13,798 research outputs found
Measuring digital crime investigation capacity to guide international crime prevention strategies
This work proposes a method for the measurement of a country's digital
investigation capacity and saturation for the assessment of future capacity
expansion. The focus is on external, or international, partners being a factor
that could negatively affect the return on investment when attempting to expand
investigation capacity nationally. This work concludes with the argument that
when dealing with digital crime, target international partners should be a
consideration in expansion, and could potentially be a bottleneck of
investigation requests.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, Presented at FutureTech 201
Risk Classification in Insurance Contracting
Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics by insurers to group individuals with similar expected claims, compute the corresponding premiums, and thereby reduce asymmetric information. An efficient risk classification system generates premiums that fully reflect the expected cost associated with each class of risk characteristics. This is known as financial equity. In the health sector, risk classification is also subject to concerns about social equity and potential discrimination. We present different theoretical frameworks that illustrate the potential trade-off between efficient insurance provision and social equity. We also review empirical studies on risk classification and residual asymmetric information.Adverse selection, classification risk, diagnostic test, empirical test of asymmetric information, financial equity, genetic test, health insurance, insurance rating, insurance pricing, moral hazard, risk classification, risk characteristic, risk pooling, risk separation, social equity
National and Regional Estimates of the Prevalence of Opiate and/or Crack Cocaine use 2008-09: A summary of key findings
<p>This report summarises the results of a follow-up study
to a three year project to estimate the prevalence of
‘problem drug use’ (defined as use of opiates and/or
crack cocaine) nationally (England only), regionally and
locally. The follow-up was carried out two years after the
final sweep of the original project, so could therefore
be considered as ‘sweep 5’. An overview of the national
and regional estimates are presented in this report, as are
comparisons with the estimates produced by the third
(2006-07) sweep of the study. Estimates for 2007-08 are
not available as a study was not commissioned for that
year.</p>
<p>Information about the number of people who use illicit
drugs such as heroin, other opiates or crack cocaine
is key to formulating effective policies for tackling
drug-related harm as these drugs are associated with
the highest levels of harm. It also helps inform service
provision at the local level and provides a context
in which to understand the population impact of
interventions to reduce drug-related harm.</p>
<p>Direct enumeration of those engaged in a largely covert
activity such as the use of class A drugs is difficult
and standard household survey techniques tend to
underestimate the extent of such activity. Indirect
techniques making use of various data sources offer a
more reliable way of calculating prevalence estimates for
the use of opiates and/or crack cocaine. The estimates
presented in this report are derived using two indirect
measurement techniques: the capture-recapture
method (CRC ); and the multiple indicator (MIM ) method.
These methods are described in detail in Hay et al., 2006
and Hay et al., 2007a. Methodological developments
throughout the course of the previous three sweeps are
discussed elsewhere (Hay et al., 2007b, Hay et al., 2008).
The individuals covered by this study were people aged
15 to 64 and resident in each DAT area, and known to
be using heroin, methadone, other opiate drugs or
crack cocaine.</p>
A New Design Method for Vanadium Redox Batteries in Renewable Energy Systems
This study investigated the behavior of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), which are batteries capable of easily switching between charging and discharging modes, making them a suitable option for storing intermittent sources of alternative energies (solar, wind, etc). Since different sizes of the battery provide varying voltages, optimal parameters for a particular home are key for implementation. These parameters, specifically the cell and tank volumes of the battery that are capable of providing consistent on-load voltage, were determined using data from a 13 kW solar array and a medium-sized house. Charge/discharge current values were used to run a mathematical model that provided on-load voltage over time graphs based on parameter input values. Using this model, the optimal parameter values were found to be 11.5 L for the cell volume and 103.7 L for the tank volume, which maintenained the on-load voltage well above 0.80 V (10% of cell standard emf)
Targeting of anionic membrane species by lanthanide(III) complexes: towards improved MRI contrast agents for apoptosis
No abstract available
Investigating the Role of the Gut Microbiome in Huntington Disease
Huntington disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by a trinucleotide repeat expansion in the huntingtin (HTT) gene. Metabolic dysfunction is a feature of HD that is recapitulated in HD mouse models. Our lab has shown that circadian feeding rhythms are disrupted in humanized HD mice and restored by suppression of brain HTT. Furthermore, when circadian feeding rhythm is artificially restored, in addition to normalization of metabolic function, liver and striatal HTT is temporarily reduced, demonstrating that HTT is involved in gut-brain feedback. The gut microbiome, which can regulate gut-brain feedback, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of other central nervous system disorders and we hypothesize it also plays a role in HD. The objective of this study is to investigate alterations in relative abundance of HD gut microbiota using existing plasma metabolomics data to identify candidate bacteria. If distinct microbiota profiles are demonstrated, this would provide the basis for future unbiased studies to investigate the complete HD microbiome
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