Measuring the Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Crime in a Medium-Sized City in China

Objectives: The study examines the variation in the daily incidence of eight acquisitive crimes: automobile theft, electromobile theft, motorcycle theft, bicycle theft, theft from automobiles, pickpocketing, residential burglary, and cyber-fraud before the lockdown and the duration of the lockdown for a medium-sized city in China. Methods: Regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) models are used to test the effect of the lockdown measures on crime by examining the daily variation of raw counts and rate. Results: It is indicated that in contrast to numerous violent crime categories such as domestic violence where findings have repeatedly found increases during the COVID-19 pandemic, acquisitive crimes in this city were reduced during the lockdown period for all categories, while “cyber-fraud” was found more resilient in the sense that its decrease was not as salient as for most other crime types, possibly due to people’s use of the internet during the lockdown period. Conclusions: The findings provide further support to opportunity theories of crime that are contingent upon the need for a motivated offender to identify a suitable target in physical space

Deterring Serious and Chronic Offenders

This chapter examines ways of deterring serious and chronic offenders based on evidence from the Pathways to Desistance Study, which addresses the issue of perceptions of deterrence and looks into the mechanisms of deterrence for serious offenders. After a brief overview of the Pathways study, the chapter reviews empirical evidence that demonstrates the rationality of high-risk adolescents regarding involvement in crime. It argues that offenders take into account rational-choice perceptions in their offending decisions and goes on to discuss the elasticity and malleability of these perceptions, and whether adolescent offenders act differently when they change risk and cost perceptions. It also considers policy efforts aimed at maximizing deterrence among adolescent offenders and concludes by outlining future directions for theory and research

Synthesis of Multiple-Pattern Planar Antenna Arrays with Single Prefixed or Jointly Optimized Amplitude Distributions

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article:Brégains, J. C.; Trastoy, A.; Ares Pena, F. J.; Moreno Piquero, E. "Synthesis of multiple-pattern planar antenna arrays with single prefixed or jointly optimized amplitude distributions", Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, 74 - 78 Volume: 32, Issue: 1 , 5 Jan. 2002, which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1002/mop.10094. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving."[Abstract] Previous work on the generation of multiple radiation patterns by a single linear array antenna with an unchanging excitation amplitude distribution is generalized to planar arrays. The amplitude distribution common to all of the excitation distributions can be prefixed or optimized jointly with the phase distributions

Optimal Synthesis of Line Source Antennas Based On Rhodes Distributions

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications on 2002, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1163/156939302X01245[Abstract] In this paper we show that by means of an appropriate optimization technique the zeros of Rhodes radiation patterns can be perturbed so as to improve or modify pattern and/or the aperture distribution characteristics without altering the behaviour of the excitation amplitude distribution at the ends of the aperture. The examples presented include symmetric and asymmetric shaped beams, sum patterns with individually controlled side lobe heights, shaped beams generated by real excitations, and sum pattern aperture distributions that are smoother than the original Rhodes distribution

Police, Crime and the Problem of Weak Instruments:Revisiting the “More Police, Less Crime” Thesis

A key question in the general deterrence literature has been the extent to which the police reduce crime. Definitive answers to this statement, however, are difficult to come by because while more police may reduce crime, higher crime rates may also increase police levels, by triggering the hiring of more police. One way to help overcome this problem is through the use of instrumental variables (IV). Levitt, for example, has employed instrumental variables regression procedures, using mayoral and gubernatorial election cycles and firefighter hiring as instruments for police strength, to address the potential endogeneity of police levels in structural equations of crime due to simultaneity bias.We assess the validity and reliability of the instruments used by Levitt for police hiring using recently-developed specification tests for instruments. We apply these tests to both Levitt’s original panel dataset of 59 US cities covering the period 1970–1992 and an extended version of the panel with data through 2008.Results indicate that election cycles and firefighter hiring are “weak instruments”—weak predictors of police growth that, if used as instruments in an IV estimation, are prone to result in an unreliable estimate of the impact of police levels on crime.Levitt’s preferred instruments for police levels—mayoral and gubernatorial election cycles and firefighter hiring—are weak instruments by current econometric standards and thus cannot be used to address the potential endogeneity of police in crime equations

Configuring electronic states in an atomically precise array of quantum boxes

Communication.-- et al.A 2D array of electronically coupled quantum boxes is fabricated by means of on-surface self-assembly assuring ultimate precision of each box. The quantum states embedded in the boxes are configured by adsorbates, whose occupancy is controlled with atomic precision. The electronic interbox coupling can be maintained or significantly reduced by proper arrangement of empty and filled boxes.The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI), Swiss National Science Foundation (Grants Nos. 200020-149713 and 206021-121461), the Spanish Ministry of Economy (Grant No. MAT2013-46593-C6-4-P), the Basque Government (Grant No. IT621-13), the São Paulo Research Foundation (Grant No. 2013/04855-0), Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship Program, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO (Chemical Sciences, VIDI-Grant No. 700.10.424), the European Research Council (ERC-2012-StG 307760-SURFPRO), University of Basel, University of Heidelberg, Linköping University, University of Groningen, Paul Scherrer Institute, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) “Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology (PRESTO)” for a project of “Molecular technology and creation of new function.”Peer Reviewe