I wonder what kind of expert systems extrapolation could be done on this database? - J. http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/ Global Terrorism Database Overview Global Terrorism Database (GTD)The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world since 1970 (currently updated through 2004). Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on international as well as domestic terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period and now includes almost 80,000 cases. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and -- when identifiable -- the identity of the perpetrator. The START Center is making the GTD available to government policy makers and academics in an effort to increase understanding of terrorist violence so that it can be more readily defeated. Characteristics of the GTD * Contains information on over 80,000 terrorist attacks * The main types of information found in the GTD are items that you would expect to find in a well written newspaper story about a terrorist attack: the type of attack, the number of persons killed, the group claiming responsibility, the date of the event and so on * The GTD is currently the most comprehensive unclassified data base on terrorist events in the world * It includes information on more than 27,000 bombings, 13,000 assassinations, and 2,800 kidnappings * The original data include information on over 45 variables; the new data include over 120 variables * More than 75 data collectors with expertise in six language groups are currently engaged in collecting GTD data * Data collection is supervised by an advisory panel of 12 terrorism research experts * Over 2,000,000 news articles and 25,000 new sources were reviewed to collect GTD from 1998 to 2004 alone * The goal of START is to make all GTD data available to government employees immediately and to release all data to researchers approximately one year after the end of data collection * The original GTD data base (1970-1997) is available to researchers through the Inter University Consortium for Political and Social Research (www.icpsr.umich.edu) The GTD Story The Global Terrorism Database -- or GTD -- began in 2001 when researchers at the University of Maryland obtained a large database originally collected by the Pinkerton Global Intelligence Services, a relative of the famous Irish detective agency.

From 1970 to 1997, Pinkerton trained researchers -- mostly retired Air Force personnel -- to identify and record terrorism incidents from wire services, government reports, and major international newspapers. With funding from the National Institute of Justice, the Maryland team finished computerizing the original Pinkerton data in December 2005, making corrections and adding additional information wherever possible.

In April 2006, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), working with the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), received additional funding from the Human Factors Division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to extend the GTD beyond 1997. By June 2007 data collection was completed through 2004. During the next year the new data will be systematically integrated with the original data to form a single source of information on terrorist attacks, covering the entire period 1970 to 2007. _______________________________________________ existential mailing list existential@transhumanism.org http://www.transhumanism.org/mailman/listinfo/existential ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE