Sense about science - making sense of crime

Booklet 'Making Sense of Crime' published by registered charity 'Sense About Science'There’s always heated debate about crime in the media and a lot of political argument about how we should respond to it. But these arguments rarely provide insight into what actually causes crime, what lies behind trends over time and in different places, and how best to go about reducing it. Values inform how a society decides to deal with crime. We may decide that rehabilitation is a better principle than punishment, and this will influence how we decide what is most effective. However, we also expect these choices to be disciplined by sound evidence, because if crime policy ignores what works and what doesn’t, there are likely to be bad social consequences. And with over £10bn spent annually on tackling crime through the police, prisons, probation and courts, unless we look at evidence we can’t see how effective any of it is. Crime policy usually has twin aims – to prevent crime, and to seek justice by punishing those who commit offences. Research shows there’s only a loose link, if any, between the way offenders are punished and the number of offences committed. There is no reliable evidence for example, that capital punishment reduces serious crimes as its supporters claim. Yet politicians and commentators regularly claim that more punishments are a way to cut crime. Academic, government and community organisations have all said crime policies need to be based more on evidence, but much of the evidence available at the moment is poor or unclear. Debates about crime rarely reflect how strong the evidence behind opposing policies is, and even when politicians honestly believe they’re following the evidence, they tend to select evidence that supports their political views. This guide looks at some of the key things we do know and why it has been so difficult to make sense of crime policy. An important point throughout is that policymakers sometimes have to make decisions when things are not clear-cut. They have a better chance of making effective policies if they admit to this uncertainty – and conduct robust research to find out more. In the following pages we have shared insights from experts in violent crime, policing, crime science, psychology and the media’s influence on the crime debate. They don’t have all the answers, but we hope they leave you better-placed to hold policymakers and commentators to account and promote a more useful discussion about crime

Managing the atom in the Middle East : hints from the EURATOM experience for a WMDFZ in the Middle East

The paper covers those verification provisions of EURATOM, which are thought to be relevant to a NWFZ/ME. To begin with, briefings about the emergence and evolution of EURATOM is useful in order to give an idea about how the characteristics of this region were embodied into reliable, effective and long-lasting regional agreements. Then, far-reaching and stringent safeguards procedures of EURATOM will be highlighted. Likewise, insights will be given about how peaceful uses of nuclear energy can become possible in environments reigned by mistrust and hostility, and can pave the way for further cooperation. The implications of the Western European experience for a Middle Eastern NWFZ will then be analyzed. Upon this analysis, several proposals regarding the nuclear non-proliferation initiatives for the Middle East will follow the suit

Cloud Storage and Bioinformatics in a private cloud deployment: Lessons for Data Intensive research

This paper describes service portability for a private cloud deployment, including a detailed case study about Cloud Storage and bioinformatics services developed as part of the Cloud Computing Adoption Framework (CCAF). Our Cloud Storage design and deployment is based on Storage Area Network (SAN) technologies, details of which include functionalities, technical implementation, architecture and user support. Experiments for data services (backup automation, data recovery and data migration) are performed and results confirm backup automation is completed swiftly and is reliable for data-intensive research. The data recovery result confirms that execution time is in proportion to quantity of recovered data, but the failure rate increases in an exponential manner. The data migration result confirms execution time is in proportion to disk volume of migrated data, but again the failure rate increases in an exponential manner. In addition, benefits of CCAF are illustrated using several bioinformatics examples such as tumour modelling, brain imaging, insulin molecules and simulations for medical training. Our Cloud Storage solution described here offers cost reduction, time-saving and user friendliness

Spartan Daily, September 25, 2006

Volume 127, Issue 16https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/10274/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, September 25, 2006

Volume 127, Issue 16https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/10274/thumbnail.jp

Tools for modelling and simulating migration-based preservation

This report describes two tools for modelling and simulating the costs and risks of using IT storage systems for the long-term archiving of file-based AV assets. The tools include a model of storage costs, the ingest and access of files, the possibility of data corruption and loss from a range of mechanisms, and the impact of having limited resources with which to fulfill access requests and preservation actions. Applications include archive planning, development of a technology strategy, cost estimation for business planning, operational decision support, staff training and generally promoting awareness of the issues and challenges archives face in digital preservation