The Fraud Act 2006 : The E-crime Prosecutor’s Champion or the Creator of a New Inchoate Offence?

An analysis of whether the Fraud Act 2006 is sufficently rebust to be able to tackle the challenges of e-crimePeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Agent-based Traffic Operator Training Environments for Evacuation Scenarios

Realistic simulation environments play a vital role in the effective training of traffic controllers to respond to large-scale events such as natural disasters or terrorist threats. BAE SYSTEMS is developing a training environment that comprises of: a physical traffic control centre environment, a 3D visualisation and a traffic behaviour model. In this paper, we describe how an agent-based approach has been essential in the development of the traffic operator training environment, especially for constructing the required behavioural models. The simulator has been applied to an evacuation scenario, for which an agent-based model has been developed which models a variety of relevant driver evacuation behaviours. These unusual behaviours have been observed occurring in real-life evacuations but to date have not been incorporated in traffic simulators. In addition, our agent-based approach includes flexibility within the simulator to respond to the variety of decisions traffic controllers can make, as well as achieving a strong degree of control for the scenario manager

Self-healing tile sets: rates of regrowth in damaged assemblies

This thesis looks into rates of growth within holes in self-assembled tile structures. Specifically, we are interested in whether the hole will regrow or decay further under a certain set of conditions. Tile sets have the ability to assemble themselves (including regrowing damaged sections of an assembly) when under good conditions, chiefly whether the ratio of monomer concentration to bond strength is below a certain threshold. Inside a hole, however, regrowth may or may not occur even when this threshold is exceeded

A Full Universal Basic Income for the United States

The objective of this dissertation is to estimate whether a full Universal Basic Income (FUBI), within or without a single-payer Universal Health Care (UHC) system, would be both sufficient to eliminate income poverty and affordable without increasing federal borrowing or decreasing federal discretionary spending in the United States. In Chapter 1, I elaborate on the components and benefits of a FUBI. In Chapters 2 and 3, I present the results from a static, behavioral, partial-equilibrium, micro-simulation model that analyzes household responses to changes in mandatory spending, sources of tax revenues, and tax expenditures. These changes include introducing a FUBI in Chapters 2 and 3 and a single-payer UHC system in Chapter 3. The dataset is merger of the IRS Public Use Tax File, the Current Population Survey (CPS), and the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) for 2009. To finance the FUBI in Chapters 2 and 3, I repealed several federal cash income-transfer programs and individual tax expenditures. I also increased the federal individual income tax rates for each of the existing brackets to compensate for the remaining tax revenue deficit. To finance the UHC in Chapter 3, I reintroduce payroll taxes but without a wage base. The measure of wellbeing for this analysis was the Bureau of Economic Analysis\u27 Disposable Personal Income (DPI). The measures of poverty were the United States Census Bureau\u27s pre-tax Official Poverty Measure (OPM) and post-tax Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). To test the sensitivity of these estimates, I utilized the elasticity of “broad” income (EBI) to simulate household responses to the resulting increases in effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs)

Seeing More than Orange: Organizational Respect and Positive Identity Transformation in a Prison Context

This paper develops grounded theory on how receiving respect at work enables individuals to engage in positive identity transformation and the resulting personal and work-related outcomes. A company that employs inmates at a state prison to perform professional business-to-business marketing services provided a unique context for data collection. Our data indicate that inmates experienced respect in two distinct ways, generalized and particularized, which initiated an identity decoupling process that allowed them to distinguish between their inmate identity and their desired future selves and to construct transitional identities that facilitated positive change. The social context of the organization provided opportunities for personal and social identities to be claimed, respected, and granted, producing social validation and enabling individuals to feel secure in their transitional identities. We find that security in personal identities produces primarily performance-related outcomes, whereas security in the company identity produces primarily well-being-related outcomes. Further, these two types of security together foster an integration of seemingly incompatible identities—”identity holism”—as employees progress toward becoming their desired selves. Our work suggests that organizations can play a generative role in improving the lives of their members through respect-based processes

Walking builds community cohesion: Survey of two New Hampshire communities looks at social capital and walkability

This brief reports the results of a survey conducted in 2009 of approximately 2,000 households in Portsmouth and Manchester, New Hampshire, to examine the connection between walkability and social capital. Authors Shannon Rogers, Kevin Gardner, and Cynthia Carlson report that higher levels of social capital are found in areas that are perceived to be more walkable, as measured by the number of places people can walk to in their community. In addition, walkability is influenced by concerns of safety, access, time, and health and by physical characteristics such as proximity, scale, and aesthetics. Given the link between walkability and greater social capital, and in turn the link between social capital and numerous positive outcomes, refitting communities with greater walkability can have short- and longer-term payoffs. The authors conclude that more walkable communities are healthier communities, and as the research in the brief shows, residents in them are more connected to one another not only by sidewalks but also through the social networks and social capital they form when they live in communities that encourage gathering and meeting face-to-face

Creating a Culture of Data-Driven Decision-Making

Researchers have consistently shown that a supportive culture is one of the most crucial success factors in the implementation of any big data solution. Creating a culture that supports data-driven decision-making is a difficult but ultimately required step in transforming an organization into one that can readily and successfully adopt business intelligence technologies. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand the ways in which organizations can foster a culture of smarter decision-making and accountability so that businesses can improve operational metrics and ultimately profitability. Participants identified three major themes that drive the adoption of a data-driven culture. These themes included building trust between decision-makers and their data, developing a team-driven culture, and instituting data governance and standard work processes to maintain quality of systems