Advanced information analysis technologies for safeguards

Full text: The implementation of 'information-driven' safeguards requires the deployment of an array of advanced analytical tools to support the evaluation of information about States nuclear activities. These tools are essential for managing the large and growing volume of information utilised for evaluation purposes. In part, this large size has arisen because in-depth evaluation reports have to be prepared annually for about a hundred States. And this number of States will continue to increase. It is also because large volumes of relevant information are readily accessible. To convert even a fraction of this information into knowledge is usually a time-intensive and manual process for analysts. The limitation of human resources available within the Agency for State-evaluations imposes a significant constraint on the amount of information that can be effectively scrutinised. This limits the extent to which the knowledge 'signal' can be extracted from the vast information 'noise'. Therefore, useful inter-relationships and patterns that may exist within large volumes of information may be not identified within the short deadlines to which analysts typically work. In this regard, the Department of Safeguards has acquired a number of advanced tools. This paper will explain the plans and methodologies for their use, and experience accrued. It will describe their effectiveness for evaluating large volumes of information derived, for example, from the internet and specialist databases, including those available in-house. This will include how unstructured and loosely structured information can be automatically structured, semantically-mined and visualized. It will also describe how large volumes of non-English language text can be rapidly translated with good quality. In conclusion, the paper argues that advanced information tools are critical to information analysis and the Safeguards mission. It further points out that that the key specialist skills for exploiting many of these tools are currently unavailable in the Department and must be imported as a priority. (author)