Reconstructing Sparse Illicit Supply Networks: A Case Study of Multiplex Drug Trafficking Networks

The network structure provides critical information for law enforcement agencies to develop effective strategies to interdict illicit supply networks. However, the complete structure of covert networks is often unavailable, thus it is crucially important to develop approaches to infer a more complete structure of covert networks. In this paper, we work on real-world multiplex drug trafficking networks extracted from an investigation report. A statistical approach built on the EM algorithm (DegEM) as well as other methods based on structural similarity are applied to reconstruct the multiplex drug trafficking network given different fractions of observed nodes and links. It is found that DegEM approach achieves the best predictive performance in terms of several accuracy metrics. Meanwhile, structural similarity-based methods perform poorly in reconstructing the drug trafficking networks due to the sparsity of links between nodes in the network. The inferred multiplex networks can be leveraged to (i) inform the decision-making on monitoring covert networks as well as allocating limited resources for collecting additional information to improve the reconstruction accuracy and (ii) develop more effective interdiction strategies

Determination Of Exchangeability Cations (Ec), Texture And C-Organic Content In Mineral Soils and Peat

EC or can be called exchangeable cation is a nutrient cation found in the soil. This is useful for indicating the degree of alkaline saturation, which indicates that the more saturated the soil base, the more fertile the soil will be. This study aims to obtain supporting information to obtain soil conditions that show the quality of the land as a growing medium. The method used for texture analysis on this soil refers to SNI 3423.03:1994 and C-Organic content analysis refers to SNI 4720.13:1998. The cation level test was carried out using NH4OAc solution with a Microwave Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (MP-AES) instrument. This instrument has a principle, namely atomic emission which is a form of energy produced by an atom when it returns to the ground state (Ground State) of the excited state (Excitation State). The results of this cation level test with analyte concentrations of K, Ca, Na and Mg with sample code SJ2022-01826 successively 0.65; 3,59; 0.82 and 0.94. The amount of cation content in fertile soil is worth at least 6 mg / L in accordance with the provisions of the Chemical Technical Manual

Institutions and facility mergers in the Italian education system: Models and case studies

In recent years, across Europe, the economic crisis has resulted in an increased pressure on education systems. Notably, Italy has been one of the countries that has experienced the most severe reduction in public expenditure in the education sector. In the described conditions, Italian governmental institutions have started to perform rationalisation actions, aimed at modifying the current configuration of the existing facilities offering educational services (either by entirely closing and merging some of them, or by downsizing or transferring capacities), in order to increase the affordability of the system while still providing a required minimum service level. These strategic choices may have a lasting impact; therefore, there is a need for appropriate decision support tools capable of assisting planners. For this reason, after a description of the context and a review of the current literature, this paper presents two novel mathematical models for addressing rationalisation decisions in the Italian education system. The usability of such models is tested by means of real-world case studies, offering interesting insights

Survey of risk management policies for transportation agencies : Division of Planning Research On-Call (ROC) Program. Task 12

Final report; Sponsoring agency: Ohio Department of Transportation, Office of Statewide Planning & Research; Contract or grant no.: 34654; "March 2023."; "Project ID number: 111440; State job number: 136215"--Cover; "Performing organization name... Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment (ORITE)"--[Technical report documentation page]; Includes bibliographical references (pages 21-22)The project and risk management policies and strategies used by other DOTs in the country were evaluated. The purpose is to gain insight into how they measure and manage project development and delivery, and ultimately obtain ideas to improve ODOT's own project management methods. This project entailed a scan of state DOT online documents, a survey of state DOTs and follow-up interviews with selected states. Main findings of this project are: " Power BI and SQL is a commonly used tool amongst DOTs. However, most of the sampled and interviewed DOTs rely on spreadsheets for communications " Several DOTs reported the use of Monte Carlo Simulation for cost estimation. More importantly for this project, they use this method for identification and ranking of risks in a project " A common recommendation from interviews around project risk management is keep it simple and easy to communicat

New York City Park & Ride Study

This study reviewed existing practices in Park and Ride planning, developed a methodology for evaluating candidates, and applied the methodology to the commuter market in New York City. The team identified a set of candidates based on availability for Park and Ride use and transit connectivity. The candidates were evaluated using potential demand, savings, market share, and present value of benefits as performance measurements

Park-and-Ride Facilities in New York City Economic Analyses of Alternative Locations

A procedure is developed to assess the economic feasibility of park-and-ride facilities. Relevant literature is discussed, and a mathematical formulation that can be integrated with a regional planning model is produced and applied to the selection of park-and-ride facilities in New York City. The evaluation procedure is divided into two main stages: candidate selection and candidate evaluation. The candidates are selected according to a set of criteria that includes demand considerations, transit connectivity and design, community integration, and economic viability. Economic assessment of the candidates considers the generalized cost of travel and entails the use of a binary logit model and the computation of four performance measures: expected demand, market share, weighted average savings, and present value of benefits

Evaluación del VDRL como herramienta complementaria para el estudio de enfermedades autoinmunes, en el Hospital Barros Luco Trudeau

Tesis (Tecnología Médica)Con el paso de los años se ha observado un notable aumento en la incidencia de enfermedades de índole autoinmune, lo que debido a su alta complejidad patológica, representa un reto importante para el sistema de salud en general. Es por esto que es necesario contar con diversas herramientas para el estudio de dichas enfermedades. Si bien es cierto que el VDRL (Venereal Disease Research Laboratory) es usado como screening en estudios serológicos de sífilis, se ha descrito en la bibliografia científica que también es reactivo en una variedad amplia de enfermedades autoinmunes. El objetivo de esta investigación es evaluar la utilidad del VDRL en pacientes con alguna prueba inmunológica positiva. Metodología El estudio a realizar es de tipo prospectivo, en el que se estudiarán por VDRL, las muestras de pacientes que se reciban para el estudio de enfermedades autoinmunes y que resulten positivas para cualquiera de las pruebas inmunológicas que se realizan en el laboratorio de inmunología del Hospital barros Luco Trudeau. Se espera obtener una relación directa entre los resultados de pacientes con pruebas inmunológicas positivas y VDRL reactivo en ausencia de sífilis. A su vez, comprobar que VDRL tiene utilidad para la detección de anticuerpo anticardiolipina, cuando no se tiene acceso a esta determinación por la técnica de inmunoensayo

User rationality and optimal park-and-ride location under potential demand maximization

The paper develops analytical formulations to gain insight into the optimal location, i.e., the one that maximizes the potential market, and to estimate the potential catchment area of Park and Ride (P&R) facilities. The formulations are based on the assumption that a traveler would use a P&R facility if and only if the corresponding generalized cost is lower than the drive only alternative. The paper considers two different scenarios: a linear city (or a travel corridor), and a two-dimensional city with Euclidean travel. Analytical derivations were obtained for both cases using, as starting point, the necessary condition for P&R use. In the case of the linear city, the paper identifies two breakeven distances (BEDs) of great import to the estimation of the potential P&R market: the (trip) origin BED, i.e., the distance below which a traveler could drive upstream to use the P&R facility to access its downstream destination, and still be better off; and the (trip) destination BED, i.e., the travel distance using transit below which it does not make sense to use P&R. The paper proves that the optimal location of P&R sites is shifted upstream of what seems to be an intuitive solution, i.e., the edge of the congested region, by a distance that depends on the relative values of the origin and destination BEDs. In the two-dimensional city case, the analytical derivations prove that, for a given trip from i to j, the set of feasible locations follows an ellipse-like figure with the trip origin as a focus. These shapes—referred to as limiting functions—depend on variables such as trip distance, transit level of service (LOS), and the like. The analyses indicate that the area enclosed by the limiting functions increases with the transit LOS and trip distance, and so do the corresponding catchment areas. This is because the catchment area is determined by the marginal trip origins, i.e., those for which the P&R facility is just inside the limiting function. In its final section, the paper develops a parabolic approximation to the catchment area for a given P&R site. The approximating parabola is defined by three critical points: the origin BED, and two points that identify the marginal trip origins at the chord of parabola evaluated at the P&R. The numerical experiments indicate that the parabolic approximation provides a fairly good estimate of the catchment area that is easy to produce, conceptually valid, and overcomes the limitations of alternative approaches and rules of thumb used by practitioners and researchers

redesLab

Repositorio del Laboratorio de Análisis de Redes Sociale