: witness, victim, suspect, perpetrator– Events are temporal. Associations between people and addresses/phone number are temporal. Addresses are spatial, linked to people and organizations.
• Example of events: car prowl at a certain time, time of report of shots fired, not so much booking or jail-related, more focused on officers. However, history and records are important, like criminal records and people who were in jail together or shared a cell together.

Characteristics of useful queries include:

1. Shortest path queries (“Show how two people are connected”) are very useful, but tend to blow up for time or memory.
2. Who is associated with crimes over a specific geographic region? The spacial component becomes very difficult for boundary cases such as a car accident
   in the middle of a street that serves as a boundary for the law enforcement zones.
3. When a crime occurs, queries are requested that perform the task of landscaping, or trying to find anything related to the new crime, such as similar victims, locations, etc.

Finally, it would be useful to be able to search for probable crime spree patterns. Here a crime spree is loosely defined as a pattern of similar crimes following a feasible spatio-temporal sequence. For example, give all crimes in the “neighborhood” (defined) of a given space+time, and do so iteratively for all crimes in the neighborhood, until the neighborhood can no longer be expanded. The sequence can no longer be expanded when the time between two events are such that there was not sufficient time to move from the previous location to the next. Since the “time” of the crime is a fuzzy term—when did a break-in happen given when it was first noticed?—this constraint may come down to a confidence factor dipping below some threshold.

Mantissa’s miniature MSHRS-300X sensor demonstrates the capabilities required for securing strategic facilities, critical infrastructures and borders. It works day and night, in all weather conditions, and weighs a mere 490 grams. Its staring antenna enables vehicle recognition from a distance of up to 600 meters and can distinguish people from animals at 300 meters. The radar provides full information of target range, velocity, azimuth and heading. Thanks to its size and weight, it is portable and easy to install.

According to Ehud Fishler, Founder of Mantissa, “Mantissa’s radars provide a solution to many of the drawbacks associated with security devices currently on the market, most of which are based on cameras. Camera usage involves costly personnel watching multiple screens. They have to work around the clock and are hard pressed to capture images at a great distance, track multiple objects, and work in bad weather or poor visibility conditions (like fog, dust and darkness). Our radars solve all these problems and outperform traditional VMD systems.”

Danny Seker, CEO of Mantissa, adds, “The capabilities, size, weight, and price of this radar make it feasible for use by every army unit, and military or civilian facilities. Our radar system supports a broad range of innovative functionalities and will usher in a new era for surveillance, security and urban safety. I have no doubt that within five to seven years radar-integrated cameras will be commonplace.”

SampleMatrix® is based on extremophile biology in which organisms are able to survive long-term in a state of anhydrobiosis (life without water) and later be revived by rehydration. Extremophiles such as tardigrades, also known as water bears, and brine shrimp are able protect their DNA, RNA, proteins, membranes and cellular systems in a dried state for extended periods of time. Biomatrica’s technology mimics the natural molecular mechanisms used by these organisms. The technology works by forming a thermo-stable barrier during the drying process to protect samples from degradation during storage at room temperature.

The company’s products serve a wide range of customers such as those in the forensics, biomedical research (academic, government and industry), molecular diagnostics and biobanking.

• Resilience
• Scalability
• Speed of data access
• No single point of failure
• Distributed data acquisition and common data sharing
• Managing massive unstructured data

For example, rapid image acquisition and analysis is an important initial source of information that can detail conditions over a wide area both to mitigate the effects of large-scale natural or technological disasters and to provide digital terrain analysis and geospatial updates to battlefield commanders and weapons platforms in support of mission planning, rehearsal and execution. Prior to the emergence of the non-relational database platforms, the image acquisition, analysis and sharing depended on slow, processing-intensive relational database management systems (RDBMS) that could not meet the field operator’s requirement for rapid access to accurate image data and analysis, timely update of database with multiple input sources and necessary level of redundancy.

In search of solutions engineers turned to the non-relational database management systems or NoSQL, a new technology that emerged to tackle scalability problems in exponentially growing social networks such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. With the emergence of the open source NoSQL platforms governmental agencies and a few technology startups tried to adopt NoSQL database technology to military and homeland security applications. We are getting reports of successful NoSQL pilots currently used as an alternative supplement/backup to existing systems.

Outstanding results have been accomplished in data mining application serving multiple data input points and collaborative data analysis. The NoSQL technology is not supposed to replace traditional RDBMS in military and homeland security applications. NoSQL addresses the RDBMS problems by supplementing scalability, seed and robustness, value adding to existing data, and maintaining a common set of data on the battlefield or emergency area for use by multiple field operators.

According to a recently released market report NoSQL Market Forecast 2011-2015, a considerable share of burgeoning NoSQL market will be attributed to the military and homeland security applications.

Cleversafe’s Dispersed Storage technology, which has been in the commercial market for more than two years, seamlessly transforms data into secure slices, and then disperses these slices to multiple storage nodes typically across three or four data centers. Each individual slice is unrecognizable as data and therefore inherently secure, whereas a defined threshold of slices can be used to bit-perfectly recreate the original data. This storage efficient approach has thin provisioning built in and eliminates the need for traditional replication, thereby reducing storage requirements by 50 to 70 percent when compared to traditional RAID with replication and yet has even higher availability than four replicated copies.

A number of relatively small Deep Packet Inspection hardware and software vendors will likely win from CERT-sponsored Einstein program. Einstein, a recently declassified cyber security initiative, is a set of cyber defense measures intended to identify, analyze, prevent and actively respond to cyber threats.

Terremark Worldwide, Inc., a provider of managed IT infrastructure services, has launched cloud-enabled disaster recovery services. Terremark’s Virtualized Disaster Recovery solution provides disaster recovery solution, which supports a variety of operating systems and enterprise applications and databases, customers protection for their business-critical environments without the cost or complexity of maintaining the server, networking, and facility infrastructures at a secondary site. This service is based on a Terremark’s platform and takes advantage of the company’s highly secure, top-tier data center facilities to deliver reliable, repeatable and predictable solutions that reduce recovery times to a matter of hours at a much lower cost than that of traditional disaster recovery services.

“Our cloud-based disaster recovery offering is more than just a remote-replication solution; it is a complete cloud-based site redirection service that incorporates the enterprise-class services necessary to run IT operations securely in the event of a disaster declaration. Terremark’s physical and information security, trusted personnel, proven solution framework and industry-leading connectivity to global networks make the service a DR/COOP solution our customers can trust when a disaster strikes,” said Tom Mays, Terremark’s Senior Vice President for Advanced Data Solutions.

Terremark’s Virtualized Disaster Recovery, based on NetApp storage and VMware’s vSphere technologies, offers a diverse set of reliable options with array-based, host-based, and application-based replication options, support for physical or virtual source servers, and is suitable for customer environments that range from the most basic to the most sophisticated. On-demand managed security services like intrusion detection, log aggregation, firewall services, and on-demand managed backup services protect customer applications and data at similar or higher levels of security than required in their production environments.

1. The Canadian Police Research Centre will lead the development of a CBRNE Recommended Equipment List (REL) for frontline emergency response agencies (08-0105RD). Partners: Association of Canadian CBRN Technicians, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, Canadian Police Association, Canadian Standards Association, Defence Research and Development Canada, Emergency Management Services Chiefs of Canada, International Association of Fire Fighters, Paramedic Association of Canada, Patriot CT Services, and Public Safety Canada.

2. Public Safety Canada will lead the development of a database tracking specific chemical materials by geographical location (08-0116RD). Partners: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Defence Research and Development Canada, Defence Science and Technology Limited, Department of National Defence, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and University of Ottawa.

3. Quanser Consulting Inc. will lead the development of a more advanced remote-controlled robotic device capable of disarming explosive devices (08-0142RD). Partners: Defence Research and Development Canada, National Research Council of Canada Institute for Aerospace Research.

4. The University of Ottawa will lead the development of a prototype tool for proactively identifying strengths and weaknesses of communities in relation to emergency management (08-0176RD). Partners: Canadian Red Cross and Council of Voluntary Sector Emergency Directors, Carleton University, Government of Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada.
5. The University of Ottawa Heart Institute will lead the development of technologies to detect disease outbreaks and monitor public events, as well as procedures and best practices for their implementation (08-0190RD). Partners: AMITA Corporation, Carnegie Mellon University (US), City of Ottawa, Defence Research and Development Canada, Health Canada, National Research Council, Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada, Queens University.

6. Defence Research and Development Canada will lead the development and testing of technology for disarming explosives from a safe distance (08-0200RD). Partners: Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Department of National Defence, International Safety Research, March Scientific Ltd., White Sands Test Center (US).

7. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will lead the development of technology to improve early detection of food contamination (08-0203RD). Partners: Health Canada, Michigan State University (US), Public Health Agency of Canada, University of Guelph, University of Minnesota (US), and United States Department of Agriculture (US).

8. Defence Research and Development Canada will lead the development of a nuclear materials detection system (08-0214RD). Partners: Advanced Applied Physics Solutions, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Carleton University, Health Canada, International Safety Research, Los Alamos National Laboratories (US), University of British Columbia.

9. Defence Research and Development Canada will lead the development of technology capable of more effective long-range radiation detection (08-0222RD). Partners: Bubble Technology Industries, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Health Canada, National Physical Laboratory (UK), National Research Council.
Technology Acceleration projects aim to more rapidly commercialize technologies that are already in development in order to address key capacity gaps and deliver needed technologies into the hands of responders in a more timely and efficient manner.

The three Technology Acceleration projects are:

10. TeknoScan Systems Inc. will lead the development of technology capable of quickly sampling and detecting explosives in cargo containers (08-0104TA). Partners: Canada Border Services Agency, Transport Canada.

11. Defence Research and Development Canada will lead the development of a therapeutic agent against ricin poisoning (08-0112TA). Partners: Canada West BioSciences Inc., Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Cangene Corporation.

12. Mobile Detect Inc. will lead the development of the next generation of radiation surveillance networks able to detect, characterize, and localize threats (08-0208TA). Partners: Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Defence Research and Development Canada, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, GE Global Research (US), Health Canada, McFadden Technologies Ltd., Ottawa International Airport Authority, Royal Military College of Canada, San Diego International Airport (US), Transport Canada.

Technology Demonstration projects involve the participation of the operational community from the beginning of a project in order to ensure that the S&T capacity being developed truly responds to their needs. These projects show off the usefulness of new technologies by having them tested in an operational setting and providing the end-user with a “leave-behind” capability which allows them to permanently integrate the knowledge and technology acquired into their daily operations.

The twelve Technology Demonstration projects are:

13. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will lead the assessment of key disinfectants used against animal diseases in Canada’s meat production plants, as well as the development of protocols and field trials for their use (08-0122TD). Partners: USDA/APHIS/Veterinary Services (US), Allen-Vanguard Corporation, Canadian Forces Base Borden, City of Ottawa, Public Health Agency of Canada.

14. Public Safety Canada will lead the development of an electronic database of commercial explosives and articles for rapid analysis by law enforcement, incident analysts and regulatory authorities (08-0131TD). Partners: AMITA Corporation, Canada Border Services Agency, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, Canadian Explosives Industry Association, Natural Resources Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Toronto Police.

15. Health Canada will lead the development of standard protocols for analytical testing of nuclear forensics evidence to ensure results are more consistent and therefore admissible in a court of law (08-0173TD). Partners: Argonne National Laboratory (US), Federal Bureau of Investigation (US), National Research Council, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Royal Military College, University of Laval.

16. The University of Toronto will lead the development and implementation of an integrated National CBRNE Training System for health, psychosocial and communication professionals (08-0180TD). Partners: Alberta Health Services, AMITA Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Standards Association, Centennial College Toronto, Defence Research and Development Canada, Governance and Emergency Management Consulting and Training Services, Health Canada, MJW Corporation, National Calibration Reference Centre for Bioassay and In Vivo Monitoring, National Microbiology Laboratory, Nortel Global Services, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care, Public Health Agency of Canada, Royal Military College, Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, Telus, University of Arizona (US), University of Miami (US), University of Ottawa.

17. The Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiological Laboratory will lead the development of tests for the rapid identification of biothreat agents (08-0181TD). Partners: Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Defence Research and Development Canada, Health Canada, National Microbiology Laboratory. 18. AMITA Corporation will lead the development and field testing of a bilingual national inventory database of CBRNE emergency resources (08-0192TD). Partners: Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, Carleton University, Defence Research and Development Canada, Department of National Defence, Emergency Medical Services Chiefs of Canada, Environment Canada, National Research Council of Canada, Montreal Police, New Brunswick Department of Public Safety, Public Safety Canada.

19. The Fredericton Fire Department will lead the development of recommendations for the creation of CBRNE Rapid Assessment Teams, including requirements for equipment, training, concept of operations and procedures (08-0197TD). Partners: New Brunswick Department of Public Safety, New Brunswick Provincial Fire Marshal Office, Public Safety Canada, SAIC Canada, Saint John Fire Department.

20. Health Canada will lead the development of guidelines to help improve interoperability between first responders when responding to radiological or nuclear events (08-0225TD). Partners: British Columbia Ambulance Service, Canadian Forces, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Department of National Defence, International Safety Research Inc., Public Health Emergency Management British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, Public Safety Canada, Toronto Police Services, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service.

21. The Saint John Fire Department will lead the development of a CBRN mass personal decontamination system including protocols, standard operating procedures, equipment and processes (08-0226TD). Partners: Fredericton Fire Department, New Brunswick Department of Public Safety, Public Safety Canada.

22. JGM Engineering Ltd. will lead the development of an intravenous treatment for nerve agent poisoning (08-0233TD). Partners: Canadian Forces Health Services, Defence Research and Development Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ottawa Hospital.

23. The Public Health Agency of Canada will lead the development of a modeling tool that can be used by laboratories to accurately determine their resource requirements for diagnostic testing during an outbreak (08-0234TD). Partners: Alberta Provincial Laboratory for Public Health, Association of Public Health Laboratories (US), British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, Booz Allen Hamilton (US), Canadian Food Inspection Agency, National Microbiology Laboratory, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US).

24. Health Canada will lead the development of techniques that can be used in the field to rapidly identify individuals who may have had an intake of radiological material and provide dose information to physicians (08-0241TD). Partners: Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., Canadian Forces, Defence Research and Development Canada.

More Information: Homeland Security Grants