Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems

The Defence, Security and Resilience theme focuses on understand a broad range of areas including cybersecurity, national security and identify theft, command and control, and disaster resilience. The research program involves highly novel applications of systems analysis and design methodologies to enhance security and resilience across these areas.

The significance of these projects are measured on the likely impact such threats have on the community and the adaptations in the environment to come from the research. One major area of focus involves identity security and the exploitation of personal information by organised crime. The Commonwealth Attorney-General Department estimates that this crime impacts around 1.2 million Australians each year. The breadth of this security threat itself is an indicator of the research significance and relevance. The impact of the research outcomes pursued include measures of community confidence and attitudes in the handling of personal information by organisations in the network, financial and emotional impacts on victims of this crime, and the overall efficiency of detection and response.

A key area of focus in the Defence, Security and Resilience theme is disaster resilience. The Centre has been engaged in a multi-stakeholder program of research involving clarifying disaster resilience and testing and developing new tools to assess disaster resilience in communities across Australia.

You can find a summary infographic here.

Current Projects

• Managing the risks posed by Artificial General Intelligence
• Identity theft and cybersecurity
• Systems analysis of trust and engagement in the dark net
• The design and evaluation of new digitised battle management systems
• The analysis of command and control activities
• A series of studies to determine how disaster resilience is understood by key stakeholders within the disaster management system in Victoria and QLD
• Evaluation of disaster resilience measurement tools within the Sunshine Coast region and communities.

Key researchers

• Professor Paul Salmon

Theme PhD students

• Samantha Jackson
• Brandon King

Recent publications

For inquiries regarding the Defence, Security and Resilience theme please contact Prof Paul Salmon 0754 565893, psalmon@usc.edu.au

Publications

King,B. Read,G. Salmon,P. Identifying risk controls for future advanced brain-computer interfaces: A prospective risk assessment approach using work domain analysis. Applied Ergonomics

Salmon,P.M. Commentary: controlling the demon: autonomous agents and the urgent need for controls. Human-Computer Interaction. Pages 246-247.

A. P.J. Roberts, L. V. Webster, P. M. Salmon, R. Flin, E. Salas, N. J. Cooke, G. J. M. Read, N. A. Stanton. State of Science: Models and methods for understanding and enhancing teams and teamwork in Complex Sociotechnical Systems. Ergonomics. 1-45. 2021.

Salmon,P. Commentary: controlling the demon: autonomous agents and the urgent need for controls. Human Computer Interaction.

Desmond, D. Salmon P,M. Lacey, D. (2021) Functional systems within cryptolaundering processes: a work domain analysis model of cryptolaundering activities. Cyber Policy.

Salmon, P. M., Carden, T., Hancock, P. (2021). Putting the humanity into inhuman systems: how Human Factors and Ergonomics can be used to manage the risks associated with artificial general intelligence. Human Factors and Ergonomics in the Manufacturing and Service Industries, 31:2, 223-236

McLean, S. Read, G. Thompson, J. Baber, C. Stanton, N. Salmon, P. (2021) The risks associated with Artificial General Intelligence: A systematic review. Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence.