NIJ Opens Regional Technology Center in Rome: Representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice, state and local elected officials, and Air Force leaders officially opened the National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center/Northeast (NLECTC) at Rome Laboratory. The Center will work with law en forcement and corrections organizations from 16 states --- stretching from Maine to Minnesota --- to determine operational requirem ents and identify, evaluate, develop, demonstrate and assess new or improved technology applications to meet those needs. The Center will also provide assessment of law enforcement products information, standards and testing. The Northeast NLECTC is co-located with Rome Laboratory within the Griffiss Business and Technology Park. Rome Laboratory is the Air Force's research and development laboratory responsible for command, control, communications, computer and intelligence technologies. The laboratory was selected as a regional technology center for the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in December 1994. It joins four other regional centers across the country that use existing facilities and resources to support the NI J's Office of Science and Technology and law enforcement and corrections organizations. The Northeast NLECTC will support law enforcement and corrections activities in the following states: Maine, New Hampshire, Verm ont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio Michigan, Wisconsin, Io wa and Minnesota. It will facilitate technical interchange between prospective users and developers or technology through regional symposia, exhibitions and workshops. Participants range from the law enforcement and corrections community to the Department of De fense and the commercial sector. Each of the five regional centers has a specific technological focus, with the Northeast NLECTC capitalizing on Rome Laboratory' s more than 40 years of expertise developing technologies that provided the vital eyes, ears and voices for the nation's military. The Rome Laboratory Law Enforcement Team will be working with the Northeast NLECTC to convert a variety of defense technologies to the benefit of law enforcement and corrections. At the current time, efforts are directed at transferring technologies in the foll owing areas: *** Sensors: concealed weapon detection, Over-the-Horizon radar, wall penetration surveillance, and passive location, tracking and tagging. *** Information Technology: image processing, natural language processing, and identification using optical correlation. *** Intelligence Exploitation: speech processing, timeline analysis, automated firearm identification, and forensic sciences. *** Communications: applications of high-speed networks, multiband multifunction radios, and rapidly deployable communications. *** Command and Control: collaborative planning, visualization techniques, and Joint Automated Booking Station. Over the past four decades, researchers at Rome Laboratory have developed a vast array of technological tools for the military to e mploy in our national defense. Within the shared framework of command, control, communications and intelligence, many of those tech nologies apply to the domestic law enforcement mission as well. As one of NLECTC's regional law enforcement technology centers, Ro me Laboratory will continue to make substantial contributions to the war on crime by developing technologies that meet the increasi ng needs of law enforcement. Rome Laboratory Signs Law Enforcement Technology Agreement with City of Rome Representatives of Rome Laboratory and the City of Rome signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) to establ ish a formal working agreement for the purpose of testing and evaluating military technologies in a law enforcement setting. The C RDA signing was the first official action following a ribbon-cutting that opened the National Institute of Justice's Northeast Regi on National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center at Rome Laboratory. Signing the agreement were Col. Ted. F. Bowlds, com mander of Rome Laboratory, and Rome Police Chief Merino J. Ciccone. During the five-year agreement, Rome Laboratory will supply a variety of technologies to the Rome Police Department. Police department officers and officials will then test, evaluate and report back to Rome Laboratory regarding the effectiveness of the test technologies. Some of the technical tasks to be performed under t he CRDA are enhancing the computing capability of the Rome Police Department, including improved access to law enforcement data bas es and access to the World Wide Web/Internet, as well as synchronization of 911 Emergency System, computer and alarm time clocks. Rome Police Department personnel will also gain access to advanced technologies such as the "sniffer alcohol detection flashlight," night-vision goggles and hand-held digital assistants. German Magazine interested in Rome Laboratory's Law Enforcement Efforts Dr. Frank Ochmann, a science editor for Germany's Stern Magazine, visited Rome Laboratory to interview engineers and managers involved in law enforcement technology. The interview was requested in light of the April issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, which carried an eight-page article covering a wide variety of C3I technologies developed by the Laboratory. Rome Laboratory Awards Funding to Research Consortia for Dual-Use Military and Law Enforcement Applications ROME, N.Y., June 25, 1996 --- Rome Laboratory has awarded funding totaling more than $5 million to three research consortia. Combined with investment by the consortia partners, the total amount of research will approach $17 million. Rome Laboratory will serve as the agent for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in managing the three research programs that were instituted under DARPA's Technology Reinvestment Project. The goal of all three programs is to develop new technologies with applications to both the military and commercial markets. The Quick Reaction Spoken Language Translator (QRSLT) Consortium seeks to develop a product prototype of a hand-held or body-mounted QRSLT that would allow military personnel in a hostile environment or civilian law enforcement personnel in an emergency situation to communicate with a non-English speaking individual using an easily portable, automatic translation device. The government is contributing $2,374,821 to the program, with consortium members sharing a cost of $3,632,852. Consortium members include Language Systems Inc., Woodland, Calif.; Entropic Research Laboratories Inc., Menlo Park, Calif.; and Eloquent Technology Inc. of Ithaca, N.Y. Language Systems Incorporated, developed the initial spoken language translation prototype under the direction and funding of Rome Laboratory, in support of military requirements. The QRSLT will accept spoken English input from a military or law enforcement user, translate the input into Spanish or Arabic, and generate the computer-spoken translation. The translator will also accept spoken Spanish and Arabic inputs and translate them into spoken English output. This will be an innovative advance over currently available "speaking translators," which produce speech based on typed inputs, which cannot accept spoken input, and which are not customized for military or law enforcement operations. The Millimeter Wave Imaging Radar Consortium seeks development of a suitable technology and effective, affordable products for concealed weapon detection (CWD) and through-the-wall surveillance (TWS) application --- well-established objectives for both military operations other than war and civilian law enforcement agencies. Consortium members include Millimetrix Corp., South Deerfield, Mass.; Technology Service Corp., Trumbull, Conn.; and Riverside Research Institute of Lexington, Mass. They will contribute $2,035,087 to the research program, while the government's share will be $2,018,491. Military applications of the envisioned technology, in addition to operations other than war, would include use by military police and special forces personnel, all weather aircraft operation, shipboard and airborne missile warning, helicopter obstacle avoidance, battlefield surveillance, fire control, and missile seekers. Civilian law enforcement agencies would be able to use the technology in curtailing terrorist acts and juvenile handgun crimes that frequently involve the use of concealed weapons, bombs and other contraband that cannot be detected using currently available technology. The Speaker Identification for Law Enforcement Consortium will be funded with $3.2 million, evenly divided between the government and consortium members T-NETIX Inc. of Englewood, Colo., and Dictaphone of Stratford, Conn. The goal of the consortium is to transfer previously developed speaker identification technology into commercial and military applications. With specific emphasis on minimal size, weight, power and cost, the technology is envisioned to have widespread civilian law enforcement surveillance applications. see <http://www.nlectc.org/E144T127/june.htm>