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h2. Adam D. WILLIAMS
h4. Academic Background:
* student
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h4. Work Experience:
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** {link-window:href=http://shield.tamu.edu|type=normal|target="_blank"}[http://shield.tamu.edu]{link-window})
** Expanded the usability of - )
- Expanded the usability of NSSPI-07-051:
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* 2007 - 2008 • Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs • College Station, TX, USA
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Temporary Research Associate
** Research, fact-checking and writing for (and acknowledged in) Absher, - 2007 - 2008 • Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs • College Station, TX, USA
Temporary Research Associate- Research, fact-checking and writing for (and acknowledged in) Absher, M.K.,
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h4. Research Domain:
*NUCLEAR SECURITY: * Viewing nuclear security as a complex, socio-technical system provides a useful mental map for visualizing how the interconnections of and interactions between physical protection system technologies (cameras, sensors, barriers e.g.) and organizational processes (operations and ‘security culture,’ e.g.) affect facility performance. Nuclear security is not a well-defined term, ranging in meaning from facility-level design concerns to a topic of national policy to the center of (desired) international cooperation. Gaps of knowledge in the domain include understanding the interactions and feedbacks between the technical and social components of security systems (at the facility level) and provided a useful, common framework on which to base national policy and international cooperation.
Starting from
Starting from current,
well-established International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines for security and current Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) protocols, case studies of known attacks on nuclear facilities will be analyzed as empirical evidence for developing this new systems-based theory of nuclear security. The core development of ‘system security’ will be aided by aggregating data from case studies of high value, industrial thefts (i.e., high value diamond or bank vault thefts). The developed model for 'system security' will then be compared against traditional methods of security system analysis for a hypothetical facility used by the IAEA or representative data from real facilities.
h4. Research Research Methodology:
*Systems theory * provides the concepts and tools necessary for understanding the characteristics of and interactions between individual components of complex, socio-technical systems. A better understanding of overarching system structures, the internal component dynamics, and the relationship between the two is necessary to better design and analyze socio-technical systems. Similarly, the *System-Theoretic Accident Model and Process (STAMP) methodology* draws on concepts from engineering, mathematics, cognitive and social psychology, organizational theory, political science and economics to model these structures, dynamics, and relationships. Similarly, *system dynamics* provides a mathematical tool for understanding the temporal changes to the structural complexity, structural dynamics, and behavioral feedbacks of a socio-technical system. It also provides a good way to model the dynamics processes behind changes in static system control structures.
h4. Research Description:
Though security-related technologies continue to advance, decreasing operating budgets and lack of connection to ‘return on investment’ are stressing traditional models of security design and analysis. Despite gleaning some aspects of the successful reinvention of nuclear safety after the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) accidents, nuclear security is still lacking. Today’s approaches to nuclear security mirror traditional models of accident causality (probabilistic risk assessment, event trees, fault trees, etc.) that assume component failure as the source of the loss event and that increased component reliability will prevent accidents (incidents). Such a reductionist analytical paradigm is untenable for the systems of today, where interactions between technical and social (i.e., organizational) system components can exponentially increase complexity. In response, the ‘System-Theoretic Accident Model and Process (STAMP)’ provides a new methodological approach of causation for analyzing (and designing against) safety accidents, especially those involving complex, socio-technical systems.
In much the same way, ‘the fast pace of technological change,’ ‘reduced ability to learn from experience,’ ‘changing nature of \[security\] incidents and \[adversaries\],’ ‘new types of hazards,’ and ‘increasing complexity and coupling’ challenge traditional approaches to security design, analysis and implementation for nuclear facilities in current dynamics environments. Employing the underlying causality model (i.e., actions that move the system toward a vulnerable state); emphasizing the systems understanding of the state of the system (i.e., eliminating, minimizing or mitigating vulnerable states of the system); and implementing the analytical paradigm shift (i.e., from preventing failures to enforcing security constraints) of STAMP provides a mechanism for understanding the endogenous nature of security. What emerges is a complex, socio-technical system property -- ‘system security’ -- manifested in the nuclear realm at the intersection of security technology; nuclear material accounting and control; organizational management and culture; and national and international collaboration politics.
h4. {link-window:href=http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iSMBHk4AAAAJ|type=normal|target="_blank"}Publications{link-window}
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causality modeldraws on concepts from engineering, mathematics, cognitive and social psychology, organizational theory, political science and economics to model these structures, dynamics, and relationships. Similarly, system dynamics provides a mathematical tool for understanding the temporal changes to the structural complexity, structural dynamics, and behavioral feedbacks of a socio-technical system. It also provides a good way to model the dynamics processes behind changes in static system control structures. Research Description:Though security-related technologies continue to advance, decreasing operating budgets and lack of connection to ‘return on investment’ are stressing traditional models of security design and analysis. Despite gleaning some aspects of the successful reinvention of nuclear safety after the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) accidents, nuclear security is still lacking. Today’s approaches to nuclear security mirror traditional models of accident causality (probabilistic risk assessment, event trees, fault trees, etc.) that assume component failure as the source of the loss event and that increased component reliability will prevent accidents (incidents). Such a reductionist analytical paradigm is untenable for the systems of today, where interactions between technical and social (i.e., organizational) system components can exponentially increase complexity. In response, the ‘System-Theoretic Accident Model and Process (STAMP)’ provides a new methodological approach of causation for analyzing (and designing against) safety accidents, especially those involving complex, socio-technical systems. In much the same way, ‘the fast pace of technological change,’ ‘reduced ability to learn from experience,’ ‘changing nature of [security] incidents and [adversaries],’ ‘new types of hazards,’ and ‘increasing complexity and coupling’ challenge traditional approaches to security design, analysis and implementation for nuclear facilities in current dynamics environments. Employing the underlying causality model (i.e., actions that move the system toward a vulnerable state); emphasizing the systems understanding of the state of the system (i.e., eliminating, minimizing or mitigating vulnerable states of the system); and implementing the analytical paradigm shift (i.e., from preventing failures to enforcing security constraints) of STAMP provides a mechanism for understanding the endogenous nature of security. What emerges is a complex, socio-technical system property – ‘system security’ – manifested in the nuclear realm at the intersection of security technology; nuclear material accounting and control; organizational management and culture; and national and international collaboration politics. |
