Attitudes to the police and policing in contemporary Cyprus with particular reference to the dark figure of crime

Cyprus suffered lanomiel on a grand scale more than twenty years ago, on account of the Turkish invasion of 1974. The effects on the social structure of Cypriot society were devastating. Most of the collective conscience which was responsible for the social order was disrupted. Inevitably, the traditional means of social control which depended primarily on informal social networks and the creation of a collective order were replaced by formal policing. This thesis attempts to offer an empirical account of the above social changes and the resultant changes in the modes of policing; and how Cypriot-society has replaced the lost collective conscience with alternative but complementary means of social control. High police density, strong social associations and the strength of kinship have contributed to the acceptance of the police and policing methods. Simultaneously, the public, through the social development of new social norms and moral codes, have determined the form and role of the police in Cypriot society. The partial destruction of the existing social contract and the inevitable development of anomie have introduced new parameters in deviancy and the process of social control in Cyprus. The new cultural and socioeconomic characteristics of Cyprus reflect the patterns and distribution of criminality. By and large, Cypriots do not report crimes and victimization to the authorities because they view cases as not just 'trivial' but also as something which could implicate them socially and personally. That is to say, despite the upheaval and social change which followed the 1974 invasion, there is still a very strong norm (which binds people together) about respect and self-esteem. By reporting, they fear that they will be stigmatized for life. They will 'cover-up, crimes rather than expose themselves as victims. In essence, triviality' acts as a defence mechanism which neutralizes police involvement in affairs relating to the issue of social order. Police rejection is mostly observed when victimization refers to crimes against the person. Society tolerates certain forms of criminality for the sake of conformity to certain social norms and moral codes. As a consequence, the dark figure of crime is much higher for offences against the person. Because society sanctions tolerance towards certain forms of crime, victims are prevented from reporting because they consider the police as part of the control apparatus which contributes to the perpetuation of stigmatization. The Cypriot's perception of the amount and patterns of criminality is distorted on account of the influence of the media and rumour. Fear of crime evolves from the wrong perception of criminality rather than experience. Because fear is unjustifiable, the public feels insecure and redefines the structure of the social contract. In effect, this threatens further the collective conscience and the traditional methods of social control

Predicting bridge elements deterioration, using Collaborative Gaussian Process Regression

Abstract: Roadway and railway bridges are not only integral, but also vulnerable parts of terrestrial transport networks. Structural failures of bridges may lead to disastrous consequences on users and society at large. Bridge predictive deterioration models are extremely important for effective maintenance decision-making. However, the lack of enough inspection data between maintenance activities of a bridge complicates the development of accurate predictive models. Presented herein is a Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) based collaborative model for predicting the condition of bridge elements with limited available inspection data per bridge. This model has been applied in 137 bridge decks, showing that collaborative prognosis has the potential to predict the condition of different types of bridge elements, composing different types of bridges.This work was supported by the European Community’s H2020 Programme MG7-1-2017 Resilience to extreme (natural and man- made) events [grant number 769255] - “GIS-based infrastructure management system for optimised response to extreme events of terrestrial transport networks (SAFEWAY)

Chirikov Diffusion in the Asteroidal Three-Body Resonance (5,-2,-2)

The theory of diffusion in many-dimensional Hamiltonian system is applied to asteroidal dynamics. The general formulations developed by Chirikov is applied to the Nesvorn\'{y}-Morbidelli analytic model of three-body (three-orbit) mean-motion resonances (Jupiter-Saturn-asteroid system). In particular, we investigate the diffusion \emph{along} and \emph{across} the separatrices of the (5,-2,-2) resonance of the (490) Veritas asteroidal family and their relationship to diffusion in semi-major axis and eccentricity. The estimations of diffusion were obtained using the Melnikov integral, a Hadjidemetriou-type sympletic map and numerical integrations for times up to $10^{8}$ years.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figure

Dissipation in planar resonant planetary systems

Close-in planetary systems detected by the Kepler mission present an excess of periods ratio that are just slightly larger than some low order resonant values. This feature occurs naturally when resonant couples undergo dissipation that damps the eccentricities. However, the resonant angles appear to librate at the end of the migration process, which is often believed to be an evidence that the systems remain in resonance. Here we provide an analytical model for the dissipation in resonant planetary systems valid for low eccentricities. We confirm that dissipation accounts for an excess of pairs that lie just aside from the nominal periods ratios, as observed by the Kepler mission. In addition, by a global analysis of the phase space of the problem, we demonstrate that these final pairs are non-resonant. Indeed, the separatrices that exist in the resonant systems disappear with the dissipation, and remains only a circulation of the orbits around a single elliptical fixed point. Furthermore, the apparent libration of the resonant angles can be explained using the classical secular averaging method. We show that this artifact is only due to the severe damping of the amplitudes of the eigenmodes in the secular motion.Comment: 18 pages, 20 figures, accepted to A&

Time-evolution of in vivo protein corona onto blood-circulating PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin (DOXIL) nanoparticles

Nanoparticles (NPs) are instantly modified once injected in the bloodstream because of their interaction with the blood components. The spontaneous coating of NPs by proteins, once in contact with biological fluids, has been termed the ‘protein corona’ and it is considered to be a determinant factor for the pharmacological, toxicological and therapeutic profile of NPs. Protein exposure time is thought to greatly influence the composition of protein corona, however the dynamics of protein interactions under realistic, in vivo conditions remain unexplored. The aim of this study was to quantitatively and qualitatively investigate the time evolution of in vivo protein corona, formed onto blood circulating, clinically used, PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin. Protein adsorption profiles were determined 10 min, 1 h and 3 h post-injection of liposomes into CD-1 mice. The results demonstrated that a complex protein corona was formed as early as 10 min post-injection. Even though the total amount of protein adsorbed did not significantly change over time, the fluctuation of protein abundances observed indicated highly dynamic protein binding kinetics

Computation of an MRI brain atlas from a population of Parkinson’s disease patients

Abstract Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the brain. This study presents an MRI-based brain atlas of PD to characterize associated alterations for diagnostic and interventional purposes. The atlas standardizes primarily the implicated subcortical regions such as the globus pallidus (GP), substantia nigra (SN), subthalamic nucleus (STN), caudate nucleus (CN), thalamus (TH), putamen (PUT), and red nucleus (RN). The data were 3.0 T MRI brain images from 16 PD patients and 10 matched controls. The images used were T1-weighted ( T 1 w ), T2-weighted ( T 2 w ) images, and Susceptibility Weighted Images (SWI). The T1w images were the reference for the inter-subject non-rigid registration available from 3DSlicer. Anatomic labeling was achieved with BrainSuite and regions were refined with the level sets segmentation of ITK-Snap. The subcortical centers were analyzed for their volume and signal intensity. Comparison with an age-matched control group unravels a significant PD-related T1w signal loss in the striatum (CN and PUT) centers, but approximately a constant volume. The results in this study improve MRI based PD localization and can lead to the development of novel biomarkers

Formation of protein corona in vivo affects drug release from temperature-sensitive liposomes

Thermally triggered drug release from temperature-sensitive liposomes (TSL) holds great promise for cancer therapy. Different types of TSL have been designed recently for heat triggered drug release inside tumor blood vessels or after accumulation into the tumor interstitium. However, justification of drug release profiles is for far mainly based on in vitro release data. While these methods could be good enough to give early indication about the thermal sensitivity of TSL, they are still far from being optimum. This is because these methods do not take into consideration the actual adsorption of proteins onto the surface of TSL after their in vivo administration, also known as “protein corona” and the influence this could have on drug release. Therefore, in this study we compared thermal triggered drug release profile of two different types of doxorubicin encapsulated TSL; namely the lysolipid-containing TSL (LTSL) and traditional TSL (TTSL) after their in vivo recovery from the blood circulation of CD-1 mice. Ex vivo release profile at 42 °C was then tested either in the presence of full plasma or after removal of unbound plasma proteins (i.e. protein corona coated TSL). Our data showed that the influence of the environment on drug release profile was very much dependent on the type of TSL. LTSL release profile was consistently characterized by ultrafast drug release independent on the conditions tested. On the contrary, TTSL release profile changed significantly. Doxorubicin release from in vivo recovered TTSL was slow and incomplete in the presence of unbound plasma proteins, whereas very rapid drug release was detected from in vivo recovered and purified protein corona-coated TTSL in the absence of unbound proteins. Using mass spectrometry and quantification of protein adsorption, we confirmed that this discrepancy is due to the changes in protein adsorption onto TTSL when heated in the presence of unbound proteins leading to reduction in drug release. In summary this study showed that the formation of the in vivo corona on TSL will have a dramatic impact on their release profile and is dependent on both their lipid composition and the protein content of the environment in which drug release is triggered

Elliptical motions of stars in close binary systems

Motions of stars in close binary systems with a conservative mass exchange are examined. It is shown that Paczynski-Huang model widely used now for obtaining the semi-major axis variation of a relative stars orbit is incorrect, because it brings about large mistakes. A new model suitable for elliptical orbits of stars is proposed. Both of reactive and attractive forces between stars and a substance of the flowing jet are taken into account. A possibility of a mass exchange at presence of accretion disk is considere