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Week of Jan. 10, 2004; Vol. 165, No. 2 Splitting Terrorist Cells Ivars Peterson How can you tell if enough members of a terrorist cell have been captured or killed so there's a high probability that the cell can no longer carry out an attack? A mathematical model of terrorist organizations might provide some clues. The question is what sort of mathematical model would work best. One way to describe a terrorist organization is in terms of a grapha web of lines linking nodes. In this model, each node would represent an individual member of a given cell, and a line linking two nodes would indicate direct communication between those two members. In this hypothetical four-member cell, represented by a graph, Boromir, Celeborn, and Denethor communicate directly with each other, but Aragorn communicates only with Boromir.
When a cell member is captured or killed, the corresponding node is removed from the graph. It's possible to assess the impact of such losses on a cell's effectiveness by considering how the links among the cell's members are affected. Removing enough nodes leads to disruption. Mathematically, you could ask the question: How many nodes must you remove from a given graph before it splits into two or more separate pieces? | |
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