Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security, 4 Volume Set

DEFEATING SURPRISE THROUGH THREAT ANTICIPATION AND POSSIBILITY MANAGEMENT

WILLIAM L. MCGILL

College of Information Sciences and Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

BILAL M. AYYUB

Center for Technology and Systems Management, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

1 RISK ANALYSIS IN AN OPEN WORLD

Expectation is imagination constrained by bounded uncertainty [1]. Rational decisions are based on expectations, and expectations are largely influenced by the bounds a decision maker's imagination places on possible outcomes. When these bounds on expectation are prescribed incorrectly, such as through the illusion of knowledge manifesting from overconfidence, blind sightedness, or faulty reasoning, a failure of imagination could result, which in some contexts could prove harmful to the decision maker. For any decision problem, it is thus important to clearly articulate what is known, what is thought to be known, what is not known, and acknowledge the possibility of unknown unknowns. This last type of uncertainty has been referred to as ontological uncertainty [2].

Risk analysis is a tool that informs the decision making process by providing answers to the following three questions for a given future situation (a.k.a. the risk triplet) [3]:

• What can go wrong?
• What are the consequences of concern?
• What is the likeliness of these consequences, all things considered?

In the context of critical ...