The ‘uberization of policing’? How police negotiate and operationalise predictive policing technology

Predictive policing generally refers to police work that utilises strategies, algorithmic technologies, and big data to generate near-future predictions about the people and places deemed likely to be involved in or experience crime. Claimed benefits of predictive policing centre on the technology’s ability to enable pre-emptive police work by automating police decisions. The goal is that officers will rely on computer software and smartphone applications to instruct them about where and who to police just as Uber drivers rely on similar technologies to instruct them about where to pick up passengers. Unfortunately, little is known about the experiences of the in-field users of predictive technologies. This article helps fill this gap by addressing the under researched area of how police officers engage with predictive technologies. As such, data is presented that outlines the findings of a qualitative study with UK police organisations involved in designing and trialing predictive policing software. Research findings show that many police officers have a detailed awareness of the limitations of predictive technologies, specifically those brought about by errors and biases in input data. This awareness has led many officers to develop a sceptical attitude towards predictive technologies and, in a few cases, these officers have expressed a reluctance to use predictive technologies. Based on these findings, this paper argues that claims about predictive software’s ability to neutralise the subjectivity of police work overlooks the ongoing struggles of the police officer to assert their agency and mediate the extent to which predictions will be trusted and utilised

Acousto-ultrasonics for nondestructive evaluation of epoxy adhesive joint integrity in complex structures

National audienceIn industry, achieving a perfect adhesive joint is a quite complicated matter. It requires following rigorous procedures for surface preparation to minimize the risks of surface contamination and to increase glue impregnation on both the surfaces to be bonded. The bonding and curing must also be carried out in controlled atmosphere: temperature and humidity must be continually monitored to ensure an optimal curing and to guarantee maximal bonding strength. Once the adhesive joint is cured, few nondestructive testing methods are available to evaluate bonding quality. This article presents three acousto-ultrasonic methods used to detect and localize defects in epoxy adhesive joints: wave attenuation, Lamb wave generated by Hertzian contact, and nonlinear Time Reversal (TR) based Nonlinear Elastic Wave Spectroscpoty TR-NEWS methods associated to chirp-coded excitations. Results showing the detectability of defects are presented. An immediate test of its capability to detect scatterers will be practically implemented using approach recently proposed and leading to in-situ epoxy adhesive joint pseudo-tomography