CALL FOR PAPERS
---------------

Workshop on Innovation in Border Control
21-22 August 2012
Odense, Denmark
http://www.eisic.org/wibc


The workshop will be co-located with
the European Intelligence and Security Informatics Conference (EISIC 2012)
http://www.eisic.eu

The workshop is jointly organised by:
- the European Agency for the Management of External Borders (Frontex),
- the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), and
- the National Center for Border Security and Immigration (Borders), University of Arizona (USA).


AIM AND SCOPE
-------------

The aim of the workshop on Innovation in Border Control is to bring together academic researchers, practitioners, industry consultants, and information technology companies to:

- discuss innovative solutions to current and future challenges in border control (including border surveillance),
- present the latest results of research in the field of border control,
- evaluate current applications, and
- identify next steps toward bringing solutions to fruition.

The focus will be on application-oriented research and technology that addresses practical operational challenges encountered by the border control community.

The workshop should be relevant to researchers in such fields as information technologies, computer science, public policy and social and behavioural studies, as well as to practitioners, consultants and technology industries with interests in border security and control, law enforcement and intelligence. Bringing together
these diverse communities of interest is intended to enrich understanding of the challenges that exist and to extend research and technology development in practical directions.



TOPICS OF INTEREST
------------------

1. Detection, identification and authentication
-----------------------------------------------
CHALLENGE: detection of intruders (surveillance) and verification of identity (against documents and/or databases)

- verification of document authenticity
- access control: authentication of documents, people and vehicles (ex. document crime detection, biometric verification etc.)
- land small area intruder detection
- maritime threat recognition, in wide areas (Exclusive Economic Zone and beyond) and locally (ports and harbours), concerning both large and small (fast) boats
- detection of people attempting to enter illegally
- deception detection
- psycho-physiological and behavioural detection of risk


2. Communication
-----------------------------------------------
CHALLENGE: solutions to ensure end-to-end communication availability

- interconnection of secure communication networks of border guard authorities in neighbouring countries
- efficient transfer of high volume of data, including video and images, from mobile (manned or unmanned) platforms to end users, and vice versa from operations centres to field assets
- ergonomic and user-friendly wireless mobile communication tools


3. Information sharing and interoperability
-----------------------------------------------
CHALLENGE: linking legacy systems, more secure exchange of information, interoperability between mobile teams (vehicles) and stationary devices, information exchanges between centralised and distributed data bases

- platforms and systems for secure exchange of information
- techniques to facilitate the exchange of information between non interoperable information systems
- integrated visa/immigration facilities control systems
- interoperability for information exchange: protocols, schemes, ontologies, topologies, semantic translations and common definitions of content
- collaboration across cultures, or the effects of culture on information sharing
- policies in the context of information sharing
- data protection


4. Information acquisition and fusion
-----------------------------------------------
CHALLENGE: managing an increasing volume of data, aggregation and fusion of data from different sources, real-time information acquisition

- real-time and near real-time text/data mining methods for processing vast amount of heterogeneous data
- utilisation of new sources of information for intelligence gathering and situational awareness (blogs, micro-blogs, forums, deep web, other social media)
- techniques for data/information fusion (text, video, images, etc.) in real or close to real time
- trend analysis, pattern detection, cross-analysis of databases, optimisation analysis
- intelligence-based risk assessment, threat classification and vulnerability assessment models


5. Technology testing, acceptance and integration
-----------------------------------------------
CHALLENGE: overcoming resistance to new methods and technologies, user evaluation, methods for introducing innovations

- ergonomic impacts of use of technology at the border
- assessment of user acceptance
- methods for diffusing and integrating new technology
- human-system optimisation
- modelling and simulation capabilities for border control (virtual environments)

The descriptions of the topics above are not meant to be complete. Other related topics are welcome.

Submitted papers may fall in several categories.


SUBMISSION
----------
The workshop invites papers of the following types:

(1) Long papers that describe results of work on application-oriented research, evaluations, operational tests, lab tests, etc. Long papers should report substantial, completed, and previously unpublished/novel research results.

(2) Short papers that describe work in progress, ideas, new challenges for the next 5 - 10 years, emerging areas relevant to border security and control.

(3) Demo papers (System/application descriptions, interactive demos, etc.).

Long papers will be allocated 6 pages of content in the conference proceedings, whereas short and demo papers will be allocated 3 pages of content.

Submissions are electronic and in PDF format via EasyChair, a web-based conference management system. For producing the manuscripts the authors should use the IEEE two-column style available at:
http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html. The information about the author(s) should be omitted in the submitted papers since the review process will be blind.

Submissions will be reviewed by at least 3 members of the Program Committee. Authors of accepted papers will receive guidelines regarding how to produce camera-ready versions of their papers for inclusion in the IEEE EISIC 2012 proceedings.


PROGRAM
----------

The 2-day program will consist of: (a) 2-3 invited/keynote speakers, (b) presentation of long/short/demo papers, and (c) panel discussion(s) on operational challenge(s) related to border control.


PUBLICATION
-----------

The papers accepted for the workshop will be published in the Proceedings of IEEE
EISIC 2012 (the main conference).


IMPORTANT DATES
------------------

- Paper submissions due: 30 April 2012
- Notification of acceptance: 30 May 2012
- Camera-ready versions due: 15 June 2012
- Authors registration due: 15 June 2012
- Workshop: 21-22 August 2012


COMMITTEES
----------

Program Committee:
------------------
- John Appleby (DHS - Science and Technology Directorate)
- Martin Atkinson (JRC)
- Anil Bharath (Imperial College London)
- Judee Burgoon (University of Arizona)
- Gregorio Ameyugo Catalan (Frontex)
- Bojan Cukic (WVU)
- Monica Gariup (Frontex)
- Elyse Golob (University of Arizona)
- Pars Granhag (Gothenburg University)
- Harm Greidanus (JRC) (Co-Chair)
- Jeff Hancock (Cornell University)
- Maria Hartwig (CUNY)
- Yoshinari Kameda (University of Tsukuba)
- John Kruse (MITRE, Boston)
- Matthew Jensen (University of Oklahoma)
- Magnus Magnusson (University of Iceland)
- Danilo Mandic (Imperial College London)
- David McNeill (University of Chicago)
- Thomas Meservy (Brigham Young University)
- Jay Nunamaker (University of Arizona) (Co-Chair)
- Jakub Piskorski (Frontex) (Chair)
- Isabella Poggi (Universita' Roma Tre)
- Antonia Rana (JRC)
- Bjorn Schuller (Technische Universitat Munchen)
- Guenter Schumacher (JRC)
- Aldert Vrij (University of Portsmouth)


Organising Committee:
---------------------
- Douglas Derrick (University of Nebraska)
- Maria Duro Mansilla (Frontex)
- Aaron Elkins (University of Arizona)
- Ana Sofia Esteves (Frontex) (Chair)
- Monica Gariup (Frontex)
- Jakub Piskorski (Frontex)
- Marion Westra (JRC)