Citation

Dempsey P. Engineering and Technology 2011; 6(3): 64-66.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Institution of Electrical Engineers)

DOI

10.1049/et.2011.0311

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Research recently completed by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suggests this may be the case. It has sought to apply analysis and processing muscle to one of its most difficult challenges: identifying potentially violent terrorist groups and, beyond that, when their statements point to imminent attacks.The project, which is currently awaiting funding for a second stage, was publicly disclosed at last month's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC. All its contributors stressed that this is merely a beginning. There were, as we shall see, limitations in the data set and levels of nuance that the work did not address. The LIWC technique has been developed by a team under Professor James Pennebaker at the University of Texas Psychology Department over the course of the last 15 years. It is with this approach that IT gets brought to bear as a text is put through computer analysis very quickly.