Staff publications (CDS)
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing Staff publications (CDS) by Type "Report"
Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Open Access Are low-yield explosive ordnance disposal methods viable?(IMCSE, 2022-10-01) Alford, Roland; Hazael, Rachael; Critchley, RichardIn 2021 reports began to appear online regarding a new underwater UXO clearance tech that produced a “low-yield” result. It claimed that the technology used did not cause deflagration (burning) but resulted in the munitions breaking up and scattering, causing the explosives to dissipate. The system used was referred to by the brand name Hydra-Jet.[1] Review of available material shows that at Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm, currently being constructed 27km off the Scottish coast in the North Sea [2], three sea mines were attacked using the Hydra-Jet and all three interventions either caused a detonation or a partial detonation. It is unlikely that this technology is 100% reliability and appears to show no improvement over proven low-order techniques such as shaped charges that use low-density reactive liners.[3] It is thought likely that the disruptive effect is produced by overpressure from the charge, placed at close range to the target causing high pressures that are designed to result in physical break-up of the munition rather than any more complex mechanism. The pressure readings taken of the events show that they strongly indicate that at least some of the explosives detonated. The published pressure measurements, indicating that there had been at least partial detonations, were reported to have presented a risk of harm to wildlife (harbour porpoise within approximately 4km) despite the results not having breached the operator’s licence thresholds.[4,5] The latest data from trials conducted by the national Physical Laboratories and Loughborough University might offer guidance for more stringent but achievable thresholds for future work.[6]Item Open Access CCS0025: Written evidence for the Environmental Audit Committee of the UK Parliament in relation to climate change and security(UK Parliament. House of Commons Select Committee. Environmental Audit Committee, 2024-05-15) Wilkinson, Edith; Morrell, KevinItem Open Access Eco-Terrorism: assessing current threats and trends(Pool Reinsurance (PoolRe), 2022-08-08) Silke, AndrewEco-terrorism is motivated by a diverse range of issues and is mainly carried out by lone actors or relatively small and diffuse groupings. Attacks primarily target the destruction of property and vandalism, and are 70 times less likely to result in fatalities compared to the average terrorist attack recorded in the Global Terrorism Database. The most commonly used weapons are incendiary and explosive devices. While only used in a small number of cases, environmentally-motivated terrorist attacks are, however, more likely to involve chemical, biological or radiological weapons compared to average terrorist attacks. Businesses are the primary targets for environmentally-motivated terrorism, followed by research/educational facilities and personnel. Trends currently do not show a rise in traditional environmentally-motivated terrorist attacks connected to the climate change crisis. This may change, however, as the climate crisis worsens and may also be affected if plans to more heavily criminalise non-violent climate protest activity are realised. The recent rise of eco-fascism indicates that environmentally-motivated narratives can be co-opted by other extremist ideologies and that this can have an impact on real-world violence. The potential for this to also eventually happen with regard to Islamist and nationalist-separatist extremism, for example, seems real, particularly in the context of a deepening climate crisis.Item Open Access Testing analytic techniques(2021-03-24) Hill, MartinWe usually have too little time and too much data to assess, communicate and act before the situation changes. The relevant data “SUCs”: it is Scattered across different sources, Unreliable, and Cluttered by irrelevant data [1]. There is too much for one brain to cope with, so we work as teams – our cognition is distributed across individuals and groups – with all the extra time demands and cognitive loads that brings.Item Open Access The Trickle Algorithm: Issues and Solutions(2015-01-30) Djamaa, Badis; Richardson, Mark A.To manage the various multi-purpose Internet of Things applications brought about by low-power and lossy networks, efficient methods of network configuration and administration; firmware installation and updates; neighbourhood, route and resource discovery are required. These requirements can be reduced to a basic data consistency maintenance problem, making the Trickle algorithm a powerful candidate solution. Trickle is shaped by the so-called short-listen problem, hence the imposition of a listen-only period. Such a period allows Trickle to robustly address the short-listen problem at the expense of increased latency. In this report, we revisit the Trickle rules, the short-listen problem and interval-synchronisation, and hence introduce New-Trickle. New-Trickle is an optimisation to Trickle with virtually no extra cost in terms of communication overhead, computation demand and implementation effort, yet one that provides fast updates, yielding a propagation time more than 10 times faster than Trickle.Item Open Access Written evidence into the use of Improvised Explosive Devices and their impact on the Humanitarian Space. Report to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Explosive Weapons(2017-08-24) Cleary, Laura; Johnson, Steve; McAteer, Daniel; Turns, David; Wilkinson, EdithThis report constitutes Cranfield’s School of Defence and Security response to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons’ call for written evidence (dated 11 December 2015) into the use of Improvised Explosive Devices and their impact on the Humanitarian Space. The APPG expressed interest in three questions: - What are the main groups using IEDs that operate around the globe today and what types of IEDs do they employ? - What challenges do state governments and law enforcement agencies face in effectively monitoring and restricting the sale of dual use precursor materials used in making IEDs and the knowledge exchange between groups? - The level and extent of humanitarian harm caused by IEDs around the world?