Expert judgment based nuclear threat assessment for vessels arriving in the US

Abstract

We demonstrate the use of extended pairwise comparisons for estimating the relative likelihood that a vessel approaching US waters contains a nuclear threat. We demonstrate an expert judgment based method consisting of a designed set of extended pairwise comparisons and parameter estimation for a predictive probability model using log-linear regression. Results are based on a proof-of-concept questionnaire completed by eight experts in port security. The model and parameter estimates obtained are used to demonstrate the type of predictions that can be obtained.