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3 Strategy for Improving Trace Detection Capabilities
Pages 29-32

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From page 29...
... It envisions a phased introduction process that involves several generations of MS-based systems, adaptations that will be necessary for these systems to function in an airport checkpoint and screening context, and future technological developments that might allow the instruments to address broader security issues, such as monitoring of the air handling system. PHASED DEPLOYMENT OF MASS SPECTROMETRY-BASED DETECTION INSTRUMENTS Below, the committee describes an evolution of various generations of mass spectrometers that would provide increasingly capable trace detection systems and at the same time decrease costs and improve functionality.
From page 30...
... Thus, current sampling methods might fail to detect traces of a bomb or other threat substance that adhere to a terrorist's skin or clothing. One option for sampling the passenger directly without raising safety or privacy issues is to introduce portals in which the passenger walking through is subjected to a puff of air intended to dislodge particles of threat materials from skin or clothing and to collect and concentrate the resulting air sample.
From page 31...
... search requirement is also highly dependent on personnel training, and neither the hit rate nor the false alarm rate has been well established. Once the advantages of the thirci-generation MS instruments are demonstrated, it could be cleciclec} whether this technology should be widely used in place of IMS.
From page 32...
... Technology clevelopment schedules depend strongly on government involvement, and the instrument costs and deployment times mentioned here are based on the committee's best judgment of the difficulty of the detection task and practical issues associated with producing high-quality, field-usable instruments. Recommendation 3: If TSA wishes to improve its trace detection capabilities, it should deploy MSbased detectors in a phased fashion, with successive generations of instruments addressing lower quantities of an expanded list of threat materials and more sophisticated security tasks.


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