Security and Defence Quarterly

4-23

Authors: Alexander Rusetsky, Olga Dorokhina, Alina Boychuk

The main goal of this study is to search for new effective mechanisms to assist in preventing the internationalisation of armed conflicts using conventional weapons and the creation of more weapons of mass destruction in the geostrategic region, the Greater Black Sea Region, which includes the countries of the “Five Seas” (Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Arabian Sea, and Mediterranean Sea), positive transformation of conflicts and the creation of a “Black Sea Security Community”. The methodological approach taken is based on the theory of meta-cognitive management, which implies a qualitative expansion of the dimensions for solving those problems that are unsolvable in the dimensions given today; a holistic approach focused on the multi-level and democratic participation of all participants in the process; and the method of geopolitical modelling being applied to discuss new forms and platforms for cooperation between those involved in confrontation in the Black Sea space. Innovation represents a return to the concept of syncretism in the scientific discourse for describing political and geopolitical tasks. The idea of creating a syncretic meta-model of Black Sea security is one way to improve cooperation between parties that have incompatible positions but are aware of common threats and the need to prevent them. Measures need to be taken for the countries of the Five Sea region to be fully integrated into the process and a new architecture created for the Black Sea Security Community. Scientific support is also necessary for the planning and implementation of peacekeeping processes in the Greater Black Sea Region.

41-54

Authors: Olevs Nikers, Otto Tabuns

The objectives of this paper are to (1) comparatively analyse defence strategies of the Baltic countries against the theory of institutionalism, focusing on factors that affect policy maintenance or change within defence cooperation and (2) assess the current state of defence cooperation in the Baltic countries. The study gives a theoretical overview, relating the theory of new institutionalism to the subject of debate over bureaucratic institutions, which also plays a role in the regional security politics of the Baltic countries. An empirical study compares the defence strategies of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. While few studies have investigated this subject before, that the conclusion reached by this investigation is that administrative bodies in the defence sector of the Baltic countries are affected by politically driven processes pertaining to the foreign affairs domain, which play a key role in matters related to cooperation and synchronisation of the defence and security of the Baltic States. The findings suggest that a more focused analysis of the role of institutions and bureaucratic policy in the policy making of the three Baltic countries needs to take place. The study concludes that (1) the current state of defence cooperation in the Baltic countries can be called “developing”; (2) the operation of defence establishments can be called “path dependent”, which is mainly influenced by “external” factors or pressures.

70-93

Authors: Norbert Ludwig Kopp, Helge Koch-Eschweiler

This paper presents some aspects of sensor data fusion that were derived from the EU-SENSE project of the European Commission (Horizon 2020, Grant Agreement No 787031). The aim of EU-SENSE was to develop a novel network of sensors for CBRNe applications through the exploitation of chemical detector technologies, advanced machine-learning and modelling algorithms. The high-level objectives of the project include improving the detection capabilities of the novel network of chemical sensors through the use of machine learning algorithms and reducing the impact of environmental noise. The focus in this paper is on the detection and data fusion aspects as well as the machine learning approaches that were used as part of the project. Detection (in the sense of detectto-warn) is a classification task and improvement of detection requires enhancing the discriminatory power of the classifier, that is reducing false alarms, false positives, and false negatives. This was achieved by a two-step procedure, that is a sensitive distance-based anomaly/change detection followed by downstream classification, identification and concentration estimation. Bayesian networks proved to be useful when fusing information from multiple sensors. For validation purposes, experimental data was gathered during the project and the developed approaches were applied successfully. Despite the development of several new, helpful tools within the project, the domain of chemical detection remains challenging, particularly regarding provisioning of the necessary prior-knowledge. It might make sense from a coverage point of view to look into integration of stand-off detection techniques into a sensor network, including data fusion too.

103-108

Authors: Anna Maria Prędecka, Anna Bany, Krystyna Zużewicz

The aim of the study was the microbiological analysis using a luminometer of surfaces intended for food preparation in mass catering establishments. Four production stations were selected for the research (cutting and portioning cold meats, processing vegetables, processing raw meat, and the serving line). In addition, samples were taken from the hands of the meal prep staff at those workstations. The biological contamination was measured using a 3MTM Clean-TraceTM NGi mobile Luminometer with a set of 3M reagents. The hygiene status (RLU) of working surfaces and hands at different kitchen stations was compared. The values of RLU measurements taken from the surface of the hands working on the cured meat cutting and portioning station differed significantly from the values obtained from the surface of the hands working on the food serving station (p < 0.05). A similar relationship was found when comparing the RLU values for the working area of both of these stations.