Puppies Sent to Prison to Become Skilled Life-Savers
狗狗入監 接受偵測訓練
By Ethan Hauser

OPELIKA, Alabama – Little Opelika was about to be honored for her community service by the mayor of this Alabama city for which she is named. She waited. And she fidgeted. And then she barked. It was prison for her.
小小歐佩麗卡準備接受阿拉巴馬州歐佩麗卡市長表揚牠的社區服務，牠的名字是根據市名取的。牠等候，煩躁，開始吠，這對牠如同坐牢。

Opelika is part of the Canine Performance Sciences Program at Auburn University, which breeds and trains dogs to use their powerful sense of smell to keep people safe. After a year of preparation, Opelika will probably be placed with a government agency or a private security firm to sniff out bombs, narcotics or other threats.
歐佩麗卡是奧本大學「犬類表現科學計畫」的一部分，該計畫養訓犬隻以其強力嗅覺維護人類安全。經一年準備後歐佩麗卡可能派給政府機構或民間保全業者，嗅出炸彈、毒品或其他構成威脅的人或物。

The dogs, mostly Labradors – a breed chosen for its sociability – emerge from the prisons “more mature mentally,” said Jeanne Brock, an instructor at Auburn.
這些狗多為拉布拉多，因其社交性高。奧本大學教練珍妮．布洛克說，狗出獄後「心智更成熟」。

For many years, dogs at Auburn were trained to find improvised explosive devices – homemade bombs. That focus changed about eight years ago, when Auburn’s scientists got a new challenge: how to detect an I.E.D. that is on the move, carried by a would-be bomber.
多年來，奧本大學訓練犬隻找出簡易爆炸裝置－土製炸彈。此一重點在八年前改變，奧本大學的科學家面對新的挑戰：如何偵測炸彈客隨身攜帶，移動中的簡易爆炸裝置。

What was the most effective way, Paul Waggoner and his colleagues wondered, for dogs to patrol crowded areas? They found their answer in the work of Gary Settles of Pennsylvania State University, whose research had shown that humans produce thermal plumes that emanate from our bodies and entrain gaseous particles.
保羅．華格納（計畫共同負責人）和同事猜想，甚麼是犬隻巡邏人多區域最有效的方式？他們在賓州州立大學（機械工程系教授）蓋瑞．賽托斯的作品找到答案，他的研究證明人體會散發熱流束，夾帶氣體微粒。

Most of these particles, like traces of perspiration or perfume can also betray contact with hazardous materials, like those used in bombs. Instead of screening each person, then, the dogs could inspect the “human aerodynamic wakes” that trail behind people in motion and alert a handler.
多數微粒像微量的汗水或香水，對人體無害。但是熱流束可以暴露出與有害物質的接觸。不必檢查每個人，犬隻可以偵測人類行動後留下的「人類氣體動力尾波」，提醒領犬員注意。

Dr. Waggoner began experimenting with even more elusive targets, including pathogens.
華格納開始實驗更難以捉摸的目標，包括病原體。

No one knows precisely what makes a dog’s sense of smell so sensitive, but Dr. Waggoner and others say olfaction may be “the most ‘preserved’ sense – it’s probably the most ancient one.”
沒有人確切知道為何狗的嗅覺如此敏銳，但華格納和其他人說嗅覺可能是「保存最好」的感官，或許是最古老的感官。

Dogs’ eyes and ears remain closed for about 14 days after birth, Dr. Waggoner said, but “pups come out smelling, that’s how they interact and get around the world.” Dogs have 40 times as many olfactory receptors as humans do – 220 million versus five million. Yet what might be most striking is not that dogs can detect odors at parts per trillion but that they can discriminate among so many scents.
華格納說，狗出生14天內眼耳未開，但「小狗一出生就會聞，這是牠們和世界互動趴趴走的方式。」狗的嗅覺受體數是人類的40倍，2.2億比500萬個。但狗嗅覺最突出處可能不在能辨識氣味至兆分之一的濃度，而是能分辨這麼多種不同的氣味。

Auburn’s trainers have known that the dogs must be continually rewarded when they have given an alert they have found a target odor. But until recently, the scientists could only speculate on the brain activity behind the dogs’ extreme drive.
奧本大學訓練員已經知道一旦狗察覺目標氣味並示警，必須持續給予獎勵。不過，直到最近，科學家對於狗強烈動機背後的腦部活動，只能用猜的。

That picture is becoming clearer now, through a neuroscience project. In the study, Gopikrishna Deshpande, Dr. Waggoner and others are using functional magnetic resonance imaging recordings to better understand what happens in a dog’s brain when the animal is presented with odors and with photographs and videos of human faces.
透過一項神經科學計畫，情況日益明朗。戈比克里西納．戴許潘德、華格納和其他人在研究中使用功能性磁振造影的紀錄，讓人類更理解狗聞到味道，看到人類臉部的照片和影像時，腦部有何反應。

Dr. Deshpande said early data revealed that dogs presented with a learned odor show increased activity in two brain areas: the hippocampus, where memories are stored, and the caudate nucleus, which is associated with rewarding feelings.
戴許潘德說，早期資料顯示，狗聞到經驗過的氣味，大腦有兩個區域活動增加，一是儲存記憶的海馬迴；二是與情感有關的尾核。

They are also focusing on the default mode network. The more integrated the network is with the rest of the brain, the higher the likelihood of “referential thinking,” a foundation necessary for sophisticated emotional states.
他們也聚焦在預設模式網絡。這個網絡和大腦其他部位整合越緊密，複雜情感狀態的基礎「指涉型思考」的可能性就越高。

It is widely understood that the first year of an animal’s life is vital for imprinting. For the Auburn dogs, this is when they must grasp the kind of trusting but strict relationship they will have with their eventual handlers.
許多人了解動物出生後的第一年對銘印作用很重要。對奧本大學的狗來說，牠們必須在這段時間裡理解牠們和最終管理員間信賴但嚴格的關係。

Originally, Auburn relied on local families to foster the puppies, said Dr. James Floyd, a former director of the program. Despite the precise guidelines the volunteer hosts were given, Dr. Floyd said, “you’d visit to check on them and there they’d be, up on the couch, watching TV, being fed potato chips.”
計畫前負責人詹姆斯．佛洛伊德說，奧本大學最初依賴當地家庭來養育這些狗，儘管志工飼主都收到精確的指引，可是「你去訪查，看到的是狗狗在沙發上，看電視，被餵食洋芋片。」

About 80 percent would fail to meet the rigorous detector-dog standards: “The main problem was lack of structure,” Ms. Brock said.
大約八成的狗達不到當探測狗的嚴格標準。布洛克說：「主要問題是缺乏架構。」

Knowing that service animals had been successfully trained in prisons, the program leaders decided in 2004 to place dogs at a prison in Florida. The failure rate fell quickly. Now Auburn works with five prisons in Florida and Georgia.
計畫負責人知道服務性動物在監獄的訓練很成功，2004年決定將狗安置到佛羅里達州的一間監獄。失敗率迅速降低。奧本大學目前和佛羅里達與喬治亞州的五間監獄合作。

Grady Perry, a former warden in Georgia, said that for the inmates chosen to be teamed up with dogs, the experience can have a positive influence. “This is their chance not only to be a responsible adult but a responsible citizen,” he said.
曾在喬治亞州任典獄長的葛雷迪．裴瑞說，對於被選上和狗合作的受刑人來說，此一經驗可能產生正面影響。「這個機會不僅讓他們當個負責任的成人，也要做個負責任的公民。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/science/dogs-trained-in-prison-to-protect-lives.html

2015-08-11聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 張佑生譯 原文參見紐時週報十版上