Welcome

The conference Steering Committee has assembled a very interesting and relevant program that will provide perspective on the current state of the art and recent advances to address homeland security concerns. It is hard to overemphasize the importance of the topics in this conference, which include the essential technologies to protect our homeland against land or maritime threats, potential attacks against our cyber infrastructure, and the recovery and response to attacks and natural disasters and important security topics within the fields of biometrics and forensics. In this context, the conference includes a collection of select, peer reviewed papers that address critical challenges. We also welcome, for the third time, the participation of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School who will work with the authors of selected best papers to publish them in their Homeland Security Affairs journal.