(PhysOrg.com) -- The next time a Boy Scout is lost in the
wilderness, search and rescue teams could have better statistics
on their side in deciding where to look. The next time a Boy
Scout is lost in the wilderness, search and rescue teams could
have better statistics on their side in deciding where to look.
Lanny Lin, a Ph.D. candidate in Brigham Young University’s
Computer Science Department, has developed computer models to
predict where a lost hiker will go when he or she encounters
tough terrain. These techniques - which appear in the journal
Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory - could help
searchers better allocate their resources as they race against
time and nature. “As time progresses, the survivability of the
missing person decreases and the effective search radius
increases by approximately 3 kilometers per hour,” note Lin and
BYU professor Michael Goodrich in their paper. Lin’s statistical
model calculates the most likely path a person would take when
he or she comes across steep s