To Researchers of Visual Search and Object Recognition:
We researchers of visual search and object recognition have knowledge and
skills that could help the FAA improve how luggage is searched at airports.
The need to improve luggage search has been evident to all of us during the
last few months. One way we could help is to respond to the FAA's current
solicitation for grant proposals on the subject. If you wish to write a
grant proposal for the FAA, please contact Joshua Rubinstein from the FAA's
Aviation Security Human Factors Program, at Josh.Rubinstein@tc.faa.gov, for
more information about the upcoming November 23 deadline.
However I am writing to suggest a different response. We might more
effectively help the FAA if we coordinated our research efforts. This would
be particularly important if other people, like I am, are considering
running a small public service project rather than a full project, because
of other research commitments. Our smaller efforts might be more effective
if we were running little parts of a coordinated project. With this in mind,
I am writing to see if there is interest in meeting at Psychonomics to
discuss how we could coordinate what we are doing. Dr. Rubinstein is in
support of this idea. If there is interest, he has agreed to meet with us at
Psychonomics to explain the search issues, to give some indication of the
current process, and to identify what practical ways the agency could
support such a coordinated effort.
I'd like to make clear that the FAA's decisions about which proposals to
fund in the current round of proposals will not be affected by anything we
do in this coordinated effort. Proposals to the FAA should be for
independent projects, but the principal investigators could choose to
cooperate with the coordinated project.
Investigators planning to apply for a grant from the FAA might be concerned
about disclosing their research plans before the application deadline
passes. If people wanted to be part of a coordinated effort but had such
concerns, we could defer the exchange of research plans for a few weeks.
Thus the purpose of meeting at Psychonomics would be largely to organize and
make plans for later exchanges of ideas.
If you are interested in attending such a meeting at Psychonomics, please
write to me as soon as possible at Hillstrom@uta.edu to identify yourself,
so that I can plan for a meeting space that is an appropriate size for the
group. Once I do that, I can let interested people know where and when the
meeting will be. If you would be interested in being involved in this
project but would not be at the meeting, please identify yourself as well.
Anne Hillstrom (817) 272-5248.
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